Phantasie: Temple of the evil Dosnebian clerics

Having passed the trials of Zeus and been granted the boon of courage, the castle of Nikademus is the logical next step and presumably the final dungeon, but one other dungeon - which by process of elimination, I must assume to be the Dosnebian Temple, remains unvisited. And I feel I owe it to the game - and to my completionist tendencies - to delve into it.

Previously, I could not enter.

 

An anonymous commenter said I would need a specific "monster" party member at some point, and I'm pretty sure this is it.

Two approaches presented. I could roll myself a bunch of minotaur fighters, train them up a bit, and take them to the three magic fountains to boost their stats before selecting the best one. Or, I could roll a throwaway minotaur character and just wing it.

Given that you can't actually select "minotaur" as a race for a new character - you just pick "random creature" and hope it gets selected, and that my party had been pretty overpowered thus so far, I went with the latter option.

It took me 23 tries to get any minotaur at all - I immediately discarded the 22 others - and I had him join, replacing Lenny. I trained him a little bit - a single combat in this area got him to level four, and another three to level six. Level seven is reached in one more brief session, but this is as far as I bothered.

Evdomos, technically leading this party, was indeed judged worthy.

 

The gate issued a challenge:

 

One of the scrolls in Lord Wood's castle had the password - and a clue on what to do later.

Just past the gate

I soon encountered a side chapel with an "enormous statue" and a prompt to deface it, which I disregarded. Another had a "black knight," another "wall paintings," another a set of ten small, trapped caskets lining the walls, one of which had a golden key.

Evdomos, though worthy to enter, was not especially valuable in combat.

 

The only slightly troublesome combats in the main temple area were spirits - invulnerable to axes and blades, but destroyed with strong magic. I fought enough that I had to gulp some magic potions.

Emerging from the casket room, the preceding chapel had a "small" minotaur statue, which I opted to deface as per the scroll's instructions.

 

Further inward, past a door unlocked by the golden key, I fought my first ever titan. It shrugged off the majority of my hits, and dealt out nasty magic spells, but succumbed to my own magic.

I kept exploring.

Dining room: I ruin a dinner party for orcs, kobolds, and great trolls.

A jail with three cells. Two are unpickable.

Finally - Lord Wood!

The second cell magically opens after freeing Wood.

The third cell opens next, and I rescue my first damsel in distress.

Now the jail is completely flooded with water.

The kitchen: Even a temple of elemental evil needs one.

North of the kitchen was the display room, where I found the last two rings of power in a jewelry case. After taking them, guards attacked!

This was the toughest fight yet - wizards in the second row can perform massively damaging spells, making me wish I had Lenny available to help thin them out with a few well-placed lunge attacks. Alas, I had to cut my way through the rank of warriors in front of them first, though Dennis was able to backstab one in the meantime.

We survived, but needed several potions to recover from that one.

True to the damsel in distress's word, a secret passage was found in here, leading outside.

But I went back and kept exploring. I had to fight few more guards leaving the cell, including a titan, but nothing we couldn't handle.

During this time, I had the opportunity to try out "summon elemental" - to do this, you must first "add" an elemental of choice to your party from the guild, and found it to be rather impressive. I had picked a fire elemental, and for the cost of only 4MP, you summon a spellcaster with 20MP of his own. And while there doesn't seem to be a way to query the spells available, Quadruple Fireflash is one of those available to the fire elemental. On top of that, it has 100 MP, and tends to get hit by melee instead of Minmax.

The big downside - the fire elemental must be re-summoned in subsequent fights, and whatever MP it spent doesn't come back. The only way you can get it back is by returning to town, saving, and restarting the computer!

 

Priests' chambers: A "great deal of gold" is found in a chest here.

But only a great deal of annoying debuff-casters are found here.

Orcs and great trolls lurk at the end of a long, winding side-passage.

Sounding the temple gong brings predictable results.

Southeast tunnels: What the crap is that?

Magic armor is found at the end of the waste tunnels.

I left, reasonably satisfied that I'd seen everything here or close to it, and trekked back to town.

The spoils, in addition to far more gold than my already overfull bank accounts could hold, included:

• The last two magic rings
• One new scroll
• Ring mail +2
• Leather armor +2
• Enough experience to level Evdomos three times, to level 10
  

The scroll:

My party:

• Mystic-rated party score of 79 - "You are ready to visit the gods."
• Air rune, earth rune, fire rune, water rune, and god rune
  
• Nine rings of power
• Lenny - Level 13 dwarf fighter
• Needs 257,000xp to level
• 220 HP, 5 MP
  
• 22/10/20 combat stats (God knife, plate mail, god shield)
• Slash can hit up to four times per round without magic buffs
  
• Knows one spell - Monster Evaluation.
  
• Lambert - Level 12 dwarf ranger
• Needs 290,000xp to level
• 169 HP, 18MP
• 19/9/18 combat stats (Halberd +4, banded mail, giant shield +2)
  
• Useful spells include Quadruple Healing and Awaken
  
• Claude - Level 13 human priest
• Needs 167,000xp to level
• 154 HP, 20 MP
• 19/8/16 combat stats (Sword +10, splint mail, giant shield)
  
• Useful spells include Quadruple Healing, Quadruple Fireflash, Quadruple Confusion, Triple flamebolt, and Awaken.
• Untested spells include Triple Protection, Triple Weakness, Quadruple Binding, Teleportation, and Resurrection.
  
• Rasputin - Level 12 halfling monk
• Needs 236,000xp to level
• 144 HP, 13 MP
  
• 19/7/13 combat stats (Sword +10, ring mail +2, large shield +1)
  
• Useful spells include Quadruple Fireflash, Double Ninja, and Transportation
  
• One untested spell - summon elemental
• Dennis - Level 14 sprite thief
• Needs 296,000xp to level
• 138 HP, 8 MP
• 18/7/12 combat stats (Halberd +3, ring mail +2, large shield)
  
• Generally excellent thieving skills, with a so far 100% success rate at lockpicking and trap disarmament
  
• Age 33, which is starting to push it for an exotic race.
  
• Minmax - Level 12 elf wizard
• Needs 50,000xp to level
• 92 HP, 17 MP
• 8/5/4 combat stats (Flail +1, Leather +2, small shield)
  
• Useful spells include Quadruple Fireflash, Triple Quickness, Quadruple Mindblast, Triple Flamebolt, Double Ninja, Summon Elemental, Awaken, and Transportation.
• Untested spells include Triple Strength, and Fear.