Funnily enough, the first thing we encountered in the area Coran indicated was filled with wyverns was not actually a wyvern.
It was dark out at the time, so I was able to scout undetected ahead of the group. Good thing too, as I came upon a beautiful woman with green hair and skin, covered head to toe in vines and bark. A nymph? A dryad?
I thought of saying hello until I saw the scowl on her face. Now that I examined her more carefully, she was stomping about with a dagger drawn, looking this way and that. As if looking for prey.
Hamadryad. That's a dryad which is bonded to a specific tree, otherwise pretty indistinguishable from dryads by its outward appearance, I think. I only know it's a hamadryad rather than dryad because I kind of recalled this unique creature from the game, but I always wondered why she was hostile in the game. Normally, nymphs, dryads and hamadryads were all serene, peaceful creatures. Not on a warpath like this one.
I reported my findings to the rest of the group after moving them a distance away from the hamadryad.
"I don't understand why she's like that," I said after expressing my concerns with the hamadryad's behaviour. "Is she having PMS or something? -ow-"
Neera had just whacked me over the head. She gave me a glare.
"What's P-M-S?" Imoen asked, eyebrow raised.
"Just ignore that part, Sonny's being an idiot as usual," Neera told her, glaring at me some more.
I massaged my head, confused. What did I say wrong? I don't get it.
The rest looked to Jaheira.
"Hamadryads themselves are extremely rare, so information about them is fairly limited even to druid circles. Which makes the loss of a hamadryad to madness all the more tragic," Jaheira said, sombre. "I can make a guess what happened though. Hamadryads are bonded to their oak trees. As of such, any suffering endured by the oak will be passed down to the Hamadryad."
"Oh," Neera said, touching her mouth. "Pollution from the mine."
Jaheira nodded. "I'd hazard a guess that the oak is very close to the mine. Hamadryads can wander much further from their trees than regular ones."
"Is there anything we can do to save it?" I asked. "Would closing the mine and resuscitating the oak help the hamadryad heal?"
Jaheira took some time to respond. "I don't know. But hamadryads are such rare, precious creatures that I think it is worth a try. We can only hope that the destruction it may wrought while waiting for it to heal can be minimised by warning others to stay away. That is, if the hamadryad heals. If it cannot heal, it would be best to put the poor creature out of its misery. It was most likely driven mad by pain, after all."
I addressed the group. "Jaheira has spelled out our choices and the risks involved. Leave the mad hamadryade be, and risk it killing others in its maddened state until it heals, if it ever heals. Or end its suffering now. Yes, Imoen?"
"Isn't a hamadryad a powerful adversary?" Imoen asked. "They have a lot of powerful enchantment magic, don't they?"
"That is true. But we have the means to kill it without significant risk to ourselves," I said. "Which ironically puts more responsibility on us. We have the means, so if we leave it alone, we bear some responsibility of choosing not to act when we could have easily done so."
"I don't like the way you worded it," Neera said, crossing her arms. "We weren't the ones who drove the hamadryade insane. Why are we to blame?"
"As much as it pains me to turn away from a battle, I agree with Neera," Branwen said. "We did not cause the problem and have no obligation to end the problem."
"I do not agree with that sentiment, yet I would prefer to give the hamadryade a chance to heal," Jaheira said. "We can come back later if healing proves impossible."
I looked to Khalid. "I agree with Jaheira," he said. When I narrowed my eyes at him, he stuttered out, "I-I-I really do!"
We moved on to Imoen. "Eh, I'm fine either way."
"Four say leave it, one abstains. I will abstain as well. So we give the hamadryade a wide berth then. But we will also warn the people of Beregost, Seniyad's druid circle and even the Shadow Druids to stay away while we wait to see if she can eventually recover. Agreed?"
Agreement all around. So we avoided the hamadryad and pushed ahead. Perhaps one day we will come back for it, or instead we will find a restored gentle soul. Time will tell.
I meant it when I said we could defeat the Hamadryad easily.
As I said, the Hamadryad is incredibly formidable if one does not know its abilities and take countermeasures. The Hamadryad's primary two threats are the spells Dire Charm (person) and Hold Person. Both of these spells are devastating. Affecting the Hamadryad with Silence or any other magic which involved a saving throw was unlikely to work due to its good saves.
However, in its maddened state, the Hamadryad will waste its powerful spells on targets which are not considered a 'person'. Any animal charmed by the Ring of Animal Friendship or a skeleton warrior summoned through the Animate Dead spell will cause the Hamadryad to waste Dire Charm and Hold Person on an immune target. Without these spells, the Hamadryad will only have the Entangle spell and a dagger to defend herself with.
Speaking of the Ring of Animal Friendship, courtesy of Seniyad, we came across a voracious cave bear.
"It's out of hibernation and very hungry!" Jaheira shouted, even as it charged her and Khalid who were standing at the front of the team.
"I'm recruiting it. If it survives, I'll send it on its way!" I shouted back, and flashed the Ring of Animal Friendship at the cave bear.
"Why are you both shouting? We're right next to each other!" Imoen shouted as well.
The ring glowed, and the bear stopped short of Khalid and Jaheira. It cocked its head to the side, curious, and sniffed the air.
Unlike Jaheira's spell, the charm affect of the ring lasted a full 2 hours. We had plenty of time to check out its effects.
Jaheira sighed in relief. "It is good that we could spare it. The beast is just hungry."
"Isn't defending ourselves part of the natural order, as well?" I asked. "Surely we're not supposed to just let it eat us just because it's a wild animal."
"Of course we can defend ourselves, don't be daft. I just -ack-," Jaheira stopped because the bear gave her face a lick, causing her long hair to plaster up awkardly. She pushed its face away, straightened out her hair and held up a finger at the bear. "Hey. Quit it."
The cave bear slunk away, whimpering slightly.
Khalid smiled and gave his wife a kiss on the other cheek. The corners of Jaheira's mouth curled up, in spite of herself. "Stop it, I'm being stern right now. The bear won't take me seriously if I'm smiling," she said, trying to maintain a serious face.
Imoen drew in closer to take a look at the bear. "Awww. Now that it's not trying to eat us, it's actually kind of cute," Imoen said. "I wanna pet it!"
"Do NOT pet the bear!" Jaheira admonished her. "Wild animals are NOT pets. They need to preserve their natural instincts to survive, and should stay away from humans. We are just borrowing it to remove the foul threats in the area."
Huh. I guess wyverns don't count as part of the natural order.
Two hours wasn't short, but it was still a limited time so we didn't dally any further. Moving ahead, we scouted out a group of huge spiders, not nearly as big as giant or sword spiders but still venomous. We also spotted a large outcropping in the distant north with a cave.
"Do huge spiders count as foul creatures to be exterminated as well?" I asked Jaheira.
She made a face at me as if I was stupid. "Of course! Don't ask stupid questions."
I passed Branwen the bag of cow bones. "Three times, please."
As it turns out, she had only been using a piece of the bone to summon an entire skeleton all this time. Funny how magic works. Three skeleton rib cages from three different bulls gave us three different skeleton warriors, uh, skeleton bulls.
The huge spiders could barely harm any of the skeleton bulls, and were put down easily.
Next up was the cave in the large outcropping of rock. I took a look inside, and came out again, nodding my head. "This is it. I counted three baby wyverns and two fully grown ones."
Wyverns, as Coran mentioned, looked just like what one would expect dragons to look like since they were also winged reptiles. They main distinction being their barbed tail, which housed an incredibly vicious venom.
Baby wyverns were only the size of a bull. Adults were as large as a pickup truck. So yes, adults were leaps and bounds more threatening than the babies. The poison is the same, but they have a lot more life and a very impressive THAC0 of 9 instead of 14. That means they'll hit far more often, especially with that nasty barbed tail loaded with venom. With their great saving throws and flight, most spells would bounce right of them.
As Jaheira and Seniyad suggested, these foul creatures are actually evil. We would not need to use Protection from Evil against these evil beasts, however.
I popped into the cave silently, twirled out a bullet at the nearest wyvern, and ran before the bullet even connected. I heard a stirring of very angry wings behind me, beating furiously as the wyverns chased after me. As I ran out the cave, I gave one of the skeleton bulls a pat and ran past to join the rest of the party. We were all armed with ranged weapons, while the three skeleton bulls and our new bear buddy stood by to engage the oncoming wyverns in melee.
As soon as my team saw me, Jaheira and Branwen started incanting Bless and Chant respectively. The spells completed not long after the wyverns arrived. The wyverns, not caring what form their enemies were, attacked the awaiting skeleton bulls, slashing, clawing, biting and stabbing with their venomous tails.
"Focus on the baby wyvern on the right most side!" I commanded, pointing at the baby wyvern was engaged with the cave bear. We fired arrows, twirled out bullets, cast Magic Missiles at it, while Jaheira started incanting another spell. It took an arrow in one wing, a bullet to its gullet, another bullet right to the head, and finally three Magic Missiles bore holes into its body. The baby wyvern fell over, its wings still twitching and tail swinging about.
The two adult wyverns and a baby wyvern were menacing our skeleton bulls, but the bulls fought back with their horns. The wyverns may have been fierce, but without their poison a lot of their potency was missing.
Then Jaheira's spell completed; Strength of One. That boosted ALL allies' strength to 18/75, which gives +2 to hit and +3 to melee/sling damage. The effects were astounding, to say the least. The wyverns buckled under the sudden increase in pressure, and soon started to fall. One skeleton bull gored an adult wyvern with its horns, which looked at the bull in shock and agony from the impalement. The wyvern collapsed over the skeleton bull, and then was flung aside by the bull like a rag doll.
Meanwhile, our sling bullets flew out, a bullet to each remaining baby wyvern crushed bones and organs alike. Finally, the cave bear tore apart the last adult with its claws.
Amazingly, by the end of the combat, all three of our skeleton bulls and cave bear were still standing. We cut off the heads of an adult wyverns for the Temple's bounty at Beregost, and put it in my pack (damn they were heavy). Meanwhile the cave bear snacked on the meat.
We were just figuring out our next move when we heard the sounds of people marching towards us.
"The sound of fighting came from this direction!" came a cry, beyond some shrubbery north of us.
"Let's get them while they're still recovering!" came another.
Four armored men bearing swords and shields burst through the undergrowth, yelling, "Kill the interlopers!"
They stopped short at the sight of the carnage before them and our sheer numbers. Six adventurers, three skeletons, one cave bear, that's ten of us vs their four. The cave bear looked up from its meal with its snout covered in blood.
"Oh hey, I think we made a wrong turn," one of the men said while backing up.
"Yeah, mistaken identity. Carry on," another one said, stepping backwards and smiling nervously.
"Jaheira, what do you think?" I asked with a big grin.
Jaheira shook her head. "I don't think so," she said, then pointed at the men with her club. "Get 'em."
One beatdown later, the men were trussed up and questioning their choices in life. A bit of interrogation revealed they were guards hired to protect the mines, hired by the Iron Throne.
"Will the testimony of these men stand as evidence in a court of law?" I asked the rest.
Khalid and Jaheira shook their heads.
"So they are of no use to us, and they have given us nothing of use," I summarised. "What will happen to them if we bring them to justice?"
"Mining in these lands is the sole right of the Dukes of Baldur's Gate, so they are abetting a serious crime. Also, they would have murdered us if given the chance," Jaheira said. She glared at the men with cold eyes. "Any of the mentioned crimes will earn them a death sentence. I'd wager there's worse crimes at the mines itself."
"Doesn't feel too good to kill them while they're helpless," Imoen said. "But I won't argue that they deserve to die."
None of the rest of our party had any protests. The men themselves did, of course.
"Don't kill us!"
"We're sorry!"
"You won't see us again!"
"We wouldn't really have killed you!"
Imoen's eyes narrowed, and she put an arrow into the last guy's eye. He fell over, dead, while the rest of his friends looked in horror.
"I take it back, let's kill these idiots and move on," Imoen said, then grumbled aloud, "Stupid lying dirtbags think we're just as stupid."
"Time to feed the circle of life then," I said, and reached out to pet the bear on the back, but Jaheira glared at me. So instead, I gestured the bear towards the men. "Eat hearty!"
The bear licked its lips and lumbered over towards the crying men.
The cave had an unidentified wand which looked just like a Wand of Fear, but Neera would have to use an Identify spell to figure out how to work it properly. There was a set of plate mail as well, but seeing as how we hadn't even reached the mines yet we settled on leaving it for lighter loot in the future.
Since we our retinue was hardly diminished, we then went around hunting any remaining wyverns I the general area. We encountered eight total, which easily fell to our large numbers. Our skeletons had taken a serious beating and one was lost, but the cave bear survived so I sent it away with a full stomach. It was unlikely to bother us again, given how much it had eaten and how much food was lying around.