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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Demetrios1453" data-source="post: 9764664" data-attributes="member: 6801060">Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 44): Random Dungeons (Part 1) - Shadowdale DungeonSorry for the delay between updates, but we are back!So, the only thing left to do before going to the grand finale in Myth Drannor are a number of dungeons hidden beneath the cities and towns on the overland map.  You basically go to the town and, instead of entering, choose to "Search", which will reveal these hidden dungeons. The Mulmaster Beholder Corps is technically one of these dungeons, but as it's far bigger and more memorable than any of the others, it gets special coverage.I'm going to tackle these in a roughly clockwise manner, ending near the Standing Stone so as to make travel at the end a bit easier. So, our first dungeon will be the one under Shadowdale![ATTACH=full]418199[/ATTACH]Shadowdale, as you can see, is just to the south of Dagger Falls. From there, we'll clear out these dungeons clockwise to end at Ashabenford before going on to Myth Drannor to complete the game.[ATTACH=full]418200[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]418201[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]418202[/ATTACH]Nothing exciting takes place on the journey to Shadowdale.[ATTACH=full]418203[/ATTACH]We're going to enter the city now, but come back out later to search and find the dungeon.I go to the tavern first, as there's a bit of flavor that you might be able to catch.[ATTACH=full]418204[/ATTACH]After a couple of useless Tavern Tales, I assume the time frame for the flavor event has passed. It's basically a very poorly-disguised Elminster (who lives in Shadowdale) complaining that Dracandros is trying to plagiarize his sigil. I'm assuming that the event no longer fires if you've already taken care of Dracandros.Let's leave the city and search for the hidden dungeon.[ATTACH=full]418205[/ATTACH]After choosing "Search", we immediately enter some caves.[ATTACH=full]418206[/ATTACH]This group of dungeons are a bit different from those before. They're basically huge, meandering dungeon/cave systems that are filled with random events. You can wander around these for days farming XP if you wished, although that would be boring. This sort of meandering dungeon is something of a preview of a much-used (and much-dislike) feature in the next game, Secret of the Silver Blades.But these dungeons aren't just random encounters. Each has a mini story line mixed in with the random encounters. There will be like four or so encounters that progress until you fight a final foe, at which point you'll get an extra reward upon leaving the dungeon. But the locations for these aren't set; they're as random as any of the other encounters. So, the best thing to do here is to just wander around near the exit and keep triggering random encounters until you complete the mini story line and can claim your reward. Setting it to "Search" while moving will trigger the encounters at an accelerated pace. [ATTACH=full]418207[/ATTACH]There will be periodic notifications that you feel a fresh breeze, indicating an immediate way out, no matter where you are. As we aren't going to be leaving the immediate vicinity of the exit anyway, this isn't terribly important info for us.We wander around a bit until...[ATTACH=full]418208[/ATTACH]This is the first of the four encounters for this mini adventure. We continue to move around until...[ATTACH=full]418209[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]418210[/ATTACH]Just a regular random encounter here. And three salamanders go down pretty quickly.[ATTACH=full]418211[/ATTACH]They have a random magic-user scroll as treasure.[ATTACH=full]418212[/ATTACH]Here is one of the quick exits, if you should want to use it. We certainly are not at this time!After a bit more wandering, we have a much more significant encounter![ATTACH=full]418213[/ATTACH]This is the second of the four mini story line encounters for this dungeon.[ATTACH=full]418214[/ATTACH]They have a cleric and a mage, which we'll need to concentrate on. But this shouldn't be too tough of a fight.[ATTACH=full]418215[/ATTACH]After most go down, one decides, annoyingly, to run up the hallway.[ATTACH=full]418216[/ATTACH]But Brother Baltor takes care of him quickly.[ATTACH=full]418217[/ATTACH]They have good XP[ATTACH=full]418218[/ATTACH]But all their gear is either drow stuff that will evaporate once I leave the dungeon, or lesser quality items than what I already have.A bit more wandering leads us to our next random encounter:[ATTACH=full]418219[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]418220[/ATTACH]They go down pretty quickly, although Bant was hugged for a moment by one of the owlbears.[ATTACH=full]418221[/ATTACH]Shortly afterwards, another random encounter:[ATTACH=full]418222[/ATTACH]Two drow go down very, very quickly. Pretty insulting for a random encounter![ATTACH=full]418223[/ATTACH]After that we meet some salamanders:[ATTACH=full]418224[/ATTACH]And another patrol of efreet and owlbears:[ATTACH=full]418225[/ATTACH]They are both dispatched quickly.But after that...[ATTACH=full]418228[/ATTACH]This is the third of the four main encounters.[ATTACH=full]418231[/ATTACH]They also have a cleric and a mage, who will be targeted mercilessly until they go down.[ATTACH=full]418232[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]418233[/ATTACH]The last drow tries to run...[ATTACH=full]418234[/ATTACH]But is taken down by one of Buffy's arrows.[ATTACH=full]418235[/ATTACH]They, too, have some good XP[ATTACH=full]418236[/ATTACH]Immediately after defeating them...[ATTACH=full]418237[/ATTACH]We take just a single step...[ATTACH=full]418238[/ATTACH]Of course we rush in to save her! We do not fear dragons![ATTACH=full]418239[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]418240[/ATTACH]Um... where are they?[ATTACH=full]418241[/ATTACH]I mean, there wasn't a battle to begin with. I assume there must have been a glitch and the dragons simply didn't appear. And, even more annoyingly, didn't allow me to get any XP![ATTACH=full]418242[/ATTACH]I mean, that dragon "fight" was pretty much an anticlimax, so at least we'll get some reward out of this, thankfully.[ATTACH=full]418243[/ATTACH][ATTACH=full]418244[/ATTACH]Again, some great XP, but a quick glance at my characters will show why not fighting the dragons was disappointing:[ATTACH=full]418245[/ATTACH]Baroness Bella and Brother Baltor are very close to leveling. Well, there are still plenty of these dungeons across the map![ATTACH=full]418246[/ATTACH]The last four items are what we received as rewards. After checking out the scroll, the spells on it aren't all that spectacular. I'll just be keeping the potion.We quickly go back to Shadowdale to rest (although we only lost minimal HP) and sell items. Next time, we'll check out the ruins under Voonlar!</blockquote>

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