My two choices were to either take a look at what’s outside the city of Sorpigal, or to give the leprechaun a gem and teleport to some other random city. Technically, I could also use the portal in the dungeon, but the cave it leads to was still too dangerous.
With Sorpigal fully mapped and a level gained, it was time to try my luck with the dungeon below it. Might and Magic doesn’t lead the player into the “next area” at all, but I figured the dungeon below the starting town should be OK for a level 2 party.
I actually had trouble figuring out how to start playing Might and Magic I – that’s how old the game is. Eventually, I managed to make a party and enter Sorpigal, the first town. It was time to die, a lot.
I bought the Might and Magic Six Pack from GOG.com ages ago, so I figured it was finally time to give it a try. I was extremely worried about this and I was postponing it for months? Why? Because Might and Magic Book One: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum is almost as old as I am.
I was back outside in Gothic now, so It was time to get my gear ready for the final confrontation, while Xardas was figuring out how to fix Uriziel.Continue reading
Last time in Gothic, I tried to attack the invulnerable orc with my Troll Fist ax, but the game crashed on me, so I decided to try it next time, as in now.Continue reading
The Sleeper Temple, which I think is the final dungeon is a big place. I wasn’t able to complete it in one sitting. It was a relatively short sitting, true, but still.Continue reading
Last time in Gothic, which was a while ago, I was given the task to kill four monsters, take parts of their remains and bring them to the orc slave in the Free Mine, so he could craft me an item. I fully expected this to take several sessions, since the monsters I needed to kill were kind of rare, but I ended up finding them extremely fast.Continue reading
I’m not sure if I’m just having a hard time remembering, but it feels like I haven’t advanced the story by much in Gothic today. Maybe my memory comes back to me as I write this, so let’s see.
Xardas told me to look for the orc shaman in a castle ruin to the east, but I somehow heard west, so I went in the wrong direction at first. I checked my journal soon, though, so I didn’t lose a lot of time. I actually already visited that castle ruin when I teamed up with Lester. I think I even put a screenshot here somewhere, saying there was nothing there.
The climb to the castle ruin provided some nice vistas. To bad I suck at taking screenshots.
Well, this time, the shaman was there and I had to save it from a bunch of orc temple warriors. He spoke human (or common, or English) poorly, but he was clear enough for me to understand where I’m going next. I need to enter the orc city and find my way underground, where they sealed the Sleeper’s temple. This is the only way to destroy the Sleeper, but I have no chance in getting inside what with a whole city full of orcs being on top of it, so I need a special item, called the ULU-MULU.
The graphical advancement was not kind to the shaman. ULU-MULU it is, then.
Apparently, the ULU-MULU is a mark of honor and/or friendship among the orcs, so holding it would make them not attack me at sight. The shaman said there’s a friend of his he left behind slaving in one of the “human mines” who’s able to make me one. Of course, I needed to figure out which mine it was and then find that friend.
At this point, I was kind of stuck, because none of my quests were telling me where to go next. I decided to just go back to the New Camp and check out the mine there, since it was taken over by the Old Camp anyway. I was right to do this, because a group of New Camp mercenaries, with Gorn leading them, was waiting at the path towards the Free Mine. Gorn told me to pay a visit to Wolf before we head out, so that’s what I did. Wolf gave me a job. If I get him enough minecrawler armor plates, he’ll make me a set of armor. That’s pretty much a no-brainer, so I don’t have to say what my response was.
I have a love-hate relationship with Gorn. I love that he can’t be killed and hits hard, but I hate that he’s an idiot.
The idea was that Gorn would be my companion for the mine mission, but with Gothic being the buggy game it is, this didn’t go according to plan. First, I managed to get myself stuck by trying to open a chest at the moment a cut scene with Gorn was about to start. He couldn’t find his way to me, so he just kept running in place and none of my controls would respond. I had to quit the game and reload.
I really started hating the Old Camp guards while in the mine.
On my second try, Gorn just got completely lost, but somehow, as I got to the mine, he just appeared out of nowhere and started the same cut scene. We got rid of the three guards outside and entered the mine. Inside, he immediately went rogue, fell down a level and started fighting random diggers and guards, while I was stuck on top, on my own.
This is where Gothic started to get annoying. The guards love to use their crossbows and fighting ranged enemies in this game plainly sucks. It’s hard to dodge the hits and if you get close, you just get yourself in even a bigger danger, since their shots start suddenly doing way more damage, way more often. There was one particular part where I had to use a ladder to climb down into a room with three crossbow wielding guards ready to “have at me”. It took me several tries before I could even survive the descent, and once I was down, the pain would only just begin.
Somehow, I managed to clear most of the mine, even with Gorn out of the picture and finally, I found the orc slave. He needed medicine he lost nearby, so after I found it, he told me what I needed to do. In case anyone googles their way to this article, the orc medicine is in the room with the orc, in a small alcove under the wooden area. You need to jump and climb into it.
The orc slave wanted medicine, which he lost nearby.
The orc told me he needs four items to make the ULU-MULU. I need to get him swampshark teeth, a shadowbeast horn, a fire lizard tongue and some troll skin. I guess that’s what I’ll be doing next time – hunting monsters! I love variety!
This is where I found the orc medicine, after making two laps around the mine.
Well, I guess I did do quite a bit in Gothic today. I found a plot NPC, freed the mine and got my next major quest.
I’m pretty sure I’m getting close to the end of Gothic, because a lot of stuff happened today.
First, I immediately went through the woods, towards the Old Camp. As I approached the bridge, I got attacked by the two guards there. For a moment, I thought I did something wrong so I’m going to have to reload my game. I was just about to do it, when I saw Milton across the bridge, so I went to talk to him.
Milton made it even more obvious that he, Lester, Gorn and Diego are buddies.
It turns out, the guards went nuts and killed all of the fire mages, so the bridge guards attacking me was supposed to happen. I like how this part of the story was introduced. The Old Mine collapsed, so Gomez and his goons decided they need to take over the Free Mine, belonging to the new camp. The mages disagreed, so Gomez had them killed. It’s not some prophecy, it wasn’t supposed to happen, it’s just bad timing. It makes the story feel more real.
Diego was on the other side of the Old Camp. He had more info on the mine collapse.
Again, the way Milton was talking made it even more obvious that he, Gorn, Lester, and now Diego are all good friends. He asked me to tell the other three to meet at their “usual place” and sent me to Diego, who was supposed to be lurking at the other entrance to the Old Camp.
Then the game crashed….
I reloaded and I was back at Saturas. I did the same thing all over again, except this time, I didn’t drink the dexterity potions, so I didn’t “waste” those. Also, I did some shopping and bought an awesome amulet with 20 extra strength, as well as a ring with a lot of resistances.
The sword I bought from Scorpio looks awesome.
This time, I also took the official route towards the Old Camp, through the two hunting camps. I saw Scorpio at Calvalorn’s camp. He disagreed with what the guards did, so he fled. He had some excellent weapons on him, so I bought an awesome new sword and got rid of some of the junk in my inventory. I also bought the strongest bow Calvalorn had, meaning I now had probably the strongest gear I could get at this point.
I went and spoke to Milton again and this time, I even managed to get to Diego. He gave me some more info about the Old Mine collapsing and told me there was a raid heading for the Free Mine. I immediately warped to the New Camp and told Saturas everything. The mine was already taken, though, so it was too late for that.
Since I was now officially exiled from the Old Camp, I was told to speak to Lee, who made me a mercenary of the New Camp. I was also immediately promoted all the way up, so I was able to buy the heavy mercenary armor, which is the equivalent of the heavy guard armor from the Old Camp. I’m not sure if I was ever able to actually get the heavy guard armor, which looked much nicer, but this will do.
And just like that, I’m now a high-ranking mercenary of the New Camp.
After that, I went and spoke to Saturas again, who also made me a water mage and got me my first robe. I thought the robe would be crap, but it’s actually almost as strong as the armor. The next robe will probably be an upgrade.
The character sheet is simple, but the change in stats matters a lot.
Finally, I got the next big story revelation. I need to find Xardas, the necromancer mage who left the Old Camp and built a tower for himself in the orc country. To get to him, I need to figure out how to get rid of his golem guards and for that, I can go to the water mages’ library.
The library did have a book about golems, but it seemed simple to figure out anyway. I mean, I already killed the stone golem in one of my previous “visits”. It was a good thing I did it to, because the book said it can only be damaged by blunt weapons, and I sold the mace I used to kill it. The book also said needed fire spells for the frost golem and wind, cold or lightning spells for the fire golem. I had plenty of scrolls, so I just teleported to the Sect Camp and made my way towards the tower.
With Fire Bolt, the frost golem wasn’t an issue.
The frost golem was easy to kill. Two fire bolts were enough to get rid of it. The problem was the fire golem. It turns out I only had an ice block spell in my inventory and I couldn’t even hit it with that one. I tried it a few times, but it just wouldn’t work. I then tried porting to the Sect Camp to buy a couple of Fist of Wind scrolls, but those wouldn’t work either. At least this time, I decided not to take a shortcut and instead opted to fight orcs and monsters along the way to the tower. This got me an extra level before I got back to the fire golem. Still, Fists of Wind wouldn’t do damage to it either.
It took me an hour before I finally got the correct spell and beat the fire golem.
I took the bite and ported to the New Camp as well, where I finally learned the first magic circle and bought myself the Ice Bolt rune. That one worked like a charm and the final golem was finally dead (pun not intended).
It was just in time to, because in the tower it was guarding, I met Xardas’ demon familiar, who wanted proof of me killing the three golems. I gave him the items I looted from the remains and he teleported me to the real tower of Xardas, which was nearby. Xardas spoke to me, said the ore plan would fail and revealed where I needed to go next. I need to find an exiled orc shaman and find out how to get rid of the Sleeper, which is actually a demon.
Is it just me, or does Xardas sound like Mel Brooks?
Next up, finding the shaman…