DavesGaming

Chuck

We set off for the old Ulcaster Mage School the next day. I was very excited to see it. I’ve read a fair amount about it, for many years it was the premier school of the Arcane in the area. It will be a ruin now, but still a significant site to me. A lot more dry dusty country to get there, but the plateau where the school is located is lush. But ruined and inhabited now mostly by undead.

We spoke to a spirit, presumably Ulcaster himself, who was still grieving the loss of the school. We found stairs heading to the cellars. Uncertain of what we’d find, we cautiously entered.
We encountered spiders and a lot of wolves.

This fight was a first for us, our warriors could not hit him with any reliability. But Imoen and I could effect him with magic. So this was all on us. Fortunately this wasn’t difficult, but it was educational that we all bring different things to this team.
Most of the cellar was rot and ruin. We did find a small number of intact books that we returned to the Ghost on the surface. This seemed to give him some sort of peace.

We continued exploring to the north and came across a perverse sort of sculpture garden. Jaheira immediately warned of Basilisks in the area. Imoen knew the spell “Protection from Petrification” that she cast on Sarah, she then did a run through the area.

There was also a wacko Gnome wizard here who seemed to be keeping the basilisks as pets and took some pride in “his” sculptures. Once the area was clear we inspected the sculptures and found only one, a young woman, we were able to return to a living person.

To the northeast of here we saw a an ancient ruined temple on top of a small hill, so we set out to explore that area. There were numerous oversized spiders in the area and a few Ettercaps, those vaguely humanoid spider-men. When we went up the hillside towards the temple we discovered a coven of Red Wizards were performing some sort of unholy rite.

There wasn’t much left to clear out. I won’t loose sleep over killing Red Wizards, but it rattled me how destructive I can be at times.

I love this whole team. Imoen is my sister, and always good for a laugh. Jaheira is like a parent, I respect her strength and worldly wisdom. Minsc and Alora are fun and funny. But there’s a gentle strength to Sarah I am strongly drawn to. And she seems attuned to my feelings, that are still sort of topsy turvy on this epic adventure.

We continued north and started battling more groups of bandits. They were generally not too dangerous, maybe more prepared for groups of lightly protected merchants? We encountered three different groups with about as many as we had.
We also came across a stone circle, and were approached by a druid. He seemed extremely agitated, Jaheira tried to talk some sense to him. But he attacked us with a sickly glowing spear.

Another druid stepped forward and helped us with the fight. After, he said his friend had been erratic lately. We examined his spear and I detected a Curse, it caused the berserk attacking.

As we continued exploring, we encountered more bandits, including some groups that were better equipped and far more dangerous.

Finally, we came to the Bandit Camp. This all led to a really large scale battle.

Before long we had dozens of bandits converging on us. The bulk of them we not very skilled, but one large armored guy with a war hammer seemed to be running their defense.

It was just about cleaning up from here. We searched the huts and cave full of Gnolls that seemed to part of the camp. The largest tent was clearly the headquarters. We fought several better quality troops within, then it was truly over.
There was a single prisoner named Ender Sai. He had been spying on this crew when he was captured. He reports that the head man here, a warrior named Tazok, is not in camp. He had been directing an operation in the Nashkel mines to destroy the area’s iron supply. We told Ender we had shut that down, and the mine was again being run by the locals.
That pleased him. But this thing continues getting bigger. They have their own mine deep in the Cloakwood Forest, the area northwest of the Friendly Arms Inn. I guess we all know where we’re heading next.

*****

Most of this part of the game is pretty easy. Especially, with both Chuck and Imoen being 5th level mages we can start unloading a lot of Fireballs. Sarah will probably hit 7th level fighter in the Cloakwood, which is another milestone for the team.