DavesGaming

Ila

We stepped off the stairs into a cavern, it looked like a natural setting but something was not quite right. Brother Poquelin was there, surrounded by a number of animals. Charity whispered that this was thick with illusion. We challenged what kind of man could be responsible for the evils we’d seen. There was nothing kindly in Poquelin’s manner or actions.

This quickly turned to violence, and indeed, all the little critters turned into dangerous beasts… Minotaurs, undead even. Poquelin fled quickly enough, we found ourselves dragged through a gate or something right after him.
And we were back in Easthaven. But it had been transformed and not for the better. Much of the town had been destroyed.

A nice thing about a Cyclopes attack, they don’t hide very well. We hunted them all down pretty quickly.
All the townsfolk were in a corral on the south edge of town. They were safe now, but their town was in ruins. We found the cleric of Tempos, Everard was the de facto town leader with Hrothgar gone. He told us Brother Poquilin was in the temple, trying to get to the relic Jerrod’s Stone.
Obviously this couldn’t be good. So we were off at once. The stone itself seemed secure, the only way to go seemed to be stairs heading up.

Ruler of a ruined town where no one will follow you? No surprise, this led to combat. An interesting battle, Pomab created multiple illusions of himself. And he was casting Lightning bolts every which direction. It was like a very high level variant of Mirror Image, because these images could take a few hits. But after several long minutes we started to make real headway, and soon the delusional shopkeeper was no more.
From here we found a teleporter, down to the vault where Jerrod’s Stone was kept. Poquelin was here. And then he changed.

This was an epic fight. The floor of the room was trapped too, so every step could lead to a spike or a spell going off on us. We concentrated on the lesser opponents and got them down quickly. But Poquelin, or Belhifet as we learned he was actually called, was a tough foe. With his flunkies gone we were able to pile more hurt directly on him. And soon enough the demon was no more.

Epilogue

The town was still ruined. We set to helping the locals rebuild as soon as everyone had been cared for. Construction is not quite our forte! But we could help. And we sent out notice to the other nearby towns that workers and supplies were needed. And we would pay! That did bring in a few helpers. And we each did what we were best for.

We also came up with a plan. After a couple months we had most of the town back in order. We all wanted to go home. Charity had acquired some understanding of how planar magic worked, but she needed to know *where* we were going. We traveled to Kuldahar to chat with Orrick the Grey. He wasn’t much help, his work was too theoretical to do us much good.
Aias had an idea who could help, the ancient (we will refrain from saying “undead”) elven mage Larrel. He had been appreciative of our help, and had knowledge of many ages. Charity thought we should check the library at Malevon’s lab on the way. This thought pleased me, I wanted to check back in there. We’d left a number of abused and neglected slaves behind in our chase after Poquelin. It would be good to see if any still needed our help.

Lower Dorn’s Deep was strangely quiet when we got there. The Gnome former slaves were all gone. But I saw one familiar figure sitting on the stone steps at the entrance.

I asked about the Gnomes, she said they were Deep Gnomes and had all returned to the depths that made them happy. “Why are you still here?”
“I have no where to go. I have no clan now, my brother is dead. I’m not a powerful priestess or warrior who can earn a place by force. And the Drow don’t do charity.”
“Ginafae we look after our friends. You are welcome with us. We can protect you, and we’ll figure out a job for you.”
I explained though, that we weren’t from here and we were trying to get home. The world we were going to didn’t have Drow. But the good news was, no one would hold her appearance against her. Shoot, we could say she was Jinella’s sister!”

So the seven of us continued on to The Severed Hand. Larrel was happy to help us. It did still require some research that was well beyond my feeble mind, but Charity and Larrel together figured out how to gate us home with only a week of work.

Home never looked so good!

We’d been gone nearly six months, and the War had nearly resolved itself. The largest order of Knights in the Empire had broken into squabbling over their involvement. The largest faction refused to serve their mad Emperor and allied with the Queen instead. That led to a series of events that completely undid the Emperor’s War effort.

Aias and I wanted to keep this team together as best we could and we offered jobs to everyone. Pikwell immediately accepted and he ran a chapel to Tymora right in the shadow of the Temple to Tyr.
Jinella by this point was easily a better warrior than any others in our employ, so she went to work with our own guard forces. In time she commanded it; she married, had kids and has been with us ever since.
Jill, well, Aias made her an archer Sergeant at our castle. She could never rise to high command, the girl didn’t have it in her. But she was a great archer and could help with training. She married a member of the household staff, and basically lived with us.
Charity stayed in the Queen’s service and was often sent out on foreign service work. She visits often and remains a dear friend.
Ginafae also stayed with us. Her story was a little harder. Growing up a Drow with a history of abusive relationships it was hard for her to know peace in life. And she wasn’t joking about having no professional skills. She’d always been used as a bargaining chip and a courtesan. We did not need such skills! But she did prove capable of running a household. Except for many years she needed correction about how she treated other staff. Eventually she got the hang of it, she never had a bad heart she was just used to violence as a part of life. Her choices in partners and romantic entanglements remained poor for over a decade. Being a longer lived race than any of us, she will be faced with some hard life choices in time. But now, many years later, she is settling into her life here. I believe she will continue in her role for our kids, and grandkids one day. And I believe her next relationship will be healthier than her last few.

Aias and I are good. He had regained all the skills lost before we went to Icewind Dale. But he felt the years and swore no more great adventures for him. I’m happy to stay home with him and the kids. Oh and we had another after getting home! There’s always work and chores to be done with four kids, a Barony and a Temple to run; but we’re happy here and now.

*****

This was a fun run, and the AI art was consistently challenging and exciting.

I didn’t find SCS made a huge difference on gameplay, although admittedly I kept it on a low setting. Only two fights, the Luskan mage’s attack in Lonelywood and the Jackalweres with summoners (the second to last fight) in Trial of the Luremaster, struck me as difficult. A number of others were a *little* harder. Next play I’ll try it another step up.

I will miss this group. A fun assortment of characters from my own PnP game. I very much enjoyed bringing them to life this way.