Team 2: Alastair, Harry, Martin and James from Woodbridge, Suffolk.
The second quest of Series 4 was for the Shield and lasted 51 minutes.
Level 1
At the Place of Choice, Alastair opts for the Shield.
By following the path with your predecessors, we have already discovered pronounced changes in this phase of the dungeon... Very little is as it was before.
He almost falls off the ledge, and his foot touches the studio floor. A let-off, so early in the quest?
They meet Dooris, the Weeping Door, at the entrance to the castle (score: 3). The drawbridge lowers for Alistair to cross.
Into a green room, where a sorceress is pacing from side to side. Both Treguard and Pickle express concerns about her intentions.
Treguard: "Caution, team. There's a power here and I'm not at all sure that it's pleasant."
Despite first appearances, the team agrees to collect a green gem for her. Her calling name is Merris.
In exchange, she offers Alistair the Eye Shield. It shows them leaving the room and arriving in the forest.
Alistair arrives at a clearing. The tavern monk, Brother Mace, educates Alistair on 'elf paths' and offers a hint to follow him out.
Brother Mace: "If your friends have half an eye between them, they ought to be able to see where I'm coming from - and where I'm going to too!"
Into Oakley's glen, where the team face the tree troll (score: 3). Following his advice, Alistair takes a bag of aniseed and a key, leaving a bar of gold.
Fatilla the Hun guards an entrance to the Castle of Doom. Advisor Harry recommends the charm offensive.
Fatilla enjoys the flattery and lets Alistair through without payment.
Goblins are hot in pursuit, so Alistair drops the aniseed to throw them off the trail.
At the wellway room, Pickle is concerned at a presence that nobody can see.
The apparition of a hooded figure with a knife appears on the wellway steps.
Pickle: "Go on, Alistair - yell at it! That should be enough to make it retreat."
The assassin flees as Alastair shouts, but it reappears as the dungeoneer climbs into the well. Alistair is just fast enough.
Level 2
The 'sword-mistress', Gundrada, is stuck in the pillory, pleading for help.
The team needs some convincing to let her out, but eventually agrees.
She accompanies Alistair into a room where Hordriss is sitting at a table. Gundrada adopts a low profile, as she had been his latest prisoner.
Hordriss consults his curious list of prohibited items:
Any potions, talismans, spells, horned spiders, bats' wings or crushed toads in garlic?
Once satisfied, he provides a spell to each: ADORE for Gundrada and SLOW for Alistair. These will self-activate at need, he explains.
Alistair travels with Gundrada down a conveyor belt to a purple courtyard.
Gundrada wants the gold on the table, but the team argues that Alistair deserves it for releasing her from the stocks.
Fatilla the Hun wanders in. Gundrada's spell self-activates, leaving the infatuated guard crawling on the floor after her.
She leads Alistair into the adjacent courtyard but Fatilla follows.
This time, Alistair's SLOW spell self-activates, allowing for safe passage.
Into a blue room, where Merlin is performing the unusual role of tradesman. He will sell one of his items in exchange for gold.
Merlin: "What a coincidence! This is exactly the price of each of these priceless objects!"
The team purchase a red slipper which formerly belonged to Mercury. It grants them the spell RUN.
Into a similar room, where they meet Doorkis, the weeping door (score: 3).
Alistair arrives at Dunkley Wood, where he advances to a clearing with a large web.
Pickle: "Since the elves left, Ariadne has built her lair across it. It makes me shiver just to think of her."
Alistair collects gold from Ariadne's Lair, before using the RUN spell to escape.
At the riverside, the boatman rows him across the Dunswater in exchange for gold.
Alistair descends the long staircase at the Tower of Time to enter Level 3.
Level 3
Alistair emerges on a high ledge, between two symbols. A sequence of platforms at each side lead down to an exit at the base.
Treguard: "It's a transporter pad. Step right for one journey; step left for another."
Alistair must side-step in the direction of travel and back again.
The team avoids a knight guarding one of the platforms and reaches the bottom safely.
A circular room contains clues, including a green gem. Alistair summons the sorceress to redeem his pact.
The spell I gift you now is called HERO, and it may summon one who is long dead to your cause.
Alistair takes a cloth and a bottle of poison, leaving behind a dagger.
Another circular room leads onto a moving conveyor belt. An animated skull hurries the team along.
Death
The belt has spinning blades moving down each wall. (It's the first appearance of the Corridor of Blades.)
Pickle: "This is most unfair, master!"
It's a swift slicing from this new and treacherous challenge.
Treguard: "You were sharp enough, team, but then, so was the dungeon."
