Daniel (@dungeondive) admits he’s been forgetting his own combat-point house rule, and resolves to abstract fights to keep City of Chaos moving — combat, he says, mostly gets in the way of what the game does well. Bing, still dying of the entropy plague, finally reaches the apothecary but is too broke to buy a cure, and dissolves into jelly again, respawning at the gates.
The episode’s gems are narrative. Bing saves a pair of young lovers from a jealous phantasm named Malachi — earning clue #11 for the City of the Dead plot: Malachi hides in the necropolis, having trapped the soul of Sif’s lover Isax, so Sif “can never rest until her soul is freed.” This finally illuminates Dizzy’s mysterious ring. Dizzy, meanwhile, abandons the Pyrotechnics he never joined, passes a wooden-sword trial, and joins the Duelists’ Academy — gaining the proud twin cheek-scars of the order.
Daniel’s affection for the writing peaks here (the lovers/phantasm passage and the earlier ballad are highlights), even as he sketches a streamlined location-to-location variant he wants to try, frustrated that the movement and combat undercut such strong storytelling.
The clues here genuinely make you connect the dots rather than just point the way — does that kind of puzzle-it-out design appeal to you more than a guided path?