Game:

Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos (1993)

Duration: 9:18

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With our new items collected, I head out of the clerk’s area and head back into the main floor. There are still a few rooms left we need to explore, and I start heading towards one of them but we get attacked by a Trez. I briefly stop to engage the flying crab, and while we win the fight Michael takes a lot of damage—his health actually gets knocked into the yellow range. I rest our way back to health, then enter an unexplored room. It was apparently a tool inventory room, and all we find is a lockpick on the floor. We already have a lockpick, so there’s nothing in here that’s really of use to us. That’s disappointing, but it’s still one less room to explore. Heading out, we clash with another two Trez, then head into another office. There are two desks in here, but when I check the drawers we once again end up with no new items. Heading out, I enter the last unexplored office and encounter a Trez inside. After defeating him and a second one that attacks us from behind, I enter this office and finally get some items. A filing cabinet contains a Swarm and an Oil Flask, while a desk drawer contains a second Oil Flask.

With that, the lobby is now fully explored and it’s time to head into the mines themselves. I head to the only door that hasn’t been opened yet, briefly read the sign next to it—it warns us to wear our helmets—and head down a staircase to the Mine Level 1 map. We’re now surrounded by rock and our lantern seems a bit dim, so I use an Oil Flask to brighten it. There’s also a distinct “bouncing” noise in the background; that’s one of the enemy types here. The coast is clear for now, though, so we can simply begin exploring. We have to decide whether to turn to the left or right, and I decide to turn left. We make our way through the path, and finally find the bouncing enemy. It’s one of the Metal Scavengers, a frog-like creature with acid saliva. Its attacks have the ability to destroy metal weapons and armor, hence its name, but fortunately they can usually be killed before that happens. We quickly dispatch this one and continue exploring, eventually reaching a dead end where we find a note. Someone named “Geof” has written to “Orin” warning of living rocks. That’s actually a key clue—the living rocks that Geof is talking about are in fact the “creature whose flesh has never lived” that we need for the Elixir. We’re very close to getting our third ingredient. Turning around, I head down an unexplored path that eventually dead-ends as well. We’ll need to make our way back to where we entered and go to the right this time.

As I turn around, there’s a distinct “chittering” noise in the background. It’s a telltale sign of the second enemy type in this area, and we soon encounter these creatures. Gimlets are small cavemen who aren’t very durable but carry poison daggers, so we’ll have to be ready to use Heal on Baccata if he gets poisoned. (Michael’s immunity to poison thanks to his ring is very useful here, as in many other places throughout the game.) As it happens, there are two Gimlets confronting us, and as we dispatch one of them Baccata is indeed poisoned by the other. I have Michael cast Heal 3 on Baccata to eliminate the poison, and then we resume backtracking. Soon enough we reach the end of the path, where we find a locked door with a keyhole that’s unlocked by the Silver Key we found upstairs. I decide to briefly rest; we’re interrupted by two Gimlets and Baccata gets poisoned again, but we dispatch our foes. I heal Baccata before resting to full health and mana, then unlock the door. We go inside and head down a long corridor, defeating another Metal Scavenger and passing two wheel-like switches before reaching a dead end. Each of those switches can be set to the “up” or “down” position; right now they’re both set at down, which does nothing. When they’re set at opposite positions, though, a teleporter appears at the dead end, allowing us to go various areas in the mine. That’ll be important later, but for now we don’t need the teleporter. I push a button in the wall to open a pit, and jump down to the second floor. We land in a small area, but there’s another pit and I jump through that to land on Level 3. This is where we’ll start our first major tour of the mines.

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