Deathlord: Akmihr

Last post I finished up the dungeons in Chigaku and didn't have a firm destination in mind. Figuring that I should explore the "known" continents first, I decided to head south, to the continent of Akmihr:

Akmihr is in a "arid biome" strip of the southern half of the Lorn map, and the most desert-like continent in the game. Instead of trees there are cacti, which are like swamps in that they deal 1HP of damage for every turn you spend in them. There are two towns and a palace here. The first one I went into is the Oasis, the town on the northeast peninsula:

The Oasis has it all--a healer, a food shop, both weapons and armor for sale, and a trainer. If I get stuck in any of Akmihr's dungeons, I won't have to sail back to Kodan the way I did in Chigaku. A minor note is that this continent has a fantasy-Arabian flavor to it and a lot of the character sprites reflect that. There isn't much in the way of notable features--an "evil temple" with a couple of skeletons, a few random hostile groups behind doors, but that's it.

There's really only one hint of note in the Oasis, though it is important:

The mines are near the center of the continent, though easy to miss.

The second town, Desert Flower, is also on the east side of the continent, but more to the south than Oasis:

Desert Flower is sparse in the way of amenities--it's got a third-rate weapon and armor shop, a grocery, and a trainer. But it's got some great hints, especially in the Sorcerer's Guild in the southeast part of town. The head of the Sorcerer's guild there told me that the five "relics" I'll need are the lantern, rod, ring, spear, and tooth--I guess the crystal doesn't count. The lesser sorcerers there also tell you the location of four of the six plot items. Two of them I already knew about--the spear and the crystal--but I also learned that the Tooth is in a demon-filled town called Malkanth and another as-yet unnamed item is in the Sultan's Palace.

Of note in Desert Flower is the Temple of Allham in the northwest corner. The priests there are tough as nails, and walk through the flames there as if they're nothing. There isn't really any purpose to this temple, though, and breaking into the priests' chambers isn't necessarily a great idea...

Sorry...

The priests will attack you, and since they get first strike, they can wipe your party if there are enough of them--hostile Shisai tend to cast MOTU and if your entire party is paralyzed, you die. But as hostile town encounters go they're not nearly as bad as, say, the Beholders in North Spindrift.

Now that I knew there's a major quest item close at hand in the Sultan's palace, I decided to go there next. Though first I looked at that sign outdoors beyond the cacti:

This is a reference to the Deathlord's island, which will appear as empty ocean unless you have a special item.

Cryptic, and kind of not worth it to be honest. On to the palace:

The sultan is the ruler of all Akhmir and is a pretty hospitable guy, though he told me nothing of interest. There's a lot of interesting things to find here though. Early in my exploration of the palace I broke into the jail, and the guards were not happy:

Oops.

However my party was at the point now that they could take on guards without that much difficulty. Starting something in a town and making all the guards in the area hostile at once would still be hazardous to the party's health, but isolated guard groups weren't that much of a threat. I did get lucky in the above fight as it's quite possible for guards in a group to number in the teens.

Two of the three prisoners in the jail cells attacked when I freed them, but the third, the tomb robber in the above screenshot, told me to "search the garden." The garden is in the southeast wing of the palace, so I went there and dutifully searched, which led me to a Mahotsukai that gave me the following hint:

The rod is the relic that's in this palace

Asking further, the Mahotsukai told me that the Emerald Rod grants immunity to Acid. It's actually one of the most useful of the relics as it provides unlimited SANTATE spells, and is also the best weapon that a Shizen or Shisai can equip. He wouldn't tell me which tower it was in, just that the palace had four of them. So, it's off to check them all:

The first tower was completely empty...

No secret doors or anything.

The second tower had a hint but no item...

I'm guessing this means "enter from the east."

The third tower was the Sultan's treasure chamber, with two very pissed-off guard groups I had to kill:

The chamber itself is remarkably poor--only about 2000 GP for the whole thing

So by process of elimination, the rod had to be in the southeast tower, but there was no visible way in there. Cue the Deathlord practice of searching every single wall over and over until you find a secret door. I did find one, which led to a long hallway ending in a "DO NOT ENTER" sign.

Oh, bugger.

I had found the Emerald Rod all right, I just had no way to get to it. It might have been possible for me to sequence break and get to the rod by casting an UGOKU spell, but the chances of it landing me in a tile that would actually get me access to it were so small I didn't even try it. I'll have to come back later once I have a way to get past those magic walls.

Though I couldn't get it yet, at least I knew where the Rod was. In the meantime I decided to go check out the mines I was told had a Word in them. The mines are a little tricky to find on the C64 version because they blend in with the scenery.

On the Apple 2, version, there's a big white hill with an entrance--it sticks out more

Immediately upon entering the dwarfkobito mines I got assaulted by two groups of Kobito. This is the theme of the dungeon: many, many Kobito fights. Kobito aren't particularly difficult, especially for a level 10+ party, but there are a lot of them and the spawn rate is on par with the Yakuza guild back in Kawa.

The Kobito mines start with a large entrance hall full of diminutive enemies and a sign:

*groan*

After leaving the main chamber, I was almost immediately dumped down a chute to level 3:

That's another feature of the Kobito mines--chutes, and lots of them. Your ultimate goal is to get to the bottom so the chutes will help--the biggest challenge in this dungeon is getting back out. Because the enemy spawn rate prevents you from relying on resting, you have to get down and back up in one go without much of a break.

Fortunately the pit I fell down dumped me right at the foot of the central staircase for this dungeon, so I was able to go back up to the first floor quickly.

Pretty obvious there must be a secret door here...

I then explored and looted what little treasure was on the top floor. I got dropped down to level 3 a few more times (all of the chutes on level 1 lead to chutes on level 2) but level 3 of the mines is open and navigable enough that it's easy to get back up. Then it was on to see what's on level 2:

Level 2 also has plenty of chutes and I found myself getting dropped back down to level 3 a lot here as well. Though it becomes quickly apparent that there's a pattern to the chutes in general--they tend to be in wide-open areas on level 2 and at intersections on level 1. By staying close to the walls I was able to explore the level. I found some "good" pools here (neither did anything--I think Shuten's staying a woman) as well.

One Kobito party moved through one of the northern walls, giving away the treasure chamber on this floor and saving me from the "look at the maps for things you've missed after exploring each level" thing I've been doing. Not all the pots in that chamber have anything in them, but those that do are something else:

By the time I left this chamber all of my characters but one had 10,000 gold.

After looting the chamber I made it back to the main staircase after only about a dozen fights, but it was enough to get the party over the top to gain another level. At this point levels were starting to come more slowly, with 800 EXP needed to gain a new one. That might not sound like much but even the strongest monsters only give about 5 or 6 EXP so it takes quite a while. It's especially hard on the rear ranks, which accrue experience more slowly due to the way that Deathlord divides EXP rewards. The party was getting worn down anyhow so I headed back to Oasis for healing and training.

Incidentally the party was now at level 14 so I got some brand new, Level 5 spells to play with:

Shigeko:
HINAGU: Basically a weaker HITAMA for the Shisai. "Hi" is "fire", but I'm not sure what "Nagu" is supposed to be. Maybe "throw" (though Nagu is a classical, not modern Japanese pronunciation) or "cut down."
INOCHI: A raise-dead spell. Never cast it since it only restores 1HP and drains a point of CON from the target.
HONASU: An even bigger heal--there's no reason to cast MONASU any more once you have this.

Gio:
HIKABE: Also a weak HITAMA for a Shizen. Derives from "Hi" (fire) and "Kabe" (wall)
DRUNASU: MONASU for Shizen. Dru probably derives from "Druid."
JISHIN: A mass-damage spell that I think can occasionally outright kill enemies regardless of HP. Japanese for "Earthquake."

Tomoe:
DOKUMO: An all-or-nothing mass-death spell. Derives from "Doku" (poison) and "Kumo" (cloud)
KOORI: An ice mass-attack spell. Koori (pronounced "koh-ree" not "koo-ree") is Japanese for "ice."
HOHYO: Makes the party harder to hit. I have zero idea where the name of this spell comes from.

Frank:
MEIRO: A mass-paralysis spell. "Meiro" is Japanese for "Maze."
MANIGERU: Like the NIGERU spell, only it works much more often.
YUJO: This is a strange spell--it causes all hostile monsters and NPCs to ignore you temporarily, but it can only be cast in towns, limiting its use. I guess it could be useful if you anger the guards or need to avoid an especially tough fight, like the beholder in North Spindrift. Is Japanese for "Friendship."

These are nice, but the real game-changing spells won't come until I get the next set of spells. Gio and Shigeko finally having some decent offensive spells are nothing to sneeze at though.

Back to the Kobito mines and it's time to explore the fourth and final level:

The fourth level of the mines is very un-mine-like. It's more developed in general. Mapping it out there's one obvious empty space--that's the main treasure trove of the Kobito. However to get there you have to walk through a main hall of sorts filled with fire:

They just keep coming...

And in that particular hall the enemy spawn rate is completely out of control. I just got a level, and by the time I had walked through this hall I was three-quarters of the way to the next one. By my calculations that's a hair over 200 kobito dead. This one room is probably one of the fastest places to get experience in the game. It's not quite as convenient as the Yakuza guild though.
After I got into the treasure chamber, I couldn't loot it in its entirety; I was at the point where the party couldn't carry any more gold.

Then there's the matter of the Word in this dungeon. It's on this floor but not easy to find. It's at the very edge of the dungeon so it doesn't stand out as a conspicuous gap when mapping the level. It's also behind a very long hall of illusory walls:

"To Hate," the most E-J'd of the Words; the rest are nouns.

As an aside, this spot in front of the sign with the Word is probably the only safe spot to rest in this entire dungeon. It's far enough from any spawn points that Kobito won't find you.

Two words down, five to go. I left the dungeon, and after healing up (and training again, as by the time I got out I was ready to level once more) I headed to Akhamun-Ra's pyramid.

Akhamun-Ra's tomb is one of my favorite dungeons in Deathlord. It feels perfect for a king's tomb, full of traps, false passages and tricks to fool would-be looters. You don't have to come here--it's a totally optional dungeon, and the rewards aren't great--but it's still worth visiting in my opinion.

I've alluded to it earlier, but when you enter a location from the map in Deathlord, it usually makes a difference which direction you do it from--enter a town from the north and you end up on the north edge of the town map, and so forth. Most of the time it doesn't make a difference; here it does. From all four cardinal directions, the pyramid of Akhamun-Ra just looks like an empty chamber:

All four entrances look like this

The key is to enter from the east, as per the earlier hint in the tower of the Sultan's palace. In the eastern entry chamber, there's a secret door that allows you access to the crypt proper. There's also almost immediately a trapped pit, suggesting that the pyramid is full of traps and you need to search everywhere carefully.  However all the passages appear to either be dead ends or lead to chambers looters have already gotten to.

Every place with treasure has been looted completely.

However one of the looters offered a strangely helpful hint:

However, he's not sending me to any treasure...

The Chamber of Fire is in the southwest region of the pyramid. Searching the eastern-most wall revealed a hidden door. The room beyond it was empty, but it had two Mahotsukai that gave pertinent hints. One tells you that the Tooth is in Malkanth, and that Hell is invisible to anyone who does not possess it. The other tells you that the seven words that you're looking for are each used to open a gate within Hell. There were subtle hints to this effect earlier, but this is the first time it's laid out explicitly for you.

Speaking of the Chamber of Fire, there's also a secret door in the south end--this one leads to a chamber that's protected by Guardians. Guardians are tough--they hit hard and can disease your characters. Gio's MP dropped rapidly here curing disease. The chamber itself is a treasure chamber that the looters haven't found yet:

This is more like it!

The four coffins contained mummies which proceeded to rapidly disease the entire front row. One of them dropped a Golden Jingasa, which is the best piece of Light miscellaneous armor. However all of my characters capable of wearing Light armor can equip at least Medium armor, so it wasn't as great a find.

At this point my characters' MP stores were getting pretty low so I needed to rest--however, one of the quirks of Akhamun-Ra's pyramid is that you can't rest there because it's an Indoor area. Deathlord has three types of locations; Outdoor, Indoor, and Dungeon. Indoor areas are usually reserved for towns, and like towns you can't rest in them if you're on the top floor. On the other hand, monsters also don't randomly spawn in the top floor, and you can cast Shizen spells that don't work in dungeons there. The reason that Akhamun-Ra's pyramid is an Indoor area and not a Dungeon is that it's only Indoor areas that can be entered from any direction. There are a few other "dungeons" that operate in this manner, but not many.

Anyhow, to rest you either need to leave the pyramid entirely or just wait in place for a while. I opted for the latter, and once my party was healed up I started searching around the pyramid for secret passages. There were several, but not all of them led to anywhere I'd want to go. One illusory wall connected to a room with acid, coffins full of mummies, guardians, and nothing else. Another led to a closed chamber with a Rakhamon's curtain in front of it--so at a minimum you'll be reduced to 1/4 HP since you need a turn to open the door--that ended up being totally empty.

The real passageway you want is in the central chamber of the pyramid. One of the corners exposes a secret door--behind that is an illusory wall, and behind that is a long dark corridor that leads to a guarded chamber:

Now we're getting somewhere!

And beyond that guarded chamber, stairs down to the lower level of the pyramid. That lower level is much deadlier than the top level, with Guardians spawning at very high rates. While down there it's best not to cure any diseased characters and just deal with the slow HP drain until you can leave--you'll run out of MP very quickly if you keep trying to cure it over and over.

The lower level consists of a chamber with a small pond and then a corridor to the tomb of Akhamun-Ra himself, flanked by two Guardian groups. Inside the tomb itself is the tomb's main treasure hoard (which is actually kind of modest) and then a coffin containing Akhamun-Ra himself:

Like all enemies in coffins, Akhamun-Ra always strikes first.

Akhamun-Ra is a tough boss--he can cast damage spells, a mass-death spell, and his attacks can disease or kill outright. The instant-death spells and attacks aren't that bad, though--with such a range of attacks, it's less likely that Akhamun-Ra will use them. By the time he cast his mass-death spell on my party, it had already been buffed with spells and it didn't succeed in killing anyone. I managed to kill him without any deaths in the party, and he dropped a Golden Yoroi when he died, which is the best Heavy armor in the game.

The best reward from this tomb, however, came from a completely random fight with guardians on the way back out:

This is a great find.

This weapon is the main reason that I made Shuten a Kichigai. Only a Kichigai can equip it, and it strikes four times when you attack with it. Its damage is modest but with Shuten's strength bonuses, he can easily do 50+ damage per attack with a lucky roll. And he got a chance to try it out pretty quickly:

As I mentioned, the Guardian spawn rate is quite high here.

The sword already started showing its worth here--Shuten rarely missed with a strike, and it helped make quick work of the guardians here. However the party was pretty beaten up by the time I made it up to the top level, and I realized that I had spent so many MP in the battle with Akhamun-Ra that Gio only had enough MP to cure one character's disease. Fortunately Shigeko had a few MP left with which to boost the other two characters' HP, and after resting to get Gio's MP higher I just barely managed to cure everyone without anyone dying, but it was close--Shuten, the last to be cured, only had 5HP left.

It wasn't until after the fact that I had considered it, but I probably could have made things a lot easier for myself in the final chambers of the pyramid by having Frank cast the YUJO spell. In most dungeons it doesn't work, but since Akhamun-Ra's pyramid is an indoor reason it probably would have worked. With the YUJO spell, the guardians would have ignored me, and I might have even been able to get the first strike on Akhamun-Ra if he didn't immediately attack upon opening his coffin. It's something I'll have to try at some point.

Now I had pretty much seen everything there was to see in Akmihr--I'd have to come back at some point in the future once I had a Crystal in order to get that Emerald Rod though. Next post I'll travel to another continent, probably Asagata, and see what I can find there.