Further west, we traveled to a region where there was a beautiful waterfall. We were in a hilly region connected to Cloudy Peaks still, perhaps the tip of it.
There, we were approached by a beautiful scantily clad woman with green hair and skin. "Please, kind spirits, a wondrous ancient oak is in peril. It is about to be attacked by two who would defile the majesty of nature. They have avoided my charms and must be stopped before irreparable harm is done. Would you heed my plea?"
This woman was a dryad, obviously. She didn't say as much, but I guessed this was the tree this dryad was connected to.
Jaheira was our party druid, so we looked to her for guidance on this issue. "Do I need to spell it out? Of course we help here! If the tree falls... I'll kill the bastard what done it!"
I cringed. "Let's try and persuade them first. Someone who is not Jaheira, please?"
Khalid nodded with me while giving his wife a look, and put up his hand.
"No, not you Khalid. No offence," I said, shaking my head.
"If they're armed, should probably have someone in armor do the talking though," Neera said.
I.E. not her.
We looked to Branwen who nodded. "About time you let me have a go at it."
---
The two men who were attacking the wondrous ancient oak were in fact at it right now, so we hurried forward to engage them. One was watching on while the other was hitting the oak with… a club?
Urm. Not really bright fellows, huh?
"Hold, fools! What do you think you are doing?!?" Branwen cried out.
Was Branwen going for a scolding teacher routine or something? Well, I guess she was a priest so that made sense in a way.
The man who had been standing by uncrossed his arms. "This tree be a magic tree! It's all alone up here and so big. Probably got gnomes or pixies or sumthin' in it, so we're gonna bust it down and take any treasure!"
And how was Branwen going to convince the men to stop what they were doing? We all looked to Branwen, curious.
"FOOLS!" Branwen screamed at them, then drew Asheedina +2. "For this sacrilege, you shall die! Draw steel!"
…HUH?!?
All of us, the two men and dyrad as well, looked at Branwen's sudden declaration with surprise and disbelief. The two men looked at each other and shrugged. "Get them!"
Being two simple woodsmen, the two men weren't really much of a challenge for a level-capped party. Unfortunately, they were too stupid to back down and we had to put them down forcefully.
"What the hell, Branwen? You didn't even try to talk them out of it!" Neera berated Branwen.
"No, I did not," Branwen said with a smile. "Jaheira and Sonny have had so much fun picking fights with fools, I wanted to give it a go some time."
…wot. Is she being real now or is she dissing me and Jaheira? Or both?
Neera made a face, then swivelled around and addressed the rest of us. "I vote we NEVER let the priestess of Tempus handle peace talks again. EVER."
"Aye!" everyone else said in unison.
If Branwen was insulted by our vote, she sure didn't show it. I think she was having fun trolling us, for once.
The dryad thanked us with an antidote, and a peck on the cheek for I and Khalid.
"Alright, enough. Shoo!" Jaheira bid the dryad cheerfully while her husband was blushing in spite of his mahogany complexion. I may have blushed myself.
"Stupid tree sluts, acting like they've never seen men before," Neera grumbled.
What did she have to grumble about? Seriously.
Loot: Club +1, and the Girdle of Bluntness, gives +4 bonus AC vs blunt weapons. This was another must-have magical item. One tank wears the Golden Girdle that protects against slashing weapons, the other wears the Girdle that helps protect against blunt weapons.
---
I dispatched a dire wolf in a cave here with a clean backstab, and we found some minor treasure in it (halberd +1). 'Nuff said.
---
We found ANOTHER child out in the wilds. A little girl this time.
"-sob- Pixie, my cat, she was playing close to the waterfall and slipped... -sniff-... I hope she's all right," she said to us.
The rest were looking at Imoen for confirmation this time. She nodded to them, "It's okay, she's real this time. Probably."
As in a real girl. Can't blame the party for being cautious, considering the last child in the wild we met was a full blown devil in disguise.
The little girl looked up. "…huh?"
"Never mind her," I said to her. "We did find your cat. But I'm afraid she didn't survive the fall."
We had already found the body of the cat earlier at the bottom of the waterfall. The cat had a collar, so I told the rest I wanted to find the owner.
The girl took the body of her dead cat from us, to everyone's surprise. "It's all right, she's done this before. I guess Daddy will just have to raise her again. Here, you can have this scroll Daddy gave me. I can't read the words yet anyways."
And she left us, with so many questions hanging over our heads.
For one; Who exactly was her daddy who could raise her cat over and over again?
"Neera, use an Identification scroll on the scroll she just gave us."
Turns out she had handed us a Protection from Undead scroll. Wait, why is her father giving such a scroll to a child in the first place? What was she even doing out here?
Alas, the exchange happened so quickly we had no time to ask. Perhaps that was for the best.
---
A lone hostile gnoll was carrying an unidentified enchanted halberd. Well, until I gave it a love tap from behind, smashing it's head in.
"It's not a standard magical halberd?" I asked Neera. Standard meaning +1 enchantment.
"Nope. Not sure what it is, but it's obviously not your run of the mill magic halberd," Neera said. "Just try lifting it."
I gave her a look. "Just because I'm short, that doesn't mean I'm weak you know."
She gestured to the halberd again, so I caved in and gave it a cursory tug.
"…what the?" I tried harder, hefting the ridiculously heavy halberd over my shoulder. "Was that gnoll really swinging this thing around? It weighs a ton!"
Well, not a literal ton. Maybe twice as much as a regular halberd, which was already a heavy weapon. Maybe 30 pounds? That may not sound like much but thing is, halberds are LONG. When there's a heavy halberd head involved, leverage owns you. One big swing, and the halberd will go flying and so will the person holding the halberd on the other end.
Each of the party members gave the stupidly unbalanced halberd a try. Big nopes all around. Even Khalid with his might enhanced by the Gauntlets of Ogre Power shook his head. "I-I could use it, but it's too unwieldy to swing quickly."
Hrm, another Item I don't remember? On a lone gnoll I don't remember? Maybe it's Enhanced Edition content.
We would later identify the halberd as The Chesley Crusher, a Halberd+2 that does a massive 1d10+6 damage with each swing (not including Strength and other bonuses), but it can only be swung once a round. It's a pity the thing isn't a staff or thief weapon otherwise it would make a great backstabbing weapon, but is otherwise not that useful.
---
Next, we were stopped by a band of gnolls.
"Stop! You have trespassed on our territory. You shall not be allowed to leave until you have paid tribute. We demand 50 gold in tribute!"
…just 50 gold? Not all of our money? What a surprisingly agreeable gnoll. Still, we were so overly powerful compared to these gnolls at this point in the game so we weren't inclined to hand them anything.
"I have a better suggestion. You hand us 50 gold, and we spare your lives instead. What say you?"
The gnoll laughed and sneered, "Funny. But no deal."
Just then, of all the bad timing, a cave bear came running in at us from behind.
What type of cursed timing is this? "Fine, you get to die too stupid bear-"
"No, leave it to me," Jaheira commanded. "Go."
While the rest of us engaged the large gnoll and his band, Jaheira cast Charm person or mammal on the rampaging cave bear, charming it moments before it reached her. Then we disengaged and let the bear fight the gnolls head on, or what was left of them by then. Like I said, nor really a threat by this point of the game.
The gnolls were shocked by how quickly their numbers were falling to our bows and blades, but didn't have time to reconsider before the last one fell over dead.
---
That's another area cleared. With that, I only had two more items left on my bucket list: the Ring of Fire Resistance in the area to the east of the Nashkel mines, and the Manual of Constitution in the light house region to the far west of Beregost.
We were currently in the areas southwest of Nashkel, so we stopped by to rest at Nashkel while on the way to the southwest.