Aldain, Human Conjurer Redux: Update 2
Previous update found here
Aldain imports into BG2EE without issue.
He did not bring any importable items with him, so gets the standard setup: Mail of the Dead +2, Helm of Balduran, Staff Spear +2.
Careful spell selection and application allows for a smooth (well, no one died...) ride through Irenicus' dungeon, and we emerge inside the Promenade.
The party this time will be good-aligned (except Jaheira, but she's basically Neutral Good): We're picking up Aerie and Mazzy.
Aerie is very straightforward: True Sight, or if you prefer Remove Magic, handles the illusionary Werewolves.
We exit the Circus and head for the Slums, then immediately duck into the Copper Coronet, purchasing Bernard's Scroll Case as it's only available while Lehtinan runs the place.
Now, normally I'd just go ahead with freeing the slaves, but we're getting the party together as soon as possible: While Lehtinan is in charge, you can cast freely inside the Copper Coronet, so Aldain's familiar pops Invisibility, 10' Radius, and we take off for Umar Hills (detouring to the Government district to unlock it by talking to Delon).
We rest up, then head for the Temple, sneaking past the massed Shadows outside to save their experience for when we've got Mazzy with us.
There's no timer on Mazzy, so we can take as long as we want before going after the Shade Lord; this is good, since we really don't have the weaponry or spellworks right now to tackle him/it safely.
Mazzy is recruited at 250k experience (a little behind but nothing major) and we head back to the Coronet.
Weapon choices are a bit wonky this time around: Minsc will go Bastard Sword -> Flail, Jaheira Spear -> Quarterstaff, and Mazzy Long Sword -> Undecided.
Aldain, Aerie and (ultimately) Imoen can just pick whatever, it doesn't matter.
We clear the Coronet easily enough, though Hendak gets the kill on Lehtinan.
The Sewers go smoothly as well, though we hit a spot of trouble when dealing with Haegan: He quaffed a Potion of Frost Giant Strength and absolutely went to town on everyone with those Throwing Axes, eagerly assisted by Oil of Speed-quaffing guards...
Neither Jaheira nor Minsc are fantastic frontliners, at least at this stage, but they're what we've got.
The rest of the ship goes better, as the Mages here aren't high enough level to pose a credible threat.
As is customary, we hold off on reporting back to Hendak (and paying the enslaved girl 100g), to save potential reputation boosts for after we've bribed reputation up; I'm playing with reduced reputation gain, 1/4 of normal rate.
Beyond simply surviving, an early priority is getting some items that reduce irritation: Chief among these, the Potion Case and Quiver of Plenty +1 (since we've got Mazzy).
That means Watcher's Keep; en route we get the Suna Seni ambush, and though the enemy Mage promptly dispels our Invisibility, 10' Radius, the few seconds it took for that to take effect allowed us to reposition sufficiently to survive the ensuing battle.
Yes, Aerie is so very fragile... if ever her Stoneskin drops, she soon follows suit.
Alright! Enter Watcher's Keep, clear the Stone Golem to the left, then pop Farsight: Yes, we did get Vampiric Wraiths.
These things are just lethal to low-level parties that pop in unprepared.
We are anything but, however: We first clear the large mess of Trolls to the left (Chaotic Commands/Protection from Fire and some Fireballs of our own), then engage the Wraiths from the small left-side room of the main chamber.
Jaheira's Wall of Moonlight hits the Wraiths fairly hard, and with concentrated attacks, we soon bring them down: As long as they can't see characters vulnerable to Level Drain, they can't attack characters vulnerable to level drain.
Damnable things.
The Mustard Jellies to the far left of the level aren't really an issue, though they kill off our Skeleton Warriors.
We handle also the Spiders, then encounter an oddity: I seem to recall it's safe to rest in the warded room (you even get a message to that effect when you enter it), but we get a fairly large spawn of Ghasts and Mummies when we attempt it.
Things looked a little dangerous, but we bottlenecked the enemies by retreating into the southern room, and received an unexpected bonus: SCS improved random scroll drops kicked into overdrive, netting us Summon Djinni (!) and Spell Shield (!!) from the Ghasts.
Those kinds of ambushes I can get behind.
We head outside instead and rest in safety, then clear out the Guardian Golems easily enough, and that's as far as we go; we make off with a fair bit of loot and gold, and return to Athkatla.
So what's the plan? I don't want to play through 80% of the game without Imoen even if she is almost completely silent after you rescue her, but there's some nice stuff for sale in the Underdark, so I'd rather not head there penniless... or for that matter, at too low a level.
So we'll do two Strongholds, and most little things around Athkatla, though will leave the heavy-duty encounters alone (Twisted Rune, Liches, Guarded Compound, that sort of thing); we've literally no way to remove a Spell Trap before visiting the Underdark and aquiring Ruby Ray of Reversal, anyway.
Easiest of the easy first then: Graveyard.
With three warriors, this actually goes rather well; again, we get a nice random drop in the form of Protection from Magical Energy showing up in a chest.
Crypt King has good THAC0 but Remove Fear is all it takes to just thump him, Pai'Na is shot down and her miniscule Spiders dealt with afterwards, the Vampyre does not get to Level Drain anyone, and Wraiths are allergic to Fireball.
Good stuff all around.
En route back to the Coronet, we save Renfeld.
Sanasha and Prebek are mildly troublesome, but you can just handle the odd Confusion by spreading out, and Minsc is immune thanks to Lilarcor anyway.
Another epic scroll in the form of Mass Invisibility (seriously, we've been really lucky so far in this respect) awaits us upstairs in the Harper headquarters, and we finish by looting Xzar's corpse.
Onward!
Viconia is rescued from fanatics and accepted into the party in lieu of Yoshimo, bringing reputation to 9.
We bribe it to 16, drop Viconia for Yoshimo, and are now at 18 reputation.
Exposing Reijek nets us another point, and giving the enslaved girl 100 gold nets us the final point; we got lucky this time around, and are now sitting at 20 reputation, which will be quite helpful given our planned future shopping spree.
More small fry: Fallen Paladins are undone with some Bombardier Beetles, Orog/Slaver Wizard ambush is harsh since we weren't invisible at the time but we pull through (Flesh Golem from Watcher's Keep putting in a good effort), Wellyn is sent back to sleep, Neb is neutered, and yet another friggin' ambush as we are fatigued and mostly out of spells turns into a narrow victory thanks to a handful of Conjure Lesser Air Elemental Aldain kept memorized as a precaution.
Yeah, I know I say it a lot, but SCS Improved Elementals is a nice addition; it makes these spells worthwhile to cast, especially early on, which I think is fine given how intense the competition is at 5th level (lots of good, even absolutely necessary, spells here).
We hand in Haegan's key to Hendak, and now that we've gained a few levels all around, decide to pick up some nice Sewer gear; let's clear the rest of the area before mucking about with Tarnor though.
The teleporting Beholders/Gauths to the southwest are narrowly handed by the 7HD version of Skeleton Warriors (narrowly since the Sea Troll joined in and pummeled them pretty badly).
The Rakshasa can be pretty nasty since it's virtually immune to magic, at least at these levels, has great THAC0, and buffs itself; it is still vulnerable to Remove Magic though (L11 seems enough to consistently strip it of all buffs), and thus a lot less dangerous.
Five Lesser Air Elementals are now called up, no need to take chances after all, and we engage Tarnor and his cronies.
For the first (and probably last) time this run, Aerie let's loose a Lightning Bolt since the Elementals are immune to it, and with plenty of buffs including Haste, they deal good damage (though do drop quite quickly as well); with the help of our frontliners, they last just long enough to wipe the entire enemy party.
Lots of good loot for us!
Alright.
We'll be going into the Underdark, and even before that, there's all sorts of nasty death magic that can only be undone with a Resurrection spell (thanks to SCS revised death effects... otherwise it'd be run over if a Disintegrate hit someone).
However, Jaheira can't cast Resurrection, Aerie won't have access to it until very late in the game, and there's no temple available in the Underdark... so I'd like to grab the Rod of Resurrection just in case, which means dealing with Merkrath.
We run his little errand, huff and puff on his robes upon our return, and enrage/engage the Mage.
And it's actually easy pickings: Seems Merkrath only prepared Fire damage this time around (no Death Spell), so a single 8HD Fire Elemental basically absorbed his entire spell book.
Nice; we loot the western side of his lair including the Rod of Resurrection, but leave the eastern side alone (not feeling up to taking on the three (!) Yuan-Ti Mages there just yet), and send Haer'Dalis back to the Five Flagons.
Here we also finally ponied up for a magic license: Of course it's more optimal to just fight and kill the Cowled Wizards (experience, chance of nice random scrolls), but I'm erring on the side of caution here.
Now we can freely cast Friends, so run around for a bit picking up a bunch of containers to ease inventory burden.
There's still some small stuff to do though: Valeria's band of goons are soon dismantled.
Valeria herself is a nuisance with her Darts, but the real threat here is Dracandros: I've seen him pop Cacofiend before, though he doesn't get the chance this time around.
Still took a while to take him down though, mostly because Minsc failed a save against Greater Command early on.
We avenge our close call by retrieving the Dawn Ring for the Temple of Lathander (somewhere around here we did the Sir Sarles quest, keeping the Illithium for later), then prepare to deal with Brennan Risling and his fellow mobs.
Jaheira provides Fire Elementals, Aldain handles Air Elementals, and Brennan doesn't know what hit him.
Funny the lengths I go to to grab that ring... I end up never actually utilizing it.
Anyway, Jaheira's curse is next: By now, Remove Magic suffices to deal with the two lesser magelings, and the more powerful one (I forget who's who...) mostly tries to renew his defenses under a combined True Sight/Breach onslaught, not really accomplishing much.
Here we also nabbed Officer Dirth's Full Plate, though we hardly need it at this stage; it'll come with us to Fish City to be sold, though.
The local Pirates are also popped: An Elemental is Confused, but that's about the extent of their efforts.
So, that's almost all the easy stuff taken care of!
Or maybe all of it, I forget.
Anyway: Let's do a few strongholds, preferably from among the easier ones.
The obvious contender here is Trademeet, since Jaheira's weapon options are so woeful at the moment.
An ambush en route is handled via invisibly summoning Elementals, and we arrive unimpeded.
I observe invisibly as the animals maul the local guards, but no grand scroll drops today; Wilfred the Red still gives up a thousand gold, of course.
Alright, this should be fairly easy.
Again, Chaotic Commands and Protection from Fire on the frontliners, then we just charge, and Sunfire/Fireball from Aldain helps thin the herds, while the massive Spider spawn here gets a Cloudkill.
No issues at all really, as Spectral and Spirit Trolls don't really have many hitpoints, and so are highly vulnerable to spellworks; we quickly mow down all the trolls, including those found in the Mound.
The Greater Earth Elemental is kited while eating Magic Missile/Melf's Acid Arrow, Kylan Lind gets a Cloudkill and some Skeleton Warriors, and Mazzy shoots the Spore Colonies down while Minsc and Jaheira hold off the Red Myconids; the Shambling Mounds past the bridge are just slashed to bits.
Finally, Dalok and his friends get a Confusion (with good effect), and the way is clear, beyond Ihtafeer still being alive.
Jaheira gets every buff we have (we rested beforehand), which allowed her to get a Fire Elemental up during the duel, and Faldorn falls.
Alright... ugh.
Time for Ihtafeer.
There's really no good way to do this, at least not at our present levels (that I know of): Three Rakshasa at once just make for a really nasty encounter.
They use Remove Magic frequently, are high enough level to easily dispel our buffs, buff themselves, and throw elemental damage around... it's just all-around bad news.
Still, at least Jaheira can protect her buffs, and since there's nothing else to use our slots for besides summons (given Rakshasa's near-immunity to magic), Minsc and Mazzy get full buffs too, in particular, we boost their elemental resistances to the best of our ability.
And then it's go time.
Jalaal is the weakest of the three (he doesn't seem to get Protection from Magical Weapons), so we focus him down first: Skeleton Warriors are keeping Ihtafeer busy.
Saadat is weaker than Ihtafeer but lasts a fair while, and we have no choice but to tank his and Ihtafeer's spellbook as we slowly wear the former down.
Yeah, we brought the non-warriors into the hut to try and distract Ihtafeer a bit... dangerous, but necessary.
A lot of running and potion gulping later, we finally put the last blow to Ihtafeer.
The fight lasted long enough that most buffs had to be renewed, including Jaheira's Club of Meteoric Iron.
Still, that was surprisingly clean, if harrowing: I've seen them use 2x Web Minor Sequencers, which can prove disastrous, but this time they went exclusively for elemental damage.
We rest up, then botch our attempt to Pickpocket Taquee (I tried pausing immediately but he went hostile too quickly).
I wasn't sure how to handle this, so immediately talked to the head genie, and they all disappeared with Ihtafeer's head.
Maybe I could've just killed Taquee for his flask with no consequences?
Anyway, we accept our well-earned reward.
Also, Tiris gets a helping hand (Reijek just gets a mailed fist), we give the Mantle of Waukeen to Lord Logan, then whack Skarmaen for his Elven Chainmail.
So, that's one stronghold!
It seems only fitting that we round things off by clearing the Ruined Temple, though we won't quite cleanse the whole thing just yet, as we shall see.
We are well enough leveled by now, so the Shadows here are swiftly dispatched: Thankfully no Lich shows up, and Lesser Fire Elementals (I splurged on a scroll in Trademeet, which Aldain scribed) are quite helpful against Greater Mummies.
We stop just short of the Shade Lord, and return to Umar Hills, clearing out Valygar's guardian Rangers and a local Mimic, as well as putting down a rampaging Golem.
We will return for the Shade Lord, but only once we've got the Mace of Disruption handy; towards that end, we now return to Athkatla and pay Gaelan his 15k.
Lassal is easily undone, though we get an Ogre ambush while en route to the Bridge district, and yet again a scroll drop (from one of the Ogre Magi, I guess): Spell Turning.
Which is actually not so great, since what usually happens is a spell just bounces between your Spell Turning and the enemy's until both are exhausted... but I find having it up dissuades SCS casters from throwing anything at you, so I still use it.
Anyway, we deal with the Guild Contact (Gravy? Gratin? Tasty...), then make absolutely certain Haz encounters a Grimwarder at close range so we get his Staff Mace +2, and finally send invisible Yoshimo to fetch the Mace of Disruption from the pool of blood.
With the Mace of Disruption, the Amulet of Power, and some buffs (this is a good time to pop some potions), Minsc makes mincemeat out of the local vampiric population: A Fire Elemental helps out with the Clay Golem, and some Skeleton Warriors act as decoys as Tanova's Protection from Magical Weapons simply expires.
Bodhi chases a hasted Minsc around for a while, then retreats, and that's that.
Great, just a few loose ends left to tie up; first, the eastern part of Mekrath's lair.
Fire Elementals do the bulk of the work here: A stray Lightning Bolt nearly fries Aerie though (low hitpoints), but we pull through as none of the Yuan-Ti Mages apparently had Death Spell prepared.
The loot was non-remarkable, really... but still, we clear everything because we can.
Next, I figured it was time for Jaheira's romance to progress, and sure enough, resting in the Druid Grove popped the hopeless clad-in-plate goons, upon whose deaths Meronia immediately whisked Jaheira away.
We rest at the Coronet, Jaheira returns, and we mercilessly clobber Galvarey and his lackeys: There's a (true) Ring of Wizardry in it for us!
Alright, now, all that's left before we sail for Brynnlaw is the Shade Lord: Here I bought a handful of key scrolls, including Improved Haste, and scribed them.
Some things SCS Shade Lord does (I can't recall but think he even pops Blade Barrier?):
He has an aura which periodically level drains anyone in close proximity.
His defences consist of Protection from Magical Weapons, Spell Turning and Mirror Image; he renews these periodically (all three, instantly).
He has at least one cast of Finger of Death and Black Blade of Disaster.
If he kills a summon, it spawns a Shadow.
So, pretty difficult to tackle early on; the good news is, there is no more bad news he doesn't actually dispel your buffs.
All the while you're fighting him, the Shadow Altar also keeps spawning Shadows: I play with the component which removes ammunition from containers, so we can't kill it with a Sunstone Bullet either.
Thus, we waited for the Mace of Disruption.
All-around buffs and we charge: Minsc has Mace of Disruption and Amulet of Power, Jaheira pops Negative Plane Protection on herself, the rest of the party quickly moves to the south, then supports at range.
With Improved Haste, Minsc together with Mazzy soon brings the Shadow Altar low, while Jaheira occupies the Shade Lord, and Aldain gets off Pierce Magic followed by Breach.
And then we just turn our tender mercies on the Shade Lord himself... or well, Minsc does nearly all of the work (Improved Haste really is beastly).
That was almost too easy... as long as you can deal with the level drain and handle the Shade Lord's defenses, he's not very tough.
Another stronghold down!
I thought we were done here, but Mazzy's quest popped, so we dealt with that real quick.
As our final act, I booted Yoshimo temporarily and replaced him with Valygar; Valygar in turn being replaced by Yoshimo once the former had opened the door to the Planar Sphere.
I dislike killing Valygar and will avoid it if possible.
But now... now, we are ready.
We're leveled enough, we're geared enough, we're moneyed enough.
We're coming, Imoen!
Hopefully, we'll survive Brynnlaw this time, and maybe even Spellhold proper.
Comments
Previous update found here
He did not bring any importable items with him, so gets the standard setup: Mail of the Dead +2, Helm of Balduran, Staff Spear +2.
Careful spell selection and application allows for a smooth (well, no one died...) ride through Irenicus' dungeon, and we emerge inside the Promenade.
The party this time will be good-aligned (except Jaheira, but she's basically Neutral Good): We're picking up Aerie and Mazzy.
Aerie is very straightforward: True Sight, or if you prefer Remove Magic, handles the illusionary Werewolves.
We exit the Circus and head for the Slums, then immediately duck into the Copper Coronet, purchasing Bernard's Scroll Case as it's only available while Lehtinan runs the place.
Now, normally I'd just go ahead with freeing the slaves, but we're getting the party together as soon as possible: While Lehtinan is in charge, you can cast freely inside the Copper Coronet, so Aldain's familiar pops Invisibility, 10' Radius, and we take off for Umar Hills (detouring to the Government district to unlock it by talking to Delon).
We rest up, then head for the Temple, sneaking past the massed Shadows outside to save their experience for when we've got Mazzy with us.
There's no timer on Mazzy, so we can take as long as we want before going after the Shade Lord; this is good, since we really don't have the weaponry or spellworks right now to tackle him/it safely.
Mazzy is recruited at 250k experience (a little behind but nothing major) and we head back to the Coronet.
Weapon choices are a bit wonky this time around: Minsc will go Bastard Sword -> Flail, Jaheira Spear -> Quarterstaff, and Mazzy Long Sword -> Undecided.
Aldain, Aerie and (ultimately) Imoen can just pick whatever, it doesn't matter.
We clear the Coronet easily enough, though Hendak gets the kill on Lehtinan.
The Sewers go smoothly as well, though we hit a spot of trouble when dealing with Haegan: He quaffed a Potion of Frost Giant Strength and absolutely went to town on everyone with those Throwing Axes, eagerly assisted by Oil of Speed-quaffing guards...
Neither Jaheira nor Minsc are fantastic frontliners, at least at this stage, but they're what we've got.
The rest of the ship goes better, as the Mages here aren't high enough level to pose a credible threat.
As is customary, we hold off on reporting back to Hendak (and paying the enslaved girl 100g), to save potential reputation boosts for after we've bribed reputation up; I'm playing with reduced reputation gain, 1/4 of normal rate.
Beyond simply surviving, an early priority is getting some items that reduce irritation: Chief among these, the Potion Case and Quiver of Plenty +1 (since we've got Mazzy).
That means Watcher's Keep; en route we get the Suna Seni ambush, and though the enemy Mage promptly dispels our Invisibility, 10' Radius, the few seconds it took for that to take effect allowed us to reposition sufficiently to survive the ensuing battle.
Yes, Aerie is so very fragile... if ever her Stoneskin drops, she soon follows suit.
Alright! Enter Watcher's Keep, clear the Stone Golem to the left, then pop Farsight: Yes, we did get Vampiric Wraiths.
These things are just lethal to low-level parties that pop in unprepared.
We are anything but, however: We first clear the large mess of Trolls to the left (Chaotic Commands/Protection from Fire and some Fireballs of our own), then engage the Wraiths from the small left-side room of the main chamber.
Jaheira's Wall of Moonlight hits the Wraiths fairly hard, and with concentrated attacks, we soon bring them down: As long as they can't see characters vulnerable to Level Drain, they can't attack characters vulnerable to level drain.
Damnable things.
The Mustard Jellies to the far left of the level aren't really an issue, though they kill off our Skeleton Warriors.
We handle also the Spiders, then encounter an oddity: I seem to recall it's safe to rest in the warded room (you even get a message to that effect when you enter it), but we get a fairly large spawn of Ghasts and Mummies when we attempt it.
Things looked a little dangerous, but we bottlenecked the enemies by retreating into the southern room, and received an unexpected bonus: SCS improved random scroll drops kicked into overdrive, netting us Summon Djinni (!) and Spell Shield (!!) from the Ghasts.
Those kinds of ambushes I can get behind.
We head outside instead and rest in safety, then clear out the Guardian Golems easily enough, and that's as far as we go; we make off with a fair bit of loot and gold, and return to Athkatla.
So what's the plan? I don't want to play through 80% of the game without Imoen even if she is almost completely silent after you rescue her, but there's some nice stuff for sale in the Underdark, so I'd rather not head there penniless... or for that matter, at too low a level.
So we'll do two Strongholds, and most little things around Athkatla, though will leave the heavy-duty encounters alone (Twisted Rune, Liches, Guarded Compound, that sort of thing); we've literally no way to remove a Spell Trap before visiting the Underdark and aquiring Ruby Ray of Reversal, anyway.
Easiest of the easy first then: Graveyard.
With three warriors, this actually goes rather well; again, we get a nice random drop in the form of Protection from Magical Energy showing up in a chest.
Crypt King has good THAC0 but Remove Fear is all it takes to just thump him, Pai'Na is shot down and her miniscule Spiders dealt with afterwards, the Vampyre does not get to Level Drain anyone, and Wraiths are allergic to Fireball.
Good stuff all around.
En route back to the Coronet, we save Renfeld.
Sanasha and Prebek are mildly troublesome, but you can just handle the odd Confusion by spreading out, and Minsc is immune thanks to Lilarcor anyway.
Another epic scroll in the form of Mass Invisibility (seriously, we've been really lucky so far in this respect) awaits us upstairs in the Harper headquarters, and we finish by looting Xzar's corpse.
Onward!
Viconia is rescued from fanatics and accepted into the party in lieu of Yoshimo, bringing reputation to 9.
We bribe it to 16, drop Viconia for Yoshimo, and are now at 18 reputation.
Exposing Reijek nets us another point, and giving the enslaved girl 100 gold nets us the final point; we got lucky this time around, and are now sitting at 20 reputation, which will be quite helpful given our planned future shopping spree.
More small fry: Fallen Paladins are undone with some Bombardier Beetles, Orog/Slaver Wizard ambush is harsh since we weren't invisible at the time but we pull through (Flesh Golem from Watcher's Keep putting in a good effort), Wellyn is sent back to sleep, Neb is neutered, and yet another friggin' ambush as we are fatigued and mostly out of spells turns into a narrow victory thanks to a handful of Conjure Lesser Air Elemental Aldain kept memorized as a precaution.
Yeah, I know I say it a lot, but SCS Improved Elementals is a nice addition; it makes these spells worthwhile to cast, especially early on, which I think is fine given how intense the competition is at 5th level (lots of good, even absolutely necessary, spells here).
We hand in Haegan's key to Hendak, and now that we've gained a few levels all around, decide to pick up some nice Sewer gear; let's clear the rest of the area before mucking about with Tarnor though.
The teleporting Beholders/Gauths to the southwest are narrowly handed by the 7HD version of Skeleton Warriors (narrowly since the Sea Troll joined in and pummeled them pretty badly).
The Rakshasa can be pretty nasty since it's virtually immune to magic, at least at these levels, has great THAC0, and buffs itself; it is still vulnerable to Remove Magic though (L11 seems enough to consistently strip it of all buffs), and thus a lot less dangerous.
Five Lesser Air Elementals are now called up, no need to take chances after all, and we engage Tarnor and his cronies.
For the first (and probably last) time this run, Aerie let's loose a Lightning Bolt since the Elementals are immune to it, and with plenty of buffs including Haste, they deal good damage (though do drop quite quickly as well); with the help of our frontliners, they last just long enough to wipe the entire enemy party.
Lots of good loot for us!
Alright.
We'll be going into the Underdark, and even before that, there's all sorts of nasty death magic that can only be undone with a Resurrection spell (thanks to SCS revised death effects... otherwise it'd be run over if a Disintegrate hit someone).
However, Jaheira can't cast Resurrection, Aerie won't have access to it until very late in the game, and there's no temple available in the Underdark... so I'd like to grab the Rod of Resurrection just in case, which means dealing with Merkrath.
We run his little errand, huff and puff on his robes upon our return, and enrage/engage the Mage.
And it's actually easy pickings: Seems Merkrath only prepared Fire damage this time around (no Death Spell), so a single 8HD Fire Elemental basically absorbed his entire spell book.
Nice; we loot the western side of his lair including the Rod of Resurrection, but leave the eastern side alone (not feeling up to taking on the three (!) Yuan-Ti Mages there just yet), and send Haer'Dalis back to the Five Flagons.
Here we also finally ponied up for a magic license: Of course it's more optimal to just fight and kill the Cowled Wizards (experience, chance of nice random scrolls), but I'm erring on the side of caution here.
Now we can freely cast Friends, so run around for a bit picking up a bunch of containers to ease inventory burden.
There's still some small stuff to do though: Valeria's band of goons are soon dismantled.
Valeria herself is a nuisance with her Darts, but the real threat here is Dracandros: I've seen him pop Cacofiend before, though he doesn't get the chance this time around.
Still took a while to take him down though, mostly because Minsc failed a save against Greater Command early on.
We avenge our close call by retrieving the Dawn Ring for the Temple of Lathander (somewhere around here we did the Sir Sarles quest, keeping the Illithium for later), then prepare to deal with Brennan Risling and his fellow mobs.
Jaheira provides Fire Elementals, Aldain handles Air Elementals, and Brennan doesn't know what hit him.
Funny the lengths I go to to grab that ring... I end up never actually utilizing it.
Anyway, Jaheira's curse is next: By now, Remove Magic suffices to deal with the two lesser magelings, and the more powerful one (I forget who's who...) mostly tries to renew his defenses under a combined True Sight/Breach onslaught, not really accomplishing much.
Here we also nabbed Officer Dirth's Full Plate, though we hardly need it at this stage; it'll come with us to Fish City to be sold, though.
The local Pirates are also popped: An Elemental is Confused, but that's about the extent of their efforts.
So, that's almost all the easy stuff taken care of!
Or maybe all of it, I forget.
Anyway: Let's do a few strongholds, preferably from among the easier ones.
The obvious contender here is Trademeet, since Jaheira's weapon options are so woeful at the moment.
An ambush en route is handled via invisibly summoning Elementals, and we arrive unimpeded.
I observe invisibly as the animals maul the local guards, but no grand scroll drops today; Wilfred the Red still gives up a thousand gold, of course.
Alright, this should be fairly easy.
Again, Chaotic Commands and Protection from Fire on the frontliners, then we just charge, and Sunfire/Fireball from Aldain helps thin the herds, while the massive Spider spawn here gets a Cloudkill.
No issues at all really, as Spectral and Spirit Trolls don't really have many hitpoints, and so are highly vulnerable to spellworks; we quickly mow down all the trolls, including those found in the Mound.
The Greater Earth Elemental is kited while eating Magic Missile/Melf's Acid Arrow, Kylan Lind gets a Cloudkill and some Skeleton Warriors, and Mazzy shoots the Spore Colonies down while Minsc and Jaheira hold off the Red Myconids; the Shambling Mounds past the bridge are just slashed to bits.
Finally, Dalok and his friends get a Confusion (with good effect), and the way is clear, beyond Ihtafeer still being alive.
Jaheira gets every buff we have (we rested beforehand), which allowed her to get a Fire Elemental up during the duel, and Faldorn falls.
Alright... ugh.
Time for Ihtafeer.
There's really no good way to do this, at least not at our present levels (that I know of): Three Rakshasa at once just make for a really nasty encounter.
They use Remove Magic frequently, are high enough level to easily dispel our buffs, buff themselves, and throw elemental damage around... it's just all-around bad news.
Still, at least Jaheira can protect her buffs, and since there's nothing else to use our slots for besides summons (given Rakshasa's near-immunity to magic), Minsc and Mazzy get full buffs too, in particular, we boost their elemental resistances to the best of our ability.
And then it's go time.
Jalaal is the weakest of the three (he doesn't seem to get Protection from Magical Weapons), so we focus him down first: Skeleton Warriors are keeping Ihtafeer busy.
Saadat is weaker than Ihtafeer but lasts a fair while, and we have no choice but to tank his and Ihtafeer's spellbook as we slowly wear the former down.
Yeah, we brought the non-warriors into the hut to try and distract Ihtafeer a bit... dangerous, but necessary.
A lot of running and potion gulping later, we finally put the last blow to Ihtafeer.
The fight lasted long enough that most buffs had to be renewed, including Jaheira's Club of Meteoric Iron.
Still, that was surprisingly clean, if harrowing: I've seen them use 2x Web Minor Sequencers, which can prove disastrous, but this time they went exclusively for elemental damage.
We rest up, then botch our attempt to Pickpocket Taquee (I tried pausing immediately but he went hostile too quickly).
I wasn't sure how to handle this, so immediately talked to the head genie, and they all disappeared with Ihtafeer's head.
Maybe I could've just killed Taquee for his flask with no consequences?
Anyway, we accept our well-earned reward.
Also, Tiris gets a helping hand (Reijek just gets a mailed fist), we give the Mantle of Waukeen to Lord Logan, then whack Skarmaen for his Elven Chainmail.
So, that's one stronghold!
It seems only fitting that we round things off by clearing the Ruined Temple, though we won't quite cleanse the whole thing just yet, as we shall see.
We are well enough leveled by now, so the Shadows here are swiftly dispatched: Thankfully no Lich shows up, and Lesser Fire Elementals (I splurged on a scroll in Trademeet, which Aldain scribed) are quite helpful against Greater Mummies.
We stop just short of the Shade Lord, and return to Umar Hills, clearing out Valygar's guardian Rangers and a local Mimic, as well as putting down a rampaging Golem.
We will return for the Shade Lord, but only once we've got the Mace of Disruption handy; towards that end, we now return to Athkatla and pay Gaelan his 15k.
Lassal is easily undone, though we get an Ogre ambush while en route to the Bridge district, and yet again a scroll drop (from one of the Ogre Magi, I guess): Spell Turning.
Which is actually not so great, since what usually happens is a spell just bounces between your Spell Turning and the enemy's until both are exhausted... but I find having it up dissuades SCS casters from throwing anything at you, so I still use it.
Anyway, we deal with the Guild Contact (Gravy? Gratin? Tasty...), then make absolutely certain Haz encounters a Grimwarder at close range so we get his Staff Mace +2, and finally send invisible Yoshimo to fetch the Mace of Disruption from the pool of blood.
With the Mace of Disruption, the Amulet of Power, and some buffs (this is a good time to pop some potions), Minsc makes mincemeat out of the local vampiric population: A Fire Elemental helps out with the Clay Golem, and some Skeleton Warriors act as decoys as Tanova's Protection from Magical Weapons simply expires.
Bodhi chases a hasted Minsc around for a while, then retreats, and that's that.
Great, just a few loose ends left to tie up; first, the eastern part of Mekrath's lair.
Fire Elementals do the bulk of the work here: A stray Lightning Bolt nearly fries Aerie though (low hitpoints), but we pull through as none of the Yuan-Ti Mages apparently had Death Spell prepared.
The loot was non-remarkable, really... but still, we clear everything because we can.
Next, I figured it was time for Jaheira's romance to progress, and sure enough, resting in the Druid Grove popped the hopeless clad-in-plate goons, upon whose deaths Meronia immediately whisked Jaheira away.
We rest at the Coronet, Jaheira returns, and we mercilessly clobber Galvarey and his lackeys: There's a (true) Ring of Wizardry in it for us!
Alright, now, all that's left before we sail for Brynnlaw is the Shade Lord: Here I bought a handful of key scrolls, including Improved Haste, and scribed them.
Some things SCS Shade Lord does (I can't recall but think he even pops Blade Barrier?):
He has an aura which periodically level drains anyone in close proximity.
His defences consist of Protection from Magical Weapons, Spell Turning and Mirror Image; he renews these periodically (all three, instantly).
He has at least one cast of Finger of Death and Black Blade of Disaster.
If he kills a summon, it spawns a Shadow.
So, pretty difficult to tackle early on; the good news is, there is no more bad news he doesn't actually dispel your buffs.
All the while you're fighting him, the Shadow Altar also keeps spawning Shadows: I play with the component which removes ammunition from containers, so we can't kill it with a Sunstone Bullet either.
Thus, we waited for the Mace of Disruption.
All-around buffs and we charge: Minsc has Mace of Disruption and Amulet of Power, Jaheira pops Negative Plane Protection on herself, the rest of the party quickly moves to the south, then supports at range.
With Improved Haste, Minsc together with Mazzy soon brings the Shadow Altar low, while Jaheira occupies the Shade Lord, and Aldain gets off Pierce Magic followed by Breach.
And then we just turn our tender mercies on the Shade Lord himself... or well, Minsc does nearly all of the work (Improved Haste really is beastly).
That was almost too easy... as long as you can deal with the level drain and handle the Shade Lord's defenses, he's not very tough.
Another stronghold down!
I thought we were done here, but Mazzy's quest popped, so we dealt with that real quick.
As our final act, I booted Yoshimo temporarily and replaced him with Valygar; Valygar in turn being replaced by Yoshimo once the former had opened the door to the Planar Sphere.
I dislike killing Valygar and will avoid it if possible.
But now... now, we are ready.
We're leveled enough, we're geared enough, we're moneyed enough.
We're coming, Imoen!
Hopefully, we'll survive Brynnlaw this time, and maybe even Spellhold proper.