Baldur's Gate: The Zero Reload Saga

For people that were so easily killed, this group has some damn fine loot on them, the most notable of which is Arbane’s Sword. Chances are we’ll be keeping this around for the rest of the game. The only one proficient with it is Jan, of course, but we’re more interested in its added effect: Free Action. This will be a tremendous help in dealing with those pesky Hold Person spells.

Hold Person, of course, is just one of many spells that always seems to decimate your party when it gets cast on them, but never, ever works when you use it on anything except, say goblins. You know. Creatures that there is no point in wasting spells of any kind on.

From their names, we can deduce that the people who attacked us were slavers. I can only assume that this was their first day on the job, because otherwise they’d probably be much more savvy in their choice of targets. Oh yes, there are harmless commoners and unguarded merchants everywhere you look in this city, but no, let’s attack this armed, armoured and generally well-equipped party of adventurers that maintains a cohesive formation at all times, one of whom is walking around covered in a layer of stone and is therefore quite obviously a wizard of some kind. Hurrrrr.

It’s not like you get taken captive if they beat you, either. You die. They kill your whole party without hesitation. Generally speaking, guys, I don’t know if you realised this, but the kinds of slaves that tend to be most in demand are living ones.

Hell, I don’t know. Maybe they were just trying to expand their target market group out to the necrophile population of Athkatla.

Anyway, aside from the sword, we also get a bunch of +1 arrows that nobody can use, a Mace +1 (just the ticket, given that I forgot to pick up a melee weapon for Vic) and enchanted plate mail. We give this to Jaheira, who surrenders the Mail of the Dead to Viconia. There’s also a stack of scrolls on the mage, although none of them really have any spells I would have liked; say, for example, STONESKIN or HASTE.

Since there isn’t anything there that I couldn’t stand to lose, I just go ahead and scribe them all right away. All we end up losing is Shocking Grasp. Woe.

We’re done here, so we’ll patch Korgan up (again) and resume our trip to the promenade.