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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Demetrios1453" data-source="post: 9603255" data-attributes="member: 6801060">Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 32): The Pit of Moander (Part 3)Properly buffed up for what is to come, we walk through the door to the inner sanctum.[ATTACH=full]398325[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]398326[/ATTACH]Tsk, tsk, Alias. Spitting is such a dirty habit![ATTACH=full]398327[/ATTACH]There's really not much choice here. All four options will just continue on the same. The only difference is that when the battle actually starts "FLEE" will have you start further away from your foes, which is definitely not a good thing. We just choose to attack.[ATTACH=full]398328[/ATTACH]Yet again, forced into things for plot reasons.[ATTACH=full]398329[/ATTACH]Can't have them running around during what is effectively a cut scene, right?[ATTACH=full]398330[/ATTACH]Oh, that's not ominous or anything...[ATTACH=full]398331[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]398332[/ATTACH]Ewwww.[ATTACH=full]398333[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]398334[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]398335[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]398336[/ATTACH]This seems to be exceptionally poor planning on their part (but, of all the groups bonding us, this one definitely seems to be a bit low on the INT and WIS scores). Well, let's take advantage of their astonishing lack of foresight and deal with them![ATTACH=full]398337[/ATTACH]It's attack time![ATTACH=full]398338[/ATTACH]Everyone ages. No one but Baroness Bella cares. Even Alias, who is still in single digits, age-wise.[ATTACH=full]398339[/ATTACH]Mogion, six cultists, and five shambling mounds. As messy as fights with the shamblers are, we need to shut down those cultists as quickly as we can before they get any spells off![ATTACH=full]398340[/ATTACH]Bragir has the perfect way of doing so...[ATTACH=full]398341[/ATTACH]And does so quite well, taking down most of the cultists. All of them were hit in the fireball, so no spells for them this round![ATTACH=full]398342[/ATTACH]Brin moves in with the wand to deal with the shambling mounds.[ATTACH=full]398343[/ATTACH]Eh, OK (that's fairly low damage for the wand), but with weapon damage halved when attacking the shamblers, it's still good, and she can affect several at a time.Meanwhile, my hasted characters are chopping away at the shambling mounds and remaining cultists. The cultists go quickly other than Mogion, while, even if they are just doing half damage on the shambling mounds, they're at least doing half damage twice as fast! The real irritant is that the mounds can engulf characters, doing extra damage, putting them in danger of suffocation, and keeping them from acting while engulfed. This happens several times, but the party kills off the offending mounds and free anyone entrapped quickly.Bragir is the one who is focusing on Mogion:[ATTACH=full]398344[/ATTACH]While Brin keeps firing away with the wand[ATTACH=full]398345[/ATTACH]That's much better damage!Bragir takes Mogion down with a shot from his bow[ATTACH=full]398347[/ATTACH](I was like a second too late to get the message that she went down, oops)Finally, we're down to just one shambling mound, and Brin uses the wand again:[ATTACH=full]398348[/ATTACH]Which annoyingly takes it down to just 1 HP. Bant takes care of it immediately afterwards, and the battle is done![ATTACH=full]398349[/ATTACH]Surprisingly, the damage is fairly minimal. And we still have a decent duration left on our buffs, which will be really handy here in a moment...[ATTACH=full]398350[/ATTACH]Decent XP, but not enough for anyone to level though.[ATTACH=full]398351[/ATTACH]We do get some nice treasure from Mogion though![ATTACH=full]398352[/ATTACH](All that ring mail, while magical, is just too bulky to drag around, sadly).It's plate +3, shield +2, and a cloak of displacement (which lowers AC by 2). The mace is only +2, which is the same Brother Baltor already had, so it's just set aside to be sold later. After shuffling equipment around for my front three, we now have some excellent ACs for them:[ATTACH=full]398353[/ATTACH](Buffy is up front only temporarily while Alias and Dragonbait are here).Well, great! Battle over, evil cult leader dead, and another bond gone! Time to head out and celebrate![ATTACH=full]398354[/ATTACH]Good, good...[ATTACH=full]398355[/ATTACH]Uh, not so good...[ATTACH=full]398356[/ATTACH]Definitely not good![ATTACH=full]398357[/ATTACH]Those are some pretty rough monsters - they're basically super-charged shambling mounds, even with the weird name. Why not "Bit of Moander"? It's the same number of characters. I guess someone was making a pun with the Bit O' Honey candy?In any case, we luckily still have some duration left on our buffs (see above), so hopefully that will be enough to destroy these latest monstrosities!Everyone concentrates on the nearest BOM, and we're soon hacking it down, even with the halved damage (they still have the same immunities/resistances as regular shambling mounds). Brin gets close up with the wand, which does some decent damage...[ATTACH=full]398360[/ATTACH]And after further hacking from the melee, she takes it down the next time:[ATTACH=full]398361[/ATTACH]Which is good, as the BOM had engulfed poor Brother Baltor and had done some pretty significant damage to him.All we can do is hack away and use the wand, since, with their immunities, spells are pretty useless.[ATTACH=full]398362[/ATTACH]Although poor Brother Baltor keeps getting engulfed and taking damage. They really like picking on him!Finally, the last one goes down![ATTACH=full]398363[/ATTACH]Decent XP again, although, again, not enough to level anyone. No treasure though.[ATTACH=full]398364[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]398365[/ATTACH]Yay! Another major quest item retrieved.(As you can see, poor Brother Baltor took a beating, and is down to only 30 HP)[ATTACH=full]398366[/ATTACH]Well, that's not good![ATTACH=full]398367[/ATTACH]Well, Alias, I do agree with your assessment that this place will be crawling with angry cultists now, so best to get out quickly. However, not before getting said treasure!Dragonbait will use his lay on hands on Brother Baltor[ATTACH=full]398368[/ATTACH]Which, combined with some of his own heal spells, gets him back up to a bit better amount of HP[ATTACH=full]398369[/ATTACH]And now it's time to save the game...[ATTACH=full]398370[/ATTACH]...because I didn't save immediately after the battle originally, stepped forward, and was immediately wrecked by a random encounter of shambling mounds. So I had to re-load and do it all over a second time! You would think after almost 40 years of playing these games I would remember to do that immediately after each major battle, but, no, it just slipped my mind lol.Anyway, with the big battle finished, I'll stop here today. Next time we'll search for that treasure behind the altar, and then try to escape with our skins intact!</blockquote>

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