So, the last time in Might and Magic, I entered the Inn in Portsmith with the intention to write down any rumors and then reload my game to continue from Sorpigal, since Portsmith is a bad place for non-girls. Something happened, though…

Stuck in Portsmith

Yup! I mistook the Inn for the Tavern and ended up saving my game in Portsmith. Now I’m stuck in an extremely hostile area, though at least the monster level seems appropriate for my party. The way I see it, I have several options.

The inn is close to the dungeon, so I can start exploring the dungeon, jumping to the inn just to save every now and then.
Risk it and start mapping Portsmith, reloading after each death.
Get up to the surface and try to navigate through two regions, from B-3 to C-2 and back to Sorpigal. This might be possible, and maybe even the easiest choice, or it might be impossible.

I decided to with option number 2, since Portsmith seems like a town that’s easy to map, geometrically. Once I map it, I’ll go down to the dungeon and do option number 1. Only after that, I’ll go back to Sorpigal, or perhaps even onwards.

Mapping Portsmith

So I started mapping Portsmith. As expected, the town was relatively easy to map, with a simple, grid-like layout of streets and “districts”. After some searching, I soon found all the stores and other services and I also accounted for each and every field that drains my male characters of their HP. Once that was out of the way, I had the general layout and I was able to mark the spots where the town entrance and the stairs to the dungeon are.

The Map of Portsmith, spoiler freeish.

You can reach the town entrance from the Inn without going over a draining tile, so I’ll be able to explore the wilderness without much issues. The dungeon entrance is past a draining tile, sadly, but that’s nothing some resting can’t handle. Since I usually rest right before going to the inn, I’ll just postpone this now and do it after I leave the inn, at the moment I’m just about to enter the dungeon. It should be pretty much the same.

The southern part of Portsmith has a lot of dead end alleys with random encounters at the end of them, so that was kind of uninteresting. As for the rest of town, there’s a lot of fixed encounters, mostly with “female” monsters – hags, wicked witches, harpies. There’s also some encounters against minor and lesser devils and demons. For now, I’m generally avoiding these, even if they are just the minor version of the enemies, because practically all of them can use Energy Ball attacks, which greatly damage my entire party. A large group of minor demons can destroy my entire party in 2-3 turns if I get really unlucky.

It took me about an hour in total to fully map Portsmith. The final 20 minutes was when the tediousness started. I wanted to account for each and every fixed encounter, so I ended up suiciding against most of them – I would start at the inn, rush to an encounter and try resting. It would either work and the encounter would be “cleared”, or it wouldn’t work and I would reload and try another encounter. All I really needed was the name monster that the encounter was against and the basic layout of the room, so even dying would usually get me further.

Might and Magic I - Portsmith, Map With Notes

The full map of Portsmith, with notes I took.

Throughout all of this, I got no gear and no levels, but at least I got a map and a strange note. In the northeastern part of Portsmith, there was a wall with a note etched on it.

ZAM 12, 2

I have absolutely no idea what it means. I can’t even being to guess what it means. Hopefully, I’ll get some more info later. The numbers might be coordinates, so the letters might be the name of a location, but that’s as close to a guess as I can get.

What’s Next?

So option number 2 is dealt with now, so I’ll start dealing with option number one now – I’ll start mapping the cave, or dungeon below Portsmith, whichever of the two it is. Hopefully, I won’t be running into draining tiles down there.

I’m hoping to get level 4 spells when Aleen hits level 6, but I’m not optimistic.

Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention this. I got a flying carpet as a random drop from a very random encounter. I’m guessing I can use it to fly, but for now, I just have it equipped on Aleen, since it raises her armor class. Trying to use it below ground makes the game tell me there isn’t enough room, but I keep forgetting to try and use it on the surface.