I finally got in to the office. Wandered the wilderness running from everything except toothed salamanders at level 5 because all my hits generate "no damage incurred".
![Rolling Eyes :roll:](./images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif)
Finally scrapped together a half-dozen spare weapons and used them all up to batter down the one door. Used the key and then ran in to the invincible pair of zombies. Saw another thread about those but the advice there doesn't work. Can't outrun them and the gate you came in is closed by the same pressure plate that opens the zombies gates, something the "smash them with the gates" people apparently didn't notice.
The game is going away, at least for a while. I've been playing since the days of TSR-80s and Apple IIs and I've seen too many games that are just an excuse for the developers to prove how tough they are by beating up on the players and can only be completed by following a very exact sequence of keystrokes with no clues as to what those are. This one is showing all the signs of that and life is too short to put up with it.
Maybe I'll try it again in a few weeks, I don't know, but I doubt it.