Steady progress there Corey! Keep it up 
***
In Beregost, Lenno spoke with some of the townsfolk in the hopes of finding any clues as to their marks’ whereabouts. A man told him that that the priest Bassilus killed people and raised them as his undead family members.
When Lenno and Eldoth explained to Kagain that they had encountered groups of skeletons in the High Hedge area, the Dwarf replied that it would be a good idea to start looking for Bassilus there. Viconia mentioned that many competent priests knew how to animate dead, but she agreed that it would make sense to investigate the area. Thus Bassilus became the party's first target.
The party travelled west toward the High Hedge, and were again confronted with hostile skeletons. Viconia was wearing a suit of splint mail armor, which combined with her agility, made her quite difficult to hit for the skeletons and for the gnolls that also roamed about. The same could not be said of Kagain. In spite of being clad in plate mail, he took a serious beating. In his defense it must be said that he somehow drew more aggression from their foes than Viconia. [This might be SCS at work here.]
In the heat of battle against three gnolls a dexterous Elf came to the party’s aid. His bow was a great tool and certainly sped up the positive outcome of the fight. After their foes were slain, the party had a word with him. The Elf introduced himself as Kivan, a bandit-hunting Stalker. He was on a vendetta against some brute named Tazok, who had killed the love of his life, Deheriana, for no particular reason. Lenno replied that he and his comrades were on a hunt of their own. He told the Elf about Bassilus, his way of killing people and animating their corpses, and the bounty on the priest’s head. Kivan was sympathetic to the party’s cause and proposed to join with them, and Lenno replied that he would be happy to have him in the party and help him against the bandits.
Kivan is a Stalker, and thus formally not a rogue, but as I mentioned in my first post in this thread, the kit and Kivan’s vigilante rogue personality make him an exception (the only exception) to my rogues-only rule. He has three pips in dual wield, two in longswords and two in long bows.
The party of five cleared out most of the High Hedge area. They spoke with Thalantyr, to find out if the Mage knew anything about Bassilus and his undead, but he didn’t. It seems he simply lives as a recluse with little or no idea of what’s going on around him. Lenno also entered a home to enquire into the presence of undead in the area, but the house was abandoned. In a chest, he found an aquamarine gem he pocketed before he rejoined with the others.
They made their way further to the west when they were beset by a large group of about twelve skeletons. Neither his dwarven constitution nor his plate mail armor saved Kagain against the onslaught of throwing daggers flying in at him. He fell for the second time in only a few days. It left Viconia [with AC -1 thanks to Splint Mail + Ring of the Princes, but with only 17 HP] alone against nine remaining skeletons, Kivan [AC 4, only mundane studded leather] switched his bows his blades and presented himself at the frontline. The party then killed off all the remaining skeletons with relative ease, although Viconia did quaff a healing potion when her health was getting dangerously low.
After the battle Lenno wrapped Kagain’s body in a blanket and stored it in his magical bag of holding. Viconia and Eldoth had proposed that they just leave the body behind, but Kivan lauded Lenno’s plan to have the Dwarf raised when they were to encounter a Temple.
They continued their way westward until they reached the north coast [where the slaying of a dread wolf helped Viconia reach Cleric level 3, an important moment because it gave her access to level 2 spells.] Lenno scouted a bit to see if any other dangers were around, but the area was peaceful and quiet. He encountered no undead, which made him fear they might have lost track of Bassilus. But that was a concern for the next day. The party set up camp and rested after their long journey in search of the evil priest. Well-rested they decided to do a more through exploration of the area, to make sure there was indeed no trace of Bassilus, as Lenno feared.
The party met a Nereid named Shoal that insisted in accompanying them, but they didn’t trust the creature, and declined. Shoal turned hostile, summoned a Water Weird and beguiled Eldoth. However, the others’ incessant ranged attacks had her beg for mercy soon after. She came up with a story even gullible Lenno had difficulty to believe: she claimed to be under a geas or charm-like effect from some ogre mage. Viconia told her to leave the party alone, and in return they would leave her alone. But then the ogre mage, Droth showed up indeed. Again the party proposed, this time to he ogre, that they just leave each other alone, but Droth had different plans and proceeded to attack, while his slave stuck passively by his side.
The inexperienced [level 3-4] party of three was up against a heavily buffed ogre mage. (The fourth party member, Eldoth, was under the effect of Shoal’s charm for most of the battle.) Viconia immediately silenced their foe, against which it had no answer, fortunately. It caused the hasted ogre mage to attack in melee. For some reason it went after Lenno all the time, so the Halfling had to run for his life while Vicky and Kivan tried to take down his spell protections with ranged attacks to hurt the ogre. Kivan encountered a pack of three wolves and charmed them, so they would attack Droth while Lenno, Vicky and he could attack with their ranged weapons.
The wolves wouldn’t last long against their foe, although their fierce attacks did inflict some minor injuries just as the companions’ ranged attacks did. When Droth got his voice back, he started casting a Chaos spell. Highly magic resistant Vicky stayed where she was, while Kivan and Lenno moved in different directions to prevent the AoE spell from affecting all of them. The spell didn’t bypass Viconia’s magic resistance, nor did it reach Lenno or Kivan.
Thus the party survived the final trick that Droth would try to pull on them. Right after it slew the last of Kivan’s wolves, the monster fell to the elf’s bow.
On its body they found a beautiful helmet that looked like it was possibly enchanted. Lenno put it in his bag of holding. They left Shoal and further south they ran into a large group of ogres (some of them berserkers), half-ogres and ogrillons. There was no way the party could engage these giant-like creatures in melee. But in spite of their size, or maybe because of it, the monsters were slow, slower than Lenno and his companions.
With patience and careful manoeuvering (sometimes even having to split), they managed to take them all down with their ranged weapons. The only one who had suffered any serious injuries, was Eldoth, but these were remedied with healing potions. So when the battle was done, the party was still standing, with only minor injuries. A friendly priest, dressed in back, completely restored the companions’ health with his healing magic. He introduced himself as ‘The Surgeon’ and warned the party of his evil brother, a man by the name of Davaeorn, who apparently deserved nothing but death.
In a shipwreck they found an enchanted ring, but a Gnome they met shortly after, told them in a riddle-like fashion that the ring was his and that it was cursed. He urged them not to use it or it would addle their minds. He would trade it with them for an oil of fiery burning. Viconia observed that if they were to keep the ring, they would have to get it identified first, before anyone could try it on. Kivan stated that children and mad men generally speak the truth. He was inclined to trust the Gnome. Eldoth remarked that the purportedly mind-addling ring might well have been the cause of the Gnome’s awkard manner of speech and Lenno figured that an Oil of Firy burning wasn’t a bad reward for returning a simple item (even though they’d had to slay a giant centipede to find it). So they agreed to the Gnome’s proposal.
As the area was indeed devoid of undead as Lenno had thought, the party tracked back to the High Hedge. They had Thalantyr identify Droth’s helmet as a Helmet of Defense that increases the wearer’s elemental resistances. Viconia, the party’s (frail) tank thanks to her admirable agility and her great magic resistance, got to wear it.
The party conferred on which way to go to get to Bassilus. If they were going to follow the skeletons, they had only one option: south. East of the High Hedge, toward Beregost, there were no skeletons. Viconia could attest to that. North of the area they would reach the Candlekeep coast way area which housed mainly gibberlings and wolves, but no skeletons. They just returned from a long trek westward with no trace of Bassilus. So south they went. Their journey was uneventful, although they were “waylaid” by a dread wolf [the killing of which had Eldoth and Lenno reach level 5]. Further south they saved a talking chicken from a wolf. The creature introduced itself as Melicamp and begged them to escort it to Thalantyr who would restore it to its human form. The party was quite puzzled by the “animal” and was unsure whether to even trust it, but they did trust grumpy old Thalantyr. Therefore, they agreed to help Melicamp. Lenno was actually quite curious to see what would happen with Melicamp. However, they wouldn’t return to the High Hedge before having thoroughly investigated the area they were in.
Three hobgoblins threatened to kill the companions if they didn’t hand over their gold. The band had dealt with hobgoblins in the past without trouble, so they weren’t really upset by this trio. Not surprisingly, they declined to hand over their gold, and battle ensued. These hobgoblins were actually tougher than most. While Viconia successfully tanked the hobgoblin’s leader, the other two hit Kivan with poisoned arrows. Viconia had to quaff a healing potion and Kivan an antidote before the party could slay their foes. When they searched the fallen hobgoblins’ corpses they found a wand on one of them. Eldoth remarked that as a Bard he was able to use wands. He identified it as a wand of lightning, and observed that these wands are highly sought after, so they could also sell it for a handsome amount of gold, and maybe buy some useful gear at Thalantyr’s or at the Thunderhammer Smithy in Beregost.)
A little child approached the party, speaking of Bassilus and his ‘funny spooks’. They had finally found their prey! He was standing in the middle of a stone circle, surrounded by skeletons and zombies. Lenno stealthily approached, followed by Viconia. They heard him speak to his ‘family’, and Viconia told Lenno that the undead company Bassilus kept seemed to have noticeably dimmed the priest’s wits. They would try to play along and get him to accompany them to Beregost. Lenno presented himself as Bassilus’ father. The plot seemed to work until the priest saw through it and turned hostile. The undead fell though, meaning they would only have to deal with Bassilus himself. While the priest buffed himself, Viconia cast a Hold Person his way. The spell took effect.
Lenno realized at that point that given her poweful magics, Viconia must have been truly blessed indeed by her goddess Shar. Meanwhile the young Swashbuckler had difficulty not seeing Viconia as a goddess herself. Seldom, if ever, had he seen such a beautiful creature, and apart from her appearance she had made some astute and insightful observations in their dealings with others, she could tank all kinds of foes, and as said her magic had proven to be potent (first against Droth, now against Bassilus).
The four companions attacked Bassilus with their ranged weapons and saw how he took hit after hit but wouldn’t fall. Viconia even poisoned her sling bullets, and with them the priest, in the hopes that the poison would fell him. It took many more attacks until Bassilus would finally fall [he has around 100 HP in SCS].
Morale in the party was high, after this successful expedition, and they were all more than willing to continue travelling together. Kivan proved to a bit of a dissonant, when he remarked that he saw a similarity between Bassilus who had created his own undead family, and himself, for longing after a ghost, that of his beloved Deheriana. Lenno understood that it would be a good thing to help the sullen Stalker get his revenge against this Tazok.
First however, the party returned to the High Hedge where they sold the wand of frost as well some minor loot (mundane weapons, some gems). Ironically the wand they had stumbled unpon by accident was worth more than twice as much as the bounty on Bassilus’ head they had been after all those days. Lenno bought a Deep Red Ioun Stone which increases the user’s dexterity [+1]. For Eldoth he bought a Deep Purple Ioun Stone that provides 60’ infravision (and allows the user to see Smoke on the Water). Importantly, both items, like all ioun stones, protect against critical hits. There was also an ioun stone for sale that gives a lore bonus, very useful for Eldoth, but it was a bit too expensive for the time being.
Thalantyr miraculously restored Melicamp, apparently a former student of his, to his human form. The party was somewhat disappointed with not receiving any form of reward, but decided not to make a fuss. First of all Thalantyr had just proved himself a powerful mage. Besides, he somehow managed to acquire all kinds of interesting items he offered for sale. The party would surely want to return at a later time to see his wares and possibly new items of interest.
At the Temple of Lathander Lenno handed Bassilus’ holy symbol to high priest Keldath Orlmlyr to claim the 5000 GP bounty. They also had the priest raise Kagain. [I lowered his CON by -1 as per the self-imposed rule.] He was then dismissed from the party, as he had seemed to be too much of a liability and besides Lenno wouldn’t want Kagain to suffer any further permanent health declines. Lenno gave the Dwarf his weapons and armor, but no gold because the gold he was due at the moment of his decease equaled the amount of gold the party had just paid Keldath for raising him.
Lenno and his companions are currently enjoying some time to relax at the Jovial Juggler in Beregost. The Halfling is in high spirits, more than content with his party members and with the band’s great feats. He thinks he’s becoming quite the hero, completely unaware of his abysmal reputation. [The party’s reputation is 4: despised. I’ve got a mod component installed which gives slight store discounts at low reputation. Lenno actually thinks merchants’ and other people’s kindness is based on respect and admiration rather than fear.]
The party is still conferring over their next step. There are two more unclaimed bounties: the emerald thief, and Commander Brage. At the same time Lenno wants to help Kivan. Does anyone who made it all the way here know how long I can wait with taking on Tazok and the Bandit Camp before Kivan leaves?
Retour en haut
. As for mods bringing traps to that God-forsaken cave, I know EE does that, Jarl's BGT Adventure Pack does (but I don't think that'd be the case here, you'd meet some other enemies not Golems). Odd. Condolences anyway, I enjoyed reading Lenno's adventures.
