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DEATH GOD'S VAULT, LEVEL 2
Gann's 20th Level
I start off in the central area that is marked by #1 on its east side, and #2 on its west and south sides. #1 makes the way back up to the previous level.
I begin matters by looting the Offering Urns one at a time in order to battle a Shadow of the Void each time. It is simple enough to gang up on it with physical attacks, and then have Valeria deliver the killing blow with her Eternal Rest power. She also collects a Brilliant Spirit Essence each time.
Once I've killed a Shadow of the Void, I'll rest up. If I sleep the full 8 hours without interruption, then I'll go onto the next Urn. If it becomes apparent that I'll be interrupted by undead, then I insist on Death Lords, reloading and resting again to get Death Lords if I have to. The reason is to rack up on Power Essences, which I'll explain fairly soon. Once I can get 8 hours asleep, I move on to the next Urn.
At some point during this process, Gann gets enough xp to advance to his 20th level. He acquires the Elemental Swarm, Storm Avatar and Creeping Doom spells. He also switches out Summon Monster IV for Ice Storm.
Okku's 22nd Level
At some point during this process, I get my rest interrupted by two Death Lords. They provide enough xp to advance Okku to his 22nd level.
Kaelyn's 20th Level
I have finished all the urns in this chamber by now, so I rest in order to force another encounter with two more Death Lords. The xp is enough for Kaelyn to advance to her 20th level. Nothing in particular serves as a highlight, but she continues to push up her Use Magic Device skill rank.
Valeria's 25th Level
Valeria also now has enough xp to advance to her 25th level. She selects the Vampiric Feast epic spell, which can often win battles by itself outright.
I've also accumulated a fair amount of Brilliant Spirit Essences, so now Valeria places four Brilliant Spirit Essences into her Enchanter's Satchel along with her Thayvian Circlet. She uses Mold Spirit on the Satchel to increase the Intelligence bonus of the Circlet to +6, which is of obvious benefit to her.
Ancient Vampires
As an aside, there will also be two locked and trapped doors in the room. The traps have a very high DC, and chances are pretty good they'll damage the party (like with the first one I tried). I deal with them at the start of the video, helped by an Extended Greater Heroism spell.
Traveling a little distance through either door will cause several Ancient Vampires to appear. This can make for a really tough battle, since they all have the Knockdown ability, and also have a lot of Monk levels. I prepare to the max beforehand. Stone Body and Magic Circle against Evil for Kaelyn. Gann casts Premonition on himself, and Flame Weapon on everybody besides Okku. Valeria buffs up with Shades, Persistent Haste, Extended Greater Invisibility, and an Empowered Mirror Images.
The trick is to maximize my chances of blinding the Ancient Vampires. Valeria and Gann both unleash Sun Burst spells. Kaelyn throws in a Word of Faith. The Vampires all end up blind and pretty much helpless, which leaves them easy pickings for the party, Okku in particular.
Gann's 21st Level
Gann now has enough to advance to his 21st level. He selects the Craft Wondrous Items feat. It will soon allow him to use his Tortoise Shell spell in conjunction with 4 Brilliant Power Essences a pop to add an interim +5 deflection armor class bonus to a cloak. He can then upgrade it to a whopping +8 bonus once he reaches his 30th level.
He is nearing one of his goals as well, with 6 ranks in Use Magic Device.
Reaper's Despair
First off, Valeria attemnpts to disarm the door leading to the room at #10. She unlocks the door afterwards. There will be two Ancient Vampires and a Hoary Mummified Priest on the other side. A Sun Burst from Valeria and a Word of Faith from Kaelyn renders them helpless. Valeria finished off one of the Mummy Priests with an Eternal Rest.
A chest in the room has Reaper's Despair (Sickle +8, Fear DC=16 50% / 5 rounds, Poison 1d2 Constitution DC=22), which I'll just sell.
Fingerbone's Name
The room at #11 is the same kind of deal. There will be two Ancient Vampires and two Hoary Mummified Priests on the other side of the door. Straight physical force suffices on this occassion. The chest will have Fingerbone's Name (Shortsword +7, Ghoul Fever disease DC=24, Animate Dead (15) 5 / day).
Okku also automatically advances to his 23rd level.
Kaelyn's 21st Level
There are plenty of urns in the rooms at both #10 and #11. I therefore continue the process of looting urns so as to use Eternal Rest on the Shadows of the Void that guard them, resting up and repeating, or killing off Death Lords when my rest gets interrupted.
Kaelyn gets enough xp to advance to her 21st level just as I finish clearing out the room at #11. She selects the Extend Spell feat. It allows her to use spells like Stone Body and Battletide at twice their usual duration, in exchange for having to memorize such spells on spell-level higher. The price is more than worth it. It is also a prerequisite for the Persistent Spell feat.
Valeria's 26th Level
I continue the process in the room at #10. I soon get enough xp to advance Valeria to her 26th level and Gann to his 22nd level.
Valeria takes an Arcane Trickster level to up her conversational and thieving skills.
Gann meets his objective of 10 skill ranks in Use Magic Device.
Okku's 24th Level
Okku gets enough xp to advance to his 24th level after I kill off a couple of Death Lords who interrupted my sleep.
As a side note, once in a while Okku won't level up properly, although it didn't happen in this video. What I mean is that upon leveling up he may actually lose the enhancement bonus for his attacks, they won't do as much damage, and they won't inflict extra magic damage. Or maybe he'll have those attacks, but not as many as he used to. There's a simple fix for this. Simply do the following:
Hoary Mummified Priests
There will be a cluster of small rooms adjoining the hallway at #3. They will each have a Hoary Mummified Priest inside of them. Valeria unlocks the door leading to #3, and then one of the cell doors. It's easy enough to overwhelm them with physical force.
I find various items in the small rooms, including:
Death Lords
The room at #9 has four Death Lords, who are basically undead Blackguards. They can pack a really nasty punch with their physical attacks, especially should they land any critical hits with their scythes. A Mass Heal from Kaelyn and a Sun Burst from Valeria are enough to get the job done. The room at #9 will have several Skeletal Remains, each of which can be looted for some gold.
Lamentations of the Dead and Tome of Profane Rebirth
Valeria commands everyone to 'stand your ground'. She then disarms and unlocks the door leading to the room at #12. There will be three Hoary Mummified Priests, which she also Eternal Rests one by one.
There will be a few Clerical spell scrolls in the room at #12, as well as a few arcane spell scrolls that can be scribed. There will also be two unique items of interest in the room.
One item is a scroll called the Lamentations of the Dead, which describes the life story of Akachi the Betrayer. I get 500xp just for picking it up, but then I drop it immediately afterwards. There's a specific reason why. You could, if you wanted to, get 500xp over and over and over again just by dropping it, picking it up, and so on as an exploit. It goes even further. Just having the Lamentations of the Dead in your inventory will mean you get 500xp every time you reload your quicksave. Well I like getting xp too, but not that way.
The other item is a book called the Tome of Profane Rebirth, which could be used for rather nefarious purposes as shown in the video just below.
*Evil* Lamentations of the Dead and Tome of Profane Rebirth
The video begins by showing Zarathos speaking to Yusev about his desire for immortality through undeath.
There is more than one potential evil use for the Tome of Profane Rebirth. One such use would have been in the house in Shadow Mulsantir with the dead Lich in it. I could have had Safiya use the Tome to complete the ritual in order to help Heilari complete the process of becoming a Lich. Heilari wouldn't be exactly grateful, and a fight ensues. He would have left behind the Ring of Seething Hatred (spell resistance 20, Haste (10) 3/day, Rage (20) 3/day) had I done things this way. But Zarathos had already completed the ritual beforehand anyway, which resulted in plenty of alignment points towards evil.
Instead, the video shows Zarathos bringing the Tome to Yusev the Acolyte in the Temple of Kelemvor in Mulsantir, and encourage him to use it for purposes of becoming undead. This earns a 1,500xp bonus, as well as a 1 point alignment shift towards evil.
Lich King
At #13 will be the Lich King plus a few Ancient Vampires, a few Death Lords, and a few Hoary Mummified Priests. This is one of the more dangerous fights in the expansion. The Lich King loves to use multiple instances of Bigby's type spells. The biggest danger in the fight is that the King can paralyze multiple party members with those spells and thus render them vulnerable to powerful physical attacks by the other undead monsters.
The strategy of Valeria and Gann each bombarding them with Sun Burst, and Kaelyn adding in Word of Faith, still works with some persistence. The Lich King can't even target Valeria since she stays invisible. The Lich King will yield a Pristine Spirit Essence when I use Eternal Rest on him.
He also leaves behind a cloak called the Shroud of the Elder Doom (immunity to death magic, Finger of Death (13) 2 / day), which will ultimately become Kaelyn's cloak for the rest of the game, especially after I have enchanted it further.
The Betrayer's Gate
The video begins with me collecting the essences that the rest of the undead monsters left behind. The room itself also has plenty of sarcophagi with lots of gold.
The Betrayer's Gate is at the far end of the room, but I can't open it until near the end of the game.
The next series of videos will consist of me accumulating the essences I want and then using them in the enchantment of magical items.
