Haven of monsters, treasure, and the unknown, the old Mines are usually
made up of rooms and corridors. As a character walks through a door
into a new room (or ‘territory’), they will often encounter a group of
monsters - unless you or somebody else has recently been through and has
already killed them. The dungeon will repopulate over time, so
a room that was empty on the way down might have monsters in it on your
way back up...
Click on Picture for Larger Image
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In the above picture, you can see the dungeon (looking in a room with a
door on the other end), and a few slaves.
The numbers in the top left corner that read ‘17,3,3 W [1]’ show
the character’s current location (x,y,level), direction, and the number
of characters in the room (in brackets). If there are ever dead characters
in the room, a number will appear (representing the number of dead characters
in the room) with a ‘+’ in front of it in the same location (e.g. [1+1]).
If you ever stumble over a dead body and don’t know who it is, simply use
the ‘area look’ command (see Commands for
more information). If your character (or party) ever becomes lost,
you may lose the x,y,lev and direction information until your character
(or party) finds out where they are.
Resizing the Dungeon
Window
You can resize the dungeon window by either double-clicking on the main
dungeon viewport, or clicking on the small red arrows that are located to the
upper left of the dungeon window (for wide view), and then on the arrows located
to the lower right of the dungeon window (for full screen view).
Moving
around the Dungeon
Use the arrow keys or your numeric pad (Num Lock off) to move around the dungeon.
Hold down the Shift button to make the normal (non-shift) turns plus
a step forward. You can also look around the room you are in by
holding down the ALT key and hitting up, down, left or right, or by holding
down the right mouse button (while in the dungeon window) and moving your mouse.
This will allow you to examine walls and objects better. To center
your view, hit ‘5’ on your numeric keypad (or release the mouse button).
You can also move up
and down (provided that your character is flying and there is no floor
or ceiling) by using the ‘+’ and ‘-’ keys on your numeric pad.
For an overview of Game and Dungeon Commands, please see Commands
at the end of this Online Information System.
Knowing
the Dungeon
There are several neat features and nasty traps that you can encounter
in the dungeon. Below is a known list of them:
Stairs
Go either up or down (surprise!). To walk up stairs, simply walk
up them in the appropriate direction. Be aware that the deeper you
go, the tougher the monsters.
Teleporter
These can either take you to a specific place (only way to find out
is to take them more than once) on the same level or on another level;
or they can take you to a random place on the same level. Unlike
the teleport spell, teleporters will not cause you to land in rock.
If a party of characters runs into a random teleporter, each character
in the party will be teleported to a different location on the same level.
Pits
You will take hits if you fall into them. Pits become more dangerous
as you go deeper into the dungeon. Levitation will allow you to hover
over a pit, although levitation has a small chance of failing.
Fog/Darkness
Prevents you from seeing the maze. You must ‘feel’ your way around.
Sometimes the Fog/Darkness will be so thick that it might be hard for you
to identify monsters within it. Intelligence and Wisdom help.
Rock
A square that is solid rock. The only way to enter a square that
is solid rock is with a teleport or portal spell, and if you do so, you
will die. To get out, you must be summoned out of rock by another
character with a spell.
Rotator
Will turn you in a random direction and cause you to become disoriented,
and sometimes lost as well.
Water & Underwater
General Water is harmless, and sometimes even fun to splash around
in, however, you must be careful that you do not fall into deep water,
or get stuck underwater. Once your character goes underwater, a breathing
timer will be activated and will change from blue (ok) to red (drowning)
quickly or slowly depending on how long you can hold your breath
underwater (spells can affect this). Once you start drowning, if
you don’t get out of the water, you’re fish bait. For more information
on races and their breathing abilities, see Race Statistics.
Anti-Magic
Will not allow the character to cast spells. Other spells already
cast (e.g. Resist Magic) will stay intact.
Quicksand
This stuff is bad news. You take hits and can lose items if you
are not levitating.
Extinguish
These squares will have the same effect as Anti-Magic and will take
away any spells cast on your character (e.g. Resist Magic).
Stud
In general, these squares will contain tougher monsters, usually from
one level deeper than the current level.
Anti-Teleport
Some areas of the dungeon will not allow the casting of teleport or
portal spells. These areas also cannot be entered by any type of
teleportation or portal magic.
Lava
It has been heard that half-molten rock exists in the depths below.
It is assumed that very few can survive this hot liquid if they are not
levitating – and even then, the heat and gases can be deadly. If
a character drops an item into this deadly liquid, it will be lost forever...
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There are also some squares that are a combination of the squares that
were previously described.
Listening
to your surroundings
If you are playing Ascension with sound effects on,
you will be able to hear creatures all around you while in the dungeon
(in single-player mode, at least).
If it’s quiet, you know that you did a great job cleaning house!
These sounds can quite often serve as both an invitation (maybe if you
hear a monster that you recognize and they carry lots of gold) or a warning
(you could be dying and hear a nasty monster in the room ahead of you).
Quite often, a single character, or party of characters, can stand in front
of a door and listen for what’s on the other side! As you learn more
about the world of Ascension, you will be able to recognize the sounds that
monsters make.
Keep your
eyes open
While wandering the depths, you may enter rooms that are unique –
written in the corner of a small room could be the words which help you
solve a quest, or sitting in the middle of a corridor could be an item
that you’ve been looking for. Be sure to explore all of the squares
of each level – if you don’t, you just might miss something!
Note that a character’s sight combined with any brightness spells can
mean the difference between life and death. For example, Humans have
poor eyesight in the darkness, while Trolls and Saris have the best eyesight
in the game. If you are running a party of characters that have poor
eyesight, it’s recommended that you cast the proper lighting spells to
help them out! Remember that it’s easy to fall into a hole that drops
you to your death!
Always be careful when you find an item lying around if you can’t identify
it – if it’s cursed and you pick it up, it may become attached to you!
On the other hand, items that are lying around one trip may be gone by
the next...
It’s a good idea to use the Annotations feature of the Automap to mark
special areas in the dungeon. For more information, see the Automap
section.
Additional
things to remember
Some rooms will quite often contain tougher or easier monsters (relative to surrounding rooms).
Learn to recognize these rooms; your character’s life may depend on it.
Characters with a high perception ability are usually able to detect
a difference in the maze when walking around. If the character is
high enough level and has a good enough perception ability, they may even
be able to completely identify the area they are in.
Rumor also has it that secret doors exist within the dungeon.
One can check a wall for a secret door by attempting to pass through it.
If a secret door is there, the character will be allowed through the wall.
In general, the dungeon becomes nastier as you go deeper. If you
get teleported and can’t find where you are, remain cool, and cautiously
adventure until you find yourself and the AutoMap kicks back in.
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