You don’t truly understand what your party can handle without hitting a few failures along the way. Some of these failures were from the group lacking the ability to deal with the situation. Others were my own for lack of game knowledge.

While exploring outside the town gates was quite fun, I ended up finding along the way a few areas that got the better of me in wanting to know what was below them. While I had a feeling some areas were going to be a bit rough for my group there was only one way to know.

On my way back to hit a cave full of unread that I’m hoping my clerics can make quick work of. I ended up running into some kind of merchant meeting of sorts. I was quite tempted to run away when I realized I’d be facing over 240 merchants. I, however, already knew these were quite an easy thing to take down and despite being so outnumbered I went for it.

It was quite tempting to use some powerful spells by my sorcerers to take a couple out of each cast of a spell. I also they would be long out of spell power before the entire group was taken out. So, I decided to just spam melee and get the battle done as quickly as possible.

Thankfully I did not need to take out all of the merchants. It did not take long before quite a few of them started to flee. If I was at a higher level, I could have cast a spell to keep them from escaping and have them all to myself. I, however, was fine with them speeding along the battle.

I was hoping the loot would be better than it was. At least I got over 2k experience per party member for my efforts. I was then along my way yet again heading back to a spot I had found before.

Quite early on in my gameplay, I discovered information about Corak’s Cave being mostly undead. I had also gathered some kind of pass that would allow me access to a certain part of the cave as well.

There was nothing other than some clues to guess what I’d be facing. I, however, was up for an adventure and if I ran mostly undead my clerics would help the party rack up some quick kills and some amazing experiences to help them level up faster.

Once inside I paused to mark down the exact exit location of this cave. This was something I learned to do after having a few situations of needing to make a mad dash for an exit and not finding one. It is true I have some spells that allow me to teleport above ground. That however requires members of my party who can cast such spells to still be living. As my powers slowly grew so would my options of escaping and returning to dungeons and caverns that I’d be working on clearing out.

I was quite thrilled with my first few battles. All undead and no shortage of them. It’s quite a shame you can only use it once during each combat. Along with the spell turn undead stopping once it fails to kill a single undead or it runs out of them. In some battles, it would rack up only two or three kills while in others 10 kills. Making anything remains quite easy for the rest of the group to deal with.

In some situations, it was quite dire that turn undead killed everything it could. Some of the undead I was facing would explode taking themselves out and a good chance of knocking or worse one of my characters.

I ended up finding the door I needed to use the pass I had on me. It consumed the pass and to my disappointment, it then requested it again. With it already being gone I could not exactly go any further. I’d have to look into my notes and try to recall where I had collected the pass from. So, I could make yet another attempt at Corak’s Cave.

I ended up going back to Sandsobar caverns and re-clearing the entire thing till I found the pass again. It kind of makes me think I need to revisit all of the caverns I’ve run so far and take some better notes about what I was finding or what clues were left behind. It seems these early caves are quite valuable in information.

A couple of days later I ended up returning to Corak’s Cave. The battles beyond that point were a bit harder. I then ran into an area where I could no longer cast. Once I had to rest, I could not cast any light spells and had to wander around in the dark.

It seems I still have much to learn about this place. I had run into something that seems like it gives some kind of class-specific quests. There was, however, nothing I could do about it. It seems I’d need to go get another pass and return yet again to this cave at some point.

So, I got myself out of the darkness and started to clear any part of the cave I had left untouched that I could get to. While also being in an area I could still use magic in. This was not my first time hitting this kind of darkness in a might and magic game and I doubt it will be my last. I also somewhat recall there was a hint about hitting an area of darkness in this game. While all caves are dark. At least most of them you can cast light spells everywhere in them.

All was not for nothing. While exploring I did end up finding Lloyd’s Beacon. It allows me to beacon at the spot I’m standing and return later to that spot by recasting the spell. Quite helpful if I need to run to a temple for revivals or sell a shop while in the middle of a dungeon run. Funny enough, I’d keep forgetting about this spell in the future and create all sorts of bad situations that would have been avoided if I had just used this spell.

Final Thoughts

I ended up going as long as I could before hitting a bit of a rough battle. I had not been resting the group as often as I should have. My sorcerers were out of spell power and my cleric’s turn unread failed to take anything out. We at least managed to escape alive.

It then felt like I had to crawl back to a town with the current situation the group was in. Any battle, let alone a hard one would be the end with me losing all the progress I had made while inside the cave. Thankfully I made it to a town and more importantly a temple alive.

While it was tempting to return yet again after healing up the group. It felt like I had a lot more information I needed to find out before returning to this place. I also had to yet again re-farm another pass anyway. I decided for the time being it was time to find another place to cause some trouble.