Basilisks, Shar-Teel, Firewine, and Ulcaster

It's been a little while, and I've played on-and-off periodically in the last few weeks.  I really can't lie, nothing too interesting has seemed to happen.  My party is just tying up loose ends right now...biding our time until we return to Baldur's Gate to confront the Iron Throne.  I can feel the itch to head back up there...we've been out of the city long enough, and the excitement surrounding our initial foray into town must have died down by now.  To use a cliche, now's the time they'll least be expecting us.

But not yet.  After returning to Beregost from wrapping up a few things on the coastline, we rested at the Jovial Juggler like usual.  I had been hearing about Ulcaster for months, so I decided if we really wanted to call ourselves Sword Coast adventurers, we had better check it out.

So we headed east and tromped around those areas.  Before we know it, we're facing a psycho gnome with pet basilisks.  Luckily, I usually have Xzar memorize Protection from Petrification.  With this, we were able to survive the first couple of encounters while making sure our flesh remained non-stonelike.  Eventually, we decided to rest for the night so Xzar could memorize the spell a few times, to ensure none of us would be left like statues.  In fact, Idaen the PC has several Stone-to-Flesh scrolls, so the worst-case scenario wouldn't have even been that bad.

Sometime during all of this, we ran into a fighter named Shar-Teel.  My PC soundly beat her in a fair match, and she pledged to join the group.  She's a lvl 6 fighter with high dex, something I had been looking for since Cloakwood or around there.  Yeslick's great with the hit points, no doubt about that, and Shar-Teel's at about 46 hp.  However, the only way Yeslick has respectable AC is if he's using a shield, so all his damage would be done by one one-handed weapon that he has two proficiency points in.  Hmm, but I'd rather have that same respectable AC with a fighter doing high-master type damage with two swords.  That being said, I decided to enlist the help of Shar-Teel, and leave Yeslick to find his own way.

Yeslick performed very well and I had very few complaints other than the one directly above, but events are soon going to be getting intense...confronting the Iron Throne, somehow finding out the truth behind my past, and at some point rolling into Durlag's Tower.  I need to always look to be improving and trading up, and this personnel change fits that method of thinking.

So...Shar-Teel gelled nicely off the bat, I'd say.  And now, I had 3 spellcasters to manage, not 4.  It will make action a little more fast-paced from here on out.  After a few days camping out in the wilderness and destroying monsters when we ran into them (and making a slight detour down to Nashkel to see if the shopkeep had any long swords more powerful than the +1s Shar Teel was using), we stumbled upon Gullykin.  Podunk little village.  I immediately got the impression that my crew outclassed anyone, friendly or enemy, within a few miles.  And I wasn't too far off the mark in the end...but before then, I ran into some major trouble due to my hubris...

We were drawn to the local ruins, obviously, and entered through the winery/temple entrance.  I had Montaron moving too fast and not being careful enough, and within minutes he let off a lighting trap...the bolt bounced around the tiny corridor for what seemed like a few minutes, and thoroughly fried my party.  Monty, Imoen, and Xzar all were corpses by the end.  Luckily, none were burnt badly enough that they couldn't be resurrected by the halfling priestess, conveniently on the other side of the nearby trap door.

So I made my donations to the temple to have my party members brought back to life, and we headed back in.  This time, I made sure to be careful with the traps and we cleared the entire dungeon in a cold, methodical fashion.  Even had time to liberate all the ghosts knights down there.  After this were a few more areas.  The Firewine Bridge ruins were alright to explore...skeletons, ogre mages, bards on bridges.  And we could have handled Ulcaster if we were all half our current levels...but still, it was important for us to do.

So we head back to Beregost to sell everything in our packs...they were bulging with gems, items, armor, scrolls, weapons, everything.  I got back up to a nice 21kgp after spending most of my Baldur's Gate money buying Imoen her Robe of the Good Archmagi.  Next move?  Well, easy to say.  I'm going to travel up to Baldur's Gate real soon, and make a direct line to the Iron Throne headquarters.  See where that gets me...

And a lot of members in my party, including my PC, are about to level.  Right now, my party is the following:

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