GOLDENGUY'S PROFILE

On that lower level, there are three readily accessible staircases leading up to the first floor - you can come down from either the left or right one - if you hit the center one, it'll take you upstairs to an isolated room with the key needed to open those doors!

It's a red floor switch - when you see it, you'll be at a dead end, with lavafalls to the right and one of those black stalagmites by the wall to the left - from where you start the volcano, the best way to describe it is basically hugging the wall to the character's left the entire way. In the offshoot to the north of the central volcanic area, you have to jump the stones to cross the lava, but after this part you're pretty close.

It's in the same room that you start the volcano, to be precise. You basically just have to circumnavigate the entire volcano to get to it - backtracking to the western section of the volcano will yield the exit and put you very close to the Deserted Castle.

Glad you're loving the game! I had a lot of fun making it.

The patch is fixed and current. It's dated 6/26 on the site because that was the original upload date. I refreshed all of the downloads yesterday, so fresh downloads of this game and my other game (The Staff of Cyrenia) don't need the patch.

Indeedy - and in this game, the character statistical attributes increase rather slowly, while the newer equipment increases rather dramatically.

The rats don't have any resistance or weaknesses - the first fire spell's base damage is 25, which admittedly is only very useful pretty early on in the game.

I think you might have missed an equipment upgrade. There are new weapons in Damaros (the town of interest), if I recall. Those mice should definitely NOT be doing 40+ damage.

They're totally optional though - not facing any of them shouldn't hinder you from anything in the future, unless you hate missing out on the 5% chance of an Antidote drop :P