Safety Tip #11: Don't annoy the half orc

FrdNwsm

Having arrived just a few hours too late to save the town of Sara's Tush, MC had been informed by Melissa that two more Bhaalspawn were getting uppity and needed to have their ambitions curbed. She would meet them in a town called Amkethran, which was ruled by a semi-benevolent despot named Balthazar. She gave directions and then split for parts unknown.

En route, the party passed through a small desert oasis, where they were approached by a company of troops from some place called Tether, accused of destroying Sara's Tush and told they were scheduled for execution, and would they please line up neatly for the headsman, thank you very much. Well, that was the icing on the cake; MC totally lost it.

There was a full company of troops, led by a captain. Front line grunts with magic weapons and armor, supported by pikemen, archers and battle mages. MC looked at them and told them "You guys could get hurt, traveling alone like that". It took him about 10 minutes to tear across the entire oasis and slaughter them all. Afterwards, the party cleaned up the battlefield, and scavenged enough material to sell to the friendly merchant in North Woods to clear a good 80K. Not a bad haul for a few minutes work.

Onwards to Amkethran! Which proved to be a dry, dusty disheveled and disreputable place, prodding Keldorn to remark "You will never see a greater hive of scum and villainy". Prophetic words indeed.

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Well, the first thing that happened in Amkethran was that the party ran into an old "friend", Semen the Seaman, who was in the process of bilking two of the local mercenaries, and somehow managed to blame MC and the group for the entire thing! The mercenaries were incensed and demanded satisfaction, but MC and friends ignored them; they knew who the real villain was. They unloaded everything they had at good old SS: magic missile sequencers, missile weapons, and a whirlwind from MC using his DeathBlade 1000(tm). S.S. actually looked surprised, saying "I had no idea you felt that way!" before vanishing via his patented Dimension Door spell. Not for the first time, the party wondered when the heck THEY would find a scroll with that spell on it. They then had to deal with the angry mercs, which proved no real problem.

Next, there was an encounter with a priest of the local Temple, who was being attacked by one of Batlhzar's monks. The crew intervened and saved his bacon, whereupon a mage teleported in, warned them not to interfere in local affairs, and then vanished. This did not endear Balthazar to the party.

The next day was spent doing a few local chores, like rescuing some idiot from a bad promise made to a lich. Then they wandered over to the entry to Balthazar's keep, where they were informed in no uncertain terms to keep out. And Melissa herself never showed up.

That was the last straw; MC's camel dropped dead on the spot. This meant war! He polled the party, and no one objected; even Keldorn felt that extreme measures were justified. They summoned a few creatures for support troops, assaulted the monks at the gate, and the siege was on!

The battle raged for what seemed like hours; every time a couple of monks were killed, more appeared to take their place. Meanwhile, mercenaries from in the town tried attacks from the flanks and rear as well. MC lost track; his group must have consumed 20 or more healing potions, summoned every creature they could, from skeletal warriors to elementals and efreeti, to devas and planetars, and still the monks came on. Eventually, even MC's berserker muscles grew tired, while the rest of the party was long since exhausted. Summoning one last planetar to cover their rear, the group made their way to the town exit; but not before grabbing every piece of loot they could stuff into their bags of holding, and vowing to return.

FrdNwsm

Our heroes went back to the north Woods to unload their loot; the merchant there almost wept with joy to see them; he would be set for life, now! They didn't do too badly either; another 100K went into their coffers, enough to buy a small Barony somewhere if they were inclined to retire.

Looking back at the battle, the party estimated they had slain close to 100 monks and several dozen mercenaries. Just how many men did Balthazar have working for him, anyway?

Back to Amkethran they went, ready for round two! But, the town was oddly silent. No monks were guarding the gates, and no amount of knocking or rattling them drew any sort of response. A few straggling mercs were found in town itself, but they were easily disposed of. It seems that good old Balthazar had decided on a course of prudence and was keeping a low profile. Some smugglers in a cave had some stuff for sale, and the party spent much of their loot profits on buying scrolls from an old pal who had survived the destruction of Sara's Tush; Lazarus himself, risen from the dead. At the end of their frenzied spending spree, the party was down to about 20,000 gold. So much for buying that barony.

With the town totally pacified, there seemed little to do but go on and explore the strongholds of Sendai and Abazigal, the other two Bhaalspawn on their hit list.

MC sincerely hoped that they didn't need Balthazar for anything important later on; he didn't seem like the forgiving type.