Solving our demonic daddy issues.
QUEST LOG #20: DARK MESSIAH OF MIGHT AND MAGIC (PART 2)
If you missed part one, click below. And as with last time - all sorts of spoilers ahead.
As we emerge from the darkness, we finally spot blue skies. Unfortunately, we’re not alone, and we’re facing Orcs again as we navigate the precarious walkways and their cliffside encampments. Without Leanna healing us, this bit is a little tougher, but there are long falls, and we have telekinesis. Time to lob some barrels at some edge standers. We find another cave entrance and there are a bunch of logs hanging from the ceiling. As we’ve got our telekinesis skill ready, we swing it back and break through into another secret area, picking up the lightning daggers and a bunch of potions. Here we become particularly lazy, and suck everything towards us with magic. Moving on after that, and we find an elevator shaft. The damn thing is broken however, so we need to find a way to fix it. We continue our ascent and kick off a load more orcs before crossing a bridge and moving inside the mountain complex once more. Before we do that, an Orc jumps out of the dark entrance and scares the shit out of us. We retreat hastily, but it cuts the ropes to the bridge, and we fall to our death… Reload! This time they’re already out on the ledge shooting us as we emerge, and the bridge falls quickly. We kill the Orcs from afar and take a small pathway around the rockface to reach the other side. We then have a long climb up a winding staircase which takes us to the next zone.
We find more orcs here, and it’s quite treacherous to fight on the narrow wooden walkways. Much screaming of falling orcs can be heard as we fight dirty here. Once it’s cleared, we have to find our way around a blocked door. This leads us to more fucking spiders – the most irritating enemy in the game. Time to pull our flame finger out and spam some mana potions. Luckily, this area is shorter than the spider den in the temple, so we end up outside before long, climbing around the rickety old wooden huts that hang from the cliff. Eventually we come to the locked room and find the last of Menelag’s men, all dead. Xena suggests that perhaps they broke the lift to keep the Orcs out, either way, we’ve got to get it working again. Inside the caverns we find another forge and the mechanism to operate the lift. We get it working and finally get the last two skill points we need to equip the superior naga silksword and the elven bow. After that, we’ve got to make our way back down to the lift entrance. Just above the doorway is an alcove within which is stashed a winters breath bow and another endless quiver. We already have the latter, but the former is a nice addition. We wait for the elevator to return, and jump on it, taking it to the top of the structure.
Xana gives us a little more lore as we ride to the top, and shares our disgust for the spiders that greet us as we step off the lift - we’ve certainly had quite enough of them. A quick jaunt outside nets us another secret area and some supplies, and after that we head further inside the temple again and we finally reach our destination. We place the crystal on the… thing, and it all lights up. Good job us. As we turn to leave a bunch of Orcs file in through the door along with Aratok, the Chief. He challenges us to a duel, and if we win, we may go freely. Unfortunately, in comparison to him, we suck. Many deaths occur. Best way is to chug a load of health potions, which I temporarily forgot existed in the first few attempts. Fortunately, we have lots to spare, and after we decapitate the Chief, we get a few skill points and spend a couple getting disarm and the ability to use a shield. After that, we use the spider key to open the way forward. This allows us to return to Leanna in the main chamber, and on our way, Xana suggest we’ll see our father. As always, she’s very cryptic however, so we cast aside her words and hurry on our way.
We emerge in the main chamber to find it lit up like Christmas, and Leanna is there, still safe and sound, although the corpse of the Pao-Kai is gone, which is strange. Anyway, Leanna opens the way for us to escape, but some ghouls come crawling in. We kill them while Leanna lifts the gate, but unfortunately it gets stuck halfway. As we move through, Arantir appears. He kills Leanna and warns us that he’ll get us next. The gate saves us, but we must leave Leanna’s corpse behind… No burial for her, what a shame. Our escape path leads deeper into the temple and down into the crypts below. There we find a spider statue sitting in a large chamber, but, surprise surprise, it’s beyond a locked gate. We must delve underneath it to move on, killing ghouls on our way. After clearing the room, we discover that we are required to find an assortment of gems in order to proceed. We found one already below the statue, but there are three more. Time to get cracking. We pop the one we found beneath the statue in a slot on its body and this opens the way forward for us. Again, this game is doing Tomb Raider – and it’s great! The first room has us using the environment to break down a wall and to kill some more ghouls. Some of Arantir’s onw ghouls show up too, but we’re well versed in killing now, so they’re no issue. We continue deeper into the chamber to find the second gem then and we find a new weapon called the sword of the dragon claw on the way. We can’t use it yet (we need 28 skill points before we can), but it’s very powerful. Sareth says he feels uneasy about touching it though, and Xana says it was used by the very same knights who killed our father. We’ll keep it for later, if we get enough points. For now, we carry on. Ghouls get a bit overwhelming here, so we have to keep on our toes. We come to yet another chamber then and upon opening a sarcophagus, curiosity has us climb inside and once there, the floor breaks away. This has us fall into a deep pit, only surviving for the water breaking our fall. Another creepy dark zone. Oh, I miss the fresh air of the Orc infested cliffs.
We move through the waterlogged catacombs and emerge in another large chamber, Xana says she has a bad feeling, so that can’t be good. We approach the beam of light, and a sarcophagus emerges from the wall along with some ominous whispering. A lich floats out of the sarcophagus a moment later and starts banging on about us being a defiler, or something. Either way, we slice him up a bunch and before his hoard of ghouls can attack and he’s double dead. A far more successful fight than our altercation with the orc chief. This gets us the next stone, and we’re on our way again. A door opens up behind the tomb and we climb on out of there - let’s not return. More ghouls greet us as we climb up, and our sword has his fun. After clearing the pathways, we jump down into a pit, catching a hanging chain as we do. Below us is the last gem we need, and upon picking it up we hurry back to the spider statue. We place the gems in the slots, and as we do, we have a vision of Xana and she starts banging on about the skull again and our merging… or whatever. After that, the statue turns and starts shooting out beams of light into the opposite wall. Another door opens then and we proceed.
Moving into the next chamber, we find yet another statue. This time it’s of the spider queen. Unfortunately, as you’d expect, more spiders spawn then, and they drain us quite successfully of our health and resources. Many potions get used here. Should have levelled up our skills beforehand as we’ve accumulated quite a few. This bout earns us the skull however, but before picking it up and as we recover, we spend the points on the first rank of strength and endurance. After that, we pick the skull up and we get another vision, this time of dead mages, of dead Leanna, and of Phenrig acting strange. After a moment, as the visions continue, Xana climbs over us. As she does, a demonic voice speaks of the seventh dragon banishing their kind. We see an armoured figure float up behind Xana then and he speaks to us about vengeance, and their centuries long wait for us. We discover that this being is our father, and that we’re the herald of fire and blood. Dad tells us that we can use Xana as we see fit, and that we need to break him free of his prison using the Skull of Shadows. Quite a lot for poor Sareth to reckon with, and as we retrieve the skull in the next scene, Arantir takes it from us… all that work! He also calls us a bastard before tossing us onto a spike, killing us. Starting to dislike him.
Anyway, death, it seems, it not the end, and Xana wakes us up again, and it turns out that she has revived us. In doing so, our connection is stronger, and we’ve unlocked a new power which allows us to take Xana’s form. This will drain our health though, so a restrained use is recommended. Unfortunately, all our weapons are gone, so we don’t have much choice. Onwards and upwards from the discarded corpse pit – this time in demon form. Our first kill? Some Orcs. We can’t even steal their weapons, as apparently the Orc’s taking our backpack means we can’t even hold a sword… Oh well. We find our backpack before long, and with it we regain our magical abilities too. Moving through the tunnels, we overhear that the Orc’s are out for blood since we killed their leader, so we have a bit of a run in with them. As we explore, we find another forge and this time we try smithing our flamegold ingot. This yields us an earthfire sword, which is +6 damage and +12 against enemies vulnerable to fire. We need to keep saving our skill points however, needing rank 2 in strength to use it. Story of our life, eh? We eventually reach another cavern, and this one is vast, and houses a cyclops… We loose a bundle of swinging logs into the beast and ram our sword into it’s eye. Lots of gushing blood and a big dead lump. As we move through the gate that leads out, Xana says she’s had enough of Orcish tunnels, and so have we. Let’s get out of here.
We climb out of a long shaft with the help of our Rope Bow, and at the top we find little bit of loot. Always good. What isn’t good is that this path leads us into ANOTHER next of spiders. Luckily, we’ve got a stash of scrolls to bolster our magical ability, and as we fight our way forward, we emerge at the top of the cyclops’ cavern. This in turn leads us to the next level, and we climb out of the cave into another vast space, this one with a far-reaching structure on the opposite side of the crevasse. Working our way around the cliffs we find some goblins, but these guys are beneath us now and a few arrows deal with them nicely. As we explore, we find a cell with an Orc in it named Urog. He asks us to free him… we do, and he attack us. Should have known. We kill him, explore a little more, and eventually find a way out of the chamber, finding the lightning and earthfire shields amongst the loot as we go. We’re led back to the crevasse and through another tunnel to the next level. We emerge once again into the vast cavern, and it seems we’re close to reaching the outside world. Just a few jumps from sunlight. As we begin to leap our way across the ruins, a giant worm thing rears up from the depths… just when we thought we were in the clear. Even Xana seems worried. I guess we run and hide? We jump over the chasm ala the Fellowship in the mines of Moria and make it to relative safety, the poison breath of the worm hot on our heels. We dart in and out of alcoves and caves as the beast tries to eat us, losing lots of health on the way. There are plenty of potions to be found along the way though, so it’s just a matter of keeping up a pace. This leads us to falling into another deep shaft, but there’s water at the bottom again so all is ok. We take a moment then to catch our breath and invest some points in strength 2. Onwards to the next zone.
We scramble through the tunnels to find yet another vast chamber. This time our old friends the face huggers are back, but with the earthfire sword equipped, we are ready to deal with them. We find more spiders, of course, and a lone goblin trying to fend them off. We deal with the whole group with a few fireball scrolls and get on our merry way. We find a lever after some searching and it fills the chamber with water. As we leap onto the wooden platform and float on up, we’re attacked by more of the face hugger things. The water stops rising eventually and as we reach the top, we see a wonderful sight – sunlight. Almost there… again… ish. We return to the chasm with the worm and jump onto a rickety contraption that allows us to cross the space. Here we find more Orcs, but as with the Goblins, they are relatively easy prey now that we have the upgraded sword. Moving through the complex, we come to another Tomb Raider-esque trap, but instead of a boulder, it’s a big barrel. Avoiding being crushed, we continue up the stairs. On our way we find a new (not yet useable) weapon called the souldrinker, which heals us upon attacking. Come on strength 3! After that we come to another set of cave tunnels, and at the end of it we see a shaft of sunlight and birds flying out. ALMOST THERE! A little bit more running and exploring, and we finally get to breathe fresh air. We’re not out yet though, more ropes are needed for us to reach the beach below.
As we reach the shore, we find Duncan waiting for us with a boat. Praise be. Xana warns us not to reveal our demon side in front of him, or any of our allies – probably for the best. Anyway, we set sail for the ship and explain the situation to Duncan, who is rather sad about the loss of Leanna. We swear to kill Arantir, and Duncan swears to follow us to Stonehelm. Great. Unfortunately, in the very next scene, we’re back underground. The sun was nice while it lasted. Time to hunt some Necromancers. We move through the familiar tunnels beneath the city and come to the chamber where we first found Arantir and his portal. There are a few guards to deal with here, and no prisoners to aid us. Once the guards are dead, we can move through the portal unhindered though. Just before going in ourselves, we chuck a couple of barrels at the wibbly wobbly bit and they disappear… not sure if that counts as a safety check, but it’ll have to do.
We materialise in the Necromancer lair, known as the House of Ashes, and find several enemies awaiting us. We strike them down with our flaming sword and get to exploring. The level design here is grand, much like many of the locations within the game, and it reminds me of the Sith Enclave in Star Wars Galaxies, if you ever played that game. Long dark and winding corridors make up this fortress and around every corner lurks a dark wizard or armoured soldier, and the atmosphere is tense. Eventually we navigate our way to the library where we meet many foes. Making our way down the levels we stab and kick until all is quiet again, picking up a nice new vampire knight shield as we go. Not great, but nice to have. After that we kill everyone in the training room and find a black orb in a room beyond, this is the key we need to access the rest of the complex. We retrace our step then and go through the last door we’ve not checked that leads to the Northern Quarters. Looking at the sign it says Arantir’s Room, which is good, but also Spider Lair, which is bad…
Entering the door, we come to a workshop or lab of sorts and a whole bunch of wizards. They summon their ghouls and heal each other, but they are no match for a pepping of arrows. Amongst the blood and equipment, we find writhing remains of bodies hung on walls, apparently being drained of their fluids. You can hit them with your sword, but they do little in response. In the opposite chamber we find cells with ghoulish prisoners in, and we decide then to move on, as it’s all a bit creepy there. As we come to the next area, known as the Pit, we do indeed find a pit, but we also hear a familiar voice – Leanna! She’s being pushed towards a ledge above us and we watch as she falls into the depths below… we look down to see many webs and something move. Is she dead again? Do we have to spend time with spiders to find out? I’m not sure we want to… We follow the corridors up to the Prayer room and find a LOAD of wizards. We kill them in quick order though, no match for the flame sword. We find an elevator then, and after taking it down some ways we emerge near the pit again and we hear Leanna shouting for help. She is still alive then… we get the optional quest of rescuing her and I suppose we should… Before that though, we enter Arntir’s room and after swiping his loot, we take his journal. There we discover that he plans of summoning Death’s Avatar or something and that in doing so he’ll kill thousands of citizens of Stonehelm. Sareth gets cross about this, naturally, and we’re to return to the portal. But first, we better help Leanna in this pit of spiders. I expect it’s going to be horrible.
Yes, horrible. The moment we step off the elevator we’re accosted by a ton of spiders. Luckily our earthflame sword is exactly the right tool for the job here, as spiders are vulnerable to fire. Let’s get cooking! After killing them, we move to the main room and find the giant spider crawling down from the ceiling. Disgusting thing. We have a couple of points saved up for the last strength level, but it’s probably time to invest in poison resistance, so after picking that skill up, we go to town shooting the big spider from afar and killing the little ones with the sword as they approach. That plan worked very well, and after a dozen or so shots the monstrous thing dies, and we get a few skill points back. We find Leanna in short order after that ,and she’s doing an excellent impression of Frodo in Shelob’s cave, and although she’s doing a good job, she doesn’t look very happy about it, so we release her and hurry out of the pit as quick as we can. We can all agree we’ve had enough of spiders now. We carve our way through the remaining soldiers and wizards, eventually returning to the portal room, struggling to keep Leanna alive as we do. When we reach the portal, Leanna says she’s staying behind to seal it again after we go, and suggests we cleanse ourselves of the demonic aura she can sense on us. We’ll see, I’m quite happy being partially demon if I’m honest, and as you can imagine, Xana disapproves of the suggestion too.
As we move through the portal, we get our next two skill points and dump them in melee combat, giving us break parry, leaping attack, and whirlwind. Not sure how useful the latter two will be, but the first means spamming regular attacks is a more viable option, and spam we do. After that, we need to make our way back to the city through the Sewers, and as this part of the world is familiar to us, we know exactly where to go. When we reach the end, we find a citizen of Stonehelm cowering by a ladder, warning us not to go up for fear of being killed by Ghouls. Can’t be good. We climb out anyway, because sitting in a sewer with this bloke sounds just as bad. As we rear our head, we we find the city ablaze and under attack. Duncan has survived the battle so far though, yay! Another NPC to try and keep alive.
Several attempts at this and, well… we didn’t know him all that well, did we? He dies and it seems that can’t be helped. It probably can, but we also suffer death a bunch of times as well, so we opt for shooting our rope bow into an overhanging beam and we climb to safety. We’re part demon so we shouldn’t feel too bad about the sacrifice. We climb through one of the buildings and drop down onto the street below again, bumping into another city guard. He dies quick too, and we use the old rope trick to continue safely. They should teach this trick to the guards… We must return to the ground eventually, however, as we find the safehouse that Duncan’s cousin Percy is hiding in, and he’ll only open up once we’ve killed all the Ghouls. After making the street safe he finally lets us in – hurrah. He says that he’ll lead us to the Necropolis if we can either kill or find a way around an undead cyclops that is hanging about nearby. Can do. We also find a bow of fiery rage in the room, which is a marked upgrade from our elven one. +7 damage and +14 to those vulnerable to fire. Excellent stuff. We also get some skill points, which means we’re only 4 away from level 3 strength.
We hurry to the courtyard and find the Cyclops toying with a bunch of villagers. We’ve beaten these guys before, so we go in sword a-swinging. A few hits gets the beast to lower its head and with a strong strike, we shove our sword into its eye. The thing keels over and Percy suddenly emerges to lead us on. We also get 3 more skill points here, just 1 to go! We move onto the next area and find a broken bridge. We take the first leap and make it over, but as Percy tries it collapses and he has to find another way around. We’re on our own again then, but at least we don’t have to babysit. We find a few more stragglers defending the city and join them in combat against another wave of ghouls. A couple of them survive too, amazingly. Perhaps they are improving. As we go, we hear Xana mention the stink of dragon magic, and we have the chance here to visit the temple to cleanse ourselves of our demonic taint. We don’t want to do that this time around, but we have a nose about just to see what’s what. We find a set of shadowsteel armour there and we have to kill a few more ghouls before the Delan allows us to enter. As we approach the water, Xana gets very cross indeed, with objects flying, fire, and lighting all about us. If we proceed with the cleansing, we are gifted three magical weapons, but it depends if we want that.
In this instance, I quite enjoy the company, and we depart from the temple without cleansing ourselves. As we leave, Xana seems very relieved, as she should be. Onwards we go, killing more ghouls, and finding the master thief’s outfit along with another lightning shield. We open the door to return to the street and find a zombie-like citizen trying to attack us. Easy kill, but troubling. Lots more of these bastards are shambling about, and all are eager to poison us. Burning them seems appropriate. We reunite with Percy a moment later, and he continues his duties as tour guide. This part of the game really has a sprawling feel, and gives the city a labyrinthine quality, which is only intensified by the ruins and flames that surround us. As we proceed, Percy tells us that we have to raise the water level in the canal and once we have, he’ll open the gate for us to enter the sewers that lead to the exterior of the necropolis. Once we’re through, we find a staircase leading up, and as we climb the steps we use our newly awarded skill points to unlock strength 3, and with it, the sword of dragonclaw. We do this, but despite having the required skills, neither Sareth or Xana seem willing to equip it, and it seems the weapon is only useable if you are sans-Xana, so we roll back and pour our points into endurance 2 instead, allowing us to use plate armour.
Upon leaving, we emerge to find another Pao-Kai flying about. We cannot catch a break, it seems. We whip out our fire bow and unleash may arrows. This works surprisingly well, and with a little magical healing, we smite the beast against the city walls, and it hangs there in burning defeat. We also get more skill points for this. As we explore after, we find a ballista – that would have made things easier. Never mind! Our next task is to find a way to open the huge gates to the necropolis, and we need to find some mechanism to do so. After finding the crank, we mosey on through the door and meet up with our chum Leanna. Unfortunately she can tell we’ve kept Xana inside us, and she decided it’s best to have us killed. We don’t want that however, so we’re forced to defend ourselves. We kill Leanna, and as we do, Xana provides a running commentary of approval. RIP. Once she’s dead, and we move through the portcullis, and take a moment to spend the next set of points we’ve accumulated. We pick up endurance 3, and equip our shadowsteel armour, giving us +4 armour and +10 health, not to shabby. After that, it’s down into the necropolis.
Upon entering, we are given another treat by the level designers, as this place looks exactly how you’d imagine a necropolis to look. As we near the edge to soak in the grim view, we hear a ghostly plea from the soul of Ishtvan, a son of one of Stonehelm’s ancient kings. Arantir has forced his undead father to stand in our way, but if we release this guy’s body into the abyss, he’ll have a word on our behalf. This is optional but will make things a little easier in the future I suppose. We start exploring then, continually awed by the environment. We need to be careful not to fall off the edge here or succumb to the ghouls which dig themselves out of the ground or Arantir’s forces that patrol the platforms. Dark Vision is invaluable here, as it’s a little too dark in parts. We kill a few necromancers and find one of the pins holding Ishtvan’s body, releasing the first of two chains. We continue exploring then, finding more of Arantir’s forces, ghouls, and another bloody Cyclops. Unfortunately, in our explorations we fail to release the second pin, so Ishtvan will remain hanging… fuck it. Eventually we come to a room with four Lichs. Xana thinks Arantir is low on forces to have so few standing against us, and she’s right, they are easy pickings.
A vast door opens before us as we defeat them, and in proper horror movie style, it closes behind us as we enter. The next opens almost immediately then and we are greeted with a large set of stairs that lead down further into the depths of the necropolis. The stairs are littered with enemies, but they prove insignificant. Our next foe may not go down so easily, however. We reach Arantir’s chamber next, and we see him far below standing before a large portal. Xana bids us retrieve the skull and shows confidence in our ability to defeat Arantir. We’re not so sure just yet. We do have a bow with an endless quiver though, so we get into a good position and fill Arantir with arrows from afar. Eventually he goes a bit glowy and starts chatting away before summoning a skeletal Pao-Kai. We’ve beaten these things plenty of times now, and after peppering it with arrows too, it fades away. We turn our attention to Arantir again and get a few good hits before he summons the beast once more. We keep attacking in this cycle until Arantir eventually succumbs to the damage. Once he’s down, we hear the words of our father echoing around us. Now the skull is ours, and it’s our choice whether to free or imprison our father. Xana reckons we don’t need him, and she’s probably right. After we place the skull back on the pedestal, we get a cutscene of our father, who looks only marginally legally distinct from Sauron. He attempts to kill Xana, but Sarath uses the skull against him, sending a beam of light up from the depths of the necropolis and into the skies above Stonehelm. This also is only marginally distinct from the Minas Morgul beacon… Looks cool though, and after that, old dad threatens us in a vague way, and the next thing we know the credits are rolling. Quite an abrupt ending, and oddly the credits scroll across the screen without any fanfare, or music, or anything, just silence for those involved in the game. A little bit strange, but hey-ho.
All in all, Dark Messiah is a triumph for the time it was released. It’s a bit wonky, a little unoriginal in some places, and some parts are irritating. That said, the story is quite compelling in and of itself, the level design is fantastic, it’s visually beautiful, and most of all, the depth of mechanics and wide selection of skills, spells, and equipment, along with the physics and interactivity of the environment make this game incredibly fun. The choices in the narrative and the limited supply of skill points in any one run allow for a considerable amount of replayablity too. I don’t know how broad the audience of this game was upon release, but it seems it received a rather mix bag of review scores. I can see both sides to this, but as I said at the beginning – fun isn’t to be sniffed at. You can clearly see the seed of bigger and better things here, and in just a few short years the developers grew into a wonderful fruit bearing tree - that fruit being the Dishonoured series. You might be asking why not skip to the main event? Why not bin this off as one of Arkane’s rough drafts and just play Dishonoured 1 and 2 instead? It’s true that Dark Messiah has a rather generic lore, and such a loose connection to the Might and Magic series that you may as well forget it’s called that (although the of might and magic bit does play a vital role in the game), but as a standalone title, Dark Messiah really does deliver a fantastic single player experience. It’s a curiosity, and a fun one as that. See for yourself, if you can get it running. Can you see the through line that eventually leads into Arkane’s future titles?
So, there we go, this game shipped with a multiplayer component, but I’m yet to investigate that. Private servers do exist, but for me, the single player experience was more than enough. There is also a fertile modding scene for the game, with some adding features such as new game plus, or additional equipment and tweaks. You can also find slight variations in this game with the console port, although it seems the PC version is definitive. If you’re a fan of Arcane’s later works, or any of the games built in the Source engine, like Half Life 2, but prefer a sword and sorcery setting, I urge you to pick this up and give it a go. It’s available on PC and Xbox, and it’s very cheap to boot. If you’re on the fence, I’d say it’s definitely worth a punt, even just to fly around the beautiful levels with noclip enabled. If you do decide to play it, make sure to check out the PCGamingWiki and the Steam forums for tips – once it’s running, it plays like a dream.
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