5th LEVEL

1. Passage up to the sixth level.
2. Guarded doorway. You are attacked by either two or four orcs. See note for the first level on actions that alert the guards.
3. The ghosts of Oin and Ori appear. Free them with the !Khazad word of power. They provide hints. If the Moria Doom spirit was released in Gorthad, and Hawkeye is dead, and you did not carry out the ceremony in Rivendell, Hawkeye's ghost appears for the second time and attacks. When defeated, it is still not destroyed but retreats. If Hawkeye is alive, or the signet ring was used in Rivendell, you are attacked by a barrow-wight instead.
4. Drishnak of the Red Eye, who is alarmingly well-informed, demands that you hand over the Ring. If you start to walk away, he threatens you, and if you try to leave the room he attacks. Of course, you can attack him and defeat him easily. Or, you can trade him the Smith's ring or the signet ring. In either case he takes the ring and disappears.
5. You find something hidden within the fireplace, and in the enhanced version, the 'Get' dialog opens invitingly. Do not take the black key yet! The fireplace is trapped, as using detect traps (or perception, if the leader has Dwarf lore) reveals. Use devices three times to disarm the traps. (Using perception in between would reveal the traps, one after the other.) Now you can get the black key. If you do not disarm the traps, the leader takes 2–8 points of damage from the first one (a poison needle); and the second one inflicts 2–6 points of damage on everyone (noxious vapours). The game does not say what the third trap is, but apparently it does no harm (it inflicts 3–12 points of damage, but only to those previously selected in some way, and nobody was selected).

Questions Ori, Oin Balin/Durin, Durin's Axe/Axe

• There is a script that would have Gimli, Gandalf, or Kiri recognize the hall on the fifth level, but its hotspot is in the wrong place. It has the same coordinates as the one for the Miner's Hall on the first level, and is overridden by it. The following text was meant to be displayed:
  • From the size of this place, this must be the Meeting Hall of the Dwarven Houses on the Fifth Level. Here hundreds of dwarves would meet to discuss the affairs of the dwarves...
  • ...and, in this chamber, Durin was slain.
• Before the barrow-wight attacks, the wrong text is displayed, so that you are mocked by the "spirit of Hawkeye" even though Hawkeye is alive and may be present. No suitable text seems to exist in the map data.
• The orc's name is variously spelt 'Drisnak' or 'Drishnak', sometimes in the same text string. I use 'Drishnak'.
• The script for Drishnak allows you to trade the One Ring to him, and similarly the script for #9 on the 2nd deep allows you to get the Ring back. However, the game engine won't let you part with the Ring.
• The black key is quite useless as the star key from the Shire does the same thing – and most people would try the star key first, star-shaped keyhole and all.
• Paragraphs 172 and 219 in the manual have the ghosts of Oin and Ori speak to you in riddles. The paragraphs are not used in the game, which is a pity really. The ghosts's 'master' must be the spirit of Moria Doom with its 'power to enslave the dead', but otherwise the clues provided seem to be red herrings.