Dungeon 17 Turn 1
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Mac immediately picks up the nearest stack of books and scrolls and tries to read them, but the language is both dense and archaic, making it impossible for him to understand. Maybe if he could start with a similar book of a slightly lower difficulty level he could build some foundational knowledge that allows him to read these ones.
Unfortunately, the ancient paper crumbles immediately after being touched, so it looks like these books at least will never end up being read again.
Ricki uses a magic lens on the flying book on the upper floor. It seems like this one might be too hard to read too, though frustratingly the lens doesn’t shed any light on exactly HOW hard to read it might be.
Ricki then heads right to the next room.
She finds more flying books, which guard what appears to be a very large door. It doesn’t actually look very much like a door, but somehow she can just tell. A door that be. It’s for sure sealed, though, and she can’t see an obvious way to open it.
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SPELLED BOOK
HP: 5
Atk: 5
Def: 2
Ability: 30% to avoid any attack, can only be damaged by a character with a high enough Well Read ability
Drops: random Enchantment Scroll
An ordinary ancient tome which absorbed ambient dungeon magic over many years, until it achieved a limited magical animation. Its nature as a book means that it can only be defeated by someone who can read it, and it tends to focus its magic attacks on those it senses are most literate. The book’s pages often contain useful scraps of magic that can be harvested after it is destroyed.
Seriously? We have an extremly strict time limit that also has real potential to get someone killed and now we have to trial and error in which order we have to read those books, that also can only be read once (if at all) before crumbling?
And in order to defeat the enemies, a char needs to have spent a considerable amount of time learning to read, so we cannot even split responsibilities (beacuse we can’t e.g. leave the fighting to Ricki and the reading to Mac, because the books will attack Mac and Ricki won’t be able to damage them).
What a steaming pile of …
Edit: at least this new room doesn’t seem to have any traps. Unless you count the weird door, that looks like it has some defense mechanism.
trial and error seems pretty simple at this point
“blue” is “maybe Mac can read it after training on something else”
“green” is “hard to decipher, har to even tell how hard it is”
and then, we already see that there are also “red” books
IMHO, now we try red. If we succeed with red, or a few reds until Mac feels comfortable reading them, then next we try a few blues, and we leave greens for when Mac is an expert in the matters.
of course unless there are also yellow, magenta, cyan, black and sickly pink books, at which point I’d just give up and scram
EDIT: note that we scanned GREEN book, and it has the ‘well-read’ restriction. We’d need to see if a RED book monster has it as well. If it’s intended to be the first introductory level for that ‘well-read’ trait, they won’t have that restriction. But that might be just a waste of precious lens, if, for example, ‘books on the shelf’ which ‘arent monsters’ are considered “level 0” and are meant to be read to gain that trait, and all flying-books are considered guardians requiring “level 1” at least.
My initial intuition was that each colour had a separate track (“a similar book of a slightly lower difficulty level”), and we might need to go by how high up on a shelf the book is. Agreed that it seems more likely that the book colour is the difficulty level. In absence of other evidence, I support rainbow order, red then green then blue.
Note that if defeating a book requires being able to read it, then the entry level books may still be damageable without prior experience. Doing so may or may not count as reading. Can also always test whether unblockable damage still pierces through or remains only useful for messing with players.
It doesn’t look like the green book attacked Ricki when she went through, maybe because of the usual only acting the turn after being alerted. The red books are explicitly guarding the door and may not attack unprovoked if we only go as far as the ladder.
Breaking character briefly, the shelf height things was also my first thought.
Also magic items are usually dungeon relevant. Maybe that hat has an enchantment that helps read or the glove maybe makes the books not disintegrate so fast.
The monster stat block is just Spelled book. Not Spelled book (Green), so I think they’re all the same but the color is the clue to their defeat.
Small observation:
The ‘door’ has glyphs around it, and has two red ‘frames’.
The FRAMES have exactly the same color as flying red books.
The GLYPHs however, do not. That’s a slightly different shade of red.
Could the items be of use?
Maybe the gloves make books not crumble.
Or the magic hat gives some reading skills?
And should we quickly kill the bookworm, before it eats what we want to read?
Careful, that’s a (presumably) upgraded bookworm. It’s darker and has facial hair. Assume stronger stats.
I don’t see any paper items on Ricki or Mac to draw attention.
I has glasses and a beardie. It may be “The Hungry Librarian” NPC.
I think the items are either a special buff or a special smiffing bonus for Mac
Remember Ricki will need to head back to point out the pressure plate and false ladder rung in the first room to Mac for safe passage. Neither is in the way to the red book or glove.
doesn’t that door look like the manor basement door where each time we killed a monster one skull glowed and when we killed enough it opened?
I think its the same mechanic for this door but we kill books or something.
plan loot:
Ricki:use case on the gold lock chest then sneaky past and go up both ladders to new area and if something happens, next turn Ricki can use wand of heal and then run out of there back to safety
Mac:get glove and then see if ladder can move along wall to get green book(non flying)
im trying to scout and loot quickly because of the time limit we have…
pls vote my plan. they still haven’t done what I want yet…
I promise im trying to think of good plans
Plan: More Intel
Ricki: Use the lens on the Bookworm. Move left, avoid the trapdoor and the ladder rung trap and scout up the 2 ladders.
Mac: Examine the old leather glove. Pick it up and drop the Midas gloves if you can. See if the ladder you were just on can move at all.
Idea here is Ricki gets stats on bookworm so we know what we need to kill it etc. We cant run past the red books as that will hurt Ricki.
Some good theories on the book colors and order of reading. Red Green Blue seems most likely (its both the common RGB order and a rainbow order).
Given that max hp will drain over time, it is to our advantage to do combat early and then heal after, but we need to know how much combat to expect first.
It has also occurred to me that the items on the shelves are all items that Mac can smiff and this is his special dungeon. There may be a special interaction that only he can do.
Ricki: Use your other lens on the Elder Bookworm, then move back to the entrance and go up the ladders to see what’s in the room above the entrance. Point out the trap to Mac and avoid it on your way up, and also avoid the trapped ladder rung.
Mac: Go up the first ladder with Ricki, avoiding the trap, and open the chest to see what’s inside.
Reasoning: The chest seems to be the only safe thing we can peek into at the moment. We need to lens the Elder Bookworm to see what it’s capable of because, ideally, we want to kill it ASAP before it can eat any books. (Or, alternatively, to see if it’s intelligent enough to talk to since we might want to see what it knows.) This also lets us see what’s in another room.
I think if the bookworm is weak enough for Ricki to take it in 1/2 rounds of combat, we should have her Sneak back to it (to avoid the red books) and have her take it out so that it can’t eat any- they seem to be a very precious resource.
I hope this dungeon is a 2×2 grid like the last Bond dungeon, but I’m worried it might actually be a bit bigger, especially if that red door leads to another room. It may be six or even seven rooms total.
Please note that there are 2 Traps. The floor trap and the ladder rung trap. Please clarify we are avoiding both of these.
Good shout, will edit to clarify.
If we turn all the books into dust they will be easier to take with us when we leave.
additionally, Mac will be able to easily SNIFF all of them in one go!