I had been saving energy disks for quite some time. I had no idea how many I'd need but it was time to start cashing them in and see how far I could get in Castle Kalindra. It was time for most of the castle to be out of phase.

I’m rather glad I ended up having two characters that could cast Lloyd’s Beacon. As I'd have one set up with wherever my current progress in Castle Kalindra was. The second one would be set up on the floor with Ellinger in his tower.

I decided I'd just turn the energy disks in batches. That way I felt I would not be unlocking too much at once if that would somehow be an issue. It however would not be.

For the most part, Castle Kalindra was like most castles. There however would end up being some higher-level trainers and a blacksmith up on a top floor that I'd unlock after a while.

Once I entered on the first floor. I mostly encountered people who kept telling me over and over again how they had been trapped in this out-of-phase castle for quite some time now. How they were out of food.

I don’t want to know what they have been doing for food. I did end up finding a cooking area where a cook told me they were eating organs from a creature they were caught within the castle. That was more than I ever needed to know and I felt you needed to know that as well!

The castle itself ended up having four floors. One of them was a dungeon I'd be unlocking after a couple of energy disk turn-ins. For the moment I just had access to the first floor.

The only thing strange was this floor ended up having some safes in it. The strange part of it was my robber already knew what the combos were. The rest of the floors with safes on them would end up not being the case.

Once I had the first floor cleared. I ended up using Lloyd’s Beacon and going back to Ellinger and doing my next set of energy disk turn-ins. That unlocked the second floor for me.

On the second floor, I ended up finding some further NPCS to talk with. One of them was in quite a poor state. Another one wanted me to find the lost Queen. It almost seemed like a lost cause. I had no clue what they were expecting from me until I was given a key to the Lost Soul dungeon.

Like a few dungeons, this place had a statute that gave me an overall hint about the place. Despite it being called lost souls I was told to remain positive. As I would explore the dungeon and go further deeper into it. I would get asked some questions and if the answer was not in a positive manner that would be considered the wrong answer to such questions.

This place had quite a few minotaur and gorgon. The gorgon was quite an issue. As they would cast every so often flesh to stone. This not only knocked a character out but turned them to stone. So even cashing stone to flesh to cure them they would still be out requiring healing to be useful again in a fight.

On more than one occasion. Both my casters that could cure any party member that got hit by the gorgon’s spell would get turned into stone. I would then have to teleport out to a town and get healing. Then head back. At least it was easy to get back to this dungeon.

This place was also filled with puzzles, teleport traps, and mazes. It would however be quite a rewarding one as well. If I could find my way through it and not get discouraged by having to make yet another town run to cure.

On the first floor, I just had to turn all the hourglasses I found over. Simply enough. Clearing out the minotaur was the hardest part. This was also just the first floor.

The second floor got a little more interesting. It was kind of set up more like a little maze with a middle path to backtrack to. I had to explore around it looking for levers to pull to and dials to set to the correct number to unlock the next floor.

Things were not going that bad till I made it to the fourth floor. There would end up being quite a few levers to pull. They all had some kind of effect on teleport traps. They would end up moving me from one tile to the next down a hallway if I did not have it set up right.

After a couple of attempts. I ended up lucking out. I stepped forward right before where the way to the door was. I was half expedited to go another wild trip of getting teleported down to the other end of the hallway. I however only got moved one tile. I used to jump and make it to the next floor.

The last floor of the dungeon was kind of strange. There were lots of cages with birds in them. Most of them disappeared when I touched one. Then I found myself the songbird I was sent to get in here. After that any further bird cages I found ended up giving quite a lot of stat boots quite a few times over. I ended up making out on stat increase like a bandit in here.

There were also some rooms so filled with gorgon I just stood no chance. I even attempted to pull just one or two out at a time. With some bad luck both my healing casters would get turned to stone or even killed.

After a couple of attempts, I headed back to Castle Kalindra. I was sent to that dungeon to get the Songbird and I did. I will hopefully return one day to clear out the last remaining gorgon rooms I had left behind as they were some quite amazing experiences per kill. I just could not put up with that place any further.

My rewarded for all that was given the combinations to unlock the set of safes on the second floor. They all ended up containing energy disks. While I had more than enough to unlock the next phase level of the castle before getting these. It was nice to have another set. I then went back to Ellinger to unlock the next section and decided just to spend all the energy disks left.

I however was not going back to the castle right away. My next task was to rescue the queen. I was told what dungeon she was being kept in. I was also told of someone who could help me get into that dungeon.

Things are however not as easy as one would hope. I ended up finding this Ambrose person. They however were not going to just give me any key. They had a task for me to head into town and have a griffin saddle enchanted.

After doing so. So still would not give me a key. I just decided to head over to the next location anyway. I’m kind of glad I did. It turns out Ambrose would just fly us into the castle dungeon. The griffin ended up being the key to getting into the place.

I now found myself in the Blackfang castle. While this ended up being another four-floor castle. It was a lot smaller than I was expecting it to be. It was mostly filled with vampires that I could kill in two shots.

The first floor was split into two different sections. I would not be able to get into the second section till I made it to the second floor and went through a series of traps. While I could tank the damage. I ended up just using a jump spell to avoid most of the traps. I

Then would have to go down to the first floor. Where I had another weaving tunnel of traps, I had tried to jump over most of them. At this point, I was getting a bit sloppy. I ended up just face-tanking a few of them after getting my timing of where I expect the traps to be on the floor off.

The second and third floors also had massive space in the middle. I ended up getting through the walls to find myself falling from the clouds to the ground below. This along with some massive hallways made this dungeon quite quick to run.

All of this was done to lead me back down into the basement of the castle. Where the queen was. She had been turned into a vampire and unwilling to leave. She told me to report back her situation. In return, she gave me the combo to her safe on the third floor that had her crown in it.

I ended up removing the Lloyd's beacon I had for Ellinger and setting it right next to the queen. So, I could just teleport between two castles to get her crown and give it to her. That was all she needed to recover and return to Castle Kalindra.

Final Thoughts

Castle Kalindra was an exhausting one. I’m kind of glad I waited before using the energy disks, however. It was rather nice to get as much of Castle Kalindra done as I did in a single session.

I then spent quite some time leveling up all my characters and upgrading gear from what I had looted. This is also when I ran out of gold. I saved just a little bit for repairs.

I was not able to level up all my characters as I had hoped. It is quite crazy how many levels I've gained so far on the dark side. I’m sure it won’t be long either before all my characters can be level 60. I just lack the gold for that for now.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Might And Magic IV And V World of Xeen.