Adventures of D'vorah (Spoilers!)

[masteraleph]

So, I've finally decided to write one of these "adventures of" posts. A few things to keep in mind:

*at the moment, I'm writing from memory. I'm only 8 days, 4 hours in, but a lot can happen in that time.

*I'm playing with a ton of mods. TDD-weidu, SOS-weidu, UB, Yasraena, portions of Ease of Use (including Infinite Stacking, True Grand Mastery, and Multi-Class Grand Mastery), Item Upgrade, DBG and many others. Therefore, some of the events I mention will not be present in the standard game. You've been warned.

*I'm attempting to be at least semi-realistic in terms of what stuff different characters can use, but otherwise, everything goes. For example, Celestial Fury +5 is in; dual-wielding Celestial Fury +5 and Flail of the Ages is right out. Large one handed weapons (Katanas, Long Swords, Bastard Swords, Flails, War-hammers, etc) can only be dual-wielded with small weapons (Short Swords, Wakazashi/Ninja-To, Dagger). The sole exception to this is dual-wielding with Crom Fayer. My reasoning for this is simple: it is essentially impossible to dual-wield these large weapons with other large weapons. Crom Fayer gets the exception because it provides 25 strength (and presumably the muscles, skeleton, and ligaments that go with that level of strength). That is, swinging around a standard sized war hammer one handed won't tear your arm apart, and blocking with it won't make you lose your grip.

The character's name is D'vorah. She is a half-elf, multi-class character (Fighter/Cleric), starting with grandmastery in flails and one star in sword (told you that some of those mods would be significant). Her abilities are quite high, but possible to roll- a total of 95, distributed as S: 17, D: 18, C: 16, I: 16 W: 18, C: 10. Also, had I played her through BG1 (and I do plan to play a similar character through once the kinks are out of BGT Weidu), then assuming I'd given her all the tomes, the original roll would have been an 87 (16/17/15/15/15/9). She is named D'vorah after the Biblical character. Finally, she's chaotic good in alignment. And now, on with the show:

I wake up to this intense headache, in a filthy cage. Vague memories of a rather large fellow with bare shoulders run through my head, along with lots of fire and and some vine-looking things that had been attacking me in here. Odd, since vines usually only show up when one is fighting with druids or rangers and they're casting Entanglement. This guy seemed to be a mage, albeit an oddly fit one. Even as I'm trying to puzzle out what has been happening, a door opens, and a pink haired girl steps through. I know her, I think to myself as my mind clears. That's Imoen, who I grew up with as my little sister. She'd dyed that hair pink back when we were in Baldur's Gate, after that whole mess with Sarevok had ended and the Grand Dukes (the surviving ones, anyways) had been wining and dining us.

Imoen is desparately trying to get me to wake up, and my moans of "go away, wan' slip" don't seem to be making her leave me alone. Finally, I stand up as she picks the lock of my cage. Nice of my captor to leave us alone like that. Frowning, I look around, remembering a golem telling him that the complex was under attack. I also seem to remember a fellow looking like a thief running in the hall passageway and...

Oh. Well, I suppose those chunks of meat couldn't have been hamgurgers, could they? Imoen gets me up, and as I'm leaving my cage, a rather effette fellow Dimension Doors in. Ignoring him for the moment, Imoen and I go into a side room, the one which I saw her come through. She looks carefully at the walls while I go through the table and chest to get at some equipment. She points out to me that the painting is trapped and I tell her to disarm the bloody thing, rather than standing around. She does so, then picks a lock and opens it to reveal a Dagger +1 and some minor healing potions. We grab them, then go back out to the area where I was held. I see Minsc and Jaheira in cages- I never got particularly close to either of them, but I travelled with both briefly before we got to Baldur's Gate. I try to open Minsc's cage, but it's welded shut, and I tell him so. Probably a dumb move, since he seems to be going berserk now. Maybe I should run?

Never mind. Luckily, the crazy Rashema Ranger managed to get himself under control. The key that I'd found in the side room lets me in through Jaheira's cage. Now it's time to deal with that guy who teleported in. He tells me that his name is Jasper St. Baird, and he's here to help me out, since Blue, the immortal Bard. Wished it so. I've never been a big fan of bards as adventurers- not really good at any one thing, other than identifying items- but thankfully, this guy seems to have some minimal competence. He tells me that there's another guy in the dungeon, who seems like he might be of some help. We go to meet this Yoshimo fellow, and he readily agrees to join us. Too readily perhaps, but beggars can't really be choosers. Then Jasper takes us over to the exit, handing us much of the equipment we would've gotten for clearing out the dungeon, along with some magic acorns to free some nymphs from this guy's harem. Always willing to help out a lady in distress, as men tend to be such jerks. He teleports out to go give a massage to the immortal Bardess. I'm quickly confronted by another woman- a drow named Yasraena. She seems to have a score to settle with my captor as well, so I allow her to join us. This turns out to be a rather pleasant surprise- she's dual-wielding magic shortwords (+2), is quite skilled with them, and is also quite strong. She's a keeper, I think to myself, as I trudge out of the dungeon towards the sunlight.

[masteraleph]

That utterly rediculous...urgh. That mage who I'd been worried about made an appearance as we exited the tunnel. He was surrounded by thieves, who I assume are part of the same group that I saw blown apart from my cage. He does the same to several in a row, though I spot one of them running off, presumably to report for reinforcements. I'm idly wondering if perhaps we've bitten off a bit more than we can chew- this mage doesn't seem phased at all as he turns the thieves into chunks. Imoen decides to oppose him, for some odd reason. I'd been thinking about running away...but instead, she launches a magic missile. He launches something back at her, and then a bunch of mages pop in, saying something about illegal use of magic. That must mean we're in Amn, as that's the only place I've heard of where magic is so utterly restricted. I'm getting more and more frightened as these folks in robes get blown apart as well. Even their spells don't seem to phase this guy. Even more of them Dimension Door in, and our captor surrenders...and tells them to take Imoen as well! Before I can do anything, they're both grabbed and disappear.

Well, now I know what I'll be doing here- trying to get my little sister back. We wander down the heap of rubble that this battle has left, and encounter a circus tent in the middle of the area. Quite an odd thing, since no one seems to be going in or coming out. I ask around, and apparently there's a disturbance of some kind that the city guard are afraid of. Why is it always the circuses? The last one I saw, I had to unpetrify Branwen. Now it's some other magical disturbance. Oh well, it's a good way to get some experience and hopefully earn the favor of the city guard at the same time. I look around quickly, and spot a shop to buy a flail, since apparently Jasper St. Bardlover deigned such weapons beneath him.

We wander in, looking around at what seems to be a gigantic tent or dome. Definitely magical...it looks Calimshite, and is far larger than the actual circus tent. A djinni stops us on the bridge to this tent, in order to ask us a riddle. I get the right answer, thanks most likely to my tutors back at Candlekeep. We go forward cautiously, as I have no idea what we'll face.

Well, now I know. It's to be an ogre. Except that it claims it's not an ogre, but a girl. We go through several rounds of questioning, with it insisting it is innocent and me being, well, quite suspicious (and rightfully so I think). Finally, I'm persuaded to believe her, if for no other reason than that it doesn't look like an ogre mage, and I've never seen an intelligent ogre that wasn't a mage. We cross the bridge to the left, encountering a very large spider. Not a monster either apparently, but the mother of a little boy outside the tent. She warns us that the peasants up ahead are actually monsters, which would fit with the backwards nature of this place. They do indeed turn out to be orcs, and after killing them, I find the key/sword thing that the ogre was after. Leerily, I free the ogre, praying that I was right...and she does indeed turn out to be a girl of sorts, with pointed ears. Her name is Aerie. She wants to come along, but I can see that she is not used to such conflict, so I tell her to wait right there.

We go in through the next doorway after receiving a warning about Kalah. Noticing a large number of werewolves and shadows- some of which I presume are illusory- I decide that discretion really is the better part, and we run up the stairs, past another annoying djinni warning us about Kalah.

We get through, and Kalah is apparently an ogre mage. We make a beline for him, attempting to dodge the numerous monsters, whether illusions or not, that appear. After some concerting beating with my flails, Yasraena's short swords, and other assorted weapons, the ogre mage turns into chunks and everything goes dark...

When the light appears again, we're in a circus tent. A gnome is shouting that we're evil, because we killed him. Genius, you turned yourself into an ogre mage and kidnapped some and killed others. OF COURSE we killed you. The only odd thing is that he implies he was promised something...I wonder who would've done that. We're approached by the proprietor of the circus, a gnome named Quayle, who I'd encountered outside of Baldur's Gate. Annoying little fellow. He asks us to take Aerie with us, and I refuse, on the grounds of not wanting an innocent to get hurt. We go over and talk to the spid...er, the boy's mother, who rushes out of the tent with us hot on her heels.

We talk to the boy and the Amnish Guard, both of whom are quite happy, and give us some minor experience. A small girl comes up to me as they leave, telling me that she'd found a lamp Kalah was using. I look at it, and decide that it seems quite dangerous...I know better than to rub a lamp with arcane symbols all over it. I'll keep it around for the future though, just in case.

[masteraleph]

Having faced heavy opposition in the circus tent, we set out in search of somewhere to sleep. Rather than looking around the commercial district, I decide that we should go find the slums of the city, since there's likely to be a cheaper tavern with peasant and merchant type rooms that might be more to our liking. We head there, and are quickly interrupted by a fellow named Gaelan Bayle. He seems to think he's a pigeon, as he's cooing all the time, but he knows a little too much to be taken as a fool. Specifically, he seems to know something about Imoen and the people that took her. We follow him to his house, where he explains to us that his friends will be willing to help out for 20,000 gold. Of course, having been captured by that mage and only having a few spare magical items from the circus and Jasper the friendly bard, my party is in no position to pay 20,000 gold. Not to mention that we're clearly not equipped to take on both the Cowled Wizards, who took Imoen, and Irenicus. We'll wait until we can mop the floor with them, and then strike. Gaelan offers his nephew to take us to the local tavern, the Copper Coronet, where a young lady is apparently looking for people like us. The boy also offers to take us to the Temple district, where apparently a search for warrior clerics is ongoing.

We head for the inn, but rather than talking to the girl, we talk to Bernard, the manager. We sell him our spare equipment, and purchase some time in the merchant class rooms. I also take the opportunity to actually memorize some spells, since I don't seem to remember any at the moment. We wake up, and head out the door, as I want to go to the government district. With luck, maybe we can persuade the Cowled Wizards into just giving back Imoen and sparing us the trouble of fighting.

We enter that area of the city, and encounter a brightly colored gnome, who is selling artifacts. They seem to be illegal, but he appears to have some talent as a tinkerer nonetheless. I ask him to join my party, as I can use a thief. I could also use a mage, which he is, but I'd prefer one with a bit more experience and some more spells. Still, he'll do well as a backup. In the process of all of this, I have to lie to a government official who wants to arrest the poor fellow. Put a sock in it, you stupid popinjay- even your guard thinks you're annoying!

We head north just a bit, and run into a pack of people about to torch a drow. Now, I currently have a friendly one in my party, and I'm loathe to have her next on the chopping block. Also, I think I recognize the drow- it's Viconia, who I briefly associated with while hunting bandits. And finally, the leader of this mob is a priest of Beshaba. Anyone crazy enough to follow THAT god ought to be opposed, so my party and I decide to fight his followers. We rescue Viconia, but I decide that I'm cleric enough for this part. We part amiably though, and she tells us she'll be in the graveyard. Artistic, I suppose, in an annoyingly macabre sort of way.

We head back towards the government headquarters, where I encounter a fellow telling me a Cowled Wizard, Tolgeiras, would like to speak with me. That's slightly frightening, but I figure I might as well go in, since getting even more on the bad side of these folks would be a seriously dumb idea. Tolgeiras tells me that he'll look into Imoen's situation, but in the meantime, he wants me to hunt down Valygar, a murder. Looking for gold to buy passage and to help the common good, I agree despite some misgivings over his eagerness. We go down to the Docks to seek out his house.

At this fellow's house, a few lies manage to get us a lead on where he is: we should talk to his friend Suna Seni, in the Copper Coronet. Something about this is really starting to bother me though- the guy inspires loyalty in his servants, leading me to believe the Cowled Wizards are after him for some other reason. Nonetheless, I'll track him down, and help him if he's good. Of course if he's not, I'll kill him. Either way, justice prevails.

Seni tells me that Valygar might be at a wilderness location in the Umar Hills, and that he's a ranger. That clinches it: these Cowled fellows are lying scumbags. I decide that it would be poetic justice to help him out, so we leave for the City Gates. On the way out, we run into some attackers, and deal with them handily. They weren't hard, but...I'm somewhat worried. Either they knew who we were, and thus decided to go for a bounty, or they didn't, and the slavers have more power here than they really should have. Anyways, we leave through the City Gates, and head out to the Umar Hills. A woman cries to us about her lost son, and we promise to look, though I have no plans to go too quickly. I have my own things to take care of, hugely powerful mages to kill, you know? Anyways, we are confronted by a ranger, who lets me through when I promise I'm not with those in the Cowls. Eventually, I get to Valygar's cabin.

The ranger doesn't seem to be half bad. He's a nice sort of fellow, and terribly upset over killing the Cowled Wizards who decided to attack him. This all points to it being a good idea to have him in my party. I have him replace Minsc, as he's a good, level headed sort of guy. We travel back the city, all getting exhausted on the way, and stop into the Copper Coronet where I finally meet the girl I was told about. Nalia is her name, and she needs help with her keep, which has fallen under attack. I promise her we'll help, and tell her to join with us. Then we rest...something DESPARATELY needed.

(Gotta go for now...more later)

[shamrock_uk]

Great stuff [img]smile.gif[/img] Any ideas when the next installment will be along?

And you know, popinjay is just the right word for that official. I feel the urge to run him through every time he opens his mouth...