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Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Olive Branch posted:

You made NPC character mods with full storylines and stuff for Baldur's Gate on the Infinity Engine using WeiDU. I would think the complexity of this game would be way less difficult than that! :sun:

Yeah, but I play the Infinity Engine games by using ShadowKeeper/DaleKeeper to load me up with the most powerful gear immediately and making liberal use of ctrl-r and ctrl-y. :v:

I do not like hard or overly mechanically complex games. Just give me an actual easy mode where I can just steamroll through things with brute force, thanks.

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Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true

Cythereal posted:

I feel like there's a million conditions and environmental effects and abilities everyone has and they all interact in a variety of different ways and there's positioning and starting combat with bait characters and there's elevation and teleportation and and and...

Haha, well, to be fair, I am playing on the hardest difficulty, and I've been through the game a handful of times. There's a lot to keep track of - I certainly didn't think that Ifan shooting the poisonous frog was going to cause an explosion because the frog bled poison, and it's easy to talk about stuff like that in hindsight. I love this game to bits, though, and I don't mind playing through it so that you don't have to in order to experience it. As long as I'm explaining everything well enough for people to understand!

Schwartzcough posted:

So how does the game resolve conflicting quests? Like, if you recruit Sebille first and she ganks the dreamer lizard, are you forever locked out of doing the Red Prince's questline?

Each character's questlines have immutable "checkpoints" that everyone experiences simultaneously, although they're more tied to the main plot than to their individual stories. I only ever had one character's questline stall out, although I'm pretty sure that was a bug.

To more directly answer your question, I'm actually not sure. Prince mentioned that Stingtail wasn't a great Dreamer and that he was told to find another lizard named Bahara after we escape, so clearly there's a backup plan for his questline and Stingtail was more of an introduction than anything wholly necessary. And provided Sebille doesn't kill Zaleskar, she and Ifan likely won't have any crossed wires.

On the vote: it looks like Gawin and Withermoore are tied at two apiece. So that means I'll just have to do both!

FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

I really like how this inescapable prison island has escape routes out it's rear end.

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



It seems at though new iterations of RPGs (c or regular) really go for a more exotic blend of races than the usual human\elves\dwarves and get a lot more use out of status effects. I approve.

Aren't we going to take our newfound elf on a cannibalism tour? Or do you only get to nibble on specific, quest-designated, bones?

Negative_Earth
Apr 18, 2002

BeiiN AlL ii CaN B

Xander77 posted:

Aren't we going to take our newfound elf on a cannibalism tour? Or do you only get to nibble on specific, quest-designated, bones?

You (elf or not) can eat any meat you find. Elves merely get a little blurb that pops up and tells a little story- like how the meat became, well, meat. Sometimes it'll reveal a buried treasure spot or flavor text for other events/characters.

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true
The vote from the last update was tied between taking Gawin’s path to freedom and trusting that Withermoore’s information about the island was still good. There’s nothing saying I can’t do both, though! This being the kind of RPG this game is, I’d receive experience for doing one, then going back and doing the other anyway.



Heading to the red flag on our map, we find Gawin standing in front of some disheveled ivy. He’s been standing there for a while.

: Come – this way! In the back. Follow me.



He heads straight through the ivy, revealing a secret alcove that I could have easily found before if I headed in this direction when I was exploring the beach, but I didn’t.



The very first thing I find in this alcove isn’t exactly a pretty sight. A dead human that looks like it’s covered in acid burns; a broken ooze barrel with its contents strewn about the ground; and another ooze barrel, still intact.

(If we weren’t playing as Fane, this is where you would find him if you wanted to recruit him.)



A double-rainbow in front of a waterfall provides some soothing scenery to go with the grisly sight. And if you’ve ever wondered what a double-rainbow might mean, well, obviously, it means that there’s treasure nearby: there’s a very large, very fancy treasure chest sitting on a cliff between the rainbows that we can’t normally access without the Teleport skill.




A shield; a copper ring that provides one more magic armour (and nothing else); and a Tentacle Lash skillbook. The ring is better than nothing, and we have very few rings in our inventory right now, and Tentacle Lash is a pretty useful Polymorph skill.

: Transform your arm into a tentacle and lash at a target within arm’s reach. Applies Atrophy on hit.

Atrophy is a pretty damning status effect and I’ll explain what it does once I apply it to someone.



Gawin is standing at the edge of the cliff and he occasionally tells me to hurry it up…



… but there’s a cliff going upward with some climbable vines across from him.

Well, Gawin’s not going anywhere – he’s a proper quest, and quests don’t progress without your participation. He can wait a little while longer.




The Rain spell is useful for cleaning up most troublesome spills and hazards, such as the ooze.


: Fort Joy: Beach

Looks like someone is doing very well for themselves in this hidden alcove! They have a tent, and it’s in far better shape than anything in the ghetto; they set up a laundry line; they even have quite a few supplies, such as bags of food and baskets full of vegetables.



No hidden camp on a prison island is complete without a crying child, of course.



: Hey, hey now. What’s wrong?



: Do you need a hug? Everybody could use a hug once in a while.

: The child nods and reaches up to you. As you hold her, her breathing grows slow and calm. Her wet face is damp on your neck. She lets go and looks up at you with a small smile.

: *Sniff.* Thanks. You’re nice. You can have this. I found it outside but I can’t read it yet. That’s next year, and then I’ll learn it.

: She nestles back into her spot on the ground and starts tracing figures – a little family in front of a house – in the dirt.

Being a good adult gets you an Electric Discharge spell, which will replace the one we used in the tutorial fight way back when, and 100 EXP. We’re still only level three, so all the experience we can get helps.



Coming out to see who the child is taking to is what is probably the ‘proprietor’ of this tent.



: Whoa, easy. We mean no harm. We’re prisoners too.

: She eyes you suspiciously.

: Please. Please just go.

Well, I suppose that could have gone a little better, but it definitely could have gone worse.



There’s a lot that we could filch in this area – there’s a minor healing potion that we could really use, if we wanted to steal from this elf that’s clearly just trying to survive – but, more interestingly, there’s another elf standing to the side and surrounded by seedlings. Including a drudanae seedling.

This guy is from another Larian Gift Bag mod. With this mod active, some plants and ingredients for recipes can be grown in pots and then harvested for whatever it is you’d like, including selling them for a profit. Drudanae tends to go for a pretty good price, too, if you can manage to get that seed from him.

: A serene elf potters between his plants. Noticing your interest, he beckons you over with a smile.

: Ho, stranger! Come, come! I know this hellish place seems devoid of welcome. But, look! Tuir-Cendelius smiles! My seedlings grow strong. May their life bring joy to our own.



: Certainly… but I prefer the company of someone that can speak back.

: Indeed! But if you can’t hear the intelligence of plants… perhaps you are not listening hard enough. Here, take these!



Each character in my party gets a bucket, a seed, and a backpack. Which clutters their inventory a little bit, but whatever.

: What brought you to Fort Joy? Something related to your gardening, perhaps?

: The jolly expression on his face falters and drops. Hollow-eyed, he twists and turns the plant in his hands until it is no more than dead leaves and dirt.

: Deathfog… all gone, all gone, all gone. My Mindula, no more. No more my Samil, my Valeria…

: His mouth sets in a stern line, cruel and stubborn.



: … Trauma can affect everyone differently and we all have our ways of coping with it.

: Your words seem to jolt him back to the present moment. He shakes his head and the mask of hatred disappears. He smiles again, even wider than before, yet his eyes stay hollow.

: Oh, look at me, reminiscing about the olden days again! Far better to work the soil, to tend the seedlings, to make life, to make life, to make life

: The elf returns to his planting, grinning and humming a happy little ditty under his breath.

Well. Better leave him to his own thing, then.

Planting and harvesting the plants is very simple: all you need is a bucket and a plant. You don’t even need the seed.





The herbalist gave us two Whisperwood plants and two tea leaves, and his hoarding the drudanae for himself. I don’t think to steal it from him – I think to stay the hell away from a serial killer.

I fast travel back to the ghetto, since I’m going to be back here soonish anyway, to drop off the plants and their planters.



Once you have your plants in your bucket, you just set it down anywhere, and it’ll grow over time. They tend to bloom pretty quick.



This is maybe ten seconds later. Just like that, this Whisperwood is ready to be harvested, which you do just by clicking on it.

Harvesting a plant will give you two of whatever it is you grew, so you can plant it again if you want. You can retrieve the bucket that it grew in, and it’ll be filled with clay, meaning it’s useless for anything other than growing plants – but if that’s all that you want anyway, then hey, Bob’s your uncle.



Heading north from the hidden camp, we’re about to come to a hidden section of the beach from when we first landed on the island. Also, the game autosaves, which, you know, is always a good sign.



It’s a turtle!



: Quite often it’s difficult for me to feel anything at all.

: I envy you, then. I feel only ice, as if my soul has been ripped open to allow the chill of nothingness to invade it. It threatens to consume me. It threatens to consume all…

… It’s a turtle?



It’s a handful of turtles! Fun fact: a group of turtles is called a ‘bale.’ It’s a bale of turtles!!!



: Combat Music 1
: Something Is Wrong With These Turtles

Once I approach the bale of turtles, they each transform, letting their inner darkness consume them and turn them into avatars for the endtimes. They are turtles in name only.

They’re each level 2, and I’m level 3, and I outnumber them three to four, so this should be a relatively easy fight.





Sebille opens the fight by Backlashing the turtle behind her, putting herself behind the turtle and dealing a single backstab. Then she demonstrates Tentacle Lash and slaps the turtle in the legs, giving it Atrophy.

Atrophy removes the strength in a person’s limbs and forces them to drop their weapon. Anyone with Atrophy also cannot use any skill that requires an equipped weapon or shield or any part of their body. It’s a devastating status effect for a melee-focused DPS or tank to have because they’re essentially gutted and are forced to rely on any magic they might have. Likewise, it’s not especially damning for mages, but can be annoying depending on your loadout.

Silenced does the exact same thing, but for magic, so it’s really bad for mages and not so bad for tanks, etc.

The turtle having Atrophy means it can’t bite us, so unless it has any magic stuffed in that shell of theirs, it should essentially be out for a turn.




The largest turtle uses Impalement on Ifan, Fane, and Lohse, which Cripples them all, and to make matters worse, Impalement also drops a puddle of oil wherever the attack is focused. Combined, essentially speaking, none of them are going to be able to move at all: even a few steps could cost them all their AP.

And on top of that, the giant turtle hits Ifan with Battering Ram, so now he’s extra boned on movement.




To give you an idea of how slow those three characters are, trying to reposition onto the nearby platform, which, in reality, is only a few feet away, would cost twelve AP.

Fane uses Battle Stomp on both the giant turtle and Lohse – Battle Stomp removes all non-cursed surfaces, so at least she won’t be standing in oil. After that, he uses Battering Ram on the turtle Sebille is on: despite all the movement penalties, Battering Ram isn’t affected.





The last turtle waddles over to Ifan (which is a cute animation) before biting him right in the shin. And then it casts a unique spell called Turtle Kiss, which is a ranged water-element spell that hits three times. Just like that, Ifan’s not doing so hot, and he’s probably going to die next turn.





Lohse tries to give Ifan a fighting chance by healing him for 69 (nice) HP; giving him Armour of Frost so he can more easily tank another Turtle Kiss; and then she Encourages everyone in her party, including Sir Lora.





The turtle that Sebille focused on can’t physically strike her because of Atrophy, so it moves a step away (and taking an AoO for it) before using Turtle Kiss and then casting a Rain spell. I’m fine with that – the water washes away the oil.



Ifan uses Pin Down on the giant turtle, hoping that it’s too far away to close in and hit him with a physical attack. Thanks to Knocked Down, he doesn’t have the AP to do anything else.




One important bit of tactical info for the combat in this game: a unit cannot occupy the same space as another unit, whether it’s friend or foe. Sebille does extra damage if she’s directly behind a target, but Fane is standing in her way.

Thankfully, the backstab window is just large enough for her to get it with a bit of finagling, and she hits the turtle twice – and it promptly explodes, igniting everyone in a decent radius around it. Ifan and Lohse are spared, but Fane, Sebille, and the giant turtle are not.



Ifan’s earlier gambit paid off, and the giant turtle doesn’t have the AP to do much attacking. So it uses Fortify on itself instead, granting it a huge amount of physical defense.




Fane uses Mosquito Swarm on the farther turtle in order to make it bleed, and then he whacks the giant turtle – which then explodes again. My best guess is that the strike moved some part of its on-fire body to touch some oil that wasn’t washed away.




Rather than do any attacks, the smaller turtle casts Rain again (which puts out the larger turtle), then uses Ice Fan on the ground Fane and Sebille are standing on, as opposed to actually at them. It freezes their feet to the ground, but it could have accomplished that it if actually attacked them, and not attack at them.




Lohse uses Hail Strike on the smaller turtle, trying, and failing, to avoid Ifan, and then she whacks the larger turtle with her staff, which is an unusual move for a mage. It, too, promptly explodes, and it does so much fire damage that Fane immediately calls out for a healer.




After examining the final remaining turtle and learning it’s not actually resistant to water, Ifan coats his arrowheads in water and then unloads into it.

The turtle takes damage from the arrow; water damage from the watered down arrowhead; it also explodes from the strike, similar to how the larger one did when Fane hit it; and then, because all of that took its HP to zero, it exploded for good, which kills Lohse.

But hey. Small price to pay for victory.



Only the largest turtle had anything interesting in it: some money; some boots (and most of us still aren’t wearing anything on our feet); and a unique wand called Turtle’s Claw. It does high poison damage for its level, but nobody uses wands anyway, so, into the wares it goes.

In case you’re curious, the giblets are best used as an ingredient for a scroll, and the intestines can be combined with any water source and be turned into a Water Balloon, which is a grenade that drops water wherever it lands.



: Foolish to attempt an escape by sea in these waters…

There’s some poor dead sod lying on the beach near the turtle nest. Unlike with the crocodiles, there’s no blood surrounding this body, so it wasn’t eaten.


around here are pretty glassy. Can’t be much more than a few miles to shore, can it?

Poor guy was just hungry and desperate. Staying here on this prison island will do that to anyone, I’m sure.



Heading west from the turtle nest, we find a chest half-sunken in the water… and we can see Tam, the boy we first met when we washed up on Fort Joy, across a rocky divider splitting his lagoon from our beach.



This is the first lock we’ve found that’s really tested our lockpicking ability: you need at least one point in Lockpicking in order to plunder its depths.



Luckily, Sebille has us covered.



A mage’s robe; some money; and a Restoration scroll. It’s overall not a bad haul but the mage’s robe is level 2, and we are currently level 3.



Still, that’s better than the do-nothing rags Lohse was wearing.



West of the turtle nest is – huh.




I’ve… never seen this before. This isn’t in the base game. And Divinity: Unleashed doesn’t provide any content: it’s all just gameplay rebalancing.



There’s a rocky cliff that leads directly onto the deck of a ship that had crashed into this beach on Fort Joy. This isn’t the ship we came on; that one was literally ripped in half. This one almost looks brand new, save for, you know, the whole running-aground bit.

Towards the end of its post-launch development cycle, Divinity: Original Sin 2 had a fresh, new, whole-game sidequest implemented. Something about collecting unique armour pieces. The quest automatically applies to new saves, and you can’t opt out, so it’s not a Gift Bag mod. This ship must be a part of that new quest.

This is exciting! I’ve never done this quest before. I have no idea what to expect on this ship.



There’s a ton of dead bodies around with their blood having exploded around their corpses. There are a few puddles of ooze lying about on the deck. And one of the bodies appears to have something growing out of it…





: The vines have split the corpse’s chest with incredible force. Thin roots wriggle from limbs and nail-beds, anchoring it to the ground.



: Before you’ve even registered the cool flesh, the vines lash around your wrist and drag you close. They pulse, tightening mercilessly – and release you, withdrawing sluggishly. As if sated – for now.

Uh… good to know that I’m… delicious? Is that my takeaway here?

A short distance ahead, on the ship’s bow, it looks like there’s a party involving some Magisters and a single elf Sourcerer, wearing one of those collars.



: They do not earn the honour.

: A group of Magister circle an elf, weapons drawn. The hound barks to draw their attention.

: Sir – we’ve got company!



: If she is, indeed, a Scion, then it’s my duty to protect her. From you.

: Ugh – you can stow the mystical elven faff. I was there when the Deathfog fell on your forests – your hedge-magic weren’t much use then, eh?

: You… I try to give you a chance. More than your Divine Order give mine.

: Ah, sir? Her armour

: The Scion twitches in sudden rage, and her armour uncoils as if made of living vines.

I mean… most vines are already living.

: No more chances.


: Combat Music 2
: Daeyena And The Living Armour

Immediately, we’re thrust into the next fight. Daeyena does what any good player PC should do and opens it with a cheap shot, blinding the Magister to her left.




She then Fortifies herself (a very smart move, considering her position), and then she attacks the guy she just blinded with her spear.

Spears are melee weapons, but their damage scales off Finesse, not Strength. They’re a two-handed weapon, and while they don’t pack the same punch as a two-handed sword or hammer, they do have twice the reach as those other weapons. This also means that a spear-user has a massive circle around themselves where they can get an Attack of Opportunity.




My party is kind of far from the fight, and there’s an attack dog to my north. Sebille uses Backlash on it, and then Tentacle Lash – it’s a safe bet than an anti-Sourcerer attack dog doesn’t have any magic to fight with, so this will knock it out for a turn. But it also means it’s going to have a boatload of AP to work with the turn after that.




Krendt, the main Magister, uses Crippling Blow on Daeyena, followed by Battering Ram. Although she has a ton of physical defense and she doesn’t take a lot of damage from the attacks, the status effects mean serious business.





Fane can also use Battering Ram, but his path is hilariously narrow, as if the game really, really wants me to hit that one guy. Unfortunately, I misclick, and Fane stops just centimeters short of actually hitting him.

A well-lined-up Battle Stomp at least hits all three of them.



The dog, thanks to Atrophy, is forced to pass, and Ifan… I have a plan for him, but he needs to delay his turn to do it.

That means this Magister gets to go next, and he uses his turn by casting Blinding Radiance. Blinded is a pretty serious condition for melee fighters, including Fane and Daeyena, so they’re at a bad disadvantage.




Lohse uses Teleport on Ifan, to move him up to the raised platform on one of the ship’s masts. As our archer, the height advantage will give him a ton of options.

She uses her last AP to heal Daeyena for 69 HP (nice). Daeyena is currently only a neutral NPC, but hey, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that.



Swentin, the Magister lizard, hits Fane with Bouncing Shield, and then calls it a day.





When Lohse teleported Ifan up top, the damage he took from the spell caused him to bleed. Which means he can coat his arrowheads in his own blood for some bonus physical damage. That’s metal as hell :black101:

Ifan is also blinded from Blinding Radiance, but the thing about that spell is that it has a maximum range, and stepping away from whoever is casting it will also remove the Blinded status. Ifan, like everyone else, can reposition slightly for free with the Pawn Talent, so he takes a step back before pocking the guy with a bloody arrow.




Sebille’s kind of busy with the attack dog, so she continues to stab it and leaves the main fight to the others.




Daeyena attempts to reposition and gets an AoO for her troubles; then she attacks Ellwin, the Magister with Blinding Radiance (a good idea), and then once more on Krendt (a bad idea – you want to try and focus your damage if you can).



Krendt hits her right back, and, deciding that his revenge has been exacted, decides to let bygones be bygones.




Fane uses Mosquito Swarm on Ellwin, then tries to make a swing with his hammer, but misses thanks to the blindness.



Now that the Atrophy has worn off, the dog homes in on Lohse (and getting stabbed once more with Sebille’s AoO) and bites her twice. A dog’s bite will cause Bleeding on hit, so, this isn’t a good spot for Lohse – you typically want your healers to be out of the action, if possible.




Ifan uses Pin Down on Swentin to keep her from approaching Fane or Daeyena, at least not without burning a ton of AP, and then plugs Ellwin with another arrow.




Ellwin uses Shocking Touch on Daeyena – a modestly powerful, early-game Aerothurge spell – that applies Shocked, but because the pool of blood is so large underneath Daeyena, it reaches all the way to Fane’s feet and applies Shocked to him, too. Then, to add insult to injury, he bashes Daeyena in the spine with his mace.




Lohse’s not in a great position because of that dog, but she doesn’t have a whole lot of options available to her. She can’t protect herself since she doesn’t have any spell that can mitigate physical damage, and Restoration and Teleport are both still on cooldown.

So, instead, she uses Hail Strike on Krendt and Ellwin, and then Armour of Frost on Daeyena. It won’t remove her Shocked status, but it’ll protect her if she tries to move through the electrified blood.




Swentin begins approaching Fane, but she has arrows sticking out of her ankles, so she’s a bit sluggish about it. And when she steps onto the ice that Hail Strike just put down, she slips and falls, causing Knocked Down. In the base game, that would have been the end of her turn.

Instead, she gets back up, and uses the last of her AP to bash Fane in the head. Luckily, he’s still wearing that bucket.





Since the attack dog is still facing away from Sebille, she uses Throwing Knives on it and gets the backstab damage bonus before approaching. Once she’s in place, she uses Flesh Sacrifice, which gives her one more AP at the cost of -1 Constitution for two turns.

In the base game, Flesh Sacrifice also boosted the user’s attack by 10% and it generated a pool of blood on use. The -1 Constitution is a great trade-off for more action points and more attack and a puddle of blood, which can be useful for a lot of reasons – like, imagine if Sebille were an archer with Elemental Arrowheads. That’s a ton of good poo poo, right then and there.

In Divinity: Unleashed, Flesh Sacrifice not only does not give you the attack bonus or the pool of blood, is also causes Bleeding (which, to be fair, will spawn puddles of blood over time). So now Sebille is losing HP per turn, and she has less Constitution, so she has less HP to begin with. It’s a pretty mean nerf to the skill, but it was a very strong skill to begin with, and unlike Adrenaline, it doesn’t ‘borrow’ the AP from her next turn.

Anyway, she then stabs the dog twice more.



On her turn, Daeyena uses All In on Ellwin, which takes him out. On his death, he spawns another, larger pool of blood, which spreads to Krendt and Swentin, which touches the electrified pools, which does air damage to the other two Magisters and applies Shocked to them as well. In terms of raw damage done, that was a pretty good move.



Hurt that his earlier attempt to let the water flow under the bridge was so rudely disregarded, Krendt uses Crippling Blow on Daeyena once again, and then passes, because he doesn’t have the AP to do anything more thanks to Shocked.




Fane only has three AP to work with too. He uses Blood Sucker, which only costs one (and, bonus, it removes the electrified blood underneath him, meaning he can move again safely), and then he uses his final two to attack Swentin.





The attack dog’s AI tries to prioritize Daeyena because her HP is so low, so it runs away from Sebille (and taking an AoO for it) and Lohse (and taking an AoO for it), and when it tries to worm between Fane and Swentin, Daeyena displays the superior range of a spear and attacks the dog between them, taking it out.

That was very lucky. It probably could have killed Lohse if it focused on her.




Ifan makes things even messier by using Fossil Strike to lay down some oil onto Swentin. With the slowness from the oil, plus the Shocked-turned-to-Stunned, and maybe the Crippled if she still has it, she’s really not going to be moving anywhere.

Now that Swentin is thoroughly controlled, he fires another arrow into Krendt, reapplying his Shocked status.




Daeyena is very close to death, so Lohse heals her for another 69 HP, and then fires a Staff of Magus spell onto Swentin. I’m spreading my damage out a little thin, but the composition of the battleground doesn’t let me get as close as I would like to do other stuff.



Swentin has just enough AP to use Battle Stomp on Fane, and nothing else.




Now that the dog is dead, Sebille joins into the fight, and all of her skills have just come off cooldown. She jumps in by hitting Swentin with Backlash, and since Krendt is about to go next, she uses Tentacle Lash on him to try and force him to pass his next turn.

Naturally, it whiffs a man that’s both freezing cold and is numb from electricity.



All Daeyena can do is hit Swentin once. Since she had to reposition to do it, and since she isn’t an allied NPC, she sees Sebille’s hiding place and forces her to un-hide.



Noticing that there’s an elf thief standing right there, Krendt goes up to Sebille and makes a swing – and since his sword is so massive (and it has Cleave damage), he also hits Swentin and Daeyena.



Fane can still only generate three AP per turn, so he uses two of them to cast Mosquito Swarm on Swentin and make her bleeding, adding to the litany of status effects she has.




Swentin tries to go after Lohse, but an AoO from Sebille and Daeyena take her out for good.

That just leaves Krendt, and he’s in bad shape. A three-hit combo from Ifan, Lohse, and Sebille take him out, and the fight is won.

: The elf murmurs, stroking her armour as if soothing a wild beast. It is incomplete – and made, it seems, from the vines themselves.

: The spores grieve – they wish only to create, not kill. This is why they grow armour from the vines, do you see? To protect me.



: A set of armour crafted by sapient vines… it’s fair to say that it may be the only set of its kind. I’ve never seen or heard of something like this before.

: And never again. The spores are creation magic. Old enough that even we Scions forget.

: I find them. Hope they can restore the Ancestor Trees lost in the war. But the Magisters chain me and send my spores away – for study. And in wrong hands…



: You say they had been sent away? Do you know to where?

: The ship docks at the mainland before this island. Where exactly, I do not know. But… I think the armour does. The presence within wakes. It wants to be whole.



: I’m sure you don’t need reminding, but there’s an ocean between us and where you said the spores might be.

: It does not matter. My spores go, and so I follow. Wherever the armour leads. It is impatient to be gone – but I thank you for your help. You save more than one elf today.



And then Daeyena just… leaves. She disappears once she hits the bridge of the ship.

That was a fun battle. As the victor, I do my thing and search all of the bodies for any loot, but the most exciting thing they have is money and crafting ingredients.



One of the contaminated corpses has a severed foot that’s still perfectly edible, though.

Someone in the thread asked why we aren’t stuffing Sebille’s face with body parts – she’s an elf, and elves can learn the secrets of a person’s memories by consuming their flesh. The answer, without giving too much away, is that I wanted to put that off until later in the game; there’s at least one event I have in mind that I want to save all this juicy meat for.




Despite the ship being littered with dead bodies, nobody is actually carrying anything lootable – maybe someone already picked the place clean.

But they did leave behind this: a ‘Flawed Contamination Spore.’ The gold text denotes that it’s a unique item and is probably story-related, so holding onto it is a good idea.



The stern of the ship looks to be where the captain made his quarters, which is a weird design decision. Or maybe it’s the quartermaster that worked here? Either way, the ship’s manifesto is there for the taking.



Ah, so, if this is to be believed, we know exactly where Daeyena’s spores went. It’s too bad she didn’t stick around for a few minutes longer.

And with that, there’s nothing left to do on this ship. We’ve done the fight and we’ve begun the game-long sidequest for Daeyena’s living armour spores. I’m excited! I’ve never done this quest before and I have no idea how it’ll resolve.

Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Mar 3, 2021

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true


Before we get to speaking with Gawin, I’d like to have myself a shovel, just in case, since the Red Prince isn’t guaranteed to be coming back. After a bit of searching throughout the entire island, I finally come across one in the ghetto’s shanty town – but it’s listed as owned, as denoted by the red text, and picking it up will get us caught for stealing.



Stealing it is the same as pickpocketing someone, except sneaking is optional. As long as you aren’t seen doing it, you won’t immediately be suspected of wrongdoing.



But, eventually, someone is going to notice.



NPCs will wander the area searching for whoever the culprit might be. They’ll react this way if they’re pickpocketed, but if it’s an owned item that you picked up off the ground, like the shovel, then any NPCs that notices it’s missing will join in the search.



The simple solution is to hide forever. Or, at least, until anyone involved in the search gives up and goes about their business. All NPCs will eventually just accept that whatever was stolen is gone forever if you evade them long enough.



After enough time, both of the NPCs that were after me for stealing the shovel have given up, and I’m free to interact with them as if nothing had happened.



While I’m on the topic of thievery, let’s go over pickpocketing someone. Hilde, the woman that deals with wares that fell off the back of a truck (and Scoundrel skills) will be our target, ironically enough.

When you’re pickpocketing someone, they still maintain their own business and motions as if you weren’t there, meaning a target could simply walk away while you’re rummaging through their stuff, or they could suddenly turn around and see your hands in their pockets.

You can only pickpocket any character once; after you’ve picked a target, regardless of how much you actually stole, you can’t pick them again, even if you got away with it the first time. If you only steal a single gold coin and nothing else, then that’s a bit of a waste, since you can’t go back. Just looking at their inventory won’t incur this penalty, but once you take something, they’re off-limits.



So, what you do is, you talk to the character you want to steal from with someone other than your thief. This will lock their focus in one direction and it’ll keep them from moving. Then, you change your focus from the character doing the speaking to someone else: in this screenshot, Fane is speaking with Hilde, as denoted by the speech bubbles over their head, but my focus is currently on Ifan.

Do this with every NPC in the area so that nobody can turn and spot your target as they’re getting pilfered.



With Noosey also looking away from Hilde, Sebille is free to go in and start rummaging through Hilde’s stuff.



This is Hilde’s entire inventory, ripe for the taking.

However much you can steal is based on your Thievery score. The higher the score, the more weight and the more gold value you can steal. Underneath the pocket is two bars, denoted with a weight and a coin.



There’s one skillbook in particular that I want, so I stole it. The book’s weight is added to the weight bar, and the book’s gold value is added to the gold bar. If either of those bars max out, I can’t steal anything more.



Sebille helps herself to a Resurrection scroll and about 100 coins. The things she’s stolen weigh very little, but she’s stolen as much gold value as her Pickpocketing skill will allow, and therefore, I can steal no more from Hilde.



It’s not going to be long for Hilde to notice she’s been had, so the obvious solution is to high-tail it out of there with the character that’s holding the goods.



Hilde notices almost immediately that her pockets are lighter and sets about finding the crook. Naturally, the first person she questions is Fane, the one that distracted her to start with.



If the character the victim talks to isn’t holding the goods, you can allow the search without any risk of penalty.



However, the goods are marked as stolen in your inventory. I haven’t tested this myself and documentation for it is scarce, but if you’re pulled over by law enforcement and you let them search you, they might confiscate all of your stolen materials. I’m not positive if that’s the case, though.

And that’s about the long and short of how to pickpocket someone in this game. Thievery is a very powerful civil skill to invest points in: with enough points, essentially, everything in the game is totally free and you never have to worry about not having enough materials or running out of money ever again.

Before I move on: the skillbook that I stole was the Scoundrel skill Chloroform:

: Does scaled water-element damage and sets Sleeping for one turn. Does not break invisibility or sneaking.

In the base game, Chloroform does ‘magic damage,’ meaning it didn’t actually do damage; instead, it destroyed magic armour on impact. If the target had more magic armour than the chloroform could destroy, the target stayed awake. If the target had no magic armour, they went to sleep, but they didn’t take any damage.

In the Divinity: Unleashed mod, they changed it to do water damage instead, which is a straight buff (unless the target is resistant to water, of course). Crowd control is heavily nerfed from the base game going into Divinity: Unleashed, so the fact that Chloroform was buffed in the mod is an interesting turn of events.

Anyway! With all of that said and done, and with the mechanics of pickpocketing thoroughly explained, let’s finally go meet Gawin.



Gawin, buddy! Been waiting long?

: Perfect! Now teleport me down to the ledge behind me, near the tree stump. I’ll bring you right after. We’re almost free – can you taste the ale? The scent of home?

Right, sure. But before all that.




Gawin is Fort Joy’s Aerothurge peddler. Aerothurge involves shooting lightning bolts from your fingertips and all that, but it’s also about things like mobility, positioning, evasion – Aerothurge is one of the more powerful schools in the game, at least in my opinion.

But I’m not going to take any of that. I’m going to steal the clothes right off his body.



His robe is worth precisely as much in gold value as I can take, and it’s way better than Lohse’s shirt, so she’ll appreciate the upgrade to her wardrobe.

Unfortunately, Gawin’s model doesn’t change, which is kinda lame.



Gawin realizes he’s been stolen from, but before he can start his investigation, Lohse teleports him down to the ledge, just like he asked.




Since Lohse was the one that teleported him, Gawin teleports her right back down to the ledge with him. Which was not a turn of events that I had expected – it was Fane he made the deal with, after all.



We teleport Gawin across the gulch, just like he instructed, and he promptly tells us to gently caress ourselves since he got his. Teleportation can’t be used on the self; Lohse is the only one with the gloves; and nobody in Fort Joy but Gawin sells Aerothurge spells, and he didn’t even have that skillbook on him.



She’s taking it pretty well, at least.



The solution to this puzzle is to attack the stump on the ledge, and whoever is the victim to Gawin’s plot will point that out if you take too long to solve it.

What I said earlier, about Lohse being the one with the gloves: that doesn’t actually matter. Player characters can trade items between themselves as much as they like, for free (or for one AP if they’re in battle), regardless of distance. The game justifies it by saying everyone has ‘magic pockets.’

Also, she could just fast-travel to somewhere.

With that in mind, now’s as good a time as any to put on that fancy new robe.



Looking pretty snazzy! While we’re at it, Sebille might as well equip her old hand-me-down, since she’s wearing a rag as a chest piece.




Lohse takes her frustration on being so obviously duped by Gawin out on the rotten stump, which promptly falls to pieces. It’s covering a hole in the cliff, which, when we climb down it…



Drops us into the gulch itself without dealing any damage.



Seems like someone had a similar idea.



A soggy note and a disembodied hand is this elf’s final parting gift to whoever finds them.



Well, unfortunately for them, the first person to read their final words isn’t a fellow elf. But a fellow elf can at least learn their final thoughts.




Consuming a body part as an elf can reveal anything from new skills, to the location of hidden treasures, to hints on puzzles, to nothing at all but a bit of flavour. This elf had a secret and wanted another elf to find it – and now, we know exactly where it is.



The next step on Lohse’s solo adventure is to see where this cave in the gulch will lead her…



A prison block. Didn’t Withermoore say something about a prison…?

And this cell in particular isn’t even unoccupied.

: Oh-ho-ho no you don’t. Get out of here. Go on. OUT!



This is a unique conversation, meant specifically for Lohse. Since she isn’t our avatar character, the discussion goes purely on how she wants it to go, meaning we’re merely an audience to what she’s going through. I have no input on what she says or does while speaking with this dwarf.

Also, this dwarf isn’t wearing a Source collar…

: I’m tryin’ to relax here, aren’t I? Whatever’s going on with you and your passenger, I don’t really need it in my vicinity.

: You can… you can see it?

: See? Nay. Sense? Good gods, yes.

: You’re a mystic too?

: Mystic? HAH. Used to be a sorta demonologist though. Was learning the arts, at least. Never did have much of a knack for it, t’be honest. Studied under a real maestro, though; learned this ‘n’ that, too.

: C’mon, make yourself useful! There’s got to be something you can do…

: Well… I might be able to tell you exactly what’s inside you. Might be any number of things: A ghost, a floater, a lucid dreamer who took a wrong turn somewheres… Let me try something…

: He places a thumb on each of Lohse’s temples and one foot gently on hers.

: Now, l-e-e-e-t’s see… WHOA!

: Holy, holy, holy… You oughta thank your lucky stars that thing hasn’t turned you into a meat puppet by now.

: Crick on a cracker…

: You need help. Serious help.

: *Sigh* Don’t I know it.

: Do me a favour: Get out of here, and hie ye to the north of Driftwood. My old master was hot on the heels of something there, and if anyone can help you, he can.

: Driftwood. Old master. Hot heels. Got it.

: Don’t you worry. With something like that inside you, Lohse, he’ll either come to you, or you’ll be drawn to him soon enough.



With that, Lohse has a new objective: escape the island and head north of a settlement called Driftwood. Whatever is inside her head is far more serious than she anticipated.

Because this advanced her story, her attitude towards out avatar character, Fane, increased. Typically, attitude isn’t going to be a serious stat to focus on, but it’ll unlock more dialogue options as our companions get friendlier with us.



The door to Zillik’s cell isn’t even locked. The guy just likes being there. I guess, since he isn’t wearing a collar, he’d rather not draw attention to himself, which I can understand.



The prison block goes deeper to the east, and blood splatters dot the floor the deeper in they go…



… and to the west is a door.



Which is locked.

Lohse very much should not be exploring too deeply into a dungeon by herself, so she’ll stay put for now and wait for the others to meet up with her.



Withermoore said that the hatch next to this statue will go straight to the prison block beneath the fort. He wasn’t lying about the switch on the statue or the hatch, so he’s probably telling the truth about where it leads.



Not quite what I expected. And there’s a live torch here – was someone here recently?



Traveling further east finds us a statue of Amadia, one of the seven gods of the world and the matron to all mages and magicians in Rivellon. This acts as a Waypoint, which is weird, since the statue aboveground is also a Waypoint and is, like, ten steps to the west and up a ladder. But whatever: finding a Waypoint is free experience.



Heading further east, we come across a locked door – and we can see Lohse and the prison block on just the other side of it.

You can pick this lock if you want, provided your Thievery skill is high enough, but…




… there’s a much simpler solution.



Now that we’re reunited with Lohse, we can explore the prison block a little bit. We’re directly underneath the fortress of Fort Joy – escape off the island is likely still a short way away, but escape out of the prison is right in front of us.

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true
We can get started exploring the block by checking out what’s in the cells. They’re all locked, but Fane’s bony fingers and Thievery skill of zero is enough to undo them.




A whole lotta nothing in this cell. Aside from a rat, of course. Rats can be valuable scouts and informants – they’re basically everywhere, after all, and the information they wittingly or unwittingly give you can be very useful.

The tricky part is talking to the drat things. They’re very small and they constantly move, and in order to speak to anyone, you have to click on their model.



: I’m something of a… surveyor, down here. Can you tell me anything special or secretive about it?

: This place? Well… hum… the fleas seem very happy, at the very least!

But, you know, not always.



Let’s check out the next cell over. I can already see that there’s another prisoner in this one – and she’s actually wearing a collar this time.



She doesn’t seem to be too excited to see someone lockpicking her door and offering her freedom, though.

She seems awfully jumpy and nervous, and she’s immediately trying to call the guards on us. Maybe she’ll respond to authority the best?

: You’re still mortal. You still have plenty of reasons to want to keep your tongue. I suggest you stop flapping it.

: Persuasion Failure! Your Persuasion: 2, Needed: 3

Almost, but not quite.

: You can’t silence me! GUARDS! GUARDS COME QUICKLY! There’s a Sourcerer in my cell! He’s unlocked the door! GUARDS! Why isn’t anyone coming… I’m being good! I’m being GOOD!

: You’re a fool, you’ll see! They’ll get their hands on you and then…

: Any minute now, they’ll come. Any minute… I’m sure they’re almost here. I’m right! You’ll see!

Jeez, this poor woman. She’s more of a danger to herself than to anyone else.

Although the fact that the guards aren’t coming to her rescue is interesting. Are there none in the prison block? Surely the Magisters have found the prison block underneath Fort Joy.



: If there were any guards posted in this prison, they would have arrived by now. You can stop shouting.



: Why are you so desperate to ‘be good’ and stay locked in a prison cell?

: There is no leaving. Don’t you know what’s outside the Fort? I tried to leave. I heard of a shelter in the Hollow Marshes, a place where Sourcerers could go…

: The undead had their hands on me in five minutes. Shredding, tearing. I came limping back, and now… now… now…

: Help me! Help me! I’m not trying to escape – I swear! Make him leave, take him away!

Interesting; there’s a shelter for escaped Sourcerers in a place called the Hollow Marshes, just outside of Fort Joy, but the route between there and the Fort is swarming with Undead. Maybe Fane can reason with them.



… The back wall to this lizard woman’s cell has been blown open, revealing a cave that goes deeper south. She could have left at any time, whenever she wanted. If she was placed here by the Magisters, they must have known that the cell was compromised, and they probably wanted her to run. Who knows why – maybe so they could have a justification for killing her later.



This prison is fairly small; there are only five cells total. We’ve been in three; we’re about to enter the fourth; and the fifth one’s entrance has been caved in. Might as well complete the tour.



In this last cell, there’s a decomposing elf that’s been left to rot in the hay at the foot of a rack. There’s blood all over the floor near the torture device, so this elf’s probably been around for just a touch too long.

: The elf’s skin is pale as a corpse’s, but his face contorts with inscrutable emotion – joy, horror, and rapture flash over him like the changing surface of a pond. His eyes lock onto yours.



: There are many humans on this island, and I think I would remember if I had met someone of your… pedigree.

: No! Nonono… it’s you! It’s –

: His back suddenly arches as he spasms in pain.

: Eeuurgh… I… I know it’s you. You’re like me. See?



: You seem so certain. Who am I, then?

: He screws up his face, as though trying to see a small dot on a far horizon.

: You? Why, you’re everything.



: Freedom is nearby. I can get you out of here, too.

: Oh, love, I’m wrecked… Can’t go. Couldn’t move my feet. As likely to stab you in the neck as shake your hand.

: He giggles coquettishly, then bellows like a bear.

: LEAVE!

This elf is named Verdas. Atusa, the lizard Magister from the beginning, the one that was exploded by Dallis… she was being interrogated because she had tried to rescue someone named Verdas. Not only did she fail, but whatever Dallis did to Migo, she also did to Verdas.

Even in his state, Verdas seemed so sure that we’re someone of great importance. Saheila seemed to think so, too, and she’s a high-ranking elven mystic. And, I mean, we’re the protagonist in an RPG, so, obviously we are, but we haven’t quite gotten the full story yet.

If you’ll remember, Atusa’s leg survived Dallis’s explosion, and we still have it in our inventory. I think now’s as good a time as any to finally eat it and see what Atusa was thinking.

: A single name throbs across your brain. Verdas. Verdas. Verdas. He must escape. He cannot die here. He cannot.

Sounds like Verdas was the protagonist of his own story, if you get me.

That doesn’t tell us a lot, but Atusa was willing to die with this information. She was quite literally cutting out her own tongue to keep Verdas from Dallis and Alexander.

And since they suspected her of being part of an underground railroad to liberate Sourcerers, that all but confirms that there’s a network of Magisters that are defecting.

Heading further east, deeper into the prison block, we come to what appears to be a storeroom of some kind….



There’s a Magister in shining armour standing over a beaten and bloody compatriot. Looks like there was some infighting – which, if we take what we just learned about Atusa into account, means we’re probably on this ‘Del’ person’s side.

: I… I…

: Go on! Speak! That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?

: It… it isn’t… right!

: That right, Del? Isn’t right to save the entire realm from Divine-damned chaos?

: *Cough* please…

: Gods know how much blood you have on your hands now. You can’t let ‘em go. This is our only hope against the Voidwoken. I ought to feed you to my hounds for this treachery…

This guy in the armour is directly accusing Del of being a part of the same underground railroad. Which means I should probably help him out. He may be a Magister, but he’s trying to do the right thing by fighting against the system.



: I’m leaving, and you’re not stopping me.

: Heh. That’s almost cute.

: He looks you up and down.

: Got a nice marble to you, haven’t you? Good. My hounds’ve been looking a little on the lean side.

This is about to be a fight, and it’s one that trips up a lot of newer players. The Magister Houndmaster is something of a miniboss: if you’re not ready and you don’t know how to work the mechanics of the game’s terrain and positioning advantages by now, you’ll probably get your poo poo pushed in.

Fane is locked into his position, since he’s the one talking to the Houndmaster. There are four Magisters in this room (not counting Del) and there’s a raised platform towards the rear of the room.



The Houndmaster and the one Magister sitting on the chair beside him are both big, burly, tanky boys, and there are two archers on either side of the arena, standing on scaffoldings. None of them can be interacted with and they’ll be more than happy to let you put yourself into a favourable position before the fight begins, if you’d like.



Putting your Wayfarer, if you have one, on top of the lookout platform way in the back is a pretty smart move. You can go the extra mile by barricading the top or bottom of the ladder with objects such as chests or barrels or bad terrain in order to protect yourself if anyone wants to try and get up there to bully you off.

I don’t do that, but, you can, if you think to do it before the fight begins.



Sebille puts herself right behind this one archer, on the northern scaffolding, since that has the most easily-accessible back and nobody is staring right at her.




And Lohse, as the healer, wants nothing to do with anybody and she puts herself as far into the corner as she can. Her raised position will give her a clearer view of the battlefield, but Ifan is still too far away for her to heal, so, while this position is strong for her, it’s not great for Ifan.

When performing a ranged action from high ground, the area with the green pluses on it means that the high ground is giving me a wider range to cast my spells with. Without the high ground, Lohse’s effective range would only be to about the base of the stairs, but with it, it reaches a little bit further.

Now that we’re in position, let’s rock.




: Combat Music 2
: The Magister Houndmaster

The Houndmaster, for his first turn, summons one of his hounds into the battle, and places it on the scouting platform with Ifan.

This is actually a great move for me. The Source Hound has a fair amount of HP and physical armour, but animals can’t climb ladders or vines. All Ifan has to do is step off the platform, and the Hound is stuck up there with no way to rejoin the fight. One little reposition is all it takes and the dog that the Houndmaster went through the trouble to summon is removed entirely.

He also casts Rallying Cry on Fane, which is a healing spell that summoners can use. It heals more HP the more allies there are in a circle around the target. Since Fane is undead, this spells hurts him instead, but it’s not nearly as bad as Restoration, since that heals more HP per turn.



The Source Hound takes two bites out of Ifan, which hurts a lot, but that’s all it’ll ever be doing for the rest of the fight.




Fane spends one AP to get a little closer, then uses Battle Stomp to knock both the Houndmaster and his friend onto their backs. He has one AP remaining, so he chugs a Potion of Vitality, which grants him an additional 10% to his maximum vitality for three turns, making him even tankier.




The archer in front of Sebille uses Pin Down on Ifan, and then shoots a regular arrow at him. Combined with the dog bites, he succumbs and is immediately removed from the fight.

This is suddenly a much more uphill battle.



The other archer uses Reactive Shot on the ground around the Houndmaster. It’s a visually impressive attack, and, essentially, the archer will take a free shot at any enemy that enters the circle, up to three times. It’s a good move to lock down an area.

Not pictured, but he also uses Armour of Frost on the dog, for some reason. Probably because the dog doesn’t actually have any magic armour and therefore needs it the most.



This Magister uses Meld Metal, which increases the physical armour of himself and his allies. Saheila used this spell’s magical equivalent, Soothing Cold, in the previous update.

However, I quickly swap over to Sebille and have her attack the closest archer to her. If I didn’t, the next turn would begin without her or Lohse, and we’re already down Ifan, so I had to act quickly.




While the turn is focused on Sebille, I have Lohse teleport the Houndmaster as far away as she can reach. The fifth cell, the one with the caved in entrance, is accessible from the scaffolding she’s on; she dumps him in the far corner and leaves him there. He’ll have a long way to walk before he’s back in the fight.




Sebille shows off her brand new skill, Chloroform, by throwing a bottle of it at the tanky Magister still in the fight. Unless he’s woken up before his next turn comes around, he’ll be forced to skip. She then caps her turn by stabbing the nearest archer twice.



Lohse repositions slightly, further away from the Houndmaster, and then uses Encourage on everyone in her party still alive.




The Houndmaster apparently thought that was a great idea, and uses Encourage on himself, before walking this far and taking a rest break.




Sebille opens her next move with two more stabs, followed by Tentacle Lash, forcing the archer to drop her bow for this turn.



The Source Hound, like I said, cannot climb ladders, and is forced to stand there and look scary until someone teleports it down.

Fane delays his turn – he can’t attack the nearest Magister yet because he’s asleep, and waking him with an attack would remove that whole strategy.






The northern archer uses First Aid on herself, which heals her for 69 HP (nice) and cures her Atrophy, which is a bit of a pain in the rear end. She takes an AoO from both Sebille and Lohse before turning around and plugging Lohse right in the chest.





Lohse heals herself for another 69 HP, then makes it rain. Once everyone’s wet, she hits the Houndmaster with Hail Strike – one of the ice missiles misses, but we only need one to land to freeze his feet in place, and it works out.




The southern archer decides he likes the cut of Lohse’s jib and mimics her rain dance before shooting Fane twice.

The sleeping Magister takes his turn, which consists of him waking up. That’s the whole thing. He can’t even move on the same turn. However, in the Divinity: Unleashed mod, any character that naturally wakes from sleeping during battle is also given the Rested perk, which is a bit of a hard trade with Chloroform.





Rather than fight the big, tanky, well-rested Magister man-to-man, Fane instead repositions onto the southern scaffolding and uses Battering Ram on the one archer up there. I want to revive Ifan sooner rather than later, and Fane needs to get closer to use a scroll on his dead body.

After that, he sucks up some blood to heal the arrow wounds he just got.

Because his feet were frozen to the ground, the Houndmaster was forced to pass, leaving him stranded in the caved-in cell for at least one more turn.





The northern archer is in a bit of an awkward spot, and Sebille can’t reach her back to attack more effectively. Backlash will deal backstab damage no matter what, but if the target’s back is to the wall, she’ll end up beside or in front of her target rather than behind.

So, she stabs the northern archer once more and then retreats.



There’s the dog, being scary.

Fane’s turn is next, but he delays.




The northern archer uses Fossil Strike on Lohse and Sebille. It hits Lohse, but it misses Sebille – but then she fires a Fire Arrow onto the resulting oil puddle, and it explodes, hitting them both for a serious amount of damage.





Lohse’s in bad shape, but Restoration is still on cooldown. Her cycle is currently on Earth and Wind, so she fires off an Electric Discharge at the northern archer, stunning her in place, before repositioning to try and get out of her line of sight. She catches on fire for her effort, but an Armour of Frost puts it out, and gives her some extra magic armour to play with, too.




The southern archer repositions, takes a hammer to the spine, and then turns around and fires one more arrow at Fane. Not a very imaginative turn.




The other tanky Magister finally gets a decent turn: he approaches Lohse (which is terrifying; he’d hack her to bits with one or two swings), but then, surprisingly, he uses Tentacle Lash on Sebille. Which is a smart move – Sebille has only physical attacks, aside from maybe Chloroform (which still requires her arms), and Lohse wouldn’t be badly affected by Atrophy.

Still, he’s right on top of my healer, and that’s a problem.




Fane takes his delayed turn by resurrecting Ifan and placing his body right next to his own, so he can act as a human shield while Ifan is being resuscitated. If you want to resurrect a teammate, you should always delay your turn first: that way, your partner is resurrected at the end of the turn, and you don’t risk more time than you need for your opponents to beat up their comatose bodies.

Like I explained before, death and resurrection got a pretty serious slap on the wrist with the Divinity: Unleashed mod, and keeping your dudes alive is a much, much higher priority than in the base game because they require a turn to get up and do anything. In the base game, when a character is revived, they always move at the end of the turn, but they can act immediately.



The Houndmaster approaches the northern scaffolding, and then hucks a Firestorm grenade at Sebille and Lohse. He’s got a hell of a throwing arm. However, despite definitely having the AP to spare, he doesn’t do anything else.





Sebille, in desperate straits, chugs a healing potion, then chucks another bottle of Chloroform at the Magister threatening Lohse, buying her another turn. Then, she uses Flesh Sacrifice on herself, but then she passes her turn.

The idea is, on her next turn, she’ll spawn a puddle of blood from the bleeding, which will put out the fire at her feet.



There’s a pooch!




Fane uses Battle Stomp on the southern archer, and he fucks up the chair beside him, but he misses the human he was aiming for. After that, he gets right up next to the archer and hits him with Mosquito Swarm. This way, if the archer wants to attack Ifan, he’ll have to climb down the ladder beside him and give up the height advantage – even if Ifan is within his line of sight, the arrow’s flight path would be blocked by Fane’s body.




The northern archer casts First Aid on herself again, but it doesn’t heal Stunned. Then she uses her last AP to walk through the electrified water and through the fire to reposition, and then ends her turn, because the Stunned status meant she had no more AP to spare to attack.

Lohse delays her next turn.




Apparently, Fane is thinner than I thought (which makes sense. He’s a skeleton). The southern archer walks right past him – he takes an AoO for it, at least.

And then, thankfully, he decides to shoot Fane instead of Ifan, ensuring that Ifan survives long enough to take his turn and get a foothold in the fight.





Ifan takes his first turn of the fight by putting his friends before himself: he fires a poisoned arrow at Fane, healing him for a decent chunk, before chugging a potion and using Encourage to give himself and Fane a big stat increase.

Thanks to Ifan’s skill Frugal, he has a thirty-three percent chance to refund any consumable item he uses in combat, and it comes into play by saving both his poison arrow and his potion. In the base game, Frugal was called Arrow Recovery, and it only worked on arrows, not all consumables, so it got a pretty serious buff in Divinity: Unleashed.

The Magister threatening Lohse spends his turn waking up from his nap a second time.




Lohse promptly heals herself and ensures she’s still good to fight before teleporting the fresh-as-a-daisy Magister at the top of the ladder of the northern scaffolding. Since units can’t pass through each other, this means that the Houndmaster can’t climb the ladder and threaten Sebille or Lohse.



When he tries, he just yells in sheer frustration that his subordinate is blocking his way.




Thanks to the Flesh Sacrifice in the previous turn, Sebille has six AP to spend, and she uses all six of them to stab the northern archer to death. Finally, some real headway into this fight!



Oh, look at the pooch!




Fane Battering Rams the southern archer, cornering him against the wall, and then whacks him once more.




We very much want this one Magister to keep standing exactly where he’s standing right now, so Lohse hits him with Electric Discharge to keep him stunned. This way, if he does move out of the way, he has to walk through electrified water to get anywhere, and his AP will be tanked so hard that he can’t both move and attack.




The southern archer climbs the lookout tower, taking an AoO to the back of the skull for it, and then knocks Fane down right back with a Knockdown arrow.




Ifan dips his arrowheads in the archer’s blood, and then promptly does nothing about it and instead chucks a rock at the archer and the dog on the tower.



The tanky Magister is onto our game, unfortunately, and rather than wade through all that electrified water, he climbs down the ladder and passes, letting his boss go through.





The Houndmaster takes his first real turn the entire fight by climbing the ladder; wadding through all the electrified water; taking two AoO hits from Sebille and Lohse; and then using an attack called Blitz Attack on Fane and Ifan.

Blitz Attack is essentially the same as Backlash: a self-teleport spell that launches the user at a target, hitting up to two enemies if they’re in close proximity to each other. Based on that description, you’d think Blitz Attack was the better move, except it costs two AP (compared to Backlash’s one) and Backlash does bonus backstab damage. Blitz Attack is still an integral part of a Warfare build, but which one you think is better is up to you.





Sebille has as plan: she first uses Adrenaline, giving her six AP. Because she has a bunch of points in Scoundrel, she can walk further and for less AP than anyone else. She spends four of them to get as close to the Houndmaster as she can, and then she hits him with Tentacle Lash, forcing him to drop his sword.



Dog



Fane uses Mosquito Swarm on the Houndmaster, not because he needs the HP, but because he needs the Houndmaster to not have HP, and the bleeding will help exacerbate that.




The archer up top of the lookout platform hits Fane, Sebille, and Ifan with Ricochet, an attack that can target multiple enemies if they’re close enough, before shooting one more arrow at Fane. Remember: always finish your plate. Don’t let enemies live in this game, like I just did.





Lohse can heal Sebille even from this distance, topping off her HP and making sure she doesn’t have to worry about the Houndmaster, before finishing off the southern archer with a Staff of Magus spell. With nothing left to do and all her most useful skills on cooldown, she runs down the steps to try and put as much distance between her and the tanky Magister as she can.





Speaking of: he wades through the electric water once more, taking a ton of damage for it. And then, surprisingly, he runs straight past Lohse – and uses Tentacle Lash on Sebille again.

While it’s still a tactically sound move, I think he knows they’ve lost at this point and he’s just being a dingleberry to try and prolong it. Not that it matters anyway, because he whiffs, and Sebille’s hands remain thoroughly un-Atrophied.




Ifan repositions to get a better look at the tanky Magister and uses Pin Down to make sure he can’t get much closer if he tries to run. Then he fires another poison arrow at Fane and the Houndmaster, poisoning them both.





The Houndmaster uses Rallying Cry on Fane once more, and since Fane has his allies near him, it does a hell of a lot more damage than it did last time. After that, he retreats, taking two AoO hits as he does, and he goes to his tanky brethren, resigning himself to their fate.



Sebille chucks one last bottle of Chloroform at the tanky Magister, and that’s that: he gets some of the liquid into his lungs, and he’s put to sleep one final time.



The dog gives us one last growl before Lohse kills the Houndmaster with one final Electric Discharge.

The Source Hound had a status called Soul Bond. Basically, it means summons are bound to whoever summoned them, and if the summoner dies, the summon vanishes. Since we took out the Houndmaster, the Source Hound vanished into the ether. And with that, the fight is won.



: If you’re well enough to beg, you’re well enough to provide some information.



: What did you do to get yourself in this sorry state you’re in?



: What do you care? You’re a Magister. You swore an oath to the Divine Order, and the Divine Order told you to round up Sourcerers like cattle.



: You’re aware that Lucian has been dead for some time, correct?

: I’m no fool. But his legacy is… alive. In all of us who… who long for justice. We can’t… can’t have that while his relics are being used against… civilians.

: His ‘relics,’ you say. On that topic, I heard something interesting about what the Magister’s ‘cure for Sorcery’ might entail, but I’d like to hear it from a Magister’s mouth, if you don’t mind.



: If you’ve been helping Sourcerers escape the Joy, then you must know of a way out of the Fort that I can take.

: There’s a boat that can take you into the dunes beyond. Two associates of mine run it. I can show you where.



: Fine.

: *Cough*



: Maybe I’ve been in the habit of rescuing too many Magisters lately, but… nobody deserves to bleed out like that. And besides, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that.



: … So, anyway…?

: There is… a waterway. A boat. Hand me your map – it isn’t far.



: ‘Associates?’ How many ‘associates’ do you have? How many Magisters are working against the Divine Order?

: Enough to matter. Not enough to stage a coup. The Voidwoken have people terrified – not only for their lives, but for the very air they breathe, the sun that shines upon them.



: One last question: who is Madame Zoor? You? You don’t look like a Madame or a Zoor.

: No, I imagine not. She’s the headmistress of an orphanage in the far north – she keeps Sourcerer children safe from the Divine Order. I can think of no nobler soul in all the realm. With her help, we’ve saved countless children from Dallis and Alexander. And we aim to save many more.

: Very well. Good luck going forward.

: You’ve given me a second life. I won’t soon squander it. Or forget what you’ve done. Thank you.



With that, Delorus makes his way out of the prison block, back to… wherever it is he’s going. I can’t imagine he’ll be going too far in his condition, and since the Houndmaster is going to be reporting back anytime soon, Delorus is probably going to try and skedaddle and find some other way to help Sourcerers escape the island.



At the northern end of the prison block is a gigantic locked door. This door is hardly inconspicuous, and it likely leads straight up and into the fort proper. We’d be travelling directly into the belly of the beast – who knows what we’d find in there?



Wherever this boat in a waterway is, it’s not showing up in the current area.

We have two options: the first is to go north and pick the lock to the door so we can travel deeper into the fort. And the second is to head south, through the cave opening in Vasyna’s, the lizard woman’s, cell, and explore deeper into the caves that way.

Which way should we go? Do we head north, into the Magister fort? Or do we head south, deeper into the caves?

Also, do we want to swap out anybody?

Let me know by tomorrow!

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true
Also: I know these updates are pretty long-winded. Would you prefer smaller ones, or should I keep going at the pace I'm at?

GuavaMoment
Aug 13, 2006

YouTube dude

Maple Leaf posted:

Also: I know these updates are pretty long-winded. Would you prefer smaller ones, or should I keep going at the pace I'm at?

The game's long-winded, not much you can do about it.

jimmydalad
Sep 26, 2013

My face when others are unable to appreciate the :kazooieass:

AGDQ 2018 Awful Block Survivor
Before we go into the belly of the beast, we should head deeper into the caves.

Alongside that, we should swap Ifan for the Beast. I think he’s the only character we haven’t played with yet so we should give him a chance in the spotlight.

meatbag
Apr 2, 2007
Clapping Larry
I imagine you'll burn out if you aim to account for every single action in every single battle though.

Deeper!

Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


Maple Leaf posted:

: Got a nice marble to you, haven’t you? Good. My hounds’ve been looking a little on the lean side.

Buddy, you're talking to a literal skeleton.

Let's go caving.

theamazingchris
Feb 1, 2016

: D
fwiw, I appreciate the detail. I do struggle with screenshot LPs not giving me enough context to actually understand what's going on, so I'll often skim through battles and the like. So far I feel you've done a great job with it.

Olive Branch
May 26, 2010

There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance.

jimmydalad posted:

Before we go into the belly of the beast, we should head deeper into the caves.

Alongside that, we should swap Ifan for the Beast. I think he’s the only character we haven’t played with yet so we should give him a chance in the spotlight.
I agree with this set of votes. Explore some more, and swap Ifan for Beast. Ifan's next story beat won't be until you meet his contact outside the prison, anyway. Why not let our dwarf pirate captain do a bit of privateering?

Slaan
Mar 16, 2009



ASHERAH DEMANDS I FEAST, I VOTE FOR A FEAST OF FLESH

Olive Branch posted:

I agree with this set of votes. Explore some more, and swap Ifan for Beast. Ifan's next story beat won't be until you meet his contact outside the prison, anyway. Why not let our dwarf pirate captain do a bit of privateering?

Aye can agree with this

Schwartzcough
Aug 12, 2009

Don't tease the Octopus, kids!
The updates do feel a bit long- that would've easily been 3 updates for most other screenshot LPs. It does seem like documenting every move of every battle is going to be impossible to maintain, but with a battle system as complex as this one, I don't know if there's much of a happy medium between detailed breakdown and "so then we got in a fight with three turtles. We won."

I'll agree with swapping in Beast and going caving.

Olive Branch
May 26, 2010

There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance.

Maple COULD save the time going over detailed battles by showing the more exciting moments of the fights, like the appearance of more enemies or the death/kill order of the characters, or just save himself the trouble and encourage us to watch the video links he so helpfully provides showing the fight itself.

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true

Schwartzcough posted:

The updates do feel a bit long- that would've easily been 3 updates for most other screenshot LPs. It does seem like documenting every move of every battle is going to be impossible to maintain, but with a battle system as complex as this one, I don't know if there's much of a happy medium between detailed breakdown and "so then we got in a fight with three turtles. We won."

The thing is, for as big as that update was, we didn't actually do a lot. We fought some turtles; we fought some Magisters; I explained theft mechanics; Lohse went solo for about five minutes; and then we fought some more Magisters. It's the combat that's bloating these updates so much - the Houndmaster in particular, like I said, is something of a miniboss and his fight was 16 minutes long compared to the turtles' 5:27. Imagine how much longer some other fights are going to be.

I could cut down a significant amount of words and pictures if I just left it to the videos - which, currently, I upload for the posterity and so people can choose whether to read my thought process or to watch it all in action - and maybe do subtitled commentary to explain my thoughts and strategies. Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a game where there are no random battles, and every battle is meticulously balanced and designed to test you, so I feel it's almost necessary to explain my thought process behind every action I make. I just feel like it'd be a little awkward to make such a drastic switch eleven updates in, and it might confuse newer readers to see the updates take such a change.

I write for a living (and I haven't been proofreading my updates, so seeing all those typos makes me grimace), and I earnestly love this game, so every update is exciting for me to play through and write out, so I'm not too concerned about burnout - but we're also maybe 5% of the way through the game, so I might be overestimating myself.

I guess I can give subtitling the combat videos a try for the next update and see if we prefer it that way? I don't mind transcribing all the fights - I'm more concerned with how others are reading the thread so far.

btw, by unanimous vote, we're taking Beast spelunking.

Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


I prefer the screenshot breakdown myself, anyone who's not as interested in that part can skip over it at their leisure. As long as you're still happy to write this level of detail I say carry on. Likewise the long updates aren't a huge issue for me because you don't have to read them all in one sitting. I treated each of the three posts of the last update as a separate one.

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



At my old age, I can't really tell what's happening in most combat screenshots, so I skip them. "Enemy 5 used [ability]"? I'll just take your word for it, rather than squint at a screenshot and try to ascertain that this is indeed what happened.

ChocolatePancake
Feb 25, 2007
If you are truly able to continue with this level of quality for the updates, then I will happily keep reading it. Yes, they are long, but it's all interesting content. There's so much of this game I missed on my play through.

Negative_Earth
Apr 18, 2002

BeiiN AlL ii CaN B
I think your updates are a good balance of "here is how this particular fight goes" and explaining the specific tweaks going on in said fight. And your dialogue sections are succinct enough to enjoy the flourishes you've added.

And like Guava pointed out, long game is long. I had like 20+ hours in Fort Joy alone, in what the game still considers "Act 1".

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true
When last we left off, we had defeated the first real challenge of the campaign, the Magister Houndmaster, in the prison block beneath Fort Joy. Our victory over him was actually enough to push us into our next level up, putting us up to level four.

In case you’re curious, you get EXP for every kill you make in the game, and you get it immediately. It’s totally possible to level up in the middle of a fight. Levelling up heals you back to full immediately, and not only that, you can allocate your stat-ups and new perks immediately, meaning you can ostensibly be a whole new person during a fight. If there’s a boss or challenge you’re having a difficult time with, then going somewhere else, getting enough experience to almost level up, and then coming back to the fight and levelling up halfway through, is a completely legitimate strategy, if involving a bit of prep time.



We don’t get any civil points or any new Talents – out next civil point is level six and our next talent is level eight.

I put Fane’s points into Memory and Strength, and his one combat point into Warfare; Ifan gets one in Huntsman and one in Memory and Constitution; Lohse gets them in Memory, Intelligence, and Hydrosophist; and Sebille gets them in Scoundrel, Memory, and Wits.



Only the Houndmaster had any loot that was worthwhile on him. An uncommon leather chestpiece, which has +1 Aerothurge, meaning it’d be good for Lohse, except it requires points in Finesse and she’s already got a rockin’ robe already. The book is just the Backlash skill. The red rubber ball might come in handy later.

And this thing….



This necrotic finger is a crafting ingredient that can be mixed with any healing consumable – potions, fruit, meals, etc – and turn them to poison. It’s hard to buy poisoned potions from vendors in this game, but with this, we can just buy regular potions and stir them around with this talon. And the talon is a permanent item: it isn’t consumed on use, so you can use it over and over. An important mainstay ingredient for any undead! It’s a relatively common item, so if you play an undead character and you miss it, you’ll get multiple chances later.



There’s a note and some playing cards on this table. This room was clearly meant for the prison guards as some kind of common room or something.



The Magisters are employing something called Silent Monks. Apparently they’re obedient foot soldiers, as long as you keep them fed with Source.

Which… given everything that we know about this island and its ‘cure’ for Sourcerers, doesn’t sound very promising.



Oh, score. This could have saved us some lockpicks but it’s not a big deal. And that big door going deeper into the fort is probably locked, and this will help us out.



Entering that fifth jail cell, the one with the caved in door that we dumped the Houndmaster into for most of the fight, we’re awarded with 600 EXP, just like that. The game tends to hand experience out like candy, and our levels are spaced out enough that that’s not going to matter – there is a world of difference between levels eighteen and nineteen, for instance.



This pendant is ‘unique.’ Maybe it belonged to someone? Maybe it’s a quest-related item? I’m not sure yet. That +1 Wits and that +2 Magic Armour are both tasty, but none of us can remove our collars, so, it’s just something to hold onto until we can.

That’s about it as far as looting the place goes. Now that that’s all done, this time, we’ll be travelling south, deeper in the caves of the prison – but before we do, we also voted to bring in the last party member, Beast, and give him a few updates to play around. He’ll be taking Ifan’s place for now.

: His eyebrows shoot up, and a wry smile crosses his lips.

: Can’t say I’m not sorry to see you go, but you’ll be alright. You seem to have the hang of this place. Good luck out there. Might be we’ll see each other further down the road…



Apparently, Ifan’s instructions were too story-related for Fane to pass up, and he just helps himself to that little note.

Ifan goes off on his own, leaving us with room for a fourth party member. One fast-travel teleport and a bit of a hike to the beach, and we run into a certain, surely dwarf, still plucking away at that rotten ship’s carcass.




: That sounds like a plan to me!

: ‘ey up, partner. Though I reckon I should fill you in on a few things. Right now, though, the biggest thing on my mind is some candy-arse called Lohar, lurkin’ in Driftwood. The queen is up to somethin’ nasty – and he’s the best chance I got of findin’ out what’s what.



: As long as we’re ‘filling each other in on a few things,’ I should – well, that is to say, you should – how… would you feel if you traveled with… you know, someone that… wasn’t alive? In the strictest definition?

: One like you, you mean? No skin off my nose. More rum for me! You carry it off very well, by the by. But ol’ Beast’s been around the block and there’s no foolin’ him. Now: Onward!



Beast immediately gets all of the EXP we’ve accumulated through the run so far, putting him up to level four. He has a ton of points to allocate as I like.

But before I get to doing that, let’s talk to him some more and see what he’s all about.



: You’ve been carrying some parchment ever since we first met on that ship that was attacked by the kraken. Do you mind if I ask what’s written on it?

: You noticed that, huh? Well, I’m a lot of things, but ‘subtle’ ain’t one of ‘em.

: So… there’s some things ya oughta know about me. I’m sorta kinda royalty. I mean, never wore a crown. Not with diamonds in it, anyway. Once stuck a wreath on my head and… oh, sorry. Need to stop with that whole tangent thing.

: Anyhoo, let’s just get it out there: I’m a bastard. The literal kind and the other kind. The royals weren’t all great with me – and I weren’t too great with them. To make an overlong story overshort, I started a rebellion ‘n’ got caught and exiled to an island prison. Like Fort Joy, but ten times worse. Would’ve died there, too, if one of Justinia’s ships hadn’t sailed so close. So – I kind of took it, and off I went. Cool, right?

… How close did they get? Did you swim to it? Did they not notice a dwarf paddling through the water, chasing after them?



: If you’re an exiled criminal that commandeered a ship, doesn’t that make you a pirate?

: I’m no pirate. I just play the part. I prefer ‘revolutionary.’ Got a nice ring to it.

: Now let’s see how quick I can tell you the rest. Queen Justinia’s ordered some dwarf named Lohar to ambush a ship called the Peacemaker and take its cargo. Whatever’s on it, she’s using it against the rebels. She calls it ‘Operation Downfall’. Pretty ominous, eh?



: And with all that in mind, what do you think our next immediate move should be?

: I’m no people person, but I’ve had a run-in or two with Magisters before. And let me tell you: most of ‘em couldn’t pour water out of a boot.



So, no immediate plan of action, got it.

Beast handed us a note when we asked about the parchment, so let’s give that a look.



And when we read it through, Beast has an exclamation point over his head.



: An exiled royal that had started a rebellion that’s on a mission to stop the dwarven queen from executing something called ‘Operation Downfall’ against the rebels. It’s all as serious as a heart attack. Do you know anything else about the queen’s plan?



: About this rebellion – what even happened?

: Listen up. The queen was a good woman once, and I’m her bastard cousin, so I would know it. Come rainy days, we’d sail paper boats and drop beetles on ‘em for plank-walkin’. She was never a beast – but her spirit roamed free.

: Then Queen Lora died and it was Justinia’s turn. The Divine Order was growin’, and the lizards were on the move. First it were just flags. The royal insignia, always flappin’ in my face, demandin’ my allegiance.

Queen Lora, you say?

: Then it spread. Say a good word ‘bout Lucian, and you just… disappeared. Artists were cleared from the streets, replaced by royal goons in full armour. The lizards would come, they said, and we should all be ready t’ take up arms if the queen demanded it.

: It was no way to live. Me and the others, we decided it was time for a change…

: Shadows of the past cloud his bright eyes. He no longer looks at you, but through you.

: A storm is brewin’, we can be sure of that. But I’m just as sure the sky will clear after. The gulls will come back to perch, ‘n’ the sun will dry our faces. That peace is all the more special when you heard the thunder before it.

So, to recap, Beast is a pirate revolutionary, and he’s cousin to the current queen of the dwarves. He was exiled for starting a rebellion against her, but he escaped his previous prison (also an island, coincidentally). Sometime between then and now, he intercepted a note from someone named Lohar in Driftwood talking about an attack that Justinia, the current dwarven queen, is planning for his revolutionary friends. Before he could act on it, he must have performed Source magic in public and was then arrested by the Magisters.

Knowing that he’s a pirate, and that his default class is Battlemage, it makes sense that he comes equipped with two swords (or, in his case, two rocks fastened to sticks). You can dual wield any two one-handed weapons in this game, although only knives can get the extra backstab damage.

And if he’s going to be a Battlemage, he should specialize in a school of magic. We’ve already got air and water covered (although they’d be thematically appropriate for a pirate), and if we ever go back to Prince, he’s doing fire. Fane is a necromancer and Sebille is a polymorph. That really only leaves Geomancy.

Which might not be super thematically appropriate, but hey.

Beast has six attribute points to spend, and I spread them with three in Memory, one in Intelligence, and two in Strength. He has three combat points to spend, and two are put into Geomancy and one into Warfare. His one civil point is put into Lucky Charm, and finally, the Talent he gets is Living Armour:



Our next point of business is to get him equipped for the adventuring and to get him some spellbooks. He’s gotta dress the part, after all!

I don’t have a ton of money on me, but I can afford to visit Maol, the strange male elf on the beach. He deals in Geomancy skills, and I buy Fortify and Poison Dart off him. I also happen to have the Contamination skillbook that I picked up from… elsewhere, I forget.

: Encase a target within a suit of stone armour. Dramatically increases physical defense and removes Poisoned, Bleeding, Burning, Acid, and Decaying. Fortified targets cannot be teleported.

: Fire a poisonous dart at a target or area, dealing poison damage on contact and spawning a puddle of poison at the impact area.

: Deals poison damage to enemies and undead allies in a radius around the caster. Turns water, blood, and clouds into poison.

Once he’s all skilled up, I do a quick shopping trip around the ghetto, visiting Kalias, the lizard soldier in the elf cave, and Hilde, the proprietor of missing goods, for weapons and armour, respectively.



It ain’t much, but he’s good to fight for the time being.

With all of that out of the way, I do believe the vote was to go spelunking.



Entering Vasyna’s cell unprompted and heading into the massive hole in the back of her wall leads us into an underground tunnel. Naturally, we’re rewarded with EXP for our inquisitiveness.



There’s a ton of fire up ahead, with the occasional vent shooting steam straight up on either side of our walkway. Which is always nice to see, and it’s good to know that the fortress of Fort Joy appears to be sitting on top of a volcano.



Going up a little farther, we see… at least four slugs, each of them made of fire and healing off of their own slug gunk whenever they travel back and forth. One of them, larger than the others, is sitting on a cliff overlooking the other three, and we’re in prime sneak-attack position for it specifically.

But when we approach, despite its back being turned to us, it spots us immediately.



: (There are few things that this drat prison has prepared me for, and this was not one of them.)

: … I’m not certain what you mean. Apologize?



: The honest truth is that I was not sent by the chieftain you call Braccus Rex, but you may be interested to learn that he’s been long since vanquished.



: Yes, that’s correct.

: He’s gone? You’re absolutely, positively sure…?! That means… that means I’m free! I can take suitors, find myself a real prince, not like that scoundrel Braccus! I’ve lost too much time on that wastrel Braccus as it is! This this proclamation and see that all hear of it – Princess Zenthia of the Firelands is free once more!



: (She strikes me as the type to like to talk about herself. Maybe this will earn me some leeway.) Before I do as you command, could her Royal Highness repeat her tale, so that I have the details of her plight correct?

: Hmm… I suppose the small folk of Rivellon ought to know my tale… all was well after my engagement to Braccus for a time. But then – then – he started to pay less attention to me…

: He had mind only to play around with his blasted Source follies! I gave him a good tongue-lashing about it in front of the whole court! But, well… it didn’t have the desired result… He transmogrified me and all my servants into the beasts you see before you. I will not yield though! I remain royalty, right to my very core!

Well, alright, then. There’s a slug made of fire, and she’s with other slugs made of fire, and apparently she was once Braccus Rex’s fiancé. What a story this game is telling so far! This Braccus fella seems like a real well-adjusted dude.

Princess Zenthia handed us a note (somehow) that apparently we’re meant to tell all the world about :



I wish her luck. Even weird fire slugs that burn everything they touch deserve love.



There’s a handful of charred corpses lying about that are prime for looting. Some of them hold equipment, money, and potions. Overall not a bad haul.

It’s a little difficult to walk around because the slugs constantly move back and forth, and they leave fire trails everywhere they go. At least their pathways are consistent.



There are two ways to progress onward from the direction we came from: the westernmost wall to Zenthia’s ‘court’ is covered with hanging vines that provide a shortcut up and down the cliff, while to the east, there’s a slop that’ll take us up the cliff that way.



At the top of the vines and just across a stream, Sebille notices a dirt mound that’s been lifted out of place by something buried beneath it. Also, Sir Lora caught fire while trying to navigate the court, and his first reaction isn’t to jump into the water that’s right behind him.





Since we finally have someone with Lucky Charm available, it kicks in with Beast, and we get our first taste of what it can do. If someone in your party has Lucky Charm, then every single container you open has a chance to have something extra in it, and it’ll always be something very worthwhile, even if just for the gold value. The only catch is that the container has to be unopened, so you can't just open and close a chest a bunch and expect to find anything new.

For instance, this chest would normally have only had the gold and the vitality potion in it. Thanks to Beast’s immaculate luck, he also finds a staff.



A fire staff that has a whopping plus six Initiative to it. Whoever equips this staff will be moving like greased lightning when it comes to turn order.

I’ll be holding onto that for a little bit – we wanted the Red Prince to be a fire-wielding warlock that married melee attacks with fire spells, and if we ever swap him back in, this staff will be a centerpiece to his look.



Continuing along the cliff, we find another of Zenthia’s servants, a little displaced from the rest of the group. They’re a fairly temperamental bunch, and the wrong dialogue choices can easily throw you into combat against the lot of them – either that, or if you don’t have Pet Pal to begin with.



Climbing up the cliff, we come across what is clearly someone’s encampment. Someone was trying to make a life-away-from-life home down here, just above Zenthia’s court.



Ah, this must have been one of the corpses lying in her court. More evidence that Zenthia is on a hair-trigger.

His chest contains some gold, a water balloon, a healing potion, and some food – all supplies that this guy clearly decided weren’t essential for escaping a prison that leads straight into a swamp.



At the very top of the underground cliff, there’s a ladder that leads back up to the surface. Was this it? Did we just find our way out of Fort Joy? Was it really as convoluted as breaking into the prison block, and then walking through one of the cell’s compromised walls?



The answer is no. Climbing the ladder puts us on the beach next to Migo and Yarrow, still reconnecting after we introduced them some time ago. This was Amyro’s suggested method of escaping Fort Joy, and we went backwards through it, putting ourselves right back into the ghetto.



One fast-travel later, and we’re right back where we started. All that’s left is to go north and enter the belly of the beast.




: Whatever lies ahead, it has been a pleasure travelling together.

: The more the merrier. It’s been too long since my last bloodbath.

: Good. Let them try to catch us.

Only one thing left to do, then.



According to the banner at the top, this is the fort’s prison, and we traipsing around the ‘holding cells.’ I’m not positive what the difference is.

Immediately, we’re given a ton of different options for directions we can travel in.



The prison extends directly south of us, with a number of flights of stairs heading out and down, but I can’t see where they lead – not without getting closer. Another flight of stairs cuts to the east, heading towards something else entirely.



To our north is a flight of stairs going up, likely back aboveground, and since we’re directly underneath the fort, it’ll probably take us straight into a Magister’s den or something. To the west is another flight of stairs heading slightly deeper, although it’s a shallow flight, meaning there’s probably a room or a door or something right next to them. And immediately beside us is yet another flight leading into a pair of rooms.



A number of guards stand vigil around the corridors of the prison. But… they aren’t quite dressed like Magisters. And they seem pretty listless and melancholic.



They can be spoken to without aggroing them, which is… good?

It appears this… person has had their mouth sewn shut. It looks mildly reminiscent of what had happened to Migo. Does this person have… worms in his brain, like he did?



Immediately on attempting to speak to one of these creatures, we all have something to say about it.



: That’s an abomination, is what it is. I can’t stop staring at it.

: That’s unnatural. Abhorrent. Evil. I can’t take my eyes off it.

: Ain’t this creature’s fault someone stole its mind. Poor thing.

We’re all in agreement that whatever it is now, it was a person. Someone did something to them – whether it was Dallis directly and she did more of her worms-in-the-brain games, or it’s a more automatic, assembly-line procedure and the Magisters are rolling them out right here in the fort. Either way, it’s pretty disgusting, and this is very likely the fate of all of the Sourcerers brought here to Fort Joy.

And there’s at least a dozen of them right here, in this prison….



We might as well get started on sorting this place out (and so we don’t have to keep staring at the Silent Monks). No better place to start than right beside us.

: Holy hellhounds! Those dogs sound out for blood!

Just on the other side of this door is apparently a pack of dogs. Considering we fought the Houndmaster just an update ago, this is probably where he kept all the hounds that he mastered.

It’s probably not wise to go in there, but, hell, nothing ventured, right?




: You! Intruder! Baddie! Sourcerer! Stop! Go! Die! Bark! Bark! Bark!

There are four dogs in this small room, and each of them are equipped for battle. This one dog, Bruno, even has an arbalest strapped to his back, primed and ready to fire. And, funny enough, he has the high ground.

: Bark! Bark! Bark!



One of the dogs has a clearly visible nametag on her collar.

: … Your name is Emmie? Do you happen to know an older dog named Buddy?

: B… Buddy?

: Emmie! Fall back! Sourcerer! Tricks! Baddie! Intruder!



: Buddy asked me to tell you that he misses you. He misses you very, very much.

: Buddy! *Howl!* MY Buddy. But… Work. Search. Sourcerers? Why! Buddy…

: Emmie! No! Sourcerer – bad! Baddies! Bite! Bark! Bark!

: But… Bruno… I miss… I miss my Buddy! *Howl!*

: *Growl.* You! Sourcerer. Go! Emmie – crying! *Bark!*



We made some big progress on Buddy’s sidequest to pass on his message to his mate Emmie. All we need to do to complete this quest is return to Buddy and let him know that we passed his words on.

These dogs won’t attack us now, not unless we attack them first. Them being dogs, they all have some pretty funny things to say about whatever happens to be on their mind.

Well, except Emmie. She’s a bit distracted.

: *Whimpers* Buddy. My Buddy. I love Buddy. I miss Buddy!

: Dog. Dog. Dog. Dog. Dog.

: Argos is a good dog.

: Scratch. Bite. Bark? Kill!



That’s a… weird place for a healing potion.

The room is covered in blood and severed body parts, and one particular chunk isn’t even identifiable at a glance.

So, since they’re leaving perfectly good human flesh lying around, I’m assuming they aren’t going to eat it. More for Sebille!

: A deluge of happiness. You played the flute; you wrote poetry. The music ended in Fort Joy.

: You are nothing. You are no-one. You do not exist – not really.

: Your many years twinkle behind you like distant stars – tiny but beautiful. You smell wheat ale; you hear a chorus in a tavern. You feel joy.

: You’re a tough dwarven smith of great experience and talent. You wanted to make a name for yourself, but you ran out of time.



Next to the dog pen is a caged room, but it looks more opulent and clean than the bloody mess of a pit the dogs are in. Maybe this is the Houndmaster’s room.




There’s another dog kept in a too-small cage sitting in the corner, complaining about a stomach ache. And what might be the cage’s key is on the far desk. Entering the Houndmaster’s quarters, naturally, gives us a fat 800 EXP.

: A dog is quietly curled in the corner of the cage, seemingly trying to make itself as small as possible.



: I’m not a Magister. Hurting anyone or anything is the last thing on my mind, especially a caged animal.



: What have they done to you to make you so afraid of them?



: Hey, it’s not your fault. You’re a good dog. You’ve just been caught up with bad people, just like me.

: A low growl. The dog starts to salivate and lick his chops. His eyes go hard and cold. Suddenly, he seems to remember himself and whines.

: They did something to me. They made me want to hurt people. People who smell like you.



: And you don’t have to. I’m going to escape from this awful place and I can take you with me.

: I’m afraid. If I leave, I might hurt someone. If I stay, they’ll make me into one of their monsters. I’m… I’m better off dead.



Fane said he was going to let Birdie go, and he’ll be damned if he’s not a skeleton of his word.




: Would you rather go back into the cage?



: The fact that you’re resisting this hard means that there’s still hope for you yet. Whatever the Magisters have done, you can undo it. You have the strength of will to remove their conditioning on you.

: I’m scared. I’m not myself anymore. I… I have these cravings… I can’t be trusted! This is… this is awful! I can’t go back into the world like this. Please… just put me down.

: I won’t be party to this. It’s suicide.

: Fine. This poor pooch deserves a little peace.

: It’s for the best. If he’s dangerous, it’s better to take care of him now.



It’s currently two-to-one in favour of putting down Birdie, the dog that’s so badly reprogrammed into wanting to consume human flesh that he’s worried he’ll be a threat to society if he leaves. What do YOU think? Should we put Birdie down?

I’ll explore the Houndmaster’s quarters more thoroughly next update, when we come to a decision.



Going to the other side of Emmie’s room, there’s another door leading elsewhere – and upon entering it, it appears to be some kind of torture chamber.

: That smell… I think I’m going to be sick.



You got your classics: the rack, the chair with nails, an Iron Maiden…



… and, of course, a handy jar full of mind maggots. The chain gloves are for Finesse builds and are level four, but they don’t offer a ton of armour: just 2 physical and 1 magic.

The Mind Maggots sell for a surprisingly high price, considering what they are. Makes you wonder what kind of person is even interested in buying them. If you have an empty grenade canister, you can combine the Mind Maggots with the grenade to create a grenade full of Mind Maggots which, when thrown, inflict Charmed on whoever they hit, for twice the duration of other methods, such as spells, and with twice the range of Love Grenades, which do the same thing.

It’s a powerful crafting ingredient, and they’re very rare, so, if you don’t mind lugging around a jar full of worms that want to wriggle around in your brain, there you go.



Continuing southward brings us to a hallway adjacent to the main hallway we entered the prison in. There are more Silent Monks standing watch, ensuring that we stay orderly and peaceable.

: The creature has two fingers crammed in its mouth. With a faint pop, it pulls out a rotted molar and lets it fall to the ground.

: The creature stands completely still, fingernails pressed hard into its palms. You notice dried blood streaking its knuckles.



Heading east from here is what is clearly an arena of some sort, absolutely covered in body parts and spilled blood, with tall cages meant for people dotting the floor on either side. Easy bet that if we head in that direction, we should expect a fight.



Closer to the staircase leading to the arena is a more opulent gazebo, overlooking the arena, probably so some sick freak could sit there and watch the events unfold.



A portrait of Bishop Alexander overlooks the gazebo, behind a fancy chair and overtop a standing closed desk.



A drained wand, and a book of notes left by someone named Kniles….

Didn’t we hear of a ‘Kniles’ before, in the ghetto? The name’s familiar.

The wand by itself is nothing special: just a typical wand that does fire damage. But the flavour text mentions that the symbol of Braccus Rex has been etched into the shaft… which means that there’s a decent chance that this wand is one of the artefacts that the Magisters are using to remove the Source from their targets.

That would explain all the Silent Monks standing around the prison. Good thing this one is drained….




So, it’s probably Kniles that’s our sick freak.



This chest is locked, but, of course, not for long.

By the way, one thing I hinted at way back in the tutorial but never actually explained: if you find a chest, and its HP is reasonable and it’s destructible, you can just bash it open. Doing so will damage your weapon and it’ll damage anything inside it, but if that’s a risk you’re willing to take and you don’t have any other options available to you, that’s a thing you can do.



An oil flash, some money, a fancy gem, and an Epic-level crossbow.



This is our first instance of needing to identify something! One of the civil skills you can upgrade is Loremaster, and you need a magnifying glass in order to identify something. This crossbow needs only level 1 Loremaster, and Lohse is up to level 2 (the highest a level you’ll need is 5, but you can go above that with some equipment).

All merchants can also identify an item for you, for a price, although each merchant has a different Loremaster level, so if you bring an item that’s too exotic for one merchant to identify, shop around for someone else; there’s bound to be someone that can help you out.



Once Lohse’s given it a looksee, we can see all of the crazy stat bonuses that this crossbow affords us. Putting this on Ifan would make him a wrecking ball of an archer for a hot minute.

Crossbows all come with the movement penalty, while regular bows always come with an accuracy penalty, in order to incentivize one over the other.



Skirting the edge of the arena, there’s a ‘wretched’ torso sitting on one of the tables nearby.

I wonder where Sebille, you know, keeps it all. Even after eating the equivalent of an entire person, she’s still thin as a stick.

: A sea voyage. Children and adults huddled together for warmth and comfort. You were a slave to the Ancient Empire, not so long ago.

I’m not so keen on traveling further in this direction just yet. There’s more of the prison to explore.



Returning to the door leading into the dog’s room, I turn around and head west, down that shorter flight of stairs I saw at the beginning. It’s only a few steps tall, and it leads to a massive set of doors – considering a pair of doors this large would be better meant for appearances and statements, this is probably the front door to the whole fort, and heading out this way would lead me back to the ghetto. After all, the holding cells aren’t so far down below.



Caught between the stairway going up and a little nook against the wall is what appears to be some kind of alter, left totally bare and naked – and next to it is a lever. According to my map, this is where Withermoore told me to explore; something about a ‘Phylactery Room’ where his soul is being kept.

Might as well look into it while I’m here.



Throwing the switch moves the altar back, and it reveals a trap door leading deeper into the maze that is this fortress.

Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Mar 14, 2021

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true


The first thing greeting us is a poisonous cloud. This hazard is being created by a trap hidden in the floor, roughly near the center of the cloud:



Fane, obviously, isn’t going to have a problem with it. One way you could solve this puzzle is to have him walk through; give him Lohse’s teleporter gloves; and then teleport everyone across, one by one. Another method is to just tank the poison and then heal everybody once they’re all across.

But the actual answer is a bit more simple – if a little stressful on your suspension of disbelief:




If a hazard is being created by a trap, such as a vent, then covering the vent with something will remove the hazard. This applies to surfaces, such as fire/oil/even sometimes lava, which we haven’t come across yet. And the size of the object isn’t important: you could throw down a pocket knife and place it over the vent, and it’ll be just as effective as any larger item, such as a container. As long as the vent is covered by something, you’re good to go.




The game hits you with the same puzzle a second time, just to make sure that you got it.



: There could be a good reason why no-one dared to enter in the meantime…



This is Braccus Rex’s Phylactery Room, and based on the layout of the place, we’re almost certain to run into a fight.

Immediately to the right of entering the room is some high ground, with a ladder reaching up to it. Considering the place has been ‘locked up for a century or two,’ I wouldn’t personally be so keen on climbing old, wooden ladders, but Fane’s all about it.



A statue of Braccus, with a small chest containing some money, a set of pants that’s good for Beast, and a human eyeball. Great!

Going back to the center area of the room, there are five jars sitting on altars, each of them with plaques describing what the jar contains. Each jar is swirling with an eerie-green energy, letting you know that they contain something more than just a bit of treasure.







Either Withermoore’s soul had been carved into five pieces, each of them containing a major part of himself and each of them stuffed into its own jar… or this is a trick by the famous mad king Braccus Rex in order to deter whoever would try to rescue him from his eternal life.

I might as well open them up in order. The first is Withermoore the Noxious.




As soon as Fane puts his hand on the jar, it ‘explodes into a glimmering powder,’ which also explodes into noxious fumes and fire. Everyone standing around Fane is got in the blast, including Sir Lora and our unnamed kitty.



A quick rain dance and a sleep in the bedroll fixes us right up. I guess it’s good that we got that one in particular out of the way first.



Surely ‘Withermoore the Sage’ can’t be that damning to open, can it?



: Combat Music 2
: The Many Failings Of Lord Withermoore

Alright; we’re immediately thrust into battle. So that’s what that jar does.

We’re fighting against three undead soldiers. There are two right in front of us, and there’s a third on the high ground to our left; the ladder reaching it is around the corner, closer to the center of the battlefield. The two closest skeletons are a tank on the left and a blademaster on the right, and the one up top is a rogue.





After a bit of planning, Sebille opens her turn with Flesh Sacrifice so she has an extra AP to burn to get closer to the two targets in front of her. Then she uses Chloroform on the blademaster, who goes immediately after she does, and Tentacle Lash on the tank, so it can’t attack or use any skills. For the low price of five AP and a little bit of literal skin (and a point in her Constitution stat, temporarily), Sebille disabled two targets for one whole turn, just like that.

The blademaster is forced to skip, since it’s asleep.




Fane gets a little bit closer in order to use Battering Ram on the blademaster, then, since he only has one AP left, he passes his turn.



The tank repositions, then yells impotently at us and its numb hands.




Lohse repositions slightly, then performs another rain dance to make everyone wet. Then, she hits the tank with Hail Strike to keep its feet frozen in place – as long as nobody approaches it, it’s essentially out for a whole other turn. Although it’s going to have max AP when it does eventually get to act.





The rogue uses Backlash on Lohse, immediately surrendering its high ground in order to get within striking distance, and then it throws some knives at Sebille (which is an odd combination, since it would have gotten the height advantage damage if it didn’t jump first – but, I guess, it also wouldn’t have gotten the backstab damage), but it misses, despite Sebille’s back being to it. Then, it hits Lohse with a Polymorph skill called Chicken Claw.

On success, Chicken Claw does exactly what you assume it’d do: it turns the target into a chicken. That chicken in the last screenshot is Lohse.

As a chicken, you have access to no attacks, no skills, and no magic. You can’t even control your character: once their turn comes around, they will attempt to run as far from the danger as they can, and they will go through any surface and pass by any enemies in order to do so. Being a chicken is a devastating status because not only are you out for a turn, but you’re forced to give up your positioning, and you don’t even get to decide who you run past or through what surfaces you go over.

The Divinity: Unleashed mod nerfs Chicken Claw by giving Chicken Form an innate 75% chance to dodge all attacks and spells (but not surfaces – if you run through fire or poison, you’re taking every single tick of damage that surface gives you). On paper, considering what you’re forcing the target to give up, and considering that everyone gets Opportunist, that’s honestly a fair trade. In practice, well, it’s just not as fun to turn people into chickens when you can’t beat the absolute poo poo out of them afterward.

Also: the chicken is still wearing the source collar, which is cute.





Beast repositions slightly, then hits both the rogue and the blademaster with Battering Ram, knocking them both down. Then he caps his turn with a single melee attack on the blademaster, hitting it with both of his weapons at once.




Sebille uses Backlash on the blademaster, then uses Flurry to burn the rest of her AP. Hopefully we can take this blademaster out before it does too much havoc.




The blademaster turns around and hits Fane and Sebille with Battle Stomp – as well as one of Withermoore’s soul jars behind us. That one was Withermoore the Cold-Hearted, and as soon as it burst open, it covered the entire battlefield in a layer of ice.

Ice, like any non-cursed surface, can be replaced or removed with the right skill – but until it’s all gone and replaced with water, walking anywhere is a risky move, because anybody could trip and fall on their rear end if they do.

The blademaster passes the rest of its turn, holding onto at least two more AP.




Fane uses his own Battle Stomp, more to create a small pocket where anyone could walk without threat of slipping and falling, and then he ends his turn with a good ole’ whack to the target’s ribs.

The tank’s feet are still frozen in place, meaning he’s forced to pass his turn.




Lohse, as a chicken, runs from the rogue behind her, provoking an AoO (which whiffs – hitting chickens is very difficult with this mod), and then she decides that the safest place in the fight is directly in the center of all the enemies, which happens to be the spot Fane cleared with his Battle Stomp. Hey, that works for me.



The rogue very carefully maneuvers around the ice so it can get into position behind Beast, and then it chucks some more knives at him. He isn’t quite as nimble as Sebille and they hit him square between the shoulder blades.




Beast hits the blademaster once more, and then he uses a skill unique to dwarves: Petrifying Touch. Anyone hit by this technique is turned to stone for a turn.

In the base game, this happens immediately, and the target is forced to skip their next turn. Unlike most other RPGs, petrification isn’t a permanent status and wears off over time. In Divinity: Unleashed, since the mod wanted to try and turn away from the over-reliance on crowd control techniques, Petrifying Touch instead applies a status called Petrifaction: they are turning to stone, but they aren’t quite there yet. Petrifaction can be removed with some skills and the target’s turn can be saved, if they’re quick enough. If it isn’t, then the target is turned to stone at the end of their next turn.

In the base game, being petrified gave you a whole litany of immunities as well as some resistances to attacks (but a weakness to additional earth damage). In Divinity: Unleashed, it grants an additional 70% resistance to all forms of damage. Your target is controlled, but they’re also drat-near impossible to damage.



Sebille hits the blademaster once and then decides to take five.





The blademaster repositions slightly (taking an AoO from both Beast and Sebille), then hits makes a swing for both Fane’s and Sebille’s knees with Crippling Blow. Since its weapon can do cleave damage, it hits them both, and they’re now both Crippled. It makes one more swing, hitting Fane but missing Lohse, before the petrifaction runs its course and it turns to stone.



Since the blademaster is too resistant to everything Fane can hit it with, he instead uses Mosquito Swarm on the rogue, and he, too, says that that’s enough for one day.





The tank finally takes a turn by running up to Fane and Sebille (and getting jabbed by Lohse for it) in order to finish what the blademaster started by swinging at their ankles, reapplying Crippled, and then it strikes Fane in the neck with its sword.






The thing about being a chicken for a turn means you only burn however much AP you have on movement, meaning Lohse’s got a boatload of AP to work with since she didn’t run too far.

She opens her turn by teleporting the rogue away – which won’t be a huge deal, since it has Backlash, but at least it does something. Then, she heals Sebille; she uses Encourage on her whole team; and, with her last two AP, she uses Staff of Magus on the tank, hitting it for a fair amount of damage.




Despite having Backlash probably off cooldown, the rogue instead decides to throw some knives as Sebille (and it manages to hit her this time) before casting the Polymorph skill Chameleon Cloak, which turns it invisible. I can hear it repositioning, but I have no idea where it is or what it’s doing.



Without a ton of other options available to him, Beast hits the tank twice.

Sebille delays her turn, and the blademaster spends a turn to come out of its petrification, meaning its vulnerable to all my attacks again.





Fane has six AP to play with, so he hits the blademaster twice, then uses Battering Ram to hit it and the tank at once. That’s enough to kill the blademaster, and since Fane has Executioner, he immediately gets two more AP, which he spends on hitting the tank once more.




The tank puts a bit of distance between it and Fane (and gets clubbed by Beast for it) before turning around and whacking him twice.

Fane’s pretty close to death now. He has Comeback Kid, meaning a death blow will instead put him at 20% of his max HP, but he’s still not in great condition.




Lohse hits the tank with Electric Discharge, and then another Staff of Magus. It’s only got a few HP left itself, now, and Beast is more than likely going to be able to take it out.

The rogue is still invisible, and it spends a bit more AP on repositioning…



… before going right back to where it started and hucking some more knives at Sebille. What was the point of all that? It wasted all that AP just walking back and forth!




Beast hits the tank once more, and that’s that: its spine can take no more, and it crumbles to the ground in a heap. After that, he uses Fortify on Fane, since he’s pretty close to death.



Sebille’s own Backlash attack is on cooldown for one more turn, so, without much else to do now that the rogue is well out of range, she chucks a bottle of Chloroform at it, then passes her turn.

Sebille goes first on the next turn, meaning she gets two turns back-to-back since she delayed on the previous turn. Backlash is off cooldown, so she could probably teleport up to the ledge with the rogue – but she decides to delay again instead.




Fane takes it upon himself to head up to the rogue to fight it face-to-face, and to do that, he uses Battle Stomp on the ice to clear a path for himself.




Lohse hits the rogue with Restoration, which will deal damage over time to the rogue, and then burns the rest of her AP on Hail Strike.



Beast uses Poison Dart on Fane in order to try and heal him – and the dummy dodges the dart! Luckily, the dart leaves a poison surface where it lands, so Fane is still poisoned, but he doesn’t take the healing from the initial impact because there wasn’t one.





Sebille takes her delayed turn to use Backlash up to the rogue, and then, combined with her back-to-back turns, she hits the rogue four times, before capping her turn with Tentacle Lash. Now the rogue can’t use its own Backlash even if it wanted to, since it’s a physical skill.




The rogue, deciding to be as difficult as it can be, hits Sebille with Chicken Claw so she can’t hit it with an AoO, then it repositions slightly and then taunts us.

Fane doesn’t have enough AP to perform any meaningful action, so he passes entirely.




Not that it matters: Lohse hits it with Electric Discharge and Staff of Magus, and the fight is finished.

Well, that was a sudden and not-at-all-expected fight, just for opening up a jar. Surely it won’t happen again, right?



After healing up and waiting for all my skills to go off cooldown, I inspect the plaque to the second-last soul jar. ‘Withermoore the Yellow-Bellied.’

Yeah, I’m… not going to risk that a second time. I have to open the jar, but I can at least reposition my people a little better.

Fane has the most physical armour and the highest HP of the group, and someone needs to open the jar, so he’ll stay on the ground. But for everyone else…





Beast and Lohse take the high ground, where the rogue first spawned in, while Sebille sits on the upper platform behind the soul jar, between a pair of coffins. They’re a bit spaced out, but that also means they can’t be crowd-controlled, and Lohse having the highest ground means she can see the whole field for her healing magic.

That last fight wasn’t so bad. Maybe this fight won’t be so bad. And maybe it won’t be a fight at all!


: Combat Music 2

Immediately on inspecting the second-last soul jar, Fane is inflicted with Fear, which lowers his movement speed, his accuracy, his dodging, and all resistances, by 20%. Four enemies spawn into the arena, each of them on high ground: three on the raised platforms surrounding the arena, and one right next to Lohse and Beast.

The fact that there’s four when the last fight only had three, and the fact that all four of them spawned on higher ground than Fane, doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.



An archer directly above Fane plugs him with two arrows, immediately putting him down to half health. Archery is no joke if you can get the high ground!

It’s technically Fane’s turn right now, but I can act with my other three teammates before he takes his own actions.






Sebille takes her free shot by using Chloroform on the Pyromancer right beside her; Beast doesn’t have a lot of options available to him, so he clubs the nearby Aeromancer once; and then Lohse teleports that same Aeromancer onto the low-ground, behind a wall, so it’ll be forced to reposition in order to cast anything meaningful.



Every target in this fight is above Fane, and he hasn’t learned any self-teleport skills, so he’s forced to reposition to go after them. There’s a puddle of poison that was left over from the previous fight; he can at least walk onto that and start healing.



The enemy team’s Cryomancer casts Armour of Frost on their archer, before it, too, begins repositioning, making for the stairwell that leads into the open floor of the arena.

The Pyromancer’s turn is next, but he spends it waking up from the Chloroform.



The Aeromancer repositions, and then fires off a Staff of Magus at Lohse. It doesn’t hurt her nearly so badly since she’s loaded with magic armour and it has the low ground. Since it was forced to reposition, that was its whole turn.




Sebille hits the archer with Tentacle Lash, forcing it to skip its next turn, and then burns the rest of her AP by stabbing it twice. You’d think knives and swords wouldn’t be very effective against skeletons.



Beast doesn’t have a lot of long-range options, and the few that he does have would heal undead characters. So, instead, he uses his Fireball scroll to hit the Aeromancer, and then he saves his last two AP for the next turn.





It’s important that the healer of the team stays alive, so Lohse tops herself off with Restoration; then, she repositions a bit before using Encourage and getting Fane and Beast; and finally, she uses Armour of Frost on Beast to improve his own magic armour, since his is significantly lower than hers.






The archer, with its wrists broken, decides to absolutely haul rear end by running right past Sebille, right past Lohse, and right past Beast, taking an AoO from all three of them. It hides in the absolute top corner of the map after having taking three free hits, and then it has the nerve to turn around and start taunting.

It’s kind of a surprise that it had the AP to run that far, though. Its Scoundrel score must be fairly high.




Sebille is officially out of crowd-control techniques, so she uses Backlash on the Pyromancer, then hits him once more. She still has an AP left to spend for later.





The Cryomancer cuts straight through the arena; right past Fane, taking an AoO for it; and then parks itself between Lohse and Beast before performing a rain dance. That top platform is uncomfortably crowded and Lohse’s Teleport won’t be off cooldown for another turn or two.




Fane makes things worse by climbing the ladder to chase after the Cryomancer and then whacks it once. Nobody will have the space to move anywhere up there at this rate, and I’m spreading my damage way too thin between my four targets.




The Pyromancer repositions and casts Burning Blaze on Fane. I bet it wanted to climb the ladder too, but Fane’s blocking the way.




Beast hits the archer with Battering Ram in order to break its ankles and force it to spend more AP in order to get closer – and then he runs right back to the Cryomancer to keep wailing on it. Like I said, I don’t want to spread my focus too thin, and the Cryomancer decided to put itself between three of my dudes.





The Aeromancer, now on fire, repositions to where Fane started, and because it’s on fire, it ignites the poison puddle at the bottom of the ladder – and our unnamed cat gets caught in the blast, forcing it to take 70 fire damage. It’s got a couple hundred HP to work with, so it’ll survive this, but, you know, that’s my cat down there.

It ends its turn with another Staff of Magus on Lohse, and since it’s an air elemental staff, it electrocutes the water everyone is standing on, which includes its two teammates. Fair trade.



Lohse only has three AP to work with now that she’s been freshly Stunned, so she uses Hail Strike on the Pyromancer. The idea being, one, chilling it will lower its stats and control it a little easier, and two, the Cryomancer is too close to friendlies and the Aeromancer is too close to the cat for her to do much else.



The archer fires off a Ricochet, which hits Fane, but misses Lohse and Beast. And since it’s also Stunned, that’s its whole turn.



Sebille hits the Pyromancer with another bottle of Chloroform, and then opts to save her three AP for the next turn, which will give her seven total. She still has Adrenaline and Flesh Sacrifice handy, so she could potentially have quite the busy turn, if she wanted.






The Cryomancer takes one step and gets hit by Lohse and Fane for it, but it still gets the last laugh, because Fane, being a tank, is weak to magic attacks. One hit with the staff and another cast of Staff of Magus is enough to kill him, but thanks to Comeback Kid, he’s instead brought to 20% of his max HP. He’s hanging on, but it’s getting dicey, especially with all of these environmental hazards around him.





All I want is for Fane to hit the Cryomancer a few times. I click on the Cryomancer once, and Fane attempts to reposition closer, which apparently gives the Cryomancer a free hit. Fane survives with just 4 HP remaining. So I click on the Cryomancer again – and he slips and falls on some ice left over from when the Cryomancer hit him with Staff of Magus. He needs to reposition to get closer because staffs and spears have longer reach than every other weapon.

So, gently caress it: he uses Mosquito Swarm. It puts him up to 53 HP. What a great goddamn turn that was.

At least the Pyromancer is still asleep and is forced to skip.




Beast uses Poison Dart on Fane to try and keep him healed, but it hits Lohse too. Whatever, gently caress it, she can heal herself and Fane’s on his last legs. He ends his turn with another solid hit on the Cryomancer; it only has a few pixels of HP remaining and it should go down on the next hit.





The Aeromancer, still on fire, climbs the ladder, which ignites the poison that Beast just put down. And then it casts Blinding Radiance, which puts Lohse and Beast at half, and it kills Fane for good.

Fane just could not catch a break this whole fight. At least he got in a few decent hits.




Lohse heals herself, right on time, and then she hits the Aeromancer with Teleport – but because she’s blinded, she can only throw it within arm’s length of herself. At the very least, that means she can toss it down the flight of stairs and back into the fire… but, again, because she’s blinded, the damage portion of Teleport misses somehow, and she doesn’t do any damage.

At the very least, Beast is no longer blinded, so that helps a bit.

The archer, still stunned and with no targets in sight, opts to pass its turn completely.






Sebille decides to cash in all her AP: she stabs twice; uses Adrenaline and Flesh Sacrifice; uses Flurry; and then stabs once more, for a total of nine AP spent and 229 damage done.

All of that doesn’t kill the Pyromancer, but it’s down to 17 HP and Sebille is within AoO range, so it’ll die if it tries to move and I don’t think Lohse is within range of its spells.



The Cryomancer hits Beast twice, which kills him, but he also has Comeback Kid. He’s certainly not in great shape, though.



Beast only has two AP to work with, and his options are either to heal, or to make one swing at the Cryomancer and take it out. He decides to not go out like a coward and make one last swing, finally killing one of the enemy targets.



The Pyromancer attempts to reposition – and just like I said, it’s taken out by Sebille. Just like that, we’re in the lead.




Lohse hits the Aeromancer with Electric Discharge, which doesn’t do a whole lot of damage, admittedly. She puts of Beast’s fire with Armour of Frost before saving her last AP for the next turn.





Fat lot of good it did, though: the Aeromancer repositions and hits Beast with Staff of Magus, which takes him out for good. Then it casts a skill called Favourable Wind, which increases the speed and initiative of itself and all allies in a radius around it.

The turn rolls over, and because its initiative increased, the Aeromancer gets to go again, and it spends the turn casting another Staff of Magus on Lohse. But that’s all it decides to do, and it ends its turn. It’s now a two-on-two between the Aeromancer, the archer, Lohse, and Sebille.



Sorry – it’s a two-on-one with the girls against the archer. Sebille uses Backlash to take out the Aeromancer, but because she used Adrenaline, she doesn’t have the AP to do anything else.




The archer, realizing that it needs to do something, wades through the electric water to take a shot at Lohse with a poisoned arrow. And then, it wades through all that water again so it can step into the poison puddle it just made and heal itself.

It took well over 150 damage just from walking through the electricity so it could heal for 23. I mean, okay.




Lohse heals herself, which is smart, and then she resurrects Fane. The reason is so he can get in the last hit and say that he was a major contributing force to the fight, and definitely not because I had a brain fart and didn’t think to just whack the archer with Lohse’s staff a few times.



Anyway, that’s exactly what Fane does, and the fight is finally won. With that, the Phylactery room is silent once again.



Sir Lora and the unnamed cat took a little bit of a beating that fight: Lora kept walking through the electric water and the cat was poisoned, then set on fire. It’s nothing a little TLC can’t heal, at least.

After all that effort, I hope that the skeletons at least have something valuable for me to loot off them.



The archer and the Cryomancer had nothing and a bit of money, respectively. The Pyromancer, at least, has a bit of a better haul: some healing items, some money, and some magic boots.



Well, that would have been nice to have about two minutes earlier.

Nobody on my team is wearing anything good on their feet, so the boots go to Lohse.



The tank from the previous fight has more money, another scroll, and a decent belt than, when investigated, gives me +3 physical armour; +1 Constitution; and +2 Initiative.

Nobody is wearing any belt at all on my team, so everyone can benefit from it – so I give it to Lohse to go with her new boots. She’s the healer; she needs all the armour and HP she can get.



After all of that, this final jar, Withermoore the Supplicant, must be the one we’re after. It figures that, of the five options available, the correct one was the very last we chose.

Not that it was a particularly difficult puzzle – Withermoore was not Noxious or Cold-Hearted or Yellow-Bellied and he wasn’t a Sage. If you choose this jar, you don’t have to deal with any of the challenges the others give you, and you can be in and out of this room in a few minutes.

: You sense a great whorl of energy within the jar. From its depths, a faint voice howls. This must be the container that holds Lord Withermoore’s soul.

: Withermoore held his end of the bargain – we should hold ours.

: It would be cruel to keep a man’s soul when we could easily free it.

: Does our word mean nothing? Destroy the jar!



It’s three-to-zero right now. We promised Withermoore that, in exchange for a way out of the prison, we would find the jar holding his soul and destroy it so that he could finally leave this mortal coil (after being fastened to a wall by a spear for the last thousand years, remember).

But we could, you know, not do that. Having a soul inside a jar could be useful later.

What do you think? Should we destroy Lord Withermoore’s Soul Jar?



Before I leave, there’s something unusual about this statue. I can’t quite put my finger on what. Maybe someone else in my team can say what, exactly.




: A chunk of stone falls from the statue. There’s something hidden inside!



It’s a pair of pants!



Ooh, it’s a nice pair of pants.

This is a part of a quest that we should be getting much later, but I’m jumping the gun and getting it started now. The reason being, it’s kind of bullshit: there is absolutely no indication that there’s anything hidden here and you’d have zero reason to look at this exact spot. You get a hint that there’s something to find in the Phylactery room, but no mention of where in the room or what to look for.

And on top of that, you need an absurd level of Wits for your level in order to even spot the drat thing. Sebille found the pants because she has the highest Wits in my team, and I still needed to burn a Clear Minded scroll on her to boost it high enough for her to see it. I don’t know if we’ll be swapping Sebille out later, so, I figured I’d just get them now.

Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Mar 14, 2021

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true


Anyway, there’s one last thing I want to check out before I finish this update. I want to know what’s straight south of this large hallway.



It’s two Magisters and a small child. According to my map, this is where Delorus told us to go, and he gave us a password to help identify us to other dissenters within the Magister order. Hopefully it’ll be enough to get us to work together.

They don’t seem to be in too much of a rush to be friends once we approach, though.

: What the flying hell…? Carin, you said this way was clear!

: Th… that’s what the log said, sir! No-one’s authorised to be here!

: Well, the log was wrong, you idiot!



: I’m with Madam Zoor. She sent me.

: The Magister cocks his head, seemingly surprised at what he heard.



: The truth is, I had rescued one of your companions, Delorus, from the interrogation in the holding cells below, and he told me to say that line so that I could get access to the boat.

: Delorus is a fool. Went and got himself caught, and now he’s handing out our secrets to whosoever may pass by.

: Sorry, but Del led you wrong. There’s nothing for you here but secrets you ought not to know.


: Combat Music 2
: Delorus And The Fools
(Yes, all three fights used the same song)

Dude, don’t–

Alright, fine, whatever. I tried. And frankly, less Magisters is always a good thing. If you can’t trust the dissenters, who can you trust?




Sebille goes first. The male Magister, Goa, is going to go after she does – so she hits him with Chloroform and then uses Backlash on the female Magister, Carin.

Goa spends his turn waking up, meaning he’s forced to skip and let Lohse have hers in his place.




Lohse does a rain dance, soaking everyone and everything in the battlefield, and then she uses Hail Strike. Hail Strike has a modestly wide attack range to it, so I try to hit both Magisters at once, but it doesn’t work out, and I only get Goa. Which is fine anyway: the rain and the ice freeze his feet in place, and he’ll probably be completely ineffective as long as nobody goes near him.




Carin repositions a bit and gets stabbed for it, and then she hits Fane, Beast, and Lohse with a Razzle Dazzle grenade – a flashbang, basically. All three of them are Blinded, which is a hell of a good move, really.



Fane gets a little closer, because he can’t see more than a few meters in front of himself, and he attempts to body-tackle Carin with Battering Ram, but the blindness forces him to miss. It stings a little less when your chance-to-hit is closer to something like 70% as opposed to missing when it’s 95%.




Beast uses Poison Dart on Fane and Carin. Even if he’s blind and he misses the initial strike, Poison Dart will put down a poison puddle, and that will poison them both.

The puddle doesn’t quite reach Fane, but, bonus, the initial hit of the dart actually hits Carin anyway. Since Fane isn’t poisoned, Beast might as well give him some extra armour with Fortify (Fortify will cure Poison, even if it’s beneficial to you).



Sebille just hits Carin twice. She could have used Tentacle Lash, but, ehhhhh




Goa isn’t as helpless as he seems: he uses Restoration of Fane, and then hits Fane and Sebille with Bouncing Shield. A decent turn for someone who’s feet are frozen to the floor.



Lohse approaches the group, since she is also blind, and hits Carin with Electric Discharge. The rain from earlier makes things, well, a little messy.





Carin repositions a bit; hits Beast and Lohse with Bouncing Shield (which forces Lohse to bleed, which connects the electrified puddle of water to her blood, which electrocutes her), before turning around and breaking Sebille’s ankles.



Fane’s not in the mood for any fancy stuff, and he just hits Carin twice.



Beast uses Battering Ram on Goa. It knocks him down and forces a bunch of debuffs on him, but it also does a handful of air damage to himself, since he’s charging over dangerous terrain, and it also puts him right next to Goa.

Eh, it shouldn’t be a big deal.



Sebille decides that now is a good time for Tentacle Lash, and she whips her tentacle arm at Goa, whiffing completely, which is good and cool. Because she’s stunned, she doesn’t have any more AP to spend.



Goa doesn’t have a lot to play with either, though, and he hits Beast and Lohse with Battle Stomp. Which hits them and knocks them down and all, but it also clears the floor of the electrified water, which is nice.



Lohse only has two AP to work with herself, and she’s the designated healer, so she gets a bit closer to Sebille, the one that needs it the most, and casts Restoration on her.



Unfortunately for Carin, the poisoning and the shock damage combined are too much for her at the start of her next turn, and she opens her turn by dying immediately.



Fane continues to not give a drat and just wails on Goa, hitting him twice.



Beast actually came with two Aerothurge spells, since his default build is a Battlemage, but they’re both touch range and he hasn’t had the opportunity to use them against a non-mage until now. He doesn’t have the AP to cast both, but he can cast Blinding Radiance to blind every enemy within five meters of himself. Call it revenge for that flashbang from earlier.

Never mind that Goa wasn’t the one that threw it.




Sebille hits Goa with Backlash, then one more regular melee strike.





Goa repositions a bit (and gets clubbed for it), and then he throws Bouncing Shield at Fane and Beast – which misses both targets – and he closes his turn with Restoration on Fane – which he sidesteps. Handy to know you can just step aside from a healing ray of light like that.



There isn’t anything noteworthy about the rest of the fight: Lohse casts Encourage to raise everyone’s stats, and then we all just beat the poo poo out of Goa until he eventually keels over. One more fight in the books!



Carin had a pretty decent shield on her. Too bad that luck didn’t pull through for her in the end. But then again, it wasn’t her fault that Goa was so quick on the trigger – I’m wearing the Sourcerer’s collars, for goodness sake, he was supposed to be on my side.



At least Delorus was telling the truth about the boat.

: The boy stands back from you, steady eyes narrowed in a wary stare.



: I am known to humans as Fane.

: I’m Han. So, Fane. You helped me out just there, so let me return the favour. You want to get out of here?

Wait, what? Goa and Carin weren’t trying to rescue Han? Was Delorus just some loony nutjob? Is there no coordination in this dissenting faction of Magisters???



: Where would we be embarking for?



: How did you find yourself down in this dungeon?



: You said you were looking for someone? I’ve been all throughout the lower levels of the dungeons – who were you looking for, exactly?

: Guy named Verdas. He was close to some people I know.



: Ah, I’m familiar with the elf you speak of. He had an indomitable spirit, but his body… wasn’t.



: I… can’t help but notice that you aren’t wearing your Source collar. I just so happen to be in the market for getting this drat thing off me. Could you tell me your methods?

: I know someone on the outside. She might be able to help you too… if we make it out of here. Now jump in the boat and I’ll take the oars…



There it is. Freedom not off the island, but at least out of Fort Joy, is right there, right beside us. And Han is even willing to take the oars for us and row us out of here – we don’t have to lift another finger!

But… there’s still quite a bit of Fort Joy to explore, if we’re so inclined. There’s that bloody, gory arena, just to the east of where we’re standing. There’s the massive door that very likely goes straight out to the courtyard in the Fort Joy ghetto. And there’s that flight of stairs that likely goes directly into the belly of the fortress itself, where all the Magisters are no doubt congregating.

What should we do? Should we take the boat with Han and leave? Or should we explore the fort?

To recap, we have the following things to vote for this time:

Do we put down Birdie, or do we try to convince him to live?
Do we smash Withermoore’s Soul Jar, or do we leave it be?
Do we take the boat with Han to freedom, or do we explore the fort some more?


Let me know by tomorrow!

Jadecore
Mar 10, 2018

They say money can't buy happiness, but it sure does help.
Convince Birdie to live, smash the Soul Jar, explore the fort more

Let's try to do the decent thing, because why not.

EricFate
Aug 31, 2001

Crumpets. Glorious Crumpets.

Maple Leaf posted:



To recap, we have the following things to vote for this time:

Do we put down Birdie, or do we try to convince him to live?
Do we smash Withermoore’s Soul Jar, or do we leave it be?
Do we take the boat with Han to freedom, or do we explore the fort some more?


Let me know by tomorrow!

Birdie wants to be a good dog. That in and of itself is enough to make it worth giving Birdie a pep talk.

Let Withermoore die. Better to get the experience from a completed quest now. If you need a soul for something later, I am sure there will be plenty of opportunities to wrest one from someone else.

Explore the fort some more. You haven't looted the place clean yet. What kind of adventurer leaves a location before they steal everything that isn't nailed down?

Taberquol
Jun 16, 2012

Let Birdie live, he isn’t a cop dog yet.

Smash that soul jar, we already have a jar of brain-eating maggots.

Explore the fort some more, we need to inform Buddy the bad news at least.

GuavaMoment
Aug 13, 2006

YouTube dude
Convince Birdie to live. Because I wanted the combat XP....
Can you talk to Withermoore first? Smash it in front of him if it's what he really wants.
Take the boat, because I think it goes away if you don't take it?

Black Robe
Sep 12, 2017

Generic Magic User


We should swap the Red Prince back in at some point to play with his new toy, that staff sounds fun.

Also the doggies are precious :3: Argos is a good dog, yes he is. No, we're not killing Birdie - if he comes with us he can eat bad guys if he likes. Or chew on Fane's leg to ease his cravings :v:

And yes, break the soul jar. He didn't lie to us, we shouldn't lie to him.

Finally, always be exploring. There could be loot! Or more animal friends to tag along and probably get killed!

Olive Branch
May 26, 2010

There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance.

Killing Birdie? What the hell, Pet Island would be hopping mad. Persuade him to live.

Take the Soul Jar, but talk to Withermoore with it. See if you can't give him the option to do it himself.

Keep exploring. Han can wait while we stick our nose in Magister business. AMAB.

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



Could we have accidentally killed Han during that fight? For that matter, are child NPCs invulnerable?

...

Less relevant, but I'm not sure whether there will be a better time to ask - can you draw different groups of enemies to fight each other, or do they have a set aggro ranger \ aren't hostile to anything other than the player?

Schwartzcough
Aug 12, 2009

Don't tease the Octopus, kids!
Agreed with almost everyone else:

Let Birdie live.
Smash the Jar, but bring it to Withermore if it'll get more dialog.
Explore dat fort!
(unless we'd lose our boat opportunity).

Negative_Earth
Apr 18, 2002

BeiiN AlL ii CaN B

like everyone posted:

Agreed with almost everyone else:

Let Birdie live.
Smash the Jar, but bring it to Withermore.
Explore dat fort!


to prevent emptyquoting, I'm most interested in what Withermore/That Kid have to say about the jar. I busted it in the room and didn't think to bring it back first.

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true

Xander77 posted:

Could we have accidentally killed Han during that fight? For that matter, are child NPCs invulnerable?

...

Less relevant, but I'm not sure whether there will be a better time to ask - can you draw different groups of enemies to fight each other, or do they have a set aggro ranger \ aren't hostile to anything other than the player?

I'll find out if Han is killable, just for you.

It might be possible to start a big city-wide brawl by casting charm on a target? Or maybe Mad? And then pointing them at someone and telling them to go wild. For the most part, though, the 'factions' that we know so far are Magisters, Sourcerers, and Voidwoken, and the Voidwoken are all scripted to appear in certain locations, so we can't, like, summon one in a town or something. And I doubt Goa and Carin would have fought with us if we got into a tussle with other Magisters.

Anyway, by near-unanimous vote, we're going to try and convince Birdie to live; we're going to smash the jar, but I'm going to see if it's possible to take it to Withermoore first; and I'm going to opt to not escape prison in favour of exploring more of it.

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true
To start this update, forums user Xander77 wondered if, like in most RPGs of Divinity’s type, you can’t kill children. Han is standing right there, so, perfect time to find out!





The answer, at least with Han specifically, is that you can hurt them, and they take normal damage, but as soon as you do, they haul rear end out of there and away from you.

And I mean they haul rear end. As soon as I hit Han, he ran like the wind back into the fort’s prison until he eventually voided out. There was no way I could have chased after him.

So, the answer is “yes*.” You can hurt kids in Divinity: Original Sin 2, but you can’t realistically kill them since they run faster than you can catch them.

I probably could have put some obstacles in his path to intercept him, or maybe hit him with some mobility-reducing statuses or something, but I’m also not invested enough in this line of questioning to find out if Han is actually killable. Nor am I deranged enough.

Anyway, a quick reload later, and we voted to convince Birdie to live. All dogs are good dogs, but some of them need to be reminded.




Despite none of us wanting to kill Birdie, he’s still adamant about him being a bad dog, and he needs some extra convincing.

: The Divine Order are a group of bad people, Birdie, and they’ve done bad things to both good people and good dogs. You aren’t alone. Someone out there will love you.

: Persuasion Success!

: Maybe… maybe there’s someone out there who wants a broken old dog like me. Never hurts to look, I guess. I guess I… I guess I better get to lookin’.



With that, Birdie runs out of the Houndermaster’s room, through the dog pen, and into the holding cells beneath the prison, in search of a better life and someone to love him, despite his faults.



Now that that’s cleared up, I’m free to rummage through the Houndmaster’s room for any goodies.

It turns out, he wasn’t hiding a whole lot: he had some money and some crafting recipes lying around, but he didn’t keep the juicy stuff hidden anywhere.



Because he left it all in plain sight, right there on his table.

Guy could use a duster, though. There’s cobwebs drat near everywhere. And those benches are a good five feet from the table.

We’re running pretty low on things like resurrection scrolls, so Fane could really use that. The Houndmaster’s Crossbow technically does more raw damage than that elven crossbow we picked up earlier, but the only perk it offers is that it has a 20% chance to set Slowed for 2 turns, whereas the elven crossbow has an absolute litany of stat increases, so the elven bow is a much better option.

And finally, that book on the ‘medicinal’ uses of drudanae….



Birdie said that the Houndmaster made the human flesh ‘irresistible’ somehow. According to this, he was likely sprinkling crushed drudanae on the meat – meaning that the other dogs, including Emmie, were likely ‘trained’ the same way. They’re all jonesing for their next bite.



In the corner of the dog pen is a treasure chest, sitting on an elevated platform with no ladder. There’s no way for any of us to get up there without a bit of assistance.

In order to access this chest, you’ll either need someone to be teleported up there, or you can teleport the chest down.




Not that there was anything worth getting. A pitchfork (a spear-type weapon) and a bit of cash.

Well, the cash is always useful this early in the game. Equipment, potions, and especially resurrection scrolls don’t come cheap!



The next thing we all voted on was to destroy Lord Withermoore’s Soul Jar, but to bring it to him first, if we can. And it turns out that, indeed, we can, if you right-click it instead of left-click.



Your character will comment on an item they pick up depending on its rarity. If it’s unique or extremely valuable, such as the Houndmaster’s crossbow or a jar containing the immortal soul of another human being, they’ll say something positive; if they pick up something with no perceived value, such as, I don’t know, some dishware or a pebble, they’ll react negatively.

Anyway, now that we have that, our next step is to return it to Withermoore. Not a lot of players ever thought to bring the jar back to him: they either just smash it on the spot, or they… do something else with Withermoore’s soul.



: We went through a lot of difficulty to find it, but I have reason to believe that we’ve found the jar that contains your soul, Lord Withermoore.



: Your information was good, so, a deal is a deal.





As soon as we smash the jar upon the ground, a lightning bolt (of sorts?) strikes Lord Withermoore, and he falls into a clump on the ground. His weary bones have finally come to rest.

Right in front of Mody.

: W… Wither? Wake up! Please!

Withermoore’s opinion of Mody wasn’t very high, but he was also one of the only friends Mody had, and we ‘killed’ the guy right in front of him. Life is hard sometimes.

Anyway, that’s another quest written off. I wonder if Withermoore was holding anything good on him.



Hoooo yeah he did!

Belts aren’t especially common this early in the game, and for anything to give +1 Memory is a big deal. We’ll be thirsty for more Memory up until the late game, so everyone could use all the Memory they can get.



Fane wasn’t wearing a belt up until now, and he’s still rocking a crappy, stained shirt as ‘armour,’ so him getting the belt is as good a decision as any. And besides, it’s probably a good idea for our tank to have more physical armour on him.

The final vote on the thread was to keep exploring the fort. We’re the protagonists in a CRPG, after all! We’re incentivized to do everything, to see all that the game has to offer, and to murder as many people as we can for that sweet, sweet EXP. We’re being held prisoner on an island for the dastardly crime of being born – why not achieve some extra superpowers and start killing our jailors?

That said, before I get started on my explorin’-killin’ joint-venture, I am decidedly low on materials since the last two fights in the Phylactery Room. I don’t have a ton of money to be throwing around, but I need to start stocking up with what money I do have.

And for everything else, there’s Sebille.



First, since he’s right next to Mody’s little hideaway with Withermoore, I might as well start with Kalias. He has all the good, hard-hitting equipment and armour, and he’s got all the Warfare skillbooks.

Last time I did business with him, I gave him a bit of extra material without taking any cash in exchange. This boosted his attitude towards us up to 39, meaning his sell prices are lower and his buy prices are higher.

Every merchant needs a different amount of money or gold value for their attitude to raise by a value – go too low, and you’ll be giving them money with absolutely nothing in return, not even increased attitude.

It’s expensive now, but, in the long run, having at least one merchant with a high attitude towards you will help you out with your expenses, since you can peddle all your junk to them for a better price, which you can spend elsewhere. So, it’ll be prudent to have Kalias like us more.



Let’s see how much 100 gold will raise Kalias’ attitude with us.



It raised it by 66, meaning ten coins raised his attitude with us by 6.6 (not that the game tracks decimals, but I’m not sure which way it rounds). If we wanted to minmax his attitude while saving the most amount of money, we should have given him approximately 92 coins, meaning we just lost eight to the ether. That’s not a big deal, though, it’s just eight coins, and the returns we’ll get from him will be much higher.



For example, this pitchfork that we found in the dog pen is worth 28 coins. Because Kalias likes us so much, he’s willing to buy it off us for 36. Likewise, one of the skillbooks he offers is worth 513, but he’s willing to sell it for 399.



All of our junk together fetches a much more handsome price than if we had sold to anyone else.

But you know what’s a better selling price than that? Getting it for free. Let’s rob our new best friend.



I steal from Kalias a Warfare skillbook called Whirlwind, and then, with the rest of my gold value, I just steal as much money as I can. And then I haul rear end out of there. I don’t want a guy like Kalias on my bad side.

Just outside of the elven cave is Doctor Leste, a trader that specializes in Polymorph skills. She ain’t no friend of mine!



She doesn’t have any money for me to steal, so I go with Chicken Claw and Chameleon Cloak, both staple skills of any Polymorph build.

Next up on my shopping spree is Mona, the disease-ridden woman sitting alone in the sick tent just north from Doctor Leste. Despite being sick and dying, she’s also a Necromancer peddler.



From her, I take the skills Shackles of Pain and Raise Bloated Corpse. I’m not a huge fan of Raise Bloated Corpse and I think its usefulness as a skill falls off pretty quickly, especially if you get other summons instead, but seeing as we’re currently rocking a solid zero summons between our entire party, it’ll have a use.

Next up is Rezik, the blue lizard in the shanty town that deals with Hydrosophist skills.



Lohse doesn’t have a lot in terms of offensive spells, and while Hydrosophy is primarily known for being healing-based, it nonetheless has more than a few offensive skills in its school. Sebille’s Thievery isn’t very high, though; she can only take one skillbook, Winter Blast, and then every other book is too high in gold value for her to pilfer.

So she just robs him of his shiny golden goblet for the cash value and calls it a success.

Next up: Stingtail, the Pyro –

Oh, right.

Uh… Maol, the elf wandering the southern shore of the prison! He’s next, yes. He sells Geomancer stuff.



Beast has Fortify and Poison Dart, which are the bare-minimum must-haves for a Geomancer build. Maol also has the skills Impalement and Fossil Strike – Impalement is very useful for controlling one enemy in particular (and anyone standing very close to your target), and Fossil Strike is another skill that any Geomancer should have. Even Ifan had it.

That’s about all I’m after for my heist spree, although I want to make one more legitimate stop before getting back to my adventures within the fort. But first: since we’re on the beach, there’s a certain lover that could probably use some good news.



: B… b… ball!

: The dog squeaks the ball repeatedly, happy as a clam.

: *Squeak*Squeak*Squeak*Squeak*Squeak*Squeak*

I’ve had a couple of dogs in my time, and if I know dogs, there’s a good chance that Buddy is going to rip that ball to pieces within the hour.



: I’ve met a dog named Emmie inside the fort. She’s working as a Source Hound for the men in those big capes. I gave her your message for you.



: (Perhaps it’s best not to string Buddy along.) It was hard to say. She perked right up as soon as I said your name, but it was clear that she misses you just as much as you miss her.

: Well… at least she’s out there… somewhere. Maybe she’ll come back! Some day…

: The dog wags his tail hopefully.

Thus closes another quest, done and archived for the books. Another job well done.

Like I said, there’s one more person I’d like to visit, and that’s Hilde, the Scoundrel merchant. We’ve already stolen from her once before and we can’t hit the same target twice, so we’ll have to purchase her wares legitimately.



Skillbooks cost a ton of money, particularly if the merchant isn’t good friends with you. Even despite my heists, buying these two skillbooks is going to run me nearly all of my money.

The two I bought in particular are Ruptured Tendons and Cloak And Dagger. Ruptured Tendons is a brutal skill that synergizes really well with another skill in particular, and Cloak And Dagger is our first self-teleport skill.



Now that I’m done all the shopping I wanted to get done, it’s time to take inventory in all the skills I procured one way or the other.

Whirlwind: Swing your weapon around in a circle, damaging all enemies within your reach, which is determined by the weapon you’re spinning with. Two-handed weapons will reach further than one-handed weapons, for example.

Chameleon Cloak: Turn completely invisible for two turns. Invisibility is broken if the user attacks, performs a skill, takes damage, or becomes wet.

Chicken Claw: Turn an enemy target within arm’s reach into a chicken for one turn. Ba-caw!

Raise Bloated Corpse: Target any corpse within range and turn it into a bloated monstrosity that you can control. The bloated corpse can attack; it can draw enemy agro; and it can explode on command, dealing massive physical damage to all targets in range. The bloated corpse is considered to be a summon, and therefore the user can only have one at a time.

Shackles Of Pain: For one turn, any damage the user takes is also done to whoever the user has used Shackles of Pain on. Transferred damage ignores all resistances.

Winter Blast: A target area is hit with a wintery blast, freezing all surfaces and chilling/freezing all targets within the blast.

Impalement: Rocky spikes shoot up around a targeted area, spearing into the kneecaps of everyone within its range, causing Crippled. The spikes then recede, dropping oil where they sprouted.

Cloak And Dagger: Self-teleport to any location within range of the user. Does not break sneaking or invisibility.

Ruptured Tendons: On hit, a target hit with Ruptured Tendons takes bleeding damage whenever they walk for one turn. Damage is done per tick, like a hazardous surface.



Back in the fort, there’s one hallway heading to the east that we never went down. It leads to that bloody arena at the end of the basement. It’s time we find out what fresh hell awaits us down there.



The word ‘flense’ means ‘to slice the skin or fat from a carcass, particularly that of a whale.’ Whoever’s down here likes to cut the meat off of dead people’s bones. Hopefully they’re not the one making them dead in the first place….



Way at the very eastern end of the room is a man dressed in fairly dapper clothing, especially for the room he’s in, speaking to a Silent Monk. A massive statue of Lucian the Divine overlooks the arena.

: …That, of course, was so many years ago now. I can hardly remember the smell of his skin anymore.

: Oh, but I’ve told you about that many times before, haven’t I? Silly me. You aren’t tired of my stories, are you? Can you even hear me in there?

Approaching him, maybe to try and get the drop on him, doesn’t go especially well: he hears us coming from over half the room away, and as soon as he does, he teleports right on top of us.




: Mmmm, who are you, you lovely little puppy?



: The bare skin is taut and unyielding. You ponder how firmly attached it is as he breaks into a wide, toothy grin.



: Yes, indeed! The mortal body is an endlessly fascinating mechanism, filled from scalp to sole, front to back, with an endless amount of tiny, moving parts.

: And the face! Did you know there are no less than forty-two muscles in an adult human’s face? And no two faces are different! I find them so interesting, why, I’d… keep a collection of them on my person, if I could.

: Did I say aficionado? My sweet boy, you are a connoisseur! Flayed faces. How delightfully old-fashioned.

: As it happens, I do have a toy you might find useful. But nothing comes for free, my dear. And I’m sorry to say you have nothing that I want. But don’t you worry, there’s still lots we can do together.



: Your ‘home’ appears to be dripping and smells of old, rotten, torn flesh. Surely there’s a method we can enjoy our research without being uncivilized about it, isn’t there?



: *sigh* All I want is a device that can carve the face from a human skull! We may have similar interests, but I’m not in the mood, nor do I have the time, for any silly ‘games.’

: (Perhaps I need to use smaller words next time….)

: Oh, you need so much more than that. But it’s a little late now, isn’t it, darling?

Okay, so, we’re very likely about to fight Kniles here in this arena, since we didn’t have something he wanted and Fane wasn’t interested in playing his sick games. Before we get into the action, I should take this opportunity to reposition my people in a way that gives me as much of an advantage as I can.



Sebille parks herself directly behind Kniles and hides. It’s perhaps not the strongest position she could have taken, but she’s not in direct eyesight of anyone else, and her staying hidden means she gets a free action whenever she wants inside the turn. And she’s primed to really gently caress up Kniles if she wants.




Lohse takes up her post towards the western end of the room, at the end of the long bridge that connects the hallway to the statue of Lucian at the end. From her position, she’s pretty far away from the action, but she’s close enough that she can still target everyone nearby, including her allies for healing.

Beast takes up his post against the northern railing of the bridge – he’s not exactly the strongest person in our team, honestly, so putting him there has the group split up enough that Kniles can’t crowd-control them, while still keeping him close enough that he can rush in and club some skulls if the opportunity presented itself.

Since Fane can’t move because he’s stuck in conversation with Kniles, we might as well get the party started.



: Combat Music 2
: Kniles And His Toys

Okay, so, looking at the turn order, there is a lot more here than just Kniles and a Silent Monk.

The arena is dotted with a handful of cages containing ‘Meat Golems.’ This one in particular uses Enrage, which strengthens its physical damage output but removes its ability to cast spells (not that it has anything other than Enrage, I’m sure), and then it starts bashing in the door to its cell. That door will last another turn before it breaks.







We’re looking at three Silent Monks, three Meat Golems, and Kniles himself. That’s seven on four, and the monks and the golems are dotted all over the room, meaning I’m surrounded. I can’t be crowd-controlled because of my positioning, but I can be squeezed, and Lohse in particular is rather isolated from the rest.



Sebille isn’t in the turn order yet, though: because she’s sneaking, she hasn’t been detected by her enemies, and she isn’t considered to be in the fight yet. She gets one free action to burn.




I have a plan for her, but it’s a multi-step process, and each attack needs to work successfully; there is no plan B. Sebille opens her turn with Chloroform on Kniles, which will prevent him from taking an action this turn. And, bonus, while this does put Sebille in the fight, Chloroform doesn’t break her sneaking.

It’s Lohse’s turn, but she delays.




Another of the Meat Golems uses Enrage and then starts bashing down its door.





Fane does something he’s never done before: he throws down a bear trap between Kniles’ workbench and the nearby guardrail. Anyone that steps into that circle will trigger the bear trap, and this one in particular is designed to explode into a ball of fire once it snaps shut. No doubt someone is going to run through it, but this will make the terrain highly unattractive.

He’s still got two AP to burn, so he uses Mosquito Swarm on the far Silent Monk, causing it to bleed.




The third of three Meat Golems follows the same pattern: Enrage, then bashing down the door. The next turn is going to be a party.





Beast uses his new skill, Impalement, on the area between the bleeding Silent Monk and the stairs, before chucking a Fossil Strike at the cage the closest Meat Golem is in. The idea is to coat that area with as much oil as possible; then, whoever walks through it will be slowed for the entire duration, and, when someone triggers that bear trap, the fire will spread to everywhere the oil touches, making the fire that much bigger and doing that much more damage to anyone inside the blast.

Impalement also causes Crippled on anyone it hits, so, essentially, that one Silent Monk is having a really, really bad day.




The northern-most Silent Monk makes its way towards us, but it sees the giant oil puddle and stops short – it probably knows it’s not going to last long and would rather walk through fire and take damage than walk through oil and be slowed.

Kniles spends his turn waking up.



The bleeding, crippled Silent Monk knows it doesn’t have a chance in hell to make it to anyone to strike physically, so it doesn’t bother and casts Hail Strike on Fane, hitting Kniles with friendly-fire at the same time.




The southernmost Silent Monk casts Haste on itself, then climbs up the nearby ladder and hits Beast with Silencing Stare. The skill applies Silenced and Suffocating to its target, meaning Beast can’t use any non-weapon-based skills, and he takes continuous Air-based damage over time.

In Divinity: Unleashed, Silencing Stare ignores armour, whereas it didn’t in the base game, so it got a small buff in the mod. Since Beast is Silenced, he can’t use any of his Geomancer skills until he can speak again, which is two turns away.

In the Divinity: Unleashed mod, if a character is ever muted, they immediately get access to a skill called Undo Mute – but it costs a Source point to use, and we’ll never have any Source points to spend until we can get these collars off. So Beast is just going to have to put up with it for now.






Now, for Sebille and her multi-step attack plan:

I mentioned earlier that Ruptured Tendons synergizes really well with a different skill. Well, if you Rupture someone’s Tendons, they take a ton of Bleeding damage every time they move a tick (one tick being equal to one tenth of a meter). If you then turn them into a chicken, their AI will automatically attempt to run to the safest part of the map, as far away from any enemy targets as it can.

So, she does that to Kniles: she cuts out his tendons, then she turns him into a chicken. We’ll see how much damage he takes on his next turn.

Sebille also uses Adrenaline for a little extra kick, and then she whips the monk that just hit Beast with Tentacle Lash, forcing it to drop its spear.




Lohse finally takes her turn, and she spends it by using Restoration on Beast, which cures his Suffocating, and then repositioning a bit closer to the center of the field to use Encourage. She has one more AP to spend, but nothing worthwhile to use it on, so she holds it.

Sebille only has two AP to use, thanks to Adrenaline, and Kniles being a chicken means his Dodging is sky-high, so she opts to delay.



This Meat Golem breaks out, and then passes his turn, meaning he’ll have at least six AP to play with on the next.





Lohse’s turn comes up fairly soon, since her Initiative is pretty high, so she uses her turn Teleporting the Atrophied monk as far away as she can (which, in retrospect, may have been a misplay, since the monk was Atrophied and not a threat); then, she hits the crippled monk with Winter Blast to make it chilled. It’s healed of its Crippled status, but Chilled will ensure it’s still not going anywhere quickly.



Another Meat Golem breaks free, and then passes.



Fane uses Shackles of Pain on the chicken, so now, any damage he takes, the chicken will also take, and no amount of dodging is going to help it. Also, Shackles of Pain only costs 1 AP to use.

Fane’s chance-to-hit the chicken is 23%, which isn’t worth going for, so he passes and keeps his remaining AP, meaning he’ll have seven at the start of his next turn.



The final Meat Golem is free, and it celebrates by passing the rest of its turn.



There is very little that Beast can do given the scenario – there’s oil in front of him, he’s Silenced, there’s nobody but the chicken to beat up – so he repositions next to the chicken and then passes, saving his AP.

This does two things: when the chicken attempts to run, Beast will take a free swing at it. And it’ll also force the chicken to run directly away from them, further east, rather than towards Lohse.





The Silent Monk approaches slightly, then hits Kniles the Chicken with Ice Shard, which also gets Fane and Beast – and thanks to Kniles’ increased Dodging, it dodges the shard.

Then, it approaches slightly, wading through the oil to get closer, and it trips the bear trap, igniting the whole thing. So now that spot in particular is a raging inferno that the other monk and the Meat Golem will need to wade through.

Finally, it ends its turn with Silencing Stare: the attack is actually an Area of Effect skill, not single-target, and it hits Fane and Sebille. So now everyone but Lohse is Silent. Which sucks, a lot.






Finally, the big one: Kniles the Chicken attempts to run with its Tendons good and Ruptured.

Beast takes an AoO and manages to hit it with his offhand, doing an extra 10 damage. Then, Fane takes a swing, and not only does his attack land, but he also gets a crit!

Kniles then waddles as far away as his little chicken legs can take him, doing massive bleeding damage for every tick he travels. He started this turn at nearly max HP, minus the Chloroform and the Ruptured Tendons (Chicken Claw doesn’t do any additional damage); by the time he stops, he’s done so much damage to himself from running away that he has 77 HP left, out of 644.

Ruptured Tendons plus Chicken Claw is a simple, easy, and crazy effective strategy.

At the end of Kniles’ turn, he reverts from a chicken back into a man. Unfortunately, I used Shackles of Pain on Kniles The Chicken, not Kniles The Flenser, and when he reverts, my spell is broken. Which is some hardcore Rules Lawering, imo, but, whatever; Kniles is a turn away from dying anyway.



The chilled monk uses Silencing Stare – but on the Meat Golem in the cage next to him. Forums user Xander77 also asked if it was possible to get differing factions to fight against each other and start a larger brawl; clearly, that is the case, seeing as the monks and the golems aren’t friends with each other.





The monk that Lohse teleported away is still Hasted, so it hustles right back into the fight, wading through the fire to do so, and it hits Fane and Beast with Burning Blaze.





Sebille takes her delayed turn by using Backlash on Kniles. Then, the turn rolls over, and since her Initiative is the highest in the entire fight, she goes again, hitting Kniles once more and then ensuring his death with Flurry, consuming the rest of her AP and removing him from the fight.

Here lies Kniles: he never scored (a hit).





The Meat Golem takes its turn, hauling rear end through the fire and taking two AoOs from the Silent Monks before running right up to Lohse and wholloping her twice.

On top of some pretty brutal strength, they also apply Diseased on-hit, which decreases the victim’s Constitution by a harsh -3, and it decreases their damage by 35%. The latter isn’t a huge deal since Lohse doesn’t deal physical damage, but that -3 Constitution is going to come up real fast and real hard.




Lohse heals herself, but Restoration doesn’t cure Diseased. She’ll recover HP every turn, but she can’t take a lot of hits regardless.

Then, she caps her turn by whacking the Meat Golem with her stick.




Another Meat Golem runs up the nearby stairs and loops around to hit Lohse in the back, reapplying Diseased. She’s now surrounded on either side by Meat Golems and one of them is on fire – not that that affects her but it adds to the aesthetic of her threat.





Fane repositions slightly, uses Battering Ram on the two golems surrounding Lohse (but whiffs on the far golem, stopping just short); uses Whirlwind to hit them both; and then hits the golem that’s on fire. The fire will kill it on the next turn, so that’s one down.





The last Meat Golem runs down the nearby stairs; climbs up the ladder; and then… focuses on Lohse. They really, really want to kill Lohse. All three of them are focusing on her.





Beast repositions; hits all three Meat Golems with Battering Ram (which kills the one that’s on fire, just to make extra sure); and then clubs one of them golems beside him. One of his weapons has cleave damage, so he manages to hit the other one as well… but only for 4 HP total.

But this is the one thing I didn’t want for this fight: we’re all starting to congregate into one tight patch of people, meaning everyone is going to be really easy to crowd control. And that hurts me way more than it helps me.




One of the monks approaches the cluster of people and uses Whirlwind, hitting Fane, Beast, Lohse, and the two remaining Meat Golems. Silent Monks also apply Silenced on regular melee damage, so now Silence is reapplied to everyone but Sebille. Which sucks. Lohse is the one person who really, really can’t be Silenced.



This monk walks through the fire (which removes his Chilled status and replaces it with Burning – damned if you do and if you don’t), but only repositions and doesn’t perform an action.




This monk, which, if you’ll remember, used Haste on itself at the very start of the fight, is still Hasted, and it has the AP to approach Fane and hit him twice, forcing him to burn his Comeback Kid.




Sebille is the only character left that isn’t a part of this dogpile, which is good, but she’s also a huge distance away from the fight, which is bad. She won’t have the AP to reposition and attack more than once. Cloak And Dagger would cost more AP to get closer than if she just walked, thanks to Scoundrel.

So, she does what she can: she gets closer, and then uses Chloroform on the Meat Golem that’s going to go next. That’ll at least buy Lohse a bit of time.




She uses Magic Shell on herself, which still doesn’t cure her Diseased, and she uses Hail Strike on the two monks threatening Fane – and she misses both.

Lohse’s in a lovely spot: her staff is air-based, and there’s a ton of blood everywhere on the field, meaning if she uses Staff of Magus or Electric Discharge, it’s almost guaranteed that she’ll hit her allies with the electrified blood. And Hail Strike and Winter Blast would put do damage, sure, but they’d also put out the fires that her enemies are on. She’s not exactly in a position to be, well, fighting.





One of the Meat Golems attempts to reposition and eats three AoOs for it: two from the monks and one from Lohse. That doesn’t deter it, though, and it gets behind Fane to swipe at his back, applying Diseased to him as well. Fane now has a whopping 12 HP remaining, and he’s already used Comeback Kid.





Better do something about that: the fact that the floor is covered in blood means that Blood Sucker will heal for a huge amount. So, he sucks up all the blood at his feet, healing him for 142; he uses Mosquito Swarm on the golem that just hit him, healing him for another 49 and causing the golem to bleed; and, with his final AP, he uses Raise Bloated Corpse on the dead golem beside Lohse.

I’ll call him Splodey. You’ll see why in a second.





Splodey can reposition; it can draw agro; it can do a normal, physical attack where it hits someone with… something… and, unique to Raise Bloated Corpse, it can explode, dealing massive damage to anyone within its blast radius. Raise Bloated Corpse is essentially ‘create a bomb made of flesh that you can control for a few turns: the spell.’

Splodey puts itself right next to the two monks, then detonates, dealing massive physical damage to them. And, unfortunately, Fane’s left foot was in the blast radius, which meant he was, technically in the radius, so he takes 100% of Splodey’s damage as well.

And that was the life and misadventures of Splodey the Bloated Corpse.




This monk repositions slightly (giving Fane an AoO on it, which he whiffs), and then hits everyone in the cluster with an attack called Ice Shard. Beast and Fane are just about at their limits.




Beast chugs a potion, and thanks to his Living Armour talent, he gets an additional 25% healing out of it, very nearly putting him back to max HP with one chug. Now he just needs to not be Silenced again for another two turns….

To end his turn, he whacks the nearby Meat Golem twice. And one of his weapons applies Bleeding on hit, which is nice.





One of the monks repositions, and then falls flat on his rear end thanks to the ice from the Hail Strike that Lohse totally whiffed with. But he still has enough AP to hit one of the golems and Fane – and with that, Fane is taken out of the fight. It’s now a two-on-three-on-three.




This monk reapplies Haste, and then stabs the same golem once more, taking it out of the fight.

On the one hand, that’s one less enemy, but on the other, the monks had their attention divided between me and the golems, so for there to be less golems to distract them is a bit disconcerting….






That said, the golem is going to go next, after Sebille, and it’s going to target Lohse. I need her alive at all costs.

Sebille uses Backlash on the golem; uses Adrenaline; takes a swing at one of the monks with Tentacle Lash and whiffs entirely; and then finishes the golem off.

There have been way too many whiffs on my end for this fight for me to be comfortable with.





Case in point:

Lohse heals herself again, then uses Winter Blast, an attack with an area of effect, and she aims for the cluster of three monks standing right beside her. Each target has a 95% chance to hit, and she whiffs on two of them.

She ends her turn with Electric Discharge, which, thank Christ, actually hits someone.




This monk repositions, and then stabs Beast in his knees with its spear, Crippling him.



Beast is Crippled and Silenced and his one Warfare skill, Battering Ram, is still on cooldown, even if he could use it. It’s a frustrating spot to be in. All he can manage to do is hit the monk that Crippled him right back, and he doesn’t even get it to bleed.

But hey! His Silence wears off now, so provided he isn’t Silenced again, he’ll be able to use his Geomancer skills on his next turn!



gently caress.




This monk runs right past Lohse, taking an AoO for it, and then turns around and stabs her twice.



Because of Adrenaline and Silenced, Sebille has very, very few options available to her. All she can really do is cut out this monk’s ankles.





This other monk uses Ice Shard on Beast, but it’s danger-close and gets itself in the shot. It trips and falls while trying to reposition, and then, having enough of that, it gets up and hits Beast with All-In, which forces him to use his own Comeback Kid.





Teleport is finally off cooldown, so she immediately throws the monk that just stabbed her as far away as she can. It has Haste, so it’ll be coming right back, but it’ll have to burn a ton of AP to do so. With her last AP to spend, she Encourages her team, letting them know that the end of the fight is near. One way or the other.




The monk with no ankles repositions, taking a fat amount of damage for it, and then uses Hail Strike on Beast and Lohse. It crits Lohse and it freezes Beast’s feet to the floor.




Beast chugs another potion, putting him right back up to full HP, and then, since he’s not about to go anywhere, whacks the monk right next to him twice.




The monk that Lohse just threw gets a little closer; hits Lohse with Silencing Stare (so she’s not about to be throwing people again anytime soon); and closes the gap some more by running up the nearby stairs.




Sebille puts the monk next to Beast asleep with Chloroform, and then ensures that the monk with no ankles has walked its last by stabbing it twice.

And it explodes into a ball of flame as she does. I’m not sure why it did that – there’s a lit torch nearby that maybe had something to do with it? Sebille went from three-quarters full on HP to about one-twelfth.



Lohse is Silenced, meaning she can’t perform any magic spells. Staff of Magus is dependent on her weapon and not herself, so she can still do that at the very least, but… she can’t heal Sebille and she can’t do anything more. Her Silence comes off on her next turn, and she’ll have a boatload of AP to play with, but that assumes she makes it that far in the first place.



Beast, himself still Silenced, can do nothing but hit the nearby monk twice.



The Hasted monk (no longer Hasted) approaches Lohse and hits her twice. And guess what, it applied Silenced once more.

gently caress these guys, honestly.





Sebille finishes off the monk in front of Beast; uses Flesh Sacrifice for a quick AP boost; and then runs all the way behind this final monk before slapping it with Tentacle Lash. At least it can’t hit anyone with physical damage now.





Lohse attacks the final monk once, which does 37 HP. It has 38 remaining.

Rather than risk giving it one more turn, Lohse goes out in a blaze of glory by hitting it with Staff of Magus. It does less damage, but, predictably, it electrocutes the massive lake of blood they’re all standing on. This kills the monk; it kills Sebille; and, when Lohse tries to run out of the lake and save herself, it kills her, too.




BEAST WINS.

Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true


We have five Resurrection scrolls between the entire party, which is… not great. One resurrection each and a quick nap, and everybody’s back to full fighting strength.

Kniles was another mini-boss in the fort; a much, much harder one than the Houndmaster. The Silent Monks applying Silenced so often was a real killer, and we didn’t have any real means of damage mitigation, such as summoning meat shields, other than Splodey. The fact that the monks would also target the Meat Golems was likely a method to try and level the field a little bit – with everyone against us, it was seven versus four. It was lucky that we took out Kniles as quickly as we did.

Still, we won this hard-fought battle. And that means it’s time for our spoils.



Which, between the monks and the golems, is absolutely nothing other than one crafting ingredient. Not one of them was carrying a drat thing.




Kniles at least had the decency to not blue-ball me like that, though.

A Love grenade – a grenade that applies Charmed to everyone within a radius – some money; a key, likely to the cages for the golems; some food; a potion of Increase Physical Armour; a fancy dinner plate, good for selling; two fancy knives; and….




: I think I shall call it the… face… ripper.

: Now to harvest a few samples, gather some Source orbs, and craft a new mask.

Alrighty, then. We now have a tool that can remove the face from anyone it’s applied to. Also, it’ll explode corpses on use.

The two knives that Kniles had are called Chastity and Abstinence. Which I’m sure says something rather uncomfortable about Kniles and his personality. Chastity can set Bleeding, and Abstinence can cause Silenced.



Up until now, Sebille has been rocking the two knives she started her journey with: a pair of shivs, barely good for cutting a steak. Both Chastity and Abstinence can do 50% more damage than her two shivs can.

Before we leave this hellhole… let’s give the Face Ripper a test run.







Yep, that’s an exploded corpse, and that’s Kniles’ face in my inventory. If I can obtain a face from one of every race and at least one Source orb, I can craft another Mask of the Shapeshifter to replace the one that was stolen from me in the prol – I mean, in the base game, before this New Game+ adventure kicked off.



There’s a bloody leg on the table. Might as well reward myself for a fight accomplished with a feast.

: You had a taste for wine and ale, as well as a variety of other… sensual pleasures. Life is a coffer replete with countless delights.

Party on, my dude. Party on.



Below the raised platform that we’re on is what can best be described as a ditch, where all the blood from Kniles’ ‘playing’ flows into a drain. There’s a section of the room at the very, very eastern end that’s been gated off – Kniles’ key will probably work here, too.




There’s a sewer grate here that leads out into the swamps – this is another path out of Fort Joy and into the wilderness of the island. It’s another escape route.

But there’s also someone else down here. A little girl.

: You again, mister! I don’t like it down here… don’t like it at all…

: A bad man found me on the beach and brought me here, but I slipped away as soon as we got here. I… just want to get out. The… the noises out there…

: Please help me get out, I just want to go to the beach and play with my shells again… but that grate is too heavy for me.

Trice was on the ship with us when it was torn apart. She was on the lifeboat and she implored us to go belowdeck to rescue all the other Sourcerers down there. Later, we found her on the beach collecting shells; she was the one who told us to give the Red Prince the time of day. And now here she is – she was likely just a few minutes away from being another of Kniles’ victims.

The grate leading out of the pit and into the swamps is a Strength check that we’ll easily pass. It’s another method out of Fort Joy, and we’ll be rescuing Trice as well. Do we take the grate out and escape Fort Joy?



Before we decide on that, the vote was to continue exploring the fort, and explore I shall.

At the crossroads in the prison block, just across from the dog pit, is what I assumed to be the foyer to the fort, and the giant doors would be their front door. Might as well give it a peek.




We are, indeed, back outside – but we’re beyond the metal fence separating the fort from the ghetto. We are very much in a place we shouldn’t be.

Thankfully, all of the guards are on the other side of the fence, and they’re all facing towards the ghetto, so as long as they don’t turn around –



: Look out – intruder!


: Combat Music 2
: I Cast Reactive Shot

Oh, well, perfect. And I have only two Resurrection scrolls left. And I have no idea how many potions I have remaining.



There’s a giant iron fence separating my entire team from the enemy team. There’s a door, but it’s locked, meaning the two Warfare Magisters and their attack dog can’t reach me, but I also can’t reach them.

The enemy has two archers standing on elevated platforms. They’ll be able to shoot through the gaps of the fence and plug away at me without any threat of recompense – I’m very lacking when it comes to long-range attack options right now.

Sebille’s turn is first, but she opts to pass entirely, not delay. That way, she’ll have all eight AP available to play with next turn.



The attack dog, Hicka, goes next, but it can’t open the door to get to us, so all it can do is run up to the fence and start growling.



Lohse Encourages the team, and then passes, saving three AP for next.




One of the archers uses Ricochet and aims for Fane, Beast, and Sebille, and he hits everyone but Sebille, she’s 2fast4him. He then uses Reactive Shot on an area surrounding all four of my teammates, locking them all in place, lest they let him take a free shot.

Fane’s turn his next, but he passes entirely, saving his AP.



The other archer also casts Reactive Shot on the same area. Now, if someone moves, they’ll take two arrows for free.

Beast’s turn his next, but he passes entirely.



Timery, one of the two Magister fighters, uses Deflective Barrier. That’s a Warfare skill that requires a shield, similar to Bouncing Shield; while it’s up, any projectile Timery is hit with will bounce back to the caster, including magic.




Borris, the same Magister that Ifan had intimidated way, way back, gets up onto the nearby platform and hits all four of us with a Nailbomb grenade – a grenade that’s filled with nails. On hit, it causes all susceptible targets to bleed (except Fane, who, notably, has no blood). Borris then Fortifies himself.







Okay, so my entire team is loaded to the gills with AP. Sebille uses Cloak And Dagger to self-teleport out of the Reactive Shots, preventing them from firing on her and making her Invisible. She picks the lock to the door and opens it, allowing Hicka, Timery, and Borris to approach. And finally, she hits one of the archers with Chloroform, which doesn’t break her invisibility and it puts the archer to sleep.




Hicka the hound approaches the team and bites Fane twice.




Lohse uses Restoration on herself, restoring her HP and curing her Bleeding…





… and another Magister just happened to wander into the fight, turning this into a six-versus-four. This one is already on the inside of the gate, to our northern side. He looks like a fighter; I don’t see him equipped with a bow.

In response, Lohse does a Rain Dance, and then hits the newcomer with Winter Blast, freezing his feet in place. He’ll be out for another turn, at least, but he’ll also be loaded up with AP.

The sleeping archer is forced to pass.






Fane takes it upon himself to do a bit of crowd control: he uses Battering Ram to get himself out of the Reactive Shot circle, hitting Hicka as he does and knocking it down. He repositions to the mouth of the gate, forcing anyone that wants to approach the rest of the team to go by him and taking a free hit for it. Then, he uses Shackles of Pain on one archer; Mosquito Swarm on the other; and Battle Stomp on Timery.

All of this really dilutes his damage, but it also means that everyone except Borris has been controlled in some manner.





The archer that’s been Shackled first heals Timery, curing her of her Knocked Down, which is a bit of a pain in the rear end. She then walks right past Fane, taking an AoO for it, and then she climbs the nearby ladder to give her even higher ground before firing Ricochet at Beast and Lohse.






Beast, finally getting to use some goddamn magic in a fight, uses Fortify on himself; Impalement on Hicka; he whacks Hicka once; and then he throws a Poison Dart at Fane, which, thankfully, actually hits him.





Timery approaches Fane and throws her shield at Beast and Lohse, hitting them both. Then she walks past Fane – and he doesn’t swing at her, what the hell.

Well, she had to walk over the poison puddle Beast just put down, so, at least she took that. After, she uses Encourage on her party, and I’m pretty sure she gets everyone.



Borris approaches and also uses Bouncing Shield on Beast and Lohse, but then he passes, rather than risk either Fane’s apparently-docile hammer or the poison puddle.

The new guy passes his turn, as his feet are frozen to the ground.




Sebille hits Timery with Tentacle Lash. Hopefully she doesn’t have anything in the way of magic aside from Encourage. Then, she turns Borris into a chicken – we’ll see how useful that suit of stone armour is when he’s a fowl.

Hicka passes her turn, for some reason. It’s Slowed and Crippled, but it should still be able to perform an action. Not that I’m complaining.





This one archer having the highest ground is a bit of an issue for me, so Lohse maneuvers around the oil puddle, climbs the ladder, and then Teleports that bitch as far away as she can reach. Now the archer is halfway into the ghetto and she’ll have to spend nearly all of her AP just running back.




The other archer refreshes his Reactive Shot, and then he uses First Aid on Fane, which damages him and cures his Poisoned status, but it also makes him Rested, which improves his stats a bit.



Fane uses Blood Sucker on Timery, which is me misreading what Blood Sucker actually does (I don’t often play as a Necromancer). Timery sucks up all the blood at her feet and heals for 43 HP. Luckily, she was only down by 29 HP anyway, so it’s not a huge deal, but it’s also a big misstep.

After that, he can’t move because of Reactive Shot and Battering Ram is still on cooldown, so he passes, which will give him eight AP next turn.




The archer that Lohse threw across the island spends some AP to approach – and then decides that she, too, had better refresh her Reactive Shot, placing a protective perimeter around her archer buddy. Weird option, but it does mean nobody can approach him without taking a free shot.





Beast chucks a Fossil Strike at the newcomer; he chugs a potion to restore himself to full; and then he hits Hicka once. Keeping that one newcomer as far from the fight for as long as possible is something of a priority to keep the odds from snowballing.




Timery, with her hands thorough Atrophied, can indeed not do any damage this turn – so, instead, she uses a Warfare skill called Guardian Angel before repositioning slightly and yelling futilely.

Guardian Angel redirects 50% of all damage done to allies within a radius around the caster. For example, if Hicka the dog takes 80 Water damage, Hicka will instead only take 40 Water damage and Timery will also take 40 Water damage. Resistances are calculated by the target and the split ignores any resistances the caster might have – if Hicka is weak to water attacks, but timery is resistant, then hitting Hicka with water would do more damage to Timery than hitting Timery directly.

It’s a really, really good skill for a tank to have, but it also makes them very spongy and needy for constant healing.

In the Divinity: Unleashed mod, the radius that Guardian Angel affects is doubled. In the base game, you needed to stand much closer to the caster for it to be effective.




Borris the Chicken runs through the poison to get away from Sebille and Fane, both of whom take a swing at him, but they both miss. It’s a shame I couldn’t have ruptured his tendons first, but it at least bought me a turn.




The newcomer may be Slowed, but he also has eight AP saved up from when his feet were frozen. He manages to make it all the way to Fane, and he returns the favour by turning Fane into a chicken as well.




A lot of techniques that Sebille has are on cooldown, so she Backlashes the newcomer (which gets her out of Reactive Shot), and then she Ruptures his Tendons.



Hicka bites Beast twice. Since he’s Fortified, he’s immune to Bleeding, so that helps a lot.





Lohse uses Restoration and Armour of Frost on Sebille – she’s probably the most fragile character in the bunch, and she’s caught right in the middle of the entire fight. And with her last two AP, she fires an Electric Discharge at the newcomer.




The male archer up top tries to fire an arrow into Fane’s feet to keep him from running, but he is a chicken and is therefore drat near impossible to hit.

So, the archer actually makes a big brain play: he shoots a fire arrow at the ground between them all. The arrow likely would have missed Fane, and shooting between them all means he’s getting the newcomer as well, but there’s no dodging bad terrain, and Fane, Sebille, and the newcomer (and the door to the iron gate) all go up in flames.



Fane attempts to run away, and even as a chicken, he has the sense not to approach the remaining lingering Reactive Shot.




The other archer has a bit of AP saved up, so she runs to the same platform as her buddy, and then fires an arrow into Lohse’s kneecaps. I didn’t intend for Lohse to move anyway, so her being Crippled isn’t a big deal. She then ends her turn with one more arrow fired into Lohse.




We’re not dealing as much damage as I would like; I feel like I’ve been on the back foot for most of this fight. It’s time to make a more drastic move.

Beast uses Battering Ram on the newcomer and he gets Hicka on his way, knocking them both down. Then, he uses Contamination, which Poisons all enemies (and undead allies) nearby, and it turns all blood, water, and clouds into poison. You’ll remember that Lohse performed a rain dance earlier.

We’re whittling down the newcomer pretty quickly, but he’s just one out of the six.




Timery wasn’t a big fan of everyone on her team being Poisoned, so she chucks her shield at Beast and Sebille (missing Sebille), and then she swings her sword at the back of Beast’s knees, blowing them out.




Borris also throws his shield at the two, proving that his aim is better than Timery’s by actually hitting them both. Then he approaches and swings with Whirlwind, causing Beast to cry out for healing – he chugged his last potion earlier in the fight.

The newcomer, surprisingly, makes no move. Which is a bit scary, because he’s going to have all of the AP next turn.




Chloroform is fresh off cooldown, which is a Godsend. Too bad it whiffs.

Sebille, in frustration, lashes out at the newcomer with Flurry, stabbing him in the back three times. Abstinence comes in clutch and Silences the newcomer, and Timery, thanks to Guardian Angel, takes 50% of all the damage done to him.




Hicka wades through poison, oil, and fire (and hurting Timery with all the damage it takes as it walks) to bite Beast once. Beast has 7 HP remaining…




… and Restoration won’t be off cooldown for another turn.

All of Lohse’s enemies are huddled pretty close together, giving me an ample excuse to hit them with Winter Blast. Which whiffs on loving everyone except Hicka. I gotta give Lohse some points in Huntsman or something, goddamn. Imagine how much damage that would have done to Timery.

She ends her turn flaccidly, with a Staff of Magus on Hicka since it doesn’t have any magic armour.




One of the two archers on the platform puts down another Reactive Shot on the group, and then he plugs Beast once, forcing him to cash in his Comeback Kid.







Fane’s got a lot of AP to work with, so he opens with Mosquito Swarm on the newcomer, and then he uses Battle Stomp on the group. It turns out, going by this screenshot, it’s possible for damage being taken by Guardian Angel can be dodged, because Fane wasn’t aiming anywhere near Timery with that hit.

And then, I misunderstand what Blood Sucker does again and I heal Timery for over 100 HP.

Look, in my defence, I recorded this at, like, four in the morning.

Fane uses Battering Ram, aiming not for anyone in particular but for the poison puddles in the distance, so he can get a bit of healing in. Unfortunately, he is currently on fire, which detonates the poison and causes a huge explosion, which very much does not heal Fane.

But, you know, when all else fails, just knock back a cold one. At least I can’t gently caress that up :saddowns:




One of the archers uses Reactive Shot, putting down a Venn diagram of circles I’m not allowed to walk around in, before shooting Beast in the neck, prompting him to casually ask for aid while he’s sitting on a whole 3 HP remaining.




Beast, in response, uses Blinding Radiance, which does air damage to every enemy in a radius around him (hitting Timery for a whole lot, too) but missing Hicka, the one character that’s most vulnerable to it, because naturally it does. Then, he uses Shocking Touch on Hicka, an arms-length skill that does decent air damage and sets Shocked, but it also misses, because naturally it does.



Timery waddles right up to Beast and then hits him with her sword, despite being Blinded, because naturally she does. At least her Guardian Angel spells wears off on this turn.





Borris Fortifies himself, then asks his newcomer best friend if he’s tired of being so nice all the time and if he doesn’t just wanna go apeshit. After that, he uses Battle Stomp on Sebille, knocking her down and removing all the unusual terrain beneath her.



Taking Borris’ words to heart, the newcomer takes a swing at Sebille, landing a crit thanks to Enrage.





Sebille only has three AP to work with because she was knocked down, which generally isn’t enough to perform more than one action. It’s risky, but, Sebille uses Flesh Sacrifice to gain one AP immediately in exchange for two Constitution and a bit of damage-over-time with Bleeding. She hits the newcomer once, taking him out, and then she uses Tentacle Lash on Timery, forcing her to drop her equipment.

Using Flesh Sacrifice has some short-term risks, but the long-term gains from that move outweigh the cons. Timery’s nearly down and Hicka isn’t far behind. If we can keep our HP up, and if we can find the time to resurrect Beast, the flow of the battle will finally be going in our favour.

Hicka, for whatever reason, decides to pass. Which is good. I prefer that.





Lohse uses Restoration on Sebille and she chugs a potion, ensuring that she is, indeed, keeping the party’s HP up. And although she doesn’t have anything for Fane, she uses Encourage to at least give him a stat buff and a fighting chance.




One of the archers uses First Aid on Timery, curing her Atrophy (goddamn it), and then shoots Lohse twice, with one of the arrows going through her kneecaps.




Fane has five AP. He uses two of them to turn the newcomer’s corpse into a blobby, bloated mess, thereby reincarnating Splodey, and then he resurrects Beast way, way up on the ramparts above him.

I could have resurrected Beast closer – I could have even put him right next to Lohse – but I was worried that the enemy AI would have targeted him since he’s down for a turn and he only has 20% of his max HP. And Lohse just used Restoration so she wouldn’t have been able to help anyway. Beast won’t be able to do a lot from his position, but at least he’s safe.





Splodey repositions (taking an arrow for it, since he’s inside Reactive Shot); then he whacks Hicka once before exploding, doing massive damage to Hicka and Timery.




The other archer also uses First Aid on Timery, just trying to keep her alive, and then she takes aim at Sebille’s ankles, but she’s too fast for something as slow as an arrow to catch her.





Timery brings up her Deflective Barrier once more before repositioning (taking an AoO for it from Sebille), and then she breaks Fane’s leg, Crippling him. He’s currently standing in fire, so, that’s a bit annoying.



And to end the turn, Borris hits Sebille with Bouncing Shield, and then he hits her with his sword once.

Beast spends his turn waking up from his resurrection and getting back to his feet.






Sebille’s had just about enough of this fight, and Hicka saved up all its AP from passing the next turn, so it’s better to take it out now.

She teleports to the dog with Backlash, getting in a solid hit, and then she uses Adrenaline to hit it twice more, one of them being Flurry. Hicka has high physical defence, but there’s only so much it can take before the attack dog’s finally put down. Including Beast, this fight is a four-versus-four now.




On Lohse’s turn, she hits Timery with Hail Strike, which spawns three icicles to hit in a small targeted area. Icicles are considered projectiles, and while Timery does take half-damage, the other half is redirected to Lohse. Luckily, she’s got a ton of magic armour, so it doesn’t amount to much.

Then she shoots one of the archers with Electric Discharge. We’ll need to start working on them soon.



One of the archers puts down another Reactive Shot – which, if pattern recognition tells me anything, the other archer’s going to put down a second one soon as well. He ends his turn by shooting Lohse.

I actually prefer that the archers shoot Lohse because she has the higher ground, and therefore, they do less damage to her.




Fane uses Mosquito Swarm on Timery before bashing her with his mighty hammer.



The other archer, like clockwork, does the exact same thing: puts down another Reactive Shot and then shoots Lohse.




Beast makes a chad move: he throws down a Poison Dart so that it hits both Fane and Timery (and it’s reflected back at him, which also poisons him), and then he detonates a massive Impalement spell on the lot of them.

Impalement hits Sebille, unfortunately, and because it also drops oil, and because the oil touches the poison he just put down, and because they both touch Fane, who is on fire, the entire thing explodes into flame, dealing massive fire damage to Timery and Borris. It’s enough to kill Timery and to put Borris down to half, just like that.



Borris is Crippled from Impalement and Slowed from the oil that Impalement just put down before it exploded, meaning he’s not going to accomplish much this turn. He takes maybe two steps before he needs to stop and rest.



However, Sebille’s not exactly in great condition either, and she’s suffering from the same afflictions. She only has two AP to spare.

So, she spends them hucking a bottle of Chloroform at the archer who’s turn is about to come up next, forcing him to skip and giving Lohse her turn next.




Honestly, none of us are in great shape. Lohse uses Restoration on herself – being the healer, her health and longevity is more important than anyone else’s.

With three AP left to spend, she Teleports the female archer as far away as she can once more, buying me more time to make my own movements. And since that archer doesn’t have eyesight of where she put down Reactive Shot, that means the attack is cancelled.



After being teleported, the archer decides not to perform any action – she’s also Shocked from the Electric Discharge earlier, so she has less AP to work with and her movement’s been penalized, so she’s opting to wait for that to wear off before she starts heading back.





There’s a big lake of fire right in front of Fane, but Battle Stomp clears all non-cursed surfaces, and Borris is standing right there, so, he clears the way for himself and he messes up Borris’ footing.

Then, learning my lesson, I reposition Fane into the nearest big-rear end puddle of blood and I have him use Blood Sucker on himself. He takes a bit of fire damage for it, but the trade-off is well worth it: Blood Sucker puts him back up to 50% HP, just like that.




Borris’ AI bugs out a bit, and he uses Bouncing Shield on the newcomer’s corpse – it’s possible that he was trying to target Splodey, but Splodey’s been gone for a while. I don’t know what he was trying to accomplish with that.

Once he gets his head back on right, he turns around and hits Fane twice.




Beast doesn’t have a ton of options where he is right now: he’s up on the opposite rampart from Lohse and walking all the way down to the ground would cost eight AP. So, he does what he can: he repositions slightly, and then chucks a big ol’ boulder at the archer still standing on the platform. The Slowness probably isn’t going to affect him too badly, but hey, damage is damage.




Sebille hits Borris with Tentacle Lash, and then throws a water balloon in such a way that it puts out herself and Fane, but not Borris.




The archer puts down yet another Reactive Shot, and then pelts Fane and Sebille with a Ricochet. Unfortunately for Sebille, it gets her in the ribs, and she’s taken out.




Lohse can still see the archer she threw a turn ago, and the archer hasn’t moved, so, she pelts her with Winter Blast; the chill will lower her movement speed and help keep her from approaching. The archer has seven AP, I think, so it won’t stop her from approaching, but everything helps.

Another Staff of Magus on Borris ends her turn, although the electricity hits the blood and the water, doing extra damage to Fane as well.

The female archer’s turn is next. No prizes for guessing what she does.




Yep.

Her using Ricochet on the newcomer’s dead body so that the bounce will reach Fane was pretty smart, though. Maybe that’s what Borris tried to do last time.




Fane only has three AP thanks to the Shocked status that Lohse just gave him, so he uses Shackles of Pain on Borris (just in case), and then Mosquito Swarm. Mosquito Swarm causes his to bleed, which adds to the blood beneath him, which touches the electrified blood puddle beneath Fane, which does air damage to Borris.



Borris is on fire, he’s electrified, and he’s bleeding. It’s all too much for the guy, and he finally dies.

His death is enough to put everyone over their next level, and we all level up. Like I said a few updates ago, levelling up means you’re instantly revitalized to full HP. It’s three-versus-two, and we’re freshly maxed out – this fight is essentially over.



Levelling up doesn’t reset cooldowns, however. Beast doesn’t have any options available to him right now, so, he might as well start taking the long way down.



… And as he goes, he wanders far enough away from the field of battle that he leaves the fight entirely. Beast currently isn’t considered to be in combat.

Well, cool. That just means he can walk the rest of the way for free and he can wait for his cooldowns to pass before rejoining.

It’s Lohse’s turn, but she Delays. I’m hoping to resurrect Sebille.




An interesting sequence happens here: the archer uses First Aid on Fane, damaging him, but it also gives him Rested, which heals certain ailments and gives him some minor stat increases. Then, the archer uses Pin Down to try and Cripple Fane – but Crippled is one of the statuses that First Aid heals, and they instead cancel each other out.



Beast still isn’t back in the fight yet, so he casts Fortify on Fane, which increases his physical armour and heals and protects him from Shocked. After waiting a little bit for his cooldowns to come off, he casts Poison Dart on Fane to heal him a bit – but that puts him in the fight.





Fane takes a step toward the female archer, but because he’s in the Reactive Shot radius, he takes a free arrow for it. Whatever; he caps his turn by hitting her with Battering Ram and a single swing from his hammer, putting her down to about a quarter of her HP remaining.



In response, she uses First Aid on herself, curing herself of Knocked Down. But she doesn’t have the AP to do anything but run, and if she tries, I’ll take a free shot, so, she does nothing.




Lohse resurrects Sebille (who, amusingly, respawns inside a barrel, thanks to her buffed Guerrilla talent), and then ensures Sebille’s longevity with Restoration.



Given a new lease on life, Sebille takes this fresh opportunity to hit the male archer with some Chloroform.




For her next turn, Lohse fires off an Electric Discharge and a Staff of Magus.




The female archer, knocking on death’s door, turns to run and put some distance between her and Fane, but he bonks her on the head for it while taunting her futile efforts to run. Still, she does manage to turn around and fire off an arrow into his tibia, Crippling him.





But Fane don’t give a gently caress: he uses Battle Stomp on her, putting her down to 6 HP remaining. One more Mosquito Swarm is all it takes, and there’s only one character left.

Fane tries to enjoy his victory by sucking up some nearby blood, but I don’t position him close enough to any puddles for him to suck up, resulting in me wasting an AP doing nothing. I am not very good with Blood Sucker.

Okay, so, at this point, this update is getting really long, and this fight in particular is nearly half an hour of me transcribing how it goes. All you really need to know by now is that everyone gangs up on the last remaining archer on his platform and they all take turns beating the poo poo out of him.

(Except Lohse. She does it from afar.)

If you’re really curious to know the exact actions taken, you can watch the video, but really, ‘everybody dogpiling the last guy and stabbing him to death’ is about the long and short of it.



And that’s that. The door to the fort is open; there are five less Magisters in the world (and one less attack dog); and we are once again open to possibilities. There’s looting to be had, of course, but that can wait for later.

Do we open the grate for Trice and escape Fort Joy with her?
Do we take the boat with Han and escape Fort Joy with him?
Or do we continue to explore the fort?


Also, do you want to swap anyone out?

Let me know by tomorrow!

Maple Leaf fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Mar 28, 2021

Schwartzcough
Aug 12, 2009

Don't tease the Octopus, kids!
Man, the mini-bosses seem rough enough. I'm interested to see what the "real" bosses look like.

Continue to explore the fort, until you're out of resurrection scrolls!

So your guys don't revive after a fight? They'll just continue laying wherever they died until you come back for them?

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Maple Leaf
Aug 24, 2010

Let'en my post flyen true

Schwartzcough posted:

So your guys don't revive after a fight? They'll just continue laying wherever they died until you come back for them?

Correct. There's an option in the Larian Gift Bag mods that has them revive on rest, and you can only rest outside of combat, but I didn't want to turn that on because I felt it intruded too much on the economy of Resurrection scrolls - basically, I want death to hurt.

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