The Candlekeep Annex: RPed Baldur’s Gate No and Low Reload Adventures

[alice_ashpool]

Day 31 – To Do: Look after Imoen

Its on my to do list (see day 12) to look after Imoen, and what better way to look after your little sister than to spend a small dragons hoard of gold on her? So that’s what I did, I spent all my gold on Imoen. That’s right, don’t let anyone say I don’t love my sister.

Paid a visit to the Beregost smithy, best smithy outside of Baldur’s Gate apparently (hopefully not just marketing) First things first: since she gave up her armour for me, the best, and I mean the best studded leather armour money can buy for Imoen – this shit looks fierce af. Imoen looks like a deadly assassin when shes wearing it, which is pretty apt since actually she is.

killer armor

Second I got her a new knife – this thing is LETHAL, generates super potent magic poison, just don’t cut yourself on it. Apparently both the armor and the dagger come from Amn, down south. If this is the sort of thing they have down there then me and Im have to visit on a shopping trip. At least once I rebuild our now sadly depleted cashmoney.

killer knife

Also, just to round it out a masterwork Shortbow for her – so she can fill things full of arrows even better. I didn’t get anything for me, apart from the extra spells – Imoen deserves it more.

killer look

So all kitted out and looking like a pair of deadly killers, we went to find this “contact,” Tranzig, see if he was still at Feldpost’s Inn – the letter implied that he was a long term plant so we were pretty hopeful, and rightly so. We staked out the inn, seeing Tranzig moving up and down to the common room and back – Imoen had a quick look at his room but it was magically trapped. This guy was a mage and not a two-bit hedge wizard but a powerful spell user. Our usual blind routine was not gonna work on this one, he’d just shrug it off – me and Im had to come up with a super secret magekiller strategy. And we did.

DO NOT SHARE super secret mage slayer strategy

Once I had proved that I could shoot so much fire from my fingertips that he had no chance to survive he spilled the whole op. Victory for Arwen!, unfortunately (for him) we couldn’t let him run back to his goony buddies and tell him that I had hot him to tell us everything so I finished the job – one barbequed mage.

Gross smell of burning mage not pictured

Of course, Imoen wasn’t like, just sitting by and watching, having been stealing this nifty and also cool magical cloak from someone in the inn. Need to spend some time working out what it is but it looks real stylish.

Tranzig had a letter from Tazok dated a week ago wondering why the cleric who was poisoning all the iron has not bean in touch and instructing him to go there to investigate. Seems like this wizard was not just an intermediary – didn’t feel bad at all about killing him, plus, you know it, magic wands, magic scrolls, all the good shit wizards have. Hell yeah!

these people sure do like to write things down for me to read later

We didn’t hang around Feldposts, what with the bbq’d mage in one of the suites, instead returning to the Juggler. It seems this Tazok is who we want. Larswood is closer according the the barkeeper so we’ll check there first.

 

[alice_ashpool]

]Day 32- Bounty Hunter re-redux

Next stop bandit camp, wait, no, next stop was the 5000 GOLD BOUNTY. I NEEDED it. Someone had told us they had seen Basillus to the SW of Beregost, and he was a necromancer, YUCK, I hate them, the very idea of necromancers make my toes curl and my teeth ache.

Well, it took a while, and a lot of walking (I hate this just a teensy bit less than I hate necromancers - thats how much I hate them), but we found him exactly where our source said he would be, Imoen scouted out while invisible – she counted at least ten walking skeletons, a few DISGUSTING zombie thingies plus the GROSS priest playing with dead bodies. We came up with a super-secret necromancer killer strategy which was 100% not just a couple of fireballs from my amulet then lots and lots of magic missiles. Yeah, there was LOADS more to it than that, loads.

DISGUSTING.

We have to prep though, so we’re currently hiding out for a few hours while I prepared my spells (and scribble some rough notes on my diary, which is balanced on my knee.)


Day 33 – Arwen: Necromancer Slayer

Im had nabbed a fresh magic missile wand from that so-called wizard in Feldpost’s Inn so she could join in the fun. Did I just write fun? What I mean is join in with the noble art of both bounty hunting and necromancer destruction. Anyway, the fireballs wasted the skeletons and getting struck with 21 tiny magical bullets will kill most people, necromancer or not. One less disgusting person I have to deal with. We took his unholy symbol as proof of our epic deeds and now it was time to get P A I D – 5 grand for that, 100% fire.

100% fire

I had to get Imoen to carry the symbol – Cyric since you asked, I hate that guy and I don’t even know why, the symbol makes me super uncomfortable. She wasn’t that keen either so we double wrapped it in spare clothes and buried it in the bottom of her pack.

DO NOT SHARE super secret necromancer slayer strategy

We had to go to a temple of lathander to get our reward. My patron goddess has been quiet these past few days, but I could feel her seething as we got close. I had Imoen go in to collect the bounty alone, didn’t really fancy the killer headache that trying to enter would provoke. The reward was as promised, five thousand gold, only this time it doesn’t actually feel like that much – Imoens fancy new armour cost 10,000. I guess ive enter the big leagues with the fat wallets.

Imoen didn’t much like this place either but we gots to get paid

It’s a short entry today – killing that stupid necromancer really took it out of me. Not been feeling myself lately, and that doesn’t even include the fact that Gorion is still dead. Imoen’s feeling it too, feels like inevitability.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 34 – To hunt a bandit

We agreed that there was no use delaying it. We had to hunt down these so called bandits who were shutting down iron imports into the iron coast. I had to think it was an ok plan: restrict imports, taint the only internal source. Then, like, idk… what IS the end game here? And how does it link to me? Me and Im DESERVE answers for al lthe shit these fuckers have put us through. Perhaps this “Tazok” will have answers – perhaps he is the one I want. We're the assassins now. Lets see how they feel.

Our trip to Larswood was almost successful, but not quite, damn. u see we met some bandits alright – a whole crew of them, the leader at least was ok to talk, we fucked up though (not that I would ever admit that in public), dropped the name Tazok from Tranzig’s letter trying to “fit in” and well, you can guess the rest – whoops! Had to kill them all lol. Nothing a magical webpit and some divine holds can’t sort out though. I counted eight dead bodies. And now I betcha wondering if we did it and the answer is no fucking way, I an NOT scalping people – I’ve already like, broken a few nails, I don’t care how much gold they’re offering, its just unhygienic, and not really part of the whole “look” im going for here.

Me and Im handing out humiliation

So its back to square one, which is super annoying. Not to mention and I don’t want to labour it but we walked for fricking hours all around this wood to find these damn bandits and you know how much I hate walking – and camping in the wilderness, that old pile of shit again, at least I have a portable mini-desk so I can keep my journal up to date. When I finally catch up to who is to blame for this they are going to be in for a whole world of pain.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 35 – To hunt a bandit 2: return to the drawing board

Im sat writing this on the 37th day since the murder of my father, during a quick stop at the friendly arm inn before we head west into the apparently "endless and trackless" Claokwood (more woods, yay). I realised that If me and Im are going to infiltrate this bandit camp I probably shouldn’t have a diary on me which talks all about how I am going to kill them. Good thinking Arwen.

So after the micro-fiasco with the first group of bandits we encountered me and Im went north into the Peldvale, where the raids were apparently even worse. You know what else was even worst – the stupid Peldvale not just woods but low lying woods with lakes and bogs and I got wet feet and my boots were practically ruined. It was horrible.

That being said we did actually find some more bandits after only about two hours of trudging through damp, muddy forest. I thought this time I better let Imoen do the talking, doesn’t take a brain as big as mine to realise that everyone here laughs at gnomes. She had no problem sweet talking this group of bandits into thinking we were here for the banditry. Helps that she has that savage black armour which makes her look like a badass bandit.

more gnome h8ters

These morons took us straight back to the camp. I cannot quite believe it worked. Strangers show up and you just lead them back to your super secret camp, lmao. Plus, we struck gold: he introduced us to Tazok! The person mentioned in Tranzig’s letter. Tazok was deffo in charge round here. Only downside is he was this mean looking ogre, huge sword, brutal armour, more than twice as tall as I am, hell, almost twice as tall as Imoen is. I did NOT think this was the time to start slinging spells – that’s not how assassins operate, shoot ‘em in the back, not the front, obvs.

um, yep, just some bandit wannabes, here to join your bandit actualbes

We thought we better get the, like “lay of the land” or whatever Gorion used to say – reconnaissance, reconnoiter, that sort of shit. I’m not going to go into all this detail about the camp except it was huge, at least, like a hundred bandits, including these two groups who are apparently famous: the Blacktalons and the Chill, both really well equiped. The Chill were also literal hobgoblins, eww. In fact the whole stupid camp was eww, it was muddy and it stunk like actual shit, plus we’d overheard that Tazok had left and there was no idea when he would be back so we had to change our plan – Tazok had a big tent that was guarded day and night, 24/7 rotations. That’s where we needed me and Im spent some time listening like super secret spies, trying to gather info from the less disgusting bandits, but, like there weren’t many women in the camp, if you get my drift so we “retreated” to an unoccupied tent to wait for the cover of darkness.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 36 – Deadly Viper Assassination Squad

It was a couple of hours after midnight that we snuck into Tazok’s tent, we knew there would be guards, minions, whatever in here but there was no other option – behead the remaining bandit leadership while Tazok was away and maybe the Blacktalons and the Chill would just drift away, or even better: kill each other.

Long story short: there were a lot more goons in the tent than me and Im were expecting. But, I’m like super strong, and I still had my necklace of fireball-death. I let off three fireballs in quick succession while Imoen dodged out the way. The necklace crumbled to dust after the third – guess that was the end of that, hope I can find another somewhere because this thing has been a literal lifesaver.

The fireballs killed pretty much everyone, plus set fire to a bunch of shit (guess we better work on the "stealthy" part of "stealthy assassin") and the ones that it didn’t were webbed, blinded and shot to shit. Whole fight was over in just a couple of minutes, lucky us since we could hear the camp stirring outside, fireballs are kinda loud (no shit).

The most deadly assassin duo on the sword coast strikes again. authorities baffled.

We grabbed everything we could from the tent, scrolls, letters, anything that looked useful and/or an infodump. And, hiding in the back, behind the mega-throne was this prisoner dude who came out with some super sweet info, a name: the “iron throne.” Like, cool, thanks and also very useful, but you could have helped in the fight maybe idk, good luck getting out of there alive tho.

*humming* blame it on the zhents

No time to hang about – we popped a couple of invisibility potions I’d been saving for this sort of thing and ran as the camp descended into chaos behind us. Hope they wiped each other out.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 37 – Return to the Friendly Arm Inn

So that brings us up to date, day 37 since I left Candlekeep. 37 days that Gorion’s killer has been allowed to live, its getting embarrasing. The dreams come every night now – visions of cities in flames, armies obliterated, gods murdered. The power rushes into me, divine and arcane mixed together. I feel so much older, there’s nothing to do but push on. I want more: more influence, more fame, more adoration, more wealth, but above all I want more of this power. I feel like a shadow of what I could be.

Wizards study for decades to attain what I have in a few short weeks; the magic comes as easy as breathing. Rare are the individuals who are blessed with divine favour yet it rushes into me now, a torrent of divine power which I can tap at will. She is in my dreams too – eyes as dark as coal, I thought I knew who she was but now I am not so sure – everything is so unclear.

I can see imoen drinking with a group of adventurers on the other side of the inn, she likes that everyone knows who she is. She’s changed as much as I have, and still changing – harder, harsher. I always thought she was too soft, but its going, she’s killed as many as I have, maybe more. Have you ever seen your own sister laughing after burying a poisoned dagger in someone’s back? I have.

I always wanted to be one of the popular girls

I’ve had some time to look over the letters we took from Tazok’s tent, the first references the Iron Throne, just like the prisoner in Tazok’s tent said. Also me and Im, “a small band of mercenaries” haha. “You are to ensure that they don’t live to upset our operations” double haha we’ve fucked your “operations” right up, and we gonna keep doing it. That’s what you get for fucking with Arwen: your total and utter destruction. We need to know more about this Iron Throne organisation. Lots more. Then we’re going to destroy it, or take it over, whatever is more humiliating for them.

the Iron Throne, stupid name imo

The second references a base in Cloakwood where iron is being “stockpiled” and a “ultimatum” to be given. Suuuurely there most be more to this than extortion. Like, it’s a clever strategy: stockpile iron, destroy or take over all existing supplies, come to everyones rescue with an offer that’s “too good to refuse” – hey presto, everyone now has to do what you say, especially if the recent rumours I’ve heard are true and war is brewing with Amn. But, is that it? it doesn't explan why they wanted me and Gorion dead in the first place. They made the first move, I need to know why.

no they have not been killed (sorry not sorry), they just yesterday killed your doods in your stupid bandit camp

But more than this it references someone who PERSONALLY wants me dead: Sarevok. They are now number 1 on my shitlist. (Number 2 is Davaeorn who wrote these letters). Tomorrow we set out into Cloakwood in search of this secret base, if that isn’t successful we will have to try looking for the Iron Throne in Baldur’s Gate.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 38 – Cloakwood hunt

The Cloakwood is HUGE. Like, unfairly big. An endless, trackless sea of green. I had no idea how we were going to find a “secret base,” I mean its ment to be secret, that means difficult to find, obvs.

Eventually we ran into some druids arguing with some baldurian noble or something, I didn’t really pay attention. Both lots wanted us to help them (I.e. kill the other lot), but like, druids know shit about forests and noble know shit about, idk, wine? I already hated this forest so we sided with the druids which turned out to be the right decision since they told us how to find the Iron Throne base, in vague terms at least. Nice. All we have to do is go west then north (would it kill a druid to be a tiny tiny TINY bit more specific?!), but anyways, thank fuck for homicidal druids who can’t be bothered to do their own dirty work is all I can think.

druids always know shit about forests

The other big ‘ol stroke of luck is that we ran into a band of Talosi, one of whom had a special cloak which would supposedly protect the wearer from being magically revealed while hiding. Something nice to keep imoen dry in this stupid forest. We spoke to someone who had lost this cloak I think, aaaages ago. Who cares, its Imoen’s now.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 39 – Deeper into cloakwood

We followed the druid’s instructions, traveling west, for hours and hours (and hours). Right when I thought we couldn’t walk any more we find some randomer just stood in the middle of the forest, no gear, no weapons, no nothing. I shit you not he said his brother had gone off into the woods to fight spiders a week ago and he’s just hanging out, like hoping some fricking adventurers are like gonna come round and save his ass. Not my problem buddy. If Imoen had disappeared in the woods you could bet your ass I would be tracking her down, not begging for help like a chode. Get bent coward (and this is NOT because I don’t like spiders!)

wow. Just wow.

Anyway, there were clearly spiders about so we went north as quickly as possible, only we ran into a pack of (well like six) Ettercaps which are these absolutely vile disgusting half-spider half-monkey looking things. I swear to the fucking hells I almost puked just seeing them. We had to hit and run (whoda thought a half spider half monkey would be immune to webs?!), I would use divine power to command (literally COMMAND) them to fall over, then Imoen would fill their prone bodies full of arrows. Plus some traps, Im is good at setting these lethal traps now and because we are smart we had set them up as a contingency. I don’t want to write any more about the ettercaps, hope I never see anything as disgusting ever again. We’ve made it away from the spiderlands and are walking north, still following that druids (vague) instructions. Lets hope he was telling the truth, I mean I paid him (in dead bodies) and all.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 40 – Cloakwood hippiesdruids

We’re so deep in the cloakwood it feels like we’ll never leave! We found a whole nestcircle of Shadow Druids who are, I guess understandably, pissed off about the Iron Throne in their woods. Druids tend to get pissy about people cutting down trees apparently. Me and Im leveraged this into info, and also the privilege of not having to fight a whole druid circle. Smooth.

In order to gain their trust we helped out a little bit, though idk why they couldn’t have delt with this themselves (lazy?). Basically some of them were pissed off about some guy, doing some thing, in some cave, they were pretty vague tbh. Turns out this was our first encouter with an Iron Throne op in the cloakwood – some moron was trying to train baby wyverns. Yeah… I’ll let that sink in for a moment. End result, two dead baby wyverns and one dead smoothbrain.

Idk what to even say about this

The druids were all pretty friendly after this and they allowed us in their giant treehouse. Druids, smdh.

Walking, talking stereotypes

The boss druid (he had green hair) was pretty stoked that we were here to duo-handedly destroy the Iron Throne base (now that I write that it does seem a tad ambitious, my 20th bday is still weeks away which reminds me its imoens birthday soon I’ll have to think of a present). We have been granted passage through the druids territory, and a “guide” in the form of a super-angry druid named Faldorn. Bossdruid says that the quickest way to the Iron Thrones hideout from here is through wyvern territory so, like a guide is “highly recommended”. Suits me.

inside the super secret druid clubhouse

Faldorn is a fucking trip ngl – I’ll never understand druids, strange clothes, strange hair, strange everything. “tHeYrE dEfILiNg tHe WoOdlAnD wAaA” that’s my faldorn voice.

angry druid lady

But she down with a bit of iron throne destruction so welcome aboard I guess, and try not to piss imoen off, she’s as testy as I am – days in the woods will do that to people (except druids it seems, they FUCKING LOVE IT, total wierdos).

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 42 – Critical Upsets: deadly viper assassination squad redux

Things have not gone to plan at all. It seems they knew we were coming. There were patrols out in the surrounding woods looking for us and we were ambushed; Faldorn was killed - so much for her druid senses. Can’t say I was that upset, she was hella annoying after all, and she did take an arrow meant for me, ho hum. Maybe if she is lucky her druid buddies will find her body and res her. If she’s lucky.

rip

By the time we got down to the mine the upper compound was evacuated, intead there was a deadtough mercenary company waiting for us. They'd been hired to specifically kill us - we're that scary it seems. Imoen scoped them out while invisible – two powerful mages (not, like, better than me, just more powerful - like older) and two equally powerful fighters, one who had these boots on that meant they moved around as fast as lightning. It was obvious we were not going to be able to take them toe to toe, not even close - and if there is one thing me and Im are NOT keen on its "fair fights" (they are for losers). One on one, perhaps but all together, no chance in hell.

Arwen hunters

I had a think about what we could do and realised I had a scroll of immense and I mean immense power in my scroll case. It was a spell of cloudkill, far beyond my abilities to learn (for now!) but I could still cast it from scroll. I’d been saving it for something like this. Generates a powerful cloud of poisonous gas, only problem is, people tend to run away when that happens. Well, we had a solution to that too. Imoen trapped the drawbridge and I hit ‘em before they saw us with a web, followed by the cloudkill scroll and another web for good measure. The webs trapped them inside the poison cloud until it could do its horrid work. That took care of the mages but the fighters were, incredibly, still alive once the cloud had dissipated – holy shit how tough were these guys? I miss my fireball-death necklace so much.

horrible way to go

So commence stage 2: the lesser of the two fighters was blinded and invisibly blackstabbed by Im – deader than dead. The greater of the two I lured into Imoen’s traps then took down with various spells – though, they’d drunk some sort of magical resistance potion - very annoying. And the reward – these amazing magical boots that mean I can run circles round anything – I pulled them on. There was no time to waste, we entered the mines.

Im stealthily scouted out the top layer of the mines – every guard she found received a knife in the back, clearing out the tunnels. There were lots of sadsack looking miners wearing slave collars. We didn’t have the time to talk to them, more important things. Except one, who pointed out that the whole mine complex was once the site of an underground river, now held back behind a great plug. With the right key the entire mine could be flooded. That would solve all our problems and 100% destroy this little Iron Throne op, fuck yes. Only problem is the key was apparently in the hands of the mine supervisor, you guessed it – Davaeorn. We pushed on deeper into the mine-complex, looking for him.

Again, things did NOT go as planned. The second level was a terrible nightmare, I'm shuddering just remembering it. Fighting guards in these dark confining tunnels. Ambushes, overwhelming numbers of guards, cramped quarters, low ceilings, a claustrophobic's vision of the hells. We were already low on resources when we set out, I shoulda stocked up before we came but I was just so ANGRY at these people. We ploughed into Cloakwood without really thinking of what it was we’d set ourselves up to accomplish. A near impossible task as it turned out.

just one of many near lethal fights

But we prevailed against superhuman odds, killing everything on the second floor, including a powerful mage surrounded by a coterie of killers. Could not have done it without these boots of speed and an exploding bottle of burning oil, a luckywell placed charm spell, and endless command spells (its fun being able to snap your fingers and make someone fall over). The battle was punishing – in the end there were at least sixteen dead, I didn’t count, such bloody slaughter. There was even a dwarf who we freed from prison in the hope he could help us. No such luck, the archers cut him down in an instant.

My spell book was near empty. My scroll case was filled with weak and worthless spells. Only a few potions left. This was a nightmare, I started to think that me and Im would die for real here. All this would be for nothing, no revenge, no life of wealth, luxury and adoration… but we were committed – there could be no retreat. This was our only chance. The only option remaining was to go straight for Davaeorn and the key and let the floodwaters kill everyone else. We were too burnt out to do anything else.

victory but at what cost

We’d found a slave in the prison cells who pleaded with us to release him, saying he could free the slaves with some well-placed bribes – 100Gs. I didn’t care, if some of the slaves got loose maybe that would take the pressure off us. I shoved the money in his hands, me and Im drank an invisibility potion each and we descended further into this hell.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Flooding this mine with no survivors

The third level was same as the first, except also filled with gross hobgoblins – we had our first stroke of luck though: no mages to nix out invisibility. We snuck through the whole level in silence finding the stairs down to what we were hoping was the final level and Davaeorn’s chambers.

sneaky sneaks

We snuck into Davaeorn’s chambers, I used my magic cloak to seducecharm his personal guard who revealed the means to open a hidden entrance. A few traps taken care of, a strength spell cast and then I stood forward to distract the mage. This is who we had come for. This was for all the SHIT me and Im have put up with these past few weeks Has anyone EVER had to put up with the degree of BULLSHIT me and Im have?!

this mage talks too much

While the mage spouted off his wanky speech, invisible Imoen, now wearing the magic boots dashed forward, past two gruesome looking suits of animated armour and drove her knife into the mage's back, killing him instantly – maybe anticlimactic, but definitely satisfying. The animated armour collapsed the moment the mages corpse hit the floor. A sublime moment xd. Take that Iron Throne MFers, HA, Arwen's coming for you ALL. We got to looting, the key to the river plug was on his corpse, plus spells, potions, correspondence, and his sick looking mage robes (yoink). The guards would still be looking for us on the upper levels so we had to move quick, but not before I killed his apprentice too (hiding in a side room like a loser coward) – he didn’t tell us anything I didn’t already know except that the Iron Throne HQ is in Baldur’s Gate. No one to tell tales, no one to warn the upper guards, no survivors to run back to the Iron Throne.

revenge is a dish best served via a poisoned dagger

We had to get out of there, lucky for us Davaeorn had his own private elevator which we could take back to the first level. Only thing is, he had this shrine down there. It drew me. A skull surrounded with a circle of bloody tears. Bhaal. God of Murder. Gorion told me something of the Godswar, ten years past. Apparently he was dead, God of Murder himself murdered, heh. Strange that the dead mage had a shrine to him. Strange that it drew me so.

We ascended out of the deep chambers and pulled the plug on the mine seal. And ran as fast as we could. It took minutes to flood the whole complex. Anyone who still remained was drowned – no one could survive that. Good.

I need to do some more research. We are on our way to Baldur’s Gate now, they have libraries there, and the Iron Throne itself – revenge calls, just as soon as we get out of this cursed wood. I never want to see another forest EVER again. If I cannot find what I need in Baldur's Gate, we will return to Candlekeep. There are things I need to investigate. Suspicions I will not voice until I know more.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 47 – Good Bye Horrid Woods For Ever

It’s been a long journey back through the cloakwood, via the Friendly Arm Inn, to Baldur’s Gate (I understand the whole secret base thing but that mine was soooo far from anywhere, no consideration for gnome legs). Me and Imoen are holed up in the Elfsong Tavern in Eastern Baldur’s Gate, doing a lil bit of revenge planning and life goals re-orientating. We’re trying to keep a low profile – the Iron Throne is in town, but I’m thinking, they aren’t just going to up and attack us obvious like (I hope), that risks scuppering their plan. This place fits us perfectly, “insalubrious” I think describes it, or maybe “dodgy shithole.” But at least they have clean beds. The iron shortage is really affecting the mood here. Its bleak.

selfie

I’ve had time to look through the correspondence we snagged from the Cloakwood base. Each one is signed “Rieltar” including one showing he hired the mercs we encountered in the entrance to the Cloakwood mine. Congrats, you’re a brand new entry at number 1 on my shitlist, that bumps Sarevok down to number two. We’ve already scratched plan 1 (all out assault on the iron throne mansion) – reason: well the cloakwood mine almost killed us. Like literally we almost died. Its obvious these guys are dummy strong. We need to… bring our A-game. Planning, preparation, tools, weapons, money, allies. We need all this and more. Me and Im need to rival this entire operation in strength before the final decapitation. We have some time – we killed everyone in Cloakwood, except the slaves. Unfortunately they’ll bring the story with them, but hopefully with the city being sealed it’ll take time, which we seriously need. I think we can actually, not relax, but like, kinda relax for a bit. Recover. Recuperate. Re-something else.

that’s what we’re dealing with – they’ll know us if we snoop around, good job this city’s big enough to hide us despite my… appearance – again, being a gnome sucks!

this “sarevok” again

Getting into the city was “eventful.” One of the flaming fist's practically assaulted us on the way here, asking if we would investigate the “Seven Suns” compound. No thanks donut patrol, do your own work, I got priorities. And then, guess fucking what the old dude shows up, YET AGAIN. This time he was bit less cryptic though still too cryptic. Thanks bro for the mentions of me having “bad blood,” then proceeds to give me a lecture about “true nature” super nice of you, asshole. But seriously, if he isn’t just a creepy old man then its not like what he says doesn’t line up with what I also think. We’re gonna find a library or something while we’re here, or else I’ll have to go back to Candlekeep. I need to do my own research, not just get my info from some magical bellend all the time.

I met a cute gnome in the Elfsong tavern, and he 100% spoke my language (the language of money). Its good people round here don’t really know who I am yet, more opportunity for profit. He had a plan to steal something from the hall of wonders, in exchange for some “powerful” magic artifact. Yes please. Imoen is so good at stealing now you would not believe how she started out. Shes an S-tier thief and doesn’t she know it. We’ll get the telescope, it’s the thought of breaking in that did it for me, what other wonders might there be?

Managed to buy a new necklace of megadeath fireball apocalypse too. That’s right – I found another one – my greedy little gnome hands couldn’t get it over my head fast enough. Of course I can also CAST fireballs now, like from my head, wiggling my fingers, that sort thing so this one goes to Imoen. Yeah, 2x the awesomeness. No one expects the fireball throwing thief.

What else, oh yeah, Im super enjoying this new robe i took from Davaeorn – the thing is hyper-magical, adapted to fit me as soon as I put it on. Magical armour and a teensy bit or magical resistance woven into it. Plus I look bad ass x 1000 (probably all the red and black). Fortunately, the look can be toned down a bit so I don’t stand out toooo much. What’s the point in laying low if I look so damn fly. We’re going out this evening to do a bit of “nightlife” assessment, imoen’s words not mine! This is NOT a celebratory bar crawl and DEFINATLY NOT a celebratory burglary spree.


Update:
It’s super late now, we’ve just got in. While we were “out and about” (euphemism) Imoen was literally headhunted by the local thieves guild for some jobs. Now THAT’S an endorsement, way to go sis. They wanted to test her, give her a few little jobs to do, make sure she was theivesguild material (she is, but they wouldn’t just take my word for it, rude.) Cue petty tasks that were well below her (I sat them out, obvs). She said on one she managed to fool a sleeping mark by pretending to be a cat…. Yeah.

Big thing number one is that she has now proved herself and she’s been given an actual job (hard) from the duder in charge: ravenscar (cringe?). To steal some sort of wizard artifacts. YOU should have seen my eyes widen: WIZARD. ARTIFACTS. That is extremely my shit. Got to be done in the next ten days or they’ll be shipped out.

Big thing number two: We met a drunk in the thieves guild, I know right, but wait up he know a whole bunch about the Iron Throne – ex employee apparently. Confirmed that Rieltar is the guy we want – In charge of the whole thing, along with two others Brunos and Thaldorn – congrats, you two have just made the shitlist. And Sarevok is Rieltar’s son. I wonder how he’ll like it when I kill his father, the irony eh. But what was most interesting is he said the big bosses had a plan to “go to Candlekeep” in a couple of weeks. He didn’t know why or what for… but “something huge” was going to happen there. Gotta keep my ear to the ground.

give us the deets drunkard

We will have to think about how to steal this wizard’s artifacts – ten days should be plenty but I will have to prepare some assistance for Imoen – sneaking does not come easy to her. Its so late, I am absolutely smasheddog tired.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 49 – Shipping and Receiving.

We dossed around in Baldur’s gate for a couple of days, killed some necromancers (good), a basilisk (good) some people (good), stole some valuable stuff (yay), including a book to make me even more smarter, and another to make me more, um, “dexterous,” plus we did the museum score (easy), and the wizard job (dude tried to betray us but Im has made some friends in the guild who helped her out… with their knife) yadda yadda yadda, we did some killing and some stealing – I’m not gonna write it all down in my book, duh, what if like the flaming fists found this, they deffo wouldn’t be wanting to hire me then lmao. What else, oh yeah, since I am a rich bitch now I went to the most luxurious magical shop in the city and bought one of every spell I didn’t already know how to cast (I mean EVERY SINGLE one.) So I could get to memorising. The funny thing about my “powers” is that learning magic is near effortless for me, I just need to read a scroll once (destroying it in the process) and I know how to cat it from memory: that’s incredible, magic should NOT be this easy.

Soon, but not yet.

Anyway, me and Im were fucking around the city and scoping out the Iron Throne HQ (I just got these gloves which make me so strong I can crack rocks with my hands – BEYOND amazing) when we get wind of this mega-score: Durlag’s Tower, apparently packed with magical Items, treasure, all sorts of shit, just there for the taking. Only problem, this place has killed more people than anywhere else basically. ‘ol Dwarfy Durlag filled the whole thing full of deadly traps and even more deadly monsters. So, like, remembering last time in cloakwood we went more prepared than we have ever been. I got a pocket full of magic wands for any occasion. We set out at Dawn.

I’m leaving my diary here in a super-secure magical lockbox which we have hired. Imoen trapped it with some lethal mechanisms, naturally, and I cast some spells – basically DO NOT FUCK WITH OUR CHEST. back in a week or so.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 62 – Our Triumphant Return.

We casually stroll back into Baldur’s Gate after the hardest 13 days of our lives (most of which was walking to and from the stupid tower). Durlag’s Tower is breached, the treasure is filling my pockets. We are rich beyond our wildest dreams. Powerful too. Practically nothing can stand in our way now. Time to end this. Commence operation totally fuck up the Iron Throne. Terminally. I dreamed again – an ocean of blood spilled by my hand.

…

First stop – sorcerous sundries: give me as many wands of fire and wands of monster summoning as I can carry. Plus a stack of exploding “arrows of detonation for Im – we’re bringing the big guns now. Finally, we are ready to bring the pain.

shitwrecker 1 – codename Arwen

shitwrecker 2 – codename Imoen

We’re resting up and preparing – checking our magical potion supplies and any useful scrolls. Protections from magic: check; protection from undead: check. Protections from fire: check. A stack of scrolls of greater malison and chaos: check. Potions of magical blocking and shielding: check. Potions of fire breath: check. Potions of invisibility: check. Oils of speed: check. Wands of fire, lightning, heavens, paralysis and monster summoning: check check check check CHECK. We are prepped! Quick night sleep, we’ll raid them early.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 63 – Bring the Pain

Second stop: Iron Throne HQ. I was so excited, this is to be everything we had worked towards. We trick out way upstairs.

sneaky assault on the big boss house

And unleash fiery death upon the top floor. No survivors. My wrath is bottomless. There were dopplegangers here, the Iron Throne is impersonating people. I must not trust anyone. I must not believe anyone. The letters we found implicate Sarevok, and say that the Iron Throne is meeting in Candlekeep. We also found Thaldorn, one of the leaders of the Throne. He didn’t survive the encounter. We also found letters that showed Sarevok is manipulating his father – for what reason we do not know. He is lying, saying that it is confirmed we are Xhents, when he must know well that we are not – that was the forest bandit ploy.

Close encounters of the fiery kind

As far as I understand Sarevok seems to be making a play for leadership of the Iron throne, or perhaps more. I encountered him you know, in candlekeep later on,though he was disguised as as scholar in the keep. He wanted to give me a ring of some sort. I turned it down. With the number of dopplegangers I have encountered my paranoia is reaching astronomical levels. I only realised when I wassat in this cell that it was him. He's trying to play me, but my actions are my own, and soon he will be dead as well.

sarevok – playing his father. I was beginning to suspect there was politics playing a part within the Iron Throne. All the evidence pointed towards a return home, to candlekeep.

As we left the Iron Throne Headquarters a member of the Crimson Fists was there to see us to meeting with Duke Eltan himself (looks who’s rising high in the world!). I figured – who better to get on side than one of the Grand Dukes of Baldur’s Gate – He obviously recognised how great I am and since I was currently conducting a killing spress across his city, you know: “friends in high places” and all that. He knew quite a bit already but wen we explained that the Iron throne was behind the Iron crisis (subtle iron references) he had us teleported us straight to Candlekeep (gotta learn that spell), and avoiding an ogre-mage killteam which was waiting for us in the woods inside we went in (invisibility potions ftw). I wanted to go straight for the Iron Throne leadership, bloodlust almost unbearble but Imoen made me visit Gorion’s chambers first. All my theories are confirmed. I am the daughter of a god and a mortal gnome. A child of Bhaal, the lord of murder. I am not surprised, I am exceptionally good at killing as the swath imoen and I cut across the sword coast these past few weeks should show. But there is a lot to process here. A lot to… think about.

bad blood indeed. Or else very good blood

Relitar and the others who were with him died like all the rest – immolated and zapped to ash. The job is almost done, revenge is almost complete. Now I just had find Sarevok to see this through.

Vengence almost complete – only Sarevok remained

Unfortunately, me an Im were arrested by like the whole of the flaming fists after killing the leaders of the Iron Throne. Murderers apparently (haha, pretty special to be killed by the child of the GOD of Murder – what an honour.) This has all the hallmarks of Sarevok’s ploy to take over the Iron Throne himself, but for what purpous? I am confident that Duke Eltan will free us, else we will break out ourselves – the fools did not confiscate any of my equipment: do they not know I am a powerful mage?

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 64 – Jailbreak Rock

In the end it was Tethoril who freed us. I apologise for calling him a creepy old man! Sarevok’s plan was to set us up as “Assassins of Amn,” Shadow Thieves perhaps – He’s trying to provoke a war between Baldur’s Gate and Amn. Not something I care all that much about – but it’s the principle of it. He killed Gorion and so I am going to ruin his plans, then kill him. Terminal revenge.
Oh, and Tethoril’s idea of freeing us was to put us into the Candlekeep Catacombs, the whole place was swarming with undead and Sarevoks doppleganger servants. Thanks buddy. Faces I knew – Gorion even, appeared before me and I was forced to cut them downblow them up. Durlag’s tale of the same haunts me: forced to kill those who wear your families face. I don’t want to think about it – but this is the FINAL straw. I feel humiliated, played, and above all: wrathful. I’m worried to let Imoen out of my sight in case when she comes back I don’t believe its her. Anyone could be a doppleganger… anyone.

He made me kill something that bore the face of own father.

We had to walk the journey back to Baldur’s gate, taking precious time: when we arrived, we found Sarevok’s plan in full swing, close to culmination – one of the Grand Dukes, Silvershield, had already been assassinated, Sarevok had come to the rescue with his stores of iron and was being invested as a Grand Duke tomorrow. This was it. Time to rest and prepare for the morning. If I survive tomorrow it will be because Sarevok is dead and my revenge is complete.

 

[alice_ashpool]

Day 65 – Fratricide

Our rest was fraught – hidden in the Elfsong. This was our final chance to prepare. I remember I felt excited – filled with giddy anticipation. Happy. Angry. Vengeful. Ecstatic. I slept fitfully, dreaming of blood. The dark figure is clearer now and I know that she is me – I am a cleric of myself, a priestess of Bhaal, the power is self-manifested, the more powerful I become in general, the more powerful my clerical abilities.

Turns out the flaming fist are hunting us, under the guise of their new “leader” Angelo, a lackey of Sarevok. No more skulking around – we went straight to the Flaming Fist headquarters to squash some gnats. Interestingly, we found Duke Eltan on the upper floor being poisoned by a doppleganger. I hate these things. Who can I trust? We saw Eltan to a supposedly friendly refuge where we got wind of two of Sarevok’s most trusted assassins, planning on assassinating the grand dukes later this evening. Sarevok was to be proclaimed Grand Duke. Plan was, kill the assassins, impersonate them, foil the assassination, kill Sarevok. We killed the assassins, though they were strong – almost a match of me and Imoen (Sarevok has a habbit of attracting powerful followers… I’m starting to see the appeal.) We took invitations to Sarevok’s investment from their corpses.

We were only just in time: half the nobles at the coronation had been replaced by dopplegangers which were there to kill the dukes. It was touch and go because of all the “friendlies,” I couldn’t exactly let off a string of fireballs in the ducal palace…, but we killed them anyway: I had a new wand “of the heavens” which blasted down a pillar of fire on a single individual: it proved its worth. That plus a few scrolls of chaos saw us through – nice spell that. We killed the dopplegangers, saving the dukes and saving the day etc etc, boosting my reputation sky high (lmao), but before we could kill him Sarevok was whisked away by some old man he knew. Magical scrying tracked him to the Thieves Guild, heading down into the Undercity. We pursued at full speed.

not if i kill u first MFer

Deep beneath the city, accessed via a tedious labyrinth (why?) is the undercity – the bones of Baldur’s Gate. Ruins and strange creatures which live in the dark. The only intact building was a great temple. A temple of Bhaal – my father, and Sarevok's too. It calls to me still, even as I write this on the surface drinking duke-tier wine. It felt like Sarevok and I were fated to meet, fated to collide, even if he had not murdered my father.

fate...?

before we got to the temple though, we encountered a band of assassins in the ruins, remarkably they were not there to kill me specifically, but sent by Iron Throne high management to kill Sarevok. They had chased him down here just ahead of us. Sarevok’s plans were NOT in line with the Iron Thrones trad MO. These idiots could have been useful cannon fodder if they had agreed to work with us, but instead they chose to attack. Fools. All dead by my hand. But I was worried: every fight made me less prepared for Sarevok.

i d i o t s

And then I slew my half-brother and his minions – it’s easy to write, but it was a titanic battle. We were more than prepared. Enough potions and scrolls to make us immune to magic. Enough potions of Invisibility that they could not see us. Enough wands of fire and detonating arrows that they were immolated like all the others. The first upset was that Sarevok had somehow bound his followers so that their life force was tied to his – he could not be harmed until they were all dead. No problem. The second was that this binding was done in such a way that when I killed them they rose again as undead – disgusting undead. Gross! (though kinda interesting to be fair, can’t believe I just wrote that). No matter, I had a couple of protection from undead scrolls too. They could do nothing against our conflagration. Sarevok died as his followers had.

he took gorion from me, so i take everything from him

Gorion was avenged. Feels good. But more than that – with Sarevok’s death I felt something. A tiny but perceptible surge – as if with his death I absorbed part of him. I have the resources now to investigate this properly – the prophecies of Alaundo MUST be studied. This is only the beginning: There is so much ground work to lay, and more than that, I must see if there are more children of Bhaal here.

Nine weeks to go from nothing to the hero of Baldur’s Gate. Beloved of all. Idiots. I will keep my heritage secret for now, best they not know who I really am. I can take a leaf out of my brother’s books here, in more ways than one. I have so much planning to do (also Imoen wants to go out partying and im gonna join her.)

♥Arwen’s Updated To Do List♥
Find out who killed gorion
Kill them
Get rich
Get even richer
Own a huge castle
Become the most powerful wizard in the world
Look after Imoen
Ascend to godhood

 

[alice_ashpool]

Excluding Durlags I reloaded a small handful of times (3-4?). Durlag's was a shitshow which is why it's super compressed - whoops. Also all Day numbers are accurate: a 65 day run.

Here's my original debrief:

Spoiler

I haven't played Sword Coast Strategems Insane Difficulty through BG1 for years - probably around the release of the EE, and haven't played a PC-Imoen duo ever so it felt like quite a fun thing to do (and it was.) Cloakwood mines were definitely one of the hardest parts because I was so (deliberately for RP) poorly prepared - once I had wands of fire and an amulet of missiles for Imoen + 1-2 sets of boots of speed the whole thing becomes a bit of a cake-walk - the PC character barely cast any spells in combat once I got to BG because the low cast time on wands of fire is just so OP. The only problem was not having a fighter to deal physical damage making quite a difference - but having two characters, rather than solo meant that one of them could kite enemies around while the other did damage with ranged - at low levels I also used the familiar a lot to deal damage to held/sleeping enemies and kite. Dust Mephit isn't pseudo-dragon level but its not useless. On later fights wands of monster summoning ogres can be very effective, though its a crapshoot as to what you actually get when you use it (hobgoblins no thanks).

I enjoyed the gnome cleric/illusionist, though obviously its up there in the most powegame-y combos due to the specialist mage extra spell slots meaning it gets more spellslots than any other class combo and the shorty saves with high con meaning it can tank spells unbelievably well even without magic resistance. Imoen was pretty weak as a pure thief (imo) - she only gets two two traps, which are useful, but her thac0 remains high enough that backstabbing can be a bit hit and miss - though great when it connects combined with a stack of invisibility potions and a pre-buff of strength. I put her skill points in open lock, set trap and detect illusion (for SCS BG2 really) - I'm planning on shadowkeeper fiddling with her as a thief dualed at level 11 to mage lvl 1 for the start of BG2 which I kind of think is fair considering I had taken her to lvl 10 in BG1 as a thief. I want the maxed Detect illusion (SCS crucial imo), set snare and open lock (find traps is not all that important imo since PC has the spell equivilent, a waste of thief points) and lvl 11 should be when she gets 3 poisoned traps which I am hoping will be fun plus an extra weapon pip for longsword (I like traps even without abusing them and her two traps per day in this run were a very useful bit of extra damage in a lot of places). Obviously with an oil of speed, potion of power, boots of speed, shortbow and a stack of arrows of detonation that's 3 fireballs per round and ridiculous move speed so its not like she can't be super op - and she can use necklace of missiles too.

As far as game time and leveling went durlag's tower took about 12 days of in game time but lots of that was travel to Ulgoth's Beard, then the tower then back to Baldur's Gate. I didn't rest all that much in the tower, but I did powerword:quickload a lot - there was so much that I have forgotten about the game, and about SCS which has also changed since the last time I played (I think). Durlag's allowed me to get up to level 7/7 on Arwen and level 10 with Imoen just by running through it - 4000XP greater dopplegangers and the like quickly add up the XP. Additionally, there is a very real change in power from Cloakwood to Baldur's gate because of the access to Sorcerous Sundries and the Potion Shop with a huge stack of gold, plus gauntlets of ogre strength with slings (PC only has 1 attack per round base but it does around 13 damage per hit) - the whole game shifts to blast mode at that point.

As far as the diary thing went, I tried to show Arwen growing up from valley girl moron to a more serious murderouspower-hungry neutral evil character who loves her sister. Mileage may vary, its very stupid.

 

[Alesia_BH]

Excellent!

In Arwen's run we have an example of a successful journal style narrative.

And in Amara's we have an example of a run that started out with promise but crashed and burned because someone played all night and raced through SoA.

Diversity, here at the the Candlekeep Annex, lol!

Speaking of diversity, I'm currently doing a quick tactically oriented run through BG1. I may post that if I like how it turns out. After that I have a new idea for a narrative run. This one has promise, I think. Stay tuned!

Best,

A.

Btw, @alice_ashpool , is there any chance that you'll attempt an NR in this thread? I'd love to see that!

 

[Antimatter]

Thanks for sharing your run, @alice_ashpool, I had to snort a few times there. Great screenshots!