I woke up suddenly, startled. The night was warm and calm, yet I chill ran through me that bit into my soul. Just as I was trying to make sense of it, the ground opened beneath me and I fell into darkness.
Oh, crap. This was obviously a dream and I remember this dream sequence. But experiencing it like this was super trippy.
The dream showed me the empty mines of Nashkel, cleansed of threats by the passage of my party. It showed me the deeper and deeper levels, until it showed me Mulahey, still dead, but looking at me expectantly.
A dagger of bone hovered before Mulahey, waiting to be driven into him and killing him again, for some reason? Mulahey's spirit looked on, powerless and silent, awaiting his second death.
In the game, the dreams had a 'good' and 'evil' version, but I appeared to have free form to choose to do whatever I wanted, not following either exactly. Having the choice to kill Mulahey a second time in my dream seemed both excessive and pointless to me. I had no personal vendetta against the guy, he just got in my way and I outplayed the dumb cleric.
Was the god who set up to this scenario also the god of pointless excess? Was I supposed to go around kicking puppies for the heck of it too? So uncool. I smacked the dagger down lightly, and it clattered to the floor.
Surprised by my benevolence (Why are you surprised? Now I'm tempted to slap you), the apparition hobbled through and past me, onward to whatever fate awaited it in the afterlife. Mulahey left something behind within me as it passed though, a spark of hope? Like a dagger-shaped hole in my being that I didn't know was empty.
Very trippy.
There was a cry of rage, emanating from the depths, though the depths of where I could not tell. The dagger on the floor suddenly flew up to strike at my heart.
I dodged the dagger. I mean, I was expecting it. Foreknowledge, yeah?
The dagger floated in the air, offended that it had missed its target. It started to turn, aiming right at me again.
My hair stood on end. "Hey, don't be such a poor sport now. Uh, I mean, it's totally uncool to keep trying after the first shot failed, you know?"
I shrieked like a girl when the dagger shot forward at me again.
Only then was I released from the dream, once again waking startled. Cold sweat seeped into my eyes.
The dream was over, yet a disapproving voice still lingered in my ears, saying, 'You... WILL... learn!'"
I covered my ears and grimaced. What exactly was I supposed to learn from that nonsense?!?
With that dream sequence, I gained a second use of Cure Light Wounds. Thanks, Mulahey? I guess?
The rest of the party wasn't too surprised to learn that I gained another use of my special powers. It did happen before after all.
"Maybe the next time you wake up, you get the power to summon us breakfast," Imoen said, smirking. "I want pancakes with honey and syrup, by the way."
"What happened to summoning hamsters?" I asked, giving her a withering glance.
"Eh, breakfast more important. Speaking of which, let's get some now!"
The new wand from Tranzig and Algernon's cloak could only be used after proper identification, so we had taken the time to rest after the journey to Beregost and battles with Tranzig and Silke.
We dropped by Thunderhammer's smithy for some purchases as well. With my big pile of money, I was pretty tempted to buy the full plate armour for 4.9k gp for Khalid and Shadow Armour +3 for 8.6k gp for myself. In the end I decided against to stave of the biggest purchases until I maxed out our reputation for that final 10% discount. I settled on a Large shield +1 for 1640gp (for Khalid), Shortbow+1 for 1230gp (Imoen), 40 arrows +1 for 328gp and 80 bullets+1 for 520gp.
The wand from Tranzig turned out to be a Wand of Magic Missiles with 31 charges. All our non-casters now had a wand of missiles with which we could help burn down Mirror Images and interrupt spells on demand. Very nice vs mages that we will come across.
Once Neera had prepared her spells for battle, it was time to travel again.
"As agreed, we're putting aside our main quest and Commander Brage to go pay this Adoy a visit," I reminded the group. I pointed at our map at an area south-south-east from Beregost. "Let's pass by the area where Bjornin wanted us to take care of the half-ogres. May as well rid the realm of a threat along the way."
I actually wanted to handle Brage right away so that I could max out our party's reputation and thus discounts at stores. But Neera would probably be pretty upset if I put off her quest any further. She wouldn't mind in-game, but in person she was a real pain to deal with. She was an expert at nagging and complaining.
Funnily enough, the very first encounter we had in the area Bjornin pointed out was a group of half-ogres.
"Your iron or your life," the half-ogre said, then shook his head. "No, your iron AND your life. Yeah, that one's better."
That was Arghain, the leader of pack who wielded a two-handed sword.
"Uhhhh, how is that better?" I asked. "We're not going to willingly give you our iron if you won't promise not to kill us, yeah?"
"Yeah, how does that work, genius?" another half-ogre chimed in.
"Boss, just stick to the basics. Your iron or your life. Ya don't have to be original," said another.
"Let me say it next time, if ya don't wanna. Your iron or your life."
The rest of my party shifted about uncomfortably, out of second hand embarrassment.
"Wow. You guys really don't have your act together, huh?" Imoen commented.
"Shut- SHADDAP!" Arghain yelled. "Just kill them already!"
Lack of intelligence or not, half-ogres were certainly imposing compared to the average person. Arghain himself looked especially impressive in bulk, and the deadly-looking two-handed sword he carried made him look especially dangerous.
Khalid and Jaheira moved forward to hold them off, but just to be sure Neera supported them with a sleep spell.
I held my breath, half-expecting a wild surge to happen as Neera incanted. But Neera's magic held true, and the Sleep spell shot out and infused the half-ogres.
One half-ogre fell asleep.
I frowned. Really, just one fell asleep? I don't think their saving throw is high at all. That's pretty unlucky for us.
"Do I cast another?" Neera asked.
Khalid was quite expertly fending off the Arghain in spite of the strength difference and formidable two-handed sword, as well as one other half-ogre. Jaheira was occupying the third.
I found my angle and twirled out a sling bullet, whacking one of Khalid's half-ogres in the elbow of his sword hand, hard. He glared at me in anger but took an arrow to the neck from Imoen and went down, clutching at his injury in vain. Khalid now only faced Arghain, while Jaheira was engaged with the other.
"Don't think they need it," I said to Neera, then raised my voice, "Khalid, Jaheira? How're you holding up?"
"We're fine!" Jaheira shouted back.
"Ye're not! We gonna kill ya!" Arghain shouted in disagreement even as his large blade bounced off Khalid's spanking new Large Shield+1.
Not hardy likely. Half-ogres may look impressive, but it was now six of us vs two of them. Jaheira clubbed her half-ogre out, then we focused on Arghain, and finally performed a coup de grâce on the sleeping one.
"Could have been smoother," I muttered aloud, to no one in particular after the battle.
To my surprise, it was Khalid who found a water opal in a rock just a little south from where we met Arghain (x=1570, y=1486).
"I—I just saw a shine in the moonlight," he said.
"It's your turn to have a bit of luck," I said happily. See, it's not so strange.
I didn't turn to look, but I just knew both pink irritations were rolling their eyes at me.
There was an alcove in the outcropping nearby the water opal. I went in to scout, and almost stepped into a trap immediately. No, actually I DID step right into it. It's just that I was fortunate that it failed to trigger. Some sort of webbing, which meant giant spiders ahead.
Whatever set this web trap may be alerted if it set off. But if I try to move to get Imoen to disarm it, just lifting my foot trigger the damnable thing. I certainly couldn't call for Imoen with enemies possibly in wait nearby. So I had to disarm it myself.
I sighed to myself. This is why it's more convenient to have all the thieving skills on one person, at least both stealth and disarm. Well, what's done is done. I knelt down until I could reach the webbing with my hands, careful not to shift my weight too much. Slowly, I cut the webbing around my foot with my tools to separate it from the rest of the webbing waiting to spring.
That seemed to do it. The web trap lay useless now. Before I reported back, I spied around the corner with a piece of mirror on a stick, another thief tool. As expected, something was there, laying in wait. But it wasn't a spider. Not exactly.
Monsters really look more threatening in person, especially in low light. Standing in the darkness, something vaguely humanoid was lurking, waiting. It had long arms like an ape, but eight eyes and a beak like that of a spider's. Spider-ape, maybe? That's an Ettercap.
I reported back to the team outside.
"Ettercap, ettercap, Ettercap,… I can't say I remember much about them," Imoen said.
Jaheira was our nature expert, so we looked to her. "May not look much, but they're tough," Jaheira said. "Main problem is fighting them in their own territory, where we have to watch out for giant webs. Since that's gone, half the battle is won."
No kidding. Ettercaps had THAC0 11, 3 attacks per round, and poisons on every hit. It's saving throws were so good there was almost no point trying to debilitate it with most debuff spells.
"I didn't like where this was heading," I said. "Is there really nothing better we can do except brute force through it?"
Damn, I wish I had bought that full pate mail for Khalid after all.
Branwen had a slight smile on her face, which I ignored.
The Ettercap was probably expecting us to get trapped in it's web, so it was extremely displeased to see invaders in its lair who got past its defences. Khalid led the charge with Jaheira, with Imoen, Branwen and Neera providing supporting fire from afar.
Just as Khalid and the Ettercap clashed, a quarterstaff from the shadows cleared through its knees from behind, which knocked it on it's back. That gave Khalid and Jaheira the opening they needed. Greywolf's very special Longsword+2 and a club came crashing down upon the Ettercap, ending it.
The Ettercap was hunched forwards, so hitting its head from behind wasn't in the cards. Thankfully, the Ettercap was not nearly as durable as the revenant before. So hitting it hard and fast before it could overwhelm Khalid with its flurry of poisonous attacks worked out well. We had pre-buffed with Bless and Chant to help us bring it down fast.
Defeating the Ettercap led to Khalid and Jaheira leveling up as fighters, which meant more THAC0 and HP. Imoen was on the cusp of levelling up as well.
Turns out the Ettercap had a little collection in the cave. A bit of jewellery, murky (and therefore cursed) Oil of Speed which we left behind, and another Potion of Fire Resistance! Jaheira gave me a sidelong glance when I asked Khalid to hold on to it.
The next group we scouted out to the west were three men to the east, well armored and armed.
"Two of them are archers. No way to confirm if they're bandits," I told the rest. I knew they were, but I had to play along, see? "They do look like they're looking for something."
"Do they really look that dangerous?" Branwen asked. "We outnumber them two to one. We seem to hue and haw over every little scrap."
"If we don't take them seriously, I believe any group can take advantage of us. And this group is armed," I replied. "And for the record, we only end up hewing and hawing because there's a lot of disagreement with how I do things around here."
Branwen pursed her lips, and took a literal step back.
Jaheira stepped forward to speak. "Perhaps we do need to get of your back when it comes to the means you choose in battle," Jaheira said, "Let's set one main condition. Always establish hostilities first before striking, excluding monsters and the obvious. Can you handle that?"
I nodded, satisfied. "I think so."
The three in question was led by Ioin Gallchobhair. Ioin and his goons may not seem like much, just being three guys. But the Ioin's two lackeys were cheat characters. They both had +++++ aka GRANDMASTERY weapon proficiency in bows, and use +1 arrows to boot. You had better believe their arrows will hurt! All three were all level 6, therefore immune to Sleep and resisted Command.
Night had long fallen, so Ioin Gallchobhair barely made out the party of warrior coming their way. Normally bandits wouldn't dare attack such well-armed foes with superior numbers, but he was extremely confident in he and his team's ability to destroy any casual group of adventurers.
"There is a toll for passing this way, friends," Ioin Gallchobhair shouted from afar. Maintaining distance was key to their strategy, after all. "And it happens to be your life. Are you willing to part with it?"
The lead warrior put a hand to his ear. "Whaaaat? Wait, I go there!"
Ioin frowned. Looking more carefully, the man didn't look local. Foreigners these days. But there was no way Ioin was allowing this foreigner to come closer.
"Stay where you are!" Ioin screamed, "Give us your money or you die!"
The leading warrior looked at them, glanced back to the woman to his side, then said, "What was that?"
And then the warrior took a step forward together with his party of four.
Oh, bloody hell. There was no way Ioin was going to allow this to happen. "Dribben, Billy! Give 'em ell!"
Dribben and Billy drew their bows to fire. But they promptly fell over, dead. A woman stood behind Billy, and a halfling was barely visible behind Billy.
Ioin gulped. Not a party of four, it was a party of six. And it was now six against one.
Other than 10 Arrows+1, the only other items of interest Ioin Dribben and Billy had were gems and their scalps.
As with the 'little amazons', "Positioning via Yakking" is all you need to beat this battle. Archers aren't so hot once you're in close range. In-game, I could very consistently get my front-liners to initiate conversation first, thereby getting close to them. Blind will also reduce their range greatly, making ranged attacks a non-issue.
Funnily enough, Billy and Dribben had really low HP for level 6 fighters so backstabbing them was pretty ideal too. Since they're using bows (+4 to hit an enemy wielding a ranged weapon with a melee attack), even Imoen has a good chance to hit them with her x3 damage backstab. Casting Strength on her did the rest.
After the battle with Ioin and his two goons, Imoen leveled up to level 6 thief. I pushed her Find traps skill to 65.
We had a quick but harrowing encounter to save a farmer's cow from xvarts. Harrowing mostly because the xvarts were already chopping the poor cow apart, so we had to use a Sleep spell to save it in time. Said farmer apparently was either well connected or really good at spreading gossip, because I would later learn that this act of cow saving actually improved our reputation.
I don't really get how that helped us, honestly. Sonny and gang, the magnificent cow saviours? Who wants to be known for that! Soooo uncool.
The ladies were pretty happy we managed to save the cow. We took some time to treat the cow's wounds.
"Awwww, who's a cute widdle cow? Yes, yes you are!" Imoen said while squeezing the cow's cheeks.
"Really, Imoen? Since when were you a cow girl, uh, a girl who likes cows," I teased her.
"I share an affinity with animals," she said, "I bet I'd making a great druid! I should diversify to start learning druidic magic. Right, Jaheira?"
"Druidry is a very dedicated calling, Imoen. A lot more is involved than loving animals," Jaheira said, then winked. "But it does help."
"See! Even Jaheira thinks so!"
Did you just ignore everything other than what you wanted to hear? "I don't remember you volunteering for Dreppin's chores to work with the cows back in the day."
Imoen gave me a big raspberry.
The next lone person we met along the way turned out not to be hostile. Just rude.
"Adventurers? You?" Sarhedra a female dwarf (no, they don't have beards) said. She looked at me up and down, and laughed. And laughed. And laughed.
I was rolling up my sleeves to deck her good when Imoen and Neera tackled me to the floor.
Jaheira stood in front of us. "I demand you apologize right now! Even the smallest in stature can achieve great things. Plenty of halflings have."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. But come on, just look at him!" Sarhedra wheezed. "Don't -wheeze- hurt me, I can't help it!"
Jaheira gave her a glare, then sneered. "I bet he's saved more lives and helped more people thus far than you ever will in your whole lifetime. How long are dwarf lifespans compared to halflings, by the way?"
Sarhedra stopped laughing. She snorted, "You say you're some big shot adventurers wantin' to change the world or somethin'? Well, go pick on the ogres to the south if it will make you feel better."
Ogres it was. Three of them, standing over their last victim. And an ogrillon. And two hobgoblins with weapons dripping with poison. When I came back reporting what I had seen, the party didn't look enthusiastic.
"It there some sort of theme going on? First half-ogres, now ogres and ogrillons too? What gives?" Neera asked.
"Wouldn't it make more sense if ogres and ogre cousins gathered together?" I asked.
Neera shrugged.
I shook my head. She just likes to complain every chance she gets.
"We're not doing this *just* because we were challenged. Yes, of course that matters to my pride too," I told the team, and they smiled back at my admission. "These are murderers. Ogres were part of the team of the armored figure that murdered Gorion, my foster father, too. I say their victim deserves some vengeance."
The battle was quick, but furious. I back-stabbed one elite hobgoblin, killing it. Then I ran for my life, leading the pack of ogres and more to the rest of the group and Imoen's trap.
Imoen's trap fired, and unfortunately only took out one ogre. 2 ogres, an ogrillon and an elite hobgoblin to go.
"I'm casting sleep!" Neera called out. Good call, really. I was too busy running for my life past Khalid and Jaheira to answer.
If only. Neera's magic surged wildly. Aaand what happened exactly?
Neera blinked. "Uh, it showed me a view of the area."
URGH. "Try again! I know you're out, use a scroll!"
Thankfully this time the spell cast normally, giving us the edge we needed. In the mean-time, Khalid got manhandled by the ogres in spite of our best efforts to support him and Jaheira. Neera made sure to apologize to him later, after the battle, at least. That's character development right there.
"Again, messier than I would have liked," I muttered to no one in particular.
"You, you actually killed the ogres and won? So fast?" Sarhedra said in surprise, once again looking me up and down as if I had grown horns. "You did?"
"It was a team effort, but I got most of the kills," I said. I spared a glance behind me, to see the party was nodding and smiling. "I'm pretty good with a big stick and rocks. Want a demonstration?"
Sarhedra urm-ed and ah-ed. "Damn, I don't know. I'm no good at this quest stuff. I have… ummm… people to see and places to be."
And she ran off in a huff. I smiled seeing her go.
We were about to move on, when I put up my hand. "Hold up. Something's been bothering me about our battles today."
After putting someone on watch, we gathered in a circle.
"Are we getting sloppy?" I asked the rest. "I feel like we're getting sloppy. We could have easily taken worse injuries than just a few bruises from that last fight. If we used Command on one of the two last ogres, we could have avoided some injuries. But we just brute forced through it."
They discussed amongst themselves to firm up their thoughts then got back to me.
"We did get a bit unlucky with magic today," Neera admitted. "But I don't think we made any bad calls back there."
"We're just stronger now," Imoen said, showing of a bicep. "Same enemies, but cast less spells. Ya know I'm right."
The rest nodded in agreement. Jaheira spoke up, "We used some healing spells for injuries, true. But that's in lieu of using other spells to completely control the fights. It's okay that we didn't completely dominate our enemies without injuries."
"No complaints from me, naturally," Branwen said. "We faced armed foes in battle head-on. Since they were weaker, we didn't have to resort… special tactics."
Huh. So it's the effect of out-levelling the opposition. The balance of resource use is throwing me off.
We were just too strong. At least, for now.