Lands of Lore Part 53: So Many Manthas

With the third figurine safely in our inventory, I head back into the hallway and continue moving forward. We soon find a side corridor with spikes in the floor blocking the way-these spikes are impassable, and trying to go over them inflicts damage on the party. I briefly demonstrate this, then continue down the path open to us. From there we come to a fork in the road; we can go either west or south. I go south at first, which leads to a door that I open. On the other side is a large but empty room, so I backtrack and head down the western path. That path ultimately leads to a row of three doors all arranged next to each other, each of which leads into a different large room. These three rooms each have a door on the opposite wall, but notably only the easternmost room actually allows us to go through said door-the inner doors for the other two rooms don’t have any switches for opening them. After exploring the two western rooms, I head into the eastern room and make sure to close the door behind us. We’ll be using this room as a haven very soon, and I don’t want any enemies coming in behind us. From there, I open the inner door and step out into the corridor on the other side.
This corridor has Manthas. A lot of Manthas. There are so many of them it’s easy to get overwhelmed if the player’s not ready for them, especially on Ferocious. As such, it’s now time to show off why I went to the trouble of buying so many Fireball Wands earlier. I turn to face a gang of Manthas advancing towards us-there are around three or four of them-grab a Fireball Wand, and start blasting them. We succeed in wiping out the creatures, but Michael does take a hit. Resting out in the open is the last thing I want to do, so I head back into our room, close the door, and rest our way to health. Since both doors are shut, it’s safe ground and we need not worry about being attacked. Once we’re back to full health, I head out and defeat another batch of Manthas approaching, then head west down the corridor. There are three doors here, one of which requires a key we don’t have yet to open (it’s actually the route to Floor 3), while the other two lead to the two western rooms from earlier. Those doors we couldn’t open earlier can be opened with snake-tongue switches on this side, so I open them and show them off. The path dead-ends on this side, so I turn around and continue forward. It’s a challenge, though, as Manthas block the way. We successfully Fireball a lone Mantha without trouble, but later we find ourselves being attacked on two sides. Baccata gets KO’ed and Michael gets stunned, putting us in a bad spot, but fortunately the Fireball Wands still work even when the character using them is stunned. I retreat to our room to heal, then head back out.
After passing a door that requires a key to open, we come to what looks like a dead end, but pressing a snake-tongue switch causes a wall to disappear so we can continue on. We then come to two doors facing each other, with a unique twist-pressing the switch for one opens the other! I open both doors and head through the northern one first. A switch inside causes a wall to disappear, and another switch further down reveals a niche containing the Adder Key. I put it in our inventory and move to the southern door we opened earlier; an inner door we open lets us continue forward. After checking out two large but empty rooms, we have a run-in with some Manthas. Baccata’s almost KO’ed, so I retreat back to one of those rooms to heal. Heading back out, we come to a fork in the road, and I head north. We defeat a Death Disk and explore two more large but empty rooms, then backtrack to the fork and go first west (to a dead end) and then south. There are a LOT of Manthas we encounter near the end of this path, and it takes plenty of Fireball Wand uses to clear them all out. The sheer number of wand uses does have a pleasant benefit, though, as Michael ends up gaining a magic level. We ultimately come to a large room at the end of this path, and I close the door behind us to rest.