Wizardry Online: Ghost Town

[Part of the journals from Wizardry Online!]

Apart from the Succubus, giant suits of loitering armor, oversized tarantulas, demon imps and ambient classical music in a minor scale it was a band of overly strong werewolves that ultimately prevented us from getting past the magical barriers within the House of Savage Lust. We did reach the library though, and from it we learned the location of some sort of experimental zone built by a mad dwarf named Azarm. Thanam decided to continue to try find a way past the magic barriers in the estate while I returned to Port Illfalo to resupply.

The town was even emptier than when we left it, with all the adventurers having evacuated due to the Armageddon threat. Even the Lost Souls board had a record of zero souls lost for the month, a number I had never seen before since our arrival. Being one of the few remaining people the arcane minister Zermu Terlu was quick to issue out a Dimento medal to assist with supplies in exchange for trying to stop the rumored "end". I also stopped by one of the still functioning guild agencies and found a note from Quark - that he and a handful of the remaining Porkul Pickers and their allies like Raven Daydream, Maco Meng, and Helga had packed up to try their luck on distant shores. They must have packed in a hurry since there was still equipment in the guild armory, some of which I decided to take for myself.

One of the priests at the local temple urged me to find his wand as he seemed to think it would help in our overall goal so I found myself heading back to the dreaded Temple of Oblivion and after poking around in places no sane man should I gained access to a secret lair inhabited by gargoyles! Fortunately I got the drop on them and managed to take them on one at a time, recovering with Dimento camps when needed. After the difficult combat I managed to retrieve and return the wand to the priest... alas all it seemed to do was cure his own speech impediment. Time is running out and I am unsure of what to do, but I know I cannot simply abandon these people to whatever horrible fate is about to pass.

I take heart knowing that if it is an end by gargoyles, I can take a few of them with me.

 

-Caanon

Old Sewers: New Trials

Part of the journals from Wizardry Online! You can view the rest here!

While Selenka has been working hard on her cartography project, the big guy and I got a mission from Zermu Terlu to take out something called Abadon within the Old Sewers. More importantly, the beauty in black was reportedly sighted down there giving Caanon all the more reason to charge in to find her and her posse. Turns out the "Old Sewers" ARE the Caligrase Sewers, just with more paths opened up thanks to another survey team. Gone are the zombies and bandits; instead now we have a Blue Feather cult training grounds, the Balboa family - a demihuman group of refugees, and deeper in cursed coins and terrible insects.

Unfortunately now the path further in is blocked by some giant imp, the possessed and deformed body of a baby sacrificed by the Blue Feather cultists no doubt. Caanon is not quite sure how we'll get past that thing as of yet.

Back at Illfalo Port, a wizard from the Ministry of Magic has found an unstable portal to some testing grounds of their own. I went in with three porkul-pickers: Quark Wolind, Macu Meng and Raven Daydream to face the challenge rooms of ever increasing difficulty. Unfortunately we only got half way (I think) through the whole thing but it was still a good boost to both soul and gold funds. Lastly it seems Winter2 Silence has been busy causing chaos in town. It seems even other criminals are wary of her since she hunts everyone outside the Temple of Oblivion - it sounds like she's almost unstoppable. Makes me wonder how many other high powered individuals exist that I just haven't heard about.

As an aside, found something quite interesting in the town library too.

I'm as surprised as these two!

-Thanam

Wizardry Online: Cartography Project

Since the maps in Wizardry Online are more than a bit lacking in detail I thought I'd try manually draw out each floor to help other adventurers better plan and prepare their forays into hostile territory. The scale is not exact and I'm sure there are errors or things I've missed somewhere so please advise me when you find them so I can fix them up!

Also, I'm more than happy to put up maps done by other people here to try collate them all into one place. If you have a map you want included please let me know. Alternatively if you want to read about my experiences in game you can do so at A Touch of Wizardry.

Completed Maps:
Caligrase Sewers
Kaoka Parrej Ruins
Deltis Keep
Trials of Fantasy [incomplete]
Golden Dragon Ruins First Floor
Golden Dragon Ruins Second Floor
Chikor Castle (thanks to Quark for helping with this one!)

Donated Maps:
Descension Ruins First Floor by Dremlock

Since I'm not active on Wizardry Online at the moment I thought I'd put up map kits containing the base maps and icons I've used in the above if anyone wants to continue the cartography work. Please feel free to use the below.

Map Kits:
Caligrase Sewer Base
Kaoka Parrej Base
Deltis Keep Base
Golden Dragon Ruins Floor 1 Base
Golden Dragon Ruins Floor 2 Base
Chikor Castle Base
Trials of Fantasy Base
Icons Base

Dangerous Assistance

Part of the journals from Wizardry Online! You can view the rest here!

Good news - I finally got past the watchman last night and retrieved the soul gem from the Temple of Oblivion, but I must admit it wasn't through my doing at all. I finally gave in to Thanam's suggestion of using a magic ring I received for free from a girl (Aika Lakuza) handing them out in town a few weeks back. When worn the ring lets you communicate with everyone else wearing one, and the amount of chatter I was hearing at the start was enough to go crazy. Still, I asked for help while in the depths of the temple with Quark and his human mage friend Westy and to my surprise someone offered to help - a dangerous (ooc: level 30 O.O) female criminal thief called Winter2 Silence. I was a bit wary of her arrival since I heard from the chatter that she liked to kill people after she helped them.

Fortunately this was not the case as she had a personal rule about not murdering in the temple. I don't exactly know how she handled the watchman, but basically she told us to stay out of her way. A few minutes later she called us in, standing over death's corpse.

He didn't look happy at all.

With the barrier down it was easy to take the soul gem we came in here for. Winter2 was amiable enough as she sat and recovered in preparation to face some forsaken priest elsewhere in the temple. Probably don't want to run into her again outside this place though. Selenka on the other hand did meet a super friendly criminal porkul lass called Cheeky Loli a few days ago at Chikor Castle. She's the first criminal status adventurer I don't think we'd mind meeting up with again.

Speaking of Selenka she's also had a crazy (and dangerous) idea of mapping out each dungeon in detail for new adventurers. Given the 37 deaths last month and the lower number of adventurers in town lately this is probably a good idea. I ran it by Quark and he agreed it had some merit so we'll get that cartography project started shortly and let you know how it goes.

-Caanon

Watching the Wall of Death

Part of the journals from Wizardry Online! You can view the rest here!

Been a very monotonous set of weeks since our last report. I'm taking a break from immolating these pesky venom beetles at the Aria Reservoir right now but I don't seem to be gaining any ground. The same is true for Mr. Caanon and Quark who advanced into the deepest parts of the Temple of Oblivion and are seemingly blocked by one final barrier before being able to retrieve the soul gem itself. Guarding it however are powerful spirits and the embodiment of death itself, better known here as "the Watchman". Overpowered by this horrible foe they've been training up again with the cursed coins deeper in Aria. Thanam has also taken up a more direct combat approach and is training with them having multi-classed to a fighter role as well while still keeping some of his thief skills making him a bit more versatile than old white hair. ;P

Lastly I came across this amusing graph made by the other veteran members at the adventurer's guild, and so far it seems accurate.

Wish I had better news (or simply more news) but for now all we can do is carry on and train up until we can defeat that Watchman waiting in Oblivion.

-Selenka

Training to face Oblivion

Part of the journals from Wizardry Online! You can view the rest here!

With Dwark looking into further leads to chase down the "mysterious four", we received a quest from the elf priestess Caladre to recover a soul gem from a nearby underground shrine called "the Temple of Oblivion". The crumbling, claustrophobic tunnels are littered with traps and are home to powerful spirits, zombies, demonic imps and conjurers who are (despite our newly upgraded gear) too dangerous to deal with. Even more annoying is that like the Golden Dragon Ruins, this place has barriers blocked by riddles that can only be solved by exploring each passage for historic slates.

Despite that I managed to get Caanon and Quark past the first barrier and they made it all the way to the second floor by luring each guardian spirit (in each barrier) one by one. The zombies are comparatively the safest to deal with as thier slow gait still makes them easy spear fodder and the majority of the paths are linear.

Still, they've come across a chamber with "light spirits" which are too strong to push past so they returned to town to train up a bit first. Fortunately Caladre isn't in a hurry for that gem, so Quark and Caanon have been hunting the cursed coins back at Aria, as well as more Bullspawn (with the porkul thief Arsenic and elf mage Helga) to gain the strength needed to face the horrors still awaiting them in the temple. Selenka has also finished helping Mighty Dog at Deltis Keep and is now assisting the remainder of the cavalry unit at the Aria entryway, while I've continued culling the numbers of Zule back at the Golden Dragon Ruins. It is worth noting that our masked "friend" Arahawi was also in the Temple sometime before us as he took the soul lantern of a spirit there. Tried questioning him on the matter but he seems content on just giving out free tarot card readings in town while avoiding questions.

If only we could train like Stephen Amell!

-Thanam

As an OOC note: The multiclassing system sounds really interesting here. Quark switched from priest to mage and back (having gained skills/levels between each switch) and it looks like you can bring a number of skills from your previous profession over to your new one. Even better you can "grandfather" skills by bringing skills further down the skill tree back to the original class saving you points from any skills you didn't use higher up but previously needed to unlock. Powerplaying sounds like a key mechanic here, the only draw back is each time you change you require 7 class stones of the relevant class which only drop from monsters in... the Temple of Oblivion. :P