The Hunt for Valygar Spirals Out of Control

Here we are in the Umar Hills.  We heard of some grotesque murders taking place, and how a band of adventurers is needed to figure out what's going on.  Well, I'm not one to discount fate if it's punching us in the face.  And besides, I still feel a little out of my element in Athkatla.  It's no Baldur's Gate, that's for sure.  Outside the city in the Umar Hills has the frontierish, Sword Coast feel (although I know that nothing in Amn is really a frontier).  But this is a small village where I can make a name for myself by helping out some defenseless civilians...that's right up my alley.

I check out the entire area.  I try to bring the band of refugee monsters up to speed with the mayor...that should work out nicely.  Find a cave, but not much in it (except for some "mimic blood"?  I'm going to hold on to that).  Find the ranger cabin, which points me in the direction of some temple ruins to the north.  Also been hearing about this adventurer Mazzy Fentan.  Sounds like a solid enough character.

Then, last but not least, I find the cabin of Valygar Corthala.  There were some other rangers outside, keeping guard.  I told them I had nothing to do with the Cowled Wizards, but unfortunately they did not believe me.  Either way, Nalia casting Horror took care of that fight, for the most part.  I went to confront Valygar, and got the whole story from him.  His body is the key to gaining entry to the giant planar sphere in the Athkatla slums.  That's why he's wanted by the Cowled Wizards.  Although I believed him, nothing he said did anything to sway me.  I have much more going on right now, and looting a necromancer's spaceship for whatever treasure he might have is low on the priority list.  Plus, I'm still trying to gain the favor of the Cowled Wizards...I want to carry out this task for them like I said I would.  I even have a feeling that they could possibly enlist MY help to explore the sphere, in which case it's win-win for me.  In case you don't see what this is leading up to, I killed Valygar and began to haul his body around.  I'm not ashamed of this, though it's one more NPC that I have to cross off the list of possible companions (Viconia and Jaheira are the other ones...one deceased and one just no longer trusted).

But since I'm out in the Umar Hills, I may as well solve whatever problems they're facing.  I like to be out of city anyway...as I said a paragraph or two ago, it brings me back to my glory days on the Sword Coast.  I rest in the inn, talk to Vincenzo about the Umar Witch Project, and head to the temple ruins.

Shade wolves and shadows are really no trouble for my group, even though there's only four of us.  I think I saw a Werewolf of some kind once I entered the forest, but who knows.  I went into the wolf cave, and nothing was there.  I descended into the temple ruins, had some trouble with skeleton warriors, rescued and enlisted Mazzy, and heard stories about sun gods and shade lords and shadow dragons.  Dragons?  Man...I need to rest and heal before I go any further.  So I actually returned to the wolf cave and spent 16 hours there.

I'm in too deep not to return to the temple now.  Five of us, at least.  Mazzy is ++++ with short bows and only ++ with short swords.  I really want her to be a tank, but she's level 9 so I'm not going to get another proficiency point for a little while.  Still thinking about how to use her most effectively.  Here's the party:

Idaen, lvl 9 cleric/lvl 8 ranger

Korgan, lvl 9 berserker

Mazzy, lvl 9 fighter

Yoshimo, lvl 11 bounty hunter

Nalia, lvl 4 thief>lvl 10 mage

Leaving the City, and the de'Arnise Estate

To gain some experience, and maybe some extra gold, I decided that we would stay close to the city for the time being...that is, finish clearing out Korgan's tombs.  Nalia started gently reminding us that we should head to her estate before it's too late...ah, damn.  I don't want to lose my only mage, so I should take this seriously.  I think we still have a day or two of leeway before she does something drastic, so that's just enough time to hit the catacombs.  Of course, there was no level drain or whatever in BG1, so I'm not entirely used to it.  Let me tell you, it is annoying.  I had Idaen, my cleric/ranger PC, memorize Negative Plane Protection a few times, as well as Lesser Restoration.  Good planning, but that just takes slots away from healing spells.  Egh, long story short, we trod our way through, Korgan "reminisces" about his old gang and the injustice with the Book of Kaza (a quest completed days earlier), and we hit the surface.

Next stop is Nalia's stronghold.  We left Athkatla in our dust and headed east.  The trip was much quicker than it would have been in BG1...no intermediate wilderness areas to trek across first.  This is civilized Amn, I guess.

The keep was something of a bloody adventure.  Like I said, I'm not entirely used to BG2, yet, with the complexity of the battles and the spellcasting being more advanced now.  Either way, I did what was asked of me.  I cleared the surrounding wilderness area, entered through the secret entrance, and opened the front gates.  Cleared the first level, then headed down to the cellars as per Nalia's hunch about the whereabouts of her father.

That's when things started getting a little crazy.  I was low on heal spells, low on potions, spells, health, everything.  But I figured we had to push on because there was something of a ticking clock for this one.

The room full of Umber Hulks was difficult...we ended up separating them into two or three groups, which made them beatable.  TorGal was intense, too.  Luckily, we were able to destroy him, although it was too late for Nalia's father.  This seemed to be something of a conclusion, so I headed back to the surface to speak with the troops at the palisades.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get back in to the keep again.  Which is a shame, because I feel like there are more components to the Flail of the Ages.  Does this means I'll just never get this weapon now?  Come on, my character USES flails.  Oh well, that's the danger of virgin runs and no non-essential reloads.

We rest and heal right outside the camp.  As soon as we get up and start mobilizing, Jaheira gets uppity and leaves the group.  She was summoned back to the Harper stronghold.  I told her that I'm the leader, and that I need her here.  Unfortunately, that didn't do it for her.  Maybe it had something to do with how I completely shut her down earlier...as soon as we emerged from the stronghold, she asked me if she could continue a story or answer a question that she didn't before, but also one that I didn't even remember asking about.  Ugh, I guess it was just bad timing, but I really did not care to hear it.  More important things to deal with, completely.  Either way, in a little more than eight hours she was gone.  Maybe I'll head to the Harpers to meet up with her to see what this is all about, but I doubt I'll ever want her in the group again after that terrible insubordination.  I need people I can trust, you know?

So it's on to the Umar Hills. The whole point of getting out of the city was to find this Valygar Corthala. So I head there, hear about some witch, some ogres, etc. That's where I'm at, now.

Party (only four of us):

Idaen, lvl 9 cleric/lvl 8 ranger
Korgan, lvl 9 berserker
Yoshimo, lvl 11 bounty hunter
Nalia, lvl 4 thief>lvl 10 mage

Mildly Confused Adventures in Athkatla

So we're in Athkatla.  Last place we left off was in the Copper Coronet, just having picked up Nalia, the mage.  Well, we start talking to some of the locals, and we rest finally (the first time since escaping the initial dungeon).  I have a somewhat shaky gameplan in mind...head out Nalia's estate and take care of the monsters attacking her home.  Sure, sure, sounds good.  And oh, I bump into Minsc.  Apparently he was able to escape from the dungeon as well.  Good for him, I guess.  Still not interested in having him join, though...maybe if things change in the future.

Before I leave the inn, I bump into Korgan.  A berserker?  Wouldn't hurt to have him around.  And he's looking for a valuable book, presumably worth a fortune, right here in the city.  I'm going to get on board with this...Nalia's thing can wait.

So we head on over to the graveyard district, and find the tombs right away.  Battle several groups of powerful spiders...I realize at this point that I should have had Jaheira memorize slow poison a couple of more times.  I would have brought some antidotes, but our funds are very, very low at this point...I can't even afford magical weapons for most of my team.  Either way, with two healers (one with 21 WIS), we should be good to go for an extended amount of time.  I finally make my way to the tunnel that Korgan recognizes as the one with the Book of Kaza, and we proceed to get into an "epic" battle with just too many undead.  Somehow, we manage to survive, but we're hurting and out of healing spells.  Time to get back to the surface, and heal and rest.  We'll return later, I don't see a clock ticking on this one yet.

Of course, nothing but trouble awaits us, even on the surface.  I head to the Copper Coronet to rest, but a pair of muggers start attacking us.  Bear in mind, we are almost out of spells, and not one of us is at full health.  Oh yeah, and 40% of us are level-drained by the undead.  We're able to kill one and start chasing after the other.  He only leads us up to the roof, and to Shagbag et al, Korgan's old party.  Wow...I have no chance right now.  We run away, hoping to maybe regroup and make a stand?  I'm able to kill Shagbag, but no one else.  The thugs with their crossbows are just too much.  We retreat, fast, and are able to lose them somewhere between the slums and Waukeen's Promenade.  But it seems right after we lose them, we're waylaid by a group of slavers and some of their mage-friends.  Ugh, not the best timing.  I race away and lose them, too.

Korgan lets me know that his precious book is probably just on Shagbag's body.  Oh, great, so I guess we don't have to return to the tombs underneath the graveyard.  Eh, I think I'll return there anyway of my own volition...seems like a good enough place for adventure, treasure, and experience.  Oh, and by the way, Korgan is not meshing well with the group...got into some nasty exchanges with Nalia and Yoshimo.  There might be trouble brewing, but right now the fighter is absolutely worth what he brings to the table tactically.  Jaheira is beginning to romance me pretty hard.  I'm just choosing my responses as what comes naturally, but it seems to be working out that she's just crazy for me.  It's been like 3 or 4 days since she realized Khalid was dead...and to be honest, she just seems like kind of a loser (see my BG1 experiences with her).  I'm not feeling it too much, but I couldn't see my character (who is me, pretty much) not wanting to, ahem, become more intimate with an attractive female.

I'm not exactly sure what we did next.  Rested in the promenade, sold some humble treasures and tried to re-equip as best as possible.  At some point during the previous battle, we were warned by the Cowled Wizards that spellcasting is illegal.  Of course I completely forgot when we headed back to the slums to finish the rest of Korgan's old group off and recover the book from Shagbag's body.  I think Nalia casted "Slow" or something, and I saw a Cowled Wizard teleport in...headed for the zone line again, and was able to avoid any confrontation with the mage.

I've seen two or three vampire-shadow thief battles in the streets.  Weird, even it seems it somehow relates to me personally.  Eventually I made my way to the government district and found out I need 5000gp to be able to use magic in the city limits.  I think this is going to be my next major investment...it's too important to use spells when confronting enemies, and I don't want any trouble.  I also agree to try to hunt Valygar down.  I do not mind working for the Cowled Wizards.  They know where Imoen is, they're a powerful faction in Amn, and they can grant me the ability to cast spells with immunity.  I have no qualms about bringing a supposed murderer to justice.  And oh yeah...I see a group of fanatics about to burn a drow named Viconia. I remember a Viconia from the Sword Coast.  She attacked my group when I refused to save her from a Flaming Fist mercenary.  She's in a similar situation here.  I actually would have saved her (since death by incineration is just an awful fate), but I was unclear about the mechanism for doing it...was I just supposed to start massacring the fanatics?  Either way, she was toast by the end.  I'm not too sad about it.  At least Anomen is still around if I need a healer.

So I head to the docks, and at some point I am attacked again while moving between districts.  This time, I agree to bring a poisoned man to a house in the docks.  I do this, since I'm headed to the docks anyway.  But hey!  It's Xzar.  The insulting jerk doesn't remember me, but whatever.  He say I can help rescue Montaron by infiltrating the Harper Amnish headquarters.  Nooo problem.  Hey, I could use another thief, and Xzar is probably a very powerful mage at this point.  They were great allies to me in the past, so the least I could do is help them.

Welp, it turns out the trick was on me, as both Montaron and Xzar seem to be dead by the end of this.  Oh well, all's well that ends well...for Idaen, at least.  I guess this teaches me to not really mess with the Harpers. Pretty powerful organization, and I was just a pawn (or maybe a rook or knight) in their scheming.

So now it's to Valygar's house to investigate his whereabouts.  I have a feeling I'm going have to travel outside the city soon, but no concern.

Here's the party right now:

Idaen, lvl 8 cleric/lvl 8 ranger
Korgan, lvl 8 berserker
Jaheira, lvl 7 fighter/lvl 9 druid
Yoshimo, lvl 11 bounty hunter
Nalia, lvl 4 thief>level 9 mage

What's my plan here?  Let's prioritize:

Long-term goal is to find Imoen.  Not sure how exactly to do this yet, but I'm going in two directions concurrently:  gain the trust of the Cowled Wizards, while saving up to 20kgp for Gaelan Bayle.  But my equipment is just awful right now, and my potential is far above what I'm capable of right now.  So I also need to save money for better equipment and a magic-users license...this comes almost before anything, even Imoen.  I'm not going to be able to save her if I'm impotent on the battlefield.  And for that matter, I could use a 6th member of the group.

So what do I need to actually do?  My "quests" right now are three-fold: return to the graveyard catacombs, head east to the de'Arnise keep, and track down Valygar.  I'm going to accomplish these three things first before starting anything else.  Got it!

Flashforward to Amn, and Meshing with the Canon

So here we go:  Baldur's Gate 2.  I have never completed any respectable amount of this game.  I may have escaped Irenicus' dungeon during a few playthroughs from the past, but I never got much further past that.  But that's all in the past...time to play what is sometimes called the greatest CRPG ever.

Like I said last post, I got some extra experience when I imported my Tutu final-save over to BG2.  It wasn't 240k or whatever I said in the last post, though.  It was about 63k...my cleric and ranger levels were both at around 112k.  I went back and loaded the final save from Tutu, and indeed my experience was at that level...at least at first.  After walking around a little, it dropped back to 161k for some reason.  Real weird, but I'm not going to fight it....I figure beating Sarevok gives you a healthy amount of experience that you could bring with you to BG2.

So anyways, here I am, being waken up by Imoen.  After a quick conversation with her, I was free...let's try to find a way out of here.  I immediately level up to cleric 8.  After all the tomes from BG1, my stats are very solid, to say the least:

STR 18
DEX 18
CON 19
INT 11
WIS 21
CHA 10








So before we delve into this game, we need to align the "official" canon of the game with the actual game experience I had up north on the Sword Coast.  So, when Sarevok died, Ajantis and Xzar probably left the group after a few day.  They joined me to help solve the bandit crisis, and to find out why the Zhentarim were being blamed for the bandit crisis respectively.  Both of their problems got resolved at game's end, so I can't see why they would stick around much longer.  Shar-Teel and Tiax must have eventually went their separate ways, too.  Both were chaotic and evil, so I could see them suddenly uppin' and leaving, especially since my reputation probably climbed in the time following the death of the Bhaalspawn Almost-Duke.

So then it was just Imoen and the PC Idaen.  At some point we must have run into Jaheira and Khalid again.  We had adventured with them in the beginning, but they were phased out pretty early on, right after infiltrating the old bandit camp north of Peldvale.  And then after having those two rejoin...wow, I must have met up with Dynaheir.  With a quick look back on this blog, I can remember that we saved Dyanheir from the gnoll stronghold but didn't want to join with her...she stormed off.  A few days or weeks before that, we refused to help Minsc look for his witch.  He attacked us, and we killed him.  Soooo....presumably, Dynaheir, after being freed, found her way to Nashkel, found Minsc's body, and had him resurrected.

But why would we have joined up with an insane ranger who tried to kill us once?  I don't know.  Maybe we needed a mage (to replace the necromancer) and her tank had to come along.  But it happened, that's for sure...I'll blame my confusion on some memory loss that I incurred via Irenicus.  After inadvertently rescuing him from his cage, I tell him that we're not going to be traveling together and that he's on his own.  He walks off.  I don't like the guy, his witch is dead, and his overall style seems like it just doesn't lend itself to stealth and gravity.  Will I regret it?  Maybe, but it was instinctual and there aren't any reloads.

Jaheira...I remember a little better.  She was loyal, and a friend.  She definitely joins the group.  And here we go through the dungeon...weird, weird stuff.  And I can already see how BG2 is a better game than BG1 like so many people say.  I'm sure anyone reading this has gone through Irenicus dungeon before...and I don't remember anything I did in a novel or unique fashion, at least that I know off, so it's not really worth getting into.

Find some low-level equipment, get into some fights, drink a lot of potions, tell the dryads I'll deliver their acorns, pick up Yoshimo, and eventually bust my way out of there...took about 24 hours or so in all (game-time).

Imoen gets taken by the Cowled Wizards, as does our captor...and what do you know, I'm in Athkatla, Amn.  Phew...weird.  We need to find Imoen, and many people are pointing me in the direction of the slums. Not a bad choice.  Before leaving the Promenade, I stop at a street vendor to sell some objects and buy some weapons we're all proficient in.  I also get us all healed at the Temple of Ilmater.

Next thing you know, the game keeps going.  Meet Gaelan Bayle, and realize we need 20kgp.  Just looking to rest, still, at this point.  Rememorize spells so I can head into the city to check out shops and not feel completely vulnerable.  So I head to the Copper Coronet where multiple people have also directed me for work and adventure and that ilk.  I meet Anomen but I tell him there is neither good nor evil, and something about balance.  Needless to say, he doesn't like it.  But he's still there...maybe in a pinch I could come back and profess my righteousness (which wouldn't have been a far stretch to select).  Either way, I forget about him as soon as Nalia introduces herself.  A thief>mage, great.  Nooo problem we'll go to your estate...she seems rich , which is perfect for what we're trying to do.

And on that note, I'm still looking to sleep for a night...just need to find the innkeeper.  Here's my nubile party:

Idaen, lvl 8 cleric/lvl 8 ranger
Jaheira, lvl 7 fighter/lvl 8 druid
Yoshimo, lvl 10 bounty hunter
Nalia, lvl 4 thief>lvl 9 mage