Part 16: Baahd Vibes

Update 016: Baahd Vibes





Alright, just like we practiced, when I say go, we bust down the door and kill everything that moves.
When did we practice that?
Every dungeon so far, it feels like. Let's move!





So what's interesting about the Temple of Baa is in part how underwhelming it is, challenge-wise. You'll notice that these are enemies that we killed in something like our third dungeon ever, when we were level 10, now we're level 50+.





Lemme just- BLARGH.



So doors here refuse to open and zot you if you've got less than Expert Perception. Thankfully Bobelix has this(because I read up on the dungeon ahead of time).




The second type of enemy in here is the various types of wizards. Once again, we've killed these guys before, sufficient levels of Warlock can still bombard us down, but this only happens at one place in this dungeon. But when it does... hoo. It's a doozy.





This would've been nice to know a while ago. Maybe as a notice on the front door.
Not telling us how to open their doors is, however, an actually intelligent move on their part.





Most of the rooms in here just have some mixture of druids(Grand Druids are probably the most dangerous thing in here because those motherfuckers can steal our damn spell points!), wizards and clerics. The fact that almost every room looks like it has a purpose, though(storage, beds, kitchen, chapel, etc.) helps prevent it from feeling just like a random polygonal assembly of things to murder, though.

Also.




Almost every chest in here contains at least one gong, which is funny to me, but also gongs are a cool 2000 gold each from some weirdo collector in Free Haven. So we'll be stuffing every last one into Bobelix's pack.



There's also this one door that appears to be unopenable, I'm not sure if it's bugged or just arbitrarily requires a higher Perception rating than the others.



But that entire area and its four rooms is just the lobby! What else does this temple have for us?



A ton. Most of it, as mentioned, not relevant to us completing it, in fact all we need to do is hit the numbered locations(4 and 5 are even optional in that regard) and we can pack it up and go home. But where's the fun in that?





That's for making us fight 500 skeletons in the last temple, you pricks!




A bit of murdering, a bit of finding secret passages.





The secret passages in this temple lead to these big balconies overlooking the big optional fight room, it's a really rough one, too, because even if the enemies are relatively low-level, there's enough volume of them that the party has no angle of approach that doesn't see them getting pummelled from all sides, and all the enemies present are ranged combatants that will not mindlessly home in on the party to come get their asses beat.

So let's do that last.

...that's a lot of bad guys.
I concur with Bobelix, could we not maybe just... let them go? Allow them to spread the tale of our power and brutality?
Hell no, they'd just come back with buddies later while we were sleeping.
Plus then we wouldn't get to loot their bodies.



There's also this huge room of crates where you can only interact with one of them which is cruel and unusual game design.




Yay! Bad guys to fight!
Rar! Blood!
Guys! Chill, this room has a huge pit in it! Don't fall in!
An open pit with no railing? As if we needed more proof that the Church of Baa was evil...




Predictable tragedies befall the guardians of The Pit.




Check it out, there's something valuable in... THE PIT.
Do not.
THE PIT. It's really fun to call it that, makes it sound like there's something exciting and cool down there.
Richmond, help me out here. You know where this is going.
Well it's just A PIT, it's not even that deep, what could go wrong?




Huh, that looks like some sort of magical explosive.
Run for it, you imbecile!




Jump!



Fireball!



Fireballs.

This spiral is basically a rollercoaster full of potential injury, which gets more and more intense as we go. What starts out as six sparks hurled at the party ends up at...





Oof, ow, it stings.




A couple of priests are waiting at the end to hand out customer satisfaction surveys, the party shows how they felt about the ride.




This room is important simply because one guy in here drops one of the two keys we need to advance the plot, the party chainsaws relatively effortlessly through these minor encounters at this point.



This cozy study is what we're here for, because we want to crack open that chest. But until we have the two mandatory keys, touching it just tazes us mildly and summons Security Druids.




Oh and this closet contains a year's supply of free gongs. Bobelix is probably very excited by it.

My only consolation is that the sound of gongs annoys Deadeye more than me.



Altar sense... tingling...
Wow, Deadeye, how many senses do you have?
Seven and a half.
Excuse me, seven and a half?
Don't tell me you haven't noticed the eyepatch.




Nooooooooooooooooo! Another altar that doesn't break...

Sadly, we don't get to smack any of Baa's altars, but say, something's interesting about these faces around the walls for once...




Obviously you need to interact with Baa heads 1 through 4 in the right order. Which isn't exactly a huge challenge if you can count from 1 to 4.


Don't worry, Bobelix, I'll handle this one.






This has no obvious effect, but between this and running the gauntlet of THE SPIRAL at the bottom of THE PIT, we can actually get the dungeon's bonus objective now!





As for the main objective, there are a number of bunk rooms down at the bottom of the map, one of which contains a wizard who has the second key for the mystery chest, which I then promptly loop back for.





Oh no, Silvertongue wasn't brainwashed! He really is a traitor!
Yeah, what a total surprise.
Dibs on making a necklace out of his finger bones.
I confess he does make me consider some creative uses for Shrapmetal...



Well, I suppose we could leave now...
C'mon, really?
I was hoping we'd do that for once.
No dice, we're cleaning this place out.




Yeah, it's time for the big fight. I think that, at the very least, this room, with both the plateaus on either side, and the central pit, have a hundred enemies, which is absolutely the biggest battle so far except for the fuuuuuuuuuuuuucking skeleton room back at the first Temple of Baa.





It's a lot of fighting, it's one of those big fights I actually have to break off halfway through to drop a beacon and town portal back to Blackshire to top up everyone's SP at a temple and recast some buffs that were timing out. It's just an insane amount of murdering. And why? For what? For justice? For the loot? These guys just drop a bit of gold and some vastly outclassed items very rarely. Why are we doing this?





Eventually...



It looks like this.

That was a truly excessive amount of murdering.

So what do we get out of that?



Well a fucking rocket launcher, for one thing. I hand it to Bobelix and eagerly look forward to when he manages to friendly fire the party with it. The explosion does the same damage as the bow normally does, thankfully, so it's not going to be super-fatal.



Also these delicious cauldrons which are, of course, on damaging floor tiles, because the Temple of Baa is too cheap to just buy a stove so instead they, I don't know, built this place on top of a volcano or something.



Anyway no, the big score is this big guy.

If we've chatted to the four Baa Heads(in the right order) and run the spiral, then...



He'll hand out a cool 50,000XP to each party member. Some people say it also lowers your rep, others say it doesn't, and some say it doesn't lower it if you're already at Saintly. I was already at Saintly and it didn't lower my rep at all, so who the hell knows?

In any case, 50k XP is roughly a level at this stage of the game. So that's still pretty nice. Now let's get the hell out of here.






Fingers crossed he actually believes this evidence.



The devs knew exactly when giving us more of a runaround wouldn't be funny in any way. Let's go kick his ass off the Council!





So this time I can use the axe, right?
I'd be disappointed if you didn't.




Slicker Silvertongue, we have evidence that you-
-'re a bad guy! Give it up!
You've been super busted.
Got anything to say for yourself before I let Deadeye peel you like an orange?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMCDLrzZFQA

...alright that was a reasonably badass exit. I'm sure we've seen the last of him.
And now we finally have access to the oracle. I can't wait for this. The answers to our questions! The wisest being in Enroth!



...ultimate knowledge sure is dark.
...give me a moment.




Yeah, that IS absolutely a sci-fi console.





This central area is pitch black when you approach, but then the lights kick on as you enter. Let's head over to that console...




Interacting with it slides the central slab aside...





I gotta admit, I was expecting the Oracle to just be another old hack like the Seer, spouting cryptic garbage. This is a step up.





We approach the "stage" and this pitch black screen slides up in front of us. Seems this is the Oracle?





[several minutes of screaming later]

So you're telling me the Oracle can't answer any of our questions.
Unfortunately no.
Because someone took apart its brain and hid the four pieces of them.
Well on the bright side, we already have one of the four pieces, from Castle Darkmoor.
I just grabbed it because it glows and Bobelix was complaining about not having a night light.





This is a completely bullshit twist and you all know it.
So, what, you're gonna quit? Are we going to have to look around for a new snarky druid who giggles when Starburst causes a mob of goblins to explode? Oh no, now will I ever live if the new one has an even vaguely pleasant personality.



Fuck no, like you're getting rid of me that easily. This just means King Roland is going to be paying us overtime when we catch up with him some day.
...have you been tracking our billable hours?
Damn straight I have. Now where are we headed first?

Status

12 of 12 Promotions gotten
6 of 6 Council Quests completed
1 of 1 Traitors unmasked
1 of 4 Memory modules located

Vote

Once again, the vote is relatively simple. Do we stay on target or go sightseeing? Two of the plot locations, Castle Alamos and the Hermit's Isle, are in new areas in any case, and especially the Hermit's Isle would require travelling through some new areas.

A: PLOT PLOT PLOT
B: EXPLORE EXPLORE EXPLORE