[Last we ventured we had cleared just about half of the Hickory Branch area and encountered ambush after ambush of demi-humans and humanoids such as goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, and even an ogre. We were taking on another group of various wolves, (wargs, dire wolves, wolves) led by an orc trainer that was as good as dead, but then so was Karish. Taking two critical blows from a dire wolf, he was down on the ground bleeding out and those around him were engaged in other fights to get to him. We gathered our party and continued the battle…]
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Karish was down and bleeding out, what’s worse is that another wolf got loose of the web and was circling around. The orc trainer was almost dead, having slipped in the grease and stuck in the webs as Raimol and our casters filled him with arrow or bolt, but the fact our lead warrior was down and out was the most pressing of all. Kumari shouted to move aside and attempted a cure moderate wounds spell only to be pounced upon by another wolf, disrupting the spell in mid-incantation.
More arrows and bolts flew through the air at the giant dire wolf to try and kill it before it would end Karish’s life as Kumari and Zert attacked the lesser wolf that disrupted her spell so she could cast another one. Time was running out and so was Karish’s life as his blood mixed with the red sands of the setting sun.
Zert knew what he had to do and slashed at the dire wolf that was attacking Karish and carried through with a cleave into the lesser wolf that was also in front of him leaving both dead at this feet. Just then, Kumari finished her incantation and let off a moderate heal wounds on Karish that brought him back to his feet.
The rest of the fight went by without a hitch as we finished off the dying canines and took care of the orc trainer. This fight taught us another lesson which was that any fight, no matter how easy it seemed, could be our last if we weren’t careful and we took this wisdom back to our camp to rest on. Zert, certainly earning the most valuable party member that fight, thought long and hard on his skills and slept soundly.
We awoke the next day with spells ready, a new vigor, and a game plan to explore more of the area until we find these fleeing humanoids we keep encountering. We gathered our packs and moved out. It wasn’t long before we came across an orc lieutenant and as if on cue he shouted and began a speech much like the ones before him. This one demanded we turn ourselves in and after laughing at the idea he ran off towards a great cliff in the distance.
This time we gave chase and encountered another group lying in wait and in hushed step and whispered command prepared to attack.
We played it smart this time, learning from our previous fight and even though this would be easy, we made no unnecessary moves that would jeopardize us. The web launched in, catching almost all of them by surprise. Then the grease spells tripped those caught in the webs and finally the summoned spiders spawned in to attack the stricken orcs. Instead of getting too close just yet, we charmed some of them to fight for our cause and then decided to mop-up.
Karish charged up north and took on the archers that were trying to pelt our casters as they continued the summons. Zert and Eldiritch were outside the grease circle and dispatched the fallen orcs as they were stuck in the webs.
We were left with an orc warrior who was fighting for us and we slowly formed a circle of death around him.
Eldiritch wiped the dirty blood off his sword just as the orc fighter gasped his last breath. He looked around and saw a chest on a raised dais that was now unattended and definitely needing some attention and he had just the tools for the job. Karish was busy looting the dead when he noticed one of them wearing some ornate bone armor, and after changing the gear out, decided he would be much better equipped with the armor than the dead orc.
‘A perfect fit’ grunted the barbarian just as Eldiritch cut the wire on the chest that would have released a deadly trap. ‘Smooth,’ whispered the thief, congratulating himself as he began picking the lock.
Inside, some gems, a small sum of coins, and some more healing potions, ‘Not a bad haul,’ said Eldiritch matter-of-factly. Xiamaru was busy throwing all the dead orcs armor and weapons in the magic chest to sell later for coin as Kumari made sure everyone was ok from the last fight. We decided to explore a little more before returning to our camp. Eldiritch snuck south and beyond a low wall heard the tell-tale sounds of a large animal. Upon further inspecting, a great dire bear was revealed and it was determined we would tackle this later. He returned to the group and we went back to camp to rest.
We were mid-sleep when we were attacked by kobolds. Thank the gods Stallen was on watch and woke everyone up before they got too close. We quickly dispatched the small lizard-like demi-humans and continued our sleep.
We awoke early morning and felt a little ‘enlightened’. These past days, weeks even, of constant fighting and battling has done us good and we were beginning to see the effects from it. We were stronger, more agile, learned more spells, and Kumari’s god bestowed on her more un-divine spells. With this added advantage we felt better prepared for what lay in wait.
[Oh yea! Ding! Time to level up and here’s the honest rolls as they came:
Stallen 25hp to 33hp
Karish 43hp to 56hp
Eldiritch 25hp to 30hp
Kumari 19hp to 23hp
Xiamaru 19hp
Awesome rolls, probably the best ‘group rolls’ yet and I felt a little better tackling more of the stuff this game had to throw at me. Time to move on!]
We journeyed out from our camp into the early morning light and went back to where we took out the orcs and opened the chest. We went further south from there and came upon the back ranks of some assembled orc archers and gnolls. We had the element of surprise and used it to our advantage as we let the spells fly along with the ranged missile weapons.
Our system had been working well. Web, grease, summoned spiders that weren’t hampered by the webs and poisoned the enemy, Karish running into the webs with his ring of free movement and Stallen, Eldiritch, Raimol firing into the stunned foes while Zert was on guard at the edge of the webs waiting for any monsters to escape. Kumari would summon a blazing red scythe that would often cut down the helpless foes, and like before, we did well this fight. A loose bugbear tried to rush the casters and met Zert and Karish instead which was the end of him.
We took the rest of them out without problem and after looting the fallen headed south. Eldiritch uncovered the looks of a ruined temple with some snakes, rather giant snakes that seemed to guard the place. We had encountered a giant snake before in the moat house and took these two down much like we did before.
It was time to rest though, and we headed back to our camping spot for further rest and memorizing of spells. The next day we headed out and explored more of the area until Eldiritch spotted an orc captain, much like the rest of the threatening humanoids before him.
This one introduced himself as Lord Krunch and after his petty threats ran off towards the looming cliff in the distance. Stallen let loose an arrow but it fell short. We journeyed ahead and this time saw a pretty good size force lying in wait. Like before, we began the process of taking out our foes, and after they fell, we beat upon the door that the captain must have run through.
We beat and hammered the door until it finally broke down and decided we needed some rest before entering.
After yet another rest to which Eldiritch complained, ‘must we sleep so goddamn much?’ the party returned to the great cave opening and expected the worst. This looked to be where all the previous commanders, be they orc, gnoll, kobold, or goblin ran off to, or at least the direction, and it didn’t take a wizard to know they weren’t too far off. We equipped our ranged weapons expecting the typical web/grease combination opening and looking back we realized that was our first mistake for as we entered, they were upon us.
This was not good, we were all equipped with ranged weapons, even Karish, and they were charging us in melee which further complicated things with area-effect spells like web and grease. We scrambled to change out our weapons as they attacked and let loose our barrage of area-effect spells in the back of their party.
Zert took a mighty blow by their head commander, a giant of an orc that wielded a huge double-headed battle-axe.
Kumari rushed in to heal Zert and was slashed by Lord Krunch, the other massive orc we met outside earlier. This disrupted her spell just as he took another blow by one of the gnolls. Edliritch was busy engaged in melee trying to hold off both the goblin and kobold warrior-rogues at the same time while Karish was trying to take out a bugbear along with a summoned bear by our group. A half-orc shaman cast a bless on their group and Stallen fascinated the orc commander with the axe.
Zert hunkered down behind his shield, trying to deflect all blows directed at him before help could arrive. The few remaining undead we had with us were off attacking enemies at random and often times dying in one or two blows and just as Stallen was keeping their commander Lord Hungous busy with his playing, a zombie attacked the commander which broke the spell and resulted in a mighty counter-strike that killed the zombie outright. Pishella charmed a gnoll to fight for us and Kumari couldn’t get close enough to heal Zert without getting attacked by some nearby enemies. They had a witch with them which cast a spell of silence that made things worse for us and just as Zert hunkered down behind his shield, thinking himself safe, a giant axe head came crashing down splintering the shield in two and blasting through his defenses. He quickly tried to bring up his sword to parry but the orc was too quick and the orc spun his giant weapon around and chopped down on Zert almost cleaving him in two. Our warrior follower and friend slid off Lord Hungous’s axe dead before he hit the ground with eyes wide open in permanent shock.
What followed was a blur and truthfully, no one remembered the specifics, but right after Zert fell, we knew this fight was for real. This could be it, our demise, we could die here, and one of us already did. Karish slashed and killed the bugbear he was fighting just as Stallen charmed the goblin to fight the kobold he was right next to. Pishella charmed another orc, Lord Krunch I believe, and he turned on his commander in mid-swing with a surprise blow that cleaved half his life away. At this point we had many of them charmed and pulled back some to let them fight amongst themselves as we focused fire on the witch in the back disrupting her spells along with the half-orc shaman.
One by one they fell, and were it not for the charms; the battle would have ended here. Our charmed gnoll, orc, and goblin with our help made mincemeat out of them and even the witch and shaman fell to our missile weapons. We were left with only one of their gnolls alive, and heavily wounded at that. They had killed their own lord as we watched on and we did the same to the gnoll after the fight was over. We gathered around Zert and were shocked at the extent of his wounds, or rather, the fatal wound that did him in.
We took a blanket and wrapped up Zert and closed his eyes as Kumari ordered the zombies to carry him as we looted the dead. They had some obvious magical equipment and the lord had an ornate key that easily opened the chest in the back of the room. Xiamaru also felt a little enlightened, and had some good news…
‘Fireball,’ he said, somewhat proud, as he finally made sense of the words in the giant tome he carried around. ‘Too bad I didn’t learn it before this fight.’ The group was solemn and the joy of finding all this loot and winning this battle was hampered by the recent death of Zert. This was becoming too common and we feared we wouldn’t be able to raise him this time due to lack of funds or the extensity of his wounds. We put all their items in our magical chest and became determined to help Zert, having just vanquished this orc uprising, surely the town would help us. We began the trip back.
We arrived in Hommlet after a good two days march and having the zombies carry Zert’s lifeless corpse helped, but unfortunately masked his decomposing smell. We gathered outside the Welcome Wench and decided what to do. We needed money for the priests to raise him and needed to sell first so we headed to the town smith.
‘What’s this?’ pointing at the locked chest near the smith. The constantly-hammering smith looked up and explained this new chest next to him.
The smith said we could have anything in the chest except the item his friend wanted if we could only open it. Eldiritch flexed his arms and cracked his knuckles as he began removing small tools from his pouch. ‘This is gonna be easy,’ chided the thief as he went to work. After some sharp intakes of breath and quiet clicking sounds, there was an audible click, and the chest’s lock opened up falling to the ground. The smith opened the chest and took out a hammer and left the rest of the contents to us.
“Hmmm, a book and what appears to be a magical horn. Not only should we return to the inn to rest but I’ll need to memorize some identify spells to learn what most of these items are we got from the orcs. We can then sell what we can’t use to help pay to bring Zert back. Speaking of which, what’s it going to cost?’ The bard has just returned from the church where he discovered the cost to raise Zert would be 6,000gp, and the next time would be double that, then double that, etc. At some point far too soon, we would not be able to raise anyone. For now, we should have enough after we sell some of this equipment and went to the inn to rest bringing the corpse of Zert with us much to the dissatisfaction of the inn proprietor. We slept a couple nights, with Zert and the zombies in a different room, learning identify spells and uncovering the items we found of their magical properties when we realized Zert was … no longer with us.
‘We must have waited too long’ said Kumari as she looked upon his stinking corpse, or what remained of it. Zert was left in a separate room with the zombies due to the smell, but now looked worse than the undead he was with. [Ahhh crap. I had no idea, but it made sense. Apparently, corpses decompose in the game and if you wait too long they turn to dust or bones and leave behind their equipment. So much for raising the warrior – he was forever dead now. Now I realized what some of these magical spells I had seen were for – they helped prolong the dead so they wouldn’t turn to bones so fast]
We took the remains of our follower outside and buried him behind the tavern next to the river and returned to the inn after a short ceremony. Zert was a good warrior and would be remembered, but his adventures would end here. We lacked a front armsman and talked to the tavern keeper for some time about guests of the inn and just as we were thumbing through the guest book on the front desk we heard what can only be described as a loud dwarven shout, ‘GIVE ME MY GOLD YOU THIEF! Hand it over you cheat or I’ll chop off yer hands!’ We all turned around and saw a stout dwarf reach for his axe as Furnok, the tavern gambler, was hastily throwing money at the pissed-off dwarf. We all looked back at the guest book at what must only be…
Stallen walked over and introduced himself, ‘Greetings dwarf. Name’s Stallen and I’m here with a group of … (a slight pause).. adventurers and we could use the axe of a strong warrior like you.’ The dwarf was just putting his axe away and began picking up his coins when he turned to Stallen and looked behind at the rest of the group. ‘Shove off’ menaced the dwarf as he continued picking up his coins. Stallen, a little taken aback, said, ‘Those coins you gather off the floor there are nothing compared to what you could have travelling with us.’ It was then that Stallen noticed the axe the dwarf had was pretty battered and near useless, hopefully from battle. ‘Look, I’ll make you a deal. We have an ‘in’ with the town smith who has a large selection of mastercraft weapons. Come with us, choose the finest axe you can and any armor as well and join us for a full share of any loot we find. What say you?’
The dwarf stopped picking up the coins and moved his thick and meaty hand to finger the near-blunt and chipped blade of his axe. He turned around and again looked at Stallen and the rest of the group that was still back at the front desk of the inn. ‘Thorin Pax is me name. Killing is me game and you get yerself a deal…half-breed’. Stallen smiled and they walked outside as a group to the smith where the dwarf picked out the best axe he could find.
We decided to get to know this dwarf, for he would be travelling with us and be responsible for our safety as we would his. We spent the next couple of days at the inn, learning his history, drinking, reveling with the locals when Xiamaru, removed from the group, began thumbing through the magical book they found aptly named, ‘The Book of Heroes’…
* * * * *
[Next time…Zert is gone, but we have a new companion now, a dwarf named Thorin Pax and although we realize he isn’t as experienced as us, he’s got the potential to be a great warrior and tank for the party. We end this chapter in the Inn of the Welcome Wench but what is the book Xiamaru is reading? What tales does it have? And why are the pictures moving as he is reading it? DA-DA -DUMMmmmmmm … Stay tuned for Chapter 10!]
Temple Storyboard 