DavesGaming

In the morning we set out to explore the area and head towards the mine. There was a carnival visiting just east of town so we made that our first stop.

I’m not sure how much threat they actually posed? But certainly an unarmed villager, or a family with kids could be at serious risk. Its dangerous to have such pests close to a gathering of people.
All told we found maybe 20 kobolds in three different groups. We cleared out the ones we could find.
The carnival itself was a fun diversion. Many venders and good food. A large gambling tent for those inclined.

There was much fun nonsense around. Playwrights, poets and artists showing their wares. They were set up for a grand joust too, but we missed it.

From here we traveled south southwest to the mines, still reconoitering the environs.

Minsc was right beside her, Imoen quickly regained her footing and we were all on the beast. Seemed a shame to have to kill such beautiful animal. But I think this has to have been the most dangerous creature we’ve seen yet, certainly the biggest and baddest wolf!

Jaheira recognized the name as being an elven queen with a forest realm to the south. The poor artist was smitten, obsessed and near collapse. Then a bounty hunter showed up to take Prism. We tried to talk patience, at least let the man finish his grand masterpiece! So we came to blows with a thug. For his trouble, we gained a fine long sword for Amyntor.

We finally found ourselves at the entrance to the Nashkell mine.

We meant to look in to both of these things. He happily agreed to letting us in.

They had wild rumors of everything from ghosts, to dragons infesting these caves. One said he’d seen “yipping demons”. Kobolds, that would fit.

We also found several of them had some sort of yellow liquid in glass vials. Was this the contaminent?

The third level down was getting a lot rougher. It looked as though the mines had broken into a sort of natural cave system. There were more kobolds, plus a Ghoul and a couple of large spiders.

I barely got my shield up in time! We defeated the ambush but all of our warriors were injured. We took a few minutes patching our hurts. It might be worth mentioning here I had an odd dream last night, that I could heal more with my touch. Like an extra use of my “Lay on Hands” power that I trained long and hard to learn. Amyntor does not have a similar “bonus”. The imagery of the dream seemed dark somehow. Very strange.
But we exhausted most of our healing before continuing. We still have some potions of healing, so we decided to continue on. Deeper.

We crossed an underground river and came to a sort of furnished area of the cave. And it was not empty.

Apparently he works for someone named “Tazok”, a name we’ve not encountered before.
It soon became clear this would end in blows. I was forced to melee with Mulahey while Dyna and Imoen backed me up with missile fire.

We actually slew the big guy pretty quickly and all of us cleared the caves soon after.

We had learned much interesting. The “iron crisis” and a general increase in local bandit activity are not coincidental. Mulahey was getting his orders from Tazok, a bandit chieftain operating somewhere north of here. And his go-between was a mage named Tranzig who had a room at Feldpost’s Inn, back in Beregost. Obviously this would demand our attention.
But first thing, we returned to Nashkel to let the Mayor know what all we had learned. He did not know what to do about the contaminent we had found. But he suggested Taerom Fuiruim, the blacksmith back in Beregost might have some thoughts. It seems all paths lead to Beregost.

On our way up towards the Nashkel Inn a man dressed in dark clothes moved towards us. He boasted he was the bounty hunter who would collect on me!

Fortunately Dyna just learned that one, so I’d at least talked with her about it. All things considered I think it was a poor tactical choice. Dyna cast Magic Missile, Imoen started firing arrows, several of the local guards fired their own arrows towards the foolish mage who had initiated hostilities in their town (!) and four of us rushed at the man! What a dope.
All of the attacks at him made it plain which of the images was actually “him” and we settled things quickly.

After a good night’s sleep we set out for Beregost in the morning. First order of business was to visit the blacksmith.

Then we walked over the Feldpost’s Inn.

One mage against a team of six is bad odds. Err, well, I don’t mean to get cocky. I know there are powerful mages who could handle all of us. We just had another brief encounter with Elminster. He is genial and friendly, and a living reminder we are not the top of the food chain.
On his body, Tranzig had a map indicating the location of Tazok’s bandit camp.

We spent the night at Feldpost’s Inn, and talked over how to proceed.

*****

Brademante is right not to get a swelled head! Minsc and Dyna just gained 3rd level during the period of this write-up. Jaheira is still 2nd level. The team has grown a great deal, but is far from “powerful”!

I tried a couple of new things with renders here. For one, I wanted to show a proper (Balearic) sling! It is funny to me how even in D&D it is sometimes depicted as a slingshot (like the D&D movie “Honor Among Thieves”). The ancient weapon “sling” is a bit different (and far more dangerous). Watch the first season of the Amazon series “House of David”, a sling as it ought to be!
But how to render? I thought of finding images on-line, to add to a render of Dyna (my only sling user). The problem still is, a sling has little distinctive “structure” to it. It is just a couple straps of leather with pouch or patch for the bullet. But the depiction of Dyna launching a bullet right at the viewer is the best result I could get. Maybe some future effort (or a smarter AI!) will yield a better result.

My second new thing was “Mirror Image”. That was fun! It actually came out quite easily. I used GPT Image (as I did for all renders here) and then said he had cast Mirror Image (which gave him “several identical copies of himself, adjacent”). That came out easier and faster than I expected.