Might and Magic IV:Clouds of Xeen - Part 4

                 Solution by Alex van Kaam

@~Continued from last issue where the party was in Rivercity.

We were now back at the main gate, we headed north again and soon
came to a gate leading west, as we entered we were attacked by
robbers, this seemed to be some kind of thieves' hide-out.  We
slowly fought our way south fighting of the robbers, they did harm
us but not enough to stop us.

To the south/east we found a pit, after drinking from it I was
poisoned so Nomad cast the cure poison spell at me.  To the
south/west was a gate, before we enter we first made camp so we
would regain all our hit-points.  Past the gate we were attacked
by three robber bosses, they were harder to kill than the normal
robbers but a few fireballs took care of them.  To the north was a
chest with some gold and to the west a door.  We got the gold and
entered through the door, again we had to fight off some robber
bosses but we made it.  In this room were some empty beds and a
chest, Rak*el opened it and we found Princess Roxanna's Tiara,
since we didn't know who she was we kept the Tiara to give it to
her if we ever met.

We left the robbers' lair and headed north again, soon we came to
a Street Fighting school, we entered and the teacher told us that
we didn't had enough experience to advance a level.  There was
another exit from the school leading west, as we walked towards
this gate we saw a large white/blue warrior at the other side of
the gate, he looked too dangerous to all of us so we left through
the east door.

To the north we soon found a pit, after drinking from it Nomad was
drunk, further north we found the Pray 'n Pay temple where we
cured Nomad.  North/east brought us to a large lake with a pier,
to each side of the pier was a tent. The first tent was for
Captain Nystar who would take us to the east shore for only 100
Gp., the Magic Mirror was for free so we didn't need his service.
The second tent was for Darlene the swimmer, since we all knew
how to swim we quickly left.  On the lake were a few islands with
three tents on them, in the first tent we found Vatawna who made
us a guild member for 500 Gp.  a person, in the second tent we
found Magneto the navigator who taught me the navigation skill for
2000 Gp., in the last tent we found Martin who taught us mountain
climbing for 5000 Gp. a person.

We all trained for these skills since we had more than enough gold
and you never knew when they came in handy.  We then headed west
back to the shore and north to a gate, behind this gate were some
more beggars and the entrance to the guild.

In the guild I bought the Walk on Water spell and the Power Cure
spell, Nomad bought the Cure Paralysis spell.  As for Roodhaar,
she bought the Lloyd's Beacon spell, and Gandalf bought the Day of
Sorcery spell which contained a lot of spells we thought we could
really use in a dungeon or something like that.

We left the guild through the south exit and were immediately
attacked by two sorceresses who cast fireballs towards us.  We did
defeat them but we were heavily wounded, we decided to make camp
and continue the next morning.

Before we continued Gothmog cast the Protection from Elements
spell at us, the fire version that is.  South brought us to a well
which we didn't examine, further south brought us to a gate to the
east, behind it were a dozen beggars and a lot of chests, in each
chest there was one gem and one gold piece, strange.......

To the west was a door, as we approached we were again attacked by
a few sorceresses but their fireballs almost didn't harm us,
killing them now was a piece of cake, in the chests the
sorceresses left behind we found the Magic Pendant which belong to
Barok.

We went to his tent and gave it to him, as a reward we got 80000
Xp. and the Enchant Item spell, he also changed the well in the
middle of the town, the one that made Nomad drunk, back to normal.
We went back to this well and Nomad drank again, this time to
receive 100 Magic points extra for a day.  We also had enough Xp.
to train Rak*el and Gandalf another level so we went to the Street
Fighting school for a few lessons.

Then there was still the gate to the west, should we enter or
better not? We decided to first try to kill the first white
warrior.

As Rak*el opened the gate Gandalf cast a fireball, this didn't
kill the Yang Warrior (as he was called), so Roodhaar cast another
one, in total he received four fireballs.  We cleared the complete
area of Yang Warriors by casting fireballs at them, when our
magic points were low we closed the gate and went back to the well
to receive another 100 magic points.  This wasn't very brave but
it worked, so after a lot of rests and journeys to the well we
had the first area clean.

There were five doors, we started with the north/west one first,
behind it we found a bed, the two other north doors also had only
a bed behind them.  Behind the fourth door however there were a
few Yang Knights and a chest, the chest contained some gold and
gems and the Yang Knights we of course killed.  When we entered
the fifth door we came to a wall, after bashing it in we encounter
five Yang Knights and one Yang Captain, it took a while and a lot
of journeys to the well but we finally defeated them.  Behind the
wall was a room with another chest, in it was some more gold and
gems.

We now had the complete town mapped so we decided to rest and go
to the tavern for some food.  Here we wondered what to do next,
Roodhaar suggested that we could go and find this princess
Roxanna, but where.....?

Well, a princess lives in a castle and as we looked at our map we
saw that there were three castles, New Castle but this was
destroyed as we all knew, then there was Castle Burlock just
across the river and there was Castle Basenji in the desert of the
sphinx.

Castle Burlock was nearby so we decided to try this one first, we
went to the magic mirror and from there to....


            ------------> Chapter seven <------------

            ------------> Castle Burlock <------------


As we entered we were greeted by a Mad Fool, a few blows cured him
very quickly, we headed south and soon came to the throne room.
When King Burlock saw us he was very pleased, he sad that if we
would find the sixth mirror he would give us a great reward.  We
thanked him and examined his throne room, there were two books in
the north/west and north/east corners, after reading them we got
the Linguist skill and the Astronomer skill, now we could read the
statues in the cloud kingdom.

There were also two stairways leading up, they led to a room with
a throne and two empty chests, it seemed that it wasn't going very
great with the financial side of the kingdom.  Here there were
also two stairs leading to the king's bedroom, in the south
corners of the bedroom we found two chests, they were locked
however so we left, back down to the throne room.

West of the throne room we found Emerson the King's engineer, but
we didn't have any land so he couldn't do anything for us.  South
of Emerson we found Artemus, he told us that Crodo, the one we
dreamed of before we all came to Vertigo, was missing as was
Darzog.  Artemus thought that Crodo was maybe held in Darzog's
Tower and if the king wasn't so focused on finding the sixth
mirror he would have send us out in search of Crodo.

Artemus's story sounded better than that of the king so we decided
to first find Crodo and then maybe look for the mirror.

We left Artemus and went to the west tower, here we found some
stairs leading up, we took them and came to a room with another
staircase upwards.  We climbed up and came to the bedroom of
Princess Roxanna, she asked us to find her Tiara, it was stolen
by some robbers from Rivercity.......  We gave here the Tiara we
already found and she was very pleased, she gave us 200000 Xp. a
lot of gold and gems and some very handy items.  We left her and
went to the east tower, the tower itself was filled with Mad Fools
but there was also a staircase leading down.  As we descended we
saw this large purple warrior coming towards us, we quickly headed
back upstairs again.

By now we had covered the complete castle except for the dungeon
but we could always come back for that later.  We left the castle
and decided to first enter the cloud kingdom and then free Crodo,
if we could find him.

We went to Vertigo, using the road that led from the castle to the
city, on our journey we encountered Olso the observant who taught
us the Spot Secret Door skill for 500 Gp., Captain Nystor who
offered to take us to Rivercity for 100 Gp, Joe the merchant who
offered to teach us the Merchant skill for 6000 Gp, we thanked him
but didn't learn the skill and we found an Elemental shrine which
gave us +20 resistance for a day on fire, water, poison and
electricity.

When we arrived in Vertigo we used the magic mirror to go to the
Witch Tower and from there into the Cloud Kingdom.


            ------------> Chapter eight <------------

-------> Riddles, Dragons, Fairies, A Castle and a Mermaid <------

Before we entered we waited until dawn, Gandalf then cast Levitate
and Roodhaar cast Lloyd's Beacon in case we had to get back
quickly.

On the clouds we encountered a lot of Harpies but by the time they
reached us we had shot so many arrows at them that one stroke of
my sword was enough to kill them.  There were also many gemstones
to be found and there were also some stone arms holding a bow or
other weapon.

But the most important items were the statues, we found four in
total and we could read them all.

The first one said :"Golem, Terror, and Yak it's told"
                    "Have credits for king to hold"

The second one     :"The clerics of Yak you must outwit"
                    "Taxman than must have his bit"

The third one      :"Five for your keep is not dear"
                    "Since taxman gives stone to fear"

And the fourth one :"Conquer terror and then you'll see"
                    "Illusion holds magic's key"

Since there was nothing more in this part of the Cloud Kingdom we
decided to go back down to Xeen and maybe try to free Crodo.

On our map we saw that Darzog's Tower was just south of Castle
Burlock, when we came to the castle and tried to head south we
couldn't enter the water, it was very fortunate that I had learned
the Walk on Water spell.  I cast it and we headed south, soon we
were attacked by a dragon who hurled ice instead of fire towards
us, we were heavily damaged and quickly retreated back to the
castle.

We rested and Gothmog reminded us of the elemental shrine we
found, we quickly headed to the shrine and prayed.  We then headed
back into or better onto the water that surrounded the tower.
Again we were attacked but we weren't very heavily damaged so we
continued towards the dragon, by the time we reached him Nomad was
out cold but Roodhaar and Gandalf had enough strength to cast
three fireballs towards him, this together with the attacks of the
rest of us was enough to kill him.  We went back onto the shore
and rested to regain some strength.

Next morning we headed towards Darzog's Tower, only to be attacked
by two more dragons, we went back to the shrine, prayed, killed
the second dragon, rested, went back to the shrine and killed the
third dragon.  Once we arrived at the tower the guardian wouldn't
let us in, we didn't have the proper stone.

What next....? We first explored the area around the tower and
found two wells, together they raised all our attributes by 10,
there was also a fisherman called Medin who gave us 100000 Xp. for
killing the dragons, but that was about it........

Until Roodhaar reminded us of the tent just south of Nightshadow,
we never did enter the tent so why not now?  We agreed and headed
south towards Rivercity, just before we entered we saw a tent to
the east, inside lived Danulf the Fairy King, he told us that the
Fairies had taken away his wand of magic and that he would be very
pleased we could bring it back to him.

We told him that we would look out for his wand and we entered
Rivercity.  We took some training and entered the tavern for some
food, here Gandalf told us that he thought he knew the meaning of
the four riddles, it seemed there were three places which have
credits for the king, the place called Yak seemed to be the first
one.  Then if we have these credits we should use five for a keep
and then we should get a stone to fear.......

But where do we get a keep? we asked him. Well what about
Newcastle? he replied.  But we all knew that it was destroyed,
yes, but how badly? Maybe we could rebuild it, Gandalf told us.

We decided to take a look at Newcastle which was just south from
here and then work our way to the east, towards Nightshadow,
covering all the land from the south end of the world to the sea
in the north.

Once we left Rivercity we were attacked by Sprites and Rangers but
we soon came to the ruins of Newcastle.  Here we were greeted by
Ebenezer the Taxman, he offered us the land on which Newcastle
stood for 50000 Gp. of course we accepted, he also told us that if
we wanted to make something out of this ruin we better speak with
the King's engineer.  We went to Castle Burlock and talked to the
Engineer, he told us that a wall around our property would cost us
five Mega credits....  We didn't have these credits but we all
understood the riddles now, and we all knew where to get the
credits, the Yak temple or dungeon or whatever, but where was this
Yak thing...?

Since we had no clue we decide to go back to Newcastle and start
mapping everything from there to Nightshadow.  In the swamp we
were attacked by those trees we saw before, Swamp Things they were
called, a few fireballs and good strikes took care of them, the
Fairy Forest was full of sprites we had to kill.  We also found a
cave full of sprite eggs, we destroyed the cave and received 10000
Xp.

South of the cave, just before the swamp, we found an altar with
the fairy wand on it, we took the wand and went to Danulf the
Fairy King.  He gave us 45000 Xp. and 25000 Gp.  We thanked him
and returned to the altar, we continued mapping from north to
south heading east until we came to the Forest of the Walking
Death, and just south of Nightshadow we found the tent we wanted
to examine.

Inside lived Mirabeth the mermaid, she told us that once she was
very beautiful but that a sorceress took away her beauty and her
tail, what she needed now was the Elixir of Restoration from the
Temple of the Yak just east from here.  We quickly offered to help
her and she gave us the key to the Temple of the Yak, this was
great, we could get the Elixir and for ourselves the credits that
the Yak seemed to have.

We headed east into the forest and soon came to the dungeon
entrance of the........


            ------------> Chapter nine <------------

       ------------> The Temple of the Yak <------------


As we entered Nomad used his Orb of Daily Protection and his Coin
of Sorcery, these gave us all kind of spells we could use in here.
We entered into a great room with four wooden crates, I was the
only one who could open them, two were empty and two contained six
skeletons.  We quickly killed them and examined the room, there
was a gate to the south/west, one to the north/west and one to the
south/east.  There was also a door leading east and a corridor
leading north/east.

We first entered through the south/west gate, here we found a book
which contained the Light spell and a potion.  We headed west
through a door and came into a room with two switches, one to the
north the other west.  With the Magic Eye spell, from the orb, we
saw that the south corridor was blocked by a thick wall, maybe if
we turned the switches this would remove the obstacle.  We turned
them both but nothing happened, so we left back into the entrance
hall, from here we headed north/west into another large room.
Here we killed our first Yak priest, he threw a lighting spell
towards us but we were protected against that, thanks to Nomad.
One salvo of arrows was enough to kill him, in the north/west
corner we found a thin wall we could bash in, behind it we found
another two Yak priests and an altar, we destroyed the altar for
5000 Xp.

We headed back to the entrance room and went through the
south/east gate, we soon discovered a thin wall we could bash in
with a switch behind it, we turned the switch and continued south,
to the west we found another switch which we turned and to the
south we found a thin wall we could bash in.

Behind this thin wall was a thick wall blocking the south
corridor, this was the second thick wall we encountered and where
the switches didn't seem to help.  We headed back into the
entrance hall and went east through the door, we came into a small
room with four crates, these contained some skeletons which we
killed.

We headed east through a second door into a large hall, along the
sides there were beds and in the middle there were six crates, we
first killed the Yak priests who roamed here and then examined the
beds and crates, the beds contained some useful items and the
crates some skeletons.

To the east of this hall were two doors leading into two small
rooms with a coffin in them.  We opened the coffin and were
attacked by a Yak Lich, a large floating head, it first cast a
sleep spell at us, but those who were not affected could kill the
Lich using some fireballs and good hand to hand combat.  Inside
the coffin was a lot of gold and some nice items, we then went to
the next coffin and did the same thing as before.

After this most of us were unconscious so the rest made camp and
we continued the next morning.

We headed back into the entrance hall and from there into the
north/east corridor.  Killing a few priests we came to a small
room with a door leading east and a switch to the south/east.  We
turned the switch which removed a wall to the north, we then
entered through the door on the east, inside this room there were
a few Yak priests which we killed, an altar we destroyed, the
Elixir which we took, and two Mega Credits which we of course also
took.

We left the room and headed north, east through a door we found
another switch that we turned, we then headed west turning another
two switches.  In the end we came to a room with a few priests, a
coffin and two potions.  We killed the priests, got the potions
and opened the coffin...  and boy was that a mistake, in this
coffin was not just a Yak Lich, no, it was a Lich Master, his
first strike killed two of us, we fought back, his second strike
killed another two including myself, Gothmog and Rak*el kept
fighting.

His third strike killed Rak*el but Gothmog survived and with his
last bit of strength he killed the Lich Master.  Gothmog brought
us all back to Rivercity where we were resurrected.

We decided to return to the temple and try to remove the two walls
that blocked the two corridors.  At the first wall we kept turning
the switches, the north one twice, the west one once and the other
way around, suddenly the wall that blocked the south corridor was
gone.

We headed south into a room, again we were attacked by Yak priests
which we had to kill, in the room itself we found two books which
taught us the Spark spell and the Acid spray spell.  In the
middle of the room there was an altar which we destroyed and a
coffin which after opening contained a Yak Lich.

After killing the Lich we left the room and went to the second
wall that had to be removed.  How we did it I'm not sure, we just
kept on turning the two switches in all kinds of combinations, we
even turned a few in the north/east of the temple.  But suddenly
the wall was gone and we could continue south.

To the west we found another potion and after getting it we
continued east until we came to a door leading north into a room.

@~To be continued next issue.






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