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Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Tales of the Sword Coast | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | |
Ice Island | Balduran's Isle | Durlag's Tower - Above Ground | Durlag's Tower - Level 1 | Durlag's Tower - Level 2 | Durlag's Tower - Level 3 | Durlag's Tower - Level 4 | Cult of the Demon | |
CULT OF THE DEMON
Soultaker Stolen
Now I travel back to Ulgoth's Beard. I pause and put up some protective spells the instant I arrive. The reason being that strange cultists steal the Soultaker dagger from me.
These Cultists include Warriors, a Mage, Archers, and backstabbing Assassins. Avastrian and Imoen unleash their Chaos and Slow combat, which tips physical combat in the party's favour. Jaheira targets an Archer with Insect Plague, which spreads to the Mage, taking care of that concern. The Mage still managed to catch me with a Chaos of his own, but only Jaheira and Imoen got affected by it, so I tough the battle out.
Note that Mages in SCS aren't completely helpless once caught by an Insect Swarm, as they often still use wands. And the one here is making dangerous use of a Wand of Frost. So, even once you get off an Insect Plague in SCS, it often helps to target the Mages early on and make sure they die before the Insect Plague wears off and/or they make effective use of their wands.
The party eventually manages to wipe out the Cultists. Hurgan Stoneblade then explains that the Cult stole the dagger with the intention of reviving a demon they worship.
Cult Enforcers
There will be more Cult Enforcers standing outside a building west of the Ulgoth's Beard. I have rested and now buff up to the max again. Avastrian waits until the combat positions have solidified before casting Slow. Imoen also casts Greater Malison. This softens everybody up so that Yeslick holds three Enforcers in place with Hold Person. The battle soon turns into a mop up.
There will be another group inside. It includes two Mages, one of whom will remain visible, and the other will go invisible as a part of his pre-set buffs. Avastrian and Imoen whip out the Chaos and Slow combo. Jaheira hits the visible Mage with Insect Plague, and it spreads to the invisible Mage. The Mages can still use wands, and indeed the invisible Mage packs a Wand of Paralyzation, so I have to take him out as soon as possible. I then take out a few of the Enforcers. Once this has happened, I switch over to missile weapons and take out the remaining Mage from afar. This is to avoid taking damage from the Fire Shield the Mage has in place. After this it becomes another mop up.
Aec'Letec
Now I prepare to the max, including Potions of Giant Strength, and a Potion of Mirrored Eyes for Jaheira.
Now I head down the stairs. There's a few differences for this fight as between vanilla BG1 and SCS. The first involves Trachea Carol. She's no longer such an easy kill. She starts off with a number of protections in place, and will attempt to cast Remove Magic on the party. If her Remove Magic succeeds in removing my buffs, I'll simply reload. Once I get down, I hit pause right away, and command everyone besides Imoen to attack her. This includes Kivan trying to poison her with Arrows of Biting. It is possible for a party, either through poisoning, or through damage that bypasses her Stoneskin (e.g. the +1 cold damage from the Varscona sword and the +1 electrical damage from the Ashideena Warhammer), to interrupt her Remove Magic spell. After that it's a matter of staying on top of her and finishing her off as fast as I can.
Aec'Letec is dangerous as always. He'll start off with a paralyzation wave that can affect multiple party members, and then simultaneously aim a Silence 10' Radius at my highest level spell caster, which happens to be Imoen. As it stands, the last thing I want to happen is for Yeslick to get silenced and thus be unable to cast Remove Paralysis in order to free multiple party members from paralysis. If this happens, I would pretty much have to reload. The way I neutralize this possibility is to have Imoen, who started off summoning monsters next to Aec'Letec, run into the northwest corner. This means that the Silence 10' Radius will affect only her, and won't touch Yeslick.
Another attack that Aec'Letec has is his death gaze, which forces its target to make a saving throw or suffer an exploding death that turns that character into a Ghoul. During a few trial battles I figured out that Aec'Letec seems to favour Jaheira for this attack, for whatever reason. This was the reason my preparations included having Jaheira drink a Potion of Mirrored Eyes, so as to neutralize the Death Gaze.
Of course I have to kill the other Cultists that are standing still before attacking Aec'Letec. Otherwise, Aec'Letec will simply take over and reincarnate through one of the Cultists. Another difference is that the Cultists will no longer simply stand still during SCS. They'll fight back, often using potions to augment their fighting ability, but nonetheless remaining stationary in the same spot. This isn't a big deal though. Nonetheless, I have to kill all of the six stationery Cultists before I can attack Aec'Letec himself.
Once they're gone, that's when I cut down Aec'Letec himself, who can still dish out good damage with his physical attacks. I manage to outlast him, but maybe I should have had Jaheira cast Defensive Harmony sooner.
This concludes the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion. Now it's time to start Chapter 6.
