Upon returning to Melmond after killing the Vampire that was terrorizing town, we were expecting to return to parades, cheers, or at least a pat on the back... but the townsfolk seemed like they didn't even notice!

I begin going around town to see what's up, but it turns out that they won't be safe until the Earth Orb is procured out of the depths of the Earth cave. One elderly citizen tells us that there is a sage to the west (always west), but the way is blogged by a large ogre who desires the ruby we just won.

Well heck, we were planning on selling that, or at least putting it into some nice jewelry or something. Whatever, we head west and give the ruby to the ogre. We hand him the ruby and he eats it! Seriously, that was the main loot we got from killing the Vampire! But alas, he does let us through and we are able to meet up with the sage who gives us a rod and tells us to return to the Earth cave and use the rod to open the metal plate that we had noticed earlier.

After a quick stop back in town to visit the Inn, we head back to the Earth cave and swat away bats as we return to the Vampire's den. We use the rod to open the plate that was blocking it. We push through two more levels of winding pathways to make our room to the orb room!

Seeing the orb, we rush in to grab it to be done with this wretched gave only to have a Lich appear before our eyes, cackling at us for our foolishness in thinking we could take it! The joke is on him as we vanquish this evil spirit in a couple of quick turns. Before you know it, the Earth orb is in our hands, and we step through a teleport that takes us out of the cave.

Now, surely, the townspeople of Melmond will rejoice! We return, showing off our conquest of the orb, and no one seems to even care. That's okay; we will forgive them. They have gone through some difficult times, and I am sure the shock is still in full force.

Even if Melmondians do not recognize our victory, we exit Melmond in happiness for this good deed we have done for this town, assured that they will now be able to rebuild. We jump on our ship and head west once more. We find a port on a tiny peninsula with nothing but forest nearby, so we dock and begin to explore, finding a town in the middle of a lake shaped like a crescent.

We enter and go to the Inn, as one does, and then have a look around. There are not actually a ton of folks in this town, but they are very supportive! But we do find a path behind the magic shops that leads me to a circle of twelve wizened sages. We talk to each of them, and they are all doomsayers.

They tell us of dangers in the world, like the volcano to the west, a cave of ice nearby, and a castle in the north. But they also offered us a canoe, allowing us to travel along rivers and lakes. It feels backward if I'm going to be honest. You'd think we'd get canoes before an entire ship, but we are thankful to the old man and get on our way.

This brings us to a decision about where to go first. I am concerned about the ice cave because it has monsters that periodically kill adventurers willy-nilly. We can't do the volcano until the ice cave, so that's out.

We decide to head towards the ice cave anyway. We have been doing well against everything we fight lately, so we feel pretty confident. We travel down the maze of rivers, fighting hydras along the way. Our confidence remains high. We are taking some damage but dispatching the beasts quickly.

We enter the ice cave, and before even getting to the second floor, we run into a Mage. I can not begin to tell you how concerned with this I was! Luckily, it was just a single mage, and while it got off an attack, it was not able to rub one of our heroes away. It died quickly, and we ran out of the cave just as quickly!

After a brief trip to the Inn, the choice was clear, we would head to the Castle of Ordeals!

Now, as an aside... As I write this, I am further in the game than where I am writing, and further, I've played this game a dozen times over. And I sit here and say, I have no idea why I made this trip. I got almost nothing from it, realizing what I realize now... the tail that you get at the end has zero purpose for a black belt run. There is zero reason to get the advanced class of Master; you don't do it. Typically, the tail is to advance the class... but I wasn't ever doing that. So I don't know why I did it, but I did!

With the aside aside, we travel north between two peninsulas, past a desert, and finally find a castle surrounded by a marsh. We travel around the coast until we find a river, park our ship, get into a canoe, and instantly exit the canoe and travel south to the castle.

This castle is a large puzzle where you touch columns that teleport you to a different section of the castle with a choice of new columns. One takes you forward, and one takes you back. It's very easy to spend a lot of time here if you accidentally hit one you didn't intend or forget which one you were supposed to take.

As we progress through the puzzle, we mostly stay away from the chests because there is little left we need at this point. We can't use more money, armor, or weapons, so why bother? This castle, however, contains many magical items that cast spells for you, which can be quite helpful to a class with no spell ability. So we took some advice from friends who had been here and stopped for two specific items. The Zeus Gauntlet, which will cast lightning on all our enemies in a fight. And a Healing Staff, which will cast Heal on the entire party. Both of these items could be useful to us in our future journey.

Once the puzzle has been completed, we find ourselves face to face with a Zombie Dragon. This is an excellent fight for us. It's not too bad, but it clearly was set here by Astos at one point because it keeps appearing when we cross the threshold of the chest. So we fight it a few times just for practice in case we find similar creatures in the future. We grab the tail, and then we leave the castle.

I guess one thing that we did get out of this excursion, besides the two items, was experience, as we were able to gain a few levels out of the deal. And this was a far more entertaining method to do it than had we stayed around town and gained levels there.

Today's XP totals are:

Runecrafting: 1; Aurum: 1; Dominus: 1; Glyphus: 1; Iteron: 1; Dracorius: 1