Wolfweres, Werewolves, and a Return to Beregost

With the sea charts in hand and most things sewn up in Baldur's Gate for the time being, we made the day-and-a-half-long journey down to Beregost.  I had some things to wrap up, and Mendas had been waiting on me for a month or longer, so another few days isn't hurting anything.  Unfortunately, there weren't any more sets of full plate mail for sale at the Thunderhammer Smithy, so Idaen is stuck wearing the ankheg armor indefinitely.  So I stayed in town for a couple more hours, rested, sifted through some of the items I had in storage in a room at the Jovial Juggler, then hit the road once more.

This time, north to Ulgoth's Beard.  Mendas was pleased to finally have his charts, and he booked us a vessel right there on the spot.  We travel a "score" of days (ah, that's twenty...let's say three weeks) and the ship sinks in a storm.  Oh, but let me pause for a second...those days were not counted in the total on the save game screen/journal/anything else.  I really don't like that...I guess my only choice is to add on 42 days or so in my head to whatever day-count the game gives me.  Imperfect solution...damn.

Anyways, I'm sure that most readers of this blog know the story (but actually my first playthrough of it), but here it goes anyway:  After we washed up on shore, we realized pretty quickly that this was indeed the island we were looking for.  The villagers seemed real strange...I assumed it had to do with the inbreeding finally catching up to them.  Two hundred people is NOT an adequate population to maintain healthy genetic diversity...but I digress.

But if my only way off this island is to clear the northern part of it of the wolfweres, then that's what I have to do.  And they're tough, it turns out...they hit hard.  Almost lost Ajantis in the first encounter.  Resistant to magic, too, but not resistant enough to defeat a party with two high level mages.

We wiped out all of the wolfweres on the surface of the island, resting on the southern side of the island when it was necessary.  Met Dradeel, who was able to shed a little more light on the interesting circumstances of the island, and Balduran's final voyage.

Everything got a little more difficult when we entered the ship.  The whole ship, infested with wolfweres.  Yeslick fell in battle on one of the upper levels.  Hated to see it happen, but I guess I'll see him on the mainland.  So now it's just the five of us, confronting Karoug and his woman.  This battle was difficult like the rest.  I was able to have Montaron scout ahead, so we were able to pre-buff (including Haste...which frustratingly doesn't work for Spider's Bane-wielding Ajantis), raise undead, and summon some monsters.  When the battle started, we took out the mage first, quickly and decisively.  Xzar casted Emotion, which was a real help...took two of the wolfweres out of commission.  While Karoug focused on clawing apart the summoned help, we took care of the still-conscious wolfweres.  Then it became just a five-on-one confrontation with the greater wolfwere, and what do you know...none of my weapons can harm him.  No arrows from Monty or Imoen, not Spider's Bane, not my PC's two flails +1.  So, what can I do?  I guess I just reverted to a simply but effective strategy: Magic Missile barrage.  Both Imoen and Xzar are level 8 (or were close to it at the time), and Xzar has a ring that doubles his first level spells.  I think Imoen had 4 and Xzar had 6.  Karoug may have resisted a good percentage of the magic missiles, but a lot still hurt him.  And there were a lot.  Eventually, he was dead.

Returned to Dradeel before returning to the village. I was going to head straight back after giving the mage his spellbook, but I actually turned around halfway there to the village to rest and heal at Dradeel's cabin.  I had a strange feeling about the villagers, and a shipwrecked sailor-turned-villagers vaguely warned me that nothing here is as it seems.  Plus, most of the villagers would mention smells and scents.  So my guess?  Werewolves.  And what do you know, that's just what it is.  I actually wasn't opposed to Kaishas turning me into a lycanthrope and being part of the tribe...as long as I could still leave.  Unfortunately it just wasn't meant to be.  We fought our way to the ship, killed the transformed Kaishas, and set sail for home.

The toughest battle of this whole subplot was waiting for us when we docked in Ulgoth's Beard.  Mendas revealed his true identity and motivations, and before we knew it we had two loup garou on our hands.  I fled out of the house into the yard in front, and faced them there.  Again, no weapons were working.  I used magic missiles again, but eventually we ran out after the first of the loup garou died.  At some point, Ajantis gets struck down.  Now it's four of us, and it's up to the healer to do the bulk of the tankwork.  I relied heavily on Xzar's Ring of Energy and a wand of frost that was handed off to Imoen in the midst of the battle.  The second werewolf died, and the four of us who were still living could finally enjoy the solid ground we hadn't stood on in weeks.

I resurrected the Paladin and the Dwarf at the Lady's Hall in Baldur's Gate on my way down south.  It was a quick pit stop in the Grand Dukes' city, and nothing seemed to have changed much.  Again, though, I'm paranoid I'm being watched by the Iron Throne or some satellite organization, so I make the stay quick.  I sold most of my treasure at Sorcerous Sundries, including Balduran's log book for a cool 5kgp.

Next, on to Beregost.  I'm at something of a crossroads at this point.  I still think it's too soon to return to Baldur's Gate (even though it's been *ahem* more than six weeks)...not enough new experience has been gained since most of that time was spent sitting on a ship.  As I said lost post, I never really got a chance to explore the areas east and west of Beregost....so that became the plan.  If I'm truly going to be the hero of the Sword Coast, I need to know its ins and outs, especially around this central-type merchant town.  So after resting at my favorite inn, the Jovial Juggler, I head west to High Hedge.  It's been five months or more since I first ran through here, scared for my life, dodging skeleton darts.  But now look at us.  Either Imoen casts a Fireball to incinerate them all, or one of the three of us with Turn Undead just send them scattering.

Either way:  I meet Kivan.  I don't have to tell him anything about us, so I leave him standing there.  Yes, he's a warrior with high dexterity (been looking for one), but I don't want to be left with no fighters at all (multi-class or not).  Then I head into High Hedge itself.  Talked to the mage and bought Imoen a Robe of the Good Archmagi.  That'll do it.

Head west to give another shot at the flesh golem cave.  This time, after the experience of defeating dozens of wolfweres not too long ago, the golems weren't too much of a challenge.  I came out with a Manual of Bodily Health.  Then I turned north to the coast region I hadn't explored yet...met a water nymph (or something) enslaved by an ogre mage, gained the Helmet of Defense, and met the late Davaeorn's brother.


And that's where my party is at this point.  I'm about to journey to the large expanse of land east of Beregost...heard rumors of the ruins of a magic school?  Maybe some bridge ruins too.  Just fully experiencing the Sword Coast area before heading back to Baldur's Gate to start bringing all of this to a close.

The levels of the members of the group:

Idaen, lvl 7 cleric/lvl 6 ranger
Yeslick, lvl 6 fighter/lvl 6 cleric
Ajantis, lvl 7 paladin
Montaron, lvl 6 fighter/lvl 7 thief
Imoen, lvl 6 thief>lvl 8 mage
Xzar, lvl 8 necromancer

The City

I entered the city of Baldur's Gate, and just like last playthrough, it immediately felt like a whirlwind of subquests.  Remember:  my original plan was to briefly gauge the pulse of the city with regards to the political turmoil and the bandit issues, and somehow retrieve the sea charts for Mendas.

Before I can even cross the bridge, I'm approached by Scar of the Flaming Fist.  He wants me to look into the strange behavior of the Seven Suns trading roster.  Since this almost definitely has something to do with the Iron Throne (based on one of Davaeorn's letters), it's instantly intriguing.  Maybe if I have time.

So, what happened?  A lot.  I want to say I spent about a week and a half there (game-time).  I'm assuming the large majority of the readers of this blog have played through BG1 before, so I won't go into every detail of all the subquests.  I'll just add the motivations and justifications of my party as they navigated the winding streets of this large city.  Please note that the completion of all these quests were interwoven with each other, with some being put on hold and some taking priority depending on their timing.  It was all happening at the same time, but at this point I have no chance of really remembering the actual sequence of events.

• We got attacked upon entering the Merchant League's Counting House...obviously no one was buying the weak lie that Montaron was trying to sell.  However, once we got to the 2nd floor, we were able to convince the captain to give us the sea charts, as soon as we were able to get him some of the ale he liked.  Several days, multiple subquests, and 900gp later, we returned to the captain with his drug of choice, and he had the sea charts.

• We were  also led to the Thieves Guild within a few hours of entering the city.  The leader Alatos had a tasks to ask of me, seeing how we seemed like a competent enough group of adventurers.  Normally I wouldn't have taken part of it (remember the plan...in and out), but he mentioned Shandalar.  Oh yeah, that mage in Ulgoth's Beard that teleported me to that island prison, where I almost got stranded and killed.  You know, if this quest to steal flying ship artifacts is going to destroy some of his plans, then good.  He's got it coming to him...I'm just grateful I can be part of ruining his day.  I agreed to do it.  So, eventually during my week and a half in the city, I find Oberan's estate, and Shandalar's three daughters.  Montaron flawlessly pulls this quest off, almost single-handedly.  After Imoen picked the outside lock for him (she hit level 7 mage so she has her thief skills back now), Montaron sneaked in, explored the entire premises, climbed to the third floor, and stole the three artifacts while no one was the wiser.  We returned to Alatos, but his Halruaan friend still felt the need to kill us so we couldn't go spreading around the secrets of his stupid flying ship.  Unfortunately for him, when a lonely mage is ~3 feet away from my party, he's usually dead before he can fail casting a second spell.  The guildmaster was apologetic, telling me I still have the run of the guild if I want.

Fighting in the streets

• While looking for Oberan's estate to find the Halruuan skyship artifacts, we stumbled into a different estate (I was entering all nice-looking estates since there's no sign on the Oberlan one).  Doom Guards, Invisible Stalkers, Helmed Horrors...wow.  This was a long, multi-phase, bloody battle that spilled out onto the streets on a nice afternoon in the richest neighborhood of Baldur's Gate.  Xzar was struck down pretty early on...when the monsters came busting out into the streets the first time and caught him by surprise...they were chasing a recently exposed Montaron.  After that, we managed to keep it together to an extent.  Imoen's Wand of Paralyzation was VERY useful during this battle as the stalkers and horrors seemed surprisingly susceptible...good thing we have two or three more for the future.  After clearing out the first wave, we traveled back in the house to take out the rest that were standing guard.  This second battle took place mostly inside, but Ajantis and Yeslick started hurting.  I thought we had it sewn up by then, but when we reached Degrodel and refused to complete whatever task he wanted, he summoned three or four more enemies.  I was really thinking about running, but I decided to stay there and fight...for a time.  After we killed the mage (rather swiftly with help from the classic halfling backstab and a hit or two from Yeslick's warhammer), the fight was slipping out of control, so we retreated to the streets to get our bearings, maybe lose one or two of the horrors.  And somehow it worked, with some five-on-one cleanup once or twice afterwards.  We ended with almost no healing potions left, and no real useful spells (other than those that didn't fit the situation).  Phew...I brought the mad wizard back to life and rested 24 hours straight to heal, relax, and have Xzar identify the dozen or so magical items that I didn't want to bring to a shop or temple (out of principle).

In rough shape by the end of it

• Marek and Lothander.  Bumped into them very soon after entering the city.  Didn't take them seriously at all...uh-oh, but apparently I was poisoned when I was asleep.  They must have got me at some point when I was traveling down from Ulgoth's Beard, because I hadn't yet stayed at an inn in the city.  Luckily for me, Lothander was willing to risk activating his geas for the chance to be rid of it.  I went to the fortune teller, who told me to see out the Temple of Umberlee.  I knew where it was because I entered there previously to merely check it out...and was greeted rather coldly, may I add.  The head priestess (can't remember her name) wanted a tome of wisdom from the Lady's Hall.  Headed there.  Between then and some other time, I had run into Ghorak, who had asked me to retrieve a skull to bring to the Lady's Hall as well.  I figured I might be able to buy some good will to ease up the job of getting the tome...well, Ghorak was cured (never really got any of the backstory having to do with that?), but I still had to pay a large sum of gold for the tome.  Fine. I headed back to the Umberlants, and got the geas removal scroll.  Got Lothander's half of the antidote, then got Mareks.  Cured.  The Iron Throne's going to have to step their game up.

• Brielbara's child was being poisoned.  I at first told her I didn't have time (remember...in and out!) but she seemed so helpless and with no other option, so I decided to help her get Yago's spellbook.  And poisoning a child is really just a low class thing to do.  Plus, I had met Yago previously in the Low Lantern and he seemed like a d#@$.  Done and done.

• Speaking of misfortunate children, I was also tasked with (and accepted) retrieving the body of a small boy who was killed by the Umberlants.  Yup, those b!#@&e$ again.  I had about enough of them, so this time I went it, very quickly realized they weren't going to give up the body easily, then slaughtered all of them.  Too bad for them, but people really need to start showing some respect here.

• Found the Helm of Balduran at the Helm and Cloak.  Not bad at all.

• Heard some talk of a Ragefast keeping a nymph as a sex slave.  Real weird...so I had to investigate.  After dispatching the mage and freeing the nymph, I paid a visit to Ramazith, to confront that perv as well.  Well, he knew where I was going with that, so we plunged into another battle.  Montaron was killed during the climb up the tower (by hobgoblin elites of all things...I was pretty angry), but it ended up being not so much of a challenge in the long run.  My group is formidable now.

• I told a noblewoman that we would take care of a thug spreading rumors about her.  I'm not sure why exactly I took on this quest...it just seemed like the right thing to do.  Although at the end of it, I felt guilty.  I guess it was indeed a mere contract killing.  Am I Idaen the Warrior Superpriest, or a run-of-the-mill mercenary?  Ehh...moving on...

• Took care of the escaped basilik.  Heard some shouting about it, so we rested in order for Xzar to memorize Protection from Petrification.  Headed back about 8 or 9 hours later...the thing is still causing chaos.  Dispatched it without too much of a problem...and by the way, this is the very first basilik we've run into on the Sword Coast so far.

• I bump into Aldeth Sashenstar.  I think I saw him my first day in the city, but told him I wouldn't help him then.  Now that I'm putting the pieces together and see the Merchant League might be going through the same exact problem as the Seven Suns, I tell the guy I'll pose as his guests and do some investigating.  What do you know, dopplegangers posing as merchants and trying to destroy Iron Throne competition.  This whole plot is readily apparent to me.  I dispatch all the shapeshifters then head immediately to the Seven Suns.  Same thing's happening here.  I go to Scar bearing the bad news, and a lot of his suspicions are confirmed.  He wants me to head back there and kill all the dopplegangers, but I really don't want to be running any errands for him.  Of course he respects this, and soon after brings me up to Duke Eltan, who wants me to find proof that the Iron Throne is behind all of the political troubles in the region in the past several months.  Done and done, guy.  After I leave the Flaming Fist headquarters, I do indeed go back to the Seven Suns to destroy the dopplegangers...quite handily, may I add.

• The last thing I did: confronting Phandalyn the Paladin.  Pretty early on, a halfling warned me that a paladin by that name is looking for me.  He told me that he stays by one of the taverns by the docks.  Whenever I had a chance, I would search through buildings that I thought could be taverns (this is how I found the basilik, among other things).  After wrapping things up with Scar and Eltan and the trading leagues, this was the one loose end I had to tie up before leaving the city and finally returning to Mendas up north.  Normally I wouldn't really care about something like this, but after all I had been through in the city in the past 9 or 10 days, I don't need some snob paladin looking down on a powerful band of adventurers who can most accurately be described as movers and shakers.  Pretty quickly, actually, I find him in a bar.  He starts attacking the Zhentish members of the group (oh by the way, may I add, I ran into Xzar's superior in the Zhentarim in Sorcerous Sundries).  Well, Xzar and Montaron have stood by me since almost the very beginning, so this paladin has some learning to do (forcefully).  But killing a good, lawful, holy paladin in front of a dozen or so citizens will not help the reputation.  I'd be lying if I said I knew an outcome like this wasn't possible when I started looking for the guy...but I'm a chaotic type, alright?  I'm not alway going to be in sync with the rest of society.  I leave the city with a 9 rep.

Alright, so that's Baldur's Gate.  I rested, sold my wares, then got out of there.  The scholar Mendas has been waiting patiently for several weeks now, and I'm beginning to feel a little bad.  With the Cloakwood mines flooded, the trading roster plot exposed, the dopplegangers decimated, and the authorities gaining suspicion about the Iron Throne, I feel I can, and should, leave the city for a while.  Their plans are in shambles for the time being, so there's no rush to save the coast right now.  And no doubt my party's been spied on, watched in action, and evaluated on several levels in such a public forum as the streets of Baldur's Gate.  My enemies know what to expect if I'm going to face them right now...better I leave for a while, gain new items, new tactics, new weapons, etc., then come back when they're hardly expecting it.

What a week-and-a-half

This is my party ~110 days in:

Idaen, lvl 6 cleric/lvl 6 ranger
Yeslick, lvl 5 fighter/lvl 6 cleric
Ajantis, lvl 7 paladin
Montaron, lvl 6 fighter/lvl 7 thief
Imoen, lvl 6 thief>lvl 7 mage
Xzar, lvl 7 necromancer