Thomas quest for Ascension

[Rataxes]

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 ]

[Xen]

Cool! Good work, keep it up! Good luck.

[Leslie]

What level are you now, Rataxes ?
And how many level 7 spells do you have ?

(just my curiosity)

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by Leslie: What level are you now, Rataxes ? And how many level 7 spells do you have ? (just my curiosity)

46th level, got ten 7th level slots. Get an extra 6th and 7th level spell slot for the Holy Symbol of Helm, though I don't really know why my base number of slots is 9 instead of 7, which is the max according to the manual. Could possibly be that the Level 50 XP Cap Extender I installed uses the same altered spell memorization tables as the Ease-of-Use mod.

[Assassin]

What wouold you say is better: Deva, Energy Blades, or Storm of Vengeance in terms of uses?

[Rataxes]

Originally posted by Assassin: What wouold you say is better: Deva, Energy Blades, or Storm of Vengeance in terms of uses?

I plan to do a detailed ranking of my most used spells later, in the final post. Though I can say right now that Energy Blades is my most used and most important spell, without a doubt.

[Assassin]

How about Devas? Are they more useful in a role of a quasi-Cleric, or as a fighter?

Final Post... That has the scent that you have a plan to defeat Ascension. [img]smile.gif[/img] Are you planning to use any PfM scrolls in that battle?

[Rataxes]

I hardly use Devas for their spells, they're far more useful as meat shields since they're just about the only thing that can buy me a round or two of uninterrupted spellcasting in really tough fights, and sometimes for doing some damage of their own.

Defeat Ascension... I haven't thought much about how I'm going to emerge victorious from that fight. Though I did notice something when browsing through IE, they all share a weakness to fire

[Rataxes]

Time now for the second (seventeenth) part.

With Gromnir dead, I had left Saradush in Melissan's care, aiming to find and kill Yaga- Shura, the bhaalspawn supposedly responsible for the whole war. Before I left, however, I went to the scroll merchant and bought scrolls of Improved Haste and Invisibility. Back in my pocket plane, I dug up the old Cloak of Protection +2 I had gotten way back in the Sahuagin City, and had Cespenar work on it. The Improved Cloak of Protection enables the wearer to cast Improved Haste and Improved Invisibility once per day, both with their regular spell durations, which is a whopping 23 rounds in my case!

With the cloak safely stashed in my backpack, I was teleported to some location on the way to Yaga-Shuras home. Up north a huge pack of his soldiers were harassing some merchant, but I was spared a replay of the Saradush soldier barracks sequence, since these were evil enough, and easily fell to a couple of Holy Smites. Back south, and to the east, I came across a bridge. Oh, uh, a Fire Giant was among the guards. The regular guards couldn't pierce my AC, try as they might, so I was free to summon a pair of servants to protect me. That Fire Giant wasn't as tough as he looked, and was killed by the two servants alone. Past the bridge, I encountered a slightly larger guard force with two Fire Giants. Again, summons did the most damage and took the biggest hit.



On my way to the home of Yaga-Shura, I passed the Forest of Mir, where I met the ghost of Gorion, or so it seemed at first glance. I didn't trust his tone, and in the end, he turned out to be nothing but an impostor wraith. Sigh, will these undead never learn?



I decided to explore the rest of the place, and made contact with a mad witch who claimed to be Yaga-Shuras mother, whatever. She did say she'd help me remove his invulnerability, so I agreed to fetch her his heart. Thus, I was once again off to the giant's lair. Got there before dusk and began exploring the surrounding area. I soon met "the mighty Chinchilla" and his followers. Unfortunately, for them, they were all Skeleton Warriors, which soon turned the party into a splatter fest instead.

Didn't encounter much else from there on, and soon reached the entrance to the giant home. Rested here to be able to make use of my new cloak in there. Come next morning, I activated what buffs I had memorized, and then applied the Imp Haste and Imp Invisibility on top of it. With an Aura of Flaming Death to top it off, I went in. There were a lot of Fire Giants just by the entrance, but the -21 AC my Imp Invisibility and AoFD had granted me, kept me relatively safe from harm. Meanwhile, I was making good use of my 8 attacks per round and dropped a giant every other round on average, only having to drink two healing potions.


I don't rightly know where, but I am in there somewhere.

With most of my buffs still active, I quickly moved up the stairs and started to collect the four ward stones. The guardians of these four stones didn't cause much trouble, though the cloak effects wore off after the first one, so I had kill the Flaming Skulls, Burning Men, and the various Golems with a standard summons+blades procedure. Once through, I used them all in that big machine in the middle, and the way to the upper level was clear. I tanked the two Fire Giants standing guard at the top of the stairs by myself, and could fairly comfortably kill them with a few short bursts of Imp Haste from the Ring of Gaxx. Ventured forth into the main chamber, where I threw on pretty much all the prebuffers I had used before entering the lair, including the two cloak effects. The number of giants in this place was about the same as before, though there were a few more Elite ones, and a general was also present, so taking hits on a slightly more regular basis was inevitable. Still, they fell with relative ease, and after taking Yaga-Shuras heart and looting the place, I travelled back to the witch.

"Whaddaya mean you want TWO hearts? You aint got one either?! Well how come you didn't notify me of that before I climbed up a bloody mountain?!!"
"I did, stupid elf brat!"
"Oh yeah? Well we'll just see what little mr. Notebook has to say about that!"

*Checks journal*

Dismayed, I had to acknowledge my mistake, and left the place without another word, to make my way back to the great hall where I found the first heart. Luckily, the place was as empty as I had left it. What was she on about? There was no other heart here, there was nothing here. I started to circulate the room, hugging the walls, to make sure I hadn't missed anything. Sure enough, I had somehow managed to miss an open double door that was easily ten times the size of a regular gate. Went through, only to find a perfectly identical hall. The place was pretty much empty, but then I located a huge raised platform in the center, what could that be if not Yaga-Shuras bed? Found the witch's heart inside, and was just about to leave when I spotted a fire elemental in the corner. Went to have a closer look, and within moments, I had been assaulted by the fire elemental prince Imhix himself. I already had Prot from Fire up however, and my Deva was equally unconcerned with burns. A few sets of Energy Blades later, the prince, and all his minions, were gone, and I left the place for good.

The witch was initially pleased when I brought her the two hearts, but then went nuts when she had completed the ritual and realized I was going to kill her boy, what was your first clue? She summoned a few Shambling mounds and Nymphs. The latter fell easily to blades, but the sturdiness of the former kind of had me surprised, I had no standard weapons that could harm them, and simply didn't have enough energy blades to kill them. I reloaded and rested. Each one ate more than than one set of blades before they went down, but the witch herself proved far more fragile.

Yaga-Shura's invulnerability was supposed to have come to an end now, so I went to confront him in the siege encampment. Rushed past his weakling guards, and at once proceeded to load him with blades. Terrified to learn that he was actually taking damage, he quickly fled the battlefield. I saw no reason to stay and fight an infinitly replenishing host of low level soldiers, so I also left and had a rest in a nearby glade. Went back to the encampment in the morning, and there I saw Yaga-Shura, with some pretty heavy reinforcements. My first plan was to release a pair of Fire Storms to clear out some of the less powerful soldiers, but even after I, after much hassle with running away far enough to give me a round of peace and quiet, had cast my second Fire Storm, and more than a dozen soldiers, priests, and mages lay scorched and dead on the ground, more of them just kept coming. I focused on Yaga-Shura instead, figuring this stream of soldiers would continue as long as he lived. What followed was a long chain of Hit'n'Run assaults against Yaga-Shura with Energy Blades.



Navigating through his small army of elementals, djinnis, giants, and regular soldiers of various types, became more and more difficult as the fight went on. Not only because there were so damn many of them, but I also got some pretty major slowdown when the spellcasters started to play around with their own Fire Storms and Teleport Fields. He finally died when I was on my fourth set of blades, though I had just barely pulled through in the latter part of the fight. Finally seeing him go down head first was relieving.



As soon as he hit the ground, I was once more ripped away, and shortly afterwards found myself in my Pocket Plane.

Status Check: After killing Yaga-Shura, I had about 14 300 000 XP, and was thus close to the 47th level. My equipment is as listed below:

Helm of Balduran
Shuruppak's Plate
Shield of the Order +4 (usually dual-wield though)
Gauntlets of Weapon Expertise
Amulet of Power
Holy Symbol of Helm
Ring of Gaxx
Belt of Inertial Barrier
Cloak of Balduran
Crom Faeyr (main hand)
Defender of Easthaven (off hand)
Sling of Everard (currently in bag)

And my base stats haven't changed much yet

STR 18
DEX 17
CON 17
INT 11
WIS 19
CHA 12

Part two ends here. Next one should be up tomorrow, but may have to wait till Thursday.

[Xen]

Cool! You know those Fire Giants in the Cave? If you have Battles Mod they cast Stoneskin and Mantle (IIRC).


How nice uh?