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Last time: I got the second part of the Chaos Trinity and cleared the Earth Temple. This time: I tour the countryside and raid the Mana Temple!

I take the other down staircase on D:47 on find myself on UL:1, the first level of the Unreal Caves, a branch in the lower levels of the Caverns of Chaos.



I pick up another mutation. Losing Toughness and PV sucks but I roll with it. At this point I realize I'm level 29 and close to 30. There's an optional dungeon I want to do which closes off at 30 so I head back up. On the way I find potions of cure corruption, mana, and willpower. I bless and drink both attribute potions.



I make it back to the surface and head to a ruined city in the northwest area of the map.

As you advance into the ruins, you catch a short sight on some strange huge figure...
With fluid motions it disappears into the ruins!
Something seems to be waiting for you...
You enter the ancient street of a long-dead and even longer-forgotten city.
Various trees and shrubs have overgrown the monuments of a former civilization. Strange unknown runes cover what remains of ancient palaces and buildings. Some foreboding evil seems to lurk beneath the peace of death emanating from this strange place.



I explore the ruins and find a minotaur mazelord guarding a wall. He leaves me in peace as I search and open a secret door leading to a stairway down. I enter the dungeon.

This strange maze seems to change even while you watch the endless tunnels.

This is the Minotaur Maze. It is seven levels deep and a complete pain in the ass to explore. Until the crowdfunded version came out I would skip it. However, Biskup has buffed the rewards by a huge amount, so this time I'm hitting it up.



I read a blessed scroll of magic mapping. This is what the levels in the maze look like. There are many traps and minotaurs, not to mention illusory walls (walls that you can walk through) and living walls (high PV Strength-draining monsters that look like walls.) Thankfully the crowdfunded version has added health bars to monsters which make wall beasts much easier to spot. Note the two down staircases. One will lead to a dead-end branch with no down staircase, but I won't know that until I explore the whole thing. Yeah. If I had planned this better, there's another dungeon I should have raided first which contains several blessed magic mapping scrolls which would have saved me a lot of pain here. However, I made it here needing less than 3k experience to hit level 30, which would have closed the dungeon off, so that bus has already departed. After reading that first one, I have two scrolls of magic mapping left.

I head for the closest down stair, killing a couple of minotaurs and hitting level 30 as I go. I take the Very Quick talent for +3 Speed and gain a point of Appearance. Because of all the traps I swap out my more valuable combustible equipment for indestructible or expendable backup gear. I reach the second level and read another mapping scroll. Fortunately this one has two down staircases, so I know I've got the right one this time. As I explore the second level, I find a teleportation trap. This is the nice side of having traps everywhere. With teleport control I use it to teleport myself to one of the stairs. The next level contains just one down staircase. It looks like I'm on the right track still - hopefully my luck will continue. I enter the fourth level and am now out of mapping scrolls. I'll have to explore the old fashioned way. I find one down staircase and continue to the fifth level.

On the fifth level I run into a minotaur mage who confuses me and drains a point each of Dexterity and Mana. Asshole. I equip some confusion resist and kill him. I explore the rest of the level which turns out to be a dead end. I guess I wasn't on the right track after all - I have to backtrack all the way to level two to find a down stair I haven't already taken. Turns out the dead ends can be several levels deep. On the bright side, I find a potion of ultra healing as I explore what is hopefully the real ML:3. I find one down stair and take it. On the next level I find two down stairs and pick one at random. I explore half of ML:5 and take another stair down. I lose my ring of the clear mind to an acid trap and the level turns out to have two up stairs. I head back up to the last level and explore more of it until I find another down stair. I start to explore my second ML:6 and pick up the unholy aura mutation again. I bless and drink the cure corruption potion I found earlier to get rid of it and continue. I get another point of Mana drained by another minotaur mage and exploration reveals this level has two up stairs too. Sigh. I head back up to the last ML:4 and take the other stair down. On this level I find another down stair and take it to my third ML:6. I find a down staircase and descend.

You feel that this maze level is special in some respect... its convoluted tunnels remind you of the brain tunnels of some sinister power lurking beneath the surface of the world, and ready to strike at any intruders!

This message indicates I've reached the final level. Thank fuck.



I explore a bit and find the boss, the minotaur emperor, along with his bodyguard of four minotaur mages. I back off, equip some humanoid-slaying arrows, creep forward and drop the first bodyguard. The emperor steps into view and I fire at him and kite him away from the bodyguards.



He dies pretty easily to kiting and slaying ammo.



The loot. This is what makes it all worthwhile. The corpse if eaten would confuse me, corrupt me enough for one mutation, decrease my willpower by 8, and increase my Perception, Strength, and Toughness by up to 3 each. I take a pass. SIX FUCKING POTIONS OF GAIN ATTRIBUTES AND A POTION OF STRENGTH though. Hell yes. They all get blessed and drunk. Also four potions of cure corruption - invaluable. I'd have done this dungeon for the potions alone but there's also two artifacts:



The minotaur emperor will always drop this axe. The damage is really nice as is the crit bonus and other properties, but it lacks slaying, isn't a spear, and weighs 1200s. I take it to sell.



He will also drop a random artifact. I get a pretty good one - Ironfist gauntlets. The defense stats are a slight improvement over my elemental gauntlets. The stun resist is kinda meh but I don't really need the resists from the elemental gauntlets any more either. The +7 Strength is awesome though and makes up for some of the Strength I've lost to corruption. I equip them and drink a potion of insight.



Potions of insight reveal your current intrinsic resistances and effects, along with your HP and MP regen rates. I use this one to make sure I still have all the resists covered without the elemental gauntlets. I do. I head back to the surface and find yet another potion of gain attributes along the way.



While I'm on the surface I decide to do the other optional dungeon I forgot to do earlier. Also pictured: my new statline post Ironfist and potions.

I enter the ruined temple.

You enter the remains of a once proud complex. Its former glory is covered by shrubs, trees and bushes of all kinds. Beneath the foliage you see myriads of bugs crawling around.

This is the Bug Temple. It contains many bug-type enemies who multiply and have high speed and multiple attacks that frequently pierce armour.



I clear the ground level and descend.

You enter ancient halls. The crumbling walls depict the deeds of great heroes in slowly vanishing colors. The air is moist and bugs seem to be crawling around everywhere.



I find myself surrounded by greater claw bugs. These guys would be scary if I was lower level but I'm halfway to godhood by now and kill them fairly easily, although I do lose ~80 HP as I do, mostly to a killer bug (a stronger version) who wandered in from the corridor I was using as a chokepoint.



I head to the west and spot a room full of killer bugs to my south. I could probably kill them, but I'd lose a lot of HP through attrition and the exp at this stage isn't that much, so I let them be.



Searching reveals a secret passage to my west. I zap a wand of door creation to seal off the killer bug room and continue. I open another secret door and seal off another bug room before reaching a "dead end". There are two secret doors here, one to another bug room and another that leads further into the level.



I search and find the bug room first. I clear the room but lose almost half my HP in the process. I open the other secret door and continue.



Down the hallway I find another secret door. The passage continues past it but leads to another bug room which I seal off. Beyond the secret door are a few greater claw bugs and a lot of killer bugs.



It takes a couple of extra healing potions, but I manage to clear the temple's inner sanctum. The white ']'s are marble statues. I kick the middle one to pieces.

This act of pillaging makes you feel like a true hero! You suddenly feel a strange inner peace. Almost no more itching, no more crawling... very satisfying.

This stops the bugs on the level from multiplying. I kick the other statues apart and inside each is some loot.




Of particular note:
The "of slaying" suffix on the quarrels means that they count as slaying ammo vs. everything, ie. every shot will be a crit. The "winged" suffix gives them triple range. Very nice.
A fuckin wand of teleportation at last. With my supply of potions of booze and scrolls of charging I can keep this charged effectively indefinitely. With this wand and teleport control I can jump wherever I want around levels, whenever I want to. Along with the scrolls of magic mapping, this would have been very helpful in the minotaur maze. Never mind, it's over now.
6 more potions of ultra healing!
3 more scrolls of corruption removal!
The crystals of health, once blessed, can be used to restore 12d12 HP each.

I've realized recently that I've forgotten all about rings of the fish. These rings are auto-cursing, but when equipped and blessed, prevent drowning damage. With one of these (I have 3 or so) I can explore the underwater dungeon I found earlier. Unfortunately I'm out of holy water, so I head to the ID and find a water potion. I head to the altar on level 8 of the UD (near the HMV) to convert it to bless the holy water. 15k gold should do it...

"*I* hereby punish thee, puny mortal!"
Your equipment turns to dust.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. The gold isn't enough to convert the altar and instead the Chaos god wrecks my shit. With the exceptions of the artifacts I had on, the rest of my equipped gear is destroyed, including my armour of life, ring of regeneration, spear of penetration, and seven league boots, the latter two of which had been pimped out with scrolls too. I forgot that was a thing that could happen - what I should have done (other than use more gold) was to unequip everything except artifacts first. The ring at least I can replace with bracers of regeneration I found somewhere, although for some reason bracers seem to be especially prone to being destroyed by environmental effects. Well at least I'll have regen while they last. I replace everything else with backup gear and go to Dwarftown to bless my water instead. Welp. I'd been cruising through just about everything for a long time now, I guess some adversity will spice things up a bit.

While I'm in Dwarftown making holy water, I teleport myself into the room with no doors.



"Ye have been ingenious.
Keep it that way.
Take dis as a reward." The dwarven mystic stuffs some things into your backpack.
Suddenly the dwarven mystic is gone.

Here's what he gave me:



For neutral characters, there's a 50/50 chance of getting what I got, or 7 blessed potions of insight and 4 blessed scrolls of corruption removal. I'd have rather had the scrolls but the attributes are nice. Lawfuls get an okay artifact axe (very good if you get it early, shit if you get it later) and chaotics get nothing. I drink all three potions right away.



I head back to the surface and east to the Water Dragon's Lair, equipping and blessing a ring of the fish before I enter.



The lair features a unique tileset and aquatic monsters.



In the centre of the dungeon, Shyssiryxius, the female great water dragon stands guard over her hoard.



Shyssiryxius, the female great water dragon, roars: "Hast ye seen me baby?"

If I attempt to take anything from her hoard, Shyssiryxius will warn me not to touch it. Persisting will turn her hostile. I've lost at least a couple of characters to her before - she is a very dangerous opponent, but it can be worth killing her as her hoard sometimes contains very valuable items. I need her alive for now though, and besides, I looked over her hoard and didn't see anything I wanted badly enough to risk fighting her. I was hoping to find a new pair of 7LB or maybe a ring of djinni summoning for another wish. I leave the dungeon and head to Terinyo.



Blup, the baby water dragon, squeaks: "*Sniff*".
Do you want to tell Blup, the baby water dragon, about the water dragon cave?
Blup, the baby water dragon, looks at you with a bright smile on his face.
"Hunessly?"
Suddenly Blup, the baby water dragon, unfolds his wings and soars into the sky.
With incredible speed he disappears on the horizon.
The last thing you hear is a distant cry of "MOOOMMMMYYYY!"

If I wanted to raid her hoard, I could kill Shyssiryxius now and I would still receive my reward, which is now in the post. It will arrive soon after I hit level 36. If I had the Raven birthsign, it would arrive very soon. Raven characters will receive her reward shortly after hitting level 16, which I am obviously well past. I leave Terinyo and return to the Caverns of Chaos.



On my way back down I kill an invisible stalker who leaves a corpse. I eat it and gain the intrinsic see invisible ability. Invisible stalker corpses grant either see invisible or invisibility. I was hoping for the latter, but the former is nice too. I reach Dwarftown and bless another water potion I picked up. I use it to bless four scrolls of protection I have accumulated. I try using a couple on my shield, but both fail. I'm not sure if scrolls of protection and defense actually work on shields or just proper armour items, but I give up trying to use them on my shield. I use one on an eternium girdle, boosting it from 4 PV to 6, and the other on some eternium boots, but it fails. I didn't use them on my replacement girdle of carrying because a location where I'm heading soon loves destroying equipment, so I wanted to improve some eternium gear. I head back down to UL:1. On the way I find a potion of dexterity which I bless and drink, and another ring of regeneration which I swap back in and change my bracers of regeneration for bracers of protection. I also get stiff muscles AGAIN and remove it with a potion. If only it were so simple in real life.

I recommence exploring UL:1 and hit level 31. I also find a potion of gain attributes but am out of holy water again and have no way to bless it yet. I finish exploring the level and descend to UL:2, which goes uneventfully, and on to UL:3. On UL:3, I kill a greater titan with some giant slaying ammo. He is worth over 169 thousand experience. Sweet. It's almost a million experience to get from 31 to 32 and that goes a long way. He leaves a corpse which can increase Strength and Toughness, but mine are too high already and I don't gain any more. On to UL:4.



UL:4 has two down staircases, one of which has this friendly fellow waiting next to it. I'll be back to talk to Sharad-Waador later. For now I head down the other staircase, which takes me to UL:5, and then UL:6, both of which I clear uneventfully, barring another greater titan kill.



Upon entering the next level, designated MT, I receive a special message indicating I have reached the Mana Temple, where I will find the fifth and final Chaos Orb.



Like the other temples, the Mana Temple can only be reached by digging. I should have explained earlier, but you cannot teleport on temple levels, so that's out. Unlike the other temples, most of the Mana Temple is surrounded by undiggable walls. The only way in is through a secret door in a one-tile room that you can dig to along the bottom of the map. As I enter the temple's outer corridor, I begin receiving messages that my magical reserves are being drained. My power points quickly hit 0. Doesn't matter to me, but sucks for casters!



I advance along the corridor one tile at a time, searching as I go to reveal a trap on each one.



Eventually my searching reveals a secret door into the inner sanctum. My initial foes are chaos servants, magebane eyes and magedoom eyes. It is these eyes that are draining my power points. I hold my position outside the door and kill monsters as they advance out to me. I'm careful not to step inside the temple yet as I want to clear as much trash as possible before I agro the boss. Once there are no more visible, I equip an amulet of death ray resistance and a helm of mental stability (the boss casts death rays and confuses) and some humanoid-slaying ammo and start exploring the inside.



I draw the attention of a couple of annihilators and pull back to the entrance. I use a wand of cold to kill them. Wands of cold, fire, lightning, and acid fire bolts that travel in a straight line along a cardinal direction and hit everything in their path within range. The next opponent to appear is a chaos wizard. There are several of them in here and they can all summon. This is why I've been very careful about pushing in slowly and clearing the trash. If I agro lots of wizards at once I can expect to be swamped in summoned trash and the temple can take a long time to finish. I one-shot him with a humanoid-slaying arrow.



Another wizard appears and summons some greater chaos servants before I can kill him. Another summons more from out of sight.



I fall back to the entry again and start killing monsters as they follow me through the door. The wizards follow, periodically summoning more reinforcements.



Fortunately they are stupid and eventually step into the doorway where I can kill them. I eventually finish clearing all their summons and push back in, kill a couple of annihilators, then another couple of wizards show up and I repeat the process.



I eventually push in again and start receiving messages about being subjected to mental attacks and someone casts a darkness spell. The boss has seen me so I retreat back to the doorway. He shows himself soon after. In addition to the aforementioned abilites, Nuurag-Vaarn is invisible. Fortunately I ate that invisible stalker earlier so I didn't need to equip a ring to see invisible.



I start unloading on him with my bow, but only manage to slightly injure him before he casts darkness to hide himself.



I counter with a wand of light.



I switch my spear and shield out for Vanquisher and begin wailing on him.



He casts darkness again, I zap a wand of light again, he hits me once with his corrupting melee attack and curses some random stack of quarrels in my pack, then I hit him a couple more times and he dies. I hit level 32 from the kill, and gain my next class ability, which grants me +3 each to Strength and Toughness. Pretty nice, but that's the last good one. The next two are the true berserking buffs. I take his corpse and the Chaos Orb of Elemental Mana. I don't bother to clear the rest of the temple as the monsters aren't really worth much exp at this stage compared to those in the other temples. On the way back to Dwarftown with Nuurag-Vaarn's corpse I stop at a neutral altar to make some more holy water. I go to bless my potion of gain attributes but it's not there. It must have been destroyed somehow and I didn't notice, damn. I also check the B/U/C status of some more loot I've picked up and wear-ID an eternium tower shield that has 2 more PV than my current one. Hooray!

I reach Dwarftown and stash the corpse in the shop with the others. That's all the orb guardians now, but I won't run them back to the druid just yet. I'll need to visit Terinyo again later, and I'm good for corruption removal for now. No sense in wasting game time running across the wilderness just yet, especially now that I've lost my 7LB.

Next time: I go find what's up with Sharad Waador.