Stage 11: Statuette & Obelisk Quests + the Dragonsand Cache
Approx. level 26-32 Sweet Water Dragonsand Paradise Valley Hermit's Isle New Sorpigal Free Haven Silver Cove Eel Infested Waters Castle Ironfist Mire of the Damned Blackshire
By now you should be roughly level 26-32 with master Fly, Town Portal and Lloyd's Beacon driving your logistics. This is the great "loose ends" stage: you finish Twillen's five-statuette quest, click every one of the fifteen obelisks scattered across Enroth, and use the assembled riddle to crack the heavily-trapped Dragonsand cache for a massive gold and artifact windfall.
The main-quest payoff is Gharik's Forge on the blackened island north of New Sorpigal: the Gharik's Lab key you pulled from the Silver Helm Outpost finally opens it, and the Hourglass of Time inside completes Lord Newton's last council quest. Most of the work here is flying region to region, so keep Fly and Water Walk handy and don't fly so high your spell lapses over the ocean.
Fly north from New Sorpigal town to the volcano, drop into Mount Sorpigal's crater for two horseshoes and obelisk #15, then fly east to the blackened island and enter Gharik's Forge. This dungeon is more annoying than truly hard: warlocks cast Insanity on your party almost every turn, and there is little you can do to prevent it, so push through deliberately and rest only in cleared rooms.
The opening fireball room holds Fire Elementals - spiral around its outer edge a couple of times until a door leads you out. In the next fire room, open the hidden door on the right and flip the switch inside to extend a bridge, then flip the switch at the end of the hall to open the wall. Push through to the round room for your first taste of the magic-users (Sorcerers and Magicians are manageable; Warlocks are the threat), grab the chest, then head east through the big fire room - kill the Fire Elementals with ice and arrows. The lever-puzzle room follows: hit the levers in the right order to swing the bridge to the top-right and open a treasure room back in the hallway. Cross the bridge, clear the crystal/warlock room (trapped chest), kill three more casters in the next room, then find the secret door in the square room (two chests on the west wall). Go east, drop the elevator, and use the Gharik's Lab key from the Silver Helm Outpost.
The lab is the hard part - warlocks, magicians and fire monsters packed together. Push west, take the spiral ramp up and through the door, cross another fire room, kill the sorcerer in the hall, then wipe the four warlocks in the final room and open the chest for the Hourglass of Time plus a generous pile of loot; search the bookcase for spell books before you leave. The long lava path has treasures at its end, but the Fire Elementals there are thick and it is usually not worth the grind. Town Portal straight to Mist when done.
Show spoiler — Gharik's Forge lever order (solution)
Gharik's Forge lever order (solution)
The big lever room has four ledges on top and four on the bottom, each with a lever. To open the top-right door and swing the bridge there, throw them in this order: Top northwest, Bottom northeast, Bottom southeast, Bottom northwest, Top northeast. The final switch also opens a treasure room back in the previous hallway.
Town Portal to Mist and walk straight into Lord Newton's castle to hand over the Hourglass of Time. This closes out his council quest - one of the six the High Council demands before they will hear you. With Newton satisfied, the only council business left is the final approval at Castle Temper and, ultimately, exposing the traitor (handled in a later stage).
Twillen in Blackshire gave you a chest of five statuettes that must be set on pedestals in Bootleg Bay, Mire of the Damned, Kreigspire, Dragonsand and Sweet Water. If you followed the earlier tour you have already placed three (Bootleg Bay's north island, Mire, Kreigspire); this stage finishes the last two.
From Blackshire, exit the northwest corner into Sweet Water and fly north and a little west to an oblong lake - touch obelisk #1 on the lake's west side (there is a trapped chest full of gold across the water), then fly to the northeast corner and west along the northern border to find the Sweet Water pedestal and place the fourth statuette. Town Portal to New Sorpigal, take the rooftop warp to Dragonsand (set turn-based first), and fly southwest to the small village; the final pedestal sits by the water there. With all five placed, warp back to Blackshire and open the reward chest outside the large house in the eastern part of town - it holds random items, and the quest itself pays a large experience bonus.
The Obelisk Quest - click all 15
Nobody assigns the obelisk quest; you have to recognize it. Each of the fifteen regions has exactly one obelisk - a small tower covered in nonsense letters that mean nothing alone. Click all fifteen screens and the game assembles them into a riddle pointing at a great treasure. Reading the answer here does you no good: you must physically touch all fifteen for the cache to activate.
If you have been touching them as you traveled, you likely have Sweet Water (#1), Kreigspire (#4), Frozen Highlands (#7, behind Castle Stromgard), Bootleg Bay (#11), Misty Islands (#14, at the end of the transporter island chain) and New Sorpigal (#15, in Mount Sorpigal's crater). Sweep up the remainder with Fly and beacons:
- Silver Cove - north island, just west of the inn (gargoyles around it).
- Eel Infested Waters - small southwestern island guarded by Water monsters and Agar's Creations (Fly out from the southern isles).
- Free Haven - due south of the Tomb of Ethric the Mad, over the mountain.
- Blackshire - far east in the sand area, surrounded by lizards.
- Paradise Valley - northeast over the mountains, guarded by Hydras.
- Hermit's Isle - on a desert oasis in the northeast (the Fountain of Youth sits right beside it - drink if you have any unnatural aging, and set a beacon while you are safe).
- Castle Ironfist - step on the western portal to reach an arena-like mountain bowl full of weak enemies; the obelisk is in the middle.
- Mire of the Damned - the top-middle mountain maze; Fly straight to it down the eastern side of the peaks.
- Dragonsand - northeast against the wall, surrounded by dragons (touch this last; you are about to crack the cache here anyway).
Crack the Dragonsand cache
With all fifteen obelisks clicked, the assembled riddle points you to Dragonsand's northern border. Fly west along the top edge of the map, dodging Wyrm and dragon shots, until you reach a patch of sand strewn with small rocks around one big rock in the middle. That big rock is the cache, and it is heavily trapped.
Open it the safe way: stand well back and use Telekinesis to spring the trap and pull the loot, so the minimum number of dragons and wyrms can reach you at once. The chest hands over 250,000 gold automatically, the spell books Divine Intervention (the ultimate Light spell) and Dark Containment (the ultimate Dark spell), and the artifacts Igraine, Morgan and Guinevere. This is one of the biggest single power spikes in the game.
Show spoiler — The obelisk riddle (solution)
The obelisk riddle (solution)
Read the fifteen obelisk messages vertically down the columns and they spell:
"In the land of the dragon to north by far northeast, lies the cache of the captain 'neath the weight of the least. Hid for the Ship of the Sun before her functions ceased, lift the stone and you have won; this riddle's puzzle pieced."
"Land of the dragon" is Dragonsand; the cache is the big rock near the northern border described above.
The Dragonsand cache is the headline power-leveling stop of the mid-late game: 250,000 gold in a single click, plus three artifacts and the two ultimate spell books, all reachable as soon as you can Fly the desert and cast Telekinesis. There is no level gate - if your Telekinesis reaches the rock from a safe distance, you can grab it the moment all fifteen obelisks are lit.
On the original release the chest re-paid 250,000 gold every time it was reopened (an infinite-gold bug). If you are playing the GrayFace patch that loop is closed - see the patch note below - so treat the haul as a one-time windfall.
The GrayFace patch corrects several dungeon chest and artifact bugs (Warlord's Fortress, Agar's Laboratory and the like): artifacts no longer spawn in inaccessible chests, and chest-duplication glitches are fixed. In practice this means the Dragonsand cache's repeat-the-250k-gold trick no longer works - any old guide that tells you to reopen it for more gold is describing unpatched behavior.
⚙ Patch note: several dungeon chest/artifact bugs are fixed (e.g., Warlord's Fortress, Agar's Laboratory). Artifacts no longer generate in inaccessible chests, and chest-duplication glitches are corrected — if an old guide tells you to dupe items here, that no longer works on the patch.
While you are touring for obelisks you will pass several fountains - the Fountain of Youth beside the Hermit's Isle obelisk, and Dragonsand's risky permanent-buff fountains (two of which eradicate the drinker). The GrayFace patch fixes the old fountain exploits: you can no longer drink repeatedly by deactivating party members, and the Blackshire/Kriegspire fountains no longer share a single 'used' flag. Each fountain now behaves as intended - one use per buff period.
⚙ Patch note: fountain bugs are fixed — you can no longer drink repeatedly by deactivating party members, and the Blackshire/Kriegspire fountains no longer wrongly share a single 'used' flag. Each fountain now works as intended (one use per buff period).
The obelisk sweep drops you into two of Enroth's master-trainer regions. Eel Infested Waters has the Master Light Magic trainer (Ki Lo Nee) in the back of the inn on the southwestern island - not the island with Castle Alamos - but it requires Saintly reputation, which you may not hold yet, so this is often a stage-12 errand once exposing the traitor pushes your status to Saintly. Paradise Valley holds Master Ancient Weapons and Master Dark Magic (Dark needs Notorious reputation and an Armageddon-nuked town first). Note both for the return trips rather than detouring for them now.
Almost everything outdoors this stage is high-tier and exists mainly to keep you from standing still. The obelisk and statuette stops are touch-and-go: you do not need to clear these maps, so fly in, click, and leave. The one fight you cannot avoid is Gharik's Forge, where the Warlocks (400 HP, Insanity nearly every turn) are the whole problem - prioritize them, and lean on ice and arrows for the fire-immune Fire Elementals.
In the open desert and valleys, mind the elemental immunities: Dragonsand's lizards and dragons are each immune to a specific element (Fire Lizards and Red Dragons are fire-immune, Lightning Lizards are lightning-immune, Thunder Lizards and Blue Dragons are cold-immune), Wyrms are poison-immune, and Gold Dragons are magic-immune and can one-hit a character. Paradise Valley and Hermit's Isle Titans are electricity- and magic-immune and can one-shot you. None of that is worth grinding for the loot when your goal is a single obelisk click - use Fly height and Telekinesis to stay out of reach.
✅ Clear
- Gharik's Forge Warlocks/Magicians/Sorcerers (Elec-immune casters; Warlocks spam Insanity) - mandatory for the Hourglass of Time and good XP
- Gharik's Forge Fire Elementals (Fire-immune) - kill with ice spells and arrows; they block the path
- Castle Ironfist obelisk arena - weak filler enemies, safe XP while grabbing that obelisk
⏭ Skip
- Dragonsand Red/Blue/Gold Dragons and Wyrms (880-1300 HP, Gold Dragon is Mag-immune and can one-hit-KO) - fly past to the cache; not worth the slog
- Paradise Valley & Hermit's Isle Titans (617-1187 HP, Elec- and Mag-immune, Supremes one-hit-kill) - never engage just to reach an obelisk
- Paradise Valley & Hermit's Isle Hydras (Fire-immune small ones) guarding the obelisks - fly over them
- Eel Infested Waters Water Beasts/Elementals (Cold-, Poison- and Magic-immune) and Agar's Creations (Magic-immune, Abomination paralyzes) - skip; the obelisk is a fly-by
- Silver Cove Diamond Gargoyles around the north-island obelisk (physical-immune, only spells hurt them) - not worth it for a touch-and-go
✅ Clear
- Gharik's Forge interior: Warlocks/Magicians/Sorcerers (Elec-immune, Warlocks cast Insanity) and Fire Elementals (Fire-immune, killed with ice/arrows) - mandatory for the Hourglass of Time
- Castle Ironfist obelisk arena - weak enemies, easy XP en route to that obelisk
⏭ Skip
- Dragonsand dragons (Red Fire-imm, Blue Cold-imm, Gold Mag-imm + one-hit-KO) and Wyrms (Pois-imm) - fly past to the cache
- Paradise Valley / Hermit's Isle Titans (Elec- & Mag-imm, Supreme one-hit-kill) and Hydras (Fire-imm) - fly over to the obelisks
- Eel Infested Waters Water Elementals (Cold/Pois/Mag-imm) and Agar's Abominations (Mag-imm, paralyze) - obelisk is a fly-by
- Silver Cove Diamond Gargoyles (physical-immune) at the north-island obelisk - not worth a touch-and-go fight
- Gharik's Forge — now (Hourglass of Time; needs the Gharik's Lab key from the Silver Helm Outpost)