Part 9

At long last we finally arrive in Luskan, known throughout the Savage Frontier as a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Well, at least a bit more so than anywhere else.



"I appreciate that. We might need a way to get out of town quickly later."



"Well, in a sense we are seeking booty… although I'm not sure if they're meaning a double entendre and I'd rather not find out."

"I wouldn't get my hopes up for justice or mercy either."



"Hmm… perhaps for the best? Maybe we can get one of them to act as our ally in a bid to help discredit the others."

"Go back to that bit about magical booty… are we talking nymphs or something like that? Because I don't think they're going to notice us being there if that's the case."



"At least the houses of the High Captains aren't very difficult to pick out from the rest… although a name plate or something would be nice."

"They probably figure that anybody who needs to ask should already know."



"Okay, I think there might have been a bit of a misunderstanding here…"

"Oh, I don't know about that. I see some magical booty for the taking."




Our enemies in this case are fairly straightforward, although the margoyles are an interesting addition. Looking them up in the good old Monstrous Manual suggests that they're a type of elite gargoyle that are a bit tougher than the standard sort and that can blend into stone. Like gargoyles they require a +1 or better weapon to damage. This is a problem, since we only have two enchanted weapons at this point and the enchanted arrows that Kedzie is toting. These guys are the reason we wanted to save those arrows.



"Ugh. Ice magic. This one's for you."

"If this is tribute, we should probably return it to whomever they stole it from."

"Sounds great, but I don't see anybody's name on it so that's not exactly practical."



"Hey, a new face running the inn."

"I think I liked the other innkeepers better."



"Looks like somebody is compensating more than a little bit."



"Well, now we have a name for at least one of the Captains…"

"Too bad that the fight that's about to start is going to erase any goodwill he might have toward us."



The fights are all pretty much identical with one exception, so they all play out about the same.



Our next treasure is another magical weapon, which goes to Galen so that we've got another person who can help with the margoyles.



"Why'd they bother to put all those turrets if they weren't actually going to put archers in them?"

"Let's not give them any ideas, as I'm okay with not being full of arrows today."



"So do you think word has gotten around about us yet, or are these guys just inexplicably hostile to everybody?"

"Whatever the answer is, they were willing to die for what appears to be 20 enchanted arrows."



"From the looks of it these are the more well-to-do Captains… maybe we should consider doing something other than looting the front room?"



"Unfortunately they don't seem to want to give us time to get a word ou… wait, is that a bow?"

"That would have been my second guess."

"That's… four down, now? We still have one left to find."



"I don't think this is it."



"I'll go one further and say that those probably aren't salespeople… and if they are, I don't want what they're selling."



Meet the Scrag, a type of water troll that's slightly tougher and more tricksy than the regular kind. Like their land-dwelling brethren they are big walls of meat but luckily they don't regenerate unless they're immersed in water. They also tend to drop huge numbers of coins, which as we can't change them without visiting a shop have a tendency to cause a lot of encumbrance. This particular pair dropped 3941 silver coins and 429 gold, which sounds impressive but weighs a lot, especially for its relative value.



The other door actually leads to the shop (which is quite ordinary) but evidently keeps a wizard on staff to identify items. Instead, to continue we're going to have to head back the way we came and across this bridge.



"They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…"



"Yes Krevish, we know. Man, I bet the tower mages hate this guy."



"You know, we haven't asked, but are the letters on the cases who the item is from or who it's to?"

"The one for Baram had a B… this must be for somebody whose name starts with a K."



The final treasure fight is the hardest, but by that all they mean is that there's another pirate just off screen here. It doesn't change the outcome by very much.



"That's a Sword of Icewind Dale! We can definitely bring that back to its rightful owners."

"No we can't, because it's already with it's rightful owner. Mine."

"You might not want to try and argue that point. I think she might take off a finger if you tried to take it."



"This seems awfully small for a place to get passage on a ship. Maybe it's around back?"



"Well, you've been a lot of help. You know where we should go? The old city!"

"You just don't want to go anywhere near the Host Tower… but then again, this town is full of interesting things."




"Maybe later? How do you feel about taking off early in exchange for ridiculous sums of money?"



"Call me crazy, but I don't think that there's anything of value hidden here."



"Looks like the giant humanoid abominations disagree."

"The funny thing is that they prefer to eat people… they can get all the fish they want living in the water."



"You know that you're behind on cleaning house when your garbage comes to life and attacks people."



You might remember the greater versions of these guys from Dark Queen of Krynn. The smaller ones look like tied off trash bags, or perhaps animated potatoes. Strangely enough, they are still affected by stinking cloud. You really wouldn't think that would be the case.



"I'm beginning to think that there's nothing in the entire old town except for scrags and trash… I haven't even seen any people."

"I don't know, if you are what you eat those scrags probably count as people now."



"Wild margoyles are a little bit of a change of pace."

"That does explain where the pirates are getting them from."



Despite the description, the room isn't actually crawling with margoyles. It'd be a much more interesting and lucrative encounter if that were the case.



"Well, this explains everything…. we haven't been in the Old City at all. We've been in the docks, which you'd naturally expect to be full of monsters."



"Weren't we just here?"

"Nah, it's just that all margoyles look the same… and I think that we've visited every square inch of this city already except for the host tower. Ready yet, Zanros?"

"Fine, fine… let's get on with it."

Character Snapshot





As you can see from the last shot, just about everybody picked up a level dealing with all of the pirates, margoyles, and scrags scattered around Luskan. Between that and the various enchanted items we picked up our party has gotten a lot more powerful from that section. We've also reached the all important level five, which means fireballs for our mages. I'll be glad of that in the Host Tower.



Speaking of new spells, we've also got enough cash to buy a pair of scrolls from the magic shop and pick up a few extra third level spells to expand our repertoire. Unlike the scroll shop in Dark Queen of Krynn, these are the only options we have. We've got all of one more level to learn new spells, so this is the only option we have when it comes to getting spells.

Next update: We finally go in after the first statue.