Planning Ahead

Feminina O'Ladybrain

Jun 28

Spoilers for some side stuff in the Dragonspear expansion for Baldur's Gate

Butch:

Sometimes, you play and you get a lot done and you have a sense of satisfaction. Sometimes, you play and you get a lot done and you have regret. I have regret.

I found Skie, talked to her, started regretting what I said. Found vampire hunters. That went down, and I have regrets. Found Rasaad and a scroll and, well, nothing, really, just did that. No regrets on that. Gave the halfling back all his cool stuff. Regret. Did the fight at the bridge, talked to Caelar, I have regrets.

Man, I want to go back and do every conversation differently. But, even if I did that, I'd want to go back to do it the way I just did.

RPGs, man. RPGs.

Feminina:

Yeah, there are so many things you wonder about.

I did all those things too. Talked to Skie, she seemed OK with the realization that maybe her father is trying to keep her safe because he lost her brother and doesn't want to lose her too.

Sided with the vampire, not sure how I feel about that, but he was trying to talk and they weren't! I love talking to things! I couldn't in good conscience just kill something that hadn't attacked me and was trying to talk. I have standards. Weird, arbitrary standards, but I have them.

So I killed the vampire hunters instead and left the vampire to presumably continue preying on the countryside. Way to go, me. Got the trophy for "he's just misunderstood" which feels like a jokey way to say "he's not misunderstood at all, he's totally preying on the countryside you idiot," but who knows.

Met Rasaad, went back to camp, gave the halfling his stuff and then said indignantly, "I return your priceless heirlooms and all I get is thanks?" and he said "OK, keep one of them," so I kept the shield. Gave it to Minsc, I think. That mirror was pretty sweet, and someone had been enjoying the cloak, but...they were all good, really.

I actually did the fight at the bridge and talked to Caelar a while ago, then decided to keep poking around the woods and try to finish the dungeon before moving on, so I've kind of forgotten what I said to her...I didn't have any particular feelings about it. Remind me of the conversation?

Butch:

I don't know. Skie just called me BORING and stormed off. What brother? This was just her killing two dudes, me all "Uh, maybe don't do that?" and her storming off. She sure seemed to be murdering those dudes.

HA! I did the same thing with the vampire! He was all "What you don't even know my name and you want me dead?" I was trying, people! I wanted a fair assessment of the situation, man! I was assessing! I don't feel too bad, though, as those guys stole that shield. Let's be clear: When I take something, I'm looting. When they take something, it's stealing.

Hey, maybe the vampire is just misunderstood. Though I'm a little nervous about waiting for his messenger.

You monster. I gave the villager his stuff without a thought. He gave me a dart. It's not identified. Maybe it's a hell of a dart.

Oh, and I dumped Safana at camp and am running with Rasaad. He can find traps! I'm not sure he can disarm them, but he can find them!

More regret.

Caelar was just explaining what her thing was all about, about how she's trying to, what, raise the dead? Save the dead? Something? And you had varying levels of agreeing or saying "That's madness!" at your disposal. It sounds like madness. It does. I leaned towards "that's madness!" As one does.

I still have no idea where your troll cave is.

Feminina:

Dude, the troll cave is right to the east of where we met Skie! Opposite direction from the vampire hunters. Wander over there. I mean, wander over there if you want to fight trolls. Some people, understandably, would prefer not to.

Ah, I must have taken a more conciliatory tone with Skie. I said something like "you're bold to come out alone, but the military has rules about that for a reason," and somehow it moved to "oh yeah, my brother was killed in battle," and "maybe that's why my dad is so protective of me, his only remaining child," and she went off rather thoughtful.

That IS a hell of a dart! It does acid damage, and magically returns to the thrower! I gave it to M'Khiin, who has been constantly lacking a ranged weapon. Still, I'll take the shield too.

I do remember Caelar's plan to resurrect all the dead from the...Dragonspear war? Some war that killed a lot of people. I think I went with something like "yes, that sounds nice but it'll never work."

Which, come on, it won't. I mean, I've had plenty of companions raised from the dead myself and they're just fine now, so I know it can be done, which makes it hard to say it's complete nonsense. You can't reasonably look someone in the eye and say "the dead are gone and we need to accept that and work on coming to terms with our terrible loss" when I flatly refuse to come to terms with the loss of random goblins I've known for 20 minutes who happened to be traveling with me because I wanted someone who could cure light wounds.

However, I've also fought plenty of undead, including a whole dungeonful very recently, so I know that summoning the dead from their graves can go terribly wrong. Batch-raising thousands of people at once sounds like a great recipe for an undead army to me. It's unclear whether Caelar Argent genuinely thinks she can bring everyone back all whole and fine, or whether she's just saying that while planning on controlling the undead army, but either way, you just know it's not going to go well.

Butch:

What? When I left to go back to camp, I got a "you have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself," which really means "You have been waylaid by enemies so run away ASAP," which is what I did. That was all.

WHOA! For REAL? OK, I take it back. That is a good dart.

Dude, you didn't find that bow only M'Khiin can use? She talked to the dead goblins by the statue lady, right? Those goblins told of a treasure cache. Go find that. There's a bow just for her. It's fucking nice. Does disease and everything. Still, has a bonus against gnomes and I don't know how I feel about that.

I think what it was with Caelar was that the dragonspear stuff wasn't a war, per se, but a plague of demons or something, a quite literal plague of demons that went out and stole people away. Caelar was all "They are in terrible pain but cannot die!" She seemed to imply there was more there than just a bunch of raise dead and liches. Or, maybe, she wants an undead army. She did seem very earnest, though. Give her that.

I think it's madness because the process of getting into the endless pits of hell sounds rather tricky. Like, nice ends, man, but good luck with that. I can't even beat bone bats.

Feminina:

Oh right, that's what it was! I went east and didn't find anything so I went off the map that way to return to camp and then I was waylaid by enemies. Fought them and the troll cave was there. Which I found rather odd right before I forgot about it, since usually the waylaying bits have no real map to explore, but in this case there was a major battlefield and some dark area to uncover and then a cave.

Which turned out to be full of trolls.

Yeah...that was different. Until I forgot about it. Maybe it'll pop up next time you're going somewhere. Have fun with that!

I did not find that bow! OK, I'll have to go back to the woods around the camp. Speaking of which, did you ever find what's-her-names amulet? She said it was lost in the woods around the camp, but I swear I poked over every inch of that ground with no luck. Unless it was next to the goblin bow.

Butch:

There was an amulet to find? Wait, of course there was an amulet to find. Which one was this?

The bow, just go to the bridge, and keep following the riverbank north and it's in some bushes. There are traps. It's a nice bow.

There is always an amulet, isn't there?

Feminina:

Mizhena, or whatever is the name of the cleric in the camp, she mentioned a missing amulet the first time I talked to her and it's still on my quest list.

I found that one 'amulet of the dark powers under the earth' or whatever, but it's not that.

Butch:

She did?

Amulet of the dark powers under the earth? I think I missed that, too. We're missing things, we are.

Where the hell was THAT?

Feminina:

I think it was in the dungeon somewhere...it was one of the ones the lich wanted, but he asked for 5. (I MAY have offered him the one I had, and then he got mad because there was only one, and rather than say "come back when you have them all, dummy" he just attacked me.) I don't know if it's good for anything else, but it has some kind of long, ominous name, and you can't sell it.

Butch:

Man, what's the point of a long, ominous name if it's going to be useless and valueless?

Waste of a good long name, that.

Feminina:

I mean, I don't KNOW it's not good for anything. Someone else may want it at some point. I can keep hoping.

I still have 'Joseph's greenstone ring" from the main game. Never did find Joseph. Only recently finally threw away that chew toy from the kid's dog that I could never find. Did you ever find the dog?

Butch:

I did find Joseph. Poor guy. But I'm still carrying around some "blahblah family amulet." People sure are careless with their amulets. I have no idea about a dog and a chew toy. I'm stubbornly carrying around an angel skin ring just in case I meet that dude who wanted one so he could propose even though they're cheap and he's being a cheap bastard.

Feminina:

Oh, I met some kid in Nashkel, I think, and he said "I can't find my dog, maybe he'll come to you" and gave me a doggie chew toy that was supposed to appeal to the dog, and I wandered all around the place looking for a dog but didn't find one. Kept the chew toy until seriously last week JUST IN CASE I might run into some kid's missing dog hundreds of miles from Nashkel, but I finally tossed it.

I'll probably meet the dog tomorrow.

Butch:

Probably. It's how dogs do.

But it's cool. Dog will be all "I'm not going back to that kid. He's always giving away my favorite chew toys."

Feminina:

"Yeah...gave it to some random passing adventurer who always smells like feet and lunacy."

Butch:

You're gonna run with "smells like feet and lunacy" for the rest of time, yes?

Yes.

Fifty years from now, you in the home, screaming that at a nurse, me just shrugging all "Don't take it personally. It's how she do."

Feminina:

I cannot disagree.

Alternatively -- or possibly just on different days -- I get restless and gloomy and the nurses say to each other "get that feet and lunacy air freshener for room 12, would you? It always settles her down."

Butch:

Fair.

"Let her snuggle in her mouldy flags, smelling her smell."

Live the dream.

Gotta somehow work booze, pie and games into it, though.

Feminina:

Oh, I just assumed they went without saying.

That's like the BASELINE dream.

We have a basic platform that is non-negotiable, and we can build on that with nice-to-have upgrades like feet-and-lunacy scented candles.

Butch:

Man, this got weird despite the fact that I played and it's only Tuesday.

Must be the onset of summer.