Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Chapter 7: Trial by Fire

After resupplying in Neverwinter, our party decided to follow a lead from the Kraken base in Yartar. They had discovered a tattered schedule for trips out to ocean, from a place called the "Company of the Brazen Pennant." Their travels in Luskan revealed that the Company was located there, where trips to the nearest islands could be purchased.

Since the ship didn't leave until morning, I decided to explore the "Old City" of Luskan. I didn't find much. It was a smelly fish-packing district filled with otyughs, margoyles, and scrags.

It was late in the evening when they arrived in Luskan, but they found that their ship left in the morning hours. Passing the night with uneventful exploration of Luskan's not so famous "Old City", they climbed aboard the galley in the morning, and set sail to the beating of drums and the beating of oars on the water.

Two days passed. Before any of our party could see a thing on the horizon, the man in the crow's nest yelled out "Land ho! Uttersea." 

"Uttersea?" grunted Chode, "What kind of name is that? Is there a high population of dairy cows?"

"Well, if there is a high population of milk cows, there's bound to be a high population of milk maids!" offered Krevish cheerfully, rubbing his hands together frantically.

The rest of the party stared at him, wide-eyed.

"Well..." Lady Deschanel chimed in to break the silence, "I don't know how it got its name, but the town is an interesting place. It's built in the caldera of a dormant volcano. The underground volcanic activity keeps the town and the surrounding sea quite warm."

Upon arriving in the town of Uttersea on the isle of Tuern, I wasn't sure what I needed to do next. There were some kind of weak side-quests so far in the game. For example, there was the "Old City" in Luskan, which was really just extra combats. In Neverwinter, Lord Nasher tells the party that the city's new gardens have been inhabited by monsters. The party can clear them out, but there is no reaction from Lord Nasher upon doing so. Tuern is the first real side-quest I've found so far. I fully explored the caverns, discovering two important things.

The party can save a local hero who has been given the "small castle" in the above description by his king. He gives the party armor of the glacier as a reward, which is pretty cool. It goes well with the Sword of Icewind Dale I picked up in some pirate's booty in Luskan.

The bigger prize was in the hands of two fire giants. They were carrying meteorite ore, which has been alluded to by the game a number of times. This can be taken back to a smith in Neverwinter, who will forge it into a +3 sword of stonecutting. This is pretty handy against the games ubiquitous margoyles.

Aren't these guys witty?

I was pretty loaded down with jewelry at this point, and feeling pretty confident in my party's abilities, so I decided to unload some gold. I loaded up on the scrolls available in Neverwinter, and also traveled back to Silverymoon to check out the magic shop there. Silverymoon has a good selection of potions. Note as you read on, that I've maybe used one of those items at this point. That's important because, after spending almost all my cash, I further explored the crags of Tuern.

Two efreet managed to kill Krevish... dead.

That was a bummer, but I carried on. Soon after, two salamanders laid the wood down on Steve Nash, also sending him to his grave. What's the chance of that happening? Two deaths in a row?

This of course happened right after I had confidently spent my excess cash on magic items. I decided to push on, and also not sell back my new items, for a few reasons. First, my backup save was from at least a few hours earlier. Second, Krevish is an NPC, so I'm not worried about him getting experience to carry on to the next game. Third, Steve Nash was already at level 6, the max for the game. He will definitely have plenty of extra experience going in to the next game. 

With two characters dead, and nowhere near the 5500 gold I needed to even raise one of them, I pressed on to the next island. I wasn't sure when I started exploring Tuern, but it appears the island is an optional side-quest.