The meeting area can be quite difficult without abusing the game. The last section on this page will give tips.

Many thanks, Malignant Manor! I made printouts of the pages from that German site's walkthrough (thankfully in English -- I could perhaps have guessed at the words based on the Norwegian I learned in university, but it would have been a slow process!) for the sections of Curse I haven't yet completed, especially the Mulmaster Beholder Corps battle my OP was about. My character party isn't quite as advanced as the one in the walkthrough (which got through this battle without the Dust of Disappearance), because they've been transferred from Pool of Radiance but haven't also done Hillsfar -- but they do have the Dust of Disappearance, so there may be hope for them with this battle yet.
(BTW, I tried playing Hillsfar years ago on the C64 (with my Pool of Radiance characters then), but didn't much like it (I just didn't have the reflexes for that blankety-blank arcade sequence you had to go through every time a character was travelling to or from Hillsfar -- couldn't they at least have rented the barn at an inn in town?).)

The German site's walkthrough was very helpful, but -- I went through all that preparation, restarted the battle a couple of times until I got my tactics down right, and then? I got an error message right after finding out how many XP the party had earned! 😢 I am too pooped out from banging my head against the wall over this battle to worry about debugging that (especially since it's an optional battle), so I'm just going to reload from just before my party entered the "convention area" and skip that battle altogether. (At least I can save the Dust of Disappearance for the final battle against Tyranthraxus, now!) 😉 Thanks anyway, everyone!

Not being able to complete the Mulmaster Beholder Corps battle due to the victory-screen bug turned out to be a blessing in disguise, since I then had the Dust of Disappearance available to use in the final battle against Tyranthraxus. I just cast every protective spell I had prior to entering the last room (Haste and the Dust of Disappearance were the most important), had my 2 mages cast Fireballs and Ice Storms (either from their memorized spells or from wands) to damage the high priests (and as many margoyles as possible) each round, and rushed the fighters and cleric up to surround Tyranthraxus and hack away at him. (With the Dust of Disappearance in effect, the other monsters didn't get attacks of opportunity at my PCs while they rushed Mr. T, which made rushing much easier; also, that way, the high priests had no one to target for their Hold Person or Slay Living spells, and Mr. T had no one to throw Lightning Bolts at.)
I'm now ready to install & play "Secret of the Silver Blades." However, I'll have to change the toner cartridge in my laser printer before printing out the rule book and Adventurer's Journal (useful info, and way better for answering the copy protection questions than the (incomplete) list of "copy protection answers" in the Wizardworks compilation's manuall).

Well, I finally got back to Curse of the Azure Bonds (on a different computer, this one with Windows 7), and I'm retrying the Tower of Oxam. I hope to attempt the Mulmaster Beholder Corps battle again soon -- hopefully the victory-screen crash I experienced the last time was due to the old computer being about to poop out on me, rather than an error in the software (I've been using the Gamefest Forgotten Realms Archives CD-ROM for all the Gold Box games except the Dragonlance series, and I still have my old Wizardworks CD-ROM for that).
I knew about the ioun stones fouling up character stats in the PC version of COTAB; however, I found out the hard way that the Girdle of the Dwarves (found in the Tilverton sewers, I think) also messes up the wearing PC's STR score. Anyone who's just starting the MS-DOS version of COTAB, just sell the ioun stones and the Girdle of the Dwarves (and don't have anyone equip that Girdle until it's been IDed & sold.
If anyone has a way to legally play another platform's version of COTAB, I'd be interested to hear if the Ioun Stones and the Girdle of the Dwarves work properly for you. 😅

One more request for anyone with (legal, of course) access to other platform's versions of COTAB: I'd love to hear the intro music for Curse of the Azure Bonds! (YouTube video, anyone!) 😉 COTAB (MS-DOS version) w/Tandy sound has better sound effects than the PC speaker sound, but no music, while the PC speaker sound does have intro music of a sort (according to a recently posted YouTube video) -- but it's a PC-speaker version repeat of the POR intro music (also repeated as the intro music for the original AOL version of Neverwinter Nights, per another YouTube video). Back in the day, I originally played COTAB on our old C64 (long since sold off), and I'm sure it had pretty decent intro music, but it's been such a long time that I can't remember what the C64 COTAB intro music was like.
Getting back to ioun stones/Girdle of the Dwarves & messed-up character stats, there is hope for those of us who have messed-up PCs. If your character gets transferred into Secret of the Silver Blades, his/her stats will be reset to "normal" levels at that point. 😉

I did it! I beat the Mulmaster Beholder Corps! 😁 I did use the Dust of Disappearance up to get through it, and it seemed to take about a zillion combat rounds (partly because I really wanted to avoid putting my characters in melee range of all those Beholders/Dark Elf Lords/Rakshasas/etc. as long as possible), but I finally completed it. And better yet, this time I didn't get a game-crashing error message once I'd won (so it must have been a hardware issue last time)! What a relief to get that over with! 😅 My cleric and my 2 mages had already maxed out their levels prior to entering this battle; however, the 79,000+ XP for the battle itself and the additional 9,000+ XP for the adjacent treasure room afterwards were enough to allow my fighter-types (a paladin, a ranger, and a dwarf fighter/thief) to each level up. Now that I've finished leveling up and shopping, it's time to bite the sling bullet and head to Myth Drannor & "Mr. T" at last. 😉

Now I've finished COTAB (again), this time completing the final battle against Tyranthraxus without help from the Dust of Disappearance. A few observations on that battle, for anyone else who may be working on Curse of the Azure Bonds:
1) If you've decided against tackling the Mulmaster Beholder Corps in the Tower of Oxam outside Dagger Falls, definitely save the Dust of Disappearance for this battle. As long as your PCs aren't in melee range, they can't be attacked at all, and they can't be targeted by spells (such as the High Priests' "Hold Person" or "Slay Living"), even when they are in melee range.
2) If you're attempting this battle without the Dust of Disappearance, cast every protective spell you've got just before entering the battle. Bless, Prayer, and any Scrolls of Protection from Paralyzation will help against enemy Hold Person spells. Invisibility 10' Radius (and the Ring of Invisibility) will help the PCs spread out, pref. out of melee range & away from walls. Haste is also great, as is Fire Shield.

3. Enlarge may or may not be effective. Due to some bug, probably, Enlarge didn't seem to do anything for my PCs. However, I was able to swap the Girdle of Storm Giant Strength among the characters, and the increased STR effect seemed to persist after the Girdle was unequipped. (I believe the STR scores and any other altered stats revert to "normal" levels once the PCs transfer into Secret of the Silver Blades, but I'll have to double-check on that.)

I was prepared to follow the data card's instructions for transferring PCs from COTAB into SOTSB; however, since I installed SOTSB from the Gamefest CD-ROM, not only was I able to install the new game while outside DOSBox, I was also able to use a handy little Character Transfer Utility while outside DOSBox. (Just save COTAB after completing that final battle, and then remove the PCs from the party; they'll then be ready to transfer into SOTSB, no matter which transfer method you're using.)

Wow you really enjoy monologues don't you? This could be proof that your female username is no fake. Good to see you're able to... entertain... yourself, if you know what i mean. An ability i look for in a woman *wiggles eyebrows*. (;

Anyway, this thread should be the in Milliways forum section, not here.

I find it very nice to read. I don't like RPGs enough to play at such a level

Sorry about the rambling; just wanted to help as I'd been helped. 😊 I'll wait to post further questions/comments about SOTSB until I either get stuck or finish -- unless I spot a question someone else has that I think I can help with. OK?

I'm currently doing a "Let's Play" of COTAB on YouTube, and I just ran into the victory-screen bug for the Mulmaster Beholder Corps battle again -- and this time it was on the same computer where I had completed this battle before without the bug showing up! 😢 Perhaps the bug isn't hardware-related, then? Maybe it's because this is such an extremely long and difficult battle, even under the best of circumstances, that the game just gets too "tired" to continue running?

I will admit that I was attempting to avoid melee combat with the monsters in this battle as long as the arrows held out, and that may have made the battle last longer. Perhaps on my next attempt at this battle I should modify my party's tactics by doing at least some melee combat early on (but maybe only where I can have characters in contact with just one opponent at a time, to minimize damage to the party). Any other suggestions? 😅

Try loadfix with different values, can by times help with random-like bugs.

Is the bug easily reproducable or does it take a good while of playing even from a save state?