Chapter VII
in which a grand journey is undertaken and cruel nature of imprisonment is discussed
After achieving another success in lich balancing, druids went to rest at Den of Seven Vales. Vrk and Cuta provoked a fight with a party of adventurers to practice some of the new spells. Result was very chaotic – Atavrksha and Druma were confused and balanced a few of the bystanders. Surprisingly, a drunken Amnish soldier aided them in this quest even though he was hostile towards them. As a result, a local temple of Ilmater received a significant inflow of money, probably sufficient to rent a more impressive locale and maybe even purchase some furniture.
But even after this incident, Balance Restoration Fund allowed the party to buy the Staff of Rynn. Together with Sling of Everard [purchase of which I forgot to mention earlier] and 5 scrolls of Protection from Undead it allowed the party to balance Kangaax and equip Druma with a nice ring. Then druids went back to their experiments, as Cuta was curious if Nature’s Beauty spell breaks invisibility. The opportunity to check this arose when druids entered a certain building in a temple district. Druids failed to convince it’s inhabitants that private property is an unnatural concept and were forced to balance them. One of them (Koshi) turned out to be a sensitive person and died on the spot, others were blinded and did nothing to defend themselves while swarms of insects were devouring them alive. More importantly, the slaughter proved that Nature’s Beauty does not break invisibility, which, as druids decided, is one of nature’s unexplainable mysteries.
Then Atavrksha decided to return to Warden’s Keep and restore balance on the second level. Quest proved to be rather easy, though lack of trap disarming skills caused Druma to enter a balanced state for a moment. The only major problem was with the Chromatic Demon. The initial plan was to severely doom his saving throws and finish him with Chromatic Orb (which seemed appropriate), but he turned out to be immune to spell effect. After a long and undecided battle, druids retreated and prepared different set of spells. The second try was quite effective – demon was blinded with Nature’s Beauty and then, when he entered the shambling mound form, he was doomed and attacked with Lightning Bolts by Atavrksha and Cuta (thanks to a staff). Among the treasures looted from the level was Helm of the Rock, used by Druma from now on.
Back in Athkatla druids helped Shadow Thieves in their fight against the rival vampire guild. Most of the vampires were blinded with sneaky Nature’s Beauty, which made the fight rather one-sided. While fighting the vampire leader, Bodhi, Druma and Ashoka changed shapes to wolves, because they thought it would look cool, while Vrk showed why werewolf is sometimes considered a vampire's natural enemy. Bodhi got the point and soon retreated.
After that Aran Linvail finally arranged for a ship that would take druids to where Irenicus was being held – Spellhold, located on a small island. Before the journey druids made some shopping, buying lots of potions and Vhailor’s Helm. The decision of following the mage soon proved to be tragic in result – in the meantime Irenicus have taken control of the Spellhold asylum and thanks to the treason of their captain, Saemon Havarian, druids found themselves drugged and incapacitated. At least they found out what the mage was after – Atavrksha’s godly soul. After an unnatural ritual her soul was stripped from her together with one point of intelligence [down to 7, which didn't endanger her position as party's most intelligent druid]. Then druids were left to die in asylum’s dungeon, hunted by Bodhi, Irenicus’ sister, as it turned out.
But Atavrksha had no intention of dying – there was still balance to be restored, so together with her friends she fought her way back to Irenicus. Not without dangerous adventures, I might add. One of the creatures that stood in their way was a lich – this time party decided to employ some new spells – Fire Storm and Earthquake. They proved very effective, especially the Fire Storm, and the lich was soon transformed into a charred corpse.
Also, a few instances of confusion were suffered. The most dangerous took place when druids were fighting a particularly dangerous umber hulk. The hulk was close to tearing Druma apart, but she managed to bring him down just in time. Strangely, the hulk wasn’t dead, but only unconscious – as it turned out Druma was so confused that she was mostly beating the enemy with her bare fist, only sometimes with Rashad’s Talon. Ashoka laughed at her, saying that she treats her berserker specialty too seriously. [Belm was unequipped thanks to the wolf shapeshifting used to move through the level more quickly. I didn’t notice this earlier, because she had the other scimitar equipped].
Then there were some problems with Atavrksha’s inner struggle. Loosing her soul caused a short-term transformation into a Slayer. Vrk regretted sleeping in human form [Atavrksha hit on 2]. He nearly perished from a surprise attack, but Druma saved him by throwing him Boots of Speed. Druids agreed that from now on Atavrksha should sleep next to a one, who still have some iron skins left. The precaution proved to be unnecessary. As an avenger Atavrksha is rather skilled in shapeshifting and managed to control the transformation.
A second pair of Boots of Speed was found while exploring the dungeon (equipped by Ashoka), as well as Boots of the North (Vrk), Cloak of Reflection (Cuta), two rings – Ring of Regeneration (Ashoka) and Ring of Free Movement, which allows Druma to take full advantage of Atavrksha’s Webs (but usually is worn by Cuta) and, last but not least, a Bag of Holding. Finally, party reached the upper levels of the asylum. There they freed imprisoned mages and together with them attacked Irenicus. His magic was useless against druid’s insects, but he managed to escape. Lucky for our heroes, Saemon Havarian stayed true to his treacherous nature and offered them help in pursuing Irenicus. After procuring a lighting-resistant ship and balancing a few pirates, druids set sail again.
According to Havarian, Irenicus and Bodhi used a portal to enter Underdark with an intention of reaching elven city of Suldanessellar – and that was where druids headed. But before they reached the mainland, they were attacked by githyanki and betrayed by Havarian again. They managed to balance Havarian and most of the attackers, but then sahuagin’s attacked and ship sank. That way druids found themselves in a sahuagin city, where they balanced the local population, acquiring a few valuable artifacts on the way – Cloak of Protection +2 made Vrk stop whining about unbalanced Rings of Protection distribution, while Cloak of Mirroring made Ashoka much more effctive in his role of a party's tank. Among other things, it made him immune to his friends’ Fire Storms, which were starting to become one of the party’s crucial spells (especially that Druma can reach fire immunity by switching rings, not to mention that party have an abundance or spells granting fire resistance). They also got acquainted with a certain beholder, much more reasonable then the ones they met under Athkatla. Then they proceed to Underdark, hoping to catch Irenicus there. The drows they encountered didn’t make that an easy task. Their innate magic resistance made them highly resistant to many of druids usual tactics and party had to rely more on summoned creatures and physical attacks. During the battle Druma (the deadliest participant) was charmed, counter charmed and finally confused. As an effect the fight continued after drows were balanced – Druma slaughtered the remaining summons as well.
Then druids found a temple, where some deity mistook one their summons for a sacrifice. Unworthy sacrifice, most likely, as they were attacked by several demonknights. From their bodies party acquired a Girdle of Frost Giant Strength for Druma. The Girdle of Hill Giant Strength was passed to Cuta and Gauntlets of Ogre Strength circulate between Vrk and Atavrksha (though they usually prefer Bracers of AC). Later druids reached a svirfneblin settlement. One of the gnomes offered them an exchange of favors – when they balanced a demon for him, he gave them a stone that would allow them to reach Adalon, who in turn was supposed to help them in tracking Irenicus. While traveling to meet this Adalon brave druids found a strange metal object, which turned out to be a magical prison. Tampering with it they released a drow mage. He was delirious and attacked his rescuers. Ashoka stopped his friends from balancing the attacker in violent manner, thinking that a Heal spell might just do the trick. It didn’t – drow rewarded this thoughtfulness with Imprisonment spell. Ashoka might have seemed to be a cynical drunkard, but in this dreadful moment he didn’t forget about his friends – in his final seconds of freedom he quickly passed most of his equipment to Druma (others were already running away). And then, when the magical cage was locking on Ashoka, his spell started to work. Drow regained clarity of thought, ceased his attack and instead talked to his saviour. He introduced himself as Raevilin and, still being a little confused, inquired if it was the warrior-druid who imprisoned him.
“I would not inflict this imprisonment on another person. It seems quite cruel”, answered Ashoka. Unfortunately, Raevilin didn’t take a hint. He thanked his rescuer, rewarded him with a valuable item and then left, leaving the druid to his horrible fate.
The party is now reduced to four:
Atavrksha – great druid (avenger) 14, 70 HP (with Ioun Stone), fav. spell: Chromatic Orb, 217 kills (Chromatic Demon)
Druma – berserker 3/druid 14, 80 HP, fav. spell: Cure Serious Wounds, 584 kills (Shade Lord)
Cuta – totemic druid 14, 81 HP, fav. spell: Summon Spirit Animal, 118 kills (Kangaxx the Demi-Lich)
Vrk – shapeshifter 14, 63 HP, fav. spell: Natural Form Shapeshift, 128 kills (lich)
One of the most amusing things about Ashoka's imprisonment was that the item he was rewarded with was imprisoned with him.
Modifié par Blackmalkin, 25 septembre 2012 - 10:14 .
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Of course they compete for a place with Iron Skins and Insect Plague but at the same time they are too useful to be ignored altogether, in my opinion...
Nice going! :happy:
* We immediately went to the Trademeet and of course were ambushed en route... My Invisibility 10' radius is still broken even tho Corey pointed me that it's vanila BG bug and cured by fixpack's beta core fixes but when I installed them my game began to crush so I rolled back... But even without invisibility on no more running and hiding: Chaos, Insects and True Seeing won the day (Viconia as usual was the first target for backstab but cast Sanctuary and no more casualities occurred). In the Trademeet we saved Mazzy's sister and now pondering our next move:
