For those who know me well enough. You know I don’t like druids in video games. So, it should come as no shock that when someone in the party needed to die it was the druid. He did not just die once, twice, or even four times. I ended up losing track.

With a dungeon name like the Cathedral of Carnage, I certainly had expectations of the place. What I was not expecting was a multi-part puzzle needing to be solved to get my grubby hands on some loot.

The place itself had quite a lot of gargoyles. They would sometimes paralyze one of my casters as well. This rather points out the importance of paying attention to the facial expressions of the party members.

If you are wondering why the druid on the far right has such a dopy face it’s because he’s in love and did not get cured of it. Before this dungeon run, I had just wrapped up the side quests of Princess Trueberry and Icarus. Since those quests were just me running back and forth between a couple of areas on the map. There is nothing else to say about them. Other than the druid is now stuck in love with the princess who has now fled. I at least picked up a few million experience points so such an easy thing was worth going out and doing.

Now back to the dungeon at hand. While this place offered a couple of spells to be learned. The big reward was getting another Ultimate Power Orb. The moment my eyes locked into it I rushed over to pick it up. Only to discover it was behind some kind of force shield. I ended up finding out I needed to solve The Lock, The Key, and The Cup puzzles.

Some of them were not a challenge at all. While others took me a few attempts to find a working solution. At least the one I struggled with the most ended up being rather close to the Power Orb itself. So I got to just keep running back and forth since there was no indicator it was right without doing so.

I ended up coming across a bunch of crystal heads. These heads could be rotated in four directions north, east, west, and south. There were a few of them as well. I had no idea the order I needed on this one.

The next room over had a bunch of crystals that I had to break down the wall to get to. When I'd go to interact with these crystals they would have a letter on them. I needed to spell out moose.

I’m not going to say how many attempts at that puzzle it took. Other than a few my characters might need new shoes. As I had them running all over the place. From the room you could move the heads in different directions, the room with the letters that would show up, and the reward room.

For the next puzzle, I just had to input a word. It was mostly spelled out on the other side of the wall that had the letters that kept changing on me. There was just a letter missing in one spot where you had to break through to go deeper into the other part of the dungeon.

I then got down to the cup portion of the puzzle. I found a room with a bunch of cups in it. I decided to have my druid drink from one first. Let’s just say I'm sure he no longer wants to have anything to do with future adventures of mine.

The cups were not very kind to him. They would do things like kill him or turn him to stone. Thankfully between my cleric and paladin. We had the spells needed to bring him back from the dead or cure him with stone to flesh spell.

I almost feel bad for my inventory mule. Then again, he should be happy I kept him alive for this dungeon. I don’t know how many times I just leave him dead since I'm just using him for bag space.

I had high hopes I was now done with the place. I however noticed there was still more dungeon to explore. On top of that, I still could not take the Power Orbs. The crystal head next to them wanted a password.

So I fully cleared out the remaining of the dungeon. That is when I realized the last remaining section of the dungeon had some strangely placed walls. That to me is a clue to open up my map and take a look. Sure, enough you can see JVC III. Only the first part was needed to lower the shields around the Power Orbs and claim them for me.

Next up I went for the Halls of Insanity. How disappointed I was in the name of the Cathedral of Carnage. I was just expecting this place to make me crazy one way or another. Without much expectation for anything else.

This dungeon ended up having quite a few small dragons in them. As you can see the druid died at the sure sight of seeing so many dragons in one room. I would only bring him back to life to take some hits off my other characters. My long-term deep hatred towards druids in video games (some of you know about this.) Was more than filled between these two dungeons of satisfaction.

I was also right. There would be things like evil eyes in this dungeon that would make everyone in my party insane. Once in a while, I'd use Lloyd’s Beacon and Town Portal. That way I could quickly go back and forth for cures and selling loot. Then getting back into the dungeon quickly. This is perhaps one of the spell combos I love getting my hands on in any Might and Magic game that I can. It’s such a time saver.

In quite a few of these dungeons, there would be something worth having other than the usual orbs or gold. Most times that was in the form of getting some boosts to stats or resistance.

For this dungeon, I discovered there was a trainer in here. He sold for a small sum of 100k gold per character. All skills. That is right all 18 skills. While I had many of these. Others I've yet to see and have no clue what they even do.

As for the rest of the dungeon went. It ended up being broken down into a bunch of different branches. In each of these branches, you had to get past a lighting trap with a jump.

There were also quite a few chests that were just empty. You would go near them and get teleported back out to the middle. At first, I thought there was a hidden teleport pad to keep you from getting to the loot. That ended up being the case for two Power Orbs I found here. It was however easy to get around just using jump.

Final Thoughts

These two dungeons ended up feeling like some major ones. Perhaps not the way I was expecting them to be. I did manage to pick up a few more Power Orbs. It seems like soon I must be getting to the total amount I need to bring to one of the kings in the castles. What happens after that other than a hint of some kind of war. Is beyond my knowledge. I can only hope it’s something exciting!

Also, RIP to the druid yet again. One of these days I might just level him up a bit and give me a couple of better pieces of gear since it’s mostly just vendor fodder for more gold at this point. Then again giving him some better gear would also reduce how much inventory space he has to be my loot mule.

Information

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