"Though Hell should bar the way"
FrdNwsm
Member Posts: 1,069
Having returned, at long last, from an epic journey to rescue Imoen (and having finally put an end to the Bodhi menace) MC took a few days off to rest and recuperate, and also decorate the walls of the Copper Coronet with mementos that he had accumulated. Arg! At least half of one of his bags of holding was filled up with such junk! While going through this stuff, he found Yoshimo's heart (wedged right in between two Sahuagin Prince hearts). He had totally forgotten about this, but took it to the Temple of Ilmatar (conveniently located right on the roof). The group learned a lot from that particular act of piety ... mostly that it didn't pay to be one of Irenicus' flunkies.
With a couple of new fancy weapons and some better armor available, the crew decided that, rather than return to Elrond immediately, they would go back to the scene of a much earlier expedition, the Watcher's Keep. Perhaps now they could get to the bottom (literally) of the mysterious structure. The Watchers on the roof were still there, apparently not having been able to entice any other idiots into doing their job for them. From level 2, the scene of the battle the chromatic demon, they went down to where Yack Man had been encountered, and started heading through what appeared to be a maze of small rooms, connected via teleportal devices. They used his directions as a guide to progress. What did they find?
Demons, demons, and even more demons! The place was packed with them. Demons of all sorts: Balrogs, Carnagies, Little Thieves, 'Allo Friends, Tanneries, Saucy Babes ... you name it, it was there. I won't go into each encounter in detail, but almost all were invariably hostile. Since they couldn't see into the next rooms at all, the group decided that it was only practical to prepare for immediate combat before each change of venue. Two rooms had complications; one lacked magic and the other had uncontrolled magic. Brute force had a prominent place in these two encounters, needless to say.
Two encounters were of a different ilk.
With a couple of new fancy weapons and some better armor available, the crew decided that, rather than return to Elrond immediately, they would go back to the scene of a much earlier expedition, the Watcher's Keep. Perhaps now they could get to the bottom (literally) of the mysterious structure. The Watchers on the roof were still there, apparently not having been able to entice any other idiots into doing their job for them. From level 2, the scene of the battle the chromatic demon, they went down to where Yack Man had been encountered, and started heading through what appeared to be a maze of small rooms, connected via teleportal devices. They used his directions as a guide to progress. What did they find?
Demons, demons, and even more demons! The place was packed with them. Demons of all sorts: Balrogs, Carnagies, Little Thieves, 'Allo Friends, Tanneries, Saucy Babes ... you name it, it was there. I won't go into each encounter in detail, but almost all were invariably hostile. Since they couldn't see into the next rooms at all, the group decided that it was only practical to prepare for immediate combat before each change of venue. Two rooms had complications; one lacked magic and the other had uncontrolled magic. Brute force had a prominent place in these two encounters, needless to say.
Two encounters were of a different ilk.
5
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Several rooms later they ran into the opposing band of marauders. These must have gotten word somehow that the party had been recruited against them, for they attacked without any attempt at parlay.
MC's recollection of the events afterward were one confused mass concerning an intense swirling melee. Among other things, the opponents managed to gate in a couple of friends. It was a battle royale; when the smoke cleared, MC was left standing ... alone and 80% dead himself. The rod of resurrection once again proved it's value.
[Note: This was every bit as confusing a fight as the one with the monks at the end of Rasaad's quest, with new foes popping in periodically. Thank goodness for the Ring of Gaxx!]
Getting everybody back up and back into fighting trim took a few minutes. Once again, the group's sponsors wanted body parts of the defeated as a trophy. Heading back to claim their reward, the group made an annoying discovery. The path back wasn't the same as the one they used to get there! Arg! A period of wandering from room to room at random finally led the crew back to the original start; whew! MC hates that "lost" feeling. From now on, they would stick to the path laid out by Yackitty, with no diversions.
Amazingly enough, when they got back to their employers, they actually received the promised reward! This was perhaps the most amazing incident of the entire excursion to date; demons actually keeping their word! What next? Irenicus gets religion and joins the Order of the Radiant Heart?
MC was all for going ahead with the entire deal, not being mathematically inclined. Imoen and Neera, however, with their rather more impressive IQs, explained that gambling for anything except the way out was a fool's bet, and only for those who were hopeless gambling addicts. (Basically, the more pulls you make, the greater the odds of getting at least one bad result).
So, MC went and pulled just one card; he lost, but the demon was in such a good mood, he agreed to give the Rod of Radiance back after he was done with it. Two honorable demons in one day? Sheesh! Irenicus is definitely taking Holy Orders sometime next week.
Moving down to the next level, the group encountered a bizarre device; there was a guy trapped inside, who informed everyone that this was the Mechanism of Lum O' Loony, known as L.O.L. for short. Now, MC had run across a few notes relating to the operation of this device, but they would have to figure out a way of releasing the machine's captive first.
They really hate each other. I never did the quest as any one of them can sense good alignment of the pc and will attack outright. They only give the quest to slay the opposed group to neutral or evil aligned pcs, I think. I always wondered and thought, Baatezu may reward you if you ally with them but Tanarri, being chaotic, may not.
Actually, MC was rather expecting the Tana'ri boys to welsch on their deal; that's about par for the course with demons. Rather surprised that they didn't.
Worth noting that you miss out a good scimitar by not gambling for it, and you miss out on the Deck of Many Things by not killing Aesgareth. The scimitar is quite powerful if you have someone using scimitars, and the Deck of Many Things is extremely strong if you enjoy save-scumming, but otherwise is too dangerous to use. It's up to you if you care about missing them, but I felt you should be made aware.
As for the scimitar, only Jaheira has any specialization in those and she has Belm and Water's Edge which should do for most combats, with the unlimited charge staff of striking as a backup if she really needs a +4 weapon. The party actually has more weapons than they need; even Neera and Imoen have +4 stuff, and they engage in melee only as a last resort. I haven't even bothered to forge Crom Feyr because the girdle of giant strength and ogre gloves are more useful intact and spread out.
Also Aesgareth seemed pretty confident; I suspect he's a tough one to kill.
And yeah, Aesgareth is a reasonably tough fight. Probably not as bad as those devils you killed earlier, though.