Let's Play Baldur's Gate - Part 12: "Mine Kampf"

We need to get a key to flood the mine. To get the key, we need to kill the Iron Throne lieutenant Davaeorn who runs things here, and is rumored to be located at the bottom of the mine, on level four. We are, presumably, currently occupying level two, the prison block. This is starting to feel like Dragon Age.

We have to go through the place and get to the very bottom, killing absolutely everyone within. And then flood it, just to be thorough. Sounds like a plan!

We unlock the door leading from the holding cells back in the main hall (apparently Yeslick and Rill The Slave Leader were considerate enough to lock it after they've broken out) and run into a huge crowd of guards. Rill and Yeslick must have used fake moustaches or some other clever disguise to get past them. Either that or they just despawned in some corner when I couldn't see them.

We really should have gone with the Groucho Mask

The ensuing fight is a veritable clusterfuck. The enemies aren't that dangerous but they bottleneck Lexter at the table overlooking the cellblock, and the rest of the party has little room to maneuver. A bunch of overzealous archers actually goes around the fight at entrance and through the secret tunnel and flanks my archers and mages. Add to that the usual plethora of stupid mistakes and dumb AI making companions block eachothers movement, and the party is forced to recover health by resting on the rough, filthy, wet, bug-ridden haystacks left for the prisoners, which nevertheless have to be the most comfortable makeshift bedding we've had so far.

Just before we descend the ladder to level three, I catch a glimpse of the very Fallout ambient music and decide to finish exploring level two first. Of which there isn't much left to explore, except the very well furnished dining room and the kitchen. The cook asks if we want to "guzzle" or just "shag" her but there just isn't enough room in my busy shedule to squeeze in either of those activities in-between all the murdering, so I have to turn down the offer, and instead opt to take all the stuff in the kitchen drawers and leave. On a completely unrelated note, I'm suddenly having second thoughts about the whole flooding idea.

Level three holds yet more enemies, we get into a scuffle before we can even walk down the stairs. We fight a bunch of guys, find a forge, fight a bunch of guys in the forge, find the armory, fight a bunch of guys in the armory... Now this definitely feels like Dragon Age.

Finally we reach level 4. One of Davaeorn's personal guards meets us at the door to ask who goes there. I tell him we're here to buy some ore (cause, you know, you need a ragtag team of snipers, mages a fighter and a druid, all armed to the teeth and covered in blood, when you're picking up ore) but somehow he sees through our perfect bluff and we fight.

Down the hall, Davaeorn awaits us behind a hail of traps and delivers the classic villain speech. The fight is pretty tough, the traps take out half of my party's health, D summons melee Battle Horrors and teleports around, protected from missile attacks, while Lexter tries not to die and levies the Boots of Speed to catch up with the annoying caster and pummel him. Of course, we get our asses kicked and have to load and try again, this time fully blessed and buffed up with various potions. The good mage has a lightning attack capable of wiping out my entire party save for the PC, so the dying and reloading cycle quickly becomes frustrating.

I guess that's why everyone cheated and used the game's unlimited creature summons, of which I have none. But I'm not giving up that easily! No, I'm going to win this fight and I'm going to win it fairly!

I look through my back catalog of potions again. Immunity to Magic, Invincibility, Potion of Firebreath and a bunch of exploding vials should do.

The fight between a shameless cheating whoremothering bastard powerful mage and a fighter on steroids looks quite surreal. The rest of the party has to take a break since they can't do much of anything other than all get killed by splash damage from Dave's goddamn area-of-effect spells, so we end up throwing down one on one. Or, rather, one on three, since Davey fights with two Battle Horrors and summons other creatures LIKE A CHEATING LITTLE SODOMITE THAT HE IS. I run in, trigger the trap (which creates a magic trap which I DON'T trigger since I'm immune to magic, so it just hangs there obstructing the way for the rest of the party), suicide-bomb the boss and his two buddies, finish the buddies off with firebreath and then chase the incessantly teleporting caster around his lair, with massively increased speed, and unsuccessfully try to hurt him until both the anti-magic drink and the invulnerability drink run out and he kills me with one of those 500 damage spells of his.

It takes me about 3 tries and finally, after I use the most opportune moments to throw the exploding potions at Dave and get my party close to him as my invulnerability is wearing out, I manage to kill him and get another narration dump...

...in the middle of a fight with the creatures the dying mage managed to summon. So we have to go to Baldur's Gate? Well, obviously, the game's title is reason enough, but I would appreciate a little more explaination.

After we've dealt with the summoned Ettercaps and took another nap (I like to think that the entire party, armor and all, just dogpiled together on the deceased mage's bed) comes the most exciting part of a dungeoncrawl - leveling up and taking all the treasure!