Just a simple woodcutter

FredN

.....Well, we whacked Abigaizil and it was an easy fight. Err, let me elucidate ... OK, it wasn't THAT easy; Edwin and Sarevok ended up dead and everyone else was seriously wounded, but heck ... any fight you can walk away from is a good one. Rest and regroup in the Pocket Plane (The absolutely greatest cheat mode in the history of online MMORPGs!) and off we go to confront Sendai.
.....Right off the bat, the first person we meet is a "simple woodcutter" who tells us about an enclave of "dark skinned elves" and suggests that we investigate them. Umm what? Dark-skinned elves are clearly Drow, and I have Viconia with me in palin sight. Is he pretending not to notice her? OK, that's not TOO suspicious.
.....Suspicions aroused, at this point I trust this clown about as far as Edwin could toss a Cloud Giant, so let's do some investigation. Needing information, we sneak into his hut and snoop around. Yeah we score some cheap gold pieces, and some dinky items ... ok wait, what's this? In a very secure locked drawer (Hexxat actually had to work to unlock this) there is .... whaaat??? Ahem, I don't want to post any spoilers, but this "simple woodsman" has, locked away in a drawer in his damned hut, one of the 10 most powerful items in the entire game. Which, considering the fact we already have Ravager +6, Irr'rev'rykal the Unholy Reaver and the +5 Psion blade is saying a lot. The weapon we have just found is basically on the same level as those. This yahoo has clearly been playing us for fools. The only question now is ... do I kill him now, or after we trigger the ever so blatantly obvious ambush by the Drow to whom he has directed us.

FredN

Well, I must admit I was a bit surprised here. Not at the fact that there was an ambush ... that much was obvious to anyone with an IQ over 50 ... but by the nature of the enemy. Things could have gotten nasty if I hadn't taken a few precautions. One thing I learned from fighting Abazagil, for example, was never, ever put your mages close together. Mean old Abe took both my mages out with one shot. This time I had them widely separated, and a wise precaution it was. Seems like the Drow brough a couple of friends along. One of them I had not had the dubious pleasure of fighting before, while I had never even heard of the other two. Mr. oh so helpful woodchopper guy is going the have to answer some very "pointed" questions. the next time I see him.

FredN

.....Edwin is, by nature, a constant whiner and complainer, but every now and then he does hit the nail on the head. On the way to the ambush site, he started grumbling about wandering around the woods in the dark. After the melee, we were headed back to the woodcutter's shack when passed two gravestones we hadn't seen on the way there .... freshly dug graves. Now, we had missed seeing these because it was dark; by now, having rested up and healed, is was now daylight and they were visible.
.....Presumably these were designed to warn us that not everything was well in forestland. No real harm done, but why didn't we see them the first time around? I'm a half orc, Viconia is a drow herself, and Hexxat is a damned vampire. We all have infravision. Then I remembered something similar happening in town when we were looking for that monk of Balthazar's. We missed him the first time because it was in the dark of night. Is infravision broken in this game? The next time we go wandering around at night I m going to bring an actual infravision spell with us, and see if that makes any difference.

FredN

For testing purposes, I loaded up a few old saved games. In Saradush at night, everything is quite visible. I assume this is due to the fact that this is a large city with excellent street lighting. Amkethran, by comparison is a podunk backwater which lacks such luxuries. I then cast an actual infravision spell, and that made zero difference in what we could see. Apparently it is intentional that we have impaired night vision. Live and (sometimes) learn.

FredN

.....Well, we went back to see Mr. Oh-so-innocent chopper guy, and I started to ask him about the fresh graves in the woods. Poor lad starts giving me a sob story about his wife dying and being buried there. Totally ignoring the fact that there were TWO graves. What? Was the guy a bigamist with two wives? Sorry dude, not buying that one. A little more poking around and he loses it. Turns out he is ::gasp:: not what he seems. He's actually Sendai's top lieutenant, he's got good fighting skills, he's got ... friends?? Lots and lots of friends?
.....OK, am I getting senile or something? Twice in one scenario I get blindsided. Somehow it never occurred to me that the chief enforcer for one of the three most powerful Bhaalspawn in existence might have backup on call. Gee, ya think? Fumbled the ball on this one. Had to pull out all the stops, and even then it was a squeaker. Among other things, Viconia was the first to go down, which could have been seriously inconvenient if I hadn't been hoarding a rod of resurrection in my ever so useful bag of holding. Whew!

FredN

One final comment. This fight was no cakewalk. Ngl, I think t was the second toughest fight I have had in all of ToB; the only one worse was fighting that crew of uglies at the third and final seal of Watcher's Keep. When I say we pulled out all the stops, we are talking timestops, Comet spells, meteor storms, Horrid wilting, spell sequencers ... once one of our skeletal warriors had gone down, Dorn took time out from wielding the Unholy Reaver and dropped a Dark Planetar on their heads ... and even that was barely enough to make it an even fight.