New Game: Curse of the Azure Bonds

Playing on: DOS PC (Tandy 1000 RL, CGA, 10MHz 8086)

Year: 1989

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After the side quest that was Hillsfar it was time to return to my gold box quadrilogy proper with Cure of the Azure Bonds. My first order of business was porting my part from Pool of Radiance and Hillsfar over.

There was one pressing decision I had to make after porting my characters though, would I keep my party as is or replace some of my battle-hardened warriors. The reason I had to make this decision is that Curse introduced two new classes, the Paladin and the Ranger. Curse also introduced dual classes for humans. After thinking hard on the subject I decided to remake two of my characters so I could include both a paladin and a ranger in my party. The two characters that had to get the axe with my human fighter Chris and my elf fighter/thief/mage Lt. Thankfully it only took a few battles to level my newly reborn characters up to close to what the rest of the group was at. It did hurt a little to lose my fighter/thief/mage, especially the mage part but rangers do get some druid and mage spells at higher levels and I can dual-class mage later on. The Ranger also can wear any armor (at least in Curse) and a bonus against giant creatures. Swapping my fighter out for the paladin wasn’t nearly as hard as a decision as they are basically both fighter types with the paladin getting some resistances, protection from evil aura as well as some limited cleric spell abilities at higher levels

This leaves Bill, my fighter/thief as the only nonhuman in my group. Unfortunately, because these gold box titles stick to the early D&D level caps for races humans are really the only race that makes sense for going through all four games.

Unfortunately, my phone that I take my game images on was reset so I lost all my images of my early gameplay so unfortunately I lack any early images of my gameplay.

Curse takes place shortly after Pool of Radiance and, if you played it, Hillsfar. After saving the city of Phlan your group is ambushed while traveling the surrounding lands looking for a runaway princess. They awake after the ambush outside of the city only to wake in the city of Tilverdon with all of your items missing. Your party members also all have five strange azure blue symbols tattoed on their arms. These are the cursed Azure bonds the title refers to.

Overall Curse is more or less the same gameplay-wise with a few exceptions. First is much quieter as far as sound goes. I played an early version of Pool of Radiance on the Tandy 1000 which had an intro tune as well as playing a tune before each battle but Curse is almost completely devoid of music on my Tandy 1000, I’m not sure if they ever released a version on IBM compatibles that did have music though. visually it’s mostly the same though it appears some sprites such as the Ogre look different than they did in Pool, not better, just different. There is a quality of life feature now when camping that is called fix, that casts your cure spells as well as rememorizes them.

After waking up in Tilverdon I started exploring the town and found a weapons and armor shop to reequip my party as best I could though their stats were a far cry from what they were at the conclusion of Pool.

After exploring the town and talking to several NPC’s I attempted to leave but could not as the exit was blocked due to a royal carriage passing through. At this point, one of the magical bonds on my arm started to glow and my party was compelled to attack the carriage resulting in a battle with the guards. After the battle, I surrendered and was thrown in jail only to be promptly rescued by the thieves guild.

After being led back to the thieves guild my party was informed that a group of assassins called the Fire Knives kidnapped the princess but before he could tell me more the guild was invaded by the Fire Knives resulting in a frantic escape through the guild and into the sewers. battling through the sewers and guild I was able to acquire a few magical items to help make up for the loss of all my best items at the game’s start. The sewer was filled with alligators, trolls and was also home to several otyughs and neo-otyughs which are basically tentacled garbage monsters. They do have a basic intelligence though and you can avoid fighting them if you retrieve a certain item for them in the sewers.

At the end of the sewer dungeon, I encountered the Fire Knives leader as well as the captive princess. The princess though turned the tables holding the fire knives leader hostage and forced him to remove one of the azure bonds on my party members’ arms. That’s one down and four to go. Soon after the king’s men ended the room but thankfully the princess cleared my name before running off.

After this, my party was kicked out of and banished from Tilverdon.

At this point, you are more or less given free rein on where to go as you quest to remove your remaining four bonds. Unlike the first game where you can freely traverse the overworld, Curse features a map with specific points you journey between. Usually, you are given the option to take the trail, the wilderness, or a boat if a river connects two towns. You can get attacked when traveling between two points though I found this doesn’t happen as often as you would think.

Most of the points on the map are large towns or cities but instead of entering a first-person view when you reach these areas, you are usually given a simple menu of key areas you can visit such as training halls, inns, weapons shops, etc.

I really wasn’t too sure of where to go at this point so starting from the bottom of the map up I figured I do things methodically. It wasn’t long before I came across the town of Hap which was apparently under the control of Drow elves. Fighting through several drow patrols I finally reached a large building housing an efreet and several drow that seemed to be running the occupation force. I was able to defeat them fairly easily.

After this, the town became a peaceful area that allowed me to utilize the inn and fully recover. I also found a map with a trail that led out of town to a cave was now available, also Akbar a magic user joined my group though he left me immediately when I decided to try and go back to a nearby major town to train and level up before tackling the caves.

The caves are where things started to feel really tough as they were filled with both drow and salamanders which required magical weapons to hit. The drow also dropped drow armor and swords but as I learned later when exposed to the sun the armor quickly disintegrates to nothing. It was also at this time I discovered that many times I could set camp and recover using spells and resting and not be attacked by enemies, even if I was camped in a main hallway.

Not too far into the caves, I was approached by a female drow who offered to brand my group’s only female which would allow us to get past some patrols, in exchange we had to find and return to her a dragon heart in the tower that lies ahead. I agreed since any reprieve from the constant patrols would be nice.

On exploring farther into the caves my group encountered a dracolich.

I was given the option to surrender but I chose to fight and was promptly slaughtered. To my surprise instead of a game over The dracolich instead captured me and sent me over to the tower. I wasn’t happy with this result so I restarted my game and faced the dracolich again, this time better prepared. I was able to kill the dracolich this time without too much effort and I was actually pretty surprised. In Dungeons & Dragons a dracolich, or an undead dragon with great magical abilities is a pretty powerful top tier foe. That’s when it occurred to me that I’m only at the start of the second game in a four game series. I’m already fighting dracolichs and drows and to be honest, I’m not sure how much farther up as far as monster difficulty it can go. I imagine by the final game I’ll be having random encounters with demigods.

After exiting the cave and arriving at the tower I was approached by Dracandros, apparently, he is another who controls one of the azure bonds.

Using the bond Dracandros paralyzed my group and brought me to the top of his tower where a hoard of black dragons awaited. He explained to the dragons that I was a great threat to them but they demanded he remove the bond to prove what he said was true. Two bonds down, three to go.

At this point, I was given a choice of attacking the dragons, fleeing, talking, or attacking Dracandros. not feeling very confident I could take on a hoard of black dragons at this point I decided to talk which prompted the dragons to find Dracandros a lier and fly off. Dracandros, without his dragon’s allies and without the bond to control my group quickly fled down this tower’s steps.

In the following description of the tower roof, it was stated that the roof was a safe area to camp out and regain spells and health but like the caves prior I discovered I could camp anywhere within the town and fully heal my party unmolested.

descending down the wizard’s tower There were several battles with more drow patrols consisting of fighters as well as pesky mages and clerics as well as other creatures such as owlbears. Surprisingly for a wizard’s tower there weren’t a lot of magical items laying around, unless that is, I missed them.

One room contains a magic user with an orb of annihilation. if you choose you can play a game of wills where you stand at equal distances and take turns attempting to move the orb away from you and to the opposing side. I selected my own magic user but had a very hard time winning and probably had to take the challenge at least ten times before I could pull off a victory.

Near the bottom of the tower was a room full of wyverns guarding the exit. The beasts themselves weren’t too powerful but their poison death sting was quite troublesome. thankfully after losing to them a few times I decided to stock up on the neutralize poison spell before the battle. thankfully you can use the spell after combat ends on those that died from poisoning, bringing them back to life.

After exiting the tower I was faced with Dracandros who was desperately attempting to escape with a bag of his goodies. This battle was the hardest battle yet for me in Curse. Not only must your party contend with Dracandros who seems to have an almost endless supply of lightning bolt spells but also a small army of drow and efreet. I found my best strategy was to retreat from Dracandros direct line of sight and take on his minions as they charge the group. Unfortunately, I had to redo this battle several times as the lightning bolt spell onslaught always seemed to kill several party members as the battle was winding down. I finally just accepted I was going to lose someone in this fight and defeated Dracandros with my ranger taking a con hit due to a needed raise dead.

At least his goodie bag was full of interesting magical items, one of which was a ring of wizardry that grants extra slots to memorize spells. This also explained why he had so many spells to cast as well as now giving my own group’s magic user a ridiculous amount of spells to cast.

After defeating Dracandros I healed up and quickly traveled to the closest city with a training hall where all but my high-level fighter had earned a level in at least one class.

From here I learned from a mysterious man at a nearby crossroads that something was occurring in a city to the northwest. Hot on trail of the next azure bond I traveled to the city farthest to the northwest which was Daggerfalls. I found nothing unusual in the city itself but I did notice an option when outside the city to travel a side trail. Traveling this trail took me to a tower that appeared to be locked when I approached the door. Naturally, I picked the lock and ventured inside. The description described this as a magic shop and I began to wonder if I had made a mistake when I was attacked by a sizable group of guards backed up by priests. This seemed to be the main encounter as I explored the tower “magic shop”. The guards weren’t too much of a problem but sometimes the priests could get off a lucky hold person spell that could doom the party. Other than a few odds and ends such as a +1 pole arm there wasn’t much to find in the tower. At the top was a head priest as well as some soldiers and otyughs. I easily dispatched them before descending the tower and continuing my search for the masters of my remaining azure bonds.

traveling between towns I did encounter several Zhentil patrols, a group I faced in the previous game, though on seeing my bond they allowed me free passage. I eventually came across the city of Yulash as I traveled east. This city was walled and seemed to be having some kind of disturbance inside. As my party approached the gates a horse with a man and the princess busted through, causing some minor trampling damage as they road off. At least she managed to shout back a “sorry” as she rode off.

I was quickly confronted by a guard at the gate who asked me to go with him. I complied.

After battling some spies trying to escape the HQ I was informed the city was dealing with a cult of some sort and there was widespread chaos in the city all emanating from a hole of some sort. With this, my party was given free passage but warned of the unsafeness of the current situation.

The ruins of the city itself are littered with random encounters and areas where your party can take damage from collapsing ruins. Thankfully between the map in the journal and my dwarf, I was able to avoid most of these. I came across several groups of looters who depending on how you approach them will usually leave you alone. There are however various groups of rouge soldiers that will attack you as well as shambling mounds which are plant monsters that kind of remind me of Swamp Thing.

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I was able to eventually make my way over to a huge gaping hole on the other side of the city though I foolishly made the decision to enter without doing my usual methodical takedown of the current area, this would come back to haunt me in a bit.

Not long after entering the pit, the sounds of battle could be heard in a nearby room. After entering the room I was met by Alias and Dragonbait, the characters depicted on the cover of the box.

After talking to them and sharing my story they joined my group. They are both fighter types though I believe Dragonbait is a paladin, his species is the one exception to the human-only rule. As NPCs in my group, they are largely useless, firing all of their arrows until they are out and then charging in for melee but they are too weak and do too little damage to make much of a difference. They do make decent distractions though as Id rather an enemy take a swing or cast a spell at one of them than my main party members. I’m guessing these two must be important to D&D lore and even though I’ve played 1st and 2nd editions for years and know some of the in-game lore I have no clue who these two are.

The pit itself wasn’t too large and random enemy encounters seemed surprisingly low there were a few set encounters where my group did have the option to evade. Most of the monsters in the temple were cultists and things that aligned with the rot/decay theme of the god so there were a number of shambling mounds, giant acid-spitting slugs, and these green vegetable men.

The shambling mounds were hit sponges and the acid slugs packed a punch if they managed to hit you but the cultists were the most annoying by far. sometimes they were pushovers and a well-timed and placed fireball could eliminate an entire group. They did though have one trick on their sleeve and that was the mass casting of the hold-person spell. If my party was unlucky and the enemy not only went first but decided to span cast hold person, which they often did, then it was potentially game over as half the party could be held and rendered useless in a matter of a turn or two.

In the main room of the temple was a large battle against several cultists, including the main one, and of course several shambling mounds. I did manage to defeat the group but I wasn’t the best preparation for the battle so I was quite shocked when immediately after the battle I was forced to fight three Bit O Moander which were basically pieces of the rot god with 140HP each that acted more of less like super shambling mounds. I should also note that at the start of this battle, the bond of Moander is also removed, presumably as part of the ritual to revive the god.

I can’t help thinking of “Bit O’ Honey” when I see these guys.

Doing large back-to-back battles is actually one of my pet peeves in video games and being as unprepared as I was I took heavy losses in the battle though I was able to defeat the Bits O Hon…..Moander. Unfortunately, right after this battle, the prior mostly quiet temple started swarming with random encounters. Every time I attempted to rest to revive my fallen characters I was attacked and I felt like I was getting a random encounter every few moves. It felt like I was in an impossible situation.

It was at this point in a moment of mental weakness I decided to do something I usually try to avoid and that was going back and checking a walkthrough to see if I missed anything vital. I generally loathe to do this but I felt it shouldn’t be anywhere near this hard. After a quick glance at a walkthrough, I realized that I did make a big mistake in not searching the city more thoroughly if I did I would have encountered some dead wizard with a wand of defoliation, basically, this is like a short-range wand of magic missiles effective against plant-based monsters such as the shambling mounds and the “Bits”.

After learning this I reloaded a save from right before I entered the pit and proceeded to properly search the whole of the ruined city, finding the wand. After this, I redid the entire temple including the main fight. what I found was although the wand was a huge help I think I benefited more by just being more prepared and casting spells like praying before the fight. I also discovered that If I tried to rest behind the altar after the battle, (where some more treasure and items were hidden) I did not seem to be attacked by wandering monsters.

After looting the treasure in the alter room my group made their way to the exit where there was one last battle with a group of cultists and of course some more vegimen and shambling mounds. This battle was about on equal with the main alter room fight though the cultists seemed a bit more liberal in their casting of hold person. After the battle, Alais and Dragonbait parted ways and my group exited the pit and the ruined city via a secret side tunnel.

As my group returns to the world map screen it seems the city is invaded by Zenhtil keep. I know one of the remaining bonds is a Zenhtil Keep bond so I’m thinking this is a not-so-subtle hint that this should be my next destination.

I think I’ll leave things here and then in my second part I’ll finish the game up. I feel like I’m halfway or maybe even a little more than halfway through the game so I think this is a good stop point for now.