The weekend is up!
And thus, the time has come for the continued story of Thomas, the elven Priest of Helm! It has been a little more than three days ago since Irenicus fell to the might of his lightning frisbees, and it was time to move on to ToB. If by some chance you have happened to miss the story of his journey through SoA, then here's your chance to read up about him a bit:
Solo Cleric through Weimer Land
And if you've read that thread already, or don't care to, then the continued story begins here. As usual, these posts will be loaded with
SPOILERS.
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The period in-between killing Irenicus and all of the sudden standing there in the Grove of the Ancients was a bit of a blur, but I remember being cared for by the elves and advised by Ellesime to seek out the forest ancients when rumours of a war in the south, involving hundreds of bhaalspawns, were spread. I was standing there exactly as I had been in the final fight, with the addition of an amulet, a gift from Ellesime. I took this time to rest, since I had nearly depleted my memorized spells.
The following morning I listened to one of the spirits as it spoke, and then moved on. But, ah, an ambush! I only had time to throw on the basic prebuffers and summon a Deva before the bounty hunter Illasera and her crew discovered me. I managed to conjure a Physical Mirror before she started hitting me with her devastating anti-magic arrows, and for a little while, I only had to worry about her companions. Not quite so harmless, but still no match for a Deva and some Energy Blades. The priest tried to hit me with some Flame Strikes, but my MR stopped them cold.
Illasera had been doing a good job killing herself up until now, but just when I had cast my final blade and chugged down an Oil of Speed, the Physical Mirror wore off and she hit me with a dispelling arrow. I fled the battle before she even knew I was gone, cast another Physical Mirror, and went right back into the fray. Most of her reaver friends were dead, so the three of us (me, the Deva, and Illasera) concentrated fire on Illasera, who was quite the nut to crack due to her Hardiness and multiple healing potions. Down she went anyway, and with her death, the rest of her followers fled the field.
Before I could even look what sort of equipment she left behind, I was ripped out of existance and consciousness. I awoke in a place similar to the Hell I had left only a few days ago, but was greeted by an angel, so at least something had to be right. Nothing she said made any sense, and I was not in the mood to try and decipher riddles, so my surprise at seeing Sarevok pop up next, was mixed with quite a bit of relief over finally getting some stright answers. He wanted a piece of my soul before he'd open his mouth though, and if he could me out of there, it'd be worth it. Gave it, he took it, came alive, and after our conversation, I felt much more aware of the situation I was in when I finally went up the stairs he had removed the barrier from.
Up the stairs awaited a challenge, retribution from the thousands of creatures I had killed in my past travels. In the beginning, nothing but a few Kobolds were present to bother me, so I took this time to summon 2 skeletons, 2 servants, and a Deva. This little squad took care of 90% of the enemies that poured out from the black holes. I only helped out with some Energy Blades against Irenicus, Sarevok, and Bodhi. With that test over with, I went back down the stairs and tried to figure out how to leave this pocket plane of mine. Fiddling around with some stuff right by the gate, I was suddenly teleported away, to the city of Saradush.
Things weren't quite right here. Giant fireballs flew over my head, hundreds of distant yells and explosions could be heard, and the castle guards attacked me on sight for some reason, perhaps just appearing out of thin air seemed a bit suspect to them. A couple of Flame Strikes and energy blades took care of them, quite easy for the amount of XP they give. The woman, Melissan, had been a neutral bystander, but came forth when all the attackers were slain. Seemed honest and righteous enough, so I accepted her task for me to go see Gromnir and try to talk some sense into him. Decided to explore the city first, had to convince some city soldiers with shady concepts of morality to act like civilized human beings, saying I was a bhaalspawn usually did the trick, though in some cases, more direct pointers were required.
Also helped the scroll merchant get his book back and looked through his very nice inventory before I barged into the soldier barracks, looking for a key to the castle. There may have been many soldiers there, in fact it'd be fairer to say that it became absolutely swarmed with them once the call for back-up went through. For some reason, none of them were evil, so my, at the time, only AoE destruction spell was useless. I activated HRDS and took them out, one by one,
very tedious. Anyway, with the key in hand, I left the place and went down below, to the sewers. The assorted elite orogs, umber hulks, and dwarven zappers present here weren't much of a threat to me and my Deva. I especially had fun with a pack of Devil Shades in the NE corner, before I moved on to the castle cellar.
Not much here offered any challenge either, a Deva and some Energy Blades was all I needed to clear out the whole place. I also explored the abandoned prison area and laughed in the face of every single vampire I encountered there, quite a few. Was finally ready to move up to the castle ground floor, but had a rest first to replenish spells. Encountered some of Gromnir's elite guards upstairs, all of who I dealt with with Energy Blades. Yet another level up, Gromnir and even more of his elite guards awaited, so I took my sweet time in buffing up before going up to watch a dialog between him and Melissan. Skipping the details, it all ended in a pretty strong disagreement, and she left. Then I saw myself appear before Gromnir, and so it was that the plan of talking some sense into him were cast aside by his curt invitation to a fight.
I had Sanctuary on, which bought me the seconds I needed to go into a corner and start summoning a Deva. This Deva temporarily diverted all attention from me, which allowed me to cast two Storms of Vengeance in the middle of the room, before it fell. I experienced some slowdown at this point, so using my ordinary Hit'n'Run tactic with Energy Blades was a bit problematic, even with generous use of the pause function. Nearly everything in the room was taking heavy damage from the storms though, and the spellcasters hardly did anything in the entire battle. Meanwhile, I ran from corner to corner, throwing another blade at Gromnir whenever the opportunity arised. Half-way into my 2nd set of blades, he died, and then it was a simple process of finishing of all of his now nearly dead personal guards in the same manner. Melissan arrived in time to see me kill the very last of them, and did strongly approve, though I assured her that things could've been no other way.
With Gromnir dead, there was nothing else I could do in Saradush at the moment. So after Melissans plead, I decided to set after Yaga Shura, the source of all this evil. Though not before a nice rest in my very own pocket plane.
Part one (sixteen) ends here, and I think the next will be up tomorrow.
[ 04-13-2005, 06:06 PM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]