We’ve finally reached Stage 1 of the Murder in Baldur’s Gate adventure; it only took us three sessions! The first two were consumed by the introductory material as expanded by the Launch event. We had two tables of six players and a DM for this session, with Paul running 4E and me running Next. The table composition was slightly different from last week with Callan and Rich unable to make it, but we got replacements in Tim and Tait. Lee, Grant, Lachie and Harry made up the rest of the group.
Last session, the group had agreed to help Rilsa Rael as she dealt with the problem of the grasping toll-collector, Nant Thangol. The group discussed how they’d deal with him in the morning; Rilsa suggested an ambush on the street, but quite a few members of the group preferred breaking into his house. I had to point out they didn’t actually have a thief with them and, being a properly paranoid dwarf, he’d have good locks. They still wanted to check for themselves, so they headed out.
Of course, this meant they had to go through the Basilisk Gate again, where Nant was on duty. Lee tried to start a riot, but Nant wasn’t being as oppressive this morning and got little support. Instead, Lee was arrested for his trouble. Harry went with Lee as his advocate; everyone else had already passed through the gate and wondered why the others hadn’t joined them, eventually needing to ask one of the guards what had happened! The rest of the group decided to continue on to Nant’s house and worry about Lee and Harry later.
Nant’s house, beside the Blushing Mermaid tavern, proved to be too highly secured for the group to enter with barred windows and strong locked doors. (The description of the tavern had similar features). So, the group went to scout a likely ambush point and then returned to the tavern to plan their attack.
Meanwhile, Lee found that the head of the Flaming Fist wanted to talk to him. The background for Lee’s character is as a spy, and Lee explained that he was only “testing” the reaction of the guards and the populace – as he was concerned about what was going on in the city. This was accepted, and Lee and Harry were recruited into the Fist and charged with shutting down a opium den in Little Calimshan and then let go.
The group reunited, where Lee told the others what was happening and sent Lachie to warn the owner of the den. They then met up with the Flaming Fist mercenaries and went to close it down… only to find that the owner had already left with his clientele and goods. The place was still closed down, however. Then the mercenaries informed Lee that they had orders to close another tavern on the docks. Lee had no time to inform anyone about this, and just had to go along with the Fist.
The patrons at this second establishment were already fighting the Watch when the Fist got there; it seemed that Duke Silvershield had issued similar orders. Our heroes aided the Watch and subdued the patrons and closed down the tavern, only to find that the proprietor had already fled. It had been a day of partial successes for the Fist. The group returned to a tavern to wait until midnight and the ambush of Nant Thangol.
To begin the ambush, Lachie rolled out oil behind the soldiers escorting the dwarf and set fire to it, blocking their escape. Meanwhile, the rest of the group stepped forward to challenge them – well, at least that was the idea. With something of a lack of front-line players, Tait’s cleric was the one to challenge them. The commander of the soldiers rushed him, and knocked him out. With that, the battle was on; sleep spells disabled half the soldiers, and Grant’s entangle spell meant that the group were rarely fighting more than one opponent at a time. Lachie’s barbarian meanwhile raged and took down the entangled soldiers.
Both Tait and Harry were unconscious by the time the lieutenant commanding the soldiers was defeated – he was very tough to take out. Nant surrendered his takings and the group returned to Little Calimshan. There, they gave the strongbox to Rilsa, Lachie regained the 25 gold he’d given Nant the previous day, and they reflected on a busy day (and evening) in Baldur’s Gate.