Adoy's Enclave was a hilly area with a river running through it. According to Neera, the old man lived as a hermit, and there was a cave deeper within the territory.
The first concerning thing that we came across was a squirrel. It looked like a perfectly normal squirrel. Right until it went, "Caw! Caw!"
"Uh oh. That can't be good," I said immediately.
"I think that means we're getting close," Neera said. "Unless that squirrel had a crow for a father, I'd say it was recently polymorphed."
I looked to the rest of the party. The rest of the party looked back at me with resigned faces.
"Go on and say it," Imoen said.
I turned back to Neera. "Why would he turn a crow into a squirrel? We have to start entertaining the possibility Adoy hasn't learned to control his magic after all."
"Maybe the squirrel was annoying him with questions about his magical talents," Neera said sharply, then turned around and walked forward ahead of the group in a huff.
She very quickly came running back. "Goblin! Lots of them!"
The goblins were the second concerning thing. There was a third concern on my mind, but that would have to be dealt with later.
"Do goblins count as monsters?" I conferred with Jaheira.
She scratched the back of her head. "Most of the time, yes. But no. They're people. Just, almost always evil people. Or at least big troublemakers."
"Diplomacy it is then. At least until they give us a reason for violence," I said. "You said you wanted to do the talking, right?"
The goblins were behind a barricade of rocks and sharp sticks. I was just thinking I'd rather not fight them while they had such a defensive position when one of them chimed, "King Rogdok! Tell King Rogdok peoples is comin' to get Bargrivyek. Gots to protect Bargrivyek!"
"We don't even know who Bargrivyek is," Jaheria corrected.
"Bargrivyek is goblin god of setting territory and ker-opa… ko-upper…"
"Cooperation?" Jaheira asked, eyebrow raised. She wasn't expecting that yet it was the word that fit best.
The goblin nodded enthusiastically. "That be it!"
Jaheira pulled us back and conferred with the rest of us. "Adoy lives as a hermit here, right? There may be a few others living here, but a whole nest of goblins? And a so-called king, and a god to boot?"
"Too many unknowns. We had better play along for now until we have a better grasp of the situation," I concluded quickly. The team didn't object.
Jaheira continued negotiations with the goblin. We weren't allowed to see Bargrivyek, by order of King Rogdok. We could see King Rogdok though.
"I lead you there now, so you not mess up our stuff!" the goblin insisted.
Jaheira looked to the rest of us. I shook my head vigorously and whispered, "Need to investigate!"
"Uh, we shall have to decline your kind invitation, ser goblin," Jaheira said to the goblin.
"Why?" the goblin asked plainly.
"Yes, why indeed? Ergo, I say," Jaheira stammered out, and glanced back at us.
Don't look at me! Coming up with a good excuse on the spot ain't easy for me either! "Uh… one of us got business to do first. Very important business here," I blurted out aloud. Then I pointed at Neera. "She has bad tummy! Turn her hair pink. Gotta go poo in river! Very smelly!"
"WHAT?!?" Neera shrieked. "Is that the best-"
"Bad poo poo make woman VERY irritable!" I said hurriedly, and tugged her along past goblin. "Make way! Smelly poo poo incoming!"
The goblins, as one, went "ewwwwww" and backed away as we rushed past the goblins barricade.
Once we were out of earshot of the goblins, we stopped running. "Made it! Great success!" I proclaimed giving a double thumbs up.
Neera pulled her hand back, gave me a smile and a nod, then smacked me over the head.
We appeared to have run up north into a copse of trees surrounding a little house. We would have though we had found Adoy's hosue, if not for the young elven man with a bow sitting just outside it looking glum.
I looked to Neera, and she shook her head. Yeah, I didn't think this could be Adoy either.
The elf in question was jittery, looking this way and that suddenly. "Look out! They're coming through the trees. There, behind that rock!" he said, pointing at a shadow of a cloud above. "You have to be on your guard. They came out of nowhere, but now they're everywhere!"
Even if I didn't have foreknowledge, I would have figured out what 'they' he was referring to was. "It's okay. We're here to help," I said. "Take a deep breath and tell us what 'they' are."
"Goblins! They fell out of the sky or leaped out full grown out of the grass." The elf cried out. "All I know is they killed Rilsa when she tried to talk to them."
My face darkened. I looked to my party, whose faces had similarly darkened. Looks like we just got a reason to move to a less diplomatic approach.
After some sweet talking, the elf, whose name was Magreb, told us that he and Risla had watched over the area for years, never having run in with goblins until they appeared all of a sudden around the house of an old mage. The goblins took the mage into a set of caves to the northeast. Then a big hobgoblin arrived and made himself king of the tribe.
"Can you tell us the name of the old mage?" I asked, bracing for the answer I knew was coming.
"The mage's name was Adoy. He always kept his distance, he said, because he didn't want to hurt us with his magic," Magreb answered.
"That's who we're looking for!" Neera said excitedly. She then frowned. "Wait a second, Magreb. What do you mean by 'was'?"
"I suppose he could still be alive, but I haven't seen Adoy since the goblins carried him into their cave. I just assumed they'd slain him, since they'd also killed… -sob- Rilsa."
As for the hobgoblin, Magreb told us, "The goblins call their new king Rogdok. Apparently, he's set himself up as a high priest to one of their gods. Hm, that's weird. Rog-dok… god-rock. Maybe the goblins sprang up out of the rocks. Look out, there's one at your feet!"
In spite of ourselves, we turned with weapons draw to face the threat. In the direction Magreb had just pointed, was an ordinary rock.
We turned back to the man and told him to get some rest indoors, promised him we would get to the bottom of the situation.
Back outside, we had a quick discussion to what we know. I summarized, "In spite of his delirium, Magreb's story answers most of our questions. We know where the old wild mage Adoy is. We know who King Rodgod or whatever is. We know where the goblins came from. Only thing we're not fully certain of is who the supposed god is, but that's easy to guess from here."
"Wait, we don't actually know where the goblins came from!" Neera said.
Everyone else looked at her.
"What, we don't!" Neera said.
"We do. I think you do too," I said. Neera was making a sulky face. I sighed. "But we don't need to push the issue until old Bagri-whatever confirms it himself. Let's get another issue out of the way first. Is it time to end our diplomatic approach?"
Everyone in the party nodded, their faces grim.
For whatever reason, and goodness knows how they did it, the goblins had managed to cage a bear on their compound.
Two goblins were currently preoccupied with poking at the bear with spears through the cave.
"Tee hee! How ya like that!" one goblin provoked the bear as his spear drew blood. "Don't like it? Whatcha gonna do about it?"
The bear roared in anger, and pawed at the spear in futility. Then the bears reared up and hurled its bulk against the cage walls made of wooden logs, to no avail.
The goblins fell over laughing and pointing at the dumb bear, their eyes tearing up from hysteria.
They didn't notice the halfling in dark clothes undoing the lock and sliding back the latch before fading back into the darkness.
By the time the goblins realised a dark shadow was above them, the bear was already on top of them, looking down at its tormentors with barely concealed rage.
The goblins gawked, quivering on the ground. "But how-"
The bear didn't answer. It took a swipe at the first goblin, taking its head clean off, then lunged and chewed down on the other.
With one group of goblins occupied with the bear on one side, and our party taking out engaging the rest on the other, we didn't have any problems clearing out the goblins. The bear didn't survive the experience, being filled with arrows before going down, but it managed to take out many of the goblins before it went down. Funnily enough, the dead bear seemed to be smiling when we found it laying in a pool of its own blood.
Neera leveled up from the slaughter, ironically. Now that she was level 5, she had access to level 3 spells. The only spells of that level she had scribed so far were Lightning Bolt and Dispel Magic, unfortunately. We'll fix that next visit to town.
With the area outside of the cave cleared of goblins, we should only have the goblins and hobgoblin in the cave to worry about.
Except I knew better. That was the third concern that I had.
This entire area, this whole quest, was Neera's personal quest. What was going to happen next on Neera's PERSONAL quest? Thayan wizards teleporting in to capture her for experimental purposes, that's what. Ekandor, the very same wizard in Beregost who Neera had teleported away was going to be back with bigger, badder thugs accompanying him.
Unfortunately Ekandor was going to teleport directly in. Very dramatic, yes, but also giving me no chance to scout beforehand or clue the party in that we're expecting them. And that Thayan wizard and his goons were a serious threat which called for underhanded preparations.
Just to show what sort of threat we were about to deal with, let me elaborate. The enemy group consisted of Ekandor (level 10 invoker), another Thayan mage (level 5 invoker), 2 Thayn bodyguards (level 5 barbarians), and 1 ogre berserker (level 5).
Being level 10, Ekandor had access to spells that low level parties had no business of dealing with, specifically Stoneskin which prevented five attacks against him at his level. If we were to burn through all his Stoneskin layers somehow in spite of his Mirror Images, he would use the Stoneskin scroll in his inventory to refresh it. I wanted that Stoneskin scroll, badly. So I couldn't allow him to do that. I also couldn't allow him to kill us all with his multitude of spells too. Ignoring him and hurting him with physical attacks were both out of the question.
So blast him with spells instead, right? That would be Neera's job. Except she would be chased down by the two Thayan Bodyguards which for some reason, unlike ANY other enemy in the whole game, seemed to want to hunt her down to the exclusion of all else. That's how Enhanced Edition content rolls, I guess.
Since the Thayan Bodyguards as well as all the other accompanying goons are level 5 and below, just hit them with Sleep, right? No, actually. Ogre Berserkers have very good save vs death, and thus very likely not to get put to Sleep. The two Thayan Bodyguards were the real problem, being outright immune to almost all hard disables like Sleep while berserking.
The berserking ability gave them +2 to damage, a -2 bonus to armor class and THAC0, +15 hit points, and immunity to charm, confusion, fear, feeblemind, hold, imprisonment, maze, sleep and Level drain. Does it seem like berserk is a super stacked cheat skill? It is.
Why couldn't I be a berserker myself? Murrgh. Stupid limited halfing class options! If only I was a human or dwarf or half-orc instead. Anything but lame halflings!
Anyway. Two melee powerhouses who were immune to all hard disables and had additional movespeed, making a beeline for our fragile mage? It was a recipe for disaster. And we needed Neera to help kill Ekandor through his Stoneskins.
See the problem? Getting through this upcoming boss battle was a serious challenge. Neera's life was literally at stake here. I desperately wanted to prepare very specific counters to give me the advantage. How do I do that without revealing my foreknowledge when the enemies in question teleport in out of bloody nowhere?!? There was zero context clues for that Ekandor was about to appear!