DavesGaming

We got back to Athkatla the next day with our sad cargo. The Knights were somber in the situation, but understood what had happened.
We had other business to take care of in the city, while we were near the Government offices Keldorn mentioned he had a home nearby. We went with him to meet his family. That may have been a mistake! His wife was not happy with him, he’s apparently been away for two months. Longer than we can accept any blame for! I’ll let Keldorn keep his private life private, but the end result was he needed several days of family time. Of course we can do this.

We still have a list of chores to get to, but right outside of Keldorn’s home we’d met a young man, not quite in his teens, who was looking for help for his hometown, Imnesville in the Umar Hills. So we decided to do that while giving Keldorn some time.
There have been deaths and disappearances in town. Locals have several, wildly conflicting theories on the nature of their trouble. It could be a group of ogres sighted outside of town, there were reports of heavy wolf pack activity; and an ancient myth of sorts, the witch Umar terrorized the area some 500 years ago.
I’m thinking we can cautiously dismiss the witch theory (yes, I’m aware we *could* be dealing with a Lich), but the obvious thing was to seek out the ogres. The ogres were quite friendly, they were deserters from an army far to the south and just wanted to live in peace. They even offered their protection for the village if they would be allowed to do business and trade in town. But with the caution, the leader Madulf reports he’s lost a couple ogres to whatever is in the area. We took this word to the village leader, he was pleased that the ogres had proven friendly. But we still had work to do.
We found signs of a fight at the local Ranger’s cabin, and an indication wolves were somehow behind this. We found yet another Ranger in the area, a man named Valygar was hiding from the Cowled Wizards in Athkatla. He concurred wolves had been vicious recently in the area. But Valygar worried he was in imminent danger, a large planar travel device had landed in the Athkatla Slums a few weeks back and he was sure he had a family connection to it. Worse, the Cowled Wizards were equally certain and had decided only Valygar could enter the magical machine. He had come to believe he had to return to the City to deal with it, and to avoid the Cowled Wizards while doing so.
We joined with him went back to the City at once.

The Planar Travel device is a thing we couldn’t help but see earlier, but this was the first time we had made time to investigate.

The interior was vastly larger than the exterior. Right off the entrance was a giant map room, with a perfect replica of Athkatla including the Sphere parked right exactly where it is. It also contained several unique environs. In one room we were fighting Sahaugin again. In another room we met a group of knights, calling themselves “Knights of Solamnia”, a group we’re not familiar with but seem to be a paladin order.
We stepped into another room that was like stepping into a windswept, sunblasted desert… at night. And were promptly ambushed by halflings? Or something like halflings. They were savage, feral and had spellcasters with them. This proved to be a fairly dangerous fight, we did not adequately prepare for this. By the end, Imoen and I were the only team members not Held or Confused! Fortunately we both know “Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting” which brought the proceedings to an end. That was the most intense fight we’ve faced since the Underdark. From feral halflings.

We were more careful after this, and faced more halflings, golems, a beholder and others.
Much of what we found was magic lab space, magic engines and other apparatus beyond our immediate understanding. We finally wound up in what would seem to be the control room, with Lavok still present. After a brief fight we determined he’d been possessed by something that wanted to travel the planes, centuries ago. During our explorations the Sphere had traveled to the Abyss. Oh joy. This turned out to be fortunate for us, the device needed a Demon heart fed into its power source to return home. Well, since we have nothing else to do while in the Abyss…

This done, Lavok was able to make one last jump to get us back home. But obviously the old mage was aging and dying rapidly now. We fulfilled his last wish to see the sun of his home world, and found ourselves in possession of an inert planar travel device. Such a thing could hardly be expected to escape the notice of the Cowled Wizards who sent an envoy of sorts to contact us. I’m truly not eager to have dealings with this group. The individual they sent, Teos by name, was particularly odious and he obviously disliked us all before even meeting us.

I really don’t want to be associated with these guys beyond what is absolutely needed. For practical reasons, I’ve told Imoen she’s in charge of this facility. I completely trust her experience with the Cowled Wizards to guide our contact with them. But I don’t think any of us will do more than visit this place as needed.

We said our goodbye’s to Valygar who was heading back to the Umar Hills. I asked him to look after the village until we could return and look into those wolf attacks.

*****

A little bit of quest schizophrenia going on here as we skip between missions, leaving some incomplete. From here, BG2 becomes a matter of cleaning up loose ends for a while. Really a fair amount left to do, maybe 2/3 through the core game? But there will be a couple other detours before the end game.

This is the point where the party is getting seriously powerful. Psyche will have 9th level spells very soon, and Imoen not too far behind. Aerie already has 7th cleric spells.
I have effectively destroyed the Cowled Wizards before, they are tough but not infinite. I figure Psyche is a little more restrained than some characters I’ve played, but she won’t be taking any nonsense from them either. It is unfortunate, as a game mechanism, the Cowled Wizards do have the ability to lock you out of the Planar Sphere. But, I figure Psyche is cooperative enough by nature to do the things they want anyway. The main thing they seem to want is help training some new mages. I think Psyche and Imoen like the idea of influencing these young minds. And then we wage a brief war against some anti-magic zealots, Psyche would do that for free.