New era.

Yes, a staff would be helpful; I don't remember if it was on the map this time, but it definitely was in the first playthrough. I cleared the Temple once, just like I only visited the Sea once. I completed Utopia on auto-battle, and I was amazed by the troops there: phoenixes, black dragons, emerald dragons, and others, all in groups of 70! But the artifacts I got weren't worth losing almost all my troops. I was exploring with Freya, and Arantir was running around taking care of the garrisons. Regarding vampirism, I meant controlling the hero, not seducing a demoness. It applies a control effect for 5 turns, and the vampire couldn't apply it to him (it can't even be selected as a target). And the seduction lasts for fewer turns; I'll hit my own militia of 2 units once, it's not a big deal. And I couldn't block the passage there because every turn, some kind of wall falls, and they still come through. Especially the cerberuses under berserk, they really annoyed me. Yes, I'll probably go check where the staff is; if I can't find it, I'll go to Utopia, but I'll do it turn by turn, because if I don't cheat, I might not have enough time from the last save, but I'll try.

In my battle, the seductress cast control on the paladins, and I blocked their path from the gate and "sent" them against the archers. Normal control is removed by vampirism. Here, you can try arranging the units in different ways; the random element will work differently. Another question: how many times have you cleared Utopia and the Water Temple? There's a pretty good chance that Sar-Issa's staff will drop there, which will solve all the problems with enemy magic resistance. Still, it's not a replacement for a good weapon artifact. Or maybe the staff is somewhere on the map, and I didn't notice it.

Well, I managed it! I went to Utopia, and the missing gnome gear dropped, and I accepted the battle. This time, the troops were arranged more favorably, and I passed without losses (only a few horses and 6 militia units), it took me about 5 attempts. I want to ask right away: is this how it's supposed to work, or is it a bug? The buffs from the gnome armor disappear as soon as the demon shuffles the troops. I mean, Stone Skin and Dodge. Kan turned out to be the easiest boss; overall, I could have used only horses, but I decided to use everyone. Only the horses survived. On the day Kan appeared, a message appeared saying that elementals had appeared near the Temple and were guarding something valuable. I didn't find any elementals after that message, but I went to that Temple, and there I found the Tome of Darkness and Sar-Issa's staff (or whatever it's called). So, I put it on and equipped the gnome set. I'm ready for Sigrif now; I'm still thinking about whether to invest in Darkness, because there are no Darkness spells at all. In the Elf Castle, there's nothing from Darkness at all; I only got Berserk in the Temple of Mages. The library only has Blind, the rest are Chaos magic and Resurrection. I already have all the Chaos spells. I'm level 28, I just need to farm one more stack, and then I'll be level 29. There are 400 black dragons there, so I guess it's clear why I didn't kill them. They guard the arena and gold. I don't really want to give up Education and Defense, nor do I want to give up Sorcery and Chaos for obvious reasons. Well, and Luck boosts Chaos, and I already have 44 Sorcery. I only have 375 mana, so I'm afraid that if I don't defeat the demons quickly, there will be nothing left of Chaos. Oh, and the vampire dropped in Utopia on the second try, so I'll have to get rid of Education and buff the dragons with vampirism.