May 2012 D&T Adventure: May 3

Before heading to the dungeons for the third day in a row, teeray purchased some learning potions and swallowed a 2+ potion right away. Using a learning potion helps a player to gain more experience points in the dungeons and level up faster. The visit to the Temple was, once again, rewarding when teeray went in to pray. The powers that be put out a little over 600 gold pieces which teeray gladly accepted before heading out for dungeon crawling.

Feeling pretty confident walking into the dungeon called "Vunvan" while at a player experience level 8, teeray ran smack dab into a Lugdul within minutes. This first Lugdul posed no great threat. In fact, teeray seemed to catch it by total surprise and so had all the advantage in the fight. Soon after defeating the Lugdul, teeray found a little trail of coins and a locked box! It is highly probable that the Lugdul was working on opening the box and, in concentrating so much on the box, did not hear teeray until it was too late to go and hide.

The locked box opened with a not too noteworthy smash of a dagger - further proof that it had been previously tampered with before teeray arrived. Inside, teeray found 2 healing potions and the dagger, "Hidia," which has a +1 value. Nice! A note was found in the box, too, but most of the writing was garbled and teeray could only make out some words someone wrote about the Hidia dagger, "The legends tell that this dagger was once owned by a descendant of Lords."

Hmmm... Lords, eh? Well, teeray decided it was better to test this dagger out than to rely on scribbled words from a box, so teeray exited the dungeon to (technically - "equip" for game play) have a good look at the weapon piece - found it appeared solid and sound, then headed back into the dungeon to see what Hidia could do!

Once inside the gaping maws of Vunvan once more, teeray encountered a Zoumi and used Hidia to push the Zoumi into a corner. The monster was quickly overpowered. It seemed to teeray that this Zoumi was of smaller stature than usual, but there was no delay after the defeat to ponder upon this tidbit for long.

After two more battles with Lugdul creatures, teeray reached level 9 and, newly strengthened, battled through a string of monsters, including Gnash - before running up against something even Hidia couldn't cope with!

Perhaps the battle successes made teeray too smug and bold... maybe teeray started relying too heavily upon the value of Hidia... It may be that teeray just marched on through too quickly, feeling the adrenaline rush that comes with constant physical effort, forgetting to rest - thus becoming actually weaker while feeling only adrenaline mock-strength. Probably a combination of all of these things brought teeray into dungeon crawling DISASTER!!!

After having fought a string of Zoumi among the Gnash and Machole, teeray suddenly came up against another Zoumi that was seriously mistaken for an ordinary foe!

This Zoumi, however, was powerful right from the onset of teeray meeting up with it and it was also entirely PEEVED - ticked right off (might it have been watching teeray slay other Zoumi in the tunnels the whole day prior to teeray meeting up with it?). In any case, the Zoumi launched an immediate attack in an enraged state, taking teeray by total surprise!

(See the little red smiley guy - well he's NOT SMILING!!! It's the fear/rage indicator avatar... this one means BIG TROUBLE for teeray)

To telegraph what happened... teeray lost a life on May 3. No, not a life lost to this Zoumi but I am detailing this here because it was the Zoumi who exacted irreparable damage that couldn't be coped with over the next few hours in the Vunvan dungeon...

Barely able to fend off and defeat this enraged Zoumi, teeray tried to restore energy but came across healing potion DUDS! (Potions that didn't work to heal when consumed). As well, in battling the enraged Zoumi, teeray's sword BROKE, and although Hidia posed as a good, solid dagger - which eventually did send the Zoumi back to its maker, Hidia took too long to do the job, so teeray received a number of damaging strikes from the Zoumi as it raged.

When the battle with the Zoumi was finished, monsters seemed to come out of the walls... In quick succession, another Zoumi, then a Gnash and a Machole attacked teeray. Finally, a Lugdul appeared, and did untold damage!

 (**Note: The Lugdul is only "Injured" slightly at the point of teeray's expiration and Lugdul took teeray out with a punch to the head.... Great! Not!)

Defeat and death put teeray back at the mouth of the dungeon with 2 lives instead of three and no wounds, but teeray decided not to stay in the dungeon at all. It was time to go get some working healing potions, repair a broken sword and rest a bit before any more monster battles. Off to the SHOPS!

When teeray returned to Vunvan a few hours later, feeling refreshed and strong again, it was with a more objective and less cocky attitude toward the monsters in the dungeons. Luckily enough, there were only three monsters left in the dungeon and teeray sought out the injured Ludgul to battle FIRST, feeling it was a priority to rid the dungeon of the monster that caused death! After this, only a Zoumi and a very small Lugdul remained and teeray quickly defeated both, then finished up by finding two small caches of gold.

In total, teeray gained two levels to end up at level 10, tho' with the death event, teeray does not recall the points of adventure when the level ups occured. As far as booty - 6 treasure chests containing gold pieces were discovered in Vunvan and the most precious treasure teeray came out of the dungeon with was a new respect for the monsters that lurk in the darkness.