DavesGaming

Chuck

After a rest we tracked down Yoshimo, we’d missed having a rogue on the team. Back in the crypts we soon found ourselves in the area over-run by vampires.

We must have slain a dozen or so, and staked everyone we could find a coffin for. We finally encountered the leader of this lovely coven. She introduced herself as “Bhodi”, sister of Irenicus. That’s interesting. No doubt she likes playing games. But she had a pretty delusional idea of what human intelligence is, she tried to shock us with the news the thieves were not completely honest partners. Days later this was still making me chuckle. I had to tell Aran! He was amused too. So Bhodi is a vampire who likes to play games AND is a complete moron. I wonder if Irenicus will see the humor in this?

Anyway, Aran came through for us and had made arrangements to get us to “Spellhold”. A holding facility for the “magically deviant”. I don’t like the sound of this.

We sailed to the island of Brynlaw.

I suggested this might be a good thing, if the town is lawless we can cause trouble without getting in trouble back in Amn. Sarah smiled at that.
It was lawless. And our ship captain turned us over to a vampire ambush as soon as we disembarked. It was an amateurish attack. We had the name of a contact, a man named Sanik knew how to get into Spellhold. No sooner did we meet him than an assassin gated in and attacked. I don’t think he expected to Sanik to have six friends! We learned he had married one of the local madam’s girls, and she had apparently taken offense. Sanik was shaken so we sat him down with a drink and set to find “Lady Galvena”. This was fairly large brothel, we were forced to slay most of the guards.

Sarah put an end to that quickly. We got Claire back to Sanik, and learned there was a single Cowled Wizard in town, who had access to Spellhold, which the locals called “The Asylum”.

Things seemed to be going well, but when we got to the asylum it seemed we were expected. The director gave us a tour of the facility. It seemed to warm and I was having a hard time paying attention. I saw Imoen! But I was near falling over. Crud, we’d all been poisoned.
By Yoshimo. He had been in league with Irenicus all along. When I awoke I was subjected to some sort of magical procedure. And I had an odd vision where Imoen and I battled Bhaal? Very strange thing. Irenicus boasted he’ would steal my soul, just as he had taken my sister Imoen’s soul. He said we both had special souls as Bhaalspawn. Imoen? It wasn’t really so shocking to learn she really was my sister.
But I’m not sure what Irenicus really did to us? I felt a little weak after, but I knew who I was, I loved Imoen and Sarah (um, in different ways!), missed Gorion. Was happy with my friends. I’m not sure how I was supposed to feel?
Anyway, when he was done with us we were all dumped in a large stone chamber, and taunted by Bhodi. She said she coming for us!

Everyone else seemed completely fine. So we set out cautiously exploring our setting. We soon determined we were in a testing level of the asylum.

Other rooms had similar sorts of things. There was also a surprising number of combat threats (trolls, golems, undead, etc). Eventually Bhodi showed up to finish us off. I felt a wrath come over me. My friends had all backed well away from me, Imoen said I’d turned into the “Slayer”. Some sort of avatar related to my odd bloodline. I guess it gave Bhodi a good scare and she ran off. Dang, I wish I’d seen that.
Finally, the spectral administrators of the asylum (how long had they all been dead? They themselves suggested it was a rare thing for anyone to actually pass all their tests) But I did, we all did. So I (we?) was declared sane and released.
We gathered a few of the other functional inmates, and stormed Irenicus’ lab. He had some interesting magical tricks up his sleeve! But finally he ran off, suggesting he had better things to do with his time. We were free for now. But we would need to find a way to follow Irenicus. We found our faithless ship captain and he offered to take us off the island. He seemed to have some idea where Irenicus was heading, he mentioned Underdark. Swell.