Baldur's Gate 2 Cavalier's Log, 11/7/18
Phaere, the Matron's daughter, has another mission for us. This time it is to slaughter a patrol of deep gnomes as punishment for not showing enough outward fear of us Drow lately. She also sends her commander with us again, but he feels this job is beneath him and is not too eager to go. Phaere sufficiently chastises and emasculates him (as is the Drow way) and he comes along with us.
Once we get to the mission meeting spot, I talk to the commander and give him the option of heading home and letting me handle this. He's fine with that, and just tells me to make sure to get the gnome chief's helmet as proof that he's dead. So this makes it easy for me to just talk to the gnome, get him to give me his helmet and send him into hiding.
Upon returning to Phaere she gives me another urgent mission: this time, I need to kill the commander who's been with us. I must return with his cloak to prove the deed has been done.
Well, it's a good thing she's still asking for items and not body parts because I give the commander the same deal I just gave the gnome. He's grateful and claims he can still help us in the future.
After bringing the cloak back to Phaere, she propositions me to pleasure her in her private quarters. Since I'm already in an in-game relationship and I'm able to think quickly, I tell her I'm already betrothed to a handmaiden in another Drow city and to do so would start a war. She buys it and can't be bothered with yet another war at the moment, so she relents and says it's time we finally meet the Matron Mother herself and find out what their actual goal is here. We head over to the spider of Llolth, the Spider-Queen goddess of the Drow. The Matron Mother tells us she plans on summoning an elder demon to be a weapon in their war against the surface elves. The Silver Dragon eggs she had previously stolen will be given as tribute to this demon to convince it to work for them. But first something else is needed for the summoning ritual. I made undertake an extremely dangerous mission to get either the eyestalk from an Elder Beholder, or the blood from and Mind Flayer Elder brain. As luck would have it, both of those disgusting things are already in my pocket. This is most impressive to the Matron and she goes to prepare the ritual. Phaere however says there is something else I must know and I need to meet her back in her quarters again… suspicious…
On the way back, I am stopped by another Drow merchant who has a special offer for me. He has a magic rope that was owned by Jarlaxle (A character from R. A. Salvatore's series of books, a rival to the legendary Drizzt Do'Urden). The rope will allow us to infiltrate a Lich's tower that Jarlaxle once tried to break into but he was betrayed and give a fake magic rope. This is the real rope, of course. Well, that's what quick save is for so I decided to check it out. I enter the tower and the Lich attacks immediately, but the rope teleports me away? I end up in a pocket dimension and Jarlaxle himself is there, along with the same Drow merchant.
Jarlaxle says this was a trick to get us here and he knows that we're not really Drow. He was commissioned by the noble Drow house to do a job, but was stiffed on the payment. This Lich has the wardstone to enter that house, but Jarlaxle's troops have their souls trapped in some gems by this Lich. So he wants me to recover the wardstone and the soul gems for him, or he will expose us. Well, there's not much choice in the matter so we go back, kill the Lich, and get his soul gems. As soon as we pick the gems up we're teleported back to Jarlaxle again. Turns out it was a lie, these gems aren't soul gems at all, they were just the payment that the noble house had screwed him out of. His men are safe, he wouldn't be stupid enough to send his own people against the Lich.
But if we want some form of payment, we can attack the noble house ourselves and loot whatever they've got. Jarlaxle will make sure that they can't send an alarm to the rest of the city or expose us. Since I could use some more loot and XP I agree. Anyway, what's a few less Drow in the world anyway? Oh, have I mentioned I'm a Lawful Good Paladin?
With all that side business taken care of, I head back to Phaere's place. Thankfully this request did not have a timer. She wants to betray her own mother and become the new Matron. She gives us some fake dragon eggs and tells us to break into the temple and swap these with the real ones before the demon summoning ritual, then bring the real ones back to real. The demon will kill the Matron mother for giving him fake eggs, Phaere will give him the real ones, and everyone will live happily ever after.
Well on the way to the temple there's another wrinkle in this plan. The commander whose life we spared shows up, and says he knows about Phaere's plan. He give us his own set of fake dragon eggs and says we should give them to Phare instead of the real ones. This works for us, since we need to get out of here with the real eggs anyway and this is turning out to be pretty damn funny. So I cast a mass invisibility spell on my party and we walk right to the back of the temple and swap the eggs with the first set of fakes. As soon as we do that, my party is attacked by 4 clay golems and 3 stone golems. My group has really gotten a power-up from this time in the Underdark, because I'm easily able to slice down the golems without even having to cast any buffs or attack spells. Earlier in the game golems gave me a hard time, and I even had to leave one treasure chest behind because the Iron golems guarding it were too tough. I should make a mental note to go back there again once I'm able to.
Anyway, I sneak back off to Phaere and give her the second set of fake eggs. She's so giddy with happiness she takes them and head right back to the temple. Once she's gone, an imp appears and tell us it's been watching us on behalf of the Silver Dragon and if frankly pretty impressed with how sneaky we've been. He says we shouldn't leave the city yet though, we should go watch the ritual and make sure both the Matron and Phaere are dead, or else they'll come after the Silver again. So we go back over to the temple to watch the magic happen.
The Matron finishes the ritual and the demon prince is summon. As expected he is insulted by the gift of fake dragon eggs and kills the Matron mother. Phaere steps up, smug as can be, and offers the demon her own eggs. The demon is now really pissed off by detecting these are fakes too. Phaere realizes it was me that double-crossed her, and I even get a Steam Achievement labeled "Triple-Cross". Phaere curses my name to eternity, and Imoen even pipes in with a dialogue line of "Ha-ha, serves you right bitch!" or something along those lines. The demon asks if anyone has the real eggs for him, but I keep my mouth shut and he just goes back into his hole.
So my gang and I high-tail it out of town since it's only a matter of time before our actions are discovered. And not a moment too soon, because a city-wide alarm goes off right as I get to the Silver Dragon's cave. She is thrilled to have her eggs back, and keeps up her end of the bargain by taking us to the path back to the surface. We kill a couple more Drow, then are met by the surface elves.
Huzzah, freedom from Edgelord's Paradise! And I got a late start today, so everything in this log happened in a 1.5 hour session this time. Man I've said it before but I love this game. So much content that just flows. It's considered a classic for good reason.
