Warning: Spoilers below for the adventure, Rescue at Rivenroar (albeit a modified version).
This entry is from Yuri’s perspective.
We resume our adventures as the party awakens from their first satisfying rest in what seemed like weeks, but was really only a day or so. Tyrande, Yuri, and Mirtala are ill, but Tyrande and Yuri manage to shrug off the bug, while Mirtala responds favorably to treatment from Deornoth and the other members of the party well-versed in the healing arts. We strike off down the riverside road in the direction of Everlund, and almost immediately Yuri catches sight of a band of a dozen or more orc-sized creatures keeping up with us on the other side of the river but well-enough concealed by the forest that their precise nature is impossible to determine. Yuri’s instincts label them “danger.”
After some travel, which proves quite taxing to the still unwell Mirtala even though she is riding in Ruben’s mystical sleigh, and after passing several abandoned hovels and shacks, we arrive at a woebegone shanty with a canoe tied up at its dock and a thin spiral of smoke coming out of its chimney. We announce ourselves to the resident, who turns out to be a rather morose gentleman named “Bob” who refers to his settlement as “Bob’s.” He is the sole member of his family to have survived the depredations of the Red Hand attacks a dozen years ago. He agrees, although with a characteristic lack of enthusiasm, to shelter us for the night. While Tyrande, her friend Bertanian, and half the party stood watch, the rest of the weary travelers settled in for sleep, none warm except Mirtala in warm furs that once belonged to an unpleasant dwarven warlock, currently on ice. Yuri awoke to Tyrande crying “to arms” and was unpleasantly surprised to note that sources of light were behaving erratically and that the sword of Henry, priceless artifact and apparent key to some sort of deviltry, was somehow transporting itself through a hole in the shack’s thin walls. Bob’s blood-red aura and distinctly unhelpful role in the combat led to some questions about his loyalties…
After a somewhat difficult scuffle with devil-dogs that seemed to possess a fey-step power and who could definitely put ice in our veins with their unearthly baying and their shadeling masters, we were able to kill the home invaders and, perhaps more importantly, keep them from making off with the sword. Its importance to them was underscored by the attempt of one of the shadelings to barter with Yuri for its release in exchange for his life. Luckily, the party’s healers were more than capable of keeping Yuri alive despite his new tactics, doubtless learned in his studies of battle? Much attention was paid to the tattoos on the shadelings (as well as on Adronsius), although so far the party has been unable to suss out their precise meanings.
Bidding Bob adieu and leaving him a set of warm winter clothing in exchange for his hospitality (and in lieu of repairing his somewhat less sturdy homeplace) we set off on the last few hours’ march to Everlund. After an hour of walking (Mirtala once again riding her mystical sled) Roxy and Yuri heard some twigs crunching and immediately understood that the party was under attack. A horde of orcs, doubtless the same that had been following along on the other bank, presumably had gone ahead, crossed the river, and then set up an ambush. One of the first casualties of the attack was the alchemist Adronsius, whose death by twin axes disheartened the party and his fellow freed prisoners alike. Although the orcs attacked from higher ground, they were unable to effectively control the battlefield, and the party was able to cut through them even though Yuri’s vision was still apparently impaired from the battle with the shadelings. Rawr’s swords swirled in amazing brutality, and only a particularly powerful thunderwave from Ruben was able to slow the reptilian hero’s blows, and that only temporarily. The party shows restraint and perhaps atypical foresight when electing to keep one of the orcs alive for possible information after the battle was won.
We left our heroes mere hours from Everlund, having lost one of their charges but having come through two difficult battles otherwise in quite good shape. Will they interrogate their prisoner there and then or bring him along to Everlund? Will they find more evidence of the mysterious “Emissary”? Will Ruben and Roxy discover precious magics on the corpses of the orcish war-party? Will further attacks impede the return of the party, their charges, and the relics of Henry to Everlund, Sister of the North? Will they ever see Everlund again? Only the future will tell…
