Kluso's House

Ground Level

Second Story

Perception: 17
Lock Difficulty: 17
Trap Deadliness: 8
Treasure Value: 3
Creatures: Guards, Nobleman

Assassin Promotion

The Assassin will want to enter through the window (E2) in the second story of the house. Make your way past the sleeping guards, good help is so hard to find these days, and head for the library downstairs.

You need to deal with the four diligent guards downstairs before you can obtain that Elite Dagger (1) hanging on the wall over the fireplace. Be sure to loot the Black Chest before snatching the dagger. Once you nab the dagger guards pop up out of no where and you have a choice, fight or run. My advice, beat a hasty retreat out the front door (E1).

Strategy

And for those of you feeling real frisky, whether you aspire to be an Assassin or not, we have a great strategy to get your hands on some very nice goodies the Count has squirreled away in that Black Chest here. And a way to kill the Count himself without him ever laying a finger on you.

We actually managed to kill the Count at level 9. No I have not gotten whapped on the head so hard I am having delusions. It can be done. You will however, need to stand up to the four guards on the lower level. To accomplish this without getting slaughtered enter through the upstairs window, walk past the sleeping guards, and head for the stairwell leading to the ground floor. Stand on this side of the banister at point A.

Now, these guards actually patrol the area and eventually at least two of them come up to the landing midway between the floors. You can either duck and fire ranged attacks under the bannister or, my personal favorite, hop on the bannister and shoot down at them. Keep at it until they drop. A poison wand proves useful since they will continue to take a little damage when not in your line of sight.

For some reason shooting them does not trigger them and they keep on about their business as if you aren't even there. This can take a great deal of time to accomplish so if you get impatient you can also pop in over the Count's head and fire at the guards as they entered his study to speed up their demise. Be careful not to hit the Count at this point. He's not quite as stupid as the hired help.

At this point be sure you use the F key and stick Forad and any other strong NPCs you may have out in the front row, use them as a shield. Once the two guards are dead, creep downstairs and try to trigger only one of the remaining two. This can pretty difficult to do but not to worry read on. Race back up the stairs and press your back to the wall at point B. This way only one guard can engage you at a time as you will be wedged between the wall and a bookcase.

Once the guards from the ground level are all dead saunter on in to the Library and help yourself to the contents of the Black Chest if you are able to open it. It took us a few tries but eventually we managed to get it open without going to the great beyond.

Now for the Count! Head back upstairs and jump on the bannister at point C. Just start nailing him with ranged attacks and in about an hour or two he bites the big one. He's smart, but he can't climb walls. Use a Feather Fall spell to hop down and grab the loot. Most of the time he has some really juicy goodies, other times I wish he were still alive so I could kill him for being so cheap.

Caution Bug:

There is a bug thing going here. Two of the guard's bodies don't disappear and if you take the loot from them you will not get out of the house. It just will not let you exit. After killing the guards only take sacks of loot from those bodies that dissipate completely.

Strategy Variation

submitted by TEF

Enter from 2nd floor and head straight for the balcony (do not wake up guards yet). Jump off balcony onto bookcase. From this position, you can get close enough to melee attack guards and they just wait on the balcony for you to slaughter them. You can lure everyone up here with only a mild risk of getting tagged once or twice.