The Drowville Caper: Part III
FrdNwsm
Member Posts: 1,069
Well, MC's days in Ust Natha were kept busy exploring the town, ingratiating himself by fawning over the Powers That Be, and running errands for this Drow or that ... which usually involved killing something or someone. Ya gotta love organized anarchy as a form of government. Basically, you obey the laws scrupulously ... unless you think you can break them and get away with it.
Kill a Beholder who is smuggling adamantine? Yes Ma'am!
Exterminate some Chanundaur lovers? Right away Ma'am! Oh no! Of course I wouldn't THINK of asking for a reward, Ma'am!
Then some scruffy guy approached the group and offered to sell them a magic rope that would allow them to bypass the wards guarding the tower belonging to a lich named Windex. Sure, nothing suspicious there. Turns out the guy was a shill for someone named Jar-Jar Axle, a famous Drow adventurer that even MC had heard of before. J.J. then revealed that he knew who we really were. What kind of crappy illusion did Adorable stick us with, anyway? First a damned fish sees through it, and then this guy! He blackmailed us us into doing a second story job for him; luckily, Windex was fairly weak for a lich, and was soon defeated. As a reward, Jar-Jar told us how to loot the HQ of yet another minor House, which had apparently screwed him over in a matter of payment. Assuming we could overpower the guards, that is. Thanks for nothing, J.J.!
Hmm, famous Drow adventurer using some rubes from the sticks as pawns in a revenge scheme; why was MC surprised and indignant? Guess he's just a slow learner.
Then Faire approached us with a very unfair proposition. An errand for her personally, and not House sanctioned. Apparently she and Solo had some history together, but that affair was itself now history, and she wanted us to whack him. The payment would be to rise high in status in her House. We had 3 days to comply.
We gave Solo's magic cloak to Faire, who chortled and capered about in a most unseemly fashion. She then revealed that the Drow of Ust Natha were soon to march to war against the surface elves, and that the matron mother of the house had plans to gain infernal allies, by sacrificing something to a Daemon Lord. Three guesses what the sacrifice was to be. Hey, you got it right on the first guess! Yep, Adorable's eggs were on the demonic breakfast menu. But, oh yes, the Matron Mother had yet another errand for us to run first. So what else was new?
Kill a Beholder who is smuggling adamantine? Yes Ma'am!
Exterminate some Chanundaur lovers? Right away Ma'am! Oh no! Of course I wouldn't THINK of asking for a reward, Ma'am!
Then some scruffy guy approached the group and offered to sell them a magic rope that would allow them to bypass the wards guarding the tower belonging to a lich named Windex. Sure, nothing suspicious there. Turns out the guy was a shill for someone named Jar-Jar Axle, a famous Drow adventurer that even MC had heard of before. J.J. then revealed that he knew who we really were. What kind of crappy illusion did Adorable stick us with, anyway? First a damned fish sees through it, and then this guy! He blackmailed us us into doing a second story job for him; luckily, Windex was fairly weak for a lich, and was soon defeated. As a reward, Jar-Jar told us how to loot the HQ of yet another minor House, which had apparently screwed him over in a matter of payment. Assuming we could overpower the guards, that is. Thanks for nothing, J.J.!
Hmm, famous Drow adventurer using some rubes from the sticks as pawns in a revenge scheme; why was MC surprised and indignant? Guess he's just a slow learner.
Then Faire approached us with a very unfair proposition. An errand for her personally, and not House sanctioned. Apparently she and Solo had some history together, but that affair was itself now history, and she wanted us to whack him. The payment would be to rise high in status in her House. We had 3 days to comply.
Spoiler alert goes up because we get to make another decision here. You can actually assassinate Solaufein and take his cloak, or warn him, in which case he gives you his cloak to give to Phaere as proof of your obedience. Your decision apparently does actually have some bearing on later events. I picked warning him, just because I had the prior example of the Sverfneblin patrol task as a prior example of being able to pull the wool over Drow eyes when such a situation arises.
We gave Solo's magic cloak to Faire, who chortled and capered about in a most unseemly fashion. She then revealed that the Drow of Ust Natha were soon to march to war against the surface elves, and that the matron mother of the house had plans to gain infernal allies, by sacrificing something to a Daemon Lord. Three guesses what the sacrifice was to be. Hey, you got it right on the first guess! Yep, Adorable's eggs were on the demonic breakfast menu. But, oh yes, the Matron Mother had yet another errand for us to run first. So what else was new?
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Oh ... House favor. Right. OK, we headed back to the maketplace; the slave owner was now willing to sell us some slaves, so we bought him out and freed them. Our newly exalted status didn't seem to impress the Yankee Gits, however; they were as aloof and smarmy as ever.
No other opportunities seemed to offer themselves, so we went back and gave MM all three of our trophies. Good riddance to them; they were beginning to smell pretty badly anyway. MM was overjoyed, and told us she would start the ritual immediately, seal the city gates and we were to meet her in the Temple to Lol asap.
At this point we were treated to an example of Drow politics at their finest. Faire said she would give us some fake dragon eggs, and a key to get into the treasury so that we could do a switch. MM would offer the daemon some fake eggs and be slapped down, whereupon Faire would trot out the real thing, be rewarded, and seize control of the House for herself. Hey, no problem. Always happy to help out an honest working gal.
En route to the Temple, someone who was presumed dead gated in and offered us yet ANOTHER set of fake dragon eggs; apparently these are sold on every street corner. The new plan was to do a double switch and have the summoning go doubly awry, resulting in both Faire and MM getting put down by Demon Boy. BUT! We had to be subtle about it! No raising the alarm! Easy to do; Subtle is MC's middle name. (His full initials are MSC).
We snuck into the Temple, gave the Faire's fake eggs to Imoen who cast invisibility on herself. She would make the actual switch while the rest of the group waited at the door. An excellent plan, right?
Alas, the best laid plans of mice and half-orcs gang oft aglee, as the poet says. Two minutes later, everything went to Hell in a handbasket. So much for subtlety. MSC was going to have to get the "S" removed from all of his monogrammed handkerchiefs.
Will MC escape alive from Lolth Central? Tune in tomorrow, same Drow time, same Drow channel!
Switching the eggs are tricky, you need to open to container to the eggs with an invisible character, pause the game, do the switch, and immediately gulp an invisibility potion. Or click on staff of magi to re-invisible. Or you should kill egg guards in a round or two, and discreetly. Otherwise, the whole drow city goes medieval on your butt. In regular game they are not that tough. In scs the city marshals her defenses so well it is technicaly impossible to conquer them all. But that's okay, that's mod's intend more or less.
I'd be curious to see that; I don't have any mods installed since I am just not comfortable doing anything to game files. Heck, I'm not even sure I can find them. How does it differ? If this SCS thing doesn't actually increase the number/level of the enemy it should be doable.
On the other hand, breaking out of the city using the vanilla AI, even on high difficulty level, seemed too easy. Some middle ground would be better.
This is the link to the video I mentioned, but since I type from my ipad the link may not work on pc. 'Siege of Improved Ust Natha (scs2, insanity, with commentary)' is the video's full name. And yes it is more than hour long of blood and mayhem.
IIRC in the newest version the improved Ust Natha component has a vanilla option or bolstered city defenses option. Bolstered city defenses is the madness you see in above video.
Generally scs is not that hardcore, that component just was coded to make the Ust Natha unconquerable. Really, for a player to conquer a big drow city like that is rather an unrealistic idea. Ofcourse, the hardcore powergamer above proves scs author wrong, still.