The Stack

I’m up to dungeon level 4/Werdna level 7. That means I have access to every spell, including MALOR, the teleport spell. It’s not as useful as you might think. Every Wizardry game so far has had places you can’t teleport to, and in Wizardry IV, that includes most places. You definitely can’t teleport above the highest level you’ve reached, but I’ve had only occasional success going downward too. The “occasional” part is a little maddening; if teleportation never worked, I wouldn’t be in the position of not understanding why it works sometimes. If I recall correctly, you eventually get a power-up that unlocks full teleportation everywhere, but not until basically the end.

And that’s a bit of a shame, because a shortcut or two back would be handy right now. I haven’t found the stairs up on level 4, despite a pretty thorough search. It’s possible that I’ve just missed them — the level’s theme is Wandering Maze, and it’s a chaotic and difficult-to-navigate mass of one-way walls and rotating tiles¹A new element that rotates its walls 90 degrees every time you step on it. Distinct from spinner tiles, which randomly reorient the player but don’t change the architecture., so it wouldn’t be hard to miss a thing or two in the confusion. But unless and until I spot those stairs, I’m shifting gears from the mad scramble upward to backfilling puzzle content. There are several puzzles I’ve left behind on previous levels, largely because they require items you don’t find until later. In other words, the game is turning more and more into an adventure game — albeit one where people attack you sometimes.

Also, on level 4, the reverse happens: there’s a puzzle that requires items from previous levels that you may or may not have picked up. A witch requires ingredients for a potion, and they’re all described a little cryptically. For example, she asks for “rabbit’s fur”, which is the “magician’s hat” you might have acquired as loot in an encounter. “Tannic acid” identifies a “witching rod”, which makes sense if you remember where you found it: floating in a pool of water rendered caustic by the acorns steeping in it. So, there’s another reason to backtrack. To hunt for anything you missed, in the hope that the witch’s potion will somehow produce stairs.