Once again, we were teleported to the middle of the level. Durlag's ghost awaited.
"You will survive this place… you understand what built the hate… the fear… now you must prevent it becoming worse… a creature below… powerful beyond all… you must remove… or it shall make this place its own… such a fortress… impenetrable if remade in his image…
The party looked to each other, confused.
But the demon Aec'Letec is trapped in the dagger? What was this threat then?
"We are ready to face this threat," Branwen said to the ghost on our behalf.
"There is always evil to be fought… within and without… do as you will… the way is clear… follow me…"
The ghost led us north, past the ghost of Islanne, to a new path to the east which had opened up. A door which led to the supposed evil that needed defeating. Behind the door was another throne room.
What we didn't expect was a pretty regular looking adventurer with a bow aimed our way.
"Stop where you are! I've a bow trained on your neck and you'll not live to reach me!"
We looked at each other and came to an agreement.
This isn't the threat the ghost was talking about.
"Fire then, and know you have killed the one who would have saved you!" I declared to the adventurer.
She lowered her bow. "Saved…? Then you are not part of… You are a bunch of fools, just like we ere! Turn back now and leave the way you came, and maybe you will live to forget this place. I don't know if I even have the will to do that."
We chattered with the woman awhile to figure what lay ahead.
"Who am I? I am an idiot who thought I could assault this tower like it was some pissant kobold warren. You are a like-minded fool then? Best you make your will if you intend to stay. My fellows went forward but a short ways, while I rested here after a blow to the head. Dead, they are, and we will follow. My name is Clair De'Lain, and I should be dead."
We asked about her group, which must have been competent enough to make it this far.
"We were neither weak nor cowardly. Inexperience and stupidity brought us down. They went ahead while I rested only a moment, and I heard their deaths… I heard… I should not have brough such youth to this place. They were willing, but could not understand the danger. We can disarm traps and kill simple monsters, but true evil… I should not have brought them," Clair said with regret.
"Perhaps they have not all been lost. You should not give up hope so easily," Khalid suggested in a gentle voice.
"Hope? I lost hope when I heard their screams and knew that I could not help. I cannot even attempt the creature that is to come. Have you not seen? Or heard? The worst is that it did not even bother to lift a finger itself. They fought themselves, or monsters shaped as such. I suppose it was fitting, given the history of this place. Don't speak to me of hope. My friends are dead."
"What exactly is the creature that lies ahead?" Jaheira asked, cutting to the most pertinent question.
"You have no idea what is ahead, do you? It is a demon knight! A demon knight! Such a thing is as rare as it is evil! Alone it could destroy all of you, but that's only if it decides you are worthy of the effort. My friends went ahead and challenged it like it was some shambling skeleton, and it LAUGHED at them. It didn't even bother to lift its sword!"
Demon knight? Now, this was something the party would have to confer to get our heads around.
Demon knights are actually powerful Cambions, for those who played Baldur's Gate 3. Like Raphael. Yes, that's the level of power we were talking about here. Though probably not as powerful as the half-fiend offspring of Archdevil Mephistopheles himself, demon knights were exceptionally powerful adversaries originating from the abyss. The original Baldur's Gate series does NOT play around.
"So you think there is no way to defeat it? Why did you come down here then?" Branwen asked Clair, flustered. She must be indignant at the idea that the foe ahead was unassailable.
"We weren't complete idiots. We didn't come down here to fight a demon knight, we came for the dungeon. Equally stupid I guess, but you never expect to die. Wouldn't leave the house if you did. My friends missed their one shot and paid for it, and now I can't help them."
"And it defeated them without any effort at all? I find that hard to believe!" Branwen said, shaking a fist.
"They entered and challenged it, and it stared and did nothing. For a moment they didn't know what to do, and then it made a simple gesture with its hand, and all the hells broke loose. It created doubles of them all, and laughed as they literally killed themselves. I heard Dalton screaming loudest. I think he actually killed his double, but couldn't handle the fact that he had to. He was the youngest… They didn't know, and they missed the one shot they may have had…"
The party looked to Neera and Imoen, who shook their heads. "There's no spell which does that, of that I am sure," Neera said. "I don't think a wild surge is responsible in this case."
Clair had an explanation. "I have heard of such things, but never thought I would be damned enough to see one. The creature was not shy about talking about it, the smug bastard. He's got a Mirror of Opposition, or something like it. All who glimpse it get duplicated and must fight themselves. If they fail, they die. If they win, they have still killed their likeness. I have heard that it sometimes drives a person mad, but I never thought… There's a slim chance, but I wouldn't survive a second in there."
That was the second time Clair alluded to there being a chance to beat the demon knight.
"What is this 'slim chance' you speak of? You have already said that you don't think the creature is defeatable," Jaheira asked.
"I've had some time to think about it. I couldn't go forward and I couldn't go back the way we came. That thing in there might even know I'm out here. I doubt it cares, but something it said made me think. The Mirror of Opposition it used must be very powerful… maybe it's powerful enough to do the same thing to the demon knight itself. The legends I've heard is that they have some resistances, but who knows with magic? The rules are not always carved in stone."
"So we should find the mirror and turn it on him? That sounds TOO EASY. There has to be a trap," Branwen said to Clair. But she was eyeing me as she said it.
"I know. I doubt the mirror will be easily accessible, and even if it is, you may be exposed as well. I got a peek at the room and it is not large. Everyone inside may be affected," Clair concluded.
There was a chest in this room, which had the Cloak of the Shield. This Cloak, when activated, improved AC vs missiles by 5 and vs melee by 1 for 1 turn.
---
Demon Knight, gosh. This is meant to be the boss of Durlag's tower, so it's very much a big deal. 125 hit points, AC -4, magic resistance 85%, resist all elements 85%, resist all physical damage 10%. Thac0 -5 (aka +25 to hit), Strength 18/100 (which gives it +7 to damage), 3.5 attacks per round. It casts a variety of spells including Remove Magic, Fireball, and Power Word: Stun (which auto-stuns a creature with 89 or less Hit Points, no saving throw). I'm not sure if it has Power Word: Kill like the BG2 demon knights though.
The Mirror of Opposition is kind of malfunctioning. Activating the mirror would summon a mirrored clone of the demon knight which will fight (and kill) the demon knight, and then explode in a fireball. The mirror It will also summon an assortment of mirror fiends instead of true copies of our party. A pity, there would have been easy tricks we could play if it really summoned copies of our party.
Each mirror fiend will look like the original but be functionally different:
-For the MC, a powerful warrior, almost comparable to the demon knight
-For party member's 2, 4 & 5, which have the stats of ettercaps. Hasted.
-For party member's 3 & 6, spellcasters with the stats of greater doppelgangers. Protected by Minor Globe of Invulnerability and opens with Shadow Door. Their magics were very potent.
---
We had plenty of time to consider Clair's words, and consider what approach we should take if we were to challenge the demon knight. IF we decided to challenge it.
"Okay, so that demon knight, isn't Aec'Letec. It doesn't use gaze of soul destroying or whatever, and it's not trapped in the Soultaker dagger," Neera said.
"That much is obvious. We still haven't found the dagger in question," Imoen said.
"Everyone, focus on the problem at hand. How should we battle this demon knight?" Jaheira said to everyone. She then looked at me with suspicion in her eyes.
"...what? Is there something on my face?" I asked.
Jaheira took her time to respond. "Yes, actually. You've got that evil look on your face whenever you're up to no good."
I was aghast. "I do not make an evil look when I'm about to do something clever!"
The rest nodded, saying, "Yes, yes you do."
Hmph! The nerve!
"Look. This demon knight, it beat Clair's party without lifting a finger?" I laid it out to my party. "I say turn about is fair play."
---
The demon knight was minding its own business when the Mirror of Opposition shattered.
Immediately, the demon knight was beset by a potent mirror copy of itself, and even six more mirror fiends as well!
Beset by it's mirrored clone, the demon knight barely had time to glance around.
But there is no one here!
But there had to be. Otherwise, even the malfunctioning Mirror of Opposition would not summon six additional mirror fiends. The demon knight could even tell what the adventurers who were in the room with it looked like based on the appearance of the mirror fiends.
But there was no one in sight.
...invisibility?
"No! I shall not die to such craven tactics! I shall not!" it cried out.
But it did. The demon knight was no match for the combined forces of it's own clone as well as six, no, five mirror fiends. It didn't have time to figure out what happened to the last one, as it was too busy dying, as it were.
The battle was over quickly, and from the Cambion's body a hidden force picked up a unique dagger and helmet.
Meanwhile, somewhere above, Dalton the newbie adventurer ran screaming out of the area, lucky to survive his encounter with Durlag's Tower.
---
Traps killed the mirror fiend that appears closest to our party, for the heck of it. Not strictly necessary, really, since the whole group was invisible or sneaking.
Invisibility on Khalid, Jaheira and Neera made sure they didn't attract the attention of the next nearest mirror fiend. Branwen cast Sanctuary, activated the mirror, and picked up the loot when the Demon Knight was killed.
Dalton was near one of the spellcaster mirror fiends, so I sneaked around to reach him and ran while it was still casting shadow door on itself. Boots of Speed does that.
A surgical strike.
Loot: Large Shield +1, Helm of Opposite Alignment (cursed helmet that changes one's alignment to its opposite, which this Demon Knight was clearly not using), and the Soultaker Dagger.
As we climbed back up the stairs, I whispered, "You get what you deserve, jerk," and I shot the demon knight the finger.
---
Fighting it fairly? Man, do I have to think about that?
Firstly, most folks consider fighting the demon knight alone easier than fighting the six mirror fiends.
As to tactics to take it out by itself, remember Faldorn? She has a fifth level spell called Magic Resistance, which would actually LOWER the Demon Knight's magic resistance to 25%. From there, spells would work quite well to interrupt it and debuff it and whatever.
No? Well, in my opinion, the Demon Knight's weakness was actually its potent spells. The demon knight tends to open with Remove Magic, so you can't really hope your resistances to fire from buffs will last. However, since it spends time casting spells like Remove Magic, Fireball and Power Word: Stun, that would give the party three rounds to kill it before it can mount a counterattack, as long as you can survive the fireball.
So backstabbing and pure offense is key. A backstab with the Staff of Striking will SEVERELY weaken the Demon Knight. Finishing it off in three rounds is easy after that.
---
Clair De'Lain was shocked to see us alive, and completely unharmed. Well, those of us who weren't invisible. We let her know we were all actually fine, just not visible.
"I... I can't believe it!" she exclaimed. "Just like that? What did we all die for?"
"It was through your knowledge shared that we triumphed as such," I said with conviction. "Your friend's deaths have not been in vain. And they have been avenged."
Clair De'Lain looked comforted, somewhat. "Dalton ran out faster than I've ever seen him move. I almost hoped there may be more alive, but they are dead, aren't they? At least Dalton's mother will sleep well tonight. I doubt he'll be going on any more adventures anytime soon."
She sighed. "Neither will I, for that matter. At least you stopped the demon knight, though… though it worries me. I have heard that such creatures serve powerful beings even more evil than they, as if such a thing were possible. I… I should go."
---
The ghost of Islanne was actually smiling at us. "There is a presence here… no longer… you have killed what could not be… another intruder that came to take… gone as they should be… Would that the sorrow were lifted as well… he is stubborn, my Durlag… this place will wax and wane in time… regret will not last forever… you can leave when you wish, I will send you…"
This time we had no reason left to stay. "Yes, I need spend no more time here. Send me to the surface," I said to her.
"Back to the sky and the light with you… here will stay the ghost of failure… my strong, stubborn Durlag… let the ages take the weight away… as swiftly as I send these children…"
And we were whisked away, all the way outside Durlag's Tower.
I gave the party another shit-eating grin, then jumped up and pumped my fist. "YEAAAAH!"
The whole party cheered and hollered together, even Branwen, beside ourselves at such an astounding success over such a deadly dungeon.
Man, victory tasted so, so sweet!