Might and Magic III: Maps and Madness

I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.

     

Well, despite what I said last time about picking up the pace, I didn't accomplish a lot since my last entry--basically just two more outdoor areas and two dungeons. My list of things to "return to when I'm stronger" is getting longer by the minute.

Corak's notes on area A2 promised several encounters: a house where a bodiless voice offered treasures, a shrine "sacred only to the orcs" and one of the "five ancient pyramids." It oddly said nothing about Castle Whiteshield (which I couldn't yet enter because of the lack of a "Crusader" skill for my characters), nor about the city of Baywatch in the southwestern corner. The area mostly held more orc and and goblin encounters, which by now were like brushing away gnats.
    

Corak prepares me for this area.

    

Area B2, meanwhile, was called "The Valley of the Trolls," and it had tougher encounters with ogres and sprites capable of casting "Curse" on my characters--a condition only cured via a visit to the temples. (One cute thing about the game is the way the character portraits change when subjected to a condition like curse, disease, or insanity. A couple of my characters have a naturally-distressed look, though, so I often think there's something wrong when there isn't.) For special encounters, Corak spoke of "two wise elders that live in the solitude of the mountains."

I explored the two maps simultaneously in east-west strips. Highlights of the encounters:

       

• A shack with the disembodied voice mentioned by Corak. I paid 10,000 for a variety of weapons and armor. 

• A dungeon with a locked door for which I needed a key to enter.

• A few nooks in the mountains with buried treasure, including magic scrolls.

• An "insect shrine" that told me to donate at all of the temples in the game, then return.

     

Why a shrine "sacred only to the orcs" wants me to donate at the temples in town is anyone's guess.

     

• The two "wise elders" of Corak's journal, living in nearby shacks in the mountains. One told of Greywind the Illusionist and Blackwind the Spellbinder, two friends (and former rulers of Terra) who went to war after they were seduced by the same mermaid. Now eternally trapped in their keeps, their thrones are said to grant great power on their respective wedding days. 

• The other, Guiltar the Wise, told me that the headquarters of the Moo Cult is the Cathedral of Carnage. The priests guard two Ultimate Power Orbs, captured from a vampire king.

     

      

• Spawn points for the ogres, sprites, orcs, and goblins. Destroying these continued to provide the highest experience in the game so far.

• A shack in which a message told me that Icarus, the last unicorn, has been imprisoned in some sort of magical tomb. I need to find the Golden Alicorn and return it to the shack to release him. It's supposed to be somewhere in the swamplands.

• A pyramid that I couldn't enter because I didn't have something to fit into a small slot to the right of the door. Later we'll have to talk about the roles of pyramids in this series. 

      

I anticipate futuristic stuff on the inside.

      

A decent chunk of B2 was unexplorable because it came to end in a peninusula, and I expect B3 won't be accessible at all until I get "Water Walk."
      

As far south as I could explore in Column B for now.

      

My explorations culminated with a return to Baywatch, at the bottom of A2. Corak's notes said that undead had swarmed into the city after an earthquake. I finished clearing skeletons and zombies from the town and bought the inventory of spells from the guild. (Alas, "Water Walk" wasn't among them.) A fountain in the center of town increases luck by 100. An NPC named Brother Alpha told me of a nymph who will reward me with "gold and song" if I return stolen seashells to her. He referred me on to his brother, in the city's underground, for more information.
     

Upgrading my spell arsenal.

       

There were several holes leading downwards, but most of them just led to piles of treasure. One led to the underground. I explored it for a while but ultimately died there because I didn't have any protection against unavoidable pools of poison.. Something called a "Screamer" was capable of driving my characters insane. I tagged it for return when I was stronger.
     

Pit traps and poison patches made it difficult to navigate the dungeon.

     

At this point, I had six dungeons in my backpath. Three of them--Castle Whiteshield, the pyramid, and a keyed dungeon in B2--I couldn't yet enter. But I could enter the other three: the Cyclops Caverns, the Temple of Moo, and Slithercult Stronghold. I decided to attempt them before exploring more of the game world.

To facilitate my explorations, I went to my notes to plot an optimal path through the various helpful shrines and fountains that increase armor class, attributes, health, magic, resistances, and levels. Since their bonuses all expire at 06:00 each day, you want to start early in the day, plot the quickest path between them, and try to get to the dungeon with as much time left on the clock as possible.

In the course of trying to figure this out, I started with a scatterplot of the fountains' coordinates, followed by a rough map, followed by me breaking down and making an actual map of the territory I've explored so far, complete with textured tiles. (I binged the first season of "The Good Place" simultaneously, so the time wasn't completely wasted.) When I first started playing, I had said manual mapping was unnecessary because of the automap, but the automap doesn't show the entire world at once, so I think I'll keep going with this even though it tends to slow the game's fast-paced nature.

Map in hand, I could see that the ideal path starts in Baywatch, with the "Luck +100" fountain. From here, you take the teleporter to Fountain Head, exit, and dart a few squares southwest for a 20 point boost in armor class. Moving east, you pick up +100 hit points and +150 spell points at nearby locations, then trek a ways to the northeast for +30 might, +30 speed, and +20 temporary levels. This route bypasses fountains that increase intelligence, personality, fire resistance, and cold resistance, but these seem less important to me than saving time.

     

A stop on the trip.

    

By now, if you started as early as possible and didn't take unnecessary steps, it should be no later than 16:00. From the last fountain, you can reach the Cyclops Caverns or Slithercult Stronghold by 17:30, giving you a half-day of exploration inside each dungeon before 06:00 rolls around and you lose all of your buffs.

It sounds exhausting, but it was functionally the only way for me to survive. Without the buffs, I had no way to defeat the cyclopes in the Cyclops Caverns except to wait and return later, but I was getting sick of writing that.
     

I blast a group of cyclopes with "Toxic Cloud." Note that they have driven my lead character insane.

     

I made three visits to the Cyclops Caverns and still didn't clear it. The real problem wasn't the "bugaboos," or even the cyclopes (who are for some reason capable of causing insanity), but rather the traps. They're really starting to annoy me. You've got pit traps, acid pools, swinging bladed pendulums, and crashing spears, almost always blocking the path down a necessary corridor. I currently have only two ways to avoid them: "Levitate" gets me over the pit traps, and "Jump" will skip you two squares forward, avoiding any trap in between. But to thwart the latter, traps are often situated at bends in corridors, or one after the other, or worst of all, right in front of secret doors, so you take constant damage as you try to bash them open. I guess eventually "Teleport" will help me avoid some of these, but if I'm missing any other useful spells, I'll be happy to take a hint.

      

No "Jumping" this one.

      

Traps are often attached to doors and chests, too, so that my poor ninja, who tries to open everything, often gets blasted for all her hit points just for trying to open a door.

In addition to a bunch of experience and regular treasure, the Cyclops Caverns delivered a "Green Eyeball key" and a "Red Warriors Key," one of which I suspect is the way to get in the unnamed dungeon in B2.

I took a break from Cyclops Caverns at one point to explore the Temple of Moo. It was much easier. "Turn Undead" took care of most of the skeletons and zombies. The culmination of the dungeon was a statue that bestowed the "Crusader" credential on my party members, allowing access to the castles.
       

I somehow thought the "mascot of Moo" would be a cow.

     

I thus peeked into Castle Whiteshield briefly. An NPC named Praythos asked me to return good artifacts to him. There was a "jester's throne," but sitting in it just caused everyone to laugh. I declined to open several chests on the main floor because I don't think this is the kind of game where you get away with that. I also wasn't sure whether to bash down some doors that seemed to be holding prisoners.

     

A jester told jokes worthy of Chuckles.

    

In the throne room, I met "Zealot, King Righteous" who told me of the Evil One gathering his powers and the neutrality of King Chaos. He asked me to bring him Ultimate Power Orbs to turn the balance towards Zealot's forces.

     

Maybe I'll just see what the other guys offer first.

      

There was a dungeon in Whiteshield and a bit of a puzzle to enter. A statue at the entrance told me to "seek the four warriors, north before south, east before west," and then subtract the castle's name. There were other statues in each of the four corners, and in order of northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest, they provided their names as JODELLE, LEADBEST, ASTRIEL, and TESHY. I figured subtracting the castle's name meant removing all letters that occur in "Whiteshield" from the four names and then smashing the rest together, a solution that would have been more obvious if any of the names had a "W." Anyway, that left me with JOABARY, which did work to enter the dungeons, but I though the king's name was "Zealot."

The dungeon immediately confronted me with a pendulum trap in front of a door. I marked it for later. I found the same type of setup the moment I entered Slithercult Stronghold. Moreover, the door on the other side of the guillotine trap wouldn't cave to my (unenhanced) kicks. Sick of these damned traps, I ended the session in favor of a mindless game like Heimdall.

     

A two-word phrase ending in "this" shortly followed.

    

Miscellaneous notes:

       

• The bartender in Baywatch says "most of your actions will earn experience." Well, I checked frequently after he said that, but I didn't note any experience gains from simple exploration, casting spells, opening doors and chests, or other activities of adventuring. I got experience from killing enemies and solving quests.

• There are whirlpools out in the water that I can't reach. I wonder if they take the party somewhere or if they just inflict damage or death. 

     

The way to Ambrosia?

     

• At the close of this session, my characters are a mix of Levels 9 and 10. The training facility in Fountain Head stops training you after Level 10.

• At the advice of some commenters, I've been depositing unneeded gold in the bank in Fountain Head so that it will earn interest and perhaps grant me a couple extra levels by the endgame.

• A little over one year of game time has elapsed since I started playing. My characters started at age 18. I know that dying of old age is a potential problem in this game, and it doesn't sound like the game offers "Rejuvenation" spells the way the first two games did. Even though everything seems okay so far, I'm keeping an eye on the clock and trying not to waste time. Waiting until everyone can level up, perhaps even twice, before anyone levels up seems like a good place to start. 

• While towns and outdoor areas all hold to the 16 x 16 standard established in the first Might and Magic, dungeons are much larger and sprawling.

As for the main quest, I have no idea. Something to do with Zealot and his orbs? I suspect I'll have the opportunity to deliver the orbs to any of the three kings, thus tipping the power on Terra in that direction. The question is how Corak and Sheltem work into all of this.
     

"Turn Undead" is one of the few spells I've been using with regularity in combat.

    

Among the four maps I've already explored, I still have to clear Slithercult Stronghold, the unnamed keyed dungeon, Whiteshield and its basement, and Baywatch's dungeon. I'm inclined to finish exploring this starting island before I continue with any more dungeon adventures. I also need to slow down in combat, stop relying on melee attacks so much, and more thoroughly test all of the spells I've been acquiring.

Time so far: 13 hours

Reload count: 7