PixlBit

 I was going to stop after Floor 1, but it was so much fun, I kept going to see how far I could get with Team Predator. My friend Mark got interested in Wizardry too and fired up his Yobo NES console and played a Star Trek themed team. He grabbed several super powerful Blade Cuisinarts and over a million in gold from his previous teams to fuel his play. I was playing pure and didn't use anything from old teams.

First I had to beat Murphy's Ghost on Floor 1 to feel like I had truely mastered it. Murphy's Ghost is impervious to spells so you just have to grind it out. It didn't take too long with half my party being level 5 and the other half level 6. 

Then I explored Floor 2 successfully. Floor 2 is notable for introducing poison into the equation. Many creatures there poison and some even paralyze. I didn't have the spell Latumofis yet to negate poison, but I did have Dialko to negate paralyzation. With the purchase of a bunch of Neutralizing potions, I was able to explore Floor 2 and not die.

Then I briefly went to Floor 3 where a Gas Bomb exploded from a chest trap and poisoned four party memebers. Luckily those Neutralizing Potions fixed it, but I raced back to the castle to get more of them.

Then I got the last item, the gold key, on Floor 2 locked behind a door that required one party member to have high strength, probably 18.  Two more party members were poisoned by Slimes and I solved it with potions.

On the second trip to Floor 3, where you can get lost very easily, three party members were slept by Level 3 Samurai. I started using silence spell Montino to counteract this. Then Blain The Fighter was poisoned by a Bear - not a problem. Then I got lost, even though I have a map, and had to use grid location spell Dumapic to get my bearings. I got back ok, but shaken.

I realized by looking at the map of Floor 4 that you have to get a Blue Ribbon item there in order to use the elevator for Floors 5-9. To get the Blue Ribbon though, you have to use the elevator for Floors 1-4. There are separate rooms attatched to these elevators that don't connect to the rest of the floor. 

On Floor 3, on the way to Floor 4, Mac and Dutch were paralyzed and poisoned by Bears. Then Hawking, Dillan and Blain were paralyzed by Rotting Corpses. Only Billy The Wizard was left. He ran from the encounter and miraculously escaped. Back at the castle, Billy had to pay all the team had, 800 Gold, to heal Mac The Cleric who then healed everyone else with his anti-paralysis spell Dialko. I dodged a bullet there - a frequent experience in Wizardry.

Disregarding the danger, I spent some time on Floor 4. My characters were level 7 and 8 and seemed to be doing ok. I wouldn't stay there long though and returned to regain spells by sleeping in the Inn frequently.

Then I took the elevator down to explore those areas of Floor 4 that hid the needed Blue Ribbon and accidently chose Mac The Cleric to inspect a chest which triggered a trap that teleported the party to someplace unknown. I used Dumapic to find where we were. It was just another part of Floor 4. This section of the Floor however had many small rooms to go through to get back to the stairs to Floor 3 (I was cut off from the elevator in this part of the Floor). Opening doors usually triggers an encounter in Wizardry, so this was going to be tricky. I studied the map for the shortest route out of the area to minimize number of encounters for my party. Somehow I made a wrong turn and couldn't find the exit. Then a big encounter happened. 

We faced 3 Clerics, 2 Dragons, and 3 Flies. I know that Dragons and Flies both breathe, causing damage to the whole group, which is bad. So I had my first two fighters attack the Flies, then I had Mac The Cleric silence the enemy Clerics, and my two wizards sleep the Dragons and Clerics. Unfortunately the enemy Clerics got their silencing spell off first and silenced all but Billy The Wizard - this guy must have high luck. We just barely survived the first wave of breath attacks with several characters now at HP 1 and 3. With all but Billy silenced, I decided my only chance was to run. It didn't work and the second round of breath attacks killed everyone but Blain The Fighter, leader of the group. 

I had Blain run again and I escaped but another encounter started up right away. This was 2 Clerics and 4 Gas Dragons.  I ran again and got away.

I tried to figure out what I did wrong in the maze of rooms and tried to get to the stairs, but I was hopeless lost and had no Dumapic spell to give me new coordinates. Eventually I had another encounter, this time with 4 Boring Beetles. These guys don't breathe or anything but they take a lot of damage and do a lot of damage when they hit. I tried to run and was killed. The next screen was the graveyard screen.

               

I looked at the 11 characters in the Training Grounds I'd rolled up and saw: 6 Lost, 4 Dead, and 1 alive but Paralyzed - that one was Anna. Funny she should be the only one alive but still unable to do anything. If this Wizardry adventure was translated to the movie Predator [SPOILER ALERT], then the movie would've ended with Dutch dying from the nuclear blast and the chopper crashing, killing The General, the pilot, and leaving Anna paralyzed in a hospital with, perhaps, just the ability to speak and tell someone the whole story of what happened in the jungle. That's a much less heroic ending then the original one, but that's what Wizardry does for ya.

It just goes to show that even a slight mistake can mean doom for a party in Wizardry. If I hadn't accidently chosen Mac The Cleric to inspect that chest, none of this would've happened.