New era.

Yes, a staff would be useful; 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 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 sailing with Frida, and Arantir was running around capturing garrisons.
Regarding vampirism, I meant controlling the hero, not seducing a demoness. It applies a 5-turn control, and the vampire couldn't cast it on him (it can't even be selected as a target). And 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 some kind of wall falls every turn, 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.

Added 19 hours 52 minutes ago

Well, I managed it! I went to Utopia, got the missing dwarf gear, and 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 immediately want to ask, is this how it's supposed to work, or is it a bug, that the buffs from the dwarf armor disappear as soon as the demon rearranges 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 a Tome of Darkness and the staff of Sar-Sarai or whatever it's called. So I put it on and equipped the dwarf set. That's it, I'm getting ready for Sigrif. I'm still thinking about whether to invest in Darkness or not, because there are no Darkness spells at all. There's nothing from Darkness in the Elf castle, I only got Berserk in the Temple of Mages. The library only has Blind, the rest are Chaos and Resurrection spells. I already have all the Chaos spells. I'm level 28, I just need to farm one more stack, 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, though, so I have a feeling that if I don't defeat the demons quickly, there won't be anything 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 the vampire.