Die Already!

There are two ways into Tyranthraxus's temple. Previously I've come in through the grate in the ruins, which leads to some back chamber of the temple. There's some loot and some fighting there, but this time I went in straight through the front door so I don't remember what all there is. Tyranthraxus of course starts gloating right away:

One thing I didn't remember from before: the sigils don't let the party rest at all in Tyranthraxus's temple. I figured it might be possible, so I got a bit too happy with the fireballs in the random encounters. And there were a lot of those: in the large hall after the entrance room I was fighting on almost every step. Luckily they were mostly just hack-and-slash with no spell-casters or just one.

Preparing for the final battle, I was lucky to have enough healing potions to get everyone up to full HP. (Well, actually, I had way more than I needed.) I cast every preparatory spell I had, which is getting to be quite a lot already at these levels. Pro tip: remember to save the globes of invulnerability to the end so that the magic-users get the benefits from all the other spells (not too hard to guess why I'm giving this tip...).

My tactic in the battle was to get off fireballs from Daenerys and Janna to damage the high priests and to clean out the margoyles. Then Andreas and Eugene run through the formed gaps straight to Tyranthraxus and start hacking him to pieces. If they get their turn before the fireballs, haste on them gives enough movement so that they can circle around the enemy formation into position. Resist fire on both allows further fireballs to keep the priests damaged. Tyranthraxus dies in a round or two from the hasted, enlarged fighters; especially Andreas with 24 STR and a two-handed sword +2 does a lot of damage to a large-sized enemy. After Tyranthraxus is dispatched, Andreas and Eugene can focus on the remaining high priests; after the fireball bath they've had, one or two hits usually gets them. Daenerys and Janna provide any necessary cover fire, and Ardhiel and Gabrielle focus on hacking the high priests on their side that are out of reach for the fireballs.

The plan didn't go entirely without a hitch. Daenerys got off the initial fireball, which left nice gaps into the margoyle ranks, but I made the mistake of not getting her to proper safety. When Tyranthraxus threw a lightning at her, it then bounced back from the wall behind her. One failed saving throw, one dead magic-user. Also, Janna got hit by the bounce before she could get off her fireball on the first round. Still, the rest of the plan worked as above. Eugene went a bit low on HP since I used him to hunt down the high priests, so he got some margoyle hits when disengaging.

Now in the final sequence there is nothing surprising. Tyranthraxus admits his defeat and dies as he should:

The final bond fades:

And as usual, after the party has on their own defeated the Big Bad, the cavalry arrives and the game ends. I think I'll take a few days off before getting started with Blades.