Forest Maze

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Warning.png WARNING: The Forest Maze is a dangerous zone where grues can eat you, with hidden dark exits, auto-attacking npcs and where you can't cast, perform or use some commands.

The Forest Maze is a dangerous zone in Slippery Hollow.

Situation

The forest can be easily entered by going east of the common past the towers, past the bridge, past the cottage and finally past the last warning sign into a room too dark to see at any time of the day.

You can leave the first room by going back west if you do it before dying.

Environment

Preliminary investigation suggests:

  • You cannot cast magic or circle. (Your heart is struck by a freezing sensation, you feel the magic being sucked from your body, and you are distracted from whatever you were doing. Something tells you it would be foolish to try that again.)
  • You cannot perform rituals. (As you pray to Sandelfon a large stone block appears and drops onto your foot, it turns to dust. You are distracted by the shock. Something tells you it would be foolish to try that again.)
  • It is not outside, so you cannot fly out.
  • Fruitbats and perhaps pets do not enter the forest.
  • Skeleton warriors cast from Grisald's Reanimated Guardian will instantly die upon entering the forest and items dragged out to the entrance.
  • Totems will instantly die upon entering the forest.
  • You cannot see inside the forest with any normal light sources. You need something that is part of a quest in order to see and chase away the grues.
  • You feel the forest draining your vitality. - No hp regen.
  • You feel lethargic. - No gp regen.
  • Without light you cannot bury anything.
  • Without light the grues eat you slowly at first then faster.
  • If you are lost in the forest maze without light your only way out is to quickly twist a blue crystal ring, if you have one.

Beasties

There's beasties that auto-attack you like:

  • Dead looking animals
  • Bandersnatch: cat-like with a glow in her eyes that might allow you to see her name from time to time on some attacks.
  • Reaping willow: a tree harder than oaks with block defense.
  • Jabberwock: bad ass serpentine monster that crushes you in his talons or hurls you up into the sky to fall back down into a crater shaped like yourself in another random room of the maze.

Gallery of beasties

You might be a bit busy fighting for your life while in the forest. Therefore the appearance of the beasties have been reproduced here for your viewing horror.

A giant frog (hiding)

This is a terrifyingly giant frog.
A deranged charcoal mouse
A corrupted black mouse

This mouse has been twisted and tormented by the evil in the forest.  It has a snarl on its face and is coated in thick black goo.
A deranged grey lizard

This lizard has wide, bulbous eyes that swivel independently of each other, scanning the forest for potential threats.
A sick speckled lizard

This lizard looks like it is continually being hunted, judging by its frenetic twitching and sudden bursts of speed between patches of rotten undergrowth.  Its broad, splayed feet are tipped with serrated claws.
A deranged obsidian rat

This rat isnt happy about being covered in thick black goo, although all its energy to fight the evil in the forest has left it drained.
A riddled onyx rat

This rat has an air of evil surrounding it, also the thick black goo splattered on its fur doesn't help.
A sick charcoal squirrel

This squirrel is somehow managing to scratch out a living in the forest, but hasn't avoided the glutinous black slime matting and congealing patches of its fur.
A rotten obsidian squirrel

This squirrel appears not to have noticed the brooding menace oozing out of every pore in this forest.  Its plump, round face and excitable fluffy tail suggest that is actually rather enjoying itself.
A riddled grey briar-rabbit

This rabbit has obviously been trapped in the forest for so long given that the vines and thorns it is wrapped in look like they have slowly been growing around and jagging into the poor creature.  It has a look of pain and anger.
A riddled black owl

This owl looks like it has lost a fight with half the creatures in the forest, being covered in angry patches of bare flesh and torn feathers.  Its keen eyes burn with an unnatural, unnerving fury.
A sick charcoal owl

Dripping with glutinous slime, this owl appears to be having a bad day.  In fact, it looks like it has been having a bad life so far, coated in some unknown residue and fighting for survival against the other beasts of this forest.
A poorly onyx raven

This raven is in a very sorry state, with a tangle of thorns and brambles interwoven into its feathers.  Patches of its body are devoid of plumage, replaced by clumps of some green and slimy substance.
A sinister obsidian raven is standing here.

This raven is covered in a thick layer of filthy slime, restricting its wings from flapping as well as they should.  Its head bobs slowly from side to side, while its tiny eyes are a curious shade of orange, with a throbbing red pupil at their centre.
A riddled obsidian fox
A rotten black fox is standing here.

This fox looks like it has been chased through this tortured forest for days on end, judging by the look of fear and anxiety on its blackened face.
A sick charcoal badger

As badgers go this one doesn't quite look right, its eyelids twitch as it looks at you and its fur has been covered in black diseased oil.
A sinister black badger

This badger looks as though it has been dropped in a vat of oil and made to get itself out.  It has a look of twisted anger to its snarling face.
A rotting hand

If this hand had flesh on it that wasn't rotting away it might actually look good.
A reaping willow

The reaping willow is a rather unusual tree.  With flexible sinuous branches and rather sharp edged leaves, it has been likened to a collection of very sharp axes.  You certainly wouldn't want to shelter from the wind and rain under this tree.
It is rooted to the ground here.
The Bandersnatch

Covered in a shaggy mane of stone-white fur interspersed with tawny brown spots, the Bandersnatch towers over her surroundings with a powerful, barrel-shaped body.  Her broad, padded paws wield wickedly sharp claws as long as your arm, while several rows of slime-coated teeth are visible in her wide, flattened face.  Her small, jaundiced eyes betray a keen intelligence, while her long furry tail sways languidly to and fro.
The Jabberwock

Known to the local villagers as the horror in the woods or the insatiable demon lurking in the dark - this is the infamously hideous creature from which nightmares are born.  His long serpentine body stretches from tail to a fish-like head and gaping maw, exhaling acrid, sulphurous fumes.  Vast, torn and battle-scarred wings protrude from scaled arms, while glistening blue-black scales ripple and shimmer with each reptilian movement. Oily black tentacles wriggle and writhe angrily from the back of his armoured skull in anticipation of his next fleshy meal.

Grues

  • Grues (shapes in the darkness) that pursues you and remove bits of health from you every couple of rounds unblocked by shields, armour or defence skills and without fighting you.
  • Each time you visit a new room a new grue seems to pursue you.
  • The more time you spend in the darkness, the harder they bite, causing more and more damage at once.
  • Leaving the maze and returning does not reset the grues. It probably happens after some time.
hp loss Grue messages
31 - 47 With a hiss, something small scratches you!
31 - 37 Ouch! Something scratched you!
44 - 48 Something in the darkness flicks out a claw and pricks your skin!
158 Something in the darkness nibbles you with curiosity!
311 - 358 Something starts to form in the gloom and swipes at you!
274 - 528 A shape, somehow blacker than the surrounding darkness, lashes out at you!
291 The shapes in the darkness are getting larger! Ow! They are biting harder too!
306 - 493 The grues are growing in size and becoming braver. Two of them now attack you at once!
372 Almost at full size now, a large grue savages your leg!
405 - 491 Agony courses through you as a nearly full-grown grue clamps its jaws around your head.
252 Sharp fangs tear into your flesh as dark shapes dart around you!
237 Several shapes, larger than before, circle you now. You wince as one bites you!
342 A large grue lunges at you, biting you painfully!
495 You wince and cower away as a fairly large grue chews on your leg!

Initially low, the damage seems to quickly increase to between 250 and 530 hp each round.

This stops if you leave the maze.

Death

When dying in the Forest Maze, the corpse is transported out of the forest to where the slightly chewed warning sign stands.

You are dragged from the forest by the fog.
A bank of fog drifts in from the forest to the East.  When it recedes, it leaves the corpse of Poor
Bastard behind.

Also worth noticing is that a staff stored in a Star Sapphire Ring is dropped in the room where the death occurs.

A gilded ebony cane falls from a rip in the air.

Map

  • While it is not possible to see the exits, it is possible to map the Forest Maze as exits do not change.
  • There are rooms that will move you back to a location closer to the entrance - this is important to know when mapping.
  • Except for the exits that move you back, it is possible to go backwards into the room you just left. If it's another room it was a reset exit.

See also