De Plane! ... part Deux ... not in Kansas anymore

FrdNwsm

Moving on after the last bit of mayhem, my stalwart crew had two options; a room with some odd symbols on the floor, or heading down into what was billed as the navigation room. This latter seemed promising, so we headed there. Luckily, it seemed that sleep in here was fairly secure. (We did have one nocturnal interruption, but it was by some pretty weak stuff). Heading down to the ship's bridge, we found Lavok, Valygar's great great great etc. grandad. Did he run with open arms to greet his many times removed progeny? Don't be silly. Apparently he wanted a better body, and our boy V. was it. We had to lay the smackdown on the old geezer.

When the smoke cleared, Lavok lay dying; he claimed that the whole thing wasn't his fault, but rather due to some evil force that had possessed him. I reserved judgement on that, but he did give us some information. He claimed that we had to run outside and find a demon, grab it's heart and stick it into the engine core. Apparently, demonic body organs powered the ship. Perfectly logical. This seriously puzzled me, however, since the exit from the sphere had sealed up. Figuring that the room with the funky tile job on the floor might be involved, I started playing with the symbols. Zap! Ouch. OK, everybody out of the room while I try again. Zap! Zap! Zap! Luckily the damage for guessing wrong wasn't too severe, and with only 4 runes, even I had to get the pattern right eventually. A secret door opened up, and we went down.

Well, we didn't find any demons, but it wasn't any friendlier an encounter. Two cowled wizards! One looked like he wanted to talk, the other seemed quite hostile. Now, it's been MyChar's experience that whenever someone of this nature wants to talk, there are two choices; 1) He actually does want to make a deal or offer information, or 2) He is one of those stereotypical pompous bad guys who want to hear himself pontificate as he tells you exactly how he's going to rip you a new one. Considering that this guy's crony was glaring daggers at us, we had a general idea which type of situation this was. Before he even opened his mouth I knew he had nothing to put on the table, so we targeted him and his bud with everything we had.

Yep, called it! After the obligatory rant, he turned red and they both threw up a bunch of defensive spells, probably sequencered. Didn't matter; we cut loose with breaches and an insect plague from Jaheira. They never had a chance to do anything more after that. Scratch two CWs. Still, this seemed not to be the way outside. Retracing the way to the entrance, indeed there was an opening now. Unfortunately, it was to a different plane of existence. Even MyChar eventually can see the light if it's bright enough. Planes of existence ... Planar Sphere ... it's a bloody dimensional tour bus. Right.

Well, this plane was inhabited by unfriendly natives. There were imps and quasits and such trash; they were pretty weak, and none of them seemed to qualify as demons. Then we bumped into Aec'Le'Tec's uncle; another Tanar'ri. He summoned a swarm of the lesser trash, but we recognized it for the distraction ploy it was. (Heck, we did the same thing all the time with our summoned critters). We took the big guy out fast before he could uncork one of those death gaze things, and only then did we deal with the riff-raff. Quick! Grab the heart of the heartless one! The area looked like it had other places to explore, but Daddy didn't raise any total fools; we ran back to the ship ASAP with the ichor dripping prize.

Time for another nap.

lunar

You are fast. And tough. Tolgerias is nighmarish with scs mod, at least in my installation. On vanilla, he is nothing special, just have some high hit points. For a mage, that is.

Outside, I agree the hellish plane is not too tough. And a good thing, too. If you stumble upon this quest way too early with a weaker party, you may have stayed stucked there. But I have good hopes for Al. I yearn to hear about the moment when he will cut Irenicus's head off.

FrdNwsm

Pressing onward, we encountered a couple of rooms with elemental foes. Not worth mentioning really; dealing with them was ... elementary. The only mildly challenging obstacle was a room with some golems. We found a group of three; one stone, one iron and one clay. And yes, the clay ones apparently can haste themselves. This did, however, actually work in our favor, oddly enough. Clay face ran straight at us, and reached us long before his stony pal, while Iron Man seemed to have trouble negotiating the narrow passageway. So, we were able to take them out one at a time. There was a second group of three, and the same thing happened. They just couldn't coordinate their attacks in such a restricted maneuvering space, so we were able to defeat them in detail. Poor architectural ship design.

So, we reached the core, shoved in the heart, the ship shuddered and bumped and ... ended up back home in the slums! The ship then powered down for the last time, becoming a permanent monument; we figured that the tourist trade in the area would boom, providing a much needed economic stimulus. Lavok asked to see the sunlight once more, so we dragged him outside. I was wary for one last betrayal, but no, he was sincere at the last.

We also stopped off the tell the Solamnic Knights that they were free. They didn't seem overwhelmed by the news, and wandered off to try to make their way in a strange world. Seemed like an anti-climactic ending. (Did we miss something here?).

Anyway, Valygar's quest was over; he should be safe from the cowled ones now ... well, as safe as any of us can ever be. Those freaks are rapidly replacing the Red Wizards as number one on my hate list.

FrdNwsm

OOC Retrospective analysis: This quest, like the Umar Hills, was apparently designed to be done relatively early on in your adventure. Encountering it with 2 extra levels, better equipment and more powerful spells under our belts made it a lot easier than it was supposed to be.

Also, you can throw away any +2 one handed weapon that doesn't have some special property, like Belm, or weapons that confer immunity to this or that. Yes folks, there is now an unlimited supply of +3 one handed weapons. When I read it, I was astounded, but I tested it and it seems to work. I assume you know what I'm talking about

lunar

Congratulations! If you were a more bookish type, Lavok would have given the Sphere to you as a stronghold. You could have found a better solution to Solamnic Knights and delved deeper into Cowled wizards treacherous network, then.

I assume you speak of the enchanted weapon spell? ^^

FrdNwsm

lunar said:

Congratulations! If you were a more bookish type, Lavok would have given the Sphere to you as a stronghold. You could have found a better solution to Solamnic Knights and delved deeper into Cowled wizards treacherous network, then.

I assume you speak of the enchanted weapon spell? ^^

Yep, you got it. You can memorize it a few times, cast it and get your weapons, and then sleep and memorize something else, and still have the weapons for another 16 hours. In fact you can sleep twice and still have the weapons. Nifty.

lunar

FrdNwsm said:

lunar said:

Congratulations! If you were a more bookish type, Lavok would have given the Sphere to you as a stronghold. You could have found a better solution to Solamnic Knights and delved deeper into Cowled wizards treacherous network, then.

I assume you speak of the enchanted weapon spell? ^^

Yep, you got it. You can memorize it a few times, cast it and get your weapons, and then sleep and memorize something else, and still have the weapons for another 16 hours. In fact you can sleep twice and still have the weapons. Nifty.

Yes, very useful indeed. +3 weapons can hit %99 of the enemies in the game. +2 weapons won't cut some enemies, like iron/adamantine golems, some tougher demons/vampires/rakshasa etc. +3 will fix them nicely.

It can save thousands of gold in black pits 2, if you cast it in the sleeping chambers and give everyone a weapon proficiency of axe, sword or mace.

I found out if you put the conjured weapon into a container outside, say, a barrel, chest or shelf. Then rest. It does not decay. At least that's what I found out but haven't tested out too long. May be cheesy, and I am not sure how long it takes if you keep doing this each rest.