So there I was in Beregost. Now that I had two boots of speed, I decided to try and take down that idol guardian. I read on the FAQ that he'd go down with six magic missiles, but he was too fast for me before.
So I put the boots of speed on both my mages (actually, I think I might leave them there--it makes sense). With double speed I ought to be able to slaughter the guardian in short order.
Which I did, but first I had to find the place. Along the way I found an area I hadn't covered completely. That yielded some nice fights with hobgoblins (easy prey at this stage, no matter how intimidating they look) and a couple of ogres. I ran into some of the game's humor, and picked up some more gems and coins as booty.
Finally found the right area. Of course, that's the only place in the game (so far) that regenerates enemies. Whenever you go through the little Xvart village they swarm out, but they're simple stuff. Plowed through them and got all set up in the cave, grabbed the idol, and sallied forth. The guardian appeared but I was ready for him. My only problem was that I killed him before I realized it, and my mages accidentally attacked my own party. They, however, are now strong enough to withstand a magic missile attack quite handily.
I may take yet another break from Baldur's Gate, because Jonathan Boakes is going to release a preview of his next epic: The Last Crown. That won't come out for several months yet, but this is a little effort just for Halloween and his loyal fans, like me. It's supposed to be $5 on his website, so I'll try to get that--if his site is running. The huge storm that hit southern England may have taken out his power--he hasn't made a Facebook post in several days.
More plans: a while back as I was packing up all my games I came across the Mac version of American McGee's Alice, which is a real classic. I had never played. It was made for both Mac Classic and OS X, which had just come out. Like an idiot I tried to load it. I thought I'd crashed the computer good and well. The screen went entirely black. But voila! Suddenly it returned and the game had installed! I tried running it, and it worked!
I mean: magic!
Now Apple has come out with their latest OS, Mavericks (apparently they've run out of felines). And it's free. And it will upgrade from Snow Leopard, which I'm still running. (Why not still run Snow Leopard? It's an excellent OS and I don't need the cloud.)
So I want to install that, but I fear that it might wipe out my Fusion virtual XP, where I have lots of games. Obviously I'll check that out on the Apple site or at the store, but I really wonder if it would run that Alice game. I'm already pushing that beyond the limit, after all.
Ergo, I need to play Alice before I install Mavericks, just to be on the safe side. The only way to get that game now is on Amazon, but it isn't an Amazon download. It comes from somewhere else, and it takes days and even weeks to download, and it can't be downloaded again to a new computer later. Once and that's it. And it isn't even the Mac version.
So I need to play the one I've got that works. (Or, grab a copy of 8.6 off of E-Bay and install it on my iMac classic. It would work on that.)
I need to keep up with Baldur's Gate, so I imagine I'll be bouncing back and forth between it and Boake's Halloween Haunting and Alice.
I will just make the time.
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