PoR: entry 16 (better get yourself a garlic tunic, buddy!)

So, suddenly the end of the graveyard sequence was like we stepped into a Hammer horror production.

First it's mummies. I never really thought mummies were all that scary, but I guess the members of my party do. Every time I fought them, some our adventurers were "paralyzed by fear" right from the outset of the battle. That's pretty cheap. You can't just tell us we're scared by a powdery corpse in toilet paper.


Next up, we met up with a guy who told us where the head vampire is. He can join the party, but his name should have been a red flag for us. What is it -- MU Lvl 6 I think? I just checked GameBanshee to find his name, but they've never actually come across him. Sweet. Finally something that GameBanshee doesn't know that I've come across. Too bad I didn't get a screenshot with his name. Anyway, we noticed that once he takes us to the vampire -- ok, who are we kidding? It doesn't say the vampire's name, but we all know this is just straight-up Dracula. It's freakin' Dracula! Anyway, as I was saying, once the magic-user takes us to Dracula, he immediately turns on us and begins a fight with our party. If, when we meet the magic-user, we decide not to let him in the party, he spits at us and attacks us right there. Getting him out of the way doesn't make things that much easier when fighting Dracula because 'ol Vlad just pulls out another wolf if his magic-user minion is absent.

Dracula was a total pain to stake. We went back to town to stock up on mirrors that we readied with our free hands. I'm not totally certain that this did anything, but we finally defeated him by doing so. Dracula, like so many other undead, has an amazing ability to remove experience points. I haven't complained about too much with Pool of Radiance. I've come to terms with paying for level-ups just because we're getting so rich nowdays, but this immediate loss of XP sickens me. There's no way I'm continuing on with a game after a month's worth of experience is sucked away in a second. Therefore, it wasn't just about killing Dracula, it was about killing Dracula without him pulling that sissy move on any member of the party.
We discovered that a couple of lightening spells in a closed area really puts the smack down on Bela Lugosi.

Back in town, we leveled up again. Chlorine seems to have hit her max. Do clerics go past level 6? It doesn't have a level 7 in the manual. Disposo went up and we had a horrible time determining his bonus spell. We almost went with lightning so that he and Silver would have it. We also considered blink since we hate it so bad when monsters do it and we can't touch them. Finally settled on haste. May as well snag a spell that where it's several more attacks a turn instead of the single spell attack.

After the graveyard, we went ahead and decided that Dirten was expendable. We went ahead and cleared the Phlan Temple of Bane, thus providing the guy with fulfilling his original mission. Clearing the temple was really just one giant room filled to the brim with orcs that I neglected to get a screenshot for. It was a lot. Trust me. Perfect conditions for a well-placed fireball. We got banged up, but we all came out of it ok. The reward for our troubles was to just keep whatever we found in the temple, but we didn't bother searching for anything. Every one of us is filled to capacity with money and items. We can't even sell any of our items because we don't even have room for the money. Perhaps now is a good time to head back to the kobold cave. While there we can use up all the potions and scrolls filling up our inventory.

We did come across a curious journal entry and wall message whilst hanging out in the north of Phlan near the thieves' mansion and Bane Temple.