Session 09 Summary

[David Roomes]

My apologies for all of the NPC names that keep showing up. I know it must be hard to keep track of. This party of heroes likes to recruit NPCs. It seems as if every peasant boy, freed slave, escaped prisoner or bar maid that they run into gets a sword put in their hand and marched into battle along side the player characters. These guys LOVE to have a huge party. 

I'll do what I can to keep the names you need to keep track of to a minimum.

The Player Characters  (aka the "Heroes")

Winlock – orc/dwarf barbarian, wearing heavy chainmail armor and wielding a big war hammer
William – the party's wizard, human male, robed and armed with a broad array of spells
Belkor – the dashing human swordsmen/mariner wielding twin scimitars
Listig – the elven thief/archer equipped with several different enchanted arrows

The Current Non Player Characters

Dathelar, a human priest of Imarus (a civilar to be precise). Mostly a healer/priest, not much of a fighter. Has been with the party since day 1.
Halimir, an elven archer, who has fought along side the party for several weeks now.
Tular, a human sailor, whose ship had been captured by the witch's minions.


When we last left them, the party was monitoring the "river camp" that they had found through the eye harness attached to the winged lizard creature. The creature was perched on a branch near the camp. Through the magic mirror, William mentally commanded the creature to move a couple of times to get better views of various buildings in the camp.

At one point, a pair of saurians on guard duty spotted the creature and shot arrows at it. William commanded the creature to return to them, but the animal only made it about half way before bleeding out and crashing into the swamp. It would have taken a great deal of magic and effort to find the lost harness, so they just marked it off as a lost cause and shattered the mirror linked to it. They still have one harness/mirror set in a sack which they can use if they need to.

The party was still camped out at "crow's nest lookout" near the mouth of the river. This involved two saurian scouts in a nearby tree at the river's edge, a mere 100 meters up stream. One of the saurians was on the ground at the base of the tree by a shekul (a mud dome hut) and the other saurian was on a wooden platform at the tree top.

The party decided it was time to take those two saurians out before going further. Listiq and William stealthily advanced until they were within range of a sleep spell (about 30 meters) and William cast the spell. Instantly the saurian on the ground slumped forward in blissful sleep. Luckily he didn't fall into the fire over which he was roasting a rabbit.

Listiq snuck up and slit the throat of the sleeping saurian. He then used his magic "stealth" ring to invisibly and quietly climb up the rope ladder and get up on the wooden platform. The saurian up top was sitting at the edge of the platform. With a well placed kick, Listig sent the saurian plummeting to his death.

A quick search of the shekul and the tree platform found nothing of interest. Other than food and drink, the saurians had only their weapons. What the players had earlier thought were alarm horns turned out to be drinking horns. Both saurians were armed with bows and arrows.

Many of the arrows were normal. However, each saurian had a few arrows of unusual design. These arrows had bright red fletching and, in place of a bladed tip, there was a cluster of bright red faceted crystals. Under a detect magic spell, the arrows glowed. William studied them and cast identify on them. It turns out that these arrows were "pyrotechnic" arrows. Upon impact they detonated much like a firework. The party deduced that these were intended to be a warning signal to the camp 5 miles up the river. It seemed that these arrows might also be useful for attacking as well.

The party stayed at the saurian's recon post. That night, the two elves, Listiq and Halimir, advance toward the big camp further up river to do another reconnaissance. However, about half way there, Listig heard snoring a ways off through the trees. The pair quietly made their way toward the snoring. The came across a large clearing that had an old stony ruin in it. Next to the ruin was a small campsite. Four orcs were sleeping around a cold campfire. It was obvious that one had fallen asleep on guard duty with a bottle of ale cradled in his arms. A half loaded wagon of scavenged stones and bricks from the ruin sat next to them. Three humans and a grum were chained to the wagon, also sleeping.

The two elves took up positions over two of the orcs and slit their throats. The big orc on "guard duty" suddenly awoke and yelled to the other.  The orcs leapt up and drew weapons. Despite sleepiness and alcohol, the big orc managed to wound Halimir. Listig fired several arrows into the other orc, causing him to retreat and cower behind a big tree. Listig turned to find Halimir on the ground and the big orc about to swing a killing stroke. Listig fired an arrow and got lucky. The arrow hit the big orc right in the eye. He was dead before he hit the ground. Listig then turned back to the orc behind the tree and pulled out one of the phase arrows.

"This arrow shoots through trees" said Listig.

"Ha!" barked the orc "You lie!".

And with that Listig proved he was telling the truth. He loosed the arrow, which flew through the tree and hit the very surprised orc center chest. Down he went.

By this point, the four men chained to the wagon were awake and watching the fight with great interest. Listig found a key on the belt of the big orc and unlocked their manacles and chains. He told them to take the weapons and armor of the orcs and they did so. The two elves then guided the four freed men back to the rest of the party.

The party questioned the four freed slaves and they learned a great deal about the camp further up the river. It turned out that the camp was a hidden base from which a band of pirates had been operating. With their ship, the "Dragon's Fang", they would targeted merchant ships traveling the shipping routes of the Mercian Bay and the Wild Sea. Three of the four freed men were pirates from this base. One had been a prisoner of the pirates captured during one of their naval attacks.

The pirate base had operated for more than three years successfully. However, all of that had changed a few months ago when the witch's minions had overrun their camp and conquered the pirates. Some of the pirates had been killed in the attack, some had been taken away and some had been imprisoned. The witch's minions (mostly saurians and orcs) had taken control of the camp. They were now using the camp as a base in the southern end of the Barakose Swamp.

The player characters asked how many saurians and orcs held the river camp. The four freed men indicated it was about three dozen soldiers (including leaders). There was also a human wizard and a giant, both of whom had been ensorcelled with charm spells by the witch.

Finally, the players asked about the three ships they had seen. One of the ships was the Dragon's Fang, the ship that the pirates had been using. The other two were the Amethyst (Tular's ship) and the Storm's Lament (a Mercian naval ship). The latter two ships had only been recently captured by the witch's minions.

The four freed men were also able to tell the players that this interest in ships was quite recent. The witch's minions were using this as a base to hold the southern swamp and monitor the region. There were regular patrols and such. However, everything changed about two weeks ago when the leaders began sending out their men to capture other ships. Now that they had three ships, they were putting all of the resources and efforts into repairing the ships (all three had some minor battle damage) and stocking the ships with enough provisions for a long sea journey.

The group discussed it and decided that this was too much for them. They needed help. This river camp was clearly an important base and the fact that the ships were being made ready for a sea voyage was important too. The army which had been dropped off at the tower at the midpoint of the coast was wasted where they were. That tower, it now seemed, was unimportant. The players decided that the army should abandon that tower and come down south to help them with this camp.

William cast a sending spell and targeted the mind of the commander of the army. The spell allows 25 words only and allows an equally brief response.

His message indicated that a major camp had been found and that the army should come south to the shipwreck as soon as possible. (The shipwreck was on the map which both the players and the army had and it effectively marked the location of the hidden river mouth).

The response came back almost immediately. "Currently under attack. Significant force, but we outnumber them. As soon as battle concluded, will abandon this tower and head south to your location".

The party knew that it would take roughly one and half days for the army to arrive (plus however much time it would take to conclude the battle they were in). It was still very early morning. The party spent the entire day resting and recuperating, mainly to allow their two spell casters to replenish spells.

They also wanted to give the army a chance to get closer.

They had a meeting and discussed the current situation. They decided they would sneak into the river camp in the middle of the night, learn what they could and possibly harass the camp. They wanted to "soften them up" a bit before the army arrived.

They waited until nightfall and then traveled on foot toward the river camp. The four freed men came with them to help. (These four were looking for some payback on the saurian and orcs that had taken their pirate base and enslaved them and their friends). After several hours, the party arrived within sight of the camp. It was well past midnight.

As a reminder, this camp consists of the following: there is a stone keep sitting on a small island in the middle of the river. The keep two stone bridges that connected it to either river bank. The party was on the south bank. On the south bank, the stone bridge ended with stairs and a small stone building (which the four freed men identified as the prison). One one side of the prison was a large wooden workshop and the docks, where all three ships were moored. On the other side of the prison, there was a large wooden building. This large building had been a tavern of sorts run by the pirates. However, now the orcs were using it as a barracks building.

The party watched from the tree line quietly for about an hour. There were a couple of sentries posted on top of the keep and the occasional person moving between buildings, but for the most part, most of the camp seemed to be asleep.

Listig snuck forward to the tavern/barracks building and did a quick recon. He peered through a ground level window and could see that many of the orcs were still awake and were in the main bar area. They were drinking and gambling and cheering on two orcs who were arm wrestling.

The party discussed a plan of action. They decided to bar the doors shut and light the building on fire. [Yeah, these guys aren't exactly lawful good... are they?]

Every now and then an orc would come out for a quick piss, but other than that, they were all inside enjoying the festivities.

The plan was to douse the walls of the building with oil or some other flammable substance, block the doors and hit the building with several fire based attacks simultaneously (of which the party actually has several).

Listig snuck over to the workshop in hopes of finding something flammable in there. In the workshop, there was a big muscled orc hammering away at a piece of metal at the forge. Listig carefully snuck in, found two small casks of oil and made it back to the barracks. The party poured the oil over the walls and then barred the east and west doors with large branches from the forest.

Listig then fired one of the pyrotechnic arrows at the west side of the building while William hit the east side with a burning hands spell. The oil caught and the building very quickly went up in flames. After a few seconds, there were orcish yells of panic from within. Very quickly, pounding came at the east and west doors.

One of the guards atop the keep saw the fire and blew an alarm horn.

One orc leapt out of a second story window. Another came crashing out of a door on the north side of the building that the party had failed to block. Belkor ran to intercept that orc and do battle with him. After skewering that orc, he positioned himself at that door ready to take on any other orc that came out of that door.

The plan worked pretty well and the barracks building went up taking most of the orc soldiers with it. A couple made it out and were cut down.

It wasn't very long at all before soldiers came pouring out of the keep. A number of saurian brutes came running across the stone bridge.

Belkor had a "dragon spittle" grenade (an alchemical incendiary splash grenade) that he had acquired a couple of sessions ago. He threw the grenade on to the stone bridge, but just beyond and behind the oncoming saurians. It struck the middle of the bridge, splashed everywhere and began burning fiercely. It wasn't going to bring the bridge down (since the bridge was stone), but it would prevent anyone else from crossing that bridge for a few precious minutes.

Winlock came up on the side of the building to help Belkor deal with orcs escaping from the burning building while the others dealt with the saurians crossing the bridge.

The group of saurians reached the end of the bridge and attacked and soon everyone was embroiled in battle. The big orc from the workshop joined in the fray as well. The party was scattered and battling orcs and saurians in at least three different locations.

A big orc captain came crashing out of the barracks and came face to face with Belkor and Winlock. The three began trading blows. He was a tough customer, but Belkor and managed to hammer him with might blows and eventually brought him down.

At this point, the giant, who had come wading across the river, walked up onto the river bank and came into the light of the burning building. He was a sight. Twenty feet tall, muscled and brutish. He was dressed in bones and fur and held a massive stone and wood club in one hand. The giant surveyed the fiery building, the multiple fights and seemed to consider where to go first.

Just as they were about to retreat, Belkor and Winlock noticed that blood was spurting from the orc captain's wound... he was still alive! Thinking he'd make a good prisoner and possible source of information, they grabbed the unconscious orc, picked him up and began running away from the advancing giant. They headed around the burning barracks building with all possible haste.

Meanwhile, on the bridge, the flames were out and a larger group of saurians and orcs was running across the bridge from the keep. The saurians advanced, but instead of attacking, they ran toward the workshop and docks.

It became a bit of a running fight at this point. The party were still fighting, but trying to run back toward the treeline. Two of the freed men joined Belkor and  Winlock in trying to carry the unconscious orc captain as they ran. The heavy orc was slowing them down, however and the giant, with his huge strides, was rapidly advancing.

Listig fired his web arrow at the giant. The arrow struck and engulfed the giant in webbing. Because the giant was passing near the flaming barracks, the web caught on fire. So now there was a FLAMING giant advancing on the party. Neither the webs nor the fire seemed to slow the giant down at all.

The giant caught up to the group and swung his huge club. He struck one of the freed men and flattened him with a single blow.

As he raised his club to strike again, a commanding voice from the bridge yelled "Little Joe! Protect the ships!"

Hearing the command, the giant stopped his pursuit, turned and began lumbering back toward the camp. William noticed that most of the soldiers were heading to the docks to protect the ships, rather than douse the barracks or pursue the attackers.

Listig separated from the rest of the party. Using his invisibility ring, he ran back toward the workshop and fired a pyrotechnic arrow into the midst of the workshop. He then fled.

The pyrotechnic arrow exploded within like a firework. The workshop had many flammable things – casks of oil, bags of cotton, saw dust, raw lumber, jars of pitch and more. As Listig ran back toward the group and the treeline, he heard a series of explosions behind him. Within seconds, the workshop was in flames.

The party managed to get back to the treeline with their unconscious orc captive, leaving chaos behind them. Several of them had been wounded. Also, three of the four freed men had died. Only one, a pirate named Branx, had survived.

The whole camp was awake now with people running between buildings. Most people were heading toward the docks to protect the boats. The giant was standing waist deep in the river, using a rowboat as a bucket to hurl huge quantities of water on to the workshop in an attempt to put the fire out.

The party fled into the swamp as fast as they could, pausing only a few seconds for Dathelar to cast a healing spell, on the orc captain. With him, bound and gagged, they ran. It was a solid four hours of travel until they got back to the mouth of the river and the river gate. They got back just as the sky was beginning to lighten with the first rays of dawn.

The Cloud Hawk was anchored just off the coast. The party grabbed the landing boat and made two trips to get everyone safely on board the ship.

This is where we ended Session 9.