To have defeated an avatar of an evil god, that just feels good man. He got his ass kicked by some autistic mortals. As for killing Hedrack myself, only one answer:Back on task.
We drop Paida off with her husband, who thanks us with access to free Masterwork Wooden Shields. This is one of a handful of ways to get awesome defensive shielding, and even better these weigh way less than other shields. Sadly, because the only one of us that can even use one is Jaimas, this is little solace.
Still, I'm not one to turn down goodies, and here you can see Jaimas with his new shield, fresh out of upgrading, and ready to roll!
Thus begins the group fighting their way to the greater temple, and this is going to be a tough one. These may look like ordinary Ogres, but these are Hendrak's elites, and he is not fucking around here. These guys can do dozens of points of damage with a crit, and pose a very real threat of one-shotting our more fragile members. They also all have Cleave and Power attack. Gods help us.
It's time.
This is it: The main man, Hedrack, lord of the greater temple. Armed with a Maul the game falsely claims is a warhammer, Hendrak counts as large size and is insanely powerful. Our party approaches, only to trigger a humorous glitch.
The flags from Kelno are still up. So we can get the evil ending if we want. But fuck that we're here to kick this guy's ass.
This is the hardest fight so far. The Hill Giant/Bear fight in Emridy Meadows is tough, the backdoor ambush of the Temple Guardhouse is brutal, and fighting any of the high priests poses a tough challenge, to say nothing of the Sea Hag fight or god help you, the fight against Senshock. But nothing so far - nothing - can prepare you for the challenge of this fight. Hedrack is packing major backup, including multiple Ettins and Hill Giants, several bugbears, a pair of wizards spamming debuffs and summoning gargoyles, and Hedrack himself is a formidable cleric. His first action is to cast Righteous Might, grow to the size of a Giant, and fight you dead-on.
Welcome to the game's third-hardest fight (and arguably the hardest if you're trying to do something specific here).
The group opens up with their best - C-No fires off his Order's Wrath spell and Shuu starts dropping Fireballs and Ice Storms. The objective is simple: Thin the enemy ranks as much as you can, because what's to come.... Well, nothing can prepare you. Hedrack breaks a Prayer Bead of Karma and calls upon his god.
His god answers.
Iuz, the demigod of deception and malice, sends his avatar to fight us. Your party now faces a foe beyond its ken - a literal divine entity that no mortal spell or weapon can harm. He is vulnerable solely to Holy and Lawful weapons and spells. Iuz also just showed up on top of the massive stockpile of enemies we're already fighting. Worse, Iuz is exceptionally mobile, and, as a god of deceit, has maxed-out levels of Rogue. A single sneak attack from him can rip even our toughest to shreds, and all he needs is one of the other enemies to flank for him.
The game normally expects you to bunker down and hold out. If you can last a certain number of rounds, an Avatar of Saint Cuthbert shows up and frightens Iuz off - but only if you're neutral or better.
There are other paths to take, however, and on this day the Kiwis gather their power and attempt to do the one thing none could expect:
To slay a god.
While a canny use of the Dismissal spell from our Gnomish cleric could potentially remove Iuz from the battle, it has to break his spell resistance and he has to fail the save, which happens only the tiniest percentage of the time. Our only recourse is to use Jaimas and @BOLDYSPICY! together, and, armed with both Swords of Answering, use their holy power to bypass Iuz's protections. However, this has to be done while the enemies continue to bear down on us and Iuz keeps trying to maneuver in order to kill us with his attacks. If only there was some way to bind his movements....
@Shuu Iwamine then declares this her time to shine, and in a surprise move, elects to shot web. Normally, web allows both spell resistance and a save, but it forces saves round-by-round if the enemy is in range. By positioning carefully, Shuu baits Iuz to chase her into the web before fleeing, her Ring of Freedom of Movement allowing her to escape. Meanwhile @Smutley engages Hedrack and @c-no restores Shuu to fighting condition, since she nearly died running from Iuz.
Bit by bit, round by round, Jaimas and Boldy attack with the Swords, hacking at Iuz as he fist-fights the pair. Finally, the holy blades take their toll and the power drains from Iuz's avatar.
Finally, in a spree of sword strikes, Jaimas swings - and the god goes down. The squad scatters in a mad dash to kill the other enemies before the group gets ground down by the ongoing enemy presence. As the only uninjured party member, @c-no steps forward to fight Hedrack, alone.
In a spray of gore, C-No's warhammer strikes through an unprotected spot, and strikes a critical blow. Hedrack, the monstrously large cleric of Iuz, falls to his tiny adversary, and after one of the hardest, most vicious, most terrifying battles in the game, the group stands triumphant, even gaining some treasure for good measure.
The party stands triumphant. A fight in the top three for hardest (arguably the worst being either the boss of the Fire Shrine or the final boss) lays behind our brave heroes and heroines, and a ton of corpses are left to raid. Jaimas immediately appropriates Hedrack's gear, repurposing it for his own ends, as Boldy goes about salvaging other equipment and C-No harvest crossbow bolts and potions with Smutley.
....For good measure, Smutley steals Iuz's clothing.
Our group is battered and exhausted. We return to Nulb for a time to rest.
New upgrades abound. Smutley's swords are properly augmented, and Shuu's bow is given an Axiomatic enchantment, which allows it to do lawful damage with every shot. Her bow nears maxing out. C-No will need additional XP to max out Smutley's dual shortswords with the Axiomatic enchantment as well. C-No's best weapon, however, lies beyond this arena. Boldy is sporting bone armor now, enchanted and upgraded, and Jaimas has Hedrack's plate mail for good measure. Finally, Shuu makes a pair of Gauntlets of Giant Strength +6 for Boldy, to further bolster her offense power.
Interesting quirk: The aura a magic weapon has depends on its alignment enchantments, if any:
Neutral: Blue
Holy: White
Axiomatic: Purple
Anarchic: Yellow
Unholy: Red
With our group kitted out for bear, it's time to prepare for another adventure into the lowest grounds of the temple. We have a lot more to do, including working towards getting the true ending. Kicking the ass of a dark god, however, remains a hell of an achievement for the Kiwi Party.
Sucks I can't use Moradin's hammer but at least I still can add enchantments to my own. Still, considering you have to face other demons, can one assume each part will be one post per element?Back at the Temple, our party proceeds to prepare to descend into the next section.
The Temple itself has a series of rifts that lead right onto the elemental planes of existence, where the Temple has established a series of vaults to protect items of exceptional power - things that are a threat to their goddess, and things the goddess holds important.
Here we prepare to head through the rift to the elemental plane of Earth.
The plane of earth is the easiest of these, but still exceedingly dangerous. Also, this is a one-way trip; once you're in the Earth shrine in the temple the only way out is through a boss fight or through a warp to the more-dangerous plane of air.
These horrors are the most annoying enemy in the entire game. Galeb Duhrs have spell resistance, ridiculous damage reduction, and an Armor Class so high that @Smutley can barely hit them without help of support spells. Thankfully the Swords of Answering still work but even they have difficulty battering through their defenses; Jaimas does less than 10 damage with @BOLDYSPICY!'s blows striking slightly deeper. This is an ugly area. Worse, these guys have a tendency to fuck the game up due to how slow they move.
@Shuu Iwamine manages to help blow through their defenses when she can actually get through their spell resistance. @c-no's new Flame Strike spell helps too, but Order's Wrath remains the initial offense and the fight still takes forever. These assholes hit hard, too; Smutley gets knocked to negative HP but stabilizes and a timely intervention from our Gnomish cleric saves the day.
Unfortunately, tragedy soon strikes.
Normally, a very powerful magic hammer, Moradin's Soul Hammer, can be found here. Unfortunately, due to his small size, our dear C-No cannot actually use it, so despite my original intention of giving him this as his ultimate weapon of choice ends in failure. Not to be outdone, I work out an alternate way to arm our Gnome, but it will need to wait. We patch ourselves up and move on.
The bosses of the Shrines are all demons, and this one's no exception. While he's pretty much the easiest of the set, don't be fooled - this guy can massacre a party in seconds, since he gets four attacks a round and he has tons of magic for good measure. He also uses the earth gem to summon backup in the form of Greater Earth Elementals.
For reference, Demons in D&D are excellent odd job specialists. They have more spell-like abilities than they will ever fucking need, to the point where many of them can compete with a low-level Sorcerer or Wizard in the short term. All without losing melee power. The stronger ones have both insane strength and ridiculous magical prowess. Here we can see the Glabrezu using Mirror Image and hammer-punching Jaimas with one of his crab claws.
Finally after an annoying battle the Glabrezu falls and his buddies fall prey to Smutley's swords soonafter. Goddamn that was a pain in the ass. After patching up our wounded, we check the corpses.
The Glabrezu had the first of the elemental stones for the Orb of Golden Death. Now it can cast Stoneskin once a day and summon a Glabrezu itself, though obviously the Demon Summon is risky as fuck and probably should not be used by a party like the Kiwis.
Back at Nulb, our group patches themselves up and C-No retires to his workshop. We cannot give him his ultimate weapon, so as Smutley and Shuu must do, he elects to create his own. Quickly, our Gnome gets to work, adding Axiomatic enchantments to the hammer he uses; he now can hit virtually as hard as if he had the Moradin's Soul Hammer, though he obviously lacks the defending or Holy aspect. Finishing the weapon is going to take some help from Shuu, who has yet to come into her full power; Though Jaimas, Boldy, and Smutley are fast closing on level 10, item creation has meant that Shuu is still level 8 and C-No is barely into level 9, though they will catch up in due time.
Fuck that giant deep one for cheesing me twice. At least now, there is the worst of the Temple that is left.Let's roll.
The Air Shrine awaits.
There's a whole lot of nothing in the Air Shrine; scores of air elementals and similar roaming an endless sky with earthbergs being the main center of travel.
Air elementals are probably the least overtly dangerous of the four but are really hard to hit in exchange. Here, @c-no tests out his new hammer as @Shuu Iwamine takes potshots with her longbow.
This one is probably the easiest of all the Shrines. It's also quite hauntingly lonely.
The boss of this shrine is a Vrock. It's easily the weakest of the four demons HP-wise, at just under 200, and it's the least likely to outright kill you off. What makes it a threat is its poison attack; the Vrock can spray out spores from its body that penetrate the skin and grow into a tangle of vines. Functionally, this staples you in place, making you easy pickings for its attacks. It also has a host of spell-like abilities, including the Mirror Image spell all of these faggots seem to have by Abyssal mandate. Its most annoying ability is that it can summon swarms of Quasits.
But it's seriously the easiest one. @Smutley and C-No practically kill this thing on their own. The only reason any of us took damage was because of the fucking Quasit swarms. It supposedly can cast Chain Lightning due to the Air Gem, but I've never seen the damned thing cast it.
A few rounds later, the beast and its friends are all dead.
Gem #2 get, and the orb of Golden Death can now cast Chain Lightning and summon a Vrock.
The Water Shrine is next. Now we're getting into the hard ones. How hard? Well....
These eyes of the deep hit wicked hard and have tons of HP. They're also the most XP-beneficial fight in the entire game. It's by no means an easy fight though; these guys hit hard, and they have nasty stunning beam attacks.
Slaying these assholes earns over 9000 XP - enough to push everyone - including Shuu and C-No - to level 10.
We find survivors here, but they immediately attack us. Shuu is having none of that and slaughters half the camp in a single Cone of Cold, before an Order's Wrath demolishes who remains.
Sadly this murder was due to a misunderstanding; the warrior here is Grank, a former temple commander who turned on the ones above and was attacked by the Temple forces as a result. He resigns himself to death but you can spare him because he's really done nothing wrong - it was his idiot friends who attacked you first. Unfortunately due to a bug, he went pants-on-head exceptional because of C-No's Mass Heal Light Wounds spell and @BOLDYSPICY! had to put him down.
Using Shuu's new ability to Teleport, we can get back to Nulb in an eyeblink. We do so, and we finish upgrading our gear - C-No, Smutley, and Shuu now all have their ultimate weapons, lovingly created from scratch by C-No and Shuu:
C-No: Axiomatic Flaming Warhammer +3
Smutley: 2x Shock Axiomatic Shortswords +3
Shuu: Icy Burst Axiomatic Longbow +3
Now we're ready to kick ass.
One round with the new gear and an entire strike group of Lizardmen is face-down. Christ.
These Ice Lizards are annoying but not a major threat. We're closing on the brutal boss of this zone though.
This ugly, toadlike motherfucker is a tough nut to crack. Hitting even harder than the Glabrezu, this asshole casts Chaos Hammer, basically the chaos version of C-No's Order's Wrath spell - and he keeps casting it. Whilst the spell is basically useless against Jaimas and Boldy, and minimally threatening to Smutley and Shuu, it's a serious fuck-you button directed at C-No, who takes the full brunt and is mostly unable to fight back on this one. Worse, this shithead has over 400 HP and calls backup from Water Elementals who are also quite tanky. Thankfully, Smutley flanks and with help from Crippling Strike, he crushes this guy's offensive potential, sapping 2 strength per Sneak Attack and quickly ripping 10 strength in this fashion out of the guy.
A fucking arsenal of attacks later and the team surprises me by revealing that the Level Cap has been improved as of the patch, bringing Jaimas, Boldy, and Smutley to Level 11. This was a tough fight and C-No almost died twice during it, not because of anything he did wrong but because the fucking Hezrou kept spamming Chaos Hammer and staggering his ass before punching him in the dick.
Another gem for the Skull. We're almost done.
The next Shrine, however.... Is very different. Welcome to hell, Kiwis.
The Fire Shrine.
If I read the last part right, I gave the final blow to Zuggtmoy? If so, that feels even better than hitting an unarmored spot of Hedrack (his vile jewels I hope).
The fire temple is made of horror. Many players go through the entirety of the game just to fail here. Worse, this is an area where you cannot use Scather or Fragarach due to a relatively rare but extremely annoying bug that causes the game to freeze up if two retaliation effects hit one another. We're left with no option but to give Jaimas the Frost Brand from earlier, and Boldy a Holy Axe she'll find in a few minutes.
The random encounters are no better, throwing giant frogs that are also fucking ON FIRE at you, and worse. Running into things like Thoqqua or huge fire elementals is also a thing. This place really drives home a need to memorize the Resist Elements spell and pack the damned thing in bulk for this area.
Thankfully, the fact that everything here is on fire works against them, as we see here with @Shuu Iwamine firing off her new Cone of Cold spell and wiping out this force group of salamanders; they take double damage, which means paired with Smutley casting Ice Storm from a scroll we're able to rip these assholes a new one and secure the weapon @BOLDYSPICY! needs for the trip ahead.
Seriously, everything here is burning. It's fucking ridiculous.
Unfortunately, arguably the hardest boss in the entire game is ahead: A Balor.
This fucking nightmare of a monster is easily one of the game's hardest bosses - if not the hardest.
Whilst technically the next (and last) boss is a greater threat for many reasons, this thing is so disastrously powerful and so insanely tough that it is truly in a realm of its own. A Balor is a fucking titan of demons, armed with ridiculously strong magic and a formidable warrior in its own right. It leads off with Suggestion (turning one character against the others), followed by Fear (causing panic). It can summon Quasits (though only 2, compared to the fucking swarms of them the Vrock summons) as well. What makes it a threat though is that it's loaded with devastating offense spells, including Implosion and Slay Living, standing a damned good chance of killing your characters instantly. The massive sword it packs can instantly kill as well and the thing is also capable of firing off Fire Storm, which basically will hit the entire party from everywhere for decent fire damage. It also explodes when it dies, doing massive damage, has Spell Resistance, and has retaliatory damage like a Salamander.
Its only real weakness is that it's barely tougher than the Vrock, having around 270 HP. It also has two Efreeti for backup, which are heavy hitters but practically an afterthought compared to the fucking Balor.
But the Kiwis are strong now, and have learned much. By loading up with buff spells in advance we mitigate the chance of getting mind controlled, and this forces everything into a rushdown fight. Boldy and Jaimas need to switch to their alternate weapons, and this makes it harder - but thanks to @Smutley getting in some timely backstabs and @c-no getting in an Order's Wrath that actually stunned the thing a turn, we managed to break down its considerable defenses, and though it left us battered and brutalized, the Kiwis eventually emerged triumphant.
With the fourth and final gem slotted, the Orb of Golden Death is complete. It can now cast an arsenal of spells, summon demons or elementals, and even tell if someone is lying. A prize worthy of the Kiwis perhaps, but too evil to risk using. It clearly has a tie to Zuggtmoy, lady of fungi, and we cannot risk falling prey to corruption from such a device. We must destroy it. But who to consult about this? The priests of the local temple of Cuthbert want nothing to do with it, and Jaroo the Archdruid sure as shit doesn't know. Our only recourse is Burne, the head of the town watch in Hommlet and a powerful wizard who Shuu wants to tie up and do terrible things to (and who bought out his entire scroll stockpile).
Burne quickly determines what we need to do. We need to smash it with a Maul made of stone, in a place of winds, after subjecting it to fire, and then quench the resulting powder in blessed waters. Though the game will flat-out tell you what you need to do in a moment from Pishella, Burne's assistant, you need to engage in a bit of a treasure hunt to complete this last quest. Side benefit is that smashing it will also seriously harm Iuz.
To destroy the Orb, we need a few things:
* A scroll of Fireball. Normally there's two of these in the game to find, but any Wizard who knows it can scribe it. That includes Shuu.
* A scroll of Gust of Wind. The only one of these I know of is sold by Burne, but you can craft it if you know the spell and have Scribe Scroll. Shuu to the rescue once again.
* A flask of Holy Water. You can buy these at the Church of Cuthbert, or you can have damned near any cleric cast Bless Water. Veterans of this Let's Sperg will readily acknowledge that our beloved Gnomish Cleric is packing a bunch.
* We need a Masterwork Maul. This is sold in several areas around town in both Hommlet and Nulb and you can find one in the Temple proper.
Once we have everything, we give it to Pishella, who explains that we now are on a ticking clock:
Four days.
That's all we have to kill Zuggtmoy before she can escape back to her home in the Abyss, and recover sufficiently to threaten the world anew some time from now. Our group readies up, and prepares for their final trip back to the temple as Pishella smashes the fucking skull.
We cut right through Hedrack's main hall, and descend into Zuggtmoy's lair.
Zuggtmoy's throne is kind of badass. We have only one route ahead, so let's get to it.
This old woman is the one from the intro. It's rumored to be Yibiru, Zuggtmoy's mother, but all evidence shows it to simply be an especially decrepit temple priestess. At first. She demands you stay away from the bejeweled throne near her and offers to make the pillar of platinum near you light enough to carry if you agree to fuck off. When you refuse, she disintegrates, leaving the throne behind, apparently expecting you to raid it.
It's a trick, and if you do it, Zuggtmoy can escape. But the Kiwis are wily, and we don't touch it. Not because we didn't desire to, but because no one in the party recognized you could interact with the fucking throne. Great Autism, you guys. Suffice to say, when we fail to take the bait, the true form of the Crone congeals:
I find it hilarious and terrifying that Troika actually managed to make Zuggtmoy both kind of beautiful and outright hideous. Regardless, she is the game's final boss battle and probably the only real contender for hardest fight in the game - potentially even harder than the Balor, but it mostly involves what she chooses to do.
She invariably summons tons of fungi, including Basidirons, Ustiligators, and Phycomcids. All venomous, all assholes, and all annoying. Even worse, Zuggtmoy can summon any of the four demons from the shrines - including the Balor. Topping it all off, she's a devastating mage and spellcaster. Her most intimidating attack she actually almost never uses, but involves grabbing a character with her tentacles and cramming them into her body, where they'll quickly be drained of vitality and be absorbed by her if they can't be freed. Zuggtmoy is not to be fucked with.
If you didn't destroy the skull she has enormous HP and will instantly gain control of whoever is holding it.
Ironically, despite her threat level, she isn't too durable - less so than the Vrock, in fact, if you destroyed the skull. Her AC is however, high enough that the Brilliant Energy trait of Jaimas and Boldy's swords isn't inviolate, and she thus actually is terribly hard to hit.
It doesn't take long before C-No and Smutley destroy the enraged Demon Queen, permanently putting an end to her reign, but the beasts she summoned, including a Glabrezu and Hezrou, continue to rampage out of control until finally put down. Smutley died three times and had to be revived by C-No each time, but we did it, and in the end, the Kiwis stood triumpant.
Killing Iuz actually strangled his power that he lost much ground? What a bitch, to of gotten his ass kicked by a group of autist. Good to know he fears us.
FUCK. YES.
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