From
TES issue 12 (November 2001)
Series 8.
Level 1/2/3.
REACH FOR RUNES
One of the many new aspects of the final series was the
reach wand, presented to the
dungeoneer at the start of the quest. Sometimes it was used for opening
trapdoors and freeing sorceresses, but its main function was to clear runes off blocked-off doorways. Often on level one, and occasionally on levels two and three, an exit would be blocked with six rune slabs, containing simple line patterns. One slab had one line, another two lines, another three, another four, another five, and the other six. The advisors had to guide the dungeoneer's hand as it moved the reach wand to shoot at the runes and
dispel them in the right order, causing the portcullis behind to rattle up, leaving the exit clear.
To start with, the right order was simply 1-6 in order. Earlier
teams had to work this out for themselves, but this did not appear to be a problem.
Lissard had apparently designed this puzzle. During Mike's quest,
Lord Fear told Lissard to change the combination. It became all the even values going down followed by all the odd values going up. (6,4,2,1,3,5.) The later dungeoneers, Rebecca and Dunston, had to earn this information from characters.
Stiletta told it to Dunston [
Team 6 of Series 8], while the main focus of Rebecca's level one was to find the correct combination. Lord Fear
disguised himself as
Brother Strange and gave her the wrong code. Brother Strange himself gave her the right code. Fortunately, they chose to trust the right one. The only dungeoneer who was denied exit from a rune lock was Richard III [
Team 1 of Series 8], the first dungeoneer of the series. It was on the trapdoor at the end of level one, but the team had no idea how to attempt it, or even to use the wand, as they had failed to earn that information from Stiletta earlier on.
Bhal-Shebah promptly arrived and toasted Richard. I would not blame his death on this particular puzzle, though, as the team had completely bungled level one by ignoring the information on the
scroll. Hmm, that sounds like a good candidate for a future
Classic Quest...
Difficulty: 4 An approaching
troll or dragon could be a distraction.
Killer Instinct: 3 Just one of the many contributors to Richard's death.
Gore Factor: 8 Being fried by a fireball is fairly spectacular.
Fairness: 10 Richard was doomed anyway.
