Might and Magic 3 (Ch. 6)

Ongoing blog of Might and Magic 3: Isles of Terra


Chapter 6 - Temple of Moo + Evil Eye Forest

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"Friends, before we venture south into the Screamer-infest Evil Eye Forest, it may be wise to backtrack just a bit."

"But why?" I asked Stella.

"The Moo cult has a dark temple hidden in the trees near Fountain Head. It is there that they conduct terrible rituals to raise their undead fodder--we should strike now before news of our cleaning out Baywatch's caverns reaches the cleric there."

To my surprise--Stella had cast a spell of light before I had a chance to do the same.

"You can use magic?" I asked her inquisitvely as a skeleton shambled ever-closer to the source of sudden light in this dark place.

Stella cocked an eye at me curiously, "Are you serious? Don't they have rangers or druids where you come from?"

"Well....I can't say as I've never noticed. I had thought only properly licensed clerics and sorcerors could use magic from the guildhall."

"Clerics and sorcerors -and- rangers and druids, you mean." Stella huffed. Lydia had already knocked the lone skeleton into pieces with a well-placed backstab right at the bindings holding it together.

A third school of magic is introduced in MM3. In addition to Clerical and Sorceror spells, we now have Nature spells. The Nature school is largely an amalgam of 'some from column S' and 'some from column C'. However--there are a few spells in the game like 'Walk on Water' and 'Nature's Cure/Nature's Gate' that only rangers and druids can use. For nature magic users--the spell point total is determined by both the Personality -and- Intellect stat.

 More spiked pitfalls.

"I don't suppose you know a levitate spell then?" I asked her.

"Err...ahh...regrettably, no. We'll need an archer or a sorceror for that."

"Stay up close with me, then. If you and I trip one, we can withstand the brunt better than Lydia because we can heal ourselves--and then she can cross over us."

Thus, Stella and I became a sort of living 'bridge' in front of locked door pitfalls like these--standing on our shoulders while she picked the lock.

 The amount of skeletons grew more numerous as we got deeper into the temple.

"What -is- the temple of Moo, anyway? Do they worship the dead?" I asked in between casts of my Turn Undead prayer.

"Not exactly....I think they worship Bellum--one of the Five Forces. Only--the evil side of Bellum. The one that thrives on bloodshed and conflict. I thinks its why they like to raise undead. To let the battle go on for all eternity."

I shuddered at the thought. The skeletons littering the floor of this temple must have been those souls that were strong enough to resist the reanimation.

"They idolizse the moose." Lydia added.

"Moose?" I asked.

"Terrible creatures. Went extinct long ago--big and nasty and always itching for a fight. Since all the moose are gone though they breed Moose Rats instead."

From further ahead in this chamber, we saw a group of undead more substantial than skeletons begin to shamble forth. Zombies put up slightly more of a challenge---and leading them from behind their advancing wall...

The evil cleric of Moo that serviced this dark temple was the only living adversary we found that day. His preferred attack was to use his vast mana to cast powerful Sparks prayers at us, similar to my own. However--I also had a prayer to Protect from Elements--and, by focusing that prayer to protect us from Electricity, the cleric was helpless.

"'ere this day, the twisted plots of the cleric of Moo will do no more harm to this part of Terra. Someday may we do the same and scour their blight from their stronghold--the Cathedral of Carnage." Stella sighed happily. Lydia had already found locked treasure boxes to open filled with the temple's tithes and other treasures. It was a lucrative little side-trip for us after all.

"What is -that-?" Lydia asked, noticing the large monument at the back of the room.

"Fire Mane--the mascot of this temple. Just by coming here and basking in it's presence--we have proven ourselves to be true holy Cruasders."

"So now we can check out the local castles, right?" Lydia asked--I could see visions of the treasury on her eyes and had to dissuade her fantasy awhile longer.

"Not just yet-- there's a war of alignments going on. Slightly cooled now, maybe--but I'd rather not get us mixed up in anything too large we wouldn't be able to handle it yet.

Instead, we trudged further south of Baywatch into the A3 sector, through the so-called "Evil Eye" forest infested with vampire bats and the dreaded Screamers. We tried to pick them off at a distance whenever we could between both Stella and Lydia's arrows, but there were simply too many lurking about the trees that swarmed us at once. There was no prayer that could cure or even suppress the Insanity they caused--so we were trusting each other to keep an eye on one another in case one of us descended too far into distraction.

There were more Zingaro wagons stopped here. In some of them, the traders still set up shop and offered worthless trinkets and baubles. But in one abandoned one--we found the breeding ground we were looking for. Even from within the small, egg-like pods we could see their mouths moving into a wrenching scream....

With disgusting crunches beneath our heels--we smashed every last one of the pods to bits and then set the wagon on fire to make sure nothing was spared. At last the Screamers in this place would begin to thin out and then vanish entirely as we picked them off.

As it turned out--a local Zingaro mystic had taken advantage of the nearby Screamer breeding ground ot open up shop. For a mere ten gemstones--she would concoct us a remedy that would soothe the echoing peals in our minds and set us back into a good condition. It was well worth it to avoid a trip back to Baywatch to see the monks at Temple Mandrake.

At a section of one of the mountains--Stella suddenly motioned for us to stop and examined a curious bulge nestled at the foot of the hills that Lydia and I had completely missed. On searching this simple mount--we uncovered a small lockbox filled with 10000 gold!

"See? I told you a ranger would make a valuable ally." Lydia grinned with glee.

The A4 sector was called Thorn Blossom Orchard and the road turned sharply west at a peninsula called Poison Point. In this part of Terra, the world was densely packed with poisonous vermin like these giant spiders...

Nearby in the orchard was a large cave called Arachnoid Cavern--where many of these poisonous creatures made their home. Previously, it had been inhabited by a Gargoyle army of King Malicious's design. When the warriors of King Righteous drove the gargoyles away--they did not remain long enough to seal the Arachnoid cave and ever since then the oversized vermin had begun breeding and escaping.

Castle Bloodreign, the seat of power to the King Chaotic was here. But I was not interested just yet in entering.

Giant poisonous Oh No Bugs and Magic Mantisae roamed this area freely as well. King Chaotic used to have an army of dwarves that controlled the peace in this area--but the bulk of them were slain in a skirmish with King Malicious's ogres. Those dwarves and ogres that remained were apparently captured by the ninja clan in Wildabar.

And here--at the end of the long road stretching all the way from Fountain Head, was Wildabar itself. A city, like Baywatch, on the edge of the great ocean. We were exhausted from our long journey--and a spell of Suppress Poison only carries oneself so far when trudging through so many poisonous vermin. We were eager to invite ourselves in for a little rest and healing.

The Wildabar ninja clan apparently had a different idea though. Since the last time anyone had visited--the ninja had apparently succeeded in deposing the local law and installing themselves in it's place. And they were -not- accepting visitors.

Between the three of us though--we had a convincing counter-argument to make. In the form of repeated blows about the head and neck.

I think they weren't quite expecing three random visitors to put up such a fight. The first two dropped right away and the latter two wasted no time in running away. We'd see them again, for sure. But for now, we had a well-deserved rest to purchase at the local inn.