Let's Play Cavequest, part 6: Today's comic reveals my deficiencies as both an artist and a humourist.

Here we are again. It's been a while, hasn't it? I've made my way back to the rat that's been killing me so successfully of late. Here's the plan: I'll talk to it to charm it into submission, then hit it, then immediately talk it down, and repeat until it's dead. Let's watch:



And the plan works very slowly perfectly! Unfortunately, I was so pleased with my success that I neglected to take care of the second rat in the room.

I took a shot at adding subtitles of my button presses to that .gif so it'd be clear what I was doing. It went very slowly well, but in the process I converted the video to a format that my .gif-making program wasn't able to read, at which point I decided I couldn't be bothered. Sorry gang! Please accept this by way of apology:



Well, what a mess. I choose to continue and make my way back to the room:



Aww yuss! Rather than talking between each hit, this time I just mash S to attack until the rat dies, then talk the second one down and slaughter it too.



I collect the treasure (a cool 10 gold) and check for secret doors (there aren't any).



In the next room I come close to slipping up: against the first rat I don't hit the button fast enough, and it gets a swing in. Luckily it misses.



I score 50 gold in room 13. I check for doors again, and again find no doors. In fact, I'll be checking every room I come to for doors. I'll let you know when I find some. I head across the hall to check out the right side branch. I waste time talking to the bat in room 43. It's no threat to me, but if I wait to see what enemy is in the room before I start talking there's a chance it'll appear on top of me and I'll die before I can act. The treasure is 10 coppers. Pocket change compared to what the rats had.



Nothing too exciting to note in these rooms. The top right had four leeches in it and 50 coppers, the bottom right no enemies and a silver, and the lower left three skeletons and no treasure. The treasure in the hallway was 100 coppers.



I again struggle to get the door open, having learned nothing from the last one. Eventually I make it.



Room 5 appears completely sealed when I enter, with no enemies or treasure to be seen. With my magic hat, I'm able to reveal secret doors in three of the four walls. With no door at the end, I'm guessing that I'll be done with level 2 soon, unless the level layout breaks with what it's been so far and the side branches go on a ways (spoiler: they don't). There are five skeletons in room 9. I was going to say that I don't see the point of putting skeletons this far into the cave, since anyone who wasn't able to completely ignore their attacks wouldn't be able to make it this far into the cave, but looking back I guess you only face skeletons and bats if you take a direct route to this room*.



That's more like it! Rats'n'gold!



I kill a leech and a bat and pick up 150 silvers and a gold. No hidden rooms so far.



More bugs in the next room. Boring! But there's also a hidden door! Enemies will attack you if you take treasure after talking to them. I was curious to see if they'd let me open a door. If I ever walk through a secret door into a room full of zombies and need to make a getaway, it's good to know that I can chat them up and make my escape.



Another bat and a silver, and I'm done with the left side. On to the right!



One rat and one thousand silvers. Score!



One rat and one hundred coppers. No score.



A whole mess of bats and some coppers, a couple leeches and some silvers, a single skeleton and a silver, and I'm done with level 2. Hooray!



All that's left is to clean out the first part of the level again.



With my kill and treasure count doubled and nothing left to kill or take, I make my exit.



I save and exit. Next time: Level 3!


*I decided to try this out for myself, and thus the adventures of Brains:



I made him smart so I could get through the secret doors, and gave him high stamina so I wouldn't get too tired.



Unfortunately I wasn't left with enough money to buy anything. I'll be heading in naked, armed only with a (magicated) stick.



Here we are again. First room goes well. Now, if I recall, room 2 has a skeleton in it. Should be easy!



Huh. I guess with no strength and only a stick I'm either doing no damage at all or so little that 20 hits aren't enough to kill the weakest enemy in the game. I guess Brains wasn't so smart after all.