Pools of Darkness: Dis of the Spider Woman

A typical combat in this session with dozens of Drow. I have to try to make sure that every one of them takes damage every round.

   
In an effort to end my last playing session at an obvious stopping point, I played much more than I should have, meaning that I'm either going to have to summarize a lot of the adventures or this post is going to be very, very long. I'll try to strike a balance.

The game's structure became clearer in the process of defeating Thorne and the next lieutenant, Kalistes. The opening screens show Bane plotting to take over the Realms with four lieutenants. Each of the lieutenants is plotting an invasion from his or her own plane, with transitions between their planes and the Realms possible through the Pools of Darkness. I'm clearly going to have to travel to all four planes--stopping at Elminster's Limbo on the way--and kill all four lieutenants. The areas of the game that do not directly lead to a Pool of Darkness are, I imagine, optional.

As I wrap around the Moonsea, the paths to the lieutenants are getting longer. To defeat Thorne, I had to cross through three precursor maps before reaching his realm, which was just a standard 16 x 16 map. But to defeat Kalistes, I had to cross an 8 x 16 Zhentil Keep map, several small tower maps, a full-sized basement map, two more 16 x 16 maps of Drow, a large overland area with at least half a dozen small 10 x 10 maps, and finally three more full 16 x 16 maps. It took almost as long as the entire game up to this point.

In the process, I fought approximately one billion combats with Drow, driders (including a special type called "Pets of Kalistes"), and spiders. The Drow appeared immediately in Zhentil Keep and didn't stop until I was back in the Realms after killing Kalistes. Drow are a tough bunch, moreso in this game than I recall from past ones. They're all capable of spellcasting, and they have a decent chance of shrugging off your magic, depending on your level (Null Null laid it all out in an informative comment recently). If you don't stop them before they cast spells, they'll hit you with "Fireball," "Ice Storm," "Hold Person," and "Hold Monster." The Pets of Kalistes are capable of "Disintegrate" as well.
   

A typical combat of the region: driders, Drow champions, spiders.

   
Thus, when battle begins, the goal is to make sure every Drow takes damage every round, before they can cast. With other creatures, a single "Fireball" will handle that, but with Drow, a good 30-50% of them will avoid the damage. Even multiple castings doesn't guarantee anything. You have to pay close attention to who's been hit and try to get the others with the melee characters--characters who, once you cross the planes, are working with substandard equipment. I still don't think I reloaded as much as I did against the dragons, at least on a per-fight basis, but it became tiresome to have to micromanage every combat.

Spiders, Pets of Kalistes, and more Drow. There were dozens and dozens of such combats.

    
In contrast, the spiders--a typical combat might have some combination of electric spiders, enormous spiders, gaze spiders, and stone spiders--were mostly just annoying. Occasionally, one would poison a character and I'd have to cast "Neutralize Poison" to get him back on his feet and "Heal" to restore his hit points.
   

Those "enormous spiders" are really ugly.

   
The adventure began at the gates of Zhentil Keep. Drow accosted me as I tried to enter and demanded a 50 platinum tax. I had options to "Pay," "Bluff," "Attack," "Grovel," and "Leave." I decided to record each of the results just to see how it plays out and get a sense if this is a true role-playing option or just a "Morton's fork."
     

     

"Leave" simply returned me to the Moonsea map. "Pay" got me regular access to the Keep, where a store had a bunch of +1 weapons and armor, a magic shop sold scrolls, potions, and a couple of rings, and a training hall gave me admittance for 10 gems. "Bluff" got me the same access to the city, minus the 50 platinum pieces. So did "grovel," though it was a bit of a blow to my self-esteem.

"Attack" put me in battle with 8 Drow priests. The weren't very hard, but as I entered the city, an alarm was going off. I was still able to visit and use all the shops and locations, but successions of larger and larger parties of Zhentil warriors kept attacking me until I left the map. Also, a couple of NPCs referenced that I had set off the alarms.
    

This was kind of neat.

    

I rescued a man from being kidnapped by some Drow, and his daughter indicated that the Drow have been kidnapping a lot of citizens while the Zhent leaders turn a blind eye. In a house, a man named Mabril confirmed the story and offered me a partial map to the underground area where people are being taken. A message from a halfling woman named Traned "told of hideous rituals performed on good folk and sacrifices to Kalistes." Another NPC chastised me for attacking the guards but said I should be safe once I enter Manshoon's tower because the guards don't generally report their failures. He finished his intelligence by telling me of a secret entrance to Manshoon's tower. No word on who Manshoon is.

A magic shop in the Keep sells Elixirs of Youth. Although buying these elixirs won't take up even a small fraction of my wealth, knowing that they're there means I'm not as reluctant to use "Haste" (which ages everyone a year) liberally.
    

Some potential money sinks here.

    

I entered the tower through the secret entrance. It consisted of three small levels going up and one larger level going down. I did the up levels first. There were dozens of fights with Zhentil forces, including clerics, mages, and warriors. At one point, there was a journal entry that said Manshoon released a "Gelt" in the corridors; a search of the Forgotten Realms wiki turns up nothing, but in any event I never encountered it so I don't know what that was about.

At the top of the tower, Manshoon trapped us in a force field and said that he intended to summon a creature that would help him "subjugate" the Drow--"and the dreary fool Marcus, and that imbecile Arcam, too!" Marcus was mentioned later in Kalistes's realm, though I never met him. I assume he's the same Marcus who ran the Black Circle in Secret of the Silver Blades. No idea who Arcam is. Anyway, I never actually ran into Marcus; I just heard about him.

Anyway, Manshoon summoned his creature inside the force field with us. It turned out to be an old woman. When Manshoon got confused and asked who she was, she called him an "insolent wretch" and started tearing down his tower as he fled. The party had to flee collapsing stones, and I never saw Manshoon or the old woman again. I never really had a solid idea who he was.
    

Either this demon crushed herself, or my party just walked off leaving a dangerous planar creature roaming Zhentil Keep behind us.

    
In Manshoon's basement, Drow were loading captured villagers into wagons. A halfling fighter named Traned joined me for a while but left towards of the end of the map to escort freed villagers to safety. Not much else to say about the map. Lots of battles with Drow, carrion crawlers, and umber hulks. It culminated in an exit to another Drow map.
    

Frankly, fights like this, in which all enemies are vulnerable to "Fireball," are mostly just a waste of time these days.

    
Early on the next map, I ran into Silk, the Drow rebel and leader of the Swanmays adventuring group. I had previously encountered her in Curse of the Azure Bonds. In that game, she made Goldeneye an honorary member, but she didn't seem to remember that here. She gave me some advice on getting through the traps later in the map. She joined me for a while but took off once we'd rescued the other Swanmays from prison.

Silk has updated her look since last time. Comparison.

    
Other encounters on the map had me freeing innocent people from being turned into ichor used to create Kalistes' Pets. I had to find some Essence of Pure Light and pour it into something called the Fire of Night to stop the process. Traned showed up again as I transitioned to the final map before switching planes--some kind of temple to Kalistes.
     

Nothing to do with the discussion above--I just happened to capture this shot at the perfect moment.

     
The temple adventures included finding an antidote to a poison that was keeping the slaves docile. It became clear that a lot of the slaves were going to be used for food. Various messages indicated that portals would soon be opened in three locations in the Realms, and Kalistes' minions would go pouring through. At one point, I stumbled into a room where an oracle bade the Drow to "Guard our Lady and her hands that open doors." This became an important clue soon afterwards, when I entered the room containing the Pool of Darkness. Within the room was a statue of Kalistes and three portals to various places in the Moonsea area. It was clear that the minions were supposed to come out of the Pool of Darkness and then enter the other portals.

After a huge battle with Drow and spiders, the game gave me an option that I don't remember ever happening in a Gold Box game before: I had to type an answer. [Later: Commenters corrected me: typed answers are quite common in Gold Box games, going all the way back to the first. I don't know why I didn't remember those occasions.] The question was what to destroy to stop the ritual from proceeding. Remembering that the oracle had referred to "hands that open doors," I typed HANDS. My party smashed the statue's hands, the portals disappeared, and everything was quiet on this side of the Pool of Darkness.
    

    
I stepped through. Elminster greeted me and congratulated me on stopping the invasion. He said I'd have to go to Kalistes' realm and stop whatever she's doing to cause perpetual night in the Moonsea area, something I didn't even realize was happening until this moment.
    

"Don't let the portal hit ye in the ass on the way through."

    
We went through the usual process of dumping our items for safekeeping and entered the Pool of Darkenss naked. On the other side, we were immediately greeted by a woman calling herself the Eyes of Kalistes. She asked if I had "help at the temple" and demanded that I name who had helped me--another fill-in-the-blank. I decided to play along and see what became of it. She didn't care for TRANED but reacted immediately to SILK. Apparently, she used to be a Swanmay named Cynthia and now had to serve Kalistes, who can see through her eyes.
    

I assumed that the "right" way to play this encounter was not to give up our allies, but I took the time to see what would happen. This turned out to be a good thing.

    
I had to solve a quick quest were I assembled some items for Cynthia and she mocked up replicas of my party members, making it look like they were dead, so Kalistes wouldn't be constantly hunting for us as we explored her realm. She then demanded that we kill her to preserve the secret, and we reluctantly complied. I'm curious what would have happened if we'd bypassed or fumbled this series of encounters.
       

      
Cynthia's 10 x 10 area exited into a large overland map bisected by rivers of lava. I wasn't expecting this at all. And it soon became clear that, much like the Moonsea map, there were hidden sub-areas all over the place. I think I discovered  6 of them. They all used the same 10 x 10 map and had a variety of combats, treasures, and special encounters.
   

This is the first Gold Box game to feature more than one overland map. You arrive in the far southwest and end up at Kalistes' fortress in the far northeast.

      

At least 6 maps in this area used the same layout, although the encounters were in different places.

   
In the first one that I explored, I found a "disgruntled slave" of Kalistes who promised to show me a hidden way into her fortress. When we left the sub-map, the game took us immediately to the fortress and the hidden entrance. I decided to leave and keep exploring the overland map first, which turned out to be a good thing because I ended up finding some artifacts that made Kalistes' fortress much easier.
   

That doesn't seem like a great reason for treason, but I guess we'll take it.

   
In another sub-area, I met a Drow woman named Dennia who wanted me to help rescue her son, Hern, from Kalistes' testing grounds. (Those who pass the test apparently become Drow mages; those that fail become driders.) Her daughter had previously failed the test, and Dennia's brother, Daris, was apparently intending to kill Hern to avoid the possible shame of two family members failing.
   

Her portrait is shot from kind-of a weird perspective. Are we all on the ground for some reason?

   
The testing grounds were in the middle of the outdoor map, the only full 16 x 16 map aside from Kalistes' palace itself. In the edges of the map, we (for some reason) freed a bunch of driders, who in turn gave us hints as to passing the testing ground.
   

A hint for what already would have been the easiest riddle of all time.

    
The testing ground itself was pretty easy. The first test was just to be strong enough to push over a wall. The second, I had to opt to press forward despite the game telling me I was scared. The third was a fight against driders, the fourth a fight against Drow mages. The fifth had me answer a riddle whose answer was obviously BANE. The sixth was to keep walking through an obviously-illusory wall of flame. After that, we met up with Hern, and I forgot to take screenshots so I can't remember exactly what happened, but in the end, Daris was transformed into a drider because his plot had failed. This was related through a bizarre journal entry that, unlike all the others, was told as if written from the point of view of one of the party members.
    

Another keyword puzzle.

    
There was a final battle with a Pet of Kalistes named Shest, and after that I was able to pick up a "ward" that allowed safe passage to Kalistes parlor, as well as a bunch of amulets that theoretically kept spiders at bay. (I still got attacked by lots of spiders, but a few of the random encounters ended without combat.) There were some previous messages about the ward that I forgot to write down, but  I guess it belonged to a lieutenant of Kalistes named Locaste, and Daris had it temporarily for some reason.
  

The few times this actually worked, it was welcome.

  
In a final area before assaulting Kalistes' fortress, I picked up a dwarf NPC fighter named Storm Harngrim. He said he was part of a shipment intended to be food; his sister was still missing. He stayed with me for the rest of the adventure.
   

At least, I hope "has a taste for" means food.

   
When we got to the entrance to Kalistes' fortress, we were treated by the sight of her lieutenant, Locaste, getting devoured by spiders because he didn't have his ward.
   

I'm not sure "horror" is the right word.

    
Kalistes' fortress was two levels, but with very big rooms, so it didn't take long to explore. In an early encounter, we rescued Storm's sister, Arta, from the cooking pot. There were several other areas in which we freed slaves.
   

   
Amidst multiple fights with Drow (the random encounters in this area never ended), I found a book that offered some intelligence on Marilith demons, which I guess is what Kalistes is. Anyway, it suggested that to lure her to battle, I had to threaten her children. When I ultimately found her egg room on the bottom level, I didn't just threaten them; I destroyed them. Kalistes indignantly appeared.
  

What? Like squashing your young is worse than unleashing spider hordes on the Realms?

  
She attacked with about 18 allies: Drow mages, priests, champions, and Pets of Kalistes organized into three groups. As usual, they tore me apart on the first try, when I was unprepared, and I had to reload, buff, and try again.
   

Properly ready for combat this time.

   
I defeated her on the second try by letting loose liberally with "Delayed Blast Fireball" (three of my characters have it) and having my hastened fighters destroy Kalistes herself in the first round. There aren't many enemies, no matter how powerful, that will stand up to consecutive attacks by two hastened, high-level fighters. That's how Thorne went down, too.
    

Can you believe I forgot to get a shot of Kalistes in combat? This is one of the small scattered groups she attacked me with.

   
With Kalistes dead, I recovered a magic ring from her corpse. Little did I know, the battles weren't over. The previous "disgruntled slave" revealed himself as an agent for one of Bane's other lieutenants and attacked me with several snakes, earth elementals, and a bunch of "bits o' Moander." I'd hoped I'd seen the last of them in Curse of the Azure Bonds.
    

    
Since my characters were still buffed, it wasn't too hard, particularly once I remembered that the Moander pieces were vulnerable to cold, not fire. Oddly, the agent himself wasn't part of the battle, and he wasn't mentioned in the aftermath. I assumed he slipped away.
   

The real final battle of the area.

   
Storm departed to lead the slaves to Freedom. I had to slog all the way out of Kalistes' fortress and across the map again, fighting about a dozen more random combats on the way. Elminster was excited that I recovered the ring, saying that the sun would shine again and "no longer will vampires fly at noon." Before long, I was back in the Realms, my good equipment in-hand again, and ready to start exploring the southern regions of the Moonsea.
   

Elminster fails to keep his cool.

   

Miscellaneous notes:

• My paladin and ranger are apparently no longer gaining any spell levels. My paladin stopped at 2 Level 4 spells and my ranger stopped at 2 Level 3 druid spells.

• I killed a beholder at one point. I honestly forgot where this happened, but I have a screen shot. He died quickly.

   

They look cooler in this game than in Azure Bonds.

    

• In a couple of the sub-areas, a drider galloped up and spouted some nonsense, then galloped off. I was never able to make any sense of this. Seriously, if anyone has any idea what this was about, let me know.

    

Not that I would have any idea what kind of a response to make.

    

• Similarly, in one of the areas, when the party encountered "fresh dirt at a wall," the game gave me the options to leave, dig, or--absurdly--"sing." Choosing the later produced this result, followed by a battle with spiders:

   

Some programmer was bored, I think.

• All the doors in Kalistes' realm have that little spider on them. Aside from looking kind of goofy, it's funny to imagine some bureaucrat having to take time out from conquering the Realms to ensure that someone's doing all the appropriate carving.

• As we've covered before, you stop earning experience when you're about to earn enough for your second new level (above your current one). You know that's happened when you finally get back to civilization, train, fight a single battle, and are able to train again. This happened with most of my characters during this adventure. It's a little infuriating, because I must have wasted thousands of experience points.

• I don't think I mentioned before that the overland maps are slightly animated, with rivers and lava flowing.

• I probably waste more time and hit points trying to engineer backstabs than I save by executing them. What I particularly love is when my thief can execute two backstabs in the same round. Whenever that happens, I shout "double-play!" I suppose when she's hastened, I could go for triple-plays and quadruple-plays. I'll try to record it if it looks like it's going to happen.

  

This never stops being satisfying.

   

I suspect I won't be able to cover the next lieutenant in a single post, but we'll see. Now that I have the top-level mage spells, I want to offer an update on the various Gold Box spells and their uses; that might be up next or the one after.

Time so far: 26 hours
Reload count: 29