Battling monsters is the heart of the game. You'll need to battle a great many diverse monsters on your quest. Different monsters will have different abilities, different strengths, and different weaknesses, and you'll need to build a party of characters that can stand up to them. In general, however, weaker monsters stick to the upper levels of the labyrinth, while the stronger ones reside in its depths.

When your party encounters a band of monsters, the game will go into combat mode. The upper left panel will list the monsters you are facing, and below it will be a panel that tells you what's happening and prompts you for input. Monsters travel in groups (for example, a group of five snakes, or a group of three ruffians); occasionally you will meet more than one group of monsters at a time. The upper left panel will list each group of monsters, how many monsters are in each group, and what type of monsters they are. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, your characters won't be sure exactly what kind of monsters you are facing. If you see question marks around the name of the monster (for example, you might be facing ^?Snakes^?) then that means your characters aren't yet sure about the exact type of monster. Later in combat, you might learn the exact type (for example, "Rattle Snakes"). Your party's ability to recognize monsters depends upon the average wisdom and vision of each character and how much light there is around you at the time.

Moves

Combat is turn-based, meaning that every character and monster gets a chance to make one move in each round of combat. At the beginning of each round, you will be prompted to enter the moves each of your characters will make in the round. First, you will be able to say, for each character, whether you'd like that character to fight, parry, cast a spell, or invoke an item. (Alternately, you can have your entire party try to run away from the monsters; more on that later.) Not all choices will be available to all characters. Obviously if a character knows no combat spells, the "Spell" option will not be available to him. If he isn't carrying any magic items, "Invoke" will not be available to him. Note that in combat situations, the first three characters in a party are the only ones close enough to the monsters to fight them hand-to-hand; the back characters can only fight with long range weapons. Similarly, the monsters will only be able to fight the first three characters directly. (For this reason, it's good to keep your fighters up front and spellcasters behind.) If a character parries, it means he should use his weapon to defend himself but not attack. How much additional defense parrying provides the character depends on his dexterity and the weapon itself.

After you have entered a move for each character, hit the 'Next' button to go to the next step. The next step is to select which spells you want to cast and/or which items you want to invoke. If you didn't want any of your characters to cast spells or invoke items, this step is quietly skipped. Select the spells and items you which to use and hit the 'Next' button.

The final step is to select the targets of each of your moves. If there is more than one monster group, you'll have to tell the fighters which group of monsters to fight. (If there is only one monster group, this step is not necessary.) If you wanted one of your wizards to cast a spell of healing, you'll have to say which character you want to cast the spell on. If none of the characters are performing actions that require explicitly specified targets, then this step is skipped.

When all the information about what your characters will do has been entered, the 'Next' button will change to an 'OK' button. You have this one more chance to go back and change your moves by hitting the 'Back' button. If you hit 'OK,' the battle begins.

Running

On the other hand, if you elected to try to run away from the monsters and avoid a fight, you might get away, and you might not. Whether you get away or not depends on the average agility of your characters (if any of them are unconscious or dead, this figure is decremented to account for the difficulty of making a speedy escape while dragging bodies) and also on the agility of the monsters you are facing. If you successfully evade the monsters, combat is over, and unless you ran right into another party of monsters, you'll be able to move around the labyrinth again. But if you don't escape, the monsters will get a free round of attacks. During this free round of attacks, they will only engage you in hand-to-hand combat (casting spells, etc, is too involved to do if they have to chase you down at the same time). After that round of attacks, you'll be able to enter moves for the following round and may even attempt to run again if you wish.

Note that if you ambush the monsters and attempt to run in that first free ambush round, you will always escape unless the monsters are special monsters. See the section on Ambushes for more information.

Battle

The center panel will narrate the events of the battle. Each character and monster will be given a chance to make a move in the battle. Characters and monsters will high agilities will tend to move before characters and monsters with low agilities. (Tip: If you find yourself getting creamed by monsters before your characters are even able to do anything about it, try increasing their agilities.) Hit the 'OK' buttons to read the account of the battle.

The performance of your characters in battle is the direct result of your characters various attributes. In hand-to-hand combat, for example, a character's speed determines the maximum number of times he can strike a monster in a round. (If his speed is high enough, it may also mean that he can strike at more than one opponent in a single round.) His dexterity (and depending on how far back in the party he is, his vision) helps determine whether he actually hits the monster, and his strength (or, if it's a long range weapon, his vision) helps determine how much damage is done with each hit.

The effectiveness of sorcerer spells is determined by the caster's IQ, and the effectiveness of wizard spells is determined by the caster's wisdom.

Afterward

At the end of the round, if one side or the other is dead, the battle ends. If not, another round begins, and you'll get a chance to enter new moves for a new round.

If the monsters kill or paralyze your entire party, then you'll mercifully be transported back to the last town you were in. (Perhaps another kind adventurer found your bodies and dragged them back.) Once back in town, you'll have a chance to heal your characters in the clinic or create entirely new characters.

If you win the battle by killing all the monsters, each surviving character of the battle will gain a certain number of experience points (which is based on the strength and number of the monsters you defeated) and then get a chance to scavenge loot and maybe even equipment. In the labyrinth, even flying insects sometimes carry treasure around with them; the spoils of war can be quite rewarding.

Be wary of treasure chests, however; some are booby-trapped. See the section on Looting for more information about dealing with treasure chests.