Baldur's Gate: The Zero Reload Saga

We now enter into what is possibly the most needlessly elaborate assassination mission ever.

Let me just give you the rundown here. Xzar, whom we spoke to earlier, is a necromancer working with the criminal organisation known as the Zhentarim, making him an enemy of the Harpers. Recently, he’s been manufacturing freakish, undead monstrosities such as flesh golems and ghasts, which he then sells off as bodyguards (I presume) to the highest bidder. The Harpers don’t want that shit going down in Athkatla, so they’ve planned to kill Xzar to put a stop to it.

Simple enough so far, right?

Well, here’s apparently how they planned to do it. You'd think that they could just sneak up on him and plant a poisoned knife in his back, given that he's just standing there in the street with no accomplices and no protection. But oh no. That's not how the Harpers work, you see. They're clever and subtle.

Therefore, what they intend to do is to lure me into their stronghold (possibly by getting one of their friends poisoned and leaving them for me to find) and wait for me to break into the room that they expressly tell me not to enter on numerous occasions because it's too dangerous. Once I'm up there, the plan relies on me going into their aviary for no reason, stuffing some random bird into my pack just because it decides to settle in my hand, going back outside and bringing the bird to Xzar just on the off chance that it happens to be a polymorphed halfling thief. Xzar is then supposed to dispel the magic and turn the bird back into a person, except that instead of Montaron, it turns out to be an assassin who kills him, essentially meaning that after all that trouble, they just ended up falling back on the tried and tested routine of sneaking up on him and stabbing him.

What. The. Fuck.

It’s no wonder the Harpers never actually get anything worthwhile done in this game with schemes like that. This is to plotting as Rube Goldberg machines are to engineering.

“Guys, we need to make a grocery run. Here’s what we’re gonna do. You go and plant some gold on one of the peasants around here. Then, lure him out into a dark alleyway in the docks so that the Shadow Thieves mug him and take the gold. Then, we infiltrate the Shadow Thieves guild, posing as one of the big wigs, and order the thief that stole the gold we gave to the peasant to go and pick up the groceries we need. Then, we just need to get one of our agents to break in, steal the groceries and bring them back. It’s foolproof!”

Just the thought that Jaheira actually associates with these people makes me sick.

Before we can embark on this helter-skelter of stupidity, though, the Harpers want us to go to someone’s house and kill everything inside before they’ll let us in the building.

Sounds fair to me. MURDERIN’ TIME.