The adventures of Craick & Scaley (spoilers eventually)

[Armen]

Craick sat back against the palisade in the now deserted iron throne mine complex in cloakwood, blinked in the bright sunlight and emptied the water out of his boots.

He had spent the day before resting hidden near the compound entrance waiting for the darkness he would need to mask his approach. After drawing off a couple of guards he had crawled over the drawbridge and taken up a position to watch the routine of the guard party of two armoured warriors and two mages that blocked the way. He briefly considered sneaking past the group but worried about making his escape if he was successful underground and knew he would have no better advantage than he did now. He smiled as the rain started. It would help to mask any slight noise he might make. Moving quietly and decisively he drew a poisoned arrow from his quiver, checked his escape route, and sighted along the shaft at the first warrior. . .

Moving through the upper levels of the mines Craick realised that, as in Nashkel, the miners here were no more than slaves and desperate to be freed. From them he learnt that the mines had been part of an underground river system and that if he could secure the key to the barrier holding back the waters then the whole operation could be shut down. After systematically removing the guards in the mines to allow the slaves to get safely to the surface he headed down to the lower levels.

He was surprised to find not the rough hewn walls of an iron mine but the well constructed, almost comfortable walls of an underground complex far larger than the small stockade on the surface. There were dozens of soldiers quartered in the complex but Craick moved though it like a shadow never giving the mercenaries a chance to take advantage of their superior numbers. He was greatly aided in this by the magical boots looted from one of the warriors on the surface that greatly increased the speed he could run. He struck hard into the centre of groups, often killing the leader or magic users, and then outpaced them all, hid and, when they had split up to search for him, returned silently to pick them off one by one.

Craick’s confidence grew as he slipped cautiously down the stairs to the lower level. “We might just make this", he thought as he stepped round the corner into the sight of four armoured guards and four hobgoblin archers. Craick froze. They hadn’t noticed him yet but he knew that if he moved they would. He could run past them but he had no idea what lay beyond them and he was too far from the stairs to retreat out of sight. Craick briefly thought about drawing his staff and charging at the archers but he had learned that the guardsman hit hard and his light armour provided little protection. It was then that he remembered the wand of sleep he had bought from Thalantyr. He wished he had had the opportunity to test it in a less dangerous situation but reasoned that it should at least even the odds a little. Craick activated the wand and looked with amazement as all of the archers and half of the guards fell insensible to the floor. The nearest guard turned back into the room at the sound of his companions and then quickly back to Craick in time for two arrows to slam into his chest knocking him back off his feet and down. The last guard standing fell to a few swings of Craick’s quarterstaff then he turned to the unpleasant job of despatching his sleeping opponents. If anything this level of the complex was larger than the last but fortunately there had been no alarm raised due to his quick victory at the entrance and Craick was able to pick his way through the barracks systematically until the way to the lowest level was clear.

[Armen]

I struggled with Dvaevorn

Well to be more accurate I struggled with the battle horrors. I knew it was going to be tricky so I rooted through my potion bag and drank everything I thought might be useful (mind focussing, heroism, giant strength . . ). I crept forward in stealth, bit down the damage from a couple of traps, and sighted the first of the monsters and drew him (it) out with a couple of arrows of ice that did no damage! I gripped my staff and braced myself for his approach before engaging him. I’ve got 140-odd hitpoints but he burned through them (literally) in about 3 rounds during which time I got him down to ‘injured’. Healing potions just kept me alive and for the next one I tried again this time running in an out of the door of the bedroom in the entrance hall – run round the corner – hide - whack – run round the corner – hide – whack, over and over again. It wasn’t pretty.

I drank every healing potion I had left before going after the big man but in comparison Dvaevorn was a push over. We played cat and mouse around his maze until he’d run out of images and run out of spells before we settled it staff to staff. I’d had enough by now and only stopped long enough to pick up the key and some kit, sneak up and smack someone who I assumed was his assistant, pull the plug on the river and get the hell out.

I can enter Baldur’s Gate now but I’ve still got unfinished business in south east so with a short diversion to the now accessible Ulgoth’s Beard to spend a little gold (Staff +3, Cloak of Displacement, Ring of Invisibility & Greenstone Amulet!) I headed back to Nashkel.

(I’ve sailed past the ToTSC XP cap – I’m level 9 now with 300K and need 600K to make level 10 which I guess I’ll probably get with the ToTSC areas – not too unbalancing I don’t think for this character as a solo as I haven’t got any killer abilities (by which I mean magic, traps or backstab) and even with loads of HP I still need to be a bit careful as my normal AC is only 2)

[Sonic]

Veary nice story!

[Midget Gems]

Good work Armen.
I agree that the Battle Horrors are more of a problem to a small party than Daevron himself. My solo and duo parties have had no end of trouble with them.
But 140 hp is more than enough for anyone - I could share that between a party of six!

[Armen]

i know, the HP are a little excessive but they are a beastmaster bonus what with warrior CON and the familiar and all so . . .

i'm on the threshold of baldur's gate now having tidied up the bit of wilderness and the couple of dungeons in the south east - things will probably slow down a bit now as i've tended to race through the city in the past but i'll try to have more of a look around this time

[Armen]

OK – I’ve played a lot but I’ve got busy again during the day so I can’t really keep the story thing going. Some highlights:

Baldur’s Gate – I’ve never really taken the Gate apart before – tending to whiz through the main plot and unavoidable subquests but out of interest and with the lure of the rapidly rising XP under TuTu I took Six’s advice and knocked on every door. I loved the bar room brawl in the helm and cloak inn and the helmet from upstairs! Funnily enough when I’d battled through to the mage who gives you the job of finding it he didn’t notice that I had it on my head. And how cool is the cloak? It wouldn’t be out of place on an end-game SoA character.

Ulgoth’s beard – nice dialog twist with Shandalar after the misunderstanding in Baldur’s gate : )

Mendas’ Island – oops. I’d got used to not being able to open locks and rarely being able to force them (including the strength tome in the catacombs – sob!) but nothing had been game breaking so far. However as a solo beastmaster I could find nothing that could kill the greater wolfwere – I emptied my necklaces of missiles on him but he regenerated faster than I could hurt him – and I can’t use metal weapons including the sword. I left him thrashing around in his boat and thought I was ok when the gate guard welcomed me back like a hero but the headwoman still wanted to know if I’d killed all of them. I really thought that this would be the end of me but, being a bit suspicious, I smacked her assistant round the head and he turned causing her to leave and triggering the plot (although she didn’t take the sea charts). On my return I couldn’t touch ‘Mendas’ either so I snuck out and, wedged all the doors and windows shut and left the sword with the innkeeper suggesting he advertised for a strong arm to swing it. I haven’t turned into a werewolf yet – the protagonist doesn’t I understand . . . fortunately.

Durlag’s tower – oh lordy. I’d only done the upper levels on my last run. Gosh. A solo beastmaster probably isn’t the best character for this dungeon but I got a fair way through it by the simple expedient of nearly getting killed by traps over and over again, drinking healing potions like my life depended on it and resting in corners. When I heard the level up chimes on the floor with the greater wyverns I figured it was time to leave but I was stuck and couldn’t get out of the level above. I was secretly a bit pleased and carried on past the chess game [img]smile.gif[/img] When the dwarf spirit offered me the chance to leave I didn’t have to think about it very hard - I was out of there in seconds and am on my way back to the city. It was good though – I’m going back with a thief. The cleric spell scrolls were a nice surprise too but I’m saving those for the big guy.

For the record I have a whooping 900K XP and am a level 11 ranger which should make the final battle and the transition to SoA interesting

[Armen]

and so this poorly maintained and selective tale comes to an end

i had to do the doppleganger battle in the palace a few times as even my monster summoning II friends didn't get through the dopplegangers quick enough

the saviour in the end was, yet again, my trusty wand of sleep - the dopplegangers were surprisingly susceptible to it once i' turned to it in desperation and with repeated blasts of the wand interspersed with arrows of biting i kept them back long enough to save the dukes

perhaps magic really is the way forward . . .

after my unpleasant experiences in durlag's i drank every protection potion and read every protecion scroll drank loads of buffs and just walked through the thief maze smacking people (i am level 11 mind)

i avoided the party in the ruins and headed for the temple

i confronted sarevok and then scooted back behind the pillar to prepare - i'd bought some arrows of dispelling (something i'd never used before) and my first experience was stripping all, that's all of the mage's protections - i couldn't believe it - 3-4 arrows of biting and he was gone - his contingencies still fired for greater malison but i'm immune to pretty much everything at this point

i sent the panthers in against the dias next (they do look very cool) - angelo got a bit overexcited and ended up wounding sarevok and getting hacked to death for his trouble

tavok (sp? sorry) just seemed to disappear - i'll probably catch up with him later - so it was me and sarevok

i retreated again to rebuff and this was when i learned perhaps the greatest (powergaming) lesson of this run - potions (strength, mind focussing etc.) stack with draw upon holy might - i had no idea - so it was with 25 STR and 25 DEX i strode out to face sarevok - it didn't last long [img]smile.gif[/img]

all in all lots of fun although i do struggle mentally with wading though traps - i'm going to stay with tutu for a while (it was loads of fun)and do the rest of durlags's and kill the goddammed wolfwere but craick will be graduating to SoA and dualling to cleric and with a starting XP of 1,000,000 that'll be a whole lot easier to do

[RoSs_bg2_rox]

cool, nice story. So do you mean you are gona finish Durlags with craick before going to SoA or with another character? I think you should do............both!

Also since you were wondering its actually Tazok but no biggie.

Good story, you should carry it on into BG2.

[Lord]

Nice story. You should continue it through BG2.
Just a quick questions that I thought about since you mentioned the cloak and tutu. The cloak gives 25% magic resistance, so sometimes, using beneficial spells (cure light wounds or heal potions) will have no effect because you've got magic resistance. Since you're running the BG2 engine, does that still happen? Or are beneficial spells not affected by magic resistance anymore?

[Xen]

Great story. [img]smile.gif[/img] Keep up the good work in BG II: [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]