Actually, I decided to go do Brega straight away, cause I'd already asked Aran to send me help in Bohdi's lair, and I was curious if they'd still be there and helpful after I wiped Aran out (not that there's any reason they should be -aware- of it if Aran sent them out immediately, but hey, it's worth knowing if anything happens like they go hostile in the lair or anything).
Anyways, Brega tells me to go wipe out Aran. Okey doke. I hope by the end of this you've all had as much fun reading this report as I had playing through this and writing this report out (I was alt-tabbing back and forth as I played it and wrote this out).
1) The first fight after walking in to the guildhall I did three times. The first two times, the bulk of guards in the front room didn't seem aware of the fact that there was still fighting going on in the back room - they broke into the "you have a key to get into the basement where Aran is, go there now" spiel before the thieves in the back room were dead. Then, they all ran into the room with the secret door and COMPLETELY blocked access to it. I couldn't get past them. Had to reload both times.
The third time I tried it I wasn't expecting anything different, I just figured this time I'll have to beat them to the door before they cut off access. But the third time, it went differently. After the thieves in the front room were killed, the guards didn't give the "go get Aran" spiel, instead they bunched in a group around the door leading to the back room (thankfully not blocking it, just in a group kinda close to it). So I opened it and went in and all the guards helped me finish off the thieves back there. THEN they gave me the spiel ("go get Aran"), but only one of the guards went running to block the secret door room, the rest of 'em stayed in the back room.
2) It seemed odd that all those thieves on the top floor were also mages with big contingency spells set up, but at least the same wasn't true down below. Seemed a little odd, but not beyond the realm of probability, and I can understand doing it in the interest of keeping the fights challenging.
3) One of the prisoners, named Tazzik, seems convinced that I was sent by Bohdi. I have no conversation options except to indeed agree that Bohdi sent me or to threaten his life to tell me where to find Aran, as if I didn't already know. If I tell him that yes, I'm from Bohdi, he talkes about magical locked doors and that I'll need to push a button and get a key, etc. This seems left over from the Chapter 3 quest if you take Bohdi's path (although I can't confirm that as I've never sided with Bohdi).
4) Behind him, in the prison room where the tortured people are supposed to be, is an infinitely spawning Renal Bloodscalp. Seriously. I'm literally watching another one spawn every few seconds. I've got about 76 Renals to face right now. They're all blue, and when I approach them they says they've fallen far due to Mae'var's treachery. I then get the following four options:
1. No reason. Goodbye.
2. Renal? What are you doing here? (seems odd since he just explained what happened to him, and him being a prisoner isn't that tough to figure out)
3. I wanted to let you know I'm responsible for incriminating you. (very odd since I did no such thing - I'm not even gonna -try- this one and wind up fighting 80 Renals, heheh)
4. I'm here to kill Aran Linvail. (this gets a good luck)
It was actually kinda hard to get out of this, as each and every Renal wanted to start up the same conversation with me, heh.
5) Anyways, moving on... I went on and found the locked door, so worked my way back over the other way in order to hunt down this Haz guy and the button I need to push. Other than Haz being convinced Bohdi sent me (and maybe you left this in on purpose, no idea) everything on that side worked great. Lotsa traps, and even got another ring of lockpicks off Dedral, a nice fun little prize I'm glad you left in, it'd be silly to not get any thief-specific loot in this place.
6) Pushed the button, got the key, tried to work my way back to the locked door, and am now absolutely stuck because the infinitely spawning Renals have now completely filled the prison room and spilled up the stairs and have almost completely filled the main room that you come into when you go through the secret door from above. And, of course, each and every one of them wants to have a chat with me, sigh. My character (named Bleys, by the way) despairs for a moment, but then yells "Eureka!", pauses the game and pulls out his handy wand of death (Control-Y) and zaps about 60 of the Renals, enough to let me get past 'em in the main room. SEE with shock and amazement as the two-month old Dell computer slows to a crawl as dozens of Renal Bloodscalps simultaneously yell ARGH! and fall to the ground. Get past them into the long hallway... and wouldn't ya know it, right at the entrance of it, still surrounded by Renals (about 30 or 40 of 'em managed to spawn themselves into the passageway, eh, I'll deal with those in a sec), here's four red shadow thieves who want to pick a fight in this oh-so-convenient place - sigh. The fight proceeds at a rather understandably slow pace (can smell the smoke issuing from my video card handling all that's going on), when hilariously one of the mages throws a fireball, which sends about 30 of the Renals -leaping- to my rescue. Aerie: "This is so much more exciting than any circus!" Oh, you betcha, honey - mind if I get a backrub after this? So, finish the fight, zap another 30 or 40 Renals so I can get down past the passageway, and finally make it past the Clone War (Renal and Boba Fett gotta get together and have a few beers and swap stories sometime).
7) Qwinn (not Bleys) needs a cigarette after this, so he parks the party just outside Aran's room and heads out to the garage... only to come back and hear Minsc griping about hamsters in hard to reach places - UGH! Forgot to pause! Thankfully, the clones have yet to work their way up to Aran's room and completely surround my party... thank GOD I'm not going to bother trying to actually leave this place when I'm done (or so I think - bwahahahahah - Sim's not letting me go -that- easy).
I fight Aran. This fight is indeed quite fun. It does seem odd, though, that Aran still has an amulet of power and ring of protection +2 on him, even though he gave them to me back at the end of chapter 3. Hey, if he had spares, no complaints from me (snicker). Might make more sense to replace them with something different and roughly as nice (hey, after all, if Bioware thought that all this effort merited prizes that nice, who are we to object? grin). Hey, gloves of backstabbing too - sheesh - between this and all the short swords of backstabbing I'm pretty bummed I installed SwashImoen now, heh. Ooooh, wait, I got Valygar! He can backstab! Wait. He can't use 'em. But Imoen -can-, and her backstab goes up to x3 despite being a Swashbuckler... oh whatever. Not like she's ever going to swap out the Gloves of the Master Thief for 'em.
9) So here I think I'm done. But no! Guess who should show up? Someone I'd never actually met before - Larell! He congratulates me on doing the job well, etc. - little did I know I was doing his bidding - Brega must be working for him! Boy, I'm gonna have to have words with him after this. Anyways, he then decides to give me "more" work, which is to go kill Mae'var. Okay. Of course, I know this is all going to end badly, because during this entire conversation with me he's been "red" and hostile. I agree to go do "more" work for him, end dialogue, and sure enough he tries to kill me anyway. Okies - dead Larell.
10) I'm so full of curiosity now (and quite frankly having so much fun) that I decide, okay, I -gotta- go try and kill Mae'var now and see what happens, not to mention finding out what Brega's gonna give me for this. So, back down the hall I go, expecting to have to use my insta-death phazer on what are now seventeen quintillion Renals, but joy of joys, somewhere during my Control-Y's I must've zapped the most recent clone and they're no longer reproducing. But, there's still a bazillion of 'em blocking the door back out onto the street, so I go up the stairs, cursing up a storm at the fact that Aran took Renal's boots of speed (can you imagine? I would've had like 8 million of 'em! I could give 'em away! Set up every single person in Athlatka with them! Imagine the productivity increase! Cromwell could smith twice as fast, the beggars could beg at double speed, the nobles could be twice as snotty in half the time...) Okay, seriously, for the record? I'm hoping that if the player -doesn't- betray Renal (as I didn't) then Renal will fight me on Aran's behalf and will still have his boots of speed on him - getting those without having Arkanis Gath wiping me out was the primary thing loot-wise that had me really looking forward to this component. Come to think of it, even if you did betray Renal, I'd think then that Aran would be wearing the boots.
11) Up the stairs, and the guards up there realize that they were derelict in their duty of completely blocking access between the secret door and the front door, so they all rush out to get in my way. Thank God I manage to squeeze all my characters around them before they get into their highly obnoxious positions, but not due to a tremendous and damn near successful effort on their part to wall me in and -force- me to zap another 800 Renals to get out...
12) Okay, let's just go see Brega first (still got the Fear of Arkanis in me from earlier). I'm thinking he's better got some nice phat reward for all this. Approach him with the great news that Aran and almost every Shadow Thief in the city is dead (he doesn't need to know about the 800 Renal Bloodscalps stil lthere), and he... pretends he's never even met me! And all I can do is ask "Who are you?"! I swear to God, I have never had my lawful goodedness tested as deeply as it was at precisely that moment... cause if anyone ever deserved to get cut down for sheer audacity, it's good ol' Inspector Brega.
13) Alright, let's go kill Mae'var. Hiya, Gorch! Gorch dies. Then Valygar. Then Minsc. Then Aerie (sob - no backrub now I guess). Damn you, Arkanis, damn you to hell! Larell must be thinking this is pretty funny from whatever layer of the Abyss he's hanging out at...
I gotta beta test more often. That had to be the single most hilarious gaming experience of my life. That was just way too much fun, not just playing it but writing up this report too.
Qiwnn