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Completed Let's play Might and Magic VII: For Blood and Honor
- Thread starter Azira
- Start date
Great0ldOne
Educated
Animations still aren't all that bad. The apparent enlightened and delighted amazement of the two sovereigns when someone suggests "hey, guys, we could, like, draw the line in the middle", as if it's something only someone whose wisdom is beyond mortal comprehension could ever think of, is far more lulzy.
Kind of swamped between work and family at the moment, but as I wrote, all screenshots are taken, it's a matter of getting enough me-time to write the update and upload the pictures.
Once that is done, we can finally get to grips with the two different paths in this game.
Once that is done, we can finally get to grips with the two different paths in this game.
eklektyk
Erudite
and soon real fun will begin
Do you guys know how frustrating it is to have your writeup disappear on you, just because the wife decides to trim the hedges and accidentally cuts the powerline, thus causing a blackout in the entire house?
No?
Let me tell you, it is quite frustrating. There goes a lot of work. Nothing to do but start over, but if I seem a bit disenchanted for the first bit of this update, now you might now why.
...
OK. The votes were tallied, and our lightsiders and darksiders both, who until the conclusion of this update, are only light- and darksiders by name, not virtue, were about to set out to bring war to an end. In some form or the other.
You've already seen the videos and know the war will be concluded, and that our heroes play a large part in this. This update will illustrate the how of it.
So that's it for now. The powerout had me annoyed, but I felt I owed you this update before the week was out. I hope to get to play some more in the coming week, so the next update should hopefully not be as delayed as this.
No?
Let me tell you, it is quite frustrating. There goes a lot of work. Nothing to do but start over, but if I seem a bit disenchanted for the first bit of this update, now you might now why.
...
OK. The votes were tallied, and our lightsiders and darksiders both, who until the conclusion of this update, are only light- and darksiders by name, not virtue, were about to set out to bring war to an end. In some form or the other.
You've already seen the videos and know the war will be concluded, and that our heroes play a large part in this. This update will illustrate the how of it.
Alright, the lightsiders voted to do the following:
1. Fetch and turn in the correct Fort Riverstride plans.
2. Jailbreak and return the real Loren Steel.
3. Turn in the Gryphonheart's Trumpet to the arbiter, Judge Grey.
First things first, we head to Fort Riverstride.
Entering is easy, but as soon as you're inside, a guard sternly asks us to leave.
Leaving would serve us no purpose, as the plans we're after are inside. Instead, we cast the invisibility spell and are free to loot the place, without having to kill any guards.
In one room, we come across a letter.
I don't quite recall who this Steadwick fellow is, but the name rings a bell. If any of you readers catch the connection, please share. Currently, I'm drawing a blank.
Further inside the fort, we find the plans, "cleverly" hidden behind a portrait hanging on a wall..
With these in hand, we leave the fort. Loot from the fort wasn't too impressive.
The fort itself wasn't impressive either, to say the least. The two red boxes denote two different entrances. I entered through the main entrance and got the guard dialogue. I honestly don't recall if we get the same, should we enter from the service entrance, and I haven't got a save handy to check. Let's just assume we would.
The large red numer 1 denotes the vault. Aside from this, the fort has some cabinets for looting, a few chests and some stat-increasing barrels. No xp apart from delivering the plans, as we refrained from slaughtering the guards.
The Elven King seems pleased. I have a scottish friend whom I assume would use the phrase "chuffed" to describe the King's demeanor. I just say that 5.000 gold is a bit cheap, but we'll take what we can get.
We don't tell him about the imminent prison break, instead we head directly for the Tularean Caves.
The Caves are a bit more challenging than the Fort. The inhabitants of the Caves are all set as hostile, so we won't be sneaking around this time. They are not what makes this place challenging however. This place has a "puzzle" of sorts. Unfortunately, it also holds the answer to the very same puzzle inside a chest.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The dungeon houses Troglodytes, which we've already met, and Elves and Wyverns:
Wyverns are basic melee enemies, but their attack can cause poison. This is pretty much a non-issue, due in part to Protection from Magic, but also because Cure Poison is within our capabilities too.
The elves are also melee enemies. The Lancer can pack a punch, but if you just don't rush ahead and draw a huge crowd, the monsters should be easy to take care of.
No, the "challenge" here is the dungeon design. The game designers however chose to place a letter inside a chest in the dungeon, that explains what to do.
An invisible bridge and teleporters. How novel. Oh, and remember the name Stantley? Wasn't he the guy who hired Mr. Malwick to make us an offer? It seems we've not seen the last of this guy, and he sure gets around. 
Here are some pics of the bridge.
The bridge is literally invisible, but quite solid. Once you know there's a bridge somewhere, completing this dungeon is rather straigtforward. It does have an optional jumping puzzle however.
I say optional, as you can bypass this entirely and get to the other side via another route. And the jumps aren't even difficult.
Once past the invisible bridge, you need to flip a switch
and enter the correct teleporter
to get to the last part of the dungeon. The correct teleporter is the right-most one. There's no penalty from choosing the wrong one, as they simply teleport you to another part of the dungeon, but if you're as completionist as myself, that part of the dungeon is likely to be cleared by now, so it only means a bit more running around..
Once we're in the prison section, we find yet another letter!
The ruling wizard is one our light-side bros are going to become buddies with. Seems he also has some stakes in this conflict. M:
Anyway, we look for what looks to be the prison cell, and break Mr Steel out.
Easy. Then again, I have played this far in this game about 10 times. Don't recall if I found the dungeon challenging the first time. I might have.. Here's the map of the place.
1. The invisible bridge
2. The prison cell
3. This ledge is a trap, there are some horizontally moving pillars that can push you off the ledge. You'll just land below however, free to return upside again. So rather tame as traps go, but whatever.
4. This chest contains the spoiler letter, telling about the invisible bridge. Who hides stuff like this in the very same dungeon? Meh.
Then our party goes off to the Queen and turn in Steel.
Another 5.000 gold. Those monarchs are a bit cheap, aren't they?
Anyway, these tasks done, we return to our own Castle Harmondale and see what the emissaries have to say about our doings.
They're both quite pleased, oblivious to the fact we're playing both sides here. Who says light-siders can't be devious?
Only one thing left to do for now, turn in the Trumpet.
Who could the "weak side" be here, eh? You'll see.. When our group returns to their castle, a banner has been hung out next to the throne room.
A blue banner with the NWC logo emblazoned on it. Wonder what that signifies?
Having done these tasks, we return again to the arbiter for advice on what to do next. He isn't too helpful.
It wouldn't do him much good if he were though, as he's scripted to kick the bucket.
So, a truce has been called because an old man died? And we've been chosen to name the successor, seeing as he lives on our land?
This is where we choose either the light or dark path. Let's go meet up with the embassadors.
It's quite obvious. Choosing Bracada's candidate sets us on the light path, and choosing Deyja's candidate sets us on the dark path. Since I chose to show you the light party first, we're headed for the Bracada desert. Before we do that however, I'll show you one thing.
In this game, you can find Genie's Lamps scattered on the overland map in places. These lamps can bequeath beneficial effects. Most beneficial in the month of october however.
Depending on the date of said month, the effect is stronger. The strongest effect you can get in the last week in any given month.
Now, there are some days in a week in which you not only get the beneficial effect, but also a detrimental one. They include stoning, death and eradication. The date I randomly chose was one without detrimental effect, and here's what happened when we used a lamp:
+8 skillpoints. That's equivalent of 4 horseshoes. For this reason alone, it is worth it to chuck around these Magic Lamps and experimenting. Or looking at a help-guide to help decide what's the most fortuitous time to use them.
Thus boosted, our lightsiders travelled to the Bracada Desert.
Once in Bracada, it is simply a question of finding the Inn and talking to the prospective arbiter.
With this guy in tow we just need to return to Harmondale and install him in the old arbiter's house.
Once in Harmondale, we chat up the ambassador and our chosen arbiter, to see if they say anything useful.
Nope. Nothing we didn't already know. OK then, we'll just find the house and enter it.
And this is where the video rolls!
The interface gets a slight graphical makeover once this choice is made, to let you know that we're now either goody-two-shoes or sinister agents of evil. Our current group is the former.
We also get an invite to go to Castle Lambent in Celeste. Celeste is a city in the clouds above Bracada, which we couldn't enter before now, as the teleporter taking us there has handily been under repair.
Anyways, with this important choice made, it's time to hit the history book to see what the scribes say of our endeavours!
"Peace, You win!". A new kindom of Harmondale is formed, and our group is the rightful rulers. Nice voting there people!
...
With the light-siders concluded, it's time to check in with the dark-siders.
Catherine is keen to set a trap for the elves, and quickly has some fake plans drawn up. Our two dwarves in the party seem to relish the thought of pointy-eared elves running into a trap.
We then port to the Tularean Forest to turn in these plans.
Interestingly, we get an option to tell him the plans are fake, but I chose instead to turn them in without saying anything of the sort.
Our group then breaks our Loren Steel. This part is exactly the same as it was for the light-siders, so I'll just jump straight to Queen Catherine:
We get 5.000 gold for returning Steel, 5.000 more for telling her that the elvish king took the false plans, and a further 5.000 for the Trumpet.
Now, at this point, there's a delay before Judge Grey dies. This short period of time is spent doing the rogue and crusader promotion quests.
Being dark-siders, this group chooses not to hide themselves under the cloak of invisibility while looting the place, and thus we get to fight Markham's guards.
The basic swordsmen are pushovers. The knight-type enemies are a different sort however:
There are only the two of them however, so they're dealt with. Apart from dragons, these are the most hitpoint bloated enemies faced yet.
Speaking of dragons, killing Wromthrax nets this nice leather for Kayerts:
Grandmaster dodge skill allows for the use of leather armour in conjunction with dodging. The slight hit to resistances is negligble.
Soon, we receive note that Grey is dead. But just prior to that, we see what the emissaries from the elven and human kingdoms have to say about our dealings with them:
The elf seems to take it in good spirit. I thought they were all pansies, but it seems they can take a joke after all.
The only thing left for us to do in this update is go get Deyja's candidate and install him in the arbiter's house.
And of course, here's the video we get when we reach the house.
Again, the interface changes colouration. This time to a dark/red hue. And what does history have to say about the votes our darksiders cast?
"Peace, humans win". Oh well. We have grander designs anyhow. The tiny kingdom of Harmondale would never suffice for our dark-siders.
1. Fetch and turn in the correct Fort Riverstride plans.
2. Jailbreak and return the real Loren Steel.
3. Turn in the Gryphonheart's Trumpet to the arbiter, Judge Grey.
First things first, we head to Fort Riverstride.
Entering is easy, but as soon as you're inside, a guard sternly asks us to leave.
Leaving would serve us no purpose, as the plans we're after are inside. Instead, we cast the invisibility spell and are free to loot the place, without having to kill any guards.
In one room, we come across a letter.
I don't quite recall who this Steadwick fellow is, but the name rings a bell. If any of you readers catch the connection, please share. Currently, I'm drawing a blank.
Further inside the fort, we find the plans, "cleverly" hidden behind a portrait hanging on a wall..
With these in hand, we leave the fort. Loot from the fort wasn't too impressive.
The fort itself wasn't impressive either, to say the least. The two red boxes denote two different entrances. I entered through the main entrance and got the guard dialogue. I honestly don't recall if we get the same, should we enter from the service entrance, and I haven't got a save handy to check. Let's just assume we would.
The large red numer 1 denotes the vault. Aside from this, the fort has some cabinets for looting, a few chests and some stat-increasing barrels. No xp apart from delivering the plans, as we refrained from slaughtering the guards.
The Elven King seems pleased. I have a scottish friend whom I assume would use the phrase "chuffed" to describe the King's demeanor. I just say that 5.000 gold is a bit cheap, but we'll take what we can get.
We don't tell him about the imminent prison break, instead we head directly for the Tularean Caves.
The Caves are a bit more challenging than the Fort. The inhabitants of the Caves are all set as hostile, so we won't be sneaking around this time. They are not what makes this place challenging however. This place has a "puzzle" of sorts. Unfortunately, it also holds the answer to the very same puzzle inside a chest.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The dungeon houses Troglodytes, which we've already met, and Elves and Wyverns:
Wyverns are basic melee enemies, but their attack can cause poison. This is pretty much a non-issue, due in part to Protection from Magic, but also because Cure Poison is within our capabilities too.
The elves are also melee enemies. The Lancer can pack a punch, but if you just don't rush ahead and draw a huge crowd, the monsters should be easy to take care of.
No, the "challenge" here is the dungeon design. The game designers however chose to place a letter inside a chest in the dungeon, that explains what to do.
An invisible bridge and teleporters. How novel.
Oh, and remember the name Stantley? Wasn't he the guy who hired Mr. Malwick to make us an offer? It seems we've not seen the last of this guy, and he sure gets around. Here are some pics of the bridge.
The bridge is literally invisible, but quite solid. Once you know there's a bridge somewhere, completing this dungeon is rather straigtforward. It does have an optional jumping puzzle however.
I say optional, as you can bypass this entirely and get to the other side via another route. And the jumps aren't even difficult.
Once past the invisible bridge, you need to flip a switch
and enter the correct teleporter
to get to the last part of the dungeon. The correct teleporter is the right-most one. There's no penalty from choosing the wrong one, as they simply teleport you to another part of the dungeon, but if you're as completionist as myself, that part of the dungeon is likely to be cleared by now, so it only means a bit more running around..
Once we're in the prison section, we find yet another letter!
The ruling wizard is one our light-side bros are going to become buddies with.
Seems he also has some stakes in this conflict. M: Anyway, we look for what looks to be the prison cell, and break Mr Steel out.
Easy. Then again, I have played this far in this game about 10 times. Don't recall if I found the dungeon challenging the first time. I might have..
Here's the map of the place.
1. The invisible bridge
2. The prison cell
3. This ledge is a trap, there are some horizontally moving pillars that can push you off the ledge. You'll just land below however, free to return upside again. So rather tame as traps go, but whatever.
4. This chest contains the spoiler letter, telling about the invisible bridge. Who hides stuff like this in the very same dungeon? Meh.
Then our party goes off to the Queen and turn in Steel.
Another 5.000 gold. Those monarchs are a bit cheap, aren't they?
Anyway, these tasks done, we return to our own Castle Harmondale and see what the emissaries have to say about our doings.
They're both quite pleased, oblivious to the fact we're playing both sides here. Who says light-siders can't be devious?
Only one thing left to do for now, turn in the Trumpet.
Who could the "weak side" be here, eh? You'll see..
When our group returns to their castle, a banner has been hung out next to the throne room.
A blue banner with the NWC logo emblazoned on it. Wonder what that signifies?
Having done these tasks, we return again to the arbiter for advice on what to do next. He isn't too helpful.
It wouldn't do him much good if he were though, as he's scripted to kick the bucket.
So, a truce has been called because an old man died? And we've been chosen to name the successor, seeing as he lives on our land?
This is where we choose either the light or dark path. Let's go meet up with the embassadors.
It's quite obvious. Choosing Bracada's candidate sets us on the light path, and choosing Deyja's candidate sets us on the dark path. Since I chose to show you the light party first, we're headed for the Bracada desert. Before we do that however, I'll show you one thing.
In this game, you can find Genie's Lamps scattered on the overland map in places. These lamps can bequeath beneficial effects. Most beneficial in the month of october however.
Depending on the date of said month, the effect is stronger. The strongest effect you can get in the last week in any given month.
Now, there are some days in a week in which you not only get the beneficial effect, but also a detrimental one. They include stoning, death and eradication. The date I randomly chose was one without detrimental effect, and here's what happened when we used a lamp:
+8 skillpoints.
That's equivalent of 4 horseshoes. For this reason alone, it is worth it to chuck around these Magic Lamps and experimenting. Or looking at a help-guide to help decide what's the most fortuitous time to use them. Thus boosted, our lightsiders travelled to the Bracada Desert.
Once in Bracada, it is simply a question of finding the Inn and talking to the prospective arbiter.
With this guy in tow we just need to return to Harmondale and install him in the old arbiter's house.
Once in Harmondale, we chat up the ambassador and our chosen arbiter, to see if they say anything useful.
Nope. Nothing we didn't already know.
OK then, we'll just find the house and enter it.
And this is where the video rolls!
The interface gets a slight graphical makeover once this choice is made, to let you know that we're now either goody-two-shoes or sinister agents of evil. Our current group is the former.
We also get an invite to go to Castle Lambent in Celeste. Celeste is a city in the clouds above Bracada, which we couldn't enter before now, as the teleporter taking us there has handily been under repair.
Anyways, with this important choice made, it's time to hit the history book to see what the scribes say of our endeavours!
"Peace, You win!".
A new kindom of Harmondale is formed, and our group is the rightful rulers. Nice voting there people! ...
With the light-siders concluded, it's time to check in with the dark-siders.
Catherine is keen to set a trap for the elves, and quickly has some fake plans drawn up. Our two dwarves in the party seem to relish the thought of pointy-eared elves running into a trap.
We then port to the Tularean Forest to turn in these plans.
Interestingly, we get an option to tell him the plans are fake, but I chose instead to turn them in without saying anything of the sort.
Our group then breaks our Loren Steel. This part is exactly the same as it was for the light-siders, so I'll just jump straight to Queen Catherine:
We get 5.000 gold for returning Steel, 5.000 more for telling her that the elvish king took the false plans, and a further 5.000 for the Trumpet.
Now, at this point, there's a delay before Judge Grey dies. This short period of time is spent doing the rogue and crusader promotion quests.
Being dark-siders, this group chooses not to hide themselves under the cloak of invisibility while looting the place, and thus we get to fight Markham's guards.
The basic swordsmen are pushovers. The knight-type enemies are a different sort however:
There are only the two of them however, so they're dealt with. Apart from dragons, these are the most hitpoint bloated enemies faced yet.
Speaking of dragons, killing Wromthrax nets this nice leather for Kayerts:
Grandmaster dodge skill allows for the use of leather armour in conjunction with dodging.
The slight hit to resistances is negligble.Soon, we receive note that Grey is dead. But just prior to that, we see what the emissaries from the elven and human kingdoms have to say about our dealings with them:
The elf seems to take it in good spirit.
I thought they were all pansies, but it seems they can take a joke after all.The only thing left for us to do in this update is go get Deyja's candidate and install him in the arbiter's house.
And of course, here's the video we get when we reach the house.
Again, the interface changes colouration. This time to a dark/red hue. And what does history have to say about the votes our darksiders cast?
"Peace, humans win". Oh well. We have grander designs anyhow. The tiny kingdom of Harmondale would never suffice for our dark-siders.
So that's it for now. The powerout had me annoyed, but I felt I owed you this update before the week was out. I hope to get to play some more in the coming week, so the next update should hopefully not be as delayed as this.
Erebus
Arcane
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2008
- Messages
- 4,847
I have to say, I don't really like the new colorings of the interface (especially the black and red one).
In the quests given to you by the monarchs, you're allowed to tell them that you've brought them a false plan/spy... but it results in instant death. Apparently, the game thinks that there's such a thing as being too devious !
Our being rulers of Harmondale becomes rather irrelevant in the second part of the game and I don't think whether or not it becomes an independent kingdom changes anything at all.
In the quests given to you by the monarchs, you're allowed to tell them that you've brought them a false plan/spy... but it results in instant death. Apparently, the game thinks that there's such a thing as being too devious !
Our being rulers of Harmondale becomes rather irrelevant in the second part of the game and I don't think whether or not it becomes an independent kingdom changes anything at all.
Redlands
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2008
- Messages
- 983
I agree; it was done MUCH better in Heroes of Might and Magic 2, due to the fact it wasn't blindingly supercontrasted.
Done a crap-load of promotion quests and one plot-advancing one, need to sort through the 163 screenshots, maybe delete some of them, write up some commentary and leave you off with a vote.
Hope to do at least part of the writeup tomorrow, but not making any promises I might not be able to keep.
Hope to do at least part of the writeup tomorrow, but not making any promises I might not be able to keep.
eklektyk
Erudite
*awaiting next update with eager anticipation*
Finally!
We've now reached the point in this game where it branches out on either the light or dark paths.
I will start with the dark path, as the last update was largely done with the light-path party. Note, this will constitute a largely blind LP, as I've never actually done the dark path before. That said, the quest structure in this game is rather simple, and many quests bear a striking resemblance to the quests the light-siders will have to do as well.
Without further ado...
Sorry it took so long. Work and family again took precedence, and this is not likely to change. Rest assured however, that I am committed to finishing this LP, and we're more than halfway there already.
The next update will see the light-side party get to approximately the same point in the storyline. Only after that will we be going forward by doing errands for the advisors.
We've now reached the point in this game where it branches out on either the light or dark paths.
I will start with the dark path, as the last update was largely done with the light-path party. Note, this will constitute a largely blind LP, as I've never actually done the dark path before. That said, the quest structure in this game is rather simple, and many quests bear a striking resemblance to the quests the light-siders will have to do as well.
Without further ado...
We start by collecting all available promotion quests. This update will feature mostly promotion quests, as I will be building our party to prepare for the challenges ahead. And the second promotion quests only unlock after you've committed to either the light or dark path. Do note there's a whole lot of travelling around to different maps to gather and complete all these quests. I have not taken screenshots of all the travelling, but I will try to mention it.
First off is the fighter promotion quest. This is picked up in Erathia, easily accesible by town portal.
This one is fairly straightforward. Good thing too, because I had a brainfart when doing this quest and failed to get any screenshots of it. Basically, we went to the Tularean Forest and cast invisibility immediately prior to entering, then ran to the treasury and took everything inside. Here's a map of the castle:
1. is the Throne Room.
2. is the treasury.
The castle is guaded by elves, melee and archer types, and dragonflies.. Very easy, we could easily clear out the entire castle, but I decided not to waste time and just rush to the treasury. Everyone is hostile immediately upon entering though, they seem to resent the fact that we let the humans crush them, and that we allied with Deyja.
I'll do all the quest turn ins at the end of the update.
Next promotion quest we pick up is the druid quest. This quest dispensor is in Nighon. Town portal takes us there.
Oh! Oh. Well, that's a bit awkward.. I need to visit three shrines in the Tatalia, Avlee and Evenmorn Islands maps first, to complete the initial druid promotion quest. I've neglected to do this, due to the simple fact, that neither party has a druid in it. We'll return here later.
Ranger promotion quest is picked up in the Tularean Forest; town portal:
10.000 gold in bounties, and we're only 13% done. We need to be hitting the town halls every month, looking for likely bounties, so this one will sit for a while. I don't complete this in this update, as I have no rangers in the party, and couldn't be arsed looking around for the "right" bounty to show up.
Paladin quest we pick up in Deyja. We took a coach from the Tularean forest:
Kidnap a maiden? From Castle Gryphonheart no less?
While in Deyja, we also pick up the cleric and thief promotion quests:
This one is very simple, we just need to travel to Evenmorn Islands to complete it.
Drinking the tea isn't dangerous, instead it provides a nifty endurance boost. The quest itself will see us to Celeste, the light-side capital. A dangerous place, but one we have to visit during the plot progression anyway.
The entrance to the dark-side capital is in Deyja. We need to go through a tunnel and below ground:
Lovely decor. The monsters inside are not hostile, since we allied with dark.
The monsters are gargoyles, harpies and zombies. Nothing too threatening, even if they were hostile.
The Pit itself is also teeming with non-hostile monsters.
The monster types are liches, necromancers and vampires. Liches and necromancers are ranged spell-slingers, somewhat squishy in melee, save for Queens of the Dead, as they have the annoying tendency to cast Pain Reflection, more on that when we follow the light-siders. The vampires are hard-hitting melee fighters.
Now that we've found the Pit, we can use Town Portal to return here whenever we so desire:
This will also make Deyja easily accesible.
In the Pit, we find two more promotion quests, for sorcerer and monk classes:
Liches. We need to go to celeste to complete this one, but we were planning on going there anyway, as we have another promotion quest there.
The Ninja quest.. We need to use our thinker for this one, and we need to travel to Bracada to crach the Cipher. There is another place to look for more hints regarding this promotion quest, our very own castle! We are not the first people looking for this Lost Tomb of the Master.
Before we do more promotion quest thingies, we go to Castle Gloaming to meet the head honcho, Archibald the necromancer.
Navigating the Pit can be a bit annoying, as it consists not only of the main area, but also three other areas only accessible by teleporters, and they work sequentially. If you need to go to the Castle, you need to get teleported thrice. And if we do not do as the castle guard tells us, every mob inside the castle turns hostile, and vampires, necromancers and liches can hurt us plenty..
Here's a map of The Pit:
The teleporters are marked by the A, B, C, and D respectively. D takes us back to A.
I won't provide a map of Castle Gloaming yet. We'll save that for the light-siders who will eventually be clearing the place out.
Instead, we go straight for the throne room:
He certainly seems pleased to meet us, understandably so. Getting membership of the Guild of Dark is quite a treat, as it will allow us access to the most powerful damage spells in the game. So we immediately head to this Breeding Zone place to clear the place out.
The Breeding Zone is inhabited by two types of monsters.
The fire elementals are the lesser evil here. They are ranged attackers and fall relatively quickly in melee range. The other monsters however:
Massive hitpoint pool, really nasty melee attack and high armor class. These things would rip us apart quickly, if we let them melee us.
Lucky for us, this dungeon is designed in a way that we can run to a safe place and take pot shots outside melee range:
This passage is too narrow for the behemoths, and they can be lured here a few at a time and shot to death. Cheesy, but effective.
In this dungeon we find a, for us, useless spellbook. But this spellbook will be the target for a light-path quest:
For us, this is pure vendor-trash.
With all monsters cleared, we exit the zone.
The map of the place is also rather straightforward.
1. Switch, opens small niche near 3, niche here holds chest with Divine Intervention spellbook.
2. Switch, opens the way towards the exit
3. Switch, opens small niche near 1, the niche here is empty
This dungeon can be nasty if you don't avoid melee with the behemoths. The way it's designed however, it seems apparent the developers intends you to take advantage of their large size and shoop them from afar.
With the deed done, we return to Archibald.
This means the advisors now spawn in hitherto unoccupied rooms in The Pit. Our history book also updates..
Yes, who are these advisors, and how come they mean so much to Archibald that he actually listens to them? It is a mystary!
We will learn later though.
Having had a bit of fun in The Pit, I now decided to raid Castle Gryphonheart.
This castle holds no handy chokepoints to prevent these mobs from reaching us, and while they're not overly dangerous, I decide to turn invisible for this raid, much as I did with the elven castle.
Alice is quickly found.
She's not going home anytime soon.
Also in Castle Gryphonheart we find two pictures that can be removed from the walls. They must be important, as they're labeled as quest items.
We'll hold on to them until we find the quest they're linked to. M:
Having stolen off with the two paintings and the maiden in distress (how does that work? dragging off a screaming maiden while invisible should cause at least some ruckus.. Not that I'm complaining, but maybe the invisibility effect ought to have been disabled when we picked her up..), we head off to Tatalia with boat from Erathia.
In Tatalia, we find one of the Altars we are required to meditate at for the druid promotion:
There's not much more to do in Tatalia for the time being, so we catch another boat, this time to:
This area holds another Altar, but also the bases for the churches of the moon and sun. One of these holds an Altar we need to deface for our cleric promotion, the other we'll raid just for the heck of it.
The Temple of the Moon first.
This temple holds undead of the wight variety, and priests of the moon:
They can cast dark magic spells, so can be painful, but they're quite squishy.
One of them carries this stylish cloak:
Bee dons this immediately. In a chest inside the temple, we find a curious little statue.
This is also labelled as a quest item. This time it's a quest we've already received. We need to pick up 3 statues and place them in special shrines all over the place. And this statue was the primary reason we entered the Temple of the Moon. To be honest, I'd forgotten about the cloak, so that was a nice bonus.
Map!
1. Chest with the statuette
2. Altar of Evil, quest location for the light-side priest promotion quest
3. Trap, drops you into a cell.
4. Nice, contains telekinesis scroll
5. Lever to open cell, manipulate with telekinesis spell
Very straightforward and simple. Not really challenging at this point. I don't know if they expected people to come here as soon as they found the map, as our current party seems overlevelled, also when considering the overland map monsters (which are skeletons and ghosts).
Anyway, we exit the temple and find another of the Altars for the druid quest nearby:
2 down, 1 to go.
Next, we enter the Temple of the Sun, to do our priest promotion quest.
This temple holds (surprise!) priests of the sun, and some monks.
The priests are just as little a threat as the priests of the moon, these ones just cast light magic, and tend to heal themselves if you let them. The monks are basic melee fighters as far as I could tell. They didn't last long.
We find several small things of note, another statue, a cloak similar to the dark magic boosting one, and a letter:
The cloak is useless to us, and the letter is simple background fluff. The statue is for the quest mentioned above.
The last thing to do in this temple is to find the main altar and deface it:
"You have desecrated the altar"... And the surface turns brown.. Use your imagination people.
With that deed done, we exit the temple. Here's the map.
1. Chest with statuette
2. Altar of good
3. Button "puzzle" for opening the way to treasure
This dungeon was quite similar to the moon temple one. Easy and straightforward.
With that done, we leave the Evenmorn Island and return to our own Castle Harmondale. We've received some wall decoration:
We get this for allying with Deyja. IIRC the Bracada banner is blue. This wall decoration isn't the only thing to come out of our alliance when talking about the castle however, our butler is happy to fill us in.
A dungeon and torture room! How luxurious. This is important however, there is a note to be found there, which will help with the Ninja quest. The shops are also a nice touch, especially the temple cannot be underestimated. Since the Town Portal spell lets us return directly here, and our temple offers the cheapest healing available, this will be handy for refilling our mana bars while slaughtering monsters.
One of the rooms that opened up upstairs (after clearing the Breeding Zone) is the library. This library has an important clue to how to decipher the code for the Ninja quest:
We can use this to finally decipher the script we got. The script reads:
Y iupj xckox nmw henv ik eoiuyl pwzmjh usv vqwy xjvisfx nmw qeey zwga xjm htlsi. Jn cx fchub yfkh iponm osiu uhi usduyl. Rq xec cm igbu bhx yzs tfvn uswt. Hiii disl.
We still need the waves scroll, which can be found in the School of Sorcery in Bracada. I sneak in with invisibility, as I don't feel like fighting a truck-load of spell-slinging and elemental summoning wizards in closed quarters. We manage to find the scroll:
The key is the third word in the Waves scroll, namely the word "pattern". Using the hints in the above cipher scroll, we can translate the gibberish into this:
So now we know how to enter the tomb. We still not know where it is though. But there's a clue to be found in one of the cells near the torture room:
So now we know the approximate location, and we know the combination needed to enter. We'll round off Harmondale with a view of the torture chamber:
And the shops:
The "gifts" left by Archibalds people are minor and to put it bluntly, worthless. The final Castle Harmondale map looks like this:
1. Throne room
2. Weaponsmith
3. Armoursmith
4. Temple
5. Alchemist
6. Library
7. Cask of wine. Will get one character drunk and only works once.
We might be returning to the castle for a very specific task, depending on what our partymembers vote at the end of this update. M: For now though, we're done. We head to Tatalia where we find the NPC that has the painting quest.
50.000 gold and xp. The miserly regents only gave us 5.000 for each of their quests.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised the payoff is better when working for the grand capital when compared to monarchs.
By this time I decide it'd be a good idea to run off to Bracada to stage an invasion of the light capital of Celeste. The way to enter that city is via a teleporter which has hitherto been out of order, but which is now conveniently repaired..
The creatures patrolling Celeste are not friendly. The ordinary NPCs all start out as non-hostile, but if you kill off any of the guards in their vicinity, they turn hostile as well. Having very few hps, they try to run away from the party however.
The guards include wizards
(I didn't get a screenshot of the wizards from Celeste proper, so these are from the proving grounds, more on this shortly) The wizards are ranged spellcasters that utilize light magic and tend to summon elementals:
Light elementals attack from range and are squishy in melee. When they die however, they explode for extra damage. Can be dangerous. The most dangerous guards of Celeste remain the angels:
They can attack from range as well as in melee, and they attack fast. So they usually hit twice for every time our party gets to act. They only come at you a few at a time however, so they're manageable. Of final note is rocs. Large predatory birds, a few reside in Celeste, and a single one of them decided to attack us.
Compared to the other guards, rocs are pushovers.
Even if you go on a murderous rampage and clear the entire town, NPCs behind closed doors will still talk to you, and a few might have something interesting to say:
We need to enter these proving grounds, for the sorcerer promotion quest. I don't actually know if we're supposed to be peaceful for the dark side quest, but decide to play it safe instead of potentially mucking things up.
Before we enter the proving grounds though, we find the NPC we need to kill for the thief promotion quest:
I guess the challenge here was to enter town and find the NPC without getting killed yourself in the process. Supposedly the NPC was a noted assassin, but she died in a single hit.
of hitmen everywhere.
Having run amok, we now have free reign of the town, so we go enter these proving grounds, called The Walls of Mist.
We'll refrain from attacking anything while here. This means having invisibility up all the time. The tricky part about that is that it can only be recast when the borders around the portraits is green. Not many places inside where this is true, but I manage to find 2 spots, making it just possible.
Inside the place it's teeming with guards. There are wizards, djinn and air elementals:
All of them are ranged attackers, and the wizards can summon more ranged attackers, so for this reason alone, it is prudent to keep invisibility up at all times. The dungeon consists of 4 large open areas. The main area where there are three teleporters for each of the other branches, and the objective in each of those branches is to find a key. Once the three keys are collected, they fit into three columns at the end of the main area, using those columns will open the way out again.
I only got screenshots of two of the keys for some reason.
Once the way to the exit is open, a chest is also revealed. This chest contains our prize:
We'll soon get to see Crooked Bee shed her fleshy wrappins. With the jars in hand (one for every character, even if Crooked Bee is the only one who actually needs it) we leave this place.
Here's a map of the place:
1.2.3. Linked teleporters to and from the main room to the other branches.
4.5.6. Pillars that need keys to manipulate. Once all pillars are unlocked the wall directly behind them retracts (wall not pictured)
7. Chest with Lich Jars
8. Two sets of three buttons and a switch to each side. You need a specific and seemingly random combination to reveal the chest at 9.
9. Chest containing the West Pillar Key
10. Chest containing the Center Pillar Key
11. Buttons, push them all to drain the pool at 13 and reveal the passage below
12. Chest containing East Pillar Key
13. Pool covering passage
Huge dungeon filled with deadly monsters. I like that the puzzle in this one wasn't spoiled the way it was in the Elven dungeon. I'll be honest, I don't know if you could kill all monsters here and get away with it, being a dark-side party. I would suspect as much. I decided against it for two reasons. One being it would take an inordinate amount of time. Two being that I didn't want to risk it.
The former reason was the most important one. I have limited time for this LP, and it is delayed often enough without distractions such as a huge-ass dungeon. Hope you're not too disappointed, and if you are? Well, then buy the game and find out yourself.
...
Well, with the Walls of Mist being cleared, and Lady Carmine dead in the streets, we have no reason to stay in Celeste. On our way out (Celeste is placed in the clouds, there are walkways you need to stay on, because if you drop off them you're transported to high above the Bracada desert and you will be falling. This is useful for a quick transition there, provided you have either fly or featherfall prepared. If not, it'll make for a messy death) we cast town portal and confirm that we can now easily return here, should we wish to.
All town portal destinations are now unlocked and available for future use.
Our stalwart band of heroes (villains?) now set their sights on Erahtia in search of the Masters Tomb.
At the southern edge of the map, near the river. The entrance is quite well hidden from casual sight from above. You're not likely to find this place unless you know where to look.
Having used the cipher scroll and deduced what the message was on the scroll we got from Mr Sand, the NPC who sent us on the ninja mission, we know the correct combination we need to press the buttons to open the way:
This combination stays the same from each and every game, so you could meta it and come here without needing to translate the scroll. Our light-siders won't be coming here, as they have no reason to. M:
Inside the tomb is rather small. It holds a few guards, among them an Elder Vampire.
The vampire hits hard and can drain all SP on a succesful hit. You ought to take him down with extreme prejudice. Spellpoints are important not only for nuking stuff, but also for healing, though with regeneration cast, this becomes less of an issue.
The map of the tomb. Nothing remarkable, but the guards had a nasty streak.
We entered the tomb, killed the guardians and left for the elven territory of Avlee, as there is one more promotion quest we haven't done.
Enter a dungeon filled with Titans to make off with a simple bow? Yes, we will be doing this, but Titans have a ranged attack as well, so simply sniping them from a distance is hardly viable.
Before we risk life and limb, we find the last altar for the first druid promotion quest.
Now that this is all done, we will soon be returning to Nighon and get the final dark promotion quest.
Now then, what is this about The Titan's Stronghold? It is indeed populated by titans, but that's not all. It also holds dragons. Thus, the prudent thing is to cast invisibility and just go fetch the bow and then leave. We will return later to clear out the place, but we want our most powerful magic before that, and that requires that we get the final promotions for our cleric and sorcerer.
Invisibility is up, which is why the portraits look like they're viewed from behind glass.
Fortunately, the bow isn't hidden very far inside the castle, so we're able to get to the chest and loot it
And escape before the invisibility runs out.
Now, we found that third altar, so let's see a certain druid about our promotions.
Hippie.
Now though, we can receive the last promotion quest.
To complete this one, we just need to snatch a dragon egg, so we can get our very own dragon familiar. This is what DaveO was talking about. Unfortunately, we have no druids in our party, so we will not be getting the full bonus. And because the only way to get a dragon egg is to travel through some tunnels filled with behemoths, we postpone this promotion quest for now.
We also choose to postpone the bounty hunter quest, as we are no where near the 10.000 gold bounties collected that we're supposed to reach, and I don't feel like camping the town halls looking for the right combination of bounties.
Instead, we start turning in the quests we've done so far.
We have no knights on the dark side team, so this promotion is just an honorary one. And 40.000 xp for all participants.
No archers in the group either, but the upgraded bow has a nice modifier. Too bad it can't be enchanted with fire damage.
Alright! Now we're cooking with fire! Let's take a closer look at Crooked Bee now she's shed her mortal coil.
If we lose the jar (that only happens if you're idiot enough to drop it on the ground ), your lich will start to lose hitpoints. They will also take damage from sunlight (neglible amount), but regenerate spellpoints automatically. In addition to this, they also get som immunities.
Overall, liches are pretty powerful. I just guess I shouldn't wonder too much about the paper-doll model still having breasts....
ANYWAY, there are more promotion quests to turn in, we go visit the good Mr Sand.
Wait, what now? Puzzled by this, I returned to the Tomb and found that the sarcophagi in the place were lootable, and in one of them we find
And with this mask in hand (or inventory), we return to Mr Sand.
The trinket is pretty worthless, but the promotion is nice, not just because of the hitpoint boost, but also by what skilltrainings it unlocks.
We're not done promoting the heck out of ourselves yet though.
Storyfag is now a proper Priest of the Dark.
So, Lady Carmine was a former lover or what? It seems she was another assassin, but a rather squishy one at that. I believe she had a whopping total of 9 hitpoints. Anyway, 40.000 more xp for all of us, and a single promotion quest to go.
Lightbane is now a proper villain! It should also be noted that all of these promotion quests give an xp bonus of 40.000 for every characters, except for the character(s) who get the actual and not honorary promotion. For an actual promotion, you're awarded double this amount.
So here's a look at the reference chart now we're all promoted.
With the promotions in hand, we can finally go learn some Dark Magic...
We'll need to spawncamp this guild to get all the spells, but I won't bore you with that. In the next Dark update, I might show you some of the most important spells.
And right about now, I decided to level up all our characters, as they'd accrued enough xp to reach level 39. That's 15 levels higher than what they were previously. This also burns a lot of time in the training center, which again means that a messenger is waiting for us as we exit.
I guess we all knew it was just a matter of time before he showed up, eh?
This messenger doesn't show up until you've allied with one of the sides, and completed the first quest (in this case, the Breeding Zone).
Now let's go see what this Mr Stantley wants from us.
Ah. And this is where I want you to vote. I don't consider it a spoiler to let you know the light-siders get a similar request. Basically, this guy threatens us, orders us to steal a tapestry from our new allies (the necromancers for our darksiders, the wizards for our lightsiders) which will turn everyone in the respective castle hostile. If we do not comply, Harmondale will be attacked by goblins and swordsmen...
This is your vote. Do we go do Mr Stantley's bidding, or do we ignore him and deal with his minions once they appear?
The last few things in this update is another small quest I picked up by chance:
Kill all griffins. That'll be our pleasure.
And finally I'll say a few words about our four heroes of darkness, Lightbane first.
Now that grandmastery skilltraining is available, Lightbane has grandmastered (is that a word?) repair (can repair everything, 100% succesrate), shield (buffs armor class and halves all missile damage) and mace (chance to paralyze enemies on a succesful hit, very powerful debuff! ). I'm uncertain what he will focus on next, but I think Armsmaster and Bodybuilding, possibly Meditation somewhere along the line.
Kayerts.
Grand staff skill allows it to be used in conjunction with unarmed, which when at grand skill gives a flat chance of avoiding melee attacks based on skill-level (currently 10% then). Dodging grand skill allows it to be used with leather armor worn. He's definitely going for grand Bodybuilding as well, he currently has higher armor class and better attack bonus than lightbane, and it's not likely to change.
Storyfag.
Grand merchant allows for purchasing and selling stuff at base value. This means he's now a money machine when paired up with Crooked Bee and her Enchant Item spell. The other grand skills being the spell skills should come as no surprise. M: I will probably focus on his armor and weapon skills next, but might focus completely on spell skills should Storyfag request it.
Crooked Bee.
One nasty lich. All spell skills at grand level, and staff building towards master level for the chance to stun opponents.
Individual preferences for what skills to focus on now might be taken into consideration, so if you want to have a say in addition to casting your vote, feel free to chime in, Darksiders.
First off is the fighter promotion quest. This is picked up in Erathia, easily accesible by town portal.
This one is fairly straightforward. Good thing too, because I had a brainfart when doing this quest and failed to get any screenshots of it. Basically, we went to the Tularean Forest and cast invisibility immediately prior to entering, then ran to the treasury and took everything inside. Here's a map of the castle:
1. is the Throne Room.
2. is the treasury.
The castle is guaded by elves, melee and archer types, and dragonflies.. Very easy, we could easily clear out the entire castle, but I decided not to waste time and just rush to the treasury. Everyone is hostile immediately upon entering though, they seem to resent the fact that we let the humans crush them, and that we allied with Deyja.
I'll do all the quest turn ins at the end of the update.
Next promotion quest we pick up is the druid quest. This quest dispensor is in Nighon. Town portal takes us there.
Oh! Oh. Well, that's a bit awkward..
I need to visit three shrines in the Tatalia, Avlee and Evenmorn Islands maps first, to complete the initial druid promotion quest. I've neglected to do this, due to the simple fact, that neither party has a druid in it. We'll return here later.Ranger promotion quest is picked up in the Tularean Forest; town portal:
10.000 gold in bounties, and we're only 13% done. We need to be hitting the town halls every month, looking for likely bounties, so this one will sit for a while. I don't complete this in this update, as I have no rangers in the party, and couldn't be arsed looking around for the "right" bounty to show up.
Paladin quest we pick up in Deyja. We took a coach from the Tularean forest:
Kidnap a maiden?
From Castle Gryphonheart no less? While in Deyja, we also pick up the cleric and thief promotion quests:
This one is very simple, we just need to travel to Evenmorn Islands to complete it.
Drinking the tea isn't dangerous, instead it provides a nifty endurance boost. The quest itself will see us to Celeste, the light-side capital. A dangerous place, but one we have to visit during the plot progression anyway.
The entrance to the dark-side capital is in Deyja. We need to go through a tunnel and below ground:
Lovely decor.
The monsters inside are not hostile, since we allied with dark.
The monsters are gargoyles, harpies and zombies. Nothing too threatening, even if they were hostile.
The Pit itself is also teeming with non-hostile monsters.
The monster types are liches, necromancers and vampires. Liches and necromancers are ranged spell-slingers, somewhat squishy in melee, save for Queens of the Dead, as they have the annoying tendency to cast Pain Reflection, more on that when we follow the light-siders. The vampires are hard-hitting melee fighters.
Now that we've found the Pit, we can use Town Portal to return here whenever we so desire:
This will also make Deyja easily accesible.
In the Pit, we find two more promotion quests, for sorcerer and monk classes:
Liches.
We need to go to celeste to complete this one, but we were planning on going there anyway, as we have another promotion quest there.
The Ninja quest.. We need to use our thinker for this one, and we need to travel to Bracada to crach the Cipher. There is another place to look for more hints regarding this promotion quest, our very own castle! We are not the first people looking for this Lost Tomb of the Master.
Before we do more promotion quest thingies, we go to Castle Gloaming to meet the head honcho, Archibald the necromancer.
Navigating the Pit can be a bit annoying, as it consists not only of the main area, but also three other areas only accessible by teleporters, and they work sequentially. If you need to go to the Castle, you need to get teleported thrice. And if we do not do as the castle guard tells us, every mob inside the castle turns hostile, and vampires, necromancers and liches can hurt us plenty..
Here's a map of The Pit:
The teleporters are marked by the A, B, C, and D respectively. D takes us back to A.
I won't provide a map of Castle Gloaming yet. We'll save that for the light-siders who will eventually be clearing the place out.
Instead, we go straight for the throne room:
He certainly seems pleased to meet us, understandably so.
Getting membership of the Guild of Dark is quite a treat, as it will allow us access to the most powerful damage spells in the game. So we immediately head to this Breeding Zone place to clear the place out.
The Breeding Zone is inhabited by two types of monsters.
The fire elementals are the lesser evil here. They are ranged attackers and fall relatively quickly in melee range. The other monsters however:
Massive hitpoint pool, really nasty melee attack and high armor class. These things would rip us apart quickly, if we let them melee us.
Lucky for us, this dungeon is designed in a way that we can run to a safe place and take pot shots outside melee range:
This passage is too narrow for the behemoths, and they can be lured here a few at a time and shot to death. Cheesy, but effective.
In this dungeon we find a, for us, useless spellbook. But this spellbook will be the target for a light-path quest:
For us, this is pure vendor-trash.
With all monsters cleared, we exit the zone.
The map of the place is also rather straightforward.
1. Switch, opens small niche near 3, niche here holds chest with Divine Intervention spellbook.
2. Switch, opens the way towards the exit
3. Switch, opens small niche near 1, the niche here is empty
This dungeon can be nasty if you don't avoid melee with the behemoths. The way it's designed however, it seems apparent the developers intends you to take advantage of their large size and shoop them from afar.
With the deed done, we return to Archibald.
This means the advisors now spawn in hitherto unoccupied rooms in The Pit. Our history book also updates..
Yes, who are these advisors, and how come they mean so much to Archibald that he actually listens to them? It is a mystary!
We will learn later though.
Having had a bit of fun in The Pit, I now decided to raid Castle Gryphonheart.
This castle holds no handy chokepoints to prevent these mobs from reaching us, and while they're not overly dangerous, I decide to turn invisible for this raid, much as I did with the elven castle.
Alice is quickly found.
She's not going home anytime soon.
Also in Castle Gryphonheart we find two pictures that can be removed from the walls. They must be important, as they're labeled as quest items.
We'll hold on to them until we find the quest they're linked to. M:
Having stolen off with the two paintings and the maiden in distress (how does that work? dragging off a screaming maiden while invisible should cause at least some ruckus.. Not that I'm complaining, but maybe the invisibility effect ought to have been disabled when we picked her up..), we head off to Tatalia with boat from Erathia.
In Tatalia, we find one of the Altars we are required to meditate at for the druid promotion:
There's not much more to do in Tatalia for the time being, so we catch another boat, this time to:
This area holds another Altar, but also the bases for the churches of the moon and sun. One of these holds an Altar we need to deface for our cleric promotion, the other we'll raid just for the heck of it.
The Temple of the Moon first.
This temple holds undead of the wight variety, and priests of the moon:
They can cast dark magic spells, so can be painful, but they're quite squishy.
One of them carries this stylish cloak:
Bee dons this immediately.
In a chest inside the temple, we find a curious little statue.
This is also labelled as a quest item. This time it's a quest we've already received. We need to pick up 3 statues and place them in special shrines all over the place. And this statue was the primary reason we entered the Temple of the Moon. To be honest, I'd forgotten about the cloak, so that was a nice bonus.
Map!
1. Chest with the statuette
2. Altar of Evil, quest location for the light-side priest promotion quest
3. Trap, drops you into a cell.
4. Nice, contains telekinesis scroll
5. Lever to open cell, manipulate with telekinesis spell
Very straightforward and simple. Not really challenging at this point. I don't know if they expected people to come here as soon as they found the map, as our current party seems overlevelled, also when considering the overland map monsters (which are skeletons and ghosts).
Anyway, we exit the temple and find another of the Altars for the druid quest nearby:
2 down, 1 to go.
Next, we enter the Temple of the Sun, to do our priest promotion quest.
This temple holds (surprise!) priests of the sun, and some monks.
The priests are just as little a threat as the priests of the moon, these ones just cast light magic, and tend to heal themselves if you let them. The monks are basic melee fighters as far as I could tell. They didn't last long.
We find several small things of note, another statue, a cloak similar to the dark magic boosting one, and a letter:
The cloak is useless to us, and the letter is simple background fluff. The statue is for the quest mentioned above.
The last thing to do in this temple is to find the main altar and deface it:
"You have desecrated the altar"... And the surface turns brown.. Use your imagination people.
With that deed done, we exit the temple. Here's the map.
1. Chest with statuette
2. Altar of good
3. Button "puzzle" for opening the way to treasure
This dungeon was quite similar to the moon temple one. Easy and straightforward.
With that done, we leave the Evenmorn Island and return to our own Castle Harmondale. We've received some wall decoration:
We get this for allying with Deyja. IIRC the Bracada banner is blue. This wall decoration isn't the only thing to come out of our alliance when talking about the castle however, our butler is happy to fill us in.
A dungeon and torture room! How luxurious.
This is important however, there is a note to be found there, which will help with the Ninja quest. The shops are also a nice touch, especially the temple cannot be underestimated. Since the Town Portal spell lets us return directly here, and our temple offers the cheapest healing available, this will be handy for refilling our mana bars while slaughtering monsters. One of the rooms that opened up upstairs (after clearing the Breeding Zone) is the library. This library has an important clue to how to decipher the code for the Ninja quest:
We can use this to finally decipher the script we got. The script reads:
Y iupj xckox nmw henv ik eoiuyl pwzmjh usv vqwy xjvisfx nmw qeey zwga xjm htlsi. Jn cx fchub yfkh iponm osiu uhi usduyl. Rq xec cm igbu bhx yzs tfvn uswt. Hiii disl.
We still need the waves scroll, which can be found in the School of Sorcery in Bracada. I sneak in with invisibility, as I don't feel like fighting a truck-load of spell-slinging and elemental summoning wizards in closed quarters. We manage to find the scroll:
The key is the third word in the Waves scroll, namely the word "pattern". Using the hints in the above cipher scroll, we can translate the gibberish into this:
I have found the tomb of Master Kelwin and have deduced the code from his notes. It is north east south west and center. My job is done and the debt paid. Good luck.
So now we know the approximate location, and we know the combination needed to enter.
We'll round off Harmondale with a view of the torture chamber:
And the shops:
The "gifts" left by Archibalds people are minor and to put it bluntly, worthless. The final Castle Harmondale map looks like this:
1. Throne room
2. Weaponsmith
3. Armoursmith
4. Temple
5. Alchemist
6. Library
7. Cask of wine. Will get one character drunk and only works once.
We might be returning to the castle for a very specific task, depending on what our partymembers vote at the end of this update. M: For now though, we're done. We head to Tatalia where we find the NPC that has the painting quest.
50.000 gold and xp.
The miserly regents only gave us 5.000 for each of their quests. I guess I shouldn't be surprised the payoff is better when working for the grand capital when compared to monarchs.
By this time I decide it'd be a good idea to run off to Bracada to stage an invasion of the light capital of Celeste. The way to enter that city is via a teleporter which has hitherto been out of order, but which is now conveniently repaired..
The creatures patrolling Celeste are not friendly. The ordinary NPCs all start out as non-hostile, but if you kill off any of the guards in their vicinity, they turn hostile as well. Having very few hps, they try to run away from the party however.
The guards include wizards
(I didn't get a screenshot of the wizards from Celeste proper, so these are from the proving grounds, more on this shortly) The wizards are ranged spellcasters that utilize light magic and tend to summon elementals:
Light elementals attack from range and are squishy in melee. When they die however, they explode for extra damage. Can be dangerous. The most dangerous guards of Celeste remain the angels:
They can attack from range as well as in melee, and they attack fast. So they usually hit twice for every time our party gets to act. They only come at you a few at a time however, so they're manageable. Of final note is rocs. Large predatory birds, a few reside in Celeste, and a single one of them decided to attack us.
Compared to the other guards, rocs are pushovers.
Even if you go on a murderous rampage and clear the entire town, NPCs behind closed doors will still talk to you, and a few might have something interesting to say:
We need to enter these proving grounds, for the sorcerer promotion quest. I don't actually know if we're supposed to be peaceful for the dark side quest, but decide to play it safe instead of potentially mucking things up.
Before we enter the proving grounds though, we find the NPC we need to kill for the thief promotion quest:
I guess the challenge here was to enter town and find the NPC without getting killed yourself in the process. Supposedly the NPC was a noted assassin, but she died in a single hit.
of hitmen everywhere.Having run amok, we now have free reign of the town, so we go enter these proving grounds, called The Walls of Mist.
We'll refrain from attacking anything while here. This means having invisibility up all the time. The tricky part about that is that it can only be recast when the borders around the portraits is green. Not many places inside where this is true, but I manage to find 2 spots, making it just possible.
Inside the place it's teeming with guards. There are wizards, djinn and air elementals:
All of them are ranged attackers, and the wizards can summon more ranged attackers, so for this reason alone, it is prudent to keep invisibility up at all times. The dungeon consists of 4 large open areas. The main area where there are three teleporters for each of the other branches, and the objective in each of those branches is to find a key. Once the three keys are collected, they fit into three columns at the end of the main area, using those columns will open the way out again.
I only got screenshots of two of the keys for some reason.
Once the way to the exit is open, a chest is also revealed. This chest contains our prize:
We'll soon get to see Crooked Bee shed her fleshy wrappins.
With the jars in hand (one for every character, even if Crooked Bee is the only one who actually needs it) we leave this place.
Here's a map of the place:
1.2.3. Linked teleporters to and from the main room to the other branches.
4.5.6. Pillars that need keys to manipulate. Once all pillars are unlocked the wall directly behind them retracts (wall not pictured)
7. Chest with Lich Jars
8. Two sets of three buttons and a switch to each side. You need a specific and seemingly random combination to reveal the chest at 9.
9. Chest containing the West Pillar Key
10. Chest containing the Center Pillar Key
11. Buttons, push them all to drain the pool at 13 and reveal the passage below
12. Chest containing East Pillar Key
13. Pool covering passage
Huge dungeon filled with deadly monsters. I like that the puzzle in this one wasn't spoiled the way it was in the Elven dungeon. I'll be honest, I don't know if you could kill all monsters here and get away with it, being a dark-side party. I would suspect as much. I decided against it for two reasons. One being it would take an inordinate amount of time. Two being that I didn't want to risk it.
The former reason was the most important one. I have limited time for this LP, and it is delayed often enough without distractions such as a huge-ass dungeon. Hope you're not too disappointed, and if you are? Well, then buy the game and find out yourself.
...
Well, with the Walls of Mist being cleared, and Lady Carmine dead in the streets, we have no reason to stay in Celeste. On our way out (Celeste is placed in the clouds, there are walkways you need to stay on, because if you drop off them you're transported to high above the Bracada desert and you will be falling. This is useful for a quick transition there, provided you have either fly or featherfall prepared. If not, it'll make for a messy death) we cast town portal and confirm that we can now easily return here, should we wish to.
All town portal destinations are now unlocked and available for future use.
Our stalwart band of heroes (villains?) now set their sights on Erahtia in search of the Masters Tomb.
At the southern edge of the map, near the river. The entrance is quite well hidden from casual sight from above. You're not likely to find this place unless you know where to look.
Having used the cipher scroll and deduced what the message was on the scroll we got from Mr Sand, the NPC who sent us on the ninja mission, we know the correct combination we need to press the buttons to open the way:
This combination stays the same from each and every game, so you could meta it and come here without needing to translate the scroll. Our light-siders won't be coming here, as they have no reason to. M:
Inside the tomb is rather small. It holds a few guards, among them an Elder Vampire.
The vampire hits hard and can drain all SP on a succesful hit. You ought to take him down with extreme prejudice. Spellpoints are important not only for nuking stuff, but also for healing, though with regeneration cast, this becomes less of an issue.
The map of the tomb. Nothing remarkable, but the guards had a nasty streak.
We entered the tomb, killed the guardians and left for the elven territory of Avlee, as there is one more promotion quest we haven't done.
Enter a dungeon filled with Titans to make off with a simple bow?
Yes, we will be doing this, but Titans have a ranged attack as well, so simply sniping them from a distance is hardly viable.Before we risk life and limb, we find the last altar for the first druid promotion quest.
Now that this is all done, we will soon be returning to Nighon and get the final dark promotion quest.
Now then, what is this about The Titan's Stronghold? It is indeed populated by titans, but that's not all. It also holds dragons. Thus, the prudent thing is to cast invisibility and just go fetch the bow and then leave. We will return later to clear out the place, but we want our most powerful magic before that, and that requires that we get the final promotions for our cleric and sorcerer.
Invisibility is up, which is why the portraits look like they're viewed from behind glass.
Fortunately, the bow isn't hidden very far inside the castle, so we're able to get to the chest and loot it
And escape before the invisibility runs out.
Now, we found that third altar, so let's see a certain druid about our promotions.
Hippie.
Now though, we can receive the last promotion quest.
To complete this one, we just need to snatch a dragon egg, so we can get our very own dragon familiar. This is what DaveO was talking about. Unfortunately, we have no druids in our party, so we will not be getting the full bonus. And because the only way to get a dragon egg is to travel through some tunnels filled with behemoths, we postpone this promotion quest for now.
We also choose to postpone the bounty hunter quest, as we are no where near the 10.000 gold bounties collected that we're supposed to reach, and I don't feel like camping the town halls looking for the right combination of bounties.
Instead, we start turning in the quests we've done so far.
We have no knights on the dark side team, so this promotion is just an honorary one. And 40.000 xp for all participants.
No archers in the group either, but the upgraded bow has a nice modifier. Too bad it can't be enchanted with fire damage.
Alright! Now we're cooking with fire! Let's take a closer look at Crooked Bee now she's shed her mortal coil.
If we lose the jar (that only happens if you're idiot enough to drop it on the ground
), your lich will start to lose hitpoints. They will also take damage from sunlight (neglible amount), but regenerate spellpoints automatically. In addition to this, they also get som immunities.
Overall, liches are pretty powerful.
I just guess I shouldn't wonder too much about the paper-doll model still having breasts....ANYWAY, there are more promotion quests to turn in, we go visit the good Mr Sand.
Wait, what now? Puzzled by this, I returned to the Tomb and found that the sarcophagi in the place were lootable, and in one of them we find
And with this mask in hand (or inventory), we return to Mr Sand.
The trinket is pretty worthless, but the promotion is nice, not just because of the hitpoint boost, but also by what skilltrainings it unlocks.We're not done promoting the heck out of ourselves yet though.
Storyfag is now a proper Priest of the Dark.
So, Lady Carmine was a former lover or what? It seems she was another assassin, but a rather squishy one at that. I believe she had a whopping total of 9 hitpoints.
Anyway, 40.000 more xp for all of us, and a single promotion quest to go.
Lightbane is now a proper villain!
It should also be noted that all of these promotion quests give an xp bonus of 40.000 for every characters, except for the character(s) who get the actual and not honorary promotion. For an actual promotion, you're awarded double this amount. So here's a look at the reference chart now we're all promoted.
With the promotions in hand, we can finally go learn some Dark Magic...
We'll need to spawncamp this guild to get all the spells, but I won't bore you with that. In the next Dark update, I might show you some of the most important spells.
And right about now, I decided to level up all our characters, as they'd accrued enough xp to reach level 39. That's 15 levels higher than what they were previously. This also burns a lot of time in the training center, which again means that a messenger is waiting for us as we exit.
I guess we all knew it was just a matter of time before he showed up, eh?
This messenger doesn't show up until you've allied with one of the sides, and completed the first quest (in this case, the Breeding Zone).Now let's go see what this Mr Stantley wants from us.
Ah. And this is where I want you to vote. I don't consider it a spoiler to let you know the light-siders get a similar request. Basically, this guy threatens us, orders us to steal a tapestry from our new allies (the necromancers for our darksiders, the wizards for our lightsiders) which will turn everyone in the respective castle hostile. If we do not comply, Harmondale will be attacked by goblins and swordsmen...
This is your vote. Do we go do Mr Stantley's bidding, or do we ignore him and deal with his minions once they appear?
The last few things in this update is another small quest I picked up by chance:
Kill all griffins. That'll be our pleasure.
And finally I'll say a few words about our four heroes of darkness, Lightbane first.
Now that grandmastery skilltraining is available, Lightbane has grandmastered (is that a word?) repair (can repair everything, 100% succesrate), shield (buffs armor class and halves all missile damage) and mace (chance to paralyze enemies on a succesful hit, very powerful debuff!
). I'm uncertain what he will focus on next, but I think Armsmaster and Bodybuilding, possibly Meditation somewhere along the line.Kayerts.
Grand staff skill allows it to be used in conjunction with unarmed, which when at grand skill gives a flat chance of avoiding melee attacks based on skill-level (currently 10% then). Dodging grand skill allows it to be used with leather armor worn.
He's definitely going for grand Bodybuilding as well, he currently has higher armor class and better attack bonus than lightbane, and it's not likely to change. Storyfag.
Grand merchant allows for purchasing and selling stuff at base value. This means he's now a money machine when paired up with Crooked Bee and her Enchant Item spell.
The other grand skills being the spell skills should come as no surprise. M: I will probably focus on his armor and weapon skills next, but might focus completely on spell skills should Storyfag request it. Crooked Bee.
One nasty lich.
All spell skills at grand level, and staff building towards master level for the chance to stun opponents.Individual preferences for what skills to focus on now might be taken into consideration, so if you want to have a say in addition to casting your vote, feel free to chime in, Darksiders.
Sorry it took so long. Work and family again took precedence, and this is not likely to change. Rest assured however, that I am committed to finishing this LP, and we're more than halfway there already.
The next update will see the light-side party get to approximately the same point in the storyline. Only after that will we be going forward by doing errands for the advisors.
Do male liches have red eyes instead?
My ain't I pretty. 
Do remember I asked you to vote on the Mr Stantley question. 
A Acquiesce to his demands, or
B ignore him and kill his minions when they show up.
A Acquiesce to his demands, or
B ignore him and kill his minions when they show up.
He dare threaten us! I vote B!
With epic looking armour and shield no less!Storyfag.
See, I was initially butthurt about you ingoring my request to make me a proper d0rf by giving me the repair skill. But this. This makes up for it
I will probably focus on his armor and weapon skills next, but might focus completely on spell skills should Storyfag request it.
Go for it. But do put any spare points towards the unholy Dark Magic please.
Also B, of course. Who does this Mr. Stanley think he is?!
Kayerts
Arcane
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2011
- Messages
- 883
This Stanley is not a Bro and never will be! The chance to slaughter the enemies of the homeland is a reward, not a punishment.
About my skills, you can sink some points into utility skills (disarm / perception) if you're tired of getting blown up or fumbling for secret doors. Otherwise, after GM bodybuilding, keep buffing dodge and unarmed. Avoid magic. (Wooo, basic level proficiency! Any goblins we run into better watch out!)
I was always puzzled by the decision to make the warlock quest so disproportionately harder than all the others. The non-promotion reward is admittedly the best by far, but is the ability to grandmaster a total of 0 combat skills really that overpowering?
(The second archer promotion quest is maybe as difficult, combat-wise, but the game actively tells you to cheese it with invisibility . . . )
About my skills, you can sink some points into utility skills (disarm / perception) if you're tired of getting blown up or fumbling for secret doors. Otherwise, after GM bodybuilding, keep buffing dodge and unarmed. Avoid magic. (Wooo, basic level proficiency! Any goblins we run into better watch out!)
I was always puzzled by the decision to make the warlock quest so disproportionately harder than all the others. The non-promotion reward is admittedly the best by far, but is the ability to grandmaster a total of 0 combat skills really that overpowering?
(The second archer promotion quest is maybe as difficult, combat-wise, but the game actively tells you to cheese it with invisibility . . . )
Yes, doing the same with the warlock quest really isn't possible. I tried sneaking past the behemoths in the tunnels with invisibility, but their models are large enough to effectively block the tunnels thus negating invisibility when you bump into them.
Can't really explain the developers' decision here.
You do realise he orders the lightsiders to steal from their allies, the wizards in Celeste?
Mrowak
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Messages
- 3,952
You do realise he orders the lightsiders to steal from their allies, the wizards in Celeste?
Yeah, you're right.
For the dark team A because A is not something lightsiders would do.
B for the team-light.
Mrowak
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Messages
- 3,952
Stealing shit from the king of lightsiders is hardly something any slightsider would do.
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