Qui custodiet custodes?
FrdNwsm
Member Posts: 1,069
[Side note: Bell, book and candle are traditional trappings for the ritual of Greater Excommunication/Anathema.
This is for when just kicking someone out isn't enough; in addition to expulsion, they are pronounced Anathema and damned to Hell for all eternity with no chance of parole, while two nuns hold their arms and whack their knuckles with steel rulers.
It's also the title of a 1958 romantic comedy, about witchcraft, with a stellar cast, including Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs and Elsa Lancaster.
It's also the name of a rooftop restaurant in downtown Manhattan.
Running Nalia's keep seems pretty intuitive; whenever offered a choice of options, pick the one that costs the most money and everyone will stay happy,]
Returning from the carnage at the Temple of the Two-faced Goddess, MC and companions stopped off his keep to collect the rent. Unfortunately, it seems that every time he goes there, something happens that ends up costing him money! This time it was some servant gal who needed a dowry to get married. Another 500 gold down the sewer pipe! Oh well.
Next stop was at the CC, where they left the shaken Rasaad for an indefinite Leave of Absence, recruiting the ever reliable Nalia in his place. The group was at a bit of a loss for something to do, until MC remembered a place in the Bridge District that had seemed a bit odd. (Heck, quite a few places there had proven odd indeed). Unfortunately, entry seemed barred by an impenetrable force field. MC then had a vision which revealed that a rogue stone could gain entry ... but, alas MC had pawned his a while back, and he was now too broke to redeem it!
Desperately wracking his less than stellar intellect, MC finally recalled some sort of odd Keep way to the South of Faerun; perhaps some sort of profit could be made there? Onward to fame and, more importantly, Fortune!
This is for when just kicking someone out isn't enough; in addition to expulsion, they are pronounced Anathema and damned to Hell for all eternity with no chance of parole, while two nuns hold their arms and whack their knuckles with steel rulers.
It's also the title of a 1958 romantic comedy, about witchcraft, with a stellar cast, including Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs and Elsa Lancaster.
It's also the name of a rooftop restaurant in downtown Manhattan.
Running Nalia's keep seems pretty intuitive; whenever offered a choice of options, pick the one that costs the most money and everyone will stay happy,]
Returning from the carnage at the Temple of the Two-faced Goddess, MC and companions stopped off his keep to collect the rent. Unfortunately, it seems that every time he goes there, something happens that ends up costing him money! This time it was some servant gal who needed a dowry to get married. Another 500 gold down the sewer pipe! Oh well.
Next stop was at the CC, where they left the shaken Rasaad for an indefinite Leave of Absence, recruiting the ever reliable Nalia in his place. The group was at a bit of a loss for something to do, until MC remembered a place in the Bridge District that had seemed a bit odd. (Heck, quite a few places there had proven odd indeed). Unfortunately, entry seemed barred by an impenetrable force field. MC then had a vision which revealed that a rogue stone could gain entry ... but, alas MC had pawned his a while back, and he was now too broke to redeem it!
Desperately wracking his less than stellar intellect, MC finally recalled some sort of odd Keep way to the South of Faerun; perhaps some sort of profit could be made there? Onward to fame and, more importantly, Fortune!
3
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Would anybody be so stupid? Sure they would; anyone remember the Aec'Le'Tec fiasco? But, as tends to happen with mortals, the watcher's powers grew feeble with the passage of time. They were worried that they could no longer muster up the strength to penetrate the guard and renew the wards. Without this being accomplished, the evil might break free!
OK, hang on a minute. Helm is a god, right? He has superhuman Wisdom and Intelligence, yes? What, he couldn't foresee this happening?? And these watchers have clearly been on duty much too long. They are happy to see, and place their hopes with, somebody who they clearly recognize is a CHILD OF BHAAL, AND SAREVOK'S HALF-BROTHER?? They're just lucky that the schizophrenic MC is wearing his good-boy suit, and isn't in his "Big Al" persona.
There were stairs and huge doors carved into the massive cliffside; needless to say, none of them could be opened. The senile gits who were on guard duty provided MC with some gizmos that would let him enter, and so the group ventured inside via the main entrance. Inside, the party met and defeated a succession of assorted creatures, found some traps, retrieved some items, and found, among other things ... you guessed it ... a bell, a book and a candle. As well as some stuff whose usefulness wasn't immediately obvious; old slippers, a couple of wardstones that had been chopped in half ... also some parchments with clues for the exact ritual. Like the Ataunator, Helm is apparently a stickler for doing things in just the right order. The clues were pretty clear; even MC was able to deduce what to do.
One annoying discovery; seeing some undead approach, MC decided to go berserk, wanting that protection from level drain. Now, you would think that if someone slapped you upside the head while you were trying to get your mad on, it would just help the process. Apparently not; one critter hit MC during that brief interval, interrupted the angrification deal, and MC, not realizing this, went into combat and was, much to his surprise, promptly drained two levels. Ouch. Luckily, Anomen always packs a Restoration spell. But it appears that going berserk is rather like casting a spell, and can be interrupted. Who knew?
Pushing aside the lid of a sarcophagus, MC found the spirit of an old guy inside, who complained that his feet were cold, and could he please have his slippers back. OK, one mystery solved. The geezer grabbed his footwear, leaving yet another clue in its place. Time to do the ritual!
The clues were so clear, even MC was able to do the deal flawlessly. A way down to the next level was revealed! This also brought to life a bunch of statues that the group had passed earlier. Statues that come to life and attack you; gosh, who would have guessed? The group was well prepared, having expected exactly that. In fact, we ended up fighting two rooms worth of statues; they had various strengths, and a couple had weapons of power, but we were fully buffed and defeated both groups fairly easily.
There was also a bunch of loot; even MC's bag of holding was full up. The decision was made to head back to town and sell the excess. Hurrah! The group now had enough cash to redeem the Rogue Stone from the pawnshop! That mysterious portal could now be penetrated! But, what of the second level of the Keep? Would it prove equally profitable?
Torn between two courses of action, MC decided to sleep on it before deciding.
[I.E., time for bed for me ...need a sleep break]
Watchers Keep is massive, and has many more complex levels waiting. You can gain a lot of experience and find awesome magical loot. But also excruciatingly painful and horrid deaths.
As for Mr. Charm ... get real, guy! I'd like to hear some demon, just for a change of pace, say something like "Well, you gotta free me to get past the runes, but after you do, I'm gonna rip your eyeballs out and use them for olives in my martini." We ALL know that there's like a 90% chance of this happening, so why pretend? But OK, MC pretended to fall for the charade and agreed to free the demon once the way was ready.
The story was that 4 elemental wizards once worked here; apparently they hated each other and spent years plotting how to overthrow or kill each other. Why were they here to start with? What lead to their rivalry? The demon was pretty vague on the motivation bit; all he knew was that 4 elemental staves had to be inserted into his cage to free him. Now, the 4 elements were Fire, Air, Ice (frozen water) and ... Slime? OK, what happened to Earth, and since when did Slime become an element? And who would want to be a Slime wizard anyway? Yeecch!
I have to interject that one of the things we found was an appendix to some book or other that Elminster wrote, with some creature descriptions in it. MC suspected it was important since copies of the damned thing kept turning up everywhere. Alright, we'll read it already! One of the things mentioned was a fire troll, a peculiar variant of the usual troll.
There were four doors leading away from the demon cage. MC decided on a tactic that had worked before. With his boots of speed and immunity to just about anything, he made an ideal scout. The rest of the group would form a semicircle around the door while he went in, poked whatever guardians were there with a stick to get their attention, and then ran back out where the rest of the group could all pile onto them as they emerged.
This worked quite well, more or less. The guardians were a couple of dust mephits and a half-dozen "desert trolls". OK, these behaved like Elminster's Fire Trolls, just using an alias to try and confuse their opponents. They kept getting up unless we blasted them with Melf's acid arrows. Actually, they weren't that much different in this regard from the trolls we fought in Nalia's Keep in that regard; ever since fighting those, the group has made sure that all arcane casters had a few of these spells memorized. Acid arrows work as well, BTW.
We used exactly the same tactics on each of the other 3 rooms that were adjacent to the demon's central one. Opposition varied; one room had a mere 3 mephits, another had a nasty assortment of undead, while the last one was full of spiders (6 sword and 2 phase, to be exact). But we had resources to deal with them all.
She checked every one of the four rooms we had cleared for traps, and good thing she did. Each room had 3-4 traps scattered at random all over the place. And there was loot a plenty; mostly missile weapon ammunition of various sorts. Now, one of the things we had found upstairs was an ammunition container; all such items were identified and shoved into there.
After a while, MC tried to count the booty; even with his boots off, he failed miserably, and stopped after getting a splitting headache. Nalia, who had a much better grasp of mathematics, did a much better job. She found that, counting sling bullets, crossbow bolts, arrows and various types of darts, there were OVER 1400(!) such items in there. Along with two endless quivers of +1 missiles that were also found, the group should never again have to purchase any more ammunition, ever. In fact, we could probably supply the Flaming Fists with 6 months worth of ammo.
Lastly, in one corridor MC ran into an Imp, who had apparently been there for centuries. Upon learning that the Keep's original staff were long dust, he was overjoyed, and cheerfully volunteered some information about a fan that powered the entire level. He strongly recommended that MC turn it on, and then booked for Impville and vanished. MC was highly suspicious of this advice; Imps are, after all, a form of minor demon, and hardly trustworthy. However, other items, including surviving notes from the deceased wizards, seemed to bear witness to the truth of this.
MC and party decided to rest up for the night before moving onward. They had, after all, slept inside the Keep for the last two nights. This decision led to the discovery that safe and sound repose was NOT guaranteed. Some absolutely awful apparitions appeared, and although these were finally defeated, the party nonetheless ran screaming for the exit, sadly diminished. MC didn't have the presence of mind to note what they were called, but he is definite about them draining 2 life levels per hit. It was going to take days for the party to get back to full strength after this!
A period of R&R was in order, as well as buying up the Watcher's entire stock of restoration and protection from negative energy scrolls. They would continue the venture in a few days.
Still, their notes, when added together, did yield a plan of action. MC decided to progress through the rooms in a clockwise fashion; first stop, the fan room. Boots of speed, we love you! They make hit and run tactics ever so much fun! Dash in, turn on the fan, find a bunch of seriously angry air elemental types appear, run back out. The critters followed and were dispatched by the firepower of the entire group. Grab the air rod, go back in, turn up the fan further, progress onward.
The next room left a bitter stench in the nostrils ... literally. MC thought he could just waltz in and saunter around due to his periapt vs poison; wrong! The air here was so toxic, it totally ignored such protection. It took a fair amount of potion quaffing, but the pungent snake who guarded the room was finally overcome. Another control rod obtained. Wizard notes suggested the fan could blow the stink away, but this didn't happen right away. Apparently more doors needed to be opened. Meanwhile, Anomen summoned two skeletal warriors and left them in the room to deal with the apparently endless supply of green slimes. Eventually enough doors were left ajar, and the toxic cloud moved southward.
Onward! The next room was c..c..c...cold! So cold everybody slowed down to a crawl. Ice mists and an Ice Golem guarded the room. It was also full of toxic vapors from the north. Gee, was this really an improvement?? The ice mists might have been affected, but the Ice Golem didn't seem to care a bit. Nor could the cold critters be lured from their room, so we whacked them at the doorway. That golem could sure deal out damage! Finally they went down, and we were left with a giant refrigerator full of bad air. Luckily, running back and turning down the fan solved that problem. One more damned elemental room to go.
Wizard notes suggested that the fire giant was invulnerable while his supporting elementals were in the room, but MC is a 'show me" kind of guy, so he just HAD to give it a try. Sure enough, the big fireman healed any damage almost immediately. The old "lure them to their doom" ploy worked like a charm, however, and without his pals, fire guy went down pretty fast. All four control rods were ours! We could now free Chrome Dome, who would doubtless not only open the next passage for us, but heap us with treasure and loot in gratitude.
Yeah, right.
Luckily even the skeletal warriors could hit him. Chip chip chip. Whenever someone got badly mauled, they pulled back for healing while others blocked the demon from pursuing. That didn't save Keldorn, who went down for the count yet again after a lucky hit. He can dish it out, but has trouble taking it, it seems.
Still, all that chipping away took it's toll, and Chromy eventually took the fall. The way was open!
The foes here were somewhat tougher than the ones upstairs; MC is certainly debating the best course of action.
OK, it appeared that this next portion of the Keep was a maze of rooms connected by these portals. MC was himself fairly well protected, but by no means could the same be said for his companions. Suspecting that better equipment and spells would be needed to vanquish the horrors awaiting, the crew, for once, decided to err on the side of caution, and headed back to Athkatla.
MC stopped at his Keep en route; among other things, he had picked up yet another head for the Flail of Ages, and wanted to add it on. Alas, it appears that further forging of the Flail is beyond his meager skills. As usual, there was yet another fiscal crisis pending; moneylenders demanding a debt of the late Lord be paid. This was pretty clearly bogus, yet to keep the peace MC ended up spending yet another grand. Luckily there was 1500 in revenues waiting, so there was still a small profit, but operating overheads still continue to rise.
He stopped at Cromwell's forge, where the armorer informed him that he owned a number of items that could be used to construct weapons of power, but parts were missing for all of them. No mention of the flail; apparently even his skills were not up to the task.
So, MC is a bit at loose ends right now. A likely course of action would be to don his "Big Al" mask once again, and try to complete Hexxat's "To Do" list, then redeem a Rogue Stone and see if he can penetrate that dimensional barrier, before jaunting off to rescue Imoen. He's in no rush; he never did like her all that much. For a Bhaalspawn, she's such a wimp!
Ingenious perhaps; but if you collect and read all four wizard notes, it's a pretty clear step-by-step walkthrough of all 4 elemental confrontation rooms.
And that ammo dump case is insane! Up to around 1500 items so far; is there any limit to what it can hold?
Well, we have the two cannisters of endless +1 bolts and arrows, and a sling that makes its own ammunition also, plus the huge capacity ammo dump, plus two +3 long bows, two +2 shortbows, a +5 sling and a +4 crossbow for Keldorn. We could sell munitions to small town militias all over Faerun. Too bad missile weapons aren't as killer in BG2 as they were in BG1.