I was now getting into the part of the game where rewards from dungeons would become quite massive. That was not without challenges. Sometimes those challenges would take a few attempts to overcome.

The Cursed Cold Cavern sure has a name for itself. Between all the witches I'd fight and carnage hands. I’d be taking a couple of trips to town to cure my characters being cursed to get stats back on their items.

Every time I see one of them witches, I could not help but think how ugly they are. Naturally, the druid died rather quickly when seeing them which I don’t blame him. While all on their own they were not that hard. They often came in large packs. Whatever my casters could not finish off my melee made short work of.

This place ended up having quite a few blade traps. It felt in a way they were trying to force you to run the dungeon in a clockwise direction almost. I would use jump to bypass a couple of them. Some areas ended up having a few rows of blades all smashing down. In those instances, I just decided to go down another path.

There ended up being a couple of cauldrons in here. Giving a character of mine some much-needed experience boost in the millions. Along with gaining some magic resistance as well. While that was not quite enough to resist the witches it’s all about those small long-term gains.

It’s also kind of funny how the cauldrons looked like melted crayons on top of them. I also just love the fact it’s being boiled by dragons breathing fire at the base of it. It’s a shame I could not fight them. The boost in resistance was however enough of a reward.

At the very least I did end up finding a Black Terror Key. I was not exactly sure which dungeon I'd be needing it for. It is a bit of a shame you can’t bank all the other keys and just use the higher tier one you found to enter any one of them.

At one point I'd just decided to hire a hireling to dump a bunch of lower dungeon keys on. Hoping I did not put the wrong ones away in storage. I ended up using one of the towns more or less as my storage bank. With wrote little notes to myself about what kinds of items were stored on which characters I had at that inn. It at least helped free up a lot of inventory space.

After doing some banking, upgrading, and leveling up characters. I headed over to another location where I discovered another dungeon. I had popped into it once before. I decided however it would be something I had left till now. Little did I know I would not be finishing it my second time in there either.

The dungeon that would end up kicking my backside was called Dragon Cavern. I knew I was going to be in for a good time when I found in this Might and Magic a dragon cavern. Something I'd find in some other games in the series as well. I had high hopes for the loot here.

The place had quite a lot of Draconi that looked like alien reptiles. They were not even a snack for my group to destroy. My group was here to take on the green dragons and they sure did not disappoint me in their challenge.

The dragons were so massive. It seemed like only one of them at a time could face me. This made what would have been otherwise some rough areas a bit easier to deal with. While they would give my group a bit of a run for their money. I’d soon find a more challenging foe awaited me at the back of the dungeon.

While walking around I noticed a lot of walls kept saying different directions and a number. I’d later take a look at the map and realize there were quite a few voids between the different tunnels that went down into different dragon chambers.

It always feels a bit silly when trying to find a hidden area on the map. I ended up trying to teleport five squares in one direction where there was a note on the wall. The spell failed. So, I ended up going up and down the wall a little bit trying in a few different times.

Sure, enough bingo. Not only were there a lot of piles of gold at the back of the different tunnels in this cave. There were three hidden chambers with no creatures guarding piles of gold. Each pile of gold was a cool 1 million.

Along with the gold and a couple of upgrades for gear. I’d also find four power Orbs in this dungeon. Each one alone would gain me 1 million experience per character. This cave was shaping up to be a massive treasure trove of fun and loot.

Then my party died. A full wipe. No survivors. It’s not the first time this would end up happening or the last. I however was not expecting what I faced next to be so challenging.

I must have tried half a dozen times. Trying different comb of spells. Getting all buffed out in different locations around the game. Then having to rush into the cave and towards the Dragon Lord before losing the buffs.

It was not good enough. At best I only got the dragon down to a yellow health bar. I had no idea how much health the thing had left. There was a way to check but at the time I wanted to use every last breath I had on unleashing a torrent of spells and not seeing if I was anywhere close.

After a while, it was time to take a little break. I ended up doing quite a few different things. Things I've talked about in other posts and things I'll talk about in future posts.

I’d then make my return one day. I ended up kicking the druid out of my group. I replaced him and filled the final spot in my party as well. I had two of the most powerful hirelings in the game. They were running me about 100k gold per day to use. Funny enough one of them was age 70 and like the other one 160. I was kind of shocked by how old they were. I would have thought old age would have gotten them by then.

I then did battle with the dragon again. After landing a couple of hits on him. I ended up checking his health and he was at nearly 10k. While I had some powerful spells that could land 1k a piece. The thing was most of those spells failed to land 70% of the time.

I ended up trying all kinds of spells on the dragon. Even Finger of Death hoping for a rather funny but easy win. He would end up resistance just about everything I tossed at him. So, I was mostly down to just using the most powerful single-target spells I had on two of my sorceresses.

Along with my melee characters doing whatever little they could. In most rounds of the fight, my melee characters all would strike out on getting a single hit. Other times one or two of them would land some kind of hit. I had a funny feeling it was not a lot of damage.

I would end up trying a few more times. During one of those fights, I could tell I was down to last only one or two more rounds. I ended up checking to see if the dragon still had 2k health remaining. My casters were out of mana by that point. So, it was another win for the dragon.

Accepting defeat yet again. I left the Dragon Cavern. Found some places to further level up my main characters and the hirelings I had with me as well. It’s perhaps a good thing I looted so much gold. I was now spending a small fortune to get all of them another five or so levels before I'd return one last time.

I also ended up getting some further upgrades. One of my characters ended up finding an obsidian weapon. Another is some obsidian armor. These would end up helping with a little luck on spells landing in pulling off a win.

I ended up marching into the Dragon Cavern one last time and killing the Dragon Lord. This time around I ended up saving some mana on my paladin so when things were going quite bad, mana was low on the rest of my characters. He could use divine intervention to fully restore the group even those that were dead. It however aged him by ten years. As such I try not to use the spell unless it’s quite needed.

I did not even check to see how much experience I had before killing it. I can only assume it was some insane amount as I leveled up the characters after this. I did end up getting 250k gold,1k gems, and some items from the kill. Along with access to two piles of gold for 1 million each and some Power Orbs.

Final Thoughts

While that dragon ended up being quite the challenge. There would end up being another dungeon coming soon enough. That would require many divine interventions to be used. Lots of characters getting killed. Along with some insane loot to be found.

At the very least after many attempts. I overcame the Dragon Lord. He sure felt like one of the harder bosses in the game. It's a shame the dungeon didn't respawn in this game. I’d love to have a rematch after getting a few more levels in the future to see the kind of progress my characters have made.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Might And Magic III.