DavesGaming

Sarah

We set out for Trademeet the next day and got there by early afternoon.

So the town had two major, and unrelated problems. We met with a druid, in the town’s small jail, who claimed to have been sent by his order to investigate Shadow Druids in the area. We’ve dealt with them before. He knew where their groove was, so we set out.

From there we found an old ruin…

We kept her head to return to sender.

The climax wasn’t much of a climax. We met a shadow druid named Faldorn who had been directing attacks against the Trademeet area. We ended the threat, then returned to Trademeet.
They were pleased! A town in celebration is a wonderful and fun thing to behold. And we were the heroes of the day.

We discovered there had been an incident, a merchant passing through was unhappy with a bandit attack he’d suffered. There were losses, damage. I talked with Chuck and Nalia, wanting to figure out what was normal, fair, expected. And would protect this land and people.
We came up with a plan that involved paying the merchant, then hiring and training our own local guard.
We stuck around a couple days and kicked off training some new troops, our first recruits! This part of the job is well within my comfort zone!

Jaheira, Minsc and I all got involved. I wanted to be sure we covered discipline, conditioning and basic technique.
But this was going to take a lot more time than we had, we needed to get back to Athkatla and take care of some business.
After much discussion, and some reservations on my part, we decided Nalia would stay here to administrate, and Minsc would would help with the training. Even better, he would be a force for leading patrols and dealing with more serious trouble. I talked to the veteran guardsmen about not letting Minsc off on his own or really “leading” anything.

The next day we returned to the City. We went to see Nem and learned about an Arcane ritual of sorts she thought would release Skie’s soul from the broken dagger. We did it, at some physical cost to Chuck. There was more involved I don’t wish to document, but we were assured Skie’s soul was now be free to return to her body.
We also learned more about slaver operations in the City, and Aerie is particularly interested in rooting them out. She spent much of her time prior to meeting us as a slave. And we have heard her sad tale of loosing her wings, she is actually an Avarial, a winged elf. But she was mutilated by her captors and lost her wings.
So hunting slavers is a priority for her. We tracked down a certain “Lord Praxis” who was a leader of slavers in Athkatla.

We have battled vampires a few times in the streets of the City. When we next met with Gaelan Bayle he sent us to meet with Aran Linvail, head of the Shadow Thieves. That’s the thieves guild of Athkatla.
He assured us he could help us get to Imoen, but put us to work first on identifying this new force of evil in town. To be clear, I know Aran’s reputation, he is not a “nice” man. Perhaps it was due to his own desperation? But he played straight with us. He was under attack by the vampires. And we will battle vampires, just point the way.

No surprise, this led to the Graveyard. Athkatla has a large one on the edge of town. We spent a day talking to people, mourners and exploring.

Of course we dug them out! This led to a murderous kidnapping plot and most of another day lost. But we did good and that is obviously important.

We also met a local Paladin. I’ve met such types in passing and its funny. My Dad taught me to never trust them. But going back to my time as a Guardsman I’ve always found them to be dependable and solid citizens.

Soon enough our exploring took us underground.

While taking a break back in the city, we were a little surprised to see a familiar face coming towards us.

It is funny to be so happy to see someone you barely know. But I think we all felt an important corner had been turned. Skie was clearly not entirely well yet, I can only guess her dad considers her AWOL again. We had to excuse ourselves to go kill some vampires, but left her with clear instructions on how to find De-Arnise Castle.

*****

Anyone notice, a milestone of sorts! I have successfully rendered Chuck and Sarah facing forward, together in OpenArt! Gee, what a big day. Maybe someday it will *really* happen…