What else was here in the lighthouse area? Right, the actual lighthouse. There's a child needing saving as well as another fortune teller, I think. Should I bother?
…meh, I wouldn't feel right leaving a child in danger. May as well check if the child is there since I'm in the area.
---
We passed right by a gorgeous woman armed with darts and a ninjato.
Oh, Safana's here. I pretty much forgot about her, honestly. Safana is a thief who uses Scimitar/Wakizashi/Ninjatōs single-handed, and darts. Her unique special ability is to charm humanoids once per day. She's okay for a thief, her points focused into Open Locks and Find Traps which are staples for thieves. Why one would take her instead of another of the thieves available, erm. Maybe for her sultry personality? She's very flirtatious, in fact her charm ability is renamed as "Safana's kiss" in the Enhanced Edition.
In our case, because we had raided the cave with the Manual of Bodily Health before meeting her, there was actually no way to complete her quest to get the treasure due to bad programming in the game. Too bad!
---
Soon enough we came upon Fortune-teller #2! This woman, Arkushule, was a palm reader, not an astrologer.
"Who might you be then? Ah, great adventurers no doubt? I could tell by your hands. Stained with magic and the effort of hefting a weapon. Such markings may be invisible to the average eye, but I can see them plain as day. Care for a consulation? Perhaps a little old-fashioned palm reading? A little gypsy magic to steer your course straight and true?" the woman asked.
…Hold on. GYPSY magic? But the Romani don't exist in the Forgotten Realms? I think the writers goofed here. Probably. Maybe.
Anyway, this here 'gypsy' was basically foreshadowing rather than advertisement. Eh, I'm sporting enough to let it happen. I gave her my hand to look at.
First, she'll tell me I've only started traveling quite recently.
"Let's have a look now. Interesting. Though you live the hard life now, your hand tells of a softer existence not long ago. I assume that you have just recently taken to the road?"
I nodded. That was a pretty general sounding palm-reading, but Arkushule smiled, smug with her prediction.
Next, she'll see that I was brought up by Gorion.
"I thought as much. Let's have a little closer look now. Back down your life line. I see a scholarly influence, and you are well educated. You had a mentor who was a great sage? Perhaps of considerable power as well?"
"Correct. My foster father Gorion was a sage, and a bit of a mage as well."
Arkushule's smile was growing wider and wider. Ah, the next thing she sees will wipe that smug smirk off her face though. This is another instance where the protagonist's tainted lineage is hinted at very strongly, and Arkushule isn't going to like it.
"You had a reasonably happy childhood with him, aside from being a little difficult. My my, but you were quite the little hellion. Wonder where that comes from? Let's see what we can't learn about you back before this Gorion," she said. "Further back I see... I see..."
Here it come. Scream in 3, 2, 1-
"…eh?"
The smile on Arkushule's face did fade, but not in alarm as I had expected. More like confusion. She pulled my palm closer, squinting carefully.
"What's wrong? What do you see?"
The whole party was peaking over her shoulder, trying to see what she could see at this point.
"I'm, I'm not actually sure. I see more than one life in the past. I don't understand it really," Arkushule remarked.
Behind the rest of the party, I could see Neera's mouth open wide. She shook her head at me and made an 'x' sign with her hands.
Okay, hint taken. I tugged my palm back. "Maybe that's enough fortune telling for one day-"
"Hey! Don't stop now!" Imoen and Arkushule pulled my hand back. "It just got to the good part!" Imoen insisted.
"I must confess I'm curious too," Jaheira said and reached out to hold my palm still. "Why aren't you, Sonny?"
"Maybe cos I enjoy my privacy?" I said while tugging back. But Branwen had joined in too, holding my hand steady.
I'm strong for my size, but I'm not THAT strong. Well, maybe it's better this way? If I had a palm reader backing me up, maybe I could in fact tell the party what was actually going on with the whole isekai thing.
"I'm seeing marks of divine intervention at play. More than one," Arkushule said. "The first one is… who is that? A halfling goddess, but an unknown one. How odd."
…huh? There's no halfling goddess involved in the origin of the protagonist, I'm sure of it!
"Are you sure you read that right?" I asked, incredulous.
"Certain. Halfling deities are pretty distinct, ironically," Arkushule said.
Really? Wait, don't tell me-
"What about the second one?" Imoen asked.
"I'm getting there, just a little more," Arkushule said, her eyes squinting.
No, not yet! "Tell me about the first one first! Don't look-"
Too late. Arkushule's face twisted in alarm. "Merciful gods!"
She let go of my hand, and she and the whole party fell over backwards all over each other.
"I-see-a-long-and-happy-life-for-you-and-yours," Arkushule said as she hurriedly got to her feet. "10 gold, please, and I'll be on my way."
"Wait, tell me more about the halfling goddess!" I pleaded.
"I saw nothing! You will live long and enjoy life, and I will be going now!" Arkushule said, and scampered of before I could pay her or get another word in.
Damn, I was so close to learning more about the halfling goddess!
---
Before we reached the lighthouse, we met a woman in distress.
"Please help me! I don't know where else to turn. My little boy was playing in that abandoned lighthouse to the northwest when a pack of worgs surrounded it. Please just turn them back, and I can coax him down. There's not much time!
The lady didn't have much money to offer us for taking out the Worgs, but that was fine. A few Worgs wasn't worth mentioning anyway. The lady thanked us for our deed, but I waved her off. My mind was more pre-occupied with the halfling goddess.
---
And we were done with the lighthouse! That was the primary items on my little checklist done, though I did want to double back for the Protection from Magic scroll at Firewine and Ring of Free Action at Ulgoth's Beard.
In the mean time, it was back to Beregost! Well, a stop at High Hedge first, since it was along the way. Here, we bought the Claw of Kazgaroth for 6700 gold. The Claw is technically a cursed item, reducing Constitution by 2 in exchange for a host of benefits including +1 to AC, +4 vs missiles, and +3 bonus to all saves except save vs Death which received a -4 penalty. Neera however had 14 Constitution, and she doesn't receive any penalties for reducing her Constitution down to 12. She was also wearing the Cloak of Displacement from Ulgoth's Beard which gave +4 bonus AC vs missiles (giving her a total of +8 bonus AC vs Missiles), as well as +2 bonus to Save vs Death, Breath and Wands.
I did consider the The Horn of Kazgaroth, which when activated did a number of things for 3 rounds:
-Immunity to all level 1 & 2 spells
- +2 bonus to all Saving throw values
- +5 Armor Class bonus vs. missile attacks
- 10 Crushing damage to the user
Immunity to such low-level spells was pretty meh at this point in the game. The bonus to Saves and AC vs missiles was nice. The crushing damage could be justified if the situation called for all these bonuses, I guess? I just can't think of which situation I'd really want this horn, outside of the Bandit Camp where archers were plentiful. And the effects last for only three rounds, meh.
I think I'll just save my money for Strength potions from Halbazzer instead. I'm down to about 10k after the purchase of the Claw anyway.
As soon as Neera put on the claw, she gave out a HUGE yawn. "Whoa, I'm tired all the sudden," she said.
Right. Reducing her Constitution makes reduced her resistance to fatigue that accumulated naturally from traveling. Urm. Well, that's fine since we were going to rest back at Feldepost's anyway.
---
Back at Feldepost's Inn, I had a question for the party as we ate a hearty meal.
"Do you know of any halfling goddess which no one knows about?"
"Obviously not! How could we know something no one knows?" Branwen said immediately, incredulous
I cringed. Yeah, bad wording on my part.
"In all seriousness, none of us have access to secret knowledge like that," Branwen continued. "Or at least, I am not."
The last phrase she said while eyeing Jaheira and Khalid.
Imoen gave Khalid a nudge. "This is your cue to fess up what you know, Harpers."
Jaheira glared at Imoen and put a finger to her mouth. "Don't mention that name here," she whispered urgently.
Not far from where we were sitting, Xzar and Montaron where eating their meal separate from the rest of us. Fortunately they weren't close enough to hear.
"Sorry about that. But I'm not dropping the subject," Imoen insisted. "Both Elminster and that Entillis guy kept talking about Sonny's lineage. Tell us what you know."
Khalid and Jaheira traded looks. Khalid had this pleading look on his face that's hard to describe.
Jaheira sighed and turned back to us. "We only have an inkling. Elminters and Entillis didn't tell us, but we got hints from Gorion."
"Gorion was protective of you, Sonny. Obsessively so," Khalid explained. "Our understanding from Gorion's letters was that it had something to do with your lineage. We only know it wasn't a good one because he was very concerned how you would turn out. So influence from an evil god sounds about right."
"What about a halfling goddess?" Neera asked.
"No idea about a halfling goddess," Jaheira whispered back. "That was a total surprise to us both. No god from the halfling pantheon is evil, and the palm reader didn't react to the halfling goddess the same way she did to the other. So at least that's a clue that this goddess's influence isn't so malign like the other."
Later, Neera pulled me aside to have a private chat.
"You mentioned your lineage before when you said you cannot be allowed to die, right? Do you know what is going on?"
"I thought I did," I said, "I only know of the evil god. I'm a product of the Time of Troubles… anyway, more importantly, I know nothing of a halfling goddess. The story has deviated from the original game."
"Do you have any idea who it could be?"
"Unfortunately, I don't. Like I said, in the original game there's only one god's influence. That said, I have my suspicions of the halfling goddess's role in this deviation," I replied. "When I was transmigrating into the Forgotten Realms, I was forced to become a halfling race."
"Most people don't get to choose their race-"
"I'm not most people. I'm the player in the character creation screen. I could choose everything else except race, basically. And now I learn a halfling goddess was involved in my past?"
Neera's eyes widened. "You don't think she-"
"I do. Whoever that goddess is, she's quite likely responsible for my transmigration into the Forgotten Realms."