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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Demetrios1453" data-source="post: 9737323" data-attributes="member: 6801060">Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 43): The Mulmaster Beholder Corps (Part 3) - The Mulmaster Beholder Corps completed!So, there was a lot of discussion in the thread after the last post on how I would proceed with this battle.[ATTACH=full]415295[/ATTACH]Yeah, I'm opting for the easy way out. Simply because trying it without using the dust of disappearance is a long, involved process that can quickly end in disaster if a single mistake is made, forcing you to start all over again. From past experience, going that routeis nothing more than an exercise in prolonged frustration.And it's not like waiting to use the dust in the final battle is the better choice; a buffed, max-level party can usually win that final battle without major difficulty, even without the dust. No, since we have it, it's better to use it here.So, we start to buff up. It's still helpful to buff since characters can still be attacked by creatures directly next to them (but, thankfully, can not be targeted by spells and special abilities), and extra damage and attacks makes plowing through the mass of monsters go a bit more quickly.[ATTACH=full]415296[/ATTACH]Once our buffs are done, Buffy uses the dust.[ATTACH=full]415297[/ATTACH](I just clicked it too quickly, but it is amusing that the word "Invisible" is invisible!)[ATTACH=full]415298[/ATTACH]Note just how long the invisibility buff lasts! Many of our buffs will be gone by the end of the battle, but thankfully the invisibility and enlarge will remain right through it, and well beyond.We head in...[ATTACH=full]415299[/ATTACH]Everyone ages. No one but Baroness Bella cares.[ATTACH=full]415300[/ATTACH]My melee move up and start hacking away at the beholders. Since we're invisible, they can't target us with their eyes, so the best they can do is their (very ineffectual) bite attacks.Time for a bit of fun.[ATTACH=full]415301[/ATTACH]I target in the middle of the drow and high priests...[ATTACH=full]415302[/ATTACH]And everyone makes their saves or resists. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />Bragir makes a go of it.[ATTACH=full]415303[/ATTACH]Meanwhile, I'm just getting spammed with these messages.[ATTACH=full]415304[/ATTACH] The rakshasa and high priests keep trying to cast spells, and then aborting them. The best they can do is when the high priests get a few prayer spells off on themselves.Bragir gets a bit luckier with his spell.[ATTACH=full]415305[/ATTACH]Two high priests and one drow are affected. I hoped that they could sow some chaos in the middle there, but they mostly just stand there doing nothing instead of attacking their neighbors.Well, time to pull out the big guns then.[ATTACH=full]415306[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415307[/ATTACH]The beholders and rakshasa aren't going to be affected by spells, so this is mainly to start clearing out the high priests, and chipping away at the drow, even if their magic resistance often causes them to be not affected either. I'd say on average about a third of the drow take damage from each of the fireballs, and every little bit helps.[ATTACH=full]415308[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415309[/ATTACH]My melee keep hacking away at the beholders in the front. Brin and Bragir each cast yet another fireball each.A few rounds in: many of the high priests have fallen, many drow have been damaged, and the melee are moving quickly through the beholders.[ATTACH=full]415310[/ATTACH]Brin and Brandir again cast fireball, further clearing the middle out. As that was the last one available to each of them, after this they'll just stick to using their bows and taking down low-HP foes.My melee have cleared out many of the beholders, and most of the drow have been wounded pretty seriously after multiple fireballs. The rakshasa in the back are just twiddling their backwards-facing thumbs, wondering why everyone in front of them is dying.[ATTACH=full]415312[/ATTACH]Brin takes down the last of the high priests.[ATTACH=full]415313[/ATTACH]By this point, the number of foes has been seriously reduced.[ATTACH=full]415314[/ATTACH]Baroness Bella takes out the last of the beholders.[ATTACH=full]415315[/ATTACH]Meanwhile, Bant and Brother Baltor have moved up to start taking down the rakshasa.[ATTACH=full]415316[/ATTACH]Annoyingly, my buffs are beginning to fade. It's not putting anyone in danger, but it is dragging out the fight a bit.[ATTACH=full]415317[/ATTACH]Baroness Bella has taken a bit of a beating, mainly from the dark elf lords, who are able to attack her when she's in a square next to them. In revenge, she takes the last one down.[ATTACH=full]415318[/ATTACH]With only two rakshasa left, they quickly fall.[ATTACH=full]415319[/ATTACH]And the battle is won!And the XP reward is definitely worth it:[ATTACH=full]415320[/ATTACH]Shockingly, this doesn't allow anyone to level (although a few are getting fairly close).We divide up the currency.[ATTACH=full]415321[/ATTACH]And rummage through their items. Most are from the high priests and drow, and all those items are no better than what we have now, or will melt away as soon as we step outside.[ATTACH=full]415322[/ATTACH]At the bottom of the list, however, are a few interesting items.[ATTACH=full]415323[/ATTACH]We examine them to see if there's anything worthwhile.[ATTACH=full]415324[/ATTACH]Oh, that composite short bow +2 is nice! All the characters have composite longbows, but none are magical. Despite the range being less, it's still a keeper! Buffy will get that item.[ATTACH=full]415325[/ATTACH]I wisely decide that it's a good idea to save the game at this point. Don't want something to go wrong and have to re-do that fight![ATTACH=full]415326[/ATTACH]After that, we move across the room to the door on the opposite wall. Here we find the beholders' treasure room![ATTACH=full]415327[/ATTACH]Let's see what they have.[ATTACH=full]415328[/ATTACH]You just have to laugh at that copper and silver. We'll just stick to the platinum, gems, and jewelry, thank you very much!Beyond that, there's a good amount of magical items![ATTACH=full]415329[/ATTACH]Lots of magic-user scrolls. Hopefully we'll find some useful spells on them. Beyond that, after identifying the items, there's not much of interest, all of the weapons and the shield being just +1.We head out, and then move to the exit of the dungeon.[ATTACH=full]415330[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415331[/ATTACH]Bant was the only one using a drow item, and we had already switched him back to his regular weapon.Back to Dagger Falls![ATTACH=full]415332[/ATTACH]We head to the magic shop to offload a whole bunch of items and stock up on arrows.[ATTACH=full]415333[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415334[/ATTACH]In fact, even after selling all of our superfluous treasure, we still buy so many arrows for this to occur:[ATTACH=full]415335[/ATTACH]Luckily, that happened right as I was topping the last person off.On to Dagger Falls proper, so we can rest, heal up, re-memorize spells, and see if we have any spells worth scribing.[ATTACH=full]415336[/ATTACH]I have so many scrolls that I just gave half to Brin and half to Bragir to see what they could scribe.[ATTACH=full]415337[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415338[/ATTACH]After that, I switched the scrolls between them, which resulted in one final spell to scribe.[ATTACH=full]415339[/ATTACH]There are a couple of fireballs and hastes in the scrolls, but most of them are going to be sold off when we go back to the magic shop here shortly.In fact, Bragir has pretty much every spell available in the game right now. Here's his spell list for the curious:[ATTACH=full]415340[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415341[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415342[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415343[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415344[/ATTACH]Brin's spellbook isn't quite as complete, but it's close, with her now missing only a handful of spells.Baroness Bella and Brother Baltor are near leveling up, with Bant not too far behind.[ATTACH=full]415345[/ATTACH]And since I haven't done it in awhile, here are the character sheets for the party:[ATTACH=full]415346[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415347[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415348[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415349[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415350[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]415351[/ATTACH]And so the infamous Mulmaster Beholder Corps has been defeated! So... we should be headed to the final areas of the game now, right? Well, not so fast. There's still one more way to get some further XP (and hopefully useful magic items!) so we can be as high level as possible before going to the final fights. We'll pick up there next time.Map of the Mulmaster Beholder Corps dungeons:[ATTACH=full]415353[/ATTACH]</blockquote>

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