3 restarts, and that's where we decided to call it.
111 - Kalh brought along not very many Gogs, right in front of the castle there's a mini and pre-mini Griffin Conservatory (both with GS), and an external dwelling of Devils beneath a horde of Assassins, Kassia is sitting in the tavern. Decided to play Kassia, scouted the directions - to one village there's a block of Assassin hordes, to the other the road goes off into the distance.
112 - took the zombie horde with Kassia, Kassia takes the land. Investigated what was around, gathered resources. The road to the second village still goes off into the distance.
113-114 - ran around leveling Kassia while building Efreets. Kassia flat out refuses to level either Earth or Attack, Tactics is everything... ended up with Advanced Earth, Advanced Attack, Expert Tactics. Slow is nowhere to be seen, the road to the village still goes off into the distance, but it's already been bolted.
115 - took the Griffin Conservatory, found Slow, they're bringing it. Plus a few more stats.
116 - took the external Devil dwelling, searching for Mercury (no market). The Assassins got feisty and gnawed on all the Devils and Nymphs.
117 - Mercury not found... chains are a bit crooked, but at least there will be a full sweep from the Castle.
121-122 - taking another 3 Griffin Conservatories (2 pre-mini, one pre-max), Vampire dwelling (Cape +2), I set up to break through the DG - the DG has upgraded Hive Serpents - was afraid to go at them earlier, plus the chains weren't coming together well.
123 - I emerge into the DG (8 Angels and single Devils scattered), however I have no mana (and didn't have much to begin with, Kassia isn't very smart, only 2 Knowledge points and there was no time to replenish, so I left exactly 5 mana for the serpents). I hit a Pandora's Box with 49 Scorpicores, they didn't rough me up too badly, the terrain helped a bit - in the Pandora there are Green Dragons, behind it is a Workshop - didn't go, didn't have movement points, set up to break through the next Pandora with a full army. That's when the frying pan of oil and 25 Defense landed on me - GG.

It turned out to be a very tedious game. Giant respawns and Inferno's lean armies really burned the timer. Everything was positioned at serious distances from each other, so chains of 7-8 heroes were normal. The taverns helped a bit.