Baldur's Gate: The Zero Reload Saga

With the zombie gone, we now take the opportunity to loot the sarcophagus in here, which earns us a nice little item; the Staff of Curing. As you might expect, this offers a healing functionality, restoring 6-21 hit points a shot and also wiping away disease and poison. Unfortunately this isn't an "X times a day" deal; using the healing costs a charge, so we're going to have to use this sparingly.

In addition to that, it's also a pretty good weapon at this early stage. It's got a +2 enchantment and it also confers a bonus of 2 to AC while it's equipped. Unfortunately it can only be used by divine spellcasters, so we can't give it to Vespero; instead it's going to Jaheira for now.

With these quests out of the way, it's high time we got some rest. Korgan's still hurting and Viconia hasn't had the chance to memorise any spells yet, so 8 hours of shut-eye will be just what the doctor ordered.

But what's this? As soon as we set foot in the promenade, we come across some Shadow Thieves getting their asses kicked by a vampire.

As much as I'd like to jump in and kill the vampire, we literally only have one weapon that can harm it right now, and that's Arbane's Sword, which nobody can use properly except Jan. (The Staff of Curing is only +1, not +2 as I said in my earlier post.) Also, the Cowled Wizards will skin us alive if we cast any spells out here and Viconia's Turn Undead isn't going to do jack, so we just have to stand back and watch.

It's just a good thing we hadn't already amassed the 15000 gold and sided with the Shadow Thieves, because otherwise the vampire would have attacked us here and then we'd have been in real trouble.

It's not all bad, though. She hasn't grasped the concept of looting your dead enemies' bodies yet, so that means we get to take all the cool stuff they dropped; an assortment of fairly valuable gems and a scroll of Contingency; once again, magical scrolls being carried around by people that have no business owning them.

Speaking of scrolls, we had Vespero scribe a few more before we bedded down for the night, and he just barely scraped a level-up by a mere 17 experience points. Only three more to go before his amnesia vanishes, he remembers how to use a sword and becomes a useful party member again!

Stupid dual-class memory loss.

Anyway, with our party fully healed and a new day upon us, where shall we go to next?

Answer: To the city gates, and the Crooked Crane inn. Why? I'll explain when we get there.