Might and Magic (Ch. 4)

My continuing blog of Might And Magic: Secret of the Inner Sanctum



Chapter 4: Sorpigal

Where and what is the Inner Sanctum? We had no idea where to even begin in our quest. We had started though here in Sorpigal. And if we were to begin anywhere, we must start here and leave no clue overlooked.

Unique to Sorpigal are the statues. Monuments to great heroes and beasts of times past. They were scattered about the city in myriad corners of the underground alleys, and each one was marked with an inscription.

A statue of a large minotaur threatened that it still roamed a great fortress in an enchanted forest. Thoughts of gold and treasure to pillage crossed my mind, but it would surely be long before we could venture someplace so dangerous.

The meaning of this inscription was puzzling to me. Alicia reasoned that the ones 'by water, land, air, and sand' referred to four separate great beasts. But the rest of it had no meaning to us yet.

This inscription seemed to hint that secrets would lie through journeying and questing far and wide. Across the five cities of Varn at the very least.

This statue was a memorial to Gala. I had not heard the name before. But the threat hinted at by the volcanic isles was clear.

A statue of a fierce blue dragon. I've never seen a dragon myself. But the might and terror of the destruction they leave in their wake travels fast by word of mouth.

"Dungeons Like Me". The meaning was unclear. As were this Og and the idols mentioned. But perhaps in due time it would become more obvious.

 The thought of "Judgment Day" carried a perilous sense of finality about it. I wasn't sure if this statue referred to the Inner Sanctum or not, but this 'Ranalou' was a name worth keeping an ear open for.

Corak...

There was a name I recognized. I think all kids learn the name "Corak the Mysterious" in the same breaths that people discuss the history of Varn and King Alamar. His origins are shrouded in mystery. Religious hearsay says that he's like an angel. A herald of the Ancient Ones that long ago created the land of Varn and all the life upon it. Others say he is from another world in the stars above. Still others believe he was merely a great sage who died long ago.

Among the services offered in Sorpigal we had also found Otto's Training. Here, the guildmaster could be paid a tuition to have us trained in magical and martial arts to better our strength and skills. But only if we had the experience needed to do so. The rates were not cheap, but they were the only route to personal growth open to us.

Magic-using classes have a premium. They require more XP per level -and- have a higher tuition rate, too.

Temple Moonshadow was also here. Here, the robed acolytes could perform various services in return for coin. For a hefty donation, they would also be willing to place their blessings upon us, but we had not the coin to spare.

Making donations provides buffs to your party that last until you next Rest.

 We also took a short while to venture outside briefly. The world above ground is rife with peril though and it is unsafe to stay there long, or to wander too far without taking care we don't get lost. Still, it was important that we familiarize ourself with the local area.

The overworld of Varn is divided into 20 squares, which can be visualized as a grid:



A1 B1 C1 D1 E1
A2 B2 C2 D2 E2        --Like so. The Location spell will tell you which 'cell' you are currently in when
A3 B3 C3 D3 E3            on the overworld. Sorpigal lies in cell C2.
A4 B4 C4 D4 E4

Faulkner once again was in charge of keeping map. He pointed out to me that Sorpigal rests among the foothills in the 'C2' sector of Varn, indicated on his map by the number '1'. Just in front of us lied a thin row of trees represented by the green lines. Many of them were filled with 'M's that indicated an ambush by monsters or enemies was likely. The number '4' just ahead of us was a strange pillar that, when touched, whisked us away to another random part of C2. Most curious was the small glade just next to Sorpigal makred with a '3'.

In that small expanse, a covered wagon lay at rest, being inhabited by a single old gypsy who offered to read the 'sign' of our auras. I was amused at the old man's tenacity, to live outside the relatively safer walls of the city and offered him my palm.

Each character is randomly given a new 'sign' each time you load a saved game. Currently, it's a little bit of trivia that's of no real use to us. Yet.

The black dresidion. I had no idea what that meant, but then again, I was not familiar at all with the gypsy's art of cosmology. I looked over at Faulkner and then Alicia, wondering if either of them gleaned any special meaning from the sign but was greeted by a look of confusion that equalled my own. The Gypsy went through our group and insisted on reading all of us.

Sam was declared to be the white dilithium. Betty June was the yellow limra. The robber Finn was also called the white dilithium, prompting a look of curiosity and disgust from both he and Sam. My brother was called the purple sagran. And lastly, Alicia was pronounced the orange oolok.

The gypsy did not ask for any coin and did not seem to be expecting any, simply looking at each of us with a look of satisfaction and then retreating back to his wagon. Puzzled, we moved on to finish our scouting.

Nestled behind some trees near the foothills we discovered a large iron chest. Unguarded and inviting. What could possibly be left out here in the wilderness?

We bade Finn check for traps and open the thing so we could see what mysterious treasures laid within. He set to work carefully on the mechanism and began to disarm it...

My ire for that dwarf begins to burn with the hate of a million suns. Nonetheless, there was no lasting damage and the lock was now open...

Was this some kind of cruel joke? Who on Varn would go through the trouble of locking and trapping a box full of their old garbage? I nearly kicked the thing to scatter it across the forest floor, but Betty June insisted on hanging on to pick out anything salable. Pff. Elves.



The bag of garbage has absolutely no use in-game but can be vendored for 50 gold. This is not an enormous amount of money but it is a useful source that can be repeated again and again with enough patience. (In-game treasures and encounters 'reset' themselves each time you load a saved game.)

By now we had accumulated enough money and skill I think to finish outfitting ourselves from the blacksmith, as well as paying for some vigorous training sessions from the guildmaster. Still, we had little finite clues on which to begin our quest.