A fifth of peasantry...

[Bungleau]

Ahhh.... what fun tonight! Let's see... where to begin... ah!

Aside from a little arbitrage, I'm playing this game cleanly. No reloads when someone dies, nothing like that.

So after last night's activity, the peasants decide that they're ready to head for the next level of the crypt -- down the broken stairs to Rethpian.

No sooner do they get down there than a couple of slimes come up. No big deal... zap! zap! they're gone.

And then a couple of crypt skeletons, out from under the stairs. Okay, more fighting...

And more... and more... and sure enough, there's a twinkle back there... a bone lord!

Now, as you know, when you've got a bone lord in the battle, take him out first to stop him from summoning reinforcements.

That's easily done if you haven't wasted spells on slimes...

Eventually, he falls, but not before summoning a dozen of his friends. You've got it... whiff! swish! oops! sorry! watch it!... yeah... dozens of rounds of the peasants attacking.

Eventually, we finish... and the mages are out of mana. Again.

BTW, it appears that if your mana hits exactly zero, it doesn't increase. 'Cause Eljayess, the elven wizard, had exactly 50 mana in stone... which meant five shock spells. Once she hit zero mana, the stone spells were taken off her "quick list". She's since levelled up, but I may check that out in a regular game.

So we visit Rethpian, give him a rat pie that we've been carrying for several days now (apparently, it only helps it to smell and taste better... [img]graemlins/1puke.gif[/img] ). We collect the bauble stick, grab the crystal, kill a few bats, and are ready to head upstairs. To F'Lokis Ra. With a bunch of peasants.

Stop me if you've heard this before... whiff! swish! oops! sorry! watch it!... oh, you have heard it...

I decide to try to do battle from the elevator. After all, if he can't reach us, he can't hit us, right? Right!

Unfortunately, he's got centuries-old mummy bad breath. And a penchant for casting flamestrikes. We try weaving from side to side, but it doesn't work... and you guessed it, Periwinkle takes a hard, hard hit.

She's down and out. Dead. Looking at daisies from the wrong side.

Again.

Not to worry... we stocked up on life and rebirth scrolls... okay, time to use one.

It fails.

Hmmm... try the other one. Life, right?

It fails. And on taking a closer look, there's a little picture next to Periwinkle's skull in the display. Don't know what it is, though...

Turns out it's ash. As in charcoal. As in "stood too close to that meteor and paid the ultimate price.

I don't know if I've ever had a character turned into ash before. Ever drag an elephant's body through a crypt, up some stairs, and through the woods before? Not a lot of fun...

And Periwinkle's half of our spell firepower. This doesn't smell good...

Fortunately Eljayess is able to take out F'Lokis Ra. We retrieve the locket and try to bring Periwinkle back to life again. We fail Time to head to town... but first, let's let Kerah open the next part of the crypt.

So we read her the magic words, and while she's talking, som bats come up to play.

And some slimes.

And some skeletons.

Geez, Periwinkle, you sure pick some lousy times to turn into ashes...

Sooner or later, they clear. And after charging up the party's mana, we discover that Kerah really wanted to talk to us. In fact, her statue slid forward off its dais... I've never seen that before.

So we go to town and bring Periwinkle back to life. Head back to the crypt to clean out the skeletons so we can do the Rumphy. Periwinkle dies again... I swear, she's got a death wish! At least this time we can revive her... but she's now almost 2000 XP behind everyone else. The nerve... the frustration...

So we battle the skeletons a couple of rounds at a time... and we finally get to the lever room where Rumphy is. I've been here before... throw some stone spells at 'im and you're good.

Only tonight, he's immune to shock. And elemental blast. And burn. He's immune to stone magic, sun magic, and apparently every other thing that I can throw at him. During battle, Eljayess gets stoned... we've got one more stone to flesh potion left. Have to conserve that...

Perhaps we need to clean out the other stuff before we can do the Rumphy. You know... that bone lord who appears in the other chamber.

Yep, the one who appears with five or so skeletons, and then calls for more. That one.

A long and drawn-out battle. We flit back and forth between spells and finally decide to retreat and bring the battle with us, back to the room with the mana recharge fountain. It may be cheesy, but we need it, dammit!

So we get back, and a couple more skeletons, some bats, and some slimes have joined the party. Such fun!

Periwinkle decides to flip from shock to burn. Real easy... just hit the little down arrow on the quick-cast box, and cast away! Piece of cake...

Only remember her trying that elemental blast against Rumphy? That's now in the quick spell list... and it's one spell down from shock. You guessed it... Periwinkle blasted the whole party, along with some skeletons. Ungrateful wench... does she remember us dragging her corpse back to town?

She dies again, and most of the party is low on HP. Time to raise dead and camp out at the mana fountain for a while... lots of repairs need to be done.

Ultimately, we finished and headed back to try the Rumphy... and he's still invulnerable to spells. Perhaps we need a higher sorcery skill... or perhaps any value there at all All skill points have been going to useful things...

All's well that ends well, though. More details tomorrow, and that will probably be it until the weekend. I've got to go to Detroit and Atlanta this week... out Wednesday, back on Saturday.


A note on the quick list... something I've never really used before. See, every spell you prepare to cast shows on that little display on the left. You know, where the use/give window opens, and where the carry an item icon appears. Well, you can arrow up and down through those, allowing you to set multiple quick spells. It's really handy... first thing I do after getting out of town is to set burn and shock as both wizards' quick spells.

[ 08-21-2006, 09:04 AM: Message edited by: Bungleau ]

[bsftcs]

Amazing what things we did not know... and did not have the patience to try out.

[Wyvern]

ROFL!!!!

I'm loving this, Bungleau!!! Keep the updates coming!!!

That Periwinkle sure is something!! (a BIG something) I imagine that even in ash form she's a lot to lug around!