Adrian: Baldur's Gate

"Montaron! I...I...I never loved you!" Xzar yowled.

Adrian and Kagain were too busy trying to kill the golem immediately. Viconia went over to the edge of the water, knelt, and muttered some words.

"Pawn discarded," sighed Edwin. "I may have to find another group if this keeps up."

Safana's sling fired off the last bullet, and took the golem down.

Adrian looked down at the water. Montaron had been a tough little fighter, grim and capable. Adrian had respected him.

"Was a tough little bugger," said Kagain, mirroring his own thoughts.

Xzar sighed. "I shall miss him."

Adrian clapped Xzar on the shoulder, and turned to Safana. "I trust," he said with an edge in his voice, "That you will prove a worthy replacement."

"Oh yes indeed," she assured him.

"Montaron has gone into the night," Viconia said. "Shar will protect him."

Adrian raised an eyebrow at this, but said nothing.

The treasure was a respectable haul, and Adrian found another of those tomes. He made a note to himself to find out what they were once they got back to Beregost.

They travelled a little further up the coast, meeting a mad gnome called Arcand, and rescuing a ring of his from a shipwreck, and getting a bottle of fire in return. Safana seemed strangely affected by the shipwreck. When pressed, she admitted she had spent a lot of time at sea.

Then they were beset by a horde of Ogres and wolves!

Adrian was running low on bolts again as they fought their way through this massed foe, so he switched to his sword. It was a long, bloody, exhausting battle, but in the end they won.

"Tis lucky that I found you," said a voice.

Adrian raised the weapon, but the lone mage coming down the hillside had his hands raised in a placating gesture.

"You have fought long and hard against the Ogres," he said. "I would give you healing."

"Who are you?" asked Viconia.

"Call me the Surgeon. My brother, Davaeorn, killed our parents, and I have been hunting for him since. Now lie still and let me do my work."

True to his words, he healed them.

"Please to help me, will you? I am alone and far from home, and who knows what lurks in these dangerous woods." this lilting, Siren-like voice said to them, coming from a woman who looked like one of their number.

"There are few trees here," said Adrian. "Only coast."

"Yer another Siren," said Kagain.

"No, a Naiad," she replied. "I am far from my people. Would ye kiss me, cute dwarf?"

"Nay I would not!" he spat.

"I'm sorry, but I really must insist!"

"YYYYEEEARRRGGHHH!" Kagain keeled over, quite dead.

"No," Adrian snarled. "Not two in one day!" He raised his sword and charged.

"N-no, don't kill me!"

"Can you bring him back?!?" he hissed, sword at her throat.

"Aye, I c-can," she whimpered. "The Ogre Droth has made me--"

"Shut up and DO it!" he snarled.

She did. Kagain blinked, sat up, and groaned.

"You just stay down and heal, my friend, Adrian advised him. Kagain nodded blearily.

"In his state he'll need healing," Viconia told Adrian.

"Methinks Adrian probably wanting your skills to take out this 'Droth' character," said Edwin.

"If he exists," Xzar added, quietly. He had been much more soft-spoken since Montaron's death.

"Oh he does," Shoal said. "He comes...."

"What be this trouble, Shoal?" Droth demanded, as he came pounding over a hill. "Why have you not destroyed these small pinks?" He was no ordinary Ogre, Adrian could see. An Ogre mage. They would indeed need Vickie's dispelling magic.

"They are stronger than I--" Shoal began.

Adrian charged the Ogre Mage. He cast invisibility on himself, and Vickie chanted, casting the dispelling magic. Droth looked surprised when he returned to reality.

Adrian leaned back in his armor. "Now," he whispered to the Doomsayer's metal. "Show me your power."

In answer, a lightning bolt erupted from the chest emerald, and struck a very surprised Droth. It was not enough to kill him, but it weakened him enough so that Xzar and Edwin's magic missiles could finish him off.

"Thank you for freeing me--" Shoal began, but was interrupted by Safana cutting her head off.

They gathered the treasure, and for the sake of Kagain's wounds, camped there for the night. Viconia finally did cast some healing spells on the Dwarf, as he had been so badly wounded that a full night's rest would not bring him back to normal by itself.

As Adrian lay down to sleep, a female silhouette approached him.

"Have my services met with your....satisfaction?" Safana's husky voice asked him.

"Aye," he said, and nothing else.

She sat next to him, and he did not object. Nor did he protest when she slithered under his blanket.

It was some time before Adrian got to sleep.