Crys wasn't afraid to push all-in on a bluff, when situation called for it. That's how it went in the last season of the anime: when psikirs started their forced dance march through the front lines and the news of the massive explosions reached Starfish Mansion, Crys realized immediately that his grip on the war-gangs wouldn't hold much longer and Caliph Tze would come after Revolution Movement next.
That's why he gathered everything for a final desperate attack against Caliph Tze at his imperial coronation ceremony in the heart of his power, at the Palace of the Sun in Reignland.
That final attack episode flashed in my mind when Crys told me more details about what he did during the last two days at Crumbling Shores, besides sending letters to syndicate crime lords.
“...You killed Shade of Chasm too?”
“Yes.” (Crys)
“Wow. You sure got a lot of things done. Good work.”
After we were deep enough in the dungeon that no one outside would see or hear us, I switched on the white light card on my belt. I had finally learned how to turn on the scanning light that gave out about hundred lumens. It was vastly better than running with an oil lantern or adjusting neuroware brightness settings.
Despite carrying a heavy backpack, I smiled like an idiot after we descended to the first floor and I saw the good old spotlight pillars that brought constant ambient light to these underground caverns.
For a moment, I forgot where I was and started whispering my regular livestream commentary.
“Ladies and gentlemen, type let's-a-go to the chat to start the clock. This will be a segmented tutorial live-commentated by your host Qwerty Uozewe. Tonight we'll be doing something completely different, a casual tutorial reverse-runthrough of Uwaga Dungeon for your convenience. I'll talk you through the traps to the best of my ability, for your entertainment. We're gonna start this with a safe trick to skip an instance–”
“Speedrun.” (Crys)
“...Sorry, I'll be quiet... er. So, we'll go down here, then left tunnel. There is a trap that launches a spiked log from the ceiling after the next corner, so we don't want step on the floor triggers. The deviants living in the middle floors keep setting up traps for all tunnels they don't use, and they do it generation after generation, so new generations don't always remember the traps set up by their ancestors. It's pretty much a mine field of traps down here, so follow my path closely, okay?”
“Less talking, more walking.” (Kimono)
It's okay for Crys to speak, but not me? Well, okay, let's go with minimal commentary. Focus on stamina management, we've lost our one horsepower anyway.
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When I was explorunning Uwaga Dungeon in the past, I found several shortcuts and sequence breaks that became parts of Mu-Ur speedrunners routeabulary.
It was an arduous task because it seemed like the only reason for these tunnels to exist was to make the game ten times longer than it needed to be, and only reason for the traps to exist was to surprise players with yet another lever restart: trigger a trap and die, restart and avoid trap, step into a different trap, restart and continue forever.
Casual players always complained about this needlessly complex trap labyrinth, but when you learned the cuts and tricks, the area became an enjoyable flow routine because you could keep up a good pace throughout.
We were running the dungeon out of sequence and wrong way, but I had also done it this way several times in the game because there was actually a reason to return to this place: when you got the Strangers diving gear, you could use this dungeon route to get to the underwater south dungeon as well.
“Speedrun, why do you hold the light behind your back?” (Dancer)
“Uh... no reason.”
In the game, you could skip a few frames by holding a light source behind your back while running this area. Old habits are hard to drop.
It also felt strange to use light card instead of lantern to bring light into shadowy corners and not being able to just push up gamma value. Running through endless dark tunnels was the thing I hated the most in classic gaming, so having continual light pillars from the Strangers Era in wider areas was really nice.
“Brother, smell of rotting bodies.” (Kimono)
“Yes.” (Crys)
“Crys, you don't have to say it like you're delighted about it...”
I could soon smell the rotting corpses too and held my nose. After a few turns in the tunnels, the card light illuminated a group of dead men and women impaled by iron spikes. They had stepped into a lethal trap that launched thin spikes from floors and walls by some mechanism of loaded bows or springs.
The closest collapsed corpses were completely naked. The deviants had looted everything they could rip off from them, but they had left the corpses further back alone because they couldn't easily reach them through the spikes.
Genius trap planning there, Einsteins.
“That must have hurt...” (Dancer)
“Say no more.”
“East coast colors. Ostero Nynaling's group.” (Crys)
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Oh, they really are wearing east coast colors... Yeah, these were probably Ostero's buddies from the east coast. He must have used this route. That explains why he was alone, he was the only survivor. Sucks to be him.”
“They've been dead a week at least.” (Crys)
“Yeah, maybe this really was Ostero's first time using the skeleton key. So he found the key somehow, used it to travel here with his gang, lost his gang in the dungeon, and traveled to Seitheargnagh to... I don't know, collect more meat shields for the trip back?”
“A reasonable theory.” (Crys)
“Thank you, agent Pencil. My forensics expertise also tells me they probably died from multiple trap spike stabs, but we need to take them to the lab for closer examination.”
“...Eh? Do we need to clean this to continue?” (Dancer)
“No, Dancer, I'm just making bad jokes. Poking your ribs a bit, you know. You can be more relaxed about it, we're all friend here, right?”
“Okay...” (Dancer)
When I turned my light card away from the corpses, I saw the most disappointed expression I've ever seen on Kimono's face. What? She doesn't appreciate my humor at all. I'm not that bad at jokes, am I?
“Anyway, we can route around this using a secret tunnel over there. Be careful and follow my steps, there's an old trap in the secret tunnel as well. Kimono, when we get to the next geo– ahem, next funnily shaped tunnel, there's a small lever on the right side. Shoot it with a bolt or throw a dart, it'll trigger the boulder trap and we can go around it safely.”
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After avoiding another pair of lethal traps from decades ago and going down two more levels, I stopped next to a very familiar piece of wall texture.
I oriented myself like I used to do in the game, did some some sidesteps towards a path leading to an edge and then took more steps further down.
Kimono was right behind me, impatiently waiting for me to move forward.
“Don't move too hastily, we are not going down the tunnel. We'll climb up there onto a ledge, see? Up there near the ceiling of this cavern.”
“Ledge?” (Kimono)
“Right, you can't really see it from that angle. It's kinda like the architectural illusions at Green Mountain temples. Did I tell you guys about those? Look, if you step here and–”
“...Brother.” (Kimono)
“Speedrun is our guide here, listen his advice.” (Crys)
“That's right, Kim-chan, follow my advice.”
“Don't call me that.” (Kimono)
Kimono, are you just getting cranky because you haven't slept well? No, I'm not going to ask that question aloud.
The ledge hidden in the shadows was one of the well-known cuts to a secret area. Shoutout to a fellow speedrunner KlausTeknowitch for finding this back in the early days of routing!
Kimono climbed first with her ninja skills and secured the rope for us. Crys climbed up, then me and finally Dancer. The wall texture was slippery and few pieces of rocks fell down the slope of the tunnel.
“If the noise attracts deviants, kill them on sight.” (Crys)
“Yes, brother.” (Kimono)
“Silent assassination is the right strat for this area, yes.”
We don't have to worry about deviant scouts with Kimono in the party. She can kill them silently without aggroing others and clean the path ahead.
Sorry for making noise, but I'm carrying most of your stuff too!
After a cumbersome climb to the secret path, we came to a wide tunnel and I saw the half-broken mining machine pushed against a tunnel wall. It looked like a cabriolet version of the Flat Truck with tracks instead of wheels. This old mining machine couldn't drive forwards, but reverse gear was enough to create another shortcut through a dungeon wall.
“Dancer, hold my backpack, I'm going in. Crys and Kimono, this vehicle might get loud and I can't do anything about that, but deviants can't really find their way to this area. Well, someone might get lucky and find the ledge, but you'll deal with it, right?”
“Sure.” (Crys)
I hopped in the machine. There was another mess of controls, but thankfully I wasn't in a rush this time. I had time to think and try out the controls.
While I was trying to get the machine back online, Crys peeked in and checked what I was doing. I glanced over and saw that Kimono had moved back to the tunnel where we came from. She was nibbling dried meat while waiting. I couldn' see where Dancer was.
“Crys-sensei, tell Dancer not to stand behind the machine, this might start moving suddenly. If all goes as planned, this will reverse into the wall and go through it, and I have to jump out before that happens.”
“Dancer, move further away from the vehicle.” (Crys)
“Got it!” (Dancer)
After turning the control switches for about fifteen minutes, I heard a satisfying PING sound that was surprisingly similar to the audio cue in the game.
Don't underestimate the problem-solving skills of a gamer who has done speedruns with legacy emulators!
“All right, I think this will work! Keep your fingers crossed, this is a one-time use item. First try, only try!”
I hopped out of the machine and ran back.
A few seconds later there was a loud thunk and the mining machine reversed to the wall with its tracks screeching.
The dungeon wall came crashing down and the runaway vehicle continued on reverse down a newly opened tunnel slope, until it finally fell down to a deep shaft and crashed at the bottom.
“Muahhahhaa, now you're thinking with portals!”
I celebrated with a fist pump, but when I tried to high five with Kimono, she just stared at me. Crys was the same, but at least he seemed amused by my behavior.
“You guys don't know how to high five? That's so sad... You should at least gloat evilly or something. I know it's out of character, but let's celebrate this fine taste of victory over Strangers' strangeness!”
“Your information has proven its usefulness again. We will renew our contract once we reach Pier City.” (Crys)
“Ou, that's the spirit!”
“Be quiet, fool. Tell him to quiet down, brother.” (Kimono)
“Quiet down, you're making too much noise.”
“I didn't tell you to say it!” (Kimono)
“Good tsukkomi, finally a good tsukkomi!”
After that awkward comedy act, we went down the newly opened tunnel and proceeded to carefully sneak down the slope.
“If we'd have dynamite here, we could go through walls a lot faster, but it's unfortunate that you can't get dynamite until after this section, and crafting custom gunpowder bombs and hauling them here would take too much time...”
Going around the edge of the precipice where the mining vehicle fell, we reached a large chamber with giant stalagmites resembling layered smokestacks.
“Anyone following us?” (Crys)
“No, brother.” (Kimono)
“We came through an area full of traps and used a route the deviants do not know. Even if they hear us, they probably won't actively pursue.” (Crys)
“Yeah, they probably expect us to follow the longer route through middle levels, and expect us to step on traps and then expect to loot our bodies later on their convenience. Sorry, deviants, but that cake is a lie.”
It was really neat that everything in the dungeon was arranged exactly like in the game. Sneaking through the small side tunnels, climbing up and down the steep slopes using ropes – well, the part after the ledge shortcut was actually quite different from the game in that I wasn't straferunning and bunnyhopping through traps with dozens of deviants running after me screaming “stop!” and “kill him!”.
Maybe the system was confused because normally you would run this area solo, without any NPC sidekicks, and the intensity of random enemy encounters was based on players Exp and Health?
Nah, can't be that.This wasn't the game, and we were here much earlier than game timeline.
Uwaga was a trap dungeon first and foremost. The deviants living here probably trusted their trap defenses so much that they didn't even care to send out scouts.
Without encountering a single living deviant, we finally reached the autorail station at the bottom of the dungeon mine.