DavesGaming

This is a direct continuation of Brademante and Amyntor’s run through of Baldur’s Gate I posted here.
A couple thoughts about playing this team so far. No doubt Brademante and Amyntor are pretty mediocre characters. In terms of game mechanics they are no stronger than Jill and Christopher who I built with below the game minimum total points (70 for each). But role playing wise the difference is huge. Brademante is an intelligent and wise character. Aware and knowledgeable about herself and her world. And I like writing her as the well-educated daughter of Candlekeep. Apart from when I’ve actually played a mage, I think she is as well suited to the canon back-story as anyone I’ve run. That helps make these write-ups fun.

Just a recap of these two characters.
Brademante is Gorion’s Ward. She is small at 5’2″ and 100 pounds, but fit and agile. She is an unkitted Paladin, and takes the idea of making Faerun a better place very seriously. Since she is very charismatic (and quick!) she is always on point. This serves the story well, to have her doing all the talking. This all means she gets the best armor (and shield, for now) and will be the first in line to get strength enhancement (potions until something more permanent comes up).
She can wield short sword or morning star/flail. She is currently learning to dual wield, and will start doing so around 15th level.

12/17/13/15/17/19

Because I played SoD and use an xp cap remover, she (and Amyntor below) will come into this game with over 500k experience (closing in on 10th level Paladin). Also note she got all the point enhancements in BG1 except strength and constitution (Amyntor got those). This further improves her fitness as team leader.

Amyntor also grew up in Candlekeep as Imoen’s adopted brother. But he’s always had a more special relationship with Brademante. They both trained and became unkitted Paladins together. They were married when the party first entered the city of Baldur’s Gate. He shares his wife’s drive to make the world a better place. He has not wavered in his affection or devotion as her lineage was revealed, he believes in Brademante.
Amyntor dual wields, whatever combination of long sword and mace is most advantageous, obviously he will add weapons to his repertoire as he gains experience.

14/17/16/12/16/17

Because I *really* like GPT Image 2.0 I’ve redone the game portraits for all the characters I expect to use, again. I used source images either of their original portraits, or of previous portraits I was using. And I used written descriptions *derived* from those posted by zeno_42 at his excellent and useful site “zenosziggurat.com“. His descriptions were written for the older DALLE renderer which had some eccentricities, in some places changes/tweaks seemed in order. I will try to post all the new images I’ve done as more characters are introduced.

Obviously none of this crew will quite look this at the start!

*****

A few notes about my build. I continue to use the EE version of the game with Tweaks and SCS (at “Improved” difficulty). I also have ZG’s Voices mod(s) that adds all voice sets from all IE games. It gives more choices for any game/character, and allows me to keep the same voice set for my characters going from BG1 to BG2.
I use A7’s “Convenient EE NPCs” to remove all EE NPCs from the game except Neera (whom I’m unlikely to use on this run). And SimDing0’s Quest Pack mainly for a couple of adventure tweaks I enjoy (not for the tactical enhancements, SCS does enough of that!).

The big thing is nine (!) adventure mods! Dang! This will be a long run…
These are, in no particular order; Skie – Cost of a Girl’s Soul (now expanded!), Wings, Bloodied Stings of Barovia, Dark Tidings, Call of the Lost Goddess, Throne of the Mad God, Tangled Oak Isle, Southern Edge, and Poisoned Pathways (the latest from Acifer and the only one I’ve not played yet).

And now, on with the show.

*****

We hadn’t got far from Baldur’s Gate when we were ambushed. First was a sort of toxic smoke, then thieves attacked, I think? We tried to fight, but we were all overwhelmed by the smoke. Then darkness.
I awoke in a cage, in a cold dark dungeon. I heard some voices. Amyntor! Maybe Minsc? But I couldn’t stay awake. I was in and out of consciousness for a while. It was either a few hours, or a few months. I don’t know. We were captured by the hooded man from my nightmares. He droned on about something, I couldn’t make sense of. He had hurt me somehow. Magically. I am sure I’ve yelled out a time or two, and I’ve heard my friends yell too. But usually with pain comes blackness, of unknown duration.
There was an explosion somewhere nearby and far away. A golem came and delivered a report to the hooded man. They ran off. I was still awake. My world was starting to come back into focus.
And Imoen was there.

She quickly picked the lock. Then she helped me out of the cage and up on my feet. She turned to another cage to get her brother out. My husband!

I was starting to feel more gathered. Still sore. And a little foggy. But more myself. Looking around we saw other occupied cages across the room. Minsc! Minsc was right there. He was in a dark mood. He informed us Dyna was dead. He had seen her butchered with his own eyes. My friend Dyna! I fought back tears. We had all just fled Baldur’s Gate together. Imoen said the lock was fused, she couldn’t pick it. I could see Minsc on the verge of destroying the cage with his bare hands, I provoked him a little.

He laughed at how I’d provoked him. I promised Minsc we would make our captor answer for our fallen friend. Right nearby I saw Jaheira in another cage.

I noticed I did not see Khalid. Jaheira said she did not know where he was. I hope Jaheira hadn’t overhead what Minsc said about Dyna.
I told her we would search around and see if we could find a key. Amyntor and Minsc were discussing if they could destroy Jaheira’s cage.

We found a small storage room to the side. There was a table with some armor pieces. And a chest. Imoen immediately located a safe behind a painting on the wall.

“Notice its not glowing anymore either. We need some help with this.” But it felt good to find it. Maybe it could lead us to Skie? Er, Skie’s soul? There was also a key in the safe that Imoen was sure would fit Jaheira’s cage. And another magic dagger. Nothing fancy, just barely qualified as magic. But sometimes a magic blade is useful.

We had found a stash of weapons and armor. This might have been a junk room. But at least we had something. Amyntor, Minsc and I could all find somewhat usable gear. Jaheira was frustrated, she prefers a scimitar or a knotty club. Neither was in sight. She picked up a staff, its better than nothing. We handed the magic dagger to Imoen, nothing else fit her style.

Now, let’s see where the heck we are.

*****

I’ve never understood why mods to remove the opening dungeon even exist. I love having to re-equip a team from nothing.

A couple quick thoughts about the team. They are physically pretty weak. Only Minsc is legitimately strong with his 18/93. Next strongest is Jaheira with a 15. So only one character with a strength bonus. Obviously Strength potions and devices will be a priority.
But they are QUICK! Seriously. Imoen has an 18 Dexterity and is the quickest, Minsc is the most clumsy with a 16! The other three all have 17s.
Imoen is the smartest character with 17 Intelligence, Brad is number two with a 15. So at least the sisters are very sharp (actually that’s just sisters-in-law. Right? Right!).
Brad leads the way on Wisdom with a 17. Funny that’s a Paladin not a priest. But Jaheira and Amyntor would both be considered wise.
For now I’ll end this here. Next update should be up pretty quickly.

Update 21

No, you did not miss Update 20! Just the way I’ve been filing my renders, the introductory BG2 playthrough post is filed as “Update 20”.

On with the adventure!

*****

We would quickly learn this place is huge! Our captor, the hooded man from my nightmares, has a significant underground complex. As we exited the area of our cells, our cages, we saw signs of a recent fight. Several fallen men, looked to be thieves. We carefully walked down a short coridor to a small room. There was some sort of magical contraption in the middle of the room summoning mephits? Little imp-like elemental trouble makers. We killed one and shut down the machine. Right next door was a large cavern. A djinn seemed eager to speak to me.

He said my answer had consequences.

We dispatched the ogre and the djinn reappeared. He gave a friendly warning that our escape would soon be noticed. And that seemed to be it. He disappeared.

There were two corridors heading off in different directions, one just ended in a sealed door we couldn’t open. But both corridors resulted in skirmishes with goblins.

We found a large magical lab of some sort, full of various creature remains floating in glass tanks. It was all quite revolting. Then we came to another store room, larger than the one near our cells. A large golem stood in the room. He spoke, but only to say he awaited a command. We searched the room and the golem seemed uninterested, so he wasn’t security!

That was the first piece of our gear to turn up in this place. Even better for Amyntor, there was another fine, mildly magical long sword right next to it. So he was the first of us to re-equip with magic weapons.

Small wins, but we are growing more capable. A little.

We continued to face, and fight small groups of goblins. Usually less than a dozen. They were not a serious threat, but obviously if they escaped us we had officially been noticed! In another smaller store room we found a sort of magical command stone, Imoen thought it might go with the golem in the other room. When we handed it to him, he asked if we would like him to unlock the doors? Hah! Yeah that would be nice if we were going to escape this place!

While the golem ran off on his chore we resumed exploring. We cleared some goblins out of a library. Then we came to a large room, like a barracks and store room? It was the abode of several Duergar Dwarves. These guys could be a bit more dangerous than goblins!

No luck. I said I had no quarrel with them, but apparently they had one with me. So we fought. They had a spellcaster that Imoen went right to work on while the rest of us cleared out the warriors. It wasn’t a hard fight. In the end, we found they had a nice suit of Chain Mail Armor, “Mail of the Dead”! That was the armor Amyntor had worn for several weeks a while back. Funny, we could call that recovering more of our gear, but we hadn’t owned it for quite some time. Well, its back on Amyntor for now.

From here we soon found we’d reached a dead end. So we doubled back looking for doors the golem may have opened. That first corridor near the djinn’s cave now had an open door so we went through. A dirty storeroom. But another hallway led to a nice bed room. Searching here we found two magic helms that had been ours. One, the very nice Helm of Balduran I had worn for the last few weeks. So I reclaimed that. The other, known as “The Eyes of Truth” just helps with the wearer’s night vision. It had been in one of our packs but no one regularly wore it anymore. Now we would! We still had a shortage of helms, so we put it on Minsc.
Right through a large archway we saw what looked like a forest. It was!

They begged our help, they were prisoners. Concubines of Irenicus. Jaheira gasped. I know that name! He is a renowned powerful, and extremely evil mage. He is my hooded man! This huge complex seems fitting for such a meglomaniac. There is *no way* we are currently up to facing such a man. It added urgency to our need to *escape*. The dryads said Irenicus had their acorns somewhere and they could not leave here without them. Imoen produced a small bag of acorns we had found back with the Duergar. The dryads were very pleased, they asked we take them to their home grove and replant them. They gave us a place name I didn’t know, but we would find it when we were out of here.

Across the forest cavern we could see a smaller doorway. This led into another nice bedroom.

But it was a woman’s bed chamber. An elven woman. None of us knew what elf would be associated with Irenicus. And it was trapped? A bad memory maybe?

Among the items we had found was a magical keystone, that should open a particular magical locked door. We knew of one we’d previously passed and still wasn’t open. So we backtracked again. Opening this door was surprising. It seemed to lead to an alternate dimension of some sort, like a pocket plane of the elemental plane of air? There was a huge wooden walkway floating above a swirling dark void. We walked in a ways, and fought a few more mephits. Annoying things. A little way in we saw a platform. There was a table on the platform, with an oil lamp.

Another djinn. He seemed friendly, an offered that he had something of mine. Well, he sensed a connection to me anyway. But he really wanted out of here. If we could help him escape he would return it to me. He needed his own lamp, not the trapped one he’d been forced into by Irenicus (!). He didn’t know where it might be.
The dryads came to mind as the only ones who would actually talk to us, so we ran back to them. Indeed, they actually had the item. They happily gave it to us, and we returned it to the djinn.
He gave me a two-handed sword. Huh. We’d never owned it, but I recognized it. It was the sword used by Sarevok when we faced him. And gee, my buddy Minsc uses a great sword. So we now have another good magic weapon for the team.

We weren’t sure exactly were to go from here, but we had a few other magic items on us now than we did an hour ago. So we checked out some oddities. Like a transport portal in a storeroom, now seemed ready to respond… to something we were carrying. We stepped through, into another store room.

He was looking through crates. He reported, like us, he had been a captive until just recently. Now he wanted to escape Irenicus. But he was frustrated because the next room had several devices that kept summoning mephits. Good to know! There were apparently four of them. So we set three of us to battle mephits, while the other three would shut down or destroy the summoning devices.

That was an easy enough fight, but the room held a horror.

Our missing friend, and Jaheira’s husband, lay butchered on a large table. He was long dead. We had obviously been here many weeks. My friend Jaheira, she plays stoic. But I can see her trembling. I tried to offer support but she swatted me away. Very well, we will talk when she is ready.
We still had a ways to go, but things started to blur together. Another magic research room, this one seemed to be devoted to cloning a particular young elven woman. Was this related to the trapped bed room? It seems Irenicus has an obsession. We found a large trapped audience chamber of sorts. A foundry being worked by more duergar dwarves. A library holding a trapped doppleganger.

The thieves were dressed like the slain intruders we’d seen elsewhere in here. We helped take down the vampire. Thinking, hoping we could talk with the thieves. But no, as soon as Amyntor skewered the vampire the thieves turned on us.

But then we finally found a way out! A ramp leading up. We could see sunlight ahead, and hear some fighting.

Battling may be an exageration. He destroyed them. Imoen fired off a Magic Missile his way, but soon a group of mages teleported in. They boldly yelled Irenicus was under arrest! And Irenicus slew them all quite quickly. Another group teleported in. After killing a couple, Irenicus said he would only be arrested if they took Imoen too. She had also used magic!
What?! More mages were coming in. A couple grabbed at Irenicus and teleported away.

Obviously this is all my fault. I’m a horrible leader. None of these people should be here with me. How many more of them will die?
We don’t have time for self pity.

Jaheira said we were in Athkatla, the City of Coin. The capital of Amn. And a city where public magic use is illegal.
What have they done with Imoen?
Jaheira didn’t know, but she had friends here. People we could ask.
Casual conversation with some witnesses confirmed all of what Jaheira said. None of them knew where “magical deviants” were held.
First thing, we need some better gear. And probably some rest. Jaheira knew a shop nearby.

Oh really? I walked over to talk with this guard. He said something had gone horribly wrong inside, some dark magic. I told him we could take care of ourselves. Let us in, we’ll fix it.
Entering was like stepping into another world. It was huge! There was a bridge over to a palatial circus tent. A djinn stood guard with a riddle. It was a stupid math story, Imoen could have answered it in her sleep. So I did instead, with a little more thinking than Imoen would have needed.

We entered the inner tent.

Wait, no. I’m not afraid of illusions. She (?) said she was chained and needed to be free. I didn’t see any chains. Illusions. We looked around a little.

Indeed! They were armed orcs! They seemed to disolve when slain. Except for a magic sword left behind. We walked back towards the ogre, who excitedly said “that’s the key! give it to me!” I had detected no evil on her so I did.

We all advanced up a grand staircase into a plush sort of classical temple. And we were attacked by shadows and werewolves. This should have been an easy fight, if we were properly equiped. But only Amyntor and Minsc have magic weapons. We found Jaheira and I could dispatch illusionary monsters, but there were some real ones too. They needed magic. So the fight was harder than it should have been. But we prevailed.

The djinn from the bridge stood at the next staircase, and warned us we were entering the domain of Kalah, master illusionist. I guess that’s what we’re looking for!

Aerie muttered “the gnome”. There were more werewolves and shadows, but we focused in on the ogre. He fell with a shriek, and the whole illusion quickly disolved. A gnome lay dying in the dirt of a small circus tent.

Aerie saw a puddle of slime in one corner had turned back into her uncle… an older gnome? We would learn Aerie had spent many years as a slave in this circus, and had been mostly raised by the overseer. The kindly gnome. We also found the woman who was seperated from her son and sent her back outside.
It started with that I think. I’m feeling much steadier now. I’m ready to face some things.

Aerie wanted to see the world, and eagerly asked if she could accompany us. Careful what you ask for girl…
Aerie is a cleric of a gnomish deity (!) and a mage. Well we can use both of those! “Okay. Just know Aerie you catch us at a low ebb. We’ve lost several dear friends, and most of our gear. If you join with us I will fight for and protect you as best I can. But we live a dangerous life and there are no gauruntees. And we may be at odds with the Athkatla authorities. At least to say, my first priority is releasing my sister from their custody.”
“You fought to save me, my Uncle, and reunite that woman with her son.”
“We fight to make things right. Its not always easy, or even clear. But we do our best.”

Aerie was one of us now. She has led an oddly sheltered sort of life so far. So she is not very different from myself.
From here, we could see the outfitter Jaheira had mentioned.

Hah! If they serve adventurers they do! And they did.
We have amassed some coin, and a small pile of valuables in the last couple hours. So we went inside to see what all we could sell and what we could buy.
We did alright. For now, we will leave Amyntor in his magic chain mail. Minsc, Jaheira and myself all got non-magical plate armor. We bought a mildly magical short sword for me, and a newer shield. Aerie had never traveled, so we needed to get her a traveling spell book. Obviously that meant she had NO spells for it. We spent as much as we could on spells for her new book. A handful of 1st – 3rd level spells. She can cast 4th level too, but we couldn’t afford anymore for now.
I also asked about the damaged Soul Taker Dagger we had, if the proprietor had any idea who could help us get someone out of it! He looked amazed, that is not an easy artifact to damage! No, he decided. He knew no one who could help.

As we left the shop, the dwarf out front said he had over heard some of our converstaion. And he suggested a mage and sage named Nem, who worked around the Slums District, might be able to help. I felt very pleased to hear that, an actual lead on this thing.

We checked into an inn to get some sleep, before some of us started falling over.

I will continue to keep an eye on Jaheira. I wish she could share her grief better. But at least she is still with us. Aerie is full of questions. I answer all as best I can. I think she will be a good addition to the team. Yoshimo is quiet, watching closely. I’m less sure about him fitting in.

*****

A few notes, things about my own head canon on things.
“Traveling Spell Books” were a thing in Unearthed Acana originally, I think. For 2E maybe in the Mage’s Supplement/Handbook? But the IE games don’t really mention them, except for the use of a “spellbook” tab to access an arcane caster’s spells. Since SCS wipes out any spellbook on a new spellcaster, it fits nicely into the idea of a physical notebook that an arcane caster carries. Both Imoen and Aerie start here with no actual book, so they build from scratch. It makes perfect sense. Less sense for when I recruit Nalia next, but that’s fine. Its a little tight for now while we are broke (!). But this situation will improve quickly.

I had hoped you would see Brad’s distinctive yellow shield in that last render. But I got a render I Ioved, with no real place to put the shield! I’ve mentioned before my thought on such devices. I think Cantrip Magic makes it pretty easy for any mage to alter the look of adventuring gear. I can easily imagine adventurers adopting their own symbols for family, homeland, faith, or just things they think are cool! So yeah, Brad will carry her traditional shield, at least until she switches over to dual wielding later in the game.

Update 22

We set out to find some old contacts of Jaheira’s likely to be found in or about a dive of a bar called the Copper Coronet. I rambled off some tidbits I thought I recalled reading about Athkatla, the city where we currently found ourselves. It is a little bigger than Baldur’s Gate. But while Baldur’s Gate is a free city, Athkatla is the capital city of Amn. Amn is a nation in the ethnic, cultural and political sense. And is prosperous in business and resources. It is currently ruled by the Coucil of Six, formed from the the leading merchant families in the land. Jaheira offered no correction, I assume I’m mostly correct.

Jaheira led us towards a scruffier part of town, a man approached wanting to talk.

Well that was an interesting introduction! He suggested it would be difficult and expensive, but he worked for an association that could make it happen. We would need 40000 gold pieces (!) to get things going. He explained that crossing the Cowled Wizards, who had arrested Imoen, was not a thing to be undertaken lightly. Frustrating, not so long ago I could have come up with that kind of money on demand. At the moment, it would be more complicated. I don’t think the six of us together were worth more than a couple thousand.
I suggested the difficulty of this. He chuckled. Said I looked like the sort who likely had such funds before, and could do so again. Okay. That was hard to argue with. I asked if he knew of anyone looking for a troop of adventurers…
He pointed us towards the Copper Coronet. Funny that.
Yoshimo affirmed what I already suspected, this was the local Thieves’ Guild, the Shadow Thieves making contact. He had some less than pleasent dealings with them.
Given what I currently think of the local authorities, I’m not sure the thieves would be any worse.

As we continued walking that way, I saw a woman who matched the description of Nem, the mage we had been told to seek out for help with our broken dagger. Nem opened with saying she could cut a good deal on a salve for a magical rash. Shoot, do I look like I need that? I thought we’d all cleaned up pretty good this morning!

I explained we had lost a friend into the blade, and needed her out. Nem would need a few days, with the dagger, to do some research and see what could be done. I was a little worried to let it go, but none of us knew quite what to do with the thing. Nem said she should have our answers in about three days.
That was apparently as far as we could take that for now.

Approaching the Copper Coronet, it is a huge ramshackle mess of a building. Easily the size of a major warehouse, I think there’s a lot more to this place than “bar”. As we entered I suggested to Yoshimo we part ways for now, I would let him know if we needed his skills again. He seemed hesitant to go, but I’m hesitant to completely trust him. So for now he goes.
The Copper Coronet is an assault on the senses. It is huge and loud. I could see a large grill cooking up a variety of meats. A huge mass of people, all sorts of people socializing and doing business. A sleezy money lender was right near the door. Several venders had booths set up for business.

Well that sounded right up our alley. Especially since I’m currently thinking we need to make some money. I invited Nalia to join with us and we would make our way to her family home.
Not two minutes later we met a nobleman, a Lord Jierdan Firkraag, was offering 10000 gold to help free his land of ogres and trolls. Sounds like a couple of similar jobs, of the sort we can do.
Nalia cautioned Lord Firkraag had a reputationn as a hard man, don’t assume we’ll easily get what he just promised.
Swell. From here we were near to what looked to be a main business part. I stepped forward to introduce myself to a man who seemed to want to be noticed.

Oh that doesn’t sound so good. I looked to Jaheira, ‘what are we doing here?’

Well, that wasn’t who she wanted to talk to. A business manager of sorts was nearby.

He was the one Jaheira had known for many years. He seemed to think the Shadow Thieves were the best option for going against the Cowled Wizards.
Now at this point I was a little curious. I don’t mean to look for trouble, really. But it bothered me. What exactly did Lehtinan have going on in his back rooms? Especially since it was clear from the outside, the “back rooms” were expansive. It sounded like gambling at least… if that’s all it is I could walk away. But there was such a moral stench to the man, even apart from the fact he detected as thoroughly evil. Since we had “permission” to check out his den of vice, we would.

It was as bad as anything I’d ever seen.

It was clear the poor halfling man did not want to fight the troll. I fear I really put Nalia on the defensive for a moment. I think I meant to shut this place down on my own authority either way. But if its illegal, I won’t even have to apologize to anyone for it.
Nalia was horrified. She clarified, slave pit fights are illegal. Its a little murky if they’re pros, but slavery is illegal in the city. I could feel Aerie’s discomfort and anger growing too.
Allright, we’re ending this. I led my crew down to the floor to the back of the pits where there were cages for slaves. I met Hendak, a gladiator locked in a cell. Um, we may have killed six guards to talk to him. He was a tribal leader of sorts, there were a dozen of his people locked up with him. Including children. I asked who had the keys. He told me. “We’ll be back.”

He called on a large minotaur and a menagerie of beasts to fight us. But I was right, it was fatal for him.
We rushed back to the cells and released Hendak and his people. This led to an all out conflict with the various guards in the place.
The fighting continued out to the front, and Hendak slew Lehtinan.
I gave the keys to Hendak.

Hendak said they held most of thier children at another place in town. He thought there was a tunnel from here to where they were.
We looked around and found a hidden passage down into the sewers.

It lead us to a guarded warehouse.

So far, the corruption in this city is easing my conscience about dealing with the thieves to find Imoen.
There was a holding cell right behind the warehouse, a child had just been thrown in the cell with a troll! We killed the troll, and found a few more cells. We found a total of four kids!

It was really hard to hold the kids attention with Minsc standing there.
But they listened. We cleared out more guards, and a couple mages. Soon we had the building all quiet. We took the kids all back over to the Copper Coronet, to their families.
We had earned a lifetime discount on all goods and services at the inn. Hey, we can use that! Starting with a good meal and a relaxing evening. I wondered if any city officials or guards (or army) would come looking for us, but they never did.
In the morning, we set out with Nalia for her family home.

They had a spellcaster, and a couple of moderately skilled warriors. Higher class bandits than we fought around Baldur’s Gate last year! And they were on us fast. Aerie and Nalia had to scramble to get out of the way. Thankfully they did, and we were all alright.

Continuing on our way, we weren’t too far out of town when we came across a gang of some sort with a captive. They weren’t the talkative sorts, and they attacked us. In the end, it was just us and the captive.

So we weren’t getting out of town yet!

Rylock was sure his people could find a treatment, so we left our patient with him.

By this point our day was about shot, so we stopped by an inn for the night.

A man, Baron Ployer, claimed Jaheira had ruined him and his family. Now he had his revenge. She had been cursed, and she would waste away. Nothing could save her, he boasted. He teleported out with a great villain’s cackle.
But I’d noticed, the actual cursing was done by a group of mages. Hired thugs? Nalia suggested we visit the Cowled Wizards office, if the mages were licensed in this city we should be able to find them.
“Licensed in this city?” This gets more convoluted all the time.
We set off for the government offices. And were intercepted by a cleric of Waukeen. The goddess of good business had been missing since the Time of Troubles (when I was conceived). But she still has a following. And clergy. They said they had a business offer for a willing group of adventures.
So far this city seems full of opportunities! We will look into this later.
At the city hall, we found the representative of the Cowled Wizards. They denied all knowledge of the mages we sought. They were also very unhelpful about where Imoen might be. Well, I won’t tell them we have another source for this information! Funny, they did sell licenses for magic use! I bought one for my team. I won’t have Aerie or Nalia arrested! Even if it galls me to give any money to these toads.

When leaving the city hall, a mage called to us from the shadows. He was wearing the colors of the mages who cursed Jaheira! A talk with him was most illuminating. He suggested the curse could be broken by taking back a locket of Jaheira’s hair currently in Baron Ployer’s possession. He casually mentioned they were under contract to protect Baron Ployer until all his vendetta targets were dead. But for a nominal fee, he could promise they would be busy when Ployer summoned.
As we concluded our business, he mentioned Ployer had a home in the Slums District. That’s where the Copper Coronet is, so we would check with Jaheira’s friend there to see where he could be found.
Along the way I asked Jaheira what she had done to the man. He was a commercial slaver. Such is illegal in Athkatla. So she and some friends exposed his business. He was ruined.
We found Bernard and asked about this man. Jaheira learned she was the last of her old friends still living. Bernard had some thoughts about where Ployer might be found, and we set after him.

Especially amusing when his summoned help did not materialize. I think I had convinced him the smart move was to surrender? But Jaheira ended him. I won’t criticize her for that, she chose justice over mercy which I believe was her right. And we found the locket, Jaheira was free.

Now we really did need a rest. We stayed the night at the Copper Coronet. And set out, again, for Nalia’s home in the morning.

Trolls. And Yuan-Ti? Those always ill tempered snake men? We’ve not faced those before.
There was a stockade off to the side. The survivors of the castle garrison, maybe a dozen troops, were held up here. They reported the trolls had kept inside the last few days, but they were all that was left of the garrison.
Nalia lead us to a sally port, so we could enter the castle covertly.

We killed the troll, but not before it killed the servant. Of course Nalia knows her staff. This was particularly horrifying to her.
We pushed through the ground floor, and killed eight trolls? They killed another servant before our eyes. But one older man was kept safe. We worked our way out to the gatehouse, to let the surviving troops back in. They could help secure spaces as we cleared them.

After meeting them at the entrance, I was sure we had the first floor cleared. The second floor of the keep had all the residences.

We were able to rescue a couple of isolated guards, and an unpleasant (!) aunt of Nalia’s. But really, we’ve found very few signs of survivors. And not a whole lot of attackers? Nalia thought they had to be in the cellers.

Oh yes they were! We battled quite a few. Especially more trolls.

This was a tough fight! Trolls are fearsome anyway, the monsterous chieftain required a lot from all of us. Plus he had a couple of giant trolls with him.

We won. But the damage done was horrible. There were many dead in this room, including Nalia’s father. Her grief was undisguised and we cleared her out as quickly as we could after. This was also where the soldiers and much of the household staff we hadn’t seen yet lay dead. This fortress, this home had been ruined.

I appreciated what a thoughtful and professional crew Nalia’s father had recruited and trained here.
After a while, maybe an hour, Nalia’s first action was to hand the agreed payment to me. And she thanked me for helping her.
I asked what more we could do? This land and the people had suffered a horrible loss, and now they were exposed to a dangerous world. Nalia smiled, sadly! “Oh I have a thought, its a big ask.”
“Know that I will help however I can.”
“Well, under Amnian law I am betrothed to a spoiled brat of a nobleman whom I loathe.”
“You know I’m married.”
“HAH! Oh that would go over well. No I uh, have no real rights where the marriage is concerned. And as a mage I can’t rule in my father’s stead. [Odd law, I’d never heard of that before.] But I am his executor. I can bequeath the castle and its lands… to you.”
“What?!”
“Yeah, well, you’d be a steward of sorts. You’d rule in the De’Arnise family name. Brad you’re one of the finest, noblest people I’ve ever met. I would be honored to have you and your husband take the position.”
“Give me some time. We’ll talk about this more tomorrow. Amyntor and I should talk, and you and I will need to talk more. For now, let’s help your guys move some stuff around.”

And we did. It was an exhausting afternoon. We cleared out broken stuff from all over the castle. Jaheira volunteered to lead a team to remove bodies for burial. I thanked her for taking on such an awful, thankless job.
And the next day, Nalia and I talked more. I was obviously much concerned about finding Imoen, and Skie for that matter. And I would probably need to ensure Irenicus could no longer cause us grief. And I told her of the need my husband and I both felt to make things right wherever we saw evil and injustice. Finally, I told her I was a Bhaalspawn. That surprised her! But it didn’t seem to bother her.

Wow. That was a big thing! I looked over the dozen remaining soldiers, a few surviving Castle staff. Nalia’s aunt huffed and said I was no better than the trolls, she stormed off. Can’t please ’em all!

The next day we had business to see to in Athkatla. I had a beautiful, and very effective Flail that would be my new primary weapon. But honestly, I’m not strong enough to use it ordinarily; I need to cast Draw Upon Holy Might, or drink a Giant Strength Potion or something. We actually amassed a lot of stuff in all these fights the last couple days, arms, armor and miscellaneous magic *stuff* are all worth money. We need to save money to get to Imoen, we also need money to be a more effective team, and now we need money to repair a Castle and all that comes with it.
Fortunately there seems to be a lot of work available just now. Nem should have a report for us on the Soul Taker Dagger. We fought a small group of Slavers and have some leads on more of them who need rooting out. We met with a man who wanted us to help look into some uncurable poisons that have been used in town (like the guy we returned to the docks.) There’s a few other things that have come up. And now we will need to check back in at the Castle periodically. Fortunately it is only a few hours from Athkatla.
It could be easy to feel overwhelmed. there is so much to see to in the immediate future. Well, Amyntor and I wanted to set things right in Faerun.

*****

This is such a huge Update for the team. The only levels gained were Aerie hit 11th level Mage and Nalia hit 12th level Mage. Neither is a huge thing.

But we got stuff… Amyntor bought the mace Mauler’s Arm. That will give him an 18 Strength. That’s not hugely strong, but it does give him a constant Strength bonus. He will wield it with the sword Varscona for now. He also got +1 plate mail, an improvement over the chain mail. Both of these changes should show up in his future renders.
Brad is specialized in Flail, even though she can’t use one without a little boost. We now have the Flail of Ages, probably the best weapon available this early in the game. So Brad bought a Girdle of Hill Giant Strength. That and the Flail are a huge boost to her melee effectiveness. The Flail should also appear in her next renders.

The next couple updates will focus on a number of side missions in the area. Including I think, the expanded “Cost of a Girl’s Soul” mod and the all new “Poisoned Pathways” mod. This should be fun!

Update 23

The first part of this is from Lava’s “Skie: Cost of One Girl’s Soul” mod. This is an excellent resolution to the tragedy at the end of Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear. If you’ve played this before, just know the main action element of the story has been expanded. Really in a clever and well done way. It should be satisfying for most of us who were a bit annoyed with the end of SoD *that provided no resolution!*

This write-up is NOT spoiler free.

*****

We walked over toward the Copper Coronet and quickly found Nem. She did have something to report for us. She thought it possible to send us into the dagger to make a rescue. But there were some “buts”. I was a little squeemish over all this. But I was driven by knowing Skie was an innocent caught up in *my* drama. If this goes well, one day I will need to talk with Skie about *so many* people who sacrificed in different ways to get her back. I myself will carry a minor but permanent scar from this.

We were ready, and Nem gated us into the dagger. We quickly knew we were in the right place. The small pocket dimension felt like the inside of the dagger, don’t ask me to explain that!

Soon we found the pocket dimension had its own pockets.

I would need to know Skie better to know what all we fought for her. But after a different battle for each little pocket, we sensed Skie’s own soul approach. I reached out to touch, and willingly transfered a spark of myself to restore her wholeness.
We found ourselves transported back home.
We talked to Nem, and she thought if Skie had received any form of Raise Dead since she was slain (I know she had, before we ever left Dragonspear Castle) she should return to life. Nothing else needed doing. I’m sure Entar Silvershield will be thrilled and shocked to see his daughter return to him! I would have liked to see that.

We just heard from a young messenger, the nearby town of Trademeet has fallen under attack by Druids. There was a plea for help and promise of reward, that hardly mattered. Jaheira already decided we needed to head out at once. I wasn’t arguing with her!

The town of Trademeet is further east than De’Arnise Castle, so it was a longer hike.

They seemed like a well enough equipped force, but they were overwhelmed and taking casualties.

He was certain druids were behind their trouble. He knew because they had one, Cernd, in custody. The townsfolk wanted him lynched, but the mayor was sure Cernd had nothing to do with their problems, he held him for his own protection. We were granted immediate access to talk with the druid. He said, a group of shadow druids were behind the problems. And he had been sent to investigate. We had permission to escort Cernd out of town, he pointed out the location of an old druid grove he thought had been claimed by the shadow druids.
Before leaving town, we also learned trade was being restricted by a group of Dao Djinn. They were hunting a Rakshasa somewhere in the area, and would not let trade resume until they had the monster… or her head.

So Trademeet had two pressing problems. We would see what we could do.

As we approached the area of the druid grove, we were warned by another druid that these lands had been taken over. And he could not garuntee our safety if we continued. Well, safety isn’t really our business.

We found quite a few trolls nearby! Another group almost as big as the group we had routed out of De’Arnise. That was an exhausting start.
Then we came across some shadow druids.

By the time Amyntor put a stop to that I needed a “Heal” spell, my ears were ringing and I had a splitting headache.
But we removed a group of four druids. We were not even done healing up when four more shadow druids came along. This fight went quicker and better for us. For me.

We crossed a large stone bridge and there was a stone farmhouse. Not what we’d expected see out here, between troll and druid lands.
The barn was open so we entered for a look around, we saw one woman near the door. I started to ask if she knew where the shadow druids might be…

A rakshasa is immediately more intimidating than say, a werewolf. They are big and fierce, resistant to a lot of magic, and feast on human flesh. And this one had two other partners with her. Seriously this was a harder fight than the eight druids we just faced, although I had less of a headache after.

We took a break and rested up after this, we were pretty well drained from a series of tough fights. Fortunately no one came hunting for us during our rest.
The next day we made our way towards the druid grove, it wasn’t far from here at all. There was a holy site of standing stones, and a cave entrance beyond. Three shadow druids challenged us at the stones. This was maybe a leadership cadre? They seemed dangerous and well equipped. Then we entered the cave.

She seemed more radical and hateful than before. No doubt! She was trying to destroy Trademeet. Jaheira stepped forward to face this herself. She scolded Faldorn for loosing sight of the “old ways”, and challenged her under their druidic rules for leadership of this grove.
Jaheira has become such a fearsome warrior, Faldorn was in completely over her head and was destroyed quickly.

But this led to another great sadness for me. Jaheira felt a strong calling to stay and restore this grove. I wouldn’t argue with her about it. I knew she still grieved on a deep level. And chasing me all over Faerun would not lead to her finding peace. She wouldn’t find it at De’Arnise Castle, or in Athkatla.

I will miss my friend. Now the good news is, she won’t be far. We will see each other again. But Jaheira was never extremely “social”. Her strong and steady presence has long been a blessing for me, I will miss that daily. But she won’t drop by for a chat. Hopefully she will if she needs me.

We returned to Trademeet. The Djinn got the rakshasa head they wanted. And the Druid attacks had ended. We were all proclaimed heroes of the town, we were rewarded and feted. It is a beautiful thing to feel appreciated! And I didn’t hear the word “Bhaalspawn” once.

After a well earned rest in a fine inn, we returned to our castle. Our home. We got there just in time to deal with an angry merchant. He reported bandits had destroyed a convoy of his on our lands. He demanded either restitution for his lost goods or he would call in all the debts and mortgages he held in De’Arnise lands!
Huh. I’ve never been in such a situation before! I didn’t much like his “or else”, and I had seen no proof this happened on De’Arnise lands.
We negotiated and agreed we would buy out all the debts he currently held in this land. We had also determined our major domo knew of a couple mercenary companies in the area. So we would hire one of them to suppress bandit activity.
I find it a little embarassing for us to be hiring mercenaries. This led to a long discussion once the merchant had been sent on his way, satisfied.

Yeah that was not good, and we had seen the need for troops both here and over in Trademeet. Nalia said her father used to employ closer to thirty, full time and permanent.
We talked for hours about finding and equipping more troops, and raising a militia. I think this so important to give the citizens some “buy in” on the safety of their homes. They should also feel safer if they are trained to help with their own security.
For starters, Amyntor and I committed that our “share” of the taxes would be 100% folded into the local defense budget.
Obviously a lot for us to work through. And right now we are pulled in so many directions. We have information about slavers in Athkatla we should act on before it goes stale. Tomorrow…

*****

Obviously a little bit of “head canon” is at play here. The game doesn’t actually allow for such a friendly parting of ways with Jaheira. But I think that’s nuts. Leaving her to restore the Druid Grove near Trademeet is such an obvious thing for her to do. And I don’t normally do it! I like having Jaheira with me to the end. But I have some other ideas for this run. So Brad’s *dear friend* Jaheira will stay nearby on druid business.

I also wanted to mention a little about the rakshasa video. There were two reference images going into it, one I often use for Brad, and a new one for the rakshasa itself. I used the old monster manual description of a rakshasa, then modified it a little for being a she-cat. Funny, I got three that were actually quite racy. But there was this one, a tiger lady in psuedo-arabian dress with fur and stripes all over. WOW! One complaint, her hands were plainly just human hands. So I fed the image back into GPT 2.0 and said “make the hands more paw-like. No other changes.” Perfect, just perfect.
Then I did a complete verbal desciption of the scene with just those two images as reference. It wasn’t quite what I expected. In my mind’s eye, Brad and the “peasant woman” faced each other. Then she changed into her natural form. The renderer had its own ideas. But dang, I think this is the best video render I’ve had yet. Just awesome stuff.

Update 24

We set out to get back to the city the next morning. We had slavers to hunt, this would be of particular importance to our new friend Aerie.
She spent the early part of the walk this morning chatting with Minsc, that was a bit of a surprise.

It is great to see our friends all getting along, and I think this was a big deal for Minsc to have a new purpose in life. A big deal for Aerie too, she has quickly become a dear friend.

She saw a young child break away, and try to run off, but an attacking archer had seen him!

These attackers were slavers. Aerie was taken, and sold to a circus. There, she never received proper treatment for her injuries. And eventually, as her wings attrophied, they grew infected and had to be sawn from her body.
Aerie still has scars on her body and mind. She carries much pain and grief.
But she is a beautiful soul, and somehow still puts others first. She is never slow to provide aid, and she is a wonderful team-mate.

When we got back to Athkatla we found a group of slavers in the act of murdering some City Guardsmen. They were the guards responsible for protecting the slaver operation we undid a few days ago. We interrupted their executions, and met Laravyl, apparently second in command of the local slavers. And it was she who had shot Aerie all those years back. We slew most of them, but Laravyl escaped.
This also led to meeting a man named Trent, who has been actively fighting slavery in Athkatla. A city where it is *supposed to be* illegal. He asked our help in routing out this particularly noxious and well entrenched gang. He sent us to talk with a merchant named Arben, who was in possession of an item wanted by the slavers.
Arben was wary of who we were, and asked us if first we would find an item held by some slaver leaders at the Five Flagons Inn.

They outnumbered us. And I felt the absence of Jaheira up front. But we soon had them down.
These two fights left us in need of a night at an inn! Which led to an unexpected interuption…

How did she find us? Anyway, big surprise, Skie said she was eager to do some shopping at Waukeen’s Promenade. We agreed to meet there in the morning.

And she really was most excited about the shopping opportunities in The City of Coin. I asked if she would join with us for a while, for more than shopping. She was horrified to learn of Imoen’s disappearence, and actually seemed eager to help us with that.
I find Skie a curiousity. In conversation she often seems vapid, and she does not seem much interested in the life of adventuring or righting wrongs. But she is always ready to come along and help. A committed party girl who is helpful in spite of herself?
I admit, I am hugely relieved not to have the cloud of “murderer” hanging over me anymore. Skie will tell anyone I didn’t kill her! I just hope traveling together is a good idea.

From here we met with Arben whose booth was in Waukeen’s Promenade. He suggested a meet by the Copper Coronet, away from prying eyes.
That was a mess. The slavers intercepted our meeting, they killed Arben and ran off with the magic item.
We reported all this back to Trent. As an aside, he revealed he was the boy Aerie had once intervened to save. I think, that helped Aerie find some peace for how her time as a slave had been. She was staring right at the fruits of her labor.
But now Trent needed us to stop the slavers whom he thought were after an artifact in the City Graveyard.

These slavers have proven to be a tough challenge. Their tactical training is better than most such gangs we’ve seen.
My biggest concern at the moment is that Skie seems poorly equipped for her role on the team. She has mastery of the Short Bow, and is specialized in Short Sword. So first and foremost she is an archer. Ideally, she should be an emergency rearguard to protect Aerie and Nalia. But she is not very muscular, tall but lighter build than I. That may limit what armor she can wear. But we need her in something better than the leather armor she has been wearing. Its just too light for when she is forced to melee.
So we stopped back by the Promenade.

This is a less common sort of armor, maybe most like Scale Mail but with bigger metal plates sewn onto leather padding. With chain protecting the joints. Its sort of a compromise armor, lighter than plate armor but better protection (especially against arrows!) than chain mail. Yeah, we’re getting Skie ready for the long haul.

Now we needed to get back to Trent. We shouldn’t have dallied! We found a large force of slavers at his Inn, and he was already gone. Another large fight, over a dozen of them this time!
But one, a mage, was a leader of sorts and he had correspondence on him he should not have. I’d knock the guy for poor operational security, but he already paid with his life. We learned exactly where “Lord Paxis” had ordered Trent taken to. It was THE main base of operations back in the slums district.
Our resources are still not as deep as they had once been, but we had a few potions, and a few prep spells we could cast. We got as ready as we could before storming the compound.

Lord Praxis himself was there, and he was a tough warrior. Laravyl was also present, she is a wicked dangerous archer. One of the items we’d been trying to retrieve was a Wand of Paralysis that Lord Praxis used against us. Shortly after battle was joined he took Aerie and Nalia completely out of the fight.
The rest of us had an epic brawl. We used *a lot* of Healing potions. In the end we won, and we rescued Trent. That really made Aerie happy!
But there were some down sides, apart from the pure cost of resources. Laravyl escaped again. She bragged about being the chief of this operation now, but I think that was an empty boast. Trent thinks *this* operation has been destroyed.
And we needed to make a run to the Temple District. Minsc needed help we could not provide. We had the Temple of Lathander cast a Raise Dead on him. He will be fine. But I can see the fatigue in his eyes.
Don’t get me wrong, Minsc is not the introspective sort. He’ll be fine. But he’s lost so much in my service. I think I will ask something else of him soon, something that will let *me* sleep better at night.

As we were concluding business at the Temple we received a messenger. Nalia’s father was being interred, and a funeral would be held the next morning at the cemetary.

We decided to spend the night at the Copper Coronet, which was near our friend Gaelan Bayle’s residence. We stopped by to offer the payment the thief had required to do business. We now have been given contact information for Aran Linvail, the Guildmaster of the Shadow Thieves. This should be interesting.

The next morning, it was off to the cemetary. We were a little underdressed. Especially Nalia! But I think she was proud of that.

And one of the most unpleasant sorts I’ve ever met. He takes her rejection as a personal insult, although somehow I think his frustration has more to do with prestige and power. He is plainly up to trouble.

Yeah, trouble. After leaving the funeral he had Nalia arrested. I’m not sure what all the legal grounds were, but I think it hardly mattered. I gather he carries considerable authority in Athkatla, and can parse the charges any which way he chooses. One of his men covertly named an associate of Isaea’s we might want to look into. Funny, betrayed by one of his own men. His high handed behavior almost garuntees that sort of outcome.
Anyway, we tugged on a few loose threads of Isaea’s life and soon had evidence of his involvement in smuggling, piracy AND slavery.

So a quick march over to Government Offices in Athkatla, and I was able to corner Isaea’s boss for a word.
That had a desired outcome.

Did I talk smack correctly? Isaea’s boss was seriously not amused by his crimes. I don’t think he will cause us anymore trouble. We had Nalia back with us before she had even seen the inside of a cell.

When we were over by the Temples yesterday we had been asked to look into a new cult that had sprung up in town. We will, not yet. But we knew a paladin was to help us with that task. I have learned he is a capable and respected man in these parts. So I wanted to talk with him before we returned to De’Arnise tonight.

Our meeting was agreeable and he will join with our team, with the understanding we WILL look into that cult!

We bought some horses to make these trips to and from the Castle go a little quicker. We have more business in town, but we also need to stay on top of the needs of De’Arnise. These people are in dire need, and we don’t have nearly the money to fix all that is wrong yet.
We have tasked the Captain of the Guard with bringing in new recruits.

Oh I hope we won’t regret that! Minsc was surprisingly agreeable to this. We’ve seen so much together. And he has the right to see things through with Irenicus. Maybe I’m still just a little disturbed by seeing so many arrows sticking out of him. But I do expect us all to have a future together as friends too. Its frustrating to be pulled in different directions.

Its back to the City in the morning.

*****

Funny how you can do a small amount of game and have so much story involved. And this time, only Nalia’s little story is a part of game canon.
The whole extended slaver story is from the “Wings” mod, its all Aerie’s story. There are a number of fights with the slavers that are a little tricky. Most are not “hard”, except the last one is a doozy! And its mostly just excellent encounter design. You face mixed parties that are well deployed with warriors, archers and spellcasters. Not a whole lot of experience or treasure. But you will need to pay attention to your tactics. Especially that fight against Praxis!
And of course the return of Skie is from “Skie: The Cost of One Girl’s Soul”. I complicated that a little by recreating her as a Fighter. As I’ve said before, I’ll say she was never a thief. She never was when I knew her! My first awareness of her is as the Flaming Fist’s most unlikely recruit. They would have trained her as a warrior. So my Skie is a little different from canon, starting with not being dead.

Having the team buy horses is another head canon thing. Of course horses are not implimented in the game. But it occured to me as I did that render of the whole team walking back to Athkatla. That travel time between De’Arnise Castle and the City is listed as Four hours. How stupid is it to be walking that all the time! So *we* will all know, my team rides. Seriously, why would you not buy horses for the Castle? That should halve most travel times.
As I’ve mentioned before, there also a few little things, minor quests getting done that are not mentioned in the narrative. We amassed the required fee for the thieves fairly quickly. Now Brad is going to build her team’s strength. Buying more key items including more scrolls, potions, ammunition. Wise things for any adventuring band to keep with them. The next few updates will involve four adventure mods before we set off to rescue Imoen.