Good to see Sir Gawain in action, @CKT.
Nice progress Golden! Glad all worked out well with the Beholders for you. Scintilla is still a long way from Cleric lvl 15 and thus Skeleton Warriors (she's currently level 10/11), but I'll keep your tactics in mind for later. I've also considered buffing an Aerial Servant (Death Ward, Chaotic Commands, green scroll PfPetrification) once Scintilla reaches Cleric lvl 11 and gets acces to lvl 6 spells. Aerial Servants hit hard and go invisible all the time in my install with aTweaks, making it difficult I hope for the Beholders to target them. It's just an experiment though. If it doesn't work, then Scintilla can always come back later.
Scintilla, Gnome Cleric/Illusionist (second BG2 update)
Her first explorations of the city, Scintilla carried out invisibly. That proved wise when she walked into an ambush in a dead end street. Rather than getting away, the Gnome decided to confront the (five) villains. Out of their sight she summoned five Skeletons, buffed with PfE 10' Radius, Ghost Armor, and Haste, and cast a Cloudkill at the ambushers, followed by a Chaos. This was enough to take down three of her foes, the remaining two were dealt with in melee combat.
She left the city at the behest of a boy named Delon she had met near the Council of Six building in the Gov District, to visit the village of Imnesvale in the Umar Hills and investigate the recent killings and disappearances of townspeople.
She found the village without difficulty, and discovered that the source of its troubles was to be found in the nearby Temple Ruins. Before heading there however she rested, and for a local Cowled Wizard she went looking for a Killer Mimic in some of the caves on the edge of town. In front of a chest that she suspected contained such a creature, she was indeed held by one while she was in the process of summoning Skeletons to deal with it. She had only summoned one at that time, but thankfully it lasted long enough to keep the Mimic from killing Scintilla before the Hold effect wore off.
She retreated, healed, and summoned more Skeletons at a safe distance to deal with the dangerous creature.
(Lesson learned: the Killer Mimic does not wait for you to open the chest before it attacks.)
Scintilla rested a second time, and summoned more Skeletons in the Cowled Wizard's home, where something went wrong with the activation of a Stone Golem, causing it to become hostile. Unlike others of its kind, the Golem was vulnerable to normal weapons, so its destruction wasn't difficult to bring about.
The Temple Ruins were inhabited by Skeletons and Shadows
(no Greater Mummies, Bone Golems or Liches yet), against which Scintilla potected herself with one of three PfUndead scrolls she possessed. She freed a Halfling lass named Mazzy, solved a number of riddles that earned her a wardstone that guaranteed her safe passage past a dormant Shadow Dragon and various keys that gave her access to a ritual site where the leader of the Shadows was to be found, a Shade Lord. She rested in the Dragon's lair and prepared two Lower Resistances, a Greater Malison, and lots of fire spells (Sunfires, Fireballs, Flamestrikes, Aganazzar's Scorchers) and Holy Smites. Scintilla cast another PfUndead on herself and with the fire spells and Holy Smites she killed the Shade Lord after his MR and saves had been lowered, as well as many Shadows. A Shadow Altar that kept producing Shadows was highly resistant to magic / magical fire, and immune to her normal weapons, so Scintilla had to destroy it with her Spiritual Hammer.
She was hailed by the Imnesvale mayor and the townspeople as a heroine, and thanked with a suit of highly enchanted leather armor she promptly sold.
Scintilla returned to Athkatla where she bought the Robe of Vecna, and left the city soon after, to help another troubled town, Trademeet. It had two problems: incessant animal attacks likely caused by vindictive Druids, and a number of Dao Djinns that had crippled all trade in Trademeet. She first sought out the Shadow Druids. Invisibly, she traversed the wilderness in which the Druids had set up their base (making sure to pick up a pair of Bracers of Archery and an enchanted scimitar on the way). Right in front of the Shadow Druid stronghold she had her Skeletons kill a guard. He dropped a number of enchanted weapons, including a Club, Gnasher +2.
She entered the stronghold invisibly with a Druid of a different, less aggressive order. This man, Cernd, defeated the Shadow Archdruid in a duel, with an Insect Plague, Fire Elementals and Mountain Bears.
Scintilla also solved Trademeet's second problem: the Dao Djinns. One of them she Breached and Slowed, allowing her Skeletons to slay it.
It dropped an Efreeti summoning bottle. Two more Djinns faced a heavily buffed Scintilla (Stoneskin, Blur, MSD, PfE 10' Radius, II). Their leader Khan Zahraa fell to a Cloudkill and a series of Magic Missiles.
As in Imnesvale, Scintilla became a heroine to the people she had helped. The rewards she received were much larger though, a Shield of Harmony and thousands of gold. Part of the gold she spent on a Belt of Inertial Barrier, the Blackblood Club +3, and a handful of scrolls.
Before she left for Athkatla, she ran into and slew Rejiek the skinner, and she dispatched a number of Skeletons including two Warrior variants, with Sunfires and divine buffs (Holy Power, DUHM), securing the Mantle of Waukeen which she left with Trademeet's High Merchant.
Back in Athkatla, Scintilla visited the Copper Coronet, and discovered that its owner, Lethinan, exploited slaves. The Gnome Slowed a beast master who was in on the slavery, and slew him with Aganazzar's Scorchers and sling bullets for a prison key. (His pets were Cloudkilled.) Next she released the prisoners and with them, she dispatched Lethinan and his guards.
For Hendak, the leader of the (now ex-)slaves, Scintilla went looking for an entrance to the Slaver Stockade via the sewers below the Coronet.
With her summoned Efreeti she dispatched a band of Hobgoblins and an Otyugh,
and with a Skeleton she dealt with two Jellies.
A number of Kobolds
(interestingly already hostile, and coming toward her rather than waiting for her in their usual place) died to a Cloudkill, and so did a second group of Hobgoblins (Scintilla lured them into a Cloudkill trap).
With a number of curiosities and the solving of a riddle she became the owner of Lilarcor before she entered the Stockade extremely well-buffed (Stoneskin, Remove Fear, PfE, MGoI, Fireshields Red & Blue, PfNW, and Haste). Two Sunfires, a Divine Wrath and foes hurting themselves on Scintilla's Fireshields soon saw most of the Slavers killed.
Their captain remained remarkably impassive (did he know that she was immune to his normal weapons, and that his Fireshields or Reflection Shield would hurt him?). Scintilla's Skeletons finished him off, and they also helped her slay two Trolls (though those creatures slew most of the Skeletons before that). The Gnome's Find Traps spell showed her a way past a trap,
to an area with more slavers and slaves. Scintilla released two children, quaffed a potion of Stone Form for improved saves and injured two Yuan-Ti by exposing them to the Prismatic Spray effect of another trap,
She injured and blinded a number of guards with a Holy Smite, and her Efreeti helped her deal with the Yuan-Ti and with some of the slavers as well.
When two slaver wizards lay dead,
her Efreeti left the prime material plane and Scintilla was getting low on spells, the Gnome decided to call it a day and report back to Hendak. She cast Sanctuary on herself, left any guards that followed her to the City guards, and was rewarded by Hendak with some of Lethinan's wealth.
A woman named Valen wanted Scintilla to meet her mistress at the Graveyard District. Scintilla first went to the Adventurer Mart where she bought Vhailor's Helm, and then went to see Valen's mistress, Bodhi. She offered the Gnome a means to get to Irenicus and Imoen, at 15k GP (which was cheaper than another offer she had received from a rogue in the Slums). However most of that sum she had just spent on Vhailor's Helm, so Bodhi would have to wait.
Also at the Graveyard District, Scintilla dug up a man named Tirdir, who had been buried alive, and she ran into the restless spirit of a young boy that wanted its teddy bear. The Gnome humored the spirit by retrieving the bear from a Dwarf in the Copper Coronet, and she went looking for Tirdir's buriers in the Bridge District. On her way however she was ambushed by three thugs that had just poisoned a man. Scintilla cast a Holy Smite, and then retreated in order to safely Sunfire the thugs without hurting the poisoned man. Soon the thugs were all dead, allowing Scintilla to take their victim to the Docks District for medical care as fast as possible, although a mad Priest of Cyric held her up for a while. PfNW, Stoneskins, and Fireshields meant there was little the Cleric could do against her, but he had three potions of superior healing that kept him going for quite a while.
When she finally made it to the Bridge District, Scintilla didn't take long in finding the kidnappers and buriers of people. She was low on spells thanks to the thugs and the mad cleric, but her Skeletons and her Efreeti helped her out when Tirdir's kidnappers went hostile,
and against a number of muggers.
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