After all the mess with the thieves, we returned to the Elfsong tavern to rest as well as give Brevlik his requested telescope for 500gp and an unidentified Wand of Lightning. We had collected quite a haul of stuff which needed identifying, so we had a moment to rest.
I and Neera took the opportunity to hash out some questions we had over drinks.
"So how exactly did you find out about my original world?" I asked.
"I had a particularly weird wild surge when I was very young. I'm aware of what goes on there to a certain extent. It is as if I've been living in two places at once. It's hard to explain."
I had pretty much guessed a wild surge was responsible. That was the most likely explanation, after all.
"My turn to ask!" Neera said, putting up her hand. "Uh…"
I waited a while for her to think of a question. "… since you know what's going on in my world, you don't actually have a question?"
"I do! Don't rush me!" she snapped, then said, "Ha! What was supposed to happen in the game?"
"We weren't supposed to report the illegal mining operation at Cloakwood, so we were not supposed to meet the Dukes of Baldur's Gate yet. The wider public doesn't know of the Iron Throne's crimes in Cloakwood nor that it is responsible for the Iron Crisis either."
Neera thought that was pretty improbable things should happen that way. Hey, game writers can't think of everything.
It was my turn to ask a question. "If you're aware of what's going on in my world, that means you can give me updates? If I remember more details like my name, you could tell me about my family?"
"No, I only have access to general knowledge. I could tell you some of the big news. Your world is going through some interesting times lately."
She proceeded to tell me about Covid, the invasion of Ukraine, trouble in the Gaza strip, Trump getting re-elected as President and some of the things that happened since then.
My mouth was agape. "And you say all this happened in a span of five years? What kind of nonsense timeline did I miss?"
Neera shrugged. "I do get that it's pretty drastic for you. Here in Toril, that much isn't a big deal. There's always some crisis or another that needs to be resolved by local heroes."
"Yeah, but this place is a fictional world that's mean to be full of adventure and sword and sorcery. That's not how the real world is supposed to work. With how many armed conflicts going on, it's starting to look like World War Three."
---
I wanted to cover a few more tasks in Baldur's Gate before going back out and looking for Commander Brage, Bjorn's half-ogres and Bassilus.
Nadarin, a dwarf in a warehouse in the SE district, wanted me to rid him a basilisk in the docks. "Some wiseacre tried to send a basilisk by freight and now it's broken free and is making a mess of one of the warehouses at the harbour."
The docks were in the south district.
At the warehouse in question, a dock worker had barricaded the warehouse from the outside and was directing people to stay away due to the basilisk on the loose.
"Any idea what happened?" I asked.
"Gorpel Hind and his adventuring band, the Merry Fools, captured the beast a few weeks back. It was to be transported to Waterdeep to be shown at a carnival but the thing woke up from its magical slumber before it was supposed to."
Taking out the basilisk wasn't too hard. Branwen was high enough a level to summon a superior skeleton warrior (5 hit dice instead of 3 hit dice) when she casts Animate Dead, so we sent in the superior skeleton warrior, uh, bull to deal with the basilisk and that was that.
"Let's be on the lookout for those Gorpel Hind and the Merry Fools. Who knows what other problems they'll bring in the future," I said to my party later.
---
From the south district, we moved to the southwest district to report to Scar. On the way, an elf hailed Jaheira and Khalid. "Jaheira, Khalid! Well met!"
He introduced himself as Entillis Fulsom of the Harpers. "A friend of your friends, and of your stepfather, Gorion," he said to me.
"Soooo. My stepfather was close friends with the Harpers. What do you know. I wonder who else is secretly a Harper but hasn't told me yet," I said aloud.
Jaheira coughed while Khalid looked away, embarrassed.
Entillis looked me up, then down. "You ARE Gorion's ward, yes? Hrm, I've heard about you but they didn't mention you were so-"
He noticed I was staring daggers at him and caught himself. "What I meant to say is that you are a very, how shall we say, special individual. Sadly, this has placed you in grave danger… I yearn to tell you more but I'm afraid I cannot for fear of endangering you further."
Wait, what? This guy knows too? At this point, who doesn't know about my special lineage? Okay, no, to be fair this guy should know because he works for the Harpers. Since Elminster knows, so does the Harpers.
"Here in the city, if you wish to succeed against the Iron Throne, know that you can trust Scar and Duke Eltan, both of the Flaming Fist. They are good men and friends of ours," Entillis told us.
I eyed the Khalid and Jaheira, who looked a bit embarrassed for their fellow Harper. I said to Entillis, "A bit late to tell us that. Elminster himself has already said as much when we met him at the entrance of Baldur's Gate."
Entillis' eyebrow raised. "Really, he's taken an interest in you personally? Doesn't he have better things to do? Anyway, I tarry too long when there are urgent matters to attend to elsewhere. We are well met, Sonny. Take care of Jaheira, for I bounced her on this very knee when she was yet a babe."
"Alright, get going already," Jaheira told Entillis with a look of both amusement and annoyance, "Shoo!"
Entillis laughed it off and left.
As we moved on, Imoen walked right next to Jaheira and Khalid. "Sooooo, Harpers eh? What's being a Harper like?"
"Very secretive. Enough that we shouldn't discuss it in the open," Jaheira muttered to her.
Meanwhile Neera nudged me and whispered, "You were already aware, yes?"
"Yes. Are you surprised? They really didn't hide the fact they were chummy with Elminster."
"Hmm. That's fair."
---
At the Flaming Fist compound, Scar was waiting for us for news of the missing persons. We explained our encounter with the ogre magi and the carrion crawlers, and gave Scar the ring belonging to the Sashenstar family that the ogre magi had been carrying.
"I thank you for your honesty. I'll throw in a 3k gold bonus for the return of the items. Anyway, I'm going to need some people to do some investigating of the Iron Throne. I'm just going to finish up some paperwork, then I'll be just outside the main doors of the Flaming Fist compound. If you wish to discuss the Iron Throne, just come talk to me there."
Anything to do with the Iron Throne would be part of the main quest, of course. We had some other things to do before setting off those chain of events, so we wished him well and went our way for now.
---
In Ye Olde Inn here in the same district, someone ran out of the building screaming that there was a green slime infestation. I almost considered calling the Flaming Fist to deal with it but the party gave me a look so we went in and cleared it out ourselves without much issue.
"How did this happen?" I asked after we were done.
"One moment the barkeep was talking to the mage Ramazith, then all of a sudden he's flamin' mad. He summoned up all those slime creatures. Hideous things they were."
I asked the party about their thoughts on Ramazith now.
"If he was responsible for this outrage, it's unlikely we can trust him with the welfare of a nymph," Jaheira said.
The party agreed that we should probably seek to free the nymph rather than pass her to Ramazith and advise her not to have any dealings with the mage.
---
Speaking of mages, we weren't done in the southwest district yet. I wanted a very nice item here.
"Folks in Ye Olde Inn said here was a powerful mage who lived here. We're in the western districts, so we can check if this mage is Ragefast who has the nymph. Get ready for trouble in case it is."
The party looked at each other. "I'm pretty sure Ramazith said Ragefast is to the northeast of the Hall of Wonders, which is in the west district. Not western," Jaheira said.
"Well, you can ask this mage yourself," I said to her.
The mage in question was NOT happy to see Jaheira and our party. "Poor little thieves. You have chosen the wrong home to break into today. You do not rob from a simple merchant, but rather the master mage SUNIN! I will brook no excuses! Today is the day that you die, robbers!"
"There is no need for violence. We're looking for a mage named Ragefast. If that isn't you, can you direct us to the correct house peacefully?" Jaheira said.
"No, I will not," Sunin replied curtly. He then shouted aloud, "My servants, aid me in killing these fools."
Sunin was a mage, Maka and Joular were both fighters. Maka and Joular have impressive Thac0s of 9 and 8 respectively, APR 2 and AC-1 and 2.
Against a standard level party, they should have been a decent threat but honestly we were over-leveled for this encounter. I was also standing right behind Sunin and clonked him over the head as soon as the fight started. We wiped the floor with the other two dumb-dumbs without much special tactics.
"It really wasn't Ragefast's house, my bad!" I said after the battle. "But how did we end up in a fight again, Jaheira?"
Jaheira gave me a dirty look but didn't respond.
Loot:
Longsowrd+1, 16x Arrow of Piercing,
Plate Mail, Mage Robe of Electrical Resistance,
Mage scrolls of Fireball, Vampiric Touch,
and another Ring of Wizardry! Now both mages in the party (Neera and Imoen) had double their level 1 spell slots. Score!
---
There was still one more item I wanted to grab before we did some prep work for the poison quest with Lothander and Marek. So north we went to the northwest district to visit the Helm and Cloak inn and tavern.
At the Helmm and Cloak, there was quite a lot of chatter about the local news.
"Have you heard? The question of declaring war on Amn is being put before the Duke's Council!" a woman said.
We leaned in to eavesdrop on the discussion, see what they decision they thought the Dukes would make.
"The dukes are too set in their ways, too comfortable there. This is all just part of their cat-and-mouse game with Amn to negotiate a better deal on the iron trade..."
"Isn't the Iron Throne responsible for the iron crisis?" I asked. "I thought that was common knowledge by now."
"That investigation is still going on. And even if they were, the Iron Throne could have been colluding with Amn. War could still be on the table."
Hrm, that's not how it went in the original game. As soon as the conspiracy by the Iron Throne was uncovered, the entire scheme was undone. No more talk of war with Amn. Maybe these gossipers were mistaken.
There were multiple stairs leading upstairs, so I had to find the right one that led to a very special painting while I left the rest of the party to chat downstairs. Once I did, I went back down and asked Imoen to help me examine it.
"A secret stash behind a painting in the Helm and Cloak. That was what the note on that cloak said," I told Imoen, and popped the painting of the wall. There was a safe just behind it embedded into the wall. "What do you think we'll find?"
"You mean the cloak you stole which so happened to be the fabled Cloak of the Balduran himself?" Imoen said as she worked the trap she found on the safe. "Maybe it's the sword of the Balduran- no, the safe is too small for that. Dagger of the Balduran then. Leg Hose of the Balduran. PANTALOONS OF THE- Okay, I'm done with the trap."
She stepped aside, and I picked the lock. The safe popped open, and there was indeed a fancy looking horned helmet inside.
"Helmet of the Balduran it is."
The HELM of the Balduran gave a +1 bonus to armor class, Thac0 and saving throws, as well as increased hit points by 5. Unlike most magical items, the AC bonus stacked with Rings of Protection and the like. Wearing Full Plate Mail, the Helm and Cloak of the Balduran, the Ring of Protection +2, and a Large Shield +1, Khalid now had an AC of -7 (another -7 against slashing with the Golden Girdle).