sorophx

and we're back! let's finish this chapter already (to tell you the truth, chapter 2 is the one I hate the most. it has a few fun moments, but overall is just a stupid grind through endless caves. and since this time we don't have Monte with us, there's nobody to appreciate the fighting in tunnels. but yeah, meanwhile at the Neverwinter Docks. this is the biggest district of the 4, and the toughest to get through. that's why we saved it for last. the whole area is overrun by a gang calling themselves Bloodsailors (I'll have to admit it's a better gang name than Sword Coast Boys). they still looked like a bunch of clowns, though. as soon as our heroes entered the area, they stumbled upon the neighborhood stalker named Neibor (very funny, BioWare, har har). he told that there was an auction being held at the Seedy Tavern. the main lot being the cure for the plague. obviously a ruse. but the last Waterdhavien was definitely implicated. thus the duo had a new objective, investigate the Seedy Tavern. the auction had been organized by Bloodsailors captain Vengaul, so it would be a good idea to find and interrogate him, too. as usual the party got ambushed by the same group, that had done it previously in other districts. and of course they left behind yet another note. what do you know, an agent inside the Neverwinter castle. who would've thought. I wonder who it could be... what do you think, Desther Fenthick? Volo had had enough of this fool Desther. back to the streets of the Docks district! there were a couple of structures that had to be inspected. Volo found the last laboratory of the Cloaktower guild. they checked the local store, the Twenty In A Quiver, and the inn, but nothing came out of it. everybody kept repeating the same thing about Vengaul holding an auction. Kaftan also found a family of nobles on the street. they were looking for their family heirloom, an amulet. they'd given it to one of Vengaul's lieutenants, Callik, in exchange for safe passage to Luskan. sounded like just the person to ask about Vengaul and the missing creature. there's a couple more NPCs in this area, the purpose of most of them I'll never know. this one, however, is different. it's a quest that can be gotten at the brothel (you've seen the picture in one of the previous updates). one of the hookers will ask to kill this guy. but I screwed up the conversation with the quest giver, so this guy got to live. there's another side-quest here. inside the Androd Estate there's an item we can steal for Ophala, the brothel's proprietor. this quest was designed for rogues, good thing we have Kaftan on our side. that was the last piece we needed to complete the quest. they still had to check one last house. once inside, they were attacked by a large group of Bloodsailors. and on the second floor they had to take out a Bloodsailor lieutenant. but it was worth it. jackpot! the plot thickens. Callik had decided to take Vengaul's place. now Volo and Kaftan were being pressured by this new competition and had to hurry.

well, seeing as we went through a whole page without updates, I'm gonna put up one now. it's gonna be huge, it's 2 updates actually, merged into one. 50 pics, so check back in a couple of hours

you mean the game deletes your saves?

this guy wasn't anything special. he was probably put there by the designers to hint at the robes, which we already had on anyway. his cellmate was a little different, though. meet Morgan. he's a joinable NPC, and quite awful at that, too. he also has a terrible accent, Grommy couldn't stand him, so Lady persuaded Morgan to flee the Temple rather then follow them, for his own good. we soon found a better candidate. Truelk and Pintark seemed like really good fighters, but since we already had 5 of those, taking in any more sounded like a bad idea. these two were from Verbobonc, they had the nerve to ask the party to give them gold to help get back home. 1000 coins! the nerve. Monte couldn't believe his ears. C had to send them on their way as soon as possible, again, to prevent unnecessary bloodshed. there was another encounter in the prison, this time it actually proved useful. the last prison cell on this level. Monte opens the door. to everybody's surprise there's a gnome in it. he's lying on the floor, tied up and with a gag in his mouth. lying there sripped he stares up at Monte in desperation. MONTE (ungagging and untying the gnome): Who are you? GNOME: Oh, I see by the ring in your possession that you are a gnome-friend. (Monte looks at his ring he received from the gnome prisoner in Lareth's dungeon); I have not found many that I can call friends down here. Please allow me ti introduce myself. I am Wonnilon. And I am indebted to you for my rescue. MONTE: Bah. There wasn't anything to it, my little friend (helping Wonnilon get on his feet). All in a day's work. LADY CRIMSON: What happened to you? WONNILON: I was specially trained to infiltrate behind enemy lines in the Hateful Wars. I was decorated many times for my heroics in that war. Since then, I have tried to live a peaceful life, but I keep getting pulled back into the action. MONTE: So how did you end up here, oh great war hero? WONNILON: I appreciate the irony, my friend. My mission was to investigate what had been going on on the lower levels of the Temple. I established a hidden camp on this level, close to the exit and had been making short forays into the enemy territory in an attempt to gather information before descending even deeper. After weeks of preparation I was almost ready to go down beyond the third level but got careless, and as fate would have it, a single moment of weakness proved almost fatal! I came across a horde of undead and while attempting to escape made a wrong turn and ended up in the Temple's barracks. I got lucky, they didn't kill me right away and threw me in here instead. TIGRANES: But you were able to gather some crucial information, right? What did you find out? WONNILON: Yes. It is most peculiar. You see, there are factions of the Temple of Elemental Evil warring with each other for these upper levels. And there is greater evil yet down below. Yes, the Temple is stirring again. LADY CRIMSON: What kind of evil? What is the Temple preparing for? Another war? WONNILON: I don't know, all I know is there's a High Priest who's above all other High Priests. His name is Hedrack, the High Priest of the Greater Temple. The other four High Priests will do anything to appease Hedrack, even if it means removing the other three heads of the Elemental Temples. MONTE: So what are you planning to do? WONNILON: I need to get my stuff back. Most of it should be in turnkey's secret corridor next door. I had some leather armor, a magical dagger, and a backpack with some miscellaneous items in it. If you could bring those to me, I'd appreciate it. LADY CRIMSON: I believe we already have your items, Wonnilon. Isn't that right, Monte? MONTE: Ah, yes, yes. Here, you can have them back now. WONNILON: Thank you, friend, for returning my items to me. This will allow me to continue with my reconnaissance of the area and report back home. My work here is almost complete. (looks into backpack) Wait. Oh no! This is terrible news! LADY CRIMSON: What is it? (looks at Monte suspiciously) MONTE (whispering to Lady C): Whatever it is, it wasn't me, I swear! WONNILON: My crossbow and a special scroll are missing! They must have taken them someplace else! They were the things of greatest value! This is sad news indeed for poor Wonnilon! LADY CRIMSON: Well, as long as were here, we'll help you find these items. MONTE: Yeah, I'll keep an eye out for these. WONNILON: Thank you so much. I had a lot of personal time vested in that crossbow. I had made my own "special" modifications to it. And my scroll gave me the power to Control Plants. TIGRANES: What value is a Control Plants scroll in a dungeon like this? WONNILON: I hear things. And what I hear is that the deeper you go in this place, the more fungi and oozes you will encounter, until you reach the level of Total Fungi. At least that is what I hear, In any case, I thought it best to be prepared with that scroll. LADY CRIMSON: Yes, it sounds quite essential. GROMNIR: We think it sounds gross, we don't think we want to go deeper anymore. Fruella doesn't like fungus and ooze. ELMO (doing a Fruella impersonation): "Oh no, fungus is so gross, I just can't stand it, and oozes are gross too!" FRUELLA: Shut your piehole, Elmo! I'll look at you when we get to that Total Fungi place, and leave you there. ELMO (in horror): Noooo! Elmo not want stay with fungi! LADY CRIMSON: Fruella, stop being mean to Elmo. You should know better than that. FRUELLA: Well, he should know better than teasing me all the time! WONNILON: Ah, having friends like you is truly a blessing. I hope we'll have a chance to meet again in the future, when this is all over. TIGRANES: Say, Wonnilon, how long did you fight in the Hateful Wars? WONNILON: I fought for seven years in the Hateful Wars. Ah, but I was young then. And specially trained to infiltrate behind enemy lines. I never really adjusted to a peaceful life after that. And that's why I am back here. MONTE: Very fascinating. I hope you'll be able to adjust sometime. WONNILON: It's not that bad. I do rather enjoy it. But of course you are right. At some point I must adjust to the ordinary world. the party finally found Romag not too far from the prison, but not before Monte looted every chest at the Temple's shrine. the monks there didn't even budge. must have been in a deep state of trance. they had to go by the high priest jr. first. his name was Hartsch (somehow he strikes me as Rentsch's brother). he seemed a little jealous of Romag's position. Tig could sense his treacherous nature. so they went straight to Romag. Romag was very pleased with Rentsch's choice. he gave our heroes a job right off the bat, to go kill the snake that ate his ogre chef. good thing the party had already done that on their way to the High Priest's quarters. Romag was surprised, pleasantly surprised of course. our next assignment would be to go to Nulb and deliver Rentsch a sealed envelope. that sounded like a good opportunity to stock up on supplies. so, next time on Let's Play The Temple of Elemental Evil: we visit Nulb and Hommlet, tie up all loose ends and descend to the Temple's level two.

finally, our party descends the stairs into the depths of the Temple of Elemental Evil. from our conversation with Rentsch, the Nulb inn proprietor, we know that the first level of the Temple is occupied by the temple of Earth. unlike his friend Wat, Rentsch doesn't work for the temple of Fire, so he sent our party to his boss, Romag, the High Priest of the temple of Earth. so, we have the Earth robes, we have Rentsch's recommendation. there's nothing to worry about then, right? oh? what's this, an ogre? big deal, Grommy eats ogres for breakfast. another ogre? this time with friends, I see. well, that's what Web is for. piece of cake. riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. as you can see, this place is swarming with all kinds of humanoid monsters. if the party wasn't wearing their robes, every single creature would be out for blood on them. thankfully, for now we're relatively safe. we will come back later and exterminate them all, after we've dealt with Romag. there's still plenty of monsters to kill, they don't belong to the Temple and just hang around. literally. this room contained harpies. as soon as the party entered, they started falling on our heads from the ceiling. they aren't particularly strong, though. they do attack multiple times per round, but our tanks have pretty decent armor class already, so nothing to worry about here. this battle was pretty funny. a Gelatinous Cube! I didn't have time to appreciate how dangerous it could be, because Grommy takes the killing business very seriously. that's why I'm not going to be showing most battles at this point. they all tend to end in two-three rounds, thanks to Pidesco's and Gromnir's Cleave. this place is pretty interesting. it was filled with little pests called Scourges. they aren't anything special, but if they manage to attach themselves to one of the party members, they start sucking on his blood, this results in a 1/ point of constitution/turn loss. so you have to be careful. good thing we leveled up prior to this fight after dispatching a horde of undead in the corridors leading to this room. Tigranes finally got Fireball. from this point forward crowd control became a formality. here' Tig in action. sweeeeet... Grommy got a little something too. Great Cleave lets him finish as many enemies per round as he can. and believe me, Gromnir can do a lot. a screenshot cannot capture the whole beauty of it. Monte, though, has fallen behind on the XP for some reason. at first I thought it was due to him being a dual-class elf. but since he had died once already, I think this is what he had to pay, 2500 points. I'll have to find a way to catch up with him anyway, the room with the Scourges had a secret door, which led to this place: the purpose of this room eludes me at the moment, we'll have to come back later. going that way did lead our heroes straight into a trap. they came across a spider nest. one Giant Black Widow and 5-6 smaller ones ambushed our band of adventurers. I panicked because that was the first time our whole party got poisoned, we almost lost Tig to these bastards. thank god for the 5-Foot step. I totally forgot to take pictures of this epic battle, so you'll have to forgive me. it was the last obligatory encounter on this level, so now we had time to explore. Lady C decided to begin with checking the prison. that's Turnkey. he's a richard somewhat. I decided to spare his life for now, because he didn't seem to mind us letting his prisoners go. we found some merchants, a pirate, two girls and two orcs being held captive. more on them in the next post.

doesn't it let you load a state from the last time you were in a town? I thought Ironman was something akin to the tough cookie trait in FOT

people at CO8 say ironman sin't safe really, losing 2 hours of progress doesn't sound nice

so far I've not been impressed, but if they do the combat like Troika did in ToEE, and provide better writing and design, I'll definitely be looking forward to playing this

there will be plenty of that soon i'm in the Temple right now, the dungeons are huge and there's no way of resting safely. running all the way back to town seems too much. I have to agree, the writing is awful, the dialogues and the story. but I don't think they could've done a better job with a different setting. well, DarkSun maybe. Troika's games are very messy, I can understand why some people love them, but all in all I'm glad Troika's story is over. I'd hate to see them make a Fallout game, which would probably be a mix between Bloodlines and ToEE.

we're not done with Nulb yet. there are still quests I have yet to initiate. not to mention tying up all the loose ends in Hommlet. first, I tried roaming the country hoping to get into a special encounter or something. no such luck. I did have a chance to admire the rich flora and fauna in areas surrounding the Temple, though. I was hoping to at least find a Swamp Lotus on their remains... nope, nothing. and so, the party has finally arrived to the Temple's gates. here's what the game has to say about it. The road to the Temple is rutted and spotted with rank weeds - thistles, burrs, thorns, nettles, etc. Some foot and animal traffic has been using the track, but it is not a busy thoroughfare. As you approach the temple are, the vegetation is disconcerting - dead trees with a skeletal appearance, scrub growth twisted and unnaturally colored, all unhealthy and sickly looking or exceptionally robust and disgusting. The ruins of the Temple's outer works appear as dark and overgrown mounds of gray rubble and blackish weeds. Skulls and bones of humans and humanoids gleam white here and there amidst the weeds. A grove of some oddly stunted and unhealthy looking usk trees still grows along the northern end of the former Temple compound, and the stump of a tower juts up from the northeast corner of the shattered wall. The leprous gray Temple, however, stands intact, its arched buttresses somehow obscene with their growth of climbing vegetation. Everything surrounding this place is disgusting. The myriad leering faces and twisting, contorted forms writhing and posturing on every face of the Temple seem to jape at the obscenities they depict. The growth in the compound is rank and noisome. Thorns clutch, burrs stick, and crushed stems either emit foul stench or raise angry weals on expose flesh. Worst of all, however, is the pervading fear which seems to hang over the whole area - a smothering, clinging, almost tangible cloud of vileness and horror. Sounds seem distorted, either muffled and thrill or unnaturally loud and grating. Your eyes play tricks. You see darting movements out of the corner of your eye, just at the edge of vision; but when you shift your gaze towards such, of course, there is nothing there at all. You cannot help but wonder who or what made the maze of narrow paths through the weedy courtyard. What sort of thing would wander here and there around the ghastly edifice of Evil? Yet the usual mundane sounds of your travel are accompanied only by the chorus of the winds, moaning through hundreds of Temple apertures built to sing like doomed souls given over to the tender mercies of demonkind and echoed by macabre croaks from scattered flapping, hopping, leering ravens. and we haven't even stepped inside yet. good fun! here's the layout of the main floor: there are no enemies on this level. there are, however, 4 chests found in 4 different parts of this area. each chest contains 8 robes of a certain Temple (fire, air, earth and water). I guess they're supposed to make it easier to go around different Temples? we'll see. there are 6 possible exits in total, but 3 of them don't seem to lead anywhere. there's even one locked door, which raised Monte's interest at first, but when he picked the lock, it turned out there was nothing behind it. maybe it will be used later? we'll see. so, now we have four options. 1) we can go straight to the Earth Temple and see what's rolling in there, 2) we can go to the Water Temple, 3) we can drop down to the Air Temple via a secret passage in on of the wells, 4) remember these guys? well, they're guarding a secret passage to the Fire Temple (hey, whadda ya know, Lareth wasn't lying), and since Wat offered us a job there, they will let us pass, but only this once. the downside is, we'll be blindfolded and taken straight to the High Priest Allrem. after he's done with the party, we'll be able to leave, but some priests will still recognize us as impostors and attack. this is the site of one of the more challenging battles, by the way (along with the one in the tower). so I'd rather wait a bit and level up. oh, I can't decide. so many options! I'll have to dwell on this.

to be done with Grud, he has a friend named Preston Wetz. Preston is in a very bad mood and won't talk to you unless you pass a diplomacy check. good thing we have Tig on our team. unable to resist Tig's charm, Preston proceeded to tell the heroes about his terrible tooth ache. the only guy in town who can treat it is some pirate named Bertram, and it will cost Preston, a lot. but Preston doesn't have any money. and he won't accept it from us. there is a way to help him, though. Preston is a pimp. he gets the dough from Ophelia, who's in charge of the local brothel. Ophelia has been having trouble with her girls lately and can't pay Preston. there's another woman involved, too. Mona the gypsy fortune teller owes Preston 500 gold coins, surprisingly she's been having trouble with her business too! wow, this town is in a really bad state. well, at least we don't see any broken people around, or this would turn into another Lady fest. anyway, I'm not sure what will solve Preston's problem, helping Mona or Ophelia. we'll look into both eventually. but first. the party enters a small room, there are a lot of shelves filled with bottles, all kinds of liquids in them, the smell of dried plants is almost unbearable. an old bent woman is standing behind the counter. she turns to Tigranes, who's first to approach her. the old bent woman walks up to Tigranes. OLD LADY: Welcome to Mother Screng's Herb Shop. (mysteriously) How may I help you? TIGRANES: Good day to you. My name is Tigranes, and these here are my associates, we're a band of adventurers and have arrived to Nulb just today~ MOTHER SCRENG (interruptin Tig): Oh! Where did you say you've come from? TIGRANES: I didn't. We hail from Hommlet, the vi~ MOTHER SCRENG: Say, dear, you wouldn't know anything about the recent death of our smith, Otis, now, would you? LADY CRIMSON: Tig, I'm sorry, I'll have to take over. (drawing Screng's attention) As I am the leader of this band, I'll take full responsibility and admit that it was indeed us who slayed the blacksmith. But I can tell you we didn't do anything to provoke him~ ELMO: Poor brudder, Elmo is sad, I nevah had chance to speek to Otis... MOTHER SCRENG: Dear me. You even have his brother walking with you. What kind of a sick joke is this? Have you any idea what you've done? FRUELLA: Well, he attacked us first! What did you expect from us? I don't know about you folk here in *Nulb*, but I DO NOT appreciate arrows being shot at me! Why, I~ GROMNIR: Shuddup. FRUELLA: What? What I say? Did I say anything wrong? (Gromnir sighs and looks away) No, wait, tell me. Go on, tell me! Dear? MONTE: For heaven's sake, will you please stop? I hate scenes, especially when you're involved, Fruella. Nothing personal, Gromnir. GROMNIR: None taken. LADY CRIMSON: Could you all just shut up for one minute? Thank you! Mother Screng, you were saying~ MOTHER SCRENG: As you are from Hommlet, I'm sure you're not associated with the Temple of Elemental Evil in any way. So I guess keeping it a secret from you isn't worth it. Well, Otis wasn't a simple blacksmith. No, he came to Nulb for reasons far more important than supplying pirates and bandits with weapons. Otis served the crown. He was sent here by the king himself to keep an eye on the locals. His mission was to survey this area and look for the Temple's agents, find out about their operations and report back to the king. Otis could detect any evil presence. This is why he attacked you, you had a taint on you. Tell me, have you had any dealings with the Temple's priests? LADY CRIMSON: I'm afraid yes. We had been accompanied by a priest named Lareth for some time. In exchange for his life he promised us he'd show us a secret passage inside the Temple. But tried to trick us by leading into a trap. MOTHER SCRENG: And where is this Lareth now? LADY CRIMSON: He's dead. We encountered him in the ruins of an old moathouse to the south of the Temple, where he had tried to accumulate resources for his army. MOTHER SCRENG: Ah, so you were the ones who cleaned the moathouse. I'm relieved. MONTY: Wait just a second, lady. How do you know about Otis's relationship with the king's court? This whole shop is just a cover-up, obviously. You're an agent for the king too, aren't you? MOTHER SCRENG: No, no. I'm with the church of St.Cuthbert. I'm Canoness Y'dey. dum-dum-dum~ how about that? remember that woman we saw get killed at the beginning? well, turns out she wasn't the real canoness but a decoy. an interesting twist. anyway, if we had Otis with us, we could ask Screng/Y'dey to join us, she's the lv.9 cleric. also, on the second floor of her shop is a woman named Hruda, she's Screng's daughter, and would join the party, if Screng was in it. by killing Otis we lost this possibility (and almost lost Elmo too!). thanks, Lareth. I guess you did harm us even from beyond the grave. well, enough mourning, let's go see what we can do about that business with Preston's money. first, we visit the brothel. Ophelia reveals to us that a couple of girls had left her some time ago, and now she has to make the best out of what she's got left. the problem is two of the girls don't make any money at all. Tig agreed to look into it, but of course C insisted on leaving the place. Tig did catch one other thing though. apparently, the brewer's apprentice from Hommlet named Mickey has been coming to Nulb for entertainment and developed quite a nasty habit of beating up Ophelia's girls. Preston isn't man enough to handle him, obviously. we'll have to pay Mickey a visit. so the party went with another lead: Mona, the gypsy. we found her outside her house. when confronted with her debt to Preston she told the party that her crystal ball had been stolen. until she gets it back there's no way she can repay Preston. but the surprise part only comes now: it was Mickey who took it! oh, that Mickey, we'd better go find him immediately before he does something even more despicable. when threatened Mickey not only returned the orb but promised to not go to the brothel ever again. that's good news for everyone, I guess. so we took the orb back to Mona, while Tig went to speak to Ophelia. Mona was very pleased, especially after we bought Serena off her hands. wait, who? Serena was Mona's slave basically. she came to Nulb to look for her sister (who had been working in the brothel all this time), made some enemies here, got into some debts. well, Mona payed her debts off after employing Serena, effectively binding Serena to herself. Lady C couldn't just walk by so she payed Mona 500 to set Serena free. but being a very proud individual Serena told C she wouldn't rest until she payed our party what she presumably owed (hint: she's a recruitable NPC). she also would read the obsidianites' fortune if asked. this reading fortune business is a way for the player to determine some events later on in the Temple. you pick a line thus choosing one future occurrence. I haven't seen which answer leads to which even yet, we'll look into that later. anyway, back at the brother, Ophelia asked Tigranes to provide some psychological help to one of her girls. coincidentally Tig chose Serena's sister (whose name escapes me at the moment). when spoken to, the hooker will hint at the possibility of buying her out (what the hell is wrong with this family?). Tig decided to free her and payed 500 gold out of the team's budget. Lady Crimson approved. next stop - the pier. there's a funny looking character. his name is Bertram, and he's the one that takes care of people's teeth around these parts. furthermore, he's a slave (god, what is it with this place and slaves, everybody and their mother seems to have one) of a guy named Tolub, who usually hangs out at the local tavern. Lady C couldn't just walk by, again, and she insisted on helping the guy out, again. Bertram did look out of this place. with a purple bandana and all. and for some reason he showed a lot of affinity towards Gromnir (making Fruella very angry). the only way to free Bertram was to go have a talk with that Tolub character. off to the tavern they went. and there he was, waving his hands like a windmill trying to pick a fight with everyone. most pirates have chosen to avoid him, most women were in awe. Tig couldn't get Tolub to talk about Bertram, the only way was apparently to kick his butt. Gromnir stepped up to the challenge. a hand-to-hand bar brawl is definitely good fun in Grommy's book. we decided to buff him up, though, just in case. he then went into Rage and kicked the crap out of Tolub. this is a tricky part in the quest. you can free Bertram even if you lose, but you have to bring it up right after the fight. if you lose you get to buy Bertram for 1000 gold, if you win, you can pressure Tolub into releasing Bertram for free. for some reason I didn't get the needed option after beating him with Grommy (because of low intelligence maybe?) and it didn't occur to me to reload and lose to him with another char (I didn't want to pay 1000 gold, but I guess I lost more in the end because the quest is now unfinishable). I'd like to think that Grommy just hit Tolub too hard on the head, so the poor guy forgot who Bertram was. let's pretend it all ended good. the party has done a lot of good in one day, to finish it on a major note they decided to go to Preston and bring him the good news. well, the guy was so happy he proposed to sell the party his house! shaving half of the price off was no problem for Tig, so now our heroes had a base of operations, from which they could strike the Temple's forces and to where they could make a swift retreat. a very welcome purchase, because they had already established the next day's objective. they were going to the Temple on a reconnaissance mission. see you next time, in the Temple of Elemental Evil!

I'm guessing this post should appear on the next page, thanks to your efforts so we continue. well, Nulb definitely lived up to it's name. this is my most depressing update to date. but we'll be getting to that later. I forgot to take a picture of the panoramic view for you, so this pic made by a random guy will have to do: so, where does a band of adventurers go once they're in a new town? to the inn of course. Nulb's inn is a very special place though. it's called the Waterside Hostel. it's run by two mean-looking guys. first, there's Wat, the bartender. nice, Tigranes, very diplomatic! that was enough to persuade him, and as any normal evil character he immediately offered our party - this group of suspicious looking characters that got to town, like, 5 minutes ago - a job, on behalf of the Fire Temple's High Priest. WAT: Here, I'll mark the Temple on your map. When you reach the Temple, don't go inside right away. Go around it, there's a small tower in the backyard. Tell the guard I sent you, and he'll take you to the High Priest. You'll get your instructions there. MONTE (whispering): Hey, isn't that the tower Lareth wa~ LADY CRIMSON (giving Monte the elbow): (Shut up!) A-HEM, thanks for the tip, Wat, we'll set out for the Temple immediately. there's also Rentsch. he looked very suspicious, but other than the fact that he was missing an eye, you couldn't say what was wrong with him. he looked tough, though. he also seemed to get agitated whenever one of our guys tried to strike a conversation with Dala, the local serving wench. she acted very suspicious also, Monte figured her out right away, she obviously was trying to pick-pocket every new face in the building. but so far none of the obsidianites (named so after Pidesco's sword, mind you) has been able to catch her in the act. and then none of them knew what to expect from Rentsch if they did. so leaving that awful place seemed like the best possible idea. but not before Monte had robbed the owners blind next stop, local smith. and this is where things got really bad. the character's name is Otis. yes, that's right, Elmo's brother Otis. for some reason whenever I tried talking to him, he'd attack me, I'm not sure why. I tried with different characters, it was no use. what's more, if Elmo is anywhere near Otis at the time, he will immediately turn on you. but wait, there's more. Otis is a level 10 (!) fighter, and taking him with you to the Temple is the only way of getting another good NPC (a level 9 cleric). so, by killing Otis you effectively lose three (!!) best (!!!) NPCs this game has to offer. good thing the CO8 patch made it possible to lose him and NOT lose access to masterwork equipment in the process(they copied it over to Hommlet's smith, which should have been done by Troika from the start, god damn it). THAT would be a disaster. I have a theory about why it happened with Otis. I'll go into that later. but the bottom line: Otis had to go. and seriously, I can do without Otis, but losing Elmo would have been awful. you really should hear him do it, that voice... it's priceless! if I don't forget, I'll FRAPS it next time. Elmo's great, good thing he's a retard, otherwise he might've gotten suspicious of the fact that the party had sent him back to Hommlet where he got the news his brother was dead, killed in Nulb. Otis's apprentice Sammy turned out to be a rat, by the way, he offered to show us Otis's stash for 200 gold (why didn't he take the treasure himself is beyond me, especially now, that Otis was dead). the stash wasn't anything special, a +2 sword and a +2 mail, would've not been worth it if Otis had lived, that's for sure. after all that'd happened the party moral was down. they needed a good fight to get back on track. and fortune presented them with an occasion. in one of the houses they found an old pirate named Grud Squinteyes. he was one of the more respected citizens and doing him a favor could prove useful. he asked the obsidianites to catch a fish, but not just any fish, it had to be the Giant Gar. he marked the location on the map where the fish could be found. our guys could hardly wait. well said, Fruella! besides, there was a chance of finding a Swamp Lotus for Jaroo too. so they went to the Imeryds Run. and there they got ambushed by lizardmen, a swamp hag and a King Toad. the fight was quite challenging. infact, it was so intense I completely forgot to take pictures of it in the end we prevailed though: we did lose Monte. luckily Lady C had a scroll of Raise Dead, so no permanent losses. whew, I'd hate to lose everybody's favorite tunnel-fighter. the lizardmen themselves don't pose any kind of threat, since they tend to swarm on Grommy, who can take the whole bunch within one round with Cleave. the hag and the King Toad were nasty. the hag is a barbarian/monk with a chance to poison on every attack AND a magical resistance. the toad has the ability to swallow party members whole and digest them. so we had to work fast. once they were done, finding and catching the fish was a trivial task. I don't know if you can see it, it's right there, under the rock, to the left of Elmo. they didn't find any lotuses, though. guess the woodcutter's kid will have to hold on a bit longer. so, after receiving the fish from the obsidianites Grud promised to spread the word about our heroes and make sure the pirate community appreciated everything that was being done to help the people of Nulb. technically this means we get a reputation entry in our log book. we have two more there, one stating that Hommlet doesn't appreciate our friendship with Lareth. wait, could it be that Otis attacked us for this reason? but why would he care? he left Hommlet a long time ago! well, I'll tell you all about it in a few moments.

I'm sitting on a huge TOEE update, it's been ready for 2 days now, and I can't post it, because it's 30 pics. makes me a sad panda

gah! guys, go discuss NWN vs. BG in the TOEE thread

yay, new page! I'll post a new update in a couple of hours (after I get some sleep). in the meantime go to the TOEE thread and bump it to page 7

It reminds me of Anachronox. but yeah, they'd have been better off making it look like TOEE

oh my god... if it's anything like X-2, I'm definitely going to be following this. X-2 was the cheesiest and at the same time most conceptual RPG I've ever played.

wow, it actually looks like a FPS

this is probably true

wow, New Vegas hasn't lived up to it's predecessor? what are they smoking? that one line said it all, they can talk on game design all they want, be as reasonable as they can. but this line will always be reminding me of their incompetence.

yeah, the first time I played NWN I had to read a couple of FAQs before I figured out how to assign dual-weapons to a hot-key for swapping. kept getting it wrong. also, the inventory window could definitely use a couple more grids oh, I'll keep an eye out for him

happens to me all the time

yeah, because an update is long overdue

o rly from where I'm standing piracy and second-hand marked are virtually the same thing. by selling your copy of the game you take a potential customer, that would otherwise be paying the publisher

I'm not sure if FO3 is much of an RPG, but I can't remember any of it.