The Thin Blue Alignment

Feminina O'Ladybrain

Apr 26

Spoilers for some story and some companion dynamics in Baldur's Gate

Butch:

I was going to play. I sat down, turned on the machine and found, much to my dismay, that my child had sucked the batteries of my controllers dry playing NHL23.

I hate half days.

Can't play without a controller.

So, I didn't play.

You start the bloggage.

Feminina:

Curse those rapacious children!

OK. Let's see what I did that I haven't decribed. I was in the mine and then, heeding your advice, decided to go get a thief to help with the locked things. I remembered I'd left Safana, the inappropriately seductive thief, in the Friendly Arm, which was closer than the carnival, so I went and grabbed her. Then, of course, she immediately mentioned that it was time to get on with her quest.

Right, right, she had some treasure she wanted to find on the coast. Fine. Went off to find it behind some more sirenes (ugh) and some flesh golems (ugh), but we found it. It's a book that raises someone's constitution by one point. Nice. Then she didn't even want it! I gave it to Khalid since he's our tank, and one point doesn't make that much difference to my weak self.

Then went back to the mine, opened a bunch of locks, freed some prisoners, rolled my eyes constantly at Safana's weirdly seductive dialogue (I mean, I like flirting, but damn, lady, "I feel so sensual" in the middle of combat is just awkward), got to the 4^th level and the main fight.

Succeeded on the second try!--but the thief was dead and there were so many attractive locks. Reloaded, and proceeded to die about eight times in a row. Went to bed, came back the next evening and succeeded on the first try!--but the thief was dead. Decided losing the thief was clearly the price we were fated to pay, but the locks were so attractive, we left and went all the way to the temple to raise her before we came back to finish up.

I hate to imagine those poor miners, hoping desperately for freedom, watching this band of weirdos go in...then come out again...then come back through week later. Fortunately, only a few of the hobgoblins had respawned in our absence. With that kind of security, that mine was clearly a business that deserved to fail.

Anyway, we flooded the mine, saved the miners, heard a heroic trumpet blast at our good deed, and Kagain the dwarf announced "that's it, I'm out of here," and left.

Good luck to you, grumpy dwarf! Then, obviously, I reloaded, took all his stuff away, and reflooded the mine and saved the miners. Leave if you must, but not with my loot and healing potions. I need them for...uh...all my heroic deeds.

Then I went back to the Friendly Arm to sleep, had a weird dream and can now slow more poison, and was reminded that there's a temple right next to the inn. With plenty of healing potions in stock. That I could have gone to in order to raise Safana, instead of traipsing across the entire map.

Ah well. Next time.

Then, let's see, I picked up Viconia and left Faldorn, who was presumably happy about our work with the mine, and then I picked up Dorn, and somewhere in there I started to cross the bridge into Baldur's Gate, met that gnome, but then decided to go back and swap Safana for Imoen to get away from the inappropriately seductive commentary. Then I decided to do Dorn's story before moving on, just in case it turns out I can't return. I had to drop Khalid and Jaheira to fit Quayle the gnome, and they said, more or less, "Gorion is looking down from heaven weeping at this terrible decision, but do what you want I guess," so we'll see how that goes.

I'm in the wilderness with my evil friend looking for someone to murder right now! Just as well Khalid and Jaheira aren't here to witness it. In our defense, the person we're trying to murder is a necromancer and apparently also evil, so I still get to be heroic.

We will drive safely.

Butch:

Oh right, that thief. I forgot all about her. Yeah, she was a tad overdone, wasn't she? Nice loot, though! That's worth a few HP, right? I'm tempted, I am. We shall see.

I feel so sensual? Uh... Hmm. I think I'll stick with Imoen.

HA!

"Can we please come with-" "No." "You're carrying a dead body but won't take us?" "Right." "You don't even like her!" "Don't care."

So did you meet Rill? Tell me you met Rill and got the slaves out. Did you meet Yesarick the dwarf IN the mine? Because that's where I got all hung up with that whole "I wasted all this time trying to drop a party member" thing.

I was down there, met the dwarf, wanted the dwarf in my party. Swapped out Faldorn cuz she wasn't so great and the dwarf was also a cleric. Faldorn just sat there. I'm thinking "Faldorn? You know we are going to flood this mine. Do not sit there." She sat there. I thought "Is she that stupid?" Googled what would happen if you left someone in the mine. Turns out, they're that stupid. Couldn't have that, so left the mine to drop Faldorn at the door so she wouldn't die a horribly stupid death and spent twenty minutes trying to figure out how to drop her there. Sigh.

I could hear the slaves all

Slaves: RUN!!!!

Faldorn: Nope.

Slaves: You're going to drown!

Faldorn: I'm an NPC. I cannot move.

I did the right thing.

That place has potions??? In my game, that place has no potions. What it has is a priest who won't sit still and I have to pause the game, click "speak" when she's fucking paused, only to let her tell me she has no potions.

Oh, man, I tried to drop Khalid and Jaheira and that dialog, I thought, was the game telling me "Dude, no," so I didn't. Let me know how that goes.

Hey! It just dawned on me that Dorn looks kinda like a Klingon and Michael Dorn played one in Star Trek! God I'm a nerd.

So you are now running with two evil characters, Imoen and a gnome. That's quite a party. Who's your cleric?

Feminina:

Ha! That's true! Michael Dorn did play a Klingon! And Klingons are basically space orcs! We're nerds.

Anyway. I did meet Riil and get the slaves out. And I did meet the dwarf! And, because I was terrified at the thought of leaving Faldorn or someone in the mine to drown, I told him "sorry, we don't need anyone else," and he hmphed off, probably never to be seen again (but at least he didn't stay there to drown like an idiot). I was kind of impatient to move on by this point so I didn't even think of going back to leave someone at the entrance, although because I had to abandon Dorn when he was mentally enfeebled, I do know how to remove a person from the party and could have done it if it had occurred to me.

Yup: two evil characters, Imoen and a gnome sums us up.

I should probably pick up Faldorn again, because I'm short a person right now. (I TRIED to pick up the bard, but failed utterly to find him.) The gnome is a cleric (cleric/illusionist, apparently), and so is Viconia, plus I picked up a bunch of potions in the Friendly Arm temple (that's so weird that yours doesn't have any! Mine has lots), so we're OK-ish for healing, but it's always good to have another body in the crowd. Someone else to throw daggers or whatever. Hopefully this necromancer isn't too powerful when we finally find her.

Butch:

Hey look on the bright side: only have to split the xp five ways.

That was a weird dream, wasn't it?

Feminina:

The sea of blood that I was able to sort of steer, but that was also sort of conscious and became aware of us? Yeah...very weird. Obviously, there are vast, strange things afoot that we don't understand (because no one will tell us anything!), far more momentous than just some bandits and the local iron trade. Some huge destined event in which we have a part to play. But no one will tell us anything, so who knows?

Butch:

I kind of like it, though. So many games lay it all out there before the opening credits. You just know who the baddie is and the baddie's plan all up front. This slow burn ain't bad.

Feminina:

Yes...so many of the games we play are just so plain and straightforward...no mystery or bananas at all...this is truly a welcome change.

Butch:

When you put it that way, you have a point.

Feminina:

We're used to this. We'll be just fine.

Especially me with my evil friends and no connection to the people Gorion asked me to hang out with. I'm bound to stray onto a dark path pretty much immediately.

Butch:

And yet you are not evil. Just chillin' with a bad crowd, man. A bad crowd.

Feminina:

Me, cheerfully hanging out with the worst thugs and criminals in the land: "you're all so nice to help out with my acts of heroism!"

Them: "Um...yeah, we don't mind...uh...doing good deeds occasionally...if we get to bask in your happy glow. And also benefit from the looting opportunities."

Clearly this won't work forever, Kagain got fed up with the sickening goodness and bailed on us, but he helped out a lot first!

I'll just churn through all the evil people in the area, gradually wearing them down by making them do good deeds. All their evil friends keep trying to tell them, "you need to get away from that weird mage, she's a good influence, leading you astray from the path of badness and self-interest!" but they keep thinking they can change me.

Or at least benefit from the looting opportunities. They try to explain to their mom, "no, you don't understand, you can commit a surprising amount of very profitable murder while being good!"

Butch:

With luck, they'll see that being a good murderer pays far better than being a bad murderer, as you get all the loot AND people reward you! Then, they'll be noble murderers and won't that be nice?

So proud.

Feminina:

So proud.

"Yeah, mom, I still get to kill a lot of things and loot a lot of corpses, but everyone thinks I'm awesome instead of trying to run me out of town! I really think there's something to this heroism racket!"

Meanwhile, Evil Mom is shaking her head thinking "this is how it always starts...soon he will be lost to me. At least he will no longer drain my game controllers."

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