well, ive made it to the lower level of the dragon's eye and there are these "friendly" people there. well, after getting all i can via the "public" rooms, now i find myself with no progression. which doors should i knock/pick in order to get closer to the heartstone gem?

well you can open any locked doors and it will get you into a large fight, if you have trouble, one of the doors has a group of NPC heros behind it, stay near them and it should be rather easy

The easier way to accomplish this is as soon as you see the priest next to those double doors attack him and fight until no more priests are coming after you its a really easy fight. After that locate the high summoner in the bottom right corner of that area and work your way up from there thats what i did and i didnt need to rest at all.But do whichever is easier for you.

Once again big_brother you have forced me to correct you. The monks are actually quite dangerous as they can summon some nasty monsters. You should just attack them with some long range spells and not get your short range fighters involved. I easily killed them a few at a time with this tactic. If you don't have good spells then use some long range weapons. If you don't have either of those, you are completely screwed!!!! Make sure that you have a balanced party, this is merely one of the times when they come in handy!!!!!

[This message has been edited by The Fat Egg (edited July 24, 2000).]

This level is actualy really easy if you plan it right. Rest up and don't open any doors until you are ready, then go confront Albion (The first guy you meet) at the front. You get extra experience from exposing him as a fraud. If you wait for the monks to come, you can bottleneck them in the halls and slaughter them easily. When all the monks are dead quickly go kill the High Summoner or he will send billions of Trolls your way.

ya that last way is the way i did it.... more EXP. i stayed in that first room and cast entangle and web spells, then laid into the priests (and any trolls or lizardmen) w/ long ranged weapons. The key is to take out the High Summoner ASAP. I released the captive adventures in the north/western room before going to the High Summoner... they helped me quite a bit, did most of the work for me.

It's not that easy because when you first get there you're not ready to open any doors!!! You should just kill the guy and get it over with!!!!

i talked to the 1st Priest you meet, then went around to all the 'pubilc rooms', did everything i could, rested, bought spells and sold what i could. i did take note of the locked doors so i Quick Saved then picked one of the locked doors( the one @ the bottom of the map). I then got waylaid and after getting my butt kicked i relaized that there had to be a better way to go about this. So i went back to talk to the 1st priest you meet. As for having the captive adventures help me , that was pure chance. that was the 1st room i went to after the battle in the 1st room.

I opened the door with the adventurers behind simply because it was the only one that didn't have someone standing directly in front of it. If you want their help, get the hell out of the way once the dialog ends so they can get out -- they were clearing out rooms I wasn't even in yet, although they do save the bid baddies (and the big experience) for you. And the heartless among you may want to try and kill them for the cool magical weapons they have -- me, I couldn't do that to them.

i tried picking all their pockets but 'they had nothing of value' on them.... i might have to take them out next time through to see what goodies they have on them.

thanks for the help guys, ill be sure to take all your advice when i play it today

No point in leaving people with magic weapons alive. Just wait until you no longer nead those NPC's to rest up, and then go and massacre them. They are easy compared to the next floor down. Why miss a chance to get a glowing magical sword and a nice Mage Dagger. Does anybody know if it is worthwhile not to kill them because they show up latter in the game?

For myself, I wandered around a bit and my mage noticed one of the rugs was odd. Then when my Paladin talked to the Priest at the door, she revealed him for what he really was.

I had a ***** of a time finding the High Summoner and I never found the NPCs until I had cleared the entire place out. Go figure but I left them as they were. No need in killing them for we need all the adventurers we can find these days and they deserved them as much as I did, except they earned it.

Sylvus