[Let's Play] Baldur's Gate 3 - part two

Ellu'kha Kael had somehow survived the destruction of the Mindflayer ship. Now she found herself on a beach, alone, and with a parasite wiggling through her brain.

She needed to find out where she was and work out a way to get this thing out of her head before it was too late.

Getting her bearings, she explored the beach and soon came across Shadowheart. Shadowheart was alive! There was no sign of Lae'zel, however.

She was briefly tempted to have a look at the artifact that Shadowheart held but then shook her head and shook the woman awake. When Shadowheart came to, she decided to come with Ellu'kha — travel would be safer together and they both needed to get these horrible worms out of their heads. She then thanked Ellu'kha again for helping her to escape that pod back on the ship. She would never forget it.

Together they combed the beach, looting a great variety of corpses that must've been aboard the ship alongside them. They came across a locked door to some ruins they might one day explore later, then suddenly found themselves beset upon by more intellect devourers.

They battled the brain creatures until the last one lay dead in a pulpy mass.

When they took down the last brain creature, Ellu'kha had a sudden awakening. She felt stronger, healthier, and magically became capable of communing with the animals.

She had always heard stories of people communing with animals... and now she was one of them.

Ellu'kha and Shadowheart continued onwards, hoping to find civilization, and instead found a hungry vampire. He tricked Ellu'kha into believing there were more brain creatures and pleaded for help in defeating them, just as she had defeated the ones just back there.

There were no brain creatures. It was a ploy. She headbutted him to get him and his pointed teeth off of her and suddenly, they melded minds.

He, too, had a parasite worming around in his brain. His name was Astarion and he no longer wanted to eat her alive. At this moment, at least. Wary of him, but accepting that he, too, needed help removing the mindflayer parasite, she invited him to her camp so that the three of them could deal with their predicament.

Camp... that was a good idea. Although time was short and they needed to get these things out of their brains, they couldn't do much if they were exhausted. Nodding to Shadowheart, they, too, returned to camp.

While in camp, Ellu'kha spoke to Astarion and discovered that he was apparently a magistrate. He was polite enough and no longer, outwardly anyway, wanted to attack her so she invited him to actively participate in her and Shadowheart's exploration.

She tried to speak with Shadowheart, but she was standoffish and didn't seem to want to.

Taking leave of their campsite, they continued onwards through the ship's wreckage and came across a mindflayer that was still alive. Filled with a sudden rage, Ellu'kha stamped her foot on its head and killed it with her weight.

The monster deserved to die.

Up past the now-deceased Mindflayer, a portal rune on the side of a cliff-face was behaving erratically. Drawn to it, Ellu'kha slowly reached her hand towards it then jumped back as a hand thrust its way out of the portal.

A voice asked for help. To grab his hand and pull him out of the rift.

Uncertain as to if she should or not, she looked over at Astarion and Shadowheart and received no guidance. It was her own decision. The voice called for help again. She took a deep breath and risked it. She grabbed the hand and pulled with all of her strength.

A wizard popped out of the rift and the erratic magic returned to its usual form.

He introduced himself as Gale. It turned out that he, too, had been aboard the mindflayer ship and lo, he, too, had a parasite in his brain. He asked if any of this group before him happened to be healers or handy with a needle, but alas, they were not.

Seeing as they were all afflicted with the same parasitic malady, he offered to come with them in hopes of finding a healer... and soon!

Continuing along the path, they found another locked entrance to the ruins they had previously passed on the beach. What was in there? It really wasn't the time to be exploring — they needed to free themselves from looming parasitic control before they, too, became mindflayers — but there were other people here arguing about what was inside... Ellu'kha crept closer to eavesdrop.

One of them was shouting about exploring the ship that had just crashed. Eyes widening, Ellu'kha rushed out and told them that they should most definitely not do that. The ship was full of monsters!

Thankfully the looters believed her and decided to stay away from the remains of the mindflayer ship.

Further along the path, Ellu'kha Kael and her group stumbled across two red-skinned tieflings with a familiar face trapped in a cage. It was Lae'zel.

Putting on her friendliest face, Ellu'kha warned the tieflings away from Lae'zel and told them that she and her group would take care of the gith. The tieflings welcomed her aid and mentioned that they had a healer in their camp just up ahead. That sounded really promising!

The tieflings left and, now that they were out of sight Ellu'kha notched an arrow and shot Lae'zel out of her cage.

Lae'zel told them that they all needed to come to a creche, that her people had a cure for this parasite within them. Shadowheart didn't want Lae'zel with them or the "help" she could provide but Ellu'kha wasn't going to turn down a possible cure. She agreed to accompany Lae'zel to a creche, whatever that was, but also was interested in seeing if the healer in the tiefling's camp could help them.

There was shouting up ahead.

People were yelling at a tiefling behind a gate. They demanded entry inside for there were goblins coming. Someone yelled something about a druid and then the goblins descended.

Ellu'kha leapt into action and as did her group. They would help these people and then get into the camp. Perhaps this was the camp the other tieflings were talking about. Perhaps there was a healer in there!

Soon, with their combined might, this first wave of goblins were defeated and they were allowed entry into this camp.

Where there was one group of goblins there were many more though, but Ellu'kha didn't really care about that. For now they had the more pressing issue of the worms in their brains.

Hopefully the healer here would be able to help them; if, indeed, this was the camp the tieflings had been talking about.

 

Until next time! 😊

 

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_{All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, @kaelci and are from the game: Baldur's Gate 3}