Next time I'll be clever enough to escape! Let's Play Wizardry IV: Return of Werdna!

Ah, Wizardry 4, possibly the only RPG featuring Death by Credit Card Fraud. I'm not certain, but I think you can get a similar death by failing the obnoxious copy protection questions when you enter a new level.

At any rate, this might be relevant.

I don't get those, actually. I'm playing the Archives version, which has them patched out (same with Bane of the Cosmic Forge, which is worse).

Welcome back to The Return of Werdna!



I managed to make my way to Jesse's place and reach the next level quite quickly through a bunch of fortunate happenstances: avoiding Trebor, killing adventuring parties then retreating to my pentagram to recharge leaving Jesse with no guards, then ambushing Jesse himself so he never got an action. This allowed me to reach level 5 in fairly good condition.



The name Land of the Creatures of Light and Darkness is not just for show. This level does have the three things it is named for: creatures, light, and darkness. It is also something of a land, as the level is wide-open with just enough walls to make navigation infuriating.

Every other square of the level is a dark zone, creating a sort of checkerboard pattern. Near certain features there is more light than darkness -- near the entrance there are two lit squares. However, there are also areas where there is more darkness than light -- typically near walls or around the level's pentagrams.

Functionally, the entire level is a dark zone. This dispels my Lomilwa casting, not that I need it here, and forces me to navigate blindly and map carefully. As before I know where the pentagram is, so I head there immediately to reach level 6.



Unfortunately, the adventuring parties here are, as ever, quite strong. As punishment for not taking out my St. Rimbo Digit during the ambush, I am killed by a Lakanito spell from a member of Raiden's Raiders ("Spread out men!").



Throughout later attempts at navigating the dungeon I am harrassed by Horin's Holy Rollers ("For God and St. Trebor!"), who make a habit of silencing myself and my monsters with Montino before beating us to a pulp with their Maces +1 or just killing us with priestly damage and death spells like Badi, which kills me here.



Eventually I do survive to the pentagram. There is not much to say about the monsters here other than that we are getting to have some quite strong monsters join us: Komodo Dragons, Gas Dragons and Hellhounds all breath for large amounts of damage. Hellhounds deal less, but they also call for help. Gas Dragons are very strong, but slow and waste time using normal attacks. Komodo Dragons come in large groups and breath hard, but also die to a single Mahalito casting. Seraphim are very strong but you can only summon one at a time. Weretigers and Corrosive Slimes both poison, if memory serves. Masters & Dragons I don't remember. What game are they from?

Reaching this pentagram also upgrades Werdna to level 6. You know the drill: 60 HP, 14s in all attributes, better to-hit. He also gains access to a bunch of spells, but honestly, this spell level is a complete disapointment.

Lakanito has a very good chance of inflicting instant death on a group. We've been killed by it, now we have the chance to kill with it. While not wholly reliable, this is what Werdna's level 6 spell charges will be spent on.
Zilwan is an intensely powerful anti-undead spell that will obliterate any one undead target without question. The problem here is that Werdna does not fight undead. There is no point to casting this spell.
Haman is a powerful "wish" spell with a bevy of effects that can end a battle with ease. Its upgraded form, Mahaman, can cut enemy magic resistance to 0, destroy or teleport away all monsters without robbing you of XP or gold, silence all monsters without question, or completely rejuvenate the party. The catch is that it drains the caster one level each time it is used. Or at least, that is the catch for a traditional Wizardry adventurer. When Werdna casts a Haman spell, the only possible result is the message "The gods cannot hear you!". This spell is literally useless. There is no point to casting this spell.
Masopic conjures a massive barrier that protects the user's party. It reduces everyone's AC by 4. It isn't literally useless, but it is still not as useful as Lakanito. It might see one or two castings, but that is it.



Continuing on, there are fixed battle squares all throughout the Land. Most of them are quite easy, being against "creatures" that are really just the same powerful solo monsters we've been crushing with superior numbers for the entire game. Tiltowait was a bigger threat than any of these guys, and he only had 52 HP.



The Oracle continues to hint at the next step in a rather lengthy puzzle that must be solved soon. This is one place where he is mildly useful, but he still does not note the most important parts of the puzzle -- his proclamations leave out what you need to know, skirting around it in describing the solutions to puzzles.



Horin's Holy Rollers. Meet the new Tramplers. I die to a Mace +1.



Through a narrow hallway east of the pentagram we can meet a Pair of L-5 Pioneers ("Upward!"), who are typically a fairly easy battle. They don't do much damage and will mostly spend time casting Dios on themselves when their health falls below half. They do drop a necessary item, though...



The Winged Boots (key item) are an accessory, equipped in the same slot as the Black Box, that when equipped and invoked allow Werdna to fly. This has two functions, both related to dungeon navigation: they allow Werdna to fly over mines, avoiding damage, and allow him to fly around the Ziggurat, stepping off its edges without falling. This is never hinted at by the Oracle, but I will give the game a pass here because by this point the player has to be at least a little prone to experimentation.



Oops.

Death count: ~51 (~12x longsword, 1x staff, 1x Dragon Slayer, 1x dagger, 1x mace +1, ~4x molito, 2x makanito, 1x lakanito, 1x lahalito, 1x dalto, 1x badi, ~7x mahalito, ~3x halito, 1x tiltowait, 2x entrapment, 3x mines, 4x Trebor, 1x theft, 1x falling damage, 1x Karl Maudlin, 2x unknown).
Vote time: Do we want to press on to level 4 and make as much progress as we can before solving the Winged Boots puzzle, or do we want to return to level 7 and explore the outer edges of the Ziggurat? This choice is not terribly important, but viewer participation is viewer participation.

Ziggurat. Why? Because I don't get to say Ziggurat nearly as often as I would like.

I seriously can't believe what I'm seeing here. This is mesmerizing, keep it up.

I, too, vote Ziggurat.

This is the most brutal game I have ever seen.

I vote Ziggurat

Welcome back to The Return of Werdna! Last we left off, Werdna obtained a key piece of equipment. And upon wearing them, a thought occurred to his brilliant mind full of (but not dissuaded by, as evidenced by the fact he is still trying to get the amulet) experience: wouldn't he able to fly about the Ziggurat, and plunder its secrets, with these boots?



So he starts walking back to level 7. Along the way he obtains a Magician's Hat. The only difference I can see between this item and the Novice's Cap is that the Magician's Hat might cast a stronger spell. The AC is the same, so there's no indication that it's a truly better piece of equipment.



I'll spare you the details of my walk back through level 6. This update will be fairly long as it is. In any case, we can exit out onto the level 7 Ziggurat's sides through any of the previous methods: the doors near the level exit, or the pathways along the lower edges of the level. There are only two sides to the Ziggurat to the east and west, so any method is fine.



An item floating in the distance to the west merits immediate investigation. Werdna straps on the Winged Boots and invokes them.



We obtain the Hopalong Carrot ("orange carrot", key item). This is one key item of many we have now, you may note -- the Black Box is actually getting quite full of key items. Well, no more: this update, we will be using them to get ourselves killed in amusingly painful ways.



This advertising blimp has absolutely no relevance to us. But it is a dungeon feature, so I have to note it. What is a lych-gate, anyway?



Also, a mage kills Werdna with Makanito. Werdna is somewhat resistant to the spell now that he is level 6: it has about a 50% chance of killing him at his current level. My estimate is that this is reduced to 25% at level 7, and something close to 0% at level 8, but don't quote me on that. In any case, it's a long time for Werdna to wait, and even then he still won't be properly resistant to Lakanito, which becomes the staple instant death spell of the dungeon's do-gooders around level 5.



The Oracle's hints are just getting more and more out of place. The first hint will not be relevant for ages... but if you can, remember this one. It's possibly the most straightforwardly useful hint in the game. The second hint specifies that we need to use the Hopalong Carrot, but it doesn't specify where. To figure that out, trial and error is necessary: it is one particular square in the western half of the Ziggurat. Unlike the Winged Boots the Hopalong Carrot is not destroyed if improperly invoked, so while tedious, it isn't outright aggravating.



When successful, Werdna warps into a two-by-two room with a one-way door leading back out. The room's only feature is this statue of the Dreampainter. Werdna searches the area upon noticing it, and he is surprised when...



*Dreampainter* (G-Fig, -4 AC, 450 HP) awakens and attacks him. For a god, he's not terribly strong. Burning his hit points down only takes a few rounds. He does have a sprite like that of the Pyramid Guards, although it's somewhat different -- a blue statue holding two pink swords -- but I forgot to take a screenshot of it.



This fight is lucrative for reasons of both puzzle advancement and mechanical advancement: the feather here is the Dreampainter Ka (key item, casts Madi). The Dreampainter Ka, to my knowledge, does not break like other items (or at least, not easily), and the Madi spell it casts fully restores Werdna's hit points.

Like so.

Unfortunately, what follows is a series of various blunders, some my fault, some purely the game's: first off, upon leaving the Dreampainter's hideout, Werdna is attacked by several groups of adventurers who obliterate his monsters, then after he flees, stand in front of all of the doorways to prevent him from reaching the pentagram or the level exit. While a Lakanito or Tiltowait spell would have worked, they killed Werdna's monsters before I recognized them as a threat, and killed Werdna himself before he could act. This happened twice -- once to Litokan and once to Makanito.



Sometimes, the Oracle's hints are totally useless. This is one such time.



The second blunder comes in the form of misusing the Winged Boots: I flew through level 8, over the mines, then after I unequipped the Winged Boots and requipped the Black Box, I accidentally invoked the former, destroying them. The Winged Boots are still required for the next puzzle, so I ended up reloading.



Eventually, I do make it to my destination, where our effort in gathering key items will pay off, in its own way, a way very much characteristic of Wizardry IV. There was a portal to the Abyss, you may recall, on level 9 at the centre of the Catacombs. I suppose it's convenient for demons to be able to drag the dead down there with them, so that's why there's a portal here. But let's not focus on the why, let's focus on the how.



To be specific, how we're going to actually open the Gates of Hell, and that without being brutally murdered. We need enough items on us and not in the Black Box that Werdna strips down to nothing but his weapon and the Box before unloading many of the key items he has accumulated up to this point.



We are presented, as with the altar, with a number of options. Bribing (bribing what? the gates?) does us no good, other than wasting our gold (not that we care). Running away has the expected result, and likewise, there's no point to doing it. So, here's what we have to do.



First, ring the Demonic Chimes...



Then, read from the Arabic Diary...



And finally, light the Black Candle. This iteration of the religious "bell, book and candle" ceremony is a staple of many old computer RPGs, and a bit of obscure trivia in its own right. It is assumed by the game that the player will be able to get this puzzle on their own, given the context and the number of useless (or just spellcasting) items they've received. Whether that assumption is accurate is, I suppose, entirely dependent on the player. But I imagine this puzzle stumped at least a few people.

Now, Werdna heads into Hell.

But first, he takes off the Winged Boots. His feet were getting a little sore.



Except he forgets that Hell is down.



And the Gods, seeing his foolishness, let him cast one final Haman.



Okay, this time, we'll do things right. Werdna equips and invokes the Winged Boots. But just to make sure none of his valuable possessions are charred by the searing flame, he puts the Dreampainter Ka and everything else into his Black Box and throws it away. He descends, this time to victory.



And as he does so, he learns that Hell can support plantlife.



A tasty snack in hand, Werdna's seen enough of Hell. He ascends, not wanting to get any more of a tan than he already has!



Unfortunately, demon lords in their spare time enjoy squashing the desires of mortals. Werdna is tanned and then some.

Okay, enough screwing around. With the Winged Boots equipped and invoked and the Dreampainter Ka in the inventory, Werdna can survive his brief trip into Hell.



Unfortunately, his reward is... The Holy Hand Grenade of Aunty Ock \\\ (key item). And he won't be needing it for quite a while. At the very least, though, I can drop the Arabic Diary and Demonic Chimes. I'm a bit too paranoid to get rid of anything else, though, particularly the Winged Boots.

Now that we've finished things up downstairs, we can make some forward progress!

Death count: ~56 (~12x longsword, 1x staff, 1x Dragon Slayer, 1x dagger, 1x mace +1, ~4x molito, 3x makanito, 1x litokan, 2x lakanito, 1x lahalito, 1x dalto, 1x badi, ~7x mahalito, ~3x halito, 1x tiltowait, 2x entrapment, 3x mines, 4x Trebor, 1x theft, 1x falling damage, 1x item loss, 1x Karl Maudlin, 2x Hell, 2x unknown).
Next time: Level 5 and level 4!

This game.

I like how not only the combat is obscenely stacked against the player, but the puzzles are hilariously obtuse as well. And it's not like you could even look up a FAQ from the internet in the, oh, first 10 to 15 years after the game was out.

"Fun" fact: most of the things I know about the game past level 7, I know from reading walkthroughs about a year ago. I also like to read manuals.

I'd say thats the most useful, accurate thing you've been told.

Hey, it's like the game is self-aware all of a sudden.

I never said it wasn't accurate, but I'll contest that it's useful. It's not something I don't already know.

Don't worry, you're in good company here. Heck, the thing that annoys me about my coworker's failure to return my copy of Diablo 2 he borrowed isn't that I want the game back, it's that I'm pretty sure he has my manual for it too.

It's not just game manuals (though old game manuals are the best). I once read a manual for a vacuum cleaner that I didn't own cover-to-cover.

Also, update coming when I work up the willpower to tackle level 4!

I must admit that on occasion in the past I've enjoyed the smell of a new game manual.

Welcome back to The Return of Werdna! I was delaying on making this post until I could progress somewhat on level 4, but that is not happening.



Today, we make our way back down to level 4. Along the way, we pay the Oracle to give us more less useful hints. Maya is a Hindu concept and/or deity best summarized as "illusion". We do have to worry about illusions, but not illusory gifts.



On level 8, I just cheese the minefield by flying over it.



Already did that.



I'm saving in-between levels, so this isn't a concern, but I got killed by Makanito at some point.



Also note that because I have nothing to spend my level 6 charges on, I am getting a lot of use out of Lakanito. Its rates of instant death are very high on the do-gooders inhabiting the bottom half of the dungeon, and decent on everyone else. It even works on the solo enemies like Glum who you wouldn't expect it to.



No amount of mapping will prevent this level from being an annoyance, though. It takes me a while and destroys one of my Jewelled Amulets to refresh my spells and monsters at the pentagram and escape. Hitting the spinners to the south and east is a lot harder than it sounds.



Of interest: there are no solid rock walls in Wizardry IV that I am aware of. In other titles in the early series, it is possible to teleport into a space that is not occupied by ground and instantly die, losing your entire party permanently. In Wizardry II, there's a trapped hallway that contains a sequence of messages along the lines of...



Tiltowait is no threat in an ambush, but easily killed in one: the St. Rimbo Digit can be used during an ambush, and is very useful for that purpose.



Unfortunately my victory over Tiltowait is short-lived as I get killed by a Lakanito spell cast by Jesse the Smith on the second round of combat. But at least I tried.



Eventually I make it back to level 5.



Fighting my way through several combats, I use the St. Rimbo Digit and eventually it snaps in two. While it's not required for any puzzles, it's still very inconvenient to lose such a powerful item. But the only instance of the Digit that's been discovered so far is dropped by do-gooders on level 6, and I am not walking back through the spinners.



There are a number of fixed battles with butterflies on level 5: Meleager Blue, a L-1 creature, is a single fighter with high hit points. Emperor Tau is a thief, Death's Head is a ninja, and Golden Danaid is a bishop (originally I started to write "pishover", which is accurate). I believe there is one creature to each class, but you do not have to fight every fixed combat on the level so I didn't encounter the mage or samurai creatures if there are any.



Eventually, I make it to the stairs.



And true pain awaits.

I will only give you a brief sample of level 4, The Maze of Wandering, because it will be one I discuss in future updates at length. Just know for the moment that it is a very difficult level: the appearance of new portraits for the do-gooders signals a jump in strength for them, and I die multiple times on my first encounter, not making it more than a few squares into the level. I die to Makanito, but a Badi also kills me and so does a Tiltowait.



But as ever, battles are largely luck-dependent, their primary effects being the loss of resources in varying amounts, and so not the central worry. The true threat of level 4 is that it is truly a maze. Werdna's vision is obscured by illusions, which prevents him from seeing what lies beyond the various one-way tiles on the level. He moves towards a wall, and it vanishes. He turns around, and a wall has appeared behind him to bar his progress.

It's a very twisty maze, too. Don't get the idea that its layout is anything short of fiendishly complex.

This is not an actual portion of my map. But it illustrates that this level contains traps, as well. Some of these traps are only one tile wide. Others, like the one I stumble into on my first successful walk through the dungeon, are larger, but still just as inescapable. If there is a method to escape them, Werdna has yet to discover it.

There's other stuff. Oh, is there other stuff. And I haven't told you about the adventuring parties. But that will have to wait.

Death count: ~60 (~12x longsword, 1x staff, 1x Dragon Slayer, 1x dagger, 1x mace +1, ~4x molito, 5x makanito, 1x litokan, 4x lakanito, 1x lahalito, 1x dalto, 1x badi, ~7x mahalito, ~3x halito, 2x tiltowait, 2x entrapment, 3x mines, 4x Trebor, 1x theft, 1x falling damage, 1x item loss, 1x Karl Maudlin, 2x Hell, 2x unknown).
Next time: Level 4: The maze of one-way tiles, spinners, and shifting layouts.

I am so sorely tempted to cave and start sometimes using maps.

Update coming soon, if the game doesn't drop my blood pressure to zero.

Wait, you mean you're not--?

Good gravy, woman! Has sense abandoned you?

Yes, it did. When she (?) decided to LP this game.

But I guess I shouldn't assume (see also: Vagrant Story).

Welcome back to The Return of Werdna!



I won't be going over the fine details of the level with you, as exruciating as it was. If you're so inclined, you can look up a map online. To summarize, however, the level contains two pentagrams and a bevy of new monsters. If you actually get out of the first rotating room you'll find the pentagram fairly quickly just stumbling around drunkenly, as I was here before meeting the Oracle. This hint is really important in some cases and totally irrelevant in others.

It shouldn't take an augury to tell Werdna this, though. I thought this guy was an oracle, not a preacher.



In any case, the pentagram here produces mostly lackluster monsters. If Wyverns breath as I thought they might, they didn't do so for me. Goblin Princes might be spellcasters, but aside from them, this list is sorely lacking in multitarget damage dealers. I experiment using monsters from this pentagram and the previous, because many of these monsters I don't remember. For the moment the two main monsters in my rotation are Lvl 6 Ninjas and Priests of Fung, from the previous pentagram.



But more important than the monsters available at this pentagram is the next level: Level 7 brings with it Werdna's final level of spells (in addition to 70 HP and 15s in all attributes, naturally). Later pentagrams will continue to beef up Werdna's HP and attributes, but will not provide any more spells: this is as good as it gets, for the most part.

Tiltowait is the spell cast by the St. Rimbo Digit, which as mentioned I broke and have yet to replace. I will not be replacing it for a while. On the other hand, although the spell cannot be cast in ambushes, it's still as good as ever: 10-100 damage to every enemy ruins the enemy encounters on level 4 and takes a good chunk out of later enemies as well. With 9 spell slots, you can afford to cast it, too.
Mahaman is just as broken as Haman, I would imagine, but I haven't tested it out yet.
Malor is the most special spell in Werdna's new arsenal. In Wizardry, Malor is the game's sole form of player-guided teleportation. The player specifies their coordinates N, E, and D (North, East, and Down) and warps to the location of their choice. In conjunction with Dumapic, you can "bookmark" essential locations like the stairs and the pentagram and return to them to heal or escape a hopeless situation, such as a cage. But there's a catch.



At the moment, Werdna's teleportation capabilities are sorely limited. All of the teleport attempts I made resulted in his being bounced back, even to the lowest levels of the dungeon where has no more business. Later in the game Malor will be much more useful, but for the moment, except perhaps for escaping cages (which are easily recognized for the most part), I have no use for this spell.

Which I guess just means more Tiltowait. I can't say I mind, given that Lakanito will soon wear out its usefulness.



For the record, this is how you recognize a cage. Unless a room rotates you into a cage -- as noted, there are rooms that change position -- you will generally be able to tell that one is in front of you by the fact that it is surrounded by three walls and contains an event square. If you enter...



The fourth side from which you entered is one-way, like most of the passages on the level, and the game mocks you for your incompetence. There is a way out, though: a group of adventurers on this level drops a yellow card (GetOutOfJailFree), that removes you from a cage and places you on the square you previously occupied. I don't know if you can break the card. I have no plans to find out.



This is one of the level's three notable events. I will be covering two in this update and one much later on in the game, after Malor is usable for my convenience. The witch is friendly enough, at least, which is most likely a welcome change for Werdna.



Given that she appears to be hitting on a 100 year old homicidal wizard bent on world domination, though, she strikes me as a little odd.



Odd and unhelpful, mind you. She must like a man who knows how to work because there is a rather extensive list of items needed for the "blue blood special", and no, none of them are actually named "FeS₂" or "tannic acid" -- the tannic acid is the Witching Rod). We can actually obtain some of these items now or at least very soon, but some of the others will have to wait. While the game does get pretty damn obtuse here, at least filling your inventory with junk and talking to the witch will confirm that you've found one of the required items, if you have, so if you were sufficiently bloody-minded you could brute force this puzzle by grabbing items and bringing them to her until you've figured out what is what.



But again, like the Hell puzzle before it, this won't be important until later in the game, so perhaps it's a mercy that I'm not being expected to work with the witch three levels before it will benefit me in any way, shape or form.



Let's talk about the level some more. I mentioned there are rotating rooms. There are also a few spinners, but the level isn't laid out in a fashion similar enough to the Realm of the Whirling Dervish for them to be a massive inconvenience. The one-way passages are the most annoying part as they not only create a very particular path through the level that you must take or be shunted to an area you've already been, to the level entrance, or into a cage, oftentimes forcing you to rely on rotating rooms, but they are everywhere and you cannot tell whether or not there will be a wall behind you when you take a step forward.

The mapping involved in navigating this level is exhaustive to the point where I have caved and used a map for one or two portions of the level, I will admit. If you'd like a justification for that, feel free to look up a map of the level yourself. I still did a lot of mapping on my own before giving in.



The white sphere (Aromatic Ball, key item) can be found directly on the way to the level exit, so it's not all bad... although the path needed to make it to the stairs is and will land you in a cage or set you back significantly if you make a mistake.



The game warns us that once we enter level 3, we will not be coming back. It isn't kidding, and Malor cannot change that for us. Werdna is as prepared as he's going to get, however: he has the items, spells and minions he needs, but he's certainly left wanting more, given what's about to happen to him...

Time to cover the level's adventurers, in brief, and to enumerate my deaths as per standard for the Let's Play. As hard as level 4 was, there's not much to talk about, so you'll have to be satisfied with knowing that my progress through the maze was wiped out numerous times by pesky do-gooders.

Most of the adventurers on this level are equipped with +1 gear or better, often Potions of Dios, and in some cases Jeweled Amulets. The level's skilled thief, Stalker, has a Night Cloak that presumably reduces AC and provides other bonuses, but the Good Hope Cape is still the best piece of gear for that slot. I suppose someone who didn't want to explore level 6 thoroughly would benefit from the Night Cloak. I'm fairly certain I was killed at least once by Dr X's Wereslayer.

The two adventuring parties on the level are the real threats. Dorion's Greys ("Well, curse your soul!") are a good-aligned party containing a pair of fighters, a priest, a thief, and two mages -- a fairly typical Wizardry party. They seem to be high level with little HP for each level, because their mages were fond of spamming Lakanito or Makanito and killing Werdna and their fighters were very accurate. Khan's Cosmic Killers trades the fighters for a thief and a bishop, the former of which is a straight downgrade but the latter of which adds even more firepower. Three deaths to Makanito (which targets everyone, including Werdna) and one to Lakanito.

Death count: ~65 (~12x longsword, 1x staff, 1x Dragon Slayer, 1x Were Slayer, 1x dagger, 1x mace +1, ~4x molito, 8x makanito, 1x litokan, 5x lakanito, 1x lahalito, 1x dalto, 1x badi, ~7x mahalito, ~3x halito, 2x tiltowait, 2x entrapment, 3x mines, 4x Trebor, 1x theft, 1x falling damage, 1x item loss, 1x Karl Maudlin, 2x Hell, 1x cage, 2x unknown).
Next time: Levels 3, 2, and 1: The Cosmic Cube!

So what I don't get is: you have unsolved puzzles before the point of no return, and are talking about how they aren't useful until later, but you also have a point of no return that would stop you getting to them later. Something isn't adding up here.

(My guess: it isn't a true point of no return, but something related but different.)

What he said. Listen to this guy, he's smart.

Fairly large spoilers, but an explanation nonetheless: Malor can be used to teleport freely throughout the dungeon, even back through the Cosmic Cube, after you finish the Cosmic Cube, and the relevant puzzles take place in the endgame after the Cosmic Cube, following Werdna's escape. I've finished the only puzzle that's required to complete the Cosmic Cube. If I hadn't, then there would be trouble.

I've finally got the next update done, gameplay and screenshot-wise. The next three levels are the absolute worst the game has to offer; look forward to it.

In the meantime, I'd like some advice:

This is a really horrendous thing for them to spring on me long after I've stored 500 photos, and it's even more horrendous that they're deleting the photos I've already stored. Suffice to say that most of these will be Wizardry IV screenshots that are getting deleted. I can't upgrade to Premium at the moment and have had issues with Photobucket, so are there are any free image hosts to be recommended to here? I recall asking in the Let's Play tech thread but didn't get too much help.