Part 113: The Breaking of the Black Ring - Part 1
Chapter 83 - The Breaking of the Black Ring - Part 1
Music - "Lake of Eternal Darkness"
Download (Thanks to Grawl)
I actually hate this dungeon music. It just reminds me how tedious the dungeon is. Fortunately, in this game all the dungeon music is shared so after the first track ends, it switches to other, better dungeon music, like Heartbeats of Undeath eventually.
As the teleport faded, my ears suddenly popped. The air down here was at a much higher pressure than on the surface. As the glare faded and my vision adjusted, I saw why. The cavern was filled with water. The same cursed water as on the black lake. This cavern was under the black lake. I climbed the steps down. There was a path barely above the lethal water, leading away into the gloom - no - not gloom, I could see shining crystals of various colours throughout the huge cavern.
I had no time for sightseeing. I reached out with my mind. My divine powers made this so much easier. I could see farther, and with less effort. I searched out for the Demon of Lies, and I found him. Unfortunately, it detected my presence as well.
Video: The Ritual Begins (Voice Acting)
WHAT?! We cannot allow the summoning to be interrupted!
The interloper must be destroyed!
Indeed! I will continue the summoning of the Lord of Chaos. The five of you must make sure that the Divine One does not interrupt. GO!
What better to welcome the Dark Lord than with a blood-sacrifice? It's perfect!
Just try to be sure the blood isn't just yours! Now go!
The Black Ring members teleported away, and the Demon turned back to the altar. Only then did I realize that there was a powerful magical field there which was distorting my mind's eye. Some part of the ritual which had been prepared, I assumed. I couldn't see anything on the altar. The demon began chanting a ritual.
ARACHNAX LOYGOR, ACIRA MAGOOM!TOOROX MOBROT, TRIX HAMAR! VOXISS JAXIX, NOSTAKTRON CHAOS!
I stopped concentrating on the vision. Suddenly, something about the magical atmosphere changed. There was a strange and unfamiliar pressure inside my head.
I sprinted up the path. Some gargoyles with a stone-like complexion blocked my path, hurling bombs at me which were probably meant to hurt, but all they did was throw off my balance slightly. I swept them aside with Divine Death effortlessly.
I reached a platform full of purple crystals. There were many paths leading from it, but I ignored them and headed toward the Demon of Lies. Only to be stopped right away.
No problem. Trax-nal-Tinx! AGGUHH!Instead of transforming into a ghost, I experienced a sharp burst of pain. I tried teleporting myself, and got a similar burst of pain.
The members of the Black Ring had set up some kind of interference. These spikes in my way were a part of it, but worse, I couldn't use any of my new tricks to get past it either.
Right... the Demon of Lies has a piece of a god in him as well. It makes sense that he'd knew some tricks to interfere with me. I suppose this is why not even Zandalor can help me now. I'd better get going. Damn! How I wish I had my teleporter stones right now.I reached out with my mind carefully. I was expecting another jolt of pain, but I didn't get one. Apparently the interference was limited, I could still use many of my abilities... just not the ones which would help me reach the ritual site - which I suppose was the point. There were five walls of the black spikes blocking my path to the demon's lair. They were not symmetrically strong, though, the power was centered farther away, at the ritual site.
I concentrated my power on the spike wall and tried to shatter it. It shuddered, but didn't crack, the Black Ring were feeding power in constantly to reinforce the walls. I would need to kill them to get past. I reached out my mind and found the Black ring members. Each of the five was in some kind of huge hollow pillar supporting the cavern's ceiling. I'd need to face them each in turn.
"About the Game" posted:
So, here's the level's gimmick. This dungeon is only one level, but it's a level comparable to the size of the world map. We can't get past these barriers. Yes, even though we can turn into a ghost, have a Teleport spell, and Teleporter Stones, it's no good.
We'll need to kill each of the Black Ring members to lower each wall of spikes. The order doesn't matter. The Black Ring are inside of five fortresses. It's a long path to reach each fortress, and inside it's a labyrinth. Every part of the dungeon is full of enemies. Let me tell you something, if you're playing a melee fighter, this act is Tedious. As. Fuck. This is mostly because by this point most enemies aren't much of a threat, yet there are hundreds, if not thousands of them. This level is the most tedious of them all, it's a real marathon. You're unlikely to want to do the whole thing at once. The bosses don't even drop any loot! (However, the fortresses have a lot of locked chests with magical items in them, so having a high Lockpick skill and Finnegan's Lockpicks will still be handy.)
I won't be showing much - if anything - of the labyrinths or the enemies therein. Believe me, they're not even fun to play, never mind watch. If you're really interested in the dungeon crawling part, the next update has a 14-minute video where I remove the sounds of fighting and replace it with a suitable track of music that never made it into the game.
The first huge pillar I reached was surrounded with formations of white crystals. I headed into the labyrinth.
Finally, I reached the last room. Iona was waiting for me.
Video: BOSS - Iona (Voice Acting)
You're pathetic. You wouldn't even face me when I was a mere human, tired after escaping your dungeon. And you think you stand a chance now? I am the living avatar of the Gods themselves!
"About the Game" posted:
All the Black Ring Members are immune to Divine Death, so no ending a fight in three seconds this time, it'll take at least five seconds.
Iona is one of two Black Ring members we haven't fought before. Her resistances are high, but not maxed out. But the really dangerous part is her melee attack. 56-176 damage is huge. Her health pool is large, but it isn't even the largest in this ROOM. She puts up a shield of some kind, like Josephina, which presumably reduces the damage she takes.
She's probably the second-easiest boss to kill though, because she lacks any spells which would make it hard or annoying for us. She can summon a Death Knight, but that's nothing.
The best strategy is to clear out the minions - which is complicated by the fact that two of them are mini-bosses themselves, and then wallop Iona with Curse a whole bunch of times to drag her resistances all the way from 75 down into negative digits. Then use Elemental Strike to kill her in about 2 seconds.
Just as a contemptuous way to show her how little I feared her, I ignored her and focused on the lesser zombies wandering the chamber.
I paid for that with a surprisingly painful strike from Iona's staff. But I pretended that it hadn't hurt.
You think that you're powerful? Even this mindless zombie is tougher than you are!Iona snarled and swiped at me again. I dodged and disintegrated the zombie, but I decided not to take any chances, and I healed myself back up.
The dual lightning attack produced only a warm tingling sensation on my body.
Alright, enough fooling around.
It was time to end things.
You want mercy, do you?
Yes! Please have mercy on me! Yes... you shall have mercy. I shall give you more mercy than you showed the people of Ferol. The only mercy I shall ever give any member of the Black Ring. The mercy of a quick death.I drew my sword and swung it overhand, slicing her from top to bottom.
As soon as she died, a portal opened. I stepped through unthinkingly, but it was alright, it returned me to the hub of the paths. I approached the formation of Black Crystal spikes. Iona's death had weakened the protection. I concentrated, and I shattered them with a blast of energy, but just barely. I would need to kill the rest of the Black Ring.
I chose another path and moved on.
The next labyrinth was ringed by blue crystals.
Video: Lightning Cascade (both videos)
I made my way to the center, where Moriendor awaited.
Video: BOSS - Moriendor
Oh yes... I feel your power, all right. You're definitely stronger than last time. Almost everything about you, in fact, is different from last time.
Now you recognize your mistake in coming here, fool! You should have fled while you had the chance. It's funny to hear you talk about recognizing mistakes. Because you never recognized your own mistakes. What are you blathering about? As I said. Almost everything is different about you. But do you know what's still the same?
It was a pleasure to watch a slowly dawning horror come over his human face... although the face didn't remain human much longer.
I finished off the helpless leporidae.
"About the Game" posted:
Alright, so it isn't quite that simple. Moriendor has two Crystal Guardians - the miniboss form of Crystal Gargoyles - in his chamber, and I made the mistake of trying to take them out first. Unlike Iona, Moriendor DOES know some dangerous skills - Blind and Rank 5 Hell Spikes. So for the first part I was roaming around and couldn't see. Strangely enough, when I finally used invisibility, the blindless went away, although I couldn't duplicate that when I tried it later.
After I dispatched the Guardians it was a simple matter to Polymorph Moriendor, rendering him helpless for the rest of the fight.. He has no resistances, so Elemental Strike wrecks him fast without even a need for Curse.
I returned and took another path, without wasting time knocking down another wall of spikes.
This fortress was ringed with yellow crystals, which shed a sickly light on everything.
Video: Scorch
In the center of the far end was Demona.
Video: BOSS - Demona
You're going to burn for what you've done. You're going to BURN."About the Game" posted:
Demona's another easy boss. She does have a lot of Gargoyles in this room, but they're mostly Gold ones. Demona doesn't have any elemental weaknesses either, so in this case, I used the Divine Skill Scorch to take out both her and her gargoyles at once.
I filled the room with scorching fire, I fuelled the heat with my anger, of which I had a generous amount to share.
My father says 'Hello.' Oh, and he'd like to pass along a message to your father for when you see him in Hell. Actually, this sentiment is from the both of us. Tell him we said, "FUCK YOU!"I finished her off with a bolt of lightning which struck her right in the neck, severing her head completely. It rolled off to a corner. I ignored it and walked through the portal.
