We started in a happy place, a shopping place! The party was honored, having secured a home for their clan, and had nearly 3000 gold burning a hole in their collective pouches. Since they were already decently equipped with armor and weapons, they decided to spend it all on consumables and other minor magic items. Healing potions are always useful, and I suggested that they look into Augmenting Whetstones. Those things can turn a +1 sword into a +3 sword for the length of one encounter, which in my mind is worth every bit of 75 gold. Anyway, they ended up turning their stash into three healing potions and three whetstones each, plus some Thieves Tools for Mendas the Rogue, a climbing kit or two, and possibly another odd/end.
The adventure opened in the caves on the Isle of Fury, one month after the party's triumphant return. They were now living in the caves, and were just milling around on an unremarkable day... milling around in full armor, but you know, whatever. We rolled dice to see just where they would start, and the party was pretty much evenly distributed around the viable map:
* Oddny the paladin and Rurik the warlord were in the corridors
* Hermiad the ranger was in a nearby room
*Edgar the fighter, Bartix the wizard, and Mendas were in the far room with the Loki shrine.
* Varin the warlock had other engagements tonight, but we wish him well!
Suddenly the calm afternoon was interrupted by a sharp scream from a third room in the caves. Everyone rolled initiative and reacted! Mendas reached the door first, and saw intruders: two humans and a halfling, standing over the dead bodies of two of their clan. But the room was underground, how did they get in?
One by one, the party made it into the room, or into firing positions around the doorway. Oddny got in first, but couldn't reach the interlopers. She took the brunt of their attacks: a crossbow bolt from the halfling, a thrown handaxe from one human, and a charge from the other... but nothing got through her armor. Hermiad and Rurik got into the room next and started beating up the human in the lead; he was lightly armored and easy to hit.
By the time that Bartix was ready to provide backup, the other human had charged up to meet Edgar, and Mendas was stabbing them in the back. The invading halfing attacked Mendas and hit, doing decent damage and poisoning him. This was their high watermark, though: the humans went down fast, and the halfling was never as hard to hit as he should have been due to some great rolling all around. Dude's AC was 23 with his Crowd Shield ability, but whatever. Rurik wanted to just knock everyone unconscious to be questioned, which is pretty easy to do, it turns out. One human, however, was killed by Mendas with a crit Sneak Attack, so we decided that he had gotten over-excited and stabbed the guy in the heart through the intestines or something equally fatal.
With all of these enemies down, the party heard commotion throughout the caves. Maybe their people were being attacked, or maybe they were just reacting to some assault. Hermiad quickly woke the remaining human (with a Heal roll), and Edgar did a great job of Intimidating him. He spilled that they were from the army of Albion, part of a force sieging Hyboria, and that their ship had broken off to secure this island while the main force went on to attack the Norse people. They had tunneled in with the help of a trained Bullette pup in order to help secure the caves, but they were part of a larger force.
Our party quickly slit their prisoner's throats and hurried to the opening of the caves to help their people. Near this opening they found the women and children of the clan, hunkered down and prepared to defend themselves. Nidbiorg, wife of Bergvid the clan cleric, was organizing them. She told the party that a small invasion force had landed. Earl Gaermund had taken his retinue and other high-level fighters to Hyboria to help defend the homeland, leaving half of the clan to defend the island. Right now, their clansmen fought the contents of several longboats worth of invading troops in the middle of the island. The party asked for some light assistance (Nidbiorg had a healing potion on her, which helped out Mendas), then ran out to engage the troops. All without a five minute rest, very commendable!
They ran down the path and immediately heard the sounds of combat. Ahead were eight of their clansmen, all engaged with orcs! Well, any viking could handle an orc one-on-one. But they saw more of these orc mercenaries in the rear, and a trio of human mages firing at the vikings!
Bartix went first, throwing his new Shock Sphere into the midst of the orcs (and catching two mages as well). It went off, taking four orcs out immediately, and wounding everything it touched. Well, obviously the field had some minions on it.
Rurik and Edgar charged up the right flank to hit the mages in the back. They were supported by Hermiad, who found a sweet spot where he could fire his longbow through the orcs at the humans. One of the mages had been shocked and was now stabbed, and finally went dead. Oddny and Mendas took the orcs in the middle of the field, helping their viking brothers out.
The guys in the back of the field were rolling through the mages, who would shift, fire of a spell, and then do maybe 6 damage to one character. They were soon dead without having much effect on the game. The orcs were harder to chew through, since there were so many of them. Still the party was doing a good job concentrating fire: Orcs have a healing surge they use when bloodied, and I hadn't been able to use it yet! They all went from just above bloodied to dead before their action came around.
But just when it looked like things were wrapped up, reinforcements arrived. The bad kind, too. An Eladrin Fey Knight charged out of the woods, surrounded by an orc bodyguard. Bartix took point again, taking out three of the orcs with a Freezing Cloud. The Fey Knight charged through the frozen ground and met Hermiad midfield, missing him with a 3 roll. Granted, her modified 3 might have hit if the ranger had worse armor; this was a level 8 leader monster! But I think her three die rolls were 3,1, and 3... meanwhile she took an epic beating. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Rurik and Edgar charged the Fey Knight, with Mendas close behund. Again, I stress the Level 8; this creature was hard to hit, AC 23 I think. But they kept doing damage, and she was gone in three turns. I think she was the target of two encounter powers too, that probably helped. The remaining Orc Minion charged Edgar, but he was an annoyance more than a threat. He outlasted the Fey Knight, though.
The rest of the party was taking out orcs left and right, along with their increasingly-freed viking comrades. At the end of the battle a solid ring of vikings surrounded one orc, with Bartix up on a boulder firing down at him. Needless to say he died. Hooray!
The clansmen gave them the skinny once the din of battle died down. The Bera, the clan's dragonship, had set sail and was halfway to Hyboria by now. But the half-completed dragonship could still launch and help out. The players made their plan: they would launch the incomplete ship, sail around the island to safely take on their women and children, then rendezvous with Gaermund at Hyboria.
Oh, and due to the immense amount of killing going on, Mendas made 4th level. Wow, didn't see that coming! This is basically what happens when a player can't make it, but I don't adjust the encounters down.
Casualties:
2 Human Berserkers
1 Halfling Prowler
3 Human Mages
5 Orc Berserkers
9 Orc Drudges
1 Eladrin Fey Knight
18 beers
Next week: All out war!
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