~Part 7: Adventure continues with more
secrets been uncovered from dirty city undeground...
In this part, going to visit new dungeons in search for clues, loot (now much more interested in experience and gems) and menacing enemies to slay. This part is primarily going to be related
for dungeon crawling. Do not know how much time this part of Let's Play will take me to finish - this one probably going to be more in terms of content, but hope it going to be enjoyable.
Let's enter more places of interest!~
First thing to do for me is to explore and plunder is
communal dungeon beneath Sandsobar. Just as Sandsobar have particular theme (City of Poor & Desperate living near desert
Mexican theme, basically), dungeon beneath city have strong "bandit hideout" feeling, judging by previous walkthrought.
Along with Sandsobar dungeon i will explore some dishes that can be bought in local tavern.
Second thing that i will do for sure is freeing Yellow Bishop of Battle from imprisonment in Castle Pinehurst.
Third place of interest going to be Castle Woodshaven and i will try to retrieve items of interest for a cause.
Forth thing (
and actually last thing in this part) i like to do - is to visit
communal dungeon beneath Vulcania. Vulcania is second most rich city in the whole CRON, but also plagued by constant vulcan eruptions and lava in underground caverns, so
Levitate is our best friend here.
^^^ Old part of city (
The Slums) now infested by all kinds of vermin and only desperate beggars live here. I will explore this part of city, before entering dungeon nearby.
^^^ Right after entering Slums noticed this wall with scribed gibberish on it (but will look into it later, maybe some clues hidden here). Constant message "
sewage and muck ooze under foot" accompanies my *pleasant* travel into this part of city.
^^^ Hehe, for tossing a gold coin to a smelly crowd got this message containing some clues. Hmm, this clue can be related to one of the high-level spells, but i'm not really sure now.
In other dead end killed bunch of Muggers (harmless enemy with only real "danger" coming from their ability to steal my gold) and this is it for Old City.
^^^ "Guardians" of undergroud. And yes, sure - i will help [here usually is no real benefit for rejecting such offers].
^^^ Extremly good loot for killing bunch of Sewer Rats and Gnome Elders (!). Pravin Lal will actually use this
Great Bow + 2 from now on.
Cavern itself seems to be not very menacing for my current power level of party (venomous snakes are kinda tough, throught) and most encounters only scratch HP's from my front line.
But here we go...
^^^ Ninja's real danger comes from potential ability to assassinate my characters, so dealing with them (and
Hatchet Man enemy type later on) can be frustrating. But we see about this...
^^^ Defeated every single one of them and got 102-nd victory along with some gems. [
One of the reasons why i do not talk a lot about monsters and some combat related mechanics in last couple of Let's Play parts is mostly related to most enemies being "enhanced" version of weaker monsters (for example, hermit, trickster and greedy snitch are all share single sprite and have abilities related to stealing some crap from party) and game introduces new mechanics and abilities slowly. If i will notice anything interesting will scribe it here, for sure].
^^^ After mentioned ninja's and one more small encounter with muggers got my hands on Master Thief and he can teach CEO Morgan in even finer points of disarming traps (sadly, you cannot steal items from wendors, even if you want hard for some reason, heh).
Of course i will agree for training.
Other parts of dungeon been slightly boring and contain only low-level threats and very small rewards, so i will move on...
~...In local tavern named as
Red Lantern Tavern. Going
to give some small amount of gold to bartender (maybe game give me some niche information that can help me at some point in future) and going
to taste one of "specialties" (that i'm unfamiliar from last run, so not sure about potential effects) that people love to eat in Sandsobar~
^^^ Interesting kind of clue i got by using
Tip The Brtender option. Will note this for future.
^^^ Two of this dishes have known effect for me (tasting
Roast Peasant spawns horde of angry relatives with shaman in lead in the cell just outside Sandsobar - and
Phantom Pudding have effect in one of later dungeons, so i will leave both "epicurean rations" for now), so i will taste
Wyrm Chop Suey - maybe it will have no effect or even will poison me. We will see...
^^^ Half of bar seems to very angry at me for tasting this dish, heh (never had this encounter before, so i blame *tasty* suey instead). And man - angry mob of 40+ enemies in single go.
^^^ Some enemies (like Kobold Captains)
can call for "reinforcements", so you can occasionally fight +10 additional opponents, which can be dangerous. In almost every big battle i can recommend to use clerical spells for buffing fighters up (SP are finite, but fighter can depend on his or her sword for sure) - Heroism, Holy Bonus and Bless are all going to work pretty well in prolonged fight.
^^^ After my team defeated bandits some weird woman named Lucindra provides a interesting hint about hints from tiping a barkeeper, heh.
^^^ Interesting... Let me guess. Is he potential robber for a hire?
^^^ Pretty close, but still good enough:
ninja for hire. His ability to assassinate enemies (much better compated to robber's backstab ability) can come in handy, and he very well can be my hireling.
This is enough for Sandsobar, but i have one more thing to do (well, two things in total)...
As usual, to free Bishop from imprisonment i need to but 3 tickets (yellow tickets in my case) and i must win 3 battles at 3 different arena's.
1) First combat been against group consisting of... nasty witches. Mediocre spell casters and easy prey to Feeble Mind (
+ 2 000 gold as reward)
2) Second combat been against group consisting of... cavaliers. Tough, even if slightly weak monster for my power level, but still respectable creatures (
+ 3 000 gold as reward)
3) Third combat been against group consisting of... canine creeps. Bland, relatively hard hitting opponents - Santiago been kicked out of her mind... once (
+ 5 000 gold as reward)
Time to visit key master in Sandsobar for
yellow key to unlock door leading to second priosner of power.
^^^ HERE WE GO, MY MAN. 1 000 gold for around 50 000 experience is pretty good deal, if you gonna ask me...
^^^ By going from Middlegate outskirts (with multiple hints leading me to castle) to distnat land (because i forgot exact region of castle) i ended up in Castle Pinehurts, leaded by Lord Peabody!
~Btw, register of region with castle in it is
A-2 as i can see now~
This castle have pretty damn difficult dungeon to traverse and not so much to offer, but here also located
TIME MACHINE that is key for main quest completion.
^^^ Path to bishop is blocked by bunch of beggars and merchants (again, all encounters are randomly generated in this game). Afterwards is some good reward for SMAC team.
Atlantium "gym" and new experience after dungeon and freed Yellow Bishop allow my party to gain 1 more level. Nothing new, except for HP~ boost for everybody.
^^^ Amount of experience needed for new levels going to be progressively getting more and more demanding. From this point and onwards experience
going to be literally most precious thing in the game, trust me.
But at some point in-game economy going to be broken completely, sadly.
Proud city of Atlantium have some *darkish* secrets - one of them is
City Jail zone. Let's enter it, out of interest.
^^^ This is combat encounter where Druids actually made a difference due to very quick Silence. Been forced to retreat due to well, inability to cast spells - and front-line been heavily wounded.
~Second try been more successful (Kobold Captains + Troubadoors, even if Troubadoors in general do ~50 damage per attack) and i can simply rest after this encounter~
^^^ What can possibly go wrong after entering this door?... [
Also, LOL, this door locked and we need sure hands of Morgan for this task].
^^^ Good choice of guards for city jail, actualy. Or not... Damn, each of them been hitting by 60+ damage each round (even if ogres missed couple of times as well), so cleric work is never done as usual : >
^^^ As usual, reward for entering almost any "forbidden" place in any city or any region is usually worth it or at least interesting in Might & Magic 2. Two new mercenaries (cleric - HELL YEAH and archer - HELL MAYBE).
^^^ Probably will take cleric with me in next or in next to next part of my Let's Play. Archer is also not a bad pick, but i do not think having two archers in party is worth it, but this is just my small imo.
~~
Next target of our SMAC kill-team (and pretty successful one as it seems) is Castle Woodshaven untold riches of Lord Hoardall. Our targets are fabled itme that can help our cleric and robber - and we also want to explore this territory more~~
^^^ Wrong door been leading into well-trained castle guards (enemy type unique for castles combat encounters), but i will explore this place by a bit anyway.
^^^ Going into castles specifically to fill characters with food rations usually is not worth it, but still nice to replenish my packs for free and with "lavish meals" as well : >
^^^ Ah, yes - no elves are supposedly allowed here (this makes Pravin Lal and Zakharov sad) and one or two encounters boosting party capabilities will not work, because
FUCK ELVES.
^^^ Feck, i supposed to go for item destined for Cleric without cleric in party, hmm. Actually, Miriam can replace Yang in some aspects (healing mostly), so will go for this.
~
Been trying to recruit ninja in Sandsobar, but all hirelings start at level 1, so nah. Instead, i will dispose both robber and cleric from a party and enter Hoardall's dungeon as it is. And by the way, later in the game some tasks much be completed with only 1 or 2 characters at maximum ("promotion" quests) so i better to get taste of party containing less then 6 characters now anyway~
^^^ Special item for cleric! Only thing why i survived with 4 party members and combat with explodng enemies is Miriam's Power Cure.
[Also first time where i been bashing door - and it even worked at second time. First time fail to open door met me with fireball]
^^^ Special item for Robber as well! Feck, first two times died in here - got very difficult encounters with Winged Steeds (fireballs) and Minor Devils (also some fire themed attacking spell). Third time everything went much better and i actually got item.
~Time for...
Surface spell~
Regarding items and what they going to provide:
Onyx Effigy (only for Clerics) - simply boosts personality stat by +15 and can be selled for a ton of gold. Kinda OK.
Sapphire Pin (only for Robbers) - also boosts luck by + 15 and aagin can selled for a good profits. Slightly better (Luck is more important for Robber, compared to personality giving only more SP for Cleric, but again - hard to tell if both items actually worth it.
~
At last... Let's visit Vulcania. But at first i will sell some jank from previous dungeons and combat encounters in Atlantium - while buying Teleport Orb (substitute for "teleport" spell) for a cause, because Zakharov still cannot cast it [but will be able pretty soon]~
^^^ Unlike most other dungeons -
i extensively mapped Vulcanian dungeon before, because had some problems at first (due to weird door placement, and been not knowing about lava pits at first).
And hehe - sometimes you must endure CRINGE to become more BASED, sadly or thankfully.
...Most characters gain nothing from this, but Mr. Yang actually have 26 endurance right now. Weird, but fine.
^^^ Judging by my old mapped sector notes alone - two more mercenaries must be somethere out there. Feck, wasted one charge of teleport orb for nothing - but second try succeded and now i rescued both guys.
^^^ While wandering in caverns more found this interesting message. [A-1 Todilor is one of 4 details for TIME MACHINE, as far as i can remember]. In next 4 cells been ambushed by horde of monsters (around 5 types on top of this) + Snapping Spores with ability to "explode". Only thing that saved me is Time Distortion (sometimes this spell can fail to fucntion, but this is fine).
~[
Some cells on game maps have nasty pre-placed feature named as "anti-magical zone". If party enters this type of cells - every spell will fail immideately, so it best to bypass such cells (teleport, jump) or prepare beforehand (all sorts of resistances always with party, once applied and before rest)]~
^^^ Two new hirelings in Middlegate Inn (second ninja and second archer, ehh).
I got no new spells in this part of Let's Play (because i got only one new level and my progression is sligtly slowed at the moment) and while whole lot of different events and stuff hapened with my SMAC lads - not a lot happened in terms of progression and ALL enemies i encountered at current point in game either are too EZ for me, or will rape me on sight. This is all fine and i had fun exploring game map and trying out new dungeons.
Anyway...
Hope to do following in next part: ~
~...hope to gain new level for everyone in party (spellcasters are priority by now)
~...hope to rescue one more Bishop of Battle [if i can do all 3 red challanges in arena's]
~...will focus on gaining morein terms of progression
~...hope to complete Hoardall side-quest
P.S. Hope you guys have fun so far!
Cheers 0/