"Retake the Island" - Concluded!

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Ten, “The Villain Revealed”, August 6th, 1018 1:00 P.M.

Back in the Kaloon Lordholding, Narg, Mojo, Lannon and Kruk finally make it downstairs for “breakfast”, joining Serita, Adrianna and Timothy, who are having what for them is “lunch”. Also dining at the Regal Carriage Inn are Immy dining by himself, three fighters over by the fireplace, a young couple oblivious to everyone else in the room, a Ukko cleric, a Paladin, and the bartender at the bar.

They are soon joined by Ki-Geloryn, and have a pleasant discussion about the previous day’s events and its outcome. Ki says that Queen Jennifer, Lord Kindor, and Lord Aldorn have all left the city at dawn. He also adds that the three ships plan to all dock at the Thenossia Lordholding coastal City of Halla for further discussions among the three of them. Ki departs.

All present suddenly feel an aura of tension and uneasiness around them. Timothy, the Paladin, and the Ukko cleric at the bar appear to be especially affected. Immy immediately turns invisible, and activates his Helmet of True Sight, taking in the room around him. Even though the room appears to have unchanged to the other occupants, the visor detects that all of the window shutters have actually been closed, and that brick walls have been erected in front of the door to the street, the door to the kitchen, and in front of the staircase to the second floor, essentially trapping all of the occupants in the room.

A tall human, wearing black robes and a black hat appears before them (this is the mage who had been observing them). The man looks to be in his sixties and has a long white beard. He addresses the Silver Moon adventurers, “So, you thought that I would never track you down. Now you will learn that you cannot conspire against me, and steal my things”. None of the group has ever seen this man before, and do not appear to be overly concerned. Mojo yawns, and says to Narg “Did you put in a request for an over-the-top villain.” “Not this early in the day,” is Narg’s casual reply. Timothy has detected the evil aura of the man to actually be to the left of the projected image that the party sees.

The man is put out at their casual indifference to him. Kruk interjects “I hate overly dramatic Magic-Users. So guys, who exactly is this guy?”. “Damned if I know,” answers Lannon. “Damned you will be!” the man yells. Kruk then asks him directly “So, are any of us supposed to know you?” The man responds “This does not concern you, this is a matter between me and them (pointing to the five Silver Moon members).” “Fine,” says Serita, “I’ll ask the question then, who are you?”

“I am the one who you stole from!” the man yells. “And that answer is supposed to help?” states Mojo. “Look pal,” says Narg, “I think you have us mistaken for somebody else.” Flushed with anger, he declares “You deny that you’ve stolen from me! While she (pointing to Serita) sits there wearing MY RING.” Serita starts to wrack her brain to remember where her Ring of Teleportation originally came from. She eventually remembers that they found it inside a store on Alton’s home world, where the wizard Vaughn had hidden it (In Module 73 ”The K-Mart Kaper”).

She says to the group, “I think he’s that mage who was worked with Vaughn” That she remembers Vaughn’s name, but not his, infuriates the man. He yells “You will regret making an enemy of the great Morgarth!" "OK, so now we know who he is," comments Narg. "Was that so hard?" Mojo says to the villain. The mage answers "You will pay for such insolence! I have taken from you all that you hold dear. Everything that you had is now mine.” “Huh?” asks Narg, “Would you mind clarifying that?” "My god," says Mojo, "He took our still."

The villain roars “I have taken your precious island from you, and all of your family, friends, and followers.” Mojo yawns and comments “So what, there were too many people there anyway, you’ve probably done us all a favor.” Timothy is noticeably upset, and blurts out “What have you done with them?” The villain responds “I have taken them captive, where my personal guard now watch over them as prisoners. Their only hope is for you to save them” “How many people are on your island?” Kruk asks. “Too many,” replies Narg, “maybe we should look at this as an opportunity.”

“And why exactly have you done this?” asks Serita. He responds “To teach you insignificant whelps a lesson. Your continued existence is due only to my patience. This will teach you that it is I who is in control of your lives, and not you. If you can somehow manage to defeat my ten clusters of guards, then they will live.” Mojo interjects “I’m still not feeling real motivated about this.” Lannon reminds him “Your cousin Lono is on the island.” “That makes me even less motivated,” replies Mojo.

“Furthermore,” bellows the villain, “there is one other fact, which may motivate you to act. My senior Druid has informed me that your island is directly in the path that the worst hurricane to strike this continent in centuries. It will collide with your island in three to four days, and I can guarantee you that the weakest among your group will not survive. Imagine the fear facing children separated from their parents, familiars and other animals separated from their masters, when the worst ravages of the weather assail them!”

“You say there are ten groups?” asks Lannon. “Yes,” states the villain. He continues, “Since there are five of you I have arranged for guards numbering five-hundred, broken into ten separate clusters.” “One-hundred to one odds, “ comments Mojo, “that seems about right.”

Morgarth continues “It has taken me three years to reestablish my fortress on another continent, following the assault by you and your allies on my Zalparian home.” (During Module 66 “Assault on the Orc Lair”, although it was actually not the Silver Moon but an adventuring party led by the Cleric Dominic who were responsible for Morgarth’s forced exit). “Your later attempt to ally with my traitorous partner Vaughn, and steal my unique magic's from me, did not go unnoticed.” “Hey, we killed Vaughn for you!” says Narg (In game #500, the concluding game of Module #73, "The K-Mart Kaper”) “For me, I think not,” says the villain, “that merely shows the depths of your ability to betray your allies.”

He continues “I have chosen this as a test of worthiness for my new sentries. They have strict orders not to plunder from your homes or from their prisoners until after all of you have been defeated. This will give them further incentive. I will tell you this, my most formidable sentinels are holding the three most powerful from your party. It will take the might of all of you, and any others that you might rescue, to attempt to free them, and still you will fail. Once my guards have finished with the five of you, I will address you again, and decide upon your true punishment for opposing me. Perhaps at that time you will be more humbled, and will grovel before me, as you should be doing now. I may then show you mercy, and execute you quickly, as gratitude for your assistance in training and testing my guardian forces, as well as arming and armoring them with the best of your magic's." "Thank goodness," comments Mojo, "I was afraid that you would just talk us to death instead."

While all this is going on, invisible Immy with his helmet of true sight has detected the villain's actual location five feet to the left of his projected image. Immy invisibly moves in and successfully tosses a Necklace of Strangulation around him. The necklace constricts, which would be immediately fatal if not for the Stoneskin spell upon the man. The true villain remains invisible, but the projected image grasps at his throat, as it duplicates the actions of the real mage. This also works as a signal for the party to attack, although all of their attacks (except for Timothy’s, which misses) strike where the image rather than the real foe. Both the image and man disappear, instantly reappearing by the front door. All in the room also now see what Immy had known, that the window shutters are closed, and that brick walls cover the exits from the room.

Morgarth bellows at Immy “You foolish creature. This matter did not concern you at all. Now you have made a powerful enemy of me, and once I get this annoying jewelry of yours removed, you too will suffer the consequences of your actions.” He then addresses the party “When you leave this room, do not attempt to go anywhere other than your island, or I will order the prisoners to be immediately executed. You will learn that you should not have ignored or underestimated me. You will fall beneath the forces that I have assembled.” He then teleports away. Narg tells Immy "Nice try with the necklace there." "Yeah, I was hoping it would shut him up," replies the gnome.

After he has left Serita asks “Now what do we do.” Mojo says “Well, I’m still not really motivated, but maybe we should go to the island.” The group debates that the mage may have been lying to them, and that everyone on the island is fine, but decide that it is best to proceed as if they had been told the truth.

The room itself is investigated, the walls in front of the doors being solid. At the window, a shutter is pried off, revealing the building to be surrounded by a Wall of Force. Beyond the wall they see activity taking place in the city, the tavern still being in Cortang, and conclude that the others present in the room will be safe remaining behind. Immy declares that since he is now on the mage’s enemy list he will be joining them. Kruk and Adrianna also volunteer to go with them.

The group discusses who on the island would be deemed the three most powerful. They conclude that Cassie-Andra and the Cloud Giant Herculean are most-likely two of them. Identity of the third is debated. They rule out Milo, Ixnoxsis and Phraakeese, as those three are currently off-Island. Lannon says that a mage would be biased towards magic-users, so it is probably Fiona. Narg suggests Mark. Serita suggests the Pond Dragon Hokuru. Timothy suggests Isaiah. No firm conclusions are reached.

Narg suggests the traditional strategy of “Get’em.” Serita says “I like blow-them-up better.” Kruk whispers to Lannon “Not experts on strategic tactical planning, are they?”

Timothy produces a map of the ten-mile diameter island from inside of his backpack, and the party debates where to teleport to. A number of locations are discussed. They decide that it is better to choose a remote location, from which they can then scout out the more populated places. An abandoned cabin on the northwestern side of the island, once the home of the magic-user Crystull, is chosen as the group's destination. They take out the two bags of holding for the party to travel in, and Immy produces a third. All seven except for Serita climb into the bags. Serita changes into the form of a large white eagle, dons the ring of teleportation, grabs the two bags, and teleports away.

Serita teleports into the area near Crystull’s cabin. The cabin has not been occupied for several years, and the area is somewhat overgrown. Crystull had cleared the timber within fifty feet of the building, but several small saplings and other plants have now grown up around it. The once-traveled road to the east is also overgrown, and barely visible.

Serita flies around the area, spotting a pair of goblins on a wooden platform, eighty feet up a tree some 175 yards south of the cabin. She lands in the woods at a mid-point between the cabin and the tree, emptying the party from the bags of holding. While still in bird form, she draws a arrow in the dirt in the direction of the tree. Lannon and Immy head off in that direction. Serita flies on to the base of the specific tree, gesturing upward. Immy asks if there is a strategy. Lannon answers “Yes, fight, fight and then fight some more.” “Wouldn’t it be better to take them by surprise rather than fighting?” Immy comments. “Good point,” says Lannon, “OK, the new plan is violence, violence, and the some more violence.”

Lannon and Immy scale the tree. They see two awake goblins on an upper platform, and two more goblins sleeping on a platform six feet below, with a wooden ladder connecting the two platforms. They sneak up to the lower platform, and dispatch the two sleeping goblins. Lannon uses his Boots of Spider Climbing to climb beneath the tree to come up on the first upper platform as Immy charges the closest awake goblin. Immy causes the goblin to loose his footing and fall to his death. Lannon attacks the other one, killing it. Lannon’s goblin is searched, revealing it to have a wand. Below, Kruk heads over to check out the goblin that fell.

From this vantage point, they spot another platform in tree 175 yards to the northwest, with goblin-sized shapes on top of it. They realize that these lookout points form two-thirds of a triangle around the cabin, so they also look same distance northeast, see what might be a more concealed lookout post. They then panic as they spot Mojo and Narg approaching the building. Mojo and Narg’s approach is from the direction of this platform, and temporarily shielded by the building from the other two lookout points by the building itself, but Lannon and Immy fear that their fighter allies might decide to move around the cabin and be seen.

Narg and Mojo check the door, finding it locked. Using their exceptional strength, they push on the door until the old lock gives way, which releases a gas trap, with a red gas floating upward. Mojo has the good judgment to shut the door, and the two run back to the party in the forest.

Lannon and Immy do not notice any excessive movement from the other platform, and conclude that they must not have seen the brief plume of red smoke that escaped before the door was shut. They climb down and head northeast. Kruk sees them and follows, until they stop the noisy fighter, and send him back, with a message for the others to stay put, that there are goblin guards in the trees.

Kruk does this. Never being one to take orders, Serita flies on to assist the two thieves, who are climbing the second tree. Using the same strategy as before, they take out the two sleeping, then fight the other two, both awake goblins falling the ground this time. In the third three, the sound and movement of one is the falling goblins is seen by a guard, but not in enough detail to tell what has happened. Their two sleeping goblins are woken up, and told to climb down and go investigate.

Lannon and Immy find a dropped wand identical to the one from the other platform. They guess that it must be some form of signaling device. Serita, in bird form, lands on their platform, holding a bag of holding. Lannon and Immy point her in the direction of the suspected third platform, and climb into the bag.

As she flies towards that particular tree, she sees two goblins now at the base of it. She lands very near them, and starts to dump the bag. The noise of the dwarf falling out of the bag attracts the attention of the pair of goblins. Lannon, while still half inside the sack, falls onto the ground to see two goblins above him, weapons drawn. He attacks, while still lying on the ground, as Serita dumps Immy from the bag, then flies upward. They soon eliminate their foes, and begin to climb the tree.

Serita flies up towards the lower platform, seeing one goblin standing on it peering downward. She flies right into him, knocking him off. The falling goblin very narrowly misses hitting the climbing thieves. Unfortunately for the party, the goblin on the lower platform was waiting to hear back from the scouts sent below, with the one on the upper platform being the one holding the wand. After seeing his ally fall after being attacked by the large white eagle, he triggers the wand, sending a bright lime-green beam of light way up into the air, reaching an altitude of 4,000 feet before bursting into a lime-green and white firework, accompanied by a loud boom. This is the goblins final action, as Serita then knocks him from the platform.

Three miles to the south, at the school, the flare is spotted by the other Silver Moon party. They ask Parisi if he knows what that is about. “Yes”, he answers, “Each of the ten teams has their own color-coded wands, which sends up a signal like that when a location is compromised and being abandoned.” He adds “Of course, our team was forbidden to use ours by Cronin, since that would also forfeit our winning the competition among the teams.”

They asks if he knows what the different colors are and mean. Parisi says no, that only the team leaders know the colors of the other team, but that he does have knowledge of what this particular lime-green-and-white signal meant. He says that there are three designated “escape locations” on the island, for the adventuring teams to go to once they abandon a location. Each of these three locations is an abandoned building on the island. The thieves of the ten teams were briefed as to these locations, and the location of the hidden traps at these locations. Parisi’s partner received this briefing, and filled him in.

The group calculates that the signal came from the home that previously belonged to Crystull. Parisi says that a small team of guards was left to watch over these areas, and signal if they were compromised. The party asks him the location of the other two “escape locations”. He says one is an abandoned cabin at the southeastern edge of the lake, which they conclude is Araby’s former home. He identifies the flare color for this location to be violet. The third is in a building in a rear corner of the city atop the island, with a fuchsia flare color. He also says that there is a fourth escape location too, but that this place and flare color are known only to the team leaders.

The group speculate that the “Big Guns” must be involved, and decide to traverse the three miles through the woods to investigate. They set up a single-file marching order, carefully guarding Parisi.

Back at Crystull’s cabin, the group discusses the ramifications of the signal flare having gone off. They decide that, rather than running away and putting themselves on the defensive, they will actually make preparations to lie in wait to ambush whoever comes to investigate the signal.

Adrianna asks Kruk what he thinks of their new allies. He replies "A druid who thinks she's a giant white eagle, a crazed dwarf who climbs trees, and a gnome that drops goblins hundreds of feet out of trees…I guess I'd say they're about average."

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Eleven, “Taking the Ship”, August 6th, 1018 1:00 P.M.

Meanwhile, back in Gotham City, the Penguin has glued Batman and Robin onto a giant…ops, wrong story. Back on the ship Molly III, in the ship's hold, the human guard assigned to watch the kids is also fairly intolerant of children, and demands complete silence. An hour later he is replaced by another human. This human is much friendlier, which annoys thirteen-year-old Henry Junior even more. Henry demands "diapers, food, and bandages" which the man, who calls himself Craig, leaves to get. Young Horatio is sent back out the door, to the ladder down to the bilge deck, where is opens up the rear bilge doors (to both slow the ship and leave a trail of bilge water). The others use the time to complete the weapon, which is hidden before Craig returns.

Back above deck, prisoner and crew member Fritz manages to adjust the bow sail in such a way that it flies loose, and scrapes along the ship. He and his ally Richard pull it up, telling their guards that it is ruined, and that they need to get it's replacement, from the bow storage locker. They check with the Mage, the only enemy aboard who appears to know anything about ships, who allows them to retrieve it. While in the compartment, Fritz pulls out the new sail, and opens it up, throwing the ends to Richard and their two bugbear guards. Shielded by the sail, Fritz opens the door to the weapons locker within the storage locker and grabs four daggers, which he stuffs into his boots and his belt under his shirt.

They exit the room, and replace the sail, Fritz stashing the daggers on deck. They head back to the locker to put away the damaged sail, Fritz using the same technique to obtain four more daggers. During the next few hours he manages to distribute a dagger to each of his crew on deck so that all six are now armed (Fritz and Gorski each keeping two). Lothar signals Vincenzo that they are now all armed. After a while, two of the six bugbear guards are sent below.

In the other cabin below, the Silver Moon crewmembers Bruce (the human), Jonathan and Toshiro had been placed in a rear windowless cabin, and had been told by a human enemy to "get some sleep, you'll be working on deck all night". An alert and well-armed bugbear guard was locked into the room with them. After six hours later this guard is now replaced by a bugbear that is far less attentive. Seeing this as an opportunity, the three launch an attack. Toshio uses the "waste bucket" provided to them, then flings it and its contents into the bugbear's face. The other two tackle the monster, grabbing his longsword as Toshiro throws a hammock cord around the monster's neck, and begins to garrote him. The three soon kill the guard, but find he has no key to unlock the door.

They spend the next hour using the sword to quietly carve away the doorframe where the lock mechanism is mounted. They stop when a pair of bugbear approach, the bugbears entering the adjacent cabin to them, which they then hear the previously seen human say "get to sleep", and soon silence.

The three crewmembers, Bruce (the human), Jonathan and Toshiro, eventually exit the room, going into the hallway and finding a ladder up, ladder down, and doors to both the adjacent room and ship's hold.

They head down to the bilge deck, finding the two rear upper bilge doors open, and decide they could escape out them in an emergency. They then hear movement above, so remain quiet. They hear footsteps entering the hold, then leaving a few rounds later. Meanwhile, in the hold, a bugbear shows up and orders Craig topside. The bugbear is then locked into the room with the kids. The three escaped crewmembers head back up from the bilge deck, taking with them two of the four wooden bars holding open the aft bilge doors, to use as clubs. They decide to first check out the other aft cabin, finding three sleeping enemies, a human and two bugbears.

Up on top of the ship, the Mage calls Craig over to take over with the ship's wheel. The mage then polymorphs himself into a seagull, and flies away. Vincenzo is signaled to this, and concurs with Fritz to launch an attack soon with the mage is well away and the odds are even (seven enemies to seven allies on the top deck).

In the cabin below, Toshiro uses the commandeered longsword to stab into the sleeping human, as Jonathan and Bruce throw the other hammocks atop the faces of the two sleeping bugbears. Jonathan then notices a scimitar on the floor, beside the enemy human, and grabs for it. As he raises the weapon to attack, the room fills up with light from the scimitar, so Bruce shut the cabin door.

Toshiro continues to stab into the now awake and very wounded human. The bugbear Bruce is attacking lashes out at him, knocking him back. Toshiro and Jonathan both slash into the human, killing him, but also leaving Jonathan vulnerable to an attack by the other bugbear, which knocks him unconscious. As Jonathan falls, he drops the magic scimitar, causing the light to go out. Toshiro tries to grab where he saw the scimitar fall, but is then attacked by one of the bugbears, knocking him unconscious.

Bruce and one of the bugbears manage to grab the scimitar simultaneous. After a struggle, Bruce manages to hit the bugbear with it and get him to release the weapon. The room once again erupts in light, with Bruce now seeing himself alone against two bugbears. He opens the door to exit the room. He quickly throws open the hatchway to the bilge deck, as the first bugbear catches up to him. Bruce strikes this already wounded bugbear, dropping him, and continues down to the ladder to the bilge deck, slashing into the other bugbear and then closes the bilge door behind him, locking it. As this bugbear then heads topside, Bruce makes his way aft, and exits the ship via the bilge doors, managing to hold on to the rear of the ship along a thin railing.

In the hold, alerted to the sounds of battle outside the door, the Bugbear guarding the kids approaches the door and bangs on it, asking what is going on. With his back to the children, thirteen-year olds Henry Junior and Janet attack him. Henry uses a bucket to attack, and Janet their improvised cat-of-nine-tails weapon.

The bugbear turns, and draws his sword, slashing Henry across the chest. Henry falls back, very wounded. Janet completes three successful attacks with the cat-o-nine tales. Having inherited exceptional strength from both of her parents (Buella and Phuddipeduzh) these three successive attacks are enough to bring the bugbear down. The kids grab up his weapons, as Vincenzo Junior uses the bandages on Henry's wound. They soon find the other dead enemies and the unconscious bodies of Toshiro and Richard, who Vincenzo Junior starts to bind the wounds of.

The wounded bugbear from below wakes the up three bugbears and an enemy adventurer sleeping in the captain's cabin, and continues out above deck. Those above deck had been waiting until the enemy mage had flow completely out of sight to launch their own attack, but take the appearance of the wounded bugbear calling an alert as the signal to begin their attack. This is due in part to this bugbear's screaming catching the attention of all of the enemies, who turn their backs to the party to hear what the bugbear is yelling about.

Vincenzo casts a "Prayer" spell as Fritz tosses a dagger into the half-orc fighter near him. Gorski, Albert, and Lothar each charge into their own bugbear guards. Michael tackles the enemy cleric to prevent him from getting off a spell. Richard charges the half-orc fighter.

As the enemies turn to retaliate, Vincenzo successfully casts a Hold Person spell on the half-orc fighter. Fritz and Richard move on to the Bugbear fighting Gorski, which is good as Gorski is nearly unconscious at this point. Gorski retreats once the reinforcements arrive. Albert has sprung a trap he laid out with ship's rope and rigging, catching his bugbear foe. The cleric manages to toss Michael off of him and overboard, Michael grabbing onto the ship's railing at the last minute. Albert throws his dagger into the Cleric to prevent a spell from getting off. Vincenzo has now climbed on board, and throws a Silence onto the enemy cleric. The cleric retreats into the captain's cabin, with both Albert and Michael following right behind him.

Vincenzo's next Hold Person successfully takes out the enemy Craig, who is piloting the ship. Lothar manages to drop his foe, after first taking fifteen points of damage. He grabs the bugbear's sword, and finishes off both the bugbear that Albert had tangled up and the wounded one. By now, Richard and Fritz have eliminated the other two bugbears.

Vincenzo pulls himself aboard and casts his last Dispel Magic to transform himself back into human form, then casts an Aid spell on himself. Shield and mace in hand, the now naked Chaotic Good cleric charges towards the Captain's cabin.

Below, Janet has been holding back the doorway to above, while having the other children retreat to the rear cabin. She eventually lets go, dropping down and through the open door to the bilge deck, as an enemy bugbear climbs down the ladder after her. As the other two wait to go down the ladder, the enemy cleric charges into that room, and orders a bugbear to attack Albert and Michael behind him. The bugbear does as told, lashing out much damage into those behind him. The cleric heads below, followed by one of the bugbears, with Michael close behind. Vincenzo arrives and helps Albert drop his bugbear foe. Janet climbs back up from the bilge deck, on a ladder on the opposite side of the ship, rejoining the other children.

Armed with their enemies' weapons, the children Janet, Oblong, Tanya and Silas Junior now charge at the bugbear and the cleric. Michael knocks the last bugbear heading down the ladder off, causing him to fall and lodge his shoulder into the doorway to the bilge deck. Michael drops on him, and stabs into the monster. The remaining bugbear strikes Silas Junior with a massive slash in the chest, dropping him. Vincenzo Junior rushes to him, and quickly concludes that his friend is dying. Picking his friend up, Vincenzo Junior walks towards the battle in the next room, catching his father's attention. Vincenzo breaks off from his attack on the cleric, leaving Tanya and Janet to continue the fight, and manages to cast a Cure Serious Wounds spell on the boy to keep him from being dead.

Albert charges in to assist the two young girls, as Janet gets struck. The bugbear now takes on all three foes, as the cleric decides to retreat, and makes his way back up the ladder to the Captain's cabin, as the silence spell on him ends. The bugbear soon falls under the onslaught and Vincenzo charges back upstairs after the cleric, catching him and another enemy adventurer in the midst of a Plane Shift spell. Vinnie throws a Dispel Magic at them, but is not able to get it off into to stop the Plane Shift, and the two enemies disappear.

The party spends the next ten minutes gathering themselves together. Vinnie casting his remaining Cures on Toshio and Michael. The bodies of the bugbears and dead enemy are stripped and tossed overboard. The two enemies who were held are stripped, tied up, and brought to the hold. Fritz turns the ship around. Vincenzo tells the kids that "You've earned your Silver Moon rings today." Gorski is sent below deck to close the bilge doors. Outside of the doors, Bruce the Human is still clinging onto the ship, and assumes that this hand closing the doors is the enemy, and prepares to strike him with the magical scimitar.

Vincenzo Junior points out to his father all of the healing work that he did during the battles, to which Vinnie replies “Atsa my boy!” Junior reminds his father of the two prisoners the kids are watching down in the ship’s hold. Vincenzo and Michael head down below to question them.
They speak to Craig, the human who had been nicer to the children, finding him to be rather elusive, and giving answers that appear to be lies. Vincenzo Junior cautions him “It is a bad thing to lie to my father, you end up having to stand in the corner for an hour.” Vincenzo informs the man that he actually faces consequences for lying that are worse than a time out.”

When asked why they attack the island and kidnapped the children, Craig says that they were trying to actually protect the children by taking them out of the way so that they wouldn’t inadvertently get in the line of fire of other battles now taking place on the island. Vinnie sarcastically answers “Outta the way huh, like they weren’t hostages or anything?” Craig continues to give “I don’t know” as the answer to most questions, claiming that only his leader, a 15th level mage named Etronne, knows what is really going on. Craig does reveal that he and Etronne were the only two of the sixteen enemies on board with prior ship experience. The group decides to keep a rotating two-person guard on these prisoners. Vincenzo heads off to sleep in the Captain’s cabin.

The party passes out the armor and magical weapons obtained from the prisoners, giving them to Vincenzo, Fritz, Michael and Lothar. Janet, Tanya and Alicia cook supper for everyone. The other kids assist the crew at watching out for the mage (which is actually too late, as the mage is already back on board, now hiding in the crow’s nest). Fritz steers the ship, and Gorski now takes a lookout up position in the crow’s nest (where Etronne immediately puts him to sleep, and then changes his own appearance to match that of Gorski).

 

[Silver Moon]

SM -

Still closely following this guy - I don't know how you kept everything straight! Multiple scenarios, dozens of PCs, even more NPCs! Sheesh!

You must have had some kind of giant flow-chart!

Anyway, particularly a fan of the Gnomes...as well as Vinny & family ["Atsa my boy!"]. If Vinny doesn't wear a chef's hat while fighting, don't tell me...I have a picture of a Cleric - who looks like the ubiquitous guy on every Mom & Pop pizzeria box - battling his way through Bugbears...& occasionally twirling a pie on his finger in the meantime!

Great stuff. That's one game I'd love to play in.

Thanks Terry. This was the most complex module that I ever attempted but it wasn't actually that hard to keep track of everybody since the players did most of the work for me. I'm a big fan of gnomes took, in fact both Jerry and Freyland are my own Playing Characters (which during these combat sequences I turned the charater sheets over to the players as NPC's).

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twelve, “Scouting Around”, August 6th, 1018 2:00 P.M.

Back on the island, with the higher-level group, Narg, Lannon and Mojo circumnavigate the northern base of the mountain, they find yet another branch of tracks, as an older set of approximately one-hundred-fifty monster-sized footprints, most probably hobgoblins or orcs from the look of it but also larger ones that the party concludes were made by bugbears.

Back at the cabin on the Island, the spell-casters Immy and Timothy, with Adrianna as their fighter guardian, build their own version of a duck blind, about 100 feet north of the building, from which to launch spells from. Serita opts to stay in bird-form, and scout from above to alert the party of any approaching foes.

Serita lands, altering the group that a small army of eighty to one hundred bugbears is approaching from the east on the old road, apparently having seen the flare shot up a half-hour earlier. Kruk, Narg and Mojo find good hiding spaces near the trail a few hundred feet away from the building. Serita lands on a perch atop a tree to watch from, and Lannon also takes a treetop position.

Once the invading troops can be heard from a distance Immy casts an illusion of a huge sleeping red dragon, its neck, body, and tail lying in a wide oval that nearly surrounds the building. As expected, the bugbears in the lead stop at the tree line’s edge, rather than approaching the beast. Immy then has the dragon awaken, and stand threatening towards the bugbears. It launches a breath attack, causing the group of monsters to retreat. Once the rear third of this force is between them, the attack is launched by Narg, Mojo, and Kruk. They cut down many foes, receiving assistance from the dragon who Immy has head away from the cabin along the trail.

After a few dozen are cut down the others flee quicker from the site. Kruk uses his Boots of Leaping and Striding to cut down the few retreating straggles. Lannon also launches an attack at some in the rear, only to have this small group set upon him. Kruk comes to Lannon’s aide, cutting these monsters down, and deciding that they are “two hit” foes. Mojo, watching this, comments to Narg about “this new guy only needs tights and a cape with a big “S” on it to complete the package.”

Immy pulls out a figurine in the shape of a fly, and uses it to magically create a giant fly, on which he can ride. He quickly flies past the party’s fighters, causing Narg and Mojo to do a doubletake. "Was he on a giant fly?" asked Mojo. Narg just shakes his head and says "This surprises you why?" Mojo just shrugs. Immy decides to heads aloft above the trees. The DM asks the player “so he zips up?” The player replies yes, to which the DM comments “OK, he zips up his fly.” After the collected groan from the players, Immy continues to directing his illusionary dragon to pursue the retreating mob of bugbears.

Serita also flies off in that direction. Immy lands the dragon in the midst of a large group of retreating bugbears, and launches another breath attack, dropping eleven. A group of seven is the next largest coalition of foes, so a third breath weapon is used on that group. After this, the remaining bugbears scatter individually in every different direction. Immy and Serita spend the next half hour each taking out whichever ones they can find in the immediate vicinity.

The party gets back together, eventually managing to get Serita and Immy to come back to them. The party also is getting impatient with Serita not being able to communicate verbally, until Immy pulls out an Amulet of ESP to read her thoughts and translate for the party. Immy makes some suggestions, until Mojo says "Listen Bug Boy, it's kinda hard to have a serious conversation with you while you're sitting on a giant fly."

They decide to not go back to the building, but instead to track the path that this group of bugbears took. The easy-to-follow trail heads east towards the mountain in the center of the island.

In the woods two miles north of the school and one mile south of the cabin, the other group of adventurers stop after Blip spots movement in the woods to the east of them. Blip and Luekia investigate. Blip quickly returns to the party, telling them that it is the same group of enemies who had tracked her that morning near Milo’s cave. Since the woods and foliage are very thick in this location, and most of the enemy are invisible, they decide that this is not the best location to make a stand. They opt to hurry back to the school.

Meanwhile, the higher level Silver Moon party reaches a point where their trail of bugbear footprints merges with an older group of tracks of another hundred tracks, half bugbear size, half smaller. The older group of tracks originate from the same direction, and head off on a more southerly path towards the lake and school. After a brief debate, they decide to continue following to the source of both groups (which, much to the DM's dismay, also eliminates any possibility of the two groups joining together and exchanging information anytime soon).

As the higher-level group circumnavigates the northern base of the mountain they find yet another branch of tracks, as an older set of approximately one-hundred-fifty man-sized tracks join up from the same point of origin, this set of tracks heads up the north side of the mountain towards the city. Serita communicates her distress of enemies at her home, and wishes to investigate. Narg suggests that they go investigate the city atop the mountain. "Like there's a good change that the villains went up there to steal your dirty socks," comments Mojo. "If they did that then they're already dead by now," quips Lannon.

Serita is adamant that she wishes to check the status of her home. Immy suggests that he accompany her, as the two can quickly fly up, assess the situation, and fly back. The other six agree to this, saying that they will continue to track the monsters to their point of origin. Immy cloaks himself in an illusion of a giant white eagle, identical to the form Serita is now in.

The lower-level group continues to quickly retreated the two miles back to the school, along the path through the woods that they had made just before. From the higher spots along this path they can tell that their pursuers are following them.

At the top of the mountain Serita and Immy investigate the cave of the cloud giant Herculean. Serita is distressed that he is not around, and that there are dozens of humanoid tracks present. They descend into the city, spotting a line of hobgoblins along the parameter of the bullywug’s swamp, weapons drawn. The sixty adult bullywug are all congregated around the home of the pond dragon Hokuru in the center of the swamp. Serita approaches the bullywug, and is surprised at their defensive violent reaction to her, as they thrust spears in her direction. Since a visiting large white animal is the signal for being Serita in animal form, she is does not know why they reacted to her in such a manner. She and Immy then discover that Hokuru, the pond dragon, is gone. Since the Bullywug consider him to be their god, it is no wonder that they are agitated.

They debate returning but decide to first check out the rest of the city. Narg’s player comments "Half an hour to check out a marsh with frog-men, and only now they decide to go to buildings and homes as an afterthought?"

They see the burnt out jeep and evidence of the fireballs that were thrown near the library. Serita becomes angry at seeing that a fireball had struck the southern grove park near her home. She and Immy next check out her home. After seeing the panther and gorilla guardians, Immy decides to keep a distance. Serita ascertains that her home is undisturbed. The only other occupants seen in the city are more hobgoblins, patrolling in groups of two, three or four. Immy and Serita decide to fly back to their party.

They other group arrives back at the school, with only around ten minutes before the enemy will arrive. They decide to set up what they can for defenses, choosing the second floor of the main house is the best location to defend from. Lloyd, Jentile, and Razou take up a position in corner room. Luekia and Freyland go to the next room. Blip goes to the third room.

The final room is taken by Tubur, Fiona, Parisi and Jerry. Parisi is untied, and the given his spell components for a single Fireball spell, with Tubur beside him, sword drawn, in case Parisi does anything other than he is told. They wait for their enemy to arrive, as Jeremiah goes to set traps on the two staircases to the second floor. Luekia lays out a trail of flour to detect footprints of any foes approaching under the cover of invisibility.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Thirteen, “School and Ship Battles”, August 6th, 1018 3:00 P.M.

Those at the school only see two of the enemy, the Cleric and Fighter that Blip, Luekia, and Jerry had seen that morning. The two are approaching the craft building. At Fiona's order, Parisi begins the attack by fireballing the pair (and also hitting an invisible thief behind them). The cleric retreats to behind the craft building, as the fighter charges forward towards the main house, firing arrows up towards the second floor window. Lloyd and Jentile continue to fire their crossbows down at him, with minimal results as the man has superior protection.

Jerry climbs down the wall on the opposite side of the house, and heads around the front of the building. The enemy fighter's aim is quite good, forcing the party to not dally at the windows. Blip and Freyland use their distance weapons as well. Several rounds later, the fighter is closer to the house, until Razou successfully hits him with a Hold Person spell. Jerry rushes around the building, charging at the held guy.

Elsewhere, Fiona, Parisi, and Tubur continue to watch out the windows for more enemies, only to find one in the room with them. An aside: The DM informs Fiona’s player that an invisible enemy assassin has partially entered the room, sitting in the window itself. He is using a crossbow to exact an assassination. Furthermore, the man is using a Bolt of Slaying: Magic-Users. As there are actually TWO apparent Magic-Users in the room the player is allowed to make the roll to determine if the target is Fiona or Parisi. He makes the odd/even roll, the victim being Parisi. The DM rolls a successful "to hit", after which the player makes an unsuccessful Death Magic Saving throw, resulting in Parisi letting out a scream before falling dead mage on the floor.

Tuber's immediate reaction is to hit the assassin with his sword. Fiona casts a Magic Missile, and the Assassin drops out of the window to the ground below. They check out Parisi, concluding that he is dead. Blip and Luekia, having heard the scream, arrive at the doorway to the room. Fiona does her version of the Dr. McCoy "He's dead Jim," line, informing them that the assassin is below. Blip bolts down the stairs, with Luekia and Freyland behind her.

Jerry has reached the held man, and his first reactions are to disarm the man. He cuts the bowstring, and then cut the man's sword belt, dropping it to the ground. He then climbs up the man to get a target of the man's neck. The initial cut heals behind itself, causing Jerry to look for a magical healing device. He climbs down, and removes the man's ring, putting it on. He then tries again for the neck cut, with the same healing result. He starts searching the held man for a different magical item. Lloyd and Jentile continue to fire arrows at the craft building, to prevent the cleric from running to his partner's aid. The cleric attempts four consecutive "Hold Person" spells on Jerry to stop him, but Jerry manages to successfully save from all of them.

Back in the room above, another invisible foe has successfully entered the room with Fiona and Tubur. The man stabs Fiona for minimal damage, only to get three successive major attacks by Tubur, backed by a Fiona Magic Missile, which reduces him to a messy heap on the floor.

Blip has charged down stairs, and out of the house, only to be intercepted by the assassin that had killed Parasi. The two spar, until the female mage becomes visible, casting a spell upon Blip, from which she saves. The mage runs around building to then get away. Blip breaks off her fight with the assassin, heading after the mage once Luekia arrives, telling her to distract the man. Blip then charges around the building after the mage.

The mage stops twenty feet away, turns, and tosses a six-missile Magic Missile spell into Blip, reducing her to a single hit point. Blip continues to pursue the foe, closing the distance between them, and tackling her before another spell can go off. The Mage screams out for assistance. Freyland finally makes it down the stairs and out of the building, moving onto the assassin fighting Luekia. This allows Luekia to go to Blips aid.

Luekia rounds the bend just in time to see a man turn visible as he stabs his sword into Blip, knocking her to the ground. Fortunately for Blip, her Detect Invisibility spell was still running, so she caught the man's movement just prior to attack, negating his Backstab bonus. This therefore leaves her very wounded rather than dead. Luekia charges forward to attack. Freyland has now defeated the assassin and heads out to assist Luekia and Blip. At the sight of the mortally wounded Blip, Freyland becomes enraged, and charges forward full force. Tubur and Fiona also head downstairs at this point.

The thief who had attacked Blip activates a magic item, creating large bat-like wings. The wings successfully create enough of a shield to protect the mage long enough for her to cast another Invisibility spell on her. Freyland slashes into the thief, as Luekia scoops up Blip and carries her back around the building. The thief attempts to fly away, until Freyland slashes his Sword of Sharpness though one of the magical wings, dropping the man to the ground. The grounded man is soon defeated by Freyland.

The invisible mage attempts a spell on Freyland, who successfully saves. She moves back before he can attack her, and downs a potion she was holding in her hand. Freyland charges the woman, and to get in a successful attack before the Mage's Potion of Flying can get her out of weapons range. Luekia returns to help, seeing the mage fling around the building. Freyland fires arrows and Luekia throws darts at the mage, until another of her Invisibility spells kicks in.

Meanwhile, Jerry starts cutting off the fighter's armor, soon seeing an amulet that was being worn beneath the chest plate. He climbs back up the man, and cuts loose the amulet. He then goes to cut the man's throat for a third time, but is surprised as the Hold Person finally wears off and the man moves. The fighter uses his exceptional strength to throw Jerry off of him. The man's cleric ally now rushes to his assistance, prompting Jerry to retreat back towards the main building. From the window above both Lloyd and Jenitile fire down into the two foes. The fighter grabs up his sword and armor, and runs back with the cleric to behind the craft building. Lloyd and Jentile are left to watch the craft building as Razou answers the cry of "Medic".

Luekia has bound the wounds of the dying Blip. Jerry rushes over and puts the magical amulet around her, which seals up the wounds. Razou manages to get to her before she passes away, and casts some much needed cures. The group discusses that at least three foes are still around, and head back into the building. They bring both thief bodies with them up to the room above. Fiona notices that Parisi's belt is now missing. Seeing Parisi's body for the first time, Jerry asks "Did he turn on us?" "No, somebody got to him first," answers Fiona.

They cast Detect Magic on all four bodies, stripping them on any magic, before dropping the bodies out the window. Once defenses have been set up again, Jerry and Luekia check out the craft building, finding their opponents to be long gone. The group decides to stay with the protection of the main house for the immediate future while they stock up on any needed supplies.

Back near the Mountain, Serita and Immy rejoin their allies, who have continued up the path until they found another spot where tracks fork off. Here another hundred-and-fifty or so tracks branch off in the direction of the town and harbor. These tracks are also a mix of bugbear and man-sized. They fill the party in about what they saw. Immy translates for Serita, adding the comment after she tells of the burned out Jeep "What's a Jeep?"

The group continues following the tracks back to the point of origin for the approximately five hundred creatures. This path continues northward for another mile, reaching a small clearing where it stops completely. They conclude that the monsters were somehow magically teleported to this location. The group debates where to got next. They decide to follow the tracks of the group to the town.

Back on the ship Molly III, the sun has just set over the horizon, as the ship continues to sail back towards the island. The crewmember Gorski starts to waive his hands frantically while looking at the acting-captain, Fritz. Gorski is saying something, but nobody can hear the words, so Richard starts to climb the mast ladder to investigate. When Michael is about one-third of the way up, Gorski’s appearance changes to that of the mage Etronne, and a Lightning Bolt emanates from his finger tips, flying straight into both Fritz and the Ship’s wheel. Fritz saves successfully, so is injured rather than dead, and the wheel is reduced to kindling. The bolt bounces off of the deck rather than through it. Etronne drops back down into the crow’s nest.

The DM asks for the crew’s reaction. A player suggests “We now can’t steer the ship from the bridge, so we’ll all go below to the Battle Bridge and separate the top deck from the ship.” The crew and a few of the kids fire arrows up towards the villain. A player recommends flaming arrows, but the other players point out that setting their only vessel on fire in the middle of the open seas is probably not the best idea. One arrow strikes Gorski, who is lying in the bottom of the crows. The arrow causes him to wake up just as Richard reaches the crow’s nest. “What happened?” asks Gorski. “That’s what happens when you fall asleep on guard duty” answers Richard. Richard helps Gorski climb down the mast to have the wound cared for by Vincenzo, who has been woken up.

A seventy-five point fireball then explodes right in the middle of the main sail, catching both it and a great deal of the rigging on fire. The kids and crew all pitch in with a bucket brigade to extinguish the blaze. Vincenzo uses his Shoes of Levitation lift himself up to fight the fire. They soon manage to get it put out, but will need to replace the sail and much of the rigging. They decide to wait until morning to replace these, as the mage may still be around, and they do not want to put up their only replacement main sail for him to target again. The group concludes that the mage wasn’t actually trying to kill them, but to prevent them from making their way back to the island. They spend the next hour checking the ship for the mage, who appears to have left. They assign some of the children to assist the two crew guarding the prisoners.

Without the wheel, Lothar has to pull on the ropes to the rudder to steer. They sail on for a few more hours, at a slower pace due to having only the use of only the secondary sails. At nightfall they estimate that they are still a few hours away from the island. With visibility poor, they decide not to sail at night, not wanting to either accidentally sail past the island, or run aground on rocks as they near the island. They drop the sea anchor, and most go to sleep for the night, keeping four awake on duty at all time, two above deck, and two crew and one child in the hold guarding the prisoners.

Back on Silver Moon Island, the higher-level group has reached the town. The first building spotted is the Tavern, with a small contingent of twelve hobgoblins and seven bugbears guarding it from the outside. Mojo suggests burning the building to the ground until he is reminded that it is filled with both prisoners and alcohol. Narg and Mojo begin devising a plan to rescue the alcohol.

The others check out the remainder of the town, finding the ships gone and the town deserted until the final building, the Ukko church, which has an even larger group of hobgoblin and bugbear guards around it than the tavern had. The group debates which structure to attack first. Mojo and Narg vote for the tavern, so they can get a drink afterwards. The others decide that their first assault should be at the Ukko church, since it appears to be the most heavily fortified from the outside, an indication that the more important captives are being held inside. "But the Tavern has better booze in it," is Mojo's complaint.

Serita suggests burning the church to the ground, to which Timothy naturally objects. Narg points out that there are prisoners inside. Serita answers "Only the cleric Isaiah as far as we know, what's the problem." Mojo suggests burning it to the ground, but making sure that all of the prisoners get out. Timothy points out that this would leave Isaiah homeless, so he would have to go and live with them. "Good point," says Mojo, "let's make sure the prisoners don't escape the burning building." Timothy continues to try to convince them to not burn down his home. "Hey, don't blame us if it burns," says Mojo adding, "If you really did not want it burned to the ground you should have built it out of asbestos."

Timothy reminds them that other party members live in or near the city, including Jerry and Freyland. "So what, we could kill a gnome to help with overall game balance," says Mojo. "But which one?" asks Narg. Mojo adds "Let's just kill all the gnomes and call it even." "Well, we could kill Freyland with an eyedropper of water," adds Mojo. Immy appears a bit confused and concerned by the discussion of random gnome killing.

Eight miles to the west, the other group leaves the school and heads back to Freyland’s home, bypassing any areas that potentially have foes. They are successful in leaving before the next patrol group, led by some of the ones who got away, arrive back at the school.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Fourteen, “Battle at the Church”, August 6th, 1018 4:30 P.M.

The group at the church decide to split into two teams. Immy and Serita take up position on the roof of the home of the crewmember Stephen, which is closest home to the church. They instruct the others to wait until after they initiate their spell assaults before attacking. The other six take up position behind the stable in back of the church.

The attack starts with Immy casting his most powerful Phantasmal Force spell, creating a illusionary party that looks identical to those behind the stable (except that Immy makes the illusionary version of Mojo being a bit taller, at the real Mojo’s request). He also creates an illusionary group of six generic fighter-types with them, so as to have some to make illusionary casualties with.

At the sight of the charging adventurers the leader of the bugbears and hobgoblins guarding the door sends out their ten hobgoblins to attack them. He also sends two bugbears around back to tell those guarding the rear doors. Serita, using a staff loaned to her by Immy, sends down a Flame Strike into the now moving Bugbears, dropping three of them. One manages to eventually stand back up and retreat around back of the building. Her next Flame Strike is on the hobgoblins, dropping several of them. The remaining hobgoblins close into striking range of the illusionary adventurers.

Meanwhile, the others start to get impatient about waiting, especially when the first two bugbears reach the rear of the building and inform the leaders of the battle out front. This group, like the first sends their nine hobgoblin allies around front to deal with the threat. After a few minutes, Kruk and Lannon start making noise in order to draw away some of the bugbears at the rear of the building. Mojo tosses his hammer into a bugbear, which only makes him angry. Mojo tosses the hammer again, being spotted by the bugbears by the furthest church door, who don’t leave their post. Other bugbears within Mojo’s hammer range try to get some cover behind the shrubbery near the church. Mojo’s player makes his third consecutively rolled “20” to hit, at which point the DM threatens to confiscate that particular dice.

Lannon suppresses a laugh after one bugbear says “Someone go check that out” and another responds “Damn, we should have kept one of the hobgoblins for that.” The group of five bugbears closest argue about who to send, until the wounded one from the first Flame Strike out front staggers around the building, and gets ordered to go check it out. He goes inside the stable, and winds up on the receiving end of Kruk’s hammer, flattening him. Kruk, Narg, and Lannon decide to climb into the stable’s rear window, avoiding the cow and its droppings, and move to the door that the bugbear had left open.

Lannon turns invisible, and goes to check out the windows on the side of the church. Mojo continues to try to pick off whomever he can with his hammer. Timothy casts both Bless and Prayer spells, and then Narg and Kruk lead a charge out the stable door to the church rear door twenty-five feet away. Timothy and Adrianna are immediately behind them.

Back in the front of the church Serita tosses down a few more Flame Strikes, dropping most of the remaining bugbears, and causing others to retreat behind the building. The illusionary party has managed to eliminate most of the hobgoblins, with Serita now Flame Striking the few remaining. She inadvertently ignites a tree, which the other players comment about, as she is a druid. Serita’s player answers, while looking at Alton’s player, “Well, at least it wasn’t a horse,” in reference to accidental animal deaths previously caused by that druid. The illusionary party then heads towards the main door, encountering resistance from a few bugbears, which soon fall. Serita and Immy fly down towards the door.

Out back, a pitched battle has ensued between the party and the remaining dozen-or-so bugbears. Kruk and Narg dish out more than their share of damage, getting hit a few times each. Mojo takes out a few from the side. Adrianna and Timothy jump in whenever their front line starts to get double and triple teamed.

Serita and Immy open the front door, with Serita casting first a Faerie Fire and then Heat Metal upon the three occupants of the room. Immy sends in the illusionary adventurers to fight, while he and Serita stay outside on either side of the door. The leader, a man in shiny plate mail armor with a magical broadsword, orders them to surrender, stating that they will be unsuccessful in freeing their allies.

Lannon spots three people through the stained glass windows within the main sanctuary. He then checks out the windows to Timothy’s room in the back of the building, finding the shutters closed and windows barred from the inside. Using his knife he lifts the bar and opens the window. He sees six lizardmen and a bugbear lying on the floor, which he recognizes as members of the ship’s crew. He pokes his head in the room, and is then surprised by a hand on his forehead and a magic-user become visible while casting a spell and saying “Mouse”.

Fortunately, Lannon’s resistance to magic kicks in, negating the Polymorph. Lannon jumps back, and climbs the wall, getting up onto the roof. Out back, the combined assault by the other five has brought down all but the three leader bugbears barring the door. Mojo, Narg, Kruk and Timothy take on the two chief assistants, leaving Adrianna alone to take on the leader. She does some damage, but takes a mighty blow as well. The others finish their opponents, and all simultaneously converge on the leader, all successfully hitting for a combined total of sixty-three points of damage, including a severed arm. After seeing their leader destroyed, the remaining bugbears at the other rear door decide to run away.

The illusionary adventurers do some harm to their foes. The Heat Metal kicks in, causing the two in leather armor to drop their swords and retreat. The man in plate mail drops to the floor in extreme pain. He lays hands on self for immediate relief, but the spell continues into the next round to put him into unconsciousness.

Timothy unlocks the door, which they open. Lannon rushes along the roof to give them a warning about the mage, but is too late as a Cone of Cold strikes Narg, Kruk, Adrianna and Timothy. Fortunately, they all save, each still taking twenty-eight points of damage. The mage turns invisible again before they can attack him. Kruk charges into the room, seeking where the mage had been, without success.

The others enter the room. Mojo announces to the tied and bound crewmembers “Hi, we’re from the Silver Moon, and we’re here to rescue you.” They search unsuccessfully for the mage, who they conclude must have teleported away (actually, he exited the rear door, via a Haste Spell, after Kruk had entered but before the other four).

Hearing sounds on the other side of the door, they open it to see the illusionary adventurers cornering the two in leather armor in the main church sanctuary, who attempt to fight back, while the man in plate mail begins to smolder on the floor. Kruk and Lannon head towards the door to Isaiah’s room. Lannon gets backstabbed by a thief, who looks identical to one of the men fighting the illusionary adventurers. "Great, our illusionary fighters are beating up their illusionary fighters," comments Mojo’s player. "Sounds like a whole lot of nothing," adds Lannon’s player. Kruk moves in to fight this man, which has a certain sense of irony as the identical counterpart of this man is simultaneously fighting the illusionary Kruk. Lannon notices that the two men in leather armor are actually speaking in the Bugbear language, and Lannon yells this information out to his party.

At the front door, Serita gets backstabbed by a man who looks identical to the second man in the room. Her immediately reaction is to grab one of her poisoned darts, and stab him with it. He saves, but takes damage. Immy also tosses some darts into the guy. Serita is very angry about the backstab, and even angrier that he is still standing. Realizing that Immy’s Staff of Flame Strikes is still leaning against the wall beside her, she grabs it and calls a Flame Strike down onto the guy, dropping him. As the man was standing directly next to the building, the Flame Strike also manages to ignite the thatched roof of the church.

The man fighting Kruk is soon defeated. Narg and Timothy charge at the other two men, who surrender as they are now surrounded. Lannon unlocks the door to Isaiah’s room. Inside the room are the dark-skinned human cleric Isaiah, the elf ranger Guice, and the elvan healer Draug Carak (D.C.). All three have been physically altered, as Isaiah now has pointed ears, and the two elves have darkened skin pigment. This makes the three of them appear to be drow elves.

When trying to figure out why they were made to resemble drow, Timothy notices that the dead man in the now searing hot plate mail is wearing lawful good holy symbols. Timothy tells the party that he appears to have been a paladin. “A pretty dumb one,” is Lannon’s answer. Serita does not appear to feel at all guilty at taking out a paladin, but does feel the need to point out to the others that the roof is on fire. Narg gives Immy his Decanter of Endless Water, and Immy flies up above the roof to put the fire out. Guice, Isaiah, and D.C. all gesture to their tied hands and feet, making muffled noises from their gags. The group briefly debates whether they should continue to keep the gag on Isaiah.

Serita asks Timothy to “use your Vuugy, Vuugy Color Thingy” (referring to his ability to detect evil auras) to confirm that the prisoners are all who they appear to be. The allies are all untied, and indicate that they have now gone thirty-six hours without sleep, as the villains would kick or hit them whenever they dozed off. Isaiah is rather quiet, to which Mojo suggest that “He has had no sleep and is silent. Maybe we should kick him every night.” Immy is introduced to everyone, to which Bruce the Bugbear comments “Oh, aren’t you just the cutest little man.” “What’s with him,” asks Immy? Mojo answers “He’s forty, not married, and loves musical theatre…figure it out.”

The two bugbears in human form are taken prisoner. Mojo questions Guice about the enemy (which causes Tim to have to talk to himself). Bruce and the lizardmen crewmembers gather up larger-than-man-sized weapons and armor from the fallen bugbears.

Immy has the fire over half out when he becomes the target for an enemy mage, who lobs a lightning bolt up into him. Immy’s Ring of Spell Absorption soaks up the damage. Immy scans the area, but does not see the man who threw it. Doing some quick math about spell range in his head, and concludes that the only place the spell could have been launched from was the crewmember Stephen’s home (ironic since that was also where he and Serita had launched their attack on the church). He flies back into the church to inform the others, asking if they want to fight a mage or retreat into the woods.

He says he will go check out the building, and leaves, cloaked from detection. He casts an Improved Invisibility spell on himself, which allows several rounds of invisibility even after offensive attacks are launched. He checks out the building, finding it occupied by two mages and a thief, all invisible. The mages are positioned back from the two opened windows in view of the church, and the other doors and windows appear to be wizard locked. Immy casts a Confusion spell into the building, catching one mage and the thief. The thief becomes bewildered, and wanders into the corner. The mage is compelled to attack the other mage, and casts a Detect Magic to find him. The mage then throws a magic missile spell into him. The downed mage does not know what to think, as the Confusion then overtakes the one who saved before. While he is confused, Immy finishes off the hurt one with his own Wand of Magic Missiles.

The now confused mage leaves the building, via the window, and is attacked by Immy. This has no effect due to a Stoneskin spell. The man becomes confused again, during which time Immy strips him of his weapons and magic. The mage regains coherency, but finds his things missing so is unable to do anything about it. He attacks Immy with his first, for no effect. The DM and Immy’s player have been playing this out in the other room, and now return as Serita would have now spotted the mage outside of the building and gone to assist. As they return the group tells Immy’s player “You are a DM hog.” They then accuse Immy of being “another Milo”, in reference to a former thief character who would tie-up the DM with long solo interludes..

Serita sees the mage grasping about, and sends a Flame Strike down onto him, hitting Immy in the process. Immy scoops up the mage’s things from the ground (half of them now slag), and moves out of the way before a second Flame Strike hits the mage. She then casts an Entangle on the area to hold the mage. Immy uses his Ring of Spell Negation to get out of the entangle. He heads back towards Serita, still invisible, and starts talking to her. He tells her there is still one inside the building, and that he will go get him. Serita charges up to the mage, and clubs him to death, despite Mojo’s playing pointing out that the man might have something useful to tell them

Immy uses a Knock on the door to negate the Wizard Lock, opening it to the thief, who wanders out incoherently, still under the effects of the Confusion. Immy strips him of his possessions, and walks him around the building, letting him get caught in the entangle. The party advises Serita to not kill him.

The group plans out their next move, and decide that they need to leave the area if they can. They conclude that since Herculean’s cave is deserted and big, it would probably be a good place to go to. They gather up the prisoners as Immy casts a Detect Magic on all of the bodies and stuff, pulling out whatever is magical. Guice and Isaiah are given the magical leather armor, with the smaller of the other items (potions, bracers, gauntlets, and jewelry) placed inside in a backpack and the larger items (a broadsword, a Longsword, and a rod) rolled up in a magical cloak, as the party decides that it is best to not just drop unidentified magic into a Bag of Holding (which is good for them, as one item was a Rod of Cancellation, which could have negated the Bag and all of its contents out of existence).

The party climb into their three bags of holding, with Serita still having to make two trips with her teleportation ring to get all of them up to Herculean’s Cave due to the seven large crewmembers. The cave is confirmed to be empty, and the party sets up watches, sets guards over the prisoners, and makes sleeping arrangements.

Timothy uses up his remaining cures, mostly on Narg, as Serita says he needs all that he the healing he can get because “With his get’em attitude he’s gonna take a lot of damage, he’s not subtle like me.” Immy casts his last Stoneskin Scroll onto Guice. An Identify is done on one of the two identical magical amulets, revealing them to be Amulet of Alignment Obscurement. This makes sense, as the assassins had been traveling with the Paladin. They try to determine what their next move will be. “Let’s see, we’ve just defeated a large group of bad guys, what do we do next?” asks Immy. “Lets go to Mickey Mouse Island” answers Isaiah (in reference to a small Island north of the main one whose shape resembles a Mickey Mouse face).

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Fifteen, “On the Ships Silver Moon and Molly III”, August 6th, 1018 8:00 P.M.

The other group arrives at and settles into the relative safety of Freyland’s home for a second night. Razou casts his remaining cures before going to sleep. The two groups are now only a mile-and-a-half apart, one group at the top of the mountain, the other at the base of the mountain.

The DM points out that, for the very first time since the module began, the ball is now entirely in the player’s court as to what to do next, and with whichever group they wish to play. Mojo’s player suggests that they punish Narg’s player for missing this week’s game by playing the lower-level party next week, a group in which he doesn’t have a playing character, as he will be chomping at the bit to play Narg again.

Ten hours earlier on the ship Silver Moon, Captain Jacob had awakened . Jacob and his crew fought bravely during the town battle on the evening of August 5th, but all fell to the onslaught. When Jacob eventually awoke, he and two others of his crew, Bink and Humphry were lying in bunks on the lower crew deck of the ship which had put to sea. Their hands and feet were tied and bound, and an armed bugbear could be seen guarding outside of the cabin door window. Bink said that he had regained consciousness two hours earlier, and that he found the cabin door to be locked. Jacob yells questions to the bugbear guard, but the guard does not answer. An hour later Humphry awakens.

The next ten hours had been slow and tedious for them as the ship sails on. At long last the doors are finally opened. Three armed bugbear guards entered the room, and drag the three sailors out to a dining table in room at the center of this ship level, where five places had been set out with cups, bowls and spoons. Seated at the table was a human in black splint mail, with a fancy mace hanging from his belt. He instructed the bugbear guards to untie the hands and feet, and asked the three crewmembers to sit down. The bugbear guards each took up a position standing behind the crew. The bugbear that had been guarding outside of the cabin then joined them at the table.

The man introduced himself as Stokkes, a cleric of Ptah (a lawful-neutral deity). Food was served, comprised of a stew, bread, and wine. The cleric and the bugbear seated at the table each helped themselves to the food, then passed it to the three crew. Stokkes suggested that they eat hearty, as they would be serving the next sixteen consecutive hours topside, running the ship, so will need the energy.

Jacob initially refused, until Stokkes informed him that he and his two friends were to relieve three other members of his crew, who have been working since dawn. Jacob then pointed out that he and his two friends were in no shape to work due to their wounds. Stokkes promised to cast a cure upon each before sending them up to duty. During the dinner, Jacob tried to solicit more information from his captor, only finding out that they had set out on a long sea journey, and that nine members of the Silver Moon’s crew were aboard in order to sail the ship, each group of three assigned to rotating sixteen-hour shifts so that six on are duty every eight hour period.

A short while later, 2nd Mate Hans and crewmembers Sammy and Reginon along with three other bugbear guards came below apparently exhausted. All three crewmembers showed visible signs of battle damage, but not as bad as the three now being sent topside. Hans gestured the “yellow alert” hand signal to Jacob, indicating a situation of high danger but temporarily not in crisis.

Stokkes instructed Jacob’s trio to get above deck, and gestured for Hans’s trio to take their place at the dining table. The bugbear guards all stayed behind their respective charges during this exchange. As promised, before leaving Stokkes cast a cure on each of Jacob’s group. Jacob stated that they each needed to be healed more if expected to work for sixteen hours. Stokkes apologized, saying that he was now out of cures, so that was all he could do for them until the next evening. The three, and their guards, then went above deck.

From the stars above, Jacob determined that is was approximately 11:30 PM. Also working on deck were the crewmembers Trent, Spike and Stephen, each guarded by a bugbear. Another one up on deck was an enemy half-elf fighter, wearing elvan chainmail and having a fancy sword in his belt. He demanded complete silence. The bugbear guards each stayed near the crew, but at enough of a distance to allow the crew to work freely.

Meanwhile, Back on the ship Molly III, shortly before midnight, the two crewmen on guard duty up on the top deck see a flash of light from the back of the ship, and the entire ship then shakes. Looking down from the rear of the ship, Richard sees that the bilge doors are again open. Party members are woken up, and head for the bilge deck, to see that the ship is taking on water. Swimming down, they find that one of the hull boards is cracked and pushed out a little. Fritz tells Vincenzo that it is repairable, that this attack was probably just meant as a distraction. A check of the hold finds the prisoners gone and the guards left there asleep.

The crew spend the next few hours patching the hull board, as everyone else checks the ship for the enemies, finding them gone. The repairs are not perfect, with water still seeping in, and a crewmember is assigned to man the bilge pump. The rest of the night proves to be uneventful.

August 7th, 1018, 5:00 A.M.

The Molly III sets sail at dawn, with the crew spending the first hour putting up the new rigging and sail. The winds coming in from the southwest are so heavy this day that they cannot safely use all of the full main sail.

At sunlight on the ship Silver Moon, the sun shines down through the now cloudy skies, and the half-elf guarding the top deck was relieved of duty by a human magic-user, who was far less of a disciplinarian. During the next two hours, Jacob conversed with Trent. Trent and the two crewmembers with him had been brought down by “sleep” spells during the town battle. They were awakened at dawn the next morning as the ship prepared to sail, and informed that since they were uninjured they would work an initial twenty-four hour shift. Consequently, they were all now exhausted, as were their three bugbear guards who had been with them the entire time. Jacob considered mounting an attack, but concluded that the six were not in any shape yet for this.

Two hours later, Trent’s trio was sent below. Ten minutes later Hans’s trio came topside to work. Jacob and Hans had an opportunity to then compare notes. Hans said that his trio had each been healed once by Stokkes when the ship set sail, but not since then. Hans informed Jacob that in addition to the enemies already seen, there is also the enemy leader, a tall human druid, assisted by a pair of human adventurers. Jacob and Hans conclude that there are a total of sixteen enemies on board, the six enemy adventurers and ten bugbears (with one bugbear guard assigned to each crewmember and the tenth to guarding the cabin where the sleeping crew were locked inside).

Hans also told him that the previous day the Druid had him and Sammy spend an hour cleaning up the ship’s hold, which was filled with the Silver Moon animal friends: all four Pegasi, the wyvern, the pond dragon, the talking pig, the owl, and Kharole's cat familiar. The cat, owl, pig and pond dragon were caged, with the cage containing the pig and pond dragon having an area of silence around it. The other creatures were shackled with iron chains, with magical ropes binding their wings. These restraints kept the creatures from moving around, but did not appear to be hurting them. The Druid also was giving a lot of attention to two of the Pegasi, who showed signs of having had been badly burned. The wyvern appeared to also be injured, but the Druid was ignoring him.

Back on the island, the crew in Herculean’s the cave decide to question the prisoners. Narg begins by interrogating one of the polymorphed bugbears. It takes a while for him to realize that the guy cannot speak any common. Lannon reminds him that the man is actually a bugbear. “Why didn’t you tell me that before?” asks Narg. “This was more fun to watch,” answers Lannon.

Narg moves on to the real human. The man is somewhat uncooperative. When pressed, the man says “Why should I tell you anything, you’re just going to kill me either way." Narg and his friends try to convince him otherwise, telling him that they will not . The man answers “You expect me to believe that. I saw you fry a lawful good Paladin just for working with us. Why would I be safe?” Serita answers “But you also kidnapped Isaiah, that’s considered close to sainthood.” Narg interjects “Yeah, she has a point, you might get off for that.” The man exclaims, “But he’s a Lawful Good cleric of Ukko.” “And damned annoying,” Narg states.

Narg manages to convince the guy to talk, the man telling them of his group and the other two parties that arrived by ship. He says that most of the details are only known by the team leader. He describes his team leader, the description matching the guy that Serita bludgeoned to death. The group then gets into a open debate about the prisoners. Several players find this part of the game very frustrating, as he is giving them information that ties in with information known to their other group of playing characters, but not known by this group. The DM suggests that it might be helpful for the two groups to actually join up sometime soon. “You’re the DM, make it happen,” says Mojo’s player.

Serita does not help matters by saying, “let’s not kill them all right away,” the comments making the man fear for his life. Adrianna questions whether they should feed any of the prisoners. Narg points out that the man has been more cooperative than most of the party and crew. Mojo raises the point that “I think that now, above all other things, what we actually need is a plan.”

The group debates heading down below to the city, and scout it out from above. They see the hobgoblin parameter of guards around the bullywug swamp, and a few small patrols of hobgoblins walking around the city. Serita suggests a strategy of inciting the Bullywug to attack the hobgoblins. Mojo comments “Is that what my life is reduced to, getting bullywugs excited?”

Serita suggests scrying for other party members, but does not want to spend the two hours that the casting will take. Immy produces a Crystal Ball. He first tries for Mark, with Serita supplying him with a visual image via his ESP medallion. This proves inconclusive. They argue about who to try for next, deciding upon Fiona. The image shows her studying spells from a magic book from inside of a cave. On the wall behind her is a life preserver, so they conclude that she is at Freyland’s as he is a hydrophopic. Lannon cannot figure out what she is doing down there, but since it is within a few miles, suggests that they head out.

They decide to leave the prisoners in the cave, with the seven crewmembers and D.C. as guards. Crewmembers Bruce the Bugbearis left in charge, to which he says “I’m the leader? Great, I’ll design my own uniform.” D.C. confirms that he will keep the prisoners safe. The group reminds Bruce that two of the men are actually bugbears. Narg comments “Well, don’t remind me of that, I’m having a hard enough time not killing them as it is.” The group debates whether to dispel the polymorph on them, but concludes that it will be a waste of a spell. They head down the mountain to Freyland’s Cave.

Back in the Kaloon Lordholding, Jawlt Ambassador Ki-Geloryn arrives at the Regal Carriage Inn to settle up the account for the Silver Moon’s tab. He is told by the tavern-keeper what had transpired the previous afternoon, and how four of the Silver Moon members along with their three friends piled into the bag of holding, their female Druid transformed into a bird, put on a ring, grabbed the bags and teleported away. After that, the barriers surrounding the inn had disappeared. This had been reported to the city watch, who took a brief statement from those present, and said that they would investigate the incident.

Ki-Geloryn follows up with the Cortang City Watch. He is told that that their brief investigation concluded that the incident was just a “standard adventurer altercation”. Ki-Geloryn is upset that he wasn’t notified. The Captain of the Guard replies that “Stuff like that happens all the time. It just seemed to be a vendetta between those guys and a mage that did not concern the city. Nobody got hurt, and there was no real damage to the inn, so it was no big deal. Besides, they are the Silver Moon Adventurers, they can handle it.”

Ki returns to the Regal Carriage Inn and questions the other witnesses who were present, getting a fair amount of the story. He then returns to his own lodgings, gathers his things, and using a teleportation device provided by his friend the Wizard Derieki, teleports straight to Kindor’s ship. The ship is now along the Thenossian coastline, a few hours away from docking at the city of Halla. Ki fills in Kindor and fellow Jawlt Council members Melito, Tenbar, and Waller. They decide to meet with Queen Jennifer and Lord Aldorn as soon as they arrive in Halla.

Back at Freyland’s Cave, the only activity taking place there is that Luekia and Jerry checked the traps that they had set, while Razou, Blip and Fiona study spells. The DM inquires as to whether this group is planning to move on, as the two groups are nearly back together. Mojo’s player adds “If anyone even suggests it I’ll kill them. The group stays put, and soon hears a knocking on the door. Mojo’s voice sounds out “We’re from the Silver Moon and we’re here to rescue you.” Razou opens the door with a resounding “Yeah, Mahn” The group enters, with Narg introducing Immy, Kruk and Adrianna to the others. Both groups do an information dump.

The cave is now very crowded, with Mojo blurting out “So, what are we going to do with nineteen Silver Mooners?” “I don’t know,” says Fiona, “but in these tight quarters it really makes you gain a new appreciation for personal hygiene.” The group decides to all head back up the mountain to Herculean’s more-spacious cave. Serita asks “Can we kill any bad guys that we run into along the way?” Narg replies “Sure”. “Fine,” she states “then lets go back there through the city.” The group passes on her suggestion, making it back to Herculean’s without incident.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Sixteen, “Into the City“, August 7th, 1018, 9:00 A.M.

Back on the ship Silver Moon, at mid-morning, the other enemy adventurers came out onto the top deck. Once this occurred, the magic-user watching the crew became much stricter, making sure that none of the crewmembers spoke to each other. Two of these enemies were a rugged fighter in scale mail with a longsword and axe, answering to the name Kyle and his female comrade, a stunning female fighter answering to the name Sonja, with a longsword, leather armor, shield, and a metal helmet hooked on her belt. The two had apparently spent the night together in the Captain’s Quarters.

They were soon joined by a tall human Druid with a long white beard, coming up from below deck, who answered to the name of Spring, wearing leather armor and having a scimitar slung through his belt. The three of them spent the majority of the morning talking among themselves, and occasionally with the magic-user, who they called Bernard. The enforced silence among the crew actually helped to allow Jacob to eavesdrop on their conversations, him making sure that he was always the crew member working closest to where the enemy leaders were.

Jacob deduced that Spring was officially the leader, but that Sonja was the one who made most of the actual decisions. At one point they had a very heated debate about “what to do with the animals”. Sonja said that the animals “need to all be killed before we leave”; Spring was strongly opposed to this. Kyle noted that “we at least have to clip their wings, or else the prisoners or bugbears might be able to escape.” Sonja made a comment about how she would “take care of all of the prisoners”, but Spring chided her “That is contrary to Morgy’s orders”. No conclusion was reached, with Sonja saying, “We have a day to figure that out.”

Back on the ship Molly III, Silver Moon Island is finally spotted in the distant eastern horizon by late morning. The ship is further west that Fritz had anticipated, and going against the current, so it will still take some time to reach shore.

Back on the Island, in the cave, the combined group continues to compare information and strategize. As the only ship’s officer present, Lloyd takes charge of all eight non-human crew members, and sets up a rotating watch on the three prisoners. The group figures out that the tracking-device that the enemy is using tracks items created by Morgarth that they obtained on Alton‘s world. They survey those present, with items falling in this category being Blip’s broom, Fiona’s Belt, Serita’s ring, and a party-magic item within one of the bags of holding. Lannon thinks that he may also have something but cannot remember what it is.

They decide to head down to the city below the cave to search for party members. The crewmembers are left in the cave, along with the prisoners, plus the girl Jentile, and elvan healer D.C.. The other sixteen party members make their way around the mountainside and through the mile-long cave entrance that opens into the southeastern corner of the city. As they near the end of the cave four hobgoblins are seen guarding the cave mouth. The group debates what to do. Narg says “For Pete’s sake, let’s just go get them, its only four hobgoblins. Narg is reminded that they may have signal flare wands. Immy scouts ahead, also spotting two more hobgoblin guards just inside the city, about twenty feet from the other four.

Immy exits the cave and into the city, sneaking past the four guards, planning to take out the other two. Both Lannon and Luekia move forward, into position by the closest two of the four. Both Narg and Guice prepare to move up to join them. Immy succeeds in backstabbing the first hobgoblin, but is seen by the second. The bugbear moves to attack Immy, catching the attention of the other four hobgoblins. Lannon and Luekia use this as a signal, and take out two of them, Lannon backstabbing one and Luekia knocking one unconscious via an open-hand attack. Narg and Guice charge forward.

Lannon successfully hits one, with Guice finishing him off. Luekia strikes the remaining one unconscious, with Narg then jabbing him to death. Outside of the cave, Immy casts a Chromatic Orb to eliminate his remaining foe. Narg and Immy drag the bodies into the cave. Timothy and Jerry move forward, the other eight characters staying further back in the cave. Jerry is put in charge of the unconscious prisoner, and told to act as the scout for the second group which Serita is named the team leader of, as the other seven make their way into the city. Once the lawful-good characters, Luekia and Timothy, are out of sight Jerry takes care of the prisoner in his own way.

They carefully make their way to the center of the city, with Guice checking for tracks along the way. A patrol of four hobgoblins is avoided. They investigate Vallessa’s home, finding evidence of the battle that took place there. For the first time in anybody's memory, Narg appears worried. The group picks up a few supplies from her home, including one of Vallessa’s perfume decanters that Narg had filled with bourbon. Guice comments that Vallessa probably uses it as perfume now to make herself more attractive to Narg.

A group of ten hobgoblins is seen heading towards the east side of the city, and Luekia is sent back to warn those in the cave mouth of this, suspecting them to be a changing of the guard there. Instead, they turn out to be reinforcements to the bullywug swamp. While waiting for Luekia to return they spend the time telling Immy about the magic item the Candle of Kobolds, and its many uses.

Meanwhile, eight miles to the northwest, the ship Molly III has finally reaches the vicinity of Silver Moon Island. The skies grow worse during this, with it appearing that a major storm is imminent. The ship reaches the channel between Silver Moon Island and Mickey Mouse Island. They decide to head towards the northern inlet of Silver Moon Island, but immediately change their mind upon emerging from the channel, when a small sailboat is spotted six miles away, rapidly heading into the inlet. They immediately lower the sails, and turn the boat towards shore, hoping to avoid being seen by the sailboat.

Unbeknownst to those on the Molly III, the person on the sailboat is not an enemy, but rather a messenger sent to the island by Ki-Geloryn and the mage Derieki to inform them of what Kindor, Jennifer and Aldorn are doing to assist them. The messenger, an unusual man named Kale, has expertise in small boat sailing. As an anti-teleportation shield now surrounded the island Derieki had teleported Kale and his sailboat (specially designed for racing) to a point in the ocean far north of the island. They recommended that he start looking for the Silver Moon in the city at the top of the mountain, saying that if he can’t find them there it would still give him a good vantage point of the entire island.

In the City, Luekia rejoins the others, and they check out Narg, Mojo & Furynick’s home, finding Mojo’s room to have been disturbed. Narg’s room is also a disaster, but he says that is how he left it. He also makes a note to himself to give his butler Hobbson a raise.

They follow the hobgoblin tracks to Cassie’s home, and from there to the north end of the city. The hide from another patrol of hobgoblins, and decide they need to scout from a higher elevation, heading to a two-story building. Immy checks out the room, finding it already occupied by four goblins, across from the building that Phormosah previously occupied. They also spot four other goblins atop another roof. They conclude that it is a set-up similar to what they found at Crystull’s house, with Phormosah’s house being another of the ‘escape locations‘ that the lower-level group had been told of. They decide to leave it and the goblins as they are.

They deciding to stay with the idea of getting to higher ground to scope out the area, so choose to head to the highest point in the city, the four-story ziggurat-style building that Dennismore and Lono call home, located in the southwestern side of the city. As they near it, they see a contingent of over a dozen hobgoblins guarding atop the first floor roof of the building, and conclude that this looks like it could be where their friends are being held captive. They travel through the large building immediately to the north of it, getting to a series of windows across the street from their destination. They then begin to discuss how to get the party the fifty feet across the street without being seen. Immy volunteers to invisibly scout out around the building. The group decides to send Luekia instead, due to her quicker monk speed.

She takes the long way around, never actually approaching the building. She also stops by Serita’s house, and uses her speak-with-animal ability to talk to one of the black panthers prowling within the gates of Serita’s yard. She is told that the hobgoblins have been keeping themselves at a distance from the panthers. The big cats recall four people being carried to the Ziggurat building. After deriving a count of the number of hobgoblins atop the first floor roof of the Ziggurat, Luekia heads back to the others. She gives them the visual description from the panthers of each, the group concluding that Aradyn, Dennismore, Furynick and Hobbson are the ones being held within the building.

The group decides how to best assault the building. Narg is surprisingly apprehensive about attacking, wanting to first inform Serita’s group what they have found. Luekia is sent to relay a message to that group.

Several miles north, assisted by a very strong breeze, Kale managed to reach the north side of the island within an hour, continuing to sail through the northern inlet and up the stream towards the mountain. When the stream narrowed, he found some adequate foliage to hide the boat in, and continued on foot towards the mountain, half a mile away.

Back in the channel between Silver Moon Island and Mickey Mouse Island, the party had beached the ship Molly III on the Silver Moon side. They used the anchors to prevent the ship from being pulled back out to sea by the storm, and secure all of the sails. Vincenzo then led the crew and children on a trek through the woods, their destination being the abandoned home that formerly belonged to the magic-user Crystull, located a little more than a mile from their current location. Vincenzo felt that this might provide safe haven from the approaching storm for the children, as well as a possible base of operations.

In the City, Luekia travels over half the way back to the tunnel with the others when she spots another building in the southern part of the city that also has a large contingent of hobgoblin guards atop its roof. Rather than continuing, she heads back to inform her own group near the ziggurat. A lengthy debate follows, going over the merits of combining the forces to assault one building, or having the two teams strike both buildings simultaneously. The eventually decided upon combining the forces, and send Luekia the long-way back to the cave entrance to get the other nine (Blip, Fiona, Freyland, Isaiah, Jerry, Kruk, Mojo, Razou, & Serita), and then carefully bring them back to the group’s present location

Back to the northwestern shore, Vincenzo's team has hiked through the overgrown virgin forests, which takes a while, with the building eventually in sight. They send Horatio forward to investigate. Milo’s young apprentice soon returns, to inform them that each of the two doors of the building are slightly open, and that there are a lot of fresh tracks near the building. He reports also finding bodies of several bugbears on the trail east of the cabin, seeing more bugbear bodies further down the road. They appear to have been dead at least a day, and he also complains that they “didn’t have anything good on them.” The boy adds, “This is where Milo says to stop thieving and turn things over to the stupid fighters.” Offended by the term Stupid, Richard comments “Milo told you that?” Michael interjects “either that or he had lunch with Fiona (knowing of her dislike of fighters).”

The fighters Fritz, Michael and Lothar approach, and listen through the doors. They hear two distinct voices inside, speaking in Bugbear. They then gather the others together, and leave the three weakest crewmembers; who collectively have a combined total of only seven hit points, with the kids (where a good argument could be made as to exactly who was guarding who at this point).

The other six crewmembers, and Vincenzo, then storm the building, charging through both doors, weapons drawn. The two bugbears immediately surrender, and are then tied, bound and gagged.
Vincenzo and Fritz decide to question the two bugbear prisoners. They reveal that they have only been on the island a day, that they entered through a magical door. There were to hike to this cabin to meet up with a group of humans who would then lead them. Before reaching the cabin they saw a bright flash in the sky, and then were attacked.

Fritz tries to determine how many bugbears were involved, but the bugbears’ counting ability is limited to the terms ‘some‘, ‘most’ and ‘lots‘. They say that they ran away during the battle, and were the only two to later arrive at the cabin, although they know that some more did manage to get away. The bugbears appear to be fearful of their captors, and make no aggressive moves.

Back at the ship Silver Moon, this was a particularly windy day, but the six crewmembers were capable of keeping the ship sailing without a problem. What seemed odd was that Sonja did not appear to have any real course in mind, with her having the ship sailing primarily southwest, but occasionally turning in other directions also. At noon, the half-elf fighter joined the other enemy adventurers, who called him Kimball. He said that lunch was ready, and four of the enemy adventurers headed below deck. Hans then told Jacob that on the previous day Bernard was relieved on deck by Stokkes at 1:00 PM, and that Stokkes kept the crew further apart while they worked. Assuming the enemy would keep to this same pattern, Hans and Jacob decided it best to spend the next hour planning, as Bernard did not seem to care if they spoke to each other now that his leaders were gone.

They concluded that they needed to launch an attack within the next day in order to protect the animals, and that the best time for an attack would be during the 11:00 PM shift change. At that point in time, most of the enemy adventurers would be off sleeping and Jacob’s team would also be fresh. Assuming that the shift change would go as it went the previous day, there would then be a brief amount of time where both Hans and Jacob’s teams would be on the crew deck by the dining table, with their hands and feet untied. Unfortunately, there would still be the seven bugbears to contend with, as well as the cleric Stokkes. From what they had heard, Stokkes only had first and second level clerical spells, an indication that he was only at third or fourth level ability level, and therefore probably the weakest of the six main enemies.

Since Stokkes had promised to heal Jacob’s trio again this evening, they decided they would wait until immediately after he cast the third cure as the signal to launch the attack. Who ever the final healing spell was cast on would then have the job of preventing Stokkes from throwing any more spells, while the other two members of Jacob’s team would have the task of attacking the bugbears guarding Hans’s team. These guards would be just coming off sixteen hours on duty, so would be tired and less alert, and therefore be the best targets to potentially grab weapons from.

The job of Hans’s team’s would be to delay the fresh bugbears guarding Jacob’s team from intervening. Since each bugbear always stood behind the crewmember that they were each guarding, by having each trio attack each other’s guards, none of the crew would have turn around to launch an attack. The groups would also have to deal with the bugbear cabin guard, but he would be initially preoccupied with eating his own dinner. There was no point in planning what to do beyond that, as they concluded that even this plan had a slim chance of success, so it was best not to get ahead of themselves.

Their time to plan then ended, as Stokkes came above deck, telling Bernard “you’re relieved, go eat.” As expected, Stokkes made sure that none of the crew worked anywhere near each other. The weather continued to get rough during the afternoon, with heavy winds that occasionally gusted to 60 miles-per-hour. The other enemies spent very little time on deck that afternoon. At around 2:30 PM, Hans and Sammy were called below by Spring to again clean up the hold. They returned half and hour later, at which point Jacob’s trio were then sent back below to eat and sleep.

As they entered the room, the half-elf fighter Kimball was waiting for them in the dining room. He immediately sent Trent’s trio out of the room and above deck. He then had the bugbears tie Jacob’s team’s waists and legs to their chairs while they ate. After the quiet meal, Jacob’s trio had their hands and feet tightly tied by the fighter, and they were then dragged by the bugbears into the cabin to sleep. Jacob informed his team of the plan, and then they went to sleep.

Above deck, Hans managed to untie a line to a sail so that the next gust of wind pulled it loose, requiring both of his other team members to assist him in catching and retying it. During this, he managed to briefly inform them of the plan. Crewmember Reginon commented that “It sounds rather suicidal, but what the hell, we have to do something.” Hans was not able to get close enough to any of Trent’s trio to inform them of the plans, but this was less critical, as those three would still be above-deck when the attack was too be launched.

 

[Sabriel]

Glad to see the crash hasn't dissuaded your story-posting. Really looking forward to how the next "Great (Boat) Escape" goes.

 

[Silver Moon]

Thanks Sabriel, the crash wasn't a problem as I've been simultaneously posting both here and over on the dragonsfoot.org board, so just had to copy the posts over from there.

You'll have to wait another chapter or two of the next ship escape, this chapter is back with the high-level group up in the mountain top city. When I ran this module I was actually surprised that the players decided to spend several game nights playing out escape attempts by the captured NPC's. I had assumed they would just concentrate on the high-level characters and let them initaite rescue missions.


Chapter Seventeen, “The Ziggurat Battle”, August 7th, 1018, 3:00 P.M.

Back in the City, Luekia successfully leads the group at the tunnel entrance back, avoiding traveling where the hobgoblins atop these two buildings can see, as well as avoiding traveling patrols. The combined group of sixteen characters then have another lengthy debate, this time on assault strategy. At long last, over two hours after the initial group first reached this location, a plan is launched.

Both Immy and Blip stay by the building, and throw up illusions east of the building to keep those at the building across town from being able to see what is really happening. The others pile into the three bags of holding, which Luekia and Lannon each take. While climbing into the bags Guice makes the comment “We’ve spent so much time in these bags we should fix them up inside.” Timothy comments “Just don’t put in a window”.

By this time, Kale has reached the top of the mountain, discovering that the mountain is an extinct volcano, with a city within its crater a hundred yards below the rim. From this lookout point by this rim, he observed a group of around 40 hobgoblins surrounding a marsh with dozens armed bullywug. Elsewhere in the city, small patrols of hobgoblins wandered about. He examined the different methods for entering the city. On the crater rim, about 200 yards east of him were vines leading down to the city. They looked to be sturdy, but traveling down them would clearly be seen by the hobgoblins below. At the center opposite side of the crater rim he saw a huge tree, whose uppermost branches reach out to above the crater. Also on the opposite end of the crater, in the eastern corner of the city, was a cave, but he had no way of knowing where on the mountain the entrance of this cave was located.

Lannon and Luekia invisibly approach the building from its west end, and scale each floor, keeping as far from the hobgoblin guards as possible. The windows on the 3rd and 4th floors are shut, but from sounds heard it is apparent that there are people inside. They reach the roof, seeing two hobgoblin lookouts lying on it. Like the goblins in the other part of the city, these lookouts are both wearing clothing and are partially covered by blankets which are the exact same color as the roof, essentially camouflaging them from distant observation from above.

The hobgoblins are looking eastward, towards the other building that Luekia had spotted. In front of them are signal mirrors and flags. Lannon and Luekia begin to approach the two, getting halfway across when Lannon stumbles, making noise loud enough to be heard. They both stop, and wait before proceeding. Lannon stumbles again, this time alerting the hobgoblin closest to Luekia. The hobgoblin begins to react, until she knocks him unconscious. Her doing this catches the attention of the other hobgoblin, so Lannon makes a diving leap towards him, sword extended. Landing with a loud thud, Lannon slays the creature.

Luekia and Lannon both now hear hurried movement in the room below, and realize that the element of surprise has been lost. They each start to quickly emptying their bags of holding, the first three dumped out being Serita, Luekia and Timothy. Luekia drops the bag in order to retrieve the flags and mirrors, before they accidentally fall to the hobgoblins below on the first floor roof, who are still unaware of what is transpiring above. As others are dumped out, sounds from the room below cease. Serita grabs the dropped bag, and begins to dump occupants as well.

By now, several fighters have emerged from the bags, with Kruk, Guice and Narg heading directly to the trapdoor leading to the fireman’s pole down. They see nobody on the fourth floor, and slide down the pole to the 3rd floor, where an armed enemy fighter awaits them. The enemy fighter engages Narg in battle, with Kruk moving up directly behind him. Guice and Lannon also slide down to that level while Mojo decides to slide all the way down to the first floor, and Adrianna checks out the 4th floor.

Narg and Kruk combined manage to bring down the fighter, without taking any hits in the process (and the DM curses his dice, which never exceeded an eight, out of ten attack rolls). As the characters look around the rooms for the possible location of the prisoners. The group still up on the roof now notices lots of activity on the second floor of the distant building, in spite of the spell by the illusionists, which makes them think the enemy mage had teleported to that other location. “Uh oh,” Timothy exclaims.

The cleric’s intuition proves to be correct as a massive fireball then explodes from within the 3rd floor of the Ziggurat. The fire pours out of all 3rd story windows, and through a hole in the roof atop the 4th floor. On the 3rd floor Guice, Kruk, Lannon and Narg are all caught directly within the seventy-two point blast (and thankfully all make their saves). A few of the others take small amounts of damage from the ancillary burst of heat.

The rest of the party start sliding down the pole. Most go to the ground floor, where Mojo has declared to be temporarily safe. Luekia and Freyland both decide to stop atop the second floor, and battle the many hobgoblins now coming into that floor from outside on the first floor roof. Luekia drops three, and Freyland dishes out some damage on his own, before they decide to retreat. At the first floor they regroup, and exit from the eastern door of the building. They grab up their two illusionists and head east through the city. Shortly thereafter, the hobgoblins start to exit the same building, the ones in front then being struck down by a Flame Strike from Serita’s staff. This causes the other hobgoblins to pull back to within the building itself.

Above, on the northern ridge of the crater, while Kale had been debating his next move, two things occurred. In the opposite western end of the city, atop a tall ziggurat-style building, a massive fireball exploded from within the structure. Fire pours out of all 3rd story windows, and through a hole in the roof atop the 4th floor. He then notices movement atop that roof. His eyes are then drawn to movement much closer to him, as what he assumes is an enemy orc lookout moves from a hiding point near the vines 200 yards away from him. He immediately finds cover to avoid being seen. This well-armed and well-armored orc then rushes to the mouth of a cave about 75 feet behind him.

Within a few rounds, a group of thirteen humanoids exit this cave, this group being comprised mostly of monsters. He sees that they are led by a well-armed and well-armored male human fighter and a male drow elf dressed in robes. With them are six armed lizard men with shields and partial armor, a well-armed and well-armored bugbear, and the previously seen orc. Four of the lizard men are wearing very full backpacks.

These creatures appear to have three prisoners with them. Two of the prisoners are barely clothed human males, with their mouths gagged, hands tied behind their backs, with ropes around their waists linked to the bugbear guard. The other prisoner is a young human girl, around seven or eight years of age not restrained but closely guarded by the lizard men, the closest lizard man to her carrying a loaded crossbow. She wears simple cloth clothing, and he is surprised to see that she has a sheathed longsword slung through her belt.

Kale assumes that the orc/drow/lizard men group is enemies with silver moon prisoners. As such, he wishes to determine where they are going so that he can inform the Silver Moon when he meets up with them. They start to head east, away from Kale, making a path around the crater and slightly down the mountain. Kale follows the group at a distance, staying near the rim, in order to still see down into the city. In the city below he sees around a dozen adventurers exit the ziggurat, and rush east through a main street of the city. Shortly thereafter, hobgoblins start to exit the same building, the lead ones being struck down by a Flame Strike.

Kale decides to continue to move clockwise along the rim of the crater, with the tree on the opposite side being his destination. He also continues to keep an eye on the departing group of thirteen, continue clockwise downward along the mountain, with them eventually heading below the tree line and out of his visual range.

In the city below, the group quickly covers the next quarter-mile distance through the city. Immy casts an Improved Phantasmal Force spell, creating a group of illusionary adventurers who are the mirror images of the party. He has this group charge the other line of hobgoblins exiting the other building. A fierce battle breaks out between hobgoblins and the illusionary adventurers. Meanwhile, the rest of the party uses this distraction to make their way around to the same destination, traveling behind other buildings and out of sight of the lookouts on the second floor of the building that they are heading to.

A fireball then envelops the illusionary group of adventurers. It drops their hobgoblin attackers, and Immy has the adventurers appear to be hurt. Wounded, they then engage another group of hobgoblins who now close on them, only to be hit by another fireball. These hobgoblins also fall, and Immy has a few of the illusionary adventurers retreat, the majority still pressing onward.

While this is going on the hobgoblins by the marsh watching the bullywugs break off from guard duty, heading towards the melee. The hobgoblins from the ziggurat have also regrouped, and are now charging down the main road towards the melee.

The real adventurers round the corner of the adjacent building, and storm their destination. In the front are Adrianna, Krug, Mojo and Narg, who attack the three hobgoblins guarding the southwestern door of the building. These four adventurers are then hit by another fireball, which they all save from, but still take thirty-seven points of damage. Kruk sees the mage who cast the spell on the roof, and uses his boots of leaping and striding to get up there to attack the man. He takes two leaps, landing atop the 2nd floor room, and runs to the wall that the Mage disappeared behind, only to discover that the man is literally gone, and not just invisible.

Immy ceases his spell of the illusionary adventurers, which will cause them to vanish after a few round. He then casts a Confusion spell into the open second floor window, assuming this is where the enemy is (not realizing allies are also in that room). He next casts up an illusion of a Red Dragon to make a strafing run at the hobgoblins moving in from the ziggurat, which causes them to disperse. At this point the group illusion of adventurers fades out, just as an invisible enemy mage is watching them. This alerts him to the fact that there is illusionary magic running, which he had originally suspected of the giant red dragon. Immy has the dragon now turn, and starts to fly towards the other group of hobgoblins, coming from the direction of the marsh. The enemy mage targets the dragon, striking it with a Dispel Magic just as it flies past, causing it to blink out of existence.

Narg and Kruk have now made their way into the building, finding a group of four hobgoblins on the other side of the door. Meanwhile, Luekia and Lannon both scale the wall of the building, arriving on the roof to the attention of the hobgoblins atop it.

Lannon and Luekia are rushed at by hobgoblin foes on the second floor roof. Lannon drops him. Luekia manages to toss her foe off of the roof, him landing directly beside Guice. Guice yells to Narg “Leave the ones inside alone, it’s raining hobgoblins out here!” He then adds “It’s a good thing we’re wearing the spiked helmets we got at that German garage sale.”

The next one that Luekia tosses off the roof barely misses Adrianna. She tells Guice “You’re right, it is raining hobgoblins” which he answers with an “I told you so.” She and Guice make sure both of these fallen hobgoblins do not get up, being watchful for more from above. Inside the building, Kruk and Narg finish off their four foes, as Adrianna and Guice enter the building through the door. They are then rushed by five hobgoblins that were guarding the other door at the opposite end of the room.

Meanwhile, the “Confusion” spell has taken effect in the room where Immy had targeted it towards, with unintended results. Immy had assumed the room to be filled with enemies. It turns out that this is only partially true, as it contains three armed hobgoblins who are guarding the four tied and bound prisoners lying on the floor that the Mage had dumped after he teleported in from the Ziggurat. Everyone in the room is affected by the spell except for one of the hobgoblins.

The confusion causes most to just act bewildered during the first round, except for Lono who feels compelled to attack one of the guards. The guard is confused also, so does not react to Lono’s feeble kick at him. During the next round, both confused hobgoblins are also compelled to attack. One attacks Narg’s butler Hobbson, but misses. Thankfully for the party, the other chooses to attack the hobgoblin not affected by the spell. In the following round Hobbson is compelled to attack the hobgoblin that went after him, missing terribly. The confused hobgoblin attacking his ally strikes again, killing the other one. This hobgoblin and Hobbson are both then compelled to run away, and exit the room, the hobgoblin descending down the stairs, Hobbson crawling out of the room and hiding in a corner near the staircase. At this point the other confused hobgoblin is compelled to attack Furynick, sticking him once and reducing him to a single hit point.

As the hobgoblin begins to swing his axe again into Furynick for what will probably be a fatal blow, Lannon arrives at the window and backstabs the monster. Lannon and Luekia enter the room, seeing Furynick, Aradyn and Lono in their dazed and confused state. The spell finally wears off. The players then lecture Immy’s player to never again cast that spell somewhere unknown. The DM comments that it could have easily proved fatal for all four of the prisoners, and probably would have if the dice roll came up for the first hobgoblin to attack his enemies rather than his partner. They find Hobbson out in the hallway, as he comments about maybe looking for a new line of work.

In the room below, Kruk, Narg, Guice and Adrianna drop their five foes after a surprisingly long fight (real bad dice rolls from the players). They then notice that the room is covered with straw that has been soaked in fuel for Alton’s vehicles. Realizing the potential danger, they head up the staircase, finding the other six. Adrianna, Lannon, Kruk, and Guice each assist a prisoner down the staircase and out of the building by the southwestern door. Narg and Luekia quickly check the other rooms on the first floor, but choose not to open the oak door separating them from the next part of the building. They remember back when they first checked out the city nine years earlier the middle section of this particular building had been set up without windows and with only a few well-made doors, so it was probably originally used as either a vault or prison.

The hobgoblins have now begun to approach the party from around the distant ends of the building. The group decides that an archer-ranger would be a useful addition to keep these monsters at bay, so Timothy casts cures on the just-now-rescued Aradyn to bring him up in points. Aradyn is then given the bow and extra arrows that had been obtained from Vallessa’s house. The group of Aradyn, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lannon, and Serita take up position near the southwestern corner of the building, to hold back any foes from around the northern corner. The group of Adrianna, Blip, Freyland, Guice, Kruk, Luekia, Mojo and Narg proceed eastward alongside the long 280-foot wall of the building. Fiona, Razou and Timothy assist the very weak Furynick, Lono and Hobbson into the large building immediately west of where Aradyn and his group has taken up guard.

Out on the main street, a group of over a dozen hobgoblins decide to charge Aradyn and his four allies. They barrel around the building, yelling and brandishing their weapons, still over forty feet away. Immy is alone inside the northeastern corner of the next building, and sees this group rushing outside of the window, casting a Fear spell on them. Meanwhile, Aradyn lets loose two arrows into the one who he assumes is the hobgoblin’s leader. Both arrows hit, knocking the foe off his feet, landing very dead in the midst of the others charging, just as the Fear spell takes effect, encompassing all but one of the other hobgoblins (who fails morale). Watching the hobgoblins all turn and flee, and unaware of Immy’s spell, Aradyn’s ego swells, and he comments “I’m baaaack”.

To the east, the other group lets loose a few arrows to deter the few hobgoblins that poke their heads around the southeast corner of the building. Blip notices movement at the canvas shade covering one of only two windows in that section of this building. Blip alerts the others to this, and Luekia goes back through a window in the western part of the building, to head in this direction. When the window shade moves again, Guice and Adrianna both let loose arrows into it, as Kruk uses his magic boots to leap into the room. Narg and Mojo soon follow him.

The now wounded invisible person inside is tackled. Luekia opens the oak door into the adjacent section of the building, only to be struck by magic missiles, reducing her to a single hit point. She quickly rushes through the doorway into the room where Kruk, Narg and Mojo now are, Narg using his Decanter of Endless water to soak the foe, the water outlining the body. Once there, she gets out her sack of flour to cover the person, dumping it onto the wet invisible foe, making the outline even clearer. Narg then draws his rope of climbing to bind the person, who they can now tell is female. Guice catches enough of her hand movement to tell that she is holding a dagger, and strikes her into unconsciousness. A darkness spell then appears covering the hallway outside of the room.

Recognizing that she is too weakened to proceed, Luekia has Guice and Freyland escort her to the building west for healing. They debate what to do with the prisoner. Kruk and Adrianna are then told to carry her to the building to the west, where Razou and Fiona can keep an eye on her. They exit, Adrianna firing arrows at a small group of hobgoblins further east, dropping two and causing the others to retreat behind the building. They soon reach the building to the west.

Kale has watched the happenings in the city below. While watching the illusionary dragon, he lost sight of the group of twice-fireballed adventurers, and assumes that they have entered a building, the dragon apparently an illusion to cover their retreat. At this point, he sees that the rooftop battle is over with the adventurers exiting the building, carrying wounded. Most of them retreat to a large building west of that, with a few remaining in the street to deter the other hobgoblins from getting closer. A group of eight adventurers then head further down the stormed building, climbing through a window near the middle of the structure.

By now, Kale is nearing the tree, and begins to evaluate the best way to descend while still remaining hidden. While he is doing this he sees a trio of characters, one apparently wounded, exit the building window they had climbed in and head to the building west of it. Soon, another group also exits for the building west, this group having two adventurers carrying the body of a third. A different pair of adventurers then head back to the window from the building west.

Kale checks out several large branches overhanging the cliff. He next sees a short person exits the window, flying on a broom quickly to the building west, and then returning to the window. He also notices that the approximately fifty remaining hobgoblins have organized together, and are circling around to come in behind the building to the west where most of the adventurers are now inside. Kale finds an overhanging limb to climb onto which will support his weight, and begins to make his way very carefully across it, the branch swaying heavily by the wind.