Dungeon 2 Turn 44
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Ricki stumbles over and grabs the keys off the wall. She can’t also flip the lever, because taking guarded items uses up her turn. She sticks around to turn the lever next turn, since the dire rat can’t hurt her in her drunken state. Of course, that drunken state is set to wear off fairly soon.
The keys are labeled “storage rooms”.
Kamau enters the room and easily navigates its hazards. The slope isn’t sufficient to hamper him (even drunk) and the ledge is low enough to jump to, even for someone small. Plus the glass is no longer hitting his unprotected tootsies, so he’s sturdy enough to walk across without issue. He checks out the strange chest, pulling out his torch so he can see what he’s doing.
As it happens, Kamau has seen similar sorts of chests before. The question mark latch can’t be opened by any sort of key or tool, but the chest will open automatically if some unknown condition is met. The chest’s appearance is usually some kind of clue as to what needs to be done. This one looks to be made of glass. Hmm.
The two random drunks start having a punch-up with the three skeletons. With the room lit, they seem to fare decently well, though one still misses his swing.
I’m betting we have to get one of the brooms and sweep up all the glass to open the chest.
that sounds about crazy (and annoying) enough to actually be it. 😀
It also would be a LOT of work, and I can only assume that the item in the chest is actually worth all that trouble.
There’s also a possibility of an easier condition – sprinkle shattered glass over the chest. No idea WHY, but still, that’s something we can do with random glass and the chest. And the nearest pile of shattered glass is very near. How about trying?
Priorities are( in order ): surviving, turning on ale flow, keeping drunks alive, rat treasure, glass chest
Ricki: flip the switch and leave through the tunnel. Or if that’s not possible (because involved in a fight, even though not taking an attack action) at the very least back away into a corner of the room to dis-engage from melee/combat with the dire rat.
Kamau: use one empty mug with chest. if that works in order to open it, stick around (in order to decide which items to loot from the chest), otherwise go back to the room to the left (upper half, where the snale was; NOT on level with the 3 dire rats and the rat king. I think that’s too dangerous even for Kamau to mess with).
If Kamau does not leave the room, he can light it, and therefore help the two drunks in fighting the skeletons. We need to flip the valve behind the skeletons, thus it might be a good idea to let the drunks do away with the skeletons. On the other hand, the skeletons are weak, and also the drunks stand between Ricki/Kamau and the valve, thus we might help the skeletons by putting the torch back into Kamau’s inventory. What shall we do?!
The thing is, if Kamau doesn’t leave the room then that’s another turn needed to catch up with Ricki. I’d like to send Kamau up with Ricki next turn to start clearing the rats by the next valve, or at least unlock the door.
I am curious about the drunks vs skeletons fight. I don’t see any blood spatter, so maybe they didn’t hurt each other at all, suggesting skeletons do have at least 1 defense. Still, previous shenanigans have left exactly one less skeleton; I was worried that the last group of wandering drunks to come down here only managed to take out one skeleton before being killed, which might match up with low hit rate from darkness but they’d still need to take some damage. There’s also the ball and chain which someone dragged down here.
Ricki: Flip the valve, leave through the tunnel. Pick up the spare dagger and mug. Hide behind the chest. Watch out for the glass!
Kamau: Climb back up onto the ledge. Pause dramatically with torch in hand, then head left over to where you just came from, and continue up ladders back to the room with the remaining snale.
Alright, next turn we can use Grit.
Keys should work on doors, as expected. I’m tempted to have Kamau tank the snale this turn to get a buzz to deal with rats next turn, but he can wear the armor to go wipe them out without a miss chance. That gives us another Cheez valve to shut off, leaving only the one guarded by skeletons which may soon be guarded by drunks. With those three valves closed, opening the valve by the thugs should restore the flow of ale and clear the dungeon; however, we might still need to kill the last snale, which will be tricky with the floor missing. If it comes down to it, I think that bringing the barrel down could serve as snale bait. Or maybe the barrel is actually a sleeping snale.
I’d like to see what a mug of cheez looks like, but without any defensive gear I don’t think it’s a good idea to push our luck much further. The most rewarding path remaining goes through two dire rats, if they can both be distracted with one mug then it’d be worth sending Ricki through to grab those two chests plus the broom, bucket, and rusty sword. If anything goes wrong though, then Kamau has a nervous breakdown and we can’t safely get by the snale to turn the ale back on again. I think we should focus on wrapping up, get that level up and hot meal.
Agreed on grit next turn. 🙂
The keys might also unlock the chests in those storage rooms (the one next to the dire rat in the entrance room and the one next to the thugs). If we get a chance to try that without too much hassle, I think it’s worth a shot.
I am so very curious about a lot more things, but I also see the need that we should focus on getting the job done that we came here to do.
There has just been too much bad luck with the break-able items for us to really go everywhere, open every box, talk to/fight every creature. (If the dungeon was even balanced for us to be able to do all of it in the first place.
Point in case: If you look at the map to the jail dungeon, while there was a ladder leading up from the kennel room, there clearly wasn’t a room shown above it. That could mean two things: a) LSN didn’t show it to us, because we didn’t go there or b) there -wasn’t- any room beyond, because there was no possible chance in hell Ricki (and Kamau) could have reached that area alive. So the jail was – IMHO – clearly not balanced for Ricki to reach the top of that ladder.)
Concerning your “If anything goes wrong” comment: atm Kamau has 3/5 remorse, so Ricki would have to take another 2 HP worth of damage before Kamau gets his “nervous breakdown” as you put it. Not that 2 dire rats couldn’t deal 2 damage when both attacking Ricki at the same time. =(
The way the two near the rusty great sword are positioned, though (they are looking in opposite directions), and the way things are explained in https://dungeoneyes.com/how-to-play/ How to play/enemy alertness), makes me think Ricki might even be able to fight one after the other (no enemy grouping on those two). But it’s an assumption and I could be wrong and that would most likely be the end of the game and that’s not something I’m willing to risk lightly.
Agreed that it looks a lot like the two dire rats by the sword are separate groups, at which point we could pick them off one by one… If we had 2 defense. This actually makes the cheez distraction plan less feasible since they wouldn’t be a group that could be distracted together. That said, the three normal rats in the first room aren’t all facing the same direction and are clearly one group, and the dire rats are on either side of the non-glowing skeleton to guard it.
Plus side, we’d still be able to abandon the dungeon so we could keep playing, but that would be a shame.
Ricki: Flip the lever, leave through the tunnel, GRIT. Afterwards, take up the spare dagger and one of the two glasses there. Afterwards, go upstairs three floors and try the keys with the grate.
Kamau: Try “empty glass” and “glass with cheap ale” with the chest (however that is done). If it does not work, go help Ricki.
Not to the future (because I am in the wrong time zone to be here when the action happens): On their way to lever 2, Ricki and Kamau will cross the third level of the topmost left room. On the second level there are three small rats, which cannot harm Kamau but can be slain easily to get more rat tails to increase the payment.
Good idea. It is a little time-consuming, but Ricki could help speed it up by a turn by throwing a dagger or two from the wand-skeleton’s old ledge which is definitely a safe distance. Another option – we’ll be passing through a couple times (up and around to the tap and skeleton valve, back down for the thug valve) so we could kill off a couple of rats on our way up and finish them on our way back down. It’s possible that we’ll complete the dungeon and immediately leave once we flip the last valve, so best not to put this off too long if we do this fancy approach.
Keys to ‘storage room’… 100% sure that those are the keys to the gate blocking that three chests behind the rat king. I wonder why the rat king is in that place. Is it possible he has some interest in the contents but does not have the keys?
Storage roomS. These keys should work on all the locked doors.
As for why the rat king is there… I imagine dungeon logic applies, the boss is where they need to be to guard treasure. That said, it’s humanoid and the thugs had an in-world reason to be there, so negotiation isn’t impossible. We’ve been killing a lot of rats, though.
Side note: A “rat king” is a term for a collection of rats whose tails have gotten tangled together. This one looks more like a wererat with a crown, but it’s notable given that rat tails are an item drop here.
By the way, did you notice that this one hole in the wall is MUCH smaller than all other ones that work as tunnels? It think it may be worth taking a torch and a peek inside. Maybe something is hidden there.
Sure, and there might be something hidden below the upturned bucket (but also might be an enemy rat), but to get there, Ricki needs to either distract or slay the dire rats above. If she accomplishes that, she could also move left, open the grate with the new keys, and reach two unlocked chests. Therefore I would like to try to get cheez from the tap and use it with the rats (preferably first with small rats and with Kamau at Ricki’s side in case it doesn’t work).
Do not smash the chest. I reckon we need to bring (or eat) serving of chez and ale to the glass chest to unlock it.
The text said that “appearance of the chest works as a hint”, how does ‘being like glass’ relate to cheese and ale? I think broken glass is more likely, considering there’s a broom, unless Ricky evolves into goblin monk and staves proficiency or whatnot..
Not impossible, the material of the mugs hasn’t been explicitly stated but they are the same color as glass, so “bring these glass objects to the glass challenge chest” is a condition that mentions glass. However, since the latch will automatically open when the condition is met, that feels to me like the chest watches the entire dungeon. I would be surprised if this was just a non-standard key chest, maybe if the chest had cup holders or a mug-shaped keyhole.
The broom definitely works on glass, as our previous attempts to clear glass with improvised implements have said “nope, you would need some sort of glass-cleaning tool to avoid just scattering it everywhere”.
VERY future planning: When looking at the “Items” page, for their value alone we should take with us both daggers (also the one resting in the lowest left room; Weight 1, Cost 3) and might discard some empty mugs (Weight 1, Cost 1). If we happen to come by the tap, we should fill any mug we carry, because “Cheap ale Weight 1, Cost 3”. (Yes, an empty glass and a filled glass has the same weight, spirits don’t weight anything.) Even ball & chain (Weight 5, Cost 8) has a better cost to weight ratio than empty mugs (but worse than filled ones), but on the other hand it consumes 5 item spots and glass mugs might be easier to trade. Torches with Weight 1, Cost 2 are OK, too. But maybe we find still better treasure to take with us. Should just think about it before switching the last lever. But maybe it is even necessary to kill the snale and stop its leaching of alcohol to restore proper ale flow. We could even discard the keys and pick up another item instead, when we have no longer any use for them, because they are discarded at the end of the dungeon anyway (and leaving with an empty item spot instead of loot would probably sadden any thief, wouldn’t it?). – I wrote “discarded at the end of the dungeon”, not throw away after first use! These are no thief tools, and even those should not be discarded right away. (Well, seeing how things break when Ricki touches them, her throw-away-mentality is understandable.)
We should leave ONE inventory slot of Ricki empty at the start of the next dungeon, so we will get another set of free thieves tools from her “always prepared” skill.
Since we don’t seem to be able to influence anything that is happening in the intermission, we should take care of that before ending this dungeon. I suppose that keeping the dungeon keys in Ricki’s inventory (even after unlocking all the gates/chests that we can reach), would ensure that (since keys are automatically discarded at the end of the dungeon), so that would be my suggestion.
Alas, items that have more cost than others are not necessarily more useful/valuable than others to us, at least as long as we don’t have/get a way to sell them, which alas, has not been the case after the jailbreak (which is sensible because a) priorities are on staying out of the authority’s reach and b) it’s night time and most shops have their opening hours during the day time). We already know that the tavern keep will pay us 1 gold per rat tail, so we should keep those, at least.
Concering the “spirits don’t weigh anything” – from how I understand things the “weight” is just a way for LSN to tell us how many inventory slots an item takes up (like e.g. the rusty chain armour weighed 3 and took up 3 inventory slots). It is a combination of how heavy AND how bulky an item is (so volume and/or how much it hinders movement of the person carrying it also plays into the calculation) and all that considered, the filled glass is apparently not enough “more hassle” than the empty glass to justify the inventory space needed to store it goes up by one count; which makes sense within the settings of the game.
(IRL, a filled glass is always more hassle to carry, because you have to handle it in a way that avoids spilling the contents. But IRL there’s also a distinct difference to how a wound/injury affects you, depending on where on your body it is, so simplification of how such things behave IRL to convert it into rules that are more feasible to handle is a very common thing in games like this.)
Yes, if we fill all inventory slots without leaving one free for thieves tools, then we can keep the keys and get them removed automatically. On the other hand, if Ricki carries at least one rat tail, that slot’s content will go to the tavern’s kitchen and thus free up that slot, too. So maybe discard the keys and make sure that Ricki has an items slot filled with rat tails before finishing the dungeon. (Assuming we can sell the rat tails to the tavern before we get thrown into the next dungeon.) Thus we could fill all slots and end with at least two free slots (from the current number of rat tails), making sure that one of those slots is with Ricki. On the third hand (the team has three) if each gold coin paid for the tails takes up an item slot like the COIN OF REVELRY does, then we are screwed. – “Weight of spirits” was an attempt to explain the “no weight” in-game. IRL you can neither put a burning torch into your backpack/inventory, of course. (Do not try this at home!)
One of Ricki’s level up abilities, Comforting Weight, mentioned “each full stack of Gold Coins” so gold is something that takes up inventory but with more than one coin per stack. There’s also supposed to be shops in some dungeons, so I think we’ll be carrying everything we own, no leaving loot in the bank. I’ll guess 10 coins per stack.
Also, consider real world time in this optimization. Spending an extra week of turns to set up a few extra gold worth of inventory probably wouldn’t be worth it compared to getting into the next dungeon. By all means we should be careful with the actions we spend here and set ourselves up for success, but this isn’t a video game with a finite list of things to do.