Part 5: Bonus Update 2.5: The Red Dwarf Range

Bonus Update 2.5: The Red Dwarf Range

The votes are in, and by a result of 13 to 11, the party will be rescuing Celia in the next update. Until then, let's look at the mines they've just cleared out!



The fact that the Dwarf King's attack does only 8 damage means he's much less threatening if you go in with a full set of boosts and blessings: the Power Shield buff that the Vertigo temple grants will absorb most of his damage output. Note also that most enemies have quite high Speed, around the upper end of what it's possible for a character to start out with, so they'll usually move first or close to it in combat. This will remain an issue for a while, until we have access to more and better permanent Speed boosts or Speed-increasing equipment.





The numbered dwarf mines are all fairly straightforward: a few rooms, usually containing monsters and treasure, connected by short hallways. Mine 3 is the most complex, with the eastern half almost resembling a smaller version of the Deep Mines.



But the real Deep Mines are all much larger: if you somehow started the game without a Cartographer, you'd better have one by now. There are many secret passages in the Deep Mines, although they can be a little hard to see on the small maps in the hintbook -- they're those things that look like solid walls in the middle of hallways. The Dwarf King hangs around the far northeastern area of Deep Mine Omega.

With that order of business dealt with, a few especially malicious forum posters have requested that I explore a little north of the Red Dwarf Range. In this special bonus feature, let's see what would happen if I did that.



In this image, we're just a few steps northwest of what I'm pretty sure is Mine 2. If you look in the upper left of that screenshot you can just see some rocky ground ahead of us. Time to find out just what that is!



A land of molten lava and bare volcanic rock? Wow. Well, we're still right next to the newbie area, after all. It'll probably do some damage but I'm sure we can--





Protection from Fire helps, but not nearly enough right now. But okay, maybe we're just not supposed to walk on the lava. That makes sense. Let's see what else is around.



Why look, it's some kind of creature! I guess the game's decided to graduate us up from fighting dwarves and on to... whatever that is.



Meet the Lava Golem. It hits twice a round for enough damage to take out our toughest party members in two hits. Our attacks do in the neighbourhood of sweet fuck-all to it. And this is one of the weaker monsters in the area.



The outcome is inevitable. (Well, technically it isn't because it's possible for surviving party members to run away from battle and leave unconscious members to die, but shut up, I'm making a point here.)

So there you have it: leave the newbie dungeon from the northern exit and you can walk straight into an area that will mercilessly kill you. This game is from well before the era when that sort of design was generally avoided.