Breakfast at the Friendly Arm Inn is always a humbler affair than at Feldepost's. Some bread and butter, oat porridge, milk, eggs. Not even sausages, and definitely no kaeth/coffee or pancakes.
I tucked away the revelations of last night into some corner of my mind, and cheerfully gobbled down some hard-boiled eggs with bread while chatting with the rest.
"How are you this morning? Slept well?" Imoen asked me over her own breakfast. She was lavishly slapping butter and smoosh-ing hard-boiled eggs onto her toast to give it more flavour.
I did not fail to notice everyone else in the group looking at me through the corner of their eyes when she asked me that.
"Slept fine!" I lied. I sure hope I don't have eye bags when I said that. "Feeling chirpy. Though I think I'll lay off the drink for a while. Apparently, I get really weepy when drinking. Who knew?"
"I certainly didn't," Imoen mumbled to herself.
I decided to pretend I didn't hear that. "Ugly drunks or sad drunks must be really hard to deal with. Got to apologise to Neera for giving her such a hard time. Sorry Neera!"
"Don't mention it," Neera said dryly.
I considered making more light conversation about it and ask Branwen how the Moonshae who love drinking deal with rowdy drunks and the like. But since nobody seemed to be questioning my excuse for my behaviour last night, I decided not to push the issue.
Addressing the group, I told them, "I hope everyone made good use of this rest because we've got many long days of travel and hardship ahead of us. We only know our destination is SOMEWHERE in Cloakwood, so we could be searching for some time."
"And one more thing!" I said, then pulled out a bag of stuff I had collected from the Friendly Arm Inn kitchen this morning. I looked to Branwen and Jaheira. "A quick question. Do cows, chickens and pigs have a place in the afterlife?"
Jaheira looked back at me, puzzled. "I don't… I'm not a priest. Don't ask me."
Branwen closed her eyes and breathed out. She wasn't frowning though, in fact she was somewhat bemused. I suppose she knew what was up. "No. Most farm animals are not designated places in the Tempus's domain. My god has standards, as do most of the pantheon of Toril."
I grinned. "Good to know!"
---
Cloakwood was full of trees, as one might expect. Finding a path through all the shrubbery was actually pretty challenging, and travel was slow going.
In the first area, to the south we encountered a batch of tasloi which we dispatched of easily. One of them had an unidentified cloak.
I turned the cloak over and again. What was this thing again? Tasloi with cloak, a lost cloak in cloakwood, it was all passingly familiar. "…didn't someone say he lost his cloak in Cloakwood?"
Jaheira, Khalid and Branwen shook their heads, but Imoen and Neera said 'Oh-oh-oh!' and pointed at each other.
I waited for them to say what they remembered, but the two pink-haired irritations kept pointing at each other and saying 'oh-oh-oh'.
"…you two don't actually remember who it was, do you?" Jaheira said what was on everyone's minds.
Imoen and Neera shrugged and stuck out their tongues. "Eh. Nope."
Why did the two of you waste our bloody time then?!?
I considered the cloak. If I recall correctly, this was a Cloak of Non-detection. While it's useful for a thief in Baldur's Gate 2, did any mage or cleric actually cast detection spells in Baldur's Gate 1? I remember wearing the cloak the whole way through and the issue NEVER came up.
Eh. It's drip. I'll just keep it.
---
We came upon a lodge in a clearing. A garish-looking fellow, obviously a noble, was standing just outside and was armed with a bastard sword. Two rough looking men with bows stood behind him.
At the sound of our approach, they looked in our direction in alarm, but relaxed as soon as they saw us.
"Ah, you surprised us. We are expecting unwelcome company. A band of savages have been threatening my companions and me with bodily harm," the noble at the front said.
---
This was Aldeth Sashenstar, a noble from Baldur's Gate, and his dilemma wasn't nearly as clear cut as he made it seem. The men he painted as a band of savages were in fact a circle of druids led by a certain Seniyad. In spite of Aldeth's allegations, Seniyad's particular circle of druids are generally considered the more reasonable druid circle, especially when juxtaposed against the extremist druid group called the Shadow Druids who want to exterminate any potential threats to nature post-haste (that's all of civilization, btw).
Both sides accuse the other of murdering members of each other's party, in classic his word against their word conflict. Who started it? Can we investigate further to get to the bottom of the issue? In such an old game like Baldur's Gate, there were not such options. We are expected to make a snap decision with lethal consequences without enough definitive evidence pointing either way.
---
I stood as tall as I could and said to Aldeth, "We could stay here awhile and help mediate this conflict."
Aldeth made a face at me. "I need some good, strong people to defend me against these ruffians. You don't qualify, little halfling," he said, and waved me along. "Shoo."
As my face flushed red from embarrassment and rage, I thought to myself, Well now, I supposed that makes this matter easy to resolve.
I could hear members of my party groaning behind me.
---
Four men bearing staves came forth, the one leading them with a more dignified bearing. He announced himself "Trespassers and butchers of our wood, I, Seniyad, have come to administer the punishment that you... that you... hrm. What has happened here?"
Aldeth and his two goons were tied up, laying face-down in front of the lodge, faces bruised and beaten. Behind them, an armed gang of adventurers were leaning against the wall of the lodge.
A familiar half-elven woman with brown hair stood up, and waved at Seniyad. "Seniyad. It is good to see you once more."
She didn't sound too happy though? "Jaheira! You are welcome among us. The trees have missed your gentle care. I see you have already acted against these barbaric interlopers. Did you know of their crimes?"
Jaheira gave Aldeth and his two goons the side-eye. "We had our own quarrel with them. Then we thought we should mediate whatever quarrel they had with their so-called band of savages rather than leave them to die," she said, then looked back at Seniyad. "Said band of savages would be your party, I assume?"
Seniyad scoffed. "Trust a murderer to neglect mention of their own crimes and paint their victims as the aggressors. These men had murdered a druid in cold blood, and now justice calls for their blood in turn."
Aldeth was squirming on the ground, probably having something to say on the matter but was currently gagged.
I looked down at Aldeth with a smile and took a swig of the bottle in my hand. "Influential nobles like these can expect preferential treatment if he undergoes trial in Baldur's Gate, right? I guess we have no choice then but to turn him in to another authority. Is there one here in Cloakwood?"
"That would be Seniyad, right here," Jaheira said. Her eyes narrowed, curious what I was drinking, but said nothing for now.
"Oh! An archdruid!" I said aloud, walked up to Seniyad, and held his hands in mine. "I always wanted to meet one! You've known Jaheira for some time, right? Do all druids here harp, er, play the harpsichord?"
"What? I, uh, no, we don't all play musical instruments," Seniyad said, confused, then eyed Jaheira with a raised eyebrow. "I didn't think Jaheira was so musically inclined either, but I may have to reassess my impression of her. Those who harp, was it?"
Jaheira was giving me a death stare now. "Alright, reunion pleasantries over. Seniyad, take your prisoner and enact justice as you see fit. We've got places to get to. Evil doers to punish and all."
Seniyad smiled to Jaheira as his fellow druids took charge of Aldeth of his goons, and in spite of Jaheira's protests took a moment to introduce himself to the rest of the party, especially Jaheira's husband Khalid. He gave us directions to the base of the Iron Throne in the woods; west, then north. He also warned us of the foul beasts in that have inhabited the wood, as well as a sect of Shadow Druids which he described as a dangerous splinter group of the true druid order.
---
Loot from Aldeth's party included a potion of Heroism and Kondar, a Bastard Sword +1 and +3 vs shape shifters. This bastard sword is one of exactly four weapons in the game which could harm the Loup Garou, a powerful greater werewolf in the expansion content of the game.
In the lodge, I had unlocked Aldeth's chest for 2 Arrows of Fire, 2 Arrows of Ice, an Elixir of Health, a Potion of Invulnerability, and some money and gems. It was a difficult lock but fortunately I had drunk a Potion of Perception earlier.
We also gained the Ring of Animal Friendship which I had slipped off Seniyad's fingers (which was why I drank the Potion of Perception in the first place). The ring has 15 charges to charm animals.
"He wanted to give you a wedding gift, Jaheira! -ack- Stop throttling me!"
"Die you stupid lying thief! Die!"
Khalid put his face in his palms.
---
The way I resolved this situation has the best rewards. Side with the druids, swipe the Ring of Animal Friendship, and someone will come and deliver the Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy (-5 THAC0) to us later as well. Win-win-win!
Well, at least once Khalid convinced Jaheira to let go of my throat.
---
The only other notable thing in this area was an elven man armed with a bow on the bridge across a river.
This was Coran, Baldur's Gate #1 archer (Kivan is arguably #2). He's also a decent thief. Coran is a double cheat character with illegally high Dexterity of 20 and +++ weapon proficiency in longbow which is illegal for a fighter/thief. Coran is one of the most powerful characters in the game and is a great replacement for Imoen in particular. We are taking Imoen this time around however, so he doesn't have a spot on our team.
His proposition for us was to complete a bounty for the temple of Beregost to hunt down a great winged dragon, for a clean 2k gold.
Coran put up a hand at everyone's reaction to the word 'dragon'. "Now before you get cold feet, let me allay your fears. The only descriptions of the beast have always mentioned its deadly barbed tail. From what I know about dragons they don't have barbs on their tails- that's something unique to wyverns. So all we have to do is find this wyvern's nest and kill it."
He kindly pointed out the area where he had scouted the nest. Looks like it was along the path.
Unfortunately, we were full up so we wished him well and went on our way.
"We're going to complete this bounty ourselves, aren't we?" Neera whispered to me once Coran was out of earshot.
I smiled. "Obviously."
---
We could not proceed north, so we continued further west through Cloakwood. After many hours we came upon an unarmed man, cowering in the corner of a clearing.
"Hold up!" Imoen cried out, and moved ahead of us. "Web trap ahead."
She pulled out some tools and started snipping at the main threads when we heard the telltale skittering of giant, er, huge spiders. So she pulled back and we handled those with a combination of ranged fire to weakened them then classic tanking and spanking. Spiders in the open were not nearly as threatening if one doesn't get caught in the webs.
The cowering man nearby was Tiber, and he had a request of us. Well, of Jaheira. He looked past me, which was annoying as hell, but I let Jaheira handle the talking.
"It's my brother, you see," he sniffed. "He and I went into the Cloakwood to clear the woods of the spider colony that infests it. I know it sounds foolish… but my brother had found the sword 'Spider's Bane'! The sword was created to kill spiders and we thought we could become famous…"
Unfortunately his brother, Chelak, had not returned for over a week.
We looked at each other, pursing our lips. One week? Do spiders keep their victims alive that long? But we didn't say anything.
"We'll find him. But I cannot make any promises beyond that," Jaheira said to Tiber, stern. "The natural order tends to cull the weak and foolish both."
I winced. Jaheira doesn't mince words, huh?
---
Seniyad wasn't kidding when he said foul creatures inhabited the woods. This entire section is crawling with spiders of every variation, including ettercaps. To say nothing of the rest of the woods…
Speaking of ettercaps, we had scouted out a group of freaking FIVE of them just nearby our position. That's a lot of Ettercap to deal with.
Ettercaps, as discussed before, have really good saving throws for some reason. We could forget about trying to put them to sleep or use crowd control spells on them. Combined with their excellent THAC0 and poisoning attacks, ettercaps were quite the threat to any low-moderate level party.
I did have 2 scrolls of Protection from Poison prepared just for this whole spider infested part of the woods, which would cut part of the threat of the ettercaps in half. But I wanted to try something else out.
I took out my bag from the Friendly Arm Inn kitchen, and poured the contents out. Chicken, beef and pork bones rolled out. "Time for some ethical necromancy!"
Branwen had a bemused smile on her face. I had asked her to prepare Animate Dead, so she must have known this was coming. Jaheira on the other hand, her eyes going wide, was just now realising what was going to happen.
"It is NOT ethical necromancy!" Jaheira protested. "There is no such thing as ethical necromancy!"
"How exactly does the Animate Dead spell adversely affect farm animals?"
Jaheira, not being a priest, had no answer to that question.
Branwen, who was a priest, just shrugged. "There are limits to what we know about the workings of the afterlife. The welfare of farm animals did not appear important enough to mention in teachings. I'm fine with this."
Neera nodded in approval. "I say better them than us."
"I am doing this to protect you and your husband, you know," I said to Jaheira.
In the end, Jaheira had to give in.
---
Branwen outright ignored the chicken and cow bones and went straight for the cow ribs. With our skeletal bovine leading the charge, we went to pick a fight with the ettercaps.
Now, ettercaps rely MOSTLY on their poison, it's true. And skeletons, even skeletal farm animals, do a decent job of resisting both their slashing damage and piercing damage. Once there are 5 ettercaps beating on our skeletal cow though, it really didn't last long. Thankfully they didn't have to, as Ettercaps weren't particularly hardy. We took out the last Ettercap before they could harm any member of our party.
It's a shame Branwen wasn't two levels higher, otherwise she could summon a more powerful 5 hit-dice (HD) skeleton warrior instead of a 3HD one. Uh, well, skeletal cow in our case.