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Finally Finished Hordes of the Underdark!

Still a complete mess, still not talking, even know I have a message I should be reading but don’t because I know what it’s about and it’d require me to submit something quite formal and there’s no way I can handle that anymore. Posting a few messages in a couple of places and exchanging a few with a new person somewhere else, but that’s stuff that lets me put my mind elsewhere while at the same time not requiring much from it, so it works in small doses.
Other than that, can’t remember the last time I cleaned my room and you can definitely see that, last week I went out once about a week after shaving, and in general I’m hiding and running and scared even of my own shadow around here too and can’t do or deal with anything. Not that I could before, but now the state is permanent, without requiring something to happen that I should be dealing with. Or permanent at this extent, since at some level it always was. Or something…
What I know… Well, I think I know at least, but maybe I don’t. But I think… Maybe… What I mean to say here is that I don’t see this ending unless somebody’ll pull me out of it, and there’s nobody who could do that, or definitely nobody who may still as much as tolerate having anything to do with me. And even in case of miracles, not sure what could still be possible anymore, or what would actually happen based on what happened so far.

Deep breath… And actually did other things for quite a while, because the point of this post was actually to say that two weeks ago I got back to Hordes of the Underdark and yesterday I finally managed to finish it! Admittedly, during this time I spent maybe some three days actually playing, the rest of it being spent in that one place where rats keep respawning and you can attack them if you want, offering about 5000 experience per hour if you’re patient enough for it. And I am extremely patient, so I pretty much sat there and killed rats for what works out to about one full day in total, since I earned about 120000 experience, getting myself from level 28, reached just before entering that area, to 32, and in fact to an even 500000.
We’re talking here about a game I don’t remember when I started, but it was probably in 2010, since I may have played without long pauses until the time of those last proper saves, in December of that year. The last one was from January of 2011 and I see there was an autosave from February as well, but it was all just poking around, without really advancing, before giving up for good. Then I only got back to it last August, rather quickly convincing myself to finish the second chapter and poking at the third for a while until I gave up again, the final save from that series being at the start of September. And then the previous attempt started this April according to the first remaining save from that series, but the others are from early May, after which I once again gave up until, as I said, two weeks ago.
Pretty much at the start of every year since 2011, when thinking of what I’ll play, I had “try to finish Hordes of the Underdark” at the top of the list, but until 2015 I didn’t even touch it again, and then it took these three different periods to get myself through the last chapter. Not that the game wasn’t good, far from it, but just one thing or another not playing well with how I play and making me uncertain of a decision and giving up on it all as a result.
Did it all with a single character, a sorcerer, taken through the original game, Shadows of Undrentide and now this. Though I went back to them every so often to see if they had anything new to say, didn’t use henchmen since they lowered the amount of experience received and I just had to take care of them anyway, and the same thing went for summons, though the pixie familiar was available once the area was otherwise cleared and there were traps I couldn’t just trigger and keep going or locks I couldn’t just bash, and a few times I remember also to safely explore or briefly draw away enemies. That way, I finished at level 33, though I didn’t get to actually gain that level in the character version that got saved since it was gained right there at the end by commanding Aribeth and Nathyrra, taken along just then to see their endings too, to stay with me.
Yes, I had spent 1.9 million gold to learn all true names, and it could have in fact cost even 2.1 million, and then used that to skip the final battle. Meant to give it a go, but there was no reason to and when I got to that point after all that time I just wanted to finish it… Though I did then reload that previous save just to start the fight in order to be able to gain the level and take screenshots, to show just how my character looks at level 33.
The other gear consists of a belt giving +10 strength, boots for +10 constitution, bracers for +10 armor and a ring for +9 armor since I couldn’t find any with +10. Also do have that neat Sash of Searing, a Ring of Power for another +1 regeneration, another granting 100% cold immunity, another granting +3 to all saving throws, an amulet granting +10 to all saving throws, a +6 tower shield which, if changing that ring granting 50% fire and cold immunity with the one granting 30/- acid resistance when needed, may be a slightly better option than the equipped one, plus various other odds and ends, in case of needing to swap. Plus two Bags of Holding and one granting 80% weight reduction, and 1871022 gold, after selling everything I didn’t see as potentially useful in any Kingmaker module I’ll import the character to next, if the inventory carries over even if I noticed the level may not.

As for this week’s run, that was yesterday as well and the time was 35:22, with sector times of 4:36, 5:22, 6:06, 4:37, 5:21, 6:14 and 3:06, making for lap times of 16:04 and 16:12. Was sort of trying to get under 35 minutes again despite not feeling well enough for that and the fact that there was a fair amount of wind at times, but obviously failed, as that was pretty much all I could do. Was obvious after the first lap that about 35:10 was the best time I could hope for and then the attempts to go faster on the second lap’s final sector, after managing the exact same time for the first two, obviously failed, seeing as I was eight seconds slower. And then the final sector was pretty much a matter of struggling to get to the end, though I did manage to sprint for those final meters.

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