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Brademante: Update 5

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atcDave

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We continued our exploring of the wilderness areas west of the main road to the Sword Coast.

We saw a large group of gnolls attacking a single traveler, and rushed to help.

As we got close it seemed clear the traveler in question was a Drow warrior.

Even hard pressed he was civil and polite in asking for aid.

I may have gushed a little as Drizzt introduced himself after. He was always a hero to me, I’d read much of his exploits.

I strongly suspect he did not need our aid to deal with a dozen gnolls. But he was gracious about receiving it nonetheless. He even helped us retrieve Dyna’s missing journal. I think I will never forget this encounter.

As we walked around a good sized lake we encountered a pair of amusing fishermen.

These were men who had lost their livelihood due to this current iron crisis. Now they fished, while taunting each other for their total ignorance of what they were doing. It is oddly encouraging to see folk making light of a less than ideal circumstance.

The next day found us traveling north, several hours west of the main road. We saw a sort of gathering at Standing Stones a little ahead.

It was not a wholesome sort of gathering! A cleric of a foul deity had flipped his lid. He had taken to animating the dead and calling them family.

We tried to suggest we could get him aid in nearby Beregost. He wasn’t having it, and we soon had a fight on our hands.

The undead were not of the more powerful sorts, they were easy enough to put down.

The only trick was keeping the cleric from casting spells. I really wish we could have gotten him some sort of help, but we had to kill him.

Nearby, we met Melicamp.

Yes, he was a chicken.

Minsc seemed most surprised that we could all talk to the chicken. After all, only he can understand Boo.
Melicamp claimed to be an apprentice of the mage Thalantyr, who has a small keep not too far from here.

Thalantyr gave us directions for finding components, so he could work the magic to restore Melicamp to his human form.

And Thalantyr was not too pleased about it! He was a little annoyed at Melicamp getting into things he shouldn’t have. And I get the feeling Thalantyr is a cranky sort!
But he is an accomplished mage, and he was willing to do business with us. We sold off many items we had gathered, and purchased a number of scrolls and potions. And some magical arrows for Imoen.

Dyna was excited with a nice set of new robes.

These provide a fair bit of protection. Of course a mage cannot wear armor and cast spells, so fairly expensive magical protection is often in demand for them. This was a nice thing for us to be able to afford!

From here we went west all the way to the coast again. We saw a group of ogres (maybe ten?) about the same time they saw us. We must have looked like easy prey to them, they came at us hard. I drank a Potion of Giant Strength we had just bought.

Holy Smokes did this make a difference in my fighting!
Minsc is more consistently our hardest hitter, but he’s less good at protecting himself in a fight.

Against so many ogres Jaheira stayed close to Minsc and healed him a few times.

Imoen and Dyna put down different sorts of missile fire on our foes.

We were all pretty sore and exhausted when we finished this fight. An itinerant cleric approached us and offered to help. He identified himself as “the Surgeon”. We asked him about himself, it seems he explores the Realms offering healing to make up for the wickedness of his brother Davaeorn. He was surely a blessing to us!

We explored back towards the road by another route, then crossed the road to the south near Nashkel, to explore the east side.

There clearly seems to be more bandit activity on the east side. We’ve battled a couple groups.

Most fearsome was a small group of Amazons.

We also found a number of restless dead around some crypts.

I suppose entering a crypt should always be regarded as dangerous.

And none of us are knowledgable enough about such things to know if this is normal. But we slew some ghouls and ghasts, more powerful sorts of undead.

And then we met a fairly bonkers sort of mage.

He was experimenting with magicals slimes and ooze. I asked what he had learned, and he attacked us!

We decided it was time to get a good rest at an inn and stopped for a night in Nashkel. An exciting few days, wow almost a week! Some good food and comfy beds were much appreciated.

*****

This remains a favorite part of the adventure to me. A fairly long period of exploration to build experience and treasure. Even though gaining levels has slowed way down, the crew is now better equiped and is becoming a good team.

Brademante and Amyntor are both still 5th level. They haven’t gained much obvious gear this update, although they do both carry a number of potions (Brad is all about strength potions, Amyntor mostly speed).
Minsc is still 5th level and remains, by a wide margin, the team’s biggest damage dealer. Jaheira is now a 4th level fighter/5th level druid. That’s a good boost in healing power.
Imoen has just reached 6th level thief, and Dyna is now a 5th level mage. This makes Dyna especially a more powerful team member, although she hasn’t yet learned Fireball. Imoen has finally convinced Dyna to teach her some basics of spell casting. Imoen likes to play the imp, but she is fully as intelligent as Dyna and learns quickly.

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