Solo Blade: A Report

Part 8: Planar Sphere & Kangaxx!

Good, now my Blade is even more resistant to, well… basically everything. The extra fire bonus might come in handy if I decide to swing my rod of Fire now and then, that spares me 4 or 5 Hit Points total. Without Tenser’s, that will be more than needed as I’m still physically weak without too much buff-ups. Time to enter the sphere! I already initiated the Valygar quest while entering the government district and talking to our beloved cowled wizard. I toy with the idea to simply Kill Valygar (as I’m soloing anyway) but my alignment doesn’t tend to that idea. I decide to travel to his hut, take him with me and dump him once inside the Sphere. And off we go.

The minions and critters in the first chambers of the sphere are no match to the powerful web + summon combination, or even simply throwing a fireball into the dark (To the Juan-Ti’s) seems to be very effective. Once I gathered all golem parts, I let him open the door, still fully buffed thanks to the dwarven fight (that priest can prove to be quite a pain if you’re not fast enough!) to help the golem with the elder beholder if needed. I whack away with my dual katana’s and he drops dead a few seconds later, focusing his attack power onto the completely immune golem. Fun stuff! Anyway, I make my way to the wretched wizard who started the whole project, and he orders me to get a demon heart. Oh wait, first I of course had to defeat him. The trick here was to keep on breaching his defenses (argh, stoneskin, as have I) while letting him waste his spells on my illusions and/or summons. The first few summons die rather quickly, he has adept necromancy spells at his desposal. Well anyway, after 2 reloads I managed it without too many trouble.

Did I burn anything? Sorry!	Kangaxx: Morale Failure, Running. WHAT?

The rest of the sphere wasn’t really hard at all, not even the demons. Well, at least if they don’t constantly cast blindness or whatever it was which increases my already not too low THAC0 value and renders me completely vulnerable since I can’t hit a damn thing. Running away usually does the job just fine, but my spider keeps on dying in the fog of war. I grab the heart, kill Tolgerias on the way using a sequencer/spell trigger (that was easy!) and exit the sphere. Ding, another level up. What to do next? Hmm, I need a new ring. Kangaxx’ ring will do! As I should have both parts now, why not try it? The first liches proved to be a major pain in the ass (thanks to the invulnerability trick of those bastards, see Spell Protection).

I can’t exactly remember anymore how I killed him, but I do remember that in his normal form, he should be okay to beat. Use the same tactics as other mages: distract him with summons, strip his defenses and whack away after the stoneskins disappear. Minute Meteors are considered +5 weapons so these should do okay, at least if he doesn’t cast a prot. from magical elements. The annoying part is the demi-lich form. Imprisonment… Right. Well guess what, after a few tries, I figured I could use a protection from school spell (conjuration or abjuration) to dismiss that spell. He empties his whole spell book on an immune me, while a misled Xindra drains his hitpoints. The whole plan failed the first few tries because my protection wore off, but still. Kangaxx gave up: Morale failure: running. I laughed and killed the bastard. Thank you for the ring!