Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord
When I last left off, the rescue party was building itself up to an acceptable level to survive the plunge to Floor 4. Why did I need to do this? Two reasons: the first party had gone past an alarm that always causes a fight, and the second is that they actually died during a pre-set specific encounter I had been completely unprepared for. So, I needed a team that was capable of getting through the first fight against random foes without spending too much energy so I could then take down the nastiness of the forced battle. And "nastiness" doesn't fully describe. The group of foes had two swordsmen, a high ninja, a pair of high priests, and a couple of level 7 mages. The swordsmen are tanky but not huge problems. The High Ninja, however, hits really hard and has an insta-kill. The High Priests also have an insta-kill spell, and the level 7 Mages have damaging area spells that can nearly wipe the party on their own. I'd have to kill them all just to get my team back, and that meant a lot of grinding.
Unfortunately, that also meant dealing with the dangers of the 4th floor. Once I got the rescue team up to level 6, I sent them down the elevator to floor 4 and began using the alarm as a grinding spot. Because it always triggers a fight on the next space you move to, I would enter the alarm, then turn around and go back the way I came, giving me a straight shot to the elevator to escape if things went south. And they did go south. As I worked to build up my party, foes kept aiming for the clerics or hit me with status effects repeatedly that I lacked the ability to tackle en masse. Michi died, followed by AJ, and with no casters with the ability to handle it, Syn dropped to poison. The ensuing costs of resurrection also drained my finances before I could fully heal everyone, so the party had to be rebuilt piecemeal as I kept grinding. I'd get someone up, only to have someone else be put down, but thankfully the money grind became an easier focus than the experience, so the survivors began making considerable headway. While I consider a front line of tanks a key strategy, Robert the Mage really needed to be bolstered because offensive magic was what I needed to tackle the big battle I had coming up. And despite everyone getting dropped around him, Robert stayed up, gaining experience while the rest of the team suffered.
I brought AJ back first, to give healing while I built up money for Syn. I then brought Syn back to have a tanky front line, only to have AJ go down again. But AJ had gained a level in the meantime, so Michi now cost less to resurrect; she was returned to the group for clerical tanking and to get the required status healing spells while I built up cash. I had a team of five and one corpse I was dragging along, but the money grind wasn't too bad, and as I realized I was getting fairly high in levels relative to what I was fighting, I opted to stay a little longer than I needed. Isiola went up in levels as my thief, Prfsnl got great HP rolls, and Robert became a walking nuke. Michi successfully gained the spells necessary to keep poison and paralysis at bay, and I went back to resurrect AJ.
Poor AJ. It wasn't the healers' day. It wasn't AJ's either. They failed in his resurrection, failed utterly, and he was reduced to ash and nothing. Obliteration, complete and final.
Farewell, alienjesus. You shall not have died in vain.
I did not want to hire another adventurer from scratch, so instead, I chose to employ a cheap mercenary fighter, renamed and brought in to change my frontline to three Fighters. Welcome to the game, Reprise. Prfsnl, Syn, and Reprise now made up the front line, while Michi healed, Robert nuked, and Isiola handled treasures and traps. And Robert also reached level 9 at about this point. Level 9 for Mages provides access to a spell that kills everything below level 8, so I now believed I had the offensive firepower to tackle the big group.
I delved back down to Floor 4, pushed through the alarm and fought a small and simple battle against a single Ratman (so much for worrying about the preset battle), and charged headlong into the fray. Robert's first move: cast MAKANITO. Both Swordsmen and the level 7 Mages died immediately. All tanks focused fire on the High Ninja, chunking his HP and grinding him down before he managed to get off an attack. Michi used magic to boost everyone's AC by 4, further making them harder to kill. Down to just the High Priests, Robert cast group damage spells while the tanks ripped into them. The end result: multiple unidentified items. I found the remains of the dead party too and pressed forward to open the path I needed as well as open up space in my current party to pull out bodies. This process also netted me the Blue Ribbon, which is required to gain access to the second elevator, enabling fast travel down the floors 5-9.
I decided Reprise would be a good candidate to leave as a safety stopgap next to the elevator and then launched my first retrieval, the most important person of the previous party: Note, the Bishop. Because Bishops can identify for free, Note's simple existence is a quality of life improvement, so he was the first focus. My second choice, retrieve Ack, the leader. What can I say, I'm biased. However, battles were causing wear and tear on the party, so I had to break off the rescue and return to town to rest. Note was the first resurrection, being put to good use to identify the unknown items I had found in the major battle, including a cursed ring, sell value 250,000 gold. My money problems were now officially solved.
Repeated trips down to the dungeons to pull out the bodies resulted in further catastrophe, because the pre-set battle respawns every time. The two swordsmen aren't present after the first successful win, but everything else is, and the High Ninja decided to take it out on Syn. I also encountered the first level draining enemies, so while Ack was level 8 going in to get his dead comrades, he came out level 7. Thankfully, level drain can be treated, but it effectively stops your leveling process in the meantime. I hate level drain.
The party was pulled out successfully and further resurrected successfully...with one unfortunate loss. Popo was not recoverable.
Farewell, MrPopo. May we slay monsters together again in another life.
But with a large net sum of gold and a mostly restored team of troops, it was now time to gear up. The rescue party had mostly outleveled the original team, and I had considerations to make regarding classes. No longer am I taking two Clerics or a Bishop into the dungeon. Instead, its 3 Fighters on the front row, then a Cleric, Mage, and Thief on the back. Note, however, remains a vital member of the team, spending his days in luxury in the tavern and being recruited to identify all magic items the team recovers whenever I return to town. His contribution is filling my coffers. I also now have a capable team of backups to form a new rescue party if I need to do so again:
Dungeon Party
First Row: Ack, Prfsnl, Syn (all Fighters)
Back Row: Michi (Cleric), Robert (Mage), Isiola (Thief)
In reserve: Reprise (Fighter), Note (Bishop), Marurun (Mage), Key (Thief), Pidge (Cleric)
With the Blue Ribbon secured, I opted to grind a little more using the alarm on Floor 4 and then push down to Floor 5. Ack has worked his way up over his past level loss, while Isiola continues to amaze with how quickly Thieves can level. I explored Floor 5 extensively, but experience gain slowed, so I am now exploring Floor 6, keeping close to the elevator at the moment and seeing what foes this area has to offer. Magic gear is becoming more common in treasure drops, so I'm hoping I will soon start using the dungeon to upgrade my gear. One nice feature: if I sell a magic item to the store in town, it becomes permanently purchasable, so even if I don't need it now, it's possible to gear up the reservists quickly in a pinch at the expense of some cash.
The party currently sits around levels 10-11. The reservists are all around level 8. We'll see how things progress.
