Back in Nashkel, Dynaheir and Minsc had a happy reunion. Minsc rushed forward and gave Dynahier a great big hug!
"Boo missed you so much!" Minsc cried, literarily cried. "Minsc missed you so much too!"
"I'm happy to see you too Minsc, Boo… You're crushing me…," Dyanheir squeaked as dignified as she could while being squeezed off her feet by the lummox.
Back at the inn, we traded war tales with the two of them. Neera had a lot of stuff to identify and we were all dead tired from all the traveling, so rest had to come first.
Honestly, I was losing track of when or where we picked stuff up.
From this adventure, we scored:
A Longsword +1, a Shortsword +1, a Flail+1,
1 Potion of Hill giant Strength, 1 Fire Resistance potion, 1 Cold Resistance potion,
1 Gauntlets of Dexterity, 1 Bracers of armor AC8 (from where?),
Various wizard scrolls including Web (scribed) and Dispel (scribed. From where?),
Boots of the North (50% cold resistance),
And the glorious Tome of Leadership and Influence!
The party didn't really argue when I laid claim to the Tome. I was the party discount shopper, and I intended to abuse the heck out of my Charisma score. With my new Charisma of 19, I would get a 20% discount on all goods, or 25% combined with our sterling reputation of 15. Very nice.
Bracers of defence AC8 were sold for 1500gp (where did it come from again?) since Neera already had the AC7 ones from the rude Waterdhavian adventurers. We also sold the Longsword+1 as Khalid already had one (625gp) and the winter wolf pelt for 500gp. Altogether we now had 6476 gold!
That much? Even I had started to lose track where our money was coming from, lol.
Neera had used all her level 1 spell slots to identify all our new stuff. We shouldn't head into the Nashkel mines without her spells, so we figured we would take a nice break in the carnival before resting another round to prepare spells again.
The VERY first tent we entered, a guy approached us and declared, "Consider yourself victimized by Vitiare, master thief and pickpocket extraordinarily. No time to chat!"
And he walked away, with a bag of my money somehow in his hands.
"Command, now!" I shrieked to the high heavens.
Branwen's spell knocked Vitiare unconscious for one precious round, which we spent beating the tar out of the pickpocket. Everyone massaged their ears after handing out the beatdown.
"Can yer shout any louder next time?" Imoen mocked. "I can still hear through mah left ear."
We got our money back, and 73 gold besides. We also confiscated 1 healing potion, 1 Potion of Agility, and a Potion of Master Thievery. If you were paying attention, I had special plans for that last potion.
Unlike the game, where any altercation generally resulted in death, we could beat the snot out of Vitiare without killing him. The garrison was nearby, and we turned him over. He was wanted for various petty crimes. Vitiare had been busy, apparently.
I'm not a complete murder-hobo, alright?
The next tent wasn't a merchant at all. Two mages stood facing each other at a standoff, one man and one woman.
"Come no closer! I only have to say the last word of my spell and she dies!" the man shouted.
"We're kind of missing the context here," I said.
"She's a WITCH! She'll use her magics to poison the children of this town!" he claimed.
All of us looked at each other. Maybe if Dynaheir were here, she could clarify the role of witches in society?
"Are you going to do such a thing?" I asked the woman pointedly.
She shook her head vigorously.
"Of course she's not going to admit it!" the man insisted.
"I dunno, it's your word against hers now," I said, to the agreement of the rest of my party, "Be reasonable. The garrison is just over yonder. We should sort this out with the local authority. That way, your dangerous witch is publicly executed and you don't get arrested for murder. See?"
I thought I was being very convincing. Any sane man would agree with me, no? But this man had apparently lost his sanity.
"No, she must die!" he screamed, "And so shall you!"
Zordral, for that was his name, spoke an arcane word of power, and unfortunately, the so-called witch fell over before we could help her. We were next.
Zordral started incanting. We scrambled to interrupt him, throwing bullets and arrows and the like, but couldn't prevent him from conjuring 4 Mirror Images. Crap.
"Magic missiles!" I yelled, pulling out my wand.
I and Imoen blasted away with our wands, and Neera used a scroll since her spell slots were still depleted. One image disappeared, a second, a third, and finally the fourth image was dispelled! Jaheira and Khlaid then bore down on Zordral with club and Longsword+1. But the mage deftly side-stepped their attacks.
Zordral started incanting again. Gee, I wonder what spell that was?
"Branwen-"
"Already on it," Branwen said, and cast Remove Fear.
As his opponents were protected from the very spell he was still casting and he was out of images, Zordral realized that his doom was nigh.
"I don't suppose a trip to the garrison would be out of the question?" he asked nervously, as we surrounded him. "It's your word against mine that I killed the witch. You don't want to be arrested for murder, right?"
"Imoen, check the so-called witch," I said.
She stepped forward, and put a hand to the woman's heart. Imoen shook her head.
"Jaheira, what do you think? Garrison?"
"The garrison will indeed receive this murderer," Jaheira said with a chilling look in her eyes. "As a corpse."
Damn, why aren't I that cool? She didn't even need to pose!
Zordral was level 6, so Sleep wasn't going to work on him. In fact, hardly any spell would considering his arbitrarily low spell save of 3. 3! Not to mention, his AC4 and 37 HP are also against the rules! What's with all the cheat characters, developers?
From that unfortunate altercation, we got two unidentified mage robes, an Antidote, a Potion of Heroism, 1 wizard scroll of Armor and Color Spray each, and an angel skin ring. The ring reminded me that we've actually got a whole lot of gems and jewellery to sell, ha.
Neera considered the two unidentified robes. "And I just used my last Identify spell! We're not going to have to spend another day just preparing spells are we?"
Imoen, took both of the robes, and handed one back. "This one's a robe of electricity resistance."
I raised an eyebrow. "You're pretty good at Lore now, huh?"
She smiled. "Can't let legendary wizards appear and not recognise 'im, rags or no rags."
Jaheira and Khalid shared a laugh at Elminster's expense.
Conveniently enough, the next tent we went to housed a trinket merchant. We sold him our gems and the like for 759 gold, and some wizards scrolls we didn't need (Know Alignment, Friends x2, Shocking Grasp, Infravision) for another 300gp. I bought 'The Gift One Lost' necklace (2240gp), and the Shield Amulet (560gp).
The Gift One Lost was a necklace of missiles. Basically it had 10 charges of a 6d6 fireball. In the future, I could sell it back to a store who would recharge it and then buy it back again. Compared to the Potions of Explosions, the necklace of missiles was a steal.
The Shield Amulet had 10 charges of the Shield spell, which sets base AC to 4, +2 vs missiles and immunity to the Magic Missile spell for 1 hour. The big trick to the Shield Amulet was that it could be used by non-wizards, as Shield could normally only be cast by wizards on themselves. This made the Shield Amulet extremely valuable to monks, kensai and thieves who had limited access to armor.
No, I'm still not going to bring Rasaad into my party.
I was tempted to buy the Protector +1, an amulet of protection +1 which increased AC and saving throws by +1, for a whopping 3360gp. I ultimately decided I wanted to prioritise my money elsewhere.
In the tent to the south, a merchant offered to sell us two VERY special potions for a great discount! A Violet Potion and Red Potion.
"A swallow of the violet, and a titan's might shall possess you! Drink down the red mix, and your insight will rival Elminster's! To you, I offer them at the bargain price of 50 gold apiece!"
Jaheira scoffed. "Oh, really now. Insight to rival Elminster's? Not exactly a big improvement."
"Ooooh, oooh, I got it!" Neera put her hand up. "Just like the last guy, this one's a scam!"
I was glaring at the potions in question. I knew what they were, and what they did. Considering how I handled the last con artist, how do I convince the rest that these were a worthy buy?
"If they work as you say, and only if," I said, "I'll buy them. Otherwise, I'm reporting you to the guard."
"I stand by everything I said about these potions. So by all means, try them out," the merchant said and pushed them forward. "But I hope you are a man of your word."
The party regarded the potions in question.
"May I remind you, I don't have any more Identify spells prepared," Neera said.
"Give 'em here." Imoen took both potions aside, gave them a smell, tasted a little, drip a bit of each into another concoction. After 15 minutes, she sighed. "Yes, they both work as this fellow says-"
The merchant gave two thumbs up and a toothy grin.
"- but he failed to mention the drawbacks." Imoen said and showed the Violet Potion first. "Titan's strength, yes. But also the dexterity and constitution of a slug."
In other words, sets Strength to 25 but Dexterity and Constitution to 3. Lasts 24 hours.
She showed the Red Potion next. "This one makes ye the smartest baffle head around. But also the wimpiest and the most clueless."
In gamer speak, the red potion set Intelligence to 25 but Strength and Wisdom to 3.
"But I didn't lie, did I?" the merchant winked. "Illustrious adventurers such as yourselves would surely see the promise in such special items, in spite of the drawbacks."
"Technically, you made a lie of omission." I rubbed my chin, as if considering. "But you're right. I think we can make use of these potions."
One just needs to know how.
The merchant held out his hand. "As agreed, 50 gp for each comes to 100 gp."
"I'm a man of my word," I said, putting the gold in his grubby fingers.
While he wasn't looking, I nabbed a Potion of Fire Giant Strength, Potion of Heroism and 230gp from the smaller chest near the merchant. He was watching the larger chest too well for me to take anything though.
I only said I'm a man of my word, not that I wasn't a thief.
We sold the Mage Robe of Electrical Resistance, made some acquisitions, and now had back up to 5332 gold.
We had fun seeing the sights, shopping and enjoying the food. After a good rest, the Nashkel Mines awaited us.
Or so we thought. Once we had rested and started our travel to the mines, we were met with a man and a woman. The man was lightly armoured and armed with twin wakizashi, the elf woman wore plate mail and was armed with a flail. Cleric, maybe, was my immediate thought.
"Well met, halfling," the man smiled. The sneer in his smile betrayed his intentions.
"Let me guess. You've got us surrounded by archers," I said, looking around.
"Correct!" he snapped his fingers, and men armed with bows and crossbows stood up from behind the bushes. "This doesn't have to get ugly. We just want your belongings."
I looked around, considered our chances. The archers themselves didn't look so tough. The woman being an elf meant she would resist all forms of sleep or the Command spell. Worse come to worse, we could start seeing how flammable the opposition was.
But from the corner of my eye, I could see a new option open up. The rude half-orc we met briefly at the Friendly Arm Inn was sneaking behind the archers. He certainly wasn't on their side. So what now?
Now I distract them.
"How are we going to do this exactly?" I asked, "If you two walk into the line of fire, your advantage over us kind of disappears."
The man and woman looked at each other. "Uh… this isn't usually how it goes is it?"
"We normally rob helpless merchants, not adventurers armed to the teeth," the elf woman said, "They're usually a wee bit more intimidated."
"You tell 'im, lady!" I hollered.
"Shut up!" they both yelled at me.
As they argued and tried to figure out how to go about it, I watched the familiar half-orc somehow sneak up one of the crossbowmen and strike him down. How he could sneak up in clinking plate mail, I had no idea.
"Very well, it's decided," the man said finally. "Put your valuables in a bag, and toss it to us!"
I looked at my party, then looked right back at the man and elf. "…do you have a bag we could borrow?"
The elf woman closed her eyes tight, and put a fist to her forehead.
Meanwhile, the armored half-orc behind their group was barely holding in his laughter as he cut down another henchman.
"You've got plenty of bags of your own!" wakizashi guy yelled, pointing at our backpacks.
"Yeah, but those are filled with rations and bed lining and tents. I mean, if you don't mind waiting for us to unpack everything then repack our valuables…"
"Yes! …No! No, we don't mind. Just, just do it-"
His frustration was interrupted by a cry, as a ghost seemed to fly out of the last henchman cut down by the half-orc. Very weird.
Dorn, said half-orc, looked up at the wakizashi guy and elf woman with a smirk. "By all means, continue. Don't let me get interrupt. I've still got two more of your men to cut down."
He pointed his blade at them. "Then it's your turn. Senjak, Dorotea."