Well I finally got to meet Zuggtmoy. I'd previously destroyed the Orb of Golden Death (without getting the elemental gems). I had a rather strange experience. 1st time I met her, I sensibly declined her offer of the platinum pillar. The old crone disappeared, I looted the gems from the throne, and I got the ending slides. I then thought I'd reload and see about fighting her in her weakened state. I did this and accepted her offer of the pillar, because there didn't seem to be any other way to inititiate a combat. Is this right? If you're destroyed the Orb, is the only way to get into combat to actually do the boneheaded thing of accepting the platinum pillar? I duely fought her, had a terrible time of it (probably because I have Max HPs on, which meant I couldn't kill her summoned fungus quickly). Eventually I had got fairly close to beating her and I had my very first CTD. Ah well. Before I retired for the night, I thought I'd reload and do the non-combat ending to watch the slides again. I reload, talked to the crone, declined the pillar, she vanishes... and then before I can do anything about nicking the throne gems, Zuggtmoy appears and says something like "Ah, you should have taken the gems when you had the chance!" Reloaded again, and exactly the same thing happens - i.e. it now appears that I can't end the game without killing Zuggy, even though I'm doing exactly the same actions as when I previously ended the game without combat. Any ideas what's wrong?
Aha! You mean you're not supposed to be able to take the gems and banish Zuggy if you've destroyed the Orb? That would make a certain amount of sense...
