[Let's Play] Baldur's Gate 3 - part eleven

Ellu'kha and her group were exploring their immediate region before continuing onwards to the hidden temple of Selune and finding Moonrise Towers, a place where they would supposedly get answers for the affliction they were suffering from.

During their exploration, they had defeated an evil swamp hag, created a zombie husband for a mourning widow, took down a bunch of necromancer's pets, and were now exploring the cellars of a blacksmithery in a long-abandoned village now inhabited by goblins. In the cellar was a broken wall which led them to a cave complex. This was their next area of interest.

The cave wasn't as large as Ellu'kha had first thought.

It was filled with spider webs, corpses, backpacks and items that had once belonged to the dead, and then, at the back, they stumbled into a living area. It was old, abandoned, and dusty journals hinted that it a follower of Lloth had once dwelled here. Perhaps it was a drow.

Continuing through the remainder of the cave, they crept up upon a great spider matriarch... and lured it into battle.

It jumped onto groups of its eggs to awaken its spider babies and get them to join the battle, but they were no match for Ellu'kha, her group, and their potions of poison resistance.

There was nothing else of note within the spider cave, except for whatever lurked beneath the webs far, far, far below... in the underdark. None of them particularly wanted to jump down into the depths and possibly to their deaths, so they finished up in the goblin village and made their way back to where they had first discovered Karlach.

Near the building where they had defeated the so-called Paladins of Tyr, was a small village called Waukeen's Rest. It was on fire, there were bodies everywhere, and people were shouting in terror and pain.

This was where the traders had told them to come for invitation-only drinks. This was near to where the gith had been marked on their map. Had Lae'zel's people done this?

Upon further investigation, it appeared the both drow and goblins had descended upon this village. There were more dead goblins and drow than righteous folk and a lot of people were still alive, so that was something at least.

Ellu'kha and her people climbed through the burning buildings and helped whomever they could. There was a man trapped beneath wooden rafters, a woman trapped behind a locked door, and... there was still someone shouting for help. Ellu'kha couldn't determine where it was coming from, and they were becoming quite exhausted.

Ash covered their bodies, flames licked at their fingers and toes, blackening their skin, charring them. They could do no more right now. They needed to heal up or they would die trying to rescue others. That would serve no one well.

Despite the smell of charred flesh, and the pained moans and cries of those in the village, Ellu'kha and her party set up camp and healed up for the night.

Their peace was disturbed by the same little owlbear who had visited them in the cave the night before. It must've been following them.

It crept over to Ellu'kha and asked for help. It had been scratched up by a beast larger than it. Could Ellu'kha heal him? Yes, she could. She tended to its wound and it danced around, happy, and decided that it would stay in the camp with them.

Back at the village, most of the fires had gone out and bodies had been moved. A woman was staring at the ground, trying to decipher what had happened there. Ellu'kha offered her tracking skills as a born ranger and noted that the light-footed drow seemed to have come from the inn and then have gone south...

The woman didn't want to hear anything of it. She would do it herself.

That was curious, but Ellu'kha was more curious about something else — invitation-only drinks.

She went to where the traders had told her, spoke the secret code to the man who stood guard in the building, and descended down, down, down into a secret hideout.

A woman named Zarys was horrified. She could scarcely believe that one of her men had given away the location to their secret hideout.

Apparently these people were more than just traders, they were a crime syndicate. Ellu'kha didn't much care; in a previous life, back before the mindflayers, she had dabbled in her fair share of crime. She had mostly reformed since then, but this was all-too familiar and she quickly adapted when speaking with Zarys.

Soon Zarys welcomed her as a friend to her syndicate and allowed her to trade with one of the men.

Coming down here had been a good choice. The trader had a couple of weapons and armour pieces that were very nice indeed, and, even better, Ellu'kha could unload all of the gear they had collected during this adventure so far and get a bit of coin back.

It was a worthy trade!

After spending and regaining golden coins with the trader, Ellu'kha spoke with the people. They were rushing around, setting up traps, planning on leaving this secret hideout. Apparently in the town, a duke had been kidnapped. Obviously this little syndicate would be blamed so they were leaving and destroying any evidence that they were even there.

A duke had been kidnapped? Is that what the goblins and drow were doing... kidnapping dukes? That seemed unlikely.

Suddenly, a man stopped her and asked her to buy him. He was a painter and wanted his freedom back — if she bought him, his patron would pay her back tenfold. Ellu'kha cocked an eyebrow at the trader who said he wanted 1000 for the artist, but she talked him down to 600 golden coins. Now they just had to get the artist to Baldur's Gate, eventually, and get her money back.

Leaving the syndicate and the burnt remains of the village behind them, Ellu'kha and her group continued onward to where there had been a rumour of gith sightings.

As they approached a bridge, a tiefling quickly grabbed them and pulled them aside. Were they crazy? Could they not see what was happening down there? She pointed to a trio of gith facing down a group of soldiers. Then, a dragon zoomed down from the sky and laid the soldiers to waste.

The tiefling ran away, and so did Lae'zel — she jumped down the mountainside and raced towards her kin.

Ellu'kha and her companions hurried after her... and discovered just what the gith were doing there. They were hunting for the very artifact that Shadowheart held in bag, the artifact that had been taken from a fallen mindflayer ship. The very artifact that was protecting them from the influence of the Absolute.

Composing themselves so that they didn't look suspicious, Ellu'kha telepathically spoke to Lae'zel and convinced her to lie to these gith. She didn't want to, but she knew it was right — they would've flayed their skin from their bones if they knew that they had been the ones to leave the crashed mindflayer ship.

The gith departed and Ellu'kha breathed a sigh of relief. These creatures were too much. Perhaps it was better if they didn't find the gith creche. It was unlikely the so-called "cure" would be able to remove these seemingly enhanced parasites anyway.

Ellu'kha turned her people around and together they tried to find more information about the events in the burnt-out village.

The goblin and drow tracks went south, though the woman who was tracking didn't seem to care much for Ellu'kha's expertise. Rummaging through her bags, she found a few Speak With the Dead scrolls and proceeded to interrogate a drow corpse and a goblin corpse.

They had come from the temple — to the south, the same temple Ellu'kha had rampaged through earlier — and were after the Duke. The Absolute wanted him. They didn't know what for, and they didn't know if their raid had been successful, but they were to take him to Moonrise Towers.

Moonrise Towers was their future destination, at the whim of the druid Halsin. The temple, and the entrance to the underdark which would be their passage to the Towers, was where they were going to go next anyway — it was time to rescue a duke.

 

Until next time! 😊

 

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_{All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, @kaelci and are from the game: Baldur's Gate 3}