Isaiah headed back east in the direction shadow city and walked through the farmland and the still empty temple of Mystra. He peered ahead past the gates and saw three elves in the main crossroads. Daelmas, Ambrosia and Gabrielle were gathered there. He wanted to talk with Daelmas and Ambrosia but he had mixed emotions about Gabrielle. Also the fact that the city wasn’t safe. Nightfall could be lurking around looking for more elves to stab if that was his thing. It occurred to him that the last part was likely just a paranoid excuse to do something simpler. He didn’t care, an easier task would be to try to get some more gold. The dragon’s den caverns dropped that plate mail and if he could farm that he might be able to buy some more components and get a good stock of detect invisibility components.

Isaiah went north and only walked past the room with the hidden entrance once this time. He climbed down the hole into the dragon’s den caverns. His target was the various monster captains. He went down all the passageways until they dead ended killing everything. With the mana his sword of insanity and the heal command he made slow and steady progress just as before. He had killed everything and didn’t see didn’t see a full plate drop. Just for grins he had pressed all the buttons and went into the room with the wizard. He was still there and still attached to that silk cloak that Isaiah confirmed was likely +2 with his detect magic spell. Internally grumbling he did a second run through of killing captains. The experience point gain was also less then when he was lower level. Isaiah was starting to out-level this place as well. It took three run throughs and a couple hours of grinding before he got another full plate drop.

He headed back to fulgars and sold a couple suits of banded mail, scale mail and one suit of full plate mail. With the 10 or so gold coins that each of the monsters dropped, the run gave him over 10,000 gold. He figured he had enough money to get at least some components to all the spells he currently had in his spellbook.

Experience point requirements going up quite a bit was also starting to hang on him. Level 7 fighter required 64,000xp level 8 fighter required 125,000xp and level 9 fighter required 250,000xp. Similarly level 7 mage required 60,000xp, level 8 mage required 90,000 xp and level 9 mage required 135,000xp. An interesting fact that he learned while looking at help files was that teleport is a level 5 spell. According to said file, the spell didn’t need any components. Magic missile had been his goto spell for much of his mage attacks simply for that reason. Even now, all of his level 1 spell slots were filled with magic missiles. Isaiah swung by the alchemist’s and picked up all the tiny bag and small candles they had in store. Monster summoning spells all used the same components and they were cheap too. Maybe even he could afford to cast it without wincing as he saw the investment vanish in a second. He also picked up some fireflies and added them to his components bag. Some of the things didn’t seem like they would be great to keep next to each other, like bat guano, phosphorus and sulfur. But it was fine, video game logic right?

Isaiah headed south out of the city gate. He continued south past the rhapsody inn and looked at a path headed east into the darkwood forest that he had heard before when chatting with his new friends. True to its name, darkwood was dark. Tall trees with broad leaves towered above the twisting path and were suffocatingly close together. The path opened up after going east enough to an area that was largely like a grid. Most every room had 4 exits: North, South, East West. If it was on the edge of the area it only had 3. For example peering north and south from the first room in the open area most of the rooms lacked the west exit. He assumed whoever made this area wanted it to be open but not a complete rectangle. He continued along the east exits peering north and south to try to survey the area. One of the nice things about designing an area as a grid is that there were long sight lines to take advantage of. He could get a good idea of the darkwood without getting lost easily.

The forest consists of a few orc camps with a couple ogres here and there and also in the center there were several rooms that had some voadkyns. It seems like the wood giants had set up a camp here. Using he also spotted a few voadkyn hunters around. Voadkyns were (to oversimplify) giant hairless elves. Isaiah should fit in well with his large pointy eared cousins. There was a flower vendor and someone selling various nick-nacks. There was a healer who sold healing potions. And surprisingly there was another player at the camp.

Schatten, the low priestess.

The wholist showed her as a female elf. Isaiah’s player was exciting to find another character that might be a potential love interest.

Isaiah says: “Hello Cousin! I’m Isaiah!”

Isaiah beams.

Schatten says: “Sunshine and flowers Isaiah, I am Schatten, pleasure to meet you cousin.”

Isaiah says: “How are you?”

Schatten smiles.

Schatten says: “I’m fine and you?”

Isaiah says: “I’m doing good, it is always nice to meet another elf.”

Schatten nods.

Schatten says: “It is good to meet you here as well, cousin.”

Isaiah says: “So what are you doing in darkwood?”

Schatten chuckles.

Schatten says: “It is strange to find elves in the forest or keeping the presence of our voadkyn kin?”

Isaiah blinks in disbelief.

Isaiah says: “No I am, I didn’t mean it like that.”

Schatten smiles and nods.

Schatten says: “I know, but to answer your question I am here to help the Voadkyn fight off the orc and ogre menace that has been plaguing these woods.”

Isaiah nods.

Isaiah says: “I am here to do the exact same thing. Maybe we could work together?”

Schatten says: “Yes, we should fight side by side to cleanse this land.”

Schatten raises her weapon up.

You invite schatten to follow you.

Schatten is now following you.

You leave headed north.

You leave headed north.

You leave headed north.

Orc attacks you.

You hit orc

You hit orc.

Sword of insanity tell you: “I shall now summon the demon prince!”

Rabbit appears before you.

You hit orc.

Schatten hits orc.

Schatten hits orc.

Schatten hits orc.

Orc drops dead before you.

Schatten pats rabbit on the head.

Schatten says: “My, you charge into battle with no hesitation like a noble knight Isaiah.”

Isaiah says: “oh sorry, did I do something wrong?”

Schatten shakes her head in disagreement.

Schatten says: “Nothing wrong, just a little abrupt. I was at least expecting us to form a party before we clashed blades with the enemy.”

Isaiah laughs nervously.

(That’s right he’d never formed a party anymore so he wasn’t familiar with the command. Lets see here the syntax looks like then too add someone.)

You create the party elves.

You invite Schatten to the party elves.

Schatten has joined the party.

Isaiah says: “There, how's that?”

Schatten says: “We just need a couple war horses and we could charge these orcs like knights!”

Isaiah laughs.

For a while Isaiah and Schatten cut their way through the darkwood monsters with little trouble. With two of them the difficulty was almost non-existent. Isaiah took some damage once and schatten healed him.

Schatten starts casting a spell.

A small pulse of energy courses through you.

HP: 60/60

Isaiah says: “Wow! You are a priestess Schatten and here I thought you were a knight.”

Schatten gestures to her scepter.

Schatten says: “Not using bladed weapons should have given it away.”

Schatten grins and chuckles.

Isaiah says: “I guess I didn’t notice. I’ve had bad experiences in the past with looking people over and getting a knife in the back right after.”

Schatten shudders.

Schatten says: “I’m sorry to hear that cousin.”

Isaiah says: “Well I just stumbled into the wrong bar won’t be going back there.”

Schatten says: “Yeah doesn’t sound like a good place to be.”

Isaiah led schatten through the woods a little more and ran across an ogre.

Ogre attacks you!

You hit ogre.

You hit ogre.

You hit ogre.

Ogre hits you.

HP 52/60

Schatten hits ogre.

Schatten hits ogre.

Schatten hits ogre.

Ogre drops dead before you.

(Isaiah was a little bummed out the mana didn’t drop from heaven this time.)

Schatten looks you over.

Schatten says: “That ogre clubbed you good.”

Schatten starts casting a spell.

A small pulse of energy courses through you.

HP: 60/60

Isaiah says: “Thank you Schatten your healing is so good I never want to be separated from you again.”

Schatten blushes.

Isaiah says: “I um oh, I’m sorry that didn’t come out right haha.”

Isaiah blushes.

Isaiah stands boldly in protection of schatten!

Isaiah says: “It’s the mans…er..elf’s job to protect the healer.”

(This was a command that would make him take hits that were meant for schatten)

Schatten shakes her head in disagreement.

Schatten gestures to her field plate mail.

Schatten says: “I’ve got better armor than you Isaiah. If anyone should be protecting someone else it should be me protecting you.”

Isaiah sighs.

Isaiah says: “Sorry I guess you are my knight in shining armor then rather than the other way around.”

Schatten snickers.

Schatten says: “I would have loved to be a paladin; that was my goal back in the elf village I was raised in. Sadly, my parents didn’t want to crush my dream when I was young and they didn’t tell me that elves couldn’t be paladins until they thought I was old enough to handle it.”

Isaiah sighs.

Isaiah says: “Well you have some good armor, it must have taken a while to get enough money to buy it.”

Schatten shakes her head.

Schatten says: “It was a gift.”

Isaiah says: “A gift? Where from?”

Schatten says: “From our cousin the first time he met me he treated me very gentlemanly. He said that he hoped I would gain strength quickly and adventure with him soon.”

Schatten fidgets.

Isaiah raises an eyebrow.

Isaiah says: “Another elf, maybe it is someone I know.”

Schatten says: “Yes, he is a priest of Lathander his name is Kaarell.”

Kaarell is giving this cute elf girl expensive presents. What could this mean? Isaiah’s player had a bad feeling but convinced himself it was nothing. Schatten is a nice girl. Kaarell is a nice guy, they were both friends and don't try to overanalyze this. Isaiah’s player desperately tried to keep his thoughts positive. Positive!

Isaiah led the group to a room of the forest that had a voadkyn ranger in it. The rangers seemed to wander around a bit. There were some corpses in some of the rooms so they likely attacked orcs and ogres. Isaiah looked over the Voadkyn to see what gear it had on it.

Wood ax(wielded in right hand)

Wood ax(wielded in left hand)

Voadkyn chain(worn)

Isaiah cast detect magic.

Wood ax(wielded in right hand) (surrounded by a blue glow)

Wood ax(wielded in left hand) (surrounded by a blue glow)

Voadkyn chain.(worn) (surrounded by a blue glow)

Hmm. This NPC has several +2 items.

Schatten says: “Isaiah what are you doing?”

Isaiah says: “Nothing.”

Schatten glares at you.

Schatten says: “It looked to me like you were casting detect magic and enviously looking at that Voadkyn ranger’s gear. I hope you were not coming up with any bad plans to get it because I won’t stand for it.”

Isaiah says: “No no, I was just wondering if it was magical or not that’s all.

Schatten puts her hands on her hips.

Schatten says: “I hope so let's move on.”

And so they wandered around killing monsters helping the Voadkyn rangers keep the forest free of orcs. Well the orcs would respawn after 15 minutes so it wasn’t like the forest could ever really be free of orcs and ogres no matter how many they killed. In the southeastern corner of the forest it lead off into a bit of path and the room description changed to be less dark and more like a traditional forest. One of the rooms had a sign planted that read:

Tharis Forest: Players will be forced to play their alignments here.

**Due to abuse of the alignment system no one under level 10 may enter the forest

You have been warned!

Schatten looks over sign.

Isaiah says: “It looks like I can’t go this way.”

Schatten says: “Maybe this is a good time to part ways. I should head back to the temple of Silvanus.”

Isaiah says: “Where is that?”

Schatten says: “It is far from here on the island of deku.”

Isaiah nods.

Isaiah says: “I would like to come and visit it soon.”

Schatten says: “Be careful there are some strong monsters in areas there but if you stick to the main path you should be safe. When I first arrived in this realm I didn’t know where it was. Kaarell led me there safely the first time so I could offer my greetings to the oakfather for the first time. I am ever grateful for his help.”

Isaiah says: “Well I can escort you back to shadow. I haven’t been to the islands yet.”

Schatten shakes her head.

Schatten says: “There is no need to, elves belong in the forest so let is part ways here. Shadow is full of villains.”

Isaiah nods.

Isaiah says: “Allright, I look forward to seeing you again soon.”

Schatten says: “Sunshine and waterfalls cousin.”

Schatten waves to you.

Schatten leaves north.

Schatten is no longer following you.