Dungeon 2 Turn 24
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Ricki tosses the potion of healing to Kamau and they both jump down from the platforms they are on (taking no damage from such a short fall). Kamau’s inventory is full, but he drinks the potion immediately so it’s not a problem. He recovers 2 HP, putting him at 10 total.
Meanwhile Ricki takes one of the magic lenses and looks through it at one of the snales. Information floods her brain, but she handles it easily due to being accustomed to using her Dungeon Eyes. She now knows everything worth knowing about the snales.
The magic lens dissolves into motes of purple light before Ricki has a chance to throw it away.
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SNALE
HP: 2
Atk: 3 poison damage at range
Def: 3
Ability: Attack targets affected as if by Cheap Ale for 2 turns
Drops: 1 Cheap Ale
An impossible creature that only ever appears in dungeons, and only under very specific circumstances. It seeks out sources of ale to consume, even leaching alcohol through solid pipes. They are usually very passive until disturbed. Once attacked, however, snales will fight back by spraying intoxicating ale long distances from the spout on its shell/barrel. Once aggravated it continues to attack any visible target until killed.
It attacks…ANY visible target until dead? Can we just magic missile the on the right, then retreat, and have the snail take care of this room for us? Granted, without a way to kill it back, that might make it hard to get back through here, but I feel like friendly fire is going to be a good tactic somewhere…
I’m not sure if that one can see the whole room, but it can still help with the rats. If it can hit the drunks, I don’t think they’ll will complain too much about being sprayed with ale.
Also, I don’t think we can get this one without range or bait, so there’s not much reason to not try.
If it can see those drunks.. they are dead 🙁
So? I’m sure they’ll think it’s a good way to die and I’m pretty sure they’re going to die from alcohol poisoning eventually either way. 😛
Seriously though, we could warn them, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t say no to free ale. Sure, it’s deadly snale ale, but they’re too drunk to care and it’s still ale.
While we are busily exploring, two groups of drunk are running into their inevitable doom by the way.
Well, don’t drink and dungeon crawl! (Except if you are dwarves who need their healthy dose of holy beer.)
I’m really not sure where we should go from here on out. Back towards the entrance and subdue the drunks from turn 20, before they get themselves killed? Onwards to check out the unconscious person (potential party member for the future?) behind the centipede? Down to finally get a glimpse of what I assume to be the last unknown room of this dungeon, so we know all about the pipe layout?
And while I agree on fighting the snale from afar if possible, we need to be careful of when to use the bent wand, since I very much assume Ricki will destroy it the first time she uses it, because of her bad luck (so far).
Also, with the wand’s description
“Wand
Deals 1-3 damage at range. Cannot miss. Has a 30% chance to break every time it is used.
Weight 1, Cost 20″
I’m not entirely sure how that is supposed to work. “damage” usually is the value that gets deducted from the HP of the target, so does that mean that the wand surpasses any and all Def value of the target? If so, it is very possible to one-shot the snale (2 out of 3 possible results will demolish the 2 HP it has), and there is not going to be a killing spree from it.
If the 2 Def however of the snale gets deducted from the wand damage roll, we have only a 1/3 change to even reduce its HP with the wand at all.
Wild theory time again:
1.) The room with the blue chest had a tiny area in the top right corner, only accessible through a rat tunnel and contained 2 regular rats, a dire rat, a lever and some keys.
I’m hazarding a guess that these keys will unlock the gates (this one here, the one near the broom and the one near those 3 unlocked chests in the blue chest room).
I also predict that the rat tunnel in the “key room” has its entrance somewhere in the room below the current one, that we haven’t seen yet (and is on the same level as the one near the keys) or is the one in the centipede room (if that one goes down and right).
2.) in addition to having to put the levers in the correct positions, we’ll have to kill all the snales (there might be more in the room below) in order to restore the flow of the “good ale”. (Because they are leeching the alcohol out of the ale even THROUGH the pipes.) That is going to be a LOT of fuss still.
3.) the rusty weapon between the two dire rats and the skeleton (in the rogue room) seems to be larger than the one that Ricki is currently carrying. I’m kind of assuming that this might be a greatsword (something Kamau has proficiency in), and I’m really hoping that it’s a one handed weapon – or else he will not be able to wield it. However, it is somewhere only Ricki can get.
4.) What I can absolutely see happening sooner or later (unless we have to abandon the dungeon at some point) is that Kamau eventually runs out of places to go (because only Ricki can travel the rat tunnels) and stands guard at the entrance of the dungeon to subdue any more drunks that come in, while Ricki finishes the rest of the dungeon alone. At that point at the latest, she should probably equip the bucket and/or drink some ale so she’ll survive all the enemies in those areas.
After thinking about all of this, I feel like we should go for the unconscious person first. If we get one more ally to help us with all these obstacles, then that’s probably worth losing some of our reward due to drunks that got themselves killed. (Honestly, why are -we- being made responsible for these morons?) And we can still aggro/one-shot the snale later.
Actions:
Ricki: use other lens to check out one of the bats. Point out glass to Kamau. Go to the room to the right (avoid the glass) and check out the rat tunnel there.
(I want her to loot the chest, but I’m not sure if that wouldn’t make the centipede attack…)
Kamau: put on bucket, avoid the glass, interpose the 3 drunks (and if the bats engage, those too, I guess).
Edit: mixed up left and right, but should be correct now.
Actually, Snale’s description says 3 def, not 2, so if the wand does not bypass DEF, then it’s guaranteed to do no harm, and just aggro it (if it considers itself disturbed by 0 dmg..)
Thanks for catching that. 🙂
The centipede is on the other side of the room, the chest should be okay. If anything, it has been confirmed that it takes a move to use a rat tunnel, though maybe we can get more hints on where they go.
So, the snales’ extraction of alcohol from the pipes is the source of the bad ale in the tavern? In that case we need to either kill the snails or stop the flow of beer through the pipes, where the snails are attached to. According to https://viewer.diagrams.net/?tags=%7B%7D&highlight=0000ff&layers=1&nav=1&title=Dungeon%20Eyes#Uhttps%3A%2F%2Fdrive.google.com%2Fuc%3Fid%3D1Kbl4QaQZ205RJG2DVZXetuXqJ985Wglz%26export%3Ddownload (thanks again!) we can get at the snails only with ranged weapons and/or by opening two grates. To open the grates, we would need keys. The only keys visible are guarded by 1 dire rat and two rats and only reachable by rat hole travel, which Kamau might not be able to do. We need the information about the room downstairs, and for that we need to get rid of three more drunks.
I think when we reroute the beer, the snales will simply roam and move on to new location, wherever the alcohol goes now. That may be used to cheat and finish the quest quickly — reroute, run to the exit, talk to the tavern owner before snales manage to find a new place and attach themselves there. For a moment, a good ale will flow, and with some luck, quest may be considered finished. (and then auto-resetted after some time, like in any serious self-respecting dungeon xD ).
I think that the valves will shut off alcohol which will make the snales move (or maybe starve). This looks like our objective is taking out the snales.
“Information floods her brain, but she handles it easily due to being accustomed to using her Dungeon Eyes.” — Strong hint to be very careful when asking Kamau to use such magic items
Snale.. They have just 2 HP, but at 3dmg ranged attack and 3 def. Sounds (A) dangerous to Ricky, (B) rather harmless to Kamau (except for sideeffect), and (C) definitely not one-shottable via magic wand (even if it bypasses DEF, which I really doubt).
Also, unless the snales are very efficient at siphooning the alcohol, they maybe harmeless to the quest – consuming The Ale doesn’t necessarily mean lowering its quality, we might be able to just ignore them.
Also, fun idea: shoot the snale with wand ONCE, and hide, and watch how rats dissolve/sink/drown in toxic sprays … and the drunk team below probably as well.
Can Kam walk in from the right side and attack it? (assuming he walks all the way round)
Nope, that’s a wall.
This isn’t good, 3 Def and having a ranged attack of its own means we can’t lure it over by attacking, we’ll need bait.
I wonder what happens if we leave mugs/buckets of ale for the drunks to find?