Part 3: Pest Tourism, Part 2

Update 03: Pest Tourism, Part 2





Yes, that is the same still they decided to use for the main menu, inexplicably.

Hopefully the smugglers' caves would be both more interesting and more friendly than the dire wolves' caves, not that this would be a very high bar to clear.




The instant you enter the cave, you're set upon by enemies. Now, can you tell me what the biggest threat is here? You've got a ratman with a sword, a human and a rat. The answer? It's the fucking rat! Those things are nasty in here.


So first things first, everything in here can disease you, though thankfully it only happened to the party once, further supporting my feelings that something in the deeper mechanics makes getting stuck with conditions rarer than in MM6, the only exception being the Maze in MM7 and the fucking Death status effects from Minotaur Lords. The humans are implied to be shapeshifters and the rats their shapeshifted forms, and generally what the humans do is keep distance and shoot at you. I think the reason they don't disease you is because their ranged attack is actually a spell and thus does not have the side effect of their melee attacks. The rats, on the other hand, are outright nastier than Dire Wolves despite just looking like rats and will absolutely fuck you up in sufficient numbers, especially their tier 3. Thankfully they're also the rarest enemy in here.



Pictured, Arius getting diseased by a rat. Real nasty-looking, like he's got maggots under his skin.



Having pushed past the smuggler welcome committee, we were faced with a conundrum: a simple stone wall faced us! How were we to proceed?
Just smack your head against the wall until you find the secret door, there's always a secret door.

Actually seeing it requires Perception 8 which you're unlikely to have since the Expert Perception trainer is in a region you have no reason to visit yet. It's also worth noting that the chest in the Dire Wolf den had a trap difficulty of 8(they're 6 in here), neither of which you're likely to be able to handle unless you get the Expert Disarm training from one of the lizardmen on Dagger Wound Island(in an oddly prescient move I did just this for Elsbeth off-screen, just in case people wanted me to dump Arius, though he's technically better at handling traps with a max rating of Master).




Perversely I'd say the smugglers' lair is actually easier than the Dire Wolf den simply because you have plenty of space to retreat and maneuver, as well as choke points like the secret door near the entrance that keeps them coming in dribs and drabs rather than all at once.




Between these two screenshots I went back and got Arius de-plagued and, notice something different? That's right! Barrels you've drunk from actually get removed when you leave and re-enter maps, which is great, makes it easy to see whether you've missed a barrel or not.





I had to wonder, diary, what kind of a mood the king of the smugglers would be in when we got to him. We'd killed at least twenty-
Twenty-one.
-of his wizards and wererats so far, was he going to be well-disposed towards us?
Maybe he doesn't like 'em and he'll be happy with us for helping out.
Or we'll remind him that he can easily be number twenty-two when we get there. Or however many we end up with.





Once again, a suspicious featureless wall after clearing a room with no chests or the like in it means they're trying to keep you away from the good stuff.




Jackpot. Boxes and crates means loot and money.
I thought we were here to deliver a letter, not plunder the place.
Hey, Arachne, look at all these colourful local souvenirs lying around the place!
Elsbeth could be rough around the edges, but sometimes she was alright and understood what mattered to me.
See, Arius? Now we're plundering it.






The chests in here generally have a step up in loot quality compared to everything we've seen so far, so there are a notable few upgrades for the crew in terms of armor and weapons, as well as a few misc. items.

Fake credit vouchers being a form of ogre crime in Jadame was an interesting thing to discover, generally back in Enroth, the ogres were more interested in embezzling the bones from your body than the funds from a bank.



Huh, guess we accidentally did Arion Hunter a favor by killing off those wolves.






I'd say about half of the smugglers' caves are entirely optional, if you really just want to get to Arion Hunter, you can pretty much just move in a straight line from the entrance, though that'll miss you out on most of the loot the dungeon has.





There are two doors in this room, one of which leads more or less straight to Arion Hunter, so obviously we're taking the other one, because there might be loot there.




So this room is interesting because all the loot is at the edges, but if you walk across the center of the room, you get blasted from those gaps in the ceilings. It's a bit disappointing that they didn't work a bit harder to lure you out there, like maybe placing a chest in the center or having some nice alluring chests on the far side of the room when you enter, that sort of thing. Or heck, maybe some ranged enemies on the far side behind a little gap or something so they'd stay there and snipe, further attempting to draw you in, but as it is, I imagine many people would miss the traps purely by accident.




Since it's an RPG, all rumours are correct and the pirates do have an anointed herb potion for the lizardmen! I promptly forget all about it and never go back to Dagger Wound to return it. Maybe I'll remember it next time the party has a reason to go back there. Hopefully the lizardmen don't all die of disease in the meantime.





Even after an exciting day of seeing the sights of the smugglers' caves and collecting souvenirs, the locals were still giving us a hard time, and we were just trying to deliver a letter! Being a mailman in Jadame had to be a challenging occupation.




Since there are none of the killer rats around(they appear to be intended as polymorphed versions of the smuggler mages), this last roadbump is actually pretty easy to handle. But before going to see Arion Hunter past the big doors at the end of the corridor, anyone coming here should check out the right side of the corridor first.






While this area conceals no unique, quest or lore items, it does have six containers(two chests, four dressers) full of decent loot, in this case including multiple expert-level spellbooks that the party didn't already have(no super useful spells, but still).




It turns out Arion took the defeat of his entire corps of guards pretty well! Very polite, for a large rat-man who lives in a cave, too. Even if the price of admission turned out to be several dozen fatalities, it was worth it to see his richly appointed throne room and its tasteful pillars.
Before she really gets going, we're just here to deliver a letter-slash-blackmail proposal.




I love that Arion is believably baffled by us going so far for a letter. It is mildly sociopathic when you think about it.




I mean, I know I'm not the one in charge, but it seems like the decent thing to do after all the damage we did.
Mmm... and Zog is supposed to be fabulously wealthy, too, thanks to both his raiding and his fake voucher scheme. What do you say, Arachne?
I was touched by my companions' faith in my leadership! We had occasionally heard of Zog even back in Enroth, as a legendary bandit chieftain among the ogres, they said that his throne room was littered with stolen treasures, works of art and history to shame any museum on the other continents... clearly I would be remiss in my duties as a tourist if I didn't take the chance to see it! Plus, if we helped Arion get his family back, maybe we could bargain for a scenic ride in a smuggler boat, that would really be something.

Time to head back to Elgar and cash in.




Which also seems like a good time to have a look at the wardrobe makeovers since the party's inventory images last got posted.



The main thing for Arius is a big new axe, a two-hander. Interestingly enough, they were actually smart enough to make it so minotaurs couldn't wear boots or helmets. The lack of boots is actually a bit of a shame since there are several good enchantments that seem to roll more commonly on boots than anything else, mostly regeneration-related ones.



I've neglected to update Elsbeth's shield since I expected to swap her to dual daggers any moment now, but she does have a new shirt that isn't like twenty pounds of leather and a new mainhand dagger that looks more like a fancy machete.



With the jaunty hat, staff that no longer looks like a log full of nails and less military-looking(but more preotective) leather armor, Arachne now actually looks like a lost tourist rather than a mercenary with bad taste in tattoos. She's still suffering a bit from the fact that Dark magic training and purchasing is some distance away yet. I think that's one of my bigger bugbears about this game, there's only one trainer for each tier of anything, and not all towns have all variants of spell merchant, so without a guide and a willingness to circumvent the intended progression a bit(like with Garotte Gorge), there are some skill upgrades you have to wait on a somewhat unreasonable amount of time.





I had a feeling that perhaps Elgar was going to ask one more task of us-
No shit.
-but this time I was going to stand firm! Unless it was very important, and he asked nicely, and it would be very rude and socially awkward to turn him down...




No, it's cool. I wanted to spend my week making some merchants happy because their wagons won't be on fire any longer.




You know, uh, I'm sure it's important and all, but before we head north, could we head back to Garotte Gorge? I kind of feel worried for the dragons. Maybe someone should tell them the dragon hunters are planning to poison them and stuff.
Oh, sure, sure. We'll just walk in and knock on their front door, or well the rock in front of their cave, and go: "Hey, two-hundred kilo lizard, we're here to have a nice chat!" and then-
It sounded like a fabulous idea! I'd always wanted to see a dragon up close, not just a skeleton or a painting, but a real life, firebreathing dragon! I took Arius' idea to heart immediately, I was sure that Elsbeth was simply being a negative nancy.





Just saying, first sign of any fire breathing and I've got my best running boots on. I'm sure you can find someone to fix you up, but it won't be me.




Now, first time you meet the Dragon Hunters you might recall the dragons from MM6 and 7 who just attacked on sight and were general menaces, but here... they're actually peaceful, unless fucked with.

Dragons are intelligent predators, they're just biding their time.





Now they'll spring their trap, now that we've ventured into their lair.
While the dragons were peaceful, as well as truly majestic, most of them didn't seem inclined to even deign to notice us. I figured we should duck towards a little cave on the side and see if anyone felt like having a talk. You never know, we might be lucky.




Oh boy, visitors! Wow, we never see anyone who isn't a dragon up here! Where are you guys from? Where are you going? Are you adventurers?
Alright, maybe they're not going to kill us, but this is still pretty unsettling.
Hey there, uh, kiddo. We're a special kind of adventurers, called tourists, who pretend we're not adventurers, but do adventures anyway, I don't really understand it myself. We're on the way up to Alvar but thought we'd warn you guys about the Dragon Hunters.
With his gentle heart, Arius had charmed one of the dragons! It looked like a fledgling, but it was intensely curious about us and before we knew it...



Mom! Can I go play with the adventurers?
Of course you can go play with your friends, dear, just be back this century! And remember: no menacing any peasants or eating any cows, you know how they give you indigestion.
Mooooom, stop embarrassing me in front of the cool people!
You three will take good care of my dear Ithilgore, won't you? I'd so hate to have a reason to destroy you and your entire civilization.
We promised Erthint that we would care for her son like he was our own sibling! Both because we meant it, and because most of us rather value our entire civilizations.



So Ithilgore is a member of the "hidden" class you can't start with, Dragons. Their thing is that while they can't equip anything other than rings and amulets, they have built-in armor class, resistances, hit points, spell points, stats and damage that make it un-necessary. Yeah, that's Ithilgore's base damage, at both range and melee.



And this is after I spend his starting skill points on beefing up his "Dragon Ability" skill. On top of that they can Grandmaster Identify Item, Perception and learning, Master Alchemy, Bodybuilding and ID Monster and gain Expert in Regeneration, which is not to be sneezed at. We'll go over spellbooks at the end of this update, but suffice to say that theirs further rounds them out as really, really good. Honestly every party should have at least one, possibly two. If you roll with a Cleric, a Necromancer and two Dragons, the only thing you're missing is a Minotaur or Dark Elf for Disarm Traps and you'd be set for every skill that mattered.

While we're here, let's also go visit some of the other dragons in the caves, which, sadly, don't look very interesting.








The dragons seemed as eager to kill the Dragon Hunters as the Dragon Hunters did to kill them, but I felt like it was a somewhat more understandable fury. As we knew, the Dragon Hunters were willing to even kidnap and "break" these majestic beasts as pets, which seemed somewhat cruel considering that they could hold a conversation as well as anyone.




Where are we going? What's your quest? Are we there yet?
We're going to see some merchants, uh, kid. We'll be there in a couple of weeks. I don't suppose you can fly us there or something?
Mom says I'm not allowed to fly by my own until I turn fifty, but I've been practicing while she isn't watching! Any day now I'll figure it out! What's a merchant?
Imagine someone who makes a hoard by even crueller means than killing people and taking their stuff. That's a merchant, they're scary people.




Back to Ravenshore and then leaving the map to the north and we enter Alvar. It's generally a bit more barren than Ravenshore, and gives a feeling like being at the foothill of big mountains.




It also has a couple of small villages with all of MM8's Ore Gacha people, which feels a bit strange considering that with Ravenshore as the geographic center, it would make more sense for them to have all of the useful merchants and services.



Oh, and it has ogres.


Despite their menacing appearance, they're actually no stronger than the rats back in the smugglers' hideout, though with an ability to break weapons rather than disease us which is, at the moment, actually slightly more annoying. Their tier 3 type, the Warleaders, would also absolutely be the toughest enemies we'd faced so far in terms of hitpoints. They also drop ears when killed sometimes, which an NPC in Alvar will let us trade in for gold, and we'll always need gold.



Holy shit, kid, that was some hit!
I've always wanted to do that, but mom never lets me. Can I do it again?
Hell, any time you want as long as it's not in town.
You guys are the best friends ever!




I hadn't expected it, you know, but Elsbeth seems calmer now that we have Ithilgore along. Maybe he's exposing her soft side.
Arius had a point, she wasn't quite as biting towards Ithilgore as she was towards Arius or myself. I was wondering if perhaps she was a deeply sensitive person hiding inside a spiky shell, who was just waiting for a chance to come out when I heard her crying out-
Oh man! Look at him running away on fire! Kid, you're the best. Arius! Cut off their ears after Ithilgore takes them down!
-and thought that, perhaps, that wasn't the case.





As long as we stay on the roads, though, that first Ogre encounter is the only fight we'll run into unless we explicitly go looking for some, which makes good sense considering that it's apparently a major route between two large towns in Jadame.




Oooooh, is this a town? Are those peasants? Is that a cow? Can I drink from a well?
Yes, don't burn it. Yes, don't eat them. Yes, don't eat it. No, don't drink from strange wells, I don't want to deal with a dragon that has dysentery.





Almost every NPC dwelling in Alvar is a trainer, which is a bit sad, I kind of miss the larger amounts of "lore" NPC's present in MM6 homes compared to MM7 and MM8, but I guess maybe it took more dev work to actually draw NPC faces than when they could just slap a funny hat and a cravat on a relative and take a picture.




To a seasoned tourist like myself, Alvar was a bit of a disappointment. I had expected fanciful elven architecture, and instead I got Ravenshore without the smell.
Yeah, most things are a disappointment when you get around to it. Hey, Ithilgore, poke your head into someone's house and ask if they know where the merchants' guild is.
...are you sure that's a good idea?
Hey, we did it all the time back in Ravenshore.
Yeah, but he's a... never mind.



By the gods, a dragon!
By the ancestors, an elf!
...
So... can I come along?
Oh boy, sure! The others are gonna be real impressed when they see that I recruited a new friend for us!



Guys, look what I found!
Rohani Oscleton at your service!
Ithilgore, your recruiting privileges are revoked. Look at her!



We're lucky she's holding the dagger by the right end!
Aw Elsbeth, don't be so hard on her... I bet she's trying her best!
Indeed! I sense that you need a guide! An expert on all things wild and magical, who's also cool and charming, hence, I put myself at your disposal.
It's a good thing that Elsbeth didn't also notice Rohani putting her purse at her disposal. I should probably have said something, but Ithilgore seemed so proud and I couldn't stand to break his heart. Besides, it seems like we'd always have a need for the rogueish skills.

So Rohani is the only person that wants to come along with us for now, and she's level 5. For comparison, Arachne and Elsbeth are in their teens, level-wise, and unless someone was intentionally sequence breaking, they wouldn't reach Alvar anywhere near level 5.

Everyone else here doesn't want to come with us, for instance...







And a lore NPC since I found him in between those two. Their reluctance to join us gets even funnier in the light or something we discover in a short bit.



Speaking of Alvar lacking the smell of Ravenshore, there was a certain aroma to these parts. Not exactly bad but...
This reminds me of when my cousin Earl rolled in a dead cow that'd been lying around in a meadow for a few days.
Your cousin... Earl?
Oh yeah, he told everyone his name was Killclaw Murderwing, but his parents gave him a human name because they wanted him to be special.
Following my nose, I decided to track down the smell, it was the first time I'd smelled this on Jadame. It had to be something exciting!






Might and Magic is a very dark and serious setting, guys, very serious. The seriousest.



This leaves us with just one last house in the main city, and why Rohani and the reluctant Dark Elves are so funny.





So the thing is that Cauri Blackthorne is, predictably, the level 50 Dark Elf recruit, but, if you have some good moves or better yet a source of Flight, you can find and recover her relatively easily, at which point she becomes recruitable with no ifs or buts, just right out of the gate. Hell, I'd say there's even decent odds you might find her for this quest "naturally" well before you satisfy the requirements for the two picky Dark Elf dickheads hanging around Alvar.






As far as I'm aware, Vori only features in one Heroes of Might and Magic game, and otherwise never, which is a bit of a shame. MM7 could've been brightened up by a snowy region. I wonder if it was originally planned to feature in that game in some way.



There's also yet another quest for dealing with Zog, seems like everyone wants to be rid of him.




We'd finally found the only house in Alvar that wasn't an efficient cube or, puzzlingly enough, a mushroom. This absolutely had to be the lair of the rich and somewhat scary merchant guild of the Dark Elves. We steeled ourselves for the meeting, hoping that Rohani wouldn't steal anything and that Ithilgore wouldn't knock something over with his tail.
You know, it never occurred to me to ask, what is your quest?
It's a bit hard to explain but, uh, mostly we deliver the mail, whether people want it delivered or not.





I notice you didn't mention anything about never taking any quests again this time.
Elsbeth was correct, but not in the way she thought! A lake of fire? How could I not seek that out to see it? That was the sort of wondrous terrain that I'd been wanting to see ever since I came to Jadame! And, well, since we were going there anyway, we could do Bastian's errand at the same time. It would pay for our trail rations if nothing else!




Hey, hey, can we stay at an inn before we go to Ironsand? I've always wanted to try sleeping in a bed! Or even a barn!
Honestly not a bad idea, we've been doing a lot of moving and talking today, a break would do us good, and it's not like Ironsand is going anywhere.

VOTE

Who stays and who goes? I'd be happy to continue the Revolving Door policy, but I need some clear slots for it. Personally I'd be sad to give up Elsbeth or Ithilgore, since they're very much at the heart of the party functioning at all(cleric magic and big numbers), but I'll obey the thread.

MAGIC OVERVIEW

Now that the party has Expert magic as well as all three types of "species" magic represented, it seems like a good idea to have a look at what new additions there are. The elemental, cleric and mirror path spellbooks are entirely identical, even if some of the usefulness calculations are different now that we have Dark and Light magic from chargen(mostly it rolls towards: "use Dark and Light magic rather than the worse alternatives, you moron"). There are also a few oddities like there being a Hammerhands spell(Monk buff from MM7) when there's no Monk class(maybe it works on Dragons, too? Since they're technically unarmed?).

Dark Elf

Glamour

Glamour is probably one of the best reasons to bring a Dark Elf, simply for the way it helps trivialize the game's economy. The game is very vague about how big the boost it actually is, though, not even the strategy guide helps define it.

Travelers' Boon

Useful except that Dark Elves can already cast all three spells and they're not particularly expensive. I guess it saves a small amount of time?

Blind

Status effect, garbage.

Darkfire Bolt

It scales almost twice as fast as Toxic Cloud, but also costs twice as much to cast. Still, it's probably the best offensive spell a Dark Elf could bother to cast. The resistance effect is a bit odd, though, since there's almost nothing in the game with a worse Dark resistance than Fire resistance.

Dragon

Fear

Status effects are usually trash, but could be effective at Grandmaster level.

Flame Blast

Almost as powerful as Toxic Breath, but also explosive and doesn't detract from casting other useful things. One of the very good things about having a Dragon along aside from their just being generally badass.

Flight

Not explicitly better than casting Flight with Air magic, but thanks to their mono-skill focus, Dragons are almost guaranteed to have access to it much earlier.

Wing Buffet

If you're fighting exclusively melee enemies, this kicks ass, since it'll let you snipe them and then push them back whenever they try to get close. Could also have a use for letting you get enough clear space to use explosive spells without frying your own party. Sadly enemies don't take damage from damaging surfaces(though they do take damage from projectile launchers), but this could probably also have the occasionally cheese use for getting enemies killed by the environment.

Vampire

Lifedrain

Theoretically a good spell since it lets you recover health, except that Vampires already have Body magic up to Master, and casting Heal will almost always give you more health per SP, as well as more reliably since it's not a random range. Cast this for its damage potential, not its healing potential.

Levitate

This is a buff that no other spell can replicate, and there's no reason not to have it running inside dungeons. It also works as a buffed-up version of Water Walk, and can thus be used for a bit of exploration even if your necromancer doesn't have sufficient Water magic yet.

Charm

If it sticks, this would probably be one of the best Status effects to ever drop on enemies. I presume it only works on enemies that aren't Mind immune but... nothing in the text says it doesn't.

Mist Form

Sadly mostly damage stops being physical at all outside of the early game, so by the time you have Grandmaster Vampire tricks up your sleeve, generally enemies will be hitting you with spells and elemental basic attacks anyway.