I dreamed of blood.
Wait, no. I dreamed of money. I dreamed I was riding on top of a huge wave of money, a wave so large it threatened to drown the Realms. Not crimson ichor but a flood of gold and platinum and precious gems. I was having the time of my life.
Uh.
This wasn't right. Wasn't this supposed to be a special dream about riding a huge wave of blood in the game? Is this a normal dream or another dream sent by THAT guy?
And then I heard it. Someone next to me, incanting a spell.
I turned, and saw pink irritation #2 struggling to contain a blue surge of magic.
Dread ran through my being, my blood running cold. "No, don't-"
The blue surge of wild magic exploded outward from her hands, and the energy struck the money around me. Immediately the flood of money and gold receded.
Noooooooooooo! I grasped at the money in vain, but it was too late. The once glorious flood of gold was reduced to a tiny trickle which disappeared through my fingers. I was a pauper again, all my effort in building a fortune undone by a pink-haired fiend.
I heard that same old apology, "I'm really really really sorry!"
I woke up in a cold sweat, clutching at myself in horror.
What the hell was THAT?!? The horror, the horror!
I also felt a new power within me, another charge of Slow Poison once per day.
Are you kidding me right now? Am I being trolled?
---
In the Green Fields, the matron-like halfling goddess and dark halfling goddess were standing above a viewing pool, speechless for a moment. The matron looked her darker half. "Did you do that?"
The dark halfling goddess shook her head and crossed her arms. "No way! I'm not so sadistic!"
The matron cringed. "Sadistic isn't the word I'd use. I'd call it… petty," she said. "So if it wasn't you, was it really from…"
The two goddesses remained silent. Some mysteries were best left unsolved.
---
We had rested longer because we needed to identify a whole slew of items, and also everyone was exhausted from so many days spent in Cloakwood. A week was plenty of time for hijinks after all. After some rest, it was time for a bit of traveling.
The first place we dropped by was Beregost to talk to our Zhentarim informants, uh, superiors. Xzar and Montaron were very interested in what our letters had to say.
"The Iron Throne told their captured agents to pretend to be working for the Zhentarim? Why, the nerve! We ought to teach them a lesson!" Xzar said, then hurriedly added. "Not that that has anything to do with our secret organisation. Nope, not at all."
"That's right, nothing to do with us," Montaron said, staring daggers at Xzar.
Jaheira and Khalid were trying their best not to smile too widely.
I told them of our plan to have the people enslaved by the Iron Throne testify against their oppressors.
"Even if its somehow not enough to find the Iron Throne guilty, this many witnesses and our physical evidence will cast suspicions on the Iron Throne and away from the Zhentarim. Some goodie-goodie actions like saving the slaves have their uses, wouldn't you say?"
Xzar and Montaron didn't respond to that, choosing to look away glumly. No doubt they had wanted to cast themselves as the main actors of the events in Cloakwood in their report for their superiors. How will they tell their superiors they decided to save the slaves and be goodie-goddies, hrrrrrmmm?
Really, I had to wonder what issue evil characters in the game had with maintaining a good reputation. Is that how you think real life villains behave? Heh, what amateurs.
The next person we talked to in Beregost was Officer Jai. She was extremely pleased with our 25 bandit scalps, of course. If only she accepted hobgoblin scalps we'd have plenty more. We talked to her about our rescue of the slaves from Cloakwood mines.
Officer Jai looked at us with wide-eyes as we explained what we had uncovered so far in our investigation. "The Iron Throne is responsible? But they're merchants. They're arms traders-"
She pursed her lips. "Ahhhh. I see. Arms traders do benefit from the iron crisis."
Neera smiled. "Took me a moment too."
"These are serious allegation. Do you have proof?" Officer Jai asked.
"Lots of documents, as well as witnesses. All the former slaves are currently recuperating in Friendly Arm Inn. When they are ready, they may want to head to Baldur's Gate to testify. They're going to need witness protection in the meantime."
Officer Jai got to work. She sent her platoon to relocate to the Friendly Arm Inn where they would help protect the survivors, as well as sent word to her commander in Baldur's Gate of what they had discovered about the Iron Crisis and to expect a contingent of witnesses.
We actually had a running tab at Feldepost's in Beregost, but I decided I should hang on to the more expensive gems and jewellery from now on. Just in case. The most expensive item by far was Davaeron's Robe of the Evil Archmagi, which we stored for safe keeping for the same reason. We did turn in the wyvern head though, cos the blasted thing was stinking to high heaven. With that we now had 35k gold.
At High Hedge, I bought 3 Potions of Fire Resistance, 2 scrolls of Luck, 1 of skull trap, 1 of identify, and a Wand of Sleep for those times we run out. Probably don't need it, but whatever. I was tempted to buy both Robe of Good Arch-magi and Robe of Neutral Arch-magi for 13735 gp each. But since Imoen has the Amulet of Shield, it seemed pretty unnecessary to get both. So I only got the Robe of Neutral arch-magi for Neera.
That left me, uh, left us with 21k gold, and I have in mind a couple of other places to use it.
---
One of those was the temple at Nashkel where I bought another 16 scrolls of Stone to Flesh.
"What do we need 70 scrolls of Stone to Flesh for? Where are we going to find 70 people who have need to be unpetrified?" Neera bemoaned.
"It's not for people. I told you all, we're going to cheat our way to victory."
"Basilisks again?" Imoen asked tentatively.
"Good guess! Basilisks were spotted on top of Durlag's tower. That's our target."
Neera and Imoen groaned. They can groan all they like, we've already bought 70 Stone to Flesh scrolls and we're gonna use 'em!
Actually, how many scrolls did I need again? Time for some math. Imoen's record shows she is currently at 2466 experience, let's round it to 2500. She needs about 87500 more to reach level 8 mage, 87500/7000*6 = 75. I'm 5 short. Meh. I guess the monsters along the way can make up for the shortfall.
Onward to Durlag's tower! This was a long trip from Nashkel, so we stopped by Beregost to rest first.
Durlag's Tower was quite the sight. In spite of the name, it looked more like a castle than a tower from the outside. There were tall walls surrounding the grey stone keep, with parapets lining both the outer wall and the roof of the keep itself. For a Dwarf, Durlag had pretty human taste in architecture. As to the what happened to Durlag and why his tower was left abandoned, well, that was something which adventurers had to figure out by exploring the tower.
Durlag's Tower is actually end-game content, added in by the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion which also increased the experience cap. We were not here to take out the whole tower though, just the basilisks on the top. The main challenges were under the tower, oddly enough. The basement levels were far more extensive and deadly than the levels above ground.
There was a merchant named Erdane just a short ways from the tower, peddling wares to adventurers. I bought 3 Potions of Master Thievery, and all 5 Potions of Perception from him. Upon reflection, we went back and bought Erdane's entire stock of Potions of Agility and Potions of Hill Giant Strength before going on our way.
Two battle horrors, each worth 4k experience, barred our path to the tower. We took the trouble to attract one at a time.
Battle Horror are walking suits of armor, and each was a significant threat. They had AC-5, Thac0 9, do 1d8+8 (slashing) +1d8 (fire) damage, APR 3. There was a time their flame blade could be dispelled but in the current version of the game that is not possible. As golems, Battle Horrors were immune to a lot of debuffs other than Blind (which we didn't have many of since we had prepared Protection from Petrification instead). They're also immune to missile damage. However Battle Horrors ARE evil, so Protection from Evil can help shore up the defences of our frontliners.
Not that we would need it. Perhaps the Battle Horror's biggest downfall is their use of slashing weapons. Khalid was now wearing the Golden Girdle, so his AC vs slashing was -11. Even with Thac0 9 the Battle Horrors would need to roll a natural 20 to hit Khalid (9+11=20). The big issue was to hit put the things down before they could land a crit, so Jaheira and Khalid drank a Potion of Hill Giant Strength each, Jaheira cast Bless and Branwen cast Chant. With that, we took out both Battle Horrors, one at a time, leaving them as scattered pieces of armor.
---
Once inside the tower, from the entrance there was a circular stairway going upstairs and downstairs. Our targets were the basilisks on the roof, which was accessible through the second floor above, so we went up the circular stairs then southeast, whacking a ghast on the way. The path to the roof section was ahead of us.
As I moved through the corridor, a heard a click under my feet. Instinctively, I covered my head with my arms. A flying chromatic orb flew out and burned into my left shoulder, but at least it wasn't lethal. "Ouch! Crap!"
Our only thief with enough skill to undo this trap (at least 70 in Find Traps) was currently a mage.
Damn. Even if I drank both Potion of Perceptin and Potion of Power AND have Neera cast luck on me, I still wouldn't be able to undo this trap. If only I remembered about it sooner so I could have Imoen undo it before we set off for the Cloakwood Mines!
I turned to the team. "Nothing to be done but tolerate it and move on. Shield your head like I did and everyone move together. It shouldn't be able to fire so many chromatic orbs at once."
There was a lot of sighing of resignation, followed by 'ows' and curses.
Ugh.
I scouted with a mirror to confirm that there was a lesser basilisk just outside. This basilisk we just wanted dead, so Khalid had Protection from Petrification cast on him then he tanked and spanked the darn thing.
What would happen was more complicated, and needed some luck to start the process. First Khalid went up the stairs to the upper roof levels where the first of three Greater Basilisks was waiting. Khalid used Algernon's Cloak on it. Thankfully he succeeded, and now had a very disturbing yet friendly Greater Basilisk which demanded pets and attention.
Next Brawnen went up the second level to join Khalid and summoned a skeleton warrior, uh, skeleton bull in our case.
Then Imoen took 70 scrolls of Stone to Flesh, and Neera cast Invisible on her.
---
From the perspective of a Greater Basilisk, it was experiencing the nine levels of hell.
The Greater Basilisk was staring at a skeletal bull to turn it to stone, but to no avail. Even biting at a skeletal bull seemed futile, as the skeletal bull seemed to teleport around the place.
Not far away another Greater Basilisk was glaring at the first basilisk intently.
The first Greater Basilisk was intent on destroying the skeletal bull. No matter what it did, it couldn't harm the bull. It could barely move a step before the bull appeared somewhere else.
It gradually realised it was slipping in and out of consciousness. But it couldn't figure out why. If it was being turned to stone, how was it being turned back? Nothing made sense. On and on the skeletal bull teased it, moving just out of range of its teeth and refusing to change into a stone from its glare. No matter how much it tried, it could barely move a step forward. It felt like its eyes were on fire from dryness and it was so exhausted. Yet the teasing continued.
Over and over this went on, for literal hours. The Greater Basilisk was about to commit suicide by jumping over the roof when the skeleton bull turned around and charged, disemboweling the basilisk with its horns. Freedom, at last…
---
Petrifying an enemy gives you the experience for defeating it. A charmed basilisk gives unlimited access to petrification, and basilisks aren't immune to petrification themselves. So by petrifying and un-petrifying a Greater basilisk repeatedly, you can gain 7k experience over and over again, only limited by the number of Stone to Flesh scrolls you have. Also, undead like skeleton warriors are immune to petrification, and characters can use scrolls of Stone to Flesh without breaking invisibility. That's the trick in essence.
When Imoen finally came back from her level-grinding scheme, she came back staggering and slumped to the ground next to us where we were waiting on the lower roof wall.
"I think I have committed a grave sin."
I raised an eyebrow at her. "How so?"
"By torturing the poor basilisk. Not even a monster deserved that fate."
"Ehhh. It's a savage monster. It's fine, I'm sure," I said with a chuckle, then mumbled under my breath. "Probably."
Imoen smacked me over the head.
---
We put down all three Greater Basilisks, even the charmed one, of course.
And after all that, Imoen was still a short of reaching level 8 mage! Well, I did calculate we would be short by a bit. So back through the idiot trap we went ("Ouch!', "Ow!", "Crap!", "Damn!") to look for trouble.
And trouble we did find! On the left battlement and right battlement each, there was a battle horror accompanied by skeletons. We buffed with Bless and Chant, and then Branwen Turned Undead. We took a few scrapes but it wasn't worth mentioning considering how high level we were now.
That was just enough to push Imoen over to level 8 mage, unlocking her thief skills again. As a matter of fact, the only party members who were hadn't reached the level cap for Baldur's Gate were myself, Neera and Jaheira. Woot!