1> EQUIP YOUR CHARACTER! You start the game with equipment, but none of it is readied. 2> Enter the very first castle you see. One of the red symbols will turn off the force fields. Touching the wrong one will cause monsters to appear. If you win the combat, leave the castle and save the game. You will be able to aquire experience this way. Explore the castle and you will find better armor and weapons. 3> Up the stairs and to the left you will find the Prince's apartments. When you enter each room, be sure that you are not in "auto-attack" mode, or the Prince will walk all over you. The Prince will give you a message to take to his sister, and directions to the castle. 4> Go to the Princess of Earth's castle, and the return to the Prince of Earth. He will give you (bad) directions to the next castle, the Prince of Water's. 5> Use the "unlock" spell to hold the drawbridge open. Go thru the castle, and you will pick up some AWESOME armor and weapons. If you find that you cannot survive in here, you need to either TRAIN or VISIT THE WEAPONSMITH (see note below). If you are leaving thru the same door you came in by, you have not seen all the castle.... 6> From this point, I had no clue what to do, but stumbled across it anyway. From the WeaponSmith's go north to the Prince of Air's castle. You should recieve a ring that will lead you to the Princess of Air's castle (due west, in case you have trouble finding it). 7> In the Princess of Air's castle go thru the first door to the right, and the continue along until you find the Princess of Earth. She give you her gem, and tell you to go to the Princess of Water's castle (which until this point has been impossible to enter). From this point the gameflow was very easy to follow. 8> Visit the Princess of Water, and she will tell you to go kill the Prince of Earth (he's a weenie. piece of cake, really), and give you a real nice weapon and some cool armor to help you. 9> Kill the Prince of Earth and take his gem. 10> Return to the Princess of Water. She will give you her gem, and direct you to the Princess of Fire's castle (again, you should not have been able to enter here yet... I was able to, I assume this is a bug). 11> At the Princess of Fire's castle you will get yet another gem. And you will meet the Prince of Air, who will instruct you to kill his sister, the Princess of Air. 12> Kill the Princess of Air and take her gem. (Another easy combat, compared with what is to follow...) On leaving the castle the Prince of Air will meet you and give you his gem. He will note that you do not have the Prince of Water's gem (real swift ain't he?), and tell you to go get him. Also he tells you that the armies of the conspiracy surround the Prince of Fire (go team go! :-). 13> Go to the Prince of Water's castle. You will find him where there, even though he was not there the last time you entered. I killed him by doing the following: Before entering, have the mage prepare the Paraylze spell, and give all your best equipment to your best fighter-type. Have the mage enter the room alone, and not in combat mode. Quickly cast Paralyze on the Prince. Then have your best fighter-type enter. Move the fighter so that he is directly in FRONT of the Prince (position is very important!) and attack several times. Occasionally re-Paralyze the Prince (or heal your fighter) with the mage if necessary. 14> Go to the "Inca-pyramid" castle in the desert. This is the humble abode of the Prince of Fire (and Death, if you believe what the game says. Nah....) Strangely enough he was easier to kill than the Prince of Water. Also, inside this castle you will find some blue Greaves +1 and Curiass +1. These seem to be the best armor in the game (so far) giving a fully dressed (shirt, jacket, etc) un-shielded person a protection value OVER 100!!!! Wow! 15> You now need to read the four 'holy scriptures'. If you have already read some of them, you need not read them again. Once is enough. a. Prince of Earth castle - Take three members of your party into the room behind where the Prince was. Have the remaining character go past the 'temple', and walk over both pentagrams. You should see some text when you pass over each one. A handle on the shape of a dragon's head will appear on the altar. Turn it. Switch back to the first three members of the group. A secret door leading down will have appeared. Go through it. Have two of the three characters wait in the room with the coffin. The third character should continue down, past the pool of liquid (6x 8hp healing potions!), and stand on the "manhole cover". You should hear a 'click' and see some text. Switch back to the first two members. Another secret door will have opened, this time leading down and to the right. Through this door are two altars. Stand next to each one in turn and examine it. You will be told the first part of the scripture. b. Prince of Water castle - Past the 'water-monster' room, where the force field protects the armor, there are two altars. Examine them both and you will get the second part of the scripture. c. Princess of Air ice castle - Look for two miniture castle-like altars in one room. Look at them and they will reveal the third part of the scripture. d. Prince of Fire pyramid - Again, look for two altars in the same room. You will gain the fourth and final part of the scripture by looking at them both. 16> Go to the firestone path in the center of the island. This is the double row of flickering arrow pointing north that lie between the Prince of Earth's and his sister's castles. Before walking onto the firestone path you must DROP ALL YOUR EQUIPMENT!! Simply un-equiping is not good enough! Throw everything away. Make sure that no lasting spells are still active (such as shield, anti-magic, etc.). 17> Walk onto the path. If -four- dragons do not appear, you have not completed the quest. Congradulations! You've won. According to Data-East, Drakkhen II will be out in summer of this year (1990). GENERAL NOTES: TRAINING- When you are low level, you can increase your experience by deliberatly touching the wrong elemental symbol in the foyer of any castle with symbols, and then killing them. Over, and over, and over.... Higher level characters kill these simple creature too easily to gain much experience. For them, the "water-monster room" in the Prince of Water's castle is an excellent training area. I put my party in there just before going to bed and saved the game when I got up for work the next morning with no character under 19th level. (Don't try this unless you have a protection of 60 or better. My lowest protection was 60, and that character was very near death after only 7 hours. 8-) WEAPONSMITH- Following the road north from the Princess of Earth (or the Princess of Water), you will find the WeaponSmith's. This is a good place to visit if you find yourself getting killed a lot. He will sell you some improved armor and weapons over what you start with. If you play your cards right, you can get MUCH MUCH better equipment than the WeaponSmith has from various castles. AUTO-ATTACK- Unless you are certain that you are in a hostile castle (like the Prince of Water's), it is a good idea NOT to have "auto-attack" on. When you meet a new creature, hit the greet button. If it responds with something like "You seem to be glorious warriors..." or "Hello.." or something that does not seem terribly unfriendly, leave them alone and they won't bother you! This is EXTREMELY important when dealing with the Dragon Princes! Walkthru by Eric Penn on 09-Apr-90 GEnie: STUPID BIX: penric Game$IG BBS: SYSOP (415)345-2353 This and many other walkthrus, hints and tips are available on Game$IG BBS. Game$IG BBS is a Skyline BBS, and fully supports both ANSI and the SkyPix graphic protocol.