One of the thugs we just killed had a scroll of Haste on him. Hot diggity.
After scribing this (successfully this time) and a few other scrolls, Jan levels up in Illusionist, earning himself 1 extra level 1-2 spell and two extra level 3-4 spells. Nice. That gives us room for one Greater Malison and one Improved Invisibility, on top of Stoneskin.
When we're done fiddling with our spellbooks, we head on down and hand this guy (who, incidentally, only weighs 50 pounds; that must be one hell of a poison) to the man standing in front of the orange building, as instructed.
But here's where he screwed up. There are two orange buildings in the Docks district. One of them is the Harper compound, or "Galvarey's Estate", which is the one he wanted to be taken to.
The other is the Shadow Thief guildhall.
Now, Mr. Renfeld, let's assume that we're "in-character" here and we don't have the ability to psychically determine everyone's name by letting our finger hover over them for a few seconds. What if we'd chosen the wrong building? Here's how it would have happened:
"Excuse me, I'm looking for someone. This guy's been poisoned and he asked me to take him to an orange building in the Docks district. Are you Rylock?"
"Why yes. Yes I am. Thank you for bringing him here. I'll take good care of him."
And then you would have been taken inside, stripped of all your possessions, trussed up in a sack and dumped into the ocean to die.
So, would it have killed you to be a little more specific? No. I think you'll find that the exact opposite is true.
We were one step away from this actually happening the first time I played the game, too, because I did choose the wrong building, and then I ended up wandering all over the guildhall looking for this "Rylock" person like an idiot, before I realised that there was another orange building that I could go to. You're lucky that none of the Shadow Thieves' dialogue takes you into account, you son of a bitch.
Anyway, with that out of the way, Xzar appears from out of nowhere, hence the title of this post.
The reason "Friend" is in quotes is that I didn't actually play through the first game as Vespero, so I can't actually say if he ever travelled with Xzar or not. He probably didn't, though. Xzar is OK, but he's part of a package deal with Montaron, who isn't OK. If you're playing a power game then you can maybe get away with having one average/mediocre NPC, but not two.
Plus I don't like either of them.
Incidentally, I also don't remember Xzar being as crotchety and condescending as he is here. In the first game he was a complete lunatic and barely coherent at the best of times, but in a strange kind of way, he was also fairly mellow. In this game he's basically just a watered-down version of Edwin. What happened?
In any event, it turns out that Montaron has been taken captive by the Harpers we just spoke to, and Xzar wants us to go and get him back. Never mind how he knows they're Harpers or how he knows we were talking to them. He's a non-party NPC, which means he gets to "just know" whatever he damn well pleases.
We agree to find him, which, for some reason, Jaheira doesn't seem to mind. And she really should.
More D&D history: The Zhentarim are a criminal organization that are involved in all kinds of eeeeevil doings. This puts them at serious odds with the Harpers, who, despite their sometimes questionable methods, are basically concerned with doing the right thing and acting as a force of good in the world.
Xzar is with the Zhentarim. Jaheira is with the Harpers. You are being asked to perform a task that will aid the Zhentarim and hinder the Harpers. All she has to say about this is "Be careful", and then she happily aids you in committing an act that will compromise the security of her allies.
Loyalty is a fine thing.
It's getting late and I'm getting tired, so that's going to be all for tonight. Tomorrow we finish what we attempted to start, and the mystery of why I intend to go to the Crooked Crane will finally be solved.
This is Lorph Halys, and you've been reading Baldur's Gate: The Zero Reload Saga. Thank you, and goodnight.
That explanation I offered is going to have to wait, because we got ambushed again on our way to the city gates.
Well, I say “ambushed”. In truth we stumbled across a group of thugs standing around a man lying on the ground, and they shouted “THERE MUST BE NO WITNESSES KILL THEM ALL BLAAAAGH” and attacked.
This was a mistake for two reasons.
Firstly, even if you absolutely had to permanently silence anyone who happened to spot you here, rather than just playing it cool and making it look like you weren’t doing anything suspicious, would you really go bellowing something like “Kill them all for we must leave no witnesses!” Don’t you think that’s a bit likely to draw more attention from other people that you will also have to kill now? Why not just go out and slaughter the whole city?
I suppose it's possible that they panicked, but that excuse only carries you so far. I mean, if someone's seriously acting like they're on to you then fine, but we're just a bunch of people minding our own business, on our way to an inn. You aren't going to blurt out "I AM PREGNANT AND A HEROIN ADDICT AND I HAVE SYPHILLIS AND NOW I MUST KILL YOU BECAUSE NOBODY CAN EVER KNOW" just because your mother calls and asks how you're doing.
Man, that was a rough period of my life.
Secondly, they’re utter, utter wimps that don’t even carry any weapons. They’re so easy to kill it’s pathetic. I mean, I can literally just set everyone’s script to “Standard Attack” and turn Party AI on and go to the kitchen for a sandwich, then come back and find that they’re all dead and not a single one of my party members has been hit.
With that joke of a battle over and done with, the man lying on the ground addresses me, telling me that he’s been poisoned and needs me to take him to his friends…because in D&D, any poisoning that happens as part of a quest rather than in battle is almost invariably incurable by conventional means.
Now, think about this situation for a second. The man has been poisoned. It’s fairly safe to assume that the thugs we just killed were responsible for this. It’s also a lethal poison, so they obviously had murder on their minds.
Can you see where I’m going with this?
If you want someone dead and you’re in a position to pour poison down their throat or stab them with a poisoned dagger or however they planned to accomplish this, why the HELL would you bother with poison in the first place instead of just killing them then and there? He’s lying there, on the ground, in front of you, unable to fight back, and you want him dead. This is not rocket science, people. Stab him.
Oh wait, you can’t do that because you didn’t bring any weapons, can you? Well, that explains it. You aren’t succumbing to the evil mastermind’s weakness of dispatching one’s foes in needlessly elaborate ways; you’re just the most incompetent murderers ever.
I can just about see how this all went down.
“OK Jimmy, I got him! I got him! Quick, cut his throat!”
“OK, uh…who was supposed to bring the swords?”
“What’re you looking at me for? It was Carl’s turn this week.”
“The hell it was!”
“Crap. OK, I gotta run to the store and get some poison. Don’t let him go anywhere.”
"Hold on, hold on. If you're going to the store, get me some chips."
"OK, well..."
"Me too! I want some chips."
"Alright, I'll just get us one of the big bags and we can..."
"No, I want the hot and spicy flavour. You guys always get the cheesy ones."
"Screw you, Carl."
"Uh, do you guys want me to get dip, or...oh shit, someone's coming! KILL THEM ALL FOR YOU KNOW WE MUST LEAVE NO WITNESSES!"
Bottom line: Because of these people’s stupidity, we’ve now got to haul someone’s sorry carcass over to a building in the Docks. I assume that he dies if you take too long about this, (I’ve never actually tried it, but I’m not taking the chance now) so it’s time for a quick detour.
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.
"Mama?" asks the little halfling ghost as we approach. "Mama, is that you?"
I can only assume that his eyesight isn't that great.
Either that or he was going to grow up a very, very confused boy.
In any event, we return his bear to him and he WETURNS TO HIS GWAVE. In return, we receive a small amount of XP. Some other people may also get a warm, fuzzy feeling from this, but neither I nor Vespero are the type for such things.
Plus I've done this quest about a hundred time before. Any warm fuzziness it may have had to give has since been sucked dry.
And on the topic of an entirely different variety of warm fuzziness, we now return to the mouldy zombie's crypt to bear witness to the most laughably stomach-churning moment we're going to experience in this play-through. Yep, after a brief conversation, Baisera happily obliges and plants a big old wet one right on his decayed lips and he passes on, collapsing to the ground with a loud, protracted groan.
Must have been a good one.
Anyway, after this, Baisera talks to us again. We're given a number of dialogue options here and all of them effectively work as a "Yeah, OK, we're done here, goodbye, and just as a sidenote that was pretty goddamned gross" response...except one. We have the choice of giving her 500 gold pieces to help her get back on her feet, since apparently she sold her house and quit her job and blew all her cash on hookers and hallucinogens.
But here’s the thing. This does nothing. No matter what we say here, even if we call her an idiot and tell her she deserved it, we get a reputation boost and 10000 experience, so all this option does is deprive us of 500 gold. So, you know, no.
What exactly was the point of including it, then? Usually whenever you do something like this you get a little extra experience or a slightly better reward, which is fair enough; you're basically exchanging the money for something useful. But here, what? We're paying imaginary money for more warm fuzzies? No thanks. I'll just keep my imaginary money and use it to buy imaginary items, if it's all the same to you.
With the thief brought to harsh justice, it’s time for mission 2. Heading through the first secret door located in the downstairs corridor, we come to a carpeted room filled with brightly coloured pillows of all shapes and sizes. Its occupants include a man sitting slouched in a chair with his legs parted wide, and an exhausted dwarf lying flat on his back.
I don’t know what’s been going on in here and I don’t care to.
More importantly, this room contains the woman we’re looking for: Baisera. Before talking to her I once again have to take my headphones off because of awful voice acting.
I don’t quite know how to describe this one. Her first line is “Go away…leave me alone, I beg you,” and presumably she’s supposed to sound pained and depressed. However, the actor isn’t remotely convincing, so what you end up hearing is someone who’s trying to feign a pained and depressed voice and failing miserably.
Still, perhaps I’m making an assumption I should not be making here. Perhaps she was supposed to sound like she was trying to fake it. After all, she obviously wasn’t particularly upset about her husband’s death if she immediately took the opportunity to go and sample a high life of sex, slaves and drugs, so perhaps she’s trying to convince us otherwise so that we don’t judge her.
Oh yeah, I didn’t mention the drugs, did I? Apparently she’s become a black lotus junkie. For those who don’t know, black lotus is occasionally referred to and hinted at being a potent and highly illegal drug in this game…although interestingly, in later editions, its extract was made into a lethal poison. That would certainly explain the killer headache she seems to be having.
We have the opportunity to taunt her by rubbing the fact that her husband is now an accursed zombie in her face at this point, but as tempting as that is, she refuses to talk to you from that point on and you can’t finish the quest, so we won’t do that. Instead we tell her about his fate and agree to meet her at the graveyard, because lord knows I certainly wouldn’t want to go smooching a zombie without a shifty and mentally unstable stranger with me as a chaperone.
Before she goes, Vespero says “You’ll thank me for this later, you know.” Yes. Quite. I’m sure she’ll be just overflowing with gratitude after she contracts whatever variety of illnesses you can catch from French-kissing rotting meat.
As a parting note, she tells us not to take too long, since she isn’t going to wait around in the graveyard all day…which is fair enough, since we’re going straight there, but I’m pretty sure this is a lie and she is more than happy to wait there all day, all week, or even all month, because just like all NPCs she lacks any sort of initiative and requires the presence of a protagonist to accomplish anything. Know your place, woman.
We still doing this? We still doing this.
When we last left our at least marginally intrepid heroes, they were in the Coronet, and had just convinced Lehtinan to allow them to partake of the exclusive entertainments offered by his seedy tavern.
The bouncer, when we approach, tells us to “Be no trouble and I won’t have to break yer head.” Little does he know. We assure him that we are absolutely certain that he will not be breaking our heads in any way and move on, leaving him to mull over the double entendre.
One thing I always make a point of doing when I first gain access to the back rooms of the CC is to go and watch the pit fight that takes place. As far as I know, doing this doesn’t have any effect on the game, but I always go nevertheless. Why? Because in spite of my better judgement and all my past experience, I sitll hold out the hope that one day, through a sheer, one-in-a-billion stroke of luck, the dwarven gladiator will actually manage to beat the troll.
Alas, not this time. Once again I must go unfulfilled until my next play-through.
We’re going to get the bear first, so we go upstairs and start barging into other people’s rooms at random until we come across the one containing the gentleman we are looking for. Of course he has nothing to say about this apparently unwarranted intrusion until we actually choose to speak to him, which gives us plenty of time to hide Jan (after a couple of failed attempts) and position him behind the thief.
Jan, with his strength of 9 and relatively low thief level isn’t much of a backstabber, of course, but this guy really isn’t a problem to kill anyway, so I’m mostly just doing it for the fun.
As it turned out, though, once we’d told him we were here to avenge the murdered child (a blatant lie: we just wanted the bear back, but since we’re here we might as well kill him and take his stuff too) and the fight started, Jan actually ended up doing most of the damage. After the backstab, he hit several more times and scored a critical, with Jaheira only landing a single, glancing blow and Korgan doing little but demolishing the door frame with throwing axes.
We killed him for the experience and because I said I’d kill everything I could, of course, but also because he has an emerald in his desk, as well as a couple of scrolls.
And hey, as long as we’re stealing stuff, we might as well go and filch the Gloves of Pickpocketing (how very apt) from the room adjacent to this one. Once again, the room’s occupant doesn’t really seem to give a damn.
We won’t have occasion to use these gloves since Jan has a pair that do exactly the same thing and more, but we can make a bit of gold off selling them.
After spending some time poking at this, I decided to just leave well alone. My attempts to fix things only seemed to worsen the matter, so I'm not going to keep pulling at the thread until the whole shirt falls apart, so to speak.
All the posts are still there. There are a couple of instances of transposition, but I'm sure everyone's smart enough to know what order they're supposed to be read in. (HINT: CHRONOLOGICAL.) I'll just start adding titles from this point onwards.
Unfortunately I've gone and squandered the time I was supposed to spend playing the game on trying to iron out this annoying little oddity, so there aren't going to be any further updates today.
Tune in tomorrow, however, when we will be committing wanton acts of violence, performing an exorcism and subtly pushing broken, tormented maidens towards necrophilia. You cannot afford to miss it!
Literally. You can't afford it. I have your bank account details and I intend to dock you into overdraft if I don't see your IP address tomorrow.
This is Lorph Halys, and you've been reading Baldur's Gate: The Zero Reload Saga. Thank you, and goodnight.
