Let's Play Cavequest, part 11: Let's Finish Cavequest.

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?

SCROLL.OLD
The Antman be one of the swiftest monsters in the cave, his
legs, traveling in perfect motion maneuver him on top of you
unless you react quickly! They often wander through the
caves and seem to come out of nowhere.

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.

SCROLL.OLD
The Zombie be the swiftest creature in the caves. He be
human, like you and me, but brought back from the dead. As
he be already dead, you must chop, fry, beat and pulverize
him before he will stop his relentless attack.

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 relentless 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 fighting 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:

SCROLL.OLD
The Giant Squid be slightly slower than an Antman, but his
crushing grip will make the heartiest traveler look like
jello soup.

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!





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