Back to the prisoner cells, I bushwhacked one guard just outside, and led the other into the waiting arms of my party. That took care of the prison guards.
However, around the corner, I could still hear sounds of people eating at the mess hall. How long were they going to stay there? Rather than have these people at our backs, we figured we should take them out.
Hareishan was a mage surrounded by many guards and even two Blacktalon Elites, who are crack-shots (Level 4, AC2 Thac0 11, APR 2.5) armed with Arrows of Ice and Arrows +1. Hareishan herself has a lot of powerful offensive spells at her disposal, including lightning bolt (9d6 damage) which would absolutely barbeque a lot of people in these tight quarters, probably including herself and other guards.
The party watched Sonny sneak around just outside the prison cells, peering towards the nearby mess hall. He was making rectangles with his fingers and looking through them, shaking his head, finding another angle.
They looked at each other, to check if any among them could figure it out, but all just shrugged.
Finally, Sonny smiled as he looked through his fingers. He looked to the party, pointed at Khalid and Jaheira to wait around the corner, ready to charge into the mess hall at a moment's notice. Then Sonny pointed at Branwen and Imoen to follow behind them, and finally beckoned Neera to come to where he was standing.
Neera came forward and put her hands up, palms facing upwards in the universal 'What? Why?' gesture. Sonny gripped her face and pointed her towards the mess hall.
Neera didn't see anything but a point in the middle of the mess hall at their angle.
"What? I don't see anything," she whispered to him, annoyed.
"Yes, that's the point," Sonny whispered back. "The room is full of people but you can only see middle of the room because of the angle. Meaning they can't see you either. Not while you are casting a spell aimed right there."
Neera's mouth formed an 'O' and she nodded. What spell should she cast? So many great options!
Neera settled on a simple Sleep spell, which worked wonders really. Even Blacktalon Elites are susceptible to the spell. We now had 4 Sleep spells left. Without numbers on her side, we easily whacked the living hell out Hareishan before she could get off her defensive spell of choice, Improved Invisibility. Too slow, Hareishan.
Notable loot:
12 Arrows of Ice, 20 Arrows +1,
Mage scrolls of Ghoul Touch, Haste, Potion of Explosions
While we were fighting Hareishan and her goons, the cook in the kitchen nearby fried up some hot tatters, and ate it out of a bowl while she watched us finish of the sleeping guards with a disinterested look on her face.
Once we were done with performing coup de grâce over and over, we took a breather and looked at the cook quizzically as she munched on hot chips lazily. The party looked at me, and I shrugged back at them.
Neera gave me an annoyed look and pointed me towards the woman.
Grumbling, I approached her and said, "Fair warning, we're going to drown this entire place. You'd better head out if you want to live."
The cook's bored expression never changed, even as put down her bowl of chips, took of her apron and dumped it to the table, and walked right out.
I guess some people are just like that? Adventurers and bandits come and go, but the help just keeps on going while the world passes them by.
Nearby, the stair to the third floor awaited us.
This time, the very entryway to the third floor was guarded by 4 swordsmen and 3 hobgoblins. Sleep spell reduced their numbers, giving us the edge. 3 Sleep spells left.
That first fight kind of set the tone for the rest of the floor.
The nearby northern room was a bedroom with just one angry guy. (Guess there are living quarters here too?) But after that we had to contend with a group of 8 hobgoblins, which we disabled using a Sleep spell, followed by yet another group of 8 hobgoblins and yet another use of Sleep. One Sleep spell left.
The room nearby the last group of hobgoblins was full of mutilated corpses. Even as I viewed it through my mirror on a stick, from the expressions on the bodies I could tell these people were alive when they were being mauled. There was nothing else visible in the room, but from memory I knew better.
We entered the room cautiously, and the rest were still surprised when a disembodied voice said, "Come to look at my handiwork? Rather impressive, ain't it? The guy to the left of me screamed quite a while before he finally expired. HA ha ha ha."
The accent sounded distinctly Asian. Well, Kara Tur in the Forgotten Realms.
"Invisible," I muttered aloud and nudged Neera.
Neera got the hint, and silently rummaged her pack for the scroll of Detect Invisibility. She hadn't prepared it herself so that's what the scroll is for.
Jaheira's face contorted into a snarl. "You disgusting animal. These poor souls shall be avenged!"
The voice laughed. "Take your best shot."
Sure, our mysterious assailant was invisible. But turns out he had cast regular Invisibility, not Improved. So as soon as he started casting a spell our invisible foe became fully visible, revealing an Ogre Magi. Neera didn't even need to use her scroll.
Oh well. "Branwen, Command."
And that's all she wrote.
Loot: Katana+1, some gems.
Unfortunately, we did not have time to bury these bodies with dignity. We closed their eyes and lay them properly to the side while saying a quick prayer, and moved on.
The final significant fight in this place was with another mage and her guards. This was Natasha, and she was pretty identical to Hareishan before her. She managed to get her Mirror Image off, but lots of Magic Missiles takes interrupts her next spell and removed enough images of her images to take her out before she could give us more problems. Unfortunately that did mean Neera couldn't cast Sleep as her opening spell, so in the mean time poor Khalid got hit with a poison arrow from one of the elite hobgoblins in spite of charging ahead quickly with the Boots of Speed. Nothing an Antidote and healing potion couldn't fix though.
By the time Neera could cast a second spell, the fight was nearly over with Natasha down and some of hobgoblins as well. So she held off casting it and we tanked and spanked the rest.
Loot: Traveler's Robe, mages scrolls of Ghoul Touch, Slow, Hold Person, and Mirror Image.
We had been leveling up throughout this particular adventure in Cloakwoods, and it was now Imoen's turn to hit level 7. I pushed her Find Traps to 80, the rest went into hide in shadows. I held off dual-classing her into a mage as we had not yet cleared the place of traps.
"We've been facing quite a few mages this time," Imoen said as we looted Natasha for her scrolls.
"And we've still got one more 'mean cuss' to go. I figure Davaeron is their master and we've been fighting all his apprentices," I replied.
A good thing too. As soon as Imoen makes the change, she's going to have a lot of scrolls to scribe.
We came across an altar, an actual altar to a god in the middle of an illegal mining operation full of innocent captives! It was guarded by a single man, who asked, "Are you here to pay homage to our dread lord?"
Jaheira sneered and was about to say something, but I gestured for her to be stop. "Yes, we are."
"Say our dread lord's name aloud in prayer," the guard demanded.
It's just one guy who we could take out easily. Still, I wanted to see if my guess was correct based on our previous encounter with Mulahey and the little amazons. "By the Black Sun of Cyric."
Folks who have played BG3 might have been expecting another answer, but keep in mind all of the Dead Three gods (Bane, the Lord of Darkness; Bhaal, the Lord of Murder; and Myrkul, the Lord of Bones) are actually still dead at this point in time. Nobody prayed to dead gods, normally. The Iron Throne primarily worships Cyric, god of lies.
…why would anyone want to do business with the Iron Throne?!?
Pleased with my answer, the guard left us to our own devices. So we looted the altar for potions.
There weren't too many hobgoblins in the south western room, so we held off Casting Sleep on this pack. What with the forge and anvils, it looked like this place was where they made and maintained their own weapons using their own iron storage.
There was a LOT of loot from containers on this floor, including an armory. There was simply too much to carry however since we had been through so many places before this, so we couldn't take it all.
Notable looted items from containers included:
Spear +1, Acid Arrow (×5), Arrow of Biting (×5)
Studded Leather Armor +1, Small shield+1, Plate mail (left behind)
Potion of Healing, Elixir of Health, Potion of Mirrored Eyes, Potion of Invulnerability, Potion of Strength (set to 18), Potion of Stone Giant Strength (set to 20), Potion of Fire Giant Strength (set to 22)
Mage scroll of Dispel Magic
There were even some locked containers I couldn't open which I knew had gems inside. I could have quaffed a Potion of Perception, but I figured I should leave these for the mean time until we had cleared most of the threats so I could open all the difficult locks at once.
We were supposed to be storming the place and we couldn't really stop to get a proper rest. But after every fight, our short breaks to catch our breath was growing longer and longer. We took our time to search the bodies for valuables, and left the rest.
I lost count of how many enemies we had defeated on this one floor alone. The initial seven at the entryway, a group of eight hobgoblins, another group of eight, Natasha's group of how many again? Together with the odd lone guard here and there and the hobgoblins in the forge, I think we put down nearly 40 enemies just here. If we included the earlier levels, the number of enemies we defeated in the Cloakwood base is easily more than 50.
Our arms had long grown sore just from hitting people. Now, our arms were trembling from exertion. This couldn't go on for much longer.
Thankfully, the fourth and final floor awaited ahead. There, a powerful mage lay in wait behind multiple layers of traps, already buffed with Mirror Images and Protection from Normal Missiles.