Chapter 8: I Had A Dream...And Got Some Cool Spells
It's not over yet. By the way, photobucket sucks even more now; go figure.
When we last left our heroes, it was time to go finish up the random wandering, a lot of which is in some of the less-than-stellar areas.
First stop, a trip to the coast, and one of the dumbest quests in the game.
:It's good I have expendable "friends" like you Coran....can't think what would have happened if I were alone.
Remember kids...kissing is deadly and all women are evil temptresses trying to to suck out your soul. This has been the Church of Helm telling you all that he is watching...always...especially in the bathroom.
:Uhhh huh...your mate. Did you go to nereidbrides.com or something?
The wannabe samurai ogre bites it hard, and Shepard and crew find a nifty helmet on his corpse.
Brilliant quest design, no?
:Hmmmm...now I'm fetching things for madmen. Shouldn't I be doing something more important, like going after the grand conspiracy that has threatened my life on numerous occasions?
:....
:Nah, no biggie.
What an epic quest. For those not in the know, this ring is cursed and brings severe cases of the dumb to those who equip it.
Oh look...ogres.
Toasty.
:It's like some unforeseen force inhibits my ability to tell this guy Davaeorn is six kinds of dead.....oh well, free potion of magic blocking!
Now to kill some more stuff.
We're wizards who desperately crave privacy, that's why we're out in the open, and not using any sort of illusion magic. Thumps up dudes.
Web once again shows it's use. And now with two fighters who can make themselves immune to the effects of Web, cleanup is even easier.
And now we're off to one of the INCREDIBAD optional dungeons in BG1, the Ulcaster School. The main quest dungeons in BG1 tend to be okay, if a little bland. The optional ones are only (possibly) surpassed in shittiness by jRPG dungeons. Actually...I don't know. At least Quest 64's Blue Cave was kinda pretty in some parts and had nice music. I kid...I kid, the Blue Cave should be considered a crime against humanity.
Ok...enough sperging, time to grab more collars.
Again, if you like cheesy humor, the player character dialogue lines aren't that bad in some parts of BG1.
This bad dude is a nasty Skeleton Warrior with a magical flail.
Oh look, a quest to go in a dungeon! This has got to be fun!
Aaaaand here it is, the Ulcaster School, such a shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty, and did I mention shitty place.
Now, you're probably thinking, "Hey asswipe, it can't be that bad, it's not like it is a bunch of tiny rooms connected by claustrophobic hallways that will drive the pathfinding of the Infinity Engine completely batshit as you go between boring, thoughtlessly designed encounters that have a nasty habit of respawning after you finish them and leave the 'room'. The 'boss' fight isn't just a wolf with a lot of HP that basically challenges you by saying 'HEY GUIZE GOT MAGIC WEEPAWNZ?????'. No, it's gotta be better than that."
:Nope. Damn glad that's over.
And the scintillating fetch-quest is closed out too. Hurrah!
This next area is mostly ogres, and ogre-kin.
Yep. Shrek's been busy.
There's also a quest involving saving a cow from Xvarts. Now riddle me this: why put such a low level quest in an area surrounded by ogres, that lower level parties wouldn't likely get through?
:WHAT. THE. FUCK?????????
:Seriously...that is terrible. How un-EXTREME can you get? "You can kill me, but if you move I'll kill you". I don't even....
You guys get something very special....look up.
With that, the bandits are summarily wrapped up.
Now to the Shire...I mean Gullykin, a town full of halflings, and the bridging point to the *shudder* Firewine...well...Bridge.
Of course you have to deny that you want to go to a fun dungeon...and instead are pointed towards Firewine or Ulcaster. I mean, yeah, I don't have the expansion installed yet...but still.
But before that...an actual fun encounter!
These guys are one of two groups of assassins "sent" after you by the Iron Throne. Both groups are actually static, and you more or less run into them. They were placed here to give the feeling of being tracked, however successful that is. A group of all-female assassins existed, but thanks to MWSnap/Vista shenanigans you never got to see that fight.
These groups have a mix of classes, including a couple spellcasters of relatively high level, meaning that they can seriously mess with your party if left unchecked. But we don't let that happen, now do we?
Shepard aims for the caster up front to interrupt his spell, while my casters prepare some disruption of their own.
Jaheira lays down the lightning, and Dynaheir and Imoen cast a mixture of web and stinking cloud. As always, in Baldur's Gate, disabling spells are key, and using them well makes like so much easier.
Shepard activates the Horn of Kazgaroth, to prevent the effects of web/cloud, in order to clean up the enemy mage, who is trapped in webbing and occasionally going unconscious.
Fight solved, and time to have oh so very much fun at the Firewine Bridge.
Now the Firewine Bridge area is a two part affair. There is the dungeon proper, but also an above ground area in which there are a few encounters, namely...
...a priest who you can relinquish your entire inventory to...
...a bard who recites poetry in order to both highlight a quest as well as make someone at Bioware feel special...
...a swordmaster you can rile up and challenge to a "duel"...
:As well as take his nice gauntlets of weapon specialization...
...and a chick raving about the "might Khark" she has in a bottle...
...which turns into an encounter with a super-powered Ogre Mage...
...one that is easily thwarted by a use of dispel magic.
:Hey...pre-buffing only works against unprepared idiots.
And after those...the fun begins.
LOOK AT ALL THESE MOTHERFUCKING KOBOLDS!
This screenshoot is basically the gist of the Firewine Bridge dungeon. Narrow corridors, occasional "rooms", and a ton of kobold commandos that spawn endlessly from the fog of war.
:Oh look...the fetch quest prophesized by the bard. It feels like a weight has been taken off my shoulder...oh no...that's just a kobold commando shooting me in the back with an arrow of fire. Little fuckers.
Here's a random powerful mage getting a backstab from Coran. Why is he here? Good question. He is always aggressive, and doesn't seem related in any way to the ogre mage controlling the kobolds. The other funny thing about this encounter is that he often starts the fight by casting a lightning bolt. Now, lightning bolt should work perfectly in a long corridor, frying his enemies. The problem is, he oftentimes "misses" with it, and ends up making it bounce off the walls in such a way that it kills him. This encounter makes no sense, and wasn't well planned...so it's the dungeon in a microcosm.
Now for the real "boss".
That was simple, now to loot that mage...
: JACKPOT! Check out those scrolls! Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and Cloudkill! Damn!
At least something good came out of this shitfest.
I wonder where this goes?
Right into the basement of a traitorous halfling in Gullykin. And yes...you can skip most of the dungeon by just going here, finding the secret door, boffing the ogre mage, and maybe killing the mage.
: You mean we could have skipped all that? Really?
And with the ogre mage dead and the traitor killed, you can collect a small sum from the mayor. But more valuable than any gold is the fact that nothing in this game is as shitty as the Firewine Bridge.
Well....except for....you'll see...
Next time, join us as the random adventuring continues, we go to the most dangerous area in the game, and the party finally reaches Baldur's Gate. See you in another year and a half!
I kid....maybe....