Solo Cleric through Weimer Land

[Rataxes]

Part five is here.

With D'Arnise Keep behind me, it was time to pick up the threads of a quest I had earlier been given by an Athkatla authority. I had begun my search for the murderer Valygar a week ago, but the assault by the crazed gnome in his bedroom had temporarily put me off. I knew he resided somewhere in the wilderness near the village of Umar, and so was off after selling a few houndred pounds of junk and getting a nights rest in a proper bed. Didn't overly concern myself with the villagers problems at this point, and went straight to his hideout. While interrogating him, I learned that I had been deceived. Decided to go with him back to Athkatla to get some closeure to this matter.

We reached the Slums district at night and predictably enough, we were ambushed by bandits. At this level the attackers were unfortunately the third and strongest kind of bandit raiders. Valygar had the misfortune of being the closest to the Conjurer, and after just a few seconds he ate three Flame Arrows, which naturally killed him. Better him than me I guess. I had better luck and found myself quite far from the closest attacker. As a result, everyone started to pelt me with ranged attacks, a quick look at my records screen revealed a combined AC against missiles of -26.


Knock yourselves out fellas!

The Berserker, Wizard Slayer and Fighter were all occupied with trying to hit me, the Bounty Hunter went in and out of shadows constantly without ever seeming to do much (might just be that he missed his backstabs), the Conjurer didn't do much after his initial success with the spell sequencer, and the most dangerous thing the Shadow Druid accomplished was summoning a few Insect plagues, forcing me to keep moving. The trio of fighters did score a few criticals during the course of the battle, but I managed to avoid them and the insect plagues long enough to summon a few Aerial Servants, who proceeded to systematically bash my foes into minced meat while they were occupied with me. All I had to do was run around the battlefield, drink a healing potion every now and then, cast the occasional Holy Smite to speed up the process, and just watch them go down, one by one.

With the battle over, I resurrected Valygar, sold off the loot to Joluv, and then proceeded to the Planar Sphere. Once inside, I decided it would be best to leave Valygar behind in safety and explore the sphere on my own. Summoned an Aerial Servant and pitched him against the Clay Golem in storage room, how proud he made me, downing the golem in a single blow! Met a party of friendly knights in the following room who warned me of the savage halflings ahead. Sure enough, they assaulted me as soon as I opened the next door, but weren't so cocky once they both got held by a Hold Person spell. The last halfling ran away and hinted at a bigger party of them just beyond the bridge, so I fired up the HRDS combo, used an Oil of Speed, and charged in. Slew all the halflings and the summoned fire elemental, the only one left was a pesky mage. He kept activating a new Prot from Magical Weapons the instant the previous ran out, and when I finally did score a hit, his dual fireshield sequencer went off. Forget me engaging that cowardly bastard in melee! Just to annoy the hell out of him, I summoned my acorn friends and the nymphs began pelting him with disabling spells. Just as if that was all he was waiting for, his Chain Lightning/Chaos/Remove Magic Spell Trigger went off exactly when they appeared, so now under my control was a trio of half dead and confused woodland creatures. Time to quit playing around. The RM relieved me of my Seeking Sword, and I was free to summon the pair of Skeletons I had memorized. I ordered them to attack the mage, since they took relatively little damage from the shields, using the Resurrection rod to heal them when they got close to dying. An interesting thing happened when one of them died at the same time I used the rod to heal it:



Why the other skeleton at that point turned hostile, I have no idea, but the skeleton, who for some reason turned neutral, kept attacking the mage and, as he was running out of stoneskins, managed to kill him. Turned them both into smithereens and moved on. Disposed of a pack of spiders and ettercaps with a pair of Holy Smites, and activated HRDS once again to take out a second party of halflings in the furnace room. Rested, and moved on. The next room contained a nasty trio of golems, one of them being of the Adamantite kind. No biggie eh? On with an Oil of Speed, Prot from Evil, Free Action, HRDS, Defensive Harmony, and in I go. Sure enough, their Golem Slow didn't work, and I made short work of the Stone Golems. The Adamantite Golem was ever so slightly tougher. Constantly being infected by his gas cloud was only a minor nuisance compared to his fists knocking off about 70 HP's with each blow, and he didn't seem to have any problems what so ever piercing my -16 AC. Had to run away quite a few times to heal before he went down.

With all the golem parts in my possession, I activated the furnaces and reconstructed a service golem who led me to the navigation room. Me and my Aerial Servant were also kind enough to help him take out the "intruder", making sure I grabbed the killing blow. Met Lavok in the navigation room, he was rather bitter and lobbed an Abi-Dalzim's in my general direction, with 50% MDR it was easily shrugged off though. I opted to take him out from afar with a Fire Storm. The cunning old man activated a Prot from Energy and Fire shield, but I was even more cunning and waited for his protections to run out before I cast another Fire Storm! A few rounds of holy fire dropping on his head was apparently what was needed to wake him from his dream.

The new and improved Lavok instructed me to find a demon heart and get the machinery going again, so off I was to the outside. Whereever the sphere had wound up, it seemed like a warm place, so I added a Prot from Fire among the usual buffers to fire up before I went out to explore. With Oil of Speed and HRDS, the whole area was clean just as the Prot from Fire wore off, and I left the place with three hearts. Off with haste to the engine room. Wasn't familiar with the runes on the floor and tasted a few fireballs before I was let in.

Surprise, surprise! That old coot that wanted Valygar dead and his friend was hiding in the next room. I had a battle with two high level mages on my hand and hadn't memorized Dispel Magic. Whatever this was turning out to be, it wasn't going to be quick or smooth. Both of them threw up dual fireshields before I could land any hits, so meleeing them was out of the question. Instead, I retreated and summoned a skeleton to soak up their spells and kill time. They killed off the first one, so I summoned another one, and another one, until they were both down to fist fighting and had no protections save stoneskins left. At that point I joined the fight and finished them off. Dull, but effective. Cleared out the rest of the area with summons and Holy Smites, rested, and went on to the engine room.

Two trios of golems awaited me here. I tried to summon a bunch of Aerial Servants to take out the first one, but they didn't fare too well on the narrow walkway and were decimated by gas clouds before the Adamantite golem was even badly injured. Sigh,

Prot from Evil [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]
Oil of Speed [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]
Free Action [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]
HRDS [img]graemlins/check.gif[/img]

1 turn and 8 super healing potions later, both trios were down, as well as a lone clay golem hiding in a corner. I started the engine, got the sphere back to the prime plane, and made my way back to Lavok. He wanted to see the sky one last time, how could I refuse the last wish of a dying man? I carried him out, and joined up with Valygar on the way to say goodbye. My business in that godawful place was finally done.

Thomas the Priest of Helm was upon the completion of the Planar Sphere nearly level 21. I want to reach level 22 before I go fight Bodhi and move on to Chapter 4, so tomorrow you can probably read about Thomas VS The Shadow Dragon. Now could be a good time to mention that I have edited my XPLevel file to give me an increasingly slower level progression after lvl 20, this because I think the game becomes less interesting once you stop advancing levels. The normal XP gap between levels is 225 000 XP per level for clerics. I've edited the gap to be 300 000 XP between level 20-30, 450 000 XP between 30-40, and 600 000 XP between 40-50, which means I'll max out at level 50 with about 16 000 000 XP, instead of at level 40 with 8 000 000 XP.

Part five ends here, will hopefully have time to write the next tomorrow. Reporting this game is proving to be almost as time consuming as playing it!

[ 04-13-2005, 09:03 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[Dundee Slaytern]

Hmmmm? You installed the XPCap Remover? Why not stop at level 40?

Anyhoo, remember about Turn Undead.

[Assassin]

How many game days were needed?

[JrKASperov]

Wow... a 21 level cleric. Turn undead with that one and you have one hell of a chunky party.

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by Dundee Slaytern: Hmmmm? You installed the XPCap Remover? Why not stop at level 40? Anyhoo, remember about Turn Undead.

Yes, it's becoming quite potent now [img]smile.gif[/img] I always use the Level 50 Extender when soloing. The difference between a lvl 40 and 50 cleric isn't particularly great anyway.

How many game days were needed?

I completed the Planar Sphere on the 21st day.

[ 02-02-2004, 09:08 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[Rataxes]

Part six coming up.

I needed about 400 000 XP to advance to level 22, at which point I would challenge Bodhi. 400 000 cold ones, where to go? Both investigating the Unseeing Eye and doing some dragon hunting in the Windspear hills seemed to be a bit overkill. I needed a reasonably light quest that was quickly dealt with, so I went to the village of Umar, way out in the bush. Spoke with the mayor, he apparently had a bit of a problem with a lot of sudden disappearances, with ogres, with wolves, and with some local ghost, quite a handful in short. Starting out with the ogres, it turned out that Madulf and his followers had no other object than to try and initiate some trade with the village. I of course offered my assistance in seeing this peaceful resolution through by acting as a mediator.

Now that the ogres were out of the frame, I picked up the other trail and went to the ranger Merella's cabin. The house stank of rotten flesh, and in the bedroom lay a flayed and disemboweled wolf. With my razorsharp wit I soon came to the realization that something fishy was most likely going on here. Aha, a letter, describing the way to a mysterious old temple a few hours away! Could the source of the trouble possibly be located there? Maybe not, but I went there anyway just to be sure. The whole place was infested with nothing but undead creatures of the most vile kind, time to have some fun with the Turn Undead ability. About two dozen shadows were parked outside the entrance to the dungeon, they all went *poff* at the exactly same time in a glorious moment that I so wished I had caught on a screenshot. Inside the dungeon: Shade wolf? *Poff. Skeleton Warrior? *Poff*. Mummy? *Poff*.

Wherever I went, everything automatically exploded in beautiful puffs of flesh. The only four creatures in the entire dungeon that proved to be exceptions, were a halfing warrior who I rescued and sent away, a Bone Golem guarding some ancient statue, and two scary Liches. I dealt with both of them by sending in a few Skeleton warriors to soak up their most dangerous spells and triggers, and make them waste their PfMW spells. One of them never cast SI: Abjuration, so after a Dispel Magic he was dead, though the other simply delayed the exact same thing happening to him by a few turns. The liches in this dungeon are particularly easy because they were stripped of their totally annoying Recall ability, not that I mind. With the dungeon clean, I moved on through the next door.

Hmmm, what was now this then? A vast circular chamber with probably more than seventy feet to the ceiling? A disgusting smell? A slow and heavy breathing somewhere out there in the darkness? Could it be, a dragon! Just to show whatever was out there that I was meaning business, I summoned nearly half a dozen Skeleton Warriors and ordered them in a line in front of me with menacing looks and threatening poses. I had fortunately reached level 22 after killing the last lich, and so had access to the real BFG of the cleric arsenal - Implosion, three of them! I underestimated him at first, resulting in a few initial miserable failures with me and my minions being knocked around the place like ping pong balls while the cheap lizard ran off to heal himself after my Implosion assaults. I had not counted on him even surviving 3 Implosions, but decided that I would have to start the fight better prepared and more buffed up. Ironically enough, now that I was really prepared to administer some melee punishment after softening him up, and finish him off before he could even think of healing himself, I finally got some lucky rolls with the Implosions.



He was already at near death when I set off the final Implosion and finally killed him. Since I was already dressed up for another fight, I immediately moved on to the lord of the dungeon. His evil nasal voice rang false, he was quite soft compared to his pet. And so, light was restored to the forest surrounding the ruins! I went back to the village to report, and the mayor had not only agreed to do trade with the ogres, but rewarded me with a nice (albeit useless) leather armor.

The goal was level 22, and that I had already passed. So I made my way directly to the graveyard, stopping only to pick up the stakes I had dropped off in the bridge district entrance barrel. Encountered several packs of spiders down there, all who fell to Holy Smites, and also took my time to explore a tomb in the middle of the dungeon, turn undead served me well there. Then I met up with Haz, or Hez, or whatever his name is, right by the entrance to the vampire nest. The golem of his bashed the door open, and so the raid had begun. Activated HRDS and took care of the guardian Grimwarders before I moved on into the crypt itself. Poor vampires, they too could do nothing but automatically explode as soon as they got close. The only ones who actually offered any fights was a clay golem (the Aerial Servant won), and a vampire called Tanova, she couldn't put up much resistance against me and my three servants though. Down to the 2nd level, a few greater ghouls there, turned. Moved into the central room and turned a few vampires and their Grimwarder guards. There I had Lassal cornered again, but he escaped once again. Pursued him up to the 1st floor and killed him once and for all, those undetectable traps weren't too kind on me though.

Time for Bodhi, I had expected a tough fight with many reloads before success, but I found that activating all my usual buffers made her special abilities quite harmless. There was the Sephuchral Sleep, made harmless by Chaotic Commands, there was the Buried Alive, rendered useless by Free Action, there was the Chill of the Grave, rather non-threatening with 50% MDR and 170 HP, and a few other minor skills. Bottom line was that Bodhi actually wasn't particularly threatening from a distance, and she was apparently quite content to be trapped inside her ring of Grimwarder Archers, whose missile attacks rarely hit home. I wanted to wait till I had access to Implosion since I thought that would be only way I could seriously harm her without going melee (which is discouraged through one of the most frustrating inventions of cheese ever conceived - the undispellable dual fire shields). Sure enough, I fired off my Implosions and they hurt her a good deal, but apparently not enough to make her surrender. I tried my luck with the sling and pack of sunfire bullets I had picked up in the Shade lord's dungeon. Expecting a long and tedious process of slowly nibbling away at her HP 5 points at a time, I fired away and scored a critical, and it hit for a bloody 48 dmg! Oh yeah, that's right, the strength bonus counts for all magical bullets. With maxed of STR, every single bullet after that hit for 20-25 pts, so Bodhi fled after only two additional rounds.

With the rival guild destroyed and the leader fleeing the country, I returned to Aran and he pretty much instantly introduced me to the man that would take me to Brynnlaw. Chapter 4 has begun.

Part six ends here, will probably continue tomorrow.

[ 04-13-2005, 09:10 AM: Message edited by: Rataxes ]

[wally p]

random question as I was tweaking around with my own priest--what's the equipment you're using?

my own little cleric is just running around with fortress shield, helm of charm protection (forgot the helm of balduran, doh!) rop +2, ring of earth control, sewer cloak, belt of inertial barrier, that +1 thac0 set of gloves, amulet of power, Full Plate Mail, boots of speed, and FoA +3

[Rataxes]

My own setup is largely the same. Only differences being that I have the Helm of Balduran, I use Blackblood +3 (don't ask me why, FoA's tucked away in the Bridge district anyway, out of my reach), and I recently got the Holy Symbol of Helm, which replaced the Ring of Earth Control.

[Xen]

Nice job! BTW what is HRDS? I missed the meaning of it I guess.

[Assassin]

Holy Power -> Righteous Magic -> Draw Upon Holy Might -> Seeking Sword = HRDS.