Previously, on Let's play MotB:
-We were infected with a terrible curse (or great gift, depending on your view) that causes us to have to feed on spirits, or else.
-Our brave party managed to defeat this colourful spirit bear, which we previously annoyed by waking him from his dreams of being in the Rashemen gay pride parade.
-A little girl promised to make me feel so good if I meet with some guy in the Wells of Lurue.
But before we venture forth, we must pick up something I forgot to: the key/sword that was the official reason we messed with the furnace in the first place.
Now that we have the key, might as well use it to open the big black door.
Very atmospheric hints from the devs. Since NWN doesn't show descriptions of things the same way Fallout does, for example, these loading screens have to take on that role.
By the way, you might have noticed last time that I had 100 spirit energy after absorbing the Priest. In any story-related devouring, you get 100 spirit energy no matter what level you were at before. There are also a couple of story-related suppressions that do the same.
That's nice, OOM, but we aren't staying. That loading screen description is dead serious. Opening any door here triggers a large mob of Ancient Vampires to appear, a.k.a. undead monks from hell. Out of curiosity, I has my ass kicked a bit to remember how tough they were: I only managed to get one of them down to Injured before they annihilated me. Ideally, Butch (with an anti-knockdown buff), Okku and high-level Kaelyn are necessary to win here. Right now Turn Undead does nothing and she's bad at fighting without all her buffs.
Anyway, let's check the map.
It's cool that the game plans for your spirit energy level when travelling.
The Wells of Lurue. There is a farmer up ahead, so let's interact.
Even Gann has standards.
Let's do just that.
Are you invincible?
A lie cast by truth? wat
Like Gann says, we'll need to revisit this place once we get a new ability in the Skein.
You'll notice how verbose this one introduction to a quest was. Alas, not every game can be as streamlined and polished as Mass Effect or Alpha Protocol...
Now then, we came here for a reason.
OOM is actually a Ch1ef alt. It's obvious that he's actually not posting from a Rashemi IP, and that proxy he uses to hide his true form is as transparent as he is.
*dramatic chipmunk*
It means that U'juk is compatible with the Many. We haven't any clue about how the Many is related to the spirit eater curse yet, but we're getting there.
If he ate spirit-eaters in the past and never got the curse himself, he must be über-jealous right now.
*gasp*
Who's frightened, I'm not frightened.
ONLY SIX?!?!?
This proves that animals are not sentient, even though Rangers/Druids can communicate with no problems and have entire conversations with animals.
This quest actually has two possible solutions. The more rewarding one (also the one we can't use) is to trick Shelvedar (the travelling merchant/spy) and his buddies to stop by here, ultimately getting eaten. If you know they're spies, it would make it a sort of good option because they're getting what they deserve. However, if you do that you don't get to kill them yourself and report them to the witches. Sending them here lets you raid their wagon for some loot, but I don't remember if it was fantastic loot or throwaway.
The second option is to trick Radu and Vyk from the lodge to PROVE THEIR METTLE up here. This is sort of evil because those two morons are innocent. Perfect for us! There's no extra items for using them, though.
Brings a tear to your eye...
While exploring, we get attacked by some porcelain elementals.
Seriously, they crumble like talc.
If you're wondering why a party member is missing, it's because there's a glitch in the game that causes the party member who initiates conversation with U'juk to get stuck to him.
Now we reach an unholy ritual. Safiya might have had something to add here, but we'll have to make due.
Well, well, well. I've always wanted to say that in a game.
Now let the special effects begin.
Unfortunately, Butch got infected by the nigger curse as well for some reason. Killing those amateur magicians nets you some magical items and some scrolls.
I used Suppress here, because I was surrounded by 4 spirit bears and you get a bonus for using it here. Wish I had Spirit Gorge, though, so it might actually be more useful in combat.
I didn't know this until now, but if you have Gann in your party and you've devoured Okku, these bears never attack you. It seems like it's some kind of bug because Gann gets cut off for no reason, but everybody else gets this so it must be WAD.
Since they won't attack, we'll have to force their hand a little.
You get a nice conversation with these bears if you have Okku with you, plus a small XP bonus. They're his relatives but they still get very mad when they find out that Okku's helping me and defying his purpose of killing spirit-eaters. Having high diplomacy can let you avoid combat with them and you get a LOT of XP, but no items since you don't fight.
If you visit them without Okku (even though you spared him) they just tell you to bring him to them. I'm not sure about visiting them with Okku devoured but without OOM. However, I'm 100% sure that if you have OOM and not Gann in your party, there's no way of avoiding combat with them.
Now enough about this, let's visit the
Wells of Lurue.
Gann is useful in these dream sequences and adds to the conversations usually. That's why it's a good idea to get friendly with him as soon as you can.
Hmm, familiar...
[Intelligence] I think so too.
Oh boy, I can't wait to see what foul abominations from the depths of my nightmares, what terrors from my memories await me here!
IT'S JUST SOME FUCKING SHADOWS! I am disappoint...
Araman's an important character, but I'll save that for when we meet him. Not as important as Akachi, but still.
Oh, man, it was just getting interesting...
Well, that analysis of OOM I promised isn't here because he's had virtually no interaction in Lurue at all. At least Safiya would have something to say about the wizards and maybe the bears and would be useful in combat to nuke things. OOM is literally about as useful as Kaji while he's in this Rogue form.
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