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Raiders of the Overreach
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8044066" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 28: DEATH MARSH</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: </p><p style="margin-left: 20px">Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 9</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 2/fighter 4</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 9</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 9</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 9</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 16 July 2020</p><p></p><p>- - -</p><p></p><p>The road being traversed by the horse-drawn wagon on its southward journey was starting to look more like a trail, and at times a rather faint one at that. Progress slowed as the forest environment became more and more swampy and eventually, as the sun started to go down, the group called it a night and set up the <em>ironsilk tent</em> by the side of the trail - a patch of dry land large enough to accommodate the dimensions of the tent but little else. The horse was unhitched, fed, and tethered by a rope long enough to allow it some movement.</p><p></p><p>It was a relatively quiet evening. The next morning the group made a quick breakfast of trail rations and got back on their way. (Jhasspok was saddened but not entirely surprised when Lauren turned down his kind offer of a dried dung beetle; he'd figured out by now that there was probably something wrong with mammals' taste buds or something - likely to do with their ridiculously flat-tipped teeth.) Cramer took up the reins and they were off, skirting Durnhill - the kingdom from where the forces trying to capture Lauren hailed - and making for the southern kingdom of Ossirna, where Marlo would make her pitch for an alliance against the Overreach drow before heading back northeast to get to the Azure Glade, the land where Lauren's grandfather, Arcturus, was an important wizard in their Council of Guilds.</p><p></p><p>It was slow going, with several false starts and having to backtrack more than once; eventually, Jhasspok started scouting ahead and finding out in advance whether the horse and wagon would make it down a particular path or if they needed to find an alternate route. The lizardfolk was of two minds about the swampy terrain: on the one hand, it was good to be in water again, but this was like no water Jhasspok had ever seen before - it was muddy, and murky, and you couldn't see very far through it. All in all, it just served to make him homesick for the Bioluminescent Sea of the Underdark.</p><p></p><p>Jhasspok had just ambled back from scouting once again to give directions to Cramer when they heard a scream off to the side, along a different path than the one the lizardfolk had checked out. Without hesitation, Cramer pulled on the reins and sent the horse trotting down this new path, heading toward the sounds of the screams. The cleric cast a <em>longstrider</em> spell upon himself, anticipating the need to be able to keep up with the others once they were all on foot.</p><p></p><p>It wasn't long before the group approached the screaming woman and it became perfectly understandable why she'd been doing so: she was down on the ground, doing her best to keep a hungry manticore at bay. It was obviously trying to begin eating her before even bothering to go to all the trouble of slaying her first; she was doing everything in her power to wriggle away, but from what the group by the wagon could see she didn't appear to even have a weapon with her - or if she had, it had apparently been knocked away and was likely somewhere in the shallow marsh water.</p><p></p><p>While the others were grabbing up their weapons or bringing combat spells to the forefront of their brains, Khari Hammerslammer was looking up at the clouds - or rather, at one particularly low-hanging one which seemed to hover just above the treetops. "That's a weird-looking cloud," he observed. "I wonder why it's so low?"</p><p></p><p>"Might've been somebody she was traveling with, who escaped using <em>gaseous form</em>," Cramer guessed.</p><p></p><p>"What, that big of a cloud?" scoffed Khari. But Cramer was no longer paying attention to him and Khari turned his attention to the matter at hand, for the gnome was bringing the horse to a halt (no sense in letting it get eaten by the manticore - it would make for a much better meal than a scrawny human woman) and the others were jumping off the wagon. Khari did likewise, sprinting forward and taking up a defensive position, calling at the manticore to "come get some from someone who could fight back!"</p><p></p><p>Before everyone got too far away, Cramer cast a <em>water walk</em> spell on those of the group still within range (Khari was already too far away and Lauren was staying in the wagon as she'd been told), thinking that would at least prevent them from being dragged underwater or stepping into an unseen hole or something. Utred raced across the shallow waters, charging straight for the manticore with his greataxe out and ready. He powered a swing right at the thing's head - a surprisingly dwarven-looking head, Utred thought, ringed with a lionlike mane that looked rather like the barbarian's own unkempt hair and beard. Five <em>magic missiles</em> went streaking past Utred's shoulder to strike the manticore in a pattern hitting the side of his head, his shoulder, and his batlike left wing. The beast roared in pain from both attacks.</p><p></p><p>Jhasspok followed suit with a charge of his own but his was not as successful, for halfway through his sprint he was distracted by the fact his feet weren't touching the water but rather hovering an inch or so above the surface. <em>What in the world?</em> As a result, his swing went wide and the manticore pulled his right wing back in time to avoid Jhasspok's battleaxe altogether.</p><p></p><p>Still, the creature was bleeding profusely from Utred's deep cut and wounded by Marlo's <em>magic missiles</em>; snarling in fury, he lashed out with both sets of forepaws and snapped his vicious teeth at Jhasspok. Fortunately, by then the lizardfolk had overcome his surprise at the <em>water walk</em> effect he was experiencing for the first time in his short life and was back to paying attention to the life-or-death fight in which he was currently engaged; as a result, he was able to get his shield up in time to fend off the manticore's attacks.</p><p></p><p>And then the woman lying in the mud, apparently bleeding from having been bitten several times by the manticore, stepped purposefully to her feet, showing no signs of discomfort whatsoever...and dropped the illusory disguise making her appear like a hapless human victim of the vicious winged monster that had been savaging her. Now, her illusion abandoned, she showed herself for what she truly was: an annis hag, 8 feet of hunched crone with claws capable of ripping a victim's entire face right off its skull.</p><p></p><p>Jhasspok happened to be closest to the annis so he became the hag's first target. Striking out with her wicked claws, she ripped through the lizardfolk's scales before he even realized she was a threat, as his attention had been focused solely on the manticore and his back had been turned to her. Jhasspok hissed in pain, whirling around to face this new threat and simultaneous wondering where this tall, ugly woman had come from and what had ever happened to the younger woman the manticore had been attacking.</p><p></p><p>Following the cue of their leader that the time for subterfuge was now past, the two harpy archers dropped down out of their obscuring <em>fog cloud</em> spell and both shot at Cramer before flapping back up into the protective vapors. Cramer arched his back in pain as both arrows hit him between the shoulder blades, the pain of their piercing intensified by the infusion of incredible cold they shot into the little gnome's wounds.</p><p></p><p>Khari, however, hadn't yet noticed the harpies; he was rushing up to strike the manticore since the fool thing hadn't come to him. Racing through the water, splashing with every step as he was <em>not</em> under the effects of a <em>water walk</em> spell, he brought his warhammer crashing into the side of the manticore's head with every ounce of force he could muster behind it. There was a loud <em>snap!</em> as the weapon caved in the side of the manticore's oversize skull and the bearded beast collapsed into a heap in the shallow waters of the swamp.</p><p></p><p>Once again the harpies dropped out of their cloud and attacked, this time splitting their shots between Marlo and Cramer and hitting each with a <em>frost arrow</em>, for they had identified these two as potential spellcasters and wanted them out of the way first. Cramer hadn't even had time yet to try to heal the wounds from their first attack; now, it was all he could do to activate his <em>ring of invisibility</em> and stagger a bit away, so the harpies wouldn't know exactly where he was and would have a hard time shooting him again - and he was glad he'd had the foresight to cast the <em>water walk</em> spell, for by hovering just above the swamp waters he wasn't giving away his position. Marlo followed suit, casting an <em>invisibility</em> spell upon herself, then activating her <em>boots of levitation</em> to elevate herself a good 30 feet high; it had the same effect, for now the harpies would have to either guess her location or go shoot at somebody else for a while.</p><p></p><p>Utred attacked the annis with his greataxe - she was right there and his axe was better suited for ground combat; he didn't want to have to switch to a ranged weapon to try to take out one of the harpies. The hag grunted in pain as his blade struck true, but she looked to still have plenty of fight left in her. She expertly dodged Jhasspok's battleaxe, but then he did the same against her counterattack with her claws, now that he was aware of her. Khari moved away from the manticore's corpse and added his warhammer to the fight against the annis.</p><p></p><p>"Get down here and give me a hand, you cowards!" the annis called out in the Giant language, which Cramer understood perfectly well as he wore his <em>helm of comprehend languages</em>. The harpies reluctantly complied, dropping back down out of their <em>fog cloud</em> again and targeting the dwarves attacking their leader, while Cramer staggered up behind Utred and cast a <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell, hopefully protecting the gnome and both dwarves and maybe even the lizardfolk. It was too hard for Cramer to figure out the distances involved; he'd have to see to his own healing before he passed out....</p><p></p><p>Utred's greataxe went biting into the annis hag again, causing her to shriek with pain. Marlo cast an <em>empowered magic missile</em> spell at one of the harpies, since they'd conveniently stayed down out of their <em>fog cloud</em> for a bit and this was the first real opportunity she'd had to target one of them. (Plus, there were already a trio of her friends piled on the annis; Marlo was pretty sure between the three of them they'd be able to take her out.) Jhasspok proved Marlo's unvoiced assertion correct soon thereafter, bringing down the annis with a powerful overhand strike from his battleaxe, cutting deep into her black heart and slaying her on her feet; he barely had enough time to tug his weapon out of her corpse before she collapsed into the dark, brackish marsh waters and lay still.</p><p></p><p>Holding his breath as always when he performed this maneuver, Khari used the power of his <em>earth glide warhammer</em> to disappear beneath the surface of the ground, then sprinted into position before popping back up where he wanted to be: directly behind one of the harpies, who'd had to fly down low to get in her latest bow-shot against the dwarves. Cramer, still invisible, took the opportunity to activate the power of his <em>prayer bead</em>, casting a <em>cure serious wounds</em> spell upon himself. The arrows popped out of his back and back into visibility as he cast the pre-set spell from the <em>prayer bead</em>; fortunately, they sank below the surface of the ankle-deep water and were out of view almost immediately and the little gnome suspected neither of the harpies, in the midst of battle, had even noticed. His position was likely safe, then, which was good - he was too tired to move at the moment.</p><p></p><p>Utred spun in place and charged the second harpy as she was fitting another <em>frost arrow</em> from the quiver at her hip; the dwarf imagined an over-the-shoulder quiver would be problematic for a creature with the upper body of a woman but a pair of eagle's wings growing out of her shoulders. He caught her with the edge of his blade even as she scrambled to flap backwards out of range.</p><p></p><p>Marlo repeated her <em>empowered magic missile</em> strategy, once again targeting the harpy currently about to be struck from behind by Khari. Jhasspok attacked that same harpy; history had shown that no matter what Utred was fighting, he usually didn't need much help. Then, reeling from the lizardfolk's attack and Marlo's <em>magic missiles</em>, the harpy was nearly slain by Khari's unexpected attack: how in the Hell did that damned dwarf get <em>behind</em> her? She dropped to the ground and took an involuntary step to the side, nearly bumping into a tree, and saw she was now facing down a hulking lizardfolk and a hammer-wielding dwarf, both intent upon her death. She didn't have time to fit another arrow to her longbow, for they'd be upon her before she could wield her bow and she could only target one of the two in either case.</p><p></p><p>So she began to sing.</p><p></p><p>As ugly as the harpy might be (and make no mistake, these two harpies had been vying with their annis hag leader for the coveted "Most Hideous Inhabitant of the Sanguine Swamp" title), her song was quite captivating: a beautiful, trilling burst of music quite at odds with her bestial appearance. With any luck, she'd have the entire gang of enemies dropping out of combat and then she and her sister could pick them off at their leisure. But that wasn't how it turned out; of the five combatants, only Jhasspok's reptilian brain froze up at the beauty of the song; Utred continued his attacks upon the other harpy and Khari raised his warhammer, ready to strike.</p><p></p><p>Still, the lizardfolk's captivation at least granted the severely-wounded harpy a possible avenue of escape. Pushing past the dazed reptile - who offered no resistance and let his battleaxe hang unused at his side - she started to take to the skies. Her sister, she noted, was still fighting the other dwarf, flapping backwards to grant her enough space to shoot him with an arrow from her <em>frost longbow</em>. She was gaining in elevation, too, apparently having come to the same decision as her sister: that these people were far too much trouble than it was worth fighting them, especially since if they fled to the safety of the skies the troublemakers would likely soon be on their way, leaving the bodies of the manticore and the annis behind (both of whom would make perfectly acceptable, if not particularly appetizing, meals for the harpy sisters).</p><p></p><p>Cramer saw the two harpies both starting to rise higher in the air; soon they'd be too high up for the ground-based combatants to be able to reach them with their melee weapons. But the clever gnome had a solution to that problem: he cast a <em>fly</em> spell on Utred and called for him to fly after the retreating harpy. Utred was only too happy to comply; he found that just by willing it he was able to soar straight up at the startled harpy, whose face froze in a look of complete shock as the dwarven barbarian attacked her in her own element. </p><p></p><p>Marlo cast another <em>empowered magic missile</em> spell, this time splitting the targets between the two harpies; the one fleeing by Jhasspok looked to be about dead in any case so she only sent one of the five streaking her way. Both harpies died instantly, falling back into the muck of the swamp and dropping their <em>frost longbows</em> in the process. Utred noted where the one wielded by the harpy he'd been fighting had fallen and went to go retrieve it - he was intrigued by its ability to empower arrows with cold energy and had determined he'd be adding it to his rapidly-expanding arsenal of weapons.</p><p></p><p>Shortly after the harpies had been slain, Jhasspok snapped out of his enforced reverie and looked about in confusion. Apparently, while he'd been lost in the beauty of the harpy's song, the others had finished the combat without him. Oh well. The dwarves had snapped up the longbows the harpies had been wielding and had removed the quivers of arrows from around their waists, but Marlo and Cramer had found a bag of coins and valuable gems tied at the annis hag's belt; there was plenty enough to go around.</p><p></p><p>Jhasspok set aside his battleaxe and brought out his dagger, approaching the dead manticore. Seeing the lizardfolk's intention, Cramer called out, "Leave it, Jhasspok!"</p><p></p><p>"But meat is--" began the lizardfolk before getting cut off with a determined, "Leave it!" Cramer explained further. "We don't need the meat right now, but we do need to get through this blasted swamp while there's still daylight. Lauren thinks we can be back on solid ground in about six hours or so and I for one don't want to waste any daylight we don't have to. Come on: back to the wagon, everybody!" he called to the others. Jhasspok just shrugged and put his dagger back into its sheath at his hip.</p><p></p><p>Cramer's advice turned out to be wise, for it was nearly nightfall before the ground beneath the group returned to a more solid footing and they no longer had to push the wagon out of the mud, as they'd had to do countless times that day. They found a good spot for an overnight campsite and Cramer saw to setting up the <em>ironsilk tent</em>. However, while doing so he suddenly stiffened, casting his head to one side as if listening intently.</p><p></p><p>"Everything okay?" Marlo asked, hearing nothing out of the ordinary herself.</p><p></p><p>"<em>Sending</em> spell," Cramer explained. "From Niradi. We're to hit Ossirna and the Azure Glade, but they'll be sending other envoys to Durnhill and Ashfall. Apparently they're concerned we're too recognizable from our encounter with those elementals trying to capture Lauren."</p><p></p><p>"We do kind of stand out a bit from the crowd," Utred said, grinning. </p><p></p><p>Jhasspok didn't understand why everyone was looking at him.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p>Logan had intended this adventure to go much longer than it did, even though the entire setup was just one simple ambush fight, but he hadn't counted on the manticore getting a "3" on initiative and then completely whiffing all three attacks against Jhasspok - it died before it got to land a single attack. And we made much quicker work of the annis and harpy archers than he had anticipated. As it was, we were done with the entire session in just a little over an hour. (We were done before 8:00 PM, with a 6:30 start time and a good chunk of chatter as we were getting set up, as usual.) But that's the way it goes sometimes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 8044066, member: 508"] [B]ADVENTURE 28: DEATH MARSH[/B] PC Roster: [INDENT]Cramer Appleknocker, gnome cleric 9[/INDENT] [INDENT] Jhasspok, lizardman 3/barbarian 2/fighter 4[/INDENT] [INDENT] Khari Hammerslammer, dwarf fighter 9[/INDENT] [INDENT] Marlo Pendragon, human sorcerer 9[/INDENT] [INDENT] Utred "Buckets" Butterflinger, dwarf barbarian 9[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 16 July 2020 - - - The road being traversed by the horse-drawn wagon on its southward journey was starting to look more like a trail, and at times a rather faint one at that. Progress slowed as the forest environment became more and more swampy and eventually, as the sun started to go down, the group called it a night and set up the [I]ironsilk tent[/I] by the side of the trail - a patch of dry land large enough to accommodate the dimensions of the tent but little else. The horse was unhitched, fed, and tethered by a rope long enough to allow it some movement. It was a relatively quiet evening. The next morning the group made a quick breakfast of trail rations and got back on their way. (Jhasspok was saddened but not entirely surprised when Lauren turned down his kind offer of a dried dung beetle; he'd figured out by now that there was probably something wrong with mammals' taste buds or something - likely to do with their ridiculously flat-tipped teeth.) Cramer took up the reins and they were off, skirting Durnhill - the kingdom from where the forces trying to capture Lauren hailed - and making for the southern kingdom of Ossirna, where Marlo would make her pitch for an alliance against the Overreach drow before heading back northeast to get to the Azure Glade, the land where Lauren's grandfather, Arcturus, was an important wizard in their Council of Guilds. It was slow going, with several false starts and having to backtrack more than once; eventually, Jhasspok started scouting ahead and finding out in advance whether the horse and wagon would make it down a particular path or if they needed to find an alternate route. The lizardfolk was of two minds about the swampy terrain: on the one hand, it was good to be in water again, but this was like no water Jhasspok had ever seen before - it was muddy, and murky, and you couldn't see very far through it. All in all, it just served to make him homesick for the Bioluminescent Sea of the Underdark. Jhasspok had just ambled back from scouting once again to give directions to Cramer when they heard a scream off to the side, along a different path than the one the lizardfolk had checked out. Without hesitation, Cramer pulled on the reins and sent the horse trotting down this new path, heading toward the sounds of the screams. The cleric cast a [I]longstrider[/I] spell upon himself, anticipating the need to be able to keep up with the others once they were all on foot. It wasn't long before the group approached the screaming woman and it became perfectly understandable why she'd been doing so: she was down on the ground, doing her best to keep a hungry manticore at bay. It was obviously trying to begin eating her before even bothering to go to all the trouble of slaying her first; she was doing everything in her power to wriggle away, but from what the group by the wagon could see she didn't appear to even have a weapon with her - or if she had, it had apparently been knocked away and was likely somewhere in the shallow marsh water. While the others were grabbing up their weapons or bringing combat spells to the forefront of their brains, Khari Hammerslammer was looking up at the clouds - or rather, at one particularly low-hanging one which seemed to hover just above the treetops. "That's a weird-looking cloud," he observed. "I wonder why it's so low?" "Might've been somebody she was traveling with, who escaped using [I]gaseous form[/I]," Cramer guessed. "What, that big of a cloud?" scoffed Khari. But Cramer was no longer paying attention to him and Khari turned his attention to the matter at hand, for the gnome was bringing the horse to a halt (no sense in letting it get eaten by the manticore - it would make for a much better meal than a scrawny human woman) and the others were jumping off the wagon. Khari did likewise, sprinting forward and taking up a defensive position, calling at the manticore to "come get some from someone who could fight back!" Before everyone got too far away, Cramer cast a [I]water walk[/I] spell on those of the group still within range (Khari was already too far away and Lauren was staying in the wagon as she'd been told), thinking that would at least prevent them from being dragged underwater or stepping into an unseen hole or something. Utred raced across the shallow waters, charging straight for the manticore with his greataxe out and ready. He powered a swing right at the thing's head - a surprisingly dwarven-looking head, Utred thought, ringed with a lionlike mane that looked rather like the barbarian's own unkempt hair and beard. Five [I]magic missiles[/I] went streaking past Utred's shoulder to strike the manticore in a pattern hitting the side of his head, his shoulder, and his batlike left wing. The beast roared in pain from both attacks. Jhasspok followed suit with a charge of his own but his was not as successful, for halfway through his sprint he was distracted by the fact his feet weren't touching the water but rather hovering an inch or so above the surface. [I]What in the world?[/I] As a result, his swing went wide and the manticore pulled his right wing back in time to avoid Jhasspok's battleaxe altogether. Still, the creature was bleeding profusely from Utred's deep cut and wounded by Marlo's [I]magic missiles[/I]; snarling in fury, he lashed out with both sets of forepaws and snapped his vicious teeth at Jhasspok. Fortunately, by then the lizardfolk had overcome his surprise at the [I]water walk[/I] effect he was experiencing for the first time in his short life and was back to paying attention to the life-or-death fight in which he was currently engaged; as a result, he was able to get his shield up in time to fend off the manticore's attacks. And then the woman lying in the mud, apparently bleeding from having been bitten several times by the manticore, stepped purposefully to her feet, showing no signs of discomfort whatsoever...and dropped the illusory disguise making her appear like a hapless human victim of the vicious winged monster that had been savaging her. Now, her illusion abandoned, she showed herself for what she truly was: an annis hag, 8 feet of hunched crone with claws capable of ripping a victim's entire face right off its skull. Jhasspok happened to be closest to the annis so he became the hag's first target. Striking out with her wicked claws, she ripped through the lizardfolk's scales before he even realized she was a threat, as his attention had been focused solely on the manticore and his back had been turned to her. Jhasspok hissed in pain, whirling around to face this new threat and simultaneous wondering where this tall, ugly woman had come from and what had ever happened to the younger woman the manticore had been attacking. Following the cue of their leader that the time for subterfuge was now past, the two harpy archers dropped down out of their obscuring [I]fog cloud[/I] spell and both shot at Cramer before flapping back up into the protective vapors. Cramer arched his back in pain as both arrows hit him between the shoulder blades, the pain of their piercing intensified by the infusion of incredible cold they shot into the little gnome's wounds. Khari, however, hadn't yet noticed the harpies; he was rushing up to strike the manticore since the fool thing hadn't come to him. Racing through the water, splashing with every step as he was [I]not[/I] under the effects of a [I]water walk[/I] spell, he brought his warhammer crashing into the side of the manticore's head with every ounce of force he could muster behind it. There was a loud [I]snap![/I] as the weapon caved in the side of the manticore's oversize skull and the bearded beast collapsed into a heap in the shallow waters of the swamp. Once again the harpies dropped out of their cloud and attacked, this time splitting their shots between Marlo and Cramer and hitting each with a [I]frost arrow[/I], for they had identified these two as potential spellcasters and wanted them out of the way first. Cramer hadn't even had time yet to try to heal the wounds from their first attack; now, it was all he could do to activate his [I]ring of invisibility[/I] and stagger a bit away, so the harpies wouldn't know exactly where he was and would have a hard time shooting him again - and he was glad he'd had the foresight to cast the [I]water walk[/I] spell, for by hovering just above the swamp waters he wasn't giving away his position. Marlo followed suit, casting an [I]invisibility[/I] spell upon herself, then activating her [I]boots of levitation[/I] to elevate herself a good 30 feet high; it had the same effect, for now the harpies would have to either guess her location or go shoot at somebody else for a while. Utred attacked the annis with his greataxe - she was right there and his axe was better suited for ground combat; he didn't want to have to switch to a ranged weapon to try to take out one of the harpies. The hag grunted in pain as his blade struck true, but she looked to still have plenty of fight left in her. She expertly dodged Jhasspok's battleaxe, but then he did the same against her counterattack with her claws, now that he was aware of her. Khari moved away from the manticore's corpse and added his warhammer to the fight against the annis. "Get down here and give me a hand, you cowards!" the annis called out in the Giant language, which Cramer understood perfectly well as he wore his [I]helm of comprehend languages[/I]. The harpies reluctantly complied, dropping back down out of their [I]fog cloud[/I] again and targeting the dwarves attacking their leader, while Cramer staggered up behind Utred and cast a [I]magic circle against evil[/I] spell, hopefully protecting the gnome and both dwarves and maybe even the lizardfolk. It was too hard for Cramer to figure out the distances involved; he'd have to see to his own healing before he passed out.... Utred's greataxe went biting into the annis hag again, causing her to shriek with pain. Marlo cast an [I]empowered magic missile[/I] spell at one of the harpies, since they'd conveniently stayed down out of their [I]fog cloud[/I] for a bit and this was the first real opportunity she'd had to target one of them. (Plus, there were already a trio of her friends piled on the annis; Marlo was pretty sure between the three of them they'd be able to take her out.) Jhasspok proved Marlo's unvoiced assertion correct soon thereafter, bringing down the annis with a powerful overhand strike from his battleaxe, cutting deep into her black heart and slaying her on her feet; he barely had enough time to tug his weapon out of her corpse before she collapsed into the dark, brackish marsh waters and lay still. Holding his breath as always when he performed this maneuver, Khari used the power of his [I]earth glide warhammer[/I] to disappear beneath the surface of the ground, then sprinted into position before popping back up where he wanted to be: directly behind one of the harpies, who'd had to fly down low to get in her latest bow-shot against the dwarves. Cramer, still invisible, took the opportunity to activate the power of his [I]prayer bead[/I], casting a [I]cure serious wounds[/I] spell upon himself. The arrows popped out of his back and back into visibility as he cast the pre-set spell from the [I]prayer bead[/I]; fortunately, they sank below the surface of the ankle-deep water and were out of view almost immediately and the little gnome suspected neither of the harpies, in the midst of battle, had even noticed. His position was likely safe, then, which was good - he was too tired to move at the moment. Utred spun in place and charged the second harpy as she was fitting another [I]frost arrow[/I] from the quiver at her hip; the dwarf imagined an over-the-shoulder quiver would be problematic for a creature with the upper body of a woman but a pair of eagle's wings growing out of her shoulders. He caught her with the edge of his blade even as she scrambled to flap backwards out of range. Marlo repeated her [I]empowered magic missile[/I] strategy, once again targeting the harpy currently about to be struck from behind by Khari. Jhasspok attacked that same harpy; history had shown that no matter what Utred was fighting, he usually didn't need much help. Then, reeling from the lizardfolk's attack and Marlo's [I]magic missiles[/I], the harpy was nearly slain by Khari's unexpected attack: how in the Hell did that damned dwarf get [I]behind[/I] her? She dropped to the ground and took an involuntary step to the side, nearly bumping into a tree, and saw she was now facing down a hulking lizardfolk and a hammer-wielding dwarf, both intent upon her death. She didn't have time to fit another arrow to her longbow, for they'd be upon her before she could wield her bow and she could only target one of the two in either case. So she began to sing. As ugly as the harpy might be (and make no mistake, these two harpies had been vying with their annis hag leader for the coveted "Most Hideous Inhabitant of the Sanguine Swamp" title), her song was quite captivating: a beautiful, trilling burst of music quite at odds with her bestial appearance. With any luck, she'd have the entire gang of enemies dropping out of combat and then she and her sister could pick them off at their leisure. But that wasn't how it turned out; of the five combatants, only Jhasspok's reptilian brain froze up at the beauty of the song; Utred continued his attacks upon the other harpy and Khari raised his warhammer, ready to strike. Still, the lizardfolk's captivation at least granted the severely-wounded harpy a possible avenue of escape. Pushing past the dazed reptile - who offered no resistance and let his battleaxe hang unused at his side - she started to take to the skies. Her sister, she noted, was still fighting the other dwarf, flapping backwards to grant her enough space to shoot him with an arrow from her [I]frost longbow[/I]. She was gaining in elevation, too, apparently having come to the same decision as her sister: that these people were far too much trouble than it was worth fighting them, especially since if they fled to the safety of the skies the troublemakers would likely soon be on their way, leaving the bodies of the manticore and the annis behind (both of whom would make perfectly acceptable, if not particularly appetizing, meals for the harpy sisters). Cramer saw the two harpies both starting to rise higher in the air; soon they'd be too high up for the ground-based combatants to be able to reach them with their melee weapons. But the clever gnome had a solution to that problem: he cast a [I]fly[/I] spell on Utred and called for him to fly after the retreating harpy. Utred was only too happy to comply; he found that just by willing it he was able to soar straight up at the startled harpy, whose face froze in a look of complete shock as the dwarven barbarian attacked her in her own element. Marlo cast another [I]empowered magic missile[/I] spell, this time splitting the targets between the two harpies; the one fleeing by Jhasspok looked to be about dead in any case so she only sent one of the five streaking her way. Both harpies died instantly, falling back into the muck of the swamp and dropping their [I]frost longbows[/I] in the process. Utred noted where the one wielded by the harpy he'd been fighting had fallen and went to go retrieve it - he was intrigued by its ability to empower arrows with cold energy and had determined he'd be adding it to his rapidly-expanding arsenal of weapons. Shortly after the harpies had been slain, Jhasspok snapped out of his enforced reverie and looked about in confusion. Apparently, while he'd been lost in the beauty of the harpy's song, the others had finished the combat without him. Oh well. The dwarves had snapped up the longbows the harpies had been wielding and had removed the quivers of arrows from around their waists, but Marlo and Cramer had found a bag of coins and valuable gems tied at the annis hag's belt; there was plenty enough to go around. Jhasspok set aside his battleaxe and brought out his dagger, approaching the dead manticore. Seeing the lizardfolk's intention, Cramer called out, "Leave it, Jhasspok!" "But meat is--" began the lizardfolk before getting cut off with a determined, "Leave it!" Cramer explained further. "We don't need the meat right now, but we do need to get through this blasted swamp while there's still daylight. Lauren thinks we can be back on solid ground in about six hours or so and I for one don't want to waste any daylight we don't have to. Come on: back to the wagon, everybody!" he called to the others. Jhasspok just shrugged and put his dagger back into its sheath at his hip. Cramer's advice turned out to be wise, for it was nearly nightfall before the ground beneath the group returned to a more solid footing and they no longer had to push the wagon out of the mud, as they'd had to do countless times that day. They found a good spot for an overnight campsite and Cramer saw to setting up the [I]ironsilk tent[/I]. However, while doing so he suddenly stiffened, casting his head to one side as if listening intently. "Everything okay?" Marlo asked, hearing nothing out of the ordinary herself. "[I]Sending[/I] spell," Cramer explained. "From Niradi. We're to hit Ossirna and the Azure Glade, but they'll be sending other envoys to Durnhill and Ashfall. Apparently they're concerned we're too recognizable from our encounter with those elementals trying to capture Lauren." "We do kind of stand out a bit from the crowd," Utred said, grinning. Jhasspok didn't understand why everyone was looking at him. - - - Logan had intended this adventure to go much longer than it did, even though the entire setup was just one simple ambush fight, but he hadn't counted on the manticore getting a "3" on initiative and then completely whiffing all three attacks against Jhasspok - it died before it got to land a single attack. And we made much quicker work of the annis and harpy archers than he had anticipated. As it was, we were done with the entire session in just a little over an hour. (We were done before 8:00 PM, with a 6:30 start time and a good chunk of chatter as we were getting set up, as usual.) But that's the way it goes sometimes. [/QUOTE]
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