DavesGaming

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.