Dungeon Master: Won

This is it, its the end of the game one way or another. There was no water down here and I'm running low. Its not far from the end of the game, which meant I was either going to win or I was going to be trapped without being able to recover.

A nerve-wracking sight when you're low on supplies

The opening section doesn't really lead anywhere, beyond the area one falls in that revolving trap door. So I begin exploring. Which leads me to a group of the black flame enemies. They're not blocking anything to my knowledge and I am just exploring at this point, so I rush past them. Wouldn't you know it, the stairs to floor 14 are two blocks south of the area I entered?

Reminds me of the Dark Forces dragons, wonder if there's a connection?

Downstairs there's a lot of treasure lying around. Because its a red dragon lair. Naturally, he is hard to kill. He fires off fireballs that take out my two rear characters instantly, and he takes like 3-4 hits to take out a front character. However, he has one big weakness, namely, he turns around very slowly, so the combat waltz is safer here than with other enemies. To a certain extent. He's a slog to kill, and I check a guide to see if this is really what I'm supposed to do...and stumble upon some more worrying information.

An obvious place to put a key

I don't have the key to the door he's guarding, and the key is back on level 7. There's no way forward without it. Which means I have to reload the earliest save I have and work my way back up to the latest water fountain, which is level 9. I also figure out that these skeleton keys I have are supposed to be used on the skulls I keep seeing around. This saves me some time, though I still have to repeat a bit of game in order to get back to where I left off. The 11th floor is just filled with oh, so fun fights. Including ones with respawning spiders and three suits of armor.

A crueler game would make the door trick not work here

After that floor, I have another RA key, which means I can return to the Tomb of the Firestaff. This finally allows me to get into it, or at least some kind of forechamber. Its pretty cool being here...although there are a lot of locked doors I don't have the key for...and rock golems. I hate rock golems. I encounter two behind doors I can close, but I doubt my luck will hold with them. They're brutal to fight. They don't attack as fast as the suits of armor, but they take as much damage and deal out plenty.

I'm not sure these words mean what they think they mean, but whatever

There's only one locked door I have the key for, and its one with a warning on it. Its got supplies in it. Some empty flasks, which I make room for, and some scrolls. They're just telling me to maintain balance, unfortunately, I was spoiled that the game would involve capturing both Lord Chaos and Lord Order. I don't think I mentioned the backstory much since it doesn't matter much in gameplay. Then there's some more of the room, leading to a key hidden in ash, and a secret room with more papers and another key. Outside of something telling me to use Zokathra to open "amalgam" to get the staff, its just more stuff telling the player what to do.

The biggest fight of Gothmog and Syra's life

That one key gets me pretty sweet gear, and the other opens the door to the Firestaff. Its a long walk to it...a long walk. Once at the end, there's another stone golem, unmoving. There's a locked door that I have the key for, and then the Firestaff. Taking it awakens the golem, but I run back through the long length of corridor. Guess that's what that was for. However, I don't have any more keys, and I know I missed the key, so I must have missed a switch or a hidden door. One hidden switch and long hallway later, I'm fighting another golem. This leads to a set of stairs down, directly to the floor above the dragon. Which meant I had to search again for a missing switch, which I found in the last long hallway.

Fighting the dragon is long, and I don't think the ful potions did anything. Seems a shame I kept them around so long for no purpose. He's just a big slab of meat to move around, literally, he drops a ton of meat. Have to switch out my mages to the front, so my fighters don't get tired. After a good chunk of time, he's dead. I run around checking the stuff on the ground. Some coins, but no great horde, and a key under a pile of ash. Don't tell me I wasted my time searching for the other key? I did.

Not the most impressive dark lord I've seen

Past the door, I can reach the power gem rather quickly, just a few paces in front of where I left off. The only other thing on this floor is a resurrection chamber locked by a gold coin. And each time I leave it, the door closes. Oh, well, haven't felt the desire to deal with that, and I doubt I'll need it now.

That would have been a question if the game didn't tell me

Lord Chaos isn't really a fight, more of a puzzle. He doesn't take damage, and the Firestaff is used to capture him, not kill him. You have to get it so he can't teleport away, which means using the Firestaff to create four boxes around the area he's in. You can also use walls. From there, Lord Order pops up, but you can fairly quickly fuse him, since he teleports exactly where Chaos was. (perhaps this is automatic) Then the Grey Lord returns and all is well. Then it shows my character and everything just sort of ends. That mostly ends well. Not everything went as well as it should, but that's more related to the information I was told more than anything else.

This Session: 2 hours

Final Time: 15 hours 40 minutes