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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Demetrios1453" data-source="post: 9412106" data-attributes="member: 6801060">Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 10): Fire Knife Hideout (Part 3) - Fire Knife Hideout completed!Our final battle with the Fire Knives has started! Time to clear out those ranks a bit. And we definitely need to damage and take out that mage before he can start casting spells on us.A few Fire Knives throw daggers, mostly ineffectively, before Bragir begins casting...[ATTACH=full]373769[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373770[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373771[/ATTACH]Well that damage will take care of the Mage very efficiently.[ATTACH=full]373772[/ATTACH]Between that fireball and my melee carving through Fire Knives with all the extra attacks from haste, we've already put quite a dent in them extremely quickly.[ATTACH=full]373773[/ATTACH]Buffy has a nice new item, so she decides she can't let the magic users have all the fun.[ATTACH=full]373774[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373775[/ATTACH]The AoE damage is quite respectable![ATTACH=full]373776[/ATTACH]Finally, Brin gets in on the fiery action. It may seem like overkill at this point, but you can never have too much fire raining down on your enemies, right?[ATTACH=full]373777[/ATTACH]Brin's damage is very impressive indeed! Pity she's only getting the wounded survivors. Granted, even if they make their saves, they're still going down.[ATTACH=full]373778[/ATTACH]Bant runs up to the final one, and ends this very brief, but quite spectacular, battle.[ATTACH=full]373779[/ATTACH]We get quite a bit of XP for the victory, meaning probably some decent goodies for treasure![ATTACH=full]373780[/ATTACH]The Fire Knives have quite a bit of money![ATTACH=full]373781[/ATTACH]But only a couple of magic items...[ATTACH=full]373782[/ATTACH]A magical jo stick. Really? What possible use would anyone in this game have for a magical jo stick?[ATTACH=full]373783[/ATTACH]And only +1. Well, I guess it will still sell for a nice amount somewhere. Hopefully the scroll will have something useful, but I can't check what's on it until we rest.Meanwhile, however, much more significant events are happening![ATTACH=full]373784[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373785[/ATTACH]As you can see, they have already begun to fade in the picture above (where the pink pixels have replaced the blue).[ATTACH=full]373786[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373787[/ATTACH]And then it is gone! One azure bond removed, four to go![ATTACH=full]373788[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373789[/ATTACH]A deus ex machina puts us unceremoniously on a railroad out of town. And not a highly flattering portrait of His Majesty either, while court mage seems to rub his hands like Wormtongue behind him.(It's sort of cool to see big FR lore characters like King Azoun IV and Vangerdahast appear in the game, no matter how briefly, but using them this way is just kind of irritating. The pop in, conveniently just too late to be of help, then they're used by the game to force you in to the next section with zero player agency, and then just disappear. PoR didn't do this sort of thing at all - but it's somewhat common in CotAB, unfortunately. At least it's not as railroad-y as SotSB...)So... out of the city we go. We're immediately put into camp mode, and then thrown straight into another cut scene with no options to do normal camp things like heal or rest first. Any DM who hard railroaded his players like this would likely be getting some stink eye at this point.[ATTACH=full]373790[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373791[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373792[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373793[/ATTACH]I mean, it is a pretty cool dream sequence cut scene, especially for its time. We now have more information on who our remaining foes might be.As the dream ends, we get our first look at the overland map![ATTACH=full]373794[/ATTACH]We're mostly in a different area than PoR, although Phlan is visible as the city in the upper right corner. We're outside Tilverton, which is the city in the lower left. The area on the map is mainly the Dalelands, an area of small, independent city-states in the midst of the Cormanthor Forest. The green square off by itself in the center-right is Myth Drannor, the ruined capital of the elven realm that once ruled said forest. In the upper right are the western lands of the Moonsea region, with Phlan, Zhentil Keep (at the eastern point of the Moonsea), and Hillsfar (on the southern shore of the Moonsea) being the cities of that region on the map. Cormyr is mainly to the southwest of the map, with the only city of that realm visible being Tilverton.This overland map will work slightly differently than PoR's. Instead of moving step by step between locations, you choose "Journey on" and then pick a nearby location to travel to. You may very well have an encounter on the way there, but after said encounter, you'll reach the chosen location immediately afterwards. It's quicker than what PoR did, but it's somehow less satisfying than moving around manually (and apparently everyone agreed, as all other Gold Box games with an overland map will revert to the PoR method).Well, we've been kicked out of the city, let's see what happens when we try to enter...[ATTACH=full]373795[/ATTACH]OK, well, we knew that wasn't going to work anyway. We choose "Camp" instead, so we can level up (yes, several characters received enough XP to level up at the end of that last encounter, but the game hasn't given us time to do it yet), heal up, memorize spells, and see if there are any spells on the new scroll that can be scribed...[ATTACH=full]373796[/ATTACH]Let's look at that scroll now that the game allows us to do so.[ATTACH=full]373797[/ATTACH] Well, Bragir doesn't have those first two spells while Brin does, so he'll add those to his spellbook.Meanwhile, let's level up![ATTACH=full]373798[/ATTACH](Despite the fact that a lot of time would logically have passed from all the events we've experienced in game since the start of the last combat, we still have all our buffs from the pre-battle prep, since the game doesn't count the passage of time unless you move or rest).[ATTACH=full]373799[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373800[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]373801[/ATTACH]All fighter levels, so nothing spectacular, but we'll always be happy for more HP and lower THAC0s![ATTACH=full]373802[/ATTACH]Bragir goes on to scribe his new spells, and everyone memorizes spells and rests.[ATTACH=full]373803[/ATTACH]And, the Tilverton section of the game is over! Next time, we'll head towards Hap, which is the town near the southeastern corner of the map, in order to begin our quest to remove the next bond!Fire Knife Hideout map:[ATTACH=full]373839[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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