Finding the bandit camp turned out to be very easy. I met a bandit whom I surrendered to and I asked to join up. He immediately agreed to bring me to the leaders and led us there. At the camp, I met one of the leaders, Tazok. I realised that our one-time member, Kivan had mentioned that his wife was killed by Tazok. Unfortunately I did not have the chance to take vengance for him, but it was a matter of time… Anyway, he was convinced that I wanted to join and let us wander around the camp while waiting for new instructions.

I took this opportunity to snuck around the camp. I found the tent of Tazok (the biggest one really) and entered it. I killed the guards inside and freed a prisoner who told me that the Iron Throne was behind everything. They wanted to disrupt the iron trade in the Sword Coast using bandits and poisoning the Nashkel mine. They controlled a secret mine deep in Cloakwood and would release iron from there once iron became really expensive due to the lack of supply. A rather ingenious plan if I do say so myself. Though how it connects to me is unclear.

After this I took out the rest of the bandits, killing all of them. There’s a reward for their heads and this bloodthirsty deed needed to be done.

 

There’s no roof to this world. – Viconia

Xianer likes Viconia and thinks that she is a competent cleric and likes the fact that she is somewhat resistant to magic.

Background

When asked about her past, VICONIA reveals (quite proudly) that she is a dark elf from the Underdark city of Menzoberranzan. She says very little about her reasons for leaving that sunless realm, though separations of such a nature are never gentle.

She does claim to no longer worship the spider goddess Lolth, a change that even you know is often fatal. Her new faith is in the night goddess Shar, an appropriate choice for a drow, though this is not a firm indication that she has given up the brutal ways of her people.

She finds the laws of the surface world quaint and more than a little strange, but this is simply because of her lack of experience. Likewise, she seems a bit naive about how her race is viewed by surface-dwellers. Many will not give her the chance she seems to expect, and even being seen with her may affect how people think of you.
You know that as a drow, she has resistance to magic.

As I was Peldvale Forest which was south of the rumoured location of the Bandit Camp, I met a Drow. It was indeed a strange sight to see one so far away from their underground home. In fact, this was the first dark elf I had ever seen in my life. She was being chased by a Flaming Fist – not my favourite group – they tend to be too bossy. The Flaming Fist wanted to kill the dark elf just because she was one. That sounds rather crazy? Anyway, since I killed the Flaming Fist. The dark elf  wanted to join us. I decided to take her in on a whim. I heard that they are rather resistant towards magic.

On the way to the camp, I was challenged by a female warrior who only wanted to fight men. Unwilling to back down by a random challenge, Kivan agreed and defeated the warrior. She introduced herself as Shar-teel and I decided to accept her despite her less then stellar performance against Kivan.

To my shock, Kivan actually ended up petrified into stone while Shar-teel distinguished herself in the next hour or so. We ended up fighting a whole bunch of basilik. I believed we should have died, if not for the fact that a ghoul tried to befriend us. Can you imagine it? Needless to say, the ghoul helped us with all the petrifying attacks while we killed all of them with arrows and slings. It was too simple in the end. Except for Kivan who charged in and a stray petrifying attack took him out. In the end, we all decided to leave Kivan as a statue though Imoen tried her best to persuade us.

As we moved northwards towards the camp, we encountered a group of Red Wizards. They attacked us, claiming that they needed to keep their location secret. Needless to say, they did not surive their encounter with us.

 

It was time to deal with Tranzig as our mission to save Dynaheir was done. I decided that it was best to part ways with Dynaheir and Minsc given their disapproval with the archaelogical dig incident. We wished each other well and Imoen, Branwen, Neera and I left for Beregost to look for Tranzig.

At long last we arrived at Beregost and headed straight to Feldepost’s Inn. Just as we expected, Tranzig was still around. We gave him no quarter as he had not given any to Branwen. With his death, we helped Branwen take her revenge on him. And we found location of the Bandit’s Camp from the letters he left behind.

Seeing that we were low on supplies, we decided to stock up. We also decided to go to High Hedge to visit Thalantyr the Conjurer. On the way, we met with Kivan, who asked to join us. I accepted him as he confided in us that he wanted to seek revenge on Tazok, a bandit leader.

Once we were satisfied with our supplies, we headed west out of Bergost, intending to move towards the location of the camp.

We have finally reached the Gnoll Stronghold and it does contain good treasure! The best is a legendary Tome Of Leadership and Influence, which helped me a lot. However, this was unfortunately for the Gnolls (and Xvarts, who seemed to be the allies of the Gnolls) living there – I had to slaughter all the brutes to get to their treasure. Of course I rescused Minsc’s friend, Dynaheir who turned out to be a decent mage after giving her some time to recupurate and memorise some spells.

After leaving the fortress, I moved up slightly north as it seemed nearer then the way I came from. The place was full of Orges and Orge Berserkers and I made sure my party was very careful to engage only small bands of them so as not to bring the entire tribe on us.

I stumbled upon some archaeological site. I was thinking to myself – I am an archaeologist as well, just a few days back, I cleared a bunch of tombs of their treasure! One of the owners, Charleston paid me to stay for the night to guard against the bandits. His partner, Gallor, spoke to me privately and wanted to pay me to kill Charleston and his workers so that he could steal the artifact. I turned him down. I am not a murderer. Anyway, from all the description, it looks like this treasure is worth a lot. I need to get it myself. I guess I have to find an opportunity to steal it.

That night, however, something went wrong with the dig. Charleston’s workers went crazy and I had to kill all of them. Charleston speculated that whatever was inside the tomb was cursed and ordered all of us out and he’ll seal the tomb to protect others from the danger. When he was busy, I quickly grabbed a small statue and hid it under my cloak. Just as I was leaving, an ancient being approached demanding the return of the treasue. I was not going to give up my spoils so easily. It was a tough fight as it was invulnerable to non-magical weapons. Fortunately, Dynaheir was around to boost our magical firepower and we were able to expand all our Magic Missile spells at it (yes, me included – I had to scramble to unhook my armour!) Dynaheir and Minsc was livid that I took something out from the tomb, but they could do nothing about it.

Just as were were nearing Nashkel, we stumbled upon the disgraced former Captain of the Nashkel guard, Brage. He had a bounty on his head but I knew I could not collect that as the bounty officer was still upset at me for impersonating Greywolf. Fortunately, Nalin, the temple priest had told me that he was willing to reward me for bringing Brage to him. Brage actually confronted me and asked me a strange riddle. He quietly let me bring him to Nalin when I answered the riddle successfully. It was a fair reward for a relatively simple task.

We were handsomely rewarded for starting up the mines. I have to say I love the jingle of coin in my coin pouch. Jaheira wanted to quickly move to Beregost to confront Tanzig. It was at this time I met Minsc. He told us that he had a friend who was captured by the Gnolls and kept as a prisoner. I was really interested in raiding the stronghold as I had read that Gnolls love to scavenge treasures. If they were so strong to establish a stronghold, they might have riches I that should belong to me.

Given our different objectives, I proposed to Jaheira that we go our separate ways. I told her I intend to go to Beregost after I had saved the lady. Jaheira could proceed ahead of us if she wanted to. Jaheira reluctantly agreed. To be honest, I find her a good mentor, but she is very bossy.

Together with Minsc, I set off towards the Gnoll Stronghold. I stumbled upon a Xvart village and the village decided to attack my party without provocation. I had no choice but the kill every single one of them. The bloodshed did not make me sick even though I must have personally killed 20 over Xvarts. I wonder my real father, the god of murder, would be pleased with his daughter.

Also, I bumped a Dryad that was cornered by two ruffians and asked for my help. I insisted on payment and even though she kept saying she did not have any treasures, she finally gave in and pointed out a cave where some treasure could be found. The bitch. I dispactched the two thugs and proceeded to the cave where I found some magical items. Really nice.

 

After I exited Nashkel Mine, I met with the most dangerous assassins so far. Yes, you read it right. Assassins. Not one, but four of them. The only reason we survived was because of Neera and Imoen. Neera’s Charm Person spell made one of them join us for a short time. Imoen drank an Invisibility Potion and manged to plunge her sword deep behind the back of one of their members, taking her down in one thrust. Even then, most of us took serious injuries. My unseen enemy (Saverok, maybe?) is taking us seriously.

Anyway, we found ourselves in a location unknown to us. But based on our map, we were west of Nashkel. We tried to go back to the mines but the cave had collasped. We had no choice but to trek back. On our way back, we realised that the area was filled with tombs. Deciding that there might be treasure in these tombs, we explored them. Well, there was treasure alright, but we had to brave the undead. It was not easy but we survived.

It was also at this point I felt that I had gain enough experience as a warrior to start trying my rudimentary magical skills. I can still cast the spells I had originally learnt, so that’s great news for me!

We finally made our way back to the mines. The owner and guards were surprised that we pop up above ground. In fact, they thought we had perished! They were overjoyed. Now to go back to Nashkel to collect my promised reward.

After packing the two gems into my gem pouch, I proceeded to the mine. I spoke to the owner of the mine who gave me permission to explore it. Inside, I spoke to a couple of miners who told me that the mine was infested with ‘demons’, especially at the lower floors.

I went down and discovered a section where the miners and the guards had basically abandoned – it was full of dead bodies. And I was attacked by kobolds. After dispatching them, I followed the trail of kobolds and went down two more levels, killing even more kobolds before I finally found the lair of the mastermind – a priest of Cyric named Mulahey.

He summoned a bunch of skeletons and kobolds but we made short work of him and his minions. Before he died, we managed to make him reveal some information. He is working for somebody named Tazok and was corresponding with somebody named Tanzig. Branwen threw a fit when she heard the name – it was the bandit that turned her to stone when she realised that she was working with bandits and wanted out. Looks like there is a link between the bandits and the iron shortage.

I discovered a back door to the mines and I decided to leave from there, just to see where it led to.

Before I entered the mines, I wondered about a bit. The bounty hunter officer had mentioned that a bounty was put on recovering two big matching emeralds from Prism, a local artise. I had hoped to locate and collect the bounty, knowing that he was last seen near the mines. When I found him, he was finishing up the last touches of a magnificient statute. He thought I was Greywolf (do I look like him?) and begged me to let him complete his project. Curious on how the finished piece of art would look like, I agreed.

Unfortunately, Greywolf turned up just as he was about to finish. He realised that I had taken a bounty off him and attacked me. He was certainly a well-trained figher and we only prevailed because there were six of us.

Prism completed his statute soon after Gerywolf had been killed. Then Prism collapsed on the ground, dead because of exhaustion. Well, it was certainly a magnificent piece of art with those two brilliant green emerald eyes. I thought that it would be more maginificent if the two gems belonged to me so I pried them out. I am sure Prism’s work will always be remembered – with or without those two gems.