Wizard's Tower - Curse of the Azure Bonds

This guide will help you navigate the Wizard’s Tower in Curse of the Azure Bonds.

Wizard’s Tower Map

1 – Starting Point

When you arrive at the roof of the tower, Dracandros will use your bonds to force you to attack an illusionary dragon. This is to prove to the real dragons that you pose a threat to them. However, the dragons will see through the ruse, and they’ll force Dracandros to remove his bond from you (journal entry 15).

At this point, you’ll have a choice for what to do. If you “attack dragons” or “flee,” you’ll probably get yourself killed, because you’ll have to face over a dozen black dragons. If you “parlay with the dragons” and act “meek,” or if you “attack Dracandros,” then you’ll convince the dragons that you don’t pose a threat to them, and they’ll leave the tower. Dracandros, meanwhile, will flee into the tower and sic some of his minions on you.

Note: It’s safe to rest on the roof.

2 – Dark Elf Lord

When you descend the stairs to level 4, you’ll be attacked by a single dark elf lord. The lord has over 100 hit points, a -7 AC, and attacks twice per round for about 15 damage each time, so he can be tough to kill. But the lord is a humanoid, so he’s susceptible to spells like “hold person” and “poison,” and so you might get off easy if you get a lucky roll. On the lord’s corpse you’ll find plate mail +3 and a shield +2.

3 – Wyverns

You’ll face four wyverns here. Wyverns can kill with a single hit, so try to finish them off quickly.

4 – Trial of the Sphere

When you reach the end of the hallway here, you’ll see a sign for the “Trial of the Sphere” (over the eastern door) and learn that only one character can participate. Once you’ve picked a character, you’ll appear in the room and meet an opposing wizard. The idea is for your character and the wizard to concentrate on the “sphere of destruction.” The winner is the one who drives the sphere into their opponent.

Note: Even though you’ll learn that “only a mage can control its flight,” it appears any character can win the duel. In fact, when we tried it, our paladin did better than our multi-class fighter / magic user.

Once you’ve won the battle, you’ll be able to loot the treasure in the room. The treasure includes a whole lot of money, plus some magical objects. The objects are random, so you might want to replay the duel until you get some objects that look like they’ll be useful to your party.

5 – Illusionary Elf

At the base of the stairs, you’ll meet another dark elf lord, but this one is illusionary, so don’t try to bribe him.

6 – Battle

The dark elves here will have several owl bears with them. Fortunately, owl bears aren’t very tough, and so this battle shouldn’t be any more difficult than the other battles you’ve had with the dark elves.

7 – Folded Piece of Paper

The paper is entitled, “Avoiding Tower Traps.” If you pick it up, your entire party will take damage.

8 – Bedroom

If you “take the time to loot” the bedroom, you’ll find a random treasure plus some money and jewels.

9 – Mystical Laboratory

If you choose to “go forward” and “reach into the pool” and “take it,” then you’ll end up with a dragon egg, although the game won’t tell you that and you won’t find anything in the inventory of your characters. If you agreed to acquire dragon parts for Silk in the Dracolich Cave, this is one she’d like.

10 – Trap

The stairs will flatten out, sending your party into a trap.

11 – Wyverns

You’ll face six wyverns here.

12 – Dracandros

You’ll find Dracandros here, dragging away his belongings. “You have dogged my steps for too long. Now you shall be destroyed.” Along with Dracandros, you’ll have to face four dark elf fighters and six efreet. Dracandros is a dangerous spellcaster. He starts out immune to ranged attacks, and he’ll probably cast “fire shield” before you can get a melee fighter close to him.

That means the best way to deal with the battle is to hide from Dracandros. Move your party so that it is protected by a wall, and then kill off the dark elf fighters and efreet first. Once it’s down to just your party and Dracandros, send your healthiest fighters after him. The “fire shield” means your characters will damage themselves twice as much as they’ll damage him, but Dracandros only has 32 hit points, and so you should be able to afford the tradeoff.

Once all of your enemies are dead, you’ll earn about 90,000 total experience, and you’ll find a quarter staff +2, a ring of protection +3, bracers of AC 2, a wand of fireballs, a wand of ice storm, a ring of wizardry, a scarlet and blue ioun stone (+1 intelligence), a robe of powerlessness (cursed), and three magic user scrolls.

Note: If Dracandros hits one of your characters with a “feeblemind” spell, the only way to fix it is with the “heal” spell. That means you’ll have to go to a temple and shell out 5000 gold pieces (the closest temple is in Essembra). If one of your clerics gets hit by the “feeblemind” spell, then you’ll have to fix the problem as normal, but then you might need to save and load your game so that your cleric gets his or her wisdom bonus back.

Your next stop should be Yulash.