Part 61: The Tower of Shifting Floors (2)
Update 055 – The Tower of Shifting Floors (2)
“Alright. Perhaps the Vahnatai holed up in here, and fortified it as a defensible position, only to be overrun.”
“That sounds ... plausible.”
“Actually, that reminds me ... did we ever check in with Ghirka and its residents with regards to the evidence we collected between the Troglodytes and the Giants?”
“The Orb got stolen, so we had to react to that.”
“Yes, Arts and by extension our priorities switched due to the attack on the Fort.”
“In retrospect, that was a mistake.”
A very serious one on my end. I need to check one of my earlier saves and screencap Rentar-Ihrno's response to the accusation. My fault entirely, unless one of the lovely people in the thread can provide?
“At least there's only one way out. We can take that, and get back onto these belts.” “That actually raises a question.” “Which one?” “Why are they up here? It's not like there are Golem creation machines up here, so why the maze-like structure?” “Defence?” “Logical, but if this place has been properly attacked, by the time they reached this point, this would be little more than an annoyance.” “Um, should we be talking? We missed our out!”
“Firewalk!” “Oh goodness. However, there appears to be only one way out of this – on the south side there.”
“So there is.” “Ah, no more molten glass.” 
“This must be the exit to the last exterior node.” 
“We can cross this pool now.” “Good.” “Curious. We are quite far underground here. Yet, this appears to be a natural magma pocket. Has anyone seen any signs of volcanoes on the surface?” “no...”
“And those machines are like pumps, moving the magma up into the tower itself.”
“That doesn't sound good.”
“Hey, we're locked in!” “Not to worry, there are stairs up here.”
“See?” “That takes us back to the main floor. There has to be some way around the gates.”
What I SHOULD have done at this point was to go around the large machine to my right and circle back around to this stairs. I head back downstairs at this point, and I don't trigger the gates closing, which means I can get to the last stone circle. Instead, I misread my walkthrough and think I missed something in the control room. Despite taking a screenshot of the correct thing. Oh well. At least I get to show off something to you guys. “mgrgr.... Come on. Let's find a way back downstairs.” “Actually, before we do, there's something I want to check.” “Oh?” “These machines are delicate pieces of equipment to construct Golems, correct?” “Yes.” “Well, we have a spell available that can disrupt such delicate strands of energies.” “We do?” “Yes.”
“It is already repairing itself.” “And it would be awkward to hunt down the rest of the machines. I mean, yes, we could, but how long would that take? Would we spend more time running around than it would take to repair? This is a temporary measure, and not one that we can rely on.” “Your logic and concerns are sound.” “Come on, back to the second level. We probably missed something.”* * *
“Well, now that we activated or deactivated the Aleph button, we now have access to this library.” “I thought it was a fish!” 
“At least there are tables to do reading at.”
“HAHAHA!”
“Already knew that.” 
“Don't wreck the books!”
“Already determined through observational inference and tested. It's Dispel Barrier.”
“WHAT!” “Could be stolen. This book looks very old.”
“Examination runes. Possibly to check on early versions of the Golems?” “That would fit with what we have seen back in the Slime Pit and other places.”
“Nothing interesting on this scroll.”
To get to the north exit here, enter combat mode and run. It's a lot easier.
“More contraptions of unknown providence.”
“How do we get to that button?”
“Seriously. If you need to get out, we can do that. Get fresh air in your lungs.” “No sense in that. We're almost done.”
“Down to the first or second floors?”
“Just to an ... access tunnel?”
“With treasure!”
“Are we doing this corner now?” “Probably.” Nothing of interest in the south-west corner of the map. Just more time spent while the Clang-ing happens.
“Finally, back to those stairs.” “I hope the gates have raised since then.”
“Yay!”
“I was right. Pipes.”
“Well, so this is the Bet symbol for the other button we pressed.” “If we hadn't, I suspect these moving floor pieces would have prevented us from advancing.”
“And we're through.”
“I see stones!” “Usual tactics.”
Luck to the rescue!
“And that's four for four.”
“Back into that bad place.” 
“Ugh, this atmosphere...”
“I think we've done all we can. We need to go higher now.” 
“...” 
“Right, that took too much effort.”
“Now, I'm curious as to what is in there.” “Yeah. Maybe eventually.”
“I really don't like these floors.” “Yeah.”
“ugh...”
“We need to take this next left.”
“I SAID LEFT!” “It has been established by this point your sense of direction is poor.”
“....”
“At least this way we can get into that large hall.”
I want off!”
“I could do without the Demon Golems.” I tried Ravage Spirit in this fight – the optimized anti-demon spell. Turns out Demon Golems don't count as Demons!
“You know, fights tend to leave more scorch marks now than when I was young.” “When were you young?” 
“OH COME ON!” One long trip later, back through the magma pool, down to the basement, then up through the first floor, then all the way around the second floor – because the general motion of the moving platforms is counter-clockwise....
“And back where we started. Let's get off of this.” “I don't want to do this any more! This isn't fun.”
“Oh hey, we pressed this button back in the control room as well.” “And now we can't get in.” “Which means going back and resetting the button.”
“Done!”
“We'll probably be ambushed here.” “Don't jinx it!”
“Too late.”
“Nothing we haven't dealt with before.”
“Well, only one more level if that schematic was correct.”
“No more moving floors!” “YAY!”
“This is almost ... cozy.”
“Yeah. It even has a welcoming party.”
“The control source of this place is in the room to the south.” “So close.”
“Hang on, we're almost there.”
“Oh my. Had we not disabled those towers, I doubt we could reach past this point.”
“We can use the anti-magic to cross the residual energy fields safely. I hope.” Exploiting being able to overwrite fields, and Anti-Magic has 'priority'.
“THAT DIDN'T WORK!”
“Oh, two Blade Golems. Like that will slow us down.”
“Well, that worked better this time.”
“It knows we're here!”
“Oh come on!”
“This is your last defence? A maze of moving floors?”
“In̶̢͡t͟͢͠r͢ud̶͟e͜͟r̨s̴ ̕D҉é͠t̵è̸̶c͜tę͢d ”
“No sense in holding back!” “E̷na͘b͢͠l͏͠e̴ ̶͟͠Co̶͘͡u͢n͏̷̡t̵̷͡e̢r̵͝m͠҉e̵a̛s͞͏ų̶͜r̛̕e͘͠s ”
“There it is!” 
There it is, the “Boss” of the Golem Dungeon. And it's got a lot of tricks up its sleeve. “Well, I have something useful for this.” 
Wall of Blades is a nice spell.
“Almost there, you monster!” “E҉͏r̢r̀́҉o̕r̶͜. ̧K͡͠͝n̕̕own͟ En͠t͜i͢t͠y̵̨ ͜i̕͘n͝ ̶́͡Prox̵̨i͘ḿ͏͡ity҉̡ ”
“All to be useless.” “C͜͝͏o̧n̨̨͞t̀in͏̸͠g̵̵en̴̨c͏̛y͟ ͜En͟a̸͘c͟t͝ę̶d͟ ” “Everyone! Pile on the central crystal!” “S̸t̴̛̀e̡r̵̶̶i̢̨l̵̵̡i̕͠͝z̡a̵t͟͢í҉ơ͡n͜҉͘ in Ṕ̨̨r̶o͟g͏͜r̕͞e̵͞s̵s̸̛͟ ” 
“Aieee!” “S̸t̴̛̀e̡r̵̶̶i̢̨l̵̵̡i̕͠͝z̡a̵t͟͢í҉ơ͡n͜҉͘ in Ṕ̨̨r̶o͟g͏͜r̕͞e̵͞s̵s̸̛͟ ”
“We must act faster! The enemies are getting closer!” “RAAAAAAAGHH!” “C̕o̶͘҉n̡̡̛t̶̢a̵͘͞i̴n̕me͘͘nt ̸B́͢͝r͡͏e̷͟͞ach҉̢́ ” “D̨͜͡I̵͝R͠E̶C͡T̢͟È̸́D͠ ͞P̡Ú̶̸RGE̢ ̶̨I͟N ҉̨͞P̧͜R̵̀O͟҉G͟͞RE̷̸S̶S̵ ”
“urgh...” “Matthias!”
“huh.” “Dammit!” “Stay with us!”Matthias looked down at the shard of crystal buried in his chest. The brown of his robes turning darker as his life's fluids left him. “Eh, this was surprising.”
Art pressed her hands around the wound, channelling healing energies into it. “Bah, I've seen worse. You'll be fine.”
Matthias shook his head. “Probably not.”
“What are you talking about?” Delilah demanded of him as she added her own power into their leader's efforts. “This is just more than a surface wound.”
Bronwyn shook her head. “It's through,” she warned them. “I can see it out his back.”
“That's not good,” Sass hissed, turning his head away.
Ni'aurrl grimaced. “It is a deadly wound. The worst kind – one unforeseen.”
“No! I don't want to lose another person on my watch!” Art ground her teeth as she cast spell after spell.
Matthais coughed, blood from places it shouldn't be. “Don't worry. I thought my disease would be the end of me.”
“This is better.” Everyone paused to look at Sass, who in turn had brought himself up to his full height. “Death against ones foes is better.”
Delilah objected. “What are you talking about?”
It was Bronwyn who explained. “This. If we can't save him....”
The look Art gave her could have melted steel. “No.”
“You have a better choice?”
“No. She doesn't.” Matthias said thinly. “Sasserithrasix, please.”
