Author
Topic: Army of PCs Against the Giants (Read 6067 times)

The caravan that Cyr and Arvo are riding with arrives in Osmunds Town. As soon as they stop in a market place of some kind, Cyr demands payment for services rendered.

Cyr- “Well that was dull. Can we have our silver pieces now?”

The caravan master hands over six silver pieces each to Cyr and Arvo, and walks away from Cyr as if his chances of re-employment aren’t that great.

Cyr shrugs. “Okay, lets find you a ship headed to Moffat Island!”

Arvo- “Ehhh, OK. Come, Essel!”

Off they go to the port, where Cyr asks around for a ship headed out that day or the next.

They are able to find a ship headed to Port Kitts without too much trouble. It’s headed to Port Kitts tomorrow. Cyr and Arvo pay one gold piece each to secure passage, and then go find a nearby inn. They each get a room, and then hang out in the bar drinking drinks.

They sit and listen to a bard that goes by the name of Cheng, who is singing songs about pining for his homeland. Cyr attempts to eavesdrop on conversations as he moves around the room. He hears about a few instances in the last 50 years of the green wyrm eating people, especially when she doesn’t get her tribute, which consists mainly of gems.

Cyr relays this information to Arvo. “It sounds like you might need some help on your quest, my friend.”

Arvo- “Yes, it is so.”

Cyr- “This sounds more interesting than being a journeyman locksmith, so I think I’ll go with you, what do you say?”

Arvo shrugs- “It is up to you. I am happy for help.”

Cyr smiles. “Excellent!”

Both Cyr and Arvo notice a figure that looks like a halfling over in a corner smoking a pipe.

Cyr nods to Arvo. “Does that look like one of your countrymen?”

Arvo- “I do not know him, I think, but I am speak to him.”

Arvo gets up, walks over to the halfling-size individual, and says, in halfling- “Blessings of Sheela Peryroyl to you, my friend. I am Arvolur Indythea, late of the Halfling Hollow. May I join you at your table and break bread with you?”

The halfling-size individual says- “Sure.”

Arvo sits down. “Might I have your name, my friend?”

Isengrim- “My name is Isengrim.”

Arvo starts- “You are one of the halflings I was sent to find! We had not heard from your for a year, and so the elders feared for your life and safety. A passing merchant said he saw halflings on Moffat’s Island, enslaved, and so I was dispatched to rescue you. Are you alright, and do you know the whereabouts of Peregrim?”

Isengrim- “Peregrim was arrested for filching from the public treasury. I was too, but these clowns have no way of keeping me bound.” His wrists still have manacles on them. He flips his wrists and frees himself. “Peregrim is on the list of people who get to go see the Green Wyrm, up in the hills above Port Kitts”

Arvo- “Do you know how soon he’ll be executed? I have to get there.”

Isengrim- “The treasure train for the Wyrm’s tribute is supposed to leave Port Kitts in two weeks.”

Arvo considers this for a minute. “That should be fine, the human I’m travelling with has booked us passage on a ship leaving tomorrow. Even if it takes two days to sail to the island, I’ll still have ten days to find and rescue Peregrim. Will you accompany us?”

Isengrim- “Okay.”

Arvo smiles. “Excellent. Do you need anything? Clothing, weapons? I have a little money, but it would be enough to arm you with a dagger or two.”

Isengrim says he’s well equipped.

Arvo- “Good, good. Then we leave in the morning. Would you come sit with my human companion and me? He will want to know this good tiding.”

Isengrim agrees to go sit down with Arvo and Cyr, so they move back over. Arvo makes introductions. “This Isengrim, one of halfling I seek. He tell me other halfling still on Moffat Island, and execute two week by Green Wyrm, so we hurry.”

Cyr’s eyes bug out a little. “Wow, okay, I did not expect that. Yeah, we’ll need to hurry.”

Isengrim gives directions to Cyr and Arvo about how to get to the tribute grounds from Port Kitts: follow the G & P Road.------------------------------------

Saluki heads to the warehouse, with Phaedra following. Saluki noticed that he is being followed, but does not say anything.

Unfortunately, the two of them manage to make some noise while approaching the warehouse, and they hear from inside, “Did you hear that?”

Both Phaedra and Saluki freeze. They see lights go on on the second floor, and see someone looking out the window. Phaedra goes up to Saluki and grabs his arm, and start to pull him away. She isn’t very strong, but he decides to go along with her anyway.

Phaedra - “Breaking into heavily guarded warehouses is a bad plan. We need to be up early tomorrow to catch the boat.”

Saluki - “You, my dear, have no sense of adventure.”

He allows her to drag him back to inn, but makes a mental note to revisit the place next time he’s in Osmund’s Town. He also considers that learning better stealth skills would be helpful. Phaedra heads to bed, and Saluki spends the evening in the tavern with the rest of the caravaners.

The next morning! The caravan embarks on the boat to Port Kitts, with Saluki and Phaedra in tow. The boat leaves at noon.-------------

While eating breakfast prior to boarding the ship, Cyr and Arvo notice that everyone who is in the inn has a whole lot of gems on them.

As they finish their breakfast and get up to to leave, Cyr says, “Go ahead to the ship, I want to ask the barkeep a question.” He elbows his way up to the bar, and starts talking to the barkeep, while attempting to pick a pocket.

The bag starts yelling, “Help! Thief! Help Thief!”

Cyr jumps and recoils, “Hey, your bag is kind of overactive! Sorry I bumped into you!” And then he briskly leaves the inn, and picks up Isengrim and Arvo on his way out. “Lets be on our way, shall we?”

And they head to the ship.

When they get to the ship, the captain meets them on the gangplank and asks if they know anything about a disturbance at the inn.”

Cyr fesses up immediately. “Yeah, that was me, I was heading up to the bar to pay, and bumped into some guy with a magic mouth on his purse. The magic mouth went off, so I paid and we left and came straight here.

The captain lets them onto the ship. Cyr and Arvo find some berthing and then go sit on deck to watch everyone else board. Arvo takes Essel to look around cause they’ve never been on a ship before.

Cyr hops up suddenly and tracks down the captain. “Oh captain, how long until the ship sails? I have some shopping I need to do.”

Captain- “The ship sails at about noon, at high tide today.”

Cyr looks at his nonexistent watch. “Okay, I’ll be back! Arvo, stay on the ship, I’m just going to go buy some different armor.” And charges off the ship to find an armorer.

Cyr trades his chain shirt for leather armor, and decides not to try to swindle anyone just now. Then it’s off to look for a wizard who might be able to identify the magic sword the river bandit gave to him. Cyr runs around for 90 minutes or so looking for a wizard and finds one.

Cyr, slightly breathless from running- “Hey wizard guy, I found this sword and I think it’s magical, can you tell me what it is? He slams a bag of 100 gp down on the counter.”

Cyr stares at him for a minute. “Mmmm, I’m leaving in like an hour. So look, I have this battle axe that’s worth 300 gold pieces, will that speed things up?”

The wizard is convinced to work faster.

Cyr- “Awesome! Can you identify the sword right now?”

Wizard- “It is a frost sword, so it does cold damage to things.”

Cyr- “Cool! Haha, okay, I gotta run, thanks, oh, hey, I think you dropped something over there.” He attempts to distract him long enough to grab the bag of gold on his way out the door.

The wizard, lightning fast, stabs Cyr’s hand as he a tries to leave with his bag.

Cyr- “S*%&! Ow!” And he charges out the door, but notices a gold filigree item laying on the floor, which he grabs while stumbling out. ‘“Doesn’t work every time, oh well.” Cyr manages to get to the ship without too much more ruckus. He greets Arvo casually. They sit on the ship and watch people board as Cyr bandages his hand.

Cyr- “Anyone interesting board while I was gone?”

Arvo- “No, no one.”

Not causing trouble, the boat sails at precisely noonish, and arrives in Port Kitts two days later. The winds are weak.

----------

Phaedra notices that right before they set off, a box with 4 guards is loaded onto the ship. The guards are looking around at everybody suspiciously. The guards also embark. They are carrying some really sharp spears.

It takes about 2 days to get to Port Kitts.----------------All of the ships reach port Kitts at approximately the same time, disgorging their passengers on to the docks.

Cyr, Arvo, Essel, and Isengrim all debark from the ship. Cyr and Arvo see some guards pushing a large, locked box on a set of rails away from one of the other ships that arrived as they did. The guards are unusual in that a half-orc appears to be in charge.

Cyr nudges Arvo. “Huh, look at that. Say, Isengrim, are there a lot of half-orcs around here?”

Isengrim- “I’ve seen quite a few half-orc guards, but I’ve tried not to have any contact with them.”

Cyr- “Well we can investigate that tonight or tomorrow, maybe. Let’s go find an inn?”

Phaedra notices that lockbox is removed under guard from her ship and put on rails to move up the hill, past a large building bearing the symbol of St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel.

Arjun and Yudhisthir look around, gaping like the back-country rubes they are. They move farther away from the ship so as to get out of the way of cargo and other passengers.

Everyone notices the presence of some really odd-looking passengers just off the ships.

Phaedra squees at the dog and runs up to Arvo and says, “Bless the sun, your dog is so cute! I don’t suppose I can touch it?” Her eyes sparkle. Saluki is giving her a look like she’s nuts.

Arvo, stunned, doeessss not know what to do. “Eh….please no, she may not like stranger.”

Cyr is also slightly stunned. “Um, Arvo, this isn’t abnormal, at least in cities, so why don’t we introduce ourselves? I’m Cyr. “ He holds out his hand to Phaedra.

Phaedra straightens up and smiles at Cyr, and shakes his hand. “Greetings to you, I am Phaedra of West Elm.”

Arvo- “My name, ehh, Arvolur, and dog, Essel.”

Phaedra shakes his hand as well, and offers her hand to Essel to sniff. “Greetings, Lady Essel.”

Essel sniffs her hand thoroughly.

Phaedra tries not to squee too loudly so as not to scare Essel. She will stroke Essel’s head if Essel seems okay with that.

Essel thinks it’s okay.

Phaedra is very happy. Saluki takes this moment to introduce himself as well. “Hello, my name is Saluki, I am Phaedra’s traveling companion.” Phaedra is too distracted by Essel to object to that characterization.

Cyr and Arvo shake his hand, and greet him politely.

Yudhisthir cringes at the high-pitched squeal emanating from the really tall woman with… silver hair? Arjun, intrigued, cranes his neck to get a better view. Yudhisthir whaps him. “Let’s find an inn and see if anyone’s heard of Zod.” They wander through the crowd looking for a likely place to gather information.

Phaedra starts to chat with Arvo and Cyr, and suggest that they join her and Saluki at the inn that their caravan is going to, assuming they have no other plans.

Cyr sees no reason not to, and drags Arvo, Isengrim and Essel with him.

Arvo notices that the box is now out of the quay, and has a green label that says “Property of Bevacizumab.” He takes note of the name, but says nothing about it just yet.

The group heads to an inn adorned with a large picture of a green dragon chewing on a couple of (probably) half-orcs. After Phaedra and Saluki settle up with the caravan owner, they join Arvo, Cyr, and Isengrim at their table. There is a bard in the inn, using very foreign instruments, who looks remarkably similar to one in Osmonds Town.

Arjun and Yudhisthir enter the same inn. Arjun goes up the bard and greets him “Cheng! Good to see you, man!” Yudhisthir looks around suspiciously and notices the shrill woman’s group. He shudders and turns his back on them.

Cheng asks “What brings you here?”

Arjun “Oh you know, information gathering, following trails, seeing sights. The usual. Say, you haven’t heard of any travelers by the name of Zod, have you?

Cheng “I have not. But I have seen an awful lot of gems and priests in town. Many more than one would expect for such a small town.”

Arjun “Huh. Too bad we’re not looking for gems. If you hear anything about this Zod guy, would you let us know?”

Cheng: “If I hear something I will let you know.”

Arjun: “Thanks, man! We appreciate it”

Saluki is attempting to listen in, intrigued by both the wings and the unusual instruments, but can’t quite make out what they’re saying.

Arjun and Yudhisthir look around for a table to sit at. They find one and sit.

Phaedra - “Did you guys notice the tracks going up from the quay? I’ve never seen a contraptions quite like that for moving goods before.”

Cyr- “I’ve never seen anything like that either, I thought it was pretty interesting.”

Phaedra - “They took a box from our ship and put it on those tracks, it had a bunch of guards. I wonder what was in it?”

Cyr considers this. “Obviously something valuable. Hmmmm….”

Arvo- “The box say ‘Property of Bevacizumab’ on side. Who is this? Isengrim, you know?”

Isengrim thinks. “I think it’s the name of the dragon that the town give tribute to.”

Arvo- “Same as sacrifice of people?”

Phaedra - “Give tribute? Why?”

Isengrim- “Because the dragon is bigger than everyone else. And yes, the same one that people get sacrificed to.”

Arvo- “Where are tribute people kept before?”

Isengrim- “They grab random people in town, especially if they’ve offended the priests of St. Cuthbert.”

Phaedra - “How horrible.”

Arvo- “Hmmm okay, so Peregrim is in mountains. We must leave fast to find him.”

Isengrim- “There’s a group that works very hard to free people from getting captured. Sometimes they’re successful, sometimes not.”

Arvo- “How to find them?”

Isengrim- “If you want to join me in attacking one of the slave caravans, we can try and free some people that way, before they’re sent into the mountains. If you’re interested. It has certain risks, like irritating the priests of St. Cuthbert.”

Phaedra says - “I would also like offer my assistance, no one deserves to be sacrificed to a dragon.” She will nudge Saluki. “What about you, you seem to like adventure.”

Saluki, who was totally not listening, says, -”What, huh? Adventure? Of course, sign me up!” with a dashing grin.

Arvo- “I go, it is why I am here.”

Cyr- “Do you know if the people and whatever’s in the giant locked box will be in the same caravan?”

Isengrim- “I do not know, I haven’t been that close.”

Cyr- “Hmmmm, well if I can get some help acquiring one of those locked chests later, I’ll go too.”

Saluki - “Locked chests, eh? I’m all for that.”

It was after this session that the DM had to drop out and I took over, so a bit of exposition (and retconning) followed the next time we played:

The situation in Moffatt remains as it was described. Isengrim is still on the island, but most of the people he sailed back over with have all vanished, having apparently caught a terminal case of the Vaporizing Flu, or suddenly decided they’re urgently needed elsewhere. Little does he know that the Temporal Monks brought out the Time Fracture Wickets in order to correct some oddities in the timeline.

Yudhisthir and his brother, upon arriving on the island of Moffatt, learn that Zod was only in town a couple hours before leaving again on another ship heading north. They both hop on a ship heading north the next day, to a country called Gran March. Their boat arrives in... <Insert Name of Town here!>... in a couple of days.

Cyr, upon getting the halflings pointed in the right direction, changes her (or his, depending on who you ask) mind about rescuing halflings from an enslavement they got themselves into; sounds like not very profitable. So he hops on some ship heading back north, figuring that the areas infested by giants are as good or better as any other place to make some money, and the people who don’t like her probably won’t try to follow her. Him. Whichever. All he has to do is avoid whatever town it was that he tried to rob. He espies a couple of other passengers, warrior looking types, one with wings, who look like easy marks.

Arvolur does care about enslaved halflings, so he is on the island of Moffat with Isengrim. Essell, being a dog, and Arvolur’s animal companion stays as well. Essell seems put out when Saluki leaves.

Phaedra give her apologies to the halflings, as her father instructed her to head north for her adventuring. Saluki decides to join her, and she is too polite to tell him to shove off. She says a sad goodbye to Essel. The board a ship that’s heading north, and happen to see Cyr board a bit later.

The Plot Convenience weighs anchor the next morning, and off to the north!

Also, this party was way, way below wealth by level (and still is, just not as bad), except for a bunch of +2 javelins Arjun had, which was throwing off all kinds of treasure giving calculations. Since I don't really hold with magic shops (except for weak potions, scrolls, and wands), and they're in a war zone, they really have no way to upgrade their equipment.

(click to show/hide)

So it’s before dawn! You’re all standing around in a trashed apartment with three corpses and a bunch of spiked vines.

Yudh: “Now what?”

Arjun: “Report to Kratha, I suppose. Can you get up on the roof and throw us down a rope?”

Yudh flies up through the hole in the roof and drops a rope down for Arjun and Saluki. Arjun climbs up. Saluki follows him.

The boys make their way back down to street level through the adjoining house, and go meet with the nearest of Kratha’s henchcritters.

The henchbeings have made their way up the street by this point, fairly cautiously. The Lead Goon approaches Arjun, since he’s the tallest male, he’s obviously in charge.

Arjun: “The half-orc is dead.”

The Lead Goon happens to be an elf, who looks like some kind of pugilist.

Logan - Nods to Arjun as he takes a cigar out of his mouth, “the bodies?”

Arjun: “Upstairs, in the room in which we were fighting. The summoned creatures disappeared though.”

Logan gestures with the hand holding the cigar towards the building Arjun indicated, “Go get the body.” Looking to his group to make sure they start moving that way.

The other goons hack their way through the spike growth and come down a few minutes later with the half-orc, wrapped in his own cloak, and anything the the party didn’t already grab.

Saluki - “Well, I don’t know about you chaps, but I think I’ve had enough excitement for one night. I’m heading back to the inn.”

Yudh: “Excellent idea.”

Arjun: Let’s collect the others and go.”

Phaedra lands next to you all and dispels her wings.

Logan looks to his fellow henchmen, “alright let's take the body back to Kratha.” Putting his cigar back in his mouth and nods to the group.

Arjun nods to him and waves to Thessa and Cyr, who join the party at ground level. They all start walking back to the inn.

Arjun: “Excellent shooting, ladies. You really saved our tails.”

Yudhisthir nods in agreement, sullenly staring after the departing minions.

Saluki, who has now recovered from the fatigue effects of his dervish dance, waltzes over to Thessa and takes her hands. “Thanks to your beautiful shooting, he managed not to make mincemeat of me. “ He glances over at Arjun. “And our excellent favored soul as well!”wa

Arjun: “Not being mincemeat is an excellent state to be in.” Quietly to Thessa “A fair number of things. Some of them are obviously magic, the others we’ll need detected. And a reasonable amount of cash as well.”

The goons lead the way back to the Flying Castle, grumbling a little bit that they’re doing all the hard work. You’re back in just a few minutes. Kratha and Cedric are both at the bar when you arrive.

Kratha makes a face somewhere between a smirk and a sneer. “Successful, were you? Good. Come with me.” She hops off her stool and Cedric opens the door behind him, through which you have never been before!

Cedric gestures for you all to follow.

Everyone follows, with Saluki looking sadly up the stairs toward bed.

You climb down some steep stairs into a surprisingly large basement. At one end are your standard casks of wine and/or ale, and at the other end what appears to be a workshop, with a bunch of pretty heavy duty locked metal cabinets. OK, so with everyone down there it’s pretty cramped.

The only other thing in the room you notice immediately is what looks like a person sitting in a chair, covered from head to toe with a large sheet. This person isn’t moving, and there are fairly obvious bloodstains on the sheet.

Thesssa sniffs the air, and then moves slightly closer to Arjun. Her fur is puffed out a bit.

The goons dump the body against the wall and just stand there looking a little menacing.

Kratha- “Well? How did it go? Aside from you winning?”

Arjun: “Some warning that he was a summoner would have been nice. Other than that, we’re alive, largely unharmed, and no more enlightened about Zod than we were before.”

Saluki, not content to let that dour assessment go. “It was a marvelous fight, and we worked together beautifully. Our support artillery was invaluable and the close quarters combat crew clashed with the cretinous villain until our relentless onslaught overtook him.” He pauses. “I might be avoiding dogs for a while, though.” he adds with a wink.

“Excellent plan,” Thessa says.

Kratha looks Saluki over with another smirk. “Happily for...not that guy” -she gestures at the seated dude under the sheet and turns her attention to the rest of you- “I think we have the information you need to go after Zod in a big way. I now have a map that should lead you to his lair.”

Phaedra - “He actually has a lair? Huh, this guy is bigger business than I thought.”

Kratha- “There’s some druid who really hates any kind of civilization, and he convinced her that he was trying to tear down all the kingdoms in the region, and so they’re allies of convenience. He hides at her place and uses it to store his loot.”

Arjun: “We knew about her. Knowing where to find her will be very useful. “

Kratha turns and goes over to the cabinets. She returns with a sheet of parchment, on which a map is sketched. It only has the major terrain features, like rivers, towns, and mountains, but, once she hands it to Arjun, it’s pretty obvious it’s a map of eastern Geoff and the Dim Forest.

Arjun: “Excellent. Thank you.”

Kratha- “You see where that bloody fingerprint is? That’s where she’s supposed to be. Whether Zod is there or not no one knows, but raid his base and he’ll probably come right after you.”Saluki - “Seems like a straightforward plan.”

Kratha- “It should work like a charm.” Her eyes narrow. “Now, I owe you a bit of payment for getting rid of the little thorn in my side tonight, but you owe me some more for this information.”

Arjun: “Oh? How do those payments owed stack up against each other?”

Kratha- “They don’t. You are more than welcome to keep anything you found on the orc you want, and you are about to go after some very tough customers- the druid controls the forest, after all- so your payment for tonight will be mostly in equipment, which we can negotiate in a minute. The payment for the information is for you to go get something of mine I had to leave behind when the giants attacked. But you can satisfy your own bloodlust first.”

Arjun: “What is it that you left behind and where did you leave it?”

Kratha- “Just a stash of money I’d built up, and it’s in a place called Tika Town. Logan will have to be your guide, since most of you aren’t from around here, and will make sure it’s all there when it gets back.”

Arjun: “That sounds reasonable. And our pay for the orc?”

Kratha smiles- “And the fun part.

Logan talks around his cigar, “Though it really shouldn’t be that hard to find our way.”

Kratha- “Well, first, lets get your equipment identified, shall we? I’ll leave the details to Cedric, and you can come get me in the morning when you’re ready to go.” She heads out with the two Goons, and a minute later Cedric climbs down with a wand in hand.

Cedric- “Ahhhh ok, so Kratha told me what’s going on, so let me know about any magic items you have that you don’t know about, and I’ll identify them with this wand!”

Arjun and Yudhisthir exchange shrugs and divest themselves of the stuff they took from the orc’s body. Yudhisthir motions to Saluki as well. He also puts down the stuff.

Cedric busies himself with this, and while doing so, says “Kratha said that her bargain to you is this: she can either get for you magic items worth a total of 3000 gold griffons per person, or a suit of armor worth up to 5000 gold griffons, and nothing else. Just don’t ask where she’s getting them. The identify spells are her gift to you. She also has a couple of items on hand if anyone is interested in trading. The only catch is that you will probably have to front some cash if you can’t afford a trade, and if you can’t afford that, she is willing to give you the items in exchange for a favor to be named later.”

Thessa lays down four potions as well, and inches slightly closer to the magic ring.

Cedric- “Arjun, your potions are darkness and delay poison.”

Suddenly he snaps his fingers. “I forgot, Kratha said that Arjun’s javelins look expensive enough to fund just about any magic the rest of you could want, if he’s generous enough to pay for it that way.”

Arjun cranes his neck to look at his javelins. “Really?” He lays them out for identification.

Cedric does so. “It’s up to you.” (+2 javelins!)

Phaedra - “I think we could all use some better armor or protective charms.”

Arjun: “We’d like to discuss this as a party before making a final decision. I expect that Kratha’s offer is not going to expire immediately if we wait a day?”

Cedric- “Yeah, I’ll let her know you want to think about the equipment. She already considers you to owe her a trip into the Lost Lands for her stash, though.”

Arjun: “I see.”

Cyr looks like she just remembered something. “Aren’t we supposed to meet with the elves or something in a couple of days?”

Yudh; “Yep.”

Arjun: “We’ll let her know what equipment we want, if any, by tomorrow evening.” To Logan: “But it looks like our trip with you may be somewhat delayed.”

Cedric- “Logan can go with you on your trip to the elves. They are his people, after all. Oh, and I’ll have breakfast ready for you in the morning, as always.” With that, he shoos you all back upstairs to conspire as you see fit.

We go, after gathering all of the identified stuff.

Arjun asks the group: “Sleep and then divvy the loot, or loot, then sleep?”

Cyr- “Over breakfast, I’m wiped out.”

Arjun: Fair enough. See you all in the morning.” He and Yudh retire to their rooms.

Bingle bingle bing...beep! As promised, Cedric has breakfast ready when ever it is that everyone gets down there.

Still Day 164!

Your new minder, Logan, is also in the common room, at the bar.

Logan sits at the bar drinking ale and smoking a cigar.

Phaedra comes downstairs early as usual, and sits with Logan. She attempts to engage him in small talk “Where are you from, how long you been fighting giants” etc. if he isn’t totally resistant to such things.

Logan glances at Phaedra and then to the group as they start to gather and shrugs, “I am from around. Don’t really fight giants.” taking another drink of his ale.

The rest of the group sits around a table that is now piled high with weapons, armor, potions and money. Once they show up, Phaedra joins them. Saluki joins belatedly after a bracing drink.

Phaedra - “So, are there any items someone especially wants?”

“I want the ring.” Thessa says instantly. “Please,” she adds after a moment.

Yudh: “It’d make more sense to take out the items nobody wants. Are any of us strong enough to use that bow?”

Cyr- “I’m not. That we can probably sell, or give to Kratha.”

Arjun: “Nor am I. Do any of us use a bow at all?”

“Not a long_bow,” Thessa says. She’s still staring at the ring with catish intensity. As if she might bat it off the table and pounce at any moment.

Cyr- “Ooh, the new guy might, cause he’s an elf. Right?”

Saluki - “Hey new guy!”

Logan looks over his shoulder, “No bows for me.” Then goes back to his drink half listening to their conversation.

Saluki - “Alright then.”

Arjun: “So bow and arrows both can go into the “sell” pile.”

Phaedra - “I could use the protection ring, but I bet we can get another one from Kratha, and the featherfall does me no good. Thessa seems like she could use it.”

Saluki - “I think I’ll take at least one of the cure potions. Yudh should probably take the other, in case we end up away from Arjun. I’d also take the keen edge oil.’

Phaedra - “I’d like the protection from arrows. I have a feeling between my flight and my blast I’ll be facing a lot of those soon.”

Arjun looks for objections, if there are none, one sure serious wounds potion goes to each Yudh and Saluki

Cyr- “I’d like at least one each of the tanglefoot bags and thunderstones...I like to have some tricks up my sleeves.”

“I’d like a tanglefoot bag too,” Thessa says. “Oh and may i have one of the fire protection potions, I did not like that fire thing we fought earlier, not at all.” she smoothes her fur a bit. “I don’t like fire.”

Arjun: “That’d probably be useful for you. Anyone want the short sword?” There is much shaking of heads.

Arjun: “Sell then. Shall we sell the gem as well? Or I can add it to the collection I’m apparently starting.”

Once all the magic you have is divvied up, Cedric comes over and inquires about magical equipment you might want from Kratha.

Cedric- <raises eyebrows inquiringly>

Cyr speaks up immediately- “I don’t know what everyone else is going to do, but I want a heward’s handy haversack and a mithril chain shirt. If that’s included in the total buy, then great, but if not, I’m more than willing to work for Kratha for it later.”

Cedric- “Well! One taker already. She’ll be pleased.”

Phaedra- “I’d like a hand haversack as well, and either a ring of protection or bracers of armor. And a wand of fireballs.”

Saluki - “I have a magic mythril chain shirt, does she have a better one I could trade for? And a magic scimitar, keen, if you can find one.”

Cedric- “I’m certain we can find one.”

Yudhisthir: “I’d like some magic armor bracers.”

Arjun: “Bracers for me as well, and a handy haversack.. And yes, I’ll put up my javelins in trade, if needed.”

Yudh: “I’d take a haversack if it came in the form a of a belt pouch.” He flips his wings slightly.

Thessa speaks up after looking deep in thought. “I’d like a haversack as well. And a hat of disguise and some archery bracers if you have them.

Cedric starts writing things down- “Perfect! So far it’s two mithril chain shirts, magical, ideally, three haversacks, various rings or bracers of protection, a magic scimitar, a wand of fireballs

Arjun: “What’s that adding up to, assuming low to midlevel protection magic on the armor?”Cedric- “I guess we shall see when I get back! This will take a couple of days to acquire, so feel free to stay here or visit your elven friends as you see fit.” Cedric collects all the stuff laid out as part of the payment for Kratha.

“Wait,” Thessa says before Cedric leaves. “If we’re not over budget, would you get me a bag of tricks? Tan preferably but I’ll take rust.”

Arjun: “Well. That’s that then.” He pulls out the 75 gold that they got off the orc and divides it into 6 piles. Three of the piles have 12 gp three, of them have 13 gp. “We’ll need to get change from Cedric for the extra gold”

Cedric’s back up bartender is able to split the 3 gp into 30 sp. Now everyone is 12 gp and 5 sp richer.

Skip to the morning of Day 166!

Just after breakfast, Cedric calls you all into the cellar again. The bodies are gone this time.

Cedric- “If you want, I’m perfectly willing to sell any equipment you now don’t want, for cash or gems, for a nominal fee.”

Arjun: “What’s the bill on what we’ve received?”

Cedric does some figuring. “We’ve acquired for you approximately 9,000 gold griffons more equipment than you provided us. I will have to discuss with Kratha how she would like to proceed, but we will certainly keep in mind Cyr’s offer of work! Oh, and selling your equipment now is entirely between you and me.”

Saluki pats Cyr on the back. ‘Don’t worry, we won’t let you go it alone!”

Cyr shrugs and mutters something about being wanted in three countries isn’t any worse than two.

Arjun: “Just between us? So this stuff we want to sell wouldn’t count against our supposed debt?”

A look very briefly crosses Cedric’s face that you’ve never seen before, and it’s not very pleasant. “Indeed you could, if you wanted.”

Arjun smiles: “We would. As well as an itemized receipt for both sides of the transaction.”

Cedric leaves for a few minutes and comes back with a receipt for the items listed...and it turns out that, based on the prices listed on the receipt, you owe about 9000 gold griffons, minus whatever new equipment you want to sell.

Arjun nods: “Thanks. My brother and I have a masterwork longsword to sell, as well as a non magical breastplate and a chain shirt.”

Saluki hands over his old masterwork scimitar. Thessa her bow

Cedric, most pleasantly- “I certainly can.” He does some more figuring. “Will you be pooling your items to sell, or keeping separate accounts?”

Arjun: “I’m inclined to say separate accounts for any items other than what we’ve already received.”

Cedric- “As you like. This will only take me until noon to sort out.” He grabs your stuff and away he goes!

Yudh, acidly: “Awesome. In debt to a gangster. This will go well.”

Arjun sighs and leans back in his chair. “We’ll just have to find items to pay it off quickly.”

Cedric returns just after lunch with your money. “I got the best prices I could, so here you are.” He hands bags of money to Yudh, Arjun, Thessa, and Saluki, with 160, 160, 220, and 160 gp each.

… and the group is still in possession of the dead half orc’s armor and weapons, because we never managed to hand them over to Cedric.

The next update will probably be Saturday. After that, as warned, weekly or less, at least for this campaign.

Errybody troops out to the nearest Used Armor Emporium, Bait Shop, and Used Timeshare Salesman

This involves crossing the river into the Wretched Hive of Scum and Villany, aka the military camp. After a bit of wandering, some odd looks, and one near fistfight, you arrive at a guy who looks like he will buy your stuff.

Guy- “Yeah, I’ll buy your stuff.” He pulls out an abacus. “Lets see, 150 gold griffons for that short sword, wow that bow has a strong pull, hmm, I can get you….400 gold griffons for it….. 50 gp for the chain shirt, and that gem is worth about 200 griffons if you’re selling that, too.”

Arjun: “We’ll take it.”

<Insert short montage of a bag of money getting slammed on a counter, and Arjun shaking hands firmly with Guy.>

Cyr wandered off briefly but returned, looking unsuspicious. “Well? Are we done shopping?”

Yudh: “We’d better be. Let’s go meet Navussar.”

Back across the river you go, and since the parts of Hochoch that are inhabited are slowly expanding, it’s still easy enough to find an elf loitering in an otherwise empty street, one over from the Flying Castle.He looks up as you approach.

Loitering elf- “Hey.” He looks at you, waiting for a response.

“Hay is for horses,” Thessa mutters under her breath. Everyone else seems distracted, and Thessa doesn’t exactly know why they’re there, so she looks at Cyr for help.

Cyr- “Ummmmmm…..Navussar sent us?”

The elf perks up immediately. “Oh! Come on inside!” He opens a door that looks like the back entry to a drug den, but when you go inside….

Cyr files her nails.

Phaedra stops concentrating on her her abilities and walks inside! The others follow.

The elves, being elves, have gutted what would probably have been a large courtyard behind an entire block worth of buildings and transplanted a bunch of trees, bushes, etc. They also did a bunch of landscaping, so the place look like a well maintained garden (like formal garden, not like vegetable garden, although there is a vegetable patch).

The one or two elves you see standing around nod at Logan politely, as if they’ve met him, but think he’s weird and don’t particularly want to talk to him. Yudh gets an equal number of curious looks. He returns them with polite greeting gestures, showing that he can have manners if he wants.

The elves return his gestures politely, slightly bemused.

The elf leads you to a pleasantly shaded area, and says, “Please relax here a moment, I’ll fetch Alomanthor.”

Logan moves to lean casually againsts the tree.

Phaedra - “Thank you.” and she takes a seat to wait.

A few minutes later a slightly older looking elf (looks to be equal parts fighter and wizard) walks over.

Elf- “Greetings, travelers, and welcome to our humble home. I’m having some water and fruit brought over for your enjoyment. You said Navussar asked you to be here?”

Arjun; “Greetings, honored elder. Navussar asked us if we would help with the attack on Preston.”

The elf looks like he forgot something. “Oh dear, my manners! I am Alomanthor, commander of the detachment of elves here. You, sir, speak with an elvish accent. Where are you from?”

Arjun: “I am Arjun of the Elf Coast. This is my elder brother Yudhisthir, and the companions we’ve met on our journey.” He introduces each of them in turn, with the appropriate formalities.

Alomanthor greets everyone in a friendly and welcoming manner, except for Logan, to whom he is merely polite.

Alomanthor- Arjun, Yudhisthir, what has brought you this far from home?”

Yudh: “Honored elder, we have been tasked with… going on an adventure… by the elders of our village. We have been following Zod’s minions, to find out why they stole certain items from our village craftsmen.”

Arjun shrugs and smiles disarmingly: ‘They said we weren’t showing enough spirit, so we can’t return until we have answers. It’s turned into a much larger quest since we started.”

Alomanthor looks pretty amused. “I have known no generation that has not despaired of its successors. What items were these? Zod is kind of a bastard, and a well known criminal, around these parts. You’ll find none who like him except his paid allies.”

Thessa happens to have glanced at Cyr, and noticed a kind of surprised look on her face. It passed quickly, though.

Saluki looks askance at them - “That’s it?”

Arjun: “Yeah. We chased the bastards for three days, fought them once, and then returned to the village when they showed no sign of hanging around.”

Yudhisthir mantles his wings. “And the elders decided that since we were not willing to take risks, we and all the other youths of the village would be required to go on a quest.”

Arjun finishes “We got to go first.”

Alomanthor- “I shall not pass judgement on another clan’s decision. How fruitful has your quest been thus far?”

Arjun: “We haven’t found the answer to our question yet.”

Yudh: “But I’m really looking forward to killing Zod for getting us into this.” He looks almost cheerful at the thought.

Alomanthor looks at you for a moment, and just as he starts to speak the hors d'oeuvres(?) arrive, and so there is some silence broken only by munching on some really good fruit and water.

Alomanthor makes up his mind. “I propose to you an exchange of services, then. I can set my spies to find both where Zod lives, and where he is, but in return, as asked of you by Navussar, you would assist my tribe and I in retaking out ancestral home, which the humans call Preston, in the Oytwood.” He takes a sip of water. “We can’t pay you, but of course, in your line of work, whatever booty you can loot from those giants is yours.”

Phaedra - “We’re certainly used to such arrangements.”

Logan pulls out a cigar and lights it, “this is what gets you into so much trouble. All these promises”

Alomanthor looks displeased that he has to talk to Logan, and also that Logan lit a cigar in the garden. “.....Logan, we’re not Kratha, nor Zod, nor any of the other criminal enterprises here. My word is my bond. And as a token of good faith both between the elves of Oytwood and your group, as well as with the elves of the Elf Coast, I have gifts for Arjun, Yudhisthir….and you, Logan.” He looks like he didn’t want to give Logan anything, but can’t avoid it out of politeness.

Alomanthor has one elf fetch some weapons. “For you, Logan, since you insist on your monkish traditions, a pair of what we call scorpion kama. Yudhisthir, for you, a kukri, and Arjun, for you, a new sword.”

Logan rolls his cigar in his teeth and looks to Alomanthor, “well thank you bub,” looking to the kamas and then putting them away, “still makes for trouble always taking on these debts, even to good people.” Leaning back against the tree and resumes smoking his cigar.

Yudh sneers at him. “What else are we going to do with our time? It’s an adventure isn’t it? We’ll get Kratha what’s hers.”

Arjun sighs. “Yudh.”

Yudh: “Hn.” He looks away.Phaedra - “In any case! We would be delighted to get any information your spies can provide on Zod. Should we head to Oytwood to meet up with the rest of those attacking Preston?”

Alomanthor- “I will have a guide take you there. Since none of you but Logan are known to my kin, you would not find a friendly welcome. Your guide will be here momentarily, please test out your new weapons. I think you’ll like them.”

A few minutes later an elf who introduces himself as Ardivan walks up. He’s dressed very much like a scout kind of person. He introduces himself in a polite manner to everyone but Logan, to whom he only says, “...Logan.”

Logan nods to Ardivan and blows smoke in his direction, “Bub.”

Phaedra - “Nice to meet you, Ardivan. Should we set out now or are the preparations that need to be made?”

Ardivan- “It’s only a one-day journey to our camp, although it’s a long day. We’ll remain here tonight and leave before dawn tomorrow. The attack commences four days hence.”

Arjun: “Our thanks, Ardivan. Where should we stay?”

Ardivan- “Where ever suits you.”

There are plenty of comfortable looking tufts of grass ‘n’ stuff all over. Thessa flops down and curls up, studying Cyr through half-lidded eyes.

Cyr isn’t talking to anyone at the moment, but is otherwise behaving normally. She sits down close to Thessa.

In messing around with their new toys, Arjun notices a word engraved on his sword: Kuracisto. Yudh’s new kukri feels like it’s a half-empty bottle. Logan’s scorpion kama are well made an high quality, but not otherwise interesting. Sorry.

Arjun and Yudhisthir decide to spar a bit (in the appropriate area of the garden, of course), with Yuhd trying out two kukris instead of a longsword. When they finish, they go find Alomanthor to ask him for more info on the weapons.

Saluki runs through his dance regimen. Cyr gives him a golf clap. Thessa pauses her sublte study of Cyr to look mildly impressed.

Logan messes around with the Kama for a time, getting a feel for them before moving to find his own piece of ground and settles down to watch.

Alomanthor- Arjun, we honestly don’t know much about your sword, earlier than it’s last owner, who died defending Preston during the invasion. Great swords are not normally used by us, as you well know, so that will unfortunately be a mystery you’ll have to find out.” The sword is clearly magical, Arjun can tell.

Alomanthor- “Yudh, you have a kukri with the property of collision. It’s mass moves to the edge of the blade on a strike, hurting your opponents more. And Logan” sigh “if he asks, his kama allow him to use his monkish skills through his weapons, instead of merely his fists, and to use the enchantment on the weapons in his monkish powers.”

Arjun and Yudh express gratitude for the information, and Arjun asks: “Honored elder, if we may, what dispute is there between the elves of Oytwood and this Logan?”

Alomanthor- “Logan- that’s not his elvish name, just what he demands to be called- has done nothing to harm us. He joined a monastery in West town a decade ago, turning his back on the ways of the elves, and adopting the ways of humans. He is...an eccentric. And as you’ve seen, not very friendly.”

Logan waves a hand around in their direction, “I did say thank you bub.” and then grumbles under his breath a bit.

Alomanthor- “You are most welcome, Logan.” to Arjun and Yudh: “And we don’t like the company he keeps, working for Kratha, whom I belive you know.”

Arjun: “Yes, honored elder. We are acquainted with Kratha. “

Yudh mutters “... happy to kill her too…”

Arjun: “At any rate, thank you again for the weapons. We’ll go rest now.” He and Yudh retreat to a place to rest. And Arjun examines his new sword, and concludes that it has a nice sharp edge.

It still has the word “Kuracisto” engraved at the base of the blade. Arjun will consult with the other spellcasters in the party, like Thessa and Phaedra!

Phaedra has pulled out her cross-stitch equipment and has started a pattern on her new backpack.

Thessa realizes that the word “Kuracisto” means “Healer” in a dead language that was not very widespread.

Arjun: “Interesting….”

And so you pass the afternoon doing whatever! The elves serve nice elvish food, and in the evening you retire, with a nice view of the stars.

Later, when she’s sure everyone else is sound asleep, Thessa creeps to where Cyr is lying.

“Are you asleep?” she whispers. “I need to talk to you.”

Cyr jumps a bit when she opens her eyes, on account of the human-sized cat looking at her in the face. “I am now. What is it?”

Thessa looks around to make sure no one can hear them. “Yudh and Arjun’s story,” she says, then pauses as if unsure how much to say.

Cyr- “Ummmm…….”

Thessa sighs. “Look I don’t care, all right? I don’t. But I also don’t want to die chasing answers this zod person doesn’t have. He’s a bad guy, and I’m down to kill him, but if I’m on a wild goose chase, I want to know.”

Cyr sighs. “Look, until they told their story I had no idea what Arjun and Yudh were looking for. I think…...I might have it, but I found it in a street in like Osmund’s Town or Goldport or something. I didn’t know it was theirs. And as for Zod? Look, I’m being honest, I’ve been a petty thief my whole life, and I’m wanted in Gran March and Sterich, but I’ve never worked with Zod. I’ve heard about him, but I’ve never actually seen him, and I have no idea why he would have gone down to the Elf Coast to steal….partially made jewelry.” She looks both a little relieved to get that off her chest AND hopes that you can keep a secret.

Thessa nods. It might not be all the truth, but she’s a cat and she knows the best lies are always close to truth. It’s enough.

“I suggest,” she says. “That perhaps when we go to fight this druid person, you may want to…well, sneak their findings into a corner to be found. Then we can all go about our business and no one has to get punched.”

Cyr considers this for a moment. “Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that, that’s a good idea. Sooo you won’t tell anyone?”

“No,” Thessa says. “I like you. And if we break up the party, I don’t get paid, and maybe I end up captured by orcs again.” She smiles at Cyr. “I didn’t like that at all.”

Cyr chuckles. “Don’t worry, I think we can keep you away from orcs.”

And NOW you all go to sleep and wake up early, on Day 167.Ardivan is naturally up early, cause that’s how elves are. You set off, but first head through Hochoch, and Ardivan bribes the ferryman to drop you off downstream and outside of the military camp. After that it’s a 25-mile crossland trek to a forest that is surrounded on all sides by farmland (not that you can see this, you’re far too close).

Ardivan leads you into the woods, and at some point starts making some odd gestures that Arjun and Yudh recognise as elf military signals. Eventually the woods open up into a well hidden camp. Ardivan turns to you and says, “Wait here, I’m going to go get Tamurel, he’s in charge here.”

<elevator music>

There are elves milling about, but don’t pay you much heed. Eventually another elf comes up.

Tamurel- “Greetings, Ardivan tells me our cousins from the Elf Coast have sent their sons to help us in our war. Welcome! I am Tamurel.”

Arjun: “We are glad to assist our cousins in their effort to reclaim their ancestral home. I am Arjun of the Elf Coast, and this is my elder brother Yudhisthir.“ Introductions etc.

Tamurel is much less hostile toward Logan, and starts saying some other name before catching himself. Other introductions are standard.

Tamurel- “I’m sure you’ve been told why you’re here, so I’ll get right to it. Tonight, we are eating and preparing ourselves to set out in the morning to attack the giants living in our home. We don’t have the power to kill them all, but only to kill enough that the rest will flee. Our allies to the southwest, the gnomes of Kemp Konsum, are preparing another attack against the giants that survive. A few days ago, we sent several of our own, including your contact with us, Navussar, on a raid to see how well the giants react. We’re satisfied, and so in the morning we will move on them. Your job will be to block one of their most commonly used paths to the northwest, and stop, kill, turn around, whatever, any giants that come your way. I’ll send a guide with you to place you where you’re needed. Do you have any questions?”

Yudhisthir: “Seems clear enough. How tall are the trees in that area?”

Navussar walks back with a bunch more arrows. “This’ll have to do. I’ll probably wind up taking them off dead orcs or something eventually.”

Grenda - “You’ll figure something out, I’m sure. Shall we set out and travel at night or wait until morning?”

Navus- “I’m fine either way.”

Rogue - “We should wait till morning. Scouting at night with lights might let the enemy see us coming. We won’t be able to count on seeing everything coming at us at night if we try to travel without light.”

Mav - “Poor elf, can’t see at night?”

Grenda looks confused for a moment. “Oh right, I forgot that elves don’t have dark vision. Moving at daytime is fine with me.”

And so you all wrap up in cloaks and snuggle with your animal companions or whatever until the crack of dawn...of Day 159! You have a quick breakfast and set out.

Preston is only nine miles from the elven camp, which is on the eastern edge of the Oytwood. There are a couple of roads (overgrown and unused except by the giants occasionally), and a network of faint trails (less faint after years of use by giants, who are not very clever hunters).

Rogue - “I will take point with Timber, we will try and keep an eye out for anything we might run into. Give me a twenty foot lead so that noise won't travel to me as much. I will try to stay in view and if not will send Timber back to guide if that starts to become impossible.”

Navus nods. He has his longbow and a couple of arrows out.

Grenda - “No problem.”

Mav - “Sounds like a plan” Taking point for the group that is moving behind Rogue.

You’re travelling pretty slowly, maybe two miles an hour, but make it to lunchtime without encountering anything except songbirds, which puts you about a mile from Preston (although to the east and a little to the south).

Rogue comes back to the group as it gets close to lunch, “I found a place up ahead we can break at before heading into Preston.”

Grenda - “Sounds good, then we can talk about our plan of action.”

So we settle down for lunch.

Rogue leads everyone to the camping spot, “Should be simple to get into the town, Though we will want to keep eyes open. Once inside we will find ourselves more in the open.”

Grenda - “I assume it will not exactly be difficult to spot the giants. Perhaps we should try to find one outside and attack it from a distance to draw it away?”

Rogue - “We can look for a good ambush spot and I can move a head to try and lead one to us.”

Grenda - “That’s reasonable. Although we’re supposed to flee to the opposite side of the town from here, we may want to circle the town first and come in from that direction.”

Rogue - “We will need to pick our way as quietly as possible. Should work out easily if we stay far enough away from the town,” Looks to Navus “do you think you could lead everyone around at a decent distance while I try to skirt close to the city to get an idea of what we are dealing with and then meet up with everyone on the north, and find a good ambush sight while you are at it?”

Navus- “Shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll pass around the south side of town, and I guess meet maybe 100 yards north of the northernmost building we can find?”

Rogue - “That works for me, give me an hour after you get there before you start to plan for sending someone to find me.”

Grenda - “If you needs us, be sure to shout.”

Everyone hears the sound of a branch snapping about 65 feet to your north, and those facing in that direction see a large humanoid, about 11’ tall, pause and whisper a curse under his breath.

Rogue raises a finger to his lips for silence and moves that direction silently, looking to see if the figure is moving their direction.

The figure isn’t moving, but he is facing you, and has taken something off his back. You all hear some rustling of bushes right around him.

Grenda nonchalantly picks up her mace.

Rogue turns his head towards the party and speaking lowly, “Draw, get ready.” Moves forward another ten feet attempting to see what else is around the figure. Also draws his swords. Rogue can see it’s one hill giant. He’s put down and opened the bag that all giants seem to carry and has picked out at least one rock (the size of a human head), probably more.

Navus gets up slowly and preps his bow. “I’ll head around to the right.”

Mav sets her feet and pulls out her battle axe.

Rogue nods, “Grenda, go with him. Mav come with me. Ten seconds then we start moving forward and get ready to charge if he sees us.” Waives to Timber giving a signal for him to stay low and out of the fight.

Navus- “OK. Kusab, come.” He moves around and to the right, attempting to be relatively stealthy.

The giant doesn’t appear to notice Navus and Kusab. It moves forward a bit.

Round 1: Continued Sneaking

Grenda makes with the sneaking to the right. The giant doesn’t notice her either.

Rogue continues moving to the left of the Giant remaining as quiet as he can and attempting to close the distance a little faster.

Kusab doesn’t do anything except delay his action.

Mav moves quietly behind Rogue.

The giant stops again. It looks like he’s seen something.

Navus sidesteps one step and launches a couple of arrows! Two whiz by the giant, but the third sticks solidly in his arm.

The giant bellows and throws a rock right back at Navus, winging him right back.

Round 2!

Grenda moves forward and casts Divine favor on herself.

Rogue closes on the Giants right and attacks.

Mav moves forward to close with the Giant as well.

You all are getting in the way of Navus shooting arrows, so he continues running around the right side, with Kusab loping along with him. He also exchanges his bow for his greatsword, which has chilled air coming off it for some reason.

The giant pivots to its right and does a traditional overhead swing at Rogue and hits him HARD. It immediately tries again, but over corrects and injures a tree instead.

Round 3Grenda moves swiftly up to the giant’s left side and takes a swing! She misses.

Rogue blinks through the pain and continues his attacks on the giant.

Mav also attacks.

Navus runs around the backside so the giant is surrounded, but doesn’t get a chance to attack. Kusab doesn’t get close.

The giant takes another swing at Rogue and hits him, then pivots to take a swing at Mav as well. He misses- barely- cause she’s a dwarf and is good at fighting giants.

Round 4Grenda bashes the giant in the back with her mace twice, and that turns out to be enough to kill him. He collapses to the ground with a large thud.

Grenda hurries over to Rogue and casts a cure spell. “I can do more, are we staying here or moving immediately?”

Navus exchanges sword for bow again and looks back he way the giant came from.

Rogue remains still as he receives the healing watching behind him for giants, “we need to wait till Navus gets back to hear if there are more giants coming our way.”

Mav finds the following, after digging through the large sack: a total of 20 gp in a small purse, a human-size brass drinking horn, a human-size brass drinking mug with some jade insets, a small obsidian statue of a dog, a bag of salt, a big pile of rope, a large feather, a whetstone, a rusty axe blade, and a small amulet.

Mav - “It was probably your bubbly personality.”

Navus comes back at a trot. “I don’t hear or see anything else. This guy might have been hunting.”

Grenda - “That would explain why he kept approaching quietly after he noticed us. Thought we might be dinner.”

Rogue - “We should collect this all up, Move to another location to finish lunch after Navus and I take a quick scout around that location to try and make sure we won't get interupted and then continue with the original plan. We might be able to get one or two more giants depending on the situation.”

Grenda - “Sounds good to me. We’ll wait for you here.” She casts detect magic.

The amulet and the feather radiate magic. Grenda picks those two up. “These two are magic.”

Rogue looks to Navus, “Ten minutes that direction,” points to the left of the direction the giant came from, “find a good spot and then we will go in opposite directions twenty feet and do a half circle and return to the spot we have found to make sure we are in a good location?”

Navus- “Okay, can do. Let’s get a move on. At some point the giants will realize this guy is missing.”

Grenda and Mav scoop the rest of the items into a bag.

“Huh, the amulet radiates conjuration - healing,“ Grenda says.

Rogue nods to Grenda, “If we are not back in an hour start the way we went slowly” Looks to Navus, “we go” and starts moving.

Rogue and Navus tromp cautiously through the woods for about 25 minutes, and don’t see or hear anything interesting.

Rogue and Navus return to the Party, “Alright, we have a spot. Lets move out.” The others follow. At the new spot settle down for lunch. “An hour, eat, drink, reset and we will start moving to the city.”

You’re able to eat lunch without further attempts on your life, and also make it to your split-up point without trouble. The brush cover varies depending on how thick the trees are (inversely proportional and all that), but you’re able to stop within ¼ mile of Preston with pretty good concealment.

Navus, quietly, to Rogue- “So are you going right and we’re going left?”

Rogue shakes his head, “we will go the same direction. I am just going to move closer to the city. I will be moving slower to stay quiet and unseen. From this distance it should be easy for the rest of you to remain unseen.”

Navus- “Ok. We’ll start heading east (to your right) then.”

Rogue - “Once you are in place leave everyone there and see if you can find a good ambush site. I will be there as soon as possible.”

Navus- “Okay.” He has everyone but Rogue and Timber withdraw another hundred yards and start moving east.

Rogue moves to the edge of the woodline next to the city and starts moving east quietly and hiding. Looking at the city as he goes to see what is happening and if there are any giants. He has Timber move out in front of him looking for any giants that might be in his path.

Rogue moves up to the edge of the trees and watches for a few minutes. It’s plain that this used to be a very well maintained town with a mixture of elven and human architecture, but most of that has been destroyed, and the plants life either gone wild or trampled. He counts around half a dozen hill giants.

Moving to his next location, he notes another hill giant he didn’t see from the first spot; this guy appears to be in charge, with a few of the other giants walking up to him occasionally and talking to him.

Later, he counts four giants with coal-black skin and flaming red hair, who all wear metal armor. The hill giants look more like Neanderthals (not that that is how he would describe them), while these four look more civilized. The black-skinned giants are only marginally taller than the hill giants (like 12’ tall vs 10-11”), but are much bulkier, looking kind of like immense dwarves.

The giants mostly live in what used to be stables, with 1-2 fire giants appearing to live in a building, but 2-3 hill giants sharing a building.

He also sees three giants who are dozing. It’s warm today (but not super warm), but these three are stripped down to their shorts. They appear to be around 15’ tall, and have white skin (like white as snow), and light blue or dirty blonde hair.

Finally, toward the end of his circuit, he spots a solitary female giant. She is half again the height of the black-skinned giants, with sky blue skin and silvery hair. Surprisingly, she is pretty good looking. She appears to try to avoid the hill and black-skinned giants.

By this point, Rogue has identified the rendesvous point where Navus, Grenda, and Mav are waiting.

Rogue moves toward the rest of the part, “I am coming in,” He says when he gets about 60 feet out just loud enough for it to carry to the party and does not stop hiding and moving silently until he is about 10 feet out.

He’s able to link up with everyone else without disaster happening.

Rogue explains everything he saw above adding, “The three sleeping giants might be our best bet to hit and run before they can get too close. Though they are bigger and it could end poorly if we cannot get away.”

Navus- “This doesn’t make a damn bit of sense, then. The coal-black skinned one are fire giants, who don’t live in lowland forests. The ones with white skin and blonde hair are probably frost giants, who should be living on a glacier, and the giantess sounds like a cloud giant. So three of the four types of giants do not live in this terrain. Only the hill giants are even close to in the right region. In any case, you said...how many, 15 total?”

It’s midafternoon as you’re having this conversation.

Grenda - “We could take a completely ranged approach to the attack.”

Rogue - “There are fifteen of them, though with them moving around the count could be off. Ranged attacked would be good to get their attention from a decent ambush withdrawal location. Who has ranged weapons?”

Grenda - “I’ve got a crossbow, or I can created magic weapons that can fly out up to 170 feet out from my position.”

Navus- “I have my longbow.”

Mav - “I have a shortbow”

Rogue - “I have some abilities I can use that might slow a few of the lead giants down before they come our way. We will have to get close enough for the shortest range weapon, I will prepare my skills. Hit the weakest looking ones on this side we can hit and then once they see us we run. Important part is that we run only as fast as our slowest member. We stay as a group so if we get caught we fight together.”

Grenda - “We could also wait until nightfall and see if we can catch them unaware that way. Gives us more time to get away.”

Rogue - “That could work, we will have to scout our escape route first. If not then we risk tripping on the way out.”

From his reconnaissance, Rogue found three of what were probably once roads. None were big, but one each went northwest, northeast, and south. They were probably 20’ wide before they stopped being maintained. The one heading northwest looks significantly more used than the other two, with the northeast one used a moderate amount and he south road used not at all.

Rogue - “there are three roads leading away from here that we can use. The problem with the Northwest road is that it looks like it is the most used road and means we could run into giants coming this way when we start our retreat.”

Navus- “I can prepare a couple of longstrider spells; it’s not a huge advantage, but every little bit will help. But that would mean we’d have to wait until tomorrow to act. I only have it memorized once right now.”

Rogue - “We are not in a hurry right now, could use some of that time to monitor the northwest road to see how used it is and if that is a viable route to use for our retreat.”

Grenda - “And if their night time set up is rather lax, we can just take that opportunity instead. We’d want to parallel the road though, I agree that taking it without checking could be disastrous. I should heal Rogue the rest of the way if we’re going to wait around long enough for me to rest and get new spells.”

Part of the point of having multiple parties is so that we can still play D&D when someone isn't available. The Elven Raiders therefore doesn't include Arjun and Yudhisthir's player (who also plays Katreana and Karakaze), but everyone was available tonight, so that player ran the giants instead, and it worked out pretty well.

Day 159

(click to show/hide)

So, you’re standing around in the bushes about 400 yards north of the town of Preston, currently occupied by a bunch of giants. You are deciding what to do. It’s late afternoon/early evening.

Rogue - “If we are going to wait till night for the start of the attack we should still wait till tomorrow evening. I can take that time to go scout the road to the northwest and see if it really will work for an escape route.”

Navus- “Alright. The rest of us can rest and prepare spells, and the animals can keep watch.”

Rogue waves for timber to stay, “give me four hours.” Gets up and starts to move away from the camp. Working to stay at the edge of the wood line and follow the trail to the northwest. Watching to see for signs of who is using the road.

Rogue reaches the edge of the woods. The road, which was formerly cart-passable, is now a glorified trail (wide enough for giants, obviously). It looks commonly used, but no one is walking on it in either direction now. He can see straight into town if he stands in the middle of the road, though.

Rogue avoids standing in the middle of the road and follows it to the northwest to see what kind of terrain they will have to deal with and if there is anything along the route that can be used to slow pursuit.

The road doesn’t help in that regard. The terrain is fairly flat, barely sloping down toward the north (which is toward the Oyt River), and here is mostly straight as well. Escape using the road would be entirely a contest of speed and determination.

Rogue goes out about an hour and a half and then returns. On his return he checks the woodline on both sides of the road to see if there is anything in the woodline that might aid their retreat.

He finds the occasional abandoned dwelling (normally also burned out and/or smashed and overgrown); these increase in frequency the closer he gets back to Preston.

Rogue moves strictly in the woodline once close to Preston and moves quietly up to the group until he is close enough for a soft spoken, “I am approaching from the Northwest” to warn his party as he comes back to the group.

Kusab and Navus are on the south side of your camp, looking south. They look over at you and Navus scoots back far enough to hear what Rogue has to say. Grenda nods to him as he approaches.

Rogue moves into the camp, “there road is well travelled and will not hinder us in a retreat. Which means it will not hinder the giants either. There also is not much in the woodline to either side of the road that we can use for our escape either. We will need to move fast if we want to escape after we start hitting the giants.”

Grenda - “I guess that leaves paralleling the road in the woods, or finding or building a place to hide until they give up.”

Navus- “If we draw one or two out to chase us and get them separated far enough, we can kill one at a time. It took us only a minute to kill the hill giant.”“Is there enough coverage to do that?” Mav said. “Or will we be within sight of the town?”

Rogue - “I can get close enough to some of them even with the lack of cover to maybe entice one to follow me. The only ones that are closest to this side that we will be able to get are bigger than the one we faced. There is one dark skinned red haired giant to the northwest that is alone enough that I might be able to get his attention without getting anyone else. If he is dumb enough to follow by himself.”

Grenda - “We may as well wait until night, and try that tomorrow if no good opportunities present themselves.”

Rogue - “We should definitely wait till tomorrow night. Tonight we need to see what they do at night to give us an idea of when to attack and see where they move too by tomorrow night so maybe we will have a better option.”

Navus- “Agreed.”

Grenda - “Is this spot good enough or should we find a different one to wait?”

Rogue - “This one is good enough. We need to break up how we watch though. One watch here and until most of the giants are asleep we need someone close enough to see their movements on this side. I will take first watch close to the giants and watch their movements. I would say by midnight we stop that watch.”

And so you settle in for the night! Grenda heals anyone with remaining wounds before sleeping. Rogue moves forward….when?

Rogue moves away from the camp and quietly moves to the edge of the woodline to find a place to hide and watch the town.

The giants have started a cooking fire by the time Rogue gets close, and after roasting some meat (which does smell pretty good, actually), the hill giants, fire giant, and cloud giant all eventually find their way to various lean-tos barns or whatever. The frost giants wake up, eat dinner for breakfast, and start hanging out. In their case, it involves dice games of some kind, but Rogue gets the impression they’re just not into it, and only both cause they have nothing better to do.

Rogue continues his watch waiting for navus to come releve him. Taking note of the giants movements to report.

Navus sneaks up eventually. “How goes it?”

Rogue speaks in a low whisper, “the light blue ones in the middle appear to be the night guards. Though they guard from the middle of the camp. There is one black skinned giant in the house in front of us slightly to the left. To the right there are two hill giants in that house. I think tomorrow night if we get their attention and to chase me it might be our best effort to make this work.”

Navus- “Wake the hill giants, you mean?”

Rogue - “Yes the hill giants. Two of them will not be much more difficult the then one we faced this morning. That one black skinned giant has nice armor and looks tougher. We might not do so well against him.”

Navus- “Okay. I’ll stay here.”

Rogue nods to Navus then sneaks his way back to camp.

After midnight Navus sneaks back to camp as well. “The two of the frost giants are asleep again. The last one is sitting near their firepit, whittling a large stick.”

In the morning of Day...hang on...160! You’re all up and can discuss strategery.

Navuss- “The frost giants aren’t awake all night, so if we attack at night, our best chance would be after midnight.”

Rogue nods his agreement, “we might be able to get the attention of those two hill giants in house closest to the woodline. Lure them away and maybe take them down and then run. Today we need to take turns watching the town to see if they notice the missing giant and wait to hit them tonight after most of the night watch has fallen asleep again.”

“This seems like a sound plan,” Mav says. She’s still knitting. “Just tell me when to hit the giant.”

During the various sneaks up to see what the whole day is like, whoever is doing the watching sees that the frost giants are awake in the morning, go do bed after lunch, and sleep the whole afternoon. The hill, fire and cloud giants all keep normal schedules.

There is some animated discussion among the hill giants (Navus - cause he speaks Giant- says they’ve noticed that the one giants is missing, but the apparent leader is uncertain of what to do about it), with some contribution from the fire giants, but the cloud giant woman and the frost giants stay out of it. In any case, they don’t send out a search party, but no one goes wandering out alone, either.

The evening is more or less a repeat of the previous day: dinner, the frost giants get up, everyone else goes to bed, and around midnight two of the frost giants also go back to bed. This frost giant appears to spend his time trying to oogle the cloud giant as she sleeps.

Rogue - “Alright, let’s move to the edge of the woodline together. I will then move forward and try to get the attention of the two sleeping hill giants in the house closest to us without waking anyone else. I will bring them back to the rest of the part as quick as possible and we try and take them down fast. If we get more than those two hill giants we take off to the road to the northwest and just run.”

Grenda - “Alright, sounds good.”

And so you all move forward slowly and carefully. There doesn’t appear to be any response from the giants.

Rogue continues forward once the party is in place. Moving to the side of the building that is away from the awake giants line of site and peeks into the building to see what the giants are doing.

Both giants are asleep.

Rogue moves slightly into the building and reaches out with his quarterstaff to gently nudge the closest sleeping giant. Then moves back behind the wall to watch its reaction.

The giant swats sleepily in the direction of the nudge, and grumbles, but doesn’t wake.

Rogue moves in again, this time nudging the giant a little harder before moving behind the wall again.

The giant sits up, still grumbling and adjusts the ground it’s sleeping on. It looks around blearily and settles down again.

Rogue while the giant is looking around he tosses a small rock at the giant.

The giant is awake now and picks up its club. It stands and walks toward the spot where the rock came from.

Rogue moves quickly back towards the party the moment he sees the giant starting to stand up. Once back with the group he turns and readies to face the coming giant.

The giant looks around, circles the house, and peers into the surrounding forest. He wavers, indecisively looking between hut and forest. And decides that chasing noises in the dark is less attractive than his nice, soft barn floor. He goes back inside the building and sits leaning against the wall, and starts to drift off again.

Navus- “I’ll break a branch.”

Rogue nods, “if that doesn’t work someone shoot him.”

Navus shuffles around and breaks a branch.

The giant startles when he hears the snap. He reaches over and poke his buddy with his club. His buddy reacts much the same way as he did, with the grumbling and swatting. But eventually wakes up as well. They have a short discussion, punctuated by yawns. The one that just woke up is telling the other that it’s probably just an animal.

Navus- “Shall we?”

Rogue grabs another rock, “I will throw this first. I don’t want them raising a cry if at all possible,” then throws the rock at the closest giant.

The closest giant gestures to the rock and says “Animal don’t throw stones.”The other giant: “Ugh. Fine. We find what throw them and we eat it. We don’t share with the other.” Both of them start putting on their armor, carefully, not hurriedly.

Rogue waves to everyone, “they are come to eat us. Let's move back a little more into the woodline so that the fight won't attract the other giants to quickly,” and draws his swords.

Mav unslings her greataxe and puts on her spiky gautlet. “I’m too old and stringy to be eaten,” she says with a grin.

Navus casts Barkskin on himself. +2 natural AC!

Grenda casts divine favor on herself as well.

Since the giants are taking their time to get suited up, Navus casts longstrider on himself as well.

Grenda mumbles something about how if they take any longer she’s going to get out her cross stitch.

Three minutes later, the giants finally emerge from the building.

Round 1!

Rogue waits hiding behind a tree for the giants to come their way. Grenda waits as well, with her crossbow ready.

The giant, stage right, strides through the forest at his normal walking pace, casually swinging his club back and forth, prodding at branches and bushes.l

Mav waits!

So do Navus and Kusab.

The other giant, stage left, wanders off at an angle to his fellow’s path, not moving any faster, and poking at trees and shrubs and things as he goes.

After a thrilling round 1, Round 2!

Rogue continues to wait.

Grenda decides to drop her disguise. She says something about how dumb giants are in goblin. She also pulls out her mace instead of her crossbow.

Giant 6: “NO U.” He walks toward Grenda. And smacks her with his greatclub. It is a solid hit, naturally.

“Hey ugly,” Mave yells, twirling her axe. “Your mother was a chipmunk and your father smelt of rancid barley.” And then she hits him with her greataxe twice.

Mav gives that giant two really good slashes.

Navus lost patience, so he charged up and takes a swing at the other giant. He doesn’t time his swing quite right, and so just baarely misses the giant. Kusab lopes around behind the giant, but is too far away to do anything this round.

Giant 4 swings at Navus, and hits him hard. “Puny Elf!” Navus takes this hit and doesn’t look happy about it. The giant hits him again, but and tries a third time, but misses.

Navus starts to doubt his ability to fight a giant single handedly.

Round 3!

Rogue steps forward and attacks.

That giant takes four very heavy hits from Rogue. Giant 6 looks shocked and bellows in pain.

Grenda steps out of the giant’s reach and casts spiritual weapon to attack the other giant. It flies off toward the other giant, but misses it. ”I’ll go help Navus.”

The giant takes a wild swing at …*dice roll* Rogue! He does a fair bit of damage.

“Go, we have this,” Mav says, then swings at the giant twice again. She hits the first time, hits the femoral artery, and the giant keels over and dies instantly!

Mav cackles and does a very ungrandmotherly victory dance in the blood fountain.

Navus attempts to hit the giant again, and succeeds this time, twice. Both slashes are frostbitten, which confuses the giant to no end. Kusab also runs up and attempts to jump on the giants back, and since cats are sharp on five ends…. He gets a bite and a claw slash in.

Everyone hears noise of creatures waking up back in town, and a few of you catch glimpses of moving beings. Large moving beings.

This giant also yells bloody murder and attempts to sweep the cat off his back. Kusab does some physically impossible twisting (as one expects), and takes the hit. And gets angry!

Round 4!

Rogue moves forward going straight over the fallen giant to assist Navus with his still standing enemy.

Mav quickly and efficiently begins to raid the dead giant’s belongings, keeping an eye on the roused village

Navus, happy he’s not about to die, takes two swings at the hill giant! One hit, one miss, but the hit kills the giant. It collapses, and Kusab dodges out of the way.

By this time you all can clearly see another approaching giant. It’s only marginally taller than the two hill giants, but a lot stockier.

Rogue looks to the closest party members, “Run.” Then starts to move towards the northwest. Mav puts away her axe and bag and runs. She’s looted giant 6 successfully, though. Grenda stows her mace and runs as well. For good measure, she directs her spiritual weapon to go smack the one that is visible.

Navus sheaths his greatsword, then pulls his bow out as he moves north. “Kusab, run!” he says.

The fire giant that just got tapped yells to the other giants. “Mage-weapons!”

Rogue - “now stay as a group,” as Navus catches up, “If one of us gets caught or slows down we all turn and fight.”

Navus- “You got it. I’m moving a bit faster than everyone else, so I can keep them occupied with arrows as well.”

So you dive into the forest and hustle north. Soon after you hear a bellow from one of the giants, probably because they discovered the bodies. This in turn causes quite a lot of shouting. The spiritual weapon smacks a few more times before disappearing.

At least one giant is still pursuing you.

Rogue keeps looking back over his shoulder as they run watching for the giant to give up pursuit.

It takes a good five or ten minutes before the sound behind you fades to nothing, although you were outdistancing it the whole time.

Rogue - “we need to go another half hour then we can stop and find somewhere to hide.”

Mav grins. “Fair enough. Nice work with the mage-craft there. And the goblinspeak at the start.”

Grenda - “I’m sure their wounds will heal in short order, but it’s a nice trick to annoy and distract people. And that reminds me, once we stop running I should put my disguise back on. Maybe I’ll try an elf this time.”

So you jog for a solid half hour.

Rogue slows after the half hour and looks for any sign of pursuit while also looking for a good location to hide if that pursuit comes.You’re able to find one of the overgrown farmsteads you saw earlier; it doesn’t look like the giants ever come here, and the building has a partial roof and everything. Even after a five minute pause to catch you breath, you don’t hear any sounds of pursuit.

Rogue - “We can settle down in there,” then looks to Grenda, “If you would not mind healing me a bit I will go scout and see if they are preparing to come look for us.”

Grenda - “Coming right up!”

Navus and Kusab go to sit in the woods nearby as well. Mav stalks over to them, hands on hips. “What exactly were you doing, fighting a giant alone,” she scolds. “If you were one of my grandchildren I would box your ears.”

Navus looks more than a little shocked- “I mean, well, er….. Sorry, I’m more used to fighting solo, er….”

“Don’t do it again,” Mav says firmly, and then ruffles his hair a little, just for fun.

Chains- “Yes, and that worked out so well for you last time that you came crawling back to us!”

Ragusk (apparently)- “This group doesn’t have a wizard and a paladin, does it?”

Blank spins and loses both daggers up at Ragusk, “Bring everyone in.” then draws his swords.

Kedri sends a feeling of anger and fear to Sephira. Sephira - “Well, that didn’t take long. Get ready, Sylaernae!” Ragusk chuckles at your dagger, which hit him squarely (you think).

Round 1

The chain devil (ahem) takes a few steps forward and the chains that wrap around him strike out like they’re snakes, striking Blank while he’s not looking.

Kara pulls out her longbow and turns to shoot the chain devil.

You hear the fffft-ffft of arrows coming down from on high! “DAMMIT”

Chains- “No wonder the wizard beat you!”

Sephira summons a celestial bison, who she tells to charge the door. It does so, attempting to smash it to bits. The door is no match for a celestial bison! Kedri does her best to stay out of everyone’s reach.

Although they’re surprised at this turn of events, they recover quickly (cause it’s their turn). After a bit of giantish shouting, one takes a swing at the bison while the other heads in Sylaernae and Sephira’s direction. The one that swings at the bison hits, and the other realizes he’s juuuust too far away to be able to attack, and so pulls up just out of melee range (for him). The bison is hit.

Blank turns again and uses spring attack to move forward to the chain demon and attacks. He hits twice, but one wound heals almost instantly and the other is clearly closing fast.

Sylarnae fires off two arrows at the half ogre. One hits, giving the half ogre a shock (dad jokes).

Herzog, who has a really bad dexterity, finally gets around to reacting, and casts Call Lighting! It barely gets by the devil’s spell resistance, but the chain devil is hit by a bolt of lighting.

Round 2!The kyton ignores this and takes a couple of swings at Blank, cause it doesn’t like his stupid elfy face. The kyton hits him once (and it’s nearly a crit, but not quite!) and misses the second time.

Kara looks around for a ladder or something that could access the upper level catwalk. She dashes to the nearest one and starts to climb. When she gets to the catwalk, she runs over to Ragusk and punches him, though not nearly as hard as she intended to.

Ragusk looks amused at your attempt to hit him. He drops his bow, and draws his swords, which gives Kara an opening to hit him again. But he doesn’t look worried.

She drops her bow as well and kicks him. He again doesn’t look concerned at the strength of her kicks, and takes a swing with his longsword, hitting Kara.

The bison turns to attack the half ogre next to him. Sephira summons a celestial hippogriff to sit between her and the other one. It also attacks!

The bison rams the half-ogre into the nearest wall, and the half-ogre collapses and doesn’t move anymore. The hippogriff tears into the other half ogre, who is torn and pounded down to the ground as well. Sephira, a bit surprised, yells “Your exit is clear if you need it!” to those inside.

Blank squares his shoulders to the demon and attacks again. Again, neither hit looks like it did the damage it should, and both start to heal visibly.

An arrow thunks into the kyton, who twitches a little, and who looks a bit concerned all of a sudden, but the arrow soon works its way out of the wound.

Herzog sees Kara may be in trouble and starts moving that way, and in route drops a bolt of lightning on the bugbear, who suddenly smells like burnt hair to Kara’s delicate elven sensibilities. He gets to the top of the nearest ladder.

Round 3!

The kyton, instead of swinging at Blank, stares him in the face instead! It’s unnerving! Blank laughs at the kyton.

Kara attempts to disarm the smouldering bugbear.

It doesn’t work, and the bugbear just starts swinging with swords! He hits her three times

Kara looks woozy from her injuries.

The bison turns and charges the kyton, using smite evil while doing so! The bison slams into the kyton like a couple tons of bricks, and the kyton looks severely concerned! But it’s injures visibly heal.

The hippogriff moves quickly into the room, but doesn’t attack anyone. Sephira runs up to the door as well, dodging around the half ogre body.

Blank uses spring attack again and moves to flank the Kyton before attacking this time.

The kyton collapses and falls unconscious, but is clearly not dead.

Sylaernae sprints over into the warehouse.

Herzog, meanwhile, approaches the bugbear and hits him with another lightning bolt, which doesn’t seem to do much.

Round 4!

The kyton just lies there. (Not that he ever tells the truth anyway.)

Kara withdraws from her fight with the bugbear, and retreats to the second nearest ladder. She climbs down to the floor, ending up about 15 feet behind the kyton.

Well the bugbear looks a little disappointed you chose to run away, and so turns around to go fight Herzog, whom he hits once. Just a bit.

Blank takes a knee and cuts of the kyton’s head. After quite a bit more work than he expected, the things head pops off, and black ichor spews out! “I just woke up two days ago...and this already.”

Sylarnae is gonna take a step and fire some arrows at the bugbear. He misses twice.

Herzog hits the bugbear with more lightning! He’s not amused, but presses the attack.

Kara realizes that she left her bow up on the catwalk and the expression on her face says that if she were less zen, she’d bang her head against the nearest wall. Her bow is being ignored. She wavers for a moment and then climbs up the ladder again to fetch it.She runs when she can, and once she has her bow, runs back to the ladder she climbed up. She stays on the catwalk instead of climbing down though.

The bugbear decides to make mincemeat of Herzog and hits him four times.

The bison turns around and sees the bugbear, but just kinda scratches the ground with a hoof. The hippogriff, on the other hand, spreads its wings and leaps into the air, aiming for the catwalk and the bugbear. It misses entirely and lands right next to Sephira, who jumps back.

Blank and the bison hear someone knock over some boxes behind them.

Blank turns and stands facing the boxes with both swords coming to the ready.

The sound came from a doorway in the corner. Blank gets the impression there’s someone in there who hopes no one heard that.

Blank moves silent towards the door, looking to see if there is anything that will let him see in the room. The door is open, and he can get up to it without anyone inside apparently noticing. Blank stays at the edge of the door looking into the room attempting to remain unseen.Blank sees what appears to be a six-foot tall goblin stuffing uh, stuff, into a sack. He doesn’t notice you.

Sylarnae apparently hits with one arrow but apparently both miss. “What witchcraft is this?” he says in Elvish with an English accent.

Herzog hits him with another lightning bolt, which he definitely feels.

Round 5!

Kara takes aim at the bugbear and fires an arrow at him.

The bugbear sneers and takes some more swings at Herzog. After the second hit, Herzog drops, and so the bugbear turns around to see who else is there. Seeing no one, and noticing that Herzog isn’t quite unconscious, he stabs him again for good measure.

Sephira moves inside next to Sylaernae - “Herzog!” She then summons a hell hound right next to the bugbear. It attempts to bite him, but misses.

The bison follows Blank. The hippogriff moves out into the room, eyeing the walkway. Since there’s a hellhound and a prone person in the way, it waits.

Blank moves forward through the door to the goblin quickly and attacks.

The goblin definitely gets an “Aw crap” look on his face, and looks doubly surprised at the amount of damage those magic swords do to him!

Sylaernae, frustrated, tries one more time to hit the bugbear. One arrow appears to hit, and this time the bugbear feels it!

The goblin looks like he tries to focus on doing something….and whatever it was fails entirely.

Round 6!

Kara sneaks around the edge of the catwalk toward Herzog.

The bugbear figures out that he’s trapped, so…. Full attack on the hell hound! It disappears with a howl.

Sephira sees Kara approaching from the right, and decides not to summon another creature. Instead she uses the ever-trusty magic missile.

The bugbear finally falls over. Sephira - “Hurry, Kara! Is he okay?” The hippogriff, disappointed, starts looking around for other prey. The bison moves to the doorway, but is too big to fit in. It then dissipates.

Blank continues to attack. He hits twice, and the goblin collapses. Blank looks over his shoulder and seeing that no one is close takes a quick look in the bag the goblin was holding to see if there is anything that looks rather valuable.

The barghest was stuffing gold coins in the bag.

Blank dumps about half the coins into his bag of holding before setting the bag down and leaving the room to go join the rest of the party. Blank knows the weight of gold quite well, so he gets exactly half.

Sylaernae stows his bow and climbs the ladder to reach Herzog.

Herzog bleeds quietly. He does not look good.

Kara dashes over to Herzog and inflicts First Aid on him. She has a healing kit!.Blank on his way out of the room he stops by the demon body and looks it over to see if it has been healing itself anymore.

Sephira scans the room. “Anyone left?” The hippogriff sits down, and then disappears. “And i don’t suppose anyone has a healing potion to give Herzog, do they?”

Its melted away into a humanoid pool of ichor.

Blank shakes his head, “no healing potions, and I don’t think there is anyone left. I killed a goblin looking thing in there.” points over his shoulder to the room, “it was stuffing gold into a bag and looked like it was trying to escape.”

Sylaernae, who is looting the body of the bugbear - “Alas, I carry none either.”

Kara: “I will need help to get Herzog down from here.”

Sephira - “Let’s not move him until we check if any of these people has a healing potion on them. Maybe we won’t have to try to get him down the ladders.” She goes outside to check the half ogres. Kedri heads back to the back room, unless the kyton left anything behind when it melted. Sephira casts detect magic as she goes to look.

Kara kneels next to Herzog and waits.

The kyton left nothing.

Blank looks around the warehouse, “It is big enough that we might find some,” then moves to the latter and up to join Kara. Pulling out his rope holding one end as the other end attaches itself to the railing, “let's tie this around him then lower him down.”

Sylaernae finds- a long sword, a short sword, a mithril shirt, a bag of gold pieces, three gems (one of which is fairly large)

Sylaernae - “Madam Sephira did tell us not to move him. Perhaps he has a potion?”

Kara rifles through Herzog’s stuff. The only thing she finds that might be remotely useful is a scroll. She unrolls it to see what’s on it. It appears to be a healing spell.

Blank shrugs and puts his rope away for now. Then moves off towards the back room again, “I will check in here and see if there is anything that could help.” Starts a thorough search of the room, checking for traps and possible secret locations to hide things.

Sephira finds on the ogre her bison killed: a bag of gold, a small copper goblet, an amethyst, and a potion of some kind. On the ogre the hippogriff killed, she finds: a masterwork warhammer (sized for a half-ogre), a bag of gold, an onyx, a small ornate wooden box, and a potion. She tosses it all in her bag and goes back inside, looking around for other magic items, including to the back room.

The only thing back there that looks remotely interesting is a half-empty bag on the floor, which has some money spilling out of it, and a small coffin (that radiates magic!). She puts the gold back into its bag and puts that into her haversack. She considers the coffin for a moment before deciding not to risk ripping a hole in the fabric of the universe and leaves it there for now.

Sephira - “Well, I found the coffin. No healing potions, though. Anyone else?”

Blank shakes his head, “No, and nothing in the back room that looks like it could hide anything.” Moves to check the goblins body, “though I don’t think we have checked him yet.”

His body is quickly decomposing into ichor as well.

Blank steps back from the body and watches. Hand to his nose, “this is what I wake up from an eighty year nap for?”

Sephira laughs.

Blank, “Unless anyone has anything to heal our fallen comrade I think we are going to have to try and get him down and drag him to a temple.” Moves off to recover his thrown daggers.Kara: “There’s nowhere urgent to go. We may as well rest here until he wakes up on his own.”

Sephira - “He looks really bad. I agree with Kara, let’s tend him here for a while. Though someone is bound to notice the half ogres. Sylaernae and Blank, are you strong enough to drag them inside?”

Kara hands Herzog’s scroll to Sephira. “Are you able to cast this?”

She examines it. “Unfortunately no better than you could, as it’s not an arcane scroll. Although I could try.”

Kara takes the scroll back and returns it to Herzog’s bag.

Sylaernae - “I can certainly try.” He heads down to try to drag the far away half ogre around.

Blank goes with Sylaernae to help drag the half ogres away.

Sephira sends Kedri to patrol, looking for people who might come by. She tells everyone else to come inside, and considers having Blank and Sylaernae as guards.

Blank, “I will stick around as a replacement guard if you want...but we have seen what they think of elves here...it might be best if the places looks deserted.”

Sephira - “Ugh, you’re probably right, between having elven guards and looking deserted, the second is probably the best option. Up on the catwalk it is.” Sephira tosses all the loot in her bag, but lets the others know we’ll have to drag the coffin up manually.

Blank starts moving the coffin until it is just under the walkway. Then secures it with one end of the rope. Holding the rope as it climbs up to the walkway and wraps itself around the handrails. Then climbs up to the walkway and pulls up the coffin.

Sephira - “Thank you, Blank.”

Blank nods to Sephira, “it is what the Secret service strives to do.”

It only takes a few minutes for curious people to show up, but not seeing any bodies outside the door they don’t prod too aggressively. Some walk as far back as the back storeroom, but since they can’t see anything interesting up top, you all are unbothered (Kedri goes to cuddle next to Herzog, and purrs at him)….for the six hours it takes for Herzog to wake up. Sephira looks immensely relieved when he does.

As soon as he figures out what happened, he casts cure serious wounds on himself and then “Who else needs help? Karakaze?”

Kara nods the affirmative.

Blank also nods, “though not as bad as you two.”

He casts cure moderate wounds on Kara twice. She’s still injured, but has reached 3/5ths of full health. Herzog casts cure light wounds on Blank, twice.

Herzog- “That’s just about all I have, I don’t want to spend all my spells on healing until we’re someplace safer.”

Blank, “It is not far to get out of here, we find something to cover this coffin we might be able to make it to the surface and to a room for the night...this time a private room.”

Sephira - “We may as well head all the way back to the manor. Hopefully the owner will be grateful enough to give us a room. At the very least there won’t be a chance of the coffin getting stolen while we rest.”

Blank, “Sounds good. Let me go look for something to cover it up with.” goes in search of something large enough to cover the coffin.

He's able to find some tarps, although he does see a few people looking curiously at him as he rummages around. They're not close though.

Blank ignores them and takes the largest tarp he finds back up with him and covers the coffin, “Shall we?”

Sephira - “Let’s go!”

Blank moves the coffin to the ground the same what he got it up here, “Maybe someone else should carry this, unless you don’t want me taking point anymore.”

Blank takes point and starts to lead the way out of the undercity. Looking around to see if there is anyone paying more attention to them now they they received on the way in.

You are, but people are mostly keeping a distance as well.

Blank starts looking towards possible ambushes, “they are giving us a wider berth then they did when we first came down here, keep sharp and pass it back,” In a low whisper so it doesn’t carry past the group. Sephira nods. Kedri yawns.

Blank continues to lead the way working out of the undercity and making his way back to his favorite home on a haunted hill...mumbling something about eighty year naps.

You hustle right past the drunken ogre guy, who opens his mouth to talk to you, but you ignore him and head out, and get back inside the courtyard walls without getting attacked.

I've been planning the events of two sessions ago, this session, and the next two or three for over a year (if not two), so it's good to finally see it coming to fruition.

(click to show/hide)

So you spend the rest of Day 167 preparing to move to your place and waiting for your guide. Eventually this person shows up, and leads you, over the course of the next day and a half, on a very long, slow, and circuitous route. Eventually, on the afternoon of Day 169, he stops, and says, “The road out of Preston is 300 feet to the northwest. The giants use it often, and the road passes through a low hill. That is the best place to stop them, because they can’t flank you. I’m off to join the main attack, so be prepared by sundown. And so the elf, who never gave his name, disappears and leaves you to your own devices.

“Thessa looks around. “I think I should go up a tree,” she announces. Logan just looks broody.

Arjun: “I think at least half of us should go up a tree. Whoever has decent long range weapons at least.”

Yudhithir: “I’ll scout down the road.” He takes off and goes flitting from tree to tree in the direction of Preston

Despite the long trip to get here, you’re only about 400 yards from town, and so can see a giant or two milling about in the deepening twilight.

Cyr- “I think I’m going to stay on the ground. I would much rather be able to run than have to jump out of a tree if a giant just pushes one over.”

“I have a featherfall ring,” Thessa calls from the tree she’s already settling into. “Jumping is not a problem.”

Arjun: “Alright. Phaedra, you can fly, right? Will you take a tree on the opposite side of the road from Thessa?”

Phaedra - “I suppose that’s a good spot.” She pulls out her creepy wings and flies up.

The road cut is about 150’ long, and nearly 20’ tall in the middle. The slopes are such that you could slide down them pretty quickly (without taking damage), but climbing up would be pretty slow.

Yudhisthir come flying back and joins the people on the ground. “There are giants moving around, but none coming in this direction yet.” He looks over the area. “We’re supposed to stop them here?”Arjun: “Yeah. Any ideas? I don’t think we can take down any of these trees without them noticing.”

Yudh: “Entangle. You just stay out of the road until absolutely necessary.”

Logan continues to look broody, but moves out of the road and near Thessa’s tree.

Yudhisthir, flies up to Thessa and then over to Phaedra and relays the plan.

Arjun: “Well, Saluki, pick a side of the road.” He jogs over to the opposite side of the road from Thessa and Logan and starts thinking of spells.

Cyr finds some likely looking bushes to hide in and then appears to start meditating, which most of you haven’t seen her do before.

Saluki - “May as well keep everything symmetrical.” He goes to stand behind a tree near Thessa’s.

And so you all settle in, and the sun goes down. Fortunately for those without darkvision, the big moon is full (the small moon is waxing gibbous?), and so bright that you can nearly see color anyway. Time ticks by slowly until almost midnight…..when suddenly you hear shouting over near town! It escalates quickly, with a mixture of loud giant bellows vs much more numerous elf shouts.

A couple of minutes into the fight, those of you who speak giant hear someone yell, “By Thyrm, what is thaAAAAAAGGhghghg…….” and then the tone of the fight changes from pitched battle do desperation on the giants’ part, oddly.

Cyr, to Phaedra and Arjun- “Something just scared one of the frost giants. Thyrm is the name of the god of frost giants. I wonder what the elves are doing.”

Arjun: “Hopefully it’s effective, whatever it is.”

Phaedra - “I am simply glad that whatever is capable of scaring a frost giant is on our side.”

Yudhisthir is peering intently down the road, so as to time his spell properly.

Several people hear and see what sounds like at least a two giants running up the road in your direction. They should be nearby in 2-3 rounds.

Saluki pulls out his swords and waits. Thessa readies her crossbow, and makes sure a selection of haversack stuff is within reach. She also starts singing because why the heck not.

Logan, idk, does some quick meditating broody monk stuff.

Cyr knocks an arrow and preps to fire as fast as she can.

Yudhisthir casts entangle on the exit of the road cut as soon as the giants enter the cut.

Everyone else holds their action this round until the giants get close! They enter the road cut, but don’t get within hitting distance for anyone this round.

Logan, Cyr, and Yudh can tell that the giants don’t look that tall, for giants, and have skin somewhere in the middle tones, ie, not coal black, not light blue.

Round 2!

Thessa keeps singing!

Everyone else waits.

The giants run right until they get to the entangled area, which they step right into. One of them hops nibly over the first few feet and thus lands right in the middle, while the other gets entangled immediately.

They both shout stuff in giantish, and Cyr laughs.

Cyr- “They’re cursing up a storm. Ha!”

Yudh flies down to the top of the road cut and slings a projectile at the giant on the outer edge. The rock glances of the head of the nearest giant. He shouts in giantish.

Cyr- “He said he’s gonna stomp on you until your guts go splat!”

Yudh: “That wouldn’t take much stomping.”

Ajun moves closer to the edge of the entanglement and casts prayer (...sigh). Phaedra, Yudh, Cyr and Arjun get +1 to hit, damage, saves, and skill checks, and the giants get -1 to the same.

Logan runs out into the road and PUNCHES THE GIANT. He misses which makes him very grumpy.

Cyr takes two shots at the giant on the edge of the entanglement, but both just go thunk into his hide armor and don’t appear to do anything.

Phaedra fires a blast at the closer giant and hits it. It roars in anger!

The giant in the middle of the brambles….do nothing! Cause they already used their action and everyone else waited for them.

Round 3

Thessa sings more!

Yudh dodges around Arjun and Cyr and slings at the second giant

Arjun casts bane! If the giants fail their saves, they get another -1 to attack, also -1 to save vs fear. The giants look a little more discouraged than they did before.

Logan uses flurry of blows! He hits hard because he’s mad. The giant is seriously surprised that an elf can hit that hard.

Saluki takes his own series of attacks at him, hitting twice. This giant looks nearly dead.

Thessa and Logan both hear the pantings of a running giant coming up the road.

“Incoming!” Logan yells. “Another giant!”

Cyr takes two more shots at the giant, and puts one arrow through his eye and another into his neck. The giant flops over immediately.

Phaedra fires a blast at the giant in the thicket, and hits him.

This giant takes a rock out of his bag and throws it at Yudh, cause he’s closest. Only wings him, though. The other giant, who is another hill giant, bellows in rage, seeing what’s happening, but he doesn’t get close enough to hit anyone.

Round 4!

Thessa pauses her singing, takes a fuzzy out of her rust bag of tricks and throws it into the middle of the road, between the new giant and the others. It turns into a wolverine! The wolverine takes up a guard position, as the first line of defense against the new giant.

Arjun invokes Divine Power. He gains a whole bunch of strength and attack enhancements. He dashes along the top of the road cut toward the new giant.

Logan throws a rock at the trapped giant. It misses, but it makes him feel better. He turns partly, to keep an eye on the oncoming giant.

Saluki turns and moves toward the oncoming giant.

Cyr takes two shots at the entangled giant, but biffs both of them.

Phaedra fires again at the entangled giant and hits it.

The entangled giant takes this ZAP, tears himself free, and fights through the brambles to the edge, and also get himself on the 5’ ledge you all are standing on.

The other giant charges and takes a swing at Saluki, which connects nicely.

Round 5!

Thessa’s wolverine attacks the giant. Thessa casts blindness on giant B. The giant blinks a couple of times, but doesn’t appear to be effected.

Yudh skirts the edge of the entanglement and gets smacked when he walks in reach of the giant, but slashes at the giant with his giantbane longsword! Doing it a fair amount of hurt.

Arjun runs a bit farther along the road cut, then slides down the slope to behind the giant. He gets knocked around for his troubles, and misses his return strike..

Saluki starts spinning around the giant, attacking as he goes!

Logan runs around the entangled patch towards giant C.

Cyr lets off two arrows just after Logan dashes in front of her. “Dammit, Logan, I almost shot you!”

Logan winces. “Sorry!”Phaedra fires at the same giant. Luckily for all the assorted people down there, she’s good at firing into a melee. Unfortunately, she is suddenly startled by a squirrel landing on her shoulder and the blast goes nowhere near anyone.

The giant fighting Saluki and Arjun winds up for a couple of big swings. He misses once as Saluki dances around, but hits him square on the second try.

The entangled giant behaves similarly, and hits Yudh solidly as well.

Round 6!

Thessa shoots an arrow at Giant B and misses. The wolverine snaps at the giant’s feet but doesn’t make any damage

Yudh attacks the giant a lot. And then has to sit down for a few minutes to sort out how much damage he did. He pulls out an abacus, a small writing desk, paper, ink, and quill. Eventually he figures this out, and he has butchered one hill giant. It flops over dead. Yudhisthir spends several moments cursing the universe for the math it inflicts on him.

Logan finds himself at a loss since Yudh has thoroughly killed the giant so he turns around and stars running towards the other giant, making sure to skirt the entanglement.

Logan gets close, but the giant sees him coming and has a chance to wind up and hit him VERY solidly.

Saluki continues his dance and hits the giant three more times. He then retreats out of range. The giant is pretty angry about this.

Cyr slides down the slope and goes to see what the dead giant in the road has on him. She’s careful not to get into the entangled area.

Phaedra turns, shakes it out, and fires at the remaining giant. She hits!

The giant, who is extremely beat up at this point, swings once more at Logan, hitting him again, and then turns to take a swing at Arjun, but misses. When Arjun finally gets around to attacking, he hits the giant twice, and that’s enough to kill it. It collapses to the ground.

Thessa hops down, collects her wolverine and starts to search the dead giant.

Arjun: “Who else needs healing?

Cyr- “Your brother does!”

Saluki, who has started looting the nearest body, raises his hand.

Arjun gets the strangest urge to hand his sword to Saluki. As in, he thinks the sword wants to be handed to Saluki.

Arjun: “Hey, Saluki. Hold onto this for me for minute.” He cleans giant gore off the sword and sheathes it before offering to Saluki.

Phaedra - “Since Yudh is injured, I’ll go scout.” She takes off down the road to see if more are coming.

Saluki gives Arjun an odd look and takes the sword. He’s already cleaned and put away his own. “Man, I forget how heavy this type of sword is sometimes.”

As soon as Saluki’s hand touches the grip, he feels two pulses of energy come from the sword, and many of his wounds heal. Saluki gets the feeling that Logan should touch the sword next.

Saluki - “Uh. What just happened?... Logan, want to hold it next?” He walks it over to him.

Thessa pounces on the sword, without touching it, and casts read magic. She can read the word Kuracisto, which is engraved on the blade. But she could read that already. She sighs in frustration and goes back to ransacking giant B.

Thessa finds...a small bag with 50 gp, a large giants’ bag with throwing rocks, a tinderbox, a necklace made of bear teeth, a lump of wax, a battle axe head, a small sack with three gems (2 small, one large), a roll of leather (like half a cow hide rolled up), a whetstone, and a scrollcase. The roll of leather is wrapped around something.

She pockets the tinderbox, unrolls the leather, and then casts detect magic on the whole lot, if she can do that. The scrollcase and the longsword that was wrapped in leather both radiate magic. Evocation in both cases. The longsword looks bizarre: it’s blade looks like it’s cut from purple crystal, instead of being metal.

Logan takes the sword with a suspicious look. Again, two pulses of energy come from the sword, and some of his wounds heal.

Yudhisthir, having carefully climbed down the low part of the bank, makes his way toward the rest of the group.

Logan gets the feeling the sword wants to be handed to Yudh. He might be grumpy, but no good comes from ignoring magic swords, so when Yudh arrives he hands it over.

Yudh, holding the sword: “Why do I have this, now?” For a third time, two pulses of magic energy from the sword, healing some of his wounds. “Oh”Yudh gets the feeling the sword wants to be handed back to Arjun.

Yudh jabs Arjun in the ribs with the pommel. “That’s one weird weapon you have.”

“Oof” Arjun takes the sword back from Yudh. “Love you too, brother.” He casts Cure Serious Wounds on Yudh anyway. Arjun gets the feeling of “job well done” from the sword. He pats the hilt and straps it back on.

Cyr walks over from giant G. “Anyone going to loot the giant on the hillside?”

Yudh: “Not until the entangle spell ends.”

About 8 minutes later, the entangle spell ends. Arjun starts to search giant C’s body. Arjun finds….a bag with 42 platinum pieces, a bag with 10 mid-size gems (100 gp each), a light mace fashioned so that the business end looks like a demon’s head, a wooden bowl, some rocks, a chunk of cheese in wax paper, and a whetstone. He takes the money, the gems, the mace, the bowl and the whetstone. He unwraps the cheese to check its condition, and then shrugs and puts it in his haversack with everything else.

Phaedra sees the the elves are winning, but are taking heavy casualties. There are no giants coming this way. There are a couple of fires, but nothing out of control. She can’t tell how many giants or elves have died in town. She gets the impression the giants are fleeing, heading to the northwest (away from you all).

She gets back as everyone gathers with loot. “There is no one else heading our way. Looks like they’re all fleeing to the north. There’s still some fighting going on, though, so it might be best if we go to help. Assuming we’re up to it, injury-wise.”

Cyr- “I’ve grabbed everything that the one giant had that looked remotely useful, so there’s nothing keeping us here.”

Thessa nods.

Yudh: “Except for the part where they told us to stay here.”

Arjun: “I doubt it would do any harm to walk along the road and see if there are any giants hiding between here and the town.”

Yudh rolls his eyes and takes to the trees.

Arjun: “Let’s go!” He leads the group toward the town.

It only takes a couple of minutes to cover the distance, and when you arrive, it is what Phaedra saw, but more so: it looks like most of the casualties were hill giants, except for one fire giant that looks like it was taken down mostly by dozens of arrow shots, with a couple of large slashes, and a frost giant that looks like a very large animal attacked it. There are probably between 20 and 30 elven dead.

Walking around a bit you see the elf Ardivan reading what sounds like the sending spell from a scroll. You hear him say something like, “...drive them along the Oyt River. Have your team ready in 24 hours.” As soon as this is done he walks off without noticing you, and starts looking for wounded elves (there aren’t many).

Eventually you spot Tamurel, who is giving instructions to a huge man in plate mail (like 6’6 or so), and what looks like a two or three foot tall bat (like, a fleidermaus). The bat takes off and the man runs down the northwest road, after the giants.

Soon after those two leave, he spots you.

Tamurel- “You made it, good. How many giants came your way?”

Arjun: “Only three, all hill giants. We killed them. Is there anything else we can help with here?”

Tamurel- “Just look for living casualties. The giants hit hard enough that most of us are either unhurt or dead, with very few in between.”

Arjun: “We’ll look.” He looks around at the group. “If any of you’d rather rest, that would be fine. Yudh?”

Yudh: “Yeah, yeah, I’ll help look.”

Cyr- “I’ll look as well.” Later, Cyr also gets around to fessing up to the stuff she took from the hill giant: a bag of holding (it weighs about 15 pounds), a ring, two scrolls, a blank spellbook, a bag of flour, lump of wax haunch of meat. Oh, and 70 gp and a gem that looks to be worth about 250 gp.

Arjun, displaying his looted cheese: “If we had some oil, we could make bread, then we’d have an entire meal.”

After only about an hour, Tamurel says that all of his troops are accounted for: of his attack force of 50, two are already chasing the fleeing giants, and he has 6 wounded and 27 dead. The elves hold a funeral for their losses before posting guard while the rest just...rest.

Right, so, you killed some giants, ran away from other giants, and are now in a broken down farmstead probably two miles away from Preston. It very, very early on the morning of Day...hang on let me check...161.

Letting the animals serve as guards, everyone clusters around Mav, cause she did all the looting, apparently.

Rogue leaves to scout behind the party and check to see if there is any sign that the giants are still looking for them. Rogue spends an hour sneaking around, and doesn’t hear or see a thing.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

Mav unloads the hastily collected loot she...well, collected from the dead giant. She waits patiently for the DM to tell her what she found.

WELL. There is a small sack that smacks the ground like it’s full of coins, a smallish, rather ornate wooden box, a couple of necklaces, a pair of gauntlets, and another small bag that seems to be empty. Oh, and a second box.

Mav tips over the coin sack and then examines the second small bag, as well as opens both boxes.

A bunch of gold and a few platinum coins spill out, making pleasant clinking noises. The second small bag is mostly unremarkable, and has a few pebbles inside. It’s made of doeskin. One box is apparently a six-pack of potions! She opens the other one and it’s full of fresh food of various kinds.

Navus- “Huh. Grenda, can you cast detect magic?”

Grenda - “I can indeed!” She does so.

The coins and the box containing the potions are nonmagical, but everything else is. The second box radiated conjuration, the necklace with green stones conjuration, the necklace with copper coils evocation, the small bag transmutation, and the gauntlets transmutation, and the potions abjuration. The potions are abjuration. Grenda figures out, through many, many spellcraft checks, that you can pull the little charms off the necklaces and they’ll be the equivalent of a lightning bolt or blob of acid, the potions are defensive in some way (probably making you harder to hit), and the gauntlets allow you to throw any weapon.

Grenda - “That was one wealthy giant. Basically everything is magical except the coins and the box with the potions in it.”

Navus- “Well that’s neat. What is everything?”

Grenda - “Well, the box is conjuration, so it probably keeps producing food. That will be good if we stay in the wilderness for a while. The necklace with copper charms turn into lightning bolts and the green one acid if you pull them off. The potions are defensive. The gauntlets let you throw any weapon like you’re trained to do so. Not sure about the pebbles, but with this sort of thing usually throwing them is the first thing to try. Just… not right now because some magic items like that are quite loud.”

Navus- “I guess we wait for Rogue to get back to divvy it up then, or keep going til dawn?”

Grenda - “Shouldn’t take long to divvy up. I’d think it’s best to keep moving after.”

While we wait, Grenda pulls a piece of fruit out of the box to try it. It tastes like pretty good fruit. Nothing to write home about, though. And when she glances back in the box, it doesn’t seem to be any emptier.Navus also fishes something out to munch on. “Eh, that’s not bad.”

Rogue returns after an hour, “it appears clear.”

Grenda - “That’s good.” She gives him rundown of the items. “Who wants what? It might be best for me to take a necklace as I tend to be a bit more back-line than the rest of you.”

Navus- “Mav, any preference on the loot?”

“I’ll take the stones,” Mav said. “Unless someone needs them more. And one potion.”

Grenda - “Rogue, why don’t you take the gloves?” She grins. “You can also have the rusty axe blade I’ve got to get you started.”

Rogue nods, “I can make that work. Rust should give our enemies a disease too.”

Grenda gives him the axe head and gloves. She also passes over a potion. “May as well split these up relatively evenly.” She grabs the lightning necklace. “Who wants to carry the food? I can if not one else wants to. I’m pretty sure it won’t rip a hole in space-time if I put it in my haversack.”

Navus- “Sounds good to me. Could I get two of the potions? I got hit pretty easily by that hill giant, I think I need all the help I can get in not getting smacked.”

Grenda - “Works for me. Who else wants a second one? Someone still needs to take the acid necklace. You could always take a third one if you don’t want the necklace, Navus.”

Navus- “Yeah, I’ll do that, I have plenty of arrows for ranged combat. And the wooden box they came in, since I now have five potions.”

Grenda - “Well, since I’ve got spells and I doubt a necklace is terribly compatible with a barbarian’s fighting style, here, you have the acid necklace, Rogue.”

Rogue nods again, “I just pull of a globe and toss it at the bad guys?”

Grenda - “Pretty much.”

Grenda adjusts her hat and transforms again, this time looking like an elf. It’s somehow less convincing than when she looks like a human. “We better get moving again.”

And so you set off!

Rogue nods, “I will take point again, we have quite a distance to travel to the south west to get to where we are trying to get too next. I will guide use around the village we just hit and will keep on the lookout for more giants. See how much more trouble we can cause as we go.”

Grenda - “Sounds like a plan!”

You start moving into the woods at a decent pace, stopping to get Mav’s burro, which has been calmly feeding somewhere.

The cougar and wolf have probably gone off and killed some poor defenseless fuzzy forest creature, so they take a bit to round up, but appear eventually.

Navus pulls out his bow and a couple arrows, just in case. Mav, having cleaned her hands, starts knitting again. But she keeps her bow close.

So you head north, picking your way to the confluence of the Oyt (to your left), the Olvewater (across from you to the left) and a river oddly known as the Realstream (across the confluence to your right), which passes through Hochoch about 15 miles upstream. All three rivers combine into the Javan River, which heads southeast and forms the border between Sterich and Gran March. Mellie’s Wharf is about 25 miles downstream. All looks calm as you catch sight of the small lake that forms the confluence, and you get there around dawn.

Grenda - “Shall we rest for the day? This is a lovely spot.”

Rogue - “we need to move into the woods a little and find a defensible place but yes. And we need to talk a little about where we are going. At some point we are going to have to cross this river to get to the other side.” points to the other side of the river, “Once the river starts going due south and splits off again, one branch keeps going south the other goes towards Hornwood. Also I could use more healing before we sleep. Still a little banged up from our last run in.”

When Grenda casts a healing spell on...whoever, she feels a pulse of energy from her amulet, and her last wound closes up as well. Grenda - “Huh. I guess I should keep this amulet, then.”

Rogue - “sit tight here for half an hour. I will scout a place to stay for the day.” and moves off to scout a reasonably defensible place in the woods.

He sees a couple of houses near the water that look pretty abandoned, and notices that one or two still have boats next to docks. Aside from that, most of the woods are pretty similar; there isn’t much terrain here that’s noteworthy.

Rogue moves quietly up to the houses to make sure they are empty and then checks the houses for one that would be best to use.

There’s a group of three or four in a row, looking like some kind of fishing community, and all four look beat down and unused, but would be decent at concealing everyone from prying eyes. The only residents are things like rats. And possibly BEES. And carpenter ants.

Rogue after checking that all the houses are empty and choses the house with the least amount of extra wild life, goes back to the group, “We have a few houses to chose from. Does anyone know how to use a boat?”

Navus- “Uhh. Don’t rock it? Did you find one?”

Rogue nods, “There are two boats, once we get into the house we can go check to see if they are in working order. Might be useful to go down stream.”

Grenda - “I guess it mostly depends on how much wandering around looking for trouble we want to do en route. I don’t know anything about boating myself.”

Rogue guides everyone to the house he chose and settles in, “I will take first watch after checking the boats. If they are small enough we might be able to take one with us to use to cross the river when we need too.” Once settled in goes to take a look at the boats.

They actually look fairly decent. Between the two of them they could carry all four people and three animals in one trip, although it would be pretty cozy. The river is about 700 feet wide here and flows from southwest to northeast.

Rogue moves back to the house, “well the boats are in good condition. The river flows in the opposite direction from where we want to go. To use them we would have to try and carry them with us. If we take both we can move across the river in one trip, if we take only one then it will take two trips. Carrying them the distance we have to go would also be cumbersome.”

Grenda - “Well, we could just cross here. It’s a long ways, but shouldn’t be a problem if no one is around.”

Rogue shakes his head, “we would have to cross again down the river. This river branches off twice before we get to Hornwood. So we would end up needing to cross twice more instead of just once.”

Grenda - “We might be able to fit one of the boats in my backpack. Or we have that feather, there’s always a chance it’s the boat one.” She frowns a bit as show contemplates the boat dripping all over the interior of the haversack. “Actually, I think it might be too big, for some reason I was forgetting the proper dimensions. Oh, that reminds me.” She pulls out the box of food and hands it around.

Everyone can eat heartily!

Rogue attempts to drink the box dry...and is full way to quickly, “In the evening we will have to figure out the weight of the boats. It might not be worthing it and we just might have to acquire some boats closer to where we want to cross.”

Mav takes the box when everyone is done and settles in to drink as much beer as she wants.

Navus- “If we’re going to have to acquire boats anyway, we could still cross now, cause trouble for the giants on the trip to Hornwood, and just try our luck closer to. I want to cause trouble for the giants. Lots.”

Rogue - “Crossing now means trying to cross the river at least three times total. If none of use are more experienced in boating then not tipping the boat that might not be the best idea. There should be giants to kill on this side also.”

Navus- “It’s up to you, boss.”

Rogue shakes his head and looks to the others, “still need everyone else's input. There is the chance of running into giants on this side, but we can cause more trouble on the other side. Going to the other side will mean a lot more time spent traveling on water. We will gain some experience but could still end up going over if we do something wrong. Thoughts?”

Grenda - “Well, I think crossing now gives us the best chance of finding giants along the way, so I’d vote for that.”

Navus- “If we’re voting, I vote cross now, too.”

Mav drinks more beer and shrugs. “I prefer land to boats, but I came to kill giants, so I say we go where the giants are.”

Rogue - “Alright. I will take first watch. We rest till about three hours before sunset. Then we cross the river.”

So the day passes uneventfully. Grenda sleeps, so that she can replenish her spells. There’s nobody fishing the river these days, at least here, and you can see that there is a collection of houses on the other side of the river as well, all of which look abandoned.

Three hours before sunset…..

Rogue leads the party to the water, “alright let’s split between the boats. Mav with me, Navus and Grenda take the other boat. Let's try to get across as quick as possible.

Mav puts her breastplate in her haversack and secures it tightly to the nervous burro, speaking calmly to her.

Navus takes a couple minutes to convince Kusab that boats are neat, but he (Kusab) gets in eventually.

Rogue gets Timber on the boat then looks to Mav, “I can help.”

She nods. “That would be appreciated. I don’t want her stressed any more than we have to.”

Rogue moves to help get burro onto the boat. It takes like ten minutes go get the burro onto the boat, and she doesn’t look at all happy. But she’s there.

Grenda feels vaguely left out that she has no animal to convince that this is a good idea.

Once everyone is loaded, you (luckily) find oars in the boat, and start crossing. The current isn’t bad here at all, and so you cross in 10 minutes or so. The area you can see looks pretty deserted, both on the river and off.

Rogue hops off the boat and helps burro get off the boat as soon as they are on the other side. Then lets Timber jump out. “We should move to the wood line and try to find some concealment as we move south. I can take point and see if I can scout out some giants that are alone we can take on, if not we can try to find trade posts, buildings, siege equipment they might have that we can lite a fire before continuing south as we go.”

From what you could see from the water, the terrain right next to the river is pretty consistent: from the level of the regular farmland, there’s a slope down to the water, dropping by about 20 feet over a distance of 70 feet or so. At this point you’re still in the Oytwood, but will run out of forest in about 15 miles.

Rogue - “Once we run out of forrest we will need to spread out a little bit and keep eyes open. Need to try and see anything that is out there before it sees us. We will also stay relatively close to river. Once we are close to the city of Oytmeet we should scout that also to see if there is anything we can do there to cause some trouble. I am liking the idea of a large fire somewhere.”

And so you head out, but all quiet like. There is a pretty overgrown road to use, so you can make good time, and run out of woods early in the evening. Beyond the edge of the Oytwood, it’s grassland (or possibly farmland that just hasn’t been touched in eight years). There’s not a thing moving that you can see. Except the grass.

Rogue continues to lead the party towards oytmeet and looking for anything that resembles a giant along the way.

After another five hours of walking, you find yourselves out in the open with no buildings around, and the eastern sky is starting to get light. But the grass is like three feet high.

Rogue - “Not the best spot, but we will take the highest position we can. Keep close eye on watch. I will take first watch again. We will start out again just before the sun sets.”

You actually are perched on the edge of the slope in a tuft of particularly high grass. The most interesting thing that happens is a fishing boat comes from upstream and starts casting nets around. The interesting part is that the occupants of the boat are orcs. They don’t notice you, but you can hear them complaining about something.

They keep fishing all day, eventually pulling up their nets and heading upstream (slowly) in midafternoon.

Rogue wakes up Navus and Mav quietly, “This could be an opertunity to cause some disruption. When they start moving we can attack them. Try to do it and let Grenda sleep. Two of use attack the orcs the other can use ranged weapons from here or just wait and wake Grenda if it looks like we will need the healing early. We can get them by surprise.”

Mav nods. “I’ll be one of the attackers. She puts on any armor that wasn’t yet replaced.

Rogue looks to Navus, “You can cover us?”

Navus- “Sure, but how are you going to get to their boat? It’s in the middle of the river.”

Rogue nods, “disregard, I will stay with Grenda, you go with Mav. If they come to land we can change things up. Can you light up a few arrows and maybe catch the boats on fire?”

Navus- “Hmmm I can probably just kill the four of them faster, but I would have to get down near the water.”.

Mav pulls out her little bag. “I want to throw one of these,” she says.

Rogue nods again, “Then do it from as close to the water as you two need to get. Lets get them before they get too far away.”

Navus knocks an arrow and prepares to fire.

Surprise RoundMav throws the pebble, and it turns visibly larger the farther away it gets...but only flies 50’ before landing and making some rustling and thumping in the grass.

Navus fires when Mav throws. One arrow splashes, but the other arrow hits an orc in the chest, and he pitches over into the water. The other three start shouting and lunging for crossbows.

Mav shoots an arrow, then places herself between arrows and Navus.

Rogue places his body between the orcs and Grenda attempting to stay hidden in the grass.

Round 1

Mav hits one as well, but he looks tougher than the last one, and so just pushes the arrow through his thigh and out the back.

Navus takes two more shots. (mav ducks for this). The first arrow hits Mr. I’m a Badass in the face as he’s demonstrating his manliness to everyone (ie by pushing the arrow through his leg), so he falls over into the boat. Navus misses with the second shot.

The other two orcs get their crossbows in order and fire back at you. One fires too early and puts a bolt into the side of the boat, but the other manages to wing Navus.

Round 2:

Mav shoots again. The orc she hits pitches over backwards and falls into the water.

Navus fires as well. He misses once, and hits once.

The last orc nearly falls over, but still manages to load his crossbow and fire...again at Navus, hitting him solidly.

Navus- “Ow, dammit!”

“Do you need a potion?” Mav asks. She looks like she would like to scold him, but since he’s not really doing anything to put himself in additional danger, she refrains.

Rogue holds his finger to his lips, “shhhh, don’t wake the spell caster.”

So you’re still sitting in a big ol thicket. No more orcs have happened by. What do you do?

Rogue, “we should pack up and continue our move up stream. I will take point again and we can keep this up till we get closer to the next village.”

So you move relatively slowly to the west (upstream) toward Oytmeet, keeping in the very small valley that the river lives in. The river’s twists and turns are fairly gentle in this area; although it’s obvious it’s ultimately glacier fed (and therefore floods in the spring) it doesn’t look like it ever jumps it’s banks significantly.

In about two hours, or 10 pm-ish, you catch sight of what appears to be a guard tower (you can see a torch, and you can see the reflections of a few torches on the river. You’re about half a mile away from town, which is on the north side of the river. There are a couple of tents on the south side, but that’s it.

Rogue stops when he recognizes the guard tower and moves back to the party, “We are about half a mile from the town. We need to move and find a place out of site then I will scout the area and see what we are dealing with.”

You can find a little gully that most of you can pack into without too much trouble.

Grenda - “If this place is filled with giants, we may have to take this one a bit slowly. We’ll wait here for your return.”

Rogue, “I will see what we are dealing with, if it is filled with giants the best idea might be to start the city on fire and then see what happens.”

Rogue sets out attempting to be as quiet and unseen as possible. Moves to circle the entire city and get as close as possible as well to get as many details as he can and a count of what they are dealing with.

Rogue gets within 100 feet of the city wall without trouble. What he can see is that there are 20 or so small barges and boats moored, and looking like they haven’t been used in about eight years or so, surprise, surprise. The city wall is nothing but a bunch of logs that have been de-limbed and placed upright in the ground. And they’ve been sharpened at the top, as is traditional.

He steps on a dry branch during his approach, but no one starts shouting about it.

As he begins his circle around town, he sees the occasional torch (maybe half or one-third as many as one would expect if there were humans living here), and human-sized figures strolling along the inside of the log wall, presumably on a catwalk. He sees a single lookout tower at the north entrance to the town, manned by a couple of human-sized humanoids.

About halfway through his circuit, he catches a few snatches of speech, which he recognises as ...orcish. But he doesn’t know what they’re saying. They don’t sound like they’re talking with any kind of urgency, though.

The town looks big enough to have held about 1500 inhabitants, but he doesn’t get the impression that there are nearly that many people (or orcs) living there currently, just based on how much woodsmoke is coming from the place.

He also notes quite a few tree stumps, and that the grass this close to town is both closely cropped and well-fertilized.

The far side of town (upstream) looks more or less the same; from this side he can see the hills rising to the west, from which the Blue and White Oyt rivers arise, and he can hear some rapids some distance away.

His round trips takes a couple hours, but he gets back to the gully without anything amiss happening.

Rogue, “I did not see much of the inhabitants of the city, but it appears to have orcs pulling guard. With the possibility of housing over a thousand enemy in there any kind of attack would be a bad idea. Anyone else here good at sneaking around?”

Navus- “I’m not bad at it.”

Grenda - “I have a bit of experience in it.”

Mav raises an eyebrow at Rogue, “I believe you made a derogatory comment about my ability to move quietly.”

Rogue looks to Mav, “I will take that as no,” Then to the rest of the group, “Need to be confident in your ability. My idea is to sneak in and find five or six places that we can late a fire too that will burn well. Set them up for a slow start so that we have time to get away before the full blaze. If three of use can make it in and lite up six places each we could get a really big fire. Then we can watch and maybe get a party of orcs by themselves and kill them, or if we get lucky and one or two giants come out and end up somewhere by themselves we can kill them instead.”

Grenda frowns. “I understand the practicality of it, but I do still feel bad torching people’s homes….”

Rogue, “It is not a nice way to go about it, but we are raiders here. Anything we do that might disrupt supply lines for the enemy will assist our side of this conflict. If we push the giants out and take the city back it will be damaged regardless of what we do here tonight.”

Grenda - “True enough. I have a potion of invisibility, Mav could use it to conceal her presence for this part of it.”

Rogue, “that is not a bad idea. Though it might be better to give it to her to use out here and have her hold an area for us to retreat too. Three of us going in should be enough and as people get out and meet up with her they could then come in as a strike force if someone runs into trouble.”

Mav, “Being invisible won’t help if I get surrounded because I make too much noise.”

Navus- “Well, if you hang out at some place on the far side of town, you could do a wide circle where you an the animal can’t be seen, and we would just meet you at some place on the river upstream of town.”

Grenda - “As long as we’re clear on exactly where you’ll be. I don’t want anyone to get lost or left behind.”

Rogue, “We will all move as a group to the far side, find a good rally point then set out. It is almost midnight. It will take us to about one in the morning to get set up on the far side and that is a good time to start moving into the city.”

Navus- “Sounds like a plan to me. Shall we?”

Mav, “I am up for it.”

And so you set off, doing a much wider arc around Oytmeet than earlier, and discovering that even half a mile away, the land is still covered in stumps, mown grass, and sheep droppings. Your circuit takes you a little bit uphill of Oytmeet, and so you can see into town a bit. There is a main street (duh), around which most of the sparse torches burn, with very few outside of that, although they spread out a bit at the river.

You get back to the Oyt close enough to some rapids that you have to raise your voice a bit or get right next to a person to be heard clearly, and it’s rocky enough here that there are plenty of hiding places.

Rogue finds a good hiding place then waves everyone in close, “When we go into the town we need to try and chose the most valuable places we can hit. If we can start the fires in unoccupied buildings that will transfer to the occupied ones once the fire starts will be the best. We will each have to use our own judgement. Does everyone have what they will need to start fires?”

Navus- “I’m sure I can find something.”

Grenda - “I have a spell that can do it, though that might be a bit… obvious. I’ve got some mundane means as well.”

Rogue, “As long as it starts slow and gives you time to get away either way should be good. Alright so I will go down the middle Navus go towards our left and Grenda towards our right. Set up the buildings you want to burn on the way in. In an hour start back here from the farthest out building you set up to burn and start the fires on your way back. If you get caught in the process run as quick as you can back here making enough noise for the rest of use to hear. Those not caught start your fires and then get back to help the one that is seen.”

Grenda - “I think we can manage that.” She smiles. She also hands Mav the invisibility potion just in case.

Rogue nods and then waves for everyone to start moving.

Mav and the animals all mope about being left behind, but thems the breaks for your player not being around!

The other three head out, keeping right next to the river. You get close to the wall, and see that it ends right at the edge of the water. You’ll have to wade a bit, but it should be pretty easy to get around. The nearest guard tower is visible, but a good distance away. It’s partly obscured by a couple of warehouses.

Rogue points to the warehouses and whispers, “Good targets,” before they split up.

You all manage to get inside the wall without anyone hearing (that you can determine), and with a minimum of splashing.

Rogue waves for everyone to split up then starts to move off to find buildings to set on fire.

We’ll follow Grenda first.

--------------------------------Rogue and Navus quickly move off into the shadows, leaving Grenda standing around on a dark street, with the river off to her right. There’s a row of houses between her and the warehouses, and every single one of them looks deserted from here.

Grenda walks along the river, being careful to check along the streets before crossing them. She looks for a particularly rickety looking warehouse, one that is not right next to the river, as she moves. For good measure, she concentrates on her headgear, reverting to her normal appearance, before moving.

So she’s hopped one block away from the river, and as she passed the first warehouse (on her right) she hears a pair of voices talking inside. They’re very deep and sound pretty similar, and are speaking in a mishmash of orcish, goblin, and giant. She can make out what they’re saying, and neither speaker sounds very bright.

Whoever is inside doesn’t seem to notice her.

Grenda starts to circle the building, looking for a vantage point.

As she gets close to the end of the warehouse, she notices that directly across from it is a second warehouse, more or less a mirror image. The barn doors on that one are closed, but she can hear snoring from inside there. Only one door on the warehouse from which she hears talking is closed, so eventually, she gets a glimpse of a large seated figure (like 12’ range if standing), with two heads, chit-chatting.

Grenda thinks “Yikes,” and moves around to the other side of the building with the snoring. She examines the buildings near it hopes that one of them will be a good candidate to set on fire.

After that first row of houses, all the buildings here turned into workmen’s shops, so there’s a mix of what would be called light industry in another day and age. They all look like they’ve been repeatedly searched, so there is plenty of stuff thrown around and broken that would make a good kindling. And possibly accelerants.

Grenda gathers some of the kindling and sets it up near the sides of the snoring people building. She looks in the food box for oil or high proof alcohol or more effective accelerants that might be lying around.

There’s olive oil, but not vegetable oil, in the food box. And some kind of 40-proof alcohol.

As Grenda is building this pile o’ stuff, something clatters, and the chattering from the first warehouse stops. She moves away from her pile to hide behind a corner/look innocent.

She hears the large thuds of heavy footsteps exit the first warehouse, and clearly sees a 13’-tall, two-headed giant standing in the intersection, with a pair of confused looks on his faces. He stands there for a minute and then goes back to his house.

Grenda moves onto the next location to build another pile. She moves in toward the lighted area, though not directly.

And here we switch to Rogue!----------------------------Rogue heads away from the river for a couple of streets and then….

Rogue finds his way to the just prior to the main street sticking to the shadows and starts to move deeper into the town. Looking for a few good buildings to light up.

Rogue discovers that Oytmeet is more or less uninhabited more than a block away from the river or from the main north-south road through town, but even at 1:30 am is fairly lively with the sound of orc voices. He doesn’t encounter a single living being (beyond some rats).

Rogue moves towards the sounds of voices and attempts to see what buildings the voices are coming from.

Basically, the whole street across his front has voices (predominantly male voices, all speaking orcish), going about their business.

Rogue moves toward the Lea exit, staying at least two hundred feet from the watchtower there. Then finds an ally close to the nearest set of voices he can. The orcs don’t notice you that you can tell.

Rogue gets behind the building and looks for things he can use to set up his first fire pit.This is a residential area, so there is plenty of broken furniture, tasteless drapes, and things of that nature.

Rogue moves them into a pile half a foot tall and two feet wide behind the building.

It occurs to Rogue that the large inn he is a couple of houses away from sounds like it’s the social center of town, at least this time of day.

Rogue finishes with this pile then moves towards the inn to look for a place to set up his second pile.

Rogue finds himself around a corner (and probably 30’ away) from a small group of chatting orcs. They haven’t noticed him. Rogue looks around to see the best route to keep moving closer to the inn without having to get up close to these orcs.

He can back up and take the next street over, which will put him directly behind the main tavern. Once behind the main tavern Rogue starts looking for material to set up his next burn pit.

There’s enough garbage that he can find stuff to get a good fire going without trouble.

Rogue sets up his second fire pit then continues down the road looking for another good target for his third.

Rogue heads downhill and soon finds himself near the base of a second watchtower. He’s probably 50’ from a group of orcs lounging around, happy to not be on shift.

Rogue looks to around to find a building a good 100’ away from the orcs on both sides to set up his next two fire pits.

This is doable without trouble. Moves to the two buildings and sets them both up to burn. Then looks around to see if there is anything else that might be a good place to prepare. Not seeing anything that looks good he settles into the shadows to wait for the hour to be up.

Back to Grenda!------------------------

Grenda has accidentally dodged around the base of the westernmost guard tower, and is now one street away from the river, on what looks like a fairly major thoroughfare, although it’s deserted right now.

Grenda looks for a building next to the guard tower to build another spot. She tries to find one that hides her from the tower when she’s next to the building.

She finds herself next to another warehouse, which also has the sound of a very large, sleeping being inside. She shrugs and builds a fire pile.

There’s a group of orcs lounging around, happy that they’re not on shift at the base of that tower, but she’s found an alley that’s pretty dark and twisty. They don’t notice her.

She finishes setting up the burn pile. For good measure, she wanders around the alley a bit to set a second pile nearer to the road. She then waits at this one, rehearsing the route through the alleys so she doesn’t get lost. She decides to wait for the hour to be up. She’s a little sad there isn’t enough light to work on her needlepoint.

-----------------------What Navus did, cause one of the players wanted to know:

When the group split up, Navus moved one street away from the city wall and proceeded cautiously parallel to it. He set up a couple of burn pits along the way, and also managed to find enough old paint to light anything on fire.

He built his last fire pit two streets away from the main drag through town, and then waits.

When the hour is up….we bounce between people!-----Everyone happens to have nearly perfect internal clocks, and so all start their first fire at about the same time.

Grenda starts lighting in the opposite order she built them. She plans on keeping an eye out for the ettin, since it will probably head toward the fire.

Grenda notices a small fire starting maybe 75 feet away from her, also pretty near the same guard tower she’s near. She decides to switch plans, and skip her second pile in favor of setting the further out one. She heads there along the river, but is willing to move inland to avoid being visible near the bridge if necessary.

Once Rogue gets his first fire going, he hears someone call out something in orcish. The tone is more inquisitive than accusatory.

Rogue moves away from the voices and works his way around to his second fire.

He gets a couple shouts after him, but doesn’t hear anyone reacting, particularly. More “what was that idiot doing?” than, “Intruders!”

Navus observed that a lot of houses had thatch roofs, so he made his way up to a second story, made a burrow in the thatch (which happened to be in bowshot of the watchtower near the gate).

By this time, Grenda has skipped her second-to-last pile and is in route to her first.

As Rogue works on his second pile, he hears sounds of the first one getting stomped out, and people approaching him. He gets more questions in orcish, this time they’re angry, but not suspicious.

Rogue abandons the second pile and runs off attempting to lose followers and then move to his third pile.

He doesn’t appear to have been followed.

Rogue moves as quick as he can while trying to be quiet and hide to the third pile.

This he manages to do without getting questions from anyone. He does hear some shouting out near the main gate, and sees a flickering flame in the roof of some house.

Rogue looks to see if anyone is observing this area before starting his next fire. He’s alone. Starts this fire then moves on to the first one he set up, attempting to stay hidden again.

His path takes him with a street of the high-up flame he saw, and this close it’s clear someone started a fire in a thatched roof. He can also hear shouting coming from near the base of the lookout tower next to the gate, and sees an orc slumped over with an arrow sticking out of him.

Grenda is hunched over her first pile o’ kindling, trying to muffle her firemaking efforts. She heards the chitchat stop again, and again the thumping of large feet exiting a warehouse. This time it’s moving faster, and it sounds like someone grabbed a weapon on the way out his front door.

Grenda sighs, and casts flame of faith on her weapon. As soon as that’s done, she hits the pile.

The pile bursts into flame!

Grenda hears an ettin gasp...twice. “What are you doing!?” it asks in a mishmash of giant, orc, and goblin.

Grenda - “I was assigned to help warm up the occupants of this building.” She says in goblin.

Rogue attempts to get to and quietly set his last fire. He gets it going without getting noticed.

Ettin- “Shouldn’t the fire be on the inside then?”

Grenda - “Oh, I didn’t want to wake them up by going inside.”

The ettin seems a bit nonplussed. “Won’t the whole barn burn up?”

Grenda - “That would make them really warm then! It is so chilly down here on the plains.” She nonchalantly moves a bit away from the fire. “I’m already getting warm myself!”

Rogue starts to make his way back quietly and hiding to where they entered the city from.

He and Navus manage to signal each other without any knifing or shooting starting.

Navus points down the road- “So there’s a small fire down the road, and an ettin woke up, but it’s not doing anything about the fire. See? It’s just standing there.”

Rogue nods, “Let's go see what is happening.” Draws his swords to have them ready just in case.

Navus and Rogue get close enough to see a burly, six-foot tall figure about 40 feet on the other side of the ettin, standing near the expanding flames. The ettin starts to turn around as they approach.

Rogue whispers, “Hide.” and moves to do just that.

Ettin, to Grenda- “Did you see something back there? I thought I heard someone walking up the alley.” It now has it’s back to the river, with one head facing each way (one to Grenda, one to the apparently empty street).

Rogue points to the Ettin, then at Navis and himself. Then directions for them to go at the Ettin from the sides. Then motions for them to move quickly waiting to see if he understood.

Rogue sees Navus draw his greatsword, and put away his longbow.

Grenda moves closer to the ettin, but stays on the same side of it.- “I’m not sure. Maybe we should investigate.”

Rogue once he sees that Navus understands he starts moving quietly and quickly to close in with the Ettin from the opposite side from Navus.

Ettin- “No, I think we should put out the fire. It is nice an warm, but Verk and Vim will have their house burned down if it keeps burning.” He starts walking over to kick the flaming stuff around.

Navus and Rogue manage to get into hitting range without the ettin noticing.

Surprise!

Grenda takes a swing with her flaming mace the moment he starts to move. She really, really hopes that the thing she saw was her comrades. She hits!

Ettin- “Hey! What are you doing! And where did you come from?” Hey!”

Rogue steps in and attacks the Ettin.

Navus steps in and winds up for a big ol’ power attack! He hits, and hits hard, but the ettin doesn’t quite go down.

Ettin- “AAAAAGHGHGHGHG HELP! AGHGH AGHGHG!”

Round 1!

Grenda takes another swing. It connects and bursts with fire, and now the ettin collapses and dies.

You hear something large startling and getting up inside the now burning warehouse, and some shouting from the main street.

Rogue, “The way we came in, let’s get out quickly,” and starts to move out.

Grenda follows.

So does Navus, swapping his greatsword for his longbow. He keeps up the rear, ready to discourage pursuit through arrows.

But, you’re able to get around the wall and out of town without anyone apparently noticing you. There is a LOT of shouting behind you by the time you reach the wall, but not much sound of pursuit. In 15 minutes or so you’re back to your hide site, and you can see at least a couple of decent fires.

Rogue, “Let’s settle in and watch to see how it goes for a few hours before deciding if we need to move on or can stay here till tomorrow night.”

Grenda settles down to watch. Her weapon has stopped burning by this point. “I should report this to the elves once we see how far it goes.”

The party….is sitting around after having had lunch. Those present are Katreana, Karla, Zelda, Dragon and Salach. Kaicl, Momenrech, and Kochevnik are off on a trade negotiation junket to one of the dwarf clans.

Lackey (one of Kemp’s guys) runs in and says, “Hey, Kemp needs to see you all, hurry!”

Katreana stands and neatly pushes in her chair. She’d bus the table, too, if they guy didn’t sound so urgent.

Everyone else hops up too. Lackey leads you to Kemp’s office/the main dining hall, where he informs you that the Oytwood elves are planning to attack and try to drive out of Preston the giants that live there. They’ve raided it once, about nine days prior to get a reaction, and tonight is the night. They have a pair of adventurers they’ve been working with for several months who will attempt to keep the surviving giants moving along the Oyt River, where they can be fought and defeated.

So that you can identify them as not also villains, the other adventurers are a large (like six and a half-feet tall) man, and a halfling-sized bat. The bat is apparently a druid, and its animal companion is something that Kemp describes as a cross between a chicken and a dragon (or a scaly chocobo!). He doesn’t really know what it is, to be honest.

Oh, and the elves mentioned something about those two being called “ruathar”, which is an elf word Kemp doesn’t know.

Kemp then instructed everyone to meet as a specific point on the Oyt River (about one mile west of the edge of the trees, there’s a wide spot in the river with a fairly prominent hill, you can’t miss it. Aaaand….go!

Dragon (whose real name is Wyclif, FYI)- “That’s it? Just head out there? How many giants are we talking?”

Kemp- “Don’t know yet. There were about fifteen in Preston before they raided it.”

Dragon- “With a cloud giant? That seems odd, being in the lowlands.”

Kemp shrugs- “Yeah, well, I don’t know. These are interesting times.”

Salach- “Well we’d best get going then.” He pauses. “If it’s just the five of us, I can teleport us there, I’ll just need to study the best map you have so I don’t miss and dump us in the river.”

Kat: “I’ll go get my equipment.” She runs to get equipped

Dragon also heads off to gather his equipment.

Kemp, to Salach, Zelda and Karla- “And since you all recruited Katreana to cross a continent, you should see if these two want to join you on your attacks on those frost giants in the mountains.”

Salach- “That’s probably a good idea.” And he goes off to find the best map available, and maybe do some scrying.

Zelda shrugs and goes to put her bag together, as her stuff is scattered all over. Karla is always vigilant and only has to go grab her stuff, which is basically already packed.

After about 30 minutes, the Most Ancient and Original Group, minus Kaicl, is ready to go.

Salach- “I have a fairly good idea of where we’re going, so I’m going to put us about a mile south of the river, and if everyone is on time, like they’re supposed to be, we’ll have the whole day tomorrow to look around and memorize spells.

Katreana: “That will be convenient”

So you hold hands in a circle, and….insert the special effect of your choice! Salach goes with the ones from Dr. Manhattan teleporting people around in the Watchmen.

And BAM! You’re standing in an open field, that looks like is may have been farmed fields oh….eight years ago. To the east you see a forest, to the southwest you can make out the rise of the Stark Mounds. To the northwest and southeast it’s open field.

It’s quiet, with a nice breeze.

Kat: “Which way to the rendezvous, Salach?”

Salach points northwest. “The Oyt River should be that way, it didn’t feel like we missed. We should probably look around before camping anywhere.”

Kat: “Let’s head toward the river then.”

And so you head northwest! It’s too short a trip to cue overland travel music, and in 15 minutes or so you can hear the sound of a large river to your front.

Kat motions to the knoll near the river. “That looks like a useful place to explore.”

Salach- “Also looks like it might be prominent if you’re three feet tall.”

While Zelda and Karla update their character sheets…

Salach- “Okay, Kat, I plan on having mostly spells like slow and hold monster. What are you planning?”

Kat: “I was planning on more aggressive ones - lightning bolt, fear, tentacles, you know. Probably not Ice Storm if there’s a cloud giant…though that might be useful agaists the fire giants. Attack spells at any rate.”

Salach- “Sounds like a good division of labor, then. Once I’m out of spells it’ll be greater invisibility and running around behind them to sneak attack.”

Kat: “I had reasonable success with casting fire shield and throwing myself at enemies, but that might be inadvisable against giants.”

Dragon chuckles.

Salach- “Er...yeah.”

At this point we’ll fast forward from the afternoon of Day 169...through Day 170...during which you get a sending from Kemp that says, “Attack successful. Surviving giants accounted as two frost giants, three fire giants, and one that is probably a cloud giant.”

Salach- “So everyone knows, I won’t have teleport memorized tomorrow, so if we gotta run, it’ll be on foot.”

And the sun sets on Day 170, and rises on Day 171. The MAOG gets up early, the spellcasters memorize spells, and everyone has a nice breakfast. The sun is juuust high enough that it’s not in your eyes, and there’s a brisk breeze blowing from the south.

Dragon points at the sky- “There’s something flying over there, looks like a large bat, maybe? Oh, and there’s a giant.”

Kat: “Coming from the east?”

Harvey looks west and notices a group of five people standing on the east side of a small hill.

Dragon- “Yup, that’s probably the cloud giant, they’re the tallest by three feet or so.”Zelda sees the giant bat, the probably a cloud giant, and two probably frost giants close by as well. And a fire giant that Dragon missed.

Zelda - “There’s a fire giant over there too.”

By this time a total of six giants are visible: two frost, three fire, and one probably cloud. The cloud giant starts making motions to the others. It looks like you’ve been seen.

Dragon- “That is so strange that there’s a cloud giant down here. Oh well.”

Dragon takes a few second to concentrate. “Karla, what spells do you have available?”

Karla - “I can boost strength, toughness, or protection from energy. I can also give a small boost to all of us.”

Salach casts mage armor on himself.

Dragon- “I’ll take the first two.”

Karla casts both on him. “I have one more strength spell.”

Kat scrambles up to the top of the hill to get a better vantage.

Zelda - “If there isn’t anyone better, I’ll take it.” So Karla casts it on Zelda.

Salach- “Does anyone want mass enlarge person? Or everybody?”

Zelda - “Seems like a good plan.”

Kat: “No, thank you. Do you need me to move out of range?”

Salach- “Tell you what, what say I cast it on Zelda, Dragon and Karla?”

Dragon- “Do it quick!”

Salach does so.

Harvey sees three of the people suddenly expand to the size of hill giants. “Huh,” he thinks to himself. “Looks like this group might be useful, Good.” He yells down the info to Esc.

Escaflowne looks up to Harvey, “Where is this group?”

“On the hill ahead, maybe 200 feet? I’d say the calvary is here, but honestly I think that’s still us.”

Escaflowne nods, “let's wait until the giants engage them, then we hit the big guy as hard as we can first and work down from largest to smallest from there.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Harvey says. “I don’t like the look of that cloud giant at all. You three,” he indicates the wolf, Fluff and Esc, “hit him and I’ll cast a couple spells for the others and then join you.”

Round 1!The largest giant (who is a rather fetching woman, actually) is giving instructions to the other giatns, who appear to be listening, begrudgingly. The giants nearest the hill drop their bags and start looking for rocks.

Dragon- “Ah, crap, we gotta get close.”

Zelda sets off toward them, sneaking as she goes.

Several of the giants point at Zelda as she tries to sneak toward them. Zelda draws her swords.

Escaflowne stops moving forward when he sees that the giants have stopped moving, draws his sword and waits.

Dragon takes off running toward the giants, cause he don’t like wasting time. He moves surprisingly fast and far, and stops just outside of melee range with the frost giant on the right.

Kat, to Salach, in Elvish, just in case the giants can hear: “I think they’re out of range of our spells.”

Salach, also in Elvish- “Yeah. We have to move up, I think.”

Kat slides down from the top of the hill and runs south, climbing up ot the top of the ridge south of the river and then runs parallel to the river, closer to the fight.

The cloud giant picks up a rock and wings it at Dragon, but misses. This draws some comments out of the other giants (who are all dudes).

Salach, on the other hand, drops a fireball on the cloud giant and the nearest frost giant to her. (And a fire giant, but he doesn’t care.)The frost giant yells in anger, cause fire is hot! The cloud giant startles, but doesn’t look very concerned.

The not-singed fire giant move up until he’s almost, but not quite, close enough to hit Zelda. Another one walks past the cloud giant, while the third moves up, and is close enough to hit Dragon, but isn’t moving fast enough.

Karla moves forward quickly, and casts flame strike on the cloud giantess, one fire giant, and one frost giant.

The frost giant curses loudly, the cloud giant is angry, and the fire giant is shocked that he can apparently get burned.

The first frost giant starts running at those pesky spellcasters. He ignores Zelda completely, but did run within hitting distance for her. There is much shouting from the cloud giant, and some from the fire giants, of a “Hey, what are y ou doing?” tone.

The other frost giant takes swings at Dragon and connects solidly twice. Dragon considers that perhaps this wasn’t his best idea.

Round 2

Zelda does a quick reverse to chase the one that just went after Karla. She charges it and stabs it hard. It staggers, but stays up right and moving.

Escaflowne, “Can Fluffly get me in close enough to the big one for me to breath on it?”

Harvey nods. “Hop on. Fluff, take him!”

Escaflowne hops onto fluffy and waits for him to move towards the cloud giant.

Dragon uses his swift action move to get away from the fire giant, and then attacks the frost giant. He his the giant three times, and all of a sudden the frost giant looks as beat up as Dragon does.

Harvey flies over and hovers just within range to hit the cloud giant with sudden stalagmite.

The stalagmite ruptures from the ground and stabs the female giant hard in the thigh! She shouts, and then shouts some more at the fire giant right next to her that there’s someone else around here.

Fluff, a VERY large creature who looks something like a thin sparrow that grew a mouthful of nasty teeth and some very curved claws, runs forward with Esc. She stops near the cloud giant and hisses.

There is all of a sudden a whole lot of shouting from the giants, “De Kraldjur!” <It’s the lizard! The Lizard!>”

Which is answered by the cloud giant, who says, “Deda honom!” <So kill it!>” She sound exasperated.

Kat moves closer! And casts Evards Black Tentacles in amongst the giants. One of the fire giants is in the middle of it, and the other fire giant and the frost giant fighting Dragon are on the edges.

The cloud giant tries to wrench her leg off the stalagmite, and is yells when she can’t!

At the same time, Karla casts a spell on herself while being careful to avoid any attacks from the giant.

So two fire giants are busy avoiding grapples, so they don’t do anything… but the third heads over to his buddy the frost giant who looks like he’s in trouble. He runs over, and takes a swing at Zelda!

The frost giant next to Karla full attacks her...and connects solidly, twice.

Salach disappears! And then sprints down the hill, not that you can see this.

Finally, the frost giant dragon is fighting swings at him, but only connects once.

Round 3!

Zelda starts swinging, and her first hit goes right through the kidneys of the frost giant, who collapses and dies! She turns and slashing the fire giant twice. It sneers!

Escaflowne hops off fluff and growls right before expelling a long breath at cloud giant and fire giant in front of him. The fire giant manages to dodge the worst of it, but the cloud giant, held fast, can’t dodge at all, and takes the brunt.

Harvey cheers.

Dragon attempts to kill the frost giant before the fire giant can get to him, and drops it in the first hit. “Huh. Well being around an angry fire giant is no place for me.” So he takes a couple moves to get out of there.

Harvey flies by the cloud giant, spitting blinding spittle into her face, because she said to kill his pet and he’s petty like that. That hits, and cloud giant swears at you mightily!

Fluff doesn’t even need an order. She screams like the world’s biggest, angriest goose and pounces on the giant. The cloud giant doesn’t get too hurt, but is pretty frickin upset at the moment.

Kat’s Evard’s Tentacles try to grapple everything in their range again. Both fire giants break free of the grapples.

Kat casts Ice Storm on the Fire Giants. A 40’ tall cylinder of hailstorm descends on them. They start shrieking like little girls who just found frogs in their sock drawers.

The cloud giant focuses her energies and tears the stalagmite apart. She turns and starts trying to run away from you, but obviously isn’t moving real fast. The dire wolf bites her leg and she staggers away, shrieking in frustration.

Karla considers the situation, and casts a spell. A huge Centipede appears on the other side of the fire giant, conveniently flanking it for Zelda. It also bites the giant for good measure.

Karla and Zelda hear Salach casting a spell….and the fire giant stops moving. “Kill it quick, I don’t know how long this’ll last.”

Toe Cutter- “HAHAHA YEAH IT’S ABOUT TIME!!!”

Salach- “Hold your horses, we need some more help.”

Toe Cutter- “Aw come on!”

The fire giant to the west just stands there. The other two don’t do anything but extract themselves from the black tentacles. One heads after Dragon, and the other heads to fight Esca and Fluff.

The wolf attacks the cloud giant, both by biting and attempting a trip attack. It doesn’t work. A 500 lbs wolf doesn’t have much chance against a 5000 lb giant.

Round 4!

Zelda smiles grimly. She takes three neat slices through the fire giant, severing limbs and finally its head. “Quick enough for you?” she says to Salach, grinning.

Toe Cutter- “HAHAHAHAHA THAT’S RIGHT!”

Salach- “Ummm yeah, that’ll work.”

Escaflowne becomes fast and moves to close the distance with the fire giant and swings. He connects easily and hits the fire giant hard. It’s kind of beat up at the moment, but advances anyway

Dragon again decides that discretion is the better part of valor, when one is down over 100 hp. He moves away from the advancing fire giant toward Kat. “I hope you have something good, Kat!”

Kat: “Any number of things! Be ready to run anyway.”

A bit more relaxed now that the cloud giant is blinded and running, Harvey flutters over, does a little whistle and casts arc of lighting between the cloud giant and the fire giant next to it.

The cloud giant collapses into a smoking heap, but the fire giant is still standing.

Fluff whirls and attacks the fire giant. She’s tired from the long chase though and does no damage.

Kat moves forward so that Dragon is out of her line of fire, and shoots a lightning bolt at the fire giant that’s pursuing him. Her ice storm dissipates and the tentacles, bored, start pulling in and mangling the frost giant’s corpse.

The centipede charges the fire giant pursuing Dragon. It doesn’t quite have enough steam to get there and attack. Karla runs over to Zelda, and pauses on her way past to heal her.

Salach heads over to help the centipede. He hustles, but doesn’t run.

The first fire giant decides he doesn’t like bugs! He chops at it three times with his sword. The centipede is thoroughly squashed, but instead of oozing it dissipates. “Huh,” says the giant, turning his attention to the two approaching hill-giant sized people (he’s only 12’ tall, so you can almost look him in the eye.).

The other fire giant takes swings at Escaflowne, and connects on two of them.

The wolf bites at the fire giant again. He looks like he’s on his last legs, but he’s still up and swinging.

Round 5!

Zelda activates her ring, turning invisible. She then runs toward the fire giant’s anticipated path, waiting to stab it as it walks past.

Escaflowne glares at the fire giant in front of him, “my turn,” and swings again.Dragon runs over to Karla and asks for some healing, so that he may continue fighting. Karla - “You’re just who I was going to go see!”

Harvey air high fives Esc as he flies past, then he tosses ice lance at the remaining fire giant. The giant is super chilled from this, but isn’t stunned by it.

Fluff nuzzles Esc, but stays where she is. Harvey flies back to them and settles on Fluff’s head to watch the last giant die.

Kat throws another lightning bolt at the fire giant.

Karla casts a spell on Dragon, healing some wounds.

Dragon- “Cool, now I might survive more than one hit from this guy.”

Salach, seeing that he won’t do as much good trying to sneak attack as firing spells, whips out a scroll and reads off magic missile.

The fire giant heads toward Dragon and Karla, as they’re the only ones he can see.

Round 6!

Zelda strolls up to the fire giant and stabs him. She then becomes visible.

The giant jumps with surprise as the longsword stabs through his chest, and collapses to the ground immediately.

Escaflowne becomes not fast.

Harvey applauds, vanishes the dire wolf, then flies over to start searching the cloud giant. He also warps out of his hunting bat shape into a fluffier, slightly smaller bat. Fluff settles into a disgruntled ball of feathers and scales nearby.

I think the last time I played AD&D (AKA 2e for you youngsters out there) was to attack the Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl (along with Zelda/Karla and Kaicl/Momenrech's players, each of us playing at least two characters) somewhere between 1996-1998. Of course there was much looting, which all went into Karla's bag of holding...and there is sat until this session in the Year of Our Lord 2018. All the expositional comments the PCs make are true; we did withdraw because the opposition got too tough (as I recall some of the giants decided it would be amusing to engage in a rock-throwing contest across the Rift). After that Real Life interfered and we never picked it up again.

Harvey searches the cloud giant because intros will happen eventually and he’s deeply curious. He also takes some reading glasses out of Fluff’s pack so as to better examine the loot.

Dragon leaves the looting to the others and heads over to see who the newcomers are.

Katreana jogs over to the safety of the group, because who wants to be a lone wizard out on the edge of things?

Escaflowne cleans his sword off on the giant he recently dropped, nods to Harvey as he searches the giants, “I will go and introduce us to the giant bait.” Then turns and starts walking towards Dragon since he sees him coming their direction as he puts his sword away.

Karla joins Dragon in meeting the unexpected allies. Zelda, on the other hand, cleans her swords and gleefully commenences looting. Every so often the other hear her exclaim “Ooh, I like that one!” as she tosses things into a bag.

Dragon, seeing Escaflowne sheath his sword, does likewise. Once they’re within speaking distance, “Greetings, friend! I’m Wyclif Drakovic, sent here by Kemp Konsum of the Stark Mound Gnomes. Who are you?”

Escaflowne offers Dragon his, “I am Escaflowne. My friend, Harvey, and I were hunting these giants when they found you.” Gestures to Harvey with his introduction.

Harvey waves and starts looting the fire giant.

Salach joins in the looting with Zelda.

Dragon- “Are you the ones sent by the Oytwood elves?”

Escaflowne “They told us of this group and Harvey and I like dispatching giants.”

Dragon- “As it happens, we are in the business of giant killing, as you can see. We know where the lair of a frost giant jarl is, some days burded in the mountains to the southwest of here. We’ve been looking for help, as a frost giants’ fortress is no easy task to clear. Would you and your friends be interested, or do you have obligations with the elves?”

Escaflowne looks over his shoulder and shouts, “Harvey what do you think about raiding a frost giants’ fortress?”

Harvey finishes his looting and flutters over. Up close he looks very much like an oversized flying fox bat, if said flying fox wore a sweater vest and reading glasses and a rather permanent distracted expression. “A jarl, I assume?”

Dragon- “We believe so, but we didn’t make it that far. The opposition was too tough, and so we withdrew, send a message to the elven wizard over there”- he points to Kat- “who is a friend of ours, and have been looking for others to assist us.”

“Ah, a difficult fight,” Harvey said. “Esc loves those. Who is in your party besides the wizard?”

Karla - “I am Karla of the Paragnostic Order. A cleric, for the most part.” She glances and Zelda and Salach. “Those two are our rogues, one of whom is also a wizard.”

Dragon- “Perfect, glad to have you along. Now what is that giant dragon-chicken thing you have? I’ve never heard of it.”

“Oh that’s Fluff,” Harvey whistles, and Fluff stands up, shakes herself and lopes over. “Or Fluffy if you like. Utahraptor gigantaious. A kind of ancient lizard creature from many many eons ago.” He shrugged. “Someone gave me an egg in return for a service, It hatched.”

Kat regards the beastie, hands carefully behind her back. “I don’t think I’ve heard of a spell that could summon things through time.”

“My current working theory is that the egg was in stasis,” Harvey says. “And someone found it. But it’s only a theory.”

Dragon- “She looks like a clever girl, doesn’t she?”

Escaflowne - “Very smart, loyal and helpful.”

Karla’s eyes twinkle. “Fascinating. Any idea where they got such an unusual egg?”

“I have my suspicions,” Harvey said, “Unfortunatly, my travels lately have been…. curtailed, due to this giant problem. It’s why I’ve agreed to work with the elves. The faster the giants are gone from these lands, the faster I can get back to my real work.”

Karla - “I would love to hear more about it!” She pauses. “Perhaps after we finish up here.”

Harvey regards her over his reading glasses than decides she looks like an interesting enough person. “Perhaps!”

They find in fire giant 1’s bag...140 gp, 600 gp gem, can of grease (more like a bucket of paint to medium creatures), wooden bowl and spoon, tinderbox, human sized cloak, 4 rocks, and...a large carnivore’s tooth with a stopper in it.

Zelda gathers it all into her loot bag for distribution and analysis once that serious bits are done. “Hey Salach, you think he had was bringing the cloak back for his kid to play with? Like for a doll? I bet they totally have human dolls as kids.”

Salach laughs. “I’ve never thought of that, they probably do.”

Harvey had found in his looting of the cloud giant….198 pp, a silver armband, a silver necklace, silver earrings, a masterwork harp with some inlaid silver, comb, hairpins, masterwork falchion, spare shoes, sewing kit, 2 boxes incense, 4 rocks, 4700 gp worth of gems and jewelry in a bag, and a decanter with some silvery fluid in it. And also cloud-giant sized chain shirt and a really, really big morningstar.

Eventually someone gets around to looting the remaining frost and fire giants, yielding the following: from the frost giant- 130 gp, hairpin, whetstone, sack of berries, bag of salt, 4 rocks, and a silver necklace with what looks like six ice crystals.

In addition, each frost giant had a greataxe and a chain shirt (sized for them), and each fire giant had half-plate armor and a greatsword (again, sized for them).

Once everything is gathered, Zelda lays out her fold-out bag and organizes everything onto it. “Oh loot carrier-slash-identifier!” She chirps sweetly in Karla’s direction. Karla rolls her eyes and heads over to the loot pile, casting detect magic as she goes.

Kat: “If nothing else, with this, we’ll be able to travel home in style.”

Escaflowne joins everyone by the loot, standing with his hands clasped behind his back. Harvey flutters up to sit on his shoulder, tucking his wings in tightly and peering over his glasses.

Karla can see that the breastplate, the carnivore tooth, the rolled up shirt, the decanter, and the silver necklace with ice crystals are all magical. She lets the others know, and examines each of them. While she’s doing that, Zelda has snatched Karla’s bag and is stuffing giant sized armor into it. “Do we care about the weapons?”

Kat: “Do Kemp’s people need the steel?”

Salach- “Hmmm. You know, we should probably take back what we can carry. They can probably use the raw materials.”

Zelda starts throwing weapons in there too.

Kat: “I think I have room in my bag for one of the chain shirts, if yours is getting near capacity.”

Zelda looks at her. “Oh yeah, you have one too!” She dashes over and snags it out of her hand if she’s offering, or picks it from her if she’s not.

Karla can only figure out that the breastplate is +2. Everything else is too bizarre to for Karla to figure out immediately.

Kat: “Hey!” Zelda snatches the bag from her belt.

Zelda returns to the pile triumphant and stuffs a chain shirt or two inside.

Kat stalks after her and grabs the bag back. “I need that, you know.”

Zelda just smiles and bats her eyelashes as Kat. “Just being a helper!”

Zelda pops her head in between them - “Oh, I was looking for one of those. Just, you know, thought you should know.” and pops back to where she was.

Kat examines the remaining objects. She calls over to Salach “Do you know Identify?”

Salach- “Yep! But I don’t have it memorized.”

Kat: “Looks like we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to figure this stuff out.”

Dragon- “So that’s everything? In that case, I guess we can start back to Talbaire.”

Escaflowne carefully shrugs so as not to knock Harvey around on his shoulder, “Whatever way is fastest to get to more giants.”

Harvey regards him with obvious fondness. “My friend here is delightfully determined. I however lack his strength of will and would like some food and sleep if possible.”

Dragon- “It’ll take the rest of the day to get to the gnomes’ hideout, but it’s safe, it’s hidden, and the food is pretty good.”

“Excellent,” Harvey says, then wildshapes into a tabby housecat and jumps from Esc’s shoulder onto Fluff’s head, where he curls up comfortably.

Zelda takes one last search of the cloud giantess, looking for anything written they might have missed. “This one was the leader, yes?” Zelda doesn’t find anything that remotely looks like instructions or anything of that nature.

Escaflowne looks from the cloud giantess to Zelda, “She was giving orders like she was the leader.”

“I didn’t care much for her leadership style,” Harvey comments in cat form. “But yes, we believe she was the one in charge.”

Dragon- “That’s still just plain bizarre. Fire and Frost giants don’t normally associate, and from what we’ve heard, there aren’t any frost giants in the lowlands anyway, except for these few.”

And so you set off to the nearly due south back to Talbaire. As promised, it does take the rest of the morning to cross the lowlands, and the entire afternoon and then some to cross the Stark Mounds as far as Talbaire. Karla chats with Harvey about as esoteric a topic as she can come up with.

As always, the party is challenged by an unseen sentry, who then says, “Oh it’s you- WHAT IS THAT THING!!?!?”

“It’s a new kind of chicken,” Harvey comments dryly, still in cat form. “Very good eggs.”

The gnomes doesn’t seem phased by a talking cat, so neener neener. “Well its way too big to fit in the tunnels, is it someone’s animal companion or something? We’ve had a lot of visitors with predators as pets recently.”

“It’s dangerous times,” harvey says, going back to his usual bat form and fluttering down to the floor. “A dangerous companion isn’t a bad thing. And she’s mine. Is there a safe place for her to rest out here?”

Gnome- “Well...I guess any of the abandoned houses.” Of which there are several.

Harvey whispers something in Fluffy’s ear, and the raptor turns and lopes into the nearest abandoned house.

Karla - “We should go report immediately. Although probably only a few of us need to do that. Kemp will want to meet the newcomers, though.”

“Ugh,” Harvey mutters. “More people.”

Escaflowne, “Stay as a cat and on my shoulder, they will leave you alone, or I will have dinner.”

“Excellent,” Harvey says and does exactly that.

The sentry lets you all in, since he knows five of the seven of you by sight, and you all troop around to find Kemp, who, as usual, is in the main dining hall.

Kemp- “Well! I see you were successful! And you found some new allies! Well, one at least. Isn’t there a druid?”

Kat: “He’s the cat, at the moment.”

Harvey slow blinks at Kemp and then proceeds to wash a paw with great unconcern.

Kemp- “...huh. And you sir, are…?” He asks Escaflowne.

Escaflowne looks down at Kemp, “I am Escaflowne, unless you are trying to ask something else.”

Kemp laughs- “Escaflowne, you look to me like you have some dragon blood in you, but you are not the strangest ally we’ve had. But the elves sent you, and they are our allies, so welcome to the undercity of Talbaire, such as it is.”Escaflowne cocks his head to the side, “I am just here to kill giants.”

Kemp- “Well you’re made the right friends, then. I assume you have already recruited both of them for your next foray against that band of frost giants?” He addresses Salach, Zelda, Karla, and Dragon with this last question.

Karla - “That is the current plan, yes. We were able to kill the whole band we encountered today.” She updates him with details of who they fought.

Kemp- “The elves will certainly be pleased, as well as Duke Owen, I think.” He sighs. “As much as I hate to see you all off on your own quests, that was the agreement we had when you arrived, and so you’ve filled your group out to your liking. Of course, it’s not like you won’t still be fighting giants at every opportunity. Do you plan to leave soon?”

Salach- “We would like to, Kemp. Your gnomes are holding their own here without us. You practically control Gorna at this point, and the Stark Mounds are certainly yours, except for the occasional wandering monster, like any place else. You’re well on your way to having your own small country when this is over.”

Kemp nods his agreement.

Escaflowne grungs his agreement with Salach.

Kat: “I’d like to wait for Kochevnik to return before we do leave.”

Salach snaps his fingers when Kat says that. “Ah, that’s what I’ve been forgetting to do! Just a minute, I need to go find a map.”

Karla - “Will mine work?” She pulls out a 9x12 map of the area.

Salach- “Oh yeah, that one. Kemp, you said that Kaicl, Momenrech, and Kochevnik are out on a trade negotiation junket, right?”

Kemp- “Yes, they should be at Alzak Keep right now, the Fireforge dwarves.”

Salach- “Perfect. The dwarves have been more or less neutral this whole time. They kill every giant in their territory, but don’t leave their territory because of politics. So as it happens, we have a bunch of loot that we can’t do anything with here, but the dwarves have also not had all their resources depleted fighting wars for eight years. So, three of our allies are already in a dwarven town we can go to to get rid of a lot of loot, and…” he points at another mark about 65 miles west of Alzak Keep- “it’s on our way to the frost giants’ fortress.”

Salach- “So if we take a couple of days here to drop off some raw materials we found with the giants we just killed, and to memorize a few teleport spells, we can meet up with Kaicl, Momenrech, and Kochevnik pretty quickly. What say you all?” He asks everyone else.

Kat nods “Sounds fine to me”

Harvey does a sharp toothed yawn and goes back to washing, which everyone rightly assumes means yes.

Escaflowne, “I could go for finding out if we have anything useful for assaulting a fortress.”

Salach- “I’ll need a bit of time to transform some gems into some pearls, so we’ll leave the day after tomorrow at the earliest. Sound like a plan?”

Kat: “I have spells to scribe anyway,”

The group scatter to do their things for the next 48 hours.

Cue 1980’s power ballad and a montage of people doing a bunch of stuff!

Day 172!

Salach finds some calcium carbonate and turns it into pearls via fabricate. Then he gets like four gallons of wine and starts making the required solution. Zelda joins him for this part because she thinks tipsy wizards are funny.

Salach- “Bring me the magic items!”

Zelda pulls out Karla’s bag and brings out the items. Somewhere, Karla has noticed her bag is missing and rolls her eyes. She had already pulled the human skull necklace out of it, and is burying the remains in the local cemetery.

Kat fails to scribe Endure Elements into her spellbook. Again. She borrows Salach’s spellbook succeeds in scribing Teleport. She fails to scribe Identify. She gives up in disgust. “Apparently first level spells are beyond me today.”

Montage of Zelda and Kat pulling giant-sized weapons and armor out of their bags of holding and handing them to gnomes, who look amused, confused, and delighted!

Harvey spends most of his time in cat shape or out in the abandoned house with Fluff, drawing mushrooms and moss in his notebook.

Day 173!Salach- “What about all that stuff that we got from the first trip to the frost giants!?”

Salach- “The warhammer has some minor curse on it, but I can’t tell what it is. Nothing serious. Oh, also that big map and this chain I found in the hill giant’s steading radiate conjuration, at least when close to each other. Huh.”

Because Salach can only Identify five items per day, he’s not done until Day 175, so you can’t leave until Day 176 at the earliest..

To the Dwarf Fortress!

K, so instead of walking, cause that’s dumb, Salach takes Katreana, Zelda, Karla and Escaflowne to the Alzak Fortress. Then he and Kat teleport back to Talbaire, and pick up Dragon, Harvey, and Fluff (who counts as two people due to size).

Prior to going on a huge shopping spree, you inquire around to see if Kaicl et al are still here, and where they’re staying. Naturally, in the best inn, cause Kaicl has a lot of charisma for a dwarf.

You all find him, Momenrech, and Kochevnik sharing some drinks with a large (as large as Escaflowne) half-orc barbarian looking fellow, swapping stories.

Kat calls out a greeting.

She gets three greetings and one slightly confused look in return!

Kochevnik stands respectfully. “Katreana, this is unexpected, when did you get here?”

Kat: “Just now, actually. Our errand was successful, and we are off to attack the Frost Giant Jarl’s stronghold, I believe. I was hoping Kaicl would be able to spare you to come with us.”

Kaicl- “Oh, I think so, yes. I wish I could join you, too” he looks pained, “but it’s starting to look like the dwarves here want me to act as an arbiter in their political dispute, since I’m not from around here at all.”

Kat grins slightly: “That’s what you get for being a respectable dwarf lord.”

Kaicl- “Tell me about it. We’ve also just met this fellow here”- he nods at the half-orc- “he goes by Caboose, which is an orcish word, I think, he’s been living in the area helping the dwarves fight off giant incursions. Pretty odd arrangement, but these are interesting times. Caboose, here are a bunch of my friends, and they’re going off to fight some giants. Do you want to go?”

Caboose grunts: “I Caboose, I come. You kill giants?”

Dragon- “As many as you want.”

Caboose smiles: “then i join”

Kat: “The more the merrier”

Escaflowne nods, “Anyone that likes to kill giants is good with me.”

Caboose: “I see giants kill father, then kill mother. I kill giants for years. Point, I kill”

Kat: “I think we have an economy to ruin, so, Salach, should we plan to leave tomorrow?”

Salach- “I think this is our best chance to get equipped, so we should take a couple of days.

Harvey just wants to obtain a shrink collar for Fluff. He offers to act as lookout for Zelda sometime if she can help him get one. Zelda gets a twinkle in her eye but then sighs. “I suspect Kaicl will object if we cause trouble. Let’s recruit him to bargain for you instead!”

Harvey thinks this is a very good idea.

Zelda - “Hey Kaaaaaaicl, can you do me a favor?”

Kaicl- “MMMM Yessss?”

Zelda, in her charming yet annoying way, “Harvey wants a shrinking collar for the adorable raptor, and I figured you might be able to get him a good deal!” She flutters her eyelashes innocently. “I would “help”, but I don’t want to, you know, cause you any negotiating trouble later.”

And so you all have greeted Kaicl, Momenrech, Kochevnik, and Caboose, had lunch, and have done some (but not all) of your shopping. What will you do next?

Kat, being all prepared, sits around drinking mimosas until everyone else is ready. Kochevnik will stand by to make sure she’s not trying to have another drunk breakdown. Escaflowne, not remembering if he needs anything, sits in a corner nearby and ponders giant killing.

Salach went out and did his shopping. After hearing the trouble Kat is having with Endure Elements, and knowing is pretty frickin cold where they’re headed, he went out and bought a wand of endure elements so we don’t have to waste spell slots.

Dragon also did his shopping, trading various nonmagical things for magical things, upgrading from a crossbow to a composite longbow, a couple of backup curing potions, oh and some Boots of the Winterlands.

Caboose has walked around the market, looking at multiple objects and equipment. He is more entranced by their shineness. “So shiny. Salach! Is this shiny object good for Caboose?”

Salach- “That’s a door, Caboose. I don’t think you need it.”

Caboose looks confused, “maybe I use it for shield.”

Harvey, who is tailing them in cat form for his own amusement, laughs to himself. “This is going to be amazing.”

Salach- “But then how would you use your axe with both hands?”

Caboose - looks into the sky, pondering the question. Drool begins to come out of his mouth. He looks down and smirks at Salach “that is why you is the smart one. Will you aid Caboose get his good shinies?”

Salach- “Absolutely. When we get back from these frost giants, we’ll hire a wizard to make you a shield that will float along in front of you.”

Caboose becomes angry at the mention of giants “WHERE BE UGLY GIANTS?!?”

Salach- “Woah! Not here. We know where some are.”

Caboose - “oh” becomes calmer “I sorry Salach, Caboose hates giants”

Meanwhile, back at the bar, Dragon chitchats with Katreana about goings on back home. She happily tells him all about what Jerele and Iliana have been up to, and the rest of the village.

Harvey slips back to the bar to find Zelda and/or Kacil.

Kaicl is still there. “Right, Mr. Harvey, tell me about this collar you want.”

Harvey describes the collar. “It has the ability to magically shrink a companion animal down to tiny size. And as you can see…” He waves in the direction of the stables where Fluff is kept

Kaicl- “Yeah, I can see how that would be useful. Your lizard is pretty big. Hmmmm, I think I know the right guy, so if you can follow me….”

Kaicl leads Harvey (and whoever else wants to go) off to the portion of the market where all the wizards and clerics hang out. After a little asking around, you’re able to find a dwarf wizard who meets basically every human wizard stereotype: pointy hat, enormous white beard, robes with stars and crescent moons on, etc. Also a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling.

Caboose heads to the local establishment to drink mead and eat meat.

Kaicl- “Greetings, Fandango the Magnificent, this is the druid Harvey. He and several close friends of mine are preparing to go invade the Glacial Rift, and he is seeking a magic item that I hear you may have: a collar that can be used to shrink a familiar from the size of a large horse to a house cat.”

Fandango the Magnificent strokes his magnificent beard (magnificently), and some bartering commences. Several diplomacy rolls later…..Kaicl manages to persuade Fandango to drop the price of the collar...10%!

Fandango is full of handshakes and “Give those giants what for!” and some grumblings that the leadership (ie the clan chieftans) have unofficially banned going out and campaigning against the giants until the political situation is sorted out, although there are always rumors of people who ignore the ban.

Kaicl assures him that he will work to find a solution that is mutually beneficial to everyone.

Harvey has shaped back into his normal form, and shakes hands to be polite, thanking both of them. Then he takes the collar, shapes back into a cat and runs to Fluff. The collar turns her into a very small dinosaur who looks rather like an oversized chicken. Then they go back to Esc, Fuff curls up in his lap and Harvey falls asleep under his chair. Being polite and social exhausts him.

While Karla finishes shopping, everyone else can talk strategery.

Kat: “So, the Frost Giant Jarl.”

Salach- “Yeah, so last time we were there, we made two or three forays into various parts of their fortress, which is kind of carved out of the glacier and the mountain it’s sitting on. It’s been three months since we were there, so there have probably been some changes.”

Dragon- “We think we killed nearly 40 frost giants, plus some yeti (which is where we all got these sweet cloaks), but we don’t actually know how far into the place we got.”

Caboose staggers from the tavern smelling heavily of mead and orc urine “HA! Only 40 giants. Caboose *hic* will kill that many. We kill thousand of them this time”

Salach- “Really we ran out of resources, plus they were starting to follow us back to the cave we’d found as a hide site. So this time we have spells like rope trick and a couple of Leomund’s tiny huts, etc, so that hopefully we can just hide right in the middle of them. As far as getting there, we’ll have to teleport to the hide site (and hope they’re not still watching it), wait a day, so we can replenish spells, and then head in. After that it’s all fireballs and swordfights.”

Salach- “Right, so I can take myself and four other people, Karla can take..herself and three?”

Harvey speaks up from where he’s hiding behind whoever is furthest away from Caboose. “Are we going to foray in raids like before, or is this an all out assault?”

Kat: “I would imagine raids, simply because that will give us the best chance to heal between fights. But whatever works best at the time.”

Salach- “It was raids the first time, but we have one more wizard and druid than the last attempt.”

Karla - “Probably best to plan on raids, and then if we end up going all the way through, well, good for us.”

Zelda - “I like raids! So looking forward to this…” She shines one of her longswords.

Salach- “Anyone have any other questions or last minute business? If not we’ll teleport out there tomorrow.”

Caboose has returned from his bath “Caboose ready for raid. Caboose wants head of giant leader”

Karla - “Kochevnik, do you mind sticking around for a minute? I have something to discuss with you.”

Kochevnik - “What is it?”

Karla - “I have an ability that it would be best for you to know about. I can create a field that allows any curing spell to maximized that’s cast within 60 feet of me. It only lasts about as long as it takes to cast a spell, so normally I just use it for myself, but if you’re nearby at the time, it would affect you too.”

Kochevnik - “That sounds useful. If I have to use a healing spell, that might help. I was planning on using a different healing skill, though. I’m not sure whether your ability would affect it.”

Karla - “Ah, I won’t try to plan around having you nearby too much, then, but I will let you know if you’re using it.” She pauses. “Oh!” She sticks her head down on near floor so she can see Harvey. “Harvey, you’re a druid, right? This aura would affect any healing spells you have as well.”“Oh!” Harvey says. “Good to know! I’ll make sure to lay in a few just in case.”

“How much snow can we expect?” Harvey asks.

Dragon- “The snow outdoors was a couple of feet thick, but inside it really just dusts the ice and gets in corners. Oh, and speaking of that, it’s really windy inside the rift. Hard to see in any open area, hard to fly around.”

“Oh joy,” Harvey mutters. “Better pull out my mountain notes.”

And so you all adjourn for the evening. Caboose is banished to the barn by Cedrik, but everyone else is allowed to have a room. Kaicl and Momenrech head off to some swankier place because they’re like, diplomats or something. They bid you good luck, and hope that the giants all miss.

In the morning, Day...hang on….177! Everyone has a complete breakfast, full of fruits and fibers and mead. Also roast boar.

Salach pulls out a wand and walks around gently bopping everyone on the head with it...except Dragon, whose boots do the same thing all the time.

Salach- “So I’ll take, ummm, Kat, Kochevnik, Caboose, and Escaflowne….Karla, if you can take Harvey and Fluff, that leaves Dragon and Zelda here for me to bring Kat back to.. And then Kat can teleport the four of us to the hide site. So were all there today, but also out of 5th-level spells.”

Kat “If I’m only using teleport once, I still have one.“ She shrugs. “But I expect the lower level spells will be more useful anyway”

Karla - “I’ll still have one as well. I suppose I should keep it as Raise Dead, just in case.” She considers for a moment. “On second thought, that spell takes 10 minutes anyway. I couldn’t really cast unless we’re somewhere safe. I’ll stick with Flame Strike for now.”

Salach- “Okay good.”

Everyone has a drink while they wait for Harvey to finish picking his spells for the day.

Once that’s done, everyone gathers in groups as Salach had mentioned yesterday, and after repeated teleports…..

You find yourselves standing in ankle-deep snowdrifts in the back of a large cave. It’s about 50’ wide, probably 30’ tall, and maybe 70’ long, curving to the mouth. It’s brightly lit outside, but very cold (so it’s a good thing you all have endure elements - and winter clothes - on). And also pretty quiet.

Caboose stares at the mouth of the cave entrance, gripping his greataxe tightly. He lets out a deep breath and whispers “Caboose has waited for this moment for so long. Today, Mother, Father, I avenge you.”

Once everyone is there, Harvey takes the collar off of Fluff, swapping it out for her other one, so that she grows to her normal size. He also sits down to cast lay of the land.

After a bit of casting and concentration, Harvey learns the following: You’re approximately two miles from the entrance to the Rift, which is inhabited by quite a few giants (enough to qualify as a settlement as far as the spell is concerned, but not the exact population). The only other concentration of sapient creatures is about 35 miles to the northwest. The terrain within 50 miles of your is mostly mountainous, getting progressively more rugged heading southeast to northwest. To the north is a large forest, and to the south (past the mountains), forested marshes.

Between you and he entrance to the Rift the terrain is fairly flat and open although it looks like it’s snow covered year-round.

Kat, bundled up in her winter cloak. “Shall we?”

Dragon- “As soon as Harvey is done with his spell, I guess.”

Harvey shakes himself and tells everyone what he learned.

Salach- “Huh. I wonder who lives at the other settlement to the northwest.”

“How are we on movement?” Harvey says. “Anyone need some magic snowshoes?”

Harvey casts Mass Snowshoes on everyone just to be safe. Then he flies to his perch on Fluff’s pack and hunches up.

Kat: “Nice.”

And so you set out! Since four of you have been here before, you know the way, and you have magic snowshoes, and magic protecting you from the elements AND now a +10 bonus to speed, You’re able to cover the ground between you and the rift pretty readily, and in about 30 minutes you’re within sight of the opening to the Rift.

Here the wind is pretty strong, and you can see plenty of snow getting kicked up further up the glacier, as well as near the entrance. From here (about 100’ away), it doesn’t look like anyone has come or gone from this entrance recently.

For those of you who happen to have a copy of either module G2 or the 1999 Against the Giants re-release, these giants are in area 2 and 1 (respectively). Zelda was heading into area 13 when the giants attacked (vacant, since they already killed the yeti who lived here). Due to fireball useage during the MAOG's first foray into the Rift, the wall on the north side of area 2 had a hole melted through it.

(click to show/hide)

Reminder- Salach used a wand of Endure Elements on everyone before you all teleported out here. The duration is 24 hours, so you have about 23 hours left. Harvey cast snowshoes on you, and that has about 10 hours left.

You’re on a mountain that looms over the near mountains like Mount Rainier over the mountains around Mount Rainier. If you look to the northwest, you can see that there is, indeed, another mountain of similar size, about where Harvey’s spell indicated there was a concentration of sapient beings.

Right, so the ten of you are hiding behind a conveniently sized and shaped mound of rock and ice such that you can clearly see the entrance to the Glacial Rift. It looks unguarded, but not abandoned. Even from here you can see light coming in from giant holes in the ceiling (which is the glacier), although detail is obscured by blowing snow.

“Are we going in or luring out?” Harvey hisses.

Zelda - “I am happy to perform either service!” She grins wickedly.

Escaflowne, “I much prefer to go in after them.”

“Into a tunnel-like setting we know nothing about? I don’t know…” Harvey ponders. “If we had a way to draw them out, I could cast blood snow at the entrance and block them there.”

Dragon- “We have no idea how many giants are left, and I for one am not keen on giving them the option of surrounding us. I say we go in. Also, four of us have been here.”

Harvey shrugs, muttering something about how he should have prepared more rock transmutation spells. He wildshapes into his hunting bat form.

Kat: “If someone who’s been here before would like to lead on, I’ll be happy to follow. I’d also be happy to lead the way but since I’m a squishy wizard….”

Escaflowne, “I can take point, just stay behind me and point the direction.”

Caboose - “Escaflowne, Caboose join you on front line?”

Salach- “ Unless they changed things, the main tunnel will split left and right. Giants are either way, and once you’re past the intersection, the wall disappears and it’s a wall on one side and a cliff on the other.”

Escaflowne, “Either way leads to a lot of Giants or leads to small rooms where we might end up against a few Giants then have enemies coming from behind once we are engaged?”

Salach- “Well...all the rooms are pretty big...but the answer to your question is yes.”

Escaflowne, “Are the rooms dead ends?”

Salach- “There’s a mix, I mean, the giants live here. So it was hallways to the left and mostly dead-end rooms to the right, as I recall.”

Escaflowne, “If we go to the dead-end rooms we might be able to quietly take out a few Giants before moving on, or get ourselves trapped.”

Zelda - “We didn’t explore fully either directions, so nothing has been marked off the list as a possibility for where the Jarl is.”

Karla - “So are we trying to clear this place out or just kill the Jarl? Because we may as well start with the right and clear as we go if it’s the first one, but it might be prudent to avoid as much fighting as possible if we’re just attempting to kill the Jarl.”

Escaflowne points at himself in his bright full plate armor, “we could try to sneak around, but I doubt I will be able to be quite enough in this to keep from us getting found. It is just a matter of time until we get their attention once I go in there.”

Zelda - “Salach and I could do some invisible scouting. Or we could just charge in, I’m good with that too.”

A gust of wind dusts you all with some snow as you stand there dithering.

Caboose “Caboose says we move, more we talk more likely they send scouts outside. We get seen, we will die.”

Dragon- “That is definitely true.”

Karla - ‘Let’s start clearing the place then. To the right, With Zelda going first to ambush anyone we meet. Don’t get too far ahead, though.” Zelda gets an innocent “Who, me?” look on her face.

She then starts heading that way and turns invisible. “Hurry up, slowpokes.”

Escaflowne draws his sword and starts to move forward to follow the voice he heard as he sees Zelda go invisible. Harvey flutters to hang onto Fluffs pack as they stay close to Esc. He’s muttering under his breath again, but no one can make out what he’s saying, which is probably just as well.

Kat and Kochevnik move along at the back of the group., Kochevnik holding his bastard sword and shield.

Dragon follows, drawing his sword and taking a couple of warmup swings.

Salach draws his short sword, and says “Shhh” as the sword giggles in anticipation.

Karla moves to the middle of the group with Salach. She draws her mace.

Caboose draws his greataxe, glinting with his great bane enchantment. “So,” he says softly, “we begin the hunt.” his face becomes with anger. “Mother, Father.. I avenge you this day.”

Escaflowne looks over his shoulder to Harvey as they start in, “I know, we will win again as usual.”

“That’s what I like about you, buddy,” Harvey says, sounding marginally less grumpy. “You’re an optimist.”

Zelda goes right, and comes across an ice-and-rock wall, about five feet high, that she doesn’t remember being there last time. Since the ceiling here is about 40’ high, it’s not much of an obstacle, but it would slow you down.

Everyone else is just bunched up in the entry hall behind her (with about a 30’ gap).

Escaflowne continues forward and when he can see the wall he raises a hand to stop motion and whisper, “watch the left hallway.” Then moves forward to the wall, “how wide is that?” he asks the air assuming Zelda is somewhere by the wall.

Caboose looks left down the left hallway, clears it, then moves forward towards Zelda and Escaflowne

Zelda can hop the wall without trouble. It’s only a foot thick or so. “About a foot” come the ghostly answer to Escaflowne. She continues forward, and stops once she’s about 50 feet ahead, figuring this might take a few minutes.

Once you’re past the big mound of rock that splits the Y, there is, indeed, a huge cliff off to your left.

Caboose sees another wall, about five feet high, about 50’ feet down the left hallway as well.

Harvey rolls his eyes and casts Crumble on the wall. He looks deeply unhappy with the whole situation, but he’s not about to prevent the group from getting to Zelda if she needs it.

The wall crumbles!

Escaflowne smiles to Harvey, “probably quieter then how I was going to remove it.” and starts to move down the hallway again.” “That was the idea,” Harvey says, as Fluff follows.

As Esca approaches, Zelda says “Going right.”

Escaflowne gives a thumbs up and follows.

Zelda proceeds down the hallway to her right.

Harvey’s Bat Senses go off, and he notices that there is movement on the cliff opposite you guys.

“I think we’ve got company,” he warns.

Escaflowne stops and looks over his shoulder, “where?”

“Across the chasm. Behind us.”

Escaflowne looks the direction Harvey indicates, “did they see us?”

“Either that or they’re going to do some kind of hardcore workout,” Harvey says. He sounds resigned.

Anyone who turns to look sees three male frost giants, all reading rocks to throw at you. There is a fourth giant, who carries a spear, is unarmored, and appears to be a woman. Given the lack of beard.

Karla - “I can teleport 3 people over there to attack, get within touching distance of me.”

Caboose moves toward Karla “Caboose will attack. Karla give caboose barkskin since he gets exposed during rage?” “Unfortunatley I don’t have it, but I can give everyone a different bonus while over there, don’t worry.” she responds. “Caboose thanks you Karla” he responds witha smirk

Zelda notices that the snow in here looks undisturbed, like it’s been abandoned, for, say three months. A frozen yeti carcass sticks out of a snowbank. This area is a little dim, so she can’t make out much in the way of details, but it looks uninhabited. She does notice some large claw marks in the walls and floor, but they look pretty old.

Zelda moves straight foward to get a better look into the area to the south. Seeing nothing that indicates danger, she moves back to the middle of the group. “The area behind us looks clear but I wasn’t able to check thoroughly.”

Fluff backs up down the tunnel Zelda is in until he is twenty feet away, then makes a running leap over the chasm, landing right next to Frost Giant 1. He roars in the giant’s face, just for funsies.

Salach moves to right at the base of the Y, so as to intercept any giant coming down the hallway.

Escaflowne tightens his grip on his sword waiting for the teleport. Foot slight to the rear to rest against Karla as he activates haste.

Harvey casts owl’s wisdom on himself, and moves to the edge of the chasm.

Kat and Kochevnik move to the fork in the hallway with Salach.

Salach- “Sweet, now I won’t have to fight a frost giant alone.”

Kat: “Couldn’t let you have all the fun...Looks like a fireball won’t work right now.” She pulls out her magic missile wand and fires it off at the giant behind Fluffy.

Kat’s magic missiles go thump into the giant, but he doesn’t notice on account of the giant murder chicken that just jumped on him.

Karla - “Coming along, Dragon, or taking the long way?”

Dragon- “I’ll take the long way, thanks.”

Zelda, since she’s already right there - “I’ll come!” And grabs Caboose’s shoulder at the same time Karla grabs his arm from the other side. “Better already be touching someone then!”

Caboose turns to Zelda (still invisible, though obviously he can tell where she is) and snarls “Caboose is ready” then turns his focus on the giants

Karla quickly activates a protection aura, then casts dimension door. All 4 people disappear and reappear across the chasm.

Dragon spends this whole round hustling around the corner.

Frost giant 1, pretty freaked out, frankly….just charges at Fluff and tries to push him off the cliff. Fluff claws and/or bites the giant, who keeps pushing, but can’t get Fluff to budge.

Frost giant 2 takes some swings at Escaflowne….but misses twice.

Frost giant 3 throws a rock at Fluffy….but biffs the throw and bounces the rock into the chasm.

The female frost giant...fires a lightning bolt at Fluff! He gets lightly singed.

Round 2!

Zelda shakes off her daze, takes a step away from the cliff (yikes!) and attacks the giant with both swords! She only manages to hit once. The giant shouts in pain, but he has a 24’ tall murder chicken he’s more concerned with.

Fluff steps into the corner, getting his back against the far wall as well as he can and kangaroo kicks the giant with his clawed back feet.

Salach- “Was that lightning bolt ours?” He throws a magic missile at...he can probably see giant 2. So that one gets a magic missile.

Kat: “Wasn’t mine!”

Escaflowne starts swinging at Giant 2. He hammers the giant three times...and that giant looks about ready to collapse and die.

Kat says to Kochevnik: “We’re not going to hit anything useful from here.” She goes back down the corridor. Kochevnick shrugs and follows, sheathing his sword and pulling out his bow.

Kat stops when the corridor opens out and casts a fireball centered between Giants S1 and 3.

Kochevnik keeps running forward to the opening of the next passage.

Harvey turns and grins at her. “Welcome to the party, pal.”

Kat smiles slightly: “Salach was wondering if the lightning bolt was yours”

Harvey shakes his head. “Not yet. That lady frost giant over there. She’s the mage, as far as I can tell. And she hit Fluff. She’s gonna regret that.”

Kat nods: “Good to know.”

Karla sees that no one is much injured and that she can’t really move to attack without getting quite close to the cliff edge, so she stays put and keeps an eye on the giant wizard.

Harvey casts Arc of Lightning between S1 and giant 3.

Caboose becomes enraged and begins his attack on Giant 2. He only hits the giant once, and he collapses, dead as a doornail. And also falls over the edge of the cliff. “Nice assist Escaflowne”

Dragon gets as far as the top of the other wall, but seeing the battle between the giant murder chicken and the frost giant, decides he probably can’t help just yet, without falling off the cliff himself.

Frost giant 1 decides that pushing did not work, so power attacking is the next best course of action. He completely biffs the first attack, but steadies himself and hits the second time, and connects well. Fluff howls,

Female Giant- “Jag ska beratta far alla! <I’m going to go tell everyone!>” She would have cast a spell but the 50-some points of damage prevents this, so….. Away she runs! She passes in front of Esca and Caboose, but juuuust out of their reach.

Frost Giant 3- “Okey, spring! <Okay, run!>” He charges Escaflowne!

Escaflowne stares defiantly at Giant 3 as he charges. The giant hits Esca with a solid attack, but not that impressive in the grand scheme of things.

Harvey activates the collar on Fluff.

Round 3!

Zelda stabs the giant in the kidneys twice, and he falls over, dead. She manages to dodge out of the way AND not fall over the cliff. Also the giant doesn’t. Fall off the cliff, that is.

Fluff takes advantage of the freedom to jump and dodge around the others and head for the female giant. She gets close to her, wherever she is, close enough to attack when she moves next.

The last giant takes a powerful swing at Fluff’s flank as he pushes past and gets a solid hit, although not as solid as he thought.

Salach moves up to the wall, but seeing things are well in hand, doesn’t do anything. Except climb the wall.

Escaflowne smiles at the giant in front of him, “My turn,” He gives off a low guttural growl before attacking.

The last brave giant collapses and dies, and since he’s standing in a giant puddle of wet ice, he too, slides off the cliff.

Kochevnik is disappointed and puts away his bow. He walks back to where Kat is standing and they both run to join the rest of the group.

Harvey casts cloud wings, increasing his air speed and flies 90 feet down the corridor where fluff disappeared. He uses summon natures ally and summons a huge fire elemental right in front of his pet.

Caboose derages after watching the giants die.

Fluff has disappeared into a bunch of ice covered caves.

You hear two sets of shouting in Giantish, one with a tone of “Holy crap!” and another with a tone of “HOLY CRAP!”

Karla moves forward a bit, so that she can see down the corridor.

Round 4!

Zelda says, “I’m going after the bird and druid!” She re-activates her invisibility, and heads down the corridor. She doesn’t run so that she doesn’t fall on the ice.

Fluff backs away from the elemental and turns to run back to Harvey, who strokes him and coos to him.

Salach finishes hopping the wall and follows everyone else.

Escaflowne drops the haste effect and takes off after Harvey. He finds Harvey next to another 5’ tall ice wall, a scared dinosaur, and a giant bonfire.

“These things happen,” Harvey says with a shrug.

Kat: “I’m going to find some way of taking this wall down. Kochevnik, you can stay or follow the rest as you like. Dragon, if you could move aside.”

Dragon hops down on the far side of the wall and gets out of Kat’s way.

Kochevnik moves out of the way.. “I’ll stay here for the moment.”

Kat casts Burning Hands on the ice wall in the entry corridor She melts the ice in a 3 foot wide swath of the wall.

Kochevnik moves in and starts pulling rocks out.

Kat: “Dragon, can you help us get a hole through this wall?”

Karla moves further in, along with the others.

The frost giants don’t want their house melted, so they all start swinging at the fire elemental! The frost giant 4 gets a confirmed critical hit with his power attack...misses with the second. FG 5 hits once, hits twice and the elemental goes poof! And there’s also a bunch of water all over the floor now, thanks DRUID.

The sorcerer takes a step to her left and blasts Harvey with a lightning bolt.

“Yes Finally Dragon, We will lead charge” Caboose says with grin, nodding to Dragon with drool out his mouth.

Round 6!

Zelda vaults over the wall too.

Salach just moves up. Toe Cutter is grumbling.

Escaflowne sets himself then attempts to kick the wall down. The ice cracks, but the wall doesn’t break.

Kat squeezes into the corridor between Harvey and Karla. She casts Evard’s Black Tentacles next to the giants she can see. The tentacles immediately start trying to break the giants’ legs.“Stay out of the tentacles” She yells to the fighters on the other side of the wall.

The giants pull themselves free with some difficulty, and stomp on the tentacles which of course does nothing to them.

Kochevnik moves up to the wall, readying his sword. He attempts to kick the wall, but fails, almost stubbing his toe.

Escaflowne cocks his head and looks down at Kochevnik after his kick at the wall.

Kochevnik returns his look and shrugs.

Karla takes a swing with her mace at the wall. A crack appears where she hit it.

While you all are getting distracted with remodeling, the giants are fighting their way through the tentacles. All of them manage to get through.

Harvey flies 90 ft to hover over the tentacles, which reach up, forcing him to fly higher. He hits the NEAREST GIANT with the next round of Call Lightning.

For those of your following along on the map, the party is in the hallway in the northeast corner of the Rift.

(click to show/hide)

Round 7!

Everyone takes a moment for a deep breath as Zelda and Karla appear to have entered stasis.

Fluff starts clawing at the wall and making little dino whines.

Zelda advances into the room with the tentacles, staying as far from them as she canZelda can’t get more than three feet away from them without tunneling through ice, but they ignore her. Zelda gets the impression this was just a guardroom: there are four frost-giant sized stools and a low table, all of which have been kicked around and knocked over due to Combat.

Salach climbs over the wall to the fun side, but that’s it.

Escaflowne climbs over the wall as well, in pursuit of the giants.

Kat notices that the wall Fluffy is scratching at is lighter than the rest, calls to Kochevnik. “Do you have any skill with animals? I need the dragon-bird out of the way.”

Kochevnik goes over to Fluffy, notices that it is injured, and lays on hands. Fluffy feels better! Kochevnik tries to coax Fluffy away from the wall and down the hall a bit. He does his best to be charming. Fluff, feeling uncertain about being injured and away from Harvey and Esc, nuzzles him. It’s only a sliightly painful.

Fluff follows Kochevnik away from the dead end.

Kat moves into the hallway and uses her Burning Hands wand on the most translucent part of the wall. The wand spurts some flame, which flashes some ice to steam. There is a small divot in the wall.

Kat: “Hm. I may just have to cast this one myself.”

Karla sees what Kat’s doing, but decides she can’t really do much to help with that. She attacks the ice wall in front of her again. She knocks a couple of chunks out of the top of the wall.

Harvey notes that the conversation amongst the frost giants is tending toward a “What are they doing?” tone. Also two of them throw rocks at him. Both these giants trained at the School of Throwing Rocks Really Hard. After plastering Harvey with them the rocks bounce of the walls, but don’t hit anyone else.

Kat hears the muffled sounds of a couple giants hustling by the hole she’s attempting to drill.

Harvey tries to cast Wall of Smoke right on top of the remaining three giants partly to stop them from running and partly just because he’s mad, but the spell fails on account of him getting hit with rocks. Then, since he doesn’t feel like fighting giants by himself, he flies just far enough away to be out of line of sight.

Caboose looks towards the wall, then Zelda, then the wall again, then Zelda “Zelda” he shout whispers, “me move to you?” Caboose moves against the wall away from tentacles and stays put. He can't do anything “Stupid tentacles of horseturd”

Zelda - “There’s no one in here, we’ll have to wait for the tentacles to go away.”

Dragon shouts back down the hallway- “Hey Kat, can you turn off the tentacles? They’re in our way!” He also moves up as far as he can without the tentacles paying attention to him.

Kat calls back “Yes, I can. Hang on a bit!”

Round 8!

Zelda… waits for the spell to be removed.

Fluff preens and demands scritches

Salach moves up right behind the fighter types to see what’s going on.

Escaflowne moves forward to join the fray, his dragon eyes flaring for battle

Kat exerts her will and the tentacles disappear. Then she cuddles up to the wall she’s trying to break.

Kochevnik scratches Fluffy under his chin and then goes over to help Karla with the wall. He kicks it, hoping to do more damage than last time. He does a little damage, but nothing to be proud of.

Kochevnik :”This was much easier on the last wall, with all the ice melted out.”

Karla - “Kat, how much success are you having with that wall? Should I call some of the fighters back?”

Kat: “I just needed a different spell. There’s nothing they could do to help right now.” She mutters “What I wouldn’t do for disintegrate…”

Karla - “I mean for when you have it open!” She calls down the hall in front of her “We might need two fighter types down here very soon!” She then also steps closer in case she’s needed, after taking one more swing at the wall.

It looks like you’re collectively making some progress on it.

Harvey decides to fly back to fluff, and casts crumble on the short wall as he goes. He’s muttering and looks super grumpy. “I’m low on spells,” he says to the air. “Just in case anyone was wondering.”The wall collapses into a pile of rock and ice chunks, easily clearable by people with strong backs and weak minds.

Zelda runs toward the wall and her feet skim it as she jumps over.

Caboose races towards the wall, leaps easily over the wall and joins Zelda. His thirst for blood increases with each step he takes. He sails over Zelda and lands to the left of her

Dragon also tries this stunt but gets his footing wrong and doesn’t clear the wall.

One of the giants sees the flying half orc and takes a swing at him, almost (but not quite) batting him out of the air. They both seem oddly relieved that you’re doing something they understand, instead of whatever bizarre and unknowable things you were doing before.

Round 9!

Zelda walks up to a giant, and attacks!

The poor giant, minding his own business, defending his home from heartless invaders, suddenly disappears in a spray of blood! Not quite, but close. He collapses as Zelda materializes next to him. The two nearest giants go “Min Gud!”

Fluff doesn’t do anything!

Salach trots up to the wall, but again it’s a little too far for him to do anything useful.

Escaflowne, reader of minds and mad he cant join the frey yet, runs towards kat and fluff, and kicks the wall that was disenchanted. Some rock and ice bits go flying! It was quasi-useful in the “clearing a path” realm.

Kat casts Fire Burst! Everything within 5 feet on her takes 30 hp of fire damage (including a 10 ft x10 ft chunk of the wall she want to destroy). It looks like she’s almost half-way through the wall.Kat curses.

Kochevnik clears the rocks and ice from the shattered wall out of the way.

Now that two fighters have appeared, Karla decides to go help the ones now facing giants. She heads toward the other group.

Frost Giant 5 full attacks Caboose! He hits twice, one decently well and one pretty weak. Frost giant 6 strides up to take a swing at Zelda...missing.

Harvey does some curing on Fluff.

CABOOSE FLYS INTO A RAGE FROM THE GIANT!!! HE STICKS HIS MIDDLE FINGER AT THE GIANT AND SCREAMS “CABOOSE HATE UGLY FACE!”

The giant takes a couple of pretty painful axe hits to his legs and lower torso. He looks pretty beat up.

Dragon clambers over the wall and...decides to use travel devotion to go help out Zelda, I guess. “Salach, do something to the giant fighting Caboose!”

Caboose “YEAH SALACH HELP CABOOSE”

Round 10!

Zelda re-activates her invisibility! Giant Six looks surprised that you disappeared. “Skit!”

Salach fires a scorching ray at the giant fighting Caboose. He hits the giant twice, and it keels over on fire, and fires the last ray at the other giant, who is slightly on fire as well.

Escaflowne waits for Kat to cast her spell, mean time slowly moves across the rocks. He settles behind Fluffy

Kat casts scorching ray on the thinned section of the wall. She is definitely more than halfway through the wall in those three blocks. And also ankle deep in water.

Kat: “Harvey, do you have any spells that could break through?”

Harvey sighs and plumps himself up very fuzzy. “I’m afraid my spell selections were made in haste and without proper information. I assumed we’d be more out in the open, not running through tunnels. Unless I can summon something to punch the wall, I’m afraid I’m not much help.”

Kat: “Something to punch the wall would be fine. Something to melt it would be fine as well”

She slogs her way out of the dead end.

“Ohhh,” Harvey slaps himself in the face with a wing. “Of course.” He summons a huge fire elemental as soon as Kat is clear. The fire elemental attacks the wall, slamming into it twice.

The fire elemental punches the deepest hole Kat had made, boring a 5’x5’ tunnel about ⅚ of the way through.

Escaflowne: I can do that once I reach you Kat.

Kat: “If the elemental doesn’t do it, then the wall is all yours.”

Karla moves over in front of Salach, because that’s out of the giant’s reach, and tries to climb over the wall. She makes it, and lands safely on the other side.

Kochevnik jogs over to the other group, because there is literally nothing he can do with this one.

The last frost giant takes a couple swings at Dragon, cause he’s closest...I guess? But misses.

Fluff starts running towards the other way, moves twice at 70 feet speed and ends up with the second group

Harvey’s elemental attacks the wall again. The elemental punches through the wall on the first hit, and puts a solid dent in a different block of ice.

Caboose: “FOR GOOOOOOOOOOOONDDDOOOOOOOOORRRR!!!!!!!!!” After hits like that, the giant is crippled and nearly dead.

Zelda - “Er, I think you mean Geoff.”

Dragon strolls over and stabs the giant once. It falls over, dead. “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Ugh.”

Caboose curiously looks at Dragon and asks “What Dragon mean by that”

Dragon- “I never get to have any fun, is what I mean.”

Caboose frowns “DId you kill giant?”

Dragon- “Yeah, but only after you and Zelda beat the crap out of it.”

Caboose looks at Dragon again and mumbles “you killed giant. Shut up and love it.”

Round 11!

Zelda goes skipping down the hall! Not that you can see her, as she’s invisible. She avoids the puddle the others made and stops right in front of the new set of giants.

The two frost giants Zelda runs up to are both women, both armed with shields and spears. They were carefully backing down the hallway, maintaining formation. They look like they can reach pretty far with their spears.

Fluff leaps over the wall and wiggles past the giant corpses and gets as far down the tunnel as he can without being in range of spears. She SCREAMS at them very loudly and raptor like

Salach climbs over the wall.

Zelda can hear the giants talking to each other, although they’re soon distracted by the approaching dinosaur.

SM 1- “Oh, min Thrym.”

SM 2- “Sssssskit.”

Escaflowne moves through the hole that was created, moving behind fluffy staying out of reach of the giants.

Kochevnik advances and climbs the wall. He almost slips, but manages to scramble over. He squeezes in beside Caboose.

Kat casts another scorching ray on the sections of the wall that haven’t melted. Kat focuses all her efforts on one block, and burns through; there is now a 5’ tall, 10’ wide hole in the wall. And also a large puddle.

The two shield maidens advance in formation toward Fluff. The one on Zelda’s left nearly kicks her, but she dodges out of the way into a slightly wider section of hallway.

They both stab at Fluff! Both hit!

Giants- “Strejk!”

Harvey flies out of the hole like a bat out of… well a hole. He casts blinding spittle on M1. The elemental manages to just squeeze through the hole as well

The spittle lands in the eyes of one of the giants! She curses mightily! The other one shouts something encouraging, although neither look pleased at this development.

Caboose picks up the head of giant 5, props it up and swings his sword, lobbing the head off. He takes the head and puts it in the ruck on his back.

Dragon runs up to right behind the fire elemental. “Ugh, more of the same.”

Round 12!

Zelda attacks the giant in front of her. All her strikes but one bounce off her armor.

Fluff backs up to next to Esc and then tries to take a running jump OVER the frost giants, . Fluff backs up and leaps, but the giants are a) 15’ tall, b) have spears. The blinded giant doesn’t do anything (and is also busy getting stabbed), but the other one takes two stabs at Fluff as he approaches majestically through the sky. Fluff talons her IN THE FACE.

Salach just runs up to get as close to the action as he can, and then pulls out a bag of marshmellows to roast on the fire elemental that is redecorating.

Escaflowne moves as close as he can. But he cant attack since a giant raptor chicken, distant relative to the half dragon in his blood, blocks the way. “You lucky i cant smack you giants in the face.”

Kat joins the traffic jam in the hall. She pulls out a wand and fires a magic missile at the giant that Fluffy landed on.

Kochevnik climbs over the dead giants and joins the back of the pileup.

Karla follows as well, squeezing past the elemental.

The non-blinded giant shouts a command at her comrade in arms and they both take a step back, and stab at fluffy! The non-blinded giant….stabs Fluffy twice, and the blinded giant...misses twice. The non-blind giant shouts in triumph!

Harvey makes a small wounded noise. He calls down call of lightning on the non blinded giant. The fire elemental retreats partway back into the hole to be out of the way

Karla - “I’ll get to Fluff Harvey, don’t worry!”

Caboose!

Caboose, Climbs over the dead bodies, spits on them,and moves up to the gaggle in the hallway. He slides into the group. “I HERE!” he proclaims!

Dragon, seeing the fire elemental has politely edged to one side of the tunnel, makes a go a the frost giants. He gets all the way to their shield wall, and would draw attacks of opportunity from them except they used them on Fluff.

Round 13!

Zelda takes a step back so she’s not under the giant’s feet and attacks! She just can’t seem to get through the giants’ armor.

Salach moves up 30 feet and does another scorching ray at the non-blind giant, hitting three times, causing all sorts of burns and discomfort.

Escaflowne grins, “my turn” walks up to the burned giant and swings. That giant looks like she’s on her last legs.

Kat uses her wand to cast Magic Missile again at the more wounded giant this time. The giant falls over!.

Kochevnik fires an arrow at the standing giant. The arrow swishes by her head.

Karla head over to Fluff, and casts a spell. It stabilizes Fluff, but she does not wake up. “She’s okay now, but I’m keeping her down so she doesn’t get hurt.”

“Thank you,” Harvey says, very seriously.

The last frost giant takes a step back and stabs at where she thinks Dragon is. But misses.

Harvey calls another round of lighting down on the frost giant.

Caboose moves forward past Harvery! Excited for another chance at the giants.

Dragon takes a step toward the giant, who stabs at him and misses, and then finally gets to hit something himself! He takes a whole bunch of swings but only connects thrice because he’s not as cool as he thinks he is.

The giant looks like she is close to collapsing.

Round 14!

Zelda takes the opportunity to viciously stab the last giant through the kidneys three times. She falls over, super duper dead. Zelda - “Ugh, took long enough.”

Tex's player (who also plays Caboose) and I have discussed a riding harness for Tex on her skeleton minion. I'm looking forward to that, not gonna lie.

(click to show/hide)

The dwarves are being beckoned into a dark scary hole by the gnome. Everyone sees (but it’s too far away to hear) a pair of figures walking up the street after you. One is halfling sized, and the other is the size of a human. They don’t look that aggressive, and they’re moving somewhat cautiously. It’s apparent they’ve seen you, though.

Tex: Bueno diaz dwarven clowns, who destroyed this temple of wee jas?

Brother Beast blinks: “Yah, were that language?”

Erihild- “I have no idea.”

The gnome in the doorway is a little flabbergasted. “Uhh, the giants, probably. Who are you? And stop yelling!”

Tex: The name is Tex, Im a halfing wizard, specialize in necromancing. I even got me a skeleton minion short stack. Problem with this?

Beldren - “Perhaps we should finish this discussion inside. You are not on the side of the giants, I take it?”

Tex: Hell no I am not, do I look like a giant loving halfing? They look at me like im a rat. Besides I wouldnt mind blinding them and laughing at their pain.

By this time Tex is within normal speaking distance, instead of shouting.

Brother beast enters the tunnel while all of this conversating is happening, maybe moving a bit faster then he hears the word “necromancing”.

The gnome starts shooing people into the tunnel. He gives Tex a very piercing look, and then says “Hmmm,” but lets her in anyway.

Tikkaer rolls his eyes and moves toward the dark scary cave as well.

The tunnel is lit just enough for those with low-light vision to see. Short Stack has to stoop not to hit his head.

Gnome- “Ok, lets get a way from the entrance, shall we? They can still hear us standing here.” He leads you all through some windy tunnels into a room that looks like was a cellar at one point, with a high enough ceiling for Short Stack to stand straight.

Gnome- “You all brought a bunch of equipment, right? Let’s see it.” A couple other gnomes have appeared to assist with carrying gear.

The party offload their care packages.

Erihild happily drops her backpack. “Ugh, glad to be rid of that.”

Tex: “Whoa slow down there you mini garden ornaments!” She unloads her padded armor “I need this enchanted for increase spell damage.”

Gnome- “Hey! Racial slurs will not be tolerated here, thank you!”

Tex: “Short Stack, I can think of worse to call you, would you like that or for me to remain polite?”

The gnome looks her in the eye (on account of being just as tall as Tex). “Takes one to know one, hobbit.”

Tex glares back into the gnome’s eyes and growls at him “Look here, I am trying to be nice, I kinda want to get back to the giant killing with my skeleton minion here, and if you want to be a jerk we can stroll down that road easily, capeesh?”

Beldren steps in - “Let’s all settle down for a moment. We have items to drop off, then I’m sure the gnomes can help with your armor. Did you say you’re in the midst of hunting giants?”

Tex: “Yeah, thats right. Me and ol Skelly here,” As she points to her skeleton minion, who is a full human skeleton with his jaw missing and right side bashed in, “we were looking to kill baby giants.”

Erihild- “Er, wait, so actually a skeleton? Like undead type skeleton?” She also drops her backpack and finds some gnome attendant to take it from her. “Well thats...thats….neat.”

Brother Beast regards the skeleton accompanying the halfling with suspicion. “Unnatural.” He murmurs, fingering his sickle.

Tikkaer - “Hey, who wants the junk I’ve got?”

A couple more gnomes grab backpacks from Tikkaer, Beldren, and Brother Beast. They keep their distance from Tex and Skelly.

Tex: “Thats right a full on boogidy boogidy skeleton, fresh from the land of the dead.” she looks at Skelly, who looks back his master “Who’s a stupid skelly, are you are you!?!?” as she pats her knees in excitement.

Tikkaer also pulls out the shiny half plate and falchion. “What were we doing with this stuff again?”

Erihild- “The ogres we killed on the way here had it, but I think the armor is too big for anyone here, except, er, Mr. Skelington, there.”

Tex: “Well Skelly could probably use it but we arent into hand outs. Gotta earn everything we get from where I am from.”

Brother Beast suddenly leaps at the skeleton, shouting “Dead things should stay dead!” He strikes with his sickle.

Beldren: “That’s enough!” He casts stone shape and a stone wall pops up in between Brother Beast and Skelly. He then grabs Brother Beast’s arm. “We are GUESTS in the gnomes home. Let’s not upset our hosts, okay?”

Tex stops her spell before casting. “Alright,” puts her hands up, “lets just play nicely, and get on with things. Skelly wont hurt you, you dont hurt him. He is my friends playmate.”

Brother Beast: “... yah, fine. Not in the gnome’s house. But it’s not right for the dead to walk.”

Beldren looks relieved. To Tex - “Friends?”

Tex looks at Beldren and smirks “Yeah, Skelly is a sparring partner for my friend. He is a dumb half orc, named Caboose. Trust me when I say dumb is an understatement.” she shakes her head and points her thumb to Skelly, “hence the jaw missing.”

Beldren - “Is Caboose here? We should probably not leave him alone outside.”

Tex - “No. He is off on some quest to kill frost giants, looking for the ones that killed his parents years ago. I helped raised him. Strong beserker, but soooooo dumb.” shakes head again.”he has a real passion for giants” She air quotes passion

Tikkaer - “Sounds like someone I could get along with. On the killing giants front, I mean.”

Beldren - “.... riiiiight. Okay. So, Tex, you have business here, we’re in the area to cause giants trouble as well, so I’m sure we can get along just fine. We should probably get sorted out with the gnomes here to see if they have anything for us to do. Are you working on any particular groups of giants at the moment, or just in the area looking for some?”

Tex looks over at the gnomes first and shudders “Poor gnomes, Caboose has a tendency to puke on them after a whole heap of mead.” turns to Beldren “well I am in the area as a hand for hire, however i can join yall on your adventure for free if it means Skelly and I get to murder some giants, especially baby ones” She moves closer to Brother Beast “Apparently we cant kill baby seals for some reason, makes the gnomes unhappy.”

Brother Beast is slowly shaking his head, but he says nothing.

Beldren is thoughtful. “Well, we can certainly consider it. Our group is a little lacking in the offensive magic department, so it would be a good fit. Assuming you two can avoid murdering each other.” he looks at Brother Beast and Tex meaningfully.

Tex claps her hands together and smiles “Excellent! Then we shall join you. Ill give you a demonstration of my powers.” She casts ghost sound behind the busy gnomes with the packs

The gnomes jump, but since they can all cast ghost sound as a spell-like ability, they’re not too impressed. They continue rifling through the packs, and taking turns scurrying off to deposit things. After that’s mostly done, the lead gnome asks “So do you want the falchion and half-plate, or what? Trade it for some of these potions, maybe?”

Beldren - “That’s a good idea. What kind of potions?”

The gnome looks at the manifest- “Mostly healing and invisibility potions, looks like. Tell you what, we’ll trade you straight across for the value of the armor and sword, so I can give you 950 gp worth of potions.” He has some of his guys grab the armor and falchion, and brings back some potions.

Gnome- “Here, two potions of invisibility, one of cure moderate wounds, and one of cure light wounds. Sounds good?”

Beldren - “Excellent, thank you. Do you have someone who might be able to add an enchantment to armor? I believe our new halfling friend was looking for someone to do that. Also, we should report to the head of this outpost. Er, actually, maybe I should report to them, and take Brother Beast with me.”

Tex winks at the gnome, then nods over to Skelly.

Gnome- “Uhhhh, sure. I”ll leave the potions here, then.”

Tikkaer grabs them and starts examining them curiously. They look like potions, labeled in dwarven as invisibility, invisibility, CMW and CLW.

Brother Beast follows Beldren.

The gnome leads you through various cellars and newly dug tunnels. “I’m actually the gnome in charge here. Pegolot Vinderstump, at your service.” He stops long enough to shake hands.

Beldren - “I apologize for the commotion. And ah, the new wall. I can take it down tomorrow. I”m Beldren Eregion of the Ironaxe clan, and this is Brother Beast.”

Brother Beast mutters “Unnatural.”

Pegolot- “Don’t worry about the wall; if you can cast that regularly we could use you in fortifying this place. As you can see it’s all cellars. The ogres and fomorians that lived here trashed the whole city.”

He stops in what appears to be a random room, that has broken casks piled in a corner. “I don’t appreciate the notion of fighting in the tunnels, though, so keep that outdoors. As far as help we need here, we saw a large patrol of orc and ogres heading into the keep on the hill not two days ago. Ever since those outlanders from Talbaire killed all the fomorians and ogres a few months ago, the orcs from Oytmeet have been patrolling through, and they decided to stay permanently, I guess. So if you want to do good, go kill them.”

Beldren - “Great, sounds like a good place for us to start. We aren’t expecting orders from Kemp for a few more months, so we are happy to work around here for as long as you have work for us. And yes, I can cast that spell once a day, so any days we’re not off killing things I’m happy to help with the fortifications. Do you have room for us to stay tonight before we head out that direction?”

Pegolot- “No, right now you’ll have to stay in the room you’re already in. And once the keep on the hill is cleared, if all you do is keep the Oytmeet orcs away from town, that’s all we need. Something Kemp told me that you can probably hear: he wants to set up a small kingdom in the Stark Mounds, independent of the human kingdoms, so he’s not fighting the giants entirely out of altruistic motives.”

Beldren - “Well, I’m not exactly from around here, so I have no objections. Seems reasonable enough. We’ll get started on the keep first thing tomorrow, then.”

Pegolot- “Good.” He lowers his voice, despite no one else being anywhere nearby. “One observation for you. No human has been in Gorna for eight years, so no one knows what’s missing, if you take my meaning.” He taps his prodigious gnomish nose significantly.

Beldren, attempting to look like an experienced adventurer who is all about treasure - “Is that so? Well that is good to know! Thank you.” He pauses. “Well, I should be getting back to my companions. What direction is the keep from here?”

Pegolot looks at you a bit funny. “It’s on the hill that was to your right when you walked through town.”

Beldren - “Oh, THAT keep. Gotcha. Just wanted to make sure. Thanks!” He now feels awkward and so starts heading back to the room where the others are waiting.

Pegolot calls after you- “I’ll have to ask about a wizard! There aren’t many of us here.”

Beldren - “Oh, right, thanks! We’ll check in about that once we’re back if you don’t have time today!”

And so Beast and Beldren get back to where the others are hanging out….telling Skelly to to silly things, probably. That’s what I would do. Skelly takes his head off and brings it closer to the face of the gnomes

Erihild- “So how did it go?”

Beldren - “Great, that was actually the head guy here, Pegolot Vinderstump. Tex, he’s going to ask around about someone to enchant your armor. He said that there’s a group of orcs and ogres inhabiting the keep that was nearby when we came in that they’d like us to take back.”

Tex smiles wickedly “Well then I guess we have some kills to rack up and chants to make happen.”

Beldren - “I believe both those species have dark vision, so waiting until nightfall isn’t exactly going to help us. We could go now, or wait until tomorrow.”

Tex: “well I am up for either. I got some spells to light up the night sky but I rather kill them in the daylight. Wanna see the light leave their eyes.”

Erihild is slightly taken aback at this (she had a sheltered upbringing).

Tikkaer cackles. “Grim. I like it.”

Tex - “you.” pointing at Erihild, “what is your name and problem? You got some love affair sick fantasy for those creatures?”

Erihild is even more taken aback, and stammers for a minute- “Wha, no, I, ugh, that’s just awful!”

Skelly lumbers over toErihild, looks sideways at her, then pats her on the head slowly, “Well look at you skelly! You made a friend in the stammer 5000 over there.” She grins, you protect her real good now.”

Tex getsin Brother Beast’s face and lowly growls “I will keep him away as long as you dont touch my Skelly, or else my friend Caboose will not be happy, and he is easily angered. I am not dealing with that dumbass all hellbent raging out, got me?!?”

Beldren - “Hoookay, let’s go NOW, shall we?” And walks between the two of them to get to the exit.

Erhild- “Yes, lets go now!” She heads for the exit.

It is still well lit, outside, being early afternoon now. Moving to someplace with a vantage point of the keep, it is, as promised, on a hill overlooking the rest of town. You can see the tops of gates, but can’t tell which ones are open and which are closed, although the path to the nearest gate is pretty obvious (cross the main town square and head up Obvious Street). From this distance it doesn’t look like the buildings were burned, but you could be wrong. Nor can you tell if there is any movement behind the walls.

Tikkaer takes the lead, as usual. He’ll keep walking to and across the main square toward the gate.

There’s no obvious response from the keep (possibly because the orcs couldn’t see you anyway). The main road runs between a pair of large buildings, one of which (on the right) was a Pelorian temple, and the one of the left some kind of bureaucracy related to the market. The gate is open, with one door torn off the hinges and laying on the ground.

Tikkaer - “Well that makes this easy.” He continues forward.

Tex looks over at Skelly, looks at the party, and then the sky “I need to kill things, soon.”

Beldren - “Um, I can’t actually tell if you’re being bloodthirsty or if this is magic-related.”

Tex unamused, looks at Beldren “trust me, if you meet Caboose, you will understand about the blood thirst. Working with that guy makes you wanna feel the rush.”

Beldren, still having no idea which that means it is - “Okay then.”

Tikkaer heads up the road to the gate, eyeing the walls above him.

As you pass through the outer wall, to your right there is a large, burnt out, barracks building. There are a few trees here, growing wild at this point. It looks like the ogres and fomorians just ignored everything that wasn’t in the main part of town. Tikkaer - “There would be so much looting to do around here. Maybe after we kill everyone.”

The next gate is about 150’ ahead of you, up a noticeable slope. This gate is closed, but there are enough holes in it that you can see through (and most everyone can probably squeeze through, as well).

Tikkaer pauses, listening and inspecting the top of the walls. Once he catches up, Beldren decides to do the same.

Tex Stands next to Tikkaer, and tries to listen as well and inspects the top of the walls

Borther Beast looks around as well, idly spinning his sickle.

No one sees anything on the top of the walls.

Erihild nudges Beast, and silently points through a hole in the gates. “Do you see that?”He peers in the direction she’s pointing.

There appears to be a large creature asleep, napping in the sun, on the other side of the wall. It’s an ogre, mostly concealed from your perspective by tall grass.

Tex looks to the group and whispers “I got this bad boy.” She casts deafness on the sleeping ogre.

The ogre doesn’t react; Tex thinks it worked.

Tikkaer stalks up to the ogre and squeezes through the gate.

BB tries to open the gate, quietly and just enough that those stockier than a gnome can squeeze through. The gate is both thick and barred on the inside. BB can’t budge it. Tikkaer can squeeze through one of the holes anyway.

Tikkaer moves over to the ogre at slashes its neck!

Tikkaer manages to just about decapitate the ogre in one swipe. Blood gratuitously spews everywhere, making Quentin Tarantino very happy, and the ogre shudders and dies.

Tex: “wow,” she murmurs, “thats damn impressive.” she nods in approval at Tikkaer.

BB calls quietly to Tikkaer. “Can you see how to unbar the gate?”

Tikkaer looks at the gate.

It looks like the original bar that the humans used is still in place. It’s a plank about 30’ long and 10” thick. “There’s a large bar, I don’t think I can lift it. You might just have to try squeezing through the hole.”

BB: “Or find another gate, or a hole in the wall?”

Beldren moves to inspect the holes, seeing if there’s one he can get through.

Tikkaer can see some battle damage, but it’s all at the top of the walls (30’ high). No holes going all the way through.

Beldren would have to take off his armor, but he could get through one of the holes in the gate. Same with Erihild and Beast. Skelly, can as well, cause he’s so thin. There’s also enough space below the gate to slide shields through.

Beldren - “Looks like we’ll have to squeeze through. Since we’ll have to take off armor to do it, Tikkaer, please keep a careful watch.” Tikkaer snorts. “Like I’d do anything else.” Beldren starts to take off his armor and adds “I might be able to get the bar once I’m over there, as well.”

Tex taps her foot “Lets go chip n dale, we got people to kill”

BB just disarmors himself and sucks in his gut, pulling his animal hides after him.

Beldren has to slide his shield under as well. Once he and BB are over, Beldren inspects the bar to see if they could move it and puts his armor back on.

Erihild tosses her pack through a hole, slides her shield under, and worms through a hole. She’s skinny enough to not have to take off her armor.

It looks like it would weigh about 900 lbs.

Tex waves her hand at Skelly, and he dismembers, collecting the bones in her bag. She climbs through the hole with the rest of the party. Once on the side she makes Skelly appear and full on the other side.

BB: “Have to find a faster way of escape than that.”

Beldren - “Let’s try lifting it together. I don’t want to leave us without an escape route.”

BB: “Yah.”

The bar is 10” by 10”, and is about four feet off the ground. Everyone can reach it, although the gnome, halfling, and Erihild would be doing overhead presses.

Beldren. - “Well, we can always bust the holes bigger. That would attract attention, of course.”

Brother Beast: “Something to do on the way out, then”

From there the road turns sharply to the right and continues uphill, although at a gentler slope. The next inner wall starts about 30’ above you. The distance between the two walls is about 50’, with some grassy areas between the road and the outer wall. The road curves around to your left (facing uphill, with the keep to your left), and aside from some towers, the place looks uninhabited.

Brother Beast starts stumping up the road, sticking close to the inner wall. Beldren does the same.

Tikkaer starts to skip ahead, and then remembers he didn’t loot the body. “Whoops, almost forgot the spoils.” He proceeds to loot and toss anything interesting in his bag.

The ogre only has a handful of gold coins (like 12), and an item that Tikkaer is about 50% sure is a thunderstone. He takes both. He then heads up the hill.

To your left is the stone foundation of the hill, and to your right are a series of towers. The road follows the inner slope for about 200 feet and then drifts away from it before making a fairly sharp left turn. It’s about at this point that you can see far enough ahead to identify that there is another set of gates and a different road into the keep (that you would cross if you kept going). There are at least two ogre sentries along the perpendicular road.

The ogre sentries are standing around talking to each other, facing up and down their road. (So the party is way off to the side). You’re about 120 feet away from the ogres.

Sylaernae's player (who also played Kaicl and Momenrech) has dropped out, so Sylaernae is now being played by the same person who plays Caboose and Tex. Curiously, Syl's personality didn't change much.

(click to show/hide)

The gates to the place are still wide open, and there’s no sign of life or movement, just like last time.

Blank, “Hmmm, I love this place so much.” In a dry tone.

Sephira - “Well, let’s get going.” She heads toward the house.

The rest of the group follows in formation.

Not a creature is stirring, not even the shadow dragon. You walk up to the main entrance, across the courtyard, and up to the main doors, which are closed.

Blank narrows his eyes and looks around, “There is suppose to be someone here correct?”

Sephira - “I wouldn’t think the dragon or the woman who was here would leave…” She knocks on the main doors.

Nothing.

Kara tries the handle to see if the doors open anyway.

It opens!

Kara leads the way inside, monk-senses at the alert. Kedri also runs inside and starts sniffing around.

About the time you pass by the door to the study (the room on your left), a mass of shadows appears at the end of the hall, and says….

Margo- “Oh. You took your time.”

Sephira - “Ah, apologies. But we were successful. Herzog, can you bring the coffin inside, please?”

Herzog shuffles to the front and hands the coffin to Margo.

Margo- “Follow me…” and the puffs into a mass of shadows that flows toward the large library.

Sephira shrugs and follows. As does everyone else.

Blank places himself in the middle of the party as best he can. Watching closely for spells coming at him.

Margo places the coffin on a large table in the middle of the room and asks you all to stand back. She appears to do nothing but inspect the coffin for several minutes, and then in a telling display of anti-climactic special effects…..picks the lock, and the lid pops open.

A small, high-pitched voice says, “Ahh, Margo, you got the coffin back! Excellent!” And then a small man (like one foot tall) climbs out of the coffin and stands on the table.

Tiny Man- “Well, this is not what I’d expected. Who are these people?”

Margo- “These are the ones who actually retrieved you. Their leader is….the halfling, I think.” She points at Sephira.

Tiny Man- “That is fantastic. Who are you?”

Sephira - “I am Sephira of the Lammas family, that these are my traveling companions.” She introduces each of them. “I was hoping to use your library, as I am on a quest that requires obscure information and I heard this was one of the best libraries in the region.”

The tiny man smirks. “Not ‘one of’. ‘The’. I think that you’ve earned it. What happened to that bastard barghest and his kyton? Did you kill them?”

Sylaernae - “oh yes we did kill them,” as he winks the tiny man, “You see the bulging muscles?” He flexes for the tiny man. “We are here to kill anything you need.”

Sephira - “They has a few other followers as well. We took care of all of them, I believe.”

Kedri is climbing a shelf and sniffing books.

Tiny Man- “And what about the ogre mage, Bartolo? That sad man has done nothing but drink since the barghest attacked his shop. Did he try to take the coffin from you?”

Blank shakes his head, “He mentioned it, but did not try to take it from us. He may not even be aware we got it yet.”

Margo- “He followed them up to the castle, but didn’t come it.”

Tiny Man- “Ha, good. If he accosts you about it, tell him to talk to me. He’s been curious about my house for years, but hasn’t the courage to come up here himself. I have some use for him, I’m sure.”

Slyaernae - “whatever use you have for him, forget about it. However, you can use me.” he whispers under his breath

Sephira - “I didn’t realize he followed us. He did want to buy it from us, but I didn’t think he’d follow us up here. The townspeople sure seem scared of this place.”

Tiny Man and Margo both smirk, but say nothing.

Tiny Man- “Bartolo is an ogre mage, and they can both fly and turn themselves invisible. Unless you were trying to hide, he would have an easy time following you.”

Sephira - “Well that’s certainly good to know. So getting back to the library, I’m looking for information on the Lammasu Auran Bulwark and an old meeting place-slash-temple of his that might be in the Great Sulphur desert.”

Tiny Man- “Indeed! My library is open to you and your friends.”

Sephira bows. “Thank you very much. Let’s start looking, everyone!”

Herzog- “Er, we picked up several magic items the barghest and kyton had, could we trouble you to tell us what is what?”

Tiny Man- “Oh, of course!. Margo, can you fetch...well, not as much wine as I would normally drink. And a thimble, I guess.”

Margo bows and heads off to parts of the house to which you have not been invited.

Blank moves with Saphira towards the library with his hands grasped behind his back, keeping an eye out for anything that looks valuable and unattended.

Sephira sets out the two potions she picked up, as well as the other stuff.

Cue power ballad montage of the Tiny Man peering closely at things and other people looking through books!

Margo takes the coffin soon after and stores it somewhere, after having returned with pearls and wine for the Tiny Man.

You spend the rest of the day looking through things and eliminating various avenues, but don’t come up with anything useful. Tiny Man invites you to camp in the study, and even has Margo fix up food for you, which turns out to be bland but edible.

The Tiny Man also identifies the magic items as…. A +1 mithril chain shirt, a +1 lucky longsword, a magic necklace that, after quick retconning, turned out to be a Monk’s Belt; +2 ring of protection, +2 bracers of armor, a potion of bear’s endurance and a oil of +1 magic weapon. The rest of the stuff is nonmagical: masterwork short sword, masterwork warhammer, normal dagger, shortbow, and arrows, and various gems, coins and valuable objects.

Sephira - “As usual, I’ll hang onto the money. I wonder when we’ll find someplace to sell pretty little things like this. Unless someone wants to use the goblet or the box?”

Herzog- “Nah I already have an ornate wooden box, thanks.

Blank, “How does that work? Keeping all the money I mean?”

Sephira - “Oh, right, you weren’t here for that discussion. We decided that I should hold on to it for the party. That includes paying for all traveling expenses for everyone, of course.”

Slyaernae eyes the arrows and chain shirt “Oh myyy..” he squimers out loud, “could it be possible to get those? My armor is just a plain chain shirt and this one looks so fabulous!!!”

Blank nods slowly, “And when it is time for me to part ways?”

Sephira - “Well, I suppose it depends on if you want to return to Geoff with us or not. If you decide to head out on your own after we find the lammasu, I can certainly give you your share then.”

Blank, “that sounds reasonable to me. I am good for continuing on with you on the rest of this adventure. Not much else left to do. I am also interested in that Mithral shirt, I have a non-magical mithral shirt I will trade in for it if that works. I also have a +1 Short sword I am willing to put in the pot for that long sword.”

Sephira - “Kara should take the belt, obviously. So for protection items we have bracers, a ring, the chain shirt. The bracers and ring would be useful to me, and if I take the bracers I’ve got a set that isn’t quite as good someone else could have. Herzog, are you interested in any of those as well? Or Kara?”

Herzog- “I’ve learned my lesson, but I can fortify myself with magic instead of magic items if need be.”

Kara - “I have a ring of protection, but a set of bracers would be useful.”

Sephira - “Well, Kara and Blank will be in the front most often, so Blank, go ahead and take that magic mithral shirt. Sylaernae, you can take the mithral shirt Blank’s willing to trade. Kara, why don’t you take my bracers and I’ll take the new ones. That just leave the ring of protection. I guess I’ll take that one. Okay, that just leaves the sword. Blank, since you’ll be up front, you can take it. And Syl can take your short sword.”

Slyaernae looks towards Blank “I would greatly appreciate it for the sword, I like things that are magical. Besides I dont like long things, short and sweet is what i handle best”

Blank cocks his head to the side as he regards Slyaemae, “I see.” Then quickly exchanges his armor for the new armor and gives Slyaemae the old armor and his old short sword, “It has served me well. May it do the same for you.” shaking his head slight before going back to searching.

Slyaernae takes the armor and sword. “OH MY!” he exclaims. “This sword is shiny! I will use to kill my enemies and make sure my hair look super awesome when I kill things with it.” He feels the armor, “though others may think i am trashy in this armor, but I can use it to look great or say i got it in a bargain sale”

Herzog- “Sephira, if I can save up my share of treasure, I would like to buy a magic item that will make me more agile. Or just make it myself next time we’re in a big city, I suppose. Either way, I’ll need a cut of the cash.”

Kara opens the box just to see what’s in it. Nothing! She closes it. She takes the Monk’s Belt from the pile.

During this day’s hanging out in the library, Herzog finds and interesting tidbit that he shares with everyone:

Herzog- “This is interesting. Apparently there is a race of monastic orcs who use ships to fly through the space between planets. They worship an orc god called ‘Dugkagsh’ or ‘Dukagsh’. And they have these bizarre weapons that fling small metal pellets and belch fire. They call themselves ‘scro’. Just orcs spelled backwards. Huh.”

The next day, which is….Day 166….turns out to be far more successful, once Blank discovered a thing that Margo said was a “card catalog”, and told him about a device called the “Dewey decimal system”, although she claimed not to have a complete one. He also finds a description of an unusual weapon enchantment developed by clerics of a demonic frost giant god of rage called Kostichche. It’s called truebane, and allows a weapon to have the bane property against whatever it is currently fighting.

Sephira decides to read more of her may-or-may-not be useful book, because everyone needs more search terms! She discovers the following:

The cabal of evil clerics were the followers of Meershaulk, the evil god of the yuan-ti, who (at the time of his writing) were known to inhabit several islands in the sea to the south of Hiasport. He includes a map with the major islands identified and a couple of them circled.

Edophus speculates that if there is a ceremony by which the temple could be summoned, the yuan-ti would know how to do it. Edophus thinks that it requires two magic items, one held by the yuan-ti on their island, and a second item which is apparently held in the mountains to the north of the nation of Gamaro, for some reason.

He also sounds convinced that a ritual to summon some kind of earth elemental thing could raise the temple for your for a while. It would only work for 48 hours. It’s unclear if the earth elemental is summoned when the temple rises, or what.

He includes a list of people he thinks have gone to the temple and never returned- about 50 people, none of whom Sephira recognizes.

The desert temple is known to be have magical traps and tricks, and casting divination spells can cause physical harm to the caster.

Karakaze finds fairly thorough descriptions of the locations of the islands Sephira reads about, easily good enough for your to describe them to a ship’s captain.

Sylaernae finds information on a bizarre other-planar sect of wizards. Calling themselves the Incantifers, they figured out a way to consume magic to power their own spells and to extend their lifespans to millenia.

Herzog finds some other information, which he shares with the party, that happens to answer future questions the party may have with a high enough knowledge roll.

About halfway through the second day, you hear the depressed moanings of a dust mephit, who perches himself on a balcony above you and complains about everything, in a melodramatic kind of way. Frankly he’s pretty obnoxious, but doesn’t actually interfere with anything. Kedri immediately starts stalking it and batting at its tail.

Mephit- “Oh woe is me, for I am naught but the plaything to a vicious predator!” (The mephit is five feet tall.)

Sephira - “Well, it looks like we’ll need to go to Gamaro and the yuan-ti island. I’m sure I can figure out how to summon an elemental. Yuan-ti aren’t exactly known for being friendly, though. Maybe we can find someone in Hiasport who could help. Since the desert temple is closer to the temple north of Gamaro, we should probably try Hiasport first. Sound good to everyone?

Slyaernae scoffs at the idea, “ugh,” he proclaims unenthusiastically. “All that heat will damage my hair and the sand will get in there. It will make it less shiny and attractive.” he begins to stomp his feet, a miniature tantrum.

Karakaze: “Followers follow where the questor leads”

Blank, “It is something to do and might figure out a little of what I have missed over the last eighty years.” Not bitter at all.

Slyaernae looks shocked towards blank “eww so old! I hope i dont get that old and all those wrinkles” he begins to twitch prancing around shaking his hands “ew ew ew ew ewwwww wrinklessss”

Blank nods towards Slyaernae, “It is contagious. And all over the Armor and Sword I gave you. It is do late and already happening to you.”

“Sephria I dont want to take that chance… like i need to be beautiful for my roommate.” exlaims Slyaernae.

Sephira - “Alright, to Hiasport it is! I don’t suppose anyone knows anything about sailing, just in case?”

Herzog- “Nope.”

Blank, “I know how to sink.”

Kara: “A mountain breeze knows nothing of the oceans.”

Slyaernae “I love me some sailors!”

Sephira - “Well that’s about what I expected, really. Let’s stay here until morning, or what passes for it around here, and head out.”

The proprietor of the establishment has figured out how to not be a foot tall anymore, and bids you godspeed, and shoos you out of his library. You’re still welcome to raid the kitchen and sleep in the study tonight, but he will be pleased to have you on your way.

Sephira is looking in her bag and realizes she still has one more magic item from a long time ago that she hasn’t had identified. She shows it to their host, and asks if he might mind identifying this clear gem as well.

Not- Tiny Man- “Certainly….” He does his thing. “Ah, you’re in luck, this stone can only be used once, but it summons an earth elemental.”

Sephira - “Well that certainly makes my job easier!” She contemplates the chances of it being one of the two items they need to collect. “Surely not….”

DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUUN!

Everyone checks themselves for unidentified magic items, but finding none, turns in for the night, er, sleeping time. Whatever. When you all wake up on Day 167, whatever time that is, you pack your stuff and head off. The shadow dragon makes himself known, but just watches you leave.

You head down the hill and into Greyscape, where nothing appears to have changed. Bartolo is not sitting in his giant chair in front of his ruined shop, however.

Sephira - “I wonder where he went.”

Blank looks around for signs that he might be around, “Do we really want to know though?”

Sephira - “No, probably not.” She leads the way out of town, pausing after they’ve gone a short ways and starts summoning Mounts. “Kara, you don’t need one, right?”

Kara shakes her head.

Sephira summons 3 horses. “I’ll ride with Herzog as usual.”

And so four of you hop on three horses and set off to the south. Normally you’d only cover 40 miles per day, because the terrain is gently rolling hills, but the Land of Shadow warps and twists distances (and seems to do so in a way that makes things go faster), and so you cover that 40 miles by lunch. You can see ahead of you the boundary; it looks like you are coming out from underneath heavy cloud cover into the sunlight, and so it goes from twilight to broad daylight over the course of a quarter mile or so. As on the Moffatt side, there is a camp (but no ramparts or walls) about a mile distant.

Sephira - “May as well take out lunch break here.”

Slyaernae shakes his head in agreement with Sephira, “oh lets so! I need to brush my hair out and see if there is damage to my hair from the wind… though i am sure i looked amazing”

Blank, “It is elves like you that make us all look like Legolas.”

“Dont you dare compare yourself to the heart throb Legolas, you are not as gorgeous, gallant, or as amazing as him. He is dashing, amazing, so muscular, his archery is second to none. Oh to spend ten minutes with him would fulfill me…” he begins to tremble from the thought of Legolas.

Karakaze sighs and starts muttering sutras under her breath.

Blank glances at Karakaze and cocks his head unsure if he should be agreeing or not.

Kedri - “<Is Legolas some sort of elvish deity?>” to Sephira.

Sephira just shakes her head.

As you approach the caravanserai, some random guy greets you.

Random caravan guy- “Hello travelers! How was the road from here to Greyscape?”

Sephira - “Clear, and quick as the shadows usually are.”

RCG- “Good. We’ve heard tell of strange tales of late...well, stranger than normal anyway...of beings from the lower planes taking over Greyscape, and of ogre magi having killed that merchant, Bartolo, and taken his place! Have you heard any of this?”

Sephira - “Some of it yes. Apparently the creatures from the lower planes were defeated, though. I’m not sure about Bartolo; he was alive when we got there but he wasn’t at his shop after that.”

RCG- “Hmmm, that’s too bad, he was well known in Hiasport as an anchor of stability for that lawless town. Well, we shall be more watchful this trip then. May Fharlanghn speed your travels!”

Herzog returns the appropriate gesture to this salutation, and no one bothers you at the caravanserai after that. So you’re free to eat lunch!

That afternoon you’re able to make another 20 miles before the sun goes down, and anyone who is curious can look back and see the mass of shadows recede as you head further south, until it’s just a dark smear on the horizon.

The next morning, which would be Day 168, you arise at dawn and head farther south! The terrain looks mostly like Blank remembers it, although the trees are mostly all significantly bigger, and the buildings have been rearranged somewhat.

The horses summoned this morning look considerably less sinister than yesterday’s.

Blank grumbles about eighty year naps as they ride.

Slyaernae thinks of Legolas during the entire ride.

It takes the rest of the day, but because Kara and the horses are so fast, you cover the last 40 miles to Hiasport in one day, and approach the gates in late afternoon. The guards look like they’re preparing to close the gates, but haven’t yet. They regard you with the mindless suspicion of guards everywhere.

Slyaernae yells in desperation “HOLD THE GATES!!!!!”

Guard- “Wot, you have ten minutes, what’s your hurry?”

Slyaernae continues to shreik “WE have riden for forever, a full day and fortnite, fought minions from hell and god forsaken animals! We wish to enter the city of Hiasport for rest and food! And also other things..”

Kara: “Madmen are rarely welcomed with open arms.”

Blank shakes his head, “so much for not gathering unneeded attention,” under his breath.

The guards look at you funny. “Normally I ask your business in our fair city, but you’ve answered my questions. City’s through the gate, then, off you go.”

Slyaernae smiles towards the guard “thank you kind sir, we weary travelers, men and women defenders of freedom and this world appreciate your city’s hospitality.” he beckons the party to through the gates. “By the way, you look fabulous. Can i get you a mead at the local tavern?”

Guard- “Ere, we appreciate the offer, but we’re here all night, and wouldn’t you know, they’re changing the sundials tonight, so we’re here an extra hour.”

“But guard,” slyaernae begins to pout, “i must reward you for holding the gate and for your braveeerrryyyyy”

Sephira - “Syl, I think we need to let the guards do their work, let’s get moving.” She mutters “Before I dispel that horse out from under you” to herself.

Slyaernae “ohhh okay Sephira…” He blows a kiss towards the guard. “I will see you again”

Guard, loud whispering to Kara- “Right, see that he stays out of trouble, yeah?”

Kara: “If such a thing is possible.”

Blank looks from the guard to Slyaernae, “and he hasn’t had a single drink yet.”

The guards are thoroughly confused at this point and just kind of wave you through the gate.

An interesting tidbit (at least to me): this is the seventh session that has had something occur on Day 164, involving three of the parties.

Also, Caboose's player was running Navus.

(click to show/hide)

To recap, since they’ve been standing here for two and a half months: Navus, Grenda, and Rogue just got back from attempting to burn down Oytwood, which is a formerly human town now occupied by a tribe of orcs and a handful of giants. During their expedition, they woke up but killed an ettin, which turned out to be glass cannons, to the DM’s chagrin. Presently those three plus Mav and their accompanying menagerie (ie, the donkey, puma, and wolf), are sitting in a convenient hollow on a convenient rise by some rapids that gives them a good look at the fires burning in Oytwood. It’s just after midnight, and therefore very early in the morning of Day 164.

Mav, who is knitting, as usual- “Well, that looked like it was fun. How was it?”

Rogue - “are there graham crackers and marshmallows in that box? It went well enough, now we just have to wait and see if it actually burns.”

Nav brushes his hair to the side “Well, if it doesn’t I mean we could try to burn it again. Or i can light an arrow on fire and aim for some barrels and blow it up. Either works so im okay with anything.”

After some rummaging, it turns out the box o’ food has marshmallows, but no graham crackers. Sorry. Grenda pulls out a crossbow bolt to roast with.

As you start a small fire to roast some marshmallows, you watch the fires slowly expand down in Oytwood. They crescendo about two hours later, and by that time it looks like the orcs have gotten things under control, and so you can estimate that maybe one third of Oytmeet burned. There are several fires that last until dawn, but they’ve been contained.

You’re too far away to pick out creatures beyond their size, but you can tell that there are quite a few man-sized creatures (orcs, duh), and two sizes of larger creatures, one about 10’ tall that are probably the ettins, and another set (maybe three total) that are probably 15’ tall, but skinny. Their complexion and build doesn’t strike you as being frost giants (they’re thinner with more normal skin tone, ie, shades of tan).

Rogue, “I am not sure we could have been much more successful than we were. We can take watch for the day and get rest and set out again when night falls. Moving into the city again the next few days probably won't work as well because they are going to be more watchful.”Nav shrugs towards rogue and raises his hands, palms up “eh it will be whatever. I'll take first watch.”

Grenda - “Then we can decide if we want to try to kill more of them or move on.”

Mav- “Since I didn’t get to join the fun last night, I would be say we wait and see if they send someone out to look for us.”

Rogue nods, “then we sleep for the day, take watches and make a choice in the evening as to going on or killing patrols they send out if they do. Nav has first, I will take last. Mav you have mid watch.

Mav- “My knitting thanks you.”

And so you sit around most of the rest of the day. Kusab the puma wanders off at one point to go kill Bambi, and Timber wanders off to go eat whatever wolves eat. The unnamed donkey hangs out without murdering anyone at all. The town continues to smoke, although the smoke starts to dissipate toward the afternoon.

Grenda, curious, sees if the box contains herbs that might be appropriate for healing potion ingredients. It does contain herbs, but not anything you’d need for potion brewing.

Nav whispers to Kusab, “come come over here.” he pets Kusab slowly and mutters into Kusab’s ear “someone should tell that town that second hand smoke kills.”

As it turns out, the orcs do send out a couple of groups of...orcs...but one heads out the way you came from (ie, northeast, toward the fishing boat you all heartlessly killed), and a smaller group heads directly away from the river, toward the west.

Nav pulls out his longbow and lays down. He figures if he is gonna get attacked, he might as well be prepared while asleep.

Rogue, “So we know of two groups of orcs that went out. We can follow the one that went to the west and see if we can ambush them or wait here and see if we can get them on the way back. Unless someone else has an idea.”

Nav murmurs half alseep towards Rogue “eh its whatever. I am sure at somepoint they will come this way. Until we could hang out and get more rest or go kill things. Either way im content.”

Grenda - “Since we can see the town from here, I suggest we follow them at least until we can’t see it anymore, so that the fighting when we encounter them won’t alert the others.”

Rogue, “Alright, so we follow the orcs and look for an ambush spot out of sight of the town. Did anyone see if the group that left that direct was carrying enough equipment that they would not be coming back soon?”

Rogue could see that they were geared up for a long trip.

Grenda - “That road leads to Pest’s Crossing, which is the same road we’ll be heading down to get to Hornwood. They may be going to warn others.”

The group of orcs heading west left in the early afternoon, and it is now mid-afternoon. The orcs heading northeast just left.

Rogue nods, “and they did seem like they were ready to travel. They left to long ago to easy catch up. We can take off after the group the headed northeast then come back and travel west and maybe catch up, if not we are going the direction we are suppose to be going to get back.”

Grenda - “Sounds good to me. Maybe by the time we’re back here we can take out another ettin or two on our way past here.”

Nav has awoke to the noise “eh what i miss?”

Rogue, “Alright then, I will take point, Nav and Mav be ready with your bows, Mav take the rear and let's follow them as quick as we can while going around the town as best as possible.” Then starts to move.

Nav “well my bow is out, so already on that.”

It’s just about dusk by the time you get moving off the rise. Oytwood sounds pretty active tonight, with buildings being knocked down and/or rebuilding already starting. You creep your way back around Oytwood, keeping toward the outer edge of the clear-cut area and avoiding tree stumps.

You’re about two-thirds of the way around when Navus hears what he thinks is a human voice yelling from inside Oytwood. He can’t make out what is being said.

Nav;s ears perk up. He slowly whispers loud enough the group can hear “I hear voices… not important what they are saying but hey I hear some voices/”

Rogue stops and looks back to Navs, “Orc or giant? From where?”

Nav shrugs towards Rogue “ not sure on this one, could be either or. For a GP i could try harder”

Mav snorts.

Rogue shakes his head, “Stay here.” Then moves towards Oytwood as quietly as he can and trying to use what features there are to hid from the sign of any watch towers.

Rogue kind of has to slither between tree stumps, and takes a solid hour to move a quarter mile toward the city wall, but manages to without alerting anyone on the wall, at least as far as he can tell.

Rogue listens for voices as he gets closer, trying to figure out if he can hear what Nav noticed. Rogue also thinks he hears someone talking in common speech, although he can’t make out what is being said. Continues his same movement patterns until he is at the wall then tries to determine the direction to move to get closer to the sounds.

Rogue can get right up against the city walls without being noticed….but this close to the wall it dampens the sound a bit.

Rogue moves east to see if the sound gets clearer. Not at this point. All he can hear is the murmur of a town active at night, overlaid with light construction.

Rogue starts the painful process of going back to the group. He makes it back without apparently causing an alarm. It’s fully night by now, approaching midnight.

Grenda - “Anything interesting?”

Rogue, “I am not sure. Sounded like someone speaking in common. I couldn’t make out what was being said.”

Nav looks at Rogue then towards Grenda, “maybe we could draw them out. Just randomly shoot an arrow into the town and see what we draw out.”

Grenda - “Weren’t we going to save that for our return trip?”

Rogue, “at this point we might not catch up to the group that we were going to chase down. This could be a better plan. First we need an ambush site for them to come to where they won't see us directly and that Nav can still get an arrow over the wall into the city from.”

Nav states cooly “well to be honest I was trying to contribute. So let's do the thing!”

Grenda shrugs. “Works for me.” Mav, who is tired, but not about to quit, nods.

Rogue looks around for a place that might work to ambush a search party from.

As you’re crossing what amounts to pasture land, which gently slopes downhill toward Oytmeet (except for the occasional tree stump), you’re not able to find a place that is both within bow range of Oytmeet AND is a remotely suitable ambush location. You can find one or two spots that meet one criteria, but not both. Once you’re more than half a mile away from town, there are a few promising clumps of trees and brush.

Nav looks at Rogue “best bet use the sloping hill as the high ground, use the stump to lay behind a bit, then watch the east road for the orcs to rush out of. Maybe place a device that could blow up when they get close to it… do we have that capability?”

Rogue, “We will take the closest suitable ambush location and then Nav can move forward and fire the arrows. Once it sounds like he has hit the hornets nest he will run back to join us. Don’t waist to many arrows if it seems like the first few are not working come back and we will try to come up with another plan.” Rogue also points out to Nav where he thought he heard the most construction work going on.

Nav begins to take three arrows out, and puts them on the bow “well if we leave it to one arrow, it might not work. Three is a good number. Third time is always the charm.” Then motions the group to move to the ambush area. “Once you are in position ill head to the area of construction you pointed out Rogue.”

Rogue takes everyone to the ambush site and settles in to wait for Nav to start the fire....again.

Nav begins to move towards the wall, lighting his arrows, figuring he will screw up moving towards the wall.

As soon as Navus lights his arrows, he hears a shout from the top of the wall, which quickly compounds in to multiple shouts and, as he gets within decent shooting range of the wall, a bell starts ringing.

“Aw crap. Oh well here we go.” He aims his arrows and fires into the city. “Die in a fire Orcs!” as soon as the arrows shoot Nav turns and runs like a chicken for his life.

As he turns to run he starts hearing the “fft” of arrows being shot at him, and one wings him fo 6 hp damage.

Nav begins to mutter under his breath running towards the group “fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…” and slides into position

Mav cuffs him lightly. “Stop quacking and tell us if you’re hurt.”

Nav looks at Mav and says “naw just got clipped a bit, should be fine. How are you doing tonight?” he says sarcastically.

Mav pats him on the head. “Bored, but since you were such a sweet boy to bring me orcs to fight, I won’t be for long.”

Nav squints towards Mav, “oh i'm so glad i can work as your entertainment. Maybe we can get mead after we kill some orcs, build a tavern and call it Orcs r us? Whaddya think?”

Mav just smiles.

Grenda - “I mean, that would be one use for the box.” She checks her hat to make sure she looks human at the moment, as she doesn’t want to tip anyone off that we’ve got a goblinoid on our side.

Rogue shakes his head listening to them and moves to ensure he can watch for the approach of any pursuers.

Even at this distance, you can certainly tell that the hornets nest is very well kicked; the level of noise increased exponentially for several minutes before dying down for about half an hour.

“Well,” Nav says turning to Mav, “you’re up buddy. I am out of ideas on this one. Patch me up doc!”

“My ideas usually involve a battleaxe and some kind of artery,” Mav says. “I think you might have to talk to our elven leader over there for a better plan.

Nav snorts “I volunteer you for this next plan. Maybe you will do better. Or not. Just go:”

Rogue, “this has to be one lazy ass group of orcs and giants.” shakes his head slowly, “alright, let’s move to the main road heading out towards the west and find an ambush spot. Then we will discuss my next bad idea. Keep an eye out for the orcs incase they finally decide to send something after use.” Then starts to follow suit and moving back towards the west.

“Or…. they could be smart and not want to send guys to die in the middle of the dark” Nav says snarkly, then winks at Rogue. “I'll keep an eye out for Orcs moving out.”

Nav just throws his head back on the grass “Ohhhh yeeeaaaahhh they do got dark vision. Mav why didnt you remind me? Or you Kusab?”

And so, leaving the boring orc village of Oytmeet, you talk about heading west! Since you spent so much of your night harassing innocent orc conquerors, you only have about four hours left until daybreak on Day 165. But, the orcs are staying on the road, and are easy to follow.

Rogue, “Alright, how badly do we want to piss off some of these orcs and get them out here for a fight?”

Rogue, “two choices, from these tracks that I see here we are about six hours behind a group that went this way. Or we can try and ambush again. This time I would sneak back into the city, sabotage something and make kill an orc or two and try to see if I survive the retarded run back this way.”

Grenda - “You could always borrow my lightning bolt necklace. That would certainly get their attention. Although I’m starting to think we should maybe just wander into the city and kill things until it gets dangerous, then leave.”

Nav looks at Rogue, then his coin purse. “I Say we let the leader enter the city and take bets to see if he survives. I got 6 GP he makes it to the gates coming out before he is horrendously murdered.” he smiles at Rogue. “Got all the faith in ya buddy to make me richer.”

Rogue looks to Mav, “One vote for all of us, one vote for me to die and you Mav?”

Mav sighs. “I would like to kill things. But also I would like to take a nap. What do you think?”

Rogue nods, “I think you can take a nap. I am going to sneak up to the gates and see what I can do from there. I have the Acid Pearls, I think they could work as good as the lightning bolt necklace. Save those to cover my retreat if needed. I will move back as quickly as I can.”

Nav shakes Rogue’s hand “good luck my friend.” then waves him good luck as he moves away. He then turns to the group “okay taking all bets now. 5 to 1 odds he survives, 10 to 1 he dies going into the city. 2 to 1 odds he dies coming out of the city. 250 to 1 odds he dies before entering the city! Place your bets now!”

Rogue crosses his arms over his chest standing behind Nav shaking his head then points down the road, “there is where you need to set up for the ambush.” Then finally turns and starts to make his way towards the main gate. Again moving as quietly as he can and hiding. Looking for sentreys in the towers and on the walls that he might need to avoid.

“New bet! 500 to 1 odds we survive this!” Nav exclaims to the group

Grenda - “I’ll do my best to keep everyone in one piece. It’s probably unethical for the healer to bet on people’s deaths, or something. Too much ability to influence the outcome.” She gets off the road to find a vantage point to ambush from.

Mav just gives Nav a look of grandmotherly disapproval and goes with them.

Nav moves with Grenda and mumbles out loud “sorry if i'm trying to get rich or die trying.”

Rogue is able to get up to the main gate without the orcs raising any kind of alarm.

Rogue moves to look through the gates, using the wall to hide him as best he can. Looking to see if there is anyone close to the gates pulling sentry duties.

Since the gate is poorly split and poorly maintained logs, he gets a pretty good view of what’s going on on the other side. He can see a group of orc underling-looking types (six or so) about 40’ on the other side of the gate, and a sergeant looking one standing apart from then, but about the same distance. Four of them are clustered on the other side of the road, relative to Rogue, and the remaining two on his side. The sergeant (who looks like he might be a barbarian, honestly), is standing in the middle of the road.

Rogue examines the gate for a silent way through. None of the holes are big enough for him to climb through, and the bar would be pretty difficult to lift quietly. Also they might notice if you did lift it and opened the gate.

Rogue takes a few steps back from the gate and pulls off the smallest of the pearls from his strand of acid pearls. Then attempts to throw it through the gate towards the sergeant in the middle of the road.

Rogue manages to thread the pearl through one of the holes, and the pearl bursts just about at the sergeants feet, into a cloud of acid. All six of the normal orcs collapse and die almost immediately, and the sergeant staggers away from the cloud, cursing and yelling. There is immediately more yelling from atop the wall, and the bells start clanging again.

Rogue moves to the wall and looks up to see if anyone is looking down at him yet.

There are a few orcs looking over the edge of the wall, and a couple are leveling their short bows at you, while behind the wall, the shouting grows exponentially again. Four orcs take shots at you, but all miss.

Rogue the second of the smallest orbs and throws it up in an attempt to get it to land in the middle of the orcs shooting at him.

The pearl lands precisely where Rogue wants it to, again exploding into a could of acid. He sees at least three orcs keel over. He hears the sounds of a large group of people getting organized on the far side of the gate.

Rogue takes the next size up pearl and looks through the door to see how close they are.

He sees an acid- burned orc telling everyone else to keep away from the gate while he runs up to open it.

Rogue throws his next pearl at this orc and then turns and runs for the party. This pearl bounces off the gate but still explodes. He hears much shouting in agony from the orc behind the gate, but hears the bar being lifted nonetheless, and the door begins to open.

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE PARTY… Nav sees the door open and says to group “party time everyone”

Rogue makes sure to run slowish until the gate opens and pursuit starts.

I could've sworn I posted this on Saturday night, but maybe it fell out of the internet. And the number of views is like 30-ish lower than yesterday. Whatever.

(click to show/hide)

To recap: you all have just conducted a home invasion and murdered eight frost giants, in addition to causing quite a bit of property damage to their house. Fluff is unconscious, and also 24’ long, so difficult to move, presently. One frost giant has escaped, so far as you can tell, and is running off to let everyone else know what’s going on.

So the party’s most recent frost giant victims are lying on the ground, totally deadsies. What do you do now?

Kat: “Shall we strip the corpses and get out of here? I’d like to modify my spell selection.”

Now that all the giants are not nearby, Karla casts a healing spell on Fluff to get her up.

Escaflowne, “we need to be careful doing that. With one that has escaped they might be able to do more to fortify against us. Instead of running into two or three at a time we could end up running into all of them together.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Harvey says. But he sighs and swaps out Fluff’s collar so she shrinks to the size of a chicken.

Dragon- “On the other hand, most places in here they can only attack us two or three at a time, while out in the open we could be fighting two dozen at once.”

Zelda - “I haven’t killed nearly enough today! How about a couple more then we leave?”

Karla then notices Harvey’s not doing too well himself. He also gets a healing spell. She surveys the others. “I’m at about 50% on high level healing spells, but I have tons of low level ones. So I’m fine with either option. Escaflowne, Caboose, you look like you took a hit or two. Do you want healing?”

Salach- “I say we keep going. We arrived at the same cave we used last time we were here, so they might know where it is. Plus, the more we explore, the more potential locations we have for creative use of teleportation.”

Escaflowne, “I am down a little, depends on how that leaves you for healing spells though. Also it might be better if we found a corner in here to regroup and rest. We have to pull guard shifts no matter where we sleep. Doing it in here is something they might not expect.”

Zelda has decided to loot the corpses we’re standing around because she’s ansty waiting for the decision.

Kat starts pulling things from bodies as well. “The caves on the other side of gorge seemed pretty undisturbed.”

Curiously, as Zelda loots the corpses of the two dead frost giantesses you all are standing on, she notes that they’re not carrying any loot! They do have their helmets, chain shirts, spears, a battle axe and shield (all giant sized), and a normal giant bag with some throwing rocks and odds and ends, but nothing that is apparently valuable.

Zelda- “Ugh the guards have nothing except their arms and armor. Boring.”

Kat “They’re at home, what else did you expect.” She motions to Kochevnik and they start back down the hall to the corpses there.

When Kat and Kochevnik get to the pile of three male corpses near where she had her black tentacles, it’s the same story: helmet, chain shirt, giant-sized greataxes, throwing rocks, and odds and ends. Nothing cool at all.

Zelda - “Are we ready to go?

Dragon- “I am. Are we heading down this hallway, or what?”

Zelda - “I think our other option was along the cliff.”

Dragon- “Kat? Have an opinion?”

Harvey remembers he still has a fire elemental running around. If fire can be said to run. “Anyone need any more remodeling done? Otherwise I might have the fire elemental just slowly walk in the direction the last giant went, just to cause trouble.”

Zelda - “Let me get ahead, then that sounds like a good plan to me.” She activates her invisibility.

Kat: “At this point, they will know that we’re coming along this corridor. I’d say along the rift, just so we’re more likely to surprise the next group we run across. We’ll have to watch our back trail though.”

“Or I could just send him down the corridor. Give them something else to worry about far away from us.”

Salach- “Ooh, that I like!”

Zelda - “Everybody to Kat and Kochevnik’s spot to let the elemental pass!” she heads that way.

Harvey gives the elemental very specific instructions to walk down the corridor slowly and fight any frost giants it finds. The elemental shuffles slowly away, if fire can be said to shuffle.

The fire elemental actually moves faster than anyone in the party except Fluff, so it disappears around the corner pretty fast.

Kat and Kochevnik come back to the new doorway Kat helped install and head toward the rift.

Salach and Dragon do the same!Karla and Zelda also follow, with Zelda hustling to get up front. Dragon probably feels her brush past with a quiet “Me first!”

Harvey and Fluff try to stay in the middle.

Zelda heads out to the Rift, and of course encounters gusts of wind heavily laden with snow, and so she can’t see much farther than 50’ in front of her. BUT, the ledge she’s about to head down looks deserted.

Harvey quickly flutters up, casts snowsight on Dragon, and then goes back to his place.

Dragon- “Ha! Neat.”

Zelda and Harvey think they they saw something large moving through the air on the far side of the rift, but only for a second. Dragon didn’t even get a good look at it.

Zelda - “Might be a flier to our right!” She shouts, figuring not giving away her position isn’t the priority at the moment.

Harvey presses back against the wall muttering curses under his breath. Fluff curls into a ball next to him.

Dragon sheaths his sword and pulls out his bow, while Salach readies a spell.

Kat puts her back to the wall, and Kochevnik pulls out his bow.

Escaflowne turns and looks to the right, weapon at the ready.

Caboose, “Can I eat it?” looking around for something flying.

Karla - “If you can catch it…”

After your flurry of activity, there’s not sound but the blowing wind.

Zelda keeps moving forward, slowly.

Kat and Kochevnik sidle along the path, keeping an eye on the rift. As does Harvey.

Zelda, Escaflowne, and Salach all hear the distant sounds of shouting, vaguely in the direction the fire elemental went.

Zelda snickers.

Escaflowne, “Sounds like the fire elemental did its job.”

By this time, Zelda can see the end of the ledge, and where it makes a hard left turn to head into the cliff face as a cave. She follow the turn. Zelda remembers that they came through this area the last time they were here. This part splits into three small caves, one of which had a bunch of frozen humans, dwarves and elves in pillars of ice. Ultimately it dead ends.

She moves back to Dragon and Salach - “Just remembered, this place dead ends in a creepy hall of frozen people.” They both have “oh yeah!” looks on their faces.

Zelda hears some growling coming from the cave, but it sounds a LOT smaller than whatever she got a glimpse of. Like a wolf, actually.

Zelda - “Looks like the might have moved someone in, though. I hear lupine growling. CRAP! I bet they can smell me.”

Dragon trades his bow for his sword and shield again. “Lots better than an alternative.”

Zelda looks back - “Let’s wait a moment for the others to catch up and then go for it!”

Dragon- “Yeah. Better than hanging out on the edge of a cliff strung out and easy targets.”

The first room past the cave entrance is empty, and the growlying is coming from the hallway to the left (and is noticeably louder). Everyone notices deep grooves cut in the ice that have partly filled in, as if something with large claws has been in here digging.

After poking around at the grooves for a moment, Kat concludes that those are indeed dragon claw marks, but the dragon isn’t terribly big, as they go, and the claw marks are nearly three months old. They indicate that a dragon has been here in this particular cave, but doesn’t reside here.

The growling is definitely lupine.

Kat relays all of this information to the rest of the party.

Harvey gives a distrustful look to the wide expanse of air behind him and moves into the cave. He and fluff stay close to the walls.

Zelda rounds the corner and sees a pair of horse- sized, white wolves growling, but looking slightly confused, cause they can hear and smell you, but not see you. There are three pups behind them, all of which are also pretty aggressive looking.Zelda freezes. She then slowly backs back around the corner. “Worgs! 2 with 3 cubs that are already big enough to eat people!”

Kat: “Shall I throw tentacles at them and we can go the other way?”

Kochevnik puts away his bow and pulls out his sword and shield.

Caboose, “I eat them.”

Zelda - “They can smell me, so my invisibility doesn’t help too much. One of the people who is actually tough want to take the lead?”

Escaflowne, “I can.” and starts to wade forward.

Kochevnik: “Don’t get too far ahead.”

Round 1!

Harvey, despite his lightning quick reflexes, does nothing!

Zelda is busy hiding behind a corner, and so does nothing.

Escaflowne breathes lightning down the hall at the two Wargs in front of him then takes a five foot step out of the line to make the Wargs come to him.

Both wolves dodge neatly around the bolt of lightning, although both get singed more than a bit. Both are clearly enraged now!

Zelda - “Neat trick!”

Escaflowne, “in born curse.”

Karla stays where she is, mace at the ready.

Kat holds her position, waiting for an enemy to actually become visible. She will throw magic missiles at them as soon as she has a target.

The wolves round a corner and….breath a cone of cold on Esca and Zelda! Mostly Esca. Zelda dodges nimbly out of the way!

Salach really can’t do anything, so he does nothing.

Harvey flutters to just near Escaflowne, and casts blood snow on the ground under the wolves, going back into the cave. The line ends right at Esc’s feet. Then he flies back to fluff.

The two adult winter wolves don’t seem to be fazed by your sorcery, druid.

Kat moves to where she can actually see the enemy. She casts a warm fire shield on herself. She now appears to be on fire.

Caboose starts forward to get to the Wargs stopping just before the red snow.

Fluff hangs out and does nothing. But she does watch the entrance to the caves, and the blowing snow of the rift with a worried air.

Dragon- “Make them come to us!” He also moves forward, but with enough room so that people can scoot back.

Round 2!

Harvey stays where he is, holding a spell for the perfect time.

Zelda also maintains waiting position.

Escaflowne waits for them to come forward.

Karla decides to see if she’s can’t help drive them closer. She casts spiritual weapon and directs it to the first wolf, as she can’t see the others right now. The hammer swings at the lead wolf, but misses.

Kochevnik shifts back a couple steps so as not to interfere with any retreating that the frontline fighters need to do.

Kat reviews her spells and curses when she realizes that has none that she dares fire into melee. So she waits. And steps back so that her allies are less likely to accidentally run into her shield.

Salach- “Ha, you to huh? We can at least watch everyone’s back.”

Kat - “True.”

The lead winter wolf attacks Escaflowne! But can’t bite through is plate mail.

Escaflowne activates his haste and uses Rain of Blows before starting his attack.

Esca cuts the winter wolf into three pieces. The there adult, seeing an opening (and also her mate getting killed) leaps at Esca and tries to bite him!

Salach decides to poke around in the unexplored room while you all are butchering the winter wolves.

Dragon- “Maybe it’s not worth using spells on these, it looks like Esca has it well in hand.” He moves to where he can see out into the Rift.

“He’s very talented,” Harvey agrees.

Kat: “Just as well, since we don’t have any useful spells.” She turns more of her attention to the rift and the trail leading up to it.

Caboose attacks the Warg. He hits it twice, and it’s hurt, but is not backing down.

Round 3!

Harvey decides the others have the wolves in hand and joins Fluff in watching the rift. He holds a spell ready, just in case.

Zelda has decided that the way Salach went looks more interesting and head that way.

Escaflowne start attacking the second Warg. He kills the second winter wolf with his first strike.

Behind it are three adolescent winter wolves, all of whom are aggressive, but kind of staggering around like they’re nauseated. They move up, but can’t quite muster the energy to do that and bite at Esca.

Karla redirects her spiritual weapon to one of the wolves, and it hits. It barely notices.

All three of the winter wolves use their icy breath on you! Esc and Caboose both mostly dodge all they icy breath, but still take some damage.

Kochevik cleans under his fingernails with the tip of his dagger - I mean, waits anxiously, sword at the ready, for his chance to step up and fight!

Kat stares into the middle distance and tries to remember if she turned the iron off when she left the inn.

Salach explores deeper into the last room.

Caboose Swings at the new winter wolves. He doesn’t quite kill the one in front of him with his first hit, and so has to hit it twice.

Dragon stands looking out into the blizzard.

Round 4!

Escaflowne starts attacking the remaining two winter wolves, and kills them both!. As the last winter wolf drops dead he deactivated his haste.

Karla’s spiritual weapon floats back to hang out next to her.

Kat applauds. “Nicely done.”

Salach looks around the room. There are piles of ice in various places along the walls. “Ahh, I remember this room! There were people frozen in pillars of ice in here. We got some good stuff from them.”

However, both Salach and Zelda note that there is now no trace of any corpse or any equipment in here at all, but there are plenty of grooves in the ice.

Zelda - “Huh, I wonder if the totally not a large dragon ate them? Could it even fit in here?”

Salach- “I dunno. Maybe squeeze, or maybe it can magick itself into a smaller size.”

Zelda - “Wouldn’t surprise me. Though I’m hoping for the squeezing that would definitely mean it’s not very big.” She shudders, remembering the white dragon they killed a few years ago.

Salach head back to the main room. “Oh, they’re all dead, are they? Cool.” He then points out what he and Zelda saw in the last room.

Zelda decides to become visible again and follows Salach.

Escaflowne, “If we are going to sleep then that room might be the better room. If the giants come this way they will first investigate the dead wolves and this room over here before checking that room. Guard from the mouth and a shouted warning if necessary could ensure time to react before giants can get to us and we might be able to catch them in a funnel like what we just did here.”

The party has creeped up to about 120 feet from a pair of ogre sentries. They haven’t noticed you yet, and you have pretty good concealment from the terrain where you are. The ogres are acting like ogres do: lazing around and scratching, since there isn’t anyone shouting at them.

The sun is shining and a nice breeze is blowing on the afternoon of Day 159.

Erihild has her sword and shield out and at the ready, but is definitely looking to….anyone else for some direction.

Tikkaer pushes to the front of the group and creeps toward the ogres. He moves up even with the nearest intersection of tower and wall

The ogres don’t seem to notice him, and given that they’re probably not clever enough to hear and ignore him, Tikkaer is pretty confident he hasn’t been noticed.

Erihild whispers- “Are we moving up, or what?”

Tikkaer motions to the rest of the group to advance.

Brother Beast moves up in response. The ogres don’t notice him.

Beldren follows. The ogres don’t notice him and his clanky armor, either.

Tex “Bueno Diaz people” whispers “feels like i havent seen you all in awhile” she turns to Skelly, nods, then her and Skelly move up a bit. Skelly Squints at Tex and then smiles, moves up.

Erihild sneaks up after most everyone else has started moving.

The ogres manage to not notice any of you. By this point you can hear them pretty clearly grumbling in bad giantish about working with orcs and the big stupid ettin, which took the biggest building as his house.

Round… Surprise!

Tikkaer draws his bow and fires at the farther of the two ogres.

Tex twirls her hands together and begins to cast Blind on the giant closest to the group “KAAAAAA..MEEEEEEE.HAAAAA.MEEEEEE….” The ogre slaps himself in the face and shakes his head, but seems otherwise unharmed. “Haaaa….” tex says in disappointment

Beldren shoots the ogre Tikkaer aimed at.

BB advances 40 feet, spear and shield at the ready.

Erihild casts inspirational boost, as she always does, and then starts inspiring...hang on….courage! Through her operatic soprano! Everyone except Skelly gets +3 to hit, damage, saves vs fear and charm. Cause skelly is a stupid skeleton with no brain.

Round 1!

Tikkaer shoots Ogre X again.

The pincushion ogre looks pretty beat up already, and starts shouting for help...those of you who speak giant note that he’s yelling for the ogre that would be behind you (and is, but is also dead) to get up and help out.

Both ogres grab their clubs and charge down the hill toward you as well, ignoring the road and going overland. The non-pincushion is within clubbing distance of Beast by the time he’s done moving.

Brother Beast steps forward and tries to kebab the other ogre.. He almost succeeds in stabbing his own foot.

Tex moves a few feet further and shouts at the Giant 1 “EAT MY MAGIC MISSLE YOU STUPID ASS!” /casts magic missle

Tikkaer, who would much rather be in the thick of things with his glaive, shoots Mr Pincushion a fourth time, doing much more damage now that he’s remembered that ogres are part of his favored enemies.

Tikkaer hits him in the throat, and so he bleeds out almost instantly.

Tikkaer: “Hah, finally.”

The other ogre takes another swing at Brother Beast, who dodges dodgingly. The ogre curses at you and your decades of training against him and his kin!

Brother Beast: “Yah, well, your mother.”

BB stabs at the ogre again, hoping finally to hit it. He hits it a glancing blow.

That glancing blow must have hit an artery, cause the ogre crumples to the ground, dead.

By this time you hear quite a bit of shouting coming from past the walls. It sounds like it could be a couple dozen creatures, and they sound like they’re shouting in….orcish!

Erihild continues to hum under her breath. “Sounds….like a lot of orrrrcssss!” She sings quietly.

Tex races to join the group.

BB: “Yah, so we retreat now, or fight here?”

Tikkaer: “You’re the only one hurt. It would be easy for them to surround us here though.”

Erihild, still melodically- “Beast you could heal yourself lalalalalala”

BB: “Yah, hang on.” He casts cure light wounds on himself and looks nearly at full strength.

Tex “Well things could get worse but if anything we got ourselves a bone shield” Slaps Skelly on his back “This thing can hold his own while we flee for our lives if need be”

Tikkaer: “Then we’ll fight them as they come out and kill them all! These two <unprintables> we can leave as an obstacle.” He scans the wall top to see if anyone gets the bright idea to shoot at them from a defensible position.

Brother Beast starts looting the nearest ogre, since they aren’t under immediate attack.

The two ogres only have a 50-gp gem and 17 gp between them. Everything else is mundane garbage. BB pockets the loot, figuring they’ll distribute it later.

Tikkaer says what everyone is thinking: “Let’s find somewhere we won’t be surrounded as easily.”

Erihild- “Maaaybbeeee the inside of the gateeee?”

Tikkaer: “Yes!” He leads the way to the gates.

Tex looks at Tikkaer and says “lets take the outer gates”

Tikkaer turns around to look at the gates behind the group and shrugs.

The gates to your east (which are downhill from you a bit) look like pretty standard castle gates. The massive doors are open, in this case, about 40’ wide and 50’ high. There is a battlement across the top of the gate itself, and naturally murder holes and things like that just inside it. There’s no portcullis, and no person sized doors that you can see from where you’re standing.

Brother Beast tries to shut one of the doors. It doesn’t budge. “Yeh want to make a stand here? Unless we narrow it up a bit it’s no better than being out in the field.”

Beldren takes a try. He can get the gate to creak on it’s hinges, and if several people push you can get one of the doors to close.

The orcs are getting pretty close, and there are also a couple of voices speaking giantish.

BB and Tikkaer help Beldren close one of the doors.

You get the door closed, and it seems to stay in place by itself, leaving you a frontage of about 15’ of open space.

Tikkaer: “Battle formation! Beldren, Skelly, up front with me. Erihild, Tex, back row. Beast, stay in the middle in case one of us falls.”

From here you can see straight into the next gate. Beyond it the road continues to rise, although not as steeply, and there is what was probably the original gate and wall, through which you can see a mass of orcs and an ettin moving. They’re moving cautiously right now; its doesn’t look like they’ve seen you.

Brother Beast and Tikkaer get pretty good looks at the two lead orcs. One (who appears to be in charge) is significantly larger and tougher looking than most orcs you’ve seen, and carries himself more like a barbarian than a normal warrior; he carries a greataxe. He has one particular orc who behaves like his lieutenant. Next to them, also in front, is an orc that is wearing a suit of rather expensive looking full plate armor, with the holy symbol of Gruumsh painted on the chestplate.

They quietly relay this information to the others.

The orcs move like they can’t see very well in direct sunlight. Except for the cleric, cause he’s got the equivalent of snow goggles on. You count about 15 orcs total (including the leaders and the cleric) plus the ettin.

To recap: in support of the elves of the Oytwood, who promised you some assistance in locating your archest of enemies Zod (who may or may not know you exist), you went and helped them with the first major attack in the last two years. It is...hang on….early on the morning of Day 170!

As the sky turns a little blue in the east, Tamurel remembers the agreement and says that you’re all free to go back to Hochoch to get your information from Alomanthor, or stay here and divvy your treasure or whatever.

Cyr dumps out all the stuff she admits to having in a pile. “I’m trying to learn how to cast wizard spells, so I would like the spellbook and at least some of the scrolls.” She distributes 10 gp to everyone. “You can keep my gem, I have this larger one”. It looks to be worth about 250 gp or so.

Arjun: “Anybody here use a mace?” He proffers the oh-so-stylish demon-headed weapon. “If not, we’ll just keep it to sell.”

Cyr- “I also have these two scrolls, this ring, a couple of bags, a lump of wax, and this haunch of mean, which I’m going to throw away, gross…”

Logan looks to Cyr, “and you are just now throwing it away?”

Cyr looks at him sourly- “What? It was already in this bag and we were in a hurry.”

Arjun: “Does anyone have detect magic?”

“I do,” Thessa says. She hums a little song that sounds oddly like the theme song from Daniel Tiger.

The bag full of flour is not magical. Cyr’s other bag is, as is the ring, and the mace. Thessa also notices that the purple crystal blade she picked up vibrates a little when she sings her spell. The scrolls also radiate magic consistent with having spells inscribed upon them.

Saluki - “Looks like. I don’t have a magic carrying receptacle, so I’d take it, but I’m also not like dying for it or anything. Want it?”

Yudh: “Yeah, I would. It’ll be useful for carrying whatever we find to pay Kratha off.”

Saluki - “Ha! Here you go.” He hands it over.

Yudh: “Thanks.” He drops his non-magical longsword into it. Arjun, having heard no interest in the mace, puts it in the bag of holding as well.

Phaedra - “Hmm, Cyr, if you’re looking to start working on wizard magic, you are welcome to the scrolls. I’ll take any extra ones, though, I’m working on getting the knack of using all kinds of magic items.”

Cyr- “I think they’ll still be left over after I scribe them. Maybe. I don’t know yet.”

Arjun: “I think you two are the only ones that can use arcane magic, so do whatever you see fit with the spellbooks and scrolls. I think these leftover gems can go in the “get out Kratha’s debt” bag.”

Cyr- “Sooo I guess if no one wants this ring I’ll keep it then, OK? Ok.”

Arjun shrugs. “We can get it identified later.’

Cyr looks slightly put out, but doesn’t say anything.

Logan, “I think anyone wanting it would depend on what it is.”

Cyr looks slightly more put out, but still doesn’t say anything.

Arjun: “So you can hang onto it for now.”

Phaedra - “Hold on a second, let me see if I can get it to work, then we’ll know what it is.” She holds out her hand for the ring.

Cyr hands it over, a little reluctantly.

Phaedra puts it on, and waves her hand while concentrating on it.

After several minutes of doing apparently nothing, suddenly a thing happens! That thing, is that a vaguely ram-shaped blast of force shoots from the ring out 50 feet. It knocks over one of the giant’s lean-tos. You get a few dirty looks from the elves.

Phaedra - “Sorry!” she calls. “So… it does that, apparently.” Phaedra notices the ring is made of iron, and has the head of a ram where a gem would be.

Yudh smirks: “A ring of door-to-door-sales?”

Arjun: “Nice. We’ll have to keep that in mind in case we need to besiege someone. Alright, Cyr, you’re in charge of our new battering ram.”

If everyone is ready… to sleep! So we can go to Hochoch in a well-rested state.

Cyr is sure to take a lump of wax and the bag of flour in her Handy Haversack.

Nap time it is then. The elves don’t bother you, and you all get about four hours of restful sleep. Not enough to re-memorize spells, but enough to not be cranky.

So mid morning, you head out!

After poring over the map a bit, Arjun asks Logan, the local, whether it would be better to take the road and the ferry or go overland and ford the river near the lake..

Thessa shudders. “I hate water. The ferry sounds better.”

Phaedra - “I can fly across, but I’m not strong enough to take anyone with me.”

Logan shrugs and pulls out a cigar and lits up, “Not really sure about that. Not much of one to travel in the woods around here.”

Yudh: “You know what happened last time I tried to carry someone across a river.” He glances at Thessa. He almost looks amused.

Cyr- “I want to take the extra day to get back to Hochoch. If we need a plan to deal with Kratha, we should take the time to make it.”

Saluki - “I’d rather go the adventurous route, but Cyr makes a good point. Perhaps the long way is best.”

Arjun: “Alright that’s four and half against camping, so ferry it is.” The groups sets out toward Mellie’s Wharf.

Cue overland travel music! (Say...Final Fantasy IV.) You get out of the woods by about noon, and after that it’s mostly fallow farmland to Mellie’s Wharf. You get to the small collection of buildings on the south side of the river at sundown. Most of the town is on the north side of the river, but it looks like there is one inn, a blacksmith, and a couple of houses on this side as well. Also a dock with a few boats. The inn looks like it’s name has recently been changed: formerly the <something scratched out> it is now Trollslayer’s.

We head to the inn on this side,and acquire lodging for the night.

Probably One of Cedric’s Distant Relatives (POCDR) gets you dinner and rooms for only a couple of silver coins. The food’s pretty good, there are a few other patrons, but it’s pretty quiet.

The group discusses the next steps over dinner.

Yudh: “Now that we’re done helping the elves, we need to retrieve the stuff Kratha left behind, right?”

Arjun: “Yes. Logan, remind me where we need to go for that?”

Logan, “we are looking for Tika town,” he groubles around his cigar.

Arjun consults the map: “Well, that’s only almost the opposite direction that we’re heading. Could be worse. I guess… we take a loop. Hochoch, then west-south-west-ish to ...” he squints at the map. “... Dregneme? And then west overland to Tika Town.”

Logan nods, “doesn’t sound like a bad way to go.”

Phaedra looks a little deflated that we have to turn around. “Nothing for it, I suppose…”

Cyr- “Didn’t Kratha say she didn’t care if we went to go settle with Zod first?”

Saluki - “Yep, she did. He’s in the forest or something, right?”

Cyr- “Yeah, up around here” she points to the confluence of two rivers a good distance northeast of Hochoch.

Yudh: “The Dim Forest.”

Arjun: “Hm. Pretty much on opposite ends of the map.” He looks at Logan. “I suppose, if you’re willing to help us with Zod and his druid, it would be smarter for us to go in with more fighters.”

Logan shrugs, “I get my share of the loot, then I don’t care.”

Arjun and Yudhisthir exchange glances. Yudhisthir nods. Arjun speaks. “Alright. Zod first, then. Looks like we can just follow the river.” He looks around to the others, to gauge their agreement and/or enthusiasm.

Cyr shrugs. “Either way.”

“I go where you go,” Thessa says. “In which order doesn’t matter much to me.”

Phaedra shrugs. Saluki says “Hmm, forests. Wonder if they have any dryads around?”

Arjun snickers “If there are, best of luck. Alright, rest well, we go to Hochoch in the morning.”

Cue overnight sleeping music!

Day 171, Morning.

Everyone rises without getting stabbed, incinerated, or dragged off into another dimension by some weird tentacled creature. The sun also rises.

Logan grumbles, “whos idea was it to have the sun rise so early.”

“The gods,” Thessa said. “Or so I have been told. You should fight them.” she swishes her tail in an amused fashion.

Logan, “I will put it on my to do list. I will learn from the great Kratos.”

The group heads to the ferry!

The ferryman here isn’t so full of sneers and false obsequeous-ness, but still charges you one gold griffon as fare. He fills your ears with tales of the heroic halfling sorcerer and her two companions (an elf monk and a human cleric) who slew the dreaded river troll, not three weeks prior (Day 154, if you’re counting), opening the river to commerce to the south.

Thessa takes notes for a future song.

Saluki sidles over and looks over her shoulder at the notes. “You know, ‘heroic halfling sorcerer’ might be that one chi- uh, woman, Sephira. Remember her?”

Thessa wrinkles her nose. “Ah yes. She was brave. Wasn’t fond of her employer, but I suppose it couldn't be helped.” She smiles. “Perhaps I shall make the song very maudlin, just to annoy her a bit.”

Saluki - “Yeah, that Duke Jeff or whatever was a jerk. I like your thinking!”

The crossing only takes a couple of minutes, and you’re soon in the main town of Mellie’s Wharf. There are plenty of boats moving to and fro, thanks to Sephira’s efforts, you’re now aware.

Assuming that trouble does not find us, we head up the road to Hochoch.

You pass through town unbothered, and get to the three-way intersection 15 miles north of town in the mid-afternoon. As always, the sign points left to Hochoch and Orlane, or right to Audley. Going left, you get to Orlane, the last town before Hochoch, about dusk.

Yudh mutters: “Here again.”

Arjun ignores him and we find an inn! Or mess hall-slash-barracks. Whatever.

Since it’s about the only option, you go to the same place you visited last time you were in town, which doesn’t actually have a name, it turns out. Cedric’s Uncle is still the proprietor.

We pay for food and lodging, etc.

As last time, Phaedra attracts looks from the large number of Gran Marchian soldiers, still of the 11th Regiment of Foot (cause there aren’t that many women, obvs), and Arjun gets looks from some of the few women (who seem to remember him from two weeks ago). But they don’t bother you.

Unless you cause trouble, the evening passes quietly, and you can leave town in the morning unbothered….again!

Day 172!

Leaving town early in the morning, you’re at the military town outside of Hochoch by lunch. You notice that it seems less populated than a few days ago. You pass through, and get down to the ferry (of which there are now several, and are extremely busy shuttling troops into the actual city of Hochoch. Thus, you wind up having to wait for over two hours for your turn on a ferry. But it’s free this time.

Arjun looks the group over and decides that morale would be greatly improved by sleeping before going to see the elves. He finds a different inn than Kratha’s.

As it happens, someone has opened another inn, although right now it’s pretty bare bones, and caters mostly to Geoffite soldiers. It’s called, in a fit of jingoism, the Duke’s Crown, and is a straight shot down the main road from the giant hotel (the Nymph’s Arms) that is the de facto capitol building of Geoff right now.

The main inn is decorated by a large boulder that apparently came in via the ceiling, and is too large to move.

The group enquires about rates and room availablity.

Relative of Cedric’s Whom They Don’t Speak To- “We have plenty of space right now, although most of the officers won’t be too happy with mercenaries staying here. So behave yourselves, if you please.”

As promised, you get a few dirty looks from some of the patrons (apparently officers, those jerks), but they don’t bother you.

Assuming we don’t get turfed out in the middle of the night, we go to the elf embassy the next morning. (Bright and early, scrubbed behind the ears and everything.)

Day 173, the Morning!

The elf loitering in the alley greets you warmly and lets you in, and you only have to wait a couple of minutes for Alomanthor to show up. He also greets you warmly (even Logan gets a relatively warm greeting).

Alomanthor- “Word is that the attack was successful, though costly, and that you did everything that was asked of you. For that, you have my gratitude.”

Arjun: “It was our pleasure to assist. I know it hasn’t been that long, but have you found anything more about Zod?”

Alomanthor- “We have found some information, and some of that information raises as many questions as it answers. Can I look at you map? It will help.”

Arjun pulls out the map, and spreads it out on the nearest flat surface. Yudhisthir (and anyone else who wants to) gathers around.

Alomanthor- “I’m sure you’ve heard some of this. Zod is allied with a druid who lives in the ruins of a town at the confluence of these two rivers, so when you travel there, expect the plants and animals to be her allies and spies. It is, in other words, that druid’s little kingdom, and no one else can control it.”

“As far as Zod’s other minions, there is an assassin who carries a red sword, as well as a few others. What we couldn’t make sense of was who Zod is working with for his slave trading ring. We think it is too well organized to be run by orcs within the giant-controlled region.”

“Since you’ll be in the area, avoid the town called Delerion”- he points to a town about 38 miles west of the rivers’ confluence.” It was an elven town before the war, and the day it was attacked some disaster befell it. Since then the only clues we have are the undead creatures called shadows that, heh, live in the area. No one who has gotten close enough to learn what happened has lived to tell about it.”

Arjun: “Is there any chance that Zod is working with the giants on the slave-trading?”

Alomanthor- “We considered that, and it seems unlikely. He has nothing the giants want, and most of them see us as little more than vermin anyway. It would be an unusual giant who worked with him.”