The Magic Candle III: Won!

"Return to Kabelo"? Why would I go back to that hellhole? I want to return to Oshcrun.

    

A common feature of The Magic Candle III is that what ought to be challenging is instead just annoying. That applied to almost all of this final session. It took me about 11 hours, or 25% of my time with the game, but I blew through it just to get it done. Even then, I had to look up a few things in the hint book.

 

I had ended the last session with the (spiritual) defeat of the wizard Alvirex, the revelation that he was responsible for the Blight, and the knowledge that the spell to stop the Blight was contained in the Solnicon, a spellbook that no longer exists. Rather than pursue these related leads immediately, I finished my exploration of the islands. There wasn't much else to find. There was a temple to the goddess Entas on one of the islands, and I learned her password. A final island held the Tower of Qaldiur, a six-level dungeon that I was probably supposed to start with (it was very easy). A sleeping god lay in the basement, though, and I never found the password to wake him up.

      

The party decides to let sleeping gods lie. Did I already make that joke? It feels like I did.

      

The rest of it was just the usual rooms, teleporters, and ambushes. For the only time in the game, I had to cast the "Walkwater" spell to get over water obstacles, so that was something. It made me realize that the spiders and snakes that you had to "Repel" in the first two games don't appear here. Neither do the energy barriers that you have to "Pierce." I certainly don't miss those.

   

You have to cast about 50 of these to get across a small pond.

    

I tried to experiment more with magic as I explored the rooms--I really did--but I was so overpowered for the enemies that I could make most of them run away just by talking to them. Besides that, the game has a fundamental problem in that none of its offensive spells are as damaging or decisive as a good physical attack, even when the attacker is relatively weak. This was true in both previous games, too, but this one exacerbates the problem by giving its new spellbook ("Alasol") a couple of spells that strengthen physical attacks. There isn't a single spell that's more efficient than swallowing a Gonshi mushroom, casting "Jump," and sending the character to melee range of some smug bastard on the other side of the room.

      

In the end, the only reason to explore Qaldiur was to find a magic axe called Bonecleaver. I already had two characters using magic axes and really would have preferred a magic sword or another magic weapon. I ended up giving it to Garz when I got him back in the party (see below). He turned out to be too weak to wield it, and yet he refused to give it back, so the whole dungeon was really a waste of time.

       

I did leave the dungeon using a teleportal, for the first and only time in the game.

      

The next waste of time was my own fault. I spent an hour revisiting all of the libraries in the land to research SOLNICON. While I was at each one, I also inquired about other geographic and proper names that the game had fed me, feeling a bit ashamed that I hadn't done that previously. There really is quite a bit of lore in this game, much like its predecessors, and the only major problem is that it poorly supplements what we learned about the world in the previous games. Why didn't the demons ever take over these islands? Why is there no mention of Eldens and Aletsens? That kind of thing. Anyway, thankfully, one of the places that I researched was RINORA, which turned out to be fortuitous.

     

I learn some stuff that would have been interesting hours ago about the Herring Isles.

    

Still, there was nothing on the Solnicon. Only after I'd tried the libraries in Eisheim, Urkabel, and Telermain did I remember that I'd discovered the lost library of Archos in the ruined city of Nekros. Someone had asked for a name when I knocked on the door, and I only found the one to use (GORION) after I had visited. I had never returned.

   

Making my way back now, I spoke to the ghostly librarian and got the rundown on what I would have to do to end the Blight:

Protection of the Realm: To guard the Realm, its races must unite to build and light a cleansing candle in the Chamber of the Gods atop the Tower of Rinora. The candle must have a mold in which it will be built; wax from which it will be made; a wick to allow it to burn; a flint to provide its flame.

From the north comes the keeper of the mold. The royal orc places the candle's mold on the chamber's floor and whispers "Kabelo" to keep the mold upright. The keeper of the wax is a dwarf from the west. The waxkeeper places the wax in the mold and whispers "Rastanna" to allow the wax to melt. The wickkeeper is an elf of ancient lineage. While dropping the wick into the wax, the elf's whispered "Illorio" hardens the wax and causes the mold to drop away from the finished candle.

The fourth task falls to the keeper of the flint. The halfling lifts the flint to the candle's wick and whispers "Solia." The candle glimmers into flame. Finally, the human leader whispers the syllable "Ur." The candle blazes bright, and the Realm is protected against all harm.

 

You can imagine the fits of swearing that accompanied the revelation that I would have to dump two of my longstanding characters just to artificially shoehorn an orc and an elf into the party. To be fair, it turns out there's a teleportal chamber right next to the final chamber of the game, and I could have cleared out the final dungeon with my existing party, teleported out to grab the elf and orc, and teleported back in. I didn't know this at the time, however. [Ed. And I'm wrong anyway. There's no way to teleport BACK to Rinora after you leave, and you can't re-enter via the caverns because a bridge collapses behind you.]

          

I only knew of one orc NPC, Prince Garzbondgur. There are probably several elves, including some back at Castle Oshcrun, but my mind immediately went to Toriala, who we had left in Alvirex's tower. She seemed to fit the Solnicon's requirement for an elf of "ancient lineage." I was frankly worried that Sakar wouldn't suffice as the dwarf; that we'd have to get one specifically from the Solian lands. That turned out not to be the case, thankfully. 

     

This is how much of a jerk Garz is: He won't let you in his room unless you ask for GARZBONDGUR. Just GARZ isn't good enough. Typical @#$%&* orc.

    

In terms of replacing them, I could only get rid of Rimfiztrik, Evixa, and Eneri. The ritual requires no wizards at all, and only one human. But Eneri was just too powerful to dump, so I lost the two wizards and put spellcasting duties for the rest of the game on Gia, Eneri, and Toriala. There was one major problem with this: Toriala, like Garz, is a hireling, not an NPC. She refuses to hand back anything valuable that you hand her, including spellbooks. I really needed her to memorize "Jump" and "Restsoul," but these come from different books that I also needed for Eneri and Gia. I ultimately spent a lot of time in camp, having Eneri and Gia memorize 99 of every spell they could possibly need from the two books before passing them (irrevocably) to Toriala. 

     

I get rid of an actually-useful party member in exchange for someone who insists on a "fair share of the treasure" despite the fact that you just rescued her from an evil wizard.

       

With the party in place, that left finding the necessary elements. I had the candle mold and wick, having found them unintentionally while exploring other places. I didn't even have a notepad entry for WAX or FLINT. I sighed and started circling the cities, asking about those two keywords. I got bored and frustrated quite quickly and ultimately looked up the answers in the game's official cluebook. But if I was going to do that, I wanted to at least find out where I was supposed to have gotten the clues. Both turned out to be a bit unfair. To wit:

   

• A refugee from Voliplan tells you about the wax--specifically, that he buried some in the southeast corner of the ruined city. He hangs out in one of the two taverns in Telermain from around 17:00 to midnight. But he doesn't spontaneously say anything about wax; you have to feed him the keyword with the OTHER command. I looked up transcripts of NPC dialogue in the game, and I don't think anyone tells you to ask him about it; you just have to be using that keyword on everyone.

• A ghost in Nekros tells you that the flint is buried in her chimney. There are couple problems with this. First, she only appears between midnight and 01:00--one hour a day--and again, no one tells you this. How did anyone figure this out back in the day? No one is going to pass 24 hours a day just standing around every part of every map just in case someone appears. [Ed. I was wrong about "no one tells you this." I don't know why I made such a statement with such confidence, as NPCs in this game are easy to miss. In this case, I missed someone in Eisheim.] Second, when I talked to her, she just told me to return when I was "fully prepared." What the hell does that mean? I just dug up her chimney anyway and took it, but only because the cluebook told me where it was.

It's not like it's doing anyone any good where it is.

      

With everything in place, I returned to Telermain to stock up on as many mushrooms as I could afford, prioritizing Sermins and Gonshis, then Mirgets, and then buying a handful of the others. I did my spell memorization, fixed my equipment, buffed everyone's shields, and headed for the Tower of Rimora, the source of the Blight.

      

An NPC in Eisheim had already told me not to bother with the front door. Instead, I would have to enter through the Caverns of Crowndeep to the northeast. I had somehow missed this dungeon while exploring the island, which is probably a good thing, as once you enter, you can't leave. Since I explored fairly exhaustively, it may be that the door doesn't appear if you don't have the necessary items. The goddess Entas was sleeping in a chamber near the entrance, so I got a final boost in statistics, plus some advice for the battles ahead.

     

The specific nature and origin of these "lords of the blight" is left vague.

     

The caverns turned out to be 6 large, mundane, tiresome levels. They were followed immediately by a 10-level tower. The caverns were the worst, though: huge levels full of navigational obstacles like stalagmites and fumaroles and very narrow corridors. There were frequent ambushes and a fair number of side rooms and dead ends that just wasted time. My normal strategy of just keeping to the right wall ultimately got me through the place, but it was just tedious.

   

An ambush in a narrow area. Each of these necromants is going to require a "Restsoul" after I kill him. Ugh.

       

The only saving grace is that I had enough mushrooms that I wasn't really worried about running out. I was able to keep Gonshis (extra attacks) in my system ahead of every battle, which took the edge off all the ambushes. As we'll discuss in the final entry, Gonshis and "Jump" are really the only tools you need. But I confess I also did a lot of cheesing the system with reloads. If I poked my head in a room and saw there were no exits, I usually just reloaded. I didn't need any treasure by now, and there was no point in spending even five minutes fighting a battle just to find 8 Luffins or 6 skulls or a fountain full of "Heal" spells. 

    

The caverns took like three hours, so they deserve a second screenshot.

       

The 10-level Tower of Rinora was no harder (for nine of the levels) than any other dungeon. I again just kept to the rightmost wall and went up when I found a way up. If it led to a dead end, I went back down and tried again with another staircase. Except for some narrow corridors, there wasn't much else to it. By now, I was not only keeping Gonshis going constantly, but also swallowing Mirgets (more powerful first attack) and Nifts (fully protect against next three hits) before every room, keeping "Shields" at 99, and even keeping "Sharpen" running on the characters most of the time.

  

When the halfling makes that point, you know things are tight.

        

Level 6 offered a puzzle. To open a door further down the line, I had to throw the right gem into each of five pools. Fortunately, the encyclopedia entry on RINORA had warned me about the puzzle and given me the list of gems: A topaz to the Pool of Regret, a ruby to the Pool of Betrayal, and so forth. Equally fortunately, I'd been keeping two of every gem I found just in case they were necessary for something more than selling for coins. If that latter bit hadn't been true, I might have been in a "walking dead" situation. I'm not sure if gems are found anywhere but treasure chests (which don't respawn), and I only found emeralds in Rinora itself.

     

They're all Pools of Greed as far as I'm concerned.

     

There were only two difficult battles in the entire dungeon. The first was an ambush in a very narrow corridor on Level 9. The creatures that attacked were all blight-somethings (blightcats, blightapes, etc.), each of which has a special ability. Blightcats can cast spells, for instance, and blightmen are technically undead and require "Restsoul" to finish them off. Multiple blight creatures can cause illness. The bigger problem was that they filled every available space, so there was no way for me to get my stronger fighters to the vanguard with "Jump." (Even if you kill a creature, there has to be a free square to shove its body out of the way for you to jump to its former square.) Even with all these disadvantages, I got through it without losing anyone, so it wasn't really hard.
    

Credit to the enemies: this was a good place for an ambush.

    

The second battle was in the penultimate room on Level 10, and it was hard because the game violated its usual rules about the distribution of enemies. Not only were there more than usual, there were a bunch of them on my side of the room!

   

Worse, they were almost all necromants. They're spellcasters who like to target a single character, blast away his shield, and kill him with offensive spells. They have shields at 100 themselves and generally can't be affected by offensive magic. They're undead, so they require "Restsoul" to fully kill or they just get up the next round. And they had a kothspawn with them, who in addition to making copies of himself can cast "Forget" on spellcasters, wiping out all of their copies of whatever spell they have in memory. This was a particular problem if I was going to have any of them recall "Restsoul" or use "Jump" to get across the battlefield, particularly since Tori's selfishness would prevent Gia and Eneri from re-memorizing those spells.

 

I experimented here with "Zapall," but even nine consecutive castings from three different characters only succeeded in wiping out the necromants' shields, not in actually damaging them. This is one reason why physical attacks in this game are always superior to spells.

      

The offensive magics of the necromants was the biggest threat, and I concentrated on killing and "Restsouling" them as quickly as possible, primarily by swallowing Gonshis every round. But I made sure I un-memorized any active spell before the last action of the round so the kothspawn couldn't zap me. I lost Garz and had to resurrect him but otherwise made it through the battle. Think about that: The hardest battle in the game resulted in the loss of exactly one character.

    

Late in the battle.

     

The game's final battle was pathetic by contrast. It involved four blightlords, one kothspawn, and one necromant. Blightlords basically have the same strengths as necromants, but they're not undead, so they're easier to kill. They can cast "Heal," but that only helps them if you don't kill them quickly. I entered the room buffed with Gonshis, Mirgets, and "Sharpen." I immediately had Tori "Jump" Gia, Eneri, and Sakar into melee range, and those three characters killed every enemy before any of them even had a chance to act.

     

Just for fun, I tried to have Gia "Rally" the party for the final battle and it worked.

     

When the battle was over, it was a bit unclear what to do. There was no exit from the room. I took another circuit through the level and found no other places to visit. I finally realized that this nondescript room was the place that I had to perform the candle ritual. You'd think there would at least be a dais or something.

     

The final ritual was much like in the original Magic Candle except there was no risk of unleashing a demon if I screwed something up. I simply followed the instructions given by the Solnicon: My orc, elf, halfling, and dwarf each stood in their appropriate positions around a central square. (I used the center square of the room, but I suspect anywhere would have done.) Garz dropped the mold and said a magic word; Sakar applied the wax and said a magic word; Tori stuck in the wick and said a magic word; Tuff used the flint to light it and said a magic word; and Gia said a final magic word. 

     

Yay!

     

I haven't done this for a while, but I recorded the ritual and final screens. I wish I'd thought to get the final battle in there, too. Oh, well. Next time.

     

      

After the ritual, a series of well-drawn special screens brought the game to an end. The Blight recedes; the party returns to Kabelo to learn that King Rebnard has finally completed his conquest of Gurtex (which started in the last game). Rebnard is now "sailing to the aid of the Solian lands!" the game says excitedly, as if we hadn't just solved all their problems. Orcs, humans, elves, halflings, dwarves, and goblins sign a treaty of eternal friendship. Gia wonders if we've really conquered the blightlords or just driven them off temporarily. I think if there had been a Magic Candle IV, it should have been about the fleeing blightlords landing on Deruvia and freeing Dreax from his candle.

     

"To protect the Solian lands with the Magic Candle, you need a representative from each of the Solian races. Except the goblins. #$&@ them." -- Author of the Solnicon.

        

As usual, there are good elements here that were somewhat bollixed in implementation. Take the two puzzles--the pools and the creation of the candle. Both of them should have been real puzzles, where we had to figure out the process through hints and clues and logic, rather than having them just handed to us by the game's version of Wikipedia. And the lack of challenging combat, including extremely limited utility for most of the spells, is going to be a sore point in the final entry. The bright side is that it did something different. There's always something to be said about innovation for its own sake, and The Magic Candle series has been more innovative than most.

   

Final time: 36 hours