Session 04 Summary

[David Roomes]

Session 04 Summary

Our Heroes:

   Belkor  - human fighter
   William - human mage
   Listig - elven thief/archer
   Winlock - dwarf/orc barbarian
   Dathelar - human priest (the party's primary NPC)


Session 4 began with the heroes in the town of Riverfort spending a couple of days resting and recuperating from their week long excursion in the Barakose swamp. During this time, the player characters did the following:

Belkor asked the Baron to aid him in smoothing over things with the mariner's guild (and the Baron dispatched a rider with a letter of recommendation to the guild office in the town of Willow Bay to the south).

Winlock spent 6 gold pieces of the party's funds at the town's main pub, buying round after round for the patrons in hopes of learning some news and gossip. He did hear many tales of woe from displaced refugees, war stories from militia men and so forth, but learned nothing new.

Listig discovered that there was a small group of wood elves within the larger human camp and spent some time with them.

William went to see Dagginmor, the Baron's court wizard. Dagginmor lived in a stone tower on a hill on the opposite side of town. The Baron had asked Dagginmor to provide what assistance to William that he could. To fulfill this request, Dagginmor gave William a large pearl (a necessary component for the identify spell) and a copy of the Locate Object spell. William hoped the Locate Object spell would help the party find the missing mate to the magical boot that they had found earlier in the swamp.

The two wizards, working together, identified all of the arcane treasures that the party had obtained. The list is as follows:

The staff is a Normidian Stun Staff. A powerful, single shot weapon which unleashes a potent blast of sonic and electrical energy that is enough to temporarily stun a large creature. The Normidians use this weapon to hunt torgats.

The boot which they recovered and which is now being worn by Belkor is a one of set of "boots of leaping and dashing". They allow the user to, thrice per day, make either a tremendous leap or a short burst of speed.

The finely crafted arrow which they found in an ornate box at the site of the wagon is now being held by Listig, the team's elven archer. This arrow, it turns out, is something called "Grayliff's Arrow of Endless Persistence". If it is fired at a target and the arrow misses, it will continue to fly, turning corners and so forth, to make another pass. The arrow will make up to four runs against a target before giving up. It will even track a moving target.

The gauntlet was indeed a gauntlet of fireballs. From the identify spell, they learned that a fireball could be conjured and held in the hand indefinitely, or even "cancelled" by closing the fist on it. The gauntlet had only two charges left. However, the spell revealed that the gauntlet could be recharged. However, recharging it would require a "delayed blast fireball" spell, a spell which was beyond both William and Dagginmor. Recharging this gauntlet will have to wait for some time.

Having identified all of the items and obtained the pearl (for future detect magic spells) William thanked Dagginmor and departed, returning to his team.

That same day, another recon team, Team 5, returned from their patrol in the swamp. Only three of the 5 man team was alive. They were riding a sarlang (the same amphibious creature that the party had found three of). They also had an orcish chieftain prisoner. They had hoped to interrogate the chieftain, but unfortunately, the orc chieftain had died from his wounds during the return journey.

That night, the player characters met with Captain Kroetha and the Baron in a war council at the Baron's party. Kafarr, the leader of Recon Team 5, attended this meeting as well. They discussed their next move. The Baron wanted the PC's to put together a team and assault the orcish camp that was in the deep swamp and rescue the prisoners held there. Kafarr volunteered to join the assault team.

The sarlang steed that Kafarr had brought was a welcome addition. With the 3 sarlang steeds the players had recovered, that give them a total of 4 amphibious steeds... each of which could carry 3 riders (once the saddles were modified slightly). So, they had enough to transport beasts to carry 12 riders and cargo into the swamp at great speed.

The party resupplied themselves with water, food, arrows and so forth. They picked several men to join them. Two wood elf archers joined to serve Listig. Kaffar, a skilled mercenary, brought one of his men, a loyal lieutenant named Daimos. One of the Sisters of Sarreth, a woman named Ishara, volunteered to come along so that she might heal wounds and care for any prisoners that they managed to free. Finally, two more militia footmen were assigned – Poldo and Rainkler. Including the four player characters and their NPC cleric, that gave them a total of 12 in their assault force.

The group left early the next morning, riding on the four sarlangs. They made steady progress into the gloomy swamp. The party decided to try to follow the same route as before because they wished to get to the abandoned wagon again. With the help of Listig and the two elven archers (who have a good sense of direction in the woods), they managed to find the wagon again.

As they approached the wagon, the party saw a large reptilian bird-like creature sitting on a branch on a huge tree on the far side of the clearing. It was a large thing with a wing span of more than two meters. It was facing the other direction and had not seen them. The party hesitated because they could see that it was wearing a harness of some kind. They decided to kill it quickly, lest the harness be one of those "eyeball harnesses" that the scythe lizard had been wearing back in Session 1. William launched a magic missile spell at the creature, while all three elves fired arrows. A moment later, the dead creature flopped down into the mud.

The harness, it turned out, was indeed another one of the "eye" harnesses. Taking care not to be seen by the disembodied eyes, William thrust the harness into a bag with several handfuls of mud.

With the eye harness secured, the group began a very thorough search of the area. Now that he knew what the magic boot did, Belkor hoped that he might find the boot missing mate. William scanned the area for magic and found nothing. He cast the "Locate Object" spell, searching for the boot's mate, but it found nothing. The spell does have a limited range and the party assumed that the boot must be too far away. Finally, they tied a rope to the wagon and used one of the sarlangs to haul the ancient and broken wagon out of the mud. Belkor searched the skeleton that he had taken the boot from. He noticed that the bones of the feet were equally clean. Clearly, both feet had boots on, until recently. He searched the mud around the skeleton and found, buried in the mud, an old, battered orcish leather boot, with the sole worn through in several spots. It was clear to the party now... an orc soldier had replaced one of his boots by taking a boot from the corpse, not realizing that the boots were magical. Belkor vowed to check the boots of every humanoid they killed from now on. Somewhere in this swamp was an orc with his boot!

William took some time to finish copying the magical runes from the edges of the wagon, perhaps in hopes that he can one day create such a magical conveyance himself.

Having determined that the missing boot was on the foot of some orc warrior, the party left the area and continued on toward the orcish war camp. Now, if you remember, this orcish war camp had a watch tower some 8 kilometers from it and the party was going to reach the watch tower first. They could have avoided the tower and proceeded on to the main camp, but after some discussion, they decided to attack the watch tower first and kill all of the orcs and such there. Based on their previous reconnaissance, they expected about six or seven enemies to be here.

Upon finding the tower, Listig approached by stealth and scouted it out. The tower was short and squat and ancient. Although it was only about 10 meters tall, Listig could not get a good look at the roof or who was up there. He could hear two voices up there though. He reported back that he saw only two people. The rest were most likely inside.

The tower was surrounded by a field strewn with the rubble and a ruined perimeter wall. Between the great blocks of stone and large bushes, it provided ample cover. The party approached the watch tower by stealth, until they were close enough to smell orc and hear bits of conversation.

William sent his raven in for a closer look at the rooftop. He was close enough so that he could look through the raven's eyes. On the roof was a goblin, a huge horn and an oil soaked pyre of wood, waiting to be lit.

The party quietly formulated a plan. William cast an invisibility spell on Belkor who moved toward the tower. Their plan was to have Belkor on the roof, invisible, to prevent anyone there from sounding the alarm – either by blowing the horn or lighting the fire.

The others advanced on the tower. Belkor made a little noise and the goblin on top of the tower moved around, first looking for the sound, then backing up to the far wall and listening intently. He happened to move into sight of Listig and the twin elven archers. They all fired arrows, all of which hit and the goblin was dead before he hit the ground.

Belkor stayed on the roof. He grabbed the flaming torch on the roof (which was next to the oil soaked pile of wood in the brazier) and tossed it off the back of the roof. The flaming torch was seen through an arrow slit by the orc leader inside. The orc began yelling for the goblin in an annoyed voice and proceeded to walk outside, where he ran into the party.

The orc drew his weapon and yelled for help. Battle erupted. The tower inhabitants were outnumbered three to one, but put up a good fight. During the battle, the orc leader called for his pet, a large wolf, which came bounding up the stairs from the cellar. The wolf dove into the party and began attacking Rainkler. It managed to kill Rainkler before the rest of the party killed it.

It was a short battle, but the party was victorious and Rainkler was the only fatality. After the battle, they tended to wounds and then searched the tower, inside and out. The only thing of interest was that they found the missing boot. One of the orcs was wearing it and he had decorated it with twine, shells, bone and horns. Once all the orcish decoration was removed, it was a perfect match for Belkor's boot. Belkor now has both magical boots and can now use their powers.

The cellar was part storage and part kennel. There was a dead woman's body down there... a victim of the orcs. They checked her, but did not recognize her. It was not either of Farmer Ulrich's missing daughters. The party found nothing else of interest. The tower was stocked with some food, ale and miscellaneous supplies. There were several weapons and pieces of armor, but little else.

After some discussion, they decided on their next move. They would leave the sarlang steeds tied up at the tower and proceed, on foot, to a position half way to the war camp and set up an ambush. They would leave Poldo, the militia man, behind in the tower. Poldo would sound the horn in 2 hours. It was hoped that the war camp would send reinforcements to the aid of the tower.

The party found a small clearing that was along the route between the war camp and the tower. They arranged themselves in an ambush pattern. Listig and his two fellow elf archers were up in the trees with their bows. The rest were scattered around the base of the trees, around a clearing, hidden from view.

Ishara, the Sister of Sarreth, was a healer only, not a combatant. She stayed hidden in the bushes a ways off, until the battle was over.

A group of 5 saurians, one big harothi saurian and one orc captain came running through the swamp. As soon as this group reached the center of the small clearing, the three archers loosed their arrows. That was the signal for attack. Belkor came running up behind the group, hoping to block their escape back toward the war camp.

The saurians and orc scattered, attempting to flee from the arrows, by getting out of the clearing and into the trees. The humanoids ran different directions, each running into different parts of the party. This resulted in several small, separate battles.

The harothi leader ran into Dathelar and William, both of whom retreated, running along the edge of the clearing. A running battle ensued.

Meanwhile several of the saurians retreated, running right into Belkor who had been attacking from the rear. Belkor quickly found himself up against two saurians and the orc captain. The orc captian was wielding twin scimitars much like Belkor . The four of them traded blows back and forth. Belkor found that the orc was as good as he was, possibly better. Quickly wounded and realizing he was outmatched, Belkor used the magic boots to make a tremendous leap out of combat. He then immediately turned and used the magic gauntlet to throw a fireball back at the group that had been attacking him. His aim was off a bit and he managed only to engulf the orc captain and one saurian in the flames. (Note - that was the second to last fireball that Belkor just threw... the gauntlet now has only one charge left). The saurian died immediately. The orc captain was badly burned, but still on his feet. The orc captain activated something on his armor. There was a flash of light, one of several strange copper disks on his armor vanished and several of his burns healed.

The captain and the remaining saurian ran out of the clearing and toward the tree line where they ran into Winlock, Kafarr and Daimos. All five began fighting.

The harothi saurian, was fighting William and Dathelar. Spells were hurled and the harothi struck with his huge athalas (double bladed spear) over and over. William was struck more than once and eventually went down, unconscious. Dathelar stood protectively over William and continued to fight the saurian, but Dathelar was outmatched and losing.

During this fight, the three archers fired arrows into the various saurians continuously. Seeing William and Dathelar in trouble, all three archers concentrated their fire on the big harothi.

The orc captain used several healing spells (which apparently came from his armor) to stay on his feet and continuing fighting. Belkor advanced to help Winlock while the archers continued to hammer away.

It took quite a bit of team effort and many hits (and Winlock in a barbarian rage), but eventually both the captain and the harothi went down. The remaining saurians were dispatched before they could flee. Of the players, almost everyone was wounded and Daimos (Kafarr's man) was killed. After the battle, Ishara and Dathelar tended to wounds and healed everyone up with spells.

Poldo, who had stayed behind at the tower to blow the horn, eventually made it back to the party, but not in time to participate in the fight.

The party has lost two NPC's so far (Rainkler and Daimos).

Here's who's left:

The main party: Belkor, William, Listig, Winlock and Dathelar.

Remaining recruits:  Kafarr (mercenary), the two elven archers, Ishara (healing priestess), Poldo (common militia man)


After they were healed up by their two priests, the party dragged the bodies back into the clearing and searched them. The armor of the orc captain was enchanted chainmail and had a number of bronze disks sewn into the chain mail. The disks were inscribed with strange orcish runes. William cast an identify spell upon the armor and verified that it was safe to use (not cursed for non-orcs) and that the healing would work for any wearer. Each disk is a single spell of healing. There are seven left on the armor. The armor was given to Winlock. It's a bit large on him, but it will suffice.

Belkor took the twin scimitars that the orc captain had been using. The scimitars are not magical, but they are of exceptional quality. They are fine steel, with handles wrapped in soft leather, trimmed with gold filigree and with a large ruby embedded in the hilt. Their balance is exquisite as is their edge. They are not orcish made... most likely stolen. These matching scimitars are undoubtedly quite valuable.

While they were searching the bodies and scanning for magic, Belkor noticed a large winged creature sitting on a branch at the edge of the clearing. It was another of the winged serpent creatures, like the one they had seen back at the wagon. This one was wearing an eye harness as well. All five eyes in the harness were watching them intently.

As the creature took flight, the three archers fired at it and hit it three times, but the wounded creature managed to escape and was soon lost amidst the foliage of the trees.

The party began heading back toward the tower (that's where they had left the four sarlang steeds). Their plan now is to get the steeds and then head out in the swamp, making a wide circle, and approach the war camp from the side. They plan to attack the war camp soon... within a matter of hours, before it really has a chance to react to the loss of the group they sent out.

This is where we ended Session 4.