Back in the Saddle
28 June 2012
I'll go over the last two sessions, although the older one was back in early May, I think. We had a bit of a hiatus with the end of the academic year and the beginning of summer (and summer vacation) time.
We assaulted the castle from the top down, with the help of our air raft and our resident teleporter. It turned out that the castle was being used as a base of operations for a group of marauding orc bandits, but they were mostly ready for trouble coming down the road- not trouble coming down their own tower stairs. With ruthless efficiency, we plowed through their ranks, eventually chasing them out of the castle entirely.
After we cleaned up that mess, we decided to go back to the trail of the missing handmaid, who we thought had been heading south along the road, pursued by ogres. We headed west until we struck her trail, and that of her pursuers, then headed south toward a deserted town where she might have sought refuge. When we arrived in the town, we found but one building standing, with smoke issuing from its chimneys. It appeared to be the village forge, and though the rest of the village had been abandoned, looted, and largely destroyed, this building remained relatively intact.
Judging the smoke to be an indication of current habitation, we approached stealthily, but couldn't detect any signs of life. Instead, we noted the presence of two burned and dismembered ogre corpses outside the forge, with another ogre corpse and that of a woman just visible inside. We reconnoitered the building from all sides, but could see no movement, even though the smelting furnaces and the forges seemed to be burning at full intensity. We eventually decided that there might be a fire elemental or a salamander or something in residence, and decided to send in a decoy. Bill's illusionist sent an illusory version of Jeff into the loading entrance, but nothing happened. After a few minutes of nothing, Jeff himself went forward, since his dwarf has magical armor that is especially resistant to heat and fire. Just as he entered the building, he was grabbed by chains that are normally designed to lift the ore into the smelters, and before he knew what was going on, he was drawn up into the chains and moved toward a smelting vat. The rest of us took that as our cue, and we came in after him, trying to destroy the mechanisms and get him down.
While that was going on, Craig noticed the other smelter tip over, and a glowing hot, semi-molten, iron golem-like thing emerged from the vat. We frantically tried to get Jeff down, while fending off a creature so hot that merely being near the thing caused burns, and Craig ended up dragging Jeff out while it tried to grab him. Michael distracted it with a couple of throwing axes, and so it went after him, instead, and his shield arm got pulverized for his trouble. We beat a hasty retreat out of the yard, but Bruce's elf ran in and grabbed the woman's body while the creature pursued Michael, cutting off her hands to do so since she had been chained to a post. The rest of us beat feet, and made it over the low wall that seemed to be the creature's limit, as it couldn't pursue us out of the yard. Burnt, injured, and carrying a dried out corpse, we broke there for the night.
I'll go over the last two sessions, although the older one was back in early May, I think. We had a bit of a hiatus with the end of the academic year and the beginning of summer (and summer vacation) time.
We assaulted the castle from the top down, with the help of our air raft and our resident teleporter. It turned out that the castle was being used as a base of operations for a group of marauding orc bandits, but they were mostly ready for trouble coming down the road- not trouble coming down their own tower stairs. With ruthless efficiency, we plowed through their ranks, eventually chasing them out of the castle entirely.
After we cleaned up that mess, we decided to go back to the trail of the missing handmaid, who we thought had been heading south along the road, pursued by ogres. We headed west until we struck her trail, and that of her pursuers, then headed south toward a deserted town where she might have sought refuge. When we arrived in the town, we found but one building standing, with smoke issuing from its chimneys. It appeared to be the village forge, and though the rest of the village had been abandoned, looted, and largely destroyed, this building remained relatively intact.
Judging the smoke to be an indication of current habitation, we approached stealthily, but couldn't detect any signs of life. Instead, we noted the presence of two burned and dismembered ogre corpses outside the forge, with another ogre corpse and that of a woman just visible inside. We reconnoitered the building from all sides, but could see no movement, even though the smelting furnaces and the forges seemed to be burning at full intensity. We eventually decided that there might be a fire elemental or a salamander or something in residence, and decided to send in a decoy. Bill's illusionist sent an illusory version of Jeff into the loading entrance, but nothing happened. After a few minutes of nothing, Jeff himself went forward, since his dwarf has magical armor that is especially resistant to heat and fire. Just as he entered the building, he was grabbed by chains that are normally designed to lift the ore into the smelters, and before he knew what was going on, he was drawn up into the chains and moved toward a smelting vat. The rest of us took that as our cue, and we came in after him, trying to destroy the mechanisms and get him down.
While that was going on, Craig noticed the other smelter tip over, and a glowing hot, semi-molten, iron golem-like thing emerged from the vat. We frantically tried to get Jeff down, while fending off a creature so hot that merely being near the thing caused burns, and Craig ended up dragging Jeff out while it tried to grab him. Michael distracted it with a couple of throwing axes, and so it went after him, instead, and his shield arm got pulverized for his trouble. We beat a hasty retreat out of the yard, but Bruce's elf ran in and grabbed the woman's body while the creature pursued Michael, cutting off her hands to do so since she had been chained to a post. The rest of us beat feet, and made it over the low wall that seemed to be the creature's limit, as it couldn't pursue us out of the yard. Burnt, injured, and carrying a dried out corpse, we broke there for the night.
posted by Brucifer | 9:17 AM
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