If you read my last posting, you’ll know I managed to get back to Sorpigal, purely by accident. With my experiences in Portsmith, I now felt strong enough to start dealing with my first quest – delivering a scroll to a wizard.

I was back in Sorpigal, so I decided to use my new found knowledge of the Jump spell and explore the corridor of endless encounters in the wilderness cave nearby. In all actuality, I counted just three spots where the endless encounters actually took place. Jumping over these three allowed me to get through the corridor and to the room beyond it, where a wizard was waiting for me.

It was underwhelming. He just said:

Encounter the 13, win the prize!

I’m guessing this is part of some major thing, but at this point, I have no idea what it means. Other than this wizard, nothing else was there, so I got out.

Cryptic, but I’m sure it will be important.

I decided it was time to complete my first quest – to bring a scroll to another town the name of which starts with an E. The issue was figuring out which town this is. The leprechaun in the secret room in Sorpigal can send me to any of the five towns for just a gem, but he wouldn’t really tell me which town is under which number, so I did it by trial and error. That is, I wanted to do it by trial and error, but then I remembered I’m an idiot and instead just went to the main menu to press 1-5 and see where the inns were located. Here goes:

Sorpigal
Portsmith
Algary
Dusk
Erliquin

So it was Erliquin I had to get to. This is exactly what I did. As soon as I got there, I cast the location spell. I was in B-1, on the surface tile of 13-1 and the local tile of 4-6. The inn was to the south of me. So, this means I’m two regions west of Portsmith, provided the region coordinates follow the map coordinate rules. Never mind, I’m an idiot. I’ll correct this in my next posting.

Erliquin is Easy!

I immediately started mapping the town and honestly, took too me way less time to do so than I expected. The town was pretty much void of encounters. There were the usual facilities and other than that, just a bunch of empty rooms.

These barriers were scattered all over the place.

Among the few peculiarities I stumbled into, there was a bunch of secret dark secret rooms. This time, it wasn’t an anti-magic field that was causing the darkness. I could easily cast the light spell inside, but it would instantly go dark as soon as I turn around. I guess the stronger version of the light spell could work. I think I can even cast it, but I didn’t need to use it, since these rooms were small and, more importantly, empty. Other than that, there were tiles I couldn’t step on due to barriers of some sort, but these didn’t block me from getting anywhere important either. One of them actually acted weird – it served as a zero-width, transparent wall between the food shop and the inn.

The map of Erliquin, with notes.

Erliquin Town Treasure – Steal or Leave?

Other than that, there were two spots where I stumbled into the “Town Treasure” with the option to steal it. I tried doing it once, but all that got me was 100 gold and 10 gems per party members and having to deal with guards every few steps while in Erliquin. I could fight these guards, bribe them, run away or surrender, but I haven’t tried all of the options. Running and bribing definitely seems to work, though. I could see through it from the food shop’s side, but it looked like a solid wall from the side of the inn.

The Wizard Agar

For one moment, I actually thought I won’t be able to find the wizard Agar, who I need to deliver the scroll to, but when everything was mapped, there was a 2×2 section south of the inn I never got to. As expected, the secret door was in the inn and the wizard immediately talked to me as soon as I entered. I turned in the quest, got the experience and got a new quest, now to deliver something to the town of Dusk. After that, I wanted to explore the wizard’s room, but I couldn’t, because he would immediately teleport me to just outside the inn as soon as I entered. I guess I have to go to Dusk next.

I actually didn’t get that much experience – about 1000 per character.

Since I managed to solve the quest and Erliquin seemed like an appropriate area to stay in, considering monster levels, I decided to save my game at the inn. At this point, I don’t have a way to go back to Sorpigal, but after the experience with Portsmith, I honestly don’t think I’m in any real danger.

Might and Magic Book One - Ungrateful Agar

That’s all the thanks I get.

Even with the worst case scenario of being stuck with this party, I can always start with a brand new one. With the maps I have, the fixed encounters I’m aware of and everything else, I could catch up to my current party in no time. Then again, maybe I’m just getting cocky.

Might and Magic Book One - B-1 Erliquin, Full

The map of Erliquin, with notes.

Next time, I’ll explore the areas of B-1 – the cave below Erliquin, the Wilderness around it and any other locale I find while exploring these two. If I find a portal, I’ll save before using it, just so I could take note of where it leads, but for now, I’m staying here.