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2 Ches, 1370
We agree to help out this beautiful elven maiden. We add her to the party and then teleport to the Armory in order to outfit her with more appropriate garb. Once there, Gavin begins speaking to Yeslick.
Thanks, laddie. Did the old heart good to be strikin' those that wronged me clan. Not that they dinae have it comin', anyways, wi' all the harm they done others besides me an' mine.
True enough, my friend. Your clan was just one of the casualties of that lot.
An' I must say, 'tis good to be travelin' wi' another man o' faith, even if ye be a mite long in the shanks. Why, if we had a few more o' the like about, we could clean up this mess right quick.
The company would be most welcome, but I hope we'll manage well enough on our own, if we need to. I have to admit, we are making progress.
Aye, laddie, I hope you're right. Too much stompin' about, though. Not that I'm complainin', mind ye! Dwarves are made for endurance. But some o' them less hardy folk seem ta flag a bit.
Hmmm. WE do need to keep our strength up. Let's make sure we keep an eye on everyone, make sure they're holding up all right.
Was that just... just a subtl dig at female clerics? Those two guys know that Finch and Jet'laya are standing RIGHT THERE, don't they? It is now that I realize I'm traveling with four clerics. If anybody dies it will be entirely from stupidity.
We set about the task of equipping Jet'laya with good equipment. She is actually outfitted pretty well already, though.
Gameplay note: Jet'laya is a Feywarden of Corellon, as we voted.
She's got some pretty good equipment too.
She's already at -4 AC! Not too shabby. Let's look at each piece of eq.
A +3 weapon with bonuses against undead and extra attacks. And since Feywardens of Corellon get 2 pips in weapons, I 've given her 2 in maces. So she is not going to be bad in melee. She should go on the front line.
She's also got her own chainmail. It's no platemail, so we'll probably replace this with some.
Not a bad amulet, especially since we have no others to give her.
She's got her own custom shield too, with a bonus to hit against undead. A shield that gives a bonus to hit? Pretty crazy.
She's got a blue cloak to match her character portrait, one that gives her electrical resistance. Rare in a cloak. Only usable by her.
This is an unremovable ring. I guess it is there to either provide for some quest triggers or as an attept to gimp her. She's also got a belt, but it is a mundane belt, nothing special, and removable.
We are able to help her out a bit. We give her a Full Plate Mail +2, a Helm of Glory, the Small Shield of Divinity, a Ring of Protection, a Girdle of Bluntness, some Gnomish Boots, and a sling.
Now she's at -11 AC, better than any other cleric. Huh. I guess she definitely goes on the front line.
Jet'laya, as a Feywarden of Corellon, has one spell that nobody else has shown yet. It is Alicorn Lance.
Hitting people with unicorn horns? What will they think of next. Jet'laya is also high enough level to cast Level 4 cleric spells. She has 8 of them.
This is ok if you want low-level monsters to not bother your cleric. But it only lasts 1 round every 2 levels, so at Jet'laya's level it only lasts 3 rounds. Best to cast it after she's in trouble and she needs some space.
The next level of healing spells. It can heal a maximum of 52 hit points, which is enough to heal half of Yeslick's current total, almost all of my 57 and Jet'laya's 58, and will be slight overkill for everyone else.
Death Ward becomes an essential spell later on, one that is necessary to protect against the large number of death spells headed our way. But we haven't seen that many of them and probably won't until we go up against the type of powerful mages we haven't even dreamed of yet.
This is a pretty sweet spell, and can be very useful. I'm tempted to have Jet'laya memorize one of these, because she's got the best AC out of the whole group and increased attacks already from her mace.
This spell reveals the fog of war that maps usually have in places you aren't. This has happened to me a few times already as a wild surge. It is quite frightening when it happens in combat because you are taken to the area map screen and can't get back into combat until you click on an area to spy on. But if you were to control it then you could see what's in an area before going there. But, the question becomes... why not just go there?
This is great when going up against enemies that will try to hinder your movement. The only problem is that it makes you immune to Haste as well. If we go up against spiders again some day, we will need to use this.
Lesser Restoration is an after-battle spell. When going up against vampires it becomes an essential spell to have. Oh my god is it essential.
It neutralizes any poison, protects against future poisons, and even protects against Cloudkill! Should be memorized by every enemy mage so that players don't exploit their stupid AI via invisible cloudkill shenanigans.
After we get done with equipping Jet'laya, it is time to sleep. We decide to sleep at the Friendly Arm. It is much more sociable than sleeping in the pocket plane.
I also want to speak with Thorengrim Hammerfist, to see if he can upgrade anything we've got.
Well Thorengrim can you forge anything that we have? Maybe make it stronger?
Well then Syvishtara lets see what ye have. I kin only forge certain items ye know.
Sure, go ahead and take a look.
Anything you can do with the Ring of Fire Resistance?
Hmm I kin make it a more powerful ring, but I need a few things to do that. A scroll of fire protection, a potion of fire resistance, plus 8,000 gold pieces and I kin enhance its protection properties. How about it?
No, not right now.
How about the Girdle of Piercing? Can you do anything with this?
The Girdle of Piercing? I could combine this with a potion of fire giant strength which would give ye that incredible strength. But this will cost you dearly. Such a powerful item nay come cheap. I be needin' 10,000 gold fer this work. How about it?
No, not right now.
How about this wyvern head? Can you do anything with this?
Ahh ye have a wyvern head. With 6,000 gold pieces and this head I kin make a very powerful helm from it. How about it?
No, not right now.
Well come back when ye change yer mind.
We also stop by to take a look at what Bentley Mirrorshade has to sell. Finch finds a new book, History of the Unicorn Run. She begs me to buy it, so I do. It is only 9 gold after all. Then, later that evening, as we are all relaxing by the fire, she reads it to us.
History of the Unicorn Run posted:
Regardless of the truth, the elves, korreds, and halflings all agree that the Unicorn Run is sacred to life and a site of incredible purity. As a result, al three races have strong taboos about extended trips up the run, for if the river is ever fouled, then no new races will ever be born on Toril again.
We sleep. The next morning, I am awakened by what can only be called a delegation. Yeslick, Finch, Jet'laya, and Gavin form a half-circle facing me. Imoen follows them too, smiling sheepishly.
The clerics calmly and rationally explain to me that we are going to go save Gullykin from its ogre invasion. They say that they understand that I am sometimes distracted, and that I have a lot on my mind. But Gullykin needs protection and we are the only ones to do it. I really see no choice here - if 2/3rds of my party wants to go back to Gullykin, I guess we're going back to Gullykin.
When we arrive, we are immediately assaulted by ogres. Finch blesses us and we are in combat.
Finch is injured first.
She pops a healing potion. Then Jet'laya is pounded down almost to death.
She does the same thing. Yeslick calls down a Holy Smite on the group.
We keep fighting. Finch is injured yet again. What is up with these ogres? They are like supermen of their kind.
And just when we think we're done, a second group comes up to our position as we finish killing the first group.
Imoen says a long, drawn-out OOOOoooohhhhhhh! She must have realized something important about magic.
Gameplay note: I guess getting your first class back is based on level, not xp?
We try to move a little closer to Gullykin, but we are assaulted by a pack of dread wolves. Is everything out to kill us today?
We meet more ogres again at the entrance to the village. Where are they all coming from?
We are doing okay with those, but then more come from behind! We are surrounded!
I try to pull of some more Minute Meteors when I see something strange, over there.
Eh, its just a ghost.
I call for a regroup inside the village. Thankfully everyone is able to squeeze around the slow-moving ogres and get into position. Then, when we do, we unleash a magical barrage.
But just as I cast Emotion: Despair on our enemies, an ogre mage behind us casts Sleep!
I turn to cast Remove Magic, and it goes off, but in my haste I targeted the actual Ogre Mage, and the spell removes the magical despair from all our enemies as well.
Plus, three of us are down from the Sleep! Imoen retreats from the battle and casts Dispel Magic at the whole tangle. Our allies get up again.
Then the ogre mage does us a favor. She casts Color Spray into the crowd, and mostly hits her own men. At the same time Imoen summons her pet wyvern, and it makes ready to feast!
But we do not get a break. More ogres come from behind us... again!
We reverse direction and try to retreat again. This time the wyvern runs interference for us so we again manage to make it, although Jet'laya was stuck in the tangle for a bit. This calls for an extreme measure. This calls for a Glyph of Wild Magic.
Absolute chaos breaks over the heads of the ogres.
I do not even know how to begin to describe what is happening in there.
And it just... keeps going.
But more ogres come. I let loose another fireball.
And it is also not enough. More and more come.
I don't know what to do. I don't know how we can defeat this never-ending horde. So, I teleport us away.
Gavin acts like nothing is wrong.
Reckon someone somewhere'll need a stout hammer for the good.
You wouldn't think about settling down?
Nah. What would I do that fer? Nothin' left, nohow. Clan's gone, an' all.
Nah, son, no quiet retirement fer this old dwarf. I'll be fightin' the good fight as long as I've got room ta swing me hammer. But I'm not denyin' I might rest a bit afore goin' out ta find it.
*smile* Sounds good, Yeslick.
I think for a moment about what we should do, and count our resources. I make a plan and tell it to the others. Then, after a deep breath and plenty of prayers to various gods, we go back.
Imoen summons another wyvern, and then we run back to the way we came.
Strong we may be, but we are not prepared for such an extended siege. We will have to come back later. We should do something simple, like save Jet'laya's sister.
When we arrive at the Wood of Sharp Teeth, we are greeted by a tribe of orcs. I give them a Fireball.
We kill their fighters with little trouble, and then send their archers on a wild run.
We sleep in the Armory overnight, and get ready to explore the area come morning. We find another group of orcs. The fight goes pretty normally, with fighters in the front and ranged casters behind.
Although I tell Gavin to wade into melee, and he seems to do much better with his morningstar than Finch with her Flail.
I ask them to switch places. Gavin finds the whole experience eye-opening.
Gameplay note: Especially now with his 10 hit point gain he has 2 more hit points than Finch!
We next find a group of kobolds.
They all explode quickly. Later, a skeleton dies almost before we see it.
Gavin gets medieval on a group of orcs, freezing them and spraying chunks of orc-ice everywhere.
He even manages to do it to the last one, all stylish-like.
The next war party we meet is a little more dangerous.
But I drop a Fireball on them. They don't like that.
I can see how much they don't like it, so I do it again when they Hold Yeslick.
When they Hold Jet'laya too, I cast Dispel Magic at the group.
And Imoen drops a wyvern on them.
The orc mage does something clever. It casts Aganazzar's Scorcher at just the right time to hit a lot of people.
But then we back off and just let the wyvern take care of things.
Everything goes well until a few groups of orcs later, one of them manages to take out the wyvern.
We take its head and move on, until we find a new kind of monster we hadn't seen before - an Orog.
We don't kill it easily, but when we do we find that it was wearing platemail. No wonder it was so hard to kill. After that, there isn't much else to do. We discover the entire area and learn it well.
Then, Jet'laya leads us further into the forest to.... nowhere.
