FRC Session 6…Strik’s Day Out

When we ended our last session, we got back to having something of a cliffhanger…phew. The party had gone to Cagair Keep and Dru had entered under some false pretenses to see what information she could acquire. She learned, among other things, that Lady Hawke has little patience. Kicked out of Cagair Keep, Dru was walking away from the keep when a number of the guards let loose with crossbow bolts! That’s where we pick up.

This recap is from Rachel. Andrew and Muse were missing this session. My GM comments are in [brackets and italics].

As Drusilia left the keep to head back to us, four crossbow bolts hit the ground around her. One of the half-orcs called out that they missed the vermin and tells the others to reload. Dru walked a little more quickly back to us and told us about what she saw at the keep and that Lady Hawke had declined the invitation for dinner at Floshin Estate in three days. Thokk corrected some of Dru’s description of the layout of the keep and sketched it out for us. Dru said she had seen about 12 guards around the keep and Thokk told us that Lady Hawke had originally had about 30 guards with her. We knew that a number of the guards had fallen to us and the mama owl bear, but did not know how many more she might have. Thokk said Lady Hawke was simply known as “Hawke” before, was a bandit in the High Moor, and had other men back there that she might be having join her at the keep as well.

We discussed a number of possible approaches to enter the keep. Thokk wanted us to attack the keep at night, and continued to express wanting to rape Rory and Dru. After much discussion, it is decided that Strik will go and tell Lady Hawke that he and an acolyte were attacked by Thokk and his group and that Thokk is planning to ambush Lady Hawke and her guards.

[Well, Thokk is an orc so these things all make sense to him. 😉 ]

In the early evening, Strik goes to the keep and says he has news for Lady Hawke. He is admitted to the great hall and offered dinner with Lady Hawke and some of her guards. Strik tells her that he and an acolyte were ambushed by Thokk and his group and that Jason (the acolyte – Hawke asked for his name) was killed. Strik said he had been able to kill an ogre [half-ogre] with his mace, and Hawke seemed a bit suspicious of this, wanting him to show how he did this. Strik said that Thokk had argued with an orc with an eye patch before letting Strik go, saying he was amused by Strik. Strik said that Thokk had also told him that Lady Hawke betrayed him by attacking him and his men while they were raping and pillaging at the keep. Strik told Lady Hawke that Thokk plans to ambush her and her men, and that Strik would like to see vengeance upon Thokk for killing Jason, so he came to Lady Hawke to tell her of Thokk’s plan, where his cave is, and how many men he had.

[Sneaky, huh?]

Lady Hawke was looking at papers while she ate dinner [and rarely even looked up at Strik] and talked with Strik, asking him a number of questions. Strik had told her that he is a priest of Shar, and is not easily welcomed everywhere as such. Lady Hawke told him he was welcome to stay for the night, and possibly for longer if he would like to join her guards. She said that she would send out guards to Thokk’s cave in the morning. Strik had the opportunity to ask several questions and learned the following (not necessarily in this order):

• Lady Hawke says she is from Cormyr. She and her men were traveling to Daggerford and came upon Thokk and his men attacking the keep. Hawke and her men killed as many of Thokk’s men as they could but were too late to save the occupants, who they buried. In Strik’s opinion, Hawke seemed sincere and to sincerely believe this is what happened.
• Lady Hawke said she and her men are there to restore order and prevent bandits from overrunning the “frontier.” Since Cormyr was a much more lawful place, she and her men had not had much to do there in terms of restoring/maintaining order.
• Lady Hawke has two older and two younger dwarf-orcs [dworcs?] as servants, she says she saved them and her men and seems protective of the dwarf-orcs. Ugak, the younger woman dwarf-orc seemed to take a liking to Strik and giggled quite a bit in his presence.

When Lady Hawke retired for the night, the other half-orcs questioned Strik a bit, seeming to feel him out on his position on killing and pillaging. While the half-orcs seem to give lip service to Hawke’s line about them restoring order, it appears that they probably still enjoy killing and pillaging. They think it is very strange and unlike Thokk to let Strik go. Another half-orc entered the great hall and started questioning Strik in a more hostile manner, and tells Ugak to make Strik’s room “special” for him, which brought on more giggling from Ugak.

Ugak showed Strik to his room at the top of the stairs [first one at the top of the stairs and had no lock]. Before going to sleep, Strik made an herbal tonic that makes someone forget a period of time (e.g., a night). Strik also put some of his armor right inside the door as an alarm to wake him if someone entered, as there was no lock on the door. Strik awakes when he hears his armor being pushed as the door is opened. Ugak comes in naked and seems pleased that he is awake. She makes it very clear that she wants to have sex with him and moves to climb into his bed. Strik said it was customary to have an herbal tea first and gave her the tonic he made, saying he already drank his. I think Strik was hoping that it might make Ugak forget her intentions but she was not to be dissuaded and started ripping his clothes off, so he went along. Ugak snuggled up against Strik afterwards, and just a few moments later three guards entered the room with crossbows leveled at Strik.

[Yeah, Thomas and I were not on the same page on this one. As a priest of Shar, I let him take an herbal remedy as some starting equipment. When he said that he was mixing it up to make someone forget the night, I wasn’t thinking that they’d immediately forget what they were doing but rather forget after the fact. Thomas was thinking the former. It was all good though in the end and Strik did gather some additional information…although maybe not quite in the state of clothing that he might have preferred.]

The guards took Strik (still naked) outside and made him go down a rope into a pit (10-feet deep) in the back corner of the keep. The guards accused him of raping Ugak [I think Lady Hawke made the accusation a bit later], then pulled up the rope and moved away from the top of the pit, out of Strik’s view. Strik saw some relatively fresh bones in the bottom of the pit with him, but not much else. Lady Hawke appeared at the top of the pit and a white ape-like creature with red eyes is let down into the pit with a collar around its neck, connected to a chain held above. The creature is let down so he is just a few feet from Strik. Hawke says that if Strik does not answer her questions honestly, she will let the creature go, and that it is really hungry and has not eaten in a few days.

In response to Hawke’s questions, Strik tells her that Thokk let him go because Thokk thought it would help him get closer to Lady Hawke and get vengeance on her for betraying him and his men. Strik said Thokk said Hawke hired him and his men to attack the keep and then had her men attack Thokk’s. Hawke seems satisfied with Strik’s having told her the truth about why Thokk feels betrayed by her and wants vengeance, but is still distrustful of Strik. The guards put Strik in one of the outhouses to sleep (still naked).

[Hawke also said that she didn’t believe Strik earlier in the conversation and ordered the ape released but the beast was stopped just inches short of Strik. I think that’s when Strik told her the “truth.”]

The next morning, Strik is brought into the great hall for breakfast (as Hawke said, they are not uncivilized), though he was still naked and bound. They had Ugak feed him breakfast, and it appeared that the forgetfulness tonic may have worked as she introduced herself to him as if they had not yet met. After breakfast, Lady Hawke and 14 of her men, about half of them on horses, left the keep to head toward the cave, with naked Strik on a rope in front of them.

The rest of us were hiding in the copse of trees and saw them leave the keep. After much discussion of what to do, we decided to try to head them off by beating them to the cave area. Thokk led us further back into the woods so that we would not be as easily spotted by Hawke and her men. Dismissing the others in the group as not being “fighters,” Thokk took Rory to a couple foxholes he had in the grass, so we could await Hawke and her men in a somewhat hidden position.

[There was too much confusion over the situation which was my fault…I didn’t describe the surrounding area well enough when this all happened. Rachel and RJ thought that they had more cover than they did. I envisioned that Strik had led the troops a bit away before Strik started leading them to some trees and so in my head, he and the rest of the party were a bit more separated than I think the players thought. One of the dangers of making this sh!t up as you go. 😉 ]

While they are traveling, Hawke questions Strik more and he ends up telling her he was forced to work with Thokk because Thokk has Strik’s four remaining acolytes, and that Thokk might have them at the cave or at two different camp locations. One of Hawke’s men went to check one of the camp locations (in the copse of trees near the keep) and reports back that there was a camp there but it is currently empty. One of Hawke’s men shoots Strik in the leg and they gag him so he cannot call out to alert Thokk or the acolytes. Hawke and her men start taking a more circuitous route toward the cave.

[Hawke explained that Strik was shot in the leg so it might look like her scouts were going back to the keep for medical aid in case anyone was watching. The returned scouts also noted that they found a trail leading away from that camp in the copse of woods near the keep.