DavesGaming

This will be a shorter update today. I thought it covered some important ground, but I did not get to do much.

*****

We traveled back to the city, we have plenty of money and its time to continue our search for Imoen. We are intercepted by a woman who wants us to reconsider our dealings with the Shadow Thieves, for a meeting with her “mistress” in the graveyard, at night. We’ve already battled a few vampires in the city, one even during our escape from Irenicus’ lab. I can guess who this new suiter represents. The only reason I can think of to meet with a vampire is to drive a stake through them. So we continue over to Gaelan Bayle’s place. As expected, he tells us how to contact the head of the Shadow thieves, and we are expected. So far, so good.

We stop at the Copper Coronet for the night, which leads to two events. First, Skie pays us a visit! That was unexpected. Funny how someone you know only casually can become the most wonderful sight you’ve ever seen. Words can’t describe how happy I was, and what a huge relief it was to see her. It felt like there was hope in all the challenges we’ve faced.

Then, on our way out in the morning we were intercepted by a messenger with news for Nalia. Her father’s funeral was being held in the graveyard, now. That obviously seemed like a priority so that’s where we went. It was an odd thing, we really didn’t fit in. Nalia is normally the scruffiest looking of the bunch of us, yet the rest of us were the ones being insulted as “low class”. The nobility of Amn is a very odd crew. Although the dwarf Hurgan Stoneblade was present, and apparently an old friend of the family. He was the one who first sent us to Durlag’s Tower looking for the Soultaker Dagger. Funny.
Some threats were made, I think Nalia will still face some challenges related to her land ownership. And of course, we’re now right in the middle of it.

From there we went back to Waukeen’s Promenade, where we’d planned on meeting Skie for some shopping. I can just see the excitement all over Diomedes’ face!

On meeting up with Skie I cautiously asked how her warrior training had gone, and if she’d want to join with us in rescuing Imoen?
I knew Skie had received some martial training when she joined the Flaming Fist, and she fought with us in the War against the Crusade. As she talks I gather she’s had reasonable bow and sword training, and she would like to come along! Oh boy. I think I just recruited someone with pretty marginal skills, certainly below the rest of the team. That will require some attention. Hopefully, we can convince her hold back with me, Aerie and Nalia and leave the melee to Diomedes and Jaheira.

After supper we went to the dock district to meet up with Aran Linvail and the Shadow Thieves. He explained a little about the guild war he’s tied up in. I’d bet money this is about the vampires. And he offers us a magic amulet “to keep”, I Identify it has having Negative Plane Protection among its powers. This will be *very* useful against vampires, I strongly suspect Aran knows more about our new foes than he’s letting on.
He assures us he *will* be able to get us to Imoen, but first could we go check up on a particular dock guard? Yeah, it was a fight with a vampire. Aran is right to be worried about this. And regardless of what I might normally think of thieves, we will happily battle vampires. Even for free.

*****

Skie is not a character I ever used in the original Baldur’s Gate, or even the EE when it came out. But her story is so tragic in Siege of Dragonspear. The mod “Skie: Cost of a Girl’s Soul” provides a pretty satisfying way to make things right in BG2.
But a problem remains. Originally Skie was a thief. I really, really don’t want a fully dedicated thief on my team. Now again, I’ve never run with her in BG1 at all. But it occurs to me, I have no knowledge of her alleged thieving career. I’ll say, Dave’s head canon, that it was never anything. Maybe an extreme teen rebellion phase, but she was never really a thief. Never anything but a bored and spoiled noble’s daughter. So when she “secretly” joined the Flaming Fist that became her first ever class training. As a single class fighter. So that’s how I rebuild her. A single class fighter, short bow and short sword specialist. And since she already has seen some action, she has 3000 experience. Yes, my 11th level (or so) party has just recruited a 2nd level fighter. At least as an archer she should face few direct threats. And she’ll level up very quickly.

I also wanted to mention a minor thing on my AI design prompts that I’ve learned. Sharp eyed readers may recall I figured this out about halfway through my BG1 postings. But psyche’s signature “purple wizard robes with gold trim” needed a more casual aspect. So if she’s dressed down to be casual, or look scruffy (like after a shipwreck) I show her in a “purple tunic”. Amazing but true! You can plainly see the difference in the two renders of her here. The first is meant to be relaxing for the night, in gameplay Skie actually wakes her up. While the second is actually geared up for a day in the city. I love the difference in looks.