Walkthrough: Ancient Evil (1998 PC version)

Date: August 10, 2009
Version 0.98 (estimated)

This walkthrough has not been intentionally copyrighted, but I understand such 
things are automatic nowadays. There are currently no other walkthroughs for 
this game, so ripping me off would be fairly obvious (particularly given my 
distinctive pattern of writing.) Reprint this wherever you want, but give
credit where it's due. 

Welcome to the Tomb of the Ancients! In-game, only one person has ever made it
out alive. Out-of-game, it seems nobody has, or at least nobody's written a
walkthrough for it. Now that it's been revived as a cell phone game, I figured
I might as well fill the gap, with the three caveats that a) I have the PC 
version, b) I don't have the manual, and c) I myself failed to reach the end. 

Starting Character Equipment: 
The warrior: a sword (+6), brass knuckles (+1), padded leather armor (+2).
The spellcaster: brass knuckles. 
The ranger: a mace (+3), leather armor (+1), a crossbow (+0), 15 bolts.
The thief: a mace, lockpicks.
All: boots, a map, a bedroll, bread, an apple, two torches. 

As a general rule, you should have two to three weapons--the best melee weapon
available, the best magical melee weapon available (some enemies are immune to
conventional weapons), and a crossbow for enemies that shouldn't be fought in
melee. Weapons break randomly, but rarely--just load a saved game. Armor 
should just be the best available. Other equipment should be magical--we'll 
discuss it as you get it, but I will say right now that a Ring of Regeneration 
makes your life a lot easier. 

You should find more food and healing potions than you really need, but keep a
couple of each. Make sure you have room for a bunch of special items and keys
(don't be afraid to drop things--they don't vanish.) Keep the lockpicks--they
work on almost any door, and they're pretty much necessary if you can't find a
key. The bedroll's probably worth it until you get a Ring of Regeneration, but 
don't bother with torches. DON'T pick up spiderwebs--they get stuck in your 
inventory. Save your game before putting on any equipment that might be cursed.
Lastly, you may or may not be able to eat severed arms when you're starving to
death--the message when you try to "use" one would imply so, but that might be
a particularly twisted joke. 

As for money, there's a place to buy things on Level 12, but you need the VIP
Pass, available on Level 15. It's worth your while to go back there, not least
for a +13 magical weapon. There's no place to sell most items, but on Level
14, you can trade in weapons for coins at a hidden shrine. Again, items do not 
vanish if left on the ground, so you can go back as far as you wish to retrieve
those old swords and pawn them. 

Starting Character Spells:
The warrior: no spells. 
The spellcaster: Light Heal (3 castings), Shock (3 castings). 12 memorizations.
The ranger: Light Heal (3 castings). 9 memorizations. 
The thief: no spells. 

Offensively, magic is almost useless. The healing spells are handy, though,
and you can get some nice status buffs at higher levels. To get new levels of
spells, spam the old ones repeatedly (you need not even hit anything.) Getting
more spells in a given level seems to be related to collecting rune stones.

Starting Character Stats: 
There will be a section on these if and when I find out the formulas for them.
Do note, however, that if you don't cast spells, Intelligence doesn't matter.

Two miscellaneous tips: keep at top HP, because when levelling up your current
HP only goes up with your maximum HP if you were at your previous maximum. (Get 
it?) Also, you can often tell by the sound effects what sort of monster is 
around the corner--prepare accordingly. Sometimes this can even lead you to 
secret rooms. 

Level 1: 
Pick your character, the warrior in my case, and dive right in! Grab the coins 
on the floor, and leave the torch. (From here on I'll only mention items on the 
floor if they're hidden or special.) Through the north door is a red key. Kill
the "boogers" through the east door. (As with most of this game's fights, the
key is to mash the attack button when fighting one. When two are next to you,
rely on the fact that you're faster than them, and move into such a position
that one will have to go around the other to get to you.) In the northwest is
a pillar with a lever on it--pull it. Go north, then open a door in the east
wall to get at some goodies, the most important being a shield (+1, can't be
used with a crossbow) and a letter warning you not to kill everything on sight. 
(Here and elsewhere, check the map to be certain you've found all the doors--
they blend in with the walls, but they're all marked on the map.) Through the 
eastern of the south doors, opened by the lever you pulled, there is--another
lever. The western of the south doors requires you to "use" the red key while
standing next to it--through it is loot. Through the door to the east, there 
are more boogers and three more doors, the eastern of which was opened by the 
second lever you pulled, and which leads to the second level. The north and
south doors have loot through them (in the south room, check the west wall for
a secret door.) Now that you've got everything, go ahead and descend. 

Level 2: 
You will immediately be questioned and attacked by a priest (the only question
that's really informative is who the cult is.) Kill him to take his sword if
you don't have one, and his gold key either way. Right behind him is a grym,
which wouldn't be so tough if it weren't for the fact that it doesn't stay dead
when killed. (If you don't mind cheating, on the PC saving the game while the
grym is down and loading that save will convert it to bones.) Here's where the
level design gets complicated, and hence the handholding ends, but I will tell
you where anything special is. To the north is the ladder down whenever you've
gotten tired of this level. To your west is the first of many snakes--kill them
when you see them, since they sometimes attack and poison you, and since they 
give experience. To the south of the starting point, through the first door to
the east, and through the door south of that room there's a library with some
interesting books. East from the start, through a door, north to a door without
going through it, and west to go through a western door gets you to two 
cabinets, providing you with a bronze key, lockpicks, and a map of a lower 
level (the X marks show the secret doors in the level.) From that room, heading
east through a door and searching the north wall for a secret door gets you a 
rune stone (and a fight with some snakes.) One of the torture cells in the 
southeast has a secret passage, but there are only a few bones in it. When 
you're done, head on down. 

Level 3: 
Move along the west wall to avoid the booby-trap. If you want the backstory of
the cult, go through the first door to the north and read the two books. 
(Each is on a separate bookshelf.) The first door to the west is unlocked with
the bronze key, and has the ladder down. The second door to the west will make
you puke, no exceptions. If you go south as far as possible, then east, you
can get a crossbow and some bolts. (The room immediately to the west has a
rather tough fight, so be ready.) The gold key gets you into an arena to the
southeast--grab an axe (+8), and some leather armor if you need it. 

Level 4: 
There are a couple of traps, but they have a low chance of hitting you. The
first door to the north gets you to some lockpicks if you don't already have
any. The first chance you get to go north without going through a door, check 
the north wall for a secret door. Pass through the halls you just opened, and
when you get to a cross, jump to the west, over a trapped floor tile, and 
search again. Pick up the magical sword (+7, but it hurts the upcoming boss,
and the axe doesn't.) Back in the main hall, when it curves to the south,
start searching the south wall, and you'll soon find a hidden room with the 
green key in it. If you didn't get the map up above, and you don't understand
my instructions, one of the gryms in the halls drops a duplicate of the former.
Slay the snake devil with the magical sword, but be warned--she's venomous! Go
through the door to the north of her, then a secret door to the west, beyond
which is another corridor and a trap you can jump over. Open the next door with
the green key, and head down the ladder. 

Level 5: 
Jetraal's ghost will appear and very deliberately NOT explain anything. One
door to the west and one south, get a gold key. There aren't any monsters 
through any of the doors until you reach the gremlins, and they won't attack
you unless you attack first. The only other door in their hall is unlocked by
the gold key. Through that door, go west the first chance you get, and in a
room full of supplies search the west wall for a secret door to a small room
containing another gold key, which you'll have to use to get to the ladder. 

Level 6:
The first ratman to the west drops a green key upon death. If you go north
from the ladder, you'll eventually reach a shield and a paper mentioning that
something is on level 11, but "can only be reached from below." If instead you
went north, west at the first possible hallway, and north as soon as possible,
you'd reach a treasure chest with a blue key in it. There are two corridors
going west from that treasure chest--the northern one leads to a pile of gold
and (unsurprisingly) some traps. The southern one appears to lead you to a dead
end, but check the southern wall to find a secret room. Pull the lever inside.
Remember the corridor in which you got the green key? A section of wall at the
west end of it will now vanish. By the way, going north from the room with the
coins, then going west when you hit a wall, check the southern wall till you
find a room with two portals. Neither portal sends you anywhere useful, but the
ratman in the room will drop leather armor when killed. Go west from the portal
room, then south, and use the blue key on a door to the east to get--one coin?
South down the corridor, use the green key on the next door and use the portal
in the southeast to get to the ladder. (Or you could have passed through the 
secret door that the lever opened, and gotten there with fewer fights--but hey, 
you want the experience, don't you?

Level 7:
It's the level that will make you hate portals. North portal, north, south, 
west, west, north, and you're in the second row (with a portal to the beginning
right next to you.) Go through the door, and break the spiderweb with a melee
weapon, but I repeat, DON'T PICK UP THE WEBBING! Through the portal, northeast,
then, in the big room with two zombies and a venomous spider, east. (West in
this room is a wild goose chase.) North, south, and south again for mesh armor
(+2, the same as padded leather armor.) Through the only portal, then south,
west, north, north. Slay the spiders and climb down.

Level 8: 
Meet the Dark Elves. Note that some have crossbows--you finally have a ranged
foe, and a source of bolts at that! When you get to the eastern corridor, don't
be tricked by the hidden teleporter--you're supposed to go through a hidden
door to the south, and there's another hidden door to the south of it. Well,
actually, what you're really supposed to do is jump over the teleporter, go
to the end of the hall, and fight through some spiders. Get the gray key, and
the axe if you need it, but not the cursed ring. Back through the secret doors,
the southernmost room has bracers of strength (+2), and the door requiring the
gray key leads to an empty room--both have secret doors to the south. Using the
gray key, you can get the white key. Dodging past a series of fireball traps
down the other secret passage, you can use the white key.

Level 9: 
"Choose very carefully," says a sign by two northern teleporters. The
southern one is the right choice, but you don't actually get anything. (To get
out of the final room, hold down the floor pad with the rock.) To the east,
then north, in a hidden room through the west wall, is some magic mesh armor
(+3). South of the armor, then west down the second corridor, there's a secret
door to the north where the wall's stained green, and in that room is a lever
that opens a door to the south of the starting point. Go through the door, 
then east, but don't go through the door to the south there--there's nothing
except a bunch of fireball traps. Check the east wall for a secret door. Go
up the ladder, and ignore the sign--check the wall for another ladder down,
and grab some goodies from a guarded storeroom. The portal to the east leads to
a puzzle "the seasoned traveler knows." Having tried somewhere between 256 and
382 possible combinations, I have determined that the buttons to hold down with
items are in the upper left, upper right, right, and bottom (use the bones from
the fire dogs you just killed.)

Level 10: 
Warning number one: if the multi-armed freaks dropped it, it's probably cursed.
Warning number two: the bonecrushers were not named ironically. Go north and
step on the floor pad by the north wall to make said wall go away. Leave some
bones on that pad, then go to the north, check the west wall, and go through
the southern portal. Leave bones on five more pads, and you'll be told that a 
secret door just opened--cool, ain't it? Heading back out, pull the lever by
the north wall. To the west of the starting point, through a door to the south,
there's a gold key in an eastern treasure chest. Use the key on another
southern door, farther west down the corridor, and pull another lever. Now go
to the wall just south of where you started, and pass through another secret 
door. Go through the first teleporter you see and drop a bone on a floor pad,
opening up a door and letting you pull another lever. Then, because I suck, we
give up trying to find a needed key, go back to the two teleporters in the
north and go through the northern one, and use a lockpick on the locked door.
Through it is the final lever, and when all four are pulled, a vast section of
wall will vanish next to the starting point. Pass through, go north rather than
west to avoid the fireball trap, and drop down to level 11. 

Level 11: 
Beware of traps towards the beginning. Continuing south from the first door you
see leads you to a ladder down to Adbar's Emporium, but he won't sell you
anything until you get a VIP pass. Instead, go through the door, and
explore the spiders' lair. The Ring of Resurrection will revive you if you die
with it on, but it will be destroyed in the process. You can also get a bedroll
if you discarded your old one. Go through the portal, look around till you find
the green key, and open a secret door in the southeast. Don't pick up the 
wristbands of bad luck unless you want to make your life a lot harder. The
knights through the door to the north require magical weapons to defeat, but
they drop plate armor (+4), so all the better. Through the next north door,
some of the containers are trapped, but there's fairly good loot and some
interesting books. According to one, you need to find five statues--one on
level 15, one in the watery area, one with the minotaurs, one with the undead,
and one on the lava level. Another tells you that if a monster called a
stinking pile gives you the "disease" status, a fountain of healing can cure
you. From a third, you can learn that on the Plane of Mystic, death knights are
invisible unless you use magic to reveal them. Go west, north, down two levels,
south, west, and north again to get a red key, which you can use in the east
for the all-important ring of regeneration. Back up one level, I couldn't find
the key to the supply room (it's probably connected to why, after clearing out
all the monsters I could find in level 11, I could still hear roaring.) Back
on level 11, head to the east and north, dodging the fireball traps.

Adbar's Emporium Shopping List:
"Head Hacker" (+13)
Magic plate armor (+5)
Wristband of Good Luck ("effective as a defensive measure in armed combat")
Flute (special item, and cheap, too)
If you're a cheapskate, in the PC version saying "no" to buying an item gets
you a copy for free. Makes sense if you're playing as a thief. 

Level 12: 
Through the door to the west, pressing lower left, upper middle, and lower
right gets you absolutely nothing. The next door gets you a bronze key, and the
one after that is a secret door to the west. If you desperately desire better
knuckle dusters (+2), go through the south door, go south till you can't, and
go west. If you don't go through the south door, you'll soon encounter
redworms--their acid destroys melee weapons, and they damage you if you punch
them, so kill them with your crossbow. Dropping three items on three floor pads
opens a door to a teleporter and lets you get a ring of resurrection. The six
other teleporters each lead to the same place, so head on down to level 13.

Level 13: 
Pull two levers in the north and two in the south to open the door, then drop
items on all the floor plates so you can pass the spikes. To the north, then 
west, there's a gold key in a trapped treasure chest. From the chest, go north,
east at the second opening, south, and use the gold key to get to the next
level. 

Level 14: 
Go north and west, and either jump over the portals to get to the floor pad, or
shoot a bolt at the wall and let it drop on said pad. There's now a hole in a
wall to the south--go through, but beware of traps. Pass through the portals in
the northwest and southeast and pull levers to reveal another door. Pull the 
four levers in the four corners, and you'll reach the ladder, but don't go down
just yet. Check the wall north of it for a secret door. "Weapons for gold"
sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? (Decide for yourself how far back you want
to go in search of old swords.)

Level 15:
Go south, and check the west wall for a secret door that leads to a lever. Go
south again, then west, and kill the wood golem for a gold key, which you will
immediately use on the adjacent door. Jump over the traps (there are quite a
lot of them) and pull the first and third levers to open the secret doors to
the exit. This being the cheapo guide, pick the lock on the door north of the
starting point, then check the north wall for a secret door. To the west, the
correct pattern of teleporters is middle-top-middle (or you could just jump
over them.) Get yourself the VIP Pass, and you'll be able to buy things. East,
south, and west, the northern room has a ring of levitation. There are floor
pads in the upper left corners of most of the rooms with crosses--put items on
all of them and you'll open a door to a rune stone. Go through the portal south
of the cross rooms, dodge the fire traps, and go through another portal, then
collect the aqua key and use the last portal. Immediately to the east of where
it takes you, use the key and get your first demon statuette--YOU NEED THESE!

Level 16: 
Pull the lever in the upper right corner, kill the hordling in the center, and
take the second demon statuette. (Be warned--the hordling throws fireballs.)
In the southeast, there's a series of rooms--check the west wall of the
southwest room for a secret passage, then check the south wall of the hidden
room. Put something on the floor tile to open the way to the southeast room.
The second hidden room has a ladder down to the white key, but the main ladder
down is in the southeast room. 

Level 17: 
Go north, then east a couple paces, and check the south wall for a secret door.
This is a maze, so you'll have to use the map a lot. If you follow the north
wall till you reach a section shaped like a 4, then go south at the first
opportunity, checking the first wall to your south will reveal a secret door
(with no less than three lightning traps centered on it.) Go through and use
the white key when you want to leave the level. In the meantime, go to the
southwest corner and check the south wall. There are a lot of traps, but if
you get through them, you'll get your third demon statuette. 

Level 18: 
Undead that can drain experience. How lovely. Two rooms down and one to the
right are a ''lot'' of trapped chests, each with several rune stones. One room
to the north of it is a white key, which you need to use in a southern room.
South of there, put an item on a floor pad so you can pass the spikes to the
east, and go through the southern of the two doors. You'll need to jump over
the grates here. Cross the abyss (much easier with a ring of levitation) and
get the book of demon lore to the east. Through the door to the northwest,
go to the northwest corner and use a hidden teleporter, then get a demon
statuette. Teleport back, and close the door so all the undead don't chase you.
To the north, take the left ladder, then a second ladder, then search for a
secret door. You're about to fight stinking piles, and supposedly if they
infect you the fountain of healing will cure you, but I've never managed to 
use said fountain. Fortunately, if you get in their line of sight and hastily
dodge, they'll move towards you and you can kick them to death. Anyways,
through the teleporter, then drop your weapons on the two floor pads to open a
door. South and through a hidden door to the east is the fountain. Go west,
north, east, and north up the center hallway. Of the four rooms you can reach
in that direction, press the pairs of buttons in the outer rooms and the left
button only in each inner room, opening four doors in the northwest and
northeast. Through each is a portal, and through each portal is a button to
push. You can now enter the west and east rooms, and weigh down the floor pads
with six items. As a reward, you get boots that allow you to walk on lava.

Demon Lore:
The demons, in order, are Mazz-Enturrai, Thar-Yzich, Ffry-Artori, Kiy-Zandimus
and Baal-Rruyor. If you put the statues in a magic pentagram, you can destroy 
them in reverse order with a magic hammer--it will take about ten years to make
new statues. If you attempt to summon the demons and get interrupted, they'll 
summon YOU, which isn't a good thing. 

Level 19:
Here's hoping you got those fireproof boots, or you're in for a lot of pain.
Speaking of pain, every fireball a fire devil hurls at you will turn into a
weaker enemy called a rolling fire, so kill the devils quickly. There's a
crystal orb in the northwest--you might as well take it, though I've never
gotten it to work. The final demon statuette is in the southwest. 

Level 21:
Two ladders in quick succession let you skip level 20. Through the door to the
west is a cryptic sheet of paper--you might as well take it. If you want to
skip this entire level, go east, one door north, west all the way, and through
a secret door to the north. All you can do here is fight and level up.

Level 22:
Remember the bronze key you got back on level 12? It can open any of the locked
doors here (my suspicion is that any key will work.) However, only one of
those doors can't be opened by normal means. Pick the lock on the door to the
south, then use the bronze key on the door south of that to make certain you
don't carelessly use it elsewhere. Check for a secret passage in the southwest,
and pull the lever to reveal a portal. Through the portal there are three
secret passages and a lever, ultimately leading to a floor pad on which you
must leave an item. Go into the west room and through the north door if you
want to fight some stone golems. The purple crystal in the south leads you out.
(And no, I neither found the mentioned "lady," nor solved the lever puzzle
against the west wall.)

Level 23:
You are entering another dimension . . . The knights are supposedly invisible,
but I could see them flicker (admittedly, I was using the Candle Flame spell.)
Far to the south is a blue key guarded by several such knights, and in the same
room a floor pad. There's only one locked hall that a blue key can open, and it
leads you to another purple crystal, as well as a hidden teleporter. This was 
when I learned the "See Reality" spell, and use of it showed me a teleporter 
back the way I came. Now jump over the hidden teleporter and into the room, and
use the purple crystal to go to the next level.

Level 24:
"Welcome to hell" indeed. Pull the lever in the lake of blood. Most of the
portals are to be avoided, but the room with a whole bunch of them has a safe
one second to northmost. I haven't found a way to get to the moaning fellow,
but I have found that the slew of hordlings can be defeated by luring them out
one by one. 

Level 25:
And here is where I met my failure. In the room west of the teleporter, there
is a secret door to the south. In that southern room is a locked door, to which
I have no key, and which seemingly cannot be picked. Presumably I shouldn't
have used one of the keys up above. Spamming magic till I learned "unlock"
proved to be a failure, as my spell was repeatedly deflected. From here on out,
it's up to you--at least until someone writes in and tells me the way through.