DavesGaming

The bulk of this update will be a brief runthrough of Acifer’s latest mod, Poisoned Pathways. I don’t set out to either be spoiler free or spill the beans on everything. This is an adventurer’s journal. So just be warned, if you wish to be spoiler-free, this may reveal some secrets. If you’re looking for spoilers, I will make no effort to provide them. I’m sure I can disappoint both sorts!

*****

Several days back, after we had returned the poisoned Renfeld to his home base in the docks of Athkatla, we had a brief discussion with a man named Merethan. He was a priest of Eldath, the Goddess of Peace and Tranquility. He was greatly concerned that someone was selling a poison that could not be treated through magic or herbalism. A perfectly deadly toxin. He had provided us with a name of a shady merchant who he was sure had sold some of this poison. He wanted to know the source, but he himself was too well known in these parts to do such a thing.
So it fell on the outsider to do some spy work. Through this, uh, thoroughly distasteful merchant we arranged a meeting to buy this super poison. We took this information to Merethan.

Yeah, I can’t blame him for not wanting to poke into this alone. Toadstool Hollow was an ambush. We defeated it, but not before Merethan was struck by an incurably poisoned arrow. We found one other such arrow with the poison, and wrapped it carefully for someone more knowledgable than us to take a look at it.
But it was too late for Merethan. As the poison took him he gave us directions to Duskwood Dell, an Eldathan sanctuary. There the Fallskeeper Alatoasz Berendim would know what to do about the poison.

Duskwood Dell is beautiful. I wish… I wish life was this simple. In this hidden glen the Eldathans do live an idyllic sort of life. They reject all violence. At least in this one case they will be helpful too. Fallskeeper Berendim was able to identify the poison. Sort of. He was sure its origin had something to do with Elven magic. There are several failed or failing Mythals in this area. That is, the magic that protects elven settlements. He thinks our answers will lie in one of them. We helped him track down some research matierial, specifically an ancient book held at the Temple of Oghma in Athkatla.
And he narrowed down the possibilities. He tasked us to seek out a flower known as Groveglove from the ruins of Myth Unnohyr. Sound like fun…

The magics that once protected, and hid the place had been corrupted and fouled. As near as we could tell, the city would be a wild magic zone by day and dead magic by night.

They are essentially just balls of shimmering light. But they can kill with their magical energies. And they never appear singly, on several occasions we were faced with six or more of them at once.

We had several encounters related to the deceased former residents and guardians. We found some useful magic items. And we were able to craft an amulet that would let *one of us* cast spells in spite of the Mythal’s wild/dead properties. We gave that to Aerie, since she can cast both arcane and divine spells. We also discovered that some of the abandoned homes provided protection from the magical energies outside. This came in handy as we did need to recooperate a couple times during our exploring.
We also encountered patrols of Yuan-ti, those vicious snake-men. There had been a couple of them at the ambush that claimed Merethan. We took that to mean we were on the right trail. We did find a tower with an entrance blocked by toxic vapors gushing forth. Some more exploring and we found a ward, an item that would let us pass the vapors.

Inside, we found a Groveglove plant. Obviously we would need that! But we heard someone working on the next floor.

He was a priest of Talona, the Lady of Poison. Fitting. He bragged about his deadly concoction, and promised to kill us.
He started casting dark magic, and somehow gated in a number of Chasme, giant demon bugs. Because of the wild magic outside we’d been unable to do much prep before hand. And the nature of this setting led to us being somewhat cut off from each other.

We won, although we fought in pairs or singly. It was very hard to support each other until the very end.
And this place was putrid and vile. We grabbed the Groveglove, a few trinkets and some notes we’d taken.
And hurried back to Alatoasz in Duskwood Dell.

We stayed to help with errands and chores in getting an antidote for this stuff. We needed blessings from two different priests back in Athkatla, and some sacred water from right here in the Dell.

Finally the last step had to be completed back in the original lab in Myth Unnohyr. We did that too.
In the end we all knew we had done something good and important. But we were tired! It was good to head back to De’Arnise for a couple days.

We had a good time there, together. But we did have one unwanted visitor.

What a blow hard. I wonder if he’s ever even swung that pretty sword of his. We handled his son and we can handle him.
After, I talked with Minsc and Captain Cernak. They report training and recruiting are coming along well. Good. Hopefully, with a ready army Lord Roenall will decide this is more trouble than he wants. So far, he’s very hung up the idea since Amyntor and I aren’t nobles we can’t lead.

Now, I think its time to hunt some vampires for Aran Linvail.

*****

The Fighter Stronghold missions are funny, they have a notoriously buggy timer. Most playthroughs I’ve done since I started running more mods have been a bust. Typically nothing after Episode Three (the priest of Tempus) ever launches at all. I think maybe two of my last six runs have had any Stronghold Episodes after that. So I was pleased when this came up! I did speed up the timer (via Tweaks mod) figuring I would know sooner if would work or not. And there it is! I think this is the first time I’ve ever had Lord Roenall visit before heading after Imoen. Of course I’ve dawdled a little on this run, Poisoned Pathways was a time consuming adventure with all that running around.

And I would add, Poisoned Pathways is fun adventure. Its the same extremely high quality we’ve come to expect from Acifer. It is far shorter than Throne of the Mad God or Call of the Lost Goddess. The core of it is a little longer than Dark Tidings, but then there is a lot of running around. Errands and chores to finish things up. That was sort of fun too, it feels like you’re a part of something big.