MARREND PLAYS WORLD OF XEEN!

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Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
There was a lot of internal debate to do another LP period. Much less what game to play. However, I decided to go back to the early 90's, for a bit of Might and Magic mayhem. Not just any game in the series, obviously, but...




Photos obtained via the Wikipedia pages of Clouds of Xeen and Darkside of Xeen.

...World of Xeen. This game is something of a marketing genius plot that I'm not quite sure if I've encountered since. The only way to get "World of Xeen" is by installing both Might and Magic 4 - Clouds of Xeen and Might and Magic 5 - Darkside of Xeen into the same directory. The game has a lot of similarities to Might and Magic 3 - Isles of Terra, but, there are some quality-of-life upgrades that I will mention later.

I think my decision to LP this game is because it has a certain nostalgia factor for me. Well, okay. You could probably argue that for the entire main-line series. Like, I originally played Might and Magic - Secret of the Inner Sanctum on the Commodore 64, back in the late 80's. I was probably around 7 years old, and had no clue what the hell I was supposed to do. This remains true to this very day, and I've still yet to complete the game. Might and Magic 2 - Gates to Another World is a slightly different story, but not by much. My first play of that was still in the late 80's, and I may have had a cluebook, but, I don't think I managed to beat the thing until much later. I want to say the mid-90's, but, I'm not sure. I kinda skipped over Might and Magic 3 - Isles of Terra for a number of years, and even Might and Magic 4 - Clouds of Xeen wasn't obtained until a bit later. However, I think I pretty much got Might and Magic 5 - Darkside of Xeen relatively new. Which would be around 1993, or thereabouts. At one point, I had the CD release of World of Xeen (the game-box pictured above) on a "just because" basis. Unfortunately, the only remaining copies I have of the original 5 entries of the series comes from my Might and Magic 6 - Mandate of Heaven Limited Edition CD. Though, I still have the original instruction manual for MM2, and the original maps of MM1 (it's barely holding together) and MM2 (this one saw less punishment, but is still very old).

I will be using Jack Hartman's Universal Game Editor, and the Xeen modules made by David Melanson to alleviate/mitigate girding. Would it be a "Marrend Plays!" thread without a lot of little cheating?

That aside, we've got two playlists I'll be pulling from. For MM4/Clouds, I'll generally be using this, and for MM5/Darkside, this. I'll try to note if I diverge from these lists. I will note right away that the intro and ending cut-scenes will have a separate source.


If you have any questions or comments, feel free to put them in the thread!

Table of contents:
  • Clouds of Xeen
Session 1 - Screw this! Let's make a character! Six, even!
Session 2 - Our first four areas.
Session 3 - Witches and Bat Queens and Gnome Vampires! Oh my!
Session 4 - Goin' real deep into the Red Dwarf Range, here!
Session 5 - We call it Newbridge Newcastle because we built a new bridge castle here FIVE HUNDRED years ago.
Session 6 - Main-line Quest acquired! Prepare to avoid engage!
Session 7 - Yak, the Terror Golem
Session 8 - Illusion of Gaia Darzog
Session 9 - The Clouds are falling!
  • Darkside of Xeen
Session 10 - Castleview, and Ellinger's Tower
Session 11 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Bark
Session 12 - Onward! To Sandcaster!
Session 13 - Unphasing Castle Kalidra
Session 14 - Taking the scenic route to Castle Blackfang!
Session 15 - The last, best hope for Xeen
Session 16 - The end of Darkside, and of an era
  • World of Xeen
Session 16 - We get halfway pretty quick, but the other half, weeeelll...
Session 17 - It's the end of the World of Xeen as we know it! And I feel fiiiiiine!
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
World of Xeen's default intro cut-scene is that of Darkside's. However, for the sake of completion, let me show you the midly entertaining intro cut-scene...





...of Clouds. I'll show the intro to Darkside later, when we get there. For now, let's start up the game, get ourselves to the inn, and roll some characters!





Yes, the game uses RNG to determine starting stats, and is the last game in the series to do so. The possible range of values fall between 3 to 21. So, it might be rolling a virtual 2D10+1, but, I wouldn't necessarily discount 3D7 either. However, this screen is accompanied by one of the calmest songs ever, the title screen music for Clouds...





...and would be the only time we'd hear it in the combined World of Xeen game. ;_;

Our intrepid party can consist of up to six members of varying classes, as you can see. This isn't a FAQ, so I will not discuss the requirements, advantages, or disadvantages of these classes. I will, however, let you know that my party consists of a Knight, a Paladin, an Archer, a Robber, a Cleric, and a Sorcerer. Which are classes the series has had since MM1, but not necessarily after this game.

So! Welcome to Vertigo!





Sadly, most of the town has left, because the town has been infested with pests. The mayor has hired Joe, the exterminator to get rid of them, but, the situation isn't really getting any better. Perhaps we could help?

I swear I'm going off memory, here, but, like...






...yeah. Pretty much. Before I go too much further, let me make a sub-note that I've already UGEd my character's stats, and their equipment packs, and, as I type this, am in the process of UGEing secondary skills. Otherwise, if I wanted items/equipment, I would have to transfer items from the preconstructed party, or find/purchase them. It's definitely an old-school design.

This game has something akin to on-screen encounters in that you can see enemies in front of you (and sometimes to the side). If you're lined up, you can either have your party shoot arrows with the characters equipped with a bow, or have somebody cast a spell before closing into melee. However, there are some enemies are also able to fire either arrows or cast spells at you before closing into melee, though. Defeated enemies generally don't respawn, though, there are notable exceptions to that rule, and such exceptions will be noted when they arise.

However, for Vertigo's foes, defeating them is perma-death, as per usual. There's a few hints around town that Joe is actually using the funds given to him to produce monsters in a warehouse in town, and generally keep his job as "Monster exterminator". The proof of purchase is in said warehouse, but, before we get there, we map out the town, and observe the services, which I will summarize here, and also provide both Clouds and Darkside jingles and entry quotes for them.




"What do YOU want?"


"See anything like a bike you like?"


The blacksmith is where you buy, sell, and repair equipment. We generally get a lot of use out of the "sell" service, but, later on, I'm not exactly sure when, a character's equipment becomes broken whenever they fall unconscious. There may be some creatures out there that break equipment with spells, or via a special attack.




"Lookin' to train?"


"You wanna TRAIN?"


The training facility is an old-school holdover if ever there was one. See, in this game, and for many games in this series, characters don't automatically level up as soon as they reach the necessary experience. You need to visit one of these facilities to level up.
There is also a level cap placed on these facilities. Vertigo's facilities can only train up to level 5. The next facility goes up to 10, and the one after than I'm pretty sure is 15, and the last one on Clouds goes up to 20. Darkside is another matter entirely, as it's first facility goes up to 30, but, I think the one after that goes up to 50? I don't recall what the third goes up to, but, I think the last one goes up to 200? I'm getting a little ahead of myself, though. We're still Level (freaking) 1.




"Welcome to the guild!"


"Bwak! Lookin' for spells?"


The mage guild is where you purchase spells, and all of them require membership before said purchases can be made. There are a few quests that award spells, but, generally speaking, the guilds are the way to learn spells. Sorry.




"May we help you?"


"May we help you?"


The temple charges a premium to remove conditions (depending on the conditions removed, of course), or uncurse items. You may also donate to them, and doing so enough might induce a blessing. This blessing is a simultaneous casting of Bless, Power Shield, Holy Bonus, and Heroism. I don't necessarily recall what all that means off-hand, and the bonus that they grant might depend on which town you're donating to.




"Safe and secure!"


"It'll be SAFE... with me!"


The bank is an odd service. A total party kill in this game leads to a GAME OVER. It does not mean getting teleported to town with decreased amount of gold or gems. So, one might question why the hell this exists in the first place. However, it's also true that you can still stash gold and/or gems, and even obtain a 1% interest at the beginning of each game-week! As a supplement of information, a game-week is ten game-days, and a game-year consists of 100 game-days.




"Hello, travelers."


"Hello, adventurers."


We've technically already visited the tavern for the purposes of character generation, but, it's not completely useless afterwards. Here, we can replenish our supply of food here, which is consumed when the party rests to restore their health and magic. However, the amount of food taverns give you is variable. For instance, this town fills up your party's pack for "five days" worth of food for 10 gold, whereas another town might fill it up to "twenty days" for a different price. the game considers "a day" to be three rests; A rest action takes 8 hours to perform, and 8 * 3 = 24. In our case, one day would mean we feed 6 people 3 times, so, 18 units of food. Five days would therefore be 90 units.

Scattered across town, among other places on either side of Xeen, are secondary skills that we can learn. This is a concept carryover from Gates to Another World, except in that game, characters could only have two skills at any given time. With this game, we can have as many as we can pay for or UGE them directly 'cause we cheap-ass chumps like dat. I'll go over some of the more notable ones here, though.

Swimmer allows navigation of (most) water tiles without needing the Walk on Water spell. Pathfinding allows navigation of dense forests. Mountaineer allows navigation over mountains. Cartographer fills out the area map, and mini-map, as you explore. Prestidigitation gives a flat bonus to a Sorcerer's or Archer's MP per level. Prayer Master does the same for Clerics and Paladins. Bodybuilder adds a flat HP bonus per level. Merchant lowers buy and/or repair prices, and elevates sell prices. Direction Sense adds a compass notation in the HUD. Danger Sense animates the bat on the upper portion on the screen when monsters are nearby.

Whew! I've technically only barely touched the game, but, this is a veritable wall-of text as it is. I probably won't have time tomorrow to make another go, but, I still feel I can close the session here. Things should pick up a bit with next session, though.

As an aside, I visited the Darkside to capture some of the entry quotes I couldn't remember off-hand. That was on an unsaved game, so, don't worry on that point.
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Most of Vertigo was mapped before I closed off last session, but, we've not actually found the warehouse yet. I think it's in the northeast corner of town, if memory serves. So, naturally, we start up this session making towards the southeast potion, and working our way north. There's a few mobs to beat, and my party took a few rests to get there, but, we did arrive at the warehouse. I suppose if there is a boss to this quest, it would be the Breeder Slimes. They take quite a beating, and can render my Sorcerer unconscious with one attack. Granted, my Sorcerer only has 4 HP at maximum, and has the crappiest armor. There's a few boxes in the warehouse that house monsters in them, and I could swear there was a monster-in-a-box that also had Joe's receipt in it. My memory on this point proved faulty. Still, finding the receipt marks the quest as complete, and we can visit the mayor for a reward of a gold, gems, and experience.

We also receive another quest from the good mayor. The Dwarves of the Red Dwarf Range are having some issues with the Mad Dwarf clan invading their lands. We'll be sorting that out, but, first, there's some things on the world map we can do. There are two bits of business before we get to the world map. One, I'll use the mirror to teleport to the arena to get...





...an in-combat screencap. If there was a monster-in-a-box for Joe's receipt, that would have been my screencap before, as such would indicate a boss. More than that, though, I want to show you...





...this screen. We used to call this kind of thing "copyright protection". A more modern player might consider this digital rights management (DRM). However, I don't think that term even existed back in the early 90's, though, I could certainly be proven wrong. With World of Xeen, this instance is the only time we get this screen with Clouds. There will be another screen when we get to Darkside, and if memory serves, it has a similar trigger of attempting to leave through the first town's gates for the first time.

The overworld...





...of Might & Magic main-line games are a series of maps linked together in a grid formation. In the case of Xeen, the map-grid consists of 6 columns, and 4 rows. Vertigo, for example, rests in F3, or the 6th column, 3rd row of the map-grid. One map subsection is an area of 16 x 16 tiles, which the series is consistent with up until Might & Magic 6 - The Mandate of Heaven. I want to specify that only the overworld functions with a map-grid. There are many areas in this game that are bigger than 16 x 16 tiles. Hell, Vertigo was one such area! However, I would like to point out that this game released before The Elder Scrolls - Arena, if you're considering your Skyrim right about now. Lemme try to get back on track, though.

Vertigo is nestled up next to the mountains in the northeast portion of this area. Said mountains also contain entrances to two separate Red Dwarf mines, and an Orc hut that we can sack for EXP. There's a tent by Vertigo that houses an herbalist, asking us to obtain some Phirna Root for her Cure Poison potions. This is a pretty annoying fetch-quest, as the game will allow us only one Phrina Root in our Key Item inventory at any given time. It's odd, because there are other Key Items that you can have multiples of, and even if you look at your Key Item inventory, it lists "1 Phrina Root", as if you could carry multiples at a time. However, the game just doesn't let you for Caneghem-knows-why.

There's two other sidequests here. One is in the tent on an island in the middle of a river. If we can find his whistle, there are statues that can teach use Cure Poision and Cure Disease. This is one of the few ways we can learn spells outside of the Mage Guilds. There's a wagon with a guy whose girlfriend has been captured by Zombies. We're not doing any of these right now, but, at least there is a Quest Log in this game! For now, we'll be going south, into F4, for a few more things.



*swearing under breath*


Aside from the Phirna Roots scattered in this area, we've got an old woman who wants us to fetch an alicorn from the witches. Their tower is locked but, she's got the key for us. As it happens, there is a gatekeeper that we get a short cut-scene with for this tower, regardless of whither or not we have the key.

I see you have the key to this tower. You may pass, MORTALS!


If I can remember, I'll try to get the no-entry quote later. However, I'll forgo that quest too. At least for now. We move to E4, where we find the whistle, and dungeon...

Only with the proper stone can I let you go in. Go away!


...that we can't enter quite yet. We'll be going back to F3 for the quest completion, but we'll be going there via E3 to map out more turf, and maybe get even more side-quests. As it happens, we find the Spring Druid, who seeks the Last Snowflake of Winter in exchange for the Last Raindrop of Spring. There's also another locked dungeon. We go fill out the quest order that we can complete, then return to Vertigo to train up the team. We're now level 10, so, my memory was a bit faulty about the level-cap. However, we're definitely better positioned to tackle the Red Dwarf Range or the Witch's Tower. I think we'll be climbing the tower first, but, I also think this is also a good place to end this session.
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
Yeah, time in this game works in a hilarious way. Your lp makes me wanna continue with this game.
There's just something so magical about that forest of jumbled green pixels. Maybe it's the secret herb that yells at you when you try and pick it twice, maybe it's the depth of the trees which you don't see in most modern games, I don't know. But it's MAGICAL.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I decided to visit the bank to find that there's two weeks of interest in there. Had it really been that long, game-wise? Maybe. I'm pretty sure interacting with shops, as a general rule, consumes some amount of in-game time. The in-game time for training may very well be a day, if not more.

Either way, the plan to kick off this session, proper, is still to climb Witch Tower.



Some searchable objects disease the searcher. Well, look at that. The Bone Whistle quest has already paid off! There's also some prisoners we can free for bonus EXP. Skulls are scattered about, which we can feed gems to for various effects. We can learn Sleep, Pain, Beast Master, Clairvoyance, Toxic Cloud, and Lightning Bolt this way. Other skulls have no benefit. At the top of the tower, is our Boss.

Defeating this encounter allows us access to a prisoner with the password needed to open the path to the alacorn. We could climb back down, and report a job well done. However, this dungeon, and a few others, have a roof area we can explore. It's not called Clouds of Xeen for nothing!




In order to walk along the cloud-tiles, you'll need Levitation. None of my party members have that spell, but, I did UGE me some Gems of Daily Protection and Gems of Daily Sorcery.

Day of Protection is a veritable package deal. By casting it, it will apply the effects of the following spells:
  • Light
  • Protection from Fire
  • Protection from Electricity
  • Protection from Cold
  • Protection from Poison/Acid
  • Walk on Water
  • Bless
  • Holy Bonus
  • Heroism

I'll note that some of these spells cost more MP (and gems!) as the level of the caster rises; their benefits also rising. Hence, the flat-rate MP cost of Day of Protection (pretty sure it's 75 MP; I don't remember the gem cost off-hand) will eventually outpace the cost of casting it's included spells individually. Not to mention that casting spells takes in-game time. I think it's about ten in-game minutes per spell? Might be different when you're in combat.

Day of Sorcery works, and costs, similarly to Day of Protection. The spells it includes are:
  • Light
  • Clairvoyance
  • Levitate
  • Power Shield

Power Shield is the only spell on that list that would have increased costs and benefits. So, it's MP/Gem cost efficiency would take longer to catch up. Still, the convenience factor alone may very well make up for the initial cost. Of course, I'm effectively using consumables to cast these spells, so, the efficiency of Day of Protection and Day of Sorcery is very much preferred over having consumables for their component spells!

All that aside, the Cloudscape of Witch Tower has Harpies we can slay, and their nests we can sack for EXP. There's a few stray piles of gems we can plunder too. Mayor Guther awarded us with 50, and the witches dropped some. Those have been our only (legit) gems so far. This area also houses some statues that give a few hints as to progress the main-line quest. Which we haven't even gotten yet!

The alacorn has been returned, and it's owner, Falista, has been revived! She bestows upon the party the title of Crusader. Well, okay, Crusader is a secondary skill, and I know it has to do with quests, but, more than that, search me what it's effect actually is.

With that out of the way, our quest log is now down to slaying the Mad Dwarf kind, and rescuing a woman from zombies. Or, we could explore more of the overworld. I happen to know for a fact that there are five separate Red Dwarf Mines, and we only know the entrances to two of them. Also, there are five towns, and we've only been in Vertigo. While we could use Vertigo's mirror to teleport, even to places we've never been to, we're probably still better off finding the other towns on our own. If we keep moving east corner , I think we'll run across Nightshadow, then Rivercity. If memory serves. It's proven faulty before.

Nightshadow is definitely a smaller town, as I recall it. All towns have a Mage Guild, but, I don't think Nightshadow has a blacksmith or training facilities? Maybe we'll try going there, and finding out for ourselves, rather than relying on my sometimes-faulty memory.

As it happens, D4 houses the prisoner we needed to save from the zombies, and Nightshadow! There is also another fetch-side-quest, this time to get the Elixir of Restoration from the Temple of Yak and Moo, and two Key Items I didn't know I needed yet (a Wand of Faerie Magic, and some poor soul's missing skull). However, before we return to the caravan to tell the guy about his girlfriend, let's check out Nightshadow.

The theme of this town is "Vampires". We fight Bat Queens, and Gnome Vampires. Sometimes in broad daylight, but, eh. What can ya do? As for services, it literally just has a Mage Guild. To"clear the town (this isn't a quest, per say, but has quest-like rewards), we'll need to deal with the Count. Of course we do. It's a bit of a puzzle, but, perhaps, one of the more simpler ones.

There's three dials in the town. They each have to be set to "9". Once those are set, we'll have to wait/rest until nightfall to be able to open the coffin, and fight the Count. Killing him will enable the well in town to grant a temporary 10-level bonus, plus a bunch of EXP, and a stash of gold/items.

I think I'm gonna close the session for today, but, before I do, let me talk about items and inventory for a bit. Items generally fall into one of five categories. There's the aforementioned Key Items. Weapons, Armor, Accessories, and Miscellaneous are the other categories, and each character has their own backpack that can carry up to nine items in each of those categories. Equipping a weapon, armor, or accessory will have zero impact on that limit. There is, however, a little icon next to things that are equipped as a visual reminder. Items in the Miscellaneous category cannot be equipped, and serve as the game's consumables.

When you find an item, you'll typically get a message like, "Got a Long Sword", or some-such. I already forget the exact text. This is fine, but, the question you have to ask yourself is what kind of Long Sword it is. Is it a Pyric Long Sword? A Genius Long Sword? An Armored Long Sword? A Leather Long Sword? Or, could it possibly be an Ectoplasmic Obsidian Pirate Long Sword of THE GODS!?

To be fair, that last example, or something like it, was possible in Might & Magic 3 - Isle of Terra. World of Xeen's possibilities lies more in the first four examples.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
I apparently keep being distracted from doing this LP with other stuff.

Right! This game! So, Nightshadow's Mage Guild had Cold Ray and Fireball for us, which are my favorite AOE spells in the game. If for no other reason than they improve with each level of their respective casters. This, of course, means that MP and Gem cost also increases.

As for what to do for this session, we've got two quests in the log. One involves the Temple of Yak, which is the one of the dungeons we found earlier. I'm pretty sure. The other is the Red Dwarf Mines. We could go exploring north of Nightshadow to see if I can come across more quests, or other points of interest. There is merit in exploring. Rivercity should contain the next training facility, and I've tapped out Vertigo's. Still, maybe I'll do the Red Dwarf mines?

The Red Dwarf Mines has it's own little cut-scene...

Step right up! This way to the action-packed, treasure-filled mines of the Red Dwarf Range!


...when you enter them through the front door. More about that in a bit.





Among the things we can interact with are veins of gold we can mine. Also, a spattering of stat-upgrades, as stats do not increase on leveling up. I guess it's time for a bit of tangent about that.

While primary statistics, such as Might and Intelligence do not increase, HP and MP are derived stats, based on class, level, and any bonuses that apply from stats. For example, my Knight has a base value of 11 HP per level. After his Endurance bonus, it's 13. After the level multiplier, his final value would then be 130. A similar bonus is applied on all classes. MP is a little different, as any Intelligence bonus would apply to Sorcerers and Archers, while Personality would apply to Clerics and Paladins. Druids and Rangers get a bonus from both Personality and Intelligence, but, I find it hard to believe they get the full bonus from each. Maybe a half-bonus, or an average or the two.

Anyway, there are five mines we can visit, though I don't "know" the entrances to three out of those five. However, there are mines carts we can use as a teleport between mines. By scavenging the mines, we learn there are Deep Mines, which have no access from the world map. We can use the mine carts to take us there, or use the town mirrors.

We also find scattered notes as to the teleport code for one of these Deep Mines. The notes spell out "Alpha". "Alpha" has a note that leads us to "Theta". Theta leads to "Kappa", which then leads us to "Omega". Which is, of course, where the Mad Dwarf King resides.





Beyond him lies a treasure chest, and one of the best gold veins in these mines that I know of. I tend to not explore too much of the Deep Mines after Alpha, though. We return to Vertigo, and receive, along with our EXP award, the Red Dwarf Badge of Courage. We, of course, recognize the pun.

With that out of the way, let's think a bit on what to do next. There may be a benefit to visiting the Temple of Yak to do that quest, but, I think it's time to explore a bit. Maybe find Rivercity. We could use the mirrors, but, I think I'm going to find it's location on the world map. We'll be starting out from Nightshadow, and going north an area, maybe two. That'll be next session, though.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
The area north of Nightshadow is pretty tough. There are creatures in the deep water (I can't access these tiles via Swimmer; I must use Walk on Water) next to a tower that use Cold Ray, and can knock my party out in two or three uses. This is after an application of Day of Protection, as well. The normal response would be to explore it later, but, I'll try UGEing our party's resistances first.

It helped a bit. Only my Sorcerer was still dead after two hits, but, the rest of my party was pretty okay. They're positioned around a tower...

Without the proper key you may not pass, MORTALS!


...which I don't have the Key Item for right now. There's a Faerie Nest we can smash for EXP/items, plus a quest we already had the Key Item for (the skull we found near Nightshadow). No Rivercity, though. Right! Let's go west!

This are houses two quests that we already completed. One required a quest-item (the Wand of Blasting Faery Magic) for. The other wanted us to kill the lake creatures in the west. Gotta love it when you do quests before you get them!

There's a quest we pick up, though. Returning the Book of Elvenkind. Rivercity also resides here, so we can figure out what the trouble is.

Oh, yes, we've got trouble! Right here in Rivercity! Trouble with a captial "T", that rhymes with "P", which stands for pool!.

Okay, sorry. I apparently needed to get that joke/reference out of my system. The trouble in Rivercity, sadly, is not pool. It is a band of thieves and sorceresses. Both groups have Key Items. The one from the thieves isn't a quest we have yet, but, the sorceresses have an item for a quest in town, and can complete more or less right away. That's the kind of thing we like to do!

The training facility here can get us up to level 15. The Mage Guild has for us Day of Protection, Day of Sorcery, and Lloyd's Beacon. Lloyd's Beacon is probably one of my favorite spells ever from this series. I like Teleport options as a general rule, but I've only implemented Lloyd's Beacon once. Maybe I'll change that one day. Maybe not.

Anyways, let's explore the area south of Rivercity. Points on interest here include another locked dungeon, and the remains of Newcastle. We can buy the deed to Newcastle for 50,000 gold, but, it's not an area we can enter yet. We'll need to visit the capital, Castle Burlock, and talk to the King's Engineer to built it back up.

The rebuilding of Newcastle is the technically part of the main-line quest of this game? The line is a little fuzzy, because the main-line quest that is written in the log-book is obtained from the King, himself. We'll have to find/visit Castle Burlock, and to see what the King, and his engineers, need. I can tell you right now it's going to be another fetch-quest, or three, to rebuild Newcastle, to say nothing about what His Majesty is going to ask for!
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Our next point of interest is Castle Burlock. While we could use the mirror network, we might be missing out on quests, or other points of interest.

In the area due north of Rivercity, those other points of interest include Asp, the Autumn Druid, a quest to slay the Orges of the area (which we had completed before talking to the quest-giver), a quest to find Crystals of Piezeoelectricity (found in Asp, if memory recalls), and another quest to fetch a Scarab of Imagining.

Let me go off a bit of a tangent here in regards to the Heroes of Might and Magic spin-off. The first two games in that series took various NPCs from the first five games, and made them the "hero" units that lead armies. I have a few images in my locker from the old Might and Magic and Mafia thread, so let me share their backstory, at least.

Ambrose, here, is an NPC we'll come across on Darkside. I don't want to say too much right now, but, we'll want/need his help later.

Carlawan (Carlawana originally) is one of the NPCs we just met. She's the one tasking us to find the Scarab of Imaging.
While I didn't capture an image for the mafia game, I'll mention that Falagar (a Warlock hero) is the NPC tasking us to fetch the Crystals of Piezeoelectricity. I'm also mentioning it here because Falagar and Carlawana are a brother/sister pair in their original incarnation.

Crag the Hack was the name of the pre-made Knight of the original game. He may have been included in the pre-made party of MM3 as a Barbarian, though, my memory is a touch fuzzy on that point. However, I will note that there weren't character portraits until MM3.

I didn't recall what role Sir Gallant played, so, I looked this one up.
Sir Gallant was a hireling in MM3. This basically translates to an optional party-member that has to be found, or otherwise recruited. For reference purposes, both MM2 and MM3 had a max party-size of 8, but two of those slots could only be filled by hirelings.
The concept of hirelings was tossed/scrapped for MM4/5, but was reintroduced in MM6. While they did not have actions in combat, they provided passive skill-buffs instead. MM9 saw hirelings that could act in battle again, but the concept reverted back to passive bonuses for MM10.

I don't recall what role Tsabu played either! So, another look-up.
Tsabu taught the Bodybuilding secondary skill in MM3.

Vesper (Vespar originally) is an NPC we'll meet on the Darkside. He's got a Pass to Sandcaster, in exchange for a stolen jewel, but, I'm jumping a bit ahead of myself here.

There is a "Roland" NPC in Xeen that we'll meet later on. However, one must point out that he does not share a portrait with a certain other character with the same name. If I think of it, I'll capture a dialog box when talking to this game's Roland.

Right. We didn't find Castle Burlock yet, we did find Asp. As you might imagine, the theme of this town is sneks snakes. Once we have access to the Guild, we purchase Town Portal. Town Portal will take us to any of the five towns on whatever side of Xeen I'm on. In our current case, this would be Vertigo, Nightshadow, Rivercity, Asp, and Winterkill. When we get to Darkside, it would be Castleview, Sandcaster, Lakeside, Necropolis, and Olympus.

There's a small puzzle to get to the snake generator, and the crystals we're looking for, but, the hints in town help. Falagar teaches us the Magavolts spell as part of his reward, which isn't a bad spell? I dunno. I generally only ever use Fireball and/or Cold Ray. Anyway, onto Scene 24 which is a smashing scene with some lovely acting... wait, no. I mean, the next area. Though "next area" is a little ambivalent, so let's specify a bit, and to the opposite of Horace Greely's advise.

There arguibly isn't much in this area to talk about. There's a secondary skill we can get (Merchant), Castle Burlock, and an entrance to one of the Red Dwarf Mines.

Castle Burlock...



...has a password protection screen we must pass before entering it. I totally forgot about it. Still, it could be a lot worse than it is. The King has our main-line quest: to find the Holy Grail Sixth Mirror. For a bit of backstory, the Sixth Mirror is like the mirror network in the towns we've come across. What makes this particular mirror so useful and desirable is that it's magic is such that can be taken with you, whereas the other mirrors cannot.

There's a few other things of not in this castle. The King's Engingeers, of course, which we'll want to speak to concerning Newcastle. We can deliver Princess Roxanne's Tiara to her, and scratch that quest off our list. Let's not leave out the King's Advisor, who asks us to free Crodo from the clutches of Darigaaz Darzog. This is arguably the actual main-line quest, but, the task from the King is related to this in it's own way.

The King's Engineers will lay a new foundation for Newcastle for 5 King's Megacredits. As you might suspect, there is no conversion from Gold to King's Megacredits. How do we get those? Why, by delving into certain dungeons, of course! One such dungeon, the Temple of Yak, has the additional benefit of having a quest to complete there! Which means that location is going to be our next target. However, this seems a good place as any to call this session done.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
We've a bunch of ground/dungeons to cover, so let's hop right into it. Our first stop is the aforementioned Temple of Yak.

The priests of Yak hide 8 King's Megacredits in their temple walls, along with the Elixir of Restoration that a different quest asked for. This is a relatively short dungeon. Encounters-wise, the priests have skeletons as back-up. The hardest enemies here are the Yak Liches, which are optional fights. Should we choose to rob their coffins, they prove resilient to magic, but still fall to a good sword.

As stated previously, building the foundation to Newcastle will cost us 5 King's Megacredits. To be honest, it doesn't look like much...




...but, what does one expect at this point? However, we do have a lead to the next dungeon. On entering the area, we were presented with a Stone of a Thousand Terrors.

The Tomb of a Thousand Terrors lies southeast from Newcastle. This dungeon induces the Insanity condition quite often, and is laden with traps. We can use Jump to avoid most of them, but, of course, not all.

From this tomb, we extract another 8 King's Megacredits. We pay 5 to build a keep at Newcastle, to make it look more like a castle...




...and nets us yet another stone. This time, it's the Golem Stone of Entrance.

Newcastle has a few services for us now. It has a training facility (max level: 20), a blacksmith, a temple, and a bank. While it doesn't have a tavern, there are barrels filled with food that stocks our party for 20 days. Sounds like a pretty good place to set that LLOYD'S BEACON!

The only thing left now is a basement. The engineers will do it for us for another 5 KMC. We technically have 6 left over, so we can afford this without further dungeon-delving. However, we'll dungeon-delve anyway.

The next dungeon's location hasn't been discovered, per say. While mirrors could take us to the various mines of the Red Dwarf Range (and it's Deep Mines), they cannot take us to the dungeons. Exploration time, then!

As it turns out, the dungeon we're looking for is one area west of Newcastle. We also find the Holy Book of Elvenkind that we can return, and the Cave of Illusion. We'll deliver the goods and explore that cave later. For now, the aptly-named Golem Dungeon.

This dungeon has four separate sections, the first three having their own puzzle element. In a section guarded by Stone Golems, we use wall-switches to uncover a set of six magma-infused rocks. The section south of that is guarded by Wood Golems, where we activate wall-switches to "cut the branches" of their "tree". The next section, guarded by Iron Golems, functions as a lock and key mechanism. You "set the tumblers" via another set of wall-switches, and the right combination will open the path to the last section. This one is guarded by Diamond Golems, and are pretty tough (and evasive) opponents. The end has a statue proclaiming our mastery of Golems, and rewards us with a level. Not a bunch of EXP. Just a straight-up level.

Let me show you something that might be interesting.




This is my quest item list, after doing the Golem Dungeon. As discussed, the Temple of Yak yielded 8 KMCs, as did the Tomb of a Thousand Terrors. I've paid 10 KMCs, so I stared the Golem Dungeon with 6. That means the Golem Dungeon alone should have have 13 KMCs. We only need 15 KMCs, but, if my math is right, there's almost double that amount (29) in the game. Still, the extra amount are appreciated in case something goes awry/missing.

There is one point I forgot, though. I might be right about the cost to build a dungeon at Newcastle, but, I apparently need a permit to to so. Well, Futch and Bright. I should have known it wasn't going to be that easy. I'm pretty sure you get a permit from the Advisor. Which means finding Crodo of the nine fingers and the Ring of Doom. Well, I can make a few deliveries, at least!

Still, I thought playing through, and doing the write-up for, these three dungeons would take a lot longer than it did!
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
The Clerics of Yak you must outwit
Taxman then must have his bit.
Five for your keep is not too dear
since Taxman give stone to fear.
Conquer terror and then you'll see
illusion holde Magic's key.


My auto-notes recorded this when searching the statues in the Cloudscape of Witch's Tower. The "key to Magic" is a reference to the Tower of High Magic, and the fact that it's a locked dungeon. We may, or may not, find Crodo there, but even so, I think we need to visit it regardless. The tower in question lies west of Rivercity, but, it behooves us to explore a bit anyway.

North of the Golem Dungeon, and the aforementioned Cave of Illusion, we have another locked tower, and two quests. One is from an Ent/Treefolk that wants to see the Ogres dead, and the other seeks the Everhot Lava Rock. One of these we can do pretty much right away the other has to wait.

Going west from there lies Winterkill, the Winter Druid, and another two quests. One seeks to rid his pagoda of ninja. The other seeks to rid the Cyclops of the area south of here. As before, one of these we can do right now, the other later. First, let's get ourselves into Winterkill.

This town's theme is ghosts. We cannot harm them with weapons, so, we'll have to rely on spells, or consumables. Searching the town provides a few Potions of Holy Word to help things along, and the Guild provides Holy Word as well. The town has to be cleared of three times before we get the award, though. It's a little annoying.

While I could explore the remaining area of the southwest region of Clouds, I think we're going into the Cave of Illusions. This is a weird/interesting dungeon. The traps and treasures that we find here are, in fact, little more than illusions. At least initially. At the very bottom of the Cave there is a plug...





...that, if we manage to pull out, will drain the water, and make the traps real. Some of the treasure becomes real as well, but, some still remain mirages. We didn't necessarily need to drain to water, though. Scattered in this cave are skulls that we can pay various amounts of gems to increase stats. One such skull sells us the Key to the Tower of High Magic for 300 gems. Well. Let's check that place out now!

As you might suspect, we'll be fighting Wizards. There are also trap tiles that set the party's MP to 0, and various elemental-based traps. A number of potions increase our resistances permanently, but, they have already been UGEd to max. I may consider doing the same for stats when I get to Darkside.

Darzog's Tower lies on the island that was surrounded by sea monsters. This tower also contains set-to-0-MP traps that also send you to the first floor. We fight some Darzog clones, but do face-off against the real deal.





After we eliminate him, there's a few hidden buttons to push before we can free Crodo. Apparently, there's a weapon in the basement of Newcastle that was forged to defeat Lord Xeen. We still need a permit, but, the King's Advisor will now grant us such. 5 King's Megacredits later, I finally have the basement excavated. The Lloyd's Beacon I set earlier proves particularly useful. The Xeen Slayer Sword is now ours!

This is not a Quest Item in the strictest sense of the term. While we can't sell it for gold, it is equipable as a weapon, and any class may equip it. I don't know it's stats off-hand, but, any other attack, be they from a weapon or spell, will have no effect on Lord Xeen. Even if Crodo was imprisoned elsewhere, we still needed the Key to Darzog's Tower, as it's Cloudscape houses Lord Xeen's HQ. Which we will be assaulting next session. Stay tuned!
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
The Cloudscape above Witch's Tower was called "Witch Clouds". However, being the domain of Lord Xeen, the Cloudscape above Darzog's Tower is called, wait for it, "Clouds of Xeen".

His castle lies on the north end of the area, and we must use Teleport to get there. Thankfully, Teleport was a spell we picked up from Winterkill's guild. Entry into the castle is disallowed until we can show that we have a Lord Xeen Cupie Doll. To obtain one of those, there are games that test our Might, Accuracy, Speed, and Endurance. We earn a cupie doll for each, and we can trade the set in for the Key Item we actually want.

I have my Archer set a Lloyd's Beacon when I enter the place, just in case. Though, I admit I used my Sorcerer's Beacon to hop back to Newcastle to train my team up to level 20, sell off some of the junk I picked up, plus restock my food supplies. Not that we need 20 in-game days to polish this game off, but, it's for future considerations.

The castle is laden with both traps and guards that respawn. Thankfully, we can disable both. Traps can be disabled on the ground floor and by climbing the east and west sides of the castle. The center has our guard generator, Lord Xeen's pet dragon, and, of course, Lord Xeen, himself. Felling him allows us to obtain Xeen's Scepter of Temporial Distortion as a Key Item. Beyond him lies the fabled Sixth Mirror, but, it seems the Scepter and the Mirror are incompatible, and cause the castle to collapse...





...kinda like that. For reference purposes, my probably irrelevant end-of-Clouds score was...





...this. There's a number of loose ends (ie: quests) that I either know about through the quest-log, or from previous plays. However, I'm not particularly inclined to perform them at the moment. When next session comes, and I may take a brief break on this point, we'll be on the Darkside!
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
The time is right, and the moons are in alignment. We wend now to the Darkside of Xeen, for we know it is more powerful! But first, it's introduction cut-scene.



As I mentioned in the opening of this LP, I played this game before Isle of Terra or Clouds of Xeen. This game has certain spoilers concerning the series thus far near the end, but, we'll speak more of that when we get to it. For now, we can get to the Darkside via a strange-looking pyramid near any of the five towns to end up in Darkside's first town of Castleview.

There's five tracks that could be played at random for Darkside towns...



...the last of which I decided to include in one of my submissions to this game. Maybe, one day, that game will see the light of day? Perhaps, that project has been consigned to the depths of abandonment and obscurity? Alas, this isn't the place for such discussion.

I've already touched upon the shops (and their quotes/music) earlier, so, lemme talk a bit about what's going on. The very first thing that happens upon reaching Castleview is that our intrepid party is given the Dragon Pharaoh's Orb by a complete bystander. Getting it back to it's proper owner is effectively our main-line quest for this game. Obviously, we are in no position to do that right now. Let us concern ourselves first with the troubles of Castleview, because, of course there are troubles!

So, there are three quests in town. One is to take care of the gremlin problem. Another is to return a trinket that was taken by rats into the sewer. The last is freeing an unjustly inprisoned guy from jail. We free the prisoner first, then go talk to the gremilns. While they throw a bunch of dudes at me, it's nothing a good, old fashioned Fireball/Cold Ray can't handle. We can then ask the goblin leader to cease and desist thier activities in a civilized manner, be more demanding and mean-spirited, or beat him to a pulp. While the last option might grant us more Gold/XP, I go with the first option, and still get 3 Energy Disks out of the deal. This is one of the few occasions where violence isn't the absolute answer to the problem at hand. I think there will be at least one more occasion later, when we get outside.

Our next quest takes us to the sewers to kill rats. Perhaps it's a bit trope-y, to have a starting quest involving the slaying of rats. Isn't that right, Vaan? I'm inclined to point out, though, that if we just had Darkside, any new characters would start the game at level 5, rather than the transfer from Clouds at level 20 that we ended up doing.

The sewers constitute as a "cavern" and would pull from...



...one of these tracks. The sewers has multiple exits. Most lead back to town, though, one such exit leads to a place in town that can't be accessed any other way. Another exit leads outside. It's not necessary for my party, but, I'm still glad there's this many opportunities to escape to town to rest and recuperate. The rats, themselves are also a non-issue. Again, this is mostly due to having spells/levels/equipment I wouldn't have access to if I was playing just Darkside or UGE. Though, let me tell you what, though, those rats scared the hell outta me on my first play.

Bringing back the trinket gets me a key. Because, of course, there was a tower I couldn't get into before...

You need a key, Orc-breath!

...that I need to get into if I am to return the Dragon Pharaoh's Orb.

How did YOU get a key? Alright, go in.

The tower in question, Ellinger's Tower, constitutes as a "dungeon", and would pull from...



...one of these tracks. If Clouds of Xeen had a game-long fetch quest involving King's Megacredits, Ellinger on the Darkside provides a similar quest with Energy Disks. The castle we are trying to rebuild, as it were, is Castle Kalindra, the capital of Darkside. The castle has phased out, and Ellinger needs the Energy Disks to cast a spell to bring it back into this plane of existence. While he needs a total of 20 Energy Disks to bring the castle back in it's entirety, he can do it on a floor-by-floor basis for 5 Energy Disks per floor.

So, yes, the task is exceptionally similar to rebuilding Newcastle in Clouds, but not quite as straight-forward as it was in Clouds. We won't obtain the key to the next dungeon by virtue of unphasing Castle Kalindra, and getting said key from an advisor. No, the dungeons that have the Disks are locked but, the keys are not in, or part of, the castle.

Thankfully, we have 3 Energy Disks from the goblins. So we only need 2 more to unphase the first floor, or 17 more to unphase the entire thing in one go.

As an aside, Ellinger's Tower contains a mirror. I know what you might be thinking, but...




...yeah, no. Of course not. That would be too easy! While it is possible to restore mirror travel on Darkside, by the time it's done, it's practically irrelevant. I'm jumping ahead a bit on this point, though. For now, we're about ready to head outside. However, even if we've barely scratched the surface, I still feel inclined to call this session done.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Castleview lies in area A4 of the overworld map. As such, the game would pull one of...









..these tracks. For full disclosure, I used the second track listed in this game.

Castle Kalindra also lies here, but, as mentioned previously, we can't access that yet. I will also mention that we cannot re-enter Castleview from the front gate, as we need...

Got a pass? Back off!


...a pass. However, there is a person selling passes nearby for 1,000.

Got a pass? Okay, go ahead.


Though, technically, I could either go through the sewers, or use the Lloyd's Beacon that I set in town. But, it's probably better to have a pass than not.

We also meet a druid that seeks three statuettes. This is another game-long quest that sometimes has us visit dungeons/towers where we also find Energy Disks for Ellinger.

A3. Here, we have the Great Western Tower (locked, of course), a quest that asks us to deal with it's inhabitants, and some gemsmiths.

B4. Here, we have a monkey-dog that love Monga Melons. We picked up some in A4 and this area has some too. Strictly speaking, we only need to give him two, but, we can pick up, like, six.

B3. Here, we meet Vespar, who I mentioned earlier. He's looking for his emerald handle, and will reward us with the pass to Sandcaster on return. We also come across Yog of the Sardaj tribe...





...and a man who seeks an end of Ogre attacks on his caravan. Yog might be more famous in the Heroes of Might and Magic spin-offs (particularly the Shadow of Death expansion of Heroes 3), but here, he can be either friend or foe. I feel no particular desire to take his tribe on. He can fill our packs with food (up to 20 days, it appears) once, and inform us that the aforementioned Orges have taken what Energy Disks they had.

Well, then. Looks like we've got a few options here, but first, allow me to speak a bit about the Skyroad. The Skyroad isn't quite the same as the Cloudscapes of the other side of Xeen. It is literally a series of maps "above" the main world map, and are thus, similarly interconnected. The Skyroad can be quite treacherous, but, we could climb Ellinger's Tower and use it to get to infiltrate the Great West Tower from above, rather than going in from the front entrance.

Continuing our eastward exploration is our other option. I don't want to head too much further north at this time. While Necropolis might be in that direction, and closer to me than Sandcaster, those areas are too dangerous for my party at it's current level. Eastward it is, then.

C3 had a few mines I could explore. Maybe I will later. C4 has the Temple of Bark, and a quest that asks us to visit said temple. We need to be brushed of by the guard...

What are you lookin' at? You don't even have they key!


...before the monkey-dog in B4 will allow an exchange of Monga Melon for said key.

What are you lookin' at? Go on in.


I'm not sure if the Temple of Bark is the place I want to be right now, but, what the hey. Though, let it not be said that New World Computing...








...doesn't have it's own sense of fourth-wall-breaking humor. There's a number of tricks and traps in the dungeon, with Orc Guards and Orc Shamans as, well, guards and priests. We can complete our quest on floor 3, but, there's no sign of Energy Disks up to that point. However, there are two floors below that. Floor 4 contains a bit of a puzzle, but, nothing too terrible. The solution allows the party to be awarded with the title of Disciples of Bark, which is necessary to explore the next floor.

On this floor, we have the option of pissing off Bark, himself, if we so choose. I don't know how smart that is, as I seem to recall the thing having several mountains worth of HP.





Oh, yeah, geeze. That's insane. Let's not go through the motions to fight this thing, then. However, this is also the floor that has Energy Disks! There's only two, but, hey, two is bigger than zero!

Completing the quest grants us another 2 Energy Disks, bringing our current total to 7. We visit Ellinger to do a partial restore of Castle Kalindra, though we don't have to visit the castle right away. Maybe sneaking into the roof of the West Tower is in order, but, let's leave that for next session.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Before I get into the game, a few things of interest. First, I came across...





...this retrospective of the main-line Might and Magic series. I found this rather informative as an overview of the history of the series in the sense of where it has been, where it is now, and where it has gone. Though, of course, there is a bit of spoiler content regarding the story line of 1-5 contained therein.

Second point, I did a bit more playing around with OBS. So far, I've only been able to capture games in ePSXe. Prior attempts to capture DOSBox or PCX2 have failed. My latest tests, though, I was able to capture DOSBox, and might try PSX2 later. What this might mean for future LPs is a move toward video content, rather than written content. I don't think I want to attempt streaming for a while yet. Still, I would probably feel a lot better about switching if there was support for it.



Right. Let's git back to it. As discussed earlier, the key to the Great Western Tower is accessed from it's roof. This room doesn't connect to any other room (right now), so, all we can do is go back up, and allow ourselves to fall from the Skyroad, and talk to the quest-giver, who says he'll give us our reward inside. Which means climbing this tower proper, naturally.

The tower is arraigned in something of a spiral pattern, smacking clerics of Mok along the way. At the top, we find our quest-giver, and can complete the quest in earnest. We can now connect the passage that leads to the Skyroad, and climb down the center of the tower for the Griffin Statuette, and 2 Energy Disks. Not quite enough to restore another level of Castle Kalindra. Looks like we're goin' east again.

D3. The Ogre fort we need to sack is here. While there is an option to be civil, and request the Orges stop their raids in the name of the Dragon Pharaoh, they will not listen to that. Still, I'm inclined to at choose that option. Either way, clearing out the Orge fort nets us another 2 Disks, and the ability to unlock another floor of Castle Kalindra.

D4. Here, we can find the Great Southern Tower. Locked, of course. However, the Skyroad is still an option. Let's do it.

The Great Southern Tower is filled with thieves. I didn't count their number, but, if I were a betting man, my money is on there being forty of them. Indeed, a chest requires a certain password to open, and references the Ali Baba story of Arabian Nights fame. We also come across 2 Energy Disks for our trouble. We never found the key, but, I guess that's not particularly relevant right now. ^_^

E4. We've come across a number of troll holes in the forest, but there's a troll hole in this area that houses the chief. We have a number of choices here. One is to give him all our gold. Yeah, no, let's not do that. Another is to sacrifice one of our number to him. Uh, no, that doesn't sound like a good idea either. The last is to fight him (and his henchmen) to the death. Well, then. I guess we're gonna fight.

E3. Here we can find Sandcaster, the emerald handle Vespar was looking for, and a guy who's looking for his magnifying glass. This area is host to Armadillos, which are notable enemies for being particularly tough to beat. Or, maybe I'm just going of of old memery. When I first came across these guys, it was without the benefit of playing Clouds first, and I didn't have Day of Protection, Day of Sorcery, or even UGE to hack consumables that cast them for me. However, it is notable that Day of Protection and Day of Sorcery is purchasable in Sandcaster's guild.

We use Town Portal to take us to just outside Castleview, and walk over to Vespar for the Key to Sandcaster. We can use Town Portal to be just outside Sandcaster , and be allowed in by the guard.

Sandcaster has an issue with a guild of magic-users lead by Xenoc and Morgana. We'll have to fell them both for this quest to be complete. Among the guild quarters in town is a key to the Great Western Tower. There's also a merchant who sells passes to Lakeside. There weren't any spells to buy in Castleview, this town only really adds one spell to my repertoire for each of my spell-casters.

Morgana can be found relatively easily. For Xenoc, we'll have to go through the sewers. The sewers below Sandcaster is similar to Castleview's in that there is one exit that leads outside, and one exit that leads to a portion of town that is otherwise inaccessible. The tavern allowed us to restock up to 20 days, which was definitely useful. I was down to 6 units of food! While the mages of Sandcaster had no Enegery Disks to speak of, clearing them out was still a thing. The quest is worth 2 million EXP upon completion, which is effectively two levels worth of EXP for my party.

I don't necessarily remember where the magnifying glass is off the top of my head, but, the pass to Lakeside and the Key to the Great Western Tower suggest to me the direction of which we will wend our travels to. The tower might be east of Sandcaster, but, Lakewest would be north. However, it might behoove me to do the tower first regardless. If memory serves me right, there is a quest-item in the Eastern Tower that can be used to reverse unnatural aging. When given to the right person, of course. We don't have that particular quest, but, has that ever stopped me from doing things anyway? We'll save that for next session, though.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
As it happens, the Great Western Tower is the only thing of note in F3. In the tower, we fight mages, acquire the Jewel of Ages, and 2 Energy Disks.

F4. Here, we get the quest that asks us to find the Jewel of Ages, and receive the key to the Great Southern Tower. However, we had already plundered the thieves, and learned that they sold the Jewel to the mages of the West Tower. Of course, there's also the fact that we already have the Jewel!

Our reward is the restoration of the Fountain of Youth. While it does not reverse the aging process, it at least removes any magical, or otherwise unnatural aging that has occurred. As it happens, there was a fountain in West Tower that unnaturally aged us one year for a level, and a book that unnaturally aged us by 50 years to grant 5 levels. Of course, how much unnatural aging a character has suffered is a value that can be UGEd, but, it's still nice to be able to remove it by more legitimate means.

Before I continue too much further, there's a few NPCs from Clouds that we've met. Remember the alicorn that we retrieved from Witch's Tower? Well, Falista's had her alicorn reaffixed, has a hut in A4 that will restore the party's MP. We found a hut in F4 that houses Ceclia, the damsel in distress that we saved from the zombies, and she hands over an Obsidian Long Sword for our trouble. Obsidian is the absolute best material a given piece of equipment can be made out of in this game. It's actual real-life quality may be questionable, versus, say, the second-best material in this game. Which is freaking diamond. There is one other place on Darkside that has an effect if you did a thing on Clouds. I'll try to mention it when I find it.

That aside, I actually haven't been to Ellinger lately, and have a whopping 10 Energy Disks to pass along to him. Let's do that. This means the castle only needs five more disks before returning to this plane of dimension in it's entirety. I think it's high-time to check this place out! Besides, I haven't posted the "castle" themes, which would be...







...these. Castle Kalindra has a number of safes we can open. The combinations to a good number of theses are "known" through sheer luck, or, perhaps more accurate to say, our Robber's Thievery secondary skill. It's basement contains a prison, which has a few tough enemies to fight, with...





...this particular creature being called out by various in-game objects as something you should probably want to avoid. To be, sure, it's attacks can induce the "Dead" state, and takes quite the beating before it goes down.

On floor 2, there are safes we cannot open (yet), and we obtain another quest. The Captain of the Queen's guard, Dimitri, is quite out-of-sorts. His daughter has gotten it into her head that the Songbird of Serenity might be of use. It's supposed to lie in the Dungeon of Lost Souls, and she helpfully has the key to that dungeon. Gotta find it first, though.

F2. We can find the Dungeon of Lost Souls here, and also Lakeside. Let's take a small detour into Lakeside before tackling the other thing.

While I might not have come across such a puzzle in my Clouds run, Lakeside houses...





...this word puzzle. There are other puzzles like this elsewhere in Darkside, and on Clouds. Usually, solving these puzzles allows you to be able to proceed further in a dungeon, but, this instance, we get membership in the Lakeside guild. Though, it has no new spells for us.

The Minotaurs that roam the halls of the Dungeon of Lost Souls are nothing to sneeze at. They take quite a beating, but, thankfully aren't as deadly as Scraps. The bottom floor contains our Songbird, and Alamar's true identity. Though, if a person has been paying attention to the story since MM1, it could probably be guessed. However, I've never actually beat MM1 when I first played this, and was basically in the dark about who it was that I was up against.

After hearing the song, Dimitri shares with us the combination to the safes that contain Energy Disks. Of which there are five. Which allows the final floor of Castle Kalindra to phase back into this reality! Darigaaz, we needed...





...this, like, yesterday. The floor also contains a suite of services. It has a temple, bank, training, and blacksmith. Sandcaster's training facility's level-cap was 50, but, I don't recall what Castle Kalindra's cap is. It's stupid-high, though.

The Queen's private chambers is also accessible on this floor, and there is a safe here that not even Dimitri knows the combo to. We'll need to talk to the Queen, herself. Who is currently a captive inside Castle Blackfang. The mirror network on Darkside may now function, but, it might still behoove us to explore. I'll leave that for another session, though.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Castle Blackfang lies in the upper-right corner of Darkside. Or, since I've reverted to the map-grid reference, F1. Thankfully, that's only one area north of Lakeside.

We can find the magnifying glass in this area, but, there is one small problem concerning Castle Blackfang.





There is no entry from the ground. Well, what about the Skyroad? The closet access is probably the Great Northern Tower, which we don't have a key too yet. Still, it might be worth our while checking things out in...

E1. There isn't much to say about this area. Searching a pile of wood gets us a Quest item for a quest we've yet to obtain, and a guy that wants a treasure map. We did manage to get one way the heck back in Castleview, and he's giving us 2000 gems for it. My memory is a bit fuzzy, but, I think it even refereed to the location of the hut in question. Oh, well. A little late to cross-reference that now.

E2. Here we find another Ent, who has some acquaintance with the Ent we met on Clouds. If we listen to his story, he gives us a different treasure map. The ring we found in E1 comes in handy, as the guy that seeks it is here.

D2. Here lies the Dragon Pharaoh's Pyramid. Of course, we can't just waltz in there. It needs a key. This does not trigger a cut-scene, however. There is an event at (4, 2), that reduces the party's food to 0, regardless of wherever it was. It only happens once, and it's not like Sandcaster isn't that far. However, it's a little aggravating to go from 16 or 15 days worth of food to having nothing. There is also an entrance to Sandcaster's sewers here.

D1. We can meet with a leader of Giants here, and we can be civil to him for 2 Energy Disks. We don't necessarily need them any more, but, what the hey. The Great Northern Tower rests here, along with a quest that seeks the Holy Grail Chalice of Protection that lies within. Now we have two reasons to climb that tower!

The Northern Tower is home to the Voweless Knights. Thus, this tower contains various adages that present you with the task of inserting the missing vowels.

For example, the first puzzle I came across read "Lt slpng dgs l". The answer to which would be "eeeioie". So, "l[e]t s[ee]p[i]ng d[o]gs l[ie]." Though, I'm pretty sure it's "if wishes were horses, beggars would ride" as opposed to "if wishes were horses, beggers would ride".

Retrieving the "ch[a]l[i]c[e]", itself, isn't too bad. Of course, it's at the top floor of the tower, and there's a bunch of enemies to defeat. Still, I can use the Skyroad as a quick way back down, and turn in the Quest for a mess of EXP and gold. The rooftop of Castle Blackfing is still kinda far, but manageable. Unfortunately, the path just leads to a dead end. There must be some other way to enter the castle.

As it happens, Dimitri thinks a Queen's Knight, Ambrose, might be able to help. Having a Griffin for a mount might have something to do with that. He's either in the same area as Necropolis, or near to it. Guess it's high-time to Town Portal back to Castleview, and explore...

A2. My Day of Protection protects me from the lava here. Of course, me Cleric is Level 58, and might have something to do with that.

B2. Two points of interest here. One is the aforementioned Necropolis. While Ambrose is not in this area, we do have something you don't typically see in a fantasy RPG.





Of course, we can't enter this right now. There is another one elsewhere that we can enter, but, not yet. However, since we have a pass to Necropolis, let's take a peek inside.

As you might imagine, there's a number of undead to defeat here. Not to mention the "boss", Sandro. He won't let me take the statuette in a nearby alcove unless I help him. That, though, feels like it could be another session.
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
There are a some books we can read in Necropolis for XP at the cost of unnatural aging. The more XP they grant, the more they age, of course. I wasn't keeping track of XP gain (it was quite a lot, though), but, I think the grand total for unnatural aging is something like 400 years? Obtaining over 255 years worth of unnatural aging will lead to character death. Which means, under normal circumstances, players would have to visit the Fountain of Youth at least twice, but will probably be more to be safe. Of course, I have the power of UGE to make things a little easier in that regard.

What Sandro is looking for can be found in the sewers underneath Necropolis. Which can be difficult to navigate, because it's filled with lava. Still, I manage to find the thing, and return it to it's owner. My reward is the key to the Dungeon of Death and we can take the Griffin Statuette. The Dungeon of Death is a dungeon that we found on Clouds, making it a "World Of Xeen" dungeon. More on that when we get that far. For now...

B1. The spacecraft that we can actually enter is here. As is Ambrose. Ambrose apparently needs his bridle enchanted before his griffin will allow passengers. We can get it enchanted at Sandcaster, but, I think we need to check out this spacecraft.





I love this song. It only plays on the spaceships, but I could listen to it on loop forever. Alas, the LP won't write itself.

However, it is on this ship that we learn exactly who it is that we are dealing with. This contains a number of spoilers, so, hide-tag away!


Know, then, that there was a people that called themselves the Ancients. Their technology is vastly superior, probably akin to the Federation of Planets in Star Trek. I don't know how vast their empire was, but, they build a number of androids as planetary guardians. You could also call them caretakers, or overseers, if you will. One such guardian was called Sheltem, and was tasked with overseeing a world called Terra.

At some point in time, Sheltem ran a number of self-sufficiency experiments. The Ancients started to take notice, and deemed this a problem, and attempted to separate Sheltem from his post in Terra. To a certain extend, they were successful, as they captured him while he was in a low-operating mode. Perhaps you could even call it sleeping.

Sheltem's first directive was to obey the order of the Ancients. His second was to protect Terra. As the Ancients hadn't necessarily given him orders, his priority was then the protect Terra. He knew if the Ancients were successful in capturing him, they would deem him "defective", and summarily relieve him of that post, and would therefore fail in the objective he's currently following. Thus, he decided that the Ancients must not be allowed to give him orders.

He managed to capture two agents that the Ancients sent. However, he found himself on the world of Might and Magic - Secret of the Inner Sanctum, Varn. He calculated that he didn't have enough fuel to return to Terra, and it would take several years before such a journey could be attempted. He was furious, but, hatched a plan that would at least pass the time.

He decided to impersonate King Alamar, the ruler of Varn. I don't pretend to know what kind of person the original King Alamar was, but, Sheltem doubled taxes, and let loose monsters on the realm. During his reign of terror, one of the agents that he had previously captured was freed. His name was Corak, and it was his job to retrieve Sheltem at any cost.

I'm not sure how long Sheltem's charade went, but, a group of Varnian natives *cough* your party in MM1 *cough* discovered that Sheltem was a phony, and he was forced to escape. He couldn't make it all the way to Terra, of course. He could only make it to the world of Might and Magic 2 - Gates to Another World, Cron.

How long Sheltem was on Cron is a unknown. We do know that he separated Corak's memory module from his body. For full disclosure, the Cleric-Quest that you can get from the Jurors of Mount Fairview in MM2 is to combine Corak's "soul" (the aforementioned memory module) with his body. Of course, by the time you can do this, Sheltem would have been long gone. Or, at least, that's my impression from this text, and in playing MM2.

In any event, Sheltem had finally returned to Terra, and he could resume the directive of being it's guardian. I'm not exactly sure how long we was able to sit still, because at some point, he detected that Corak was back on his tail again. At some point, both Corak, and a band of Terran natives *cough* your party in MM3 *cough* were able to infiltrate Sheltem's ship, and he was forced to defend himself physically.

Once again, Sheltem is forced to flee Terra. This time, his destination is Xeen, with both Corak and the Terran natives hot on his trail. Sheltem's ship lands without too many complications. Corak isn't so lucky. His is the ship we found earlier in the lava. Naturally, Sheltem has not done anything about Corak. He's taken on the persona of "Alamar" once again, and has set out to terrorize Xeen until such time that he can return to Terra.

As for the natives of Terra? They do not land on Xeen. They land on a different world entirely. While I do not know the name of the world that they do land on, I can tell you the name of the continent: Erathia. The game being Might and Magic 7 - For Blood and Honor. Which may be it's own LP in the future, but, we'll see.



So, yeah, the "Alamar" of this game is somebody the player has been trying to take down since the very first game. I think I must have suspected this when I first played this game. However, I might not have known the entire story. I had no idea Sheltem was an android. Or Corak, for that matter! I just thought Corak was some crazy-cool wizard, and I took the term "soul", in regards to the quest mentioned earlier, at face value.

Keep in mind that when I first played this game, I hadn't beaten any of the previous games. Of course, I've since beaten MM2 and MM3 (MM1 is exceptionally hard to play, and has not aged well at all), but I think it was because of this game, and this revelation that raised my interest level in playing/beating them.


At any rate, we return to Sandcaster to get the bridle enchanted for a mere 50 grand. We can Town Portal back to Necropolis, talk to Ambrose, then Town Portal to Castleview and take the Mirror to Castle Blackfang! Yes! Mirror travel! Wooo!

The castle has it's fair share of Vampire to us to slay on our way down. In it's dungeon, we find the wayward Queen.

The quest from the Queen is a bit annoying. I kinda feel like I'm recruiting a character in a Suikoden game. Like, ok, she wants us to talk to Dimitri, and all he says is...

Please return the Queen's crown to her immediately.


...this. This redirects you back to Queen Kalindra, because we know only she has the combination to the safe that contains her crown. Once we get that, back to the castle to open the safe, then back again to hand it over, and allows the Queen to free herself out of sheer willpower. She hands over the key to the Dragon Pharaoh's Pyramid for our trouble, and will be sitting on her throne...





...when we Lloyd's Beacon back to her castle. Mirror travel to Dragon Pharaoh's Pyramid doesn't seem possible. However, we can still use Town Portal to either Necropolis or Sandcaster, and it isn't too bad of a trip from there.

I think I've made a mistake regarding Luna's statuettes. Like, the ledger I got from the Great Southern Tower indicated where they were, and I should have obtained one in Lakeside. I didn't. Maybe in the sewers? Beh. Later. I'm already at the Pyramid, might as well go forward.

This dungeon has dragons for us to wade through on the first floor. We can't climb until we flick 6 switches. One such switch can only be pulled after a bit of a math/numerical puzzle.

Next floor is another math/numerical puzzle The walls of the floor provide us with three numbers, which represent various years. 1993 would represent the release date of this game. In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Or so the saying goes. As for 1776, that date is closely associated with the American Revolution, and the drafting of the Declaration of Independance. The statues instructions take those dates, and various operations, to arrive to the answer of 1701. Which is the serial number of the Enterprise of Star Trek fame.

The following floor involves a teleport maze in that certain tiles send you back. We can Jump over such tiles, of course, and there is a pattern to recognize as to their placement. Of course, in order to recognize the pattern, you have to fall for the trap two or three times.

The Dragon Pharaoh resides on the next floor, and we can finally return the orb that we've been carrying around since the beginning of the game. He's obviously noticed that two ships landed on Xeen, but only one had any occupant that can be accounted for. He's also noticed how Alamar has made no efforts to free the other ship. Color the Pharaoh curious, but, he wants us to investigate, and will use his orb to cool the lava enough for us to enter.

Before that, a small detour to Lakeside for the last statuette, and the reward to return them to Luna grants us 5 levels. Town Portal back to Necropolis. The second craft contains a being stored in status. We can read the logs of said being before releasing it into the wild, as it were.

This being calls itself Corak, and has been on Alamar's tail for quite some time. He might even stand a chance against him. However, even if he were to leave the ship, Alamar would probably be able to detect him, and things would basically go downhill from there. We report our findings back to the Pharaoh, and he has an idea. We might be able to sneak Corak past Alamar's detection if we were to hide him in a Soul Box. One exists in the town of Olympus, and the Pharaoh helpfully hands over a pass to that town.

Outside of Town Portal, Olympus can only be accessed through the Skyroad, and even then, only if you've been granted the "Chosen Ones" status. Which I'm pretty sure we just got. There is a sky-boat to Olympus in the Skyroad above the Pharaoh's pyramid, so, there is that.

We're definitely at the end-game of Darkside. This is plenty for this session, but, I think it's possible we can finish it next session!
Marrend
Guardian of the Description Thread
21781
Olympus contains various NPCs named after the Greek pantheon. While Castle Kalindra's training facility had a level-cap of 100, Olympus' cap is higher. I don't remember/know the exact number (yet), but, I've a feeling it's 200. The tavern can fill our food stock to last up to 40 days for a mere 250 gold. The Mage Guild probably has all the spells that can be bought. I cannot entirely confirm that, but, I feel it's a safe thing to say. For what it's worth, it didn't have anything available for me, but, Necropolis had two spells for each of my casters.

We can learn a number of things from Olympus. One is that "Alamar" is merely an alias, and that his true name is Sheltem. Though, we had learned that earlier, I feel like the game has shoved this information in our face enough times now. The Soul Box is reachible via the sewers of Olympus, which, require Levitation to navigate, and a password to get to where you need to be. There's two methods to obtain the password. One is to search drains and scrolls in the sewers that will spell out the password. Such notes aren't written in the auto-notes, oddly enough. The other method is that there's an NPC "sells" the password. For 100,000 we can buy from that NPC... tribbles. Another Star Trek reference.

With Soul Box in hand, we can Town Portal back to Necropolis, and Corak fits himself inside of it, understanding the Dragon Pharoah's plan. Now, we just need to get him to Alamar/Sheltem.

A1. The appropriately named Castle Alamar lies here. How bold of him to set up base so close to where he landed! The first floor has a few bots to defeat. The basement contains the key to Dragon Tower (this is located on Clouds), and leads to a cave on Clouds. While the key will might be useful for World of Xeen, our business lies upwards. Floor 2, we need to set the sundials to a certain number (9), and speak Alamar's true name (Sheltem) to the statue in the center to proceed forward. The next floor contains a puzzle, or sorts. Some of the tiles here are "fake", and can drop you right back to the first floor. I don't remember where the hint for which tiles are real, and which are the fake ones, but, it helps that the tiles are a mix of elemental-based tiles, rather than regular floor tiles.

This is it. The showdown of the ages is upon us. It goes down a little something like...





...this. Thus ends the tale of Corak and Sheltem, after 5 consecutive games. My end-of-Darkside score was...





...this.

As an aside, I find it mildly interesting that there's no "boss fight", per say, for the climax of Darkside. Clouds was more traditonal in it's approach, and had players defeat Lord Xeen as part of it's climax. With Darkside, players do not fight the big bad. At all. There is a battle, and the big bad is defeated, yes. However, as we can see, it's done in a cut-scene by what is effectively an NPC. I can't think of many other games that do this. Presumibly because it detaches player agency from the game. Still, I'm not mad that I didn't defeat Sheltem myself. For all intents and purposes, my party still most of the dirty work, and it's not like they haven't become renown Heroes of Might and Magic the Realm in the process.

Besides, who else can be called upon to complete the World of Xeen quest? However, that's gonna be another session! Well, probably more than one session, but, technicalities!
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