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Destroy them all, just let them rest
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Jul 16, 2021 01:28
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Olive Branch posted:Keep the three necromancers' Soul Jars to return/destroy them in front of them. This sounds good to me as well. I don't remember being given the option to give soul jars to Gratiana either. I think I decided to just smash them all.
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Jul 16, 2021 03:14
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Black Robe posted:As for the jars, I don't want to act without more information. Can we hold onto them for now and ask Gratiana why she wants them, without handing them over until she answers? If so, do that. That's probably what I'd do. And while I doubt I'd go that way, do we know what eating the souls does for us? Failing all that, I'd probably bring them all to Gratiana except SECHs, but if it seems like it'd be shady, at least break Trompdoy's.
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Jul 16, 2021 18:24
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At the end of the last update, there was a big vote on things like morality and whether we believed that a person that lived most of their lives as a vile, abusive, abhorrent person could indeed be reformed and changed, and if they could be trusted with handling the lives of others. I’ll get to the results of that in a moment, but our consensus was to not bring Trompdoy’s Soul Jar to Gratiana, and instead to give him the break that he’s wanted for the past eternity. His ‘crime’ was that he was a jester in Braccus’s court, and Braccus got bored of him and sentenced him to an eternity in a crypt – a familiar fate for someone like Fane.   : Really? You… you would? : He drops to his knees before you and grabs onto your feet with both hands, head hanging.: Thank you. We break Trompdoy’s Soul Jar, which releases his soul, allowing him to finally go to the Hall of Echoes and turning his animated skeleton into a dusty pile of bones. And we also get a reward for clearing Braccus’s vault – you know, on top of the literal mountains of gold coins and all the enchanted weapons and armour. The crossbow is better than Repulser, the other bow we found in the vault, but still worse than Shadow’s Eye; the dagger isn’t especially noteworthy beyond having a chance to Cripple; the mantle is mage’s armour that grants +1 Strength; and the pants require a Strength build, but they have equal stats to what I’m wearing right now. The mage’s mantle giving +1 Strength means it might be useful on Prince, who is supposed to be speccing slightly into Warfare, but it has equal stats to what he’s wearing now, and what he’s wearing now gives +1 Pyrokinetic, which is way more useful on him. Still, I take the mantle, because it’s worth the most money. We also got a pair of wizard’s pants as a part of our guaranteed reward for finishing the quest, and those are better than what Prince is wearing now.  Bucking the trend of the ladies having the strongest armour while revealing the most skin, Prince is mostly naked with this armour set but it’s also the best stats available to him. I’m sure someone is into this outfit.  The results of the vote was to bring the three necromancer’s Soul Jars to Gratiana, as well as her own, but to hold onto Sech Zapor’s for ourselves. The necromancers asked us to destroy the jars so that they’d be free of the same torment that plagued Trompdoy, but Gwick wanted to kill us for our Source so that they could escape – clearly, escape is a priority option if it’s available to them as well. If Gratiana can truly ‘save’ them by offering them to Amadia as she said she could, then maybe that’d be the better option. After all, I’ve been to the Hall of Echoes, and frankly, I’d prefer to stay alive.     With that, we’ve completed the raid of Braccus Rex’s personal vault. We’ve found a Purging Wand, which will allow us to deal with the Shriekers guarding the wharf that’ll take us to the Lady Vengeance. Our escape off this island is in sight. But first: to Gratiana.    : I’ve found the vault, as you showed me on my map, and I’ve located one of the Purging Wands. I can still hear the hum of Source coursing through it. : … Yes, I found several. Would you remind me again what it was you wanted with them? : That sounds useful and I’m certain you have only good intentions in mind, but I’d like to ask a few questions about them first, if you don’t mind. : This is an awfully sudden jump, going from ‘these jars could aid your cause’ to ‘there’s no time for questions, just do as I say.’ : I’d have thought that someone hiding secrets for as long as she had would be less impatient. : Hiding? IMPATIENT?!: She reaches up and tears off her mask, revealing a wet skull, stained by centuries. You stare into the empty eye sockets of the undead creature before you.: You dare speak to me of hiding? You dare speak to me of patience? I have waited centuries! Watching lives come and go, while my soul lies locked in a cage! Gratiana may have waited ‘centuries,’ but Fane existed before humans did, making him significantly older than her, and he spent most of that locked up in a basement. Still, this isn’t about one-upmanship; this is about whether Gratiana, a woman that we know served underneath Braccus Rex and killed many hundreds of people for their Source, should have her soul back. As soon as we revealed that we have Soul Jars – we didn’t even say any of them were hers, we just said we had Soul Jars – she turned into someone else entirely. Is this the behaviour of a woman that’s desperate to have her soul back so she can finally move on with her life? Or is this the behaviour of a tyrant that, as soon as she regains what’s hers, is going to try and go on a rampage through not just us, but whole encampment of people that she’s allowed to set up near herself? Where about to find out: I’m going to give her back her Soul Jar. Although I do wish there was another dialogue option, where I give her the jar, but it’s more of a ‘I’m doing this because I’m not an rear end in a top hat’ as opposed to ‘I’m doing this because I don’t think you’re an rear end in a top hat.’ : She reaches greedily for the jar, tearing the cap off. You see a green glowing light emerge from the jar, enveloping Gratiana. Upon doing this, we receive another 4,200 EXP, and Gratiana’s attitude towards everyone in my party (including Salem, Afrit, and Attendant) increases by 30. : When I placed my hand upon the jar, I had seen… plenty about your past, Gratiana. But I want to hear it from you. Tell me what happened and who you are.: I – I suppose you deserve to know. Before I knew Amadia’s grace, I was a very different person. I was the concubine of Braccus Rex. : You are the one that created the Purging Wands? You are responsible for what the Magisters are doing to our brethren? : What do you mean by ‘their promise?’ : And now the same materials that made Braccus Rex into who he is has fallen into the hands of the Magisters.: They likely do not even know what they hold in their hands. They do not know its corrupting effects. Braccus was a powerful king once. : You were siphoning the Source directly from other living creatures so you could make one single man more and more powerful. What did you expect?: Amadia forgive me – it’s true! As he grew distant, I just pushed harder. I gave him more and more, trying to win him back to me. I offered him the Source of whole villages. He devoured them and demanded more. : You’ve had quite the eventful past, Gratiana. But I don’t think Amadia would bless your sanctuary with unending holy water if she believed that you weren’t earnest in your efforts for atonement.: Amadia is merciful in her love. : In the end… it’s a relief that you’re using your time and skills to try and rectify the damages you’ve done. I’m glad you’ve come around.: She pauses for a moment. If she had eyes, you’re sure she’d be wiping them.: Through Amadia, I saw my sins, and I could bear it no longer. I threw myself from the cliff at the entrance. I tried to rid the world of my evil. But Braccus would not allow it… : How did you manage to escape him?: Only when two Source Hunters ended his curse was I free. Since then, I have returned here and spent centuries trying to heal the pain I’ve caused. And now…: She drops the now-empty soul jar to the ground, smashing it to pieces with her foot. : Try and live a better life for both of us, Gratiana.: She starts to speak, but chokes back a sob instead.: Th-thank you. I don’t… I can’t… I’ve never known such kindness. Thank you. For everything. May you walk forever in Amadia’s grace. Well, Gratiana lied about being able to save the necromancers by offering them to Amadia so she could use us to get her own Soul Jar back. But in the end, she didn’t go berserk and revert to her old ‘kill everyone and absorb their Source’ ways, and she’s genuinely very grateful to have her soul back into her skeleton. And the necromancers wanted to die anyway, so, overall, this is a positive ending. For completing Gratiana’s quest, we have our choice between… essentially the exact same rewards for releasing Trompdoy, but worse; these are all uncommon equipment, and Trompdoy offered epic equipment. I take the pants because they offer Perseverance, while my current pants offer Retribution. Retribution returns 7% of any damage done to the attacker per point (so, 14% at 2 Retribution, and so forth). Perseverance, in the base game, restores magic armour if you’re Stunned or Frozen and physical armour if you’re Knocked Down or Petrified; in Divinity: Unleashed, it restores 3% of your HP per turn per point. It’s difficult to heal Fane, so, he’d prefer the healing pants as opposed to the ‘no you’ pants.  Now that we’ve resolved that whole thing with Gratiana, it’s time to check in with Gareth. We have a wand I’m sure he’d be interested in seeing.  : I’ve found the vault of Braccus Rex, and I’ve acquired one of the Purging Wands that the Magisters wield. With it, we should be able to remove the Shriekers. : I had no doubt! You bring me hope, Sourcerer. I’ll gather the other Seekers and travel to shore. Meet us there, as soon as you can.: Gareth’s voice echoes throughout the enclave with such command, it could rouse a fawn to action.: We move, Seekers. Now is the time to resist. The Lady Vengeance will be ours! And suddenly, the entire sanctuary’s been vacated. Everyone, including the people still healing in the makeshift infirmary, has gotten up and left.  Well, almost everyone.  : The others wouldn’t let me join them for the fight. You should get moving, though – they’ll need you at their side. Even Gratiana’s left her sanctuary to help with the effort, although I doubt she’ll be much of a fighter… even though she, formally being of Braccus’s party and a current disciple of Amadia, would probably know some really heckin’ strong combat magic.  The rallying point is to our immediate northeast, just a stone’s throw from the ruined fortress we first found Gareth in. And just downhill from that rallying point is the wharf. But, as is typical with RPGs, you’ll want to save the final confrontation for being the literal last thing you do: there’s still a handful of things to do before heading to the rallying point, not the least of which is to return to the necromancers in Braccus’s tower.  For instance, if you remember, there’s one Shrieker here in this ruined fortress that’s pinning down some poor woman that we had a difficult time reaching.  We have two different methods of handling this Shrieker now: the wand, and the tyrant’s helmet that we found in the armoury in this very fort. I may want to hold onto the wand for later, so, I put on the helmet, which gives me the Purge skill, and I cast it on the Shrieker.    Just like that, the Shrieker is no more. Reduced to a pile of giblets at the base of its own cross, with a puddle of blood left to dry at its root.  It wasn’t carrying anything, but to be honest, I don’t know what I expected.  There’s a handful of stuff – mostly corpses – strewn about the yard in front of the now-dead Shrieker. A Seeker, a Magister… and a squirrel. None were spared before the might of the Shrieker.  Curiously, looting the squirrel yields me rabbit meat and a rabbit’s paw. Maybe one of the developers got confused. The meat is good for cooking, of course, but the rabbit’s paw is a crafting ingredient. I mentioned a few updates ago that crafting in Divinity: Original Sin 2 was badly gutted compared to 1 – in 1, a rabbit’s paw could be combined with some string to make an amulet, and then that could be combined with some pixie dust to make an Even Better Amulet. Whereas in 2, according to my research, rabbit’s paws are exclusively used to craft… Electric Discharge scrolls. And one Electric Fence scroll. Outside of some fringe cases (and nails in your shoes, never forget those), crafting is hardly worth your time in this game.  I found this woman the last time I was in the dilapidated fort, but the Shrieker kept me from approaching her. Now that that’s dealt with, surely she’s in a thankful and amicable mood.  : I nearly took you for a Magister and put a blade through you. That was close. And then she leaves. Okay, well, it didn’t end in a fight, so, we got that going for us. While I’m in the area, there’s one place that I want to check out.   Wrapping around the west of the fort, I come to what was probably once the fort’s lighthouse, with an unending static cloud sitting in its roost. We had seen this place once before, in the update with the Windego fight, but it wasn’t possible to access the lighthouse from the ground. Luckily, we are not on the ground: we’re on a cliff beside the lighthouse. And although it looks like it’s too far a jump to make with any of my teleport skills, the opening to the lighthouse’s top is actually at a lower elevation than I am, meaning I have enough high-ground reach to make it.  The best person to make that jump would be Lohse. She has the highest resistance to air damage out of all of us, and she also has the most magic armour to tank that sort of damage. But she doesn’t know any self-teleport skills and therefore, she can’t make it on her own. So, I send in Fane instead, who has the second-highest resistance to air damage.  As soon as he’s thrown in, we’re given a handful of EXP… and it’s enough to put us to our next level! But I don’t have time to think about that, because the longer Fane stays in this static cloud, the more damage he’ll take. And Salem was teleported with him; I don’t want my kitty to die! Not that it means literally anything for familiars and summons, but, you know.  Some arrows for Ifan, and two dead lizards named Lorenzo and Maria. Hopefully they’re carrying something to make the jump worth it.  Lorenzo was carrying… the Track of the Tyrant, one of the set pieces for Braccus’s personal armour set. This makes the helmet, the boots, the chestpiece, and the pants – now I just need the gloves, and I’ll have the whole thing. Numbers-wise, the Tracks don’t offer more armour, but they do offer more resistance to air as well as some additional movement speed. For a guy as labouring and slow as Fane whenever he doesn’t have Haste, this can be worth a lot to me later.  Maria, meanwhile, holds a more generalized treasure trove in her corpse: a Haste scroll; some money; a goblet for selling; an unidentified epic-level staff; and an uncommon ring that gives +60 HP. I don’t have time to deliberate who should do what and to identify the staff, though.   When you’re done looting the place, you can interact with the vines reaching over the side of the lighthouse to escape. It’ll put you back down on the beach, but thanks to fast travelling…   Getting back is just a few clicks of the mouse. Anyway, that staff:  Hmm… The difference in damage is just one point, so that’s essentially a non-factor. They both also give +1 Intelligence, which is a big deal for Lohse. The differences is that Commander of the Tides gives Lohse the Arcane Stitch skill, while Starstruck has a 100% chance to freeze surfaces, and a 20% chance to set Silenced. Arcane Stitch is a powerful healing spell, but it requires a Source point, and I’ll only have one of those available to me per battle. Starstruck’s ability to freeze surfaces could come in handy, especially if I find more nails (and soon) to make myself immune to ice, but that 20% chance to keep an enemy target from casting magic for a turn is the real selling point to me. It’s a bit of a kick in the nads that I spent so much money on Commander of the Tides, but, well, I found something better. Now, this level up is a big one because we got a new Talent. Talents are game-changers that can massively shake up a character and their strategies by giving them big buffs. But Prince, for some reason, didn’t get it. He’s been lagging behind on his EXP compared to everyone else. I don’t know when it happened; he must not have been present when I found a location or something. But I think I know a way to bring him back up to speed:  If I dismiss Prince, then re-recruit him, then he should gain the experience he’s missing when he’s brought back into the fold, just like every other character does when I do that.  A bit of wandering around and reloading areas later, and Prince has found his way back to Amadia’s Sanctuary, on the lookout platform near where Bahara was. And when I recruit him again:  The experience he was missing is slotted back in, and badda bing, he levels up with us. With that done, it’s time to sort everyone’s level ups: We’ve recently had an influx of new skills to learn across multiple schools, and with Bless taking up a slot for everyone, suddenly, Memory is at a bit of a premium. Everyone gets one point in Memory, while Fane puts his other one into Strength and everyone else puts their other one into Constitution. For their Combat points, Fane puts his into Pyrokinetic – normally I don’t like spreading my points out between three schools this early in the game, but Sparking Swings is a self-target-only spell and I need at least one point in Pyrokinetic to learn it, so, in it goes. Lohse’s goes into Hydrosophist; Ifan’s into Huntsman; and Prince’s into Summoning. And finally, for talents: I give everyone a Talent called Mnemonic:  Mnemonic is an important Talent that you should get either at level 8, or earlier, if you want to run a mage that relies heavily on skills instead of items and physical attacks. The next opportunity to get a Talent will be at level 13, and by then, you’ll be choking on skills that you don’t have the Memory to equip. Spoiler alert: we’ll be finding skills that cost more than one Memory to equip fairly soon, so having an empty buffer is borderline essential. Also: in the base game, Mnemonic only gives 3 extra Memory slots. Divinity: Unleashed realized just how essential Memory is by buffing an already-important Talent.   Since I dismissed Prince, that meant Attendant with out with him. On my way back to Braccus’s Tower, I respawn it on a puddle of poison, giving it a poisonous affinity – now, he can bite Fane in the shins and it’ll heal him.  I had to redo the entire labyrinth in front of Braccus’s Tower, but eventually, here I am again, ready to bring the necromancers their Soul Jars. If you do Braccus’s Vault before you do his labyrinth, and you pilfer the Band of Braccus from Trompdoy’s corpse, then, when the gargoyle at the beginning of the maze says “you are not Braccus Rex,” you can pull out the ring and say “yeah I am, only Braccus would own this ring,” and the gargoyle would say “oh, my bad, welcome home sir,” and it’d teleport you straight to the end. So, if you’re playing the game yourself, you can do things out of order if you’d like, and your reward would be the opportunity to skip the maze entirely.  The necromancers haven’t moved; they’re still playing their game of cards, patiently waiting to spontaneously fall apart from me smashing their jars. If Gratiana couldn’t/wouldn’t rescue them, then maybe they’d like to have the choice to have their souls back themselves, similar to what Gratiana did.  There’s no option to give them their Soul Jars back, even when I have them in my inventory, though. They’d much rather I just smash the drat things.  Even putting her Soul Jar down beside her, she doesn’t react to its presence at all. Well, in that case, I guess there’s really only one thing to do.   The other necromancers have no strong feelings one way or the other about what just happened in front of them. In fact, you can talk to them about Braccus or Gratiana, and their conversations continue as normal, but without Tamsyn offering her input. A rare miss in Divinity’s story: for a game that has as many branching dialogue options and routes in their quests as this, the only three options you have for the necromancers in Braccus’s Tower is to destroy the jars; absorb their souls for yourself; or to do nothing.       And that’s that. The three necromancers unjustly locked up in Braccus’s Tower (well… two and Gwick) for all eternity have finally served their time and have moved on to the Hall of Echoes, leaving only their limp, ragdoll skeletons behind.  None of them had anything on them – except for Tamsyn, who had the key to the giant door that leads deeper into the tower. We’re here, so, we might as well explore a bit.   The first thing that greets me is a lake of fire, surrounded by several skeletons and a ton of human skulls. Like, holy cow, that’s a lot of skulls.   I have Lohse do a rain dance to put out the fire, but the fire is being supplied by a trap set into the floor and therefore it’ll just keep coming back, rain or no. If I want to put out that fire, I either need to put something on top of the trap, or I need to turn it off somehow.  There’s a pressure plate next to the fire pit. Maybe I just need a second person to sit on the plate to turn the fire off?  Oh hey, a bar of soap. That’s actually one of the more practical crafting ingredients in the game. I’ll demonstrate why some other time, but rest assured, you’ll want to hoard these if you can.   Sir Lora helpfully stands on the pressure plate for me to test out my theory. The answer is: yes, standing on the plate will turn off the fire trap – but it’ll also activate two more that fling fireballs nonstop for as long as the plate is depressed. It’s unrealistic to have one of my characters just stand there and tank fireballs endlessly while I explore deeper into the tower, so I’ll need something large and flame resistant to stand on this plate for me instead. I could resummon Attendant on fire to make it flame-immune and have it stand there instead, but, well, I just didn’t think of that at the time.  Standing on the pressure plate also opens a door leading to the other side of this grated fence. Stepping off the plate will rearm the trap and it’ll shut the door.  Eventually, I wander too far away from Sir Lora, and he steps off the pressure plate to come back to me, which rearms the trap and shuts the door, but at least it stops the fireballs. And Fane located a pair of beartraps on the ledge above him, flanking an opening in the partition above him that leads elsewhere into the tower. There’s nothing immediately available that I can use to weigh down the pressure plate that’ll have the strength to tank the fireballs when the trap is activated, so, I guess I’m done with this part of the puzzle for now. There are a number of crates nearby that I could use, but:    They don’t have the HP or the resistances to tank more than one fireball, so they’re useless to me. I’ll probably find something elsewhere.  Oh, hey, another opportunity to meet God if you missed the other two.  Directly to the east of the entrance to the tower is an open door, and I can see a long, plush red carpet laid down just beyond it. Maybe this room is someone’s personal quarters – Braccus’s own, maybe? This was his tower.  This room is certainly laid out a little nicer, but it’s hardly what I would call a room fit for a king. There’s no bed, for instance. But there’s a number of scientist alembics sitting across more than one table in this half of the room, and each of the desks are decorated with scrolls and books and things to loot. And there’s also an iron maiden in the corner, so, hell, maybe Braccus did use this room as his study or something.  ‘The Legend of the Blood Rose.’ That sounds familiar.   Way back, just after the fight with Wendigo, we came across a rat that spoke in riddles and told us to find… I think it described them as ‘black’ roses, not blood roses? But it told us to search in a cave to the far southeast, which would be roughly our current location. If there’s any truth to these blood roses, they must be nearby. But why would I want roses that used human suffering as fertilizer and the tears of the damned as its water? Even though that sounds metal as hell.  Oh, a jar of mind maggots! These are pretty rare crafting ingredients. If you remember, we found one ages ago, in Fort Joy, just before Kniles’ Playground. They can be used to craft Love Grenades, which are extremely powerful weapons, and even if you don’t want to craft with them, jars of mind maggots are worth a fortune.  There’s a cordoned section of room, barely larger than a closer, that contains a mutilated corpse and another rack and another iron chair – apparent favourites of Braccus’. There’s a door leading in, but it’s locked, and Tamsyn’s key doesn’t fit.  At the end of the room is a large desk with candles still lit upon it – one of the candles is set onto a human skull. And on top of that desk is a skillbook for the Geomancer skill Worm Tremor. A free skill for Ifan? Don’t mind if I do.  Worm Tremor: Do scaled Earth damage to a target area, affecting all characters within it. Worms slither up from the earth, attaching to each character and setting Entangled, prohibiting them from moving or teleporting and doing poison damage each turn.Any skill that keeps enemies from moving less is a good skill for a Wayfarer to have. They prefer it when their targets sit still.  To the left of the desk is a giant chest made of steel that appears to be Cursed… and a friend locked in a cage.  : You approach the still body, and see its nostril flaring. Long-dead eyes rise to meet yours. As you lean in close it lurches forward, its arms thrash against the cage bars as it tries to reach you. Looks like it hasn’t been fed in a very long time…Well, alright, you can stay in there, then. I’m curious about that steel chest. I don’t remember seeing it there before.  Touching the chest passes the Curse onto me, causing it to linger for three turns. Not a big deal, but it leads me to believe that if the cure is to un-Curse me, then maybe the solution is to un-Curse the chest.    A pair of gloves… and a note.   “flaming arrowhead symbol to mark their secret gathering places. I wonder what else they may be hiding. Either way, it seems I would require a fire rune to open the “true path”.” Oh, this is another one of the armour set questlines! No wonder I didn’t recognize the chest. According to this note, hand-written by Braccus himself, these gauntlets are a part of the ‘Devourer’ set, crafted by an outlawed lizard-empress-to-be that was exiled because she looked funny. I can progress this quest if I find a symbol of an arrowhead on fire, and I have a flame rune to spare – which I have at least one.  The defense numbers are worse than what I have, but it offers a higher critical hit chance then my current gloves, as well as +1 Strength, so these Devourer’s Claws are better. Actually, that reminds me: at the beginning of the labyrinth, we found a dead corpse that held a Tormented Soul and a note. That guy said something about ‘Devourer’s Gloves,’ didn’t he? Anyway, these gloves seem rad, so I’ll slip them on. : The heavy gauntlets are cold to the touch. A prickle travels up the back of your neck, warning that you’re being watched.: Flickers of memory fill your mind. You long for solitude. The subtle scent of parchment wrinkles your nose; fresh ink stains your fingertips.: The memory vanishes, burned away by heat. Ash falls from the sky as a growling whisper addresses you. That’s new!  : To whom am I speaking with? : Patience. You must prove yourself worthy of such answers.: You must find that place of longing in the home of a young scholar. I will draw strength from there to speak again.: As the heat around you fades, the desperate memory returns. It claws at you, trying to take hold, then slips away completely.Huh. Wasn’t expecting that. I wonder if it’s a bad idea to put on the gloves. … I’m gonna put on the gloves.  Nah, no deficits, no penalties, nothing. And also no rewards; I was promised that these gloves would be level 20 and that I’d be granted the ability to ‘channel a violent frenzy that feeds off the life force of enemies,’ but no, none of that. Well, even still, these gloves are better than what I had before, so there’s no reason not to wear them for now. There’s nothing else for me in this room, other than that little ‘torture nook’ that’s been locked off to me. I really want to get in there, if for no other reason than because there’s a handful of cash just lying on the ground on the other side of the door.  Well, if I can’t just walk in, and I don’t have the skills to pick the lock, then I might as well cheat.  As soon as Fane’s thrown into the torture nook, I hear a gross, unsoundly scream beside me…   … and the zombie in the cage from before is let loose! This fight is seven versus one, and the one is a shambling, starved, half-decayed zombie that just busted out of jail. Long story short, it was a wash, and the most damage done to me was from Afrit triggering a trap that hit him with some fireballs.  It ended with lots of fire, though.  Anyway, my reward for busting into the torture nook is some money and some lockpicks. The corpse had a bit more money on it, plus a bottle of beer.  Making my way back to the fire pit at the beginning of the mini-dungeon, I head up to that partition that’s been blocked off by a pair of beartraps. I also happen to find a third, which means odds are good that there’s a fourth nearby. I trip all four of them at once with an arrow from a safe distance. Remember to always practice safe beartrap disposal.   Oh, there were five! Even more than I thought.  The first thing to greet me on the other side of the partition is a giant, glowing blue wall that looks exactly like the one blocking my progress into Braccus’s vault. Going by pattern recognition, this means that there’s probably a lever or something nearby that I can flip to dissipate this barrier.  There’s a rat here! Rats are generally pretty… actually, I think they might be less than 50% helpful so far in terms of giving me forward progress. Well, it couldn’t hurt to speak with it.  : I… thanks? I guess? Are you being sarcastic? : You certainly sound sarcastic. You even sound like you’re enjoying it. : I do not! I sound perfectly normal. Obviously. : I’ve seen… something like this before. Are you able to tell the truth, and the whole, uncoloured truth, without any sarcasm or irony? : … Let’s try something different. Are you constrained by nature or magic to not tell the truth?: The rat tries to nod its head and fails. It tries to shake its head and fails. Its head end up doing a strange, jerking diagonal movement that could mean anything. : Is this a physical affliction, or is it magical?: Physical. : Do you have any idea what could cure it?: The rat gives you a grave and meaningful look, inviting you to listen carefully.: I don’t think the problem is in my head, and further to that I don’t think the problem could be unscrambled by the use of Source. I can categorically state that a short, sharp shock with something of a magical persuasion would absolutely not solve my problem immediately. : (It worked last time, but…) Wouldn’t that kill you? You are very small and any magic I conjure would be a lot for your body. : Very well. I have one spell in particular that might help.: The rat breathes a long sigh of relief, closes its eyes, and steels itself for what’s coming…  Oh God, the poor thing exploded as soon as I cast Bless on it. That’s not what that spell’s supposed to do!  : Dead! I suspect that’s what it wanted all along.According to the Divinity: Original Sin 2 wiki, there is no scripted procedure where this rat survives. It’s scripted to die no matter what spell you cast on it, even if it’s Bless. So Lohse’s probably right, and even if Bless could cure it without killing it, being sarcastic 100% of the time was probably enough to drive it absolutely batty. It invites an interesting discourse, though: would you rather live life being unable to lie? Or would you rather live life being unable to tell the truth? They both sound particularly unpleasant.  Heading in the opposite direction, there’s a reinforced, level 20 crate sitting on the opposite side of the giant, glowing blue wall. I could use this crate to weigh down that pressure plate without worrying about it breaking any time soon. It won’t last forever, but it’d last more than long enough.  And it even had some stuff in it, score. The staff does poison damage but it’s many, many steps beneath Prince’s current Soul Of The Dragon staff, so, into the bin it goes.  Sitting on an altar just beside the reinforced crate is an ‘antique key.’ I bet this goes to the zombie cage and the torture nook. It’s a bit late for it now, but I might as well grab it – keys don’t weigh anything and inventory space is limited only to my carrying capacity.  Beside the giant blue wall is a little lantern that has the same blue glowy stuff in it. I imagine it’s connected to the way forward somehow.  Seems legit.  : As your fingertips brush the surface, the whispers turn to screams. I’m Cursed, which pattern recognition tells me this thing wants to be Blessed. : The hum of the relic grows louder and bright light starts to spill from its runes. Cracks start to spread across the surface, and it shatters like glass. That was easy. And the Curse only lasts for one turn. Remember, though, that dialogue options that involve you channeling Source requires that you have Source to spend. Without that Larian Gift Bag mod, I’d be running back and forth from here to the broken fort and its giant vat of Source over and over again. One mod is all it takes to save a ton of time! Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Jul 30, 2021 |
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Jul 29, 2021 23:09
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 Passing the threshold gives me 2,950 EXP and shows me into… I’m not sure what this room is. In this screenshot alone, there are three statues of Braccus Rex, and the bridge I’m about to cross is over a deep chasm with more architecture visible beneath me. There’s a giant red carpet leading me to a big dais on the floor ahead.  A very tall vase, looking like it’s made of gold. Anything good in it?  Oh, nice, I think this is my first Source skill! Chain Lightning costs 3 AP and one Source point to cast, but it’s a hell of a powerful skill to cast.  Chain Lightning: Fire one bolt of lightning that can fork up to eight times to targets within an 8m radius of each other, dealing massive scaled Air damage to each. This attack is basically Electric Discharge, but superpowered.And with our massive influx of fresh Memory slots, Lohse has no problem equipping it.  This room appears to be… a tomb? The tomb of Braccus Rex and… someone else. Nobody ever mentioned that Braccus had a wife – and I doubt he’d be the kind of person to take just one, and I doubt he’d call her his ‘wife’ – but the Band of Braccus that I picked up from Trompdoy did mention that he had a sister. Maybe it’s hers? This being Braccus’ final resting place, there’s lots and lots for me to rifle through, including barrels, piles of bones, and treasure chests. That doesn’t mean there’s a lot to loot, but it does mean that there are lots of places to look, and, therefore, lots of places for Ifan’s Lucky Charm to kick in. It doesn’t, but it could have.  I’m faced with two treasure chests: one labelled ‘chest’ and the other labelled ‘well-worn chest.’ I’ve seen this before. One of them is a bomb. I’m going to open both, but I expect one of them is going to explode. It’s different if I know it’s going to happen.  Oh, there it is. A water balloon and some cash, thanks to Lucky Charm. Water balloons have many practical purposes! I’ll gladly take it. Which means the other chest is a bomb, right?  Well. This is much better. Two runes, one fire and one earth; a ton of money; a flaming arrow; a strength-based helmet that gives +1 Strength and +1 Geomancer, and lets me cast Winter Blast; and some leather finesse-based gloves that offer higher stats than what Ifan has now, but his current gloves have a slot for a rune, and the Masterwork rune he has equipped in them actually boosts their defense numbers higher. Also, his current gloves give +1 Finesse and +1 Huntsman and it’s going to be a long time before he finds gloves that beat that.  All tombs in this game can be opened, but unlike chests or barrels or whatever, they require that you pass a Strength check.  One that Fane actually doesn’t pass, despite being our frontman and tank. Not without a bit of help, anyway.   Peace Of Mind increases Fane’s Strength by 2, along with his other stats, and with that, he has enough to pass the checks.  The woman’s tomb opens – and as soon as it does, a massive puddle of poison spills out, hitting everyone on my team. I get it: whoever was sleeping here probably wouldn’t appreciate me disturbing their resting place, and if they’re close enough to the Mad King, Braccus Rex, that he let them sleep next to him in his crypt, then Braccus would probably see to it that she wasn’t disturbed either. But… concerningly, there’s no body in this casket. Just a pair of gloves.  Oh, the Hands of the Tyrant! This is the last piece of the armour set! But, uh… well, if the lady’s casket is empty…   The only thing left in Braccus’ casket is a single human tooth. Presumably, one of his. Meaning he’s either decomposed to dust, or… Better not to think about that. Braccus is dead. He’s been dead for a long time. But I have all of the pieces to his armour set now! Let’s see what happens if I put them all on.  The Hands of the Tyrant are strictly worse than the Devourer’s Claws, so, we’re off to a good start.  Each piece of the Tyrant’s set gives me a permanent status while I’m wearing it. The gloves permanently give me the Diseased status, significantly lowering my Constitution and damage output.  The Tyrant’s Helm has equal stats to my Mask of Strength and it only gives me +1 Strength, and Fane doesn’t have any points in Leadership anyway, so the only leg-up at that the Mask of Strength has is that is has a slot, while the Tyrant’s Helm gives me the Purge skill. It’s pretty down the middle.  While wearing the helm, Fane is permanently Warm. Which doesn’t sound so bad and the only debuff it gives is some weakness to fire attacks, but it does mean that Fane can catch fire more easily.  The Tyrant’s Stride is a significant downgrade in armour numbers, but +1 Constitution is more attractive than +1 Perseverance, and the bonus HP will offset the armour numbers and then some. Also, 10% Earth resistance is better than nothing. I’m willing to give this one to the Tyrant pants. Wearing them makes Fane permanently Slowed, as if he had stepped through some oil.  The Heart of the Tyrant is a massive upgrade from Fane’s current chestpiece – the armour numbers are the same, but divvied differently, while the Heart of the Tyrant also gives +1 Warfare and it has an empty slot. This is an easy win for the Tyrant set.  The chestpiece also makes Fane permanently Warm, and combined with the helmet, that means Fane is permanently Burning. Gonna have to take some points off for that, I’m afraid.  Finally, the Tracks of the Tyrant have significantly worse armour numbers, but it provides 10% Air resistance and additional movement speed, and for a guy as clunky and slow as Fane, more movement speed is always a big bonus. Wearing the boots will make Fane permanently Crippled, which, combined with the pants, means he’d essentially be totally immobile.  But when you wear all five pieces of the Tyrant set together, all of their curses wear off at once, and now Fane has none of their individual penalties. No slowness, no fire, no disease, and… well, he’s not supposed to be Crippled, but a First Aid from Ifan will fix that up. All together, the gloves are worse; the helmet and the grieves are tied; and the chestpiece and the pants are better. Not as big an upgrade as I was hoping, but an upgrade nonetheless.  And it looks pretty rad, too. This was the same armour set that Braccus Rex wore in battle. The big issue with wearing the Tyrant set is that you can’t unequip them individually. If I find better boots down the line, I need to find better pants, armour, gloves, and a better helmet as well in order to swap out. So I’ll be rocking only the Tyrant set, at least for a little while. And unfortunately, the Band of Braccus still Curses you if you wear it, even with the Tyrant set, so that ring is pretty useless. We’re nearly done with this tower: there’s just a few places left to explore.  Unfortunately, the reinforced crate is way too heavy for Fane to lift, even with Peace of Mind – but Teleportation has no such restriction and can move anything, provided it’s not Fortified or bolted to the ground.    With that crate in place, the fire pit is disabled and the door to the cage is open, but two turrets are constantly spewing fireballs at me and the crate. The crate won’t last forever, but it’ll last long enough for me to get through the door.   Just beyond the door is more bodies and more piles of skulls – jeez, how many people were in this drat tower to begin with?  There’s another metal crate with nothing in it, but there’s also a sewer duct, similar to the exit from Kniles’ Playground. I can interact with this grate to go somewhere else.   Well, this is immediately better. It looks like another study, similar to the other one in this tower, but there’s no zombie sitting in a cage and there are no torture devices anywhere. It’s absolutely covered in spiderwebs, so it hasn’t had guests in a dog’s age, and the whole place is decorated from top to bottom with books.  Sitting on the nearby desk is a ‘tattered blueprint.’   Ah, this must be yet another method to finding the vault of Braccus Rex, if you failed the persuasion check against the necromancers; you couldn’t get it out of Gratiana; and you just straight-up couldn’t find it.  Going through the book shelves, I come across one of Huwbert’s encyclopedias. I don’t normally showcase these since they’re just fluff meant to take up space and time, but this one seems particularly relevant to the world we’re in.  That information’s probably going to come in useful some day.    That’s all the exciting things I manage to find between the books on the shelves.  Kind of difficult to avoid is a thick, ornate chest sitting in the middle of the room.  A lot of money; a wand (also good for money); a Teleportation skillbook (also good for money); and an epic wizard’s fur coat.  It’s kind of mean spirited that an intelligence-based chestpiece gives a whopping +2 to Huntsman, but, there it is. At least it also gives +1 to Aerothurge and +1 to Constitution, meaning it’ll still be really good on Lohse – and with those points in Huntsman, she could use Erratic Wisp, a spell that Sir Lora taught us after the fight with the Voidwoken Deep-Dweller.  She’s going in even harder on the bog-witch look. I like it a lot.  Throwing this switch disables the traps in the other room, meaning I won’t have to deal with the fire pit or the turrets when I try to leave.  With that done, there’s just one room left in this tower. Remember that rat that couldn’t tell the truth?  There’s a great, big door just beside that tiny rat’s corpse. Our final stop in this tower lies just beyond here.   Huh, a whole lot of nothing so far. This part of the tower seems underdeveloped – like we’re not actually in the tower anymore.  At the end of this dirt road is a well. The crypt that had Braccus’ tomb had waterfalls around its outside, so presumably there’s lots of fresh water to find and a well might not strictly be necessary. But, well, if it’s here, then there’s more to it than just being a normal well. : You approach a decrepit well and stare down into its toothless, black mouth. No sooner has your head crossed the rum than weak voices begin to echo from the depths.Oh, cool, it’s not a well, it’s a grave. Should have figured.  : Thirst… Dry throats… Drink… Water… Water…And to add insult to injury, the well is dry! There are a handful of solutions to this puzzle. All you want to do is make the well itself wet, and it doesn’t really matter how much water you use to accomplish that. A water balloon will be more than enough, or, if you’re carrying a whole-rear end barrel of water for some reason, you could set that down and break it on the well, and that’ll solve the puzzle. Ironically, a bucket of water will not solve the puzzle because it’s a crafting ingredient, and not something that the game intends to be ‘interactable’ with the world. But, of course, the most cost-efficient way to solve this puzzle is to have your Hydrosophist, if one is available, perform a rain dance.   If you see the water roiling inside the well, you’ve solved the puzzle. : The well is now filled to the brim with fresh, cool water, but what it has brought to the surface quickly evaporates any wish you may have had to quench your own thirst. You see the tangled remains of three corpses: a mixed mass of bones and skin from which three skulls protrude. They address you in unison, their voices a drone-like blend. : Being cast away in a dark hole for eternity is a punishment I wouldn’t wish on anyone else. Who was it that sentenced you to this fate? … Or do I really need to ask? : I’m beginning to see a pattern with how Braccus Rex behaved during his time.: Did you three actually do anything to deserve it? Or was this just another one of his insane whims?: Wrath and terror. We displeased the king. The truth we spoke. His fortune told. No divinity would he be. And so he entangled our bodies and cursed our throats. Smote the Brothers of Baladur. : What is it you’re asking for, exactly?: The fare. The toll. The levy. The people of Baladur must be buried with coin. Coin for the Path Keeper that leads the dead to the kingdom beyond. : (There’s something to be said about ‘not taking it with you’ that the people of Baladur are openly disregarding.) Alright, I suppose I can spare some coin. This being a CRPG, the more you put in, the more you’ll get in return, of course. : Well, a mad king is who put you here. A mad king’s ransom ought to keep your Path Keeper satisfied.: We thank you again. We bless you again. The wealth of the depths is yours. Path Keeper keep us. Path Keeper guide us. To the long-awaited kingdom we will go.: Laden with the burden of the coin you gave them, the Brothers of Baladur sink back to the bottom of the well. Whether they will find their kingdom or languish in the dark, wet depths forever, you cannot foretell.And our reward for putting in that much money:  A really, really nice levelled belt. Your reward for giving the Brothers of Baladur a ton of money is levelled, meaning if I did this puzzle at level 9, the reward I’d get would be one level higher, and therefore the rewards would be greater – greater bonuses, greater armour, etc. It’s technically possible to do this this late in Act One, but it’d involve a lot of murder. That +2 Ranged is awfully tasty. Ifan’s current belt that he got from… I forget. I got it from a decomposing terramancer, clearly, but I forget where that was. Anyway, this new belt would go much better on him than what he has now.  And with that, we’ve cleared out Braccus’ tower! We’ve looted the place clean; we’ve helped bring eternal rest to three undead necromancers; we helped some weird, gross abomination in a well finally drown; and we completed the Tyrant’s armour set. There’s nothing left to do except go to the rallying point with Gareth and finally storm the wharf.  This is just a short ways east of the dead bear that we had found, which itself was just a short ways east from the dilapidated fortress with Gareth. Uphill from here is where the rallying point is. And it turns out there’s at least one dead Magister on the way there, which… well, normally, I’d say something sarcastic about how it’s a welcome sight, but this is the direct way towards Gareth and the rallying point. So maybe it really is a good sign?  Looting Farray’s corpse gives us their entire goddamn torso. Imagine Sebille consuming a whole, entire torso. And a note.  efforts are for the good of all. Nothing I didn’t already know and/or see through to the end. I can hear someone else panicking off in the distance not too far from this corpse.  Looks like a whole party happened without me. Four corpses, including three Magisters and one undead elf; an overturned cart with its contents spilled everywhere; and a single, surviving Magister, but it looks like he’s got some kind of head problem. : A young Magister tenderly fingers two fresh gashes across his eyes and face. His fingertips hesitate over his closed eyelids; he’s been blinded. At your approach, he spins to face you and readies his shield. : Relax, I’m a Magister like you. My name is… Mortle. Magister Mortle. : Mortle? I don’t… I don’t know any Mortle. Tell me truth: Who are you? : I’m from an auxiliary unit called in from Fort Joy on a rescue mission. I need you to stay calm.: Persuasion Success!: I’m sorry. I’m… I can’t see anything. I feel like a sheep in a wolf’s den. : Very little; just that your unit was late and that you may have run into trouble. I was hoping you could fill in the blanks.: I don’t know how it all went so wrong so fast. We came to get the Purging Wands from Braccus’ old armoury. Loaded up the last of ‘em without any trouble. The cart was good-going, but he hit a snag. Those bloody skeletons had lain a trap for us. : May I take a closer look?  : Bad enough that my first-aid field training won’t help. You’ll need to see a healer. : Is that wise? I don’t want to send a blind man through a swamp filled with undead. Perhaps we should wait here for reinforcements. : Fine, if you’re confident. I’ll stay and watch the cart; if you’re certain you can make it back to Fort Joy on your own, then go. Hopefully we’ve dealt with enough of the undead that your way there is uneventful.: He reaches out and feels for your shoulder. He shakes it twice, then reaches up and pats your cheek, probably a little harder than he means to.: Thank you. You’re cold. Build yourself a fire and warm yourself up. I can get myself back to the Fort fine. After all these expeditions, I know the way well enough. Thank you. And off he goes, making his own way back to Fort Joy. If you follow him long enough, he kind of just… disappears. It’s kind of a shame. He’s not going to find a lot of help in Fort Joy, after I dealt with it. And he’s not going to find a lot of friends in the Sourcerers. Anyway, free poo poo!  Some money, some drained purging wands, and a handful of miscellaneous wares for selling. Not a bad haul. And a journal:   Ah, at this point, the game assumes that we have all five pieces of the Tyrant’s armour set, but maybe we didn’t figure out that putting them all one would negate their penalties, and this is how we’d find out.  A little ways further up the hill and off the beaten path slightly is… a bear cub. That’s, uh, not a good sign.  : What’s wrong?: The cub stifles a sob. : … What did she – what does she look like?: The bear cub blinks. Sniffles. Oh dear. What do YOU think? Do we direct this bear cub towards what is very probably its mother’s dead body?  Finally, as we climb the hill to the east, we come across a fork in the road. The left fork takes us up the hill…  … to some kind of… elven encampment, I think? There’s an elf wearing mage’s clothing that I don’t recognize, and there’s a body on a cross, almost exactly like Braccus’ Shriekers, but it looks different – like it’s not quite a Shrieker yet. And there’s Samadel, the lizard that tended to Han! We’re coming right up on the rallying point, it’s just a few paces away from here.  However, the other fork in the road takes us downhill, towards a beach – and as the camera pans toward it, the edges of the screen turn misty, and I think I can see splotches of… ice on the sand. Frozen sand? I think I remember seeing something like that earlier…. And on top of that, there’s a pig in the middle of the road. This pig isn’t on fire – is it just a normal pig that isn’t related to Braccus’ curses from before? Or is it one of the pigs I had Blessed to remove the fire?  I can’t very well leave stuff not-done before going to the rallying point, so I will be heading downhill to check out that pig and the frozen beach. The pig is probably cold and could use some direction. There are only two votes this time! Do we direct the cub to its dead mother? And do we want to swap anyone out? Let me know by Sunday evening! Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Jul 29, 2021 |
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Jul 29, 2021 23:09
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Tell the cub and swap Ifan for Sebille. I was confused when you said you were heading towards Gareth since you still had some stuff to do, but I see what you're doing now.
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Jul 30, 2021 06:16
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I see Afrit continues to be the dumbest wolf. Poor rat. Tell the cub, it'll figure it out sooner or later anyway and maybe this way we can help it or adopt it or something. I'm still fine with the current party I think.
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Jul 30, 2021 13:15
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While the Bambi moment with the cub sucks, you gotta tell it about its mom. And drat it, we gotta get Beast in somehow, maybe swap with Red Prince?
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Jul 30, 2021 23:46
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Black Robe posted:I see Afrit continues to be the dumbest wolf. Agree with this.
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Jul 31, 2021 03:42
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Black Robe posted:I see Afrit continues to be the dumbest wolf. This sounds good.
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Jul 31, 2021 09:41
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Reading the description, pretty sure the level 20 boost for the Devourer's Claws are for wearing the full set.Black Robe posted:I see Afrit continues to be the dumbest wolf. Voting for this as well.
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Jul 31, 2021 23:44
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How are you enjoying Divinity Unleashed vs vanilla so far? Thinking about getting back into the game but not sure what version I should do.
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Aug 3, 2021 17:30
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Tell the cub and Keep the Party. Does this path also lead toward the Southeast Caves (I think?) you mentioned, that might have Black/Blood Roses?
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Aug 3, 2021 21:44
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Donkringel posted:How are you enjoying Divinity Unleashed vs vanilla so far? Thinking about getting back into the game but not sure what version I should do. The mod introduces a ton more depth and moving parts to the gameplay. Pet Pal being an entirely new and unique thing; the massive overhaul to the armour system; teleports and self-teleports being hard-nerfed and still being overwhelmingly powerful and important options; skills like Bless and Demonic Stare no longer being useless (they may actually have gone too ham on Demonic Stare imo; keeping the enemy still is one thing, in a game where positioning is so important, but stripping them of their armour as well is a pretty absurd buff); the list goes on. I especially like that it's particularly difficult to crowd-control enemies: in the base game, as soon as a target was vulnerable to Stunned, Frozen, Petrified, or Knocked Down, that enemy was, for all intents and purposes, out of the game, regardless of how much HP they actually had. Now, it's really, really tough to actually give them a status that forces them to pass a turn (but not impossible, making it feel more rewarding when you do) and instead gives them some really nasty debuffs - they're badly inhibited, but they can still recover and still pose a threat. It makes fights overall more engaging. I wouldn't imagine that it'd be more difficult to learn how to play the game with the mod as opposed to vanilla. Vanilla isn't exactly a simple game either, what with positioning and statuses and surfaces and clouds and height differences and on and on; Divinity: Unleashed adds a bit more to it without making things overwhelming. And vanilla is still PC Game Of The Year 2017 for a reason. But Divinity: Unleashed just makes it, well, overall better, as mods of this calibre tend to do. Schwartzcough posted:Tell the cub and Keep the Party. Does this path also lead toward the Southeast Caves (I think?) you mentioned, that might have Black/Blood Roses? I could be coy and say "I guess we'll find out  " but, yes, that is the direction of the cave with the Blood Roses.
Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Aug 3, 2021 |
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Aug 3, 2021 22:06
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Huh. Finally caught up with the thread. You are doing a great job at presenting the game. I only ever made it until the end of the island before the party and inventory management kinda overwhelmed me so this is a great oppurtinity to finally experience the game. I'll also cast in my lot for keep the party and traumatise the cub .
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Aug 8, 2021 12:51
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 We had two votes last update: the first was to overall keep our team as it is, and the second, by an overwhelming majority of everyone-to-nobody, was to tell the bear cub that his mom had passed away. All life comes to an end eventually. It’s a shame he has to learn now, but he has to learn at some point.  : I have seen a bear in that direction, yes.: The cub brightens. : Oooh, thanks mister! I’ll go find her then! Mum! Mum! I’m coming!: The happy cub ambles away. The bear cub then begins it’s long, real-time journey towards where we saw the older bear’s carcass. It takes a surprisingly long time for the cub to get there and you can’t make it go faster by unloading and reloading the area by fast travelling somewhere else.  About four minutes later, the mom and the child are once again reunited. : The cub looks up at you with the saddest eyes you’ve ever seen.And that concludes this journey! We brought a bear cub back to its mother. Hooray for us!  Continuing down that pathway that I noted at the end of the previous update, we come across a pig. According to the pig’s health bar and name tag, this pig’s name is Feder. None of the pigs we rescued from the necrofire had names, so, I guess we’ll find out if this is one of those pigs from before.  : I’ve met some pigs recently, true, but you’ll need to refresh my memory. : You don’t remember? Goodness. One moment, my flesh was flaming with cursed fire. The next, you had eased my pain! : Speaking strictly from an outside-looking-in perspective, being a pig seems like it has its pros and cons as opposed to being a creature of higher bearing like myself.: It’s pretty simple, all things considered. I eat a lot. Fungus, mostly. And I’m really into mud. You see pigs roll around in it, but until you are one, you just can’t understand. : How did you come to be cursed like this in the first place? A wizard, then a pig, and then set ablaze for all eternity?: Well, I can trace it all back to Braccus Rex, of course. Many of us opposed his reign. Few dared to speak against him, though.: A few of us wizards took the chance, though. We figured if we spread the word of his deeds, we might encourage enough people to come together, find a way to take him down. But we underestimated the cowardice of our comrades. All we succeeded in doing was being branded as heretics and brought to Braccus Rex’s court. : In all my years of study, I’d never heard of such a curse. How did Braccus learn it? Did he create it himself? : Do you intend to find a way to return to your old form? : Perhaps it’s that she simply can’t hear you. There’s a sanctuary dedicated to Ma – I mean, Lady Amadia not too far from here. You might have an easier time reaching her there.: Really? Oh, what wonderful news! If there is a shrine to Amadia there, I may return to my old self just yet! I’ll head that way now. I hope to see you there! And off she goes, heading towards the Sanctuary of Amadia. We might as well just head there ourselves now; whatever’s at the bottom of this path can wait a bit.  One fast travel later, and everyone, including Feder, is at the Sanctuary of Amadia. The sanctuary is surrounded by cliffs you need to climb, and the game helpfully glosses over how Feder managed to enter it completely. Well, I guess it also connects to a beach on the west side, but Feder would have to cut through the Hollow Marshes and fight the ocean and swim around a cove to reach it. : It’s quite beautiful here. But I’m afraid my journey to the sanctuary might have been in vain. : The pool in front of the toppled statue’s head is comprised solely of holy water. A dip in it couldn’t hurt.: Oh, what a grand idea! I’ll try that. What’s the worst that could happen?  Feder gets into the pool… and then immediately dies.  Just kidding, she turns back into a human.   She eventually picks herself out of the pool and finds a spot to sit down and relax for the rest of the game. She was a flaming pig for most of her life (according to her story, she was around during Braccus’ time in his prime, and he’s been dead for at least a century), but, well, in the end, here she is, living her best life.  : Hello. I don’t believe we’ve met, have we? : Oh, I’m a wizard. And I was a long time ago, too. In between, I was a pig. And I was on fire for most of that time. I always thought this was an awkward resolution to Feder’s little diversion in the Flaming Pigs quest. She’s acting like we’ve never met when we talked literally one minute ago. You don’t get any material rewards or even experience for un-cursing Feder and turning her back into a human. Instead, you get a vendor.  One that sells a lot of really good stuff.  She sells an elven two-handed axe called The Final Word, which is way better than Scumkiller. Scumkiller has been an amazing sword for me, but it was going to get outclassed eventually, and the fact that it went four whole levels shows how much longevity it had.  She also sells a suit of Strength-based armour called Storm, which has significantly higher numbers than Heart of the Tyrant, and that +1 Constitution is real nice. I can’t swap out Heart of the Tyrant, though, because if I do, I also need to replace everything else in the armour set, or else I’ll get a ton of permanent debuffs.  I buy The Final Word; some pants for Ifan; and some sandals and a new belt for Prince. That runs me nearly every last gold piece that I have. However, I still have a ton of wares to sell, and a trip to my fence Kalias is just one fast-travel away. Feder sells two rings in particular that I’m really interested in.   Kalias doesn’t have enough money to take every last item of wares that I have, so I trade him enough to take all of his money, plus three Resurrection scrolls. I still have more than enough wares to get me a pretty penny next time I want to do more shopping.  One ring gives +1 Geomancer and the other gives +1 Huntsman and +1 Constitution, meaning they’d go really, really well on Ifan. Unfortunately, the money I got from Kalias isn’t nearly enough to afford the two rings that I want, so, I’ll just hold onto the cash for now.   While I’m doing a bit of shopping, though, I pick up some skillbooks to craft together and make hybrid spells. The Warfare and Pyromancer books make Sparking Swings for Fane, while the Huntsman and Aeromancer skills together create Erratic Wisp. Lohse’s brand new chestpiece gives her a point in Huntsman, so she can use Erratic Wisp until she removes it.  Erratic Wisp: Every time the targeted character is attacked, they teleport in a random direction to a random spot. Increases Air Resistance by 40%.This skill could easily backfire if there are hazardous surfaces nearby, but if Lohse is being attacked by enemies doing physical damage, this would be a useful way for her to get out of dodge (in exchange for taking a hit regardless).  With the bear and the pig distractions over with, we can finally see what was at the end of this fork in the path. According to the map, it leads to a beach just northeast of Braccus’s tower.  Wherever we are, it’s pretty chilly. Cold enough to freeze the sand – which Google tells me is at least -4.2 degrees Celsius (or, for our Imperial friends, 24.44 degrees Fahrenheit), assuming it’s dry.  My eyes are immediately drawn to this patch of sand in between the cliff shorelines. I always thought that it was an odd world-design quirk that the beach would have an opening right here, like it’s meant to–  Hold on, this was never here before. I distinctly do not remember this. A rotten ship’s carcass with flotsam surrounding it, leading to a cove that I don’t remember ever existing before… oh, this must be Captain Sech Zapor’s hideaway! According to the journal he left in his treasure chest, he and his ship must still be in here! Well, hell, I’m here and I’ve never seen this before. Let’s take a peek.  But not before I loot the flotsam. This barrel has a potion in it, which reminds me that I’m badly hurting for more potions for my guys. I should look into getting some more next update.  The cove’s entrance is dry on the inside, despite it being submerged on the outside. Once again, not as much coordination between the overworld design and the dungeon design.  There’s a massive ship – or, at least, massive compared to the other ship carcasses within the Hollow Marshes – just beyond the mouth of the cove. The ship’s been split in two and both halves are rotted through, so it’s not about to sail again, but it is Sech Zapor’s ship all the same.  There’s a handful of crates, barrels, and two chests to loot through…   The blue potion gives a shot of additional magic armour for five turns, which would go well on either Fane or Lohse – either give the guy with very little magic armour some help, or make Lohse’s strengths even stronger.  The design of the ship’s exterior is such that Afrit is too wide to reach the nearby ramp to climb. It’s hard being a dog, don’t’cha know.  On the raised platform is a door with a face: it’s hard to tell where it’s eyes are, but you can clearly see its nose and it’s massive nose piercing, and just beneath that is its mouth, complete with teeth. A fun sight, for sure! According to Sech’s journal, this door has a ‘barbed tongue.’ I know he’s implying that the door is sassy, but I hope the answer isn’t to stick my hand in its mouth or whatever. : The ancient wooden door reeks of salt and seaweed. Not a single nick or gouge mars the detailed face carved across its surface. It also has no lock or handle. But when you run your fingers across the wood, the carved face comes to life. : (At the end of Sech Zapor’s last entry, he repeated one phrase no less than five times. Perhaps it’s meant to be a password that he was desperately trying not to forget.): High and hale waves take us…? : ‘Beat us, break us, green-black sea – we are slaves only to thee.’: The door swings open with a creak. The game autosaves here, which is always a good sign.  Just beyond the door leads to the captain’s quarters – and there stands Sech in the back, near his desk. He’s wearing every piece of his enchanted armour set: when we last met him, he was missing his hat. With all of the pieces assembled, he has the permanent status Tyrant’s Charm, which automatically Charms anyone within a certain radius around him. He’s level 9 (we are level 8), and with a whopping amount of armour and constitution. If I’m to fight him here, it’ll probably be a tough one to win: Fane would essentially be useless, since he can really only attack at close range.  But I’m here: I might as well say hello. We did leave our last encounter as frenemies. : These once magnificent quarters have fallen into rotten disrepair. As your eyes adjust to the dark, you see Captain Sech Zapor, now gallantly dressed. : Mmm. : I imagine we’d both have the same answer to that question.: Have a life to reclaim, do I. : And was it worth it?: The plunder. The power. The fleeing souls I snared… : So you don’t want to trade it all back for this Soul Jar that I had found recently, in that case? This is an interesting choice that we can make! Sech Zapor tells us that the power was worth it in exchange for his soul, but he also came out of that chest saying that he wants it back. There’s clearly more to that yes-or-no answer than he’s willing to admit. If Sech is so determined to get his soul back, there’s a good chance he’s willing to exchange it for the power he has – he traded his soul for a set of fancy armour that ensnares the minds and hearts of anyone that comes to close to him. It may be worth it to him to trade back for it. Also, from our previous encounter, we won the persuasion by intimidating him, meaning we could probably do it again. On the other hand, we could also just beat him up and steal his clothes. That way we’d have his armour and his soul to do what we like with. Or, a third option: we could offer to join his crew. Become a part of the scallywags that once terrorized the seas with Sech. What do YOU think? Do we barter Sech with his soul? Do we fight him? Or do we join his crew?  I leave the cove behind so we can decide what our action is before continuing, and I head back to the frozen beach. Just a stone’s throw south from my little diversion to the cove…    That is a whole-rear end dragon, chained up on the beach. It’s wearing a muzzle with a pair of Source-bound chains wrapped around its neck. And there’s some kind of pressure being exerted on its torso, likely keeping it pinned down. Well, we found the source of the sudden chill in the area, safe to say.  : Dragon’s Beach: The dragon stares you down with flinty, intelligent eyes. He tries to speak, but his jaw is bound tightly by the same thick chains that shackle him to the pillars.The chains are attached to a pair of bone totems on either side of the dragon. I can’t attack the chains, but the narrator is pretty obviously trying to nudge me towards breaking the totems.  : Unreadable glyphs mantle this ancient pillar. Braided through thick iron rings, Source-infused chains bind the dragon tightly.A creature as grand and powerful as this dragon, able to passively sap the very heat from the air around it, is bound to pillars older than reason, etched with glyphs of a forgotten, powerful language, and wrapped from the muzzle to the neck in chains created by pure Source, the lifeblood of the world. But what if axe tho      : The dragon rakes the earth with icy claws. Quakes from the impact knock you back.: The freed dragon looks sick and pale. As you approach, he stretches his tattered wings weakly and fixes his intense gaze upon you. Frozen tears glint in his eyes. : My gratitude for your efforts, friend. Yet, I am no more free now than I was in those chains. Please, help me find true liberty or sing me to the endless slumber. : I’ve existed for a long time, and for all of my knowledge, I know about as little of death as I do about life.: Ah. My fate, it seems, is not my own to call. : Who could have the strength to bind a winter dragon and cripple it of its Source? : It seems reckless of her to leave even a wounded dragon to its own devices while she goes about doing whatever she likes. Why did she leave you here?: She trekked far underground beneath a nearby tower, seeking ingredients for her vile potions. : My sympathies. I know what it’s like to be stripped of everything you had until all that remained was your hope for oblivion.: The dragon sniffs and rakes at the ground with one razor-sharp talon. : Then let’s talk activism. What can be done to give you back your freedom? Besides death, I mean.: That you would even ask such a question of a stranger already in your debt! There is much goodness within you, but this task would not be easy. Radeka is a canny one, cat to your mouse. : I was heading in that direction anyway. I’m sure I could convince Radeka to surrender the Purging Wand one way or another.: You would have my gratitude. And whatever aid I could then offer to you.Having a giant, gently caress-off ice dragon owe us a favour sounds like a sweet deal to me! Let’s find this Radeka woman – according to Slane, she ‘trekked underground beneath a nearby tower.’ That must be Braccus’ Tower, which is only a few paces away to the southwest from here.  A short walk away and the beach thaws, giving way to soft sand and flowing water once more.  Oh, that looks friendly. Look, he’s got a great, big smile! There’s a statue of an angel right next to Castle Grayskull that works as a Waypoint, so if you come to this point and you want to run back to the sanctuary or to Fort Joy and do a bit of shopping before heading in, you can. Which implies that that’s a thing you’ll want to do. Radeka wields a wand that’s brimming with the Source of an entire dragon. She’s not going to be an easy encounter.  More to the point, the game autosaves as soon as you step in. There’s a pit of poisonous ooze at the entrance surrounded by beartraps, and the ooze itself is surrounded by barrels filled with oil. It’s safe to assume that the beartraps explode with fire, which will detonate every bit of liquid surface here.  There’s a generator in the center of the ooze puddle, meaning I can just plug that up with anything and that’ll remove all the poison. But that doesn’t solve the issue of the beartraps and the oil. Well, one step at a time, here. Fane has no issue wading through the poison to get to the generator – in fact, he quite enjoys it.  There’s an empty crate nearby that’ll be perfect for plugging up the generator…  … but as soon as Fane approaches the beartraps, they vanish completely. This is the trick to this hazard puzzle: even if you do away with the poison and the oil, the beartraps are still present and your characters can still trigger them. Normally, your characters, even your summons and familiars, have smart enough pathing that they’ll avoid hazards like beartraps and poison puddles if they can – but not if they can’t see them. It’s possible that one of us will walk right over one of these traps and blow the whole cave up if they aren’t careful.  I don’t have any trap disarm kits to use on the beartraps, and even if I did, they’d vanish as soon as I got close enough to use one. The safest way to deal with them is to detonate them in a controlled environment, but I can’t pick them up and move them. So, alternatively, I need to safety the environment. It’s takes a bit of doing and waiting for cooldowns to come off, but casting Rain will wash away the oil, making the beartraps safe to detonate.   Once the place is thoroughly soaked, you can hit the beartraps with any long-distance attack, such as Ifan’s crossbow, and they’ll trigger in the safety of the water.  Unlike smoke, steam is totally harmless – it’s just water, but as a cloud. Meaning it can be electrified and blessed, just like other surfaces, but in its base form, there’s no penalty for walking through it. You can even see clearly through it, whereas smoke limits your vision to arm’s length.   After putting out those fires, the next step in this environmental puzzle is the exact same thing, but more. The first puzzle had four beartraps; this one has sixteen. But, as before, water pacifies all.       You could, naturally, just tank it all, if you don’t want to deal with meticulously clearing the path. As long as you don’t die and don’t engage in combat, a bedroll will instantly heal all wounds.  Finally, the last part of this puzzle is the exact same thing as the first part: a generator creating a poison cloud (as opposed to a poison surface, to be fair) that can easily be stopped with something covering it.  One of the leftover oil barrels from the puzzle will do nicely.  After this puzzle, the rest of the cave isn’t particularly deep: just a short trek from that poison cloud generator, and –     We’ve heard a couple of stories about the fabled ‘Blood Rose’ of this island. A flower that only grows in the most fetid, unscrupulous of conditions: planted in blood-soaked soil; fertilized with human remains; and watered with the tears of the damned. Underneath Braccus’ Tower is… I hesitate to call it a ‘graveyard,’ but, it’s a place where there are literally countless bodies strewn about, clumped into rotten piles on the wayside and left to decompose. The bodies cling to each other; they hang off the walls; some of them are half-sunk into the dirt; and in some of the mounds of bodies, a hazy green mist flickers from between the meat, dissipating into the air. A thick stream of blood flows freely through the cavern, giving the prickly, mishappen vegetation growing in the rocky crags its sustenance.  There’s a big, wide pit in the center of the cave, and at the end of the pit is a lone, scantily-clad woman – Radeka, presumably, standing over a fresh corpse. : A tall woman stands amid a field of corpses, some fresh, some ancient. Desiccated skin hangs from some of the skulls, while others fester with maggots. : (I remember reading that this is a common form of greeting in the modern age, and that I should hold her hand in mine to reciprocate.): She lowers herself slowly, deeply, holding your gaze. Her hand is slight, her touch delicate. : It’s awfully crowded in here, wouldn’t you agree? : Now now. You’re among friend here, aren’t you? Those who knows what lies beyond death. : …: Very good, kitten. Now, I imagine you’re here for the same reason I am.: She pats the bouquet at her hip.: But you’re too late. These roses belong to me. : And I know just the topic. I’d like to discuss the dragon you have tethered just outside. : It’s Sourcerers like you that have the people of the world believe that we’re all monsters.: Ha! How earnest you are. : What are you even doing here? What could be worth chaining a dragon and using it as a guard dog while you raid some mass grave? : I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I just wanted a way off this bloody rock.: Disgusting how they keep our kind trapped here. We are the most powerful beings in all of Rivellon. Braccus Rex knew that, and he populated this cavern with the bodies of those who stood in his way. Our way. : You’re a repulsive human being. If you’re even that.: Come now, darling. If you’re going to talk like that, you might as well stop talking.: She presses her lips to yours – her mouth is soft, her breath sweet. She kisses you gently, then harder, her teeth raking softly across your tongue.My what? : Suddenly, her grip tightens around you. She’s holding you hard – too hard. Hard enough to crush you. Her lips remain locked on your hardened mug. You try to pull away, but she won’t let go. : She stumbles back a few paces and wipes her mouth.: Ha ha! Delicious. Mm, so bloody delicious. : It’s – guh – it’s the bodies. The bodies enrich the soil with the qualities they need to flourish.: Very good, lovely. I’ll need more roses soon enough. Of course, you won’t provide very good compost… but at least you won’t be around to tell anyone what you found here.Thanks to Radeka’s unappreciated physical contact, Fane is Diseased for five turns, sharply lowering his Constitution and his damage output. It’s a pretty serious condition for the tank to have, and the tanks are typically going to be the face of any group in Divinity: Original Sin 1 and 2 since most fights start with whoever is talking. Anyway, we’re about to fight Radeka the Witch, one of the more challenging fights in the game. I’d better make sure my people are positioned correctly.  I start Lohse, Prince, and Attendant on this one outcropping. It’s a bit more central to the fight, but it’s also protected by a choke point and it’s on higher elevation, so, assuming an enemy doesn’t spawn directly on top of them, it should be a powerful position to hold.  Ifan takes a similar position on the other side of the chasm, although this spot is perhaps a little weaker because the choke point is facing towards Radeka and likewise any enemies that spawn on her side of the field. And Afrit doesn’t follow him, presumably because the ramp leading to this other choke point is too narrow for him to walk across, but that’s actually fine: I’d prefer Afrit to be where the enemies are most likely to be so he has the most opportunities to attack/Howl at people. Fane, naturally, is forced to stay where he is, smack dab in the middle of the fight. Time to rock. Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 05:27
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   : Dancing With The Wicked : Boss Battle: Radeka The WitchTurn 1 As soon as the battle starts, no less than seven other targets join into the battle: four zombies, including the fresh body that Radeka was standing over when we found her, and three massive insects called Carrion Beetles. Radeka is obviously the most dangerous target, but all of the zombies and the bugs have their own strengths that make them an issue. And since they all spawned after the fight began, they’re all going to move in consecutive order as opposed to my-turn-your-turn for the first round. Radeka opens the fight with a permanent aura of Favorable Wind, and she retreats to a cliff on the opposite side from Prince and Lohse, hitting all three of them with Dazzling Bolt. Radeka has a massive Necromancy score, meaning she heals a huge amount of HP back every time she deals damage.  Afrit is next, and Zombie 1 spawned right next to him, so he bites him twice. The Zombies all have Retribution to them as well, reflecting a percentage of damage back to their attackers, so Afrit takes a total of 32 damage.   Prince gives Fane the Think Fast combo, and he summons a blood totem on the puddle of blood that Afrit made Zombie 1 drop.  It immediately turns and fires on Zombie 2, splitting our damage focus, which is, it’s just great when turrets don’t focus on my targets.     Lohse uses Soothing Cold on herself, Prince, and Attendant, to help ensure that they can’t be crowd-controlled as easily; she uses Encourage on everyone except Ifan; she cures Fane of his Diseased with Bless; and she uses Uncanny Evasion on herself.    Fane hits Medat and Zombie 3 with Battle Stomp; he uses Swinging Sparks on himself (which might have been a misplay and I should have done them the other way around); and finally, he turns around and hits Zombie 1 with a regular swing. The spark from Swinging Sparks leaps from Zombie 1 and hits Zombie 2 for 40 fire-based damage, which was more than I had expected.    Salem repositions on the cliff next to Ifan to try and help him deal with a Carrion Beetle that had spawned next to him; to get out of the fight in the pit, since that’s not where the housecat wants to be; and to give Fane an escape plan if he needs it. After moving, Salem swings at Beetle 1, but misses a 87% chance to hit.   It’s time for the horde to have its turn, though. Zombie 2 goes first, and it hits Fane with Crippling Blow, which cancels out his Haste and is very annoying, and then he hits him with Crawling Kiss, which sets Diseased, which also cancelled out Bless, which is very annoyinger.   Zombie 1 repositions slightly, getting an AoO from Afrit for it, and it casts Crawling Kiss on Prince before passing. Zombies don’t bleed regular blood: they bleed cursed blood. On top of looking really gross – cursed blood is filled with worms and maggots that are visibly writhing in the liquid – anyone who steps in it is given the Decaying status. We actually first encountered the Decaying status with the Deep Dweller, but I didn’t go into specifics with it. If you attempt to heal anyone that’s Decaying, they will instead take damage equal to the amount of healing. It’s possible to ‘heal yourself to death’ with this status. Decaying is easily the harshest status in the game, especially for newer players, because most of them just assume that Divinity: Original Sin 2 wouldn’t be that cruel. If you’re not paying enough attention, chugging a potion or using a healing skill at the wrong time could make a bad situation much worse. And guess what: there are only two skills that can cure it. Bless, and Close Wounds, which is a touch-range Hydrosophist/Warfare hybrid spell. Not even Break the Shackles cures it. With that AoO that Afrit just landed, now Afrit and Fane are standing in cursed zombie blood, meaning they’re both Decaying. Decaying doesn’t give any other debuffs, but that’s because it doesn’t need to.   Beetle 1 repositions, taking an AoO from Salem (which lands, evening out his success rate) before using a long-range water-based attack called Coagulated Spit on Ifan. It doesn’t do anything particularly special, but it does hit rather hard.  Zombie 3 uses Crawling Kiss on Lohse, and now both of my mages are Diseased, which is real bad for their Constitution.  Medat, while he’s also a zombie, is special in that he knows a ton of Hydrosophist skills as well. He hits Fane with Restoration, which, since he’s undead and takes damage from normal healing anyway, doesn’t stack or multiply with Decaying, so it’s just annoying as opposed to significant.   Beetle 2 spawned very close to Prince, Lohse, and Attendant, and it uses a self-teleport skill called Carrion Wing to put a bit of distance between them before turning and firing a glob of spit at Prince.  For the horde’s last move, Beetle 3 uses Coagulated Spit on Fane twice. Fane’s surrounded and he’s Decaying, so his situation is deteriorating quickly.    On Ifan’s turn, he coats his arrowheads in his own blood, then uses Ricochet on Zombies 1 and 2, landing a crit on Zombie 1. After the spit and the reflected damage, Ifan uses First Aid on himself. It’s generally important to stay on top of your health meters and to top up whenever you can, especially in Divinity: Unleashed, which nerfed the healing potency of every healing skill across the board but reduced all their cooldowns in exchange.  Finally, Attendant goes last, and it uses Battering Ram on Beetle 2. Attendant is currently a poison-type, meaning it can’t fight the zombies because it’ll heal them (unless they’re Decaying, which they can be, even if they’re the ones bleeding cursed blood), and keeping the pressure on Beetle 2 so it doesn’t harass my mages is important.   Turn 2 Radeka hits Lohse with a Staff of Magus, which is air-type damage, followed up with Electric Discharge. Combined, Lohse’s now Stunned, which is going to badly hurt her options on her next turn.      The enemies in the pit around Fane are lined up almost perfectly for a big ol’ Whirlwind attack, but he needs to take an AoO from Zombie 1 for it. Not a big deal, especially for the reward he’s about to get. Whirlwind hits all three zombies and Medat, and thanks to Swinging Sparks, Zombies 1 and 2, and Zombie 3 and Medat, all trade sparks, which does even more damage to them all. It’s more than enough to take out Zombie 1 and it nearly even takes out Zombie 3 and Medat. But… the zombies all have one more trick up their sleeve: they have a Talent called Unstable. Anyone with the Unstable talent will explode upon their death, doing 50% of their maximum Vitality to all targets nearby. This Talent is available to friendlies, but it’s not a very good one imo because it requires you to die for it to take effect. Still, it’s not an insignificant amount of damage: when Zombie 1 died, it took out a quarter of Afrit’s HP and it destroyed the blood totem entirely. Anyway, after that big swing, Fane uses Shackles of Pain on Radeka and, thanks to Executioner refunding him two AP, he uses Crippling Blow on Zombie 3. Fane’s new axe has Cleave damage, meaning it also hit Medat, and since they both have Retribution, they reflect damage back onto Fane, which also hits Radeka because of Shackles of Pain. There was a shitload of moving parts in that last paragraph alone.  Zombie 3 uses Crawling Kiss on Lohse again, but because of Crippling Blow, it can’t do anything else.  Afrit attacks Zombie 2, and it might have been enough to bring it down… but he whiffed. He had a 96% chance to hit. You know, Afrit really hasn’t been pulling his weight lately.    As I say that, Fane whiffs an AoO on Beetle 3. He had an 86% chance to hit. Afrit picked up the slack and landed his own AoO on it. Beetle 3 repositioned all that way to use Coagulated Spit on Ifan… and it whiffed that attack as well. Assuming it has 95% accuracy (the base amount) and there are no other influences other than Ifan’s evasion stat, that chance to hit should have been around 88%. What is with everyone today.   Prince cures himself of all his debuffs with Bless, then he puts down a blood totem behind Zombie 3 to help Fane with it and Medat.  It opens fire on Medat, which is okay. I would have preferred Zombie 3 but Medat’s not exactly doing great either, so that works too.     Medat has a good move, which means I hate it. He repositions into the chokepoint leading to Ifan, then uses a Hydrosophist skill called Global Cooling, which does minor water damage to all enemies in a massive radius; sets them all to Chilled; and freezes any liquid, non-cursed surfaces. Then, he uses Rain, and since all of my friendlies are Chilled, that means they’re all Snap Frozen, which prevents them from moving. And finally, he uses Ice Fan on Fane, and since he’s Snap Frozen, this means he’s Frozen Solid, and he’ll be forced to skip his next turn if I don’t do something right now. Alternatively, if he’s struck with either a physical attack or a fire-based attack, he’ll thaw out, but he’ll also take double the damage. Any move that forces me to act immediately is a good move, which I hate. At least Radeka also took a bunch of water damage.    Lohse goes next and is the only one on my team that can deal with Fane being frozen: she casts Armour of Frost on him, which buffs his magic armour significantly and thaws him out, undoing everything that Medat had done. With her last two AP, she casts Restoration on herself and, left without a lot of options, she uses Favourable Wind. The only characters that realistically benefit from it are Prince, who doesn’t want to move, and Afrit, who is currently Snap Frozen and cannot move anyway.   Zombie 2 uses Crawling Kiss on Fane, which gives him Diseased, which, again, not a great status for the tank in particular to have, and then it whacks Afrit once. Since Afrit is only Snap Frozen and not Frozen Solid, the attack doesn’t thaw Afrit’s paws, and he’s still stuck – but if the zombie can strike Afrit, Afrit can strike the zombie.  Salem is also Snap Frozen – and because of the particular animation the status has, it looks like Salem is completely submerged in ice. There’s nothing he can do right now, so, he’s forced to pass entirely.  Beetle 1 uses Coagulated Spit on Ifan twice, and one of them crits, putting him back down to half HP. The bugs all hit pretty hard, and two of them are focusing Ifan down – he’s going to need help, and quick.   He buys himself a bit of time by drinking a medium-sized potion (not pictured) and putting himself back up to ¾’s, and, with the rest of his AP, he uses Barrage on Medat, which is more than enough to take him out. And even if Medat had Unstable, he wasn’t near anyone for it to do any damage. We’ve taken out two targets so far, so this fight is steadily going in our favour, but it won’t take much to change that.  Beetle 2 focuses down Prince with some more Coagulated Spit. Since Prince’s magic armour is so much higher than Ifan’s, it doesn’t hurt him nearly as badly.   Since Attendant is poison-type, the skill available to him is Poison Dart, a long-range attack that poisons targets on impact and can leave poison surfaces where it lands. It uses it on Beetle 2, but since Beetle 2 is flying, it doesn’t leave down the puddle. And then Attendant makes one swing with his claws, which whiffs, because of course it does.  Turn 3 Radeka makes a real bitch move by teleporting Lohse directly into the pit beneath herself, throwing her into the middle of the zombies and the beetles. Well. Now Lohse is in immediate danger.   Zombie 3 takes the opportunity to turn around and hit Lohse with Crippling Blow, followed by Crawling Kiss. Now Lohse is injured, Diseased, and Crippled, so she couldn’t run very far even if she wanted to. The good news, if you’re generous enough to call it that, is that now Fane has Favourable Wind.    I’m forced to think outside the box a little bit with Fane. I want to use Mosquito Swarm on Zombie 3, but because Fane is Decaying, it’ll hurt him just as much as the zombie. So, he casts Bless on himself, which also Blessed the water and the ice that Medat had put down. It cures him of his Decaying, allowing him to use Mosquito Swarm on Zombie 3 risk-free. And finally, although I doubt it’ll be much help, he uses a scroll of Armour of Frost on Lohse. At least she’ll have an easier time defending against the beetles and Radeka.   Zombie 2 hits Afrit with Crippling Blow and Crawling Kiss. Afrit’s probably not going to survive this round, in all honesty.    Prince uses the ol’ put-down-a-totem-to-buff-Rallying-Cry trick to summon a blood totem next to Lohse, and then he uses Rallying Cry on her, putting her back up to a little over half. With one AP remaining, he chugs a potion for himself, giving himself a bit of a pick-me-up.  The new blood totem fires on Zombie 2, which I guess is closer to death than Zombie 3 is, so, whatever.  Beetle 1 continues to focus down Ifan with two more Coagulated Spits. At least neither of them crit this time.    I wasn’t a huge fan of Radeka teleporting Lohse like that, so, on Lohse’s turn, I teleport her right back, tossing her into the pit and throwing her directly on top of Zombie 2, which lands her in the cursed blood and sets Decaying. Lohse has one AP left after that, so she uses it on Erratic Wisp – if she’s forced to stay in the pit, then she can at least make enemies work to hit her in the first place. She could potentially warp directly into a puddle of cursed blood, so this could backfire, but the odds are in my favour.  Beetle 2 continues focusing down Prince. Not a big deal.  Beetle 3 helps Beetle 1 with focusing down Ifan. A slightly bigger deal.   Salem is thawed out, and he uses his regained mobility to attack Beetle 1 twice – and one of them whiffs. 87% chance to hit.    Ifan uses First Aid on himself, but without some real backup, he’s just delaying the inevitable. Still, it’ll buy him a turn, at least. With Radeka and Zombie 2 lined up, it’s the perfect opportunity to use Impalement, which will also Slow and Cripple Radeka. And it finally kills Zombie 2, which, thanks to Unstable, hits Radeka for a hefty 92 damage – but the blast also kills Afrit.   And Attendant continues to solo Beetle 2 with two swings. And one of them whiffs. Also a 87% chance to hit.     Turn 4 Radeka, with her legs both broken and weighed down from the oil, laboriously makes her way to the on-ramp towards Ifan and she wades through the blessed water and ice to get there. Because she’s Decaying, when she touches the holy water, the first shot of healing she takes is actually damage – but she herself becomes Blessed as soon as she touches it, and the rest of her jaunt through the water heals her as normal. And Blessed Ice behaves differently: instead of healing a person, whoever walks on Blessed Ice is given Magic Shell, which gives the target a big buff to their magic armour. All in all, pretty annoying, but that one movement cost her every last AP she had.   Despite being a battlefield away and on lower elevation, Lohse can still reach Ifan with Restoration, which is a big help. He should be fine to keep tanking the two beetles now. But without much else in the way of offensive options, Lohse just hits Radeka with Ice Fan. She has Magic Shell, so it winds up doing a pitiful 33 damage total, but whatever, I didn’t have a ton of options.    Zombie 3, the final zombie, hits Lohse with Crawling Kiss, but she doesn’t teleport away – Erratic Wisp only takes effect with melee hits. So Zombie 3 charges in to do just that, taking an AoO from Fane (which also hits Radeka thanks to Sparking Swings, which is still in effect. This skill is way better than I thought), and then it hits Lohse once. And she teleports straight into the puddle of cursed blood. Well, that’s fine: she doesn’t have Bless on cooldown and even if she did, she could take one step forward to baptize herself in the holy water.  One of the blood totems opens fire on Zombie 3, which might have brought it down, but it whiffs. That was probably also an 87% chance to hit.   Beetle 3 uses Carrion Wing to jump up to the platform with Ifan and take advantage of Radeka’s Favourable Wind aura, and then it uses Coagulated Spit on him.  The other blood totem also fires on Zombie 3, and it lands, finally bringing the last zombie down. It’s just Radeka and the three bugs now. The zombie’s Unstable explosion not only hits Fane, but it crits. And it somehow whiffs against the blood totem that just killed it. That was probably also an 87% chance to hit.  Beetle 1 keep on truckin’, whittling down Ifan.     Fane hits himself with Time Warp, then he hits Radeka with Battering Ram, knocking her down. On his warped turn, he hits her with Crippling Blow – the two attacks combined ensuring that she’s not running anywhere any time soon – and Mosquito Swarm just came off cooldown, so, don’t mind if I do. And it crits, which is awesome.  Beetle 2’s plan has also not changed.   Prince could help attack Radeka from where he is, but she has so much magic armour that he’d probably be totally ineffective. So, instead, after a bit of awkward repositioning, Prince helps Attendant with Beetle 2, whacking it with Battle Stomp, followed by a meticulously-positioned Fireball that hits the beetle, but not the summon. And it crits, too.  Salem does his part, hitting Beetle 3 twice. Both attacks had a 72% chance to hit, but hey, they both landed.     Ifan’s had just about enough of these two bugs picking on him: he uses Tactical Retreat to jump to the other side of the pit, where Prince just was, and then he turns around and hits Beetle 3 with Pin Down. You can’t self-teleport if you’re Crippled, so this guarantees that he can’t be chased by both of them. Finally, he uses Fortify on himself. It’s a pointless move since Radeka and the bugs all do magical damage, but it makes me feel better.  And Attendant continues with Plan A.  Turn 5 Radeka is Knocked Down and Crippled. She has 3 AP to her name, and she only has 15% of her movement speed available, meaning it’d cost her around six AP to move the same distance it would have cost her to spend just one without those statuses. And Fane is staring her down, waiting for her to move a muscle so he can get a free shot in. So, instead, she does nothing and passes her turn entirely. The enemy AI passing their turn isn’t an unusual thing in Divinity: Original Sin 2. In the base game, if the AI accidently puts itself in an endless loop of commands, it’ll automatically time out and pass its turn after about twenty seconds in order to prevent a softlock. Divinity: Unleashed lowered this threshold to just one second, not to give the player an edge in the fringe cases that the AI times itself out, but because if the AI encounters a looping command, it’s not going to get out of it whether it has one second, or twenty seconds, or twenty minutes. It’s just a quality-of-life change. It’s a bit cheesy and unsatisfying to win because the enemy AI confused itself into throwing a whole turn, but the alternative is to risk a softlock every time things get complicated, so, what can you do.    Ifan is already Hasted thanks to Tactical Retreat, so Prince just gives him Peace of Mind, completing the other half of the Think Fast combo. He has four AP left, so, he uses two of them to hit Beetle 2 once with Dimensional Bolt, an attack that has random properties every time it’s cast. It does Air-based damage this time, which is fine – there were no wrong options, but physical damage or fire-based damage would have been best. After that, he uses his last two AP to summon a fire totem to help with Beetle 2.  Which successfully hits Beetle 2. I’ll admit I held my breath a little bit.   Beetle 3 repositions a bit, taking an AoO from Salem for it, and it spits on Fane twice. He’s pretty close to death.    Lohse uses Bless on herself to clear up her Decaying and to turn the cursed blood into regular blood. She isn’t in particularly serious danger, especially now that, well, now that the fight is nearly over, so she gives Fane Armour of Frost and Uncanny Evasion – even if he doesn’t dodge any more attacks, at least he’ll take significantly less damage for them.   Beetle 1 spits at Fane twice, and Uncanny Evasion comes in clutch for the first spit, but not the second. Still, he took 20 less damage for that shot thanks to Armour of Frost, so, plan B is working just fine.  Beetle 2 is poisoned and on fire, and at the start of its turn, it takes enough damage to put it down to just 8 HP remaining. But 8 HP is not 0 HP, so, it makes its move – by changing tack for the first time in the fight and targeting Attendant, hitting it once.  And the blood totem near Fane fires on Radeka, landing its shot and causing her to Bleed.   Fane is very close to death… which is the perfect time to use Death Wish, giving him a nearly-100% damage boost. Then he hits Radeka with Battle Stomp, and both Battering Ram and Crippling Blow come off cooldown next turn. She’s not going anywhere, if he can help it.      Ifan’s turn is fairly productive: he hits Radeka with Throw Dust, meaning even if she gets a turn to move, she won’t be able to strike anyone other than Fane, because the dust in her eyes make her Blind. After that, he coats his arrows in blood (not his own, for once!), and then he hits both of the remaining Beetles with Ricochet. It even crits on Beetle 3.  Salem keeps doing what he’s doing by keeping the pressure on Beetle 3. It has 90 HP remaining – a good shot from nearly anyone (other than Salem  ) ought to take it out.  Attendant ends the round with a successful hit on Beetle 2, removing it from the fight, and using its long-ranged attack on Beetle 3, landing a successful hit… but not killing it. Okay, so, nearly anyone but Salem and Attendant, then.  Turn 6 Radeka tries to put some distance between herself and Fane – and he takes the opportunity to chop her head clean off her shoulders. She had 199 HP after Ifan’s Throw Dust, and with Fane’s critical hit, he did 262 damage. All that’s left are the bugs.     Ifan hits Beetle 1 with Pin Down, and then finishes off Beetle 3 with a regular shot. This may have been a slight misplay, since Beetle 1 moves next: if Ifan had focused it down, he might have been able to kill it, and Prince could have killed Beetle 3 with drat near whatever he wanted. But we’re so far into the fight that it’s not a big deal.  There’s only one enemy left in the fight, so, I’m just going to skip to the end: It hits Fane with two Coagulated Spits, which forces him to use Comeback Kid, which restores a bit of his HP and nerfs Death Wish slightly. Prince passes his turn; Lohse hits Beetle 1 with Winter Blast and Hail Strike; and Fane finishes it off with Mosquito Swarm followed by a normal swing.  Which crits, when I didn’t need it to, because of course it did. And that’s one of the game’s more notorious fights, wrapped up! I’m actually really happy with how I handled that one: my only casualty was Afrit, who can be re-summoned essentially for free anyway. And Fane, if you count Comeback Kid. And Salem didn’t take a single hit that entire fight.  Although this place is pretty gross and unbecoming, all of the mounds of bodies are considered lootable objects that you can pick through for stuff. 99% of the time, they’ll contain nothing at all, but each time you loot through something for the first time, it’s possible for Lucky Charm to kick in and reward you with something neat.  Like this. This was unexpected.  Most insect enemies carry Arthropod Legs as lootable rewards. They’re a crafting ingredient for a Spider Legs scroll, but they’re also generally worth a fair amount of coin, so they’re a decent reward for squashing some bugs.  Unfortunately, this is the only time I managed to get Ifan’s Lucky Charm to kick in for me, and it’s just for 40 coins. Which is more than zero, I suppose.  I save these two for last, after all of my looting: Medat and Radeka. Radeka no doubt has all the rewards on her corpse, and Medat is just a named zombie, which is unusual – maybe he has something worthwhile on him.  Well, it’s not worth any money, but information can be far more valuable than coin.   Nah, nothing worthwhile to me. Just a story on how Medat turned up at the right place at exactly the wrong time. Radeka must have shown up after he did, or he probably would have mentioned the gigantic ice dragon just outside the cave’s mouth. Now, for the real prize:   31 coins; an Infect skillbook; the Purging Wand that has Slane’s Source inside of it (and it’s still fully usable, so, if you didn’t, or couldn’t, complete Braccus’s Vault, this would be an alternative solution to getting past the Shriekers); Radeka’s personal wand, which, while it’d go crazy well on Lohse, she doesn’t use wands, so, into the bin it goes; an epic one-handed axe, but nobody uses one-handed weapons, so it’s also vendor trash. The second last thing is an epic-level magician’s chestplate that gives +1 Strength and +2 Summoning. It’s tied in defensive numbers with Prince’s current armour, and his current armour gives +1 Pyrokinetic, so, overall, this epic-level chestplate is the better option. It puts his Summoning up to 8 – we just need two more points before we get a Big Surprise. And the last thing is an epic belt that gives +1 Bartering, +1 Lucky Charm, and +7% Dodging. It would go really well on Ifan… except his current belt has higher defensive numbers and gives him +1 Constitution and +2 Ranged. I ultimately decide to give it to Fane. There is one last thing that Radeka has, though….  This is the flower that Radeka, Medat, and Braccus were so keen on getting. The legendary Blood Rose, which only grows in soil fertilized by the dead and watered with the tears of the damned, and so on and so forth. The Blood Rose is a consumable that I could eat right now, and it’ll give me +1 to every stat, including Memory, for ten turns. It’s also not worth that much money. It’s not a bad thing… But it’s also a crafting ingredient. If you combine the Blood Rose with an empty potion bottle (which I have not yet done), you’ll obtain a potion called the Attar of the Blood Rose. It does the exact same thing – but every stat increase remains until the drinker dies. It’s a semi-permanent buff to all stats. That makes it valuable. That makes this whole Blood Rose diversion worth it, in the end. +1 to everything forever (until death, anyway) is very much not an offer to look down on. The only question is, who gets to drink it…?  In the meantime, I have a dragon to have owe me a favour. : You see a glimmer of hope flicker across Slane’s eyes as he notices your approach. It’s quickly doused with the practiced scowl of the oft disappointed. : Assuming this wand isn’t a decoy, then… here.: Slane rears back in eagerness, grasping the Purging Wand with razor-sharp claws. Before your eyes, the Source from within the wand surges into his draconic form, filling him with a light so bright that you must shield your eyes from the glare.  : The blazing brightness dies down. Squinting, you now see no dragon before you – but the figure of a handsome lizard, a handsome lizard with the same eyes as Slane. His eyes still blaze, a piercing silver. A triumphant smile dominates his face, as he bows extravagantly before you. : How did – what are you? Are you a lizard, or are you a winter dragon? : Our encounter with your once-mistress was a bit more… intense than I was expecting. I was hoping that a powerful Dragon Knight like yourself would make for a powerful ally in turn.: He smirks. : I offer my aid to those deserving; you have more than proven yourself as such. But I am no errand boy and I do not come when called. : How will you know better than I when I need you most?: I am a Dragon Knight, aren’t I? We have a knack for knowing.: Slane smiles at you and turns to leave. He takes no more than a few steps before he shimmers out of lizard form, blurring in mid-air back into a majestic dragon that soars away. He won’t come when I ask him to and I’m expected to just believe that he’ll arrive when I need him most. Sounds to me like he’s just lazy. Our reward from Slane, after all of that, is a lightning rune; a poison grenade; an okay wand, but it’s still a wand; a nice amount of coins; and my choice between rare gloves, boots, a helmet, or a belt. All of the gear kinda sucks, so, I just take the helmet, since it gets me the most money.  And that wraps up one more chapter in our story. Another innocent soul needed help, and Fane came to the rescue. (You could try to tell Slane that, since you have the wand, that means you’re his master. He’ll fight you to the death over it, and if you win, you get a Steam achievement and probably the best one-handed sword in the game – but none of us use one-handed weapons. And that’d be mean )There’s only one vote today: what do we do with Sech Zapor? Do we barter his armour for his soul? Do we try and fight him? Or do we offer to join his crew instead? Let me know in the next few days! Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Aug 29, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 05:35
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That was a real bitch of a fight. Let's repeat it and fight Sech Zapor. Looking forward to seeing what Prince's Big Surprise is once he gets those two points. I think we can forgive everyone going back to the earlygame and whiffing hits constantly. Most of them were diseased, decaying, frozen or some combination thereof, which must be pretty distracting. Salem is a good kitty (and does chump damage when he hits anyway). Afrit has been long established as incredibly dumb. And Fane was probably both traumatised and confused after running into someone insane enough to sexually assault a skeleton. Black Robe fucked around with this message at 07:21 on Aug 12, 2021 |
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Aug 12, 2021 07:18
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Can we barter for his clothes, and then fight him? Seems like he'd be easier to beat without his fancy duds.
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Aug 12, 2021 17:54
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I agree, let's fight Sech Zapor.
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Aug 12, 2021 17:55
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Radeka is one of the fights that just completely dumpstered me the first time on my mostly blind playthrough. I ended up pulling some shenanigans to make a big sea of oil before the fight so that I could ignite it and watch the zombies kill themselves trying to run up to my party. I think that was the first time I started to grasp how far you can push pre-battle preparations in order to tilt things in your favor. Unfortunately I also had no idea you could use the rose and a bottle to make a permabuff potion. I don't know if I kept the rose or if I used it at some point. Maybe I should do another playthrough sometime with all the stuff I'm learning from this LP.
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Aug 12, 2021 18:12
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Destroy the soul jar in front of Sech. So close, yet so far. Then strip him bare. If this somehow prevents you from getting the clothes, then reload and fight him.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:23
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Donkringel posted:Destroy the soul jar in front of Sech. So close, yet so far. Then strip him bare. Yeah, this gets my vote
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Aug 12, 2021 20:26
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He wants that Soul Jar that badly? He better be willing to pay the iron price for it. No mercy for slavers.
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Aug 12, 2021 20:58
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Steal his look.
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Aug 12, 2021 21:21
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thekeeshman posted:Can we barter for his clothes, and then fight him? Seems like he'd be easier to beat without his fancy duds. Yeah, this sounds good. While offering to become pirates sounds fun, I can't imagine the game would actually let you, so poo.
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Aug 13, 2021 01:20
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Speaking of timers to avoid soft locks. Heroes of Might and Magic 5 uses that but they set the limit to 3 minutes. At least I never saw it happen in combat but it was still very very painful when it happened.Donkringel posted:Destroy the soul jar in front of Sech. So close, yet so far. Then strip him bare.
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Aug 13, 2021 21:53
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  The very first thing I do this update is to create the Attar of the Blood Rose. By squeezing the dew of the Blood Rose into a bottle, I create a potion that will give a semi-permanent buff to every single stat that lasts until whoever drinks it dies. The only question now is, who gets to drink it? I think I’ll actually leave that to the thread, but I don’t want to ask it just yet – I want to put it off for an update or two. Last update, we had only one vote: what to do with Sech Zapor. There were some interesting ideas, including smashing the Soul Jar in front of him and watching him wilt that way, but, ultimately, a very slim majority decided to fight him for his clothes.  : Your door wasn’t very smart. It stands to reason that anyone that had put their trust in it is probably not a great combat tactician.: Ye got some spirit for the learnin’ sort. Me pride demands callin’ yer bluff, so pray to yer gods there’s some truth in it. Rise, crew. End this.As usual, Fane’s locked in place: standing in the hallway directly opposite of Sech. But there’s two high grounds that the rest of my party can take advantage of.  I park Lohse and Ifan on the ridge to the right of Fane. There are two ways up to this cliff that they’re on: a set of vines just beside Ifan and another set of them on the rock cliff in front of Lohse. While that means it’s more open, it also gives them both an escape route if things get dicey. And because Afrit can’t climb, he’s on the floor with Fane, which is okay with me. Before I reposition Prince, though, there’s a bit of a hiccup to my strategy: Attendant is currently poison-type. Sech is undead, and he just told his crew to ‘rise,’ so it stands to reason that his crew are all undead as well. Attendant would be worse than useless.  Luckily, Prince knows Dimensional Bolt, which puts down a random surface every time it’s cast, meaning, with a bit of time and luck, he could summon literally any type of incarnate that he wanted (except blood). And even if he didn’t know that skill, he has the innate lizard skill Breathe Fire, so he could summon a fire-Attendant if he wanted.  After a few rolls of the dice, I get a surface of electrified water (unlike every other surface in the game, the only way to get an air-damage surface is by electrifying water, which is two steps as opposed to just one). I haven’t rolled with an air-type Attendant yet, so, why not?  This incarnate knows Electric Discharge, on top of the other usual skills – and, for some reason, the game wants me to think he also knows Restoration, probably because he was technically summoned in a puddle of water, but he doesn’t have the points in Hydrosophist to cast it, which is just cruel.  I park Prince on the opposite high ground. It has only one access point, a ramp that’s facing towards me, so it shouldn’t be easy to reach, but if someone does, then Prince has no way out. That should be all the prep I need. Let’s rumble.    : Combat Music 2: The Captain’s QuartersTurn 1 Sech goes first, naturally, and he uses a skill called Captain’s Orders, which summons three of his lackeys into the fight, and since they came in late, they’re forced to move last. But two of them spawn on the high grounds – one next to Prince and one between Lohse and Ifan. That’s not ideal for me. And then Sech uses Chloroform on Prince, who’s going to go next after Afrit, meaning I don’t have an opportunity to wake him up, which is a kick in the pants.  Sech’s Second and Third Mates are both spellcasters, meaning they have very little physical armour, but Afrit can’t climb vines and the ramp up to Prince is too far to run. Sech’s First Mate is within reach, but he’s a fighter and therefore has a massive amount of physical armour, meaning it’s not the most ideal match-up for both Afrit and Fane. What Afrit does is reposition to the center of the room, and then he uses Howl, Taunting everyone but Sech. At least nobody will be able to get a potshot on Prince while he’s asleep.    Lohse Encourages everyone except Afrit (his positioning is just barely wrong enough, and Encourage, despite being a song or shout, still requires eyesight)… and then I do something pretty devious: I teleport the Second Mate behind a screen in the corner of Sech’s cabin. This isn’t the farthest I could have thrown the guy, but because his body is too fat to squeeze between the screen and the desk, and because the enemy AI is too dumb to move objects (which could easily break the game), that one move means he’s trapped for the rest of the fight, unable to escape. This doesn’t neutralize him as a threat – he’s a spellcaster and doesn’t require a ton of movement, nor does he prefer to attack with melee hits – but it significantly limits his options.    Fane gets to work, setting Sparking Swings before hitting the First Mate with Battle Stomp and repositioning.    Salem runs up the platform to help Prince – since Salem does physical damage and the Third Mate is a spellcaster, it technically means he’s best suited for the job over Prince or Attendant – and attacks once for 13 damage. And he could easily swap with Fane to start doing the real damage.    Ifan uses Pin Down on Sech. Remember, Sech has the Tyrant’s Charm aura, meaning as soon as he gets within arm’s reach of someone, he’ll Charm them into switching sides. Crippled won’t prevent him from moving entirely, not in Divinity: Unleashed, but it’ll at least prevent him from using self-teleport skills and it’ll massively hinder his walking speed. After that, he uses Fortify on Afrit, who’s going to need the defense since he Taunted everyone.   Attendant is the last to go for my team, and he hits the First Mate with Electric Discharge, which does 117 damage, way more than I was expecting, followed by the generic long-ranged attack, which does 66, which is a bit more in line with what I was ready for.   The First Mate repositions slightly, taking an AoO from both Fane and Afrit for it… before casting a unique spell called Mutiny!, which attempts to set Mad on everyone in range. I can’t find any information on this skill online to know what the chances of success are. Anyway, it only works on Fane (and therefor Salem) and Afrit, with Prince, Attendant, Lohse and Ifan resisting.     The Third Mate decides that he doesn’t like this high ground and opts to move all the way to the other, taking an AoO from Salem, Prince, and Attendant for it. He couldn’t attack anyone other than Afrit anyway. Prince’s attack heals him back to max, which is annoying, but it also set Silenced, which is amazing for fighting a spellcaster, so I’ll take that trade any day of the week.  Finally, the Second Mate has his turn, and he uses Dazzling Bolt on Afrit and Fane. While it’s forced to whiff on Fane entirely, it still Shocks the surface he’s standing on, and therefore him as well, and it hits Afrit for the full damage. Dazzling Bolt costs 3 AP and he’s locked in jail anyway, so the Second Mate ends his turn there.   Turn 2 Sech approaches and uses Backlash on Prince, which is bullshit. He’s Crippled, he shouldn’t be able to self-teleport. He then attempts to use Gag Reflex on Prince, which would Silence him – if not for the fact that, because he was put to sleep with Chloroform, Prince was Well Rested, and that status cancelled out the Silenced. Congratulations, Sech, you played yourself.  Afrit is Mad, meaning he’ll automatically attack the closest target, friend or foe. That happens to be the First Mate, which is perfect: he uses Maul, setting Ruptured Tendons, followed by a standard attack.   The Second Mate hits Fane with Electric Discharge, and then he Teleports him onto the high ground next to Lohse – and right next to the Third Mate, who has the lowest physical armour of the enemy team. Cool! Thanks for that.   Prince gives Fane the Think Fast combo. Clear Mind clears Mad, putting Fane (and Salem) back into my control. Prince is in kind of a tricky position, with Sech breathing down his neck like that. As long as Sech keeps hitting him, Prince will never succumb to Charmed, but, you know… that means Prince has to take a knife to the kidney every turn, and I’m not exactly for that, either. Without a lot of other options, Prince uses Rallying Cry on the First Mate, which deals 60 damage.  The Third Mate, still Silenced from Prince’s AoO last turn, hits Lohse twice. It does a whole lot more damage than I was expecting, honestly: she’s already down to one-third.     Lohse’s not a big fan of that: she uses Restoration, Armour of Frost, and Uncanny Evasion on herself, and Soothing Cold on everyone this side of the battlefield, including Afrit.   The First Mate uses Mosquito Swarm on Prince, followed by Blitz Attack on Fane and Lohse. At least it does some extra damage to himself, thanks to Ruptured Tendons, but this high ground is getting awfully crowded and Lohse’s in a real tight spot.    Fane wants to start attacking the Third Mate, but Lohse and the First Mate are in his way. He could use Battering Ram to bypass everyone, but I feel like that’d be a bit of a waste without attacking both targets at once. Also, the two attacks that the Third Mate did on Lohse put down an oil puddle, cancelling Fane’s Haste and making him Slowed instead. So, instead, he uses Shackles of Pain on the Third Mate, and then he bashes the First Mate. It’s perhaps not efficient, but I’m also trying not to mitigate damage, and the First Mate’s taken the most so far.   Salem moves to attack Sech, since there’s not much else he can do – and he starts Succumbing to Charmed. Well, luckily, the housecat can’t exactly do a ton of damage, so it’s not a huge loss if Salem betrays me for a turn or two. He attacks Sech twice. The first one whiffs an 88% chance to hit, and the second one lands, doing 12 damage.    Ifan heals Lohse with First Aid, followed by Meld Metal on himself, Fane, Lohse, and Afrit (who now no longer has a target). For his actual attack, Ifan uses Throw Dust on the First and Third Mates. If they’re going to try and threaten Lohse like that, they’ll have to swing in the dark.   Attendant goes last, and he hits the First Mate with his long-ranged attack, followed by Whirlwind to hit Sech without approaching him.  Turn 3 Sech hits Prince twice. Prince doesn’t find that very Charming, but, like I said, he’s kinda dying in exchange.   Fane has a hell of a lucky turn: he manages to hit both the First and Third Mates with Battering Ram, which, thanks to Sparking Swings, sets the First Mate on fire. Then, with his new position facing down the Third Mate, he uses Crippling Blow on the spellcaster – and the spark from Sparking Swings crits on the First Mate. After all that, the First Mate isn’t dead, but he is on fire, and that’ll probably take him out at the start of his next turn.   The Second Mate, still locked in jail, uses Staff of Magus on Prince, followed by Uncanny Evasion on the First Mate. He’s already on fire; what does he expect him to dodge? Afrit is next, but he can’t reach anyone to attack, so he delays.   The Third Mate tries to heal the First Mate with Poison Dart, but since he’s on fire, the poison immediately explodes and does way more damage than the poison would have healed. The First Mate dies to friendly fire. And apparently, I’m not earning experience for these fights. Which is a bummer, but I guess it makes sense: these quests were added after the game’s release, and the initial quest’s EXP ramp was pretty finely tuned and they wouldn’t want to mess with that if they could. The Third Mate ends his attack with a Fireball on Ifan, which lands, but Lohse luckily avoids the splash damage.     Prince is in a real bad way – Stunned, Bleeding, near-death, and being focused down by Sech Zapor. He uses a Restoration scroll on himself to stop the bleeding, and then he chugs a fat potion, putting him back up to a little over half. Then he uses my new favourite skill, Demonic Stare, on Sech before turning to run away. Sech’s Charm aura has Prince beginning to succumb as soon as he tries to leave, but the AoO Sech gets immediately snaps him out of it, and Sech isn’t about to chase him, so, overall, a good trade.    Lohse is on Necrofire; she’s poisoned; she has acid on her skin; and she’s Decaying. And she has 64 HP total. Well, Bless will cure the Necrofire (but not regular fire) and Decaying, so, I start with that; then, once the fire can actually be put out, she uses a rain dance on herself and Ifan. Restoration is still on cooldown for one more turn, so, instead, she just chugs a couple potions. She’s not in a good spot but she’s delaying for as long as she can.  Salem hits Sech twice. Good kitty.    Ifan’s in an interesting spot: the Third Mate is at about half HP and he’s trying to focus down Lohse, but Sech is the more immediate threat and while he’s been relatively untouched, he now has zero armour to his name. It’d be much easier to kill Sech now than later. Ifan Blesses the steam cloud he’s in, so none of the undead can walk through it without taking a handful of healing damage, and he uses Encourage to top up everyone’s stats. Unfortunately, there are no surfaces for Ifan to dip his arrows in (the rain and the fire turned into steam, leaving neither surface), so he just unloads a Barrage of naked arrows into Sech, instantly putting him down to just over half.   Attendant hits Sech with Electric Discharge and the long-range attack, dealing 249 damage total. Sech is really rather feeble without his armour.  Afrit takes his delayed turn, but Prince is still in the way between him and Sech, and Howl is on cooldown for another turn, meaning he can’t actually do anything. So he repositions near Prince and calls it.    Turn 4 Sech hits Prince with Chloroform once again, then uses Adrenaline so he can hit Attendant with Sawtooth Knife, which causes Bleeding. Because Sech is Stunned, he’s really struggling to keep up his AP.  Fane hits the Third Mate twice, and Sparking Swings is not only still active, but it can reach all the way over to Sech from where he’s standing.   The Second Mate still can’t escape, but he can reach Lohse with an Electric Discharge (which hits all of the rainwater that didn’t touch the fire previously, hitting the Third Mate and Fane as well), followed up by a Staff of Magus on Lohse.  Prince is asleep, meaning even if Afrit delays, he still won’t be able to reach Sech on the platform because Prince couldn’t get out of the way. But Howl is off cooldown, so instead, Afrit returns to the center of the field and uses it, Taunting Sech and the Third Mate.  The Third Mate tries to reposition and immediately gets clubbed in the vertebrae by Lohse, re-killing him instantly.   Lohse continues to be difficult to kill by using Restoration on herself, followed by Dazzling Bolt on Sech, Salem, and Attendant. Interestingly, Attendant is supposed to be immune to air damage, but it still took damage from the hit. Only 16 HP – Salem took 77 and Sech took 112, showing just how high Attendant’s resistance is – but it’s not zero. I’m not sure why that’s happening.  Salem is Charmed by Sech, so he runs right up to Prince and makes a swipe. Unfortunately, he’s also Taunted by Afrit, so he whiffs entirely.   Ifan uses Sky Shot on Sech to get in a bit more extra damage, and he follows up with a regular bolt, taking Sech out of the fight. He doesn’t die – if an ‘essential’ NPC like Sech ‘dies’ in battle, they are instead rendered Unconscious, which is effectively the same thing, as far as the fight is concerned. Either way, Sech is down, leaving only the Second Mate.  Attendant starts the party with clowning on the Second Mate by using its long-ranged attack, and it whiffs entirely.   Turn 5 The Second Mate opens his turn with Staff of Magus on Lohse, which crits, and Dazzling Bolt on Prince and Salem, but they both dodge, which is wild. Afrit delays – the Second Mate can’t get out of jail, but Afrit also can’t get in.  Prince uses Rallying Cry on Lohse to keep her up after that crit, and then passes, saving his AP.   Because Lohse is Stunned, she only has three AP to spend – but that’s just enough to let the Second Mate out so we can all beat the poo poo out of him.   Fane wades through the electrified water and the healing steam to climb down the vines and break the Second Mate’s legs. We’re at the point again where there’s just one enemy left, so, I’ll speed through the description for the fight: Salem hits him once; Ifan uses First Aid on Lohse before using Throw Dust on the Second Mate; Attendant hits him with the long-ranged attack and Electric Discharge; and Afrit bites him three times.   Turn 6 The Second Mate escapes by climbing up the vines and using Blinding Radiance to make it more difficult to kill him, which is real annoying. Afrit delays since he can’t climb vines.  Prince uses Dimensional Bolt on the Second Mate. As long as it’s not Poison-type, it’ll be a good move. It’s Poison-type, meaning he healed the Second Mate. He puts down an air totem and passes; the totem immediately fires and lands its shot; Lohse uses Restoration on the Second Mate but whiffs, so she uses Blinding Radiance as well because gently caress him.  And Fane manages to land the killing blow, winning the fight. : ‘High and hale waves take us. Beat us, break us, green-black sea – we are slaves… We are slave only… to thee…: My jar remains. I wait… I will reclaim… And then he dies – or, he ‘dies.’ He just implied that he’ll be back but who knows how much truth there is to that. After all of that, there’s only one thing left to do: claim my reward.  The Third Mate (oh, coincidentally: all three Mates died practically on top of each other. That’s neat how that worked out) held a Charm Grenade and the First Mate had a Fortify scroll and some nice pants, but Sech Zapor held all the good poo poo – including the first complete unique armour set of the game. As well as an empty jar; a crafting ingredient; and a fair amount of money.  Sech Zapor’s armour set is all different levels, with the coat at level 6, the shoes at level 7, and the hat at level 8 – I am currently level 8 and Sech was level 9. Meaning the armour set is going to be a little underwhelming, numbers-wise, compared to my current gear. But it’s not the raw numbers that makes the Captain armour set attractive: it’s the bonuses. Whoever wears the coat, the boots, and the ‘jaunty hat’ as it’s described, will unlock the Tyrant’s Charm aura that Sech had that fight. Anyone that wears the full set will brainwash any enemy that comes within arm’s reach of them. More than that, though, each of the pieces of armour come with their own perks: this coat, for instance, gives the wearer Comeback Kid. A whole Talent, and a pretty decent one, for free.  The boots give a shotload of movement and Lucky Charm, and they’re immune to slipping out of the box.  And the hat gives a massive boost to Scoundrel and Bartering, and it makes the wearer immune to drunkenness (which sounds like a nerf imo) The armour set is Finesse-based, meaning the only people that could wear it are Ifan and Sebille. The coat has the same armour numbers as Ifan’s current armour, but divvied differently, while his current armour gives him +1 Constitution. If it weren’t for Comeback Kid, Ifan’s current armour (by itself, of course) would be better. The shoes and the hat are both no contest in favour of the Captain’s set.  And there’s Ifan, wearing the full Captain’s set for himself. The Tyrant’s Charm aura is permanently active for him: any enemy that attempts to attack him directly will succumb to his wiles. So that’s one bonus sidequest wrapped up and completed! The level for this armour set is fairly low and, like the Braccus Rex set, I’ll need to find a replacement for every piece as a whole rather than mix and match as I find them if I want to swap off. But I imagine it won’t be for some time until I start finding armour that’s worth more than the Tyrant’s Charm and a free Comeback Kid.  Raiding Sech’s quarters a bit finds me this uncommon belt. I figure I’ll swap it in for Fane’s current belt: although his current belt is epic, Fane isn’t really the barterer or the lucky charmer of the party. Before I leave the cove, I realize that I still have something that belongs to Sech.  We still have his Soul Jar, and Sech’s soul is still inside it. We could smash it and release Sech’s soul, like we did with the necromancers in Braccus’s tower. We could consume Sech’s soul and obliterate him from this reality. Or we could just hold onto it – who knows when the soul of an evil slave captain could be useful? What do YOU think we should do?  It’s a quick walk back to the fork in the path that took us towards the dragon’s beach. We’ve done everything there is to do on this prison island – everything but one thing: escape. It’s time to rendezvous with Gareth.  A quick walk up the way, and we find what appears to be… someone attempting to make their own Shriekers. A decomposing human being, still alive and strung up on a cross, is being left to bake in the sun. : An old elf’s pained gaze passes between the crucified; anger bubbles within him – he seems on the brink of tears of rage. : Are you familiar with these victims? : They are as good as my family. But I cannot heal them, I cannot heal them… : Perhaps… it may be best for everyone if they were let go.: But… they’re still inside. Their true souls. Uncorrupted. I feel them still, I see them still… : I’ve seen the Shriekers and what they can do firsthand. It’s not something I’d wish upon anyone.: Where you find Shriekers, you can trust the Divine Order is hiding something they desperately want to keep private. The fate of my dear ones proves there must be some such thing on this very island.: Stay away from Shriekers if you want to live. I know not how much longer my friends here have… You can actually talk to these Shriekers-in-training if you want a little bit of insight into, you know, how they’re doing. : The Seeker’s head twitches upwards as you approach. His eyes open a fraction… He struggles to focus his gaze upon you. A low moan escapes his cracked lips…: His eyes close and his head sags forward.Fun times.  There’s more than one. : The Seeker gazes upward, right at the sun. She mumbles rapidly to herself. : The Seeker ignores you, and continues on with her babbling prayer. We all have something to say about this ghastly sight. I probably would too, to be fair.   : There’s nothing to be done. Let’s keep moving.: The Divine Order knows no mercy. It deserves none in return. : We should keep moving. We don’t want to end up like them.So it seems our party healer is the bloodthirsty one, while Prince and Ifan just want to get the job done and avoid risking the same fate.  The Seekers from Amadia’s Sanctuary are all here, waiting for me to arrive so I can use the Purging Wand (or maybe the helmet, the game doesn’t care how it’s done) on the Shriekers guarding the wharf just up ahead. None of them offer any particularly useful insight into what’s happening around them or what can be done next. The vendors still offer the same wares, though. Like, Samadel here still sells Pyromancer stuff. So if you’re a little low on supplies or you missed out on skillbooks, you can still catch up here.  This was a Seeker checkpoint and outpost, the last stop before the only other wharf on the island that isn’t directly attached to Fort Joy (and Sech’s cove, I guess). The Seekers had set up here and waited for the order to advance… but the Magisters found it first, and, well. You can loot all the dead Seeker bodies here for whatever supplies they happened to be carrying before they died. The living Seekers will comment on it, but they won’t stop you.   Lots of crafting ingredients, but nothing I would call particularly useful.  This was one of the injured soldiers that we had revived when we first found Amadia’s Sanctuary. Maybe he’ll come in handy now that he’s here.  This is a recipe book that will teach us how to make small flame runes. Runes are always nice to have! Maybe we’ll learn recipes to make larger runes later down the road.  Parked next to Deidara is an upraised mound of dirt, meaning there’s definitely something buried here. Nothing escapes my keen eagle eyes!    According to Duggan, this is a Seeker supply box that the Magisters missed during their raid. Which is good: if I’m about to lunge into the belly of the beast, I could use all the supplies I can get.  However, it’s locked, and none of my characters have the requisite Thievery points to open it. I’ll have to enlist the help of a certain someone if I want to open this box later. Gareth and Gratiana are nearby: just a few paces west of this supply crate’s location. But I want to wander around the camp a little bit more and see if there’s more to do before I progress to the climax of Act One.  Heading eat takes me uphill, to a cliff overlooking the ocean. It’s a small loop that’ll eventually take me right back to the camp.  There are vines that take me downward, towards the wharf, if I didn’t want to take the main road. It’s not any safer than the main path, but hey, I actually didn’t know this was here before now, so that’s a neat alternate route.  At the bend of the pathway is… a skeletal mage, wearing bright-red robes and enjoying himself with a bottle of wine. Can skeletons drink wine? Wouldn’t it just splash down through his ribs, like in that one scene in Pirates of the Caribbean? He’s standing next to a reinforced crate. I don’t remember either of these being here before – if he’s a skeleton that I don’t recognize, and he’s guarding a chest I’ve never seen before, then maybe he’s a new sidequest?  : An undead pirate gulps from a bottle, liquor spilling down his ribs. It settles in a dark, frothy puddle around his hipbones. : Yer the one Cap said would be comin’, eh? Well, he took his prize and set off. : (I’ve already dealt with Sech, but… maybe there’s something more I can learn from this inebriated henchman. If indeed he is inebriated.): The captain trusts you with his affairs, does he? : (Sech didn’t respond well to intimidation, so…) Picking apart his flunky would be good practice for the real thing – unless you’re willing to tell me more about him.: Persuasion Success!: Well now, hold on a minute! Truth be told, Cap don’t care if you find him or not. Got his full armour now, don’t he. And only his Soul Jar can turn his head, now.: Ship’s inside a cove not too far from here. You’ll have to get past that mouthy door of his, but if you’re sick of the rising sun, Cap’ll make sure you never see another.This is an alternative checkpoint for Sech’s sidequest: if you never find his missing arm or his chest, this guy will point you in the right direction. And if you do pull Sech from his chest, and you beat him up there or you convince him to give you his clothes there, Sech will show up here: the chest contains his hat and he’ll swipe the clothes right back before putting his hat back on. The order of operations that we followed with Sech was that we released him from his chest, but we didn’t fight him, so he came here, got his hat, and then went back to his ship. The quest is completed, but this grog-splashed pirate doesn’t know that. Not unless I talk to him while wearing Sech’s armour set. : The pirate notices you and spits out his next ill-conceived swallow. His bottle hits the ground with a heavy thud.: Oi, what ye got there? Me capn’s coat! Only one way to deal with a thief. Boys! This’n stole from Cap!
Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 22:32 on Aug 28, 2021 |
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Aug 28, 2021 21:56
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    : Combat Music 2:The Crew On The CliffTurn 1 There are four enemies in this fight: two mages and two fighters. This being a sidequest fight, we’re not going to get any EXP for killing them, and we already have the armour set, so there isn’t really a reason to be doing this… but I did it, so I might as well transcribe it. Mage 1, the one that we were just talking to, repositions to the back of my party, taking a massive AoO from Fane and one from Lohse, before casting Blinding Radiance on my group. I would argue that this was not a worthwhile trade.   Afrit Howls at everyone except Mage 2, and then runs to reposition beside Mage 2. Now all of the other enemies will have to chase him down if they want to actually do anything this turn.    Mage 2 uses Fortify on herself, which is really annoying, and then takes the high ground (and an AoO from Afrit) before using Poison Dart on Lohse and Attendant.   Prince uses Think Fast on Fane, as usual, followed by Rallying Cry on Mage 1. He’s already down below half; he might not even last to the next turn at this rate.   Fighter 1 runs through the crowd to get to Afrit – and Ifan’s Tyrant’s Charm kicks in as soon as he does, and he’ll become Charmed by the end of his next turn, provided nobody hits him. Fighter 1 tries to be clever and uses Whirlwind on Afrit, with the intent of hitting other people within his reach, but Taunt’s mechanics don’t let him do that: he crits on Afrit, but he whiffs entirely on Ifan and Fane.    Lohse tries to fight fire with fire with her own Blinding Radiance – but because she’s already Blind, she whiffs the damage on Mage 1 and Fighter 1, although they’re both still Blinded from her light, which… okay, I guess. She ends her turn with Restoration on herself and Soothing Cold on everyone but Afrit.  Fighter 2 also tries to game the system by using Bouncing Shield on Afrit, but again, it only hits him and nobody else. Frustrated, he ends his turn.    Fane uses Swinging Sparks on himself, followed by Battering Ram and Crippling Blow on Mage 1, putting him down to just 19 HP. Both of the sparks from Swinging Sparks leap all the way up to the high ground and hit Mage 2, who, being a mage, is not who I wanted my elemental damage to target, but whatever, damage is damage.  Mage 1 only has 19 HP. Salem could take him out if he crits… … which he doesn’t, dealing 13 HP worth of damage. It was worth a try.    Ifan uses Meld Metal on the party and Fortify on Afrit, trying to keep him up since he’s agroing the enemy team, before putting a bolt into Mage 1 and taking him out. It’s a bit of a waste of Ifan’s damage potential, but I’d also rather he just not live, you know?   Attendant brings up the rear with Electric Discharge and its long-range attack on Fighter 1. He has less armour than Fighter 2, and since Lohse technically ‘hit’ him with the Blinded status, he wasn’t Succumbing anymore, so, might as well.   Turn 2 Mage 2 uses Armour of Frost on herself, meaning she has just a shitload of armour now and doing any kind of damage to her is going to be tough. She swings at Lohse with her wands, but because she’s within Lohse’s Radiance, one of the swings misses, and she only does 23 HP total.  Afrit uses Maul on Fighter 1, rupturing his tendons, and then making one regular attack to round it off.   In response, Fighter 1 uses Chicken Claw on Ifan. A very useful move, as you’ll remember. But then he tries to use Tentacle Lash on Ifan as well, and chickens in Divinity: Unleashed have crazy high Dodging, so the tentacle whip misses entirely. Not that it would have done anything anyway: Atrophy and Chicken Form would have both worn off at the same time.   Prince uses Dimensional Bolt on Fighter 1. Surely I won’t roll Poison a second time, right? I got Fire, which is probably the best result, because the target takes extra damage from being set on fire as well. To cap his turn, he uses Breathe Fire on Fighter 2, turning the battlefield into a mess, but if Fighter 2 wants to escape, he’ll need to run through the fire to do it.    Fighter 2 repositions all the way behind Fane – and Prince whiffs his AoO, which is good, because his staff deals poison damage – before using Battering Ram on everyone but Prince and Afrit. Despite Lohse’s Radiance, it even manages to hit everyone, which is lame and a bummer. Salem has, like, one or two HP left, and he’s poisoned and on fire, so he’s not getting another turn.  Lohse has only three AP to use, so she dumps them all into Chain Lightning, the overcharged version of Electric Discharge, hitting both Fighters with the bolts.    Mage 2 has had too much fun up there on the high ground uncontested, so Fane climbs the vines after her and hits her once. She has a metric fuckton of both types of armour, so it’s going to be a minute before she’s downed. While he’s up there, he uses Blood Sucker on Attendant, healing it back to nearly full.  Salem takes 99 damage from poison and bleeding together, instantly taking him out. Ifan is a chicken and opts to pass his turn entirely rather than run away.  And Attendant ends the turn with a long-ranged attack on Fighter 1.    Turn 3 Mage 2 puts a bit of distance between her and Fane, which is a weird move considering she’s cornering herself, before using a rain dance to spread the now-electrified blood puddles to everyone, particularly on Lohse. Then she caps her turn by hitting Lohse with her wands twice. It’s weird that she’s trying to focus down Lohse when Ifan and Afrit have significantly less magic armour to defend against, but maybe she also realizes that Lohse is the healer, and you generally want to take out the healer first.  Apparently Maul has a cooldown of just one turn, meaning if Afrit focuses someone down, he can ensure that they will never not have Ruptured Tendons. That’s a lot more powerful than I thought! Afrit bites Fighter 1 twice, with one of them in the ankles. Hopefully I can take Fighter 1 down before the end of this turn.   Unfortunately, while Fighter 1 is on fire, burning, and his ruptures and tendon’d, he manages to get two hits in on Lohse, which is enough to take her out. Well, it’s annoying that she died, but hey! This ragtag group of drunkards managed to do what Sech couldn’t. I survived that whole fight without any casualties. Prince delays his turn.   Fighter 2 hits Ifan and Afrit with Bouncing Shield, but not before starting to Succumb to Ifan’s wily charms. He ends his turn with Shields Up. I’m pretty sure I talked about this before, but Shields Up is an inherent skill that anyone instantly gets when they equip a shield. In the base game, it instantly restored a ton of magical and physical armour; in Divinity: Unleashed, since armour doesn’t deplete, it instead gives the user a buff to both armours.   Fane hits Mage 2 with Battle Stomp, and the sparks from his axe hit Fighter 1, taking him out of the fight and refunding Fane with two more. So he just hits Mage 2 again.    Because Ifan was a chicken last turn, and because he performed no action, he’s maxed out on AP and can do whatever he wants, essentially. So, naturally, he has a pretty lame turn: he uses Encourage, followed by Elemental Arrowheads on his own blood, and then he plugs Fighter 2 with three bolts. It’s a hefty amount of damage but the only high ground in the fight is too crowded for him to jump to, so there’s not a ton of options available to him.   Attendant does the usual: one Electric Discharge and one long-ranged attack on Fighter 2.   Prince takes his delayed turn, and he uses it to resurrect Lohse, dumping her behind a rocky spire so that the other two enemies don’t have line-of-sight on her. Then he uses Battle Stomp on Fighter 2. It was a definite lapse of judgement on my part because Prince still has the poison staff, so it heals Fighter 2 instead. But it does knock him down, which is nice.  Turn 4 Mage 2 changes her tack and aims for Prince, hitting him twice.  Afrit uses Howl on both of the remaining combatants. He’s too far away to perform any other action, though.  Fighter 2 passes his turn – he’s Knocked Down and Stunned, meaning he only has two AP to use, and nearly every attack in the game requires two. He’s Taunted, meaning he can only hit Afrit, and Afrit is more than one AP away from him. He uses Bouncing Shield last turn, so it’s on cooldown. Fighter 2 literally has no options, so he’s forced to pass.   Prince uses Dimensional Bolt on Fighter 2, rolling physical damage (the second worst for this target, after poison), and then he uses Rallying Cry on him, dealing a whopping 26 HP. Not my most worthwhile turn, unfortunately.   Lohse, freshly alive, uses Restoration on herself, followed by Electric Discharge on the rear end in a top hat that killed her. It gets Ifan too, but whatever, Ifan’s at near-max HP, he’ll be fine.   Fane just keeps doing what he’s doing. Which includes missing a 92% chance to hit.  Ifan only has three AP, but that’s okay: he only needs two to take out Fighter 2.  And Attendant hits Mage 2 with its long-ranged attack. It’s helping!   Turn 5 Mage 2, still Taunted on Afrit, hits him with Poison Dart, taking him out of the fight. Afrit did a fair amount of work this fight, so, good for him. Then she uses Fortify on herself, making things annoying and difficult.  To speedrun the last enemy in the fight: Prince puts down a blood totem and hits her with Dimensional Bolt (air); the totem lands its shot; Lohse delays; and Fane hits her twice, once with All In, to take her out. And that’s the game.  Most of the enemies just carried either money or vendor trash, but Mage 1 had all the goodies – which still doesn’t amount to much. A frost grenade; three bottles of wine (one of them being poisoned, which means it’s safe for Fane to drink); a Searing Daggers skillbook; and a special shield that inflicts poison on contact. It would have been a neat shield to have, but nobody here uses shields, so whatever. The chest doesn’t contain anything – it’d be where we wound find Sech’s hat if we beat him up when we let him out of his own prison.   One round of re-summoning our familiars later, and I round the horseshoe cliff, making my way back down to the Seeker’s camp… but there’s a set of vines going up here. Where could this lead?  A single Magister, overlooking the Seeker’s camp. He’s got his bow ready. Who knows what’s going through his head.  : Oh, shite. : Just… what did you expect to accomplish, here?: That’s not for me to say. If you must kill me, then… kill me. : You could have left this camp behind. I didn’t need to find you here. What’s gotten you so worked up that you’d rather stay and start a fight you can’t win?: Persuasion Success!: I am… I am not… : Go on.: I was just a boy. My brother was gifted. That’s what our parents said. Now, they can say nothing. They had no chance against the Voidwoken. My brother’s so-called gift was only a lure. : I understand that grief is what brought you here. But take it from a Sourcerer: we don’t understand what’s happening either. We’re just as afraid of the Voidwoken. We shouldn’t be turning against each other in our fear.: The Magister’s face relaxes for a moment, then hardens once again.: You will use any weapon at hand, won’t you? Your tongue may sing a lullaby, but it’s as deadly as a blade.… as opposed to the axe across my back? I could have opened with that. : I would sooner die than put faith in your words, Source monster. It’s a one-versus-one with Ames the Magister and Fane. Nothing exciting happens: it’s just two dudes slugging away at each other until one of them falls down. I didn’t bother encoding and uploading the fight either.       He was worth some experience, though, which is more than the last fight can say.  The only thing that he had on his person was a letter addressed to someone named Kaspar.  - Ames A letter to his brother, probably. Everyone is scared and confused about the Voidwoken and how they’re attracted to Sourcerers, and the Magisters believe that the only possible solution is to kill every Sourcerer. What other options do they have?  Rounding the final bend of the cliff – there’s a shitload of invisible traps that Fane didn’t have the Wits to detect before he ran headlong into them. It immediately kills Salem and it puts Fane down to about one-quarter. Watch your step!  Oh, a set of nails! I missed this on my first pass. Remember to always put nails in your shoes! I give them to Fane – even the Tracks of the Tyrant can support an upgrade like cleats without ruining the rest of the set.  : You cannot stand against the Shriekers. Not without stronger weapons than these.: We’ll find them. Or we’ll find another way.Gratiana and Gareth are deep in strategic talks over how to get around a handful of dudes strapped to crosses. : You’ve come, Lucian be praised!Yeah, sorry about the several hold-ups. : Gareth glances over his shoulder, and his voice tightens. : How can you be sure? Where is he now? : And now that we’re here, what happens next? : I’ve been meaning to mention that I have a helmet that I believe once belonged to Braccus Rex himself. It seems to… thrum in the presence of Source. Perhaps it could work for us as well.: If I didn’t know better, I think the Gods themselves were you counsel! The helm of Braccus. What evils has this thing witnessed? It remains so powerful…: …No. This thing was birthed from a wicked era. What would Lucian say, seeing me confront one evil with another…?Uh, as opposed to a wand what was designed to suck the life force out of people, made in the same era? : Go. Take down those Shriekers.  At the foot of these stairs is the wharf, and protecting the wharf is a small army of Shriekers. Cursed blood puddles at the base of their crucifixes. They have near total eyesight on the landing leading to the wharf – short of becoming invisible, there’s no way to try and walk past them. And there’s a rat on the stairway.   Agreeing ends the conversation so you can pan the camera forward down the steps.  : Unquestionably. : On a scale of one to really dangerous, I’d rate those things as really, really dangerous.: You’re trying to put me off, aren’tcha? Trying to get to the wharf before me, I’ll wager. Well you won’t make it! I’ll be there before you can take ten steps! Off he goes.   And the little guy takes 666,666 air damage before he could get within spitting distance of the wharf. So, you know, the Shriekers don’t gently caress around. Stay in their line of sight for too long and they’ll vaporize you.  Well, there’s only one thing for us to do: get close, but only close enough, that I can use a Purging Wand on them and clear the way to Gareth and the Seekers. The range on the Purging Wand is a whole lot bigger than the range on the Shriekers, so I’ll only need to get a little bit closer…  As soon as I get to the bottom of the stairs, the screen begins to shake and each of my guys are hit with ten whole turns of Chilled.  Slane’s shadow arcs across the ground as missiles of ice hit each Shrieker dead-on, instantly taking them out. There are multiple ways to deal with the Shriekers leading to the wharf. Braccus’s helmet is one, and there are a few Purging Wands you could use instead – Radeka used one on Slane, after all, and we could have just kept that and used it to deal with them. Freeing Slane and coming to the beach without a wand or Braccus’s helmet is another entirely. Which I feel like is a real waste. I was promised by Slane that he’d come when I was ‘truly at a loss, when I had no choice but to back down or perish.’ I was overprepared to deal with the Shriekers and he cashed in my IOU for me. It’s lame and dumb; I wanted a giant ice dragon to owe me one for when I actually needed it. AND, I’m Chilled! He actively made things worse for ten turns! If you clear out the Shriekers, then rescue Slane, then he gives you Encouraged for ten turns instead of Chilled. Well… whatever. The Shriekers are dealt with.  The Seekers all come rushing from the camp to make their way to the wharf. Amusingly, they all keep stuttering on seeing Attendant and Afrit, making their heroic charge look more like a junior high prom, where everyone just shuffles forward a few paces at a time. : Praise be! You have silenced the Shriekers and cleared out way! Yet it seems I’m in need of you again, my friend. : The Gods help those who help themselves. I’m looking for a fight, Gareth.: We’ve got a boat ready to row to the Lady Vengeance. But if Alexander sees us bobbing among the waves, we’ll be shark chow.: So we split up. I take the Seekers to the Lady Vengeance. You go to the ruins and keep Alexander busy. He’ll be expecting a breeze; show him you’re a hurricane.… By myself? Me and my three friends? As opposed to your entire army of Seekers?  Eh, gently caress it, how hard could it be? : I’m ready for this fight. Alexander has a lot to answer for what he’s done to our kind.: He takes the news calmly. A moment passes as he calculates the consequences, assessing this new world as it opens up before him. He nods his thanks, then raises his voice.: Seekers – we move. You are Lucian’s eyes and ears. You are his sword and his shield. Burn the blackness with your holy fire! The Seekers head northwest, rounding around the outside of the wharf. Down at the beach…    … is a little dinghy that, apparently, can hold every last Seeker before shoving off towards the Lady Vengeance, still floating in the water just off the coast. When the last of the Seekers boards the boat, it disappears.  Before entering the wharf and engaging Bishop Alexander, I loop around the outside of the place, searching for any tools or equipment that could help me in the final fight. The corpses of the Shriekers lay strewn about, but none of them are holding anything.  There’s a chest off to the east of the battlefield, but I’ll need a jumper to reach it – or for Lohse to teleport someone.   Some money; a ring that gives +1 Summoning – Hold up.  One of Prince’s rings does not give +1 Summoning. Prince only needs two more points before his Summoning is put to 10. And with this ring, he only needs one more – just one more. The crossbow, the pants, and the skillbook are all vendor trash. I’m much more focused on getting Prince just one more point in Summoning. The amulet that Prince is currently wearing doesn’t give him +1 to Summoning, so, realistically, that’s the only thing I can hope to upgrade to get him there.  I run back to Feder, to see if she has anything. I pick up some Resurrect scrolls while I’m here, but she doesn’t offer any amulets that give +1 Summoning. And none of the vendor trash I’m holding gives +1 Summoning either.  Feder does have this, though: an epic bow that has +2 Finesse, a 20% chance to set Silenced, and +14% additional critical chance. Whisperer deals slightly less damage than Shadow’s Eye does, and I’ll be missing out on Chameleon Skin, but Whisperer also has a slot. Overall, it’s the better option, I think. Shadow’s Eye has done me some real good. I don’t mark it for wares – maybe I can get a hit of one of those Sourcerous Sundries to bring its level up later, if I want that free Chameleon Skin and that extra Piercing damage back.  I head back to Fort Joy, double checking with ever vendor I can think of, to see if anyone is carrying an amulet that gives +1 Summoning. I check with Hilde, with Butter, with Nebora, with Saheila – nobody was offering anything. Not even Kalias, who’s still holding all of the stuff I’ve sold to him, is holding anything useful. I have just one last hope:   Moment of truth:  Ironically, some Res scrolls and a Chameleon Skin skillbook. Funny. A potato, good for crafting up a good dish; a ton of money; a regular-rear end bow; a Fortify scroll; a big, fat potion; some loaves of bread; and… a staff that needs Lohse to identify. I had just swapped her out for Sebille. Well, maybe the staff gives +1 Summoning?   No, but… it offers +2 Intelligence instead. And it can set Suffocating, and it… melts surfaces? Does that mean it removes them, or does that mean it sets lava? And it has a slot. That’s a drat good staff, actually. It’s slightly better than Prince’s staff, and that staff does a little bit of everything. It’s good equipment for Lohse. Unfortunately, if I want that +1 Summoning, I’m out of options. I’ve tried everything and I’ve exhausted them all. Except one.  I was hoping to avoid using this until after the fight with Bishop Alexander, but… I really, really want that +1 to Summoning. The Arena of the One is an area that can be accessed almost as soon as you make it to Fort Joy. There’s a hatch next to Griff’s kitchen that’ll take you down here.  This green portal thing is a Larian gift bag mod, and it lets you respec any character that gazes into it. From here, you can reshuffle your stats as you like, as often as you like, totally for free. So if I access it with Prince:  Attendant didn’t want to be left out, clearly. I can change nearly everything about Prince from here: his face, his ‘hair’ (the spines on his head); and his hair colour are free for me to change as I like. His facial features (things like frills and membranes, in a lizard’s case); his skin colour (kind of important for a character named The Red Prince); and his voice all cannot be changed, though. From here, I can also change his stats, his combat allocations, and his Talents. He’s currently a summoner; I could respec him into being a paladin, or a thief, or a healer, totally for free. I could also change the instrument that he plays whenever he scores a kill in battle.  Prince currently has one point in Geomancy that I gave him a long, long time ago. I can take that point and reallocate it into Summoning.  And now Prince finally has that 10 in Summoning that I wanted so badly.  Now I’m back at the wharf, where the dead Shriekers lay in piles, half-submerged in their own cursed blood. You may be curious what I can do with this 10 in Summoning. Allow me to demonstrate.  Beside us is Attendant, currently imbued with the power of air. It’s a good fighter: does its job, hits decently hard, soaks up a fair amount of damage. But the spell that summons it, Summon Incarnate, gets changed if you have a 10 in Summoning. If I were to summon Attendant in blood…    I no longer summon an Incarnate – I summon a Champion.   Attendant has 481 HP and 18 physical and magical armour; Champion has 608 HP and 24 of each. It’s difficult to compare their damage numbers because they’re both different types, but needless to say, Champ hits a little bit harder in general. Specifically, like totems, blood-type summons deal additional physical damage and have a chance to set Bleeding with each hit. And blood-type Incarnates and Champions know Mosquito Swarm. Divinity: Unleashed allows any character with Pet Pal to summon two different summons at the same time, but, in exchange, each of them are 25% weaker than a character that doesn’t have Pet Pal. Because the Incarnate is distinct from the Champion, I’m allowed to have both of them at once – but if Attendant ever dies, I can’t re-summon it unless I remove a piece of equipment that gives me +1 Summoning to put me back below the threshold. This next update, we fight Bishop Alexander. We have two votes in the meantime: What do we do with Sech Zapor’s Soul Jar? What do we name our Champion? Let me know in a few day’s time! Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 11:34 on Aug 29, 2021 |
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Aug 28, 2021 21:57
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We should keep the jar, who knows if we need a pirate in the future? And name it Butler
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Aug 29, 2021 06:34
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Why didn't your team help you kill that Magister? Just to be fair to the poor guy? I guess keep the jar? I still don't know what eating his soul would really get us. How about Retainer.
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Aug 29, 2021 07:39
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Keep the jar, might come in handy. The logical upgrade for an attendant would be a Bodyguard, I think.
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Aug 29, 2021 12:40
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Keep Sech's jar, as having the soul of an angry pirate on your person is pretty funny. If Prince has an Attendant on hand, then the big servant would have to be Prince's Secretary.
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Aug 29, 2021 18:46
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Keep the Jar and Bouncer. There are two other encounters I can think of to get additional XP for a potential levelup. Both spots are where you respec at, above and below, in case you want to take a look at that.
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Sep 1, 2021 18:24
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 The final challenge of the island of Braccus Rex lies just beyond this archway. The gate’s been raised and just beyond it is a wharf where Bishop Alexander, the head of the Magisters, awaits us.  And there he is. He has a pretty wild-looking scepter across his back, and just beside him is one of those Gheists that was with him and Dallis when we watched them murder Atusa.  : Look alive. The Hammer should be with us shortly.: Not like her to be late.: There could be Voidwoken nearby. Stay ready. If any Seekers survived, we’ll have to deal with them. A pity they didn’t just listen. All this could have been averted.According to my minimap, there are five people on this wharf. There’s Alexander and his freaky Gheist…  There’s a metamorph Magister way, waaaay up top to my left. She permanently has wings sprouted, meaning that barrel of poison wouldn’t affect her if I were to break it on her. And her mobility is going to be a problem….  And to my right is one markswoman and one knight. The arena has an open pit in the center, but the perimeter is surrounded by high walls, and behind those walls are walkways that a person could use to enter or leave the wharf as they like. And what’s more, there’s a number of low points that the knight is patrolling, with a thin corridor for a person to walk through – it’d be easy to control someone if they were to wander into that space.  There’s a treasure chest at the end of the broken pier, likely hiding some goodies for if I succeed in this fight. Ultimately, this arena has your typical high grounds and low grounds, but each level of altitude has a weird layout of thin walkways and stumpy dead-ends that could trap a person if they aren’t careful. The architecture is a bit of a mess… but it’ll make the fight more interesting, at least. Speaking of fights.  : There you are. The escapee. I feared you’d make it to Reaper’s Coast by now.: Ah… and Ifan ben-Mezd too! Back in fort Joy I wasn’t quite sure it really is him, the poor gods-cursed soul. Bravest man I ever met, now fallen so low. : My journey only started because of you and your Gods-damned Order. If you’re going to make me earn my freedom, I might as well tear the rest of you down while I’m at it.: I have no illusions that history will look kindly upon me. My only goal is to guarantee that someone should survive to write such histories. : You are the Bishop. The son of Lucian the Divine. You chose to put on your collar. I don’t remember ever being asked.: A fair point. I will never write ‘liberty’ or ‘justice’ on my shield. I fight only for survival.: But this I will defend with my life. And your life. And the life of anyone who stands in the way of the continuance of our realm. : Your lapdog Orivand gave me some similar nonsense before I cut him down, too. But please, keep going. You’ll make it all the more worth it.: *Sigh.* You stand no chance, but I admire your resilience. Give it your best shot. As usual, Fane is locked into place, staring down the son of God himself. Alexander fights with a staff and uses primarily magic attacks, so this would actually be a fair fight – we’d both rinse each other clean in a few turns. It’s just a matter of who’s sustain would be better.  There’s this one perch that has the high ground above the arena and is surrounded at the front and back with stone walls. It’s a pretty powerful position that nobody can safely approach, but whoever is put there isn’t going to have the best line of sight on the entire battlefield. I stick Lohse right there and Ifan up with the Metamorph. Lohse is the healer and doesn’t need crazy-good LOS on the field anyway, and once the tactical usefulness of the position dries up, Ifan has the mobility to go somewhere else.  Prince, meanwhile, takes the opposite side of the arena, putting himself on a narrow perch and next to a barrel of oil. He’s cornering himself, and he doesn’t have the mobility to leave if things get hairy, but he’s also armed to the (literal?) gills with firepower if anyone tries to get close. By the way: in the last update, I asked the thread what we should name the Incarnate Champion. I had gotten a handful of suggestions, but everyone voted for something different! So I’ll choose for myself among the suggestions. Continuing with the theme of Prince summoning underlings to do his bidding for him, and with the idea that his incarnates don’t have a gender, I thought the suggested name Secretary would be a good fit. So now Prince has an Attendant tending to his whims, and a Secretary to make sure things keep on the up-and-up.  However, since Secretary does physical damage, I actually want it in the middle of the arena with Fane. Which you can do, you can move your summons separate from their summoners, but as soon as they stop moving, they’ll start heading back to their summoner, so you’ll have to be quick. Anyway, I have a religious icon to murder.    : The Battle for Divinity: Boss Battle: Bishop AlexanderTurn 1 Shortly after the battle begins, it starts to rain. This is purely aesthetic, to help with the imagery of this being a fight for your freedom against the highest-ranking officer of the Magisters, and if you want water on the battlefield, you’ll need to put it there yourself. Alexander moves first, and, recognizing that he’s facing down two very large creatures and he’s a squishy mage, he turns and retreats before using Encourage on as many teammates as possible, followed up with Restoration on Fane.  Alexander has a permanent Aura of Faith on him that gives some pretty massive buffs to everyone within its reach. Anyone who’s near Alexander gets a +2 boost to Strength, Finesse, and Intelligence, and they get a bonus 50% damage increase on top of that, and a bonus 10% chance to dodge attacks. These are not small numbers: Alexander is giving one hell of a helping hand to his team.   Afrit couldn’t follow Ifan to his perch, but that’s okay. I put him between the Gheist and Alexander, and he Howls, Taunting them and the Markswoman up top– As well as an Assassin that’s been hiding in the shadows right next to Secretary! There are six enemies in this fight! It’s a good thing I found him now!   The Gheist is easily the most threatening enemy in the fight: it’s a rogue, meaning it has a ton of movement, and its Strength stat is through the roof. Rather than attack with a weapon, it has massive claws growing out of its digits to tear people up with. Case in point: it uses Backlash on Afrit, followed by a regular attack, and Afrit’s already dead. It did a combined 490 damage in two hits, out of Afrit’s 465. Now, to be fair, Afrit also doesn’t have any armour, so the numbers are a little skewed and Fane and Secretary would have survived those two hits. But the point remains: you’d think Alexander would be the priority target, but he’s not. If you’re playing along and you get to this point: kill the Gheist first. Afrit’s Howl really came in handy for that, in any case.   Prince, having seen what the Gheist just did to Afrit, decides that he wants none-of-loving-that and puts down a Blood totem in the lake of Afrit’s blood before giving Fane the Think Fast combo and telling him to deal with it.  The Blood totem fires on the Markswoman, probably because she has the least amount of HP. I would have preferred the Assassin or the Gheist, but whatever.    The Knight repositions all the way beside Prince, taking an AoO from Attendant for it, and he uses Whirlwind, hitting them both plus the oil barrel to make things all sticky.    While Lohse is safe and she has her pick of the lot offensively, she can’t reach Prince to heal him after he just got got by the Knight. So she opens up with Electric Discharge on the Gheist, which promptly misses. Feeling good about her recent success, she uses Armour of Frost on Fane and then Encourage on herself, Fane, and Salem.  The Metamorph is succumbing to Ifan’s charms, but she still has one turn to really mess with my jams – and she does exactly that by teleporting Secretary on top of Ifan, hitting both of them and breaking the poison barrel, coating the entire platform in poison (which she isn’t affected by because of her wings). That was a good move and I hate it. Fane now only has Salem helping him out in the pit.    Fane uses Sparking Swings and Battle Stomp on the Gheist and Alexander, and with his last AP, he uses Shackles of Pain on the Gheist. The sooner it dies, the better.   The Markswoman uses Reactive Shot on the area around herself, followed by a Water Arrow on Prince, which hurts – but it also cleans up the oil, which, you know what? I’ll take that trade.   Salem is going to be about as effective as a snowball in the Sahara against the Gheist and Alexander, so he runs to the upper platforms to give Fane an escape route if he needs it.       The Assassin has one hell of a turn: First, he opens with Backlash on Fane, which does equal damage to the Gheist. Perhaps because of that, he opts to stop attacking Fane immediately. Instead, he uses Adrenaline (putting him to 5 AP if my math is right), which removes all of his armour, then he turns and runs – taking an AoO from Fane and Salem as he makes his way all the way to the top platform. As soon as he gets there, he’s poisoned from the mess; he starts succumbing to Ifan’s charms; and he caps his turn with Chicken Claw on Ifan, ensuring that he doesn’t get to attack this turn. Which is a bummer, but… the guy had five AP, and that’s what he did with it?   Attendant goes next, hitting the Knight with both of his long-ranged attacks. I’d rather focus on the Gheist, but Prince is in danger, and if Prince dies, then so do Attendant and Secretary. Ifan the Chicken passes his turn rather than run through the poisonous muck, which is a good call for the AI to make.   Secretary is the last to move. It has the high ground, and it could focus on the Gheist, but not only has the Assassin taken a ton of damage from poison and AoOs, but he also has zero armour because of Adrenaline. I don’t think I should expect a better opportunity, so, Secretary hits the Assassin with its own long-ranged attack as well as Mosquito Swarm. Once Ifan comes back, we should be able to take him out next turn.   Turn 2 Alexander makes an interesting move: he uses Nether Swap on Fane and the Knight, causing them to switch places. The Knight is no longer threatening Prince, but now Fane is out of position. And since Fane is standing in oil, he’s now no longer Hasted. Alexander then uses Staff of Magus on Fane, and apparently his staff does fire damage, which causes the field to ignite – but it stops just short of Prince thanks to the Water Arrow from before. All this damage is messing up the Gheist as well, so, hey, I’m for it.   While Fane has the high ground, he uses Mosquito Swarm on the Gheist, making it bleed. There’s not a lot he can do from this position, so, he walks through the fire and climbs down the ladder to reposition – and then he chugs a vitality potion. I guess it doesn’t make a huge difference which order this was done in, in the end.   The Gheist uses Battering Ram on both Fane and the Blood totem, destroying the totem, but then it repositions to the back of the arena, through this stone corridor, and passes the rest of its turn. It can realistically only keep attacking Fane, and it probably realizes that, with Shackles of Pain, it’ll die before he does if it keeps going.   Prince puts down a new totem and then uses the buffed Rallying Cry on himself.  Which opens fire on the Markswoman.   The Knight goes for the three-pointer, throwing a lightning bolt grenade onto the top platform with Ifan and Secretary, Shocking everyone up there and doing a handful of damage to everyone, including his own friendlies. He then uses Healing Ritual on Alexander, which heals him, the Gheist, and Fane, which is annoying.   Lohse still doesn’t really have anyone to heal nearby and the only person she could realistically bully is the Knight, when I’d rather she try and focus the Gheist or something, but that’s the trade off you take when you play it safe. She uses Dazzling Bolt on the Knight, which electrifies the water and blood in the arena, and then she uses Uncanny Evasion on Fane, who’s at half HP and could use a bit of extra luck.   The Metamorph is on our side for this turn thanks to the Charm effect from Ifan’s armour set. She uses a new Polymorph skill called Flay Skin, which does a bit of damage, but it more importantly removes the target’s resistances. If the Knight was at all resistant to any form of elemental damage, he’s not anymore. It’s a particularly strong skill to use… against mages, usually. Once his resistances are down, she uses Hail Strike on him, Chilling him on top of the extra damage it did.  The Markswoman uses Ricochet on Prince, Attendant, and Sir Lora. Prince and Attendant both aren’t going great and Attendant is likely to die soon if I don’t do something to help.    Salem’s too far away to be of any real use to Fane and height bonuses don’t extend Swap Place’s effective range, unfortunately, so instead, Salem jumps up to the top platform and helps beat the poo poo out of the Assassin.  The Assassin only has two AP to use thanks to Adrenaline, and he probably knows he’s not making it to the end of this turn, so he does his level best to be annoying by throwing a poison gas cloud grenade onto Lohse. She’s at max HP, so this is just going to make me waste my time more than anything.   Attendant uses its long-ranged attack on the Knight, and then repositions next to Alexander, so if he tries to run, Attendant will get a free shot.      Ifan has max AP since he didn’t do anything as a chicken. He Encourages himself, Secretary, and Salem; he uses First Aid on himself; he puts one arrow into the Assassin, taking him out of the fight; he coats his arrowheads in poison (not strictly a misplay since the Assassin was one hit from death anyway); and finally, he unloads three arrows into the Metamorph, who is no longer Charmed, with Barrage, and one of them lands a crit.   And to end the round, Secretary hits the Metamorph twice, doing way more damage to the Metamorph than Ifan did, and they’re both primarily doing physical damage, with Ifan doing additional poison and lightning damage. Champion Incarnates are a big deal for Summoners and you’ll want to get to Summoning 10 as soon as you can. And remember, Secretary is nerfed thanks to Prince’s Pet Pal.    Turn 3 As soon as Alexander tries to move, Attendant gets in a free shot, just like I had wanted. Alexander uses Blinding Radiance on Fane, Attendant, and Prince, before climbing the ladder behind Fane and hitting him with Restoration. Which is annoying, but it also puts out the fire that Fane was on, so, thanks?  : The Final Battle  Player 3 Has Entered The Game  : You… you will die… all of you… : Don’t tell me the Son of the Divine and Saviour of the World is afraid…? How does it feel?: Only a fool does not fear the Void! Now fight!As soon as the Drillworm enters the fight, the rain from before escalates into a full-blown thunderstorm, with lightning strikes randomly coming down everywhere. Like the rain, it’s all just for show. Unlike whenever someone enters a fight late every other time in the game, the Drillworm actually takes its turn immediately rather than at the end of the round.  It uses a long-ranged attack called Earth Corruption on Ifan, hitting him from literally the entire arena away. In the base game, it Petrifies anyone it hits; in Divinity: Unleashed, it sets Petrifaction instead, meaning he’ll be Petrified next turn.   Fane chugs his only poison potion, removing the healing from Restoration, and he repositions next to the Gheist. He’s Knocked Down so his movement is lowered, and he’s Blind so Battering Ram won’t reach, so this is all he can really do.  In response, the Gheist uses Chameleon Skin and nope’s out of there.     Prince has a handful of AP available. He drinks his last potion; puts down a fire totem; uses Dimensional Bolt on the Drillworm (and rolling Earth damage, which he probably didn’t want); and then Fireball on the Drillworm and Alexander, which misses Alexander, but it ignites the rest of the oil from before, setting everyone on fire.  The new fire totem targets the Drillworm. I’d rather it target someone that’s more likely to die, but the Drillworm has to go eventually, so, whatever.    The Knight is Stunned and Chilled, meaning his movement speed is rear end right now – but he has a single-minded need to focus on the Drillworm, and he spends every last AP he has to reposition close enough to do it. But he repositions next to Prince without triggering the Drillworm’s AoO. Although the Knight didn’t technically accomplish anything, his movement actually tells us two things: the first is that Alexander’s team is aggro’d on the Drillworm and will single-mindedly attempt to focus it down until it dies. When they make decisions on who to attack, their decision-making is heavily biased towards attacking the Drillworm, even if they’re a whole battlefield away or if other enemies are closer. The second is… well, technically, it’s nothing new, but the Drillworm has a minimum range requirement to trigger AoO. This is the same for everyone: AoO will only trigger if you enter and then attempt to leave a person’s melee range. But because the Drillworm is so bloody massive, its minimum range is likewise enormous, and there’s a fair amount of space underneath the Drillworm you can move without risking getting accosted.   Lohse finally uses a healing skill, Restoration, on herself, now that she’s standing in a poison cloud. Every other enemy is out of her range, technically speaking, but there’s a trick to skills like Dazzling Bolt or, more pressingly, Winter Blast: they’re Area-of-Effect skills that attack from the sky to the ground, meaning even though the Markswoman is out of Lohse’s range, Lohse can target the water barrel beneath the Markswoman with Winter Blast, and the vertical AoE will still hit her.   The Metamorph, despite having wings, decides that Lohse is the more pertinent threat over the Drillworm, and she attacks Lohse with her wands, igniting the poison cloud and doing a bit of extra damage.  The other fire totem fires on the Knight, but it’s Blinded by Alexander’s Blinding Radiance, and it whiffs.   The Markswoman puts down a Reactive Shot on Alexander and everyone and everything nearby, then fires on the Drillworm twice. Good news: it bleeds Cursed blood, so now everyone is on Necrofire.   Salem starts repositioning in an attempt to put more pressure on the Metamorph.    Attendant wades through the electrified water to attack the Markswoman, once with Electric Discharge and once with a regular swipe of its claws.    Ifan uses Tactical Retreat to put himself next to Lohse, then fires an arrow into the Metamorph’s shoulder-blades, Crippling her wings. She shouldn’t be able to use self-teleporting skills like Flight now, but as we saw with Sech Zapor, that might not be the case. And since Ifan’s about to turn to stone anyway, he might as well go the whole distance and use Fortify on himself.   Secretary could chase after the Metamorph as well, but it has the highest of high grounds, and the Markswoman is coming up on her death, so it uses Mosquito Swarm and its long-ranged attack on her instead.  Turn 4 The Drillworm passes its turn, but I don’t think this is another case of a looping command getting it stuck – I think it straight-up can’t do anything. The Drillworm has a minimum range for melee attacks, and the only targets outside of it are the fire totems. It used its only long-ranged attack last turn on Ifan, so it’s still on cooldown. The Drillworm can’t actually move, not like a regular unit – it can only move by the use of a self-teleporting skill, but the only viable places it can teleport to are covered in electrified water. Or maybe I’m wrong and it’s a looping command, idk. Point is, the Drillworm does nothing this turn.  Alexander turns around and beats the Drillworm with his staff twice. You gotta admire that gumption.    If Prince can get away, there’s a chance he could survive to the next turn. He uses Haste on himself, then tries to run for the ladder. I knew Reactive Shot was still up and I knew he’d take one in the spine for it, but I thought I could make it to the ladder before the Knight’s AoO could reach him. I was wrong. Prince is down, and Attendant and Secretary both go with him.   The Gheist, still invisible, lands a huge crit on Fane, and then it hits him with Backlash, which would normally be more than enough to take him out, but Fane’s Comeback Kid kicks in, buying him a bit more time.    I’d rather the Metamorph turn her attention towards the Drillworm – in order for this fight to conclude, it needs to die, and Alexander’s whole team is willing to help me with that, so I Teleport her onto the Gheist (which whiffs the damage on the Metamorph). And just so she kicks into gear faster, I zap her rear end with Electric Discharge as well.    The Knight uses Crippling Blow… specifically on Alexander, but his weapon does Cleave damage, so it also hits the Drillworm. That was a weird call, but, I mean, he hit the Drillworm, so… He repositions away from the Drillworm, triggering its AoO and getting bit in the back as he runs, before turning around and using Restoration on it. Since it’s Decaying, this isn’t necessarily a dumb move.   The Metamorph does exactly what I wanted her to and turns around, climbs the ladder, and targets the Drillworm, attacking it once with both wands.  The Markswoman does the exact same, attacking it twice.     Fane’s pretty badly hurt, and he doesn’t have Comeback Kid anymore, so he focuses on his own sustain as much as possible by hitting the Gheist with Mosquito Swarm. One more swing of his axe, and the Gheist is finally down. With his refunded two AP, he uses Blood Sucker on himself to give himself a bit of an extra kick, and then he repositions near the Markswoman, hoping to take her out while she’s distracted with the Drillworm.    Finally, Salem jumps into the middle of the arena, hoping to reposition near Fane and give him a bit more mobility for the coming turns. Ifan goes last, and he spends his turn being a statue.    Turn 5 I mentioned earlier that the Drillworm can’t move like a normal unit, but it knows a self-teleporting skill instead. It’s called Drillworm Burrow, and the worm uses it to leave the thin platform it spawned on to reappear in the main arena – directly underneath Salem. Drillworm Burrow does a huge amount of piercing damage when where it reappears, so Salem immediately dies. Then the Drillworm uses Earth Corruption again, this time on the Markswoman, taking her out immediately and rewarding me with her EXP. Hey, one less thing to worry about!   Alexander keeps his focus on the Drillworm, hitting it with Restoration and Staff of Magus. It has maybe 1/3rd of its HP remaining.   Lohse puts out the fire she’s on with another Restoration – and then she uses her fancy Source skill Chain Lightning. It’s essentially Electric Discharge, but superpowered: it does way more damage and it can fork up to eight times to nearby enemies. She targets the Drillworm with it, and the lightning bounces to every single person remaining on Alexander’s team, hitting them all.   The Knight uses Healing Ritual on the Drillworm, and it hits Fane and heals the Metamorph, both of which I dislike  He then passes his turn, likely because the Metamorph is in his way and he can’t climb down the stairs to approach the Drillworm. Luckily, I’m smarter than some dumb AI and I’ll never make that mistake! Fane delays.  The Metamorph hits the Drillworm twice. By the way, for reference, the Drillworm has 2,064 HP; 84 physical armour; and 54 magic armour. It’s a tanky boy, and after taking the full brunt of Alexander’s attacks and the occasional shot from me, it’s only down to 435.  Ifan tries to do the same thing Lohse just did by hitting the Drillworm with Ricochet, but the worm isn’t close enough to any other targets for the arrow to bounce to. Oh well, it’s not a weaker attack than a regular attack, so it’s not a big deal.  Fane takes his delayed turn and he spends his AP on resurrecting Prince. He’s worth more alive to me than dead. He plants Prince at the end of this thin stone corridor, just around the corner of one of the walls, where nobody could realistically have line-of-sight on him (except the Drillworm, I guess, but it just used both its self-teleporting skill and it’s long-ranged attack). Just in case, Fane chugs a magic armour potion, buffing it up for a few turns. Turn 6 The Drillworm, without any targets and with each of its attacks still on cooldown, does nothing once again.   Alexander uses one more Staff of Magus, before deciding that that’s not doing enough for him, and he gets down there to start beating the Drillworm’s poo poo in personally. He gets a crit, so, who am I to judge?   Lohse hits Alexander with Staff of Magus – the Drillworm is near death, and while it does need to die, I might as well leave that to Alexander’s team and I can change tack and start hitting them while they’re distracted. I try the same thing I tried with the Markswoman on the Metamorph, where I attacked the ground beneath her with Winter Blast because I couldn’t reach her normally, but the Metamorph is just out of reach for even my trickery.  The Knight burns to death, saving me the trouble.    Due to how Divinity: Unleashed changed the rules on death and resurrection, Prince has to wait a turn before he can act (in the base game, revived players act on the same turn they’re revived on, but at the end of the turn order. In Divinity: Unleashed, they cannot act on the same turn), but in exchange, he gets a bit more AP to use when he finally can. He uses his time to re-summon Secretary in the small amount of blood that the Gheist had left behind; he uses two more to buff Secretary with Power and Farsight Infusion; and with his last two, now that Secretary is standing right next to him, he uses Rallying Cry on himself.   Secretary opens fire on Alexander, hitting him with its long-ranged attack and with Mosquito Swarm.   The Metamorph goes next. She hits the Drillworm once with both wands – putting it down to just one HP remaining and forcing her to use the last of her AP to attack again. A big win for Team Fane since her aggro kept focused on it. With that, the Drillworm is down, crumpled over itself in the middle of the wharf.    Fane hits the Metamorph with Mosquito Swarm – if I’m lucky, the Bleeding should take her out next turn, but just in case, he uses Shackles of Pain on her. To end his turn, he repositions slightly onto the massive pile of giblets the Markswoman left behind, and he uses Blood Sucker, putting him well past half his max HP.   Bringing up the rear in the turn order, Ifan hits Alexander twice, and even manages to Silence him with his fancy bow, and then he uses the last AP he had saved the previous turn to use First Aid on himself.   Turn 7 Alexander chugs a potion, healing himself for over 300 HP, which is kind of a big deal and it sucks, and then he hits Secretary with Staff of Magus. Better Secretary than Prince, that’s for drat certain.  Lohse uses Hail Storm on Alexander – Hail Storm is essentially a more powerful Winter Blast, but it costs 3 AP to use. So that’s her whole turn.   The Bleeding, unfortunately, doesn’t kill the Metamorph – it puts her down to just six HP remaining. That’s less funny when it’s not in my favour. She uses Flay Skin on Fane (who apparently has Skin to Flay), and then she hits him once with her wands, doing extra damage now that his resistances are down. That one attack did a quarter of his HP, and now he’s on fire. He’ll need help, fast.    Luckily, Prince has just the plan: he climbs the ladder next to Fane and Blesses him, turning the fire into Holy Fire, so now he isn’t at risk of burning to death. And then, since Prince’s staff does poison damage, he whacks Fane once. His undead-ness kicks in, and the hit heals him for 58 HP. Which isn’t a lot, and he’s still liable to get one-shot by either the Metamorph or Alexander, but every little bit helps. To end his turn, he casts Haste on Fane, since he’s about to go next.  It’s time for Fane to shine! Because Prince is blocking his path to the ladder, there’s almost literally nothing he can do. Mosquito Swarm is on cooldown and every one of his other skills are melee-focused. Who could have foreseen this? Fane just uses an Electric Discharge scroll on Alexander and calls it there.   Ifan shoots Alexander twice more, and he even manages to reapply Silenced. This is a drat good bow.   Finally, Secretary uses Battering Ram on Alexander, followed by a melee attack. Alexander’s got a little less than half his HP remaining.    Turn 8 Alexander repositions next to the Metamorph, taking an AoO from Secretary for it, before firing a Staff of Magus at Fane. It’s a good thing Prince was there to provide relief – if it weren’t for his healing and giving Fane Holy Fire, there’s a real possibility that shot could have taken him out.   Lohse tries the same strategy a third time, using Ice Fan on the ladder that Alexander had just climbed. It works this time, with all three shots finding their mark. She doesn’t have any skills off cooldown to try it a fourth time, though, so she passes.  The Metamorph finally dies of her Bleeding, giving Fane two more AP on his next turn. And to add insult to injury, her blood touches electrified blood nearby and spreads the pool to Alexander, doing… a whopping 1 damage, but it does set Stunned, which is way more important.   Prince gives Fane Peace of Mind, completing the combo (after stepping away from the ladder first…) before whacking him twice with his staff, healing roughly 110 HP.    Fane is maxed out on AP after having to skip his last turn, and now that he’s loaded up with buffs, he runs right across that stone corridor, up the ladder, and, with one use of Time Warp, proceeds to hit Alexander five times, dealing a total of 291 damage. Alexander only has 104 HP left.    Ifan is out of range to hit Alexander, so he uses Tactical  And it’s Secretary with the game-winning blow, summoning a swarm of mosquitos to devour what remains of Alexander’s flesh. And with that, we’ve won. Alexander and his entire team have fallen. The Drillworm lays dead on the wharf. We’re victorious. : Alexander is dead! My contract is fulfilled… Coincidentally, the weather happens to clear up almost as soon as Alexander is defeated. All that’s left is to pick the bodies clean – the Deep-Dweller in the middle of the bog had some great stuff on it, and surely the Drillworm is no different. And that’s to say nothing of Alexander, the Bishop, the son of the Divine – he’s probably holding more than a few good trinkets himself. But…  No sooner does the weather clear up am I met with… a woman I don’t recognize, standing at the stairway to the pier. Behind her is a boat that she must have rowed in on herself. There’s nobody else with her. Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Sep 10, 2021 |
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Sep 10, 2021 05:39
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And before I get the opportunity to start looting, she approaches me. : Well, well, well. Quite the mess you’ve made here.: I’m Malady. And you’re…Being wary of a woman named another word for ‘disease.’ : She steps forward, grabs you behind the neck with alarming strength and pulls you close. She sniffs twice, her nose at your ear, then bites, piercing the lobe with a needle-sharp fang.Her nose at my what? Piercing my what? : Fane’s Theme: BLECH! : Look, I’m very high on adrenaline right now; this isn’t the sort of introductions I need at the moment. Who are you, and what did you just do? : I’ve heard and seen enough to last me a lifetime, but I don’t have any answers. I have a jigsaw puzzle, but no picture to see, and I’m getting tired of it.: Well, first things first.: She peers at you closely, a knowing squint in her eye. : (If she already knows that I met Amadia, then she may be a friend of Gareth or Gratiana. There’s no sense in being difficult about it.): I met with… Amadia. And she taught me how to grant Blessings to people or objects.: Her eyes go wide. : Wait, why do you look so surprised by that? : Hey! That stings.: She examines her hands, where the skin sizzles slightly beneath their newfound aura. As the spell fades, the skin heals once more. Her whole body seems to relax.Huh. I wonder what that means, when granting someone a Blessing makes their skin boil. : You really are Godwoken. I’m… happy. How unbecoming. : I’d like some answers from you for once. Can you be a little more specific when you say ‘destiny?’: You’ll have to ask the Meistr about that. She’s dying to meet you.: Malady beckons you to the boat. : Who’s the Meistr? : As you wish.We still have all this looting to do, after all! Malady can wait a little bit longer.  She’s parked me right beside the Drillworm, so I might as well start with it. What wonders does the Void itself keep with its strongest creatures?  Some money and a venom rune; a Worm Tremor skillbook; a ring with 4 magic armour and +1 Geomancer; an Epic two-handed sword called ‘Blade X’ that gives +2 Strength, +10% Crit chance, and grants Whirlwind for free – and it’s in nearly every way inferior to Fane’s The Final Word, so, unfortunately for a sword called Blade X, it’s vendor trash; and an amulet that –  … Funny stuff. Funny, funny stuff. The Gheist was holding some crafting materials; the Metamorph was holding a fair amount of money; the Knight had nothing; the Assassin had a silver goblet, good for wares; and the Markswoman had a Shocking arrow and some more money. That just leaves the whale himself: Bishop Alexander.  A dagger that… might be good? Sebille isn’t on my team to compare; a water rune; a magician’s hat that gives +1 Warfare so it’s giving me mixed messages; a belt that gives +1 Thievery; and a Battering Ram skillbook. There’s also Alexander’s journal:  A Sourcerer that can’t use Source. Or… perhaps he’s not a Sourcerer at all? As I understand it, there’s no real rhyme or reason to whether a person can harness their Source, and the fact that Alexander’s dad was one of the most renowned Sourcerers to ever exist might not necessarily mean that he himself is a Sourcerer at all. Which would give him some pretty serious identity issues, I’d think. Finally, I can take Alexander’s robe straight off his body. It’s a magician’s robe, as you might have guessed, but it gives +2 Strength, which is a bit of a waste.  As good as it looks on Lohse, the bonuses her other chestpiece have are worth more than Alexander’s robes are giving her, despite the higher defense numbers and despite Alexander’s robe having a slot for a rune. That’s the way it goes, sometimes. The armour that belonged to the highest-ranking King poo poo of the land gives worse bonuses than a sleeveless shirt that Lohse plucked out of the bog. But I’ll hold onto it anyway rather than mark it for wares. Just in case.  … Before I leave.  Alexander and his drat Order are the whole reason why I’m here. Why he’s got an entire fortress of Sourcerers corralled into an open-air prison. Why Sourcerers are being taken from their families and turned into zombies. Maybe I’ll help myself to a little keepsake for having beaten him in battle.    And, consequently, now nobody will know he was even here to begin with. I also stole his clothes, after all. There’s just one last thing to check before I roll in with Malady. Remember that treasure chest I spotted when I scouted the arena?  Well, not what I’d call ‘exciting,’ but hey, scrolls and money are scrolls and money.  And that’s that. We’ve done everything there is to do on Braccus Rex’s island, with the dilapidated Fort Joy and its evils finally put behind us. All that’s left is to get on the dinghy with Malady and row out to the Lady Vengeance. So… Who should we take with us? We are a party of four. There are six named characters on Fort Joy. Obviously, Fane, as our party’s avatar, must always be present. Whoever we don’t take with us, we leave behind. This is a major crossroads in the game’s story, and it’s assumed by now that, if you can beat Act One’s final boss with the team that you have, that’s probably the team you want for the rest of the game. But that’s not how we’ve been doing things in this thread. Likewise, this is guaranteed to be the end of two of the character’s stories. We’ll never see how their own journeys eventually conclude. Do we take Lohse? The healer of our party, possessed by a demon of untold power and prestige; our goddess Amadia had singled Lohse out specifically as someone to be wary of, and we have no idea who she met when she visited the Hall of Echoes. All she wants is to be free of the demons haunting her and we’ve been building her up as our strongest utility unit, from healing to positioning to crowd control. Do we take Ifan? The ranger of our party, able to do the most damage-per-input, and a member of a mercenary squad who had put out a hit on not just Bishop Alexander, but all Godwoken. Ifan has a history with working for the Magisters, but an event involving Deathfog, the world’s most dangerous substance, saw him discharged and collared, sent to Fort Joy to die with the rest of us. With his quiver full of elemental arrows, there’s no situation he isn’t useful in. Do we take The Red Prince? The Black Mage/Summoner dual-specialist of our party, formerly the next-in-line to rule the entire lizard empire. Haughty, hedonistic, and possibly sacrilegious, The Red Prince introduced himself by evaluating our worth as his personal slave, but he’s already come around to confiding in us as partners more than once. He’s on a mission to reclaim his throne and he’s apparently been having more and more attempts on his life recently – which promises that there will never be a dull moment with him. With his totems and summoned bodyguards, there will be no enemy composition that he can’t counter. Do we take Beast? A dual-wielding Red Mage, not specializing in any particular school but also not faltering in any either. Cousins to the queen of all the dwarves, he had turned away from the royal family and towards a life of piracy on the high seas when the Queen had become deranged and aggressive. But recently, he had gotten wind of some plan that the Queen was cooking up, and he’s worried that if he’s not there to personally stop whatever crime she’s planning on committing, then nobody will be able to. Do we take Sebille? The party’s thief and pickpocket, able to clean out whole pockets before anyone would be the wiser and pick locks like they never posed a challenge in the first place. She was trained by lizards to be the perfect assassin, and the one she calls the Master (not to be confused with the Meistr) uses an enchantment in the form of a scar on her cheek to control her mind and her actions to kill whoever he wanted. This is her one opportunity for revenge – to find the Master and end his life, and her own torment. As the party’s rogue, she can act more times than usual in a single round, and she’s capable of removing whole enemies from the fight all by herself, provided you don’t mind dealing with the cooldowns. Pick three. Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Sep 10, 2021 |
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Sep 10, 2021 05:41
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Prince Lohse Sebille They seem to be the most interesting characters to me and have a ton of utility compared to the others
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Sep 10, 2021 07:16
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Lohse, Prince, Sebille
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Sep 10, 2021 08:36
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Prince Lohse Sebille Yeah, gotta agree with this.
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Sep 10, 2021 08:52
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Lynneth posted:Lohse, Prince, Sebille Yep
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Sep 10, 2021 13:18
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