There ended up being a place to rebuild myself. It ended up being one I've ignored for long enough. There are underground caverns in each town. In the games before Might and Magic III these usually ended up being some of the first places you had to go to get enough levels and loot to even leave the front gate. I was rather thrilled that was not the case this time around.
Still, it was time to venture down into one of them. At the time I ended up being in the area where Baywatch was so I picked that cavern to explore. The place was filled with mostly screamers and bubble men. Along with quiet a formidable boss called a phantom.
The cavern itself was riddled with holes. Falling into them would end up causing some damage to your party. This is also part of the game where I start working out how to avoid taking damage from different kinds of traps.
In this instance, I decided to test out using the spell levitation. While this spell could not get me across rivers as I had hoped in my last attempt of trying to find a use for it. It did however work out this time around. I was able to just walk on over where all the holes were. With no issue whatsoever.
Inside this cavern ended up being a prison. It seems the people of Baywatch had something to hide in a way. They locked some up down below and more or less forgot about them.
Those in the jails claimed they were not guilty of any crimes. I decided why not release them. My reward for doing so is I can now hire them as a hireling if needed. The people I freed here were not that powerful.
The cave itself was filled with a bunch of side little one-tile tunnels branching off in a few different directions that were all dead ends. Many of these tunnels required me to bash through a wall as they were hiding some jewelry or other creatures to hunt.
There was also what felt like the main tunnel. It ended up doing a full loop around the dungeon. There were also a couple of rooms that opened up into a cavern of sorts that had quite a few enemies that needed to be defeated.
While I was down there, I ended up finding quite a few silver skulls that I'd be able to turn in for some gold and experience. After turning in enough of them I'd also be given some useful passwords to use in other parts of the game as well.
After a while, I ended up coming across another person who was locked away down here. He was Brother Alpha and there are many other brothers in this game for me to find as well. He gave me a bit of a clue and told me his next brother was waiting for me to find him.
I was kind of expecting this to be yet another place was I was only able to mostly clear it out. It turns out however I was more than powerful enough to take this cavern on. My people were left a little insane in the end requiring some professional healing. I was able to defeat the boss at the end of the cave.
With how easy that went. I decided I should go clear the caverns below Fountain Head. I know that is doing them a bit out of order. It however did not matter much either way.
I’m kind of glad I ended up skipping out on doing this one first. As there were quite a few axe traps. For a little while I just ended up taking the brunt of the damage. After a while, I wised up and realized I could use the jump spell to bypass them. That is if no door or wall was blocking my path forward.
This place was filled with bats and goblins. Since I've been hunting many of these creatures up on the surface with ease by now. They were not much of an issue. Any real damage I was taking was from traps.
I did at one point run out of food to be able to rest. I guess I should have known better and checked before going into a dungeon. A mistake I'll avoid making for the next time. I quickly returned to the surface and bought some food before returning.
There ended up being some decent reasons for clearing out this cavern below the town. There ended up being a trainer down there for a small fee of one hundred gold per character they could learn direction sense. This would not only show me on the UI which direction I was pointing but also when I had the map open as well. This was a welcomed quality-of-life improvement for navigating around the game.
This ended up not being the only skill I ended up getting down here either. I ended up finding spot secret doors, danger senses, and most importantly swimming.
Having the swimming skills of each of my characters would allow me to cross the small river and head down further south on the map once I made it back to the surface. Allowing me to advance to quite a few new lands and find many treasures.
After a while in the cavern, I started to notice some writing warning about the Rat Overlord. There then was what I thought was an exit. It ended up taking me into an out-of-reach part of the town where the Rat Overlord was hiding.
While my group had some inflections that needed curing. Along with being a little tired after fully clearing the cavern itself. We did not waste the opportunity to quickly take out the Rat Overlord.
The underground cavern in Fountain Head was perhaps one of the first places I should have gone to. It ended up advancing the storyline a bit after I opened up the chest. I’m sure it would have made other parts of the game a little easier. That however might not have been as fun as the route I've taken so far.
At least now I have a decent stockpile of gold again. I even put some away in the bank that I'll only withdraw if I need to revive one of my characters who has fallen.
It’s also hard to beat some of the amazing skills I ended up picking up along the way in this one. From seeing the direction, I was now facing on the UI to being able to swim over a single tile of water if needed.
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Might And Magic III.
