Baldur's Gate: The Baldening

[WindupAtheist]

I generally take notes as I play, just real brief shorthand ones like "gnome w/ basilisks, killed him" and "robbed Duke's place, killed Skie" and things like that. Then I look at the list and realize 75% of it would be about as exciting to read as a poundcake recipe. I could maybe write one or two amusing anecdotes about being stuck up by bandits in the woods and killing them all, but I couldn't write ten. So I pick 2 or 3 entries and focus on those, drawing them out with some character-based fluff. And if they're still not very interesting, or don't make much narrative sense, I hang some made up shit on them.

Like killing Firebead Elvenhair to drop 4 points of rep and avoid getting the goodguy dream sequence? Took like thirty seconds and wasn't a terribly sensible thing to do from an in-character perspective. So I made up a bunch of bullshit about him being a pedophile, and clown suits, and cramming his body in a closet, and got 4 paragraphs and a screenshot out of it.

What you want to do is make up some basic personalities for your characters. Start with their alignments, even if they're all just lawful/neutral/chaotic shades of the same basic evil (or good, if you swing that way) and go from there. You don't need to make them TOO deep, we're not writing a novel here and Bioware is obviously doing a bunch of the work for us. You just need to differentiate them in your mind, and the game will do the rest for you by throwing situations at them.

Come up with a personality for your main character, and if you come to a desirable course of action that doesn't mesh with that, pawn the decision off on one of the other party members. Like I made Nythrax relatively level headed, so whenever I want to go really fucking apeshit I just lean on Korgrim. Prime example, sacking Hobbitville. I had Nythrax get up to take a piss, basically, and come back to find the place on fire.

The whole "blitzing the Iron throne building" thing? Turned out to not be that interesting. So I'll probably gloss over it in brief and spend most of my time in the next update writing about dopplegangers in Candlekeep. Include enough plot stuff to keep the narrative coherent, but only go into something deeply if it's fun to write about.

At least that's how I do it.

[WindupAtheist]

So it turned out most of the Iron Throne leaders weren't even IN their huge imposing headquarters by the docks. We went in there and stomped the shit out of a bunch of pissant merchants and guards who couldn't even slow us down, one squad of half-decent mercenaries who gave us a little bit of a fight, and one terrified manager who told us that everyone important was already on their way to Candlekeep and then mysteriously died. Of being thrown down five flights of stairs.

I wish there were more to it, but that's really about it. We relieved the lot of them of some of their more valuable goods, naturally, and Lex packed up all the really classy booze from their private bar. Kor carved a big cock into the surface of a mahogany desk that looked like it cost more than the average house. But overall it was all buildup and no payoff. Oh, then we were met outside by a Flamer. Rather than attempt to arrest us for butchering like two dozen people in the heart of the city, they asked us to head back over to their HQ to meet Scar again.

Okay, fine. At this point it's pretty clear that the Flamers have decided the Throne are persona non grata and are using us to take out the garbage, so I don't suppose I have much to fear from them at the moment. Provided they haven't discovered any of our OTHER numerous and horrifying crimes. Heh. Have I mentioned that we sacked the Temple of Umberlee?

Yeah, that was all Vaere and her worship of Talos. I'm not led to believe that followers of the two are necessarily enemies most of the time, but that child priestess of Umberlee who was killing the fishermen? The one we wasted? Yeah, apparently the fishermen were followers of Talos and it's stirred the shit up around here. Whatever. She doesn't really ask for much, and lord knows we've done worse things for less reason, so we went ahead with it.

Where was I? Yeah, we get back to Flamer HQ and it's not just Scar we're meeting, it's Duke Eltan. He's one of the Grand Dukes of the city and the supreme commander of the Flaming Fist. If a guy like THIS was condescending to meet with the likes of us, I knew the Throne must be after his ass bad.

We handed him some documents we lifted from the Throne, indicating that the Throne leaders were heading to Candlekeep to meet with diplomats from Amn. Eltan just smiled and handed us a copy of History of the Nether Scrolls as a gift. Which doesn't make much sense unless you're aware that the only way to gain entry to Candlekeep is to donate a rare book to their library. So handing us the book was his way of saying "Get in there and waste the motherfuckers!" without having to say it. Fair enough, that was the plan all along.

We gained entry to Candlekeep without incident, and everyone did their best to act like they were glad to see us again. Needless to say, we did not return the favor. Fuck Candlekeep. It's all a bunch of eighty year old virgins telling each other that their pursuit of precious knooooowledge is better than power, money, or pleasure. Or for that matter, love, a family, or anyone to remember them once they're dead. I mean I'm not some kinda book-hating illiterate, but come the fuck on.

A few minutes talking and we found out that the Iron Throne guys were all in the central keep library before even having to slap it out of anyone. (We did that just for fun.) Dreppin asked us where Imoen was, since she set out after us back in the day, and Garrette just started laughing hysterically. Which, now that I think about it, is one of the few times I've heard him do so. I mean he might chuckle now and then, but anyway.

So we're marching through the library proper, on our way to where the Throne leaders are, and I notice that somewhere along the way Mordak has picked up a book. I casually ask him what it is, and he says "It's a book.. uh.. of ancient arcane knowledge, yes!" but he says it kinda nervous-like. Lex sneaks up behind him and grabs it, and it's Lord Melbert Pigglebottom's Guide to the Golden Age of Frotteurism. Which didn't mean anything to us, until we saw the pictures. Yeah, that boy has problems. And yes I can pass judgement on that and then turn around and murder someone for sneezing at me. No I don't see the contradiction. Shut up.

Someone calling themselves Koveras came up to us, and offered me a magic ring to "protect" me. I didn't take it because, well, I can spell. We were going to slice the prick open on the spot, but he ducked around a corner and somehow disappeared.

Well we got to where the Iron Throne guys were waiting on the Amn people, and everyone was there except Sarevok. He's the one I really wanted to split open, but his foster father Rieltar, top leader of the Throne, was there and that was pretty good. He knew who we were right away, too. Oh man, did he look surprised to see us. We chopped them into gory chunks right there in the library.

One of the shitty Candlekeep guards came up to give us some shit and demand we surrender. Heh. Those guys don't even carry any weapons besides a quarterstaff. We could kill every one of them ten times over.

THEN MAGICAL PLOT FAIRIES INVADED MY BRAIN AND MADE ME SURRENDER TO SOMEONE I COULD EASILY DEFEAT. I REFUSE TO ATTEMPT TO RATIONALIZE THIS BULLSHIT.

So we sat in this shitty little cell and listened to the old goat who runs the place blather on about how we've defiled their sacred halls, and Gorion would be so disappointed, and blah blah fuckity blah. Kor just stood there repeating everything the guy said, except with his eyes crossed and a stupid lisp. Finally he said we were going to be extradited to Baldur's Gate and executed, and stormed off in a huff.

Whatever, the Flaming Fist all but told me to do it. Those guys fucking love me. Nevertheless, when one of my old teachers came back to hand us back our weapons and let us out, we weren't exactly reluctant. Fuck these Candlekeep schmucks. I wanted to just storm out the front door and lay waste to the place.

THEN MAGICAL PLOT FAIRIES COMPELLED ME TO ESCAPE THROUGH THE CRYPTS. WHATEVER.

[Basil]

Aaahahaha! Intimidating little faeries, aren't they?

[WindupAtheist]

Well as it turns out, wanting to stride out of Candlekeep leaving a trail of bodies behind us would have been rather beside the point anyway. Turns out everyone (or at least most of everyone) is already dead and... you guessed it... replaced by more fucking dopplegangers. We should have seen it coming, really, but these ones were much better actors than the ones in Seven Suns and the like. Well, for the most part.

None of us realized it until we were making our escape through the crypts, and they began to try to stop us. Whereas the previous packs of dopplegangers were perhaps a bit too quick to dispense with the bullshit and just fight it out, these guys were WAY too fucking enamored with their own cleverness. They kept coming at us one at a time, in the form of this or that Candlekeep denizen.

You know, like the sight of them melting into a horrible emaciated reptillian shapeshifter would unnerve us or something. Like we'd be mindfucked by the whole thing and by having to kill them. These guys really should have known better, though I'll give them credit for putting a lot of effort into what was still ultimately a shitty plan. They would each come up saying some crazy shit meant to be relevant to us, having grown up with them, but in this really hostile "We hated you all along!" sort of way.

We were all crushed and traumatized. By which I mean we couldn't stop giggling as we sliced them up.

On the bright side, this made for a real easy series of fights. We found the bodies of the real Candlekeepers piled up in some of the side chambers like garbage. We wanted to draw straws to see who was going to root through them for loot, except we didn't have any straws, and as we were trying to come up with another method Mordak just dived in anyway.

The best thing we found, though, was in one of the old original tombs. It was another enchanted tome, one that gives you more wisdom this time. We've actually found a few books like this, I just haven't been keeping up on mentioning them. Anyway, we gave it to Vaere since she's our cleric. I spent the rest of the night going "Truly, you are wise!" and shit like that in this really overawed tone whenever she would open her mouth, but no one seemed to find it as funny as I did. Bah.

Anyway, then these dopplegangers pulled their dumbest fucking trick yet. We come up to the end of the main chamber, and standing there are Elminster, Ulraunt, and motherfucking Gorion of all people. We've already killed like twenty dopplegangers today alone, WHY THE HELL WOULD WE POSSIBLY BUY THIS SHIT? Kor was literally like "You assholes have to be fucking kidding me!" when he laid eyes on them.

These morons had the audacity to try to convinces us that we were actually insane, and had been killing the real Candlekeepers all along, and that Gorion was still alive and everything was one big hallucination or some shit. I don't know, it didn't even make sense at the time. We cut them to pieces with a laugh, and sure enough they were dopplegangers. If I really am insane and we did kill all the people in Candlekeep, well, fuck them anyway I guess. Heh.

We made it out of the crypts with only one further incident. We bushwhacked a dipshit band of mercenaries in the caves leading back to the surface, and among their stuff was this really sweet hatchet that returns to your hand after you throw it. I know how to handle a throwing axe, so I kept it as a sidearm. I guess it doesn't really bear mentioning, but it's really fucking cool. I throw it at shit just to make it come back to my hand. I haven't really had to use it in a fight yet, but every rat and bunny and treestump we've passed ever since has known my wrath.

We're heading back to Baldur's Gate to finish this shit now, only we have to be careful because we're once again outlaws and I don't think bribing the mayor of Beregost is going to help this time. We'll just have to wring Sarevok's neck and prove our... Well okay, not our innocence. We did kill the Iron Throne leaders. And the high priestess of Umberlee. And Silvershield's daughter. And lots of other people. And it was all both hilarious and profitable. We'd do it again in a heartbeat. Shit, we've already killed a couple more people during the trip and we're not even back to the city yet!

Who the fuck am I kidding? With all the bullshit we've been pulling lately, we need a scapegoat. We're going to wring Sarevok's neck and do our best to pin all our crimes on him! Once we've framed him for all our murders, we'll be free to start over with a clean slate, and get ourselves in trouble with a bunch of new murders.

(This part of the game is basically a railroaded killfest and I don't like what it's doing to my output. I'd rather spend three quarters of an update going on about how I murdered some sidequest guy for his funny accent or something, but from the Iron Throne headquarters on it's all been/will be pretty much a straight push to the final conflict.)

[Basil]

Please say you're going to keep it up through BG2.

I should mention, the BG enthusiasts over on the Penny Arcade forum are reading this too!

[WindupAtheist]

I might take a wee break to recharge my batteries between games (or I might not) but yeah, the plan is to take Nythrax and friends all the way through to the end of Throne of Bhaal. I anticipate lots of jokes about the word "Bhaalspawn" and why the hell Imoen is alive again.

[WindupAtheist]

So we're back in the big city, and it's pretty clear why those Candlekeep dipshits figured they could hand us over for execution. Turns out Duke Eltan, head of the Flamers, has come down with a "mysterious illness" and Scar was "coincidentally" killed by muggers and replaced with one of Sarevok's cronies. I could give a fuck about Duke Dickless, but Scar was kinda cool for a law-abiding type. He was a straightforward negotiator when it came to having people killed, and even gave partial payment in advance. That's good enough for me.

It's not all bad news though. Entar Silvershield? The Duke whose daughter we shot in the mouth when we were robbing his estate? Yeah, he's history. Smart money says Sarevok smoked him, because he's the one set to take Silvershield's place. Works for me, because now we're off the hook and it plays right into my plan. With all this subterfuge and doppleganger bullshit, it'll be child's play to make him a patsy.

It wasn't us who sacked the Temple of Umberlee, officer. Or murdered Ragefast in his tower to steal his sex slave. Or broke into one of the noble houses to slaughter everyone and lift those skyship components. No, that was all dopplegangers out to frame us. Bahahaha. Yes I just wrote out a laugh, because it's fucking hilarious. I'm getting ahead of myself though, because we'd have to discredit him by exposing all of his actual crimes before we could hope to pile ours onto him too.

The first place we hit was the Iron Throne HQ. They were still mopping up blood and gore from our last visit, and weren't terribly happy to see us again. A few of the merchants told us that Sarevok took over completely after we waxed his foster father in Candlekeep, and was basically gutting the Throne to buy his way into dukedom. We realized that really this made us all victims, and decided to band together. Heh. Banded together in giving the joint a second coat of blood and gore.

So up on the top floor we find this real skanky looking bitch just waiting for us, with a couple of ogres on hand for backup. Turns out she's one of Sarevok's sluts, one that's fallen out of favor and wants to get back into it by killing us. She came here and waited, knowing it's where we would probably turn up. Yeah, she actually stopped to explain all this.

Mordak just blurts out "Wouldn't it have been easier to just give in and let him put it in your ass?" and I swear to god one of the ogres facepalmed. The bitch turns BRIGHT RED, presumably in fury, but I half suspect Mordak hit closer to home than she would have liked. Oh but he's not done, he sees everyone looking at him and wants to defend his position. So he fucking hops up on the table, and starts to expound. I won't record it here, mostly because I'm sure no one wants to read a speech about analingus and how it's an easier task than killing six battle-hardened adventurers.

It was another one of those things where everyone just stops what they're doing because they can't believe what they're hearing. I really should coach him to say things like that on command, so as to paralyze our enemies in battle with shock and horror. Except for it to be a useful tactic we'd have to be exposed to it until we became immune, and I'm just not fucking willing to go that far.

He finishes up by rhyming "inner gland" with "merry band" and then hops down from the table with this smug grin on his face like he's just delivered the speech of the century and applause are imminent. Then the ogres rushed us, and we hacked them limb from limb.

A few broken ribs later this Cynthininia (or whatever ridiculous stripper name she had) is coughing up Sarevok's diary, that she apparently nicked and has been carrying around. Convenient, that. It's good stuff, too, laying out enough bullshit to bury the guy. Some more interesting things even than that, too, but I'll get to that in a while. Anyway, she told us that Sarevok was soon to be coronated a Grand Duke, which we knew well enough, and that we could probably beat an invitation to the ceremony out of a couple of assassins who hang in the Undercellar. We cut her throat and moved out, making sure not to linger long enough to be noticed by the Flamers.

Funny thing, the Undercellar is an infamous whorehouse and the assassins we were after were husband and wife. Kinky. I won't go into any great detail since Mordak has already rendered this account filthy enough, but the whole Kor & Lex "I'll call you a slut and you can call me an ugly moron!" Pretend-We-Hate-Each-Other show was in full nauseating swing from the first "You should ask if they're hiring!" crack.

Where was I? Yeah, apparently the husband and wife assassins were the ones who whacked Silvershield on behalf of Sarevok. We gave them a straightforward death when they had the temerity to try and take us out since, hey, they did us a favor. We took their invitation to the Duchal Palace and a rather incriminating letter from Sarevok to add to our evidence. Oh, plus a rather nifty little magic shortsword.

No dicking around, we took off right away to crash Sarevok's little party.

(If there were any doubt in the mind of some newb that I'm making up my own dialogue, I think the word "analingus" sealed it. Though the game does do a pretty good job of letting you say silly/crazy shit to people all on it's own.)

[Azazel]

Keep it coming WUA. This shit is    I see you've even got a new custom title! 

[WindupAtheist]

Already through with the main game and debating whether to do the TOTSC stuff. On one hand I never did it, on the other hand I'm looking at stuff on Durlag's Tower and seeing a lot of puzzle-solving shit which I abhor. When someone recites a riddle at me, they may as well have a spell that opens a browser window and looks up google.

Warden (LOVE): In room (14), you find an Odd looking key. Use it to unlock the night table in room (13). Get the Engine Switch from the night table and head for room (15) to reactivate the machine using the control panel on the northern wall of the room. Once the engine is running, head back for room (13), pick up the Grapes and bring them to the grape pressing machine in room (17) to turn them into wine. Bring back a Bottle of Wine to Love in order to solve his riddle.

Hahahah, no.

[gryeyes]

Great read, you are doing a great job. 

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, as far as I can tell there's no story in Durlag's, I can't keep the loot unless I cheat, and I already have 50k more XP than a character made fresh for BG2 would anyway. I already did the wolf island and ice island quests out of Ulgoth's Beard but they were pretty forgettable. I think I'll just write up my notes from the Sarevok showdown tonight or tomorrow and split for BG2.

[WindupAtheist]

Never mind, I sucked it up and did the puzzles in Durlag's Tower. Fuck it, I'm cheating. Expect the BG2 write-up to begin with Kor and the gang busting in fully-geared to run that dumb bitch Imoen off and hand Nythrax back all his stuff. I am not giving up this nice-ass loot right after getting it. Sarevok write-up later today. It's all from notes so I don't sweat waiting a little while between playing and writing.

[Strazos]

Holy hell are you unemployed right now or something? You are blazing through the game....or at least, I remember the game taking a lot longer.


Also, I kind of agree on Durlag's Tower. I really had to debate whether I was going to do it last time I played, since it's such a grind to get through.

[Basil]

He is quick, inne? Good times.

[schild]

Holy hell are you unemployed right now or something? You are blazing through the game....or at least, I remember the game taking a lot longer.

If you're playing a well-rounded combat focused disaster group, you can rip through any of the Infinity Engine games. They sort of roll over for you, in awe of your power.

[Strazos]

I guess I took my time too much back in the day.

Really interested to see what mods you use, WUA, to play BG2 and such. I'm sorely tempted to pull my save files off my old HDDs for use in that game.

Or hell, I might even just reinstall the whole damn thing and finish my other BG1 playthrough.

[Merusk]

The first play-through eveyone takes their time, does all the side quests, reads everything.   This is WUA's, what,  7th time through I think he said.  Yeah, you just know where to go what to do and what's bullshit you can ignore.   Hacking apart half the people instead of talking to them because you don't care about whatever riddle/ piece of the story they're going to give you probably speeds things up quite a bit, too.

[WindupAtheist]

I won't really debate the fact that I have a lot of time on my hands lately, but Baldur's Gate isn't taking up nearly as much of it as some of you guys are thinking. One thing to remember is that it isn't WoW. If two people both do the TOTSC quest where they get teleported to the ice island to find the mage's cloak? Both of them kill the exact same enemies in the process of gaining the cloak? And one of them turns that cloak over to the mage at the end for the XP reward, while the other throws it away and kills one extra grizzly bear instead? The guy who killed the bear made more XP that day.

Side quests are usually worth doing if they're particularly amusing, if they provide a substantial amount of kill XP, or if they provide quality loot. Something like the "Perdue's short sword" quest that sends you to a different zone to fetch an item, rewards you with a whopping 50 gold and 500 XP, and doesn't advance the plot at all? Utter waste of time. Killing a sirine is worth 2000 XP by itself, and they'll spawn in your face half the time if you try to camp out in one of the shore zones. Go mash the rest button a few times in the right zone and bam, you've done the equivalent of a half dozen sidequests.

[Strazos]

Yeah, I think I actually abused the siren thing a few times on an evil playthrough.

[WindupAtheist]

Before I describe our encounter with Sarevok, I really ought to point something out. I am immortal, I have inside me blood of kings. I have no rival, no man can be my equal. Or something like that.

You see, back during the Time of Troubles, Bhaal managed to die. As in Bhaal, the God of Murder. Yes, gods can die, and I guess a number of them did so back then. But Bhaal saw it coming, and so he spread his essence out amongst scores of mortal offspring. Sarevok is one of these offspring. I'm another.

I wouldn't believe such a ridiculous bullshit story, except that it explains a great deal. I haven't been recording it here, but I've been having very strange dreams every so often. Very strange, violent dreams full of messages from some voice outside myself. Which wouldn't mean anything either, normally. Maybe I'm just crazy. Except that after each of these dreams, or visitations, I seem to gain new powers.

I can terrify people, suck the life out of their bodies. I can cause dead people to get up and walk around, and I'm pretty sure that's not just in my head. Not all of the skeletons we've employed have been created by Vaere alone. Except whereas she simply channels powers granted by her god, I seem to just... have them.

Sarevok laid all this out in that diary of his. Apparently his entire plan is just a means by which to gain enough political power in Baldur's Gate to start a war with Amn. Not to win it, but to cause so much death that he undergoes some sort of apotheosis (Thanks for the word, Vaere!) and becomes the new God of Murder himself.

I'll give the guy credit, he's ambitious. It's such a beautiful plan, I'm just going to have to steal it. It's also why he's been trying to kill me. Because there can be only one.

(Not much funny here, unless you like Highlander references, but it's a plot point that needed to be put out of the way. Final showdown write-up forthcoming.)

[schild]

Before I describe our encounter with Sarevok, I really ought to point something out. I am immortal, I have inside me that of kings. I have no rival, no man can be my equal. Or something like that.

Blood of kings would work too.

[WindupAtheist]

Fuck.

[Triforcer]

The single greatest writeup ever on this site.  Bravo, we are eagerly awaiting the showdown 

[NiX]

Realized I haven't given you props for this. I had to bust out my reading glasses because my eyes were straining from reading so much. The white on black might have done it too, but I'll give you the credit.

[WindupAtheist]

Thanks guys. I'm running behind and managed to lose a chunk of work by navigating away from the site (usually I type it into notepad, stupid me) so the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny might be delayed until tomorrow, but no later. Then I'm taking an intermission and it's off to BG2.

I do have a screenshot from immediately before engaging in the final battle. If anyone ever wondered why BG2 limited you to 5 summons, well, this should explain it.

[Koyasha]

BG2 had a lot of annoying limitations for "balance" like that.  Like the fucking of grandmastery.  BG1 got it right, by the book, but they took most of the benefits of getting grandmastery in weapons out of BG2.  Summons' main function is cannon fodder to slow down the enemy from attacking you, while in BG2 they reduced the number but increased the power of the summons so whee, they couldn't really serve their purpose.

I guess the fact that you could have bags makes up for all of that though.

[Ingmar]

Huh, I'm kind of surprised that BG1 in the BG2 engine doesn't have the BG2 limitations on summoning.

[Brogarn]

The awesomeness continues.

[innocuous]

I don't have the words to say how awesome this is so far.

[Mortriden]

I'll chime in as well.  Totally kick ass WUA.  Reading this is much better than actually playing the game.

[Rendakor]

Great thread man. Excellent read.

[WindupAtheist]

We flashed the invitations we lifted off the dead swingers, and blew past the guards at the Duchal Palace before they could ask us too many questions. No wonder Sarevok was able to get to Eltan and Silvershield, the security around here is bullshit.

As we barged into the ballroom, throwing elbows to make our way through the crowd, we heard a group of lesser nobles ranting angrily about the usual "Amn is out to get us!" bullshit. To their credit Belt and Liia (the two remaining dukes... er duke and duchess) didn't seem to be buying it. Meanwhile Sarevok is standing there quietly, waiting for this to die down so he can be formally inducted as a Grand Duke himself. That is until he sees the commotion we're causing and squeals "Who interrupts my coronation?!"

Just as we emerged from the crowd I shot back "Coronation, Sarevok? This is bad comedy!" and heaved his diary at Belt before the predictable "SEIZE HIM!" bullshit could really get started. Belt was pretty obviously looking for an excuse not to induct Sarevok, because not only was the authenticity of this book I just pulled out of my ass not questioned, he only read if for about fifteen seconds before ordering the guards to grab him. Oh yeah, seize YOU motherfucker.

Except at that point all of the lesser nobles... say it with me... melted into dopplegangers and the fight was on. Us, Belt, Liaa, and the Flamer guards on one side. Sarevok, his pet mage, and all the dopplegangers on the other. A giant confusing melee ensued, and even at the time I was absolutely delighted to see our little crew fighting alongside the forces of law and order. Our heroics in the face of Sarevok's treachery would make it much easier to pin all our crimes on him later. I yelled something about avenging his murder of the poor priestesses of Umberlee for good measure. It probably annoyed Vaere if she heard it, but whatever. The groundwork needed to be laid.

Pretty soon the dopplegangers were dying off, and things were looking dark for Sarevok. He screamed a few choice profanities at us, and had his pet mage teleport him away. Only apparently Belt and Liia can track where he's gone, and they want his ass dead right now. We all naturally agreed.

Apparently there's some sort of ancient ruined city lying beneath Baldur's Gate, and that's where Sarevok and his cronies are heading. You can't just teleport directly there because of... Look, I'm not a mage, and discussions of teleportation mechanics don't do much for me. Plus Kor had commandeered this huge platter of basilisk-in-a-blanket while everyone was talking, and let me tell you, those things are delicious.

So I didn't pay that much attention. Bottom line, Liia was going to teleport us to the old thieves guild and we were going to have to make our way through the cellars and chase Sarevok down into this ruined city. This we proceeded to do. The cellars were a maze, but the thieves guild traps were nothing Garrette couldn't dismantle, and the place was patrolled by nothing worse than a few oozes and battle horrors.

We did find Sarevok's old mentor lying on the floor, bleeding out. The would be godlackey had been encouraging Sarevok in this whole 'war of ascention' plan, but with it blown up in their faces the old man had apparently outlived his usefulness. So he told us as he lay there. Garrette put a bolt in him, but I think it was more out of simple habit than anything else. We certainly weren't going to try to heal him.

There was a long staircase that led down, and down, and down, until we found ourselves in an enormous cavern full of ancient buildings decayed down to nothing but crumbling stone walls. Oh, and one enormous and rather sinister-looking temple that seemed surprisingly intact. Yeah, one guess where Sarevok had holed up to hide from his enemies and lick his wounds. The question of why anyone would build all this shit down here was eclipsed by the question of why we could still see.

As we're making our way there, we're accosted by yet another band of heavily-armed dipshits we've never seen before. Turns out they're from the Iron Throne "head office" and here to do away with Sarevok for gutting their Baldur's Gate branch. Now I was willing to, if not precisely cooperate, at least let them take their shot ahead of us. (Let them soak up the spells. Heh.) But they know who we are, and our endless wanton slaughter of their associates means they hate us as much as they do him. Go figure. So we chopped them all into a fine red paste, and now our path into the temple was clear.

The place was about what you'd expect, lots of elaborate stonework and a giant skull Bhaal symbol carved into the floor. We knew Sarevok and his last remaining followers had to lay directly ahead, so we summoned everything. We raised up skeletons, we conjured up kobolds and gnolls, we built our own little army and sent it in ahead of us. It was all blown to shit by fireballs and such in short order, but those were fireballs that weren't going to hit us.

We charged in as the last of our minions were falling, to find Sarevok there with his pet mage and a couple other followers. He paused to sneer some bullshit at us, and I gave him this really cool line about how the future belong to me, not him. As per what's become our usual strategy, we ignored everyone (including Sarevok) to pile onto the wizard. Once he was dead we focused upon Sarevok. I won't recount the whole fight blow by blow, but while my demigod half-brother put up a credible fight, we hadn't come all this way just to choke.

Kor circled around behind him, and we sank blades into him from two directions at the same time. (Lex would later refer to this as "kinky" and ask if they touched in the middle. Kor had managed to kill a shitload of people while having a stomach full of basilisk and not even blink, but this almost made him hork.) Sarevok disintegrated into pixie dust and blew away, which was irksome because his armor went with him and I really wanted it. I was sorta hoping his divine essence would fly out of him and get sucked into me, but no such luck.

We barred the temple door to keep anyone else from bothering us unexpectedly, and sat down right there on the floor to rest and get our story straight. Vaere still had that bottle of wine we nicked from the spider house in Beregost when we were fresh out of Candlekeep, so she plopped down next to me and we killed that while we collectively cobbled together a story that pinned almost everything on Sarevok. Or rather, would encourage others to pin everything on him for us. As Mordak put it, we didn't want to appear to know too much. He can be pretty smart when he's not being a moron.

After that we had to decide where we were going next. Garrette suggested that we see about getting me named Grand Duke. With my "heroic" exposure of Sarevok, and the obscene amount of money we'd made adventuring, it seemed entirely feasible. But I scrapped that idea out of hand. I don't want to be a duke, I want to be a god, and it's not like I could duplicate Sarevok's plan after having exposed it.

Besides, if I became a Grand Duke, it would only be a matter of time before these chucklefucks hacked some minster's head off and blew the whole thing. I love these guys.

No, I decided we'd patch ourselves up, revel in the city's gratitude for a little while, and then hit the road. If I'm going to become a god of death someday (It's still weird to even write that!) it's not going to happen here. With Sarevok dead, the iron shortage cured, and the Throne all but obliterated, this place is probably going to be dreadfully peaceful for the forseeable future. There has to be somewhere out there that's ripe for a little hellraising.

Maybe we'll sack Nashkel on our way out. Those hillbillies have it coming, and I'm still pissed about only getting 150 gold for taking out Brage.


(And that's it for Baldur's Gate. Most of the expansion adventures are straight dungeon crawls and pretty divorced from the rest of the story, so while I did do TOTSC, I'm not going to write about it. I'd rather go out on a bottle of wine, talk of future plans, and one last crime spree than "And then we fought werewolves for some reason!" But never fear, Nythrax and the cool kids of Candlekeep shall be back for Baldur's Gate 2. I'm going to take a little time off before starting it, but it's coming. I quit recording dings a while ago, so I'll probably post a little endgame recap of everyone's level and gear at some point before that.)

[Ragnoros]

Bravo. Bravo.

Loved every minute of it man. Fucking epic.

[Stormwaltz]

I spent the last three nights reading this instead of playing games.

Well done.

Just as we emerged from the crowd I shot back "Coronation, Sarevok? This is bad comedy!"

WUA gains +10 Reputation with Decepticons.

[WindupAtheist]

I knew someone had to get that. ^_^