Decided to attempt to finish off my Paladin run… We are up to the House of Grief fight.

ALL OF THE WHATTHEFUCKERY.

I have done this fight once with a friend and that is it. I have NO idea how to do it on my own as I figured out after five attempts and getting my arse handed to me every time.

Brute force or sneakiness doesn’t work. Definitely need AOE.

Yes, it took a while for that to sink in.

Only thing is my Oath of Devotion paladin is ALL radiant damage and Shart is now fully respec’d as a healer. They are all but useless up close because radiant damage is a no-no with the Sharrans, particularly Viconia. I investigate EVERYTHING I have available to those two and find I still have some AOE between them that might make it work… Maybe. Who else is in the party? Astarion and Karlach. (Sneaky stabby rogue and bashy-bashy barbarian.)

Should I re-spec everyone and make them more useful and maybe consider swapping a couple people out? Yes.

Will I? No.

New plan: Use whatever AOE I have and hope for the fucking best.

Eighty-seventh attempt starts…

Don’t even enter into conversation with Viconia because if I have to watch all that again I might just cut a bitch, so immediate full attack it is. Back everyone up to the corridor in hopes of using the bottleneck method but invariably get separated because Darkness and other assfuckery cast on the team, none of which isn’t appreciated. Sylor and Karlach are stuck on the mob side and Shart and Vampire Baby Boo on the other in the corridor, Darkness cast between them.

Both Sylor and Karlach have very high HP, so I make the vaguely calculated risk and have Shart cast Insect Plague on them and the surrounding mobs. Works well. Even though stuck in darkness clouds, they manage to get out of the AOE and smack some heads.

So I’m alternating AOE and heals from Shart, AOE from Sylor, ranged damage from Baby Boo when he can see and Karlach PWNING everyone who is unfortunate to be close enough at this point.I’m not winning but I’m not losing either. All going well-ish with Cloudkill (random scroll I forgot Sylor had) and Insect Plague slowly but surely doing its thing until I, the Idiot Queen of MisClickery, hit the wrong button and put Sylor to sleep, thus killing his concentration and ALLOWING EVERYONE TO MERDER HIM. He goes down in two turns. (The last time I saved was AGES ago… sigh)

Karlach puts on a brave face (probably silently swearing at me) and continues smacking everyone she can, usually taking down a mob every 1.5 turns but eventually she succumbs.

Shart throws down heals to get Karlach back up, Astarion gets a few arrows out but ends up getting stuck blind and unable to do anything but bite people and take literal stabs in the dark.

Sharrans are still going down to Insect Plague and Shart is still backing up the corridor and maintaining concentration.

Small signs of hope as we’re now down to three mages and Viconia but it’s not to be as those cunts misty step their way through everything to get to Shart.

Alas and alack, Sylas properly dies as does Astarion, and Karlach is on her knees as she takes just a little too much psych damage on the last round. Viconia fucks Shart hard without buying her dinner first and we fade to black.

I sit there waiting for the “Your party has been defeated” screen but low and behold, Shart and Karlach wake up IN PRISON. HUHHH??? Did the game just throw me a bone or what?! I’m confused but not mad.

So… Karlach and Shart are in a cell. Their stuff is in a box on the wrong side of a locked door. I get the mad idea to bare-hand fisticuffs our way out of of there. I have two short rests available.

Let’s do this.

The lock is picked and shenanigans ensue. Shart and Karlach actually make a rather good team. Karlach throws barrels at and/or sucker punches the guards (there’s four of them) while Shart uses the last of her spells to either heal Karlach and herself or make life uncomfortable for the guards by throwing fireballs THAT ACTUALLY HIT FOR A CHANGE – GO SHART!

Eventually Karlach gets to the chest where all their weapons are AND IT’S ON LIKE DONKEY KONG.

The guards go splat and Karlach and Shart hightail it back to camp and scrounge up enough money for Withers to resurrect Astarion and Sylor.

Again… I am an idiot because Shart is holding FIVE Revivify scrolls on her person at that moment.

Fucksake.

And are we going back to the House of Grief?

Yes. YES WE ARE.

Immediately took everyone back to find our leftover Sharrans and Viconia waiting to finish what we started.

It was sort of overkill having everyone present but I felt like I owed them to see it through at this point.

YEAH BABY, WE FINISHED IT.

At this point I didn’t even care if having Sylor kill Viconia in the dialogue after Shart walks away would ruin his oath. My headcannon was all “Shart is my friend, you upset my friend, you die”. Sylor, my adorable gay meathead has been through it in this run-through, he needs this.

Most satisfying stab of the game.

Sent him home for Halsin and Shart cuddles, the latter being completely platonic because I still cannot bring myself to romance Shart.