AC Odyssey: Someday

[Part of the AC Odyssey journal]

A small house, a stall at the market... the quiet life. Darius was surprised that he was content to now be living in a small but beautiful village with his family: His daughter Neera, the now retired Eagle Bearer Alexios and their little baby boy - Elpidios (Hope).

The quiet years almost made them forget about the Order of the Ancients, but the night the Persians attacked again quickly reminded them of their old ways. Even working together, Alexios and Darius were hard pressed to defeat the Immortals sent against them to buy Neera the time to escape with Elpidios. While the old assassin and Eagle Bearer are victorious, Neera does not succeed and is found dead on the shore.

Enraged, the pair begin extracting their vengeance upon the newly arrived Order members and their mercenaries - with Alexios using his ties to the Sisters of Artemis to track down a few while Deimos (who bonded with Alexios during that tree-falling incident), hunted the new Persian navy aboard the Adrestia.

Not a line I thought I'd hear from the bad guys!

Eventually learning that the leader of the Order was here in person, the pair faced him down and executed him together, rescuing the Elpidios whom he had kidnapped. Knowing the Persians could be back at any time, Darius convinces Alexios to let him take Elpidios to parts unknown (aka Egypt) - forever separating the father from his son. The Eagle Bearer tearfully agrees and says goodbye. Forever.

Insight: The Immortals boss fight happens early and is one that tests your dodge skills! Alas it is also the best fight in this chapter.

The Cursed: Imprisoned One

[Part of the Cursed story line]

As the lone survivor, Catharina descends into the final cage of the Watchers Keep where the disembodied voice of the invisible Imprisoned One warns her that the Knights of the Vigil are just trying to trap her too. She uses the seal repair scroll anyway and finds it was telling the truth.

Fortunately the Imprisoned One has enough power to open a small tear, just for her. In exchange, it wants vengeance and she readily agrees. Outside, she lies to the knights that she killed the Imprisoned One and they all go to look. Upon their departure, the Helmite ghost reappears and gives her a new scroll of sealing. This one to doubly secure the entire keep and lock the treacherous knights within.

The "oh shit" moment is awesome!

Feeling slightly guilty, she goes to check on them and finds they have all been slain by the Imprisoned One: Demogorgon! Since he's a Marilith summoner she high tails it out of there and uses the ghosts scroll - locking down the Watchers Keep once more and truly damning Valygar, Raven and Neera to enternal imprisonment.

Insight: Clearly the Watchers Keep is the Durlag's Tower of this game.

The Cursed: Forever Alone

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Using gems from the defeated demon lords, Catharina assembles the portal key that lets the team descend to Level 4 which is centered around a huge machine and the crazy mage trapped within it. The machine is a reality warper, and for his own amusement he has summoned various warring monsters.

Some people just have too much time on their hands.

Obviously it's up to the team to clean up this mess, so they start with the Githyanki area and manage to eliminate them with no hassle. A red dragon they guard is quite amiable and tells them the machine is the key to the next portal. Since it's clear the dragon likes being trapped in here (his hoard is safe), they leave him alone.

Less amiable is the demi-lich that they randomly bump into. The floating skull is tough and clearly has a favorite spell called "Imprisonment". Those hit by this suffer a fate worse than death, being  trapped in a tiny sphere far underground where they will remain, magically alive, aware, and alone until the end of the planet.

It does this to a planetar and a few mord-swords. Then to Valygar who seems to be a curse magnet. And Raven. And Neera. The floating skull is destroyed but at the cost of half the team.

Insight: These Githyanki are nice enough to carry loads of health potions, handy for parties without healers.

The Cursed: The Old Gang

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Needing to assemble a melee team to tackle the maze in the Watcher's Keep, Catharina gets the old gang back together: The Paladin Keldorn, now more grim faced after imprisoning his wife and executing her lover, Werewolf Cernd - who is more than happy to abandon his kid with the druids, and Mazzy the hero who somehow escaped Spellhold asylum and the island solo.

With Neera's help they also finally get Valygar un-squirreled, and also un-petrify Raven Skinnybastard to fill the thief role. With the squad ready, Catharina leads them back into the demon filled maze and hands out potions of haste (since spells are wonky) before entering the first demon base.

You'd need way more figurines if this had been a board game.

It is a tremendous battle, requiring the use of many healing potions and Catharina's demon form for victory. Even so, at the end of it Cernd and Mazzy are dead. The next demon base battle goes much better, as thanks to the hard fight, she can now summon a planetar! They win with no losses, and no demon form required.

Insight: Finally someone gets to use that +5 two hander I've been lugging around - Keldorn! His Protection from Evil thing is also annoying to use since it is one by one, but is very useful against evil things. They get -2 to hit!

The Cursed: Onwards to Insanity!

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Assaulting the vamp nest proves to be easy with summons, and more than a few are staked in the process. Bodhi herself comes near death before flying away as a bat... an immortal bat who resisted magic spells and weapons.

Pity none of them are this cool.

To keep their end of the bargain the Shadow Thieves have tracked down Imoen to the island asylum of Spellhold and have already arranged a ship there. Apparently that's the extent of their "help" as the party have to do the heavy lifting themselves!

Neera is very uncomfortable about visiting an asylum specifically for mages so she is dismissed and Elisabeth rejoins the team in her place. Upon arrival at Spellhold's adjacent pirate town, the team is ambushed by vampires thanks to the cowardice of their ship's captain who quickly runs away.

He must be related to Anomen.

Insight: Remember to visit the temple for restoration if any of your team get drained. Suddenly not being able to cast high level spells and having reduced max hit points is not ideal.

The Cursed: Guild Wars

[Part of the Cursed story line]

After the *cough* slight *cough* distraction of other quests, Catharina and company finally return to the now obviously Shadow Thief thug to pay the fee, which has been lowered by 25%, to rescue Imoen.

This payment earns the team a meeting with the Shadow Thief leader who wants the team to help him first with the ongoing guild war before he enacts the daring rescue.

To save him some time, they inform him that he is up against a guild of vampires based in the graveyard district. He gives them some stakes and assistance in the form of the gnome artificer Jan Jensen, who the team previously thought was a turnip vendor and instructs them to wipe those vampires out.

Jan does keep going on about turnips...

There's not much choice, but vampires suck anyway so Catharina agrees.

Insight: I think you can break the game if you kill the Shadow Thieves at this point so better not do that.

The Cursed: Keep to Yourself

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Looking for an exit the team run into a powerful wraith demon, and only thanks to Neera's chaos orb do the team manage to take it and it's allies down. Unfortunately Haer'Dalis is killed in this battle as his minute meteors are reflected back to him by the wraith's shield.

Mazzy can do that too!

One member down and wandering this place of demons really blows so Catharina switches tactics. The team are now just gonna run. Run like hell. Using invisibility and haste, this actually works - somehow getting past rooms and rooms of enemies until they find themselves back at the start.

Exhausted and again one person down they return to Athkatla to regroup. During their rest Catharina suddenly realized... "Shouldn't we be rescuing Imoen?"

Insight: Haer'Dalis is a strange cat. He's weak, but actually good at everything if you can micromanage him. Too bad, I hate micromanagement.

The Cursed: Gambling with Many Things

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Near the portal down, which the party cannot activate, is a demon and his lackeys. Fortunately this demon knows Haer'Dalis and wants to gamble with the team with his deck of many things.

What? Demons love to gamble!

Catharina agrees to the game, winning the first two rounds and getting a nice sword and a scroll of "Wish" while only suffering minor curses but on the third round the demon wins, having bargained with the holy icon that grants freedom from the keep.

Catharina honors the deal and the demon and entourage leave. Thankfully he throws the icon back after stepping through his portal, giving the party the chance to escape - if they can find the way out of the damned maze.

Unfortunately she's not smart enough to just Wish them out.

Insight: The Wish spell here is more combat oriented, which seems to be a really bad time to summon a djinn and carefully word something.

The Cursed: A Tempting Maze

[Part of the Cursed story line]

To replace Anomen, Lu Lingqi begrudgingly asks Haer'Dalis (who has a clear crush on her) to join the team. The bard has an odd set of skills, but the most surprising is his fame. Almost everyone in town recognizes him.

The team returns to the Watcher's Keep and descends to Level 3, which is a bastard of a maze made of little rooms, some being magic dead zones. It's also filled with powerful, warring demons making it a slog to get through.

Aren't succubi horny little devils?

A room of succubi lustfully offer passage to the end of the maze for the prize of a kiss and Catharina agrees - getting level drained in the process. The succubi don't lie, but only after they leave do the team discover they don't have the key down, and must now go through the maze in reverse!

Insight: And that's what I get for trying to skip the level. Lol.

The Cursed: Elemental Demon

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Nalia is a great asset as she disarms the traps on level 2 of the Watcher's Keep and assists the team in clearing out each of the elemental laboratories. This turns out to be easy when using the opposite environments against each guardian.

Yeah, pink magic is the opposite of... um... something.

Having assembled the key for the chromatic demon, they let him out to get the key for the portal down. Of course the demon decides to attack first, shifting into the various elemental forms they already faced. This is a long fight and towards the end, Anomen the coward has a morale break and turns around to flee.

The demon makes him pay for this mistake by beheading him before the rest of the party can destroy it. With one person down and exhausted from the fight they head back to the city to regroup.

Insight: The chromatic demon is immune to all damage save for the one weakness per shapeshift.

The Cursed: Lich's Apprentice

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Having found the douche bag noble who has his son, Cernd and company are quickly forced into battle since the noble is actually apprenticing for a lich!? It is an easy victory, and the lich - who was just watching, is quite pleased by the result as the noble was a lousy apprentice.

The lich then teleports away, leaving the toddler with Cernd. The werewolf druid is at a loss for what to do and finally decides to leave the team to take the kid back to the grove where he will be safe.

Ironically they replace him with Nalia the noble, whose keep they previously saved. This thief/mage isn't that shabby, and even survives a short foray into the sewers to destroy a small illithid hideout.

I imagine they'll explain this plot in Baldur's Gate 3!

Confident with her abilities, Catharina decides to lead the squad back to the Watcher's Keep.

Insight: There are actually a LOT of liches resting underneath the city, but I'm doing my best to avoid them as they are difficult combats.

The Cursed: Level 2 Respite

[Part of the Cursed story line]

With the statues down the team takes the portal to level 2, which is a set of elemental themed libraries and laboratories around a caged chromatic demon, who happens to have the key to the next level. He asks the party to free him in exchange.

Easier said than done, for after battling kuo-toa, spiders, spirits and desert trolls the team is in pretty bad shape. Fortunately there's a portal out so they use that and return to the city to unload and recover.

This fan art is pretty accurate.

While Mazzy gets herself into a duel with an ogre (which she wins easily), Cernd discovers that the wife he left behind two years ago was with child at the time. Said child now lives with some douche bag noble, who possibly also killed Cernd's ex-wife but there's no proof. Anomen feels his pain but says the law must be followed. Cernd disagrees.

Insight: Level 2 is another place riddled with traps and again I find myself with no thief to detect or disarm them. :/

The Cursed: Statue Dance

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The team follows Mazzy's suggestion to visit the Watcher's Keep next as she heard the Knights of the Vigil were asking for aid. Upon reaching it, they learn that the massive fortress is to keep something in, not out, and the wards are failing... much like with the shade lord.

The knights stress that the imprisoned one must not be killed though, which is very strange. Provided with a holy symbol to grant access and a scroll to repair the seals, the party enters from the roof to work their way down.

Halls of statues always activate paranoia!

Shadows and spirits on the first floor are easily dealt with, but the old statues that come to life trick poses some really tough enemies who can take numerous mord-sword blows. Neera accidentally solves this by summoning a demon, which destroys all the statues before turning on the party.

Fortunately it's very weak by then and is easily slain!

Insight: It's official, combat in this game is much less fun than BG1. So many enemies have resistances and immunities, you'll be micro managing the swapping of weapons and using spell slots to breach or pierce magic shields instead of doing fun explody stuff. Such is high level D&D I suppose... bad high level D&D.

The Cursed: Firkraag

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The red dragon is a dangerous foe, easily knocking back enemies with ease. The mord-swords and sword spiders still do their work while the mages and Yoshimo pepper it from afar.

Firkraag doesn't like this in the least and squishes the spiders and Yoshimo into paste. He also devours Rasaad and chews him into little gibs before finally being put down by Lu Lingqi. Anomen some how survived by bravely running away, the stench of urine and shit all over him.

It's like Lu Lingqi went super saiyan in this fight!

Fortunately there is some good loot, including a +5 two handed sword... that no one can use. Damn it! The team returns to Trademeet to sell stuff and while there recruit werewolf druid, Cernd, and that halfling they freed from the shade lord, Mazzy Fentan, into the party.

Insight: Firkraag lets you prepare before battle, so do it wisely. Fear protection spells probably would be useful in hindsight!

The Cursed: Windspear Dungeon

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The team returns to the Windspear Dungeon and enters the maze section filled with traps and false doors. While Yoshimo easily clears those, less easy are the wandering beholder and djinn.

A competing adventuring group also gets cloud-mord-sworded before the team runs into a wolfwere pack. Unlike on that island, these ones are much easier to put down.

Beyond them are golems, including a large golem which is only defeated by tanking mord-swords and Lu Linqi's +4 magic halberd. Another is defeated through door way cheese (too big to pass). At the end of that marathon they find the kidnapped boy and release him from bondage.

Good thing those doorways are sturdy!

All that's left is to go downstairs and to face Firkraag himself... in his lair. Turns out Firkraag is a red dragon!

Insight: I think there's a time limit to rescue the kid. If there isn't, Anomen certainly whines enough to hurry you along.

The Cursed: Anomen the Coward

[Part of the Cursed story line]

The "battle ground" turns out to be a dungeon with a massive entrance. While the orcs and hobgoblin defenders are easy enough to beat, the second floor has stone golems and an undead horde including vamps, mummies and wraiths!

This is doubly annoying since Anomen, who is supposed to be front lining, always defaults to using a sling like the coward he is. It's a tough fight and many mord-swords and blade spiders are used but the team prevails, though now severely injured and level drained.

One of the most useless paladins in history.

They have no choice to return to the city where Anomen receives the bad news that his sister was recently murdered and worse, there is no evidence to arrest the prime suspect. Rasaad convinces him to stay true to his path and believe in justice - letting go of vengeance. Yoshimo scoffs at this, saying he'd never let his own kin down so badly. It does sound pretty cowardly.

Insight: This is what the pregenerated NPCs have over your own "silent" party members: banter. And it is terrific.

The Cursed: Trickster in the Hills

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Returning to Athkatla to sell loot from the temple the team find the Planar Sphere under attack by a group of magic hating mercs! Unlucky for them, the friendly guardian golem patrols into them and wipes them out, their employer suffering a similar fate soon after.

Anomen then suggests to investigate an ogre problem at the Windspear Hills, so they go and sure enough encounter the oddly well spoken brutes. Upon slaying them however, it turns out the ogres were paladins - one of whom was ex-ally Ajantis!

Sorry dude, you looked like an ogre.

A passerby offers shelter for the party and warns them that they are being targetted by the local trickster Lord Jierdan Firkraag, the same person who told Anomen about the ogre problem. As if on queue, a bunch of orc mercenaries working for Firkraag then show up and attack. While they are easily beaten, they do manage to abduct the good samaritan's boy in the chaos.

A lone messenger then appears issuing a challenge for the team to rescue the boy at the "battle ground" in the North East. They accept.

Insight: For some reason enemies respawn quickly in this area. Be prepared.

The Cursed: Monkey Business

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Having been abandoned by Jaheira, the team recruits pretty boy paladin Anomen before heading to the evil cult temple in the mountains. Rasaad is immediately concerned, letting slip that he likes Catharina. She assures him the annoying paladin is not a threat.

The planned "infiltration" of the base again doesn't go smoothly as upon walking in Rasaad simply challenges everyone to combat (yay for lawful stupid). Turns out the entire cult was an elaborate ruse simply to weaken the Sun Soul monks by giving them something to defect to and to fight among each other.

Choke points are fun with AoE spells!

The real enemy - the Dark Moon monks, then attack in force and Rasaad and company opt to help the tricked cultists to defend themselves, resulting in an easy victory. The new cult is liquidated, with the members sheepishly returning to their old orders while Rasaad and Catharina have a romantic evening on the roof of the temple.

Insight: Practice at estimating the radius of your AoE spells. This game assumes you can throw fireballs and skull traps far enough back to hurt the charging enemy but not hit your own front line.

The Cursed: Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

[Part of the Cursed story line]

While in town, Rasaad finds a lead to the cult he was hoping to infiltrate so the team journeys to an abandoned amphitheater for the initiation. Unlike Neera, Rasaad is unable to play it cool which results in a massive battle against the evil monks.

He's much stronger in this game though.

Catharina gets to try out Mordenkainen's Sword (or as I call them Mord-swords) and finds they are fantastic! The floating blade easily cuts down foes while being totally immune to non magic damage itself. Basically doom for the unarmed monks. Especially fighting in cloud kill!

Luckily, a map to the cult base is found on one of the bodies but since the team is quite fatigued after the battle they opt to camp in the woods for the night. In the morning, Jaheira is gone - having left a note that she needs to try clear her name and more importantly, so that the party isn't a target for the Harpers.

She's so unreliable.

Insight: To make Mord-swords even better, cast haste on them. Haste just makes everything better! (Though in RP terms, everything hasted would be aging much quicker)

The Cursed: Rewards of Diplomacy

[Part of the Cursed story line]

Returning after doing some tasks for the sanctuary, they find it destroyed! The lone survivor says they were discovered by Thayans and the others were captured and taken to the Thayan secret base in Athkatla. Humorously, this base is right beside Irenicus' starting dungeon - posing as a shop front.

Neera wants to go all terminator within, but Catharina calms her down enough so that the team can talk their way in, even buying supplies from said Thayans and reaching the back rooms which hold some angry gladiators and underpaid mercs.

With a few underhanded tactics, the mercs are made drunk and the gladiators freed. Having the support of both groups makes the red wizards easy prey, and the surviving wild mages are freed from their cages. For safety purposes they opt to split up again, with Neera remaining in the party.

Mord Swords are fantastic tanks!

Insight: Those Thayans have some really nice spells for sale, Mordenkainen's sword summon being one of them. Be sure to get it!