Avernum 3-12: An even Worse Dungeon

So I thought the Vahnatai dungeon was bad? I thought that was bad? That was just a problem of getting in. 

I had not yet entered the Golem Factory. I nearly quit the game. It's easy to get into the Golem Factory. It's getting by the constantly spawning golems (yes, you can avoid them, sometimes), the energy beams, and just figuring out how to get around that is enough to destroy your brain.

Then there's that little problem of those four unpassable beams down in the basement. You have to get through those to get into the final battle.

Yeah. Just try to get past these. Just try.

You have two mirrors. As it turns out, you don't need either one of 'em, but they're nicely distracting. You cannot deflect the beams with only two mirrors.

What you have to do is to get to the control panel on the second floor and somehow figure out a way to turn them off. I knew that had to be the answer, because otherwise the puzzle would be actually impossible, and I knew that wasn't the case. So, turning off the power would have to be the solution.

The control panel. Hah.

And if you thought the first floor of the factory was tough--there are blue beams that turn on and off there, but it's pretty easy to avoid them, loot the place, and get upstairs.

Getting to that corner area is not entertaining. You cannot avoid too many of the constantly spawning golems, and you have to use abundant energy and resources to fight 'em every time they pop up. And then, you have to figure out how to navigate through the area just to find the control panel (there is a sign that says it's in the southeast corner). Yeah. Just try getting there. It took me literally hours.

Once there, you're basically guessing about which of the buttons to push. There area clues, alpha and beta, and one found early on that I was unable to interpret.

Good luck choosing. Which ones? How many?

Turns out that there is no clue as to which ones to pick. After moaning on the Spiderweb Forum, I finally looked earlier in the forum thread and found the answer. But first, I followed the original hint book for Avernum 3, and that didn't work. I made my choices based on that, managed finally to get down to the basement again and the four beams were STILL there.

It was only that Forum solution that got me through it. Yes, the final battle was fairly challenging, but I got through it.

Use your potions.

You have to use mirrors, but it's fairly straightforward. Naturally, golems and other monsters appear and fight you. I managed to get most of my party way back to safety, and left Aldous, with a nice invulnerability elixir and speed potion, to do the fight.

And THEN, even when you've beaten the thing, you STILL have to fight even more golems to get out of the place.

There is one bonus: the loot is around 10,000 coins. I had some spells to buy, so that helped.

But I have gone back to Upper Avernum, found out who's creating the monster plagues on the surface, gone to the Tower of Magi to get some nice spells, and am ready to return to the surface to fight the alien beasts, my final plague. I've already got the weapon for that (rather like Smite for the giants). The nice thing about that is there's a fair portion of the map where I haven't been yet, so that will be fun.

But this Golem Factory nearly ruined what had been a truly fun game for me. Not fun. Not fun at all.

Next Entry.