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Let's face the horrors of Myth Drannor.
- Thread starter Black Cat
- Start date
Mrowak
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Messages
- 3,947
Black Cat said:
See? Control spells are awesome when you want to have characters capable of turning the tide of battle in one turn. Unfortuantely they use their usefulness on higher levels.
I just created a test party with a Sorceress focused on nothing but control spells to try what you say and see whether or not I am to be converted. I'll tell you how it went once I have the time to fool around for a little while.
Give us back feedback on how it went!
Mrowak said:
This is my first time dual classing anything, so I don't really know. I usually just go with pure classes, given I usually pick classes that either are viable pure, like Wizards, or kind of must go pure to get all their unique skills, like Druids and Warlocks. I personally would have prefered the game gave us epic levels instead.
It is true, however, that the dual classing is kind of hurting my party. I don't know how hard the game will be, in any case: If later the game gets hard enough for a well optimized party to become necesary we are screwed. We have two half rogues, two half sorcerers, one and a half fighters, and three fourths of a priest.
Yeah, dualling can really backfire at you, especially with spell-casting classes. Personally I only allow multiclassing spellcasters if I can give them prestige class later on - which ain't the case here, it seems.
Ahh, the bane of undead - yes fighting them with more sneaky builds is a pain in the neck. Still, I find warrior/rogue builds to be most fun to use. Barbarian/rogue that Vazdru recommends also look fine, though I find dwarven Barbarian/warrior mix to work the best.
You are doing splendidly, considering what the game throws at you. Defensive gameplay is a staple of D&D. I can only advise you to focus on a single class for each of your chracters. From my perspective it would be better for Aislinn to give up on her wand altogether and put on those cleric's robes.
To be frank, I have not heard of that game before
. Now that I researched it I don't know whether I should feel amazed or terrified at its art direction. @Update
That Silence spell does serve you well it seems. If I may suggest something - with this rate of usable items I think actually utilising some of them in combat would pay off. Personally, myself, I am a compulsive hoarder, would would sooner replay battle 7 times than use a wand. However, seeing that you get stuff like...
... at every corner makes me wonder what will happen when you hit level 14. So how about going trigger happy a little?
Lastly,
What's with this day, I don't even... Every person I meet today has got it hard. Must be the autumn aura in this part of the world. In your case, though, I hope it is just being temporarily burned out, not something personally serious. Rest and recover then, and good luck.
Lonely Vazdru
Pimp my Title
Black Cat said:
So do (did) I :
And I still love you, be a hero, not an hero, not an EMO, just do what you're fucking good at and update ASAP !
Black Cat
Magister
Chapter the twentieth first; Way over our heads.
As we rejoin our heroes they have taken a little rest in the Deep Hall's hexagonal room. After a little debate our heroine decided to try and finish clearing the Deep Halls first not because of this and that but because after adventuring with Dwarves for so long she starts getting panic attacks when she isn't being, like, totally systematic in her exploration of underground complexes. Which is to say she may be the very first OCDing Elven Sorceress ever. While our heroes fear the Deep Halls may prove too much to clear the first after the Main Halls they decide to keep at it up until they were to find uncontroversible evidence it is best to leave it for later.
So they leave the hexagonal room to the south and then try to get around it by following it's wall sunwise. As they do so, though, they come across an Orog patrol around the point marked as 1 in the map. But it isn't your run of the mill Orog patrol, no. It is beyond anything they have fought so far.
This may be a good time to use that wand of fireball you have in your bag.
I second the motion.
Don't be wasteful! Like, what will we do if we need it later?
Let me see... We will be happy we got to live long enough to see it?
Alright, alright. Cowards.
Of those five Orog in the back only the Healer and one of the fighters survive, and both do so just barely. Doggy then charges against the closest orog of those other two orogs who were outside the explosions range, striking at it for 11 damage and being then struck by it for some small damage too. The wounded fighter then charges Aislinn, but the walk is so long it can't fight against her on this round, during what's left of which both Ramon and Glorfin miss their attacks against it while the other fighter from those two who weren't hurt advances against them and the healer heals itself from most of the damage.
Aislinn then begins the next round by getting into a defensive stance, followed by Doggy disengaging the Orog he was fighting against and, after suffering another slight wound from an attack of opportunity, charged the Healer, and even if he missed the attack the creature will be unable to cast from now on so everything's well.
The Orog who was fighting against Doggy, however, then charges Ramon, and strikes at him for 6 damage, followed by the Orog that had advanced against Aislinn turning around and striking the roguish sorcerer for another 6. Both Glorfin and Ramon miss their attacks against this last one, and then...
... things start looking grim for our favorite arcane trickster, which shows how fragile the party is when we have no time to cast before getting rushed. The Healer, meanwhile, tries to attack Doggy, but to no effect, which is nice.
Aislinn then switches her staff thingie for her wand of magic missile and releases its power: Two projectiles hit the back of the Orog between her and Ramon, killing it, while the remaining one strikes the orog north from both Ramon and Glorfin, leaving it badly wounded. Doggy then strikes the Healer for 8 damage, and this is followed by...
... Ramon getting totally murdered, Doggy getting hit for 10 damage by the healer, and Glorfin taking revenge for Ramon by slaying the one who killed him. The remaining orog then attacks Glorfin but misses, and, as the next round begins, Aislinn notices Ramon is just one or two hitpoints away from final death and casts cure moderate wounds on him, making him stand back up and ready to fight. The healer, meanwhile, evades Doggy's next attack, and then Ramon casts shield on himself, given his placement after getting back on his feet allowed that without fearing an attack of opportunity.
Nothing much happens next: The healer fails to strike Doggy, Glorfin misses the remaining orog fighter with his Smite Evil, and then his enemy strikes him for some damage. Given thingies aren't going well Aislinn just runs slightly west, suffering a small wound from a slight attack of opportunity, and heals the paladin for some damage. The attack of opportunity happened because the game doesn't always revives fallen characters in the same place they were standing when they died, and this is even more common when the character healing the spot where they died, and thus the fallen character, is kind of standing on the part of the model outside the fallen character's footprint. Thus, in this case, Ramon was raised southwest of Aislinn instead of northeast, where he originally was.
Doggy keeps fighting against the healer, wounding it for 15 damage. Then Ramon runs around where Glorfin and the remaining melee orog are fighting and backstabs the creature for 17 damage, yet it still stands. Finally, the orog healer manages to flee from Doggy, evading the attack of opportunity it did provoke by disengaging, and Glorfin slays the remaining enemy. Victory is ours.
This should count as undisputable evidence we may be better returning here after exploring the upper levels.
Of course not. Like, we totally won, right? Right.
And so our elves return to the hexagonal room and camp for a little while, restoring their strenght and stuffies, and then advance to the north until they find the door into the room marked as 2 in the map. Shocking is what lies ahead. Like, totally so.
I'm done with this!
Sowwy, sowwy. I'll remember from now on, pinky promise.
Inside there are several chests, most of them already looted. One contains a ring, Milla's Blessing, which gives protection +3 and DEX +1. The remaining still unlooted chests only contain some coins.
From this room there are two other doors, one leading southeast and the other northwest. We try the one at the southeast but it is impossible to open. Right outside the room we are, and a bit to the southeast, there's another entrance going in the same direction, so we move there instead. The place is marked as 3 in the map.
Aha, so what we need here is another word of power. We could go and try to explore through the other door leaving the room we just looted but, instead, our heroes return to the room marked as 4, a room they had explored previously but whose second door, leading northeast, they had left untouched to explore, instead, the room containing the well of the earthbound wind, and this time go through. Beyond there's a little corridor that can only be followed to the northwest, and before long they come across a battle between orog and undead, in the place marked as 5.
While the orog are occupied with the undead Aislinn goes and casts shield of faith on Doggy, Ramon casts shield on himself and advances as much as he is able towards the enemy healer and his hunter companion, and Doggy charges the Healer, though both his own attack and the healer's response miss their marks. One of the orog fighters, a guardian, leave the front to move towards Aislinn. Glorfin intercepts and corners it, but his attack misses.
As the next round begins something weird happens: Aislinn positions herself and casts bless, but the spell doesn't just affect the party but also all those orog we haven't yet attack, maybe because they are considered neutral or allied for as long as neither side initiates combat or something. I guess they had not seen us yet but the game got into combat mode because they were fighting the undead, or somethingie like that.
Ramon and Doggy both fail to wound the orog healer, and in turn the barbarian is hurt by it. Glorfin, meanwhile, dodges his own opponent's attack and in turn strikes it for 12 damage. During the next round Ramon manages to hurt the healer but Doggy misses, and then Glorfin is wounded by the guardian he's fighting against and, in turn, misses with his smite evil thingie. Aislinn, meanwhile, does nothing but pass her turns.
During the next round Ramon kills the healer, Doggy turns against the hunter next to him, who had ignored them until now, and strikes it for 12 damage. Both Glorfin and his opponent miss their attacks. The following round comes around and the battle between orog and undead is practically over, with just one undead, almost defeated, remaining. The hunter, in any case, slightly wounds Doggy, and in turn he strikes at it for 13 damage, leaving it badly hurt. Ramon misses his own attack, though, and the same does the guardian orog against whom Glorfin fights. The paladin, however, manages to strike at it for 11 damage.
Aislinn had delayed her action but given one zombie still remained she passes her turn. As the next one begins Ramon fails to kill the hunter, but Doggy fixes that.
Glorfin and his opponent keep missing, and Aislinn keeps waiting for the remaining foes take an action against the elves, but they are just searching a nearby room for more undead and stuffies. Then they retreat back to where our heroes are but just kind of ignore the fact they killed several of their friends and are killing another one right now.
With the three guys focused on the guardian orog he should be dead, but all our attacks miss and then, after one or two rounds of no one getting hurt, Glorfin strikes at it for 14 damage or so, and in response it slashes at Ramon for half his HP. Aislinn runs behind the group and heals the rogue, and another two rounds are needed before Glorfin finishes our opponent, but not before it has sent Ramon straight to final death with a ridiculously powerful critical strike which also caused Doggy to rage to try and finish this stupid battle at once, but even then he missed all his attacks.
It isn't until the guardian's death that the remaining orog spring into action. One of the rushes Aislinn but doesn't get to attack her yet. Another advances against Glorfin and gives him an 11 damage wound, while the remaining one also closes upon him but does not attack yet. Doggy takes advantage of the situation to slip behind this one...
... killing it at once and wounding its friend for 12 damage. Glorfin then joins his attack, causing 14 more damage to the wounded orog, who still manages to stand against us. Aislinn defends, but she's still hit for 6 damage by the orog against her, and then the other one strikes at Glorfin for 4 more damage, leaving him almost dead. Doggy tries to help him but his attack misses the orog and, seeing how things are not looking good right now, the paladin equips The Winter Blade and...
... solves the problem with a single casting. Then we all gang up on the remaining orog and manage to, like, barely defeat it before long. Yay. Our loot is a Potion of Cure Serious Wounds (level 15).
We would do better returning later, I reckon.
Nah. We won, right? It's, like, totally alright.
Our heroes return outside for Beriand to revive their companion, but along the way they find a new danger, maybe spawned by the late hour of their traveling: A skeleton knight and a zombie lord ambush them!
Or, like, they try to, but we get the half a turn of advantage, Aislinn turns the Skeleton Knight, and then we slaughter them, weakened and everything. Then we get to enter the hideout, revive ramon, and rest. And while they are here Beriand informs them of a new development.
Friends - we are worried - Nottle seems to be missing.
This is truly terrible.
Indeed.
Do you know where could he be?
He did not say. But he had recently returned from the Deep Halls of the dungeon, and he said he had met some of the scarred mages there, and talked about trading.
Like, scarred mages on the Deep Halls? We haven't seen any of them down there.
Maybe they are based somewhere we haven't yet visited.
Our heroes rest for a little while in Beriand's hideout and then return to the dungeons. This time, however, they decide to explore elsewhere, given the orog are giving them a run for their money. Instead they start exploring a corridor to the northeast of the passage linking the Deep Halls with Beriand's place, the place marked as 6 on the second map of this update.
Once there the first thingie they notice is a pretty much destroyed door. Carefully they close to take a peek in the room beyond and, maybe, get a clue of what happened here.
Instead of this, however, they find their worst enemies yet. From down the corridor a strange shape comes to them, and several more block their retreat.
What the fuck is that shit?
That's an arracat.
Oh. That's, like, totally good to know. But, say, what the bloody bleeping fuck are them?
Think of it as a mixture of a hunting spider, a scorpion, and a great cat. They are very social, though. Live in communities, hunt in packs, etc.
... le fuck?
Drow creations.
That explains it, yes.
As you can see an arracat can suffer a wound for 14 damage and still be considered in perfect health. They are pretty though stuffies, with an AC of 21 and 7d10+7 hit dice. And we have to face against four of them, each of them being able to strike twice a turn.
In any case they surround us and Glorfin, as you say, did wound one of them. Doggy enters a barbarian rage and attacks the same one but misses, and then Aislinn decides they are probably all going to die if she doesn't gets over her panic to use limited resources. She can't cast spells without triggering an attack of opportunity, but she can instead equip and use a wand without doing so. After a second of doubt she pulls her charm monster wand and unleashes its power against the Arracat just south of her. The spell works, turning the beast into a temporary ally, and then our heroine rushes eastward, triggering an attack of opportunity from the remaining hostile arracat but managing to dodge it all the same.
Ramon tries to attack the one Aislinn just escaped from but misses, and then the one Glorfin and Doggy attacked strikes against the barbarian, striking him once for some damage. The charmed one attacks that very same arracat but misses, and then the one south of Ramon kind of runs him through with its tail, killing him instantly.
Why... is it... always... me?
The last one attacks Glorfin but misses, and then he attacks the same one he was fighting before but finds no better result. Doggy then moves slightly to the east trying to line several creatures but he's hit by a massive attack of opportunity who leaves him almost dead, so instead of trying anything heroic he quaffs a potion of full healing, taking advantage from the fact he already triggered all the attacks of opportunity that would come for him on this round.
Aislinn then uses her wand to charm the Arracat who just now had killed Ramon, and Glorfin switches his axe for the winter blade and...
The monsters then move, some against Glorfin and some against the ones going against Glorfin. The paladin suffers a 16 damage strike from the very same Arracat he just wounded, followed by Doggy running to the back of it for a massive sneak attack that leaves the creature almost dead. Aislinn now switches to her magic missile wand and uses it against the already weakened beast, slaying it with the first attack. The two remaining ones go to the other hostile one, who as you may remember had been already hurt by the others before and thus is left moderately wounded. Glorfin then tries to hit it but misses.
As the next round begins the Arracat once again attacks Glorfin, but he manages to dodge it. Then both of the charmed arracats attack the hostile one but also miss. It's kind of obvious right now we are not going to survive this without going overboard, and thus our heroine has to improvise a plan: Doggy delays his action to leave her move south of the battle, and after moving there she uses her wand of magic missile to soften a bit more the hostile arracat. Then both Glorfin, first, and Doggy, second, do their part, the former by using the last charge of the winter blade...
... and the later one by using one of the charges from the winter ring thingie he had.
The battle thus ends. Aislinn tries to use her healing magic to stabilize Ramon but the very instant before she clicks on Ramon's dying body his wounds send him in a quick guided tour through Mandos' Halls.
I... hate... you... all...
Our heroes thus take him back to Beriand's, and once there another talk is had with both him and his assistant, Faeril.
Beriand! Tell them what I saw.
Oh no, Faeril, if they want to hear it they must hear it from you.
*sigh*
Tell us about what you saw, please.
I do not know what to think! I was outside, near Nottle's wagon, and I saw... I saw... I do not know what I saw.
Describe it.
She was a serpent, a great serpent, all shimmery in silver, gold and green. She smelled of flowers! She looked right at me - how her eyes flashed! But then she was gone, into a cleft in the rocks. I wonder who she was.
Interesting. Maybe we should investigate.
Indeed. It's becoming obvious we need all the allies we can get.
Like, shouldn't we totally leave this for after we have finished clearing the Deep Ha...
No.
We are not going back there for a long while.
Hmpf, whatever. Cowards.
And thus comes this update to an end. What will they find as they start exploring the upper floors of the dungeon? Who was that nice smelling serpent Faeril saw? Will Nottle be saved of whatever stupid shit his greed got him into? Will our heroine recover from the trauma of using so many magical item charges in a single update?
Will I manage to survive a fight?
This, and more, will be seen in the next couple of chapters, so stay tuned for more elven awesomeness as our heroes explore Myth Drannor and, hopefully, face some weaker enemies than they did just now.
'til next time!
@ Crooked Bee
Indeed, it does. I'm slightly scared, though, given the lack of previous mention of such place probably means it's actually not a part of the dungeon but a separate building or area, and thus I fear worse monsters will inhabit it. If Aislinn was a Wizardess we would probably just try our luck in the hope of getting many scrolls to add to our spellbooks, but given we are sorcerers instead it may be better to wait.
@ Kz3r0
That girl is one hundred percent Sluagh! She even has the eyes! I'm so envious. Was that random chance? Or are you actually a Changeling: The Dreaming player?
In any case,
@ Mrowak
I have to accept the awesomeness of control spells. Charm Monster is the full reason those arracats didn't wipe us. And yes, I was thinking about focusing first on the cleric side of her multiclass, but I can't find a spell list anywhere for me to check what Arcane spells can she get at each level, to balance how much of one and how much of the other to get.
And I'm not burned out at all. It's just, like, my mood is kind of chaotic now that everything is kind of sinking in. so right now I'm cool, and half an hour later I'm utterly depressed, and then I recover, and then I'm back feeling totally bad and go get a lethal overdose of black eyeliner, black nail polish, and black lipstick.
@ Ronery V.
Getting some sleep fixed it, it seems, so here you go.
As we rejoin our heroes they have taken a little rest in the Deep Hall's hexagonal room. After a little debate our heroine decided to try and finish clearing the Deep Halls first not because of this and that but because after adventuring with Dwarves for so long she starts getting panic attacks when she isn't being, like, totally systematic in her exploration of underground complexes. Which is to say she may be the very first OCDing Elven Sorceress ever. While our heroes fear the Deep Halls may prove too much to clear the first after the Main Halls they decide to keep at it up until they were to find uncontroversible evidence it is best to leave it for later.
So they leave the hexagonal room to the south and then try to get around it by following it's wall sunwise. As they do so, though, they come across an Orog patrol around the point marked as 1 in the map. But it isn't your run of the mill Orog patrol, no. It is beyond anything they have fought so far.
Of those five Orog in the back only the Healer and one of the fighters survive, and both do so just barely. Doggy then charges against the closest orog of those other two orogs who were outside the explosions range, striking at it for 11 damage and being then struck by it for some small damage too. The wounded fighter then charges Aislinn, but the walk is so long it can't fight against her on this round, during what's left of which both Ramon and Glorfin miss their attacks against it while the other fighter from those two who weren't hurt advances against them and the healer heals itself from most of the damage.
Aislinn then begins the next round by getting into a defensive stance, followed by Doggy disengaging the Orog he was fighting against and, after suffering another slight wound from an attack of opportunity, charged the Healer, and even if he missed the attack the creature will be unable to cast from now on so everything's well.
The Orog who was fighting against Doggy, however, then charges Ramon, and strikes at him for 6 damage, followed by the Orog that had advanced against Aislinn turning around and striking the roguish sorcerer for another 6. Both Glorfin and Ramon miss their attacks against this last one, and then...
... things start looking grim for our favorite arcane trickster, which shows how fragile the party is when we have no time to cast before getting rushed. The Healer, meanwhile, tries to attack Doggy, but to no effect, which is nice.
Aislinn then switches her staff thingie for her wand of magic missile and releases its power: Two projectiles hit the back of the Orog between her and Ramon, killing it, while the remaining one strikes the orog north from both Ramon and Glorfin, leaving it badly wounded. Doggy then strikes the Healer for 8 damage, and this is followed by...
... Ramon getting totally murdered, Doggy getting hit for 10 damage by the healer, and Glorfin taking revenge for Ramon by slaying the one who killed him. The remaining orog then attacks Glorfin but misses, and, as the next round begins, Aislinn notices Ramon is just one or two hitpoints away from final death and casts cure moderate wounds on him, making him stand back up and ready to fight. The healer, meanwhile, evades Doggy's next attack, and then Ramon casts shield on himself, given his placement after getting back on his feet allowed that without fearing an attack of opportunity.
Nothing much happens next: The healer fails to strike Doggy, Glorfin misses the remaining orog fighter with his Smite Evil, and then his enemy strikes him for some damage. Given thingies aren't going well Aislinn just runs slightly west, suffering a small wound from a slight attack of opportunity, and heals the paladin for some damage. The attack of opportunity happened because the game doesn't always revives fallen characters in the same place they were standing when they died, and this is even more common when the character healing the spot where they died, and thus the fallen character, is kind of standing on the part of the model outside the fallen character's footprint. Thus, in this case, Ramon was raised southwest of Aislinn instead of northeast, where he originally was.
Doggy keeps fighting against the healer, wounding it for 15 damage. Then Ramon runs around where Glorfin and the remaining melee orog are fighting and backstabs the creature for 17 damage, yet it still stands. Finally, the orog healer manages to flee from Doggy, evading the attack of opportunity it did provoke by disengaging, and Glorfin slays the remaining enemy. Victory is ours.
And so our elves return to the hexagonal room and camp for a little while, restoring their strenght and stuffies, and then advance to the north until they find the door into the room marked as 2 in the map. Shocking is what lies ahead. Like, totally so.
Inside there are several chests, most of them already looted. One contains a ring, Milla's Blessing, which gives protection +3 and DEX +1. The remaining still unlooted chests only contain some coins.
From this room there are two other doors, one leading southeast and the other northwest. We try the one at the southeast but it is impossible to open. Right outside the room we are, and a bit to the southeast, there's another entrance going in the same direction, so we move there instead. The place is marked as 3 in the map.
Aha, so what we need here is another word of power. We could go and try to explore through the other door leaving the room we just looted but, instead, our heroes return to the room marked as 4, a room they had explored previously but whose second door, leading northeast, they had left untouched to explore, instead, the room containing the well of the earthbound wind, and this time go through. Beyond there's a little corridor that can only be followed to the northwest, and before long they come across a battle between orog and undead, in the place marked as 5.
While the orog are occupied with the undead Aislinn goes and casts shield of faith on Doggy, Ramon casts shield on himself and advances as much as he is able towards the enemy healer and his hunter companion, and Doggy charges the Healer, though both his own attack and the healer's response miss their marks. One of the orog fighters, a guardian, leave the front to move towards Aislinn. Glorfin intercepts and corners it, but his attack misses.
As the next round begins something weird happens: Aislinn positions herself and casts bless, but the spell doesn't just affect the party but also all those orog we haven't yet attack, maybe because they are considered neutral or allied for as long as neither side initiates combat or something. I guess they had not seen us yet but the game got into combat mode because they were fighting the undead, or somethingie like that.
Ramon and Doggy both fail to wound the orog healer, and in turn the barbarian is hurt by it. Glorfin, meanwhile, dodges his own opponent's attack and in turn strikes it for 12 damage. During the next round Ramon manages to hurt the healer but Doggy misses, and then Glorfin is wounded by the guardian he's fighting against and, in turn, misses with his smite evil thingie. Aislinn, meanwhile, does nothing but pass her turns.
During the next round Ramon kills the healer, Doggy turns against the hunter next to him, who had ignored them until now, and strikes it for 12 damage. Both Glorfin and his opponent miss their attacks. The following round comes around and the battle between orog and undead is practically over, with just one undead, almost defeated, remaining. The hunter, in any case, slightly wounds Doggy, and in turn he strikes at it for 13 damage, leaving it badly hurt. Ramon misses his own attack, though, and the same does the guardian orog against whom Glorfin fights. The paladin, however, manages to strike at it for 11 damage.
Aislinn had delayed her action but given one zombie still remained she passes her turn. As the next one begins Ramon fails to kill the hunter, but Doggy fixes that.
Glorfin and his opponent keep missing, and Aislinn keeps waiting for the remaining foes take an action against the elves, but they are just searching a nearby room for more undead and stuffies. Then they retreat back to where our heroes are but just kind of ignore the fact they killed several of their friends and are killing another one right now.
With the three guys focused on the guardian orog he should be dead, but all our attacks miss and then, after one or two rounds of no one getting hurt, Glorfin strikes at it for 14 damage or so, and in response it slashes at Ramon for half his HP. Aislinn runs behind the group and heals the rogue, and another two rounds are needed before Glorfin finishes our opponent, but not before it has sent Ramon straight to final death with a ridiculously powerful critical strike which also caused Doggy to rage to try and finish this stupid battle at once, but even then he missed all his attacks.
It isn't until the guardian's death that the remaining orog spring into action. One of the rushes Aislinn but doesn't get to attack her yet. Another advances against Glorfin and gives him an 11 damage wound, while the remaining one also closes upon him but does not attack yet. Doggy takes advantage of the situation to slip behind this one...
... killing it at once and wounding its friend for 12 damage. Glorfin then joins his attack, causing 14 more damage to the wounded orog, who still manages to stand against us. Aislinn defends, but she's still hit for 6 damage by the orog against her, and then the other one strikes at Glorfin for 4 more damage, leaving him almost dead. Doggy tries to help him but his attack misses the orog and, seeing how things are not looking good right now, the paladin equips The Winter Blade and...
... solves the problem with a single casting. Then we all gang up on the remaining orog and manage to, like, barely defeat it before long. Yay. Our loot is a Potion of Cure Serious Wounds (level 15).
Our heroes return outside for Beriand to revive their companion, but along the way they find a new danger, maybe spawned by the late hour of their traveling: A skeleton knight and a zombie lord ambush them!
Or, like, they try to, but we get the half a turn of advantage, Aislinn turns the Skeleton Knight, and then we slaughter them, weakened and everything. Then we get to enter the hideout, revive ramon, and rest. And while they are here Beriand informs them of a new development.
Our heroes rest for a little while in Beriand's hideout and then return to the dungeons. This time, however, they decide to explore elsewhere, given the orog are giving them a run for their money. Instead they start exploring a corridor to the northeast of the passage linking the Deep Halls with Beriand's place, the place marked as 6 on the second map of this update.
Once there the first thingie they notice is a pretty much destroyed door. Carefully they close to take a peek in the room beyond and, maybe, get a clue of what happened here.
Instead of this, however, they find their worst enemies yet. From down the corridor a strange shape comes to them, and several more block their retreat.
As you can see an arracat can suffer a wound for 14 damage and still be considered in perfect health. They are pretty though stuffies, with an AC of 21 and 7d10+7 hit dice. And we have to face against four of them, each of them being able to strike twice a turn.
In any case they surround us and Glorfin, as you say, did wound one of them. Doggy enters a barbarian rage and attacks the same one but misses, and then Aislinn decides they are probably all going to die if she doesn't gets over her panic to use limited resources. She can't cast spells without triggering an attack of opportunity, but she can instead equip and use a wand without doing so. After a second of doubt she pulls her charm monster wand and unleashes its power against the Arracat just south of her. The spell works, turning the beast into a temporary ally, and then our heroine rushes eastward, triggering an attack of opportunity from the remaining hostile arracat but managing to dodge it all the same.
Ramon tries to attack the one Aislinn just escaped from but misses, and then the one Glorfin and Doggy attacked strikes against the barbarian, striking him once for some damage. The charmed one attacks that very same arracat but misses, and then the one south of Ramon kind of runs him through with its tail, killing him instantly.
The last one attacks Glorfin but misses, and then he attacks the same one he was fighting before but finds no better result. Doggy then moves slightly to the east trying to line several creatures but he's hit by a massive attack of opportunity who leaves him almost dead, so instead of trying anything heroic he quaffs a potion of full healing, taking advantage from the fact he already triggered all the attacks of opportunity that would come for him on this round.
Aislinn then uses her wand to charm the Arracat who just now had killed Ramon, and Glorfin switches his axe for the winter blade and...
The monsters then move, some against Glorfin and some against the ones going against Glorfin. The paladin suffers a 16 damage strike from the very same Arracat he just wounded, followed by Doggy running to the back of it for a massive sneak attack that leaves the creature almost dead. Aislinn now switches to her magic missile wand and uses it against the already weakened beast, slaying it with the first attack. The two remaining ones go to the other hostile one, who as you may remember had been already hurt by the others before and thus is left moderately wounded. Glorfin then tries to hit it but misses.
As the next round begins the Arracat once again attacks Glorfin, but he manages to dodge it. Then both of the charmed arracats attack the hostile one but also miss. It's kind of obvious right now we are not going to survive this without going overboard, and thus our heroine has to improvise a plan: Doggy delays his action to leave her move south of the battle, and after moving there she uses her wand of magic missile to soften a bit more the hostile arracat. Then both Glorfin, first, and Doggy, second, do their part, the former by using the last charge of the winter blade...
... and the later one by using one of the charges from the winter ring thingie he had.
The battle thus ends. Aislinn tries to use her healing magic to stabilize Ramon but the very instant before she clicks on Ramon's dying body his wounds send him in a quick guided tour through Mandos' Halls.
Our heroes thus take him back to Beriand's, and once there another talk is had with both him and his assistant, Faeril.
And thus comes this update to an end. What will they find as they start exploring the upper floors of the dungeon? Who was that nice smelling serpent Faeril saw? Will Nottle be saved of whatever stupid shit his greed got him into? Will our heroine recover from the trauma of using so many magical item charges in a single update?
This, and more, will be seen in the next couple of chapters, so stay tuned for more elven awesomeness as our heroes explore Myth Drannor and, hopefully, face some weaker enemies than they did just now.
'til next time!
@ Crooked Bee
Indeed, it does. I'm slightly scared, though, given the lack of previous mention of such place probably means it's actually not a part of the dungeon but a separate building or area, and thus I fear worse monsters will inhabit it. If Aislinn was a Wizardess we would probably just try our luck in the hope of getting many scrolls to add to our spellbooks, but given we are sorcerers instead it may be better to wait.
@ Kz3r0
That girl is one hundred percent Sluagh! She even has the eyes! I'm so envious. Was that random chance? Or are you actually a Changeling: The Dreaming player?
In any case,
@ Mrowak
I have to accept the awesomeness of control spells. Charm Monster is the full reason those arracats didn't wipe us. And yes, I was thinking about focusing first on the cleric side of her multiclass, but I can't find a spell list anywhere for me to check what Arcane spells can she get at each level, to balance how much of one and how much of the other to get.
And I'm not burned out at all. It's just, like, my mood is kind of chaotic now that everything is kind of sinking in. so right now I'm cool, and half an hour later I'm utterly depressed, and then I recover, and then I'm back feeling totally bad and go get a lethal overdose of black eyeliner, black nail polish, and black lipstick.
@ Ronery V.
Getting some sleep fixed it, it seems, so here you go.
I see the difficulty rise! So exciting!
Fancy!
Scary!
BC said:
Fancy!
Scary!
Mrowak
Arcane
- Joined
- Sep 26, 2008
- Messages
- 3,947
Black Cat said:
That's the fun part about early levels in D&D - using a variety of control spells to best your foes - just to see them steamrolled into a pulp. That's much more imaginative than fireballing everything that moves.
Having said that, I see you've come round to using your items. The effects are explosive, I gather
Regarding the spell list in the game, here you go:
http://www.gamebanshee.com/poolofradianceromd/spells.php
Here you have sorecerer's spell progression. I fear, for sorceror, you get access to lvl 2 spells at level 4:
http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/SRD:Sorcerer
I am a little bit concerned about your party, however. Ramon's dropping down so often is not a good sign. Also, there's the problem with you not having a pure mage if you go for the cleric's path with Aislinn. I hope the game won't go all out racist on you, out of the sudden.
It seems to me half of the 'Dex suffers from the same symptoms. Just don't overdo with the lipstick.
Black Cat
Magister
Chapter the twentieth second; This is more like it.
Last time we met our heroes they had decided to leave the Deep Halls for later and, instead, focus on exploring the higher levels of the dungeon. They also had decided, however, to check that story about a pretty serpent smelling of flowers, yet no matter how much they walked around Stillwater, the area in which they started, they could not find any leads about her nature, intentions, or, more importantly, location. In the end they just went back to the dungeon and were done with that.
So we rejoin them as they climb their way into the next level, in ascending order, from the Main Halls, known as the halls of stone. As you might remember, the priest had told them the stone halls where the place in which a magical gateway by which undead poured into the city was located, so they go up there ready for a fight against both the undead and the scarred wizards, who are surely behind that gate thingie.
The stairs bring us to room marked as 1. South of the entrance there's one of those ever present ruins, and there they find a Dagger of Defense, which is a 1d4 dagger able to cast Mage Armor up to eight times as a level five sorceress. In the rooms to the southwest of those ruins they find more stuff: In the one kind of cramped between the longer rooms and the end of the level, some coins, but the real stuff is in those two rooms north of it.
The thrilling hum of old magic courses through the stones in this room.
The first one contains five fountains, only one of those containing anything to drink. As we try the contents we learn the liquid works as a protection from poison potion. Then we take a peek into the next room and find it is another of those hateful rooms that slow the game to a crawl.
From a fountain a constant stream of poisonous gases emanate. There are two chests next to it, but to get close we need to be immune to poison, which is exactly what the fountain in the previous room does make us. Puzzling this wasn't, but we still get almost one hundred coins from a chest and a Pureblade, a +1 longsword who becomes +3 against undead, from the other one. Given Glorfin's axe is +2 we give this new one to him so he can switch to it when we have to fight some undead.
Next we proceed to the point marked as 2 in the map, where we come across a door leading further into the halls of stone. However,
Your rogues sniff the ground, and soon one of them digs up an old campfire.
Good doggy indeed!
In the ashes you find a note. 'Athan: We found no more clues about the Room of Words. We sought a stair up, but the undead swarmed upon us, so I have locked the doors and laid a warding spell upon them. We will descend to the Deep Halls and look for you there. - Thumtal' The writer has added a postscript: 'ps. Emmeric has proven himself worthy. You were right to include him. -T'
Ramon searches the door for traps, as I actually kind of remind to do so before trying to enter a room, but I misclick an he gets zapped by an electrical trap. The damage, however, is negligible. In the room beyond, though it is more of a vast open area than an actual room, many undead are waiting for us. After the orog and the arracat, however, this is easy as taking candy from fat and ugly human children.
You can imagine the rest. Afterwards we go back to 1 to recover what magic we may have used and then move further into the next area, finding a ruin in which one of the Well of Earthborn wind's channels end. We get the option to try and drink the air currents coming out of it, and we obviously do.
We then continue westward, and before long we have to fight our way through another ruin infested by undead, marked in the map as 4.
It went the only way it could go, and our loot for the battle is a 'vial filled with ancient stinking fluid', the fluid being nothing other than a Naga's blood. And as we explore the ruins, soon afterwards, a new group of undead comes out from the room marked as 5.
One of the enemies, a skeleton lord, manages to hurt Glorfin pretty badly, but that's the only interesting thingie that happened there. We loot a single bottle of Cure Serious Wounds (level 15) and then claim the room they came out from for our camping needs, and recover from the battle. Before leaving, though, I decide we need to distribute our equipment better, so we pool everything we have and then give things based on everyone's class and skills. Let's hope I did not forget anything.
Afterwards we leave and move to the north, following the wide corridor there until we hit the room marked as 6. Along the way, as you can see, we walk next to a room with the icon of an staircase on it. This room, however, and all other rooms that extend from it are completely isolated from the rest of this floor. We can see what looks like a ladder coming down from the floor above, though, so that must be the way to enter there.
In any case, we reach the room marked as 6 and enter.
I'm hurt, soft skin! Heal me, or avenge my death... But do not let them eat me!
Or at least he says something similar to that. Again, the game does not wants to give me subtitles.
A talking orog...
So you brutes can talk and whimper when you need something.
Like a dog.
It's not our problem. Let's just close the door and leave them be. Maybe then they'll learn to be nicer nex...
Keep the undead busy while I heal them.
Wha... What?
I'm done trying to understand you.
We manage to save on of the orogs, as the other one charged the undead before Aislinn even got a chance to heal it and got killed. Afterwards nothing happens, though: The surviving orog disappears without another word. This kind of thingie is way too old school for me, I hate it when there's not enough feedback to know whether you did it right or wrong, or at least that the game didn't just bug out on you. I'm not asking for a bloody cinematic, just for a you suck and a thank you depending on conditions met.
In any case we leave the room through the door leading southeast instead of the one we came in through. There's a short and kind of corridorish area and then another room, marked in the map as 7. Upon entering I notice a strange design in the floor, a big circle with three smaller ones around, and thus try to place the characters there in case someone can be triggered, but nothing happens. That's what you get by playing too much shadowlands, I guess.
There's a smallish room to the northeast with some chests, in any case. We loot, there, a +2 Sling, a +2 Warhammer, and the sacred vestments, an AC:+2 leather armor with +1 WIS, +7 spell resistance, and +2 AC boni. Aislinn gets both the sling and the leather armor, and then we leave back to the room in which we saved the Orog guy. Along the way...
... XP decides to give itself to us. Cool. Once there we start walking to the north and east, going around until we hit the point marked as 8. However, thingies aren't as easy: The entirety of the path going here is full of wooden palisade thingies forming a twisting and bothersome passage which is also kind of inhabited by undead. The battle isn't very interesting, though Doggy gets kind of hurt.
After defeating them all and reaching the other side we find an orog patrol keeping watch on what may, or may not, be the entrance to their local holdings. We decide to return later, in any case, given I do not feel like fighting orog again just yet. Instead we walk the way back and then to the open area marked as 9 on the map, in which we find another one of those floating and spining stone thingies, like the one we teleported next to upon arriving on Myth Drannor, as well as signs of an undead force marching through the area.
Before advancing to the south, though, we return to the room marked as 5, in which we had camped before, and given we now know the rooms to the southwest of it don't open to a different area of the complex, being instead just a bunch of small rooms, we explore them to not leave uncovered thingies in places that might make me forget, later, they were still uncovered. The only loot we find there, though, are a couple of gold coins in some barrels. Yay.
Then we go back to explore to the south of spinning stone thingie. As we get near the ruins marked as 10, however,
You sense undercurrents of old magic - and see a blood-red glow, off to the south.
So we buff before battle, casting both Bull's Strenght and most defensive spells we use before advancing, hoping we will reach the battle before the short lived ones expire. We do, but we only find disapointment.
Meh. During this battle Aislinn makes a discovery that will change our way to battle undead, so at least it wasn't a complete waste of good buffs: Turn undead does not trigger an attack of opportunity.
And now we find out. Whatever. The undead can do nothing to stop us, and we purge them with righteous fury and, uhm, righteous anger. Flawless victory! They did not even manage to touch us once.
This old fountain is inscribed with these words: 'Behold Fountain Macabre. Drown me in the blood of Nagakind, and receive the Naga's kiss.'
Fountain Macabre.
A carved naga's head stares up at you from a bowl at the bottom of the fountain. Both the bowl and the fountain are completely dry.
After this little event Doggy levels up, and I pick barbarian for him this once. Afterwards we use our vial of Naga blood on the fountain in the same way we did use the ruby at the well of earthborn wind.
You pour the naga blood into the small bowl. It's about a quarter full.
It seems we need to hunt for three more vials of the stuff before we can obtain whatever there is to obtain from here. In any case, here ends today's update. Next time we meet we will keep exploring the halls of stone, and maybe find that magical gate the undead are said to be pouring through.
The game is kind of weird in that it seems to go from too easy to I can't believe this shit without much in between: In the Deep Halls our tails were on the line, and in here we are slaughtering everything that as much as dares looking wrong at us without the least effort. I guess this sets up a kind of correct order in which to do the dungeons and explore the areas.
In any case, 'til next time!
@ Mrowak
Thank you for the links. The sorcerer's spell list is pure fail for the low and high circles, yet from three to six it's actually pretty nice. Damn. That's why I prefer Wizards, Sorcerers just can't get all the spells I like and then I feel totally awful when I have to pick.
And the party failing badly is kind of a scary prospect. The game's so big we haven't even hit the halfway point of the first act, so my original idea of rolling a new party and trying again if one fails utterly is only possible as long as we notice early enough.
I am not so scared about the lack of full time arcane casters, though. What I'm actually scared is the lack of resiliant enough fighters to outlast the enemy, given not only do the battles usually turn into getting surrounded by foes and hoping we can last long enough to kill them all while at least half of our attacks miss but even when our AC is as high as it can possibly be right now we are getting by just barely. The lack of full time arcane casters only makes it visible, given we can't just fix it all with a fireball when things don't go our way.
At least we manage to abuse the undead, but given how much anti-undead equipment we have and how broken turn undead is that's not very satisfying. They are but poor defenseless thingies before our overpowered equipment.
@ Miss Bee
There's a slight difference between a difficulty rise and going from slaughtering everything with extreme ease to just barely surviving an encounter after blasting the enemies with three consecutive cones of cold cast as a level 15 sorcerer.
Last time we met our heroes they had decided to leave the Deep Halls for later and, instead, focus on exploring the higher levels of the dungeon. They also had decided, however, to check that story about a pretty serpent smelling of flowers, yet no matter how much they walked around Stillwater, the area in which they started, they could not find any leads about her nature, intentions, or, more importantly, location. In the end they just went back to the dungeon and were done with that.
So we rejoin them as they climb their way into the next level, in ascending order, from the Main Halls, known as the halls of stone. As you might remember, the priest had told them the stone halls where the place in which a magical gateway by which undead poured into the city was located, so they go up there ready for a fight against both the undead and the scarred wizards, who are surely behind that gate thingie.
The stairs bring us to room marked as 1. South of the entrance there's one of those ever present ruins, and there they find a Dagger of Defense, which is a 1d4 dagger able to cast Mage Armor up to eight times as a level five sorceress. In the rooms to the southwest of those ruins they find more stuff: In the one kind of cramped between the longer rooms and the end of the level, some coins, but the real stuff is in those two rooms north of it.
The first one contains five fountains, only one of those containing anything to drink. As we try the contents we learn the liquid works as a protection from poison potion. Then we take a peek into the next room and find it is another of those hateful rooms that slow the game to a crawl.
From a fountain a constant stream of poisonous gases emanate. There are two chests next to it, but to get close we need to be immune to poison, which is exactly what the fountain in the previous room does make us. Puzzling this wasn't, but we still get almost one hundred coins from a chest and a Pureblade, a +1 longsword who becomes +3 against undead, from the other one. Given Glorfin's axe is +2 we give this new one to him so he can switch to it when we have to fight some undead.
Next we proceed to the point marked as 2 in the map, where we come across a door leading further into the halls of stone. However,
Ramon searches the door for traps, as I actually kind of remind to do so before trying to enter a room, but I misclick an he gets zapped by an electrical trap. The damage, however, is negligible. In the room beyond, though it is more of a vast open area than an actual room, many undead are waiting for us. After the orog and the arracat, however, this is easy as taking candy from fat and ugly human children.
You can imagine the rest. Afterwards we go back to 1 to recover what magic we may have used and then move further into the next area, finding a ruin in which one of the Well of Earthborn wind's channels end. We get the option to try and drink the air currents coming out of it, and we obviously do.
We then continue westward, and before long we have to fight our way through another ruin infested by undead, marked in the map as 4.
It went the only way it could go, and our loot for the battle is a 'vial filled with ancient stinking fluid', the fluid being nothing other than a Naga's blood. And as we explore the ruins, soon afterwards, a new group of undead comes out from the room marked as 5.
One of the enemies, a skeleton lord, manages to hurt Glorfin pretty badly, but that's the only interesting thingie that happened there. We loot a single bottle of Cure Serious Wounds (level 15) and then claim the room they came out from for our camping needs, and recover from the battle. Before leaving, though, I decide we need to distribute our equipment better, so we pool everything we have and then give things based on everyone's class and skills. Let's hope I did not forget anything.
Afterwards we leave and move to the north, following the wide corridor there until we hit the room marked as 6. Along the way, as you can see, we walk next to a room with the icon of an staircase on it. This room, however, and all other rooms that extend from it are completely isolated from the rest of this floor. We can see what looks like a ladder coming down from the floor above, though, so that must be the way to enter there.
In any case, we reach the room marked as 6 and enter.
Or at least he says something similar to that. Again, the game does not wants to give me subtitles.
We manage to save on of the orogs, as the other one charged the undead before Aislinn even got a chance to heal it and got killed. Afterwards nothing happens, though: The surviving orog disappears without another word. This kind of thingie is way too old school for me, I hate it when there's not enough feedback to know whether you did it right or wrong, or at least that the game didn't just bug out on you. I'm not asking for a bloody cinematic, just for a you suck and a thank you depending on conditions met.
In any case we leave the room through the door leading southeast instead of the one we came in through. There's a short and kind of corridorish area and then another room, marked in the map as 7. Upon entering I notice a strange design in the floor, a big circle with three smaller ones around, and thus try to place the characters there in case someone can be triggered, but nothing happens. That's what you get by playing too much shadowlands, I guess.
There's a smallish room to the northeast with some chests, in any case. We loot, there, a +2 Sling, a +2 Warhammer, and the sacred vestments, an AC:+2 leather armor with +1 WIS, +7 spell resistance, and +2 AC boni. Aislinn gets both the sling and the leather armor, and then we leave back to the room in which we saved the Orog guy. Along the way...
... XP decides to give itself to us. Cool. Once there we start walking to the north and east, going around until we hit the point marked as 8. However, thingies aren't as easy: The entirety of the path going here is full of wooden palisade thingies forming a twisting and bothersome passage which is also kind of inhabited by undead. The battle isn't very interesting, though Doggy gets kind of hurt.
After defeating them all and reaching the other side we find an orog patrol keeping watch on what may, or may not, be the entrance to their local holdings. We decide to return later, in any case, given I do not feel like fighting orog again just yet. Instead we walk the way back and then to the open area marked as 9 on the map, in which we find another one of those floating and spining stone thingies, like the one we teleported next to upon arriving on Myth Drannor, as well as signs of an undead force marching through the area.
Before advancing to the south, though, we return to the room marked as 5, in which we had camped before, and given we now know the rooms to the southwest of it don't open to a different area of the complex, being instead just a bunch of small rooms, we explore them to not leave uncovered thingies in places that might make me forget, later, they were still uncovered. The only loot we find there, though, are a couple of gold coins in some barrels. Yay.
Then we go back to explore to the south of spinning stone thingie. As we get near the ruins marked as 10, however,
So we buff before battle, casting both Bull's Strenght and most defensive spells we use before advancing, hoping we will reach the battle before the short lived ones expire. We do, but we only find disapointment.
Meh. During this battle Aislinn makes a discovery that will change our way to battle undead, so at least it wasn't a complete waste of good buffs: Turn undead does not trigger an attack of opportunity.
And now we find out. Whatever. The undead can do nothing to stop us, and we purge them with righteous fury and, uhm, righteous anger. Flawless victory! They did not even manage to touch us once.
After this little event Doggy levels up, and I pick barbarian for him this once. Afterwards we use our vial of Naga blood on the fountain in the same way we did use the ruby at the well of earthborn wind.
It seems we need to hunt for three more vials of the stuff before we can obtain whatever there is to obtain from here. In any case, here ends today's update. Next time we meet we will keep exploring the halls of stone, and maybe find that magical gate the undead are said to be pouring through.
The game is kind of weird in that it seems to go from too easy to I can't believe this shit without much in between: In the Deep Halls our tails were on the line, and in here we are slaughtering everything that as much as dares looking wrong at us without the least effort. I guess this sets up a kind of correct order in which to do the dungeons and explore the areas.
In any case, 'til next time!
@ Mrowak
Thank you for the links. The sorcerer's spell list is pure fail for the low and high circles, yet from three to six it's actually pretty nice. Damn. That's why I prefer Wizards, Sorcerers just can't get all the spells I like and then I feel totally awful when I have to pick.
And the party failing badly is kind of a scary prospect. The game's so big we haven't even hit the halfway point of the first act, so my original idea of rolling a new party and trying again if one fails utterly is only possible as long as we notice early enough.
I am not so scared about the lack of full time arcane casters, though. What I'm actually scared is the lack of resiliant enough fighters to outlast the enemy, given not only do the battles usually turn into getting surrounded by foes and hoping we can last long enough to kill them all while at least half of our attacks miss but even when our AC is as high as it can possibly be right now we are getting by just barely. The lack of full time arcane casters only makes it visible, given we can't just fix it all with a fireball when things don't go our way.
At least we manage to abuse the undead, but given how much anti-undead equipment we have and how broken turn undead is that's not very satisfying. They are but poor defenseless thingies before our overpowered equipment.
@ Miss Bee
There's a slight difference between a difficulty rise and going from slaughtering everything with extreme ease to just barely surviving an encounter after blasting the enemies with three consecutive cones of cold cast as a level 15 sorcerer.
So I'm back to reading after some time and I see you are making astounding progress! Difficulty seems to be rising steadily too. I guess its because our spellcasters are multiclassed thus progressing much more slowly through new spell levels. There is only so much one can do with level one spells...
Anyway I predict many more tough battles ahead. Fun fun!
Anyway I predict many more tough battles ahead. Fun fun!
BC said:
True that, but it's still good to see. Being this side of the LP, at least.
BC said:
Maybe you were supposed to save both, and then something awesome would've happened?
Also, haha, "Fountain Macabre".
eklektyk
Erudite
mandatory to keep awsomness going ... 
to keep awsomness going ...
Black Cat
Magister
Chapter the twentieth third; Of master shadows and low level wizards.
Last time we met we did stuffies and thingies, and then set up camp to recover from stuffieing and thingieing. As we rejoin our heroes, however, they aren't breaking up camp. No, not at all. They are actually in the midst of a terrible battle against a master shadow and her shadow underlings hidden from sight by magical darkness, blasting enemies away with blasts of divine power and mighty swords while listening Blind Guardian or some other such thingie. How did we come to this, you ask? That's a pretty good question. A hard to answer one, too, given someone spoke to me in MSN while I was halfway through the battle, followed by so much minimizing and maximizing crashing the game. Afterwards, when I was able to continue from before the battle, I restarted that Irfanview thingie and went back to fight against the thingies... And then Miss Irfanview Thingie overwrote all my screenshots previous to the battle. Yay.
So, anyway, after resting in the same place we did rest before we went south until entering a vast room marked as 1. There we killed a lot of skeletons and stuffies, and then went southeast until we did hit 2, a small room in which we found three chests protected by strange orcish locks no one but an orcish master thief would be able to open, or somethingie. The entrances to 3 are protected by sigils needing magical words to open, and then we come to the room marked as 4, along the way coming across some dead skeletons whose equipment was worth nothing. We still did put a banner there just in case we did need some quick money later on.
In the room marked as 4, in any case, we come across a strange circle of pointy thingies, in the center of which a chest rests. Ramon searches the chest for traps but finds nothing.
Therefore we decide to open it.
of Ramon.
Hey, that wasn't an actual trap but a script!
Oui, oui. Sure thingie.
As you can see two thirds of the room are covered in magical darkness. Two shadows have spawned near Glorfin, and several more, I'm not sure how many, along with a Master Shadow have spawned under the cover of magical darkness and charged Ramon there.
Glorfin attacks the Shadow just south of him and misses, followed by the shadow hitting him for 3 STR. Glorfin then runs and attacks the other shadow around the paladin, for 15 damage. Aislinn, then, turns all of the shadows but the master one.
This makes the battle somewhat more manageable, but not by much. Ramon manages to dodge an attack by the master shadow and it seems the turning actually killed one of the shadows around him, which is kind of awful given before I was interrupted and the game crashed the turning had kill all but the master shadow itself. Hmpf.
In any case, Ramon keeps defending while Glorfin and Doggy take care of the shadows on the uncovered area and Aislinn casts bless. Then he retreats toward the others, managing to evade the attack of opportunity this triggered but not the follow up attack by the master shadow pursuing him.
Then it comes down to a fight against the master shadow, after a little bit of maneuvering given the obelisk thingie just outside the circle of spikes was really bothering our fight against the creature. We get to the northern corner and surround it, and Aislinn casts Aid on Doggy to help him fight the creature better. He hurts it for 11 damage, and then both Ramon's and Glorfin's strikes fail to hurt it even when striking true. The creature is focused on Doggy, but misses.
Aislinn casts shield of faith on Ramon, given he had no time of casting shield on himself. Afterwards Glorfin hurts our foe for 8 damage, while the others either missed or failed to damage it. The master shadow then strikes at Ramon twice, and given this have left him devoid of any STR he is left with zero HP until restored. The common shadow that, from those under the cover of magical darkness, had managed to survive Aislinn's turning is finally free to move and charges against Glorfin, followed by both Doggy and the paladin failing to hurt the creature, in the case of Glorfin with his Smite Evil attack of the day. Yay.
The master shadow then strikes Glorfin for some more STR damage, and Aislinn turns the normal shadow. Doggy misses the master shadow, then Glorfin fails to hurt it and the creatures strikes at him once again for even more STR damage. He drops the ball, throws the towel, and stuffies. Only Aislinn and Doggy are left to face against such a terrible beast.
Why are all trustworthy meatshields borderline ugly?
I did hear that.
Doggy then moves himself to the place Glorfin occupied until just now, thus stoping the normal shadow of being able to rush Aislinn next time the turning ends. His attack fails to hurt the enemy, though, and thus Aislinn has once again to fall back to her wand of magic missile for victory, which kind of makes obvious this adventure will end once our wands runs out of charges.
Three turns of shooting purple stuffies at the master shadow and one of Doggy's massive strikes bypassing its kind of ethereal nature end the danger, and then it's just Doggy striking the remaining foe while Aislinn keeps it turned. The master shadow, however, managed to hurt Doggy for some STR before going down, making his attacks fail a lot more than expected.
In any case we are victorious. Aislinn takes a level as a Sorcerer upon victory, mainly because she wants to see whether or not is possible to solve the problem of our weak arcane casting prowess before we reach the point of having to get through hard fights by reloading alone, which our heroine is too proud to stoop to. The loot of this battle is a third stone head and the wings of diabolicus, a bat winged +2 warhammer able to cast slay living up to three times as a level 15 cleric, and which is also able to be equiped by clerics.
We then need to rest for a long while for all our characters to recover their Strenght values. A really long while, and then we move back to the Fountain Macabre and, from there, we go to the west until we hit 5, a vast room after an opened gate in which many undead are for us waiting. The skeleton knights fall easily to Aislinn's turn undead, yet the skeleton lord is tougher and manages to hurt us quite a bit before going down, even when opposed by all the guys at the same time.
Afterwards we explore 6, a room devoid of anything but a grizzly scene.
These elven clerics have been recently killed - not by undead, but by some kind of sinister magic.
Why are elven clerics here, though? Isn't Myth Drannor the kind of spot only adventurers and evil cultists visit?
Their equipment sucks, though, so we just rest for a little while before moving forward. From the corridor we just fought the undead in, 5, me move to a vast and open chamber, 7. Ramon wasn't able to disarm the trap protecting the door, though, so Glorfin had to suffer some small electric damage for us to advance. Beyond there is nothing of interest, thus far at least, other than a door leading into a small side room, 7, in which we finally meet another of the scarred mages, interrogating a human prisoner.
Maybe this will loosen your tongue.
Maybe this will loosen your grip on life.
Both seems to fail their Intimidate checks and thus the battle is on, and it doesn't looks good for the prisoner. We charge, then. Or, like, kinda: Glorfin does, but Ramon takes the first turn to cast shield before advancing a little bit, and Aislinn casts shield of faith on Doggy, who delayed his action for this. Then the angry elf rushes in and strikes one of the undead for some damage.
And during the next round the battle decides itself.
With all the skeletons paralyzed by Aislinn's turn undead thingie we slain everything with little risk of defeat or delay. Yay.
Aid comes when least looked for, I see. Well met, friends. If you are from Phlan, as your garb bespeaks, then well met indeed.
Humans really enjoy their dressing up and speaking strangely.
Who are you, and what are you doing here in Myth Drannor?
I'm Emmeric, called 'lucky' in my mother's tongue, though I've come to doubt its prophecy of late.
So you are Emmeric. You were with Athan's band, weren't you?
I don't know. Shouldn't he be, like, shambling around, rotting away, and lusting for brains in that case?
These mages and their dark ilk slew all my band, save myself and our leader, Athan.
Oui, oui. How convenient.
They spared the best and the least of us, it seems. For what purpose, I know not. Without your aid, the gods know what fate would have befallen me.
Yet I'm quite sure we will not be seeing an actual reward.
If your cause is just, my blade is at your service.
Like, no. Have you learned something from your captors, though?
My feet may have been bound, but my ears were open.
'Yes' would have sufficed.
The mages serve a dark mistress who's taken hold of Castle Cormanthor. It was her they took the Gauntlets of Moander, which Elminster himself gave into our keeping. I listened for a name to curse, but they spoke of their masters only as 'She' and 'Her'... and sometimes 'Him'... and trembled at the words.
She and He. That's useful.
Either we have two different powerful enemies to defeat or we have just discovered SMA's true identity.
Anyway, and stuffies. What can you tell us about Athan's quest?
The great mage Elminster handpicked Athan and his band to venture here.
A lot of good that did, yes.
He bid us uncover what evil taints the city's guardian spell, the ancient Mythal.
Did you discover anything about what's affecting the Mythal?
Since Myth Drannor's fall, the spell has faded some, but of late, a dark corruption has possessed it and twisted even its last remaining boons to curses. Elminster sent us here to discover the cause of the corruption. That we did, but at great cost: my companions are dead, and the priceless Gauntlets of Moander are stolen by their murderers.
And the cause is...?
Some new force has entered Myth Drannor, driven out the laired and lesser evils, and taken possession of Castle Cormanthor. The corruption of the Mythal is their doing. They have twisted its power, and used it to raise a Pool of Radiance whose evil might spreads throughout Faerun.
Truly enlightening.
Anyway. What are those gauntletish stuffies you did mention just now?
Indeed, and what role do they play in all of this?
And, since we are at it, how high is their price in the open market?
The Gauntlets hold a singular gift: The power to destroy Pools of Radiance. Their palms are graven with eye runes, which have slumbered since the destruction of the Pool at Phlan. A season ago, they snapped open once again, to warn of a new Pool rising. Elminster feared that this new Pool could be at the heart of the evil changes newly come over Myth Drannor. He sent us with the Gauntlets to uncover the truth. If his fears were founded, and we found such a Pool, we were to use the Gauntlets to destroy it. But rather, we have let them slip into the hands of our enemies.
GJ.
I see. Do you have any clue about what can we do to fix this darkness you humans have brought upon all of Faerun?
The mages took from me a ring of great power, sealed onto a skeletal arm.
We have heard of it, yes.
They've taken it to the Room of Words, in the hopes of unsealing the ring from its dead wearer's hand. Athan believed that the ring, the Ring of Calling, holds the key to attaining the city heights, where our quest lies.
Lied.
My companions are dead and my quest failed, unless it lives with you.
Like, I'm totally sorry but you humans have already done more than enough world dooming for a single campaign.
Then I thank you for my life and for my freedom from this carrion. May whatever gods you hold dear watch your backs. Find me with Nottle, if ever you need another eager blade.
Glorfin gets a new level, as a Paladin, following this conversation, and thus this update ends. No one knows what horrors we will find next, nor what new dangers will we come to face. Hopefully, though, our adventures will not come to a horrible end, though given a single master shadow almost finished us my hopes are kind of below the sea level right now.
'til next time!
@ Malakal
Indeed. It's hard to notice without looking at the tables and stuffies, but Aislinn would be one level away of casting three fireballs/Lightning Bolts/Stinking Clouds per battle, along five melf's acid arrows and six magic missiles, if a pure sorcerer, or would be already casting the third level of divine spells as a pure cleric. It's no surprise we are getting our tails handed to us when we can't exploit turn undead, really.
We'll see how it goes.
@ Abnaxus
Orogs are pretty hard here because we are still are really low level party, intensified by the wild multiclassing we did. The battles against them really go on for too long and sooner or later the rolls go their way and we get some massive damage, given they kick like mules.
@ Eklektyk
*is happy with the attention, writes a new update*
Last time we met we did stuffies and thingies, and then set up camp to recover from stuffieing and thingieing. As we rejoin our heroes, however, they aren't breaking up camp. No, not at all. They are actually in the midst of a terrible battle against a master shadow and her shadow underlings hidden from sight by magical darkness, blasting enemies away with blasts of divine power and mighty swords while listening Blind Guardian or some other such thingie. How did we come to this, you ask? That's a pretty good question. A hard to answer one, too, given someone spoke to me in MSN while I was halfway through the battle, followed by so much minimizing and maximizing crashing the game. Afterwards, when I was able to continue from before the battle, I restarted that Irfanview thingie and went back to fight against the thingies... And then Miss Irfanview Thingie overwrote all my screenshots previous to the battle. Yay.
So, anyway, after resting in the same place we did rest before we went south until entering a vast room marked as 1. There we killed a lot of skeletons and stuffies, and then went southeast until we did hit 2, a small room in which we found three chests protected by strange orcish locks no one but an orcish master thief would be able to open, or somethingie. The entrances to 3 are protected by sigils needing magical words to open, and then we come to the room marked as 4, along the way coming across some dead skeletons whose equipment was worth nothing. We still did put a banner there just in case we did need some quick money later on.
In the room marked as 4, in any case, we come across a strange circle of pointy thingies, in the center of which a chest rests. Ramon searches the chest for traps but finds nothing.
Therefore we decide to open it.
of Ramon.
As you can see two thirds of the room are covered in magical darkness. Two shadows have spawned near Glorfin, and several more, I'm not sure how many, along with a Master Shadow have spawned under the cover of magical darkness and charged Ramon there.
Glorfin attacks the Shadow just south of him and misses, followed by the shadow hitting him for 3 STR. Glorfin then runs and attacks the other shadow around the paladin, for 15 damage. Aislinn, then, turns all of the shadows but the master one.
This makes the battle somewhat more manageable, but not by much. Ramon manages to dodge an attack by the master shadow and it seems the turning actually killed one of the shadows around him, which is kind of awful given before I was interrupted and the game crashed the turning had kill all but the master shadow itself. Hmpf.
In any case, Ramon keeps defending while Glorfin and Doggy take care of the shadows on the uncovered area and Aislinn casts bless. Then he retreats toward the others, managing to evade the attack of opportunity this triggered but not the follow up attack by the master shadow pursuing him.
Then it comes down to a fight against the master shadow, after a little bit of maneuvering given the obelisk thingie just outside the circle of spikes was really bothering our fight against the creature. We get to the northern corner and surround it, and Aislinn casts Aid on Doggy to help him fight the creature better. He hurts it for 11 damage, and then both Ramon's and Glorfin's strikes fail to hurt it even when striking true. The creature is focused on Doggy, but misses.
Aislinn casts shield of faith on Ramon, given he had no time of casting shield on himself. Afterwards Glorfin hurts our foe for 8 damage, while the others either missed or failed to damage it. The master shadow then strikes at Ramon twice, and given this have left him devoid of any STR he is left with zero HP until restored. The common shadow that, from those under the cover of magical darkness, had managed to survive Aislinn's turning is finally free to move and charges against Glorfin, followed by both Doggy and the paladin failing to hurt the creature, in the case of Glorfin with his Smite Evil attack of the day. Yay.
The master shadow then strikes Glorfin for some more STR damage, and Aislinn turns the normal shadow. Doggy misses the master shadow, then Glorfin fails to hurt it and the creatures strikes at him once again for even more STR damage. He drops the ball, throws the towel, and stuffies. Only Aislinn and Doggy are left to face against such a terrible beast.
Doggy then moves himself to the place Glorfin occupied until just now, thus stoping the normal shadow of being able to rush Aislinn next time the turning ends. His attack fails to hurt the enemy, though, and thus Aislinn has once again to fall back to her wand of magic missile for victory, which kind of makes obvious this adventure will end once our wands runs out of charges.
Three turns of shooting purple stuffies at the master shadow and one of Doggy's massive strikes bypassing its kind of ethereal nature end the danger, and then it's just Doggy striking the remaining foe while Aislinn keeps it turned. The master shadow, however, managed to hurt Doggy for some STR before going down, making his attacks fail a lot more than expected.
In any case we are victorious. Aislinn takes a level as a Sorcerer upon victory, mainly because she wants to see whether or not is possible to solve the problem of our weak arcane casting prowess before we reach the point of having to get through hard fights by reloading alone, which our heroine is too proud to stoop to. The loot of this battle is a third stone head and the wings of diabolicus, a bat winged +2 warhammer able to cast slay living up to three times as a level 15 cleric, and which is also able to be equiped by clerics.
We then need to rest for a long while for all our characters to recover their Strenght values. A really long while, and then we move back to the Fountain Macabre and, from there, we go to the west until we hit 5, a vast room after an opened gate in which many undead are for us waiting. The skeleton knights fall easily to Aislinn's turn undead, yet the skeleton lord is tougher and manages to hurt us quite a bit before going down, even when opposed by all the guys at the same time.
Afterwards we explore 6, a room devoid of anything but a grizzly scene.
Their equipment sucks, though, so we just rest for a little while before moving forward. From the corridor we just fought the undead in, 5, me move to a vast and open chamber, 7. Ramon wasn't able to disarm the trap protecting the door, though, so Glorfin had to suffer some small electric damage for us to advance. Beyond there is nothing of interest, thus far at least, other than a door leading into a small side room, 7, in which we finally meet another of the scarred mages, interrogating a human prisoner.
Both seems to fail their Intimidate checks and thus the battle is on, and it doesn't looks good for the prisoner. We charge, then. Or, like, kinda: Glorfin does, but Ramon takes the first turn to cast shield before advancing a little bit, and Aislinn casts shield of faith on Doggy, who delayed his action for this. Then the angry elf rushes in and strikes one of the undead for some damage.
And during the next round the battle decides itself.
With all the skeletons paralyzed by Aislinn's turn undead thingie we slain everything with little risk of defeat or delay. Yay.
Glorfin gets a new level, as a Paladin, following this conversation, and thus this update ends. No one knows what horrors we will find next, nor what new dangers will we come to face. Hopefully, though, our adventures will not come to a horrible end, though given a single master shadow almost finished us my hopes are kind of below the sea level right now.
'til next time!
@ Malakal
Indeed. It's hard to notice without looking at the tables and stuffies, but Aislinn would be one level away of casting three fireballs/Lightning Bolts/Stinking Clouds per battle, along five melf's acid arrows and six magic missiles, if a pure sorcerer, or would be already casting the third level of divine spells as a pure cleric. It's no surprise we are getting our tails handed to us when we can't exploit turn undead, really.
We'll see how it goes.
@ Abnaxus
Orogs are pretty hard here because we are still are really low level party, intensified by the wild multiclassing we did. The battles against them really go on for too long and sooner or later the rolls go their way and we get some massive damage, given they kick like mules.
@ Eklektyk
*is happy with the attention, writes a new update*
Lonely Vazdru
Pimp my Title
Don't let it bring you down. This fight is a really hard one. You made it, it's all that matters.Black Cat said:
When the going gets tough... the cat gets updating.
French poetry.Black Cat said:
The Thin Man
Novice
- Joined
- Jul 24, 2011
- Messages
- 97
I figured this would be the case, which is why I opted for a pure cleric during character request.
Woohoo!
Black Cat
Magister
The next update will come sometime during tomorrow, as I have been, uhm, kind of busy, like, learning to do torpedo runs IN SPACE.
That aside,
@ abnaxus
I'm sorry but I don't really know. My collection of fantasy images is mostly limited to elves, fairies, fey creatures, and witches, and it felt kind of wrong to use the utterly awesome and sexy Garrett for a two-bit side role, so I just kind of put human thief on Google and took the only one who did not suck.
Are those books with him good, though?
@ Ronery V.
You are, like, totally right. I have my reputation as the toughest, prettiest, meanest, hardcore, like, est and, say, most totally charming dungeon crawling nyan ever to think about. We will get through Myth Drannor with our unoptimized party and we will teach evil to fear our prettiness.
Considering my knowledge of French Poetry is, outside of some opera and stuffies, limited to Baudelaire I will refrain of making any comment to save myself of being seen as even more of an EmoGoth gone rogue.
But, like, hey! Hey, hey, and more hey and stuffies. Since we are at it and, like, you know french and thingies... I was talking with a friend of mine about some french thingies we were unsure about how to write. So, like, you are our only hope! Help two dumbfounded witches about this:
In the first place Papillon is butterfly, right? However, it is a masculine noun and I have never seen it written with an extra E so i'm guessing that's not how it is, uhm, girlied. So, like, is it actually considered neutral an thus we can translate The Butterfly, if female, as La Papillion, or is it done in some other way?
In the second place, and again about the same topic, I was under the impression Bleu was like its spanish counterpart, Azul, in that it is always neutral, and therefore always Bleu, instead of like Noir/Noire and stuffies. However, she isn't so sure about that. So, again, halp!
And, finally, say, Azure instead of Bleu. In french it is, like, Azur but, again, it is considered a male, uhm, thingie. So, is its gender expressed by context (like, la somethingie azur - la azur somestuffie) or is it done like with Noir/Noire, so Azur/Azure?
Thankies and hugs in advance! :3
Sorry for the explotation, but it's either that or reviewing several years of notes, and neither is known as being very, uhm, dedicated to taking notes in class, if you know what I mean.
@ The Thin Man
You have to give our elves they are some quite tough pretty girls and pretty guys when they invade Myth Drannor without the support of a pure cleric!
Like, we are too cool for common sense! And stuffies.
This isn't going to be easty at all, is it?
@ Miss Bee
I see you woohoo and raise, uhm, another, say, woohoo. So... Woohoo!
That aside,
@ abnaxus
I'm sorry but I don't really know. My collection of fantasy images is mostly limited to elves, fairies, fey creatures, and witches, and it felt kind of wrong to use the utterly awesome and sexy Garrett for a two-bit side role, so I just kind of put human thief on Google and took the only one who did not suck.
Are those books with him good, though?
@ Ronery V.
You are, like, totally right. I have my reputation as the toughest, prettiest, meanest, hardcore, like, est and, say, most totally charming dungeon crawling nyan ever to think about. We will get through Myth Drannor with our unoptimized party and we will teach evil to fear our prettiness.
French poetry.
Considering my knowledge of French Poetry is, outside of some opera and stuffies, limited to Baudelaire I will refrain of making any comment to save myself of being seen as even more of an EmoGoth gone rogue.
But, like, hey! Hey, hey, and more hey and stuffies. Since we are at it and, like, you know french and thingies... I was talking with a friend of mine about some french thingies we were unsure about how to write. So, like, you are our only hope! Help two dumbfounded witches about this:
In the first place Papillon is butterfly, right? However, it is a masculine noun and I have never seen it written with an extra E so i'm guessing that's not how it is, uhm, girlied. So, like, is it actually considered neutral an thus we can translate The Butterfly, if female, as La Papillion, or is it done in some other way?
In the second place, and again about the same topic, I was under the impression Bleu was like its spanish counterpart, Azul, in that it is always neutral, and therefore always Bleu, instead of like Noir/Noire and stuffies. However, she isn't so sure about that. So, again, halp!
And, finally, say, Azure instead of Bleu. In french it is, like, Azur but, again, it is considered a male, uhm, thingie. So, is its gender expressed by context (like, la somethingie azur - la azur somestuffie) or is it done like with Noir/Noire, so Azur/Azure?
Thankies and hugs in advance! :3
Sorry for the explotation, but it's either that or reviewing several years of notes, and neither is known as being very, uhm, dedicated to taking notes in class, if you know what I mean.
@ The Thin Man
You have to give our elves they are some quite tough pretty girls and pretty guys when they invade Myth Drannor without the support of a pure cleric!
Like, we are too cool for common sense! And stuffies.
This isn't going to be easty at all, is it?
@ Miss Bee
I see you woohoo and raise, uhm, another, say, woohoo. So... Woohoo!
Lonely Vazdru
Pimp my Title
Black Cat said:
Thanks, I've been waiting to hear that since I was a wee lad.
Papillon is a masculine noun alright, so it's always "le papillon" no matter what the sex of the actual butterfly is. If you want to instill some feminine into this you can say "la femelle papillon" since femelle is a feminine noun.Black Cat said:
Bleu works like noir actually, so it's bleu/bleue. Illustrating this with black and blue cat examples came to my mind but that would be lewd given the "double entendre" surrounding the meaning of feminine cat in french. Plus, black and blue cat is enough of a joke, given your master shadow traumatic encounter.Black Cat said:
Azur is always azur. No feminine form, don't ask me why, I honestly don't know. So it's la somethingie azur alright.Black Cat said:
You can have azuré/azurée though, when talking about something that has an azur tint.
Don't worry, when it comes to feeling miserable, Baudelaire is where it's really at, EmoGoth or not :Black Cat said:
Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle
Sur l'esprit gémissant en proie aux longs ennuis,
Et que de l'horizon embrassant tout le cercle
Il nous verse un jour noir plus triste que les nuits ;
Quand la terre est changée en un cachot humide,
Où l'Espérance, comme une chauve-souris,
S'en va battant les murs de son aile timide
Et se cognant la tête à des plafonds pourris ;
Quand la pluie étalant ses immenses traînées
D'une vaste prison imite les barreaux,
Et qu'un peuple muet d'infâmes araignées
Vient tendre ses filets au fond de nos cerveaux,
Des cloches tout à coup sautent avec furie
Et lancent vers le ciel un affreux hurlement,
Ainsi que des esprits errants et sans patrie
Qui se mettent à geindre opiniâtrement.
Et de longs corbillards, sans tambours ni musique,
Défilent lentement dans mon âme ; l'Espoir,
Vaincu, pleure, et l'Angoisse atroce, despotique,
Sur mon crâne incliné plante son drapeau noir.
No one has topped that yet.
eklektyk
Erudite
well.....it worked last time...so... :
Black Cat
Magister
Chapter the twentieth fourth; The nightmare gate.
Last time we met we killed undead stuffies and, like, undead thingies. And, outside of our heroine's despair because of a Master Shadow that could, not much more happened. As we rejoin our heroes, however, much is about to happen, not a small part of which is still mainly related to sending undead stuffies and, say, undead thingies back to the place they should instead be, though given the kind of Gods people in Faerun seems to enjoy praying to maybe they actually are where they should be. Or somethingie like that.
In any case our heroes break camp in the room marked as 1 in the map, the one in which we defeated our second scarred mage. To the west of this position is this level's hexagonal room of jeweled teleportation, which doesn't contain anything we haven't seen already. Instead, thus, we go to the southwest. We follow the corridor you can see there and loot the first room for a few coins. Then we enter the second one, the one marked as 2 in the map. There we find a staircase going down. And pretty strange this is, given we have explored all, or almost, of the Main Halls already.
We descend, carefully, and find ourselves not in the Main Halls but in the Deep Halls instead. In an area we had not yet explored, not very far from the spot in which we had our last battle with the orogs before going to explore elsewhere. It's better to leave it for later, though, given so much toing and froing would make our heroine have a fit. So we ascend the stairs back and leave exploring this for later.
Once back upside we continue down the corridor just for a couple of steps, stopings next to the door to the next room over. As we prepare to search it for traps and stuffies, however, a group of enemies charges at us from a kind of openish area to which the tunnel we are following goes to die.
We face two skeleton lords, two ancient zombies, and two normal zombies. Given Ramon was about to search the door he was the party member in the most forward position, and thus he is surrounded by the creatures before long. The battle wasn't particularly interesting, though, even when it wasn't a cakewalk. All characters but Aislinn left pretty wounded because of their combat with the skeleton lords, as all other enemies were turned pretty early. Glorfin even fell for about half a turn before Aislinn healed him and sent him back to fight. With several dozens of miss signs poping up in between one thingie and the next, though.
Once we have defeated the enemies, though, we retreat back into 2 and rest for a while. Recovered we then go back outside and explore the third room in the corridor, the one just to the right, and slightly below, from the one in which we camped. In this room we find nothing but a note...
What is it?
It reads 'Torathel: Lizardfolk have been seen in the area around the Nightmare Gate. You'd best take the weapon I stuck in the bookcase just upstairs.' and it is signed by one Azmark.
I see. Yes, the priest had mentioned the lizardmen inhabited certain areas of the upper levels. And according to what he told us it was in their territory that some healing fountain was to be found.
Then we keep exploring to the southeast until the corridor thingie ends and we find a door. Next to the door there's a chest with a scroll of Shield (level 5) and a salve of Cure Serious Wounds (level 20), and beyond there's a series of rooms, libraries or somethingie once, with nothing of interest in them. The fourth room, however, is a staircase leading into the next level, which we follow just because of what the note said.
The room upside contains nothing of interest but a bookcase and a chest. The bookcase contains a Marshbane Dagger, a +2 Dagger with another +2 to hit and triple damage against reptiles which Glorfin keeps. The chest just some coins.
Once we have returned to the Halls of Stone we leave back to the area around the hexagonal room, then to just outside the room in which we defeated the second scarred mage, and then north until we hit another room, marked as 4 in the map.
The room is divided in half by some bars and stuffies, and the lock at the entrance to the area beyond must be picked by Ramon even if there's nothing there but twenty six coins or so in a chest. Sure, he is thankful for the free experience yet it's kind of weird to find such a place. Maybe it was supposed to be a jail of some kind or another? Anyway, there are also two notes in the outside half of the room. Both are incomplete.
Either one scarred mage was writing two notes to their leaders in two different tables, at the very same time, when something came to interrupt him and forced him to flee or two scarred mages were writing two different notes at their leaders, at the very same time, when something came and did interrupt them both, forcing them to flee.
Or, like, one scarred mage was writing a note to one of their leaders when something came to interrupt him and forced him to flee, and then, later, another scarred mage came and started writing a note to the other of their leaders when something came to interrupt, and force to flee, this one too.
Maybe it was the same one.
Like, one scarred mage was writing a note to one of their leaders when something came and interrupted him, forcing him to flee, and then later he came back, started writing a different note to their other leader but was also interrupted and forced to flee?
Yup.
Totally possible. It's as reasonable as the other options, at the very least.
We leave this room and continue exploring, returning just outside the fence thingie we came into this area through during the previous update and going straight north this time. This way we come to the area marked as 5 in this chapter's first map, in which we face another group of undead. As it has been seen so far the undead would actually be some pretty tough opponents were not for how much equipment against them we currently have and Aislinn's turn undead thingie. And this battle shows the very same thingie.
Again, the battle is long and slow. At first nothing much happens, then damage starts to pile up on our guys. Aislinn's turn undead doesn't wants to work beyond the first use, and given the way they are fighting only the Skeleton Lords, in whom usually the skill doesn't work, are in her line of sight. Once the damage starts to pile up Aislinn, who has been wounded because there's no way to tell whether or not you are in an enemy's attack of opportunity range, nor whether or not the positioning of your pals would block the triggered attack of opportunity, starts going around and healing. Eventually, she gets another attack of opportunity due to the very same reasons, which downs her but stops 1HP short of killing her. Then Glorfin rushes there and uses his magical healing hands to stabilize her and stuffies.
Following that the battle is a bit more interesting given they have to manage and defeat the remaining skeleton lord, as they already had defeated another, and all his cronies, for even the paralyzed ones had recovered, without turn undead and stuffies, but they manage to get through such situation with not a single new wound. Or almost. I believe Doggy got himself hit for, like, five damage total once.
Our loot is a potion of Cure Serious Wounds (level 15), and we rest in the nearest room of those to be found next to where the battle ocurred. Once we have all recovered from the battle we move north, to 6, and through the door there, beyond finding a new area you can only, apparently, reach through that entrance, with many rooms and ruins and stuffies to explore.
The first two rooms we explore are those marked, naturally, as 7 and 8 in the map. Many undeads are inside yet we have a doorway to keep the flow under control and turn undead to cast for several turns, back to back, until all the enemies are turned, then we rush in and kill everyone in order of turning, so that no undead outlives the inmobilization affecting it.
The two small rooms southeast of 8 contain nothing but a scroll of Dispel Magic (level 10). Then we move to the room next to the door we used to access this area, marked as 9, given its only entrance is on this side. More undead are inside, and the same fate that their friends found before they do find now.
In the room proper, after defeating the creatures, we find a long slender dagger by the name of Boghurst's Putrefaction, a normal unmodified dagger able to cast Bestow Curse (level 10) up to seven times. We rest from the battles we fought and go back exploring. The place we come across this time is the ruin marked as 10 in the second map. Many shadows, four or five, wait in ambush here. However, given our heroine's OCD thingie leads her to move, and thus lead the party, in weird ways so that all of the automap is revealed, we don't approach the ambush from the direction they were expecting us from but, instead, from behind. They don't manage to recover from being out ambushed before we turn them all to hell.
And our next stop is 11, where another bunch of shadows lie in wait. Those, however, aren't actually waiting for us but spawn once we get near that spot, the cheaters. Naturally, however, their ill intentions are short lived, Aislinn turning them before they get a turn to try their recently spawned forms.
Our eagerness, however, almost turns to tragedy when four more shadows come out of a well to the southeast and rush Aislinn while the guys are kind of busy slaughtering the defenseless shadows, which are much harder to kill, even when paralyzed, because of their incorporeality. Given Aislinn had already discovered turn undead doesn't trigger an attack of opportunity, however, she is far from defenseless.
One of the shadows resist the turning, however, and manages to hit her for some STR damage, which would have been the end of it if it wasn't for the +2 STR effect of the pretty necklace thingie she stole from some planewalking wizard's tomb. This gives the guys enough time to come and surround the shadow and, given it considers them much more dangerous than she, it turns its focus towards them instead. And once that happens...
... it's mop up time.
Our loot is a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds (level 10) and a Salve of exactly the same. In a hidden chest among the ruins west of the spot in which the battle took place, and a pretty plain looking one at that, we discover another vial of naga's blood, and in a chest to the east of where the battle took place we come across some boots of mobility, which add +10 movement to the character wearing them, and a +3 Chainmail no one really needs. We take the boots in case we later need them and move on.
We then start walking back towards the central area of the level, stoping only to explore a corridor we ignored before.
We should explain to them this land, and everything both above and below, belongs to the elves.
Which include all the loot they carry.
Sure thingie. But, like, later. If we don't find the magical gate of, like, undead generation and stuffies during this chapter I don't really know how I will title it.
So now they move back to the central point of the level, marked as 13 in the map, which is were the floating stone thingie is located. From there we move north and beyond a open gate thingie leading into a circular corridor we walk widdershins. The room our path surrounds, we can see thanks to the perspective, contains the fabled Nightmare Gate, yet first we move through another door, a small one to the east. This leads us into a series of three rooms. The first one contains some undead stuffies.
The bag you can see next to Aislinn in that screenshot is the Scroll of Dispel we had found before. Aislinn was carrying it but it was one more, uhm, weight unit she was able to carry without incurring penalties to all rolls because of encumbrance, so she was having a bit of trouble turning those foes. From now on the scroll will go with Ramon, at least for a while.
The next two rooms contain nothing of interest, yet before long, as we search around the one marked as 14, a party of Orog come in from the corridor beyond! They are two Orog and a Veteran Orog, who is the only one dangerous here. It kills Ramon in a single strike, final death like.
The battle, outside of that, is pretty easy. Glorfin and Doggy make a wall in between the orog and Aislinn, and Aislinn heals them every time the damage piles. Easy, soon they are all dead and stuffies.
We now have to take Ramon all the way to Beriand's hideout. Yay. How exiting. We start walking to this level's hexagonal room and, as we pass through 13 again...
You find fresh tracks in the dust. Some humans regrouped here, then headed north.
Maybe that will become useful later. In any case, we go all the way back to the hideout to revive Ramon and recover and stuffies. While there Beriand and Faeril tells us some Orogs tried to attack the hideout as if following some dark will but were unable to pass beyond the magical ward thingie.
Like, I just hope they don't take Beriand from our service before I can learn to revive people myself.
Then we return to the dungeon, walking again all the bloody way to the Main Hall's hexagonal room and then from the Halls of Stone's own hexagonal room to the room in which the Nightmare Gate awaits. Along the way, again as we go through 13, we find something new.
You find a new trail in the dust. Some lizardy creatures trooped by here, heading west.
We already knew about that, however, so instead we move just outside the entrance to the circular room, marked as 15 in the map, and cast all of our important buffs before opening it: Mage Armor, Shield, Shield of Faith, Bless, etc. Maybe I'll even throw in Aid just because I can. Then Glorfin opens the door and we charge into a seriously awesome battle, with endless hordes of the undead charging us from the magical gate while half a dozen scarred wizards cast their vile magic against us!
O-kay, my bad. It's just a skeleton lord, three ancient zombies, and three skeleton knights.
Totally anticlimatic.
And the update ends here because, like, Ramon will most probably level up after the fight or somethingie like that and I need to know whether he wants the level as Rogue or Sorcerer or some other stuffie. Next time we meet our heroes, then, we will defeat those undead creeps and then move either against the orog or against the lizardfolk. Or both, given they are pretty much uninvited here. And we will loot their stuff, and hopefully clear this level and move into the Halls of Light.
@ Ronery V.
Thank you very much for the explanation.
And Fleurs Du Mal is pretty much awesome. There's a certain thingie about the way in which Baudelaire paints the modern world, or its beginings at least, which makes him kind of a true romantic, not talking to us about the worlds that may be elsewhere, or could have been here, but instead reminding us of why we should have picked those instead. It's kind of a shame his work attracted not only an entire subculture, but several, of people who believes sadness to be a fashion statement. Kind of, like, way of totally missing the point and stuffies.
And french is obviously the only language there is for poetry. Not even the awesomeness that is Italian can sound so bloody pwetty while reminding you the world sucks a whole lot. :'(
@ Kz3r0
Cleaning my pointy hat, naturally. This is the only month of the year I can actually go outside with a pointy hat and everyone I meet will think it's actually pretty cute instead of totally retarded. Other than that I can't do too much. While Halloween is around Samhain in the northern hemisphere, the best time of the year to summon the dead and call for thingies and stuffies from beyond to cross the veil into our world, it is around La Beltaine in the southern hemisphere, the first day of summer (or almost), related to fertility and optimism and the high point of the Seelie Court's rule. It's not a good time for witches aligned with the moon, the element of water, and the third world.
That aside, my slower updating speed may also be related to...
... how fun it is to shoot damaged or retreating allied ships as a space nazi with a stealth torpedo corvette.
Damn, that game is bloody adictive once you start blowing up thingies and winning battles instead of crashing into asteroids three times per battle.
@ Eklektyk
It still works, indeed.
Last time we met we killed undead stuffies and, like, undead thingies. And, outside of our heroine's despair because of a Master Shadow that could, not much more happened. As we rejoin our heroes, however, much is about to happen, not a small part of which is still mainly related to sending undead stuffies and, say, undead thingies back to the place they should instead be, though given the kind of Gods people in Faerun seems to enjoy praying to maybe they actually are where they should be. Or somethingie like that.
In any case our heroes break camp in the room marked as 1 in the map, the one in which we defeated our second scarred mage. To the west of this position is this level's hexagonal room of jeweled teleportation, which doesn't contain anything we haven't seen already. Instead, thus, we go to the southwest. We follow the corridor you can see there and loot the first room for a few coins. Then we enter the second one, the one marked as 2 in the map. There we find a staircase going down. And pretty strange this is, given we have explored all, or almost, of the Main Halls already.
We descend, carefully, and find ourselves not in the Main Halls but in the Deep Halls instead. In an area we had not yet explored, not very far from the spot in which we had our last battle with the orogs before going to explore elsewhere. It's better to leave it for later, though, given so much toing and froing would make our heroine have a fit. So we ascend the stairs back and leave exploring this for later.
Once back upside we continue down the corridor just for a couple of steps, stopings next to the door to the next room over. As we prepare to search it for traps and stuffies, however, a group of enemies charges at us from a kind of openish area to which the tunnel we are following goes to die.
We face two skeleton lords, two ancient zombies, and two normal zombies. Given Ramon was about to search the door he was the party member in the most forward position, and thus he is surrounded by the creatures before long. The battle wasn't particularly interesting, though, even when it wasn't a cakewalk. All characters but Aislinn left pretty wounded because of their combat with the skeleton lords, as all other enemies were turned pretty early. Glorfin even fell for about half a turn before Aislinn healed him and sent him back to fight. With several dozens of miss signs poping up in between one thingie and the next, though.
Once we have defeated the enemies, though, we retreat back into 2 and rest for a while. Recovered we then go back outside and explore the third room in the corridor, the one just to the right, and slightly below, from the one in which we camped. In this room we find nothing but a note...
Then we keep exploring to the southeast until the corridor thingie ends and we find a door. Next to the door there's a chest with a scroll of Shield (level 5) and a salve of Cure Serious Wounds (level 20), and beyond there's a series of rooms, libraries or somethingie once, with nothing of interest in them. The fourth room, however, is a staircase leading into the next level, which we follow just because of what the note said.
The room upside contains nothing of interest but a bookcase and a chest. The bookcase contains a Marshbane Dagger, a +2 Dagger with another +2 to hit and triple damage against reptiles which Glorfin keeps. The chest just some coins.
Once we have returned to the Halls of Stone we leave back to the area around the hexagonal room, then to just outside the room in which we defeated the second scarred mage, and then north until we hit another room, marked as 4 in the map.
The room is divided in half by some bars and stuffies, and the lock at the entrance to the area beyond must be picked by Ramon even if there's nothing there but twenty six coins or so in a chest. Sure, he is thankful for the free experience yet it's kind of weird to find such a place. Maybe it was supposed to be a jail of some kind or another? Anyway, there are also two notes in the outside half of the room. Both are incomplete.
We leave this room and continue exploring, returning just outside the fence thingie we came into this area through during the previous update and going straight north this time. This way we come to the area marked as 5 in this chapter's first map, in which we face another group of undead. As it has been seen so far the undead would actually be some pretty tough opponents were not for how much equipment against them we currently have and Aislinn's turn undead thingie. And this battle shows the very same thingie.
Again, the battle is long and slow. At first nothing much happens, then damage starts to pile up on our guys. Aislinn's turn undead doesn't wants to work beyond the first use, and given the way they are fighting only the Skeleton Lords, in whom usually the skill doesn't work, are in her line of sight. Once the damage starts to pile up Aislinn, who has been wounded because there's no way to tell whether or not you are in an enemy's attack of opportunity range, nor whether or not the positioning of your pals would block the triggered attack of opportunity, starts going around and healing. Eventually, she gets another attack of opportunity due to the very same reasons, which downs her but stops 1HP short of killing her. Then Glorfin rushes there and uses his magical healing hands to stabilize her and stuffies.
Following that the battle is a bit more interesting given they have to manage and defeat the remaining skeleton lord, as they already had defeated another, and all his cronies, for even the paralyzed ones had recovered, without turn undead and stuffies, but they manage to get through such situation with not a single new wound. Or almost. I believe Doggy got himself hit for, like, five damage total once.
Our loot is a potion of Cure Serious Wounds (level 15), and we rest in the nearest room of those to be found next to where the battle ocurred. Once we have all recovered from the battle we move north, to 6, and through the door there, beyond finding a new area you can only, apparently, reach through that entrance, with many rooms and ruins and stuffies to explore.
The first two rooms we explore are those marked, naturally, as 7 and 8 in the map. Many undeads are inside yet we have a doorway to keep the flow under control and turn undead to cast for several turns, back to back, until all the enemies are turned, then we rush in and kill everyone in order of turning, so that no undead outlives the inmobilization affecting it.
The two small rooms southeast of 8 contain nothing but a scroll of Dispel Magic (level 10). Then we move to the room next to the door we used to access this area, marked as 9, given its only entrance is on this side. More undead are inside, and the same fate that their friends found before they do find now.
In the room proper, after defeating the creatures, we find a long slender dagger by the name of Boghurst's Putrefaction, a normal unmodified dagger able to cast Bestow Curse (level 10) up to seven times. We rest from the battles we fought and go back exploring. The place we come across this time is the ruin marked as 10 in the second map. Many shadows, four or five, wait in ambush here. However, given our heroine's OCD thingie leads her to move, and thus lead the party, in weird ways so that all of the automap is revealed, we don't approach the ambush from the direction they were expecting us from but, instead, from behind. They don't manage to recover from being out ambushed before we turn them all to hell.
And our next stop is 11, where another bunch of shadows lie in wait. Those, however, aren't actually waiting for us but spawn once we get near that spot, the cheaters. Naturally, however, their ill intentions are short lived, Aislinn turning them before they get a turn to try their recently spawned forms.
Our eagerness, however, almost turns to tragedy when four more shadows come out of a well to the southeast and rush Aislinn while the guys are kind of busy slaughtering the defenseless shadows, which are much harder to kill, even when paralyzed, because of their incorporeality. Given Aislinn had already discovered turn undead doesn't trigger an attack of opportunity, however, she is far from defenseless.
One of the shadows resist the turning, however, and manages to hit her for some STR damage, which would have been the end of it if it wasn't for the +2 STR effect of the pretty necklace thingie she stole from some planewalking wizard's tomb. This gives the guys enough time to come and surround the shadow and, given it considers them much more dangerous than she, it turns its focus towards them instead. And once that happens...
... it's mop up time.
Our loot is a potion of Cure Moderate Wounds (level 10) and a Salve of exactly the same. In a hidden chest among the ruins west of the spot in which the battle took place, and a pretty plain looking one at that, we discover another vial of naga's blood, and in a chest to the east of where the battle took place we come across some boots of mobility, which add +10 movement to the character wearing them, and a +3 Chainmail no one really needs. We take the boots in case we later need them and move on.
We then start walking back towards the central area of the level, stoping only to explore a corridor we ignored before.
So now they move back to the central point of the level, marked as 13 in the map, which is were the floating stone thingie is located. From there we move north and beyond a open gate thingie leading into a circular corridor we walk widdershins. The room our path surrounds, we can see thanks to the perspective, contains the fabled Nightmare Gate, yet first we move through another door, a small one to the east. This leads us into a series of three rooms. The first one contains some undead stuffies.
The bag you can see next to Aislinn in that screenshot is the Scroll of Dispel we had found before. Aislinn was carrying it but it was one more, uhm, weight unit she was able to carry without incurring penalties to all rolls because of encumbrance, so she was having a bit of trouble turning those foes. From now on the scroll will go with Ramon, at least for a while.
The next two rooms contain nothing of interest, yet before long, as we search around the one marked as 14, a party of Orog come in from the corridor beyond! They are two Orog and a Veteran Orog, who is the only one dangerous here. It kills Ramon in a single strike, final death like.
The battle, outside of that, is pretty easy. Glorfin and Doggy make a wall in between the orog and Aislinn, and Aislinn heals them every time the damage piles. Easy, soon they are all dead and stuffies.
We now have to take Ramon all the way to Beriand's hideout. Yay. How exiting. We start walking to this level's hexagonal room and, as we pass through 13 again...
Maybe that will become useful later. In any case, we go all the way back to the hideout to revive Ramon and recover and stuffies. While there Beriand and Faeril tells us some Orogs tried to attack the hideout as if following some dark will but were unable to pass beyond the magical ward thingie.
Then we return to the dungeon, walking again all the bloody way to the Main Hall's hexagonal room and then from the Halls of Stone's own hexagonal room to the room in which the Nightmare Gate awaits. Along the way, again as we go through 13, we find something new.
We already knew about that, however, so instead we move just outside the entrance to the circular room, marked as 15 in the map, and cast all of our important buffs before opening it: Mage Armor, Shield, Shield of Faith, Bless, etc. Maybe I'll even throw in Aid just because I can. Then Glorfin opens the door and we charge into a seriously awesome battle, with endless hordes of the undead charging us from the magical gate while half a dozen scarred wizards cast their vile magic against us!
O-kay, my bad. It's just a skeleton lord, three ancient zombies, and three skeleton knights.
And the update ends here because, like, Ramon will most probably level up after the fight or somethingie like that and I need to know whether he wants the level as Rogue or Sorcerer or some other stuffie. Next time we meet our heroes, then, we will defeat those undead creeps and then move either against the orog or against the lizardfolk. Or both, given they are pretty much uninvited here. And we will loot their stuff, and hopefully clear this level and move into the Halls of Light.
@ Ronery V.
Thank you very much for the explanation.
And Fleurs Du Mal is pretty much awesome. There's a certain thingie about the way in which Baudelaire paints the modern world, or its beginings at least, which makes him kind of a true romantic, not talking to us about the worlds that may be elsewhere, or could have been here, but instead reminding us of why we should have picked those instead. It's kind of a shame his work attracted not only an entire subculture, but several, of people who believes sadness to be a fashion statement. Kind of, like, way of totally missing the point and stuffies.
And french is obviously the only language there is for poetry. Not even the awesomeness that is Italian can sound so bloody pwetty while reminding you the world sucks a whole lot. :'(
@ Kz3r0
Cleaning my pointy hat, naturally. This is the only month of the year I can actually go outside with a pointy hat and everyone I meet will think it's actually pretty cute instead of totally retarded. Other than that I can't do too much. While Halloween is around Samhain in the northern hemisphere, the best time of the year to summon the dead and call for thingies and stuffies from beyond to cross the veil into our world, it is around La Beltaine in the southern hemisphere, the first day of summer (or almost), related to fertility and optimism and the high point of the Seelie Court's rule. It's not a good time for witches aligned with the moon, the element of water, and the third world.
That aside, my slower updating speed may also be related to...
... how fun it is to shoot damaged or retreating allied ships as a space nazi with a stealth torpedo corvette.
Damn, that game is bloody adictive once you start blowing up thingies and winning battles instead of crashing into asteroids three times per battle.
@ Eklektyk
It still works, indeed.
Suffer not an undead to live!
Kz3r0
Arcane
- Joined
- May 28, 2008
- Messages
- 27,017
Let's take a level as sorcerer even if I don't see Ramon using his attack spells that much.
What you have against fertility orgies, prudish neko?Black Cat said:@ Kz3r0
Cleaning my pointy hat, naturally. This is the only month of the year I can actually go outside with a pointy hat and everyone I meet will think it's actually pretty cute instead of totally retarded. Other than that I can't do too much. While Halloween is around Samhain in the northern hemisphere, the best time of the year to summon the dead and call for thingies and stuffies from beyond to cross the veil into our world, it is around La Beltaine in the southern hemisphere, the first day of summer (or almost), related to fertility and optimism and the high point of the Seelie Court's rule. It's not a good time for witches aligned with the moon, the element of water, and the third world.
eklektyk
Erudite
it works it works it works
:casts another minor summoning:
:casts another minor summoning:
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