DavesGaming

After our return from Balduran’s Island we knew the time had come for a return to the city. Khalid suggested we were still considered wanted criminals.

I figured that meant we had to do something now. Imoen suggested we had a bunch of Potions of Invisibility. We could get into the city unnoticed, and decide on a course of action from there.

I offered my deep thanks to Khalid for keeping us in the loop, and the rest of us set out. We actually had a lot of Invisibility available. Apart from a dozen potions, Imoen had her own Ring of Invisibility. Dyna even had a couple versions of the spell, but I suggested she stay loaded for bear. Because I think we’d soon be poking one…

We all went invisible as we approached the bridge entrance to the city. We heard a lot of the buzz on the streets, Sarevok would indeed be a Duke soon. Our friend Scar with the Flaming Fist had been slain. And Duke Eltan poisoned, currently in the care of a healer at the Flaming Fist garrison.
Then, as we walked by Sorcerous Sundries, I saw a familar face. Someone who had been present when my father was cut down. We all agreed I would need to go visible to have a chat with her. I took an extra Potion of Invisibility with me and carefully looked around to make sure no one was paying particular attention.

She said she feared Sarevok was on a path to destruction. And she would help us because she was sure we could help her. Sarevok would be crowned as a Duke this afternoon. But first thing, Duke Eltan was in the care of a doppleganger who would kill him. We needed to stop that.

I downed another potion of Invisibility and we set off for the garrison.

I faced him alone as I figured we would need to go invisible together again. The doppleganger was not much of a threat. The hardest trick was keeping the fight *private*, a Flaming Fist guard was posted outside the Duke’s room!
That done, I checked on the Duke. He was very pleased to see me (and I was pleased he was pleased! At least someone didn’t think I was homocidal). He wanted to get to a friend of his, the harbor master had an office just a little to the east of here. He would help him to really get better.
Thanks to the Gauntlets of Ogre Power I’m wearing I was able to lift the Duke easily. Then I drank another Invisibility Potion and we both disappeared.
We ran into Tamoko again on our way to drop off Duke Eltan. She reported another associate of Sarevok named Cythandria had orders for the various assassins, and all the incriminating evidence we could ever want against Sarevok. Cythandria could be found on the top floor of the Iron Throne headquarters. She also revealed, she had been Sarevok’s lover. She still loved him, and asked if possible, that we spare his life.
That was a big ask! I promised we would try if there was any possibility.

We dropped Duke Eltan by the Harbor Master’s office, and then over to the Iron Throne headquarters. Up on the top floor we met a furiously angry woman mage. She recognized us at once and demanded how we knew where she would be. She answered her own question, Tamoko.

Fortunately we had her overwhelmed. We warriors took care of the ogres while Imoen and Dyna took care of the mage.
Tamoko was not kidding, we had found the motherlode of incriminating evidence. Plus a helpful note, two assassins had been hired to kill Duke Belt and Duke Jannath. They had been given invitations to the coronation to do so. Helpfully, we also found a reference that they were held up in the Underceller.
We’d heard of this place, and knew it was under the Blushing Mermaid Inn. And we knew from our previous explorations, how to get there from here *via the sewers*. There should be no Flaming Fist patrols down there!

They were a husband and wife team, he came at us with a sword as she started casting spells. Actually, they put up a better fight than the previous one. But lost all the same.

At this point, we hardly needed more. From upstairs of the Blushing Mermaid we could see the Ducal Palace. No patrols were evident, apparently all security was now around the event itself. So this time, Imoen and Amyntor stayed visible while the rest of us followed closely behind.

Once past the guards we dropped our charade. Dyna quickly cast a couple buffing spells she had for us. And I walked right up to Liia Jannath to introduce myself. Just then, several dopplegangers revealed themselves among the guests! We joined with the guards to put them down.

His answer was to attack us. Typical.

We had obviously ruined whatever his plans were for now. He teleported out of the room. Duke Jannath divined he had fled to the Thieves Guild, and she teleported me and my crew to pursue.

The thieves were in an uproar. “Big armored guy, where’d he go?!” About six people pointed downstairs. We were off.

Right into a maze. Presumably some sort of thieving training ground. It was all narrow hallways. And traps. The going would be slow, but there was no other way. There were also some slimes and oozes to fight. Never my favorite thing! Down one long hall, we could make out some sort of guards in the distance? But Imoen quickly noted the path to them was trapped.

When she finished, she crept back to us. And we all made a very visible, and much louder approach! There were a total of four such guards in this maze. That we saw. And destroyed.

Finally, the maze opened out into a cavernous ruin. An ancient undercity. Or at least the cemetary. We saw a Temple of Bhaal ahead, that seemed the logical place to go.

She sadly said she had lost. And she would not let us harm Sarevok. I begged her not to throw her life away. If she fought us she would surely loose. She admitted Sarevok had become a monster. But she could not live with that, and she could not live with him knowing she had betrayed him.
So we fought. It broke my heart to kill her. She retained something noble at her core, even if it was all twisted up by her misplaced loyalties and affection.

We entered the unholy temple. Sarevok stood at the front. With some, few of his lieutenants. We briefly talked. I had thought his goal was to restore my dead sire. I was mistaken in a few things. First, Sarevok was no mere acolyte or worshipper of the dead power. He was offspring like me. Ugh. He was my half-brother. And he was truly deserving of the name bastard.
Second, he did not wish to revive Bhaal, but to usurp his power. To become the new Lord of Murder. Oh man I need to talk to a cleric about this stuff! But I *think*, he can’t do that as long as I live? That may be why he wanted to kill me months ago. And that was why he attacked me now. And why he would not stop until one of us was dead.

He outran his support and came at me fast. That gave us an opportunity, for all six of us to concentrate our power against HIM before his support arrived.

We hurt him seriously before his mage arrived to started casting at us. I ran my brother right through the chest, the heart, as a Fireball exploded in our midst.
His crew was pretty dangerous, but there was little doubt how this would end almost from the first exchange where Sarevok went down. All four of us warriors were injured, Jaheira and Minsc seriously. But we won the day. Sarevok had been destroyed.

*****

A good run, a powerful team built from another mediocre main character. To me, its a lot of fun that way.

This update also marks the debut of GPT Image 2.0 for me. Also a whole new sort of workspace from OpenArt. It seems to have pretty good potential. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot more in the next months. As things are now going I expect more rapid changes ahead. But Image 2.0 seems to do everything Image 1.5 did, better. The ability to blend existing images and create a new action, or background is amazing. This really makes things I was playing around with just a couple years ago look silly. And this is why this Brademante and Amyntor run will be, by far, my longest illustrated write-up to date. It is just so much fun!

I should have my first SoD post up in a few days. I am not currently sure how many chapters that may be.