Our sightseeing of Firewine Bridge done, we went back into Firewine Dungeon and back into Gullykin.
No, there was nothing else worthwhile in Firewine Bridge. Nothing. Nada. I don't wanna hear it. LALALALALA.
Unfortunately, for all their vaunted halfling hospitality, the good folks of Gullykin did not provide a safe space for resting. Not that we needed it. With the spells we had left, I figured that we could take on one more big battle. I addressed the team, "We're doing really well on resources. Let's do a quick check around Gullykin to make sure there are no more large threats against the halflings."
I scouted ahead of the group, of course. Right where I expected them, there was a group of armed travelers to the south west of Gullykin. They were moving towards our position, so we had to think about how we would approach this encounter.
"No innocent bystanders this time," I said to the rest, and pulled out my potion of Fire Resistance. "If they turn out to be hostile, I'd say it's time to demonstrate the safety of fire-bombing! As promised, I'll go first to demonstrate the safe use of the strategy. Next time will be someone else's turn."
Everyone's eyes widened, perhaps in awe of my bravery! Khalid was hiding behind his wife, for some reason.
"But! Ah, uh, let's not use our bombs this time!" Jaheira blurted out very quickly. "We, uh… can easily win through fire-bombing the opposition! So why don't we practice some use of tactics!"
She turned to Neera. "Right? Still learning good use of spells!"
Neera looked puzzled at first, then nodded vigorously. "Yes! Strategize good! Use brains, not bombs!"
"Use brains, not bombs!" Khalid said, also nodding vigorously.
Since when was Neera so eager to learn tactics? Why, what great character development! I think it brought a tear to my eye. "What a great idea! Let's discuss a bit more of what I saw so we can use tactics to win rather than just bombs…"
Molkar's gang of four were all fighters of some persuasion. Molkar and Morvin were both pure fighters, Drakar was a fighter/cleric and Halacan a fighter/mage. Molkar, Morvin, Drakar and Halacan were armed with a Longsword+1, Battleaxe, Morningstar +1 and a Battleaxe respectively. The two spellcasters had plenty of disabling spells such as Horror, Rigid Thinking, Hold Person and Entangle. Molkar himself was the offensive powerhouse, having the best THAC0 and Strength of the group, and freaking grand-mastery weapon proficiency (+++++). Morvin had the most health by far, being a dwarf with 19 Constitution.
"I can cast Remove Fear beforehand in case the mage has prepared Horror. We've seen that too many times. Two spellcasters, so I'll be casting Silence as my first move surely," Branwen said, with an evil grin. "That will force them to depend on their brawns rather than magic."
"As expected from an experienced priest," I said, nodding. So far so good.
"Speaking of brawn, you said the mage is holding an axe?" Neera asked, nose raised and peering down while talking. Is she trying her best to look aloof and smart? "Probably decent at using it. Yet, one can't wear armour while casting arcane magic. Will probably start with a defensive spell, maybe Mirror Image or Improved Invisibility. Magic Missiles to remove Mirror Images, or a Magic Missile to interrupt Improved Invisibility which is slower to cast."
"Well done! Looks like you're getting the hang of it."
Jaheira, Khalid and Imoen had been happy to stand by this time. They stood around patiently, waiting for the Branwen and Neera to figure out our strategy for the fight.
"Any weakness that sticks out to you?" I asked them.
Branwen and Neera went silent, looked at each other.
"Well, not really. They're a balanced team," Neera said.
I frowned at them. Gave them a moment to consider.
When no answer was forthcoming, I sighed. "No ranged weapons! Since they're melee focused, we fight them at range. If we had been fighting enemies with a ranged focus, we would want to fight them close-up."
"Oh, right. I knew that!" Neera sputtered out. "I've got Web, but no Grease memorized though. And we haven't found a scroll of Slow for me to scribe yet."
"Check the scroll case. We got a few low-level scrolls from random loot drops, which included Grease," I prompted her. "As our party mage, it's your responsibility to remember what extra scrolls we have."
Grease works to slow enemy advancement even if the enemies make their save. Web is much harder to save against and holds enemies in place, but Grease is more consistent if all you want is to play keep away with ranged attacks. Both are good for our purposes.
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Jaheira finally spoke one we had settled our main strategy. "We should confirm if this group of armed travelers are even hostile to begin with."
"So, we finally meet. Poor little Sonny, I assume you're completely clueless as to why you must die," Molkar said with a cruel smile, longsword drawn. Behind him, his comrades in arms had the same wicked smiles on their faces. "I'm sure you've already had problems with an assortment of incompetent bounty hunters. Well, those days are long done. Today, you will die."
Jaheira looked like she was going to have an aneurysm.
So did I, really. "I'll show you LITTLE! Let them have it!"
As planned, we stuck to ranged weapons at first, focusing on the enemy with the Morningstar to interrupt his spell (who was indeed the cleric). The enemy mage started with Mirror Image, as expected. Branwen started incanting Silence, and Neera grease.
Our plan was sound, our victory assured. Unfortunately that was Neera's cue to wild surge.
This was not a normal wild surge, but a huge surge of wild energy which leapt out of her fingers!
"What did you do?" I cried out, panicked. "Neera? What did you do?"
I turned to look at her. Neera was frozen in place, paralyzed. No wonder I didn't hear her usual "I'm really really really sorry!".
"Look!" Imoen cried out, pointing.
I looked. And I gaped. Everyone stood gaping.
A rectangular line was forming in mid-air, like an empty doorway which had a frame made of bone and hellfire. Something was being gated in.
I gasped in horror. Did Neera just gate in a demon? It would kill us all! We had to cast Protection From Evil- no, we could only run!
But Neera was paralyzed. Which meant we would have to leave her behind to get eaten alive by an actual demon. Could we do that? Shouldn't we try to fight?
A humanoid figure with pointed horns on its head stepped through the gate, and we braced ourselves for the worst.
"Spare no one!"
Everyone on the field kind of deflated upon seeing a hobgoblin with a pointed helmet. Crisis averted, everyone, commence killing each other!
Oh, and Molkar's gang were slowed. And they had the hiccups too.
Branwen's Silence completed, so she unleashed it and silenced the enemy to boot.
Well, so much for Molkar and gang. Between the hobgoblin in the way and slow effect, we ranged them all down to death while Neera stood by, frozen.
Molkar's gang were worth 3.7k experience, and gave us;
Morning Star +1, Long Sword +1, Chainmail +2,
Potion of Absorption, Potion of Heroism,
And mage scrolls of Sleep and Color Spray.
The Chainmail +2 was much lighter than the plate mail Branwen currently wore and gave the same basic AC, but the plate mail stacked with the Ring of Protection +1 and had better protection vs crushing. I elected to stick to the plate mail and marked the Chainmail +2 for selling.
On the long trek home, Neera was bugging us with the same question over and over.
"If I really had summoned a demon, you guys wouldn't have just left me there, would you?" she asked me.
"Yes, I would," I said, my face like a stone.
She sniffed, turned to Imoen. "Imoen, you wouldn't have left me there to die, would you?"
Imoen didn't even look at her. "Yes, I would."
Neera was tearing up. "Jaheira? Branwen? Khalid?"
None of them replied, and refused to look at her.
She started wailing, and battering on my back with her fists. "Bwaaaaaah! You're all so mean!"
"It would serve you right if you did! Go die by yourself, don't ask us to die as well!" I yelled back.
"Jaheira, he's bullying me again!"
"Don't talk to me right now. I don't want to hear it," came Jaheira's retort.
"Bwaaaah! Come on, you all are just teasing me. You wouldn't really leave me-"
Imagine that the WHOLE WAY BACK. Neera trying to wear us down and get us to say what she wants, and no one wanting to give in.
16 hours later, we were back in Beregost. Well, Beregost Temple really. I wanted to make a quick stop to buy more Stone to Flesh scrolls.
Before I could, Jaheira tapped me on the shoulder.
I looked back at her. Not just her, everyone was looking at me with their arms crossed. "We just cleared Ulcaster, Gullykin and Firewine Bridge and are now back in civilization. We have not rested the entire way."
"Gullykin is civilised too-"
"Not the point!" Jaheira snapped. "The point is, let us rest first, slave driver!"
Whoops. "Right you are! Rest and recuperation, ahoy!"
As expected, the wand with the organe dragon motif turned out to be a wand of fire (which meant MOAR fire-bombing!). I also had three unidentified protection scrolls, which turned out to be a scroll of resistance to fire, Protection from Poison (great for Cloakwood), and a cursed scroll which I dropped. Neera had a whole lot of new spells to scribe, including Detect Illusion, Knock, Cloudkill, and. everyone's favourite, Fireball. Some folks purposely head to Firewine early just to pick up this early Fireball scroll. Since we're on our way to go after bandit's though, I figured I'll wait until we've reached Baldur's Gate for access to the Sorcerous Sundries there before doing another round of scribing spells.
With all our items identified, we had lots of stuff to sell, and lots of stuff to buy. First we went over to buy the Stone to Flesh scrolls from the temple like I wanted earlier. 18 scrolls for 1.8k gold, to much head-shaking from Neera and Imoen.
Then, a trip to High Hedge was in line before we head off to kill bandits. At High Hedge, I bought filled up our ammunition so that I, Imoen, Khalid, Branwen and even Jaheira each had a full stack of +1 ammunition. I also bought;
3 Strength potions for Imoen, 3 Potions of Freedom of Movement (useful in Cloakwood), 3 Potions of Mirrored Eyes, 3 Potions of Perception,
1 scroll of Protection from Poison,
And every wizard scroll of Blind, Sleep, Magic Missiles, Grease, Protection from Evil, Strength, Invisibility, Resist Fear, and Mirror Image for use when we needed it.
With that and extra stuff I sold, I still had 12.9k gold. Yay!
We still had 12.9k. I meant 'we'. Really, I did.
"Don't forget to use these scrolls when we need them, alright?" I said to Neera.
Guess who was still giving us a sulky face? "Who cares, you're all going to leave me if I summon a demon anyway," she muttered.
"Oh, you big drama queen," I said, rolling my eyes. "Obviously when that happens, we'll all be running together."
That made Neera smile, just a bit. We didn't hear any more complaining from her.