When we last looked in on the Clerics Three, they had arrived in the village of Rooksten, a village that had been attacked. The heroes had largely finished clearing the village of goblins and finding a handful of surviving guards. A half-dozen riders approached with speed, Kemma’s fellow pilgrims. After nightfall, orcs had spread about outside Rooksten’s palisade. Their leader demanded that Chuck be turned over. If so, the others would be allowed to go free. Chuck, of course, responded with sass and battle was imminent. That is where we pick up after the break.
There are potential spoilers for “Storm King’s Thunder” from Wizards of the Coast but it has been significantly modified for our use. This write-up is from Muse and my GM comments are in [brackets and italics] as usual. Bridgett was not able to join us so Rachel played Cora.
As the torches go out, we quickly come up with a plan to cast light on some arrows and try to shoot them out into the area we had seen the orc contingent to try and eliminate their element of surprise.
Pallas sends one flying about 90 feet out, a bit short from the mark, but enough that it highlights for a brief second, an ettin running straight for the drawbridge. Delg, who moments before had been trying to strategize with Otillia, abandons the plan and tells Otilia, “Do whatever you want!” as he readies himself. Chuck prepares a firebolt as suddenly an ettin agilely leaps from the darkness and across the moat, driving his battle axe into the drawbridge and begins chopping at it.
Pallas, Otillia and Chuck immediately attack with Pallas and Chuck managing to land their attacks as a second ettin leaps and lands next to the first one. Cora and Digger, alerted by the cat-owl, immediately head towards Bale’s wagon, fearing they may be under attack.
Delg, hoping to light up the drawbridge area, and attack the two ettins at the same time, casts flaming sphere right behind the two of them.
A disembodied tentacle looking thing materializes right above Chuck and attacks, striking him with the scorpion looking stinger that adorns its tip. Chuck, deciding he likes his body without piercings by floating tentacles, leaps from the tower to the ground 20 feet below, leaving Pallas, to face the tentacle himself.
The ettins abandon their attack on the drawbridge as one climbs up the tower where Pallas stands alone, and the other leaps down, landing in the grassy area beside the tower. The ettin who is atop the tower with Pallas asks him…”You Chuck?” Pallas’ answer is to attack as does the rest of the party, who are desperately trying to kill the ettins. The floating tentacle continues to attack Pallas.
The ettin who was atop the tower with Pallas, leaps across to the other tower where Delg, Otilia and a pilgrim stand. They all attempt to scatter, with Delg managing to catch himself on the bridge. Otilia and the pilgrim are not so lucky. The pilgrim lands heavily on one of the boulders, dying instantly, while Otilia manages to hit the softer ground, but gets the wind knocked out of her.
[Did the pilgrim die? I don’t recall any of them dying.]
The party keeps attacking, finally managing to take one of the ettins down.
Chuck who had retreated a bit from the tower area, hears the sounds of fighting from Bale’s wagon, where Cora and Digger had gone. As the rest of the party continues to attack the remaining ettin, Chuck makes his way to Cora and Digger.
While the ettin battle rages, Cora and Digger have gotten close enough to see that there are 4 orcs surrounding at Bale’s wagon, with one atop of it messing with the crossbow. Cora tries to sneak into the garden for some cover, but the orcs catch sight of her and Digger. Nevertheless she is able to shoot the one atop the cart, killing it before retreating to the garden. Two pilgrims [the two that had been at the wagon] are huddling behind the short garden wall as well. She warns them the orcs have seen her retreat and the two pilgrims dash through the door/gate at the far end of the garden.
Chuck continues to make his way to Cora as an orc clears the garden wall and yells, “Found her!”
More orcs follow into the garden, with one spotting the approaching Chuck. The orc calls out, “I found the colorful one!”
Cora tries to dodge the attack of the orc before her, leaping over the wall, and taking out another orc along the way. The cat-owl appears before Chuck and flaps it’s wings back towards the drawbridge area.
Back at the drawbridge, the party continues to fight the ettin, as the large war chief orc appears atop one of the towers. Alaric, though gravely injured, is able to take down the remaining ettin.
As Otilia administers some healing to Alaric, the war chief yells a battle cry and leaps from the tower [taking some damage], charging Otilia and striking her. Otilia, Pallas, Delg, and Alaric attack this new enemy, trying to take it down, but it appears to be in a rage, nearly foaming at the mouth. Delg goes into the tower to try and attack from in there.
Back near the garden, Chuck casts an attack and takes out 3 of the nearly dozen orcs that have appeared in the area. They are dripping wet, which indicated to Cora that they had swam across the moat to get to us. The remaining orcs surround Chuck, demanding that he surrender.
Cora, trying to even the odds, casts a hail of thorns at Chuck, hoping to damage as many orcs as she can. She hits four of them and grazes two others, but she also badly injures Chuck in the attack. He withdraws, but the orcs follow and once again surround Chuck and Cora.
The group at the tower continues to battle the war chief when it suddenly withdraws and charges at Chuck, grinning evilly and growling, “Chuck!”
Delg, hoping to delay it’s attack, steps out of the tower and tries to magically challenges it into a duel. The orc doesn’t fully accept the challenge but finds that it cannot go more than thirty feet away from Delg without further resisting Delg’s magical compulsion.
The four-armed orc appears atop the tower and once again the floating tentacle appears and attacks Pallas. The orc tries to compel Otilia to flee, but she resists.
Back at the garden, Chuck, finding himself, Cora, and Digger surrounded, shouts, “She wants me alive?” As the orcs agree, Chuck places his hands on his chest, casting burning hands through his own body. He collapses to the ground. The war chief picks him up and tries to take him away, but Delg’s spell from earlier inhibits him from getting far.
[She, in this case, refers to Nethess…presumably the six-armed snake demon thing encountered at the Two-Faced Shrine.
Technically, I’m not sure a caster can target themself in a cone, but hey, it was nice and dramatic…and recklessly Chuck!]
The party splits it’s attacks between the war chief and four arms. As Pallas moves towards Chuck and Cora, the orcs surround he and Cora. Holy light radiates out from Delg [Radiance of the Dawn] and strikes down half of the remaining orcs. Four arms tries to compel Delg to run. Delg, however, is made of sterner stuff and shakes off the compulsion, much as Otilia did. Otilia, tired of all the extra work Chuck has caused her and with Alaric’s promise that he will make Chuck do work for her, shoots a guiding bolt at the war chief, killing it instantly. [Critical Hit!]
The orcs let out an angry wail and charge Otilia, surrounding her. The others are able to take out a few before they can make it to Otilia.
[The orcs showed no concern passing by others, opening themselves up to opportunity attacks. They were focused on reaching Otilia and ripping her heart out…or so they hoped.]
The battle is on again, as Cora focuses on four arms, with Alaric and Delg attacking the remaining orcs. Delg takes out another most of the orcs with burning hands as Pallas reaches Chuck and heals him. The tentacle turns it’s attack on Cora. Four arms retreats back out into the night, disappearing from sight.
The party continues to fight the seemingly never ending army of orcs as they continue to surround Otilia. Suddenly, a loud sound of crashing glass can be heard from the temple and the orc next to Otilia falls to the ground. It’s Kemma. She calls out, “Sorry…it took a while to stack the benches high enough to shoot, and I had to hear all about Suzie…she sounds nice!” The party, renewed by this assistance, makes short work of the remaining half dozen orcs, until there are none left.
[It was a total of eighteen orcs, not including the war chief or four arms.
Suzie, if it hasn’t been mentioned previously, is how Nefton has been taught (or is still learning) how to refer to his unfortunate drunken dalliance with a farm animal that led to his banishment from the village by the lake.]
Cora and Digger head off to check the guards [at their various stations around Rooksten] as Kemma runs out, peppering Alaric with kisses and praising his valor in battle. Alaric tries to let her down gently, but she persists, imploring him to not make her another Radovan[…presumably referring to her lack of reciprocity to his advances.]
[Two of the guards were found to have been slain during the battle, the one manning the crossbow on Bale’s wagon and the one stationed near the windmill.]
We begin to gather the bodies, collecting some javelins and checking for any useful weapons or loot. We gather all the pilgrims and bring Bale’s wagon to the temple to rest. Chuck sets alarms on the temple door and Bale’s wagon.
Delg and Chuck settle in for the first watch as Radovan approaches Alaric, asking him what his intentions are regarding Kemma. Alaric, tired of the issue, baldly states that he has not romantic interest in Kemma. He adds that if Kemma has no interest in Radovan, that is between the two of them. Radovan advises Alaric to stop leading her on, which Alaric denies doing. Radovan wants to know what we are planning on doing next, worried about the safety of he and his followers. Alaric tells him he cannot speak for all of us and that he will discuss things with us in the morning. Radovan says he thinks that he and Alaric got off on the wrong foot, but he feels better now that they have talked. The remainder of the night passes uneventfully.
Come morning, the party decides to find the villagers who, Morak the innkeeper, had, hopefully, led to safety. Chuck and Alaric choose to stay behind to protect Bale and his cart. One guard will go with the rest as the villagers will recognize him.
As the rest of the party sets out, Radovan approaches Alaric once more, apologizing for his previous behavior. He says that our halfling companion had put him on edge with her accusatory questions about the missive he had received. The missive was from the town’s acolyte and he shows Alaric the message. Alaric asks Radovan about his calling to serve Frigga. Radovan says he was working his fields when he heard the goddess call to him, telling him to gather followers and make his way to Oldsten. Alaric asks about his relationship with Kemma. Radovan replies, sadly, that she appears to prefer heroes to “how did you put it…cowards.”
[Alaric had previously implied that Radovan was a coward…or did he outright call Radovan a coward? It was one or the other.]
Alaric once again assures Radovan that he has no romantic interest in Kemma. Chuck, despite his burning curiosity about the conversation Alaric is having with Radovan, helps the villagers to move the mountain of orc bodies outside of the village’s palisade.
[They’re planning on burning the bodies later.]
Outside the village, Cora found a single set of tracks that leads back in the direction of Havel’s Cross, most likely four arms. We set off and follow the other tracks towards the Dripping Caves that we know are about a mile or so away, at the edge of the Oldscrag Woods. As we approach a small waterfall, the guard informs us that the cave system is behind it. The villagers could be hiding within. Cora scouts the area and discovers what looks to be goblin tracks heading to and from the cave. She and Digger approach cautiously. They slip behind the waterfall and into the cave mouth, stopping to let their vision adjust when…
[And that is where we stopped.
Romance, intrigue, combat.
Four Arms fled when it was clear that the tide of battle was turning. I wonder what he’ll do next.
Is Nethess truly the snake demon thing? Or did Chuck piss off someone else in the past and it is just now catching up to him?
Let’s not forget the giants and the goblins. The tracks outside the Dripping Caves indicate that the goblins have been in and out of the cave. At least there aren’t any giant tracks here.
Other bits of information have been tossed out there, but I’m not sure the players have caught on to all of them and may have missed some.
Why did elves attack Rooksten a couple of years ago? (As learned about last session.) Where do elves usually live? Woods, right? The party isn’t near any woods at all now, right? A cave on the outskirts of something called the Oldscrag Woods wouldn’t be near woods, would it?
Station: Iron Maiden (selected for their song, Run to the Hills)
Beer Log: Here’s what we sampled this session, using, as always, our hit, miss, crit, and fumble rating scale.
- Toppling Goliath Rover Truck: Thanks to RJ! A tasty oatmeal stout. A hit.
- Chapman Crafted Absofruitly Red Raspberry: Sheesh…another raspberry beer. Just kidding. It is very fruity and an incredibly well crafted beer. For me, a very solid hit! I regret, however, forgetting to also get out the Chapman B is for Brownie to mix to have a raspberry chocolate beer.]
