Giant Bug appears! You're dead! Let's play Cavequest!

Eddie, this one's for you:

*

I now have maxed stats, aside from intelligence. Intelligence is a waste of resources.



That's a pretty penny! Add to that the money I had left from before entering level 3 and the remaining life points that get converted to silver, and I've got:



Enough to buy a bow, at the very least. 33265.70 is basically an absurd amount of money. Even so, arrows to go with that bow and spears to go without it are a waste.



Magic projectiles are where it's at.

Poison isn't really magic, but whatever. Since money is no object for me at the moment, the fact that these things cost five times what the regular versions do doesn't matter. What does matter is that they weigh the same amount. You might notice that my money counter has dropped by more than the cost of some magic projectiles. That's because I also picked up some of the other magic items. Oh, and I enchanted my sword and armor. Anyways, time to cave quest.



Level 4 wastes no time in getting to business. There's no treasure in room 1, but there is a giant bat.



The bats in level 4 are no tougher than the bats anywhere else in the game. Now, I mentioned that I bought some magic items:



So, 1 through 4 I already had. What're the new items?

I can use this to get rid of the wandering monsters that appeared so regularly in level 3. There it wasn't a big problem, because none of them could harm me, but if I run into continually spawning rats or worse it'd be good to be able to get them under control. Of course, I could just speak to them and then ignore them, but if I do it with the talisman then I won't have to do it again next time I enter the room.

Pretty sweet. We haven't seen any zombies yet, but when we do, this'll be pretty sweet. That's all of the permanant magical items. I made sure to buy them first, because I read the manual:

Smart!



Have I given the background on level 4?

Luckily, there don't seem to be any wandering monsters in room 1, but my magic hat has revealed a hidden door. Sure, I could take the non-hidden door that's just sitting there, but that's boring. Into the mystery!



I find myself in a sealed room with a giant bug. Once I get rid of it, wandering bats start to appear. Are they coming in through the three hidden doors in the room? Dunno.



After opening my path back to the entry room, I pick up the whopping 1 silver in room 2 and get tired of fighting off bats, so I use the talisman. I thought about doing a .gif to show that it worked, but my guy standing there not getting attacked by bats is a pretty boring animation.



So here's me opening some doors and taking the upper one while not getting attacked by bats.



The next room doesn't have any local monsters, but wandering leeches start appearing almost immediately. My magic cap reveals that the only secret exit in the room is the one I came in through.



Since I'm fighting leeches, I decide to try out one of the new magical items I bought:

Unfortunately I've forgotten which items are in which pocket, and wind up rearranging the leech's internal organs instead. The outcome is the same. What's wierd is that the salt costs and weighs way more than the spell of Gigos, despite only being able to kill one enemy (I assume: I haven't actually tried it on anything yet), and one that Gigos kills just as well.



I use the talisman again, and then again in the next room to get rid of wandeing bugs. I don't really need to do this, since neither enemy can hit me. If you look at my slain enemy count in those two shots, you can see that I killed 15 bugs in room 22. Enough is enough. The ten silvers they were guarding are nothing next to the 60 life points each dead bug gained me.



It's all action in room 23, as I deal with an enemy that's actually capable of hitting me, followed by leeches, and find another secret door.



I also score my first non-money treasure: a large diamond. That's worth 200 silvers, but weighs only 5 weight units (100 silvers in cash weigh 30). Nice!



This corridor had only one secret door, the one I came in through, and was plagued with wandering bugs. After I talismanned them and picked up the 1000 silvers, I headed into the next room, where I was greeted with a familiar sight:



My immediate death to a new enemy type. Sigh. What was that thing?

Story checks out. Man, there are still three tougher enemy types I haven't encountered. Anyway, let's see that again in super-slow motion:



So, what happened here? Well, my first mistake was to not immediately talk it down. Like, hit the talk button before the room even appeared on screen immediately. That gave it the chance to step over to me and attack three times in almost no time at all. The first shot missed, the second took 59% of my health, and the third took the rest.



Well, this hurts. I had over twenty-four thousand silvers when I entered the cave. All gone now. I can't even afford to enchant my armor for the next trip, so I'll die even quicker next time. I don't really wanna go back to the earlier levels (although the enemies and treasure will have respawned since I've quit the game and reloaded, I'm choosing to think of them as cleared levels, even if 3 is still full of wandering monsters), so there's only one thing to do:



Actually, it mostly doesn't matter. Aside from the enchantments, I no longer have much need to buy stuff, and my stats are high enough already.

Here's the map so far:




Next time:
I play more cautiously.

Here we are again! When we left off, Zeus had just confiscated all my loot and life points. Or I dropped them on the floor when I died. Either way, weak! The consequence of this is that I can't afford to magicate my armor and blade.



But hey, I don't need magic equipment to deal with bats. This, by the way, is all of level four that can be accessed without being able to open secret doors. Luckily:



I'm a wizard. Actually, even without being able to open doors, this probably wouldn't be a bad place to go if you just wanted to level up quickly. You could buy enough armor that bats couldn't touch you and just grind life points from the wandering bats in this room. Grinding is pretty boring though, even running the game way faster than it's supposed to go. There's plenty of experience to be had in the early levels.



I have my usual struggle with the door while bats attack me ineffectually, and step through into a long hallway. I deal with the leech that appears and scan for hidden doors, finding only the one I just came through. Not shown: wandering bats all over the place again.



The lower path gives me a scare: I started my map near the bottom of the page, and the north-south corridor makes it look like I'm going to run off the edge. It turns out it takes a sharp corner, and I'm spared. Each of these small rooms has some weak enemies in it and a diamond. The first two rooms have small diamonds, the others have large.



The upper corridor looks to be a mirror of the lower. At this point I checked my inventory because I missed seeing what the treasure I'd just picked up was (turns out, a large diamond. So much for my mirror idea - there was a small diamond in the lower second room), and when I came out the onscreen map had wiped:



Very disorienting. Also of note in that .gif: giant leeches are able to injure me again, now that my armor isn't magic. If I meet anything tougher, I'm likely to get ruined. I've also noticed that it takes me two hits to kill a giant bug with my unenchanted sword.



I revisit all the rooms I've been to so that my subsequent screenshots will match the earlier ones.



I carry on and have another near-deadly encounter with a giant leech.



I kill a couple more leeches and pick up another couple diamonds, and this leg of the cave is fully explored! None of these rooms had any more secret doors. If I remember my Caevquest lore correctly, level four was the dwelling and sleeping area. I guess this little area was a dormitory, and I've been raiding people's jewellery boxes for those diamonds.



I return to the exit, save my game, and quit. I could've carried on through the hidden door in room 1, but given how that ended last time I don't want to take it on while I'm weaker than I was then. I need to get my gear magicked up. I don't think I'll be spending any of the rest of my life points/treasure money though. I've got quite a bit of stuff, and anything else I buy is just more weight to carry.

The game seems to have kind of an issue in the balance between treasure and experience. I've gathered up about 1500 silver worth of stuff in this expedition, which is enough to re-enchant my gear with a little left over, but I've also gained 8540 life points, all of which will be converted to silver after I don't spend them levelling up my intelligence. A lot of that is from killing large numbers of wandering monsters, of course. If I weren't pausing to draw my map in each room I wouldn't be killing anywhere near so much stuff. Still, I think it would make sense to have the amounts of life points you get be smaller, and have the level up costs be lowered to match, so that when your leftover life points convert to silver they don't blow out the economy so dramatically.

On the other hand, after level 3 I had enough life points to max out all my stats, so maybe the levelling costs wouldn't need to go down either. And even now that I'm as tough as I'll ever be, I still got wiped by that lizardman pretty much instantly. Maybe the true adventure begins once you reach the level cap, and getting tonnes of extra money doesn't matter.

Anyway:



Here's my expanded level 4 map. I'm a little worried about how it'll cope once I go through the right-side hidden door in room 2. I'm not keeping to scale very well.

Next time:
Probably the right-side hidden door in room 2, I guess.

Welcome back! Here's me not spending the 8540 life points I picked up last time.



A decent haul from the lower wing of level 4.



I add magic to my stuff and leave the witches lair.



This time I head up through the secret door in room 1 and take the right-side door in room 2. What happens next might surprise you:



But if you've been following the LP so far, probably not. Actually, it is surprising that I held my own for so long, only dying when I ran out of restedness. It might be because I slowed DOSBox to 2500 cycles from the 3000 I've been running at so far (as a PAL kid, running games at 5/6 speed is what comes naturally). Combat is still a matter of me jabbing the attack button fast enough to kill the enemy before it kills me, but I've got a slightly better chance of reacting before something is upon me now.



With no money, I can't enchant my stuff, meaning I'm likely to die even quicker than last time. Nonetheless, I bravely take on two lizardmen when I return to room 59. When a third appears, I bravely mash the talk button a few times. It's only actually necessary for me to talk once, but Johnny is happy to keep babbling away for several seconds for each time I pressed the button. In the .gif, everything after the word "Pass!!" appears is me talking unnecessarily.



I secure my exit before taking care of the lizardman.



I take him out, and another couple, then start jabbing talk again. I've cut maybe 20 seconds of talking from the .gif. Anyway, once Johnny shuts up, he kills the lizard. Since another one doesn't immediately appear, I assume I've killed them all and relax a bit. Suddenly another appears, and I'm dead again. Turns out there are wandering lizards in room 59.



I lose all my stuff and return yet again. As before, I'm in a weakened state without enchanted gear.



I return to room 59, talk down the first lizard, use my talisman to ensure there won't be any more, then take it out. Although I'm only using the talisman in one shot there, I actually fired it off three times, since SCROLL.OLD says that one or two shots might not be enough to do the job.



I don't take any chances in room 60, talking up a storm even as I step through the door. Turns out there's just a slime in here, which I don't really need any help dealing with. I use the cap of Merlin to check for secret doors (as I do in every room I enter in this level), but find nothing.



I take on a seemingly endless group of slimes. Slimes are kinda tough, but they're so slow that they're not really much of a threat. If they appear far away, I can recover most of my restedness before they reach me.



Suddenly, more lizardmen! I kill the first, the talk down the second and use the talisman to stop any more from wandering in. I think this is the first time we've seen a wandering monster that's tougher than the guard monsters in the same room.



I decide to try out my Pendant of Kort. It's been sold to me as the best magic item, one that kills zombies. Unfortunately, it turns out that it doesn't kill lizardmen. On the plus side, it also doesn't anger them.



I kill it the old-fashioned way, three hits from my sword. My reward is a cool 1000 gold. Time to get my gear enchanted!



Yep, scads of cash. The 1,000 gold is worth 10,000 silver, and the 1000 copper is worth 100.



I return to room 2 and take the top exit.



Facing a giant leech, I try out my magic salt. It works.



But then, so does hitting them with the sword. Or ignoring them completely.



I continue onwards. You may remember room 40 as the room before I got wrecked on my first trip into level 4. Time for revenge!



I talk him down, and then magicate him. Unfortunately, I was looking at the inventory screen I posted back at the start of level 4, and forgot to account for the spell of gigos I used and picked the wrong item. The magic salt has no effect on lizardmen, it seems.



I try again, this time with the spell of Eliakim.

It doesn't kill the lizardman, but it does injure him enough that I can finish him off with only one hit of the sword instead of the usual three.

With the lizard out of the way, giant rats start to appear. These guys are still able to injure me if I let them. Luckily, I have a trick:

So far I've been using the talisman, but in the .gif above I tried the second option. Giant rats take two hits to kill. I hit that last one once, and then let it be. I wasn't sure it was going to work, but sure enough, it was no longer able to do me injury.



I reach yet another long north-south corridor. It's got one lizardman, 100 gold, and some wandering slimes in it.



Since I've never actually been hit by a slime so far, I decide to let this one take a shot. I get away with it, but only just, the slime taking me to 30% health in two very quick shots. I guess it's only slow when it's walking (oozing?), not attacking.



This looks like the same room layout as in the lower area I explored in my previous update. Some of the rooms have lizardmen in them, though. I pick up three large diamonds and 100 silvers. The talisman comes in handy for controlling the wandering lizardmen and giant rats in some of the rooms.



I make my way topside.



And I get sloppy. Back to town!



I make my return to the area, and re-enter all the rooms I've been to so that my screenshots are consistent.



I talk the lizardman down, swing at him from too far away, then kill him. Luckily, he was the last lizardman in the room. Wandering giant bugs start showing up, but I don't need to worry about them.



This topside has small diamonds, 100 silverses, and bats, bugs, and leeches.



I return to the entrance. I wanna visit the witch and get my gear strengthened again before I take on what's left of level 4. Here's my map so far:



I inverted the colours so it'd fit in with my other shots. Looks pretty nice, eh? So, I've got two unexplored doorways coming off room 23. Any guesses as to the shape of the rooms beyond?



On my way back into the cave, I decide I should try out the projectiles I picked up a while ago. Here's Johnny D holding his bow.



My first attempt misses the giant bat, and I resort to using my sword.



In the next room I fare better against a giant leech. Two magic arrows and it goes down.



I try out magic spears. The first attempt doesn't go well: I land one, but it doesn't do the job, and the enemy closes the distance before I throw the second.



Once again, the second attempt works better. Still, this isn't really any better than just using the sword. Probably if I were running the game more slowly it'd be easier to aim and fire before enemies closed in, and against higher level enemies it's probably a good idea to soften them up before they reach me, but even for that I've got magic items.



I try the lower path off room 23. It's the same structure as I've seen twice before on this level. This time I'm facing mostly great slimes and picking up small amounts of gold.



I pop into room 40 so that I can see the layout better. This middle corridor was missing from the other two versions of this area.



The upper section again is full of slime and small amounts of gold. With room 28 reached, I've explored all of level 4. Time to go!



N



Y, Y

And that's level 4! Here's the complete map, in pseudo-white-chalk-on-blackboard:



It's slightly inaccurate: room 40 should run the full length to where rooms 28 and 35 end, and room 41 should create a gap between those rooms and room 42. </Pedant>

I'm liking how the maps match up to the descriptions given of the floors. This level pretty make sense as sleeping quarters. Level 3, with its large rooms coming off a ring of hallways, could be meeting rooms. Level 2, a long corridor with rooms branching off, works as a storage area. I'm not sure what a multi-purpose level should look like, but I didn't draw a map of level 1 anyway, so I'm not sure if it matches up or not.

Next time:

Zombies! I assume.

The magic items in this game don't seem to be very well-designed.

haha, I love these hand-drawn maps most of all.

Here we are again. Time for Let's Play Cavequest part 10: Let's Finish Cavequest.



Once again, I add magic to my armor and blade and purchase nothing else.



Level 5 starts us off fairly easy. We're in a tiny room getting attacked harmlessly by a bug. I'll just take care of that:



Nice and easy. What was that thing?

Story checks out.



I return to the cave without magic, and immediately talk down the antman. Then I use my talisman to make sure no more antmen will appear.



I use the cap of Merlin just in case, and discover that level five is actually more than just this one tiny room.



I take care of my ant problem.



The copper ingot in this room is the only one in the game. Note that it weighs 60 weight units. It's worth 20 silvers, which I think is the worst value/weight ratio in the game.



I go through the right side door and kill three giant leeches.



Around the corner I find wandering bugs. I could use the talisman to stop them from appearing, but I have a feeling I'll be wanting an easy source of silver in this level so that I can get my enchantments back, so I leave them alone. The treasure here is 1000 gold, a pretty sweet haul.



Speaking of which, I head back to town to get my strength back up. It costs 1125 silvers to enchant both my blade and my armor. Between the treasures and the life points I picked up in the first three rooms I visited in level 5 I've got more than enough.



I return to the bug corridor and proceed through to room 16, where I meet some lizardmen. I talk down the first, then kill him. A second appears and immediately kills me. That's just sloppy play, to be honest. So much for my enchantments.



On the way back I guess I press the wrong key trying to tell the elevator troll where I want to go. Eventually we sort out the misunderstanding.



I decide to try a different approach, and take the lower exit from room 1. This leads me to room 6, where I meet my first zombie.

Yes, well before 28 Days Later, Cavequest was doing fast zombies. This one was almost upon me before I managed to open my mouth and talk it down.



Turns out I don't actually have to chop, fry, beat and pulverise him before he stops his relenless attack (come to think of it, I just had to talk to do that). I'm able to kill it with a few swings of the sword. Then I get sloppy flighting some slimes, and I'm dead again. Sigh.



I return, get the slime problem under control, pick up the treasure in the room, and open the door back to the entrance.



I take the left exit from room 6 and manage to take out a few antmen before talking to one to get a break.



After searching for hidden doors, I take on the antmen again. I get in a few kills and they stop appearing. I relax, but then a wandering antman shows up and I'm dead again.



I return, kill a few more, and then talk to the fifth one, use the talisman while it's on my side to stop any more from appearing, kill it, and find and open the hidden door on the left side of the room. This is basically the pattern for the remainder of the level.



In room 49 I meet the final enemy type of the game:

Isn't jello a brand name? How does the old guy in town know it? Anyway, the giant squid is pretty much the same as everything else: surprisingly receptive to chat, and vulnerable to swords. No wandering monsters seem to be showing up in this room, a nice break from the others.



I head back to town to get my strength up. I've only got 200 silvers of treasure, but my 1020 life points will convert to enough silver to buy the witch's enchantments. Unfortunately at this point I screwed up my video recording: the game changes resolution when you're in town, so DOSBox finishes the file and starts a new one each time you enter/leave the cave. I'd been turning video off when I wasn't in the cave so that I wouldn't get a pile of useless town videos. Unfortunately, I forgot to turn it on when I went back in this time, and didn't realise until I turned it on when I meant to turn it off at the next cave exit. So no .gifs for a little bit, and anything I didn't take a screenshot of will be missing.



Anyway, this is the room to the left of room 49 (where the squid was). It's got non-wandering bugs and a ruby (weight 6, worth 250). Good thing I was drawing a map, or I'd be missing all this detail without my video!



Carrying on downwards I reach room 53, once again blessedly free of wandering monsters. There's a sapphire in there (weight 2, worth 225).



Continuing along this lengthy hallway, I reach room 54. It seems pretty unusual for giant rats and giant squids to be cohabitating, but what do I know about speleology?



This lower corridor is getting tough, but I'm still getting by. There's another jewel in here, a large diamond. It was around this time that it became clear that I'd definitely have to redraw my map: room 49 took me off the left edge of the page and I had to draw it on the right side. Room 54 took me off the bottom and was drawn at the top. Room 55 takes me back to the right, so I'm now in the upper left of the page.

The enemies aren't as tough in room 56, and I pick up a nice emerald (W: 2, W: 200).



Room 57 has infinite leeches, another ruby, and my path back upwards.



And here's room 58. Too bad, this run had been going pretty well. It appears I was trying to use the ring of Zeus to turn the zombies into weaker enemies, but for whatever reason I didn't do it fast enough and the antman I turned the zombie into killed me. According to my map, the first enemy in this room was a giant bug. Guess I didn't get a shot of it.



And we're back in territory I have footage of! On my return to the cave, I take the right exit from room 1, pass through the bug corridor, and kill the lizardman that ended my third shot at level five. Ha!



I carry on downwards and kill some more lizardmen.



I reach a dead end and another death.



I make my way back to where I died.



I use the talisman to stop more enemies appearing, then use the ring of Zeus to turn the lizardman that killed me into a harmless bug.



Then I killed it and took its diamond. Seems kind of cruel, in retrospect.



I head back to room 29 and through its secret door. Giant Rat appears! Pass!!



I get the rodent situation under control and open the hidden doors. Level 5 is just full of hidden doors and long corridors, isn't it?



The right exit takes me to room 19, where I take on a shoal of squid, exhausting myself in the process. Luckily, just when I can't attack any more, giant leeches start showing up instead. I manage to recover my restedness enough to talk them out of hostility before they start attacking.



Then I use my talisman and kill the leader.



I head down to room 32, which somewhat unusually has only one doorway, the one I came through. I get another ruby in here.



I decide to go back and power up.



I make my way back to where I was and take the left exit from room 33, entering the biggest room in the game: room 13. This must be the arena I've been hearing about.



I tell the zombie to cool his heels, then I wave the pendant of Kort at him. He dies. Again.



Then I die. Again.



I decide to try out the upper door in room 1.



The weak enemies, copper treasures, and low room numbers tell me that this might be the right part of level 5 to take on first.



A few rooms later, the upper branch has been fully explored.



I leave the cave with my head held high after a rare successful trip into level 5.



The good feeling does not last long.



A second attempt goes a little better.



I find a second entrance to the arena.

I wave the pendant of Kort around for a while. It works pretty well. The game makes a noise before enemies appear, and if you press the M key during the sound then it'll pause as soon as it appears to let you enter the item number you want.



Then this happens. I hit the magic key expecting a zombie, but when I saw it was a squid I exited, and utterly failed to handle the squid's attack.



On my return I move the squid down through the ranks until I'm facing a skeleton, which I ignore while I steal its treasure.



I lead it around the room as I open the other doors.



Then I put it out of its misery.



Back to town!



Another short visit. All that treasure, going to waste! If there were anything worth spending it on left to buy, I'd be upset.



I have the fairly significant advantage over these monsters of being able to come back to life as often as I want, and being able to stop more of them from appearing with my talisman.



I go left and then downwards, finding room 50, another long corridor. I make friends with a squid, but it turns on me when I steal its treasure. I hold my own briefly, but an attack from behind takes me out again.



I go back. Turns out that the sneaky squid was the last one in the room. I head down through another long corridor, picking up an emerald on the way, before reaching room 11:



I take on enough lizardmen that I have to ask for a break to catch my breath. Unfortunately, I succumb to the next lizard after the one I broke the truce by killing.



I come back and clear out the lizards.



More secret doors. Even though I know that there are 60 rooms in each level, this one seems way bigger than all the other ones. Probably because I keep dying, I guess.



I move through a few more rooms. The lower exit takes me to room 55, which I've visited before, so I come back to room 9 and take the upper exit.



I reach room 24, yet another corridor. At least it's just got bugs in it.



Until the zombie shows up, anyway. Man, I'm totally confused as to the layout of this place. Let's check the map:



So, as you can see, I'm not much of a cartographer. The general layout of the level has the arena in the middle (it's at the bottom of my map), with a large corridor forming a ring around it. I haven't yet explored the area up and to the right of the arena, nor down and to the left. There's also an unexplored exit to the right of 16. Room 17, which is at the top to the right of the middle, should actually be to the left of room 58, which is a couple rooms to the left of 17 on the map, and the whole lot should be at the bottom. I decide to explore what's up and to the right from 13.



I head around through the bug corridor in room 15.



Sigh. I should've just called this thread "You're dead! Let's Play Cavequest!".



I decide to go through the arena on my next attempt.



More squids show up, so I stop them with the talisman and open a secret door.



I take on enough slimes and rats to wear me out, but manage to talk my way out of it before I get killed.



The lower room has wandering bugs in it. The upper has enough slimes to do me in again.



I am not doing well with slimes today.



Aww crap, more slimes. I manage to kill these ones ok, making way for wandering leeches:

Oh, come on!



I managed to use the talisman before dying to the leech, so at least once I come back and kill it there are no more to worry about in there.



I manage to clear out the rest of the area without dying again, and head back to town.



The next run, looking to explore the area to the left of the arena, does not go well.



I do a little better on my return. Really, the way to stay alive in this game is to immediately talk on entering any room, then use the talisman so that you don't have to worry about wandering monsters, then kill whatever's in there, hitting talk again when it dies. But that's pretty boring, and I'm trying to map out what all the wandering monsters are (which I can't do if I talisman them before they appear), so I'm taking some risks. As you can tell from all the deaths.



I carry on and reach room 24. This is where I died just before I posted the map. I entered through a hidden door that time:



There it is!



I eliminate the zombies. Room 24 is now safe.



I head to the right into room 26 (room 25 is elsewhere) and remember that I have spears and arrows. I give them a shot, which goes ok at first but ends in another death.



I try heading straight down from the entrance.



The outcome is the usual.



My second attempt at this area goes more smoothly. I take the lower exit:



It's my old friend, room 26! The antman kills me.



I come back and finish off the antmen, then use my talisman to prevent rat recurrence.



I head on into room 18 and oppress some squids.



This takes me into room 17 and I'm back in familiar territory. Thank goodness. I head up to room 16 and take the right side path, which I haven't before, which leads me to discover room 59.



Unfortunately, once I beat the leeches antment start showing up, and I'm dead again.



I use my standard tactic of talking immediately, using the talisman, and killing my new friend. If you hit T as soon as you enter the room, you can do the button presses for the magic while your guys talks and it all plays out from there.



I enter room 60. This being the highest number room, there's probably something good in here.



Sadly, I won't be finding out what in this life.



I make my way back to the scene.



This time I play it super-safe, talking to each antman as he appears. Eventually they stop appearing, and I'm again faced with wandering rats. Once they're out of the way, I'm able to discover that room 60 does indeed have something good in it: 1000 gold. Nice!



I head back to room 59 and take the lower exit. Turns out it connects to room 58. My old friend the-zombie-I-turned-into-an-antman-who-then-killed-me is still here. We catch up and then I kill him.



Wandering zombies start showing up, and I start waving my pendant around. I really should use the talisman to get control of these guys, but I'm pretty sure I'm almost done with this level and I want to build up some life points.



I check my map for unexplored doorways and make sure I can find rooms 1 through 60. Looks like I'm missing 22, and I haven't taken the left exit from the arena. Could these facts be related? On my way to find out I swing through room 34 to get the bug infestation there under control.

Here's Johnny D facing the entrance to the last room in the dungeon. What horrors await? Will he survive?



The answer to the first question is "leeches and slimes", and the answer to the second question is "for once, yes he will".



Strut.



I save. Of course, if I quit and reload all those enemies will respawn, but I won't be doing that.



And here's what I killed all those zombies for. Johnny D, like the scarecrow of Oz, has found the brains he was seeking all along. Zeus gave them to him in exchange for zombie souls or whatever.



Johnny returns to earth and cashes in his treasure. Now that he's smart (and rich), he knows better than to go anywhere near the cave. Where does he go instead? Who knows?

And thus ends my LP of Cavequest. To my knowledge, that's the entire game. I haven't technically reached an in-game ending, but I've been everywhere, collected everything (even if I didn't manage to make it back out of the cave with all of it), and killed everything.

Here's my final map of level 5:



Now that Johnny has some smarts he was able to convert it to an easier to read format:



It's uh, still pretty crude. I just copy/pasted the rooms to where they're supposed to be and stretched out some of the rooms to get the exits roughly in the right places.

Thanks for reading!

Are there really multiple enemies who can one shot a fully upgraded warrior? Geez!

Great LP otherwise! Thanks for playing it!

That was a nifty LP, thanks. Nuthin' like a roguelike.

Thanks Yimothy!

See you next mission!

Well, that was anticlimactic. At least Johnny got what he was looking for.

I think there's only one thing that needs to be said about this LP : oogedy boogedy.