Alagar, halfling bounty hunter: Part 15
The current shoulder season in the Umar Hills offered the promise of little crowds and favorable accommodation rates. We wanted to get there as soon as possible, but first we had to go through Alagar's checklists and fill the identified gaps in his inventory.
These were mainly concerning his potion collection, so we paid a visit to Roger to purchase 1x Potion of Clarity, 1x Potion of Defense, 1x Potion of Magic Shielding, and 1x Potion of Mind Focusing. Seeing that he didn’t have any Stone Forms in stock, our next stop was Mrs Cragmoon at the Bridge District.
Have you noticed how she changes her looks in every run? Is there some kind of Adratha thing going on here as well? One thing is sure - as long as she continues selling Potions of Stone Form and Oils of Speed, we won't be asking any questions.
By accepting the Fallen Paladins' quest earlier on in the Temple District, Alagar has also fixed his PoI supply for the foreseeable future.
With our preparations almost complete, we swung by the A-Mart to spend our remaining gold on the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength and left the town through the City Gates. I was nearly certain that our vacation plan would come to a halt mid-journey by running into Renfeld, but somehow Alagar made it all to the Umar Village the way without any interruptions.
Our priority numero uno was Ilbratha. When bombarding the mimic at a distance with special traps was getting us nowhere, Alagar activated DuHM + RoAC II, and resolved the situation with Arbane at melee range.
Despite getting confused, our summoned berserker warrior managed to finish one of the two umber hulks after he had lured them them towards our three traps. Lacking effective immunity to the umber hulks' confusion (his current save vs. spell of 0 is not low enough to fully offset the schoolless -2 penalty), Alagar observed the combat from in the shadows. Killing even one umber hulk was already a success, so we decided not to push it any further and returned to the village to enjoy a bit of rest in the inn.
The next morning, we reported to Jermien. Always the proponent of contingency planning, Alagar managed to persuade the mage to hold back on completing the golem until we prepared few of our traps. Just in case, for example if it turned out that programming stone golems to protect your daughter's celibacy is currently not supported by their hardware.
And so it did. Alagar's traps triggered, however something must have happened because even though the log cleared shows the damage, the golem remained completely unharmed.
To add to our woes, Jermien's Stoneskins didn't kick in.
What now? We were already running DuHM, so our best bet was to activate Arbane's haste and attack. Note that Alagar's carrying quarterstaff +1 instead of his usual Staff Spear - that's rusty me incorrectly assuming that stone golems are partially resistant to piercing damage.
Seeing Jermien conjure his Stoneskins in the meantime provided us with at least some relief. Still, we had to be fast. Do you know what happens when the game can sense that you're under pressure? This.
And this (note that the short duration Haste is still on).
It was a close call, but we eventually managed to bring the thing down just in time as Jermien's skins got depleted and all it would take to kill him was one or two hits max.
Following this unnecessary adventure, we made our way to the Shadow Temple. Alagar's mission here was to investigate rather than fight. With that in mind, our main goal was to assess the situation and locate Mazzy - the conquest would have to wait for another day. In order to accomplish that, Alagar had to face an absurd number of respawning shades among others.
With Arbane in hand whenever there was a shadow fiend on the field, we navigated both the temple exterior and interior by luring the majority of enemies towards the crystal shard. Some, like for example the skeleton warriors, had to be taken down with a crushing weapon.
Others, like the shadow jailor, were impaled with the Staff Spear (that's a nice hit by the way).
After securing Mazzy's freedom, we decided to discontinue to further examination of the temple and dashed for the exit.
While on one hand we had been genuinely concerned about her fate, the principal reasons for undergoing this rescue mission were admittedly the Sword of Arvoreen and the Boots of Stealth. To secure the latter, we had to insist on traveling to the Five Flagons together before she could return to Trademeet. To make her time in the city more interesting, she was at least allowed partake in some action against some of the local muggers.
Samuel was genuinely pleased to see our merry halflings arriving at the doorstep of his inn. And so was Alagar with the generous gifts.
See you in Trademeet Mazzy - we'll be our way there soon enough as well.
Regards,
B
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