Dark Messiah of Might and Magic - Walkthrough - Chapter 5

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic - Walkthrough - Chapter 5
This post discusses skills in the Dark Messiah of Might and Magic single player campaign -- PC version, regular edition, HARD Difficulty.
For an index of all our hints and walkthroughs for this game, click here.

Chapter 5 - The Temple of the Spider - +16 Skill Points

Part 1 - Temple Exterior - +2 Skill Points

• Outside the temple, on the left side as you approach the temple there is a building that is inaccessible from the outside, but with a chest inside. When you drop into the hole to unlock the portcullis, there is another chamber where you can shoot a Rope Arrow to climb up into the inaccessible building.

Part 2 - Temple Interior and Pao-Kai - +3 Skill Points

The crushing wall trap can be triggered by a Goblin if they wander into it first (e.g., fleeing from you once you've hurt it enough). It triggers only once, so afterwards you can safely go through.

You can attract the Pao-Kai's attention by shooting at it with your bow. You can then duck under the portcullis, but if you are not close enough to the portcullis for the Pao-Kai to bite you, it may continue to hover outside and spit lightning instead of sticking its neck under the portcullis.

• In the room with many statues, use Telekinesis to put the one on the floor back onto its pedestal to reveal a cached in the ground.
• In the room where Xana first talks about not wanting to be under the statue when it falls, there is a supported wall column. Cut loose the supports and it falls across the room to form a ramp. Go up the ramp to find a chest and a lever to open a portcullis to access another area with a locked chest. The key to this chest is in the Spider Lair, on a dead orc at an underground stream.

Part 3 - Spider Lair - +1 Skill Point

Leanna tells you to explore a tunnel she reveals under the floor. If you proceed slowly, the rockfalls will finish ahead of you and expose a web-filled area. If you moved too quickly, you would have fallen in. Now, you can instead run and jump over, barely making it but able to climb up over the other side of the webbed area, completely bypassing the spider lair. You need to run far enough that you're on the piece of floor angled downward. If you jump before that, you will hit your head on the ceiling and fall straight down midway.
At this end, there is a hole in the wall which enters the same area. If you explore from this direction and don't go too close to the initial collapsed-floor area, you won't be swarmed by spiders, which are triggered by the Quest Autosave point near the collapsed-floor area.

Spiders are low on the ground, so swings need to be aimed low or you need a standing power attack, which cuts down all the way to the ground. Kicking them is also fairly good but takes stamina and you are often swarmed.
Their poison can only reduce your Health to 5. If it is 5 or less, you are not affected but the spider attacks can easily kill you at that low amount of health. Antidotes stop the health loss but does not recover any Health.

• Secret Area - From the exit, head back in. Look for branches that mark the first right turn. Go in that passage and look for a tunnel up with branches overhead. Use a rope arrow to access the tunnel that has no webbing and a dead orc.
• Stream - Look for an area with very little to no webbing. There is a drop that leads to a stream with a dead orc and a key. The key unlocks the chest with a dead man and a note on it. When you get to the cyclops encounter later, that same room has a portcullis that opens the portcullis that blocked your way across the ravine earlier. Travel back to the chest that way.
• In the room with the exit from the spider lair and the tower, the wall opposite the spider's lair exit has a ledge. Use your rope bow to climb to it.
• At the highest reachable area in the tower is an alcove with a chest and the Endless Quiver.
• Past the tower is a small lake. Dive down to reach a chest. Except the Berry Juice, the items inside will float to the surface.
• Past the lake, you will go by a hole in the wall opening out to the ravine. Look up and use your Rope Bow on the wooden beam. Climb up to grab a potion. You can alternatively continue on your way and you will come out on the other side of the bars in that alcove. Use Telekinesis to grab the potion from that position. There should be two potions here, but sometimes one (or possibly both) will fall into the ravine.

Part 4 - Goblin Camp and Cyclops - +1 Skill Point, +2 for defeating the Cyclops

The safest but probably most tedious way to kill the cyclops is with a bow -- shoot the face (not just the head), the only place it can be damaged. It will take a long time to weaken the Cyclops until it drops to its knees (or, if you've built up enough Adrenaline, one shot to the face should bring it to its knees). At that point it's head is more or less motionless. Shoot the eye to kill it.
If you insist on using magic, you can do the same with Flame Arrow.
Either way, it is safe to stand near the chest outside the room, or at the stone bridge across the room (use the nearby lever to raise the portcullis). Another sniping location is in the upstairs gallery -- From where you exit this level to the Orc Cliff Apartments, if you go the other way you will emerge upstairs in a short corridor with windows. There is a convenient fireplace nearby to ignite your arrows as well. This location is easier to shoot from because you can target the scalp of the Cyclops, which is also vulnerable.
If you want to melee it, wait for it to bend down with its two-handed crushing attack and block, then strike at the face. Be careful as the Cyclops can grab and throw you for 20 Health (if you are not wearing armor).
There are two rooms with coloured pools (red for Health, blue for Mana) to heal yourself.

• The doors with spider locks here can be unlocked with a Spider Key from Aratrok (found much later on Aratrok).
• There is a room with suspicious nozzles on the wall, and raised tiles. Avoid the tiles to avoid the trap. That same room has a hole in the wall leading to the neighbouring room.
• Near the room with the dismembered goblin and empty chest, there is an empty pedestal. The statue is at the far end of the hall. Use telekinesis to replace it to open a cache in the floor.
• In the same corridor where you replaced the statue, one end has some sand and debris. Look up to where you can use your Rope Bow to drop a line and climb up.

Part 4 - Orc Cliff Apartments - +2 Skill Points

• Up the initial flight of stairs to where there are stacks of barrels on platforms, there is a boarded-up area nearby. Kick through to find a non-functional elevator and a battering ram. Use the battering ram to enter a Secret Area.
• Look up the elevator shaft to see a cocooned body and a crack in the wall. When going up the elevator later, go into this Secret Area.
• At the top of the second tower, if you look up there is a branch. Climb up with a rope from your Rope Bow.
• Between the two towers is a rope bridge. The wall on the right has a narrow walkway. At one end is a Magic Mushroom. At the other end, use your Rope Bow to get out. Souldrinker is in the water in the second tower.

Part 5 - Aratrok - +3 Skill Points for placing the Shantiri Crystal and activating the Temple, +2 Skill Points for Defeating Aratrok.

Aratrok is very easily handled with Combat 3 -- Block with your shield (stops all damage), and Leaping Attack. Keep doing this until he is dead. You will probably want to hotkey a second shield in case your first one breaks, since blocking with a weapon does not wholly stop damage. Interestingly, a Leaping Attack with a Naga Silksword can fling Aratrok across the room to be smashed and killed against the far wall -- in one stroke. If he is flung by the force of the attack into one of the other orcs, they all attack.
The Bow of Winter's Breath (requires Archery 2) is also a good alternative. Once he's frozen, you can run to put some distance -- hopefully enough that you can freeze him again before he can engage you. Remeber that there is a long cooldown with the freezing effect of the Bow of Winter's Breath.
He cannot be Charmed but his allies in the room can. The others will probably kill your charmed orc before he can be useful, and there is a long cooldown on Charm.
Inferno is very hard to use as you can't see where anything is once it's on, and the mana drain is enormous. In any case, on Hard we tried it and it didn't kill anyone after burning through 110 Mana.

• Hut with unstable floor - This is the one where you drop down to the main floor from the upper floor. There is an ominous creaking and cracking. If you proceed toward the chest and Plate Armor, you will start varying degrees of collapse. Instead, plant a series of Ropes to the ceiling and go from rope to rope to grab the treasure.
• Hut with passage to the Elevator Controls - There is a Superior Naga Silksword embedded in the window near the severed orc arm.
• Elevator Controls - The other path leads to a smithy where you can forge either another Long Sword or an Earthfire Sword with the Flamegold Bar from Menelag's ship. The Earthfire Sword does bonus damage against creatures vulnerable to fire, but it can still set other creatures alight occasionally, which will typically eventually kill them unless they are in water, in which case there is a chance the flames will go out. Some creatures are still dangerous while burning.
• Once up the elevator to the chamber where you put the Shantiri Crystal, there is a path leading to an apartment. Outside the window of that apartment is a rope leading to another apartment.
• The Spider Key from Aratrok opens other doors in the Goblin encampment upper floors.

Chapter 6 - The Altar of the Skull - +8 Skill Points

In this level there are two types of opponents, both incredibly dangerous in hand to hand combat -- Ghouls and Zombies. Endurance and armor is nice, but having a bit of extra mana to be able to cast Sanctuary is a better safeguard as extra Health is easily brought down by Zombie poison spit, which you can rarely see coming (just keep your distance).
In both cases, look up for rafters or walkways from which you can snipe. Zombies cannot climb or spit up, and if you are patient you can take them down with a bow. Once you have a safe sniping position, you can basically attack with a bow until you get Adrenaline then auto-kill a creature.

In general, zombies have to be burned (e.g., fire spell or Earthfire Sword), Impaled (knocked down and impaled with a weapon, or lured to walk into a spike trap), attacked with a weapon under Adrenaline, or decapitated (for this, a neck or face shot seems to work better than a head shot).
The Block-Leaping Attack is good against Ghouls, but they are still difficult to deal with. Both Ghouls and Zombies can push you back quite a distance with their attacks.
I recommend that after Strength 2 (or Critical Hit 2, whichever route you went for superior weapons), you get Sanctuary and Magic Affinity 1 to comfortably cast it and still have Mana left over for a Heal spell. Magic Affinity 1 lets you use a Wizard Robe for an additional +10 Mana and Armor Class 1.
After Sanctuary, focus on Endurance. You will probably have enough points for Endurance 1, but you may wish to use the Wizard Robe for the +10 Mana instead of the Chainmail (+2 Armor Class). Endurance really comes into its own later when you get a lot more Health.

• Large, fat green jars contain a potion.
• Any rafters or upper platforms generally have a few items. Try to get up there as they make safe sniping platforms against zombies.

Part 1 - Entrance

• In the chamber with the giant stone spider, there is an angled beam. Jump on it (this can take many tries as you typically overshoot and hop off the other side of the beam -- as soon as you're up, crouch to immediately stop your forward momentum) and walk up to the upper platform circling the walls of this room. There is a SoulDrinker.
• If you use Telekinesis to grab the Moonsilk Crystal, you can then see faintly on the ground a Fire Trap in front of the sarcophagus.

Part 2 - Crypt 1 - Maiden's Eye - +1 Skill Points

• Two of the square wall plates can be broken.
• At the entrance to the chamber with the Maiden's Eye, the pillar in front has a chest on its upper platform.
• In the crypt opened by the lever in the room with the Sword of the DragonClaw, there is a chest on top of the pillar of stacked stones. To get up onto the wooden beams, use Rope Arrow on the beam, drop down on the ledge formed by one of the slabs that form the pillar, then climb up. This is also a very good sniping position against the zombies.
• In the room with the tomb of Darius Paperus, use Telekinesis to replace the fallen statue. This moves the wall of coffins aside.

Part 3 - Crypt 2 - Soul of the Crone - +1 Skill Points

To kill the Lich, use a bow on the zombies until you get Adrenaline, then headshot the lich. All the summoned zombies will also die. The lich has Freeze and Lightning spells.

Part 4 - Crypt 3 - Matron's Heart - +1 Skill Points

• The heart is at the bottom of this area, in an open sarcophagus.
• There is an open sarcophagus on a platform approximately to the left of where the bridge is broken.
• There is a chest on the rafters.
• Secret Area - On the bridge, there is a wide stair that goes down two flights onto a landing with a voodoo doll. After the first flight, turn right at the landing and jump down, then turn around to see an urn and a bow.

Part 5 - Altar of the Skull - +2 Skill Points for opening the Altar Room, +3 Skill Points for recovering the Skull