It was a pretty long battle even using Hardcleave and Diamond Edge, and everyone fully buffed up on potions.
I had gotten in a position where I was following the dragon and hitting it in the back, and any time it made a move, I moved behind it. That was working fine until the dragon made a turn into a nook, and consequently quickly spun around and hit me in the face with a fireball.
By that time, my fireshield had expired, so it hit the whole party pretty hard and everyone was limping.
I decided to retreat to the other side of the lair (searching under ashes in the general area I knew that the key would be because I had looked at a map beforehand, and was able to find it) and unlocked the door to the small room where I healed up and recast the fire shields.
Even though my party was severly injured, I was still faster than the dragon, and it didn't follow me. I went back to the other side of the lair and found the dragon again, and continued the square dance with it until it finally succumbed.
By that point, I was pretty tired and my neck was hurting. I was also feeling bad for killing the dragon for some reason, realizing in retrospect that I could have probably just left it alone.
After that, I was burnt out on DM, and didn't come back to it.
Recently, after having a brief go at Conflux, I decided to try CSB, and here's a recap of what I've been up to so far. This is from memory, so I might have forgotten some details or remembering some things incorrectly or in the wrong order.
I imported my party from DM right after having killed the dragon. The party consists of Nabi, Syra, Wu Tse and Elija. The were all Um Master priests and Expert everything else.
All characters were originally reincarnated in DM. I kept their original names and titles though, except Wu Tse whose title I changed to "Daughter of Heaven".
So far, I've gotten the first corbum and returned to the starting area. Here's a recap of my journey so far.
Started off in a dark room with worms on either side, so I moved away from the worms and cast torch spells, then proceeded to blast the worms with fireballs. At one point while dancing around the worms I accidentally stepped on the worm generator causing two additional worms to spawn. I dealt with them all using fireballs.
I then went and picked up everything off the floor, and proceeded to knock on every wall. I found a secret passage with some armor, and I used one of the coins to get the rope and the compass. I left all the other items that were behind coin slots behind.
I found an empty torch holder, and placing a torch in it opened up a passageway to Supplies for the Quick.
I picked up everything from the supplies for the quick area, occasionally killing flying eyes when they spawned, then doubled around and picked up the second flask from the run and jump area and also opened the gate of the starting area from behind.
Since I now had flasks, I wanted to buff my heroes again, but the BuffHeroes function in my AHK script was created when I was playing DM and had more than enough flasks for everyone, and wouldn't work in this scenario. I made some adjustments in my script adding a keyboard shortcut to call the MakeBuffs function directly. This meant that I had to go to each character's inventory manually, and make sure that the right charater spell menu was selected and that they had a flask in the inventory slot closest to their main hand. After buffing the first two a couple of times, I had to move the second flask from my second character to my third character and repeat the process, and then the next one. Still quicker and more convenient than doing it all manually though.
There were a few times when I forgot to change to the correct character's magic tab or forgot to give someone a flask, causing me to waste mana in those cases, especially in the beginning.
After I had buffed up everyone a few times until they all had around 90-100+ in all stats, I went back to the worm room again to farm some more worm rounds. I then went downstairs and picked up all the items there and filled up on water before stepping into the teleporter to the junction.
I decided to try the Neta way first, so I went there (picking up the horn of fear on the way). I soon came to an apparent dead end, and all the walls I knocked on were solid, so I came back and saw that the alchove now contained a key and a scroll that said "Pray for a miracle".
After waiting around a bit, I was then teleported somewhere else, so I proceeded while knocking on wall along the way.
After a while, I came to an open door that had a wall directly behind it, so I went in the doorway to knock on the wall to check if it was false. Big mistake!
The door started shutting and hurting my party, and when I tried to back out of it I couldn't because a vexirk had appear behind me blocking me in.
I proceeded to frantically cast Ee level fireballs at it, pressing 4 4 4 space as fast as I could, but I wasn't able to do enough damage quickly enough to kill him before my party got crushed to death. Afterwards I realized I could have used the Volley function that I had forgotten about in my AHK script. A few full volleys of Mon fireballs might have been enough to kill him. Alternatively I might have been able to cast a poison cloud to get him to move away so that I could get out of there (but don't think I've ever used that spell, so I didn't know the runes), or I could have perhaps scared him away with the horn of fear (actually I think maybe I did actually try blowing the horn at him once, but I'm not 100% sure if I did).
After reloading, I decided to go back to the worm area again to make sure I had as much food as possible. I killed worms with a combination of fireballs and melee attacks (occasionally interrupted by flying eyes coming in from the supplies for the quick area) until every free inventory slot was filled with worm rounds and everyone's food bar was full. I also made sure to buff up again as well.
After filling up on water, I went back to the junction. I left some worm rounds there, then decided to go the Ku route this time.
At the end of the Ku hallway, there was a fake wall. Behind it was a large room, and in the south of that room there was an intersection with a vexirk standing in the corner to the east.
I peeked around the corner and threw a fireball at him, then quickly sidestepped back while preparing my next fireball. I kept repeating this until he was defeated. I then went to the area he had been in and found some buttons that I pushed.
I noticed that a giggler had appeared on the other side (west), so I lobbed an On level fireball at him. The fireball took a sharp turn right, then after a short while the fireball came back and took another sharp right and hit the giggler in the face. It wasn't enough to kill it though, so I cast another fireball which took care of it. It dropped something, but I don't remember exactly what. Another vexirk then appeard where the giggler had been.
The vexirk tried to throw fireballs at me, but they harmlessly veered off at the T-junction. I pressed CTRL+6 a couple of times to throw a few broadsides of Mon level fireballs at him, and I think it took maybe 2 or 3 volleys (8 or 12 fireballs) of Mon fireballs to kill him.
I went over and picked up the items and pressed the button, which opened up a door to the south. There I dealt with with a deth knight, but further progress was blocked by a door I didn't find a button or lock for, so I went back.
Back in the big room, I was attacked by a muncher (that might have been before I found the vexirks though, I'm not 100% sure) so I killed it with a fireball. As the fireball hit, I saw that it was about to veer off to the side right before it exploded. Luckily the muncher was right in front of me, so the fireball didn't have any room to veer off.
I went to an area where there were some doors with pressure plates in front of them that closed the door when stepping on it and opened it again when stepping off it. I quickly went through one of the doors before it had time to close on me.
I found myself in an open room with some deth knights standing around in some niches. When I got close to one, he started moving towards me, so I kited him back to the doors with the pressure plates intending to use the doors to help me kill him. I did the door trick a few times, then messed up at some point by stepping off the pressure plate while he was still in the doorway which resulted in him stepping forward into the room with me.
I quickly went through the other door, and the knight then proceeded to move between the doors but being unable to get out because the door would slam shut in his face every time. I decided to just leave him there and go deal with the next knight. I aggroed the remaining knights one by one, doing the combat waltz while making sure I didn't go near any of the other ones to accidentally aggro them before I had dealt with the current one.
After all knights had been defeated, I picked up Executioner, and doing so opened up a wall to the north.
I poked around a bit in the now empty room, knocking on walls and looking for buttons or secrets. I saw a small button in one of the niches, but it looked to be already pressed, and clicking on it didn't seem to do anything.
I then dealt with some mummies, and found some stairs down to what appeared to be a dragon's lair.
I searched around, but didn't see a dragon anywhere but encountered a red worm. While I was fighting the worm, I suddenly heard a roar and was hit by a massive fireball from a dragon that had snuck up on me. Monster movement sounds would have been very useful in this situation. I seem to remember Conflux having monster movement sounds, and it's using the same executable, so shouldn't it in theory be possible to give DM and CSB the same treatment?
I limped my way back to the stairs and went up and healed my wounds and cast fireshields, then went back down to deal with the worm and the dragon again. I carefully danced around attacking the worm while trying to avoid being hit by the dragon, trying to keep the worm between me and the dragon at all times until the worm was dead. I then focused my attention on the dragon.
At some point with a bit of quick finger work and fancy maneuvering, I was able to get in position behind it, and from that point on I was able to follow it around and constantly attack it from behind. This made the fight a lot easier, but it still took quite some time to kill it.
Once all threats were dealt with, I walked around the lair knocking on walls, and found a couple of secret passages. One of them had a teleporter that took me back to the junction of the ways when I stepped through it, so I went down the Ku path again back to where I had been.
I also encountered a giggler in the dragon's lair by the way, who dropped an Eye of Time. I don't remember if that was before or after the fight with the dragon. I think it might have been before.
I went back up and found some stairs which led up to a room full of oituses. It was here that I discovered the "spinning stairwell" trick. I would prepare berzerk or melee with the executioner or axe, then spin around and immediately attack before quickly spinning around again and preparing the next attack. Once the herd started thinning out, I would occasionally spin around and attack but there was no enemy there because it had moved, so I started being a bit more patient and waited to see if there actually was an enemy there before attacking.
Next were the antmen, and I repeated the same procedure there. I also tried lobbing some fireballs at them, but none of my fireballs seemed to hit. I also could hear them dropping weapons/items when they died, but I didn't see any, so I thought it might be a bug or an issue because of me standing on the stairwell. Once most of them were dead or running scared and I decided to move forward, I found out the real reason when I was immediately teleported.
I dealt with the few remaining antmen and searched the area and found some hidden items, then moved onwards. I dealt with one or two scorpions the same way, and eventually found my way to the stairs up to DDD.
I cast Mon level fireshields before going up there, then lobbed some fireballs at a demon at the other side of a pit until it was dead, and then dealt with some rockpiles.
To my joy, I found a third flask in an alchove, and let my thirstiest character drink the water in it. Now only my two back row characters had to share a flask between them.
Eventually I found the inscription "Trust me, enter the pit", so I decided to climb down it using the rope. I found myself in a small area that had a pressure plate that had no apparent effect, some stairs up and a locked door. I decided to use a key on the door, and behind it I found Diamond Edge.
I went up the stais and then came to an area called "Dead end". From a CSB video I had watched in the past I knew what was in store. I decided to check if the deth knights were vulnerable to lightning bolts, so I looked up the runes for that spell and tried it on them.
The lightning bolts didn't seem to bother them much, and the knights were hitting pretty hard, so I decided to reload (even though all characters were still alive but hurt) and cast shield spells instead, then attacking and kiting them down the long corridor while backing away. Eventually they died one by one, but they were pretty sturdy. Once they were all dead, I moved all the weapons and armor they had dropped to see if any of them had perhaps dropped something else, but found nothing. I also ran along the entire length of the corridor knocking on walls to see if I had missed any hidden passages, but I didn't find any. Near the end of the hallway there was a button that opened up a wall to reveal some stairs down.
I found a dragon den. I remember someone suggesting in a forum post to throw poison bolts through the gates, then immediately sidestepping before the dragon could destroy the gate with it's fireball. I tried that a few times, but most of the poison bolts were missing because the dragon would move before the bolt hit it. Shortly thereafter the dragon blew the gate open anyway, so that plan didn't work, and I had to kill it the old fashioned way while making sure I didn't get too close to any of the other gates.
I found a fake wall into the next room, and I dealt with that dragon the same way. Luckily these dragons seemed to have less HP than the one in the basement (and the one in DM).
When peeking through the false wall to the middle room, I saw two dragons in there. I pulled one of them with me to the next room to separate them, then into the room where the first dragon had been to get it as far away from the other dragon as possible.
After if had cleared the area of dragons, I picked up all the dragon steaks, eating the remaining worm rounds to make sure I had room. My inventory was now completely full with dragon steaks, so I don't foresee food being an issue going forward.
I used the Powertowers leggings I had found to open up a passageway, then let Nabi wear them for the strength boost to help him wield the Executioner more efficiently.
There were two different stairs in the newly opened passage, so I took one of them. It lead me to an area with lots of pits and a waterskin in a central column. There were stairs further up as well, but the way there was blocked by a skeleton lock so I went all the way down and went up the other stairs.
I encountered a hellhound and a stone golem and took care of them, then went and retrieved the first corbum. A previously closed door now opened up for me, and I went up the stairs there. Upstairs I came to an area with a door surrounded by a pit on either side.
Inside there was a demon who seemed a bit confused. He seemed to run in circles around one of the pillars while I kept following him and hitting him in the back. Occasionally he would turn around an face me, and I would back up around the corner waiting for him, but when I peeked around the corner he had turned around again and continuing in a counter clockwise circle. He was abviously not the brightest kid in demon school
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif)
When he died, he dropped a key, and when I used it to open a nearby door, I found a ton of worms there.
I kited the groups of worms one by one back to the door with the pits on either side and used the door to crush them while hitting them with weapons. It took a while, but eventually their numbers were dwindling and I pressed forward until finally there were no worms left.
I found a sword called Dragon Fang and took it with me. I'm not sure if it's better than Diamond Edge though, with it's fast stab attacks that reduce enemy armor by 25% and train ninja skills. As soon as Syra had gained a ninja level, I gave Nabi the Diamond Edge and moved the Executioner and powertowers over to Syra.
There was a locked door in the area that required an onyx key. I saved the game before using the key like I usually do in case I'm disappointed by what's behind the door. I had earlier reloaded after using the onyx key in the dragon's lair and found what was behind that door pretty useless to me.
I pressed on (making sure I used a different slot for subsequent saves) and found a big open area, which turned out to be pretty confusing and frustrating. I ran around trying to figure out what to do and to try to find a way to progress forward, but was having trouble finding out what to do and also frequently got lost while trying to navigate the area.
There was a coin slot next to a blue mist and a lock. The coin slot removed the blue mist and using an iron key in the lock only caused a fireball to come out of the wall. There was another area where a secret passage opened after a while and lead to a locked door that required two keys of B. After opening it, I only found a Helm of Ra, so it felt like a big waste of my only two keys of B.
I frequently ran into Zytaxes, which were annoying because I only had one Vorpal Blade and they seemed to be constantly spawning. I also encountered the occasional demon, and sometimes fell into concealed pits that I didn't notice in time. I also found a button inside a blue mist which seemed to teleport me to a different place when I pushed it, and I saw some Boots of Speed behind a door that I couldn't figure out how to open.
There was also an area that had a ton of demons which I was not sure how to deal with due to the number of them. At one point I was able to run past them and found a door with a black lock that I didn't have a key for so I reloaded again. Also at some point I went back to the corbum room because I had read that there was supposed to be a false pit there. I tried putting dragon steaks on all the pits to see if they would drop or not, and found that the pit in front of the pressure plate was fake. I didn't know what to do with it though because all the pits surrounding the fake pit seemed to be real.
I tried using the rope to climb down the pit directly in front of the fake pit, but that just took me to what initially appeared to be a single square hole but that had a fake wall in front of me. Behind that wall was a dragon who proceeded to blast me in the face and took about half my health away. Going down that pit didn't seem like a good choice, so I reloaded again.
By now, I had wasted a lot of time while making very little progress. I also realized I had wasted my only onyx key because the door next to where I found Dragon Fang took me to the same area. Also one of my characters was running dangerously low on water and there was not a single fountain in sight, so I decided to reload the earlier save from before I had used the onyx key and proceeded to try to explore the area a little bit more.
After a bit more exploration where I didn't discover anything new, I was completely fed up with this area and decided I wanted to try to head back the way I had come from to see if I could maybe find a way back to the starting area, or at the very least find a fountain. Unfortunately I had saved over the save slot after killing some demons (one which dropped an iron key) in a smaller room, and I was having a bit of trouble finding my way back, but eventually I finally found all the worm rounds from the worms I had slain earlier, and could head back.
I unlocked the door that had closed behind me earlier in the dragon den, and in the long hallway I found that the deth knights had respawned, so I had to take care of those again.
After a while, I was back in the area where I had initially climbed down the "Trust me" pit to get to. I found that when standing on the pressure plate, a wall would open after a few seconds, and behind that wall I saw a dragon. I decided to top up my stats with a few rounds of buffing spells instead of casting fireshields, since I intended to circle strafe the dragon anyway.
I went into the room and started fighting the dragon, but every few steps I heard a click, and I had an ominous feeling about that, so I lead it to the other room instead. In that room, there were clicking sounds as well, and after a few rounds I fell down a pit and landed in a room with some stairs down.
After going down the stairs, I found to my delight a fountain, and realized I was in the area just below supplies for the quick. I filled up on water, then decided to use an iron key to remove the teleporter and head up to the supplies area again.
In supplies for the quick, I found a 4th flask! Finally I could use my the buff and full heal functions of my script properly without juggling flasks around. I also found a topaz key, a full set of dragon armor (which I gave to Nabi), a Side Splitter sword and some pieces of Ra armor.
Out of curiousity, I decided to use an iron key in the lock next to a pit in supplies for the quick, but all it did was close the pit, so I'm wondering if it's worth it. How likely or unlikely am I to ever drop down the pit above it?
I'm trying to decide whether to go back the Ku path again to see if there was anything I missed and maybe pick up some of the items I had to leave behind to make room for other stuff, or whether I should take a different path. I'm also hoping to find some more water skins and/or spare flasks to fill with water, since water seems to be a much bigger issue than food.
These are my current levels and attributes.
Nabi:
Lo master fighter
Expert ninja
On master priest
Lo master wizard
Health: 582
Stamina: 496
Mana: 209
Syra:
Lo master fighter
Lo master ninja
On master priest
Lo master wizard
Health: 609
Stamina: 602
Mana: 199
Wu Tse:
Expert fighter
Expert ninja
On master priest
Lo master wizard
Health: 528
Stamina: 338
Mana: 201
Elija:
Expert fighter
Expert ninja
Um master priest
Lo master wizard
Health: 538
Stamina: 394
Mana: 198