PoR: entry 24 (fin.)

Here is the completed hedge maze map that we pieced together from the journal entries as well as our own mapping. There was some kind of mistake in the southeast corner in the journal entry, so we just sort of fixed it in red. The "T" represents a teleporter (as well as the "12" (yeah, we're not that organized, it's not like we studied cartography at Phlan University!)) and the "R" is where we guessed the "T" transported us to. The "S" in the inner part of the northwest corner represents the secret stairs behind a farcical wall (confusingly displayed in the same red we used to fix the real walls in the southeast corner) that lead to the castle's inner sanctum.


We had heard rumors of Medusa. Turns out it wasn't Medusa we faced, but "a medusa." There is only one medusa in all of Moonsea, but Medusa isn't actually her name, it's just what she's one of. Even though we all know our Greek mythology quite well, and know that there is only one Medusa and Medusa is a name and she's a gorgon. Maybe her name is Medusa, but then she'd have to go by "Medusa the medusa."


We really shouldn't have bothered her anyway. Tyranthraxus keeps her at the bottom of a trapdoor that didn't need to be fallen into. On our attempt Rex turned immediately to stone. Really should have seen that coming.


Medusa should be the name of a major health insurance company in the United States. Med.- U.S.A. It's patriotic and everything.

So this scribe in the inner sanctum supposedly doesn't like Tyranthraxus and wanted to help us get rid of him. We were very very suspicious of his motives since he lives 20 feet away from our arch-nemesis, but we figured we'd give him a shot. The guy's name is Genheeris. His parents probably used a random naming spell when he was born. He made some pretty intense promises to us if we were successful in bringing the big guy down. What are the odds that he actually delivers? 20-1 maybe?


So back down the stairs we went and there, in all his 16 color EGA majesty, was the bronze dragon Tyranthraxus. Annoyingly his immense size obscured the Pool of Radiance which we've been waiting to see for several months. We weren't able to get a really respectable screenshot of the pool.


The monster sicked two obligatory pre-climactic henchmen on us before he took us on himself. Inexplicably and unfairly the guards multiplied themselves by five and a half times. This obligatory pre-battle turned out to be rather difficult for us. They were too close for too many fireballs and they didn't drop dead from the fire anyway. Pretty much we did it the old-fashioned way -- paralyzation. Chlorine, Pilgrim and Silver pretty much ran every "hold person" spell they had while Disposo charmed a couple of 'em. Some of the spells missed, but after four turns, all of them were held or charmed. After that we watched the charmed guards cap their former buddies execution style! We're the good guys. These were all eighth-level fighters so xp went through the roof (the first time we got through the battle only Silver was left and she wound up with 46,145 points!).


So was Genheeris, the final NPC of the game, helpful during all this with his assortment of spells and his lightning wand? No. When the guards were held he insisted on using his wand rather than his attack. The wand charge didn't take them down immediately when a straightforward attack would've and the lightning had the possibility of ricocheting and hitting us. This was especially evident when we finally fought Tyranthraxus. Wands and spells had no effect on the dragon, so when Rexbasior circled around to catch the beast from behind Genheeris zapped through the dragon, doing no damage whatsoever, and hit Rex right in the face. It almost killed him. At least Genheeris was fodder.

And speaking of help, where in bloody forgotten realms is Diogenes? He totally should have swooped in for the rescue. Wouldn't that have been awesome? A wicked dragon battle!
Before the big battle, we wound up in an interesting position. Tyranthraxus actually asked us if we'd like to fight on his side. It would have been unique if all the evil members of the party immediately went to his side, but that didn't happen. Actually, it would have been 5% unique and 95% super-annoying. We discussed it and decided that we would actually go ahead and fight against him like we've been planning all freaking along.


Tyr was no pushover. As mentioned before wands and spells (and possibly arrows) had no effect on him. We had to rely on the advice of our corner-man Duke: "So, what we'll be calling on is good ol’ fashion blunt force trauma. Horsepower. Heavy-duty, cast-iron, piledriving punches that will have to hurt so much they'll rattle his ancestors." So fortunately when the dragon decided to unceremoniously execute two of us, he chose the two girls. After Chlorine and Silver went down, Rexbasior went two rounds in a row with a triple-hit takedown. The beast keeled over and only the guys were left to witness it.

(btw, the above screenshot was from a previous (unsuccessful) savegame)

After the battle sequence he went off about possession or something. That never works anymore. We thought we heard him plead something to Bane before disappearing completely but we missed the screenshot. Oh well. Could never follow that religious stuff anyway.


The walk back home was a total Oscar moment.


Somehow, after six months we were hoping to get a better congratulatory screen than this:


So... that's it we suppose. Did we even become generals like we were promised? No. Never trust the NPCs.

Yay.


We may just look around a little more just to see if we missed anything.

I (Jon) still need to find a working copy of Curse of the Azure Bonds. I also would like to make a small adjustment to the blog's entry format that I think will be a lot more fun and interesting.

Sweet! We'll be back on the path soon enough!