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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Demetrios1453" data-source="post: 9699187" data-attributes="member: 6801060">Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 40): Dagger Falls and Oxam's TowerWell, we have four of the five bonds removed, and have all three quest items in our possession. So now would seem to be the time to head towards the final boss location and end the game, right?Well, no. Simply because right now all the characters are a level or two below the level limits for the game, and it's very helpful to go into the final fights as powerful as possible. CotAB is weird in this way, as it's almost impossible to not hit the level limits in PoR and SotSB (with it happening like 2/3 of the way in the latter, even with an NPC sucking up XP for most of the game); PoD's level limit of 40 is so high and almost unattainable that it really doesn't matter there. Luckily for us, the game creators noticed this and added in a lot of extra material all over if you search around for it. And by far the most lucrative, and infamous, is around the town of Dagger Falls.[ATTACH=full]410553[/ATTACH]We decide to journey on, heading west, towards the town of Teshwave.[ATTACH=full]410554[/ATTACH]As we have our choice of transportation, we decide to go by boat along the river.[ATTACH=full]410555[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]410556[/ATTACH]Pirate Attack![ATTACH=full]410558[/ATTACH]Luckily there aren't too many of them. But annoyingly, they have a nice copse of trees in front of them, making getting to them, and aiming ranged attacks and spells at them, rather difficult.I take a turn to move my characters forward, and then Bragir lets loose with a fireball (which will unfortunately be less effective since we're outdoors).[ATTACH=full]410559[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]410560[/ATTACH]Mediocre damage, but still it will help wear them down.My party makes its way around the trees in order to get to the foe.[ATTACH=full]410561[/ATTACH]And eventually the battle is won, with minimal damage to the party.[ATTACH=full]410562[/ATTACH]The XP is fairly minimal, and the group has nothing of interest on them.(There was a brief message which stated that the pirate captain was impressed with our prowess in battle and that we could sail on his boat at any time, but it flashed by too fast without a "Hit Enter to continue" prompt).That done, we complete the voyage to Teshwave.[ATTACH=full]410563[/ATTACH]From here, we'll travel further up the river to the west, to Dagger Falls.[ATTACH=full]410564[/ATTACH]We reach Dagger Falls without incident.[ATTACH=full]410565[/ATTACH]We aren't going to enter the city quite yet, but will instead choose "Search Area"[ATTACH=full]410566[/ATTACH]And this is why we were keeping small but valuable magic items. The magic shop in Zhentil Keep now being inaccessible to us, we'll be going here in the future to sell off items and pick up magic arrows.Time to start selling![ATTACH=full]410567[/ATTACH]Well, he's no fool, sadly.[ATTACH=full]410568[/ATTACH]And this is why we kept the bracers.[ATTACH=full]410569[/ATTACH]The darts, however, weren't really worth it.With all that cleared out of our inventory, we now have quite a bit of money to spend![ATTACH=full]410570[/ATTACH]Don't worry, that platinum will be going down quite quickly.[ATTACH=full]410571[/ATTACH]Honestly, we came here mainly for the arrows, but the bottom two scrolls actually have several spells that my magic-users don't have and can scribe into their spellbooks. So we'll buy those two so we can do so when we go back into town to rest. Beyond that, it's time to top my ranged off with magical arrows, as they used about half their previous stockpile in Zhentil Keep.Afterwards, the amount of platinum has dropped considerably, but everyone is much happier with inventories filled with items they can actually use![ATTACH=full]410572[/ATTACH]As we leave the magic shop, the proprietor has one further bit of information.[ATTACH=full]410573[/ATTACH]A beholder corps definitely sounds ominous! Back to town to rest before we continue onward to the tower.[ATTACH=full]410574[/ATTACH]We go to Dagger Falls and stay at the local inn. Time to heal up (although we didn't take much damage), memorize spells, and, most importantly, scribe those new spells![ATTACH=full]410575[/ATTACH]Bragir can scribe four of the six spells on the two scrolls we bought. After he finishes with them, he hands them over to Brin, who can, happily, scribe the other two.[ATTACH=full]410576[/ATTACH](Brin has several other scrolls that really don't have much in the way of helpful spells - we'll probably just sell those when we visit the magic shop just to clear them out of the inventory. To be honest, other than those with fireball and maybe dispel magic, there's not really much reason to hold onto scrolls)With all the scribing done, we head out of town and "Search Area" again, choosing not to go to the magic shop.[ATTACH=full]410577[/ATTACH]This area has two sections, Oxam's Tower and the Mulmaster Beholder Corps dungeon below. We'll be clearing out the tower portion first.We'll go through the door straight ahead and then through the door on the left.[ATTACH=full]410578[/ATTACH]We search, but the results are disappointing.[ATTACH=full]410579[/ATTACH]Meh, that's unexciting. Stymied here, we reverse course and head through the door to the right in the foyer.[ATTACH=full]410580[/ATTACH]We search again, and find a bit of change.[ATTACH=full]410581[/ATTACH]I mean, it's better than dust, but not by much.We go through the door to the left.[ATTACH=full]410582[/ATTACH]We decide to not go up the stairs at the moment - there's one encounter we want to clear out first before coming back here and heading up.So we head to the left and into the next room.[ATTACH=full]410583[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]410584[/ATTACH]Only seven of them, so it won't be a tough fight at all.[ATTACH=full]410585[/ATTACH]Bragir prepares to damage as many as possible, as my melee run down to meet them.[ATTACH=full]410586[/ATTACH]While not outright killing them, those that failed their saves (most of them) can now be picked off by arrows and killed easily. My melee rapidly deal with the remainder.[ATTACH=full]410587[/ATTACH]They give decent XP, but no upgrades for treasure (and all their magic items are bulky, so we just leave them).Through the door on the far side of the room lies the dungeon leading to the Mulmaster Beholder Corps. We won't be heading that way quite yet, so we return to the stairs and head up.We reach the second floor.[ATTACH=full]410588[/ATTACH]We go and explore the second doorway on the left. We quickly find a bit of treasure.[ATTACH=full]410589[/ATTACH]There's a small amount of coin again, and 10 arrows that turn out to be +2.[ATTACH=full]410590[/ATTACH]Without much more on this floor, we head through the door on the right of the hall and head up to level 3.[ATTACH=full]410591[/ATTACH]We reach level 3, only to find that the tower's owner (presumably the eponymous Oxam) has noticed our trespassing, and means to do something about it![ATTACH=full]410592[/ATTACH](I cut it off too quickly, the end is "...with my pets.")Unfortunately for him, Oxam's pets aren't terribly threatening.[ATTACH=full]410593[/ATTACH]Seven otyughs won't even cause us to break a sweat, and go down as quickly as you'd think, causing minimal damage. And who would keep otyughs as pets anyway?[ATTACH=full]410594[/ATTACH]They give fairly low XP, and no treasure at all.Having dealt with that "threat", we head up to the next floor.[ATTACH=full]410595[/ATTACH]Before we can do much, more of Oxam's pets attack![ATTACH=full]410596[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]410597[/ATTACH]Just two maticores?This goes even more quickly than the otyugh fight.[ATTACH=full]410598[/ATTACH]A fat 263 XP and no treasure at all for that.As we head up, the tower has been narrowing. The next level is just a single square with the steps in it, leading us to, finally, the topmost level of the tower.[ATTACH=full]410599[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]410600[/ATTACH]This is definitely more interesting than the previous fights, given that we have a cleric sitting in the back. As we're jammed up into what on the map would be a single square, there's basically no room to maneuver, and, more importantly, it's far too cramped to throw any fireballs without hitting members of the party. But still, we need to damage that high priest. Thankfully, we have the perfect tool for that...[ATTACH=full]410601[/ATTACH]Bragir and Brin will just pepper him with magic missiles with Buffy hitting with normal arrows. Meanwhile, my melee will just hack their way through the fighters and otyughs.[ATTACH=full]410602[/ATTACH]As a result, he's just sitting back there, unable to cast spells, or able to move forward to get into melee. After the third magic missile, he goes down.[ATTACH=full]410603[/ATTACH] After that, it's just clean-up work on the fighters and otyughs, and the battle is over.[ATTACH=full]410604[/ATTACH]This time, we get much nicer XP and treasure![ATTACH=full]410605[/ATTACH]While most of the treasure was the usual stuff that we no longer pick up, there were four random items at the end of the list. Baroness Bella picks them up and examines them.[ATTACH=full]410606[/ATTACH]Unfortunately, magical scale mail isn't particularly helpful, and a magical jo stick is basically useless. We'll just keep them to sell in the store shortly as we head out to rest before tackling the caves below. However, healing potions are always nice, and we'll hand the scroll over to the magic users to see if it's of any use.But, far more importantly, we gained enough XP for three characters to level up![ATTACH=full]410607[/ATTACH]Part of my frustration with the low XP amounts in this section was due to the fact that they were so close to leveling. Well, at least now they are good to go!Buffy levels as fighter.[ATTACH=full]410608[/ATTACH]But even better, both Brandir and Brin level in both fighter and magic user! More spells, baby![ATTACH=full]410609[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]410613[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]410614[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]410615[/ATTACH]With the new levels, the party is looking pretty good![ATTACH=full]410616[/ATTACH]With that, we head back down out of the tower and to Dagger Falls, to rest up and memorize spells. And we are definitely going to need them, as next we head down into the caverns below the tower and confront the infamous Mulmaster Beholder Corps!(Map of Oxam's Tower)[ATTACH=full]410617[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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