"This is the one that's still intact," Imoen said pointing out the statue we passed by earlier that was surrounded by trees.
"Was it the only one?" I asked, knowing it was. "Did either of you see any more?"
Imoen and Neera shook their heads sombrely.
Well, it was worth a try. This world didn't necessarily have to follow my memories 100%. I approached the intact statue, a female adventurer from the looks of it. I put down my pack and pulled out the Stone to Flesh scroll. I looked back at the girls. "Last chance to protest. These scrolls aren't cheap."
"Saving a life is different. Just go for it," Imoen said.
Thankfully, unlike mage scrolls, these scrolls the temple provides can be used by anyone who could read (i.e. minimum intelligence 9). The magic took hold of the statue, and in a flash a flesh and blood woman took its place.
Said flesh and blood woman she swung out with her fist and decked me over immediately.
"What... who are... what has happened?" she said. She looked down. "Who did I just hit?"
"Me. Owww."
She helped me up, even as Neera said, "You've likely been petrified for some time. You may experience some disorientation. "
This woman was Tamah, and the last thing she remembered was fighting gnolls.
…Ahhh, those are the same gnolls that stuck around? The ones that wasted our time while we were hunting basilisks? Probably having a laugh at adventurers getting turned to stone. Gnolls were part hyena, after all.
Tamah took a moment to rest with us, and all the while looking at us with expectant eyes. The scroll wasn't cheap and she knew it.
"Let's get this out of the way," I said, getting up.
Tamah clenched her fists, bracing for the inevitable.
I stood up straight and posed. "In your honest opinion, do I look like a proper adventurer?"
Tamah blinked. Once, twice. "…what?"
Then her eyes moved past me, towards where Neera and Imoen were. I looked back at them, and the two stopped nodding their heads and started whistling.
"…Yes, of course!" Tamah said, "You're the halfling who saved my life, there's no greater hero to me."
Tamah gave me a sheepish grin.
I scrutinized her a moment, as if trying to figure if she was being honest. "Is there any problem with my height?"
Her gaze moved towards those behind me again. "Not at all! Size has no bearing on the nobility of the heart. Like I said, you proved it right here when you decided to use a precious scroll to save my life."
I looked back, and caught the other two quickly turning to look another direction.
I turned back to Tamah. Then I nodded, satisfied. "You're very welcome! I'm always glad to help fellow adventurers who honor and respect one another. We should accompany you to Beregost safely as there are bandits lurking around looking for iron these days. You should join us-"
"Nono, I wouldn't want to trouble you any further," Tamah said, looking past me. "Thank you for all you have done for me!"
Huh? I looked behind me but didn't catch the other two this time. Really? What's wrong with bringing her back?
I gave the two in the back a look before turning back to Tamah. "Far be it from me to deny aid to woman in need, a noble and polite adventurer at that!"
"It's-okay-thank-you-very-much-bye-bye!" And off she went.
I turned back suddenly. Imoen and Neera were staring at the sky and the ground respectively.
What was THAT all about?
Back in Beregost, we were lounging around Feldepost Inn, having drinks downstairs.
"I, I feel like I aged 10 years in one hour," Imoen moaned while rubbing her cheeks with her hands. "What the hell was that? If that was a cheat, I want to know what playing by the rules was supposed to be like!"
In a manner of speaking, Imoen wasn't far from the truth. In that one hour we had all leveled up multiple times.
We took down 8 lesser basilisks (1400exp each) and 2 greater basilisks (7k exp each), Mutamin (1200exp), Kirian's gang (900+600+1200+300 exp) and various local creatures (ugh), and rescued Tamah (300exp, +1 reputation).
When we started, I was level 1/1 in fighter/thief, Imoen was a level 2 thief, Neera was a level 1 Wild Mage. By the end, I was level a 3/4 fighter/thief, Imoen was level 5, Neera level 4. We made just over 10k experience each. If I were doing this power-levelling solo I'd have gotten 30k experience just to myself, but perhaps that was a big ask to do within one hour considering 3 people just barely didn't make it.
Imoen and I used our thief levels to push up our Set Traps skills, to 90 and 100 respectively. I then started to build up pick pocket (now 45), Imoen pushed Find Traps (now 40). With our weapon proficiency points I pushed up Slings to ++ and Imoen picked up Quarterstaff +. Neera got access to level 2 spells, and now had a total of 4 level 1 spells slot (8 with the Evermemory ring) and 3 level 2 spells slots. With her improved 16hp, I gave Neera back her 'improved' magical staff.
As for loot, we got:
1 Horror scroll, 1 Stinking Cloud scroll, 1 Protection from Evil scroll, 1 Infravision, 1 Charm Person scroll, 1 Detect Invisibility scroll, 1 Burning Hands scrolls, 1 Know Alignment scroll,
1 Wand of Magic Missiles (dropped by red basilisk, if you can believe it),
2 healing potions, 1 Potion of Invisibility, 1 Potion of Absorption, 1 Potion of Explosions, 1 Oil of Fiery Burning,
2 Longswords +1, 1 Morning star +1, 40 arrows+1, and a longbow,
1 set of plate mail, 1 Bracers of AC7 and 1 Adventurer's Robe,
and the extremely valuable Golden Girdle of Urnst (+3 AC vs slashing. No, it is not cursed, we checked.)
We also scouted out the areas surrounding Mutamin's 'garden'. Woods to the north, a tower to the east, and a village to the south (which folks in town tell us is Gullykin). All this in exchange for one Potion of Explosions, a scroll of Minor Drain and a scroll of Stone to Flesh. A very productive hour, if I do say so myself.
Neera was massaging her legs at the table, ignoring her mug of mead for the moment. "I've never done so much running in my entire life. We are never doing that again. Never again!"
I blinked at the girls. "What are you talking about? We haven't done Bassiluss yet."
Neera sat right up, and she and Imoen exchanged shocked glances. Realisation dawned.
That's right, we had agreed to go after Bassiluss. It was even your idea, Neera.
"Uuuurgh!" the girls yelled and threw their drinks at me.
To my regret, we were not in fact going to go after Bassiluss.
"5000 gp. My precious 5000 gp," I complained as we walked out the Jovial Juggler.
"Shut up already! We'll get it after we've met your allies at the Friendly Arm Inn!" Neera reprimanded me loudly.
We had to pick up the proof of killing the giant spiders that we had left in Landrin's house, as well as make some sales and purchases. From High Hedge we bought Luck, Strength, Mirror Image and Invisibility for 1016 gp, with a slight discount from our good reputation (Popular 14). Our bits of charity work were starting to pay dividends.
"The rest I understand, but why Invisibility? Aren't you and Imoen thieves?" Neera had asked.
"Honestly it's hard to explain until the different elements come together. I'll just show you why when it comes up," I replied.
We were just at the border of Beregost when I halted. I felt like I was forgetting something. What was it… "Oh, I never got to check the Red Sheaf for assassins!"
Neera rolled her eyes. "Enough about the assassins! We've been to every other inn in town and there wasn't a single one!"
"There was one before," I shot back, "At the Friendly Arm Inn! Imoen was there!"
Imoen nodded affirmitively. "That I was-"
"See!"
"-though I have to say, Sonny took him out before he attacked us. So I can't say for sure it was really an assassin," Imoen continued.
I looked at them both in disbelief. "What about the note he was carrying?"
"Bounty notice isn't concrete evidence he wanted to collect the bounty himself," Neera argued.
I couldn't believe my pointed ears. "Do you girls need to let an assassin to take a free shot at me before you believe me? Did you really think I may have taken out an innocent guy this whole time, in spite of the note?"
Imoen, to her credit, shook her head. But Neera nodded.
I put my hands up. "Fine, let's head to the Red Sheaf then. One way or another we're going to prove my so-called paranoia right or wrong."
All the assassins in Baldur's Gate are horrible traps for new players (Why, developers?). Karlat, the one at the Red Sheaf, was no different. Unlike Tarnesh, Karlat was all brawn and VERY direct. He was a dwarf fighter with an impressive THAC0 of 13, AC 1, and 35hp. With stats like that, he could easily destroy a few members of a level 1 party before going down.
Neera had barely taken a step into the Red Sheaf when an armored dwarf immediately ran up to us, battleaxe drawn. "You're at the end of your rope, I'll wager. Not that it's anything personal, you understand, but I'm afraid your time on this here ball of mud is just about done."
The way he was brandishing his battleaxe like he was about to savor what was coming next made his intentions clear enough, if his words were not indication enough. But I wanted to be very sure it was crystal clear to someone else.
I stood in front of Neera, decked in plate mail at the time. I looked him up and down. "Eh, really? You're saying you're a real bounty hunter, not a paid actor or something?"
Karlat was ready to attack but balked. "Do I look like an actor to you, little halfling? That hurts my professional pride, yer little squirt. In case you weren't aware, there's a price on yer head and I'm bound to collect – Oi! What're you two doing?!"
Behind me, Imoen had stuck her hand out. Neera sighed and put a few coins in it.
I wanted to glare at them both, but I had an armed killer right in my face.
"Is there no respect for an honest professional?" Karlat fumed, "Blast it all, can we get down to business?"
"Yes, I'm at end of my rope. Here, this is my rope. Pull it to bring an end to me," I said, handing Karlat a rope.
"What?..." Karlat, positively befuddled, gave the rope a tug.
Neera's Sleep spell could work on Karlat (65% chance). The guaranteed way of putting him down was to be a cleric. Just like Tarnesh, Command was guaranteed to knock Karlat out for a round.
I really wished I was a cleric!
Since I didn't have the Command spell available, I had to use other means I had at my disposal. Double traps set by thieves, while unlikely to kill Karlat outright, would do so much damage to him that finishing him off from there would be but a formality. I and Imoen had sneaked in earlier and readied the bolt launchers before Neera stepped in.
Karlat, brought to knees by bolt fire, looked up at the halfling which stood over him with a staff on one shoulder, the other hand pointing at him.
"You thought you were the hunter," the halfling said, then gave Karlat a thumbs down, "but you were the prey all along."
"Is he going to do that every fight?" Neera asked Imoen.
"Don't ask."
Perdue, as I expected, was in the Red Sheaf. Back in the original game, getting the halfling to admit he was missing a sword was like drawing water from stone. He'd first test if you knew what a gnoll was, and only then ask you to retrieve it. In my case, I just asked around the bar, "Hey, are you Perdue? I've got a sword with his name on it from a gnoll I killed."
Perdue did identify himself to lay claim the sword. Turns out he was taller than me just like Montaron. I was beginning to dread our inevitable visit to the halfling village of Gullykin in the future.
"I hope you ran 'im through once or twice to get it, at least," Perdue said, referring to the gnoll which took his sword.
"Filled 'im with arrows and bullets," I said. "Glad to be of help to a fellow halfling. Everyone looks down on us halflings and thinks we're children. We gotta look after one another-"
"Yeah yeah. Now take your gold and get lost, kid," Perdue dismissed me, and went his way with his shortsword.
I almost wanted to bitch slap him right there.
We sold off Karlat's gear, one of the Longsword +1, the Adventurer's robe, some scrolls I figured we didn't need (Infravision, Know alignment, Burning hands) and various gems. After some acquisitions at Thunderhammer smithy, we, ahem, acquired a Bastard Sword +1. Somehow our money was back up to 2150 gold. Our bags packed with Landrin's requests and stuff for Khalid, we set out again for Friendly Arm Inn.
When we entered into Friendly Arm Inn, I was expecting them to be seated at the same table and overhearing Jaheira complaining about how long they had been waiting while things are turning for the worse in the South.
They were indeed seated in the same spot since the last time I saw them. What I didn't expect was them to spot out party out immediately and Jaheira rasing her mug towards me!
"The great heroes of the realms have finally deigned to visit his father's old friends!" Jaheira said. "Come, sit with us young man. I believe we have a lot of catching up to do."
I gulped. It looked like I had a LOT of explaining to do to my father's old friends.