It was time to advance the storyline a bit and finish some side quests as well. I’ve been waiting for what has felt like forever to see any kind of progression in my castle take place. It turns out I'd be waiting even longer for any of the real stuff.
I’m kind of in this strange spot in the game where it seems everywhere I turn, I'm about to get a beat down. I’d end up finding some areas I could somewhat clear but not fully. I’d just have to accept that as how it was going to be for some time.
It was time to finish clearing out Deyja at least the best that I could. This place would end up being filled with harpies in the mountains and zombies on the roads. I’d even run into that guy yet again who wanted me to pay a fee to pass without trouble. I turned him down once again.
Deyja I'd also realize was quite an evil place. Not just by what creatures I had to fight off there. This place had quite a few class promotion quests between the two little towns this region had. They were however for the “evil” dark side.
Since I was slowly on the path of choice the “good” side of the light. They were not that thrilled to be interacting with me whatsoever. They also made it quite clear they wanted nothing to do with me when I went and visited the town.
The town which was far off in the distance to the northwest was kind of a funny one to get into. You had to go down this massive hill on all sides to get to it. The game also sometimes has these strange graphic glitches where the bottom portion of the screen becomes messed up while you move around for a bit. Almost as a sign, I should have been there in the first place.
I also ended up entering into two dungeons in the region. They both quickly showed I was not quite ready to take them on. I was close just not close enough. So, I did a quick turnout and decided I'd in a few days after getting a couple more levels come back to check those dungeons out.
After clearing out most of the region of Deyja. I decided it was time to check in on my home region of Harmondale. I’m rather glad I did as I got an urgent message that was waiting for me.
Up to this point for the most part I've been doing the bare minimum regarding the dispute between Erathia and Avlee. This game has some kind of judge system that has really little effect on the actual gameplay. It’s more of a back lore kind of deal. The current judge that was in my region died. So, it ended up being on me to pick a new one.
I ended up returning to my castle and having a chat with both ambassadors. After speaking with both I realized one of them wanted me to make a trip back to Deyja to side with the necromancers. After learning who they were and how evil they tend to be. It made my choice easy.
I ended up going to see the other judge who was not controlled by necromancers. He ended up being the side of the light. Once he was picked something strange happened. My UI changed the backgrounds to this sky and light theme.
I ended up making a choice that would have a profound impact on the rest of my gameplay. All my characters were now labeled as “good” and I was now working for the side of the light.
Over time I'd be able to learn things like the light spell magic line on my priest. This would also mean I could not learn the dark magic side of things. As far as I can tell you can’t have both sides of light and dark magic with you needing to pick a side in the end.
All of my characters could also only get class progression towards the light side of classes. I’ll be honest I don’t know what kind of impact that has on things. Other than like my rogue who can only be promoted to a spy instead of something like an assassin. Since one is on the good side and one is on the bad side.
I feel that is quite an interesting little twist to the gameplay. One I was not expecting much. I kind of wish as a player I was able to base my decisions a bit more around information and what I was truly getting or giving up. Such information however is one you have to learn yourself I suppose by just playing the game.
After this occurred. I ended up going on a little world tour hitting up as many of the towns as I could. I had leveled up a decent amount and had quite a lot of skill points to spend. This also meant I now had a few skills that could be trained to master level.
It’s a good thing I had a nice stockpile of gold at this point. While training for a master only costs 3k gold and has a skill level of seven. I ended up raising around a dozen or so skills. From things like master in plate, repair, and many fields of magic.
With my newfound power and now being on the light side of factions. I was able to take on a promotion quest that required such things. My task to become a hero was to take down my first dragon.
I had been in this dragon cave before. Last time however it was empty. This time since I had the quest and a hero with me the dragon named Wromthrox was in his cave waiting for me.
I was kind of shocked by how easy the dragon was to take down. I also kind of wish I could go and fight a bunch more right now. I ended up looting a new mace for my healer out of the deal.
Wanting to see what else I could now do since I picked a side. I ended up making my way towards the town of Celeste. It’s a giant city in the sky that required using a special teleport to get to that I now had access to.
I was hoping I'd find some better weapons and armor worth buying here. It was better than what I could get in most other towns. However, the shops here still rarely had anything worth buying and when they did it would be like 8k gold for a single piece of gear.
At the very least this town has quite a high-level trainer in it. Many of the lower-tier cities in the game were getting to the point that I could no longer train at them. While it was still quite an effort to get out to Celeste until I was able to unlock the town portal spell. I at least had a place I knew I could train in.
I was then given quite the challenge. I needed to run a dungeon called Wall of Mist. The catch was I could not kill anything in that dungeon. That would end up making things quite challenging.
I even went off to try the place. With all the ranged damage in there, I quickly learned my characters lacked the defense and health to survive long enough to finish off the task given to me. I’d have to give up that idea of advancing the main storyline for quite some time.
I was not expecting this game to have such a massive decision needing to be made. This also really pulled in quite a lot of the lore that was going in the background when I'd talk with different NPCs and they would talk about the light or dark side of things.
I do kind of wish I could lower the brightness of the new UI that was thrust onto me for picking the light side. Late at night, it is quite bright on the eyes. I suppose that would have been a decent reason alone to pick the dark side as I would assume they have quite a dark UI.
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Might And Magic VII
