Baldur's Gate 003

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We return to the map south of the Friendly Arm Inn to hunt the ogre that stole all those belts.

We found it easily enough. It aggro'd Soma, who I moved back so he could start shooting. Then, when everyone else mobbed the ogre, it got kinda stunlocked in the trees and went down without a fight. It was very anticlimactic. I was almost hoping for Xzar to get whacked since he ran into melee range. Alas.

I really thought someone was going to die. Ogres hit like a truck and could easily one-shot any of our level 1 party. 

Anyway, the Ogre had two unidentified belts to bring back to the quest giver.

But instead of going right back to the Friendly Arm, we explore the rest of this map, and run into these clowns.

Jaheira: There is no surrender for carrion like these.

Caravan Bandit Leader: Have ta kill ya now. Nothin' personal, ya understand?

[Video - Bandit Fight]

I recommend watching for Xzar's reaction.

Rest in pieces, Montaron.

When a character dies, all of their items drop right to the ground on the spot, just like in original Diablo, although less hilariously explosive. His portrait in the party sidebar is now greyed out. We can't select him at all.

We can go to a temple to revive him, but why bother, let's explore the rest of this map so we don't have to come back.

Oh, by the way, when bandits die, they drop their scalps. It's not explained why at this point in the game, so it's really funny. Technically we are scalping them, but the mechanics of the game make it come across as them suddenly dropping their scalp. They drop scalps so that we can turn them in to the authorities for a gold reward later. In my opinion, they shouldn't drop them until we find that out. Like, who in our merry band had the idea to scalp the dead...? I'd say Montaron, but he's dead.

We find another raided caravan. The bandits left some gold behind, which Imoen promptly loots.

Hiding behind a tree nearby, we find JASON Jase.

Jace: Oh, sure! That's what that other group of bandits said, and then they went and attacked a caravan I just saw leave. They were a bunch of liars, probably just like you. Get lost!

He runs off.

And not far behind him is another messenger. Not only is there an iron crisis, there's war looming.

With the map explored (not pictured: a few more gibberlings, a single bandit, and some xvarts, which are like smurfs), we return to the inn to rest. Before we go to sleep, Xzar and Imoen have a (mod) dialogue.

Imoen: Eh... no, just lint and crumbs. Why? You're holding something back?

Xzar: I am not. Just the poor tools of my trade, as you have those of yours.

Imoen: Mm-hmm. A surgical knife and gloves, parchment, quills, ink, a ball of gut-string, four empty ceramic vials, and two steel vials that feel empty. What are those stoppered with, anyway? It isn't cork. Seems more like some kind of tar.

Xzar: You *have* been curious. They are non-reactive plugs made by specialists back at... of my acquaintance. One never knows when one might wish to preserve a... specimen.

Imoen: Specimen? Of what?

Xzar: One never knows. Why just the other day, I espied what I took for a specimen of true happiness. Alas! It fled before I could make certain of it.

Imoen: Bet that happens to you a lot.

Xzar: All things come to those who aspire... and wait. Wait for someone to finish the drudge-work, damn their idle bones! Why *can't* they do their work, and let me get on with mine?

Imoen: Maybe you haven't waited long enough yet.

Imoen: Uh... do you have any?

Xzar: I had some once-upon-a-time, and I should like another. Please keep that in mind, should you run across any, hmmm?

I bet Xzar was difficult to write.

We visit the temple to identify the belts (might as well see what we'll giving up). This would be useful to keep.

This one, uh... 

It actually has some uses if you're a female protagonist and haven't recruited any male NPCs. One particular NPC can only be recruited by a male character talking to them, and there's a quest that can only be started by a male character.

By the way, we can identify items on our own, but it depends on our Lore score. Wisdom and intelligence increases your lore, so mages and clerics will generally be best at identifying. To identify, put the item into their inventory and right click the item to open its description menu, and if their lore is high it's automatically identified and the blue "unidentified" aura  is removed.

There's also an identify spell and identify scrolls, but we don't have it/any.

I gave the items to Xzar, but he couldn't identify any of them. The level 1 life (™). 

Since we're here, I guess we should revive Montaron--oh. We don't have enough money. I spent it all on identifying. Welp.

We return the belt to that halfling and Jaheira levels up!

To level up, we open Jaheira's status screen and click the Level Up button. Note: The "Increased Movement Rate" is a mod thing, so we can walk faster out of combat to explore faster. The normal walking speed is quite slow. I set it to 50% faster in the mod settings.

The results of her level are summarized here. She got a THAC0 reduction (this affects her chance to hit, it's more involved than that, D&D mumbo jumbo that I don't pretend to understand outside of "this affects her chance to hit") and another level 1 spell. I give her another cure light wounds and replace entangle with bless, which is a party buff that temporarily gives everyone +1 to their combat rolls and also increases morale, which affects whether someone will keep fighting in a bad situation or panic.

We have enough money to revive Montaron but... I'd say I forgot but I didn't forget, I just didn't revive him.

We could head to Beregost now, but let's check out High Hedge. It has a cool map icon.

Imoen is excited, at least.

Imoen: That's 'we' remember? And yeah, 'spose we don't have much choice at that. Still, we can do a lot of good, I think.  Wonder if they'll make a tale of our adventures? Just think, one day folks will be in the common room of some inn, maybe even the Candlekeep Inn, and ask a bard to tell 'em a tale of 'Imoen the Quick and her trusty side-kick, Soma!'

Soma: 'Side-kick'...!?

Imoen: Oh, okay. We'll be partners, I 'spose. What ya think? 'Imoen the Quick' sounds good to you? Quick with the blade and wit! All the best heroes and heroines have handles. Hmmm, maybe 'Imoen the Terrible'? Nah, too dark. 'Imoen the Bold'? 'Imoen the Sly'? 'Imoen the Magnificent'? Hey that sounds pretty good!

Soma: Um, how about 'Imoen the...'?

Imoen: Shush you! I'm thinking! Where was I? I still kinda like 'Imoen the Quick'. Wonder if it's taken already...?

What I find funny is that when you google stuff for this game and find old forum posts and whatnot, many times you'll find people misspell her name as "Imogen." I'm sure she'd hate that.

Exploring, we find some wild dogs that bite Jaheira (so much for druidic animal affinity), and then I realize since Montaron's dead, we should give his armor to someone else, and have Jaheira equip it.

Eventually we come across this abondoned cabin with a Giant Spider in front of it. It interrupts Jaheira's casting Bless, but thankfully she makes her saving throw and doesn't get poisoned, and we take it out before it can do anything else.

But before we can loot/explore the cabin, we're attacked by a Ghoul. 

It paralyzes Khalid. Paralysis is scary since it negates your defense, so the enemy won't miss. Fortunately we kill it before it kills Khalid. Paralysis is also annoying in that it persists after battle so we gotta wait around for it to wear off.

We check out the cabin, there's only a locked chest which we aren't able to open. When it comes to locked items, the options are: thief tries to unlock, melee tries to force the lock, or mage uses Knock to unlock. None of these options worked for us, and of course Xzar doesn't have any useful spells.

We rest inside the cabin, and I mark it on the map to maybe return to later.

Suddenly a rogue talks to us.

Imoen: Huh, this guy throws a hissy fit 'cause a few words broke the silence of the woods? I wanna see him in Puffguts' kitchens on the night of the Midsummer feast! He'd probably lose his mind and start screaming or somethin'. Heh, he'd fit right in!

Soma: Of course you can't hear a word you're thinking. You have to say it out loud first.

Permidion Stark: Okay, okay, here's the plan: There's a big-time mage living just over that rise. Magic items scattered all over the place, I'm betting... Trouble is, he's got these two hideous flesh monsters guarding him and no shadows where I can lurk! Brute force is useless against the monsters; everything is useless. There must be a way to outwit the witless, but damned if I know how... Ah hell, I guess I'd be better off just finding a halfling village somewhere to pick on. This dive is all yours.

He rambles on and wanders off. We get a journal entry about attacking these flesh monsters...? I'm not sure why...? I don't intend to attack the wizard of High Hedge.

Speaking of High Hedge, we found it.

Inside we find the wizard and a cool lightning animation in the center of the room.

He's not wrong.

We initiate conversation with him some more times until he finally relents and lets us browse his wares.

As expected, he doesn't have anything we can afford at the moment. 

And he does have 2 flesh golems hiding behind the walls. Golems aren't sentient, they're magic-made creations so we can't talk to them. Flesh golems are the weakest and easiest to defeat, but they're still out of our level 1 (plus Jaheira) league. We also have no reason to pick a fight with these right now.

We head on out and Jaheira speaks up.

Jaheira: That is one of the silliest things I have ever heard. But I'll wager that has become a popular myth in more than one realm, imaginary or not.

Exiting high Hedge and heading east, we find a group of gnolls. In this game, they use halberds and are somewhat tanky. With some cheesing, we manage to defeat them.

One had a sword with a unique name. It may be related to a quest, so we'll hold onto it for now.

As we finish exploring the map, we find an elf hiding in the shade of a tree.

Kivan: A strange coincidence! I have a quest similar to your own. I have been hunting the bandits in the region for the past few months. Perhaps if we worked together we would fare better. What say you to that? 

Soma: We'll help you against the bandits, but only if you tell us why you've spent months hunting them.

Kivan: Their leader, an ogre named Tazok, took the life of someone very dear to me.

   

Kivan is a ranger with more strength than dexterity, but that's fine. And less charisma than Montaron and Khalid, haha. How sad. He is already level 2, which is always a plus.

Here's his biography:

When asked about his past, KIVAN reveals that he hails from the forest of Shilmista, though he has not visited his homeland for quite some time. He has instead been traveling the world driven by the darkest of obsessions: revenge. Kivan and his mate Deheriana were apparently on a romantic sojourn years ago when they were waylaid by a group of brigands. They were captured and tortured for the amusement of Tazok, the half-ogre that led the attack. Kivan eventually escaped, but Deheriana did not survive the encounter. Kivan is a man of few words, and obviously does not make friends easily. Likely he will not take much pleasure from life until he has revenged the death of his love.

What do you say? If we recruit him, we'll have to kick someone out. The advantage would be: two (2) machine gun elves. And Montaron is dead anyway. 

Next: Beregost, Beregoing, Beregone