                 H I N T S  F O R  B L A C K  C R Y P T
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                           *By  Belgarion*
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 There are only a few places where you will get stuck on Black Crypt.

 Firstly you need to find the 'OGREBLADE' in order to kill the two-headed
beast that resides on level 2
  
 After exploring all of level 1 making sure you don't fall down any of the
holes, you will find that there is 1 door you still cannot open, this is
because through this door is a teleport that will take you to the last lo-
cation on level 1.

  In order to get the key for this door, this is what to do:-

 Go down the stairs to level 2 and open 1 of the doors, without going too
far try and get the Ogre to come after you, lead him back to the stairs
and then go back to level 1, the ogre will now stay waiting for you at the
bottom.
 Next drop down the hole in the middle of level 1 (not the one at the top
left corner)and turn around,walk forward about 5 paces and you will see a
switch on the wall in front of you,hitting this switch will teleport you
across the room and open a secret wall,after teleporting you must turn 180
degrees around or you will close the wall back up.(HINT:keep using your
wizard sight to make sure you know where you are)
 After exploring all the various passages(making sure you don't go back
into the middle of the room)you will come across a sign saying patience is
a virtue waiting here will open several corridors.Continue to explore the
passageways and you will enter a room containing a box inside the box is
the key you need for level 1 going through the teleport at the top of this
room will take you right outside the door on level 1.
Use your key and walk through the teleport get your 'OGREBLADE' and kill
the Beast.
 You should now be able to finish exploring level 2 and make it to level
3.

 Levels 3,4 and 5 are all linked together you must roam through all these
levels in order to finish the task that will lead you to the next stage.
 
  As you enter level 3 you will not be able to move very far. I think you
can only enter one room or go down the stairs, there is a couple of
parchments lying about pick them up, read them and then cast a reveal
truth spell on them to see if there true.
 In order to finish this puzzle you must obtain some eyes for the monument
at the bottom of the screen.
 Do not enter the doorway that leads to the unseen ones as they cannot be
killed until you get the mask of true sight.
 go down to level 4 and explore every nook and cranny making sure you look
for any switches or buttons. there are four doors to open and behind these
doors are four water flasks and four water fountains.
 You must go from one room to the next in order as opening one room will
reveal a switch on one of the walls in the middle of the room. The only
trouble I had was with the door on the left. Going through the doorway at
the bottom left of screen you find a switch right at the end hitting this
will move the coloumn blocking the door on the left of screen, if you are
quick enough you can make it to the coloumn before it moves back, if not
the I suggest you use a teleport spell to take you next to it and then
walk in.
 After you have got all four flasks of water(do not mix them up with your
own flasks!) enter the teleport at the top of the screen and deposit one
flask in each of the alcoves, a opening in the wall will appear and you
find the eyes. Go back to level 3 and put the eyes in place, the wall
opens on your left with a door behind it. In here is the mask of true
sight, only one person will be able to wear it.
 If you look carefully at the Armour ratings of your party you will notice
a light beside one of them (usually the fighter) click on this same box of
the person who has the mask. Now you will be able to see and kill the
unseen ones.
 Inside here is a scroll that will dispel the skull glyph down on level 4.
 From here you can finish the level with no problems.
 
  The next puzzle takes up levels 6,7,8 and 9 and you must be careful that
you don't miss any hidden switches.
 In this quest you need the three Idols of Temin.
 Level 6 is just a platform for teleporting to the other levels.
 teleport to level 7 and explore the level thoroughly, you will find a
sign on the wall saying 'hctiws' and two alcoves with items in them, just
switch the items the other signs work on a similar system, there are two
alcoves with signs in them, just kick on the signs in an order that makes
up a sentence. The only real problem on level 7 is the secret room at the
bottom of the map. Save your game and cast all protective spells before
going in here as magic cannot be cast. There is a huge monster behind the
secret wall that must only be killed by using weapons instead of magic.
 You will be able to leave this area by clicking on a switch on one of the
walls.
 Before getting any of the Idols you must visit level 9 and take the
gauntlets of TEMIN and the chest of TEMIN, use the mace of sightgiver to
light up the darkened area.
 The puzzle on level 9 is to open up the rest of the map.
 If you read the message on the wall and click the switch behind it, the
message tells you of four months. Feb,Apr,Jul,Aug I think are the months
it dos'nt really matter which months they are, here is how to work the out
the system:-
 Open the door to the north, inside are two rows of skulls, counting the
first skull on the left as January, pick up the skulls corisponding to the
months on the message.
 The only other thing to tell you is to closely inspect the wall right in
the centre of level 7.
 So now you've got all three Idols, there is an alcove on level 6 right at
the top of the map, place the three idols in here (but first save game) an
the wall will open, also put the symbols of sun and moon in the monument.
 Behind the wall is the undead dragon of TEMIN, kill him and you are on
your way to the next puzzle.

  Level 10 is a big maze and does not link with any other level.
 There should not really be any problem in doing level 10 except for one
small point, after exploring the rest of the maze you will find that on
the left hand side of the map there is a big area not explored yet, the
only way to access this part is to find the switch by the doorway halfway
up the corridor on the left of the map. You may have already pressed this
switch before, if not pressing will open a new passageway in front of you,
in total this one switch should be pressed about 4 or 5 times, but I
suggest after every press explore the new passageway before going back to
the switch, the rest of the level should be easy.

  Level 11 and level 12 serve no real purpose except to give you a few
extra items, there is only one secret wall on level 11 and no switches on
either level. There is nothing to do with any of the burial chambers of
the heroes, after picking up all the items and spell books from level 11
use the teleport to level 12 and climb the stairs upto level 13.

  Level 13 is very easy to do. All you need for this level are four pearls
or orbs, you will find these as you wander around the map. Move very
carefully on this level because there are that many spiders you will
easily be overcome and killed. The pearls or orbs fit into alcoves in the
wall when you stand on the four switches on the floor at the four corners
of the cave, after fitting the pearls or orbs these switches then act like
teleports between the four stairways that open and the centre of the map.
 There will be four doors that you cannot open. These require 'OCTA' keys.
You will obtain an octa key when you complete the four quests by going
down the four stairways in turn.
 Behind the four doors you will find various items of weapons and armour
and the four parchments of the guilds. There is one other task on this
level, but you will not be able to do it until the four doorways are open.
 I'll come back to that after we've been through the four tasks.

  Level 14 and 15 The Soultakers domain, here there is only one bad guy
and you cannot kill him on this level, but you must attack him to weaken
him or he will kill your party and remove your death gems. When you weaken
him enough he will disapear.
 On this level you will have to find 3 crowns which you place into the
monument in the main hall.
 I have only found 2 crowns and was unable in any way to obtain the third
and eventually I had to bend the rules to get past this level.
 The first crown is through the corridors with the teleports, in order to
get into this area you will need the keys found in the secret room which
is on the way to the main hall on the right of the map.
 The second is found in the maze at the top right hand corner of the
screen, there are a number of buttons in the walls and pressing these in
different orders will open up the entire area, it should not take you long
to figure out how to press these buttons in order to get to where your
going.
 As for the third crown, I think my copy of 'Black Crypt' was slightly
corrupt because there were two areas that I could'nt get into.
 

  So this is how I finally got my crown. First format a blank disk and
call it 'GAMESAVE' then create a new party on it and go to the first level
Now put your original saved game disk and load your game (You should save
your game on level 13 before doing any of this) If your not on level 13
then get there and face the stairs that go down to level 14, now put the
new gamesave disk in and go down to level 14 (the whole level is refreshed
and you will be able to get one of the crowns in the same way as before.
After getting a crown go back up to level 13 and remove the new gamesave
disk, replace your original gamesave disk and go back down to level 14 and
the level should be as you left it with all the level revealed (if you
explored it the first time).

 Place this last crown into place on the monument and a wall will open on
your right. Inthis alcove you will find a key which will open the only
door left on the map, behind the door there are some steps going down to
level 15, here is where the soultaker lives, after killing him explore the
rest of the level and you will find an 'OCTA' key and 'THE SOULTAKER'
weapon needed to kill Esgoroth.

  Level 16,17,18,19 and 20, this level is full of the dreaded 'RAMS'.
 The only help I can give you here is to make sure that you go down every
stairway and down every hole even if you think it will do no good. Also on
this level are creatures that mimick walls, killing these will open up
passageways.
 At the bottom of this level you will find an 'OCTA' key and 'VORTEX' the
sword needed to kill Esgoroth.

  Level 21,22 and 23 this level is entirely under water so use your helms
of triton and rings of water breathing. This level is also very easy, all
you need to do is put the pearls that you find into the clam symbols and
take the keys from the alcoves that open up, to open all the doors.
On the prison level do not kill the aquamen, only free them from there
prison.
 At the bottom of this level is the aqualord or whatever he his called,
killing him will leave a key to open a door and get the 'OCTA' key and
'FORCE HAMMER' then weapon needed against Esgoroth.

 Level 25 and 26, this is the hardest to do because of the 'MEDUSA'.
When you enter this level you cannot kill the medusa, instead trap him in
a corner by using 'create wall' spells in front of him, he cannot pass
through these. At the top right corner of the room you will find a
teleport square going to level 26, in this level you will get some useful
items, there are two ways of doing this small level, one is to dispell all
of the traps in front of you and two use the ring taken from outside the
medusa's lair on level 25 and put it in the alcove where you first appear.
 At the top left corner of the medusa's lair is a room with three
teleports in it, the middle teleport takes you to a part of the map you
cannot walk to. Explore everthing thoroughly and the return to the
teleport room. the last teleport puts you at the bottom of the lair,
quickly go to the east side and follow the wall up till you find a door,
take everything from inside and continue to explore the outside walls of
the lair.
 You will find that behind some doors are pictures of the medusa and a
mirror key, there are three in all, these open the doors in the centre of
the lair, but be careful of the medusa as it is very difficult to trap him
and stop him reaching the centre, Behind the third mirror door is a mirror
shield, take this in your weapon hand and go kill the medusa, one hit is
all it takes, finish exploring the level and find the last 'OCTA' key and
the shield needed against Esgoroth.

  Back on level 13 after you have put all the octa keys in place four
alcoves open up right in the centre of the map near to the stairs that
lead to level 12. Stand on all four switches and you will be transported
to a completely different level 14.
 In here you will have to teleport to the top left corner to obtain the
orb of the planes. Now teleport back to where you started and go through
the dark area and up to the wall that has a face of a skull on it, walkimg
into this skull will take you to level 27.

  Level 27, In here you will meet two of Esgoroths luetenants (they are
very tough), kill them and explore the rest of the level, but do not open
any doors. After you have been everywhere you will find that there are
four doors, North,South,East,West. Go to one of these doors and open it,
then close it and open it again, you will have released a guard inside the
room, after killing him he will leave a key, this opens the door at the
top of the map. Repeat this process at the other three doors and they will
leave similar keys, the last one door open leads down to level 28 and
Esgoroths Domain.

  Level 28, This is where Esgoroth himself lurks.
 All you have to do is use two potions of invincibility on your two front
guys and put the four special weapons in their hands and go for it.
Start by hitting him with your two front guys until your weapons start
lighting up with a blue aura, then use the right mouse button to use the
magical part of the weapons to send him on his merry way.
Having done that sit back and watch the end sequence.



  Thanks to STEVE for help on level 14.