"Retake the Island" - Concluded!

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Eighteen, “Barthrock’s Truce”, August 7th, 1018, 3:45 P.M.

Below, realizing that only Blip, Mojo and Narg remain in the other building, Serita and Timothy decide to go assist them. Narg, Mojo and Blip hear a male voice from elsewhere in the building yells out “Gina, answer us”. Blip attempts to answer, but her voice is apparently too different from Gina’s to be believed. The voice calls out again “Gina, are you all right.” Serita and Timothy then join them. Serita also tries to answer as Gina, but it is again not believe. The five debate what to do next when the voice starts to inquire as to what happened to Gina. Narg yells back that she is unavailable. The voice asks about her status. This is followed by a lengthy back and forth exchange, Narg giving as little information as possible. The voice yells back “Hold your fire, I’m coming out.”

A short, stocky and very hairy fighter emerges from the darkness. From his appearance, it is obvious that his racial make-up is half-human, half-dwarf. He is wearing armor, with his only visible weapon being a two-handed sword strapped to his back. He approaches them, holding open the palms of his hands to show that he isn’t carrying anything, and introduces himself as Barthrock.

He asks again about the status of Gina, with Mojo and Narg both clarifying that she is neither conscious or present. They are surprised when he answers “Good“. He then says, “She was a spy, and not part of my team. We can talk now. I would like to propose a truce.” “Why?” asks Serita. “Because me and my team got a raw deal,” is Barthrock’s reply. “This is the second time that that other team in the city has initiated trouble, and then dumped it in the lap of my team to clean up the mess. I’ve already lost two members of my team, and would prefer not to lose any others.”

The five Silver Moon adventurers briefly discuss whether they can trust him. Narg says, “Give us back our people who you are holding, then we can talk.” The man refuses, saying that the hostages are the leverage that he needs. Mojo says “What’s to keep us from trying to trade you for them.” “You wouldn’t be that foolish” Barthrock replies. Narg is insulted, saying, “You think we are foolish?” Barthrock answers, “No I don’t. Before coming over here to you I instructed my team to kill a hostage if I don’t return within a predetermined time. I am assuming that you want no harm to come to them.”

“OK, tell us again why you are willing to betray your allies?” asks Narg. “I never said anything about betraying allies,” answers Barthrock, “I said a truce. You and the others can fight each other all you want, my team will just sit it out.” “Oh, so you’ll wait until we’re weakened up by the others, and fight us at the end?” comments Mojo. Narg start to yell “Why you no good” until Blip interjects “Wait, I think he means that he isn’t planning to fight us at all.” “That’s what a truce is,” says Barthrock. “So you’ll help us attack the other group in the city who screwed you guys over?” comments Mojo. “Absolutely not,” says Barthrock. “The deal is that we don’t fight you and we don’t fight them either. I don’t want Morgarth coming after my team in the future for going against him.”

“Why did you get involved with him in the first place?” Serita asks. He replies, “It sounded like a good deal at the time. Ten teams of seven adventurers, plus support troops, the winning team getting to be Morgarth’s personal guard. Good pay for minimal work.

Most teams were just individuals thrown together, so an experienced and coordinated established team like mine stood a good chance of being the winner. It is now apparent, however, that he is favoring the teams run by Mages, with teams run by fighters like myself being used as cannon fodder. I don’t like being used, or having my party members sacrificed.”

Narg angrily snaps at him “What did you expect. You lie down with dogs, you’re going to get fleas.” Barthrock is angered by this comment, and the tension between him and Narg rises to the point that violence between them is imminent. Blip breaks some of the tension by asking “Tell us about the spy Gina.”

Barthrock replies “Another stupid move of Morgarth’s. Taking down the initial groups on this island cost him several people, so he decided to redistribute people to make all of the teams even again, at six each. I voiced that it was stupid to alter team dynamics with unproven people, and would keep just my group of only five, but had this Gina person added to my team anyway. Like we really needed a 4th level Magic-User! We figure she was just sent with us as a spy. Do with her as you wish, we don’t care.”

Mojo again interjects “If you won’t release the hostages to us, what assurance is there that we can trust you?” “You want a show of trust?” he says, “Here’s a gift for you. Take it, as it is the only one you’re getting from me. Right now every hobgoblin still alive in this city, about four dozen or so of them, are making their way around behind these buildings to sneak up upon the building west of here where the rest of your group is currently hiding.”

Barthrock then says, “Look, you mentioned the hostages. I have to go back now, or else a hostage will be killed.” “Take us with you to check on the status of the hostages” Serita insists. “I’ll take ONE of you with me,” Barthrock answers. “Fine,” says Narg in an angry and abrupt tone, as he steps forward to accompany the man. Given Narg’s demeanor, the rest of the party remains absolutely quiet, nobody even daring to suggest that perhaps they should go instead.

As soon as they both fighters walk into the darkness, Timothy exhales loudly and says “Oh boy. Should Narg have been the one to go with him?” Serita quietly states “They’re holding Vallessa,” This explanation is enough for everyone to justify Narg’s present attitude, and that he would not have allowed anybody else to go. Blip points out that their allies in the other building need to be warned them about the hobgoblins, and flies over there on her broom. She soon returns. Inside of the building to the west, the party discusses strategies about how to quickly set up an ambush for the hobgoblins.

The enemy leader Barthrock takes Narg to a pair of thick oaken doors, which are guarded by a male dwarven fighter holding a broadsword. Barthrock states a password to the dwarf, and the three then enter a thirty by forty foot windowless room together. In each of the far corners of the room are two other adventurers, a male druid with a staff and scimitar, and a male human of oriental descent, wearing simple robes, with no visible weapons. Lying on the eastern side of the room are dead bodies of two unknown people, one male one female. The male has a large bullet-hole in his chest. Lying on the eastern side of the room are Hobbson’s two assistants, Marcroft and Hardy. Both are tied, bound and gagged, but also conscious. Lying on the floor by the center of the southern wall are the unconscious bodies of Dennismore, Vallessa and Alton. They have been stripped of their clothing, covered only by blankets, and are noticeable bruised.

Upon seeing this, Narg immediately rushes over to Vallessa. Both enemy guards in the corners of the room draw their weapons, but lower them again when signaled by Barthrock. Silence fills the room as Narg examines Vallessa, assessing the extent of her injuries. He sees several bruises, as well as burns and singed hair from apparent fireball damage. When he eventually turns his head towards Barthrock, Narg’s face is a shade of crimson red, and with clenched fists and teeth he slowly but loudly states, “Who….did….this?”

Barthrock cautiously says “Several people exchanged blows during the battle, your Druid there did this to my best friend” while gesturing to the body with the bullet wound.” Narg answers, “The key difference is that he (gesturing to Alton) was protecting his home from invaders.” A long silence follows. Narg then states “So, which one of you did this to her?”

Barthrock answers “A mage with my party, who is not in this room at the moment, was the one to finally drop her. He then fell too, brought down by an arrow that she simultaneously shot at him prior to his spell hitting her.” “When this is over I want a piece of him,” Narg states.

Another uncomfortable period of silence follows. Barthrock eventually interrupts, saying “Look, we’re not getting anywhere here. Let’s return to your friends and continue discussions.” “Fine, but release them” says Narg, pointing to Marcroft and Hardy and adding, “They’re only civilians, not part of our adventuring group.” Barthrock exchanges glances with his friends, then says, “I am open to discussion of that, let’s go back to the others.” The two do so.

Narg tells the other four the status of the hostages, and again demands that Marcroft and Hardy be returned. Serita asks why the other hostages are still unconscious. Barthrock answers that his team is using magic to keep them that way, to prevent the druid from shape changing and the other two from trying to escape, adding that the initial battle demonstrated how resourceful they were.”

Timothy says, “Tell us again why you’ve done this.” Barthrock reiterates that his group is an experienced team of mercenaries, who thought this to be a deal with potential, but now realize that they have been taken advantage of. He says that from the onset this assignment has been poorly executed by Morgarth, giving as an example that an entire team had been sent to take out the ranger Mark, who wasn’t even at his home at the time, being here in the city instead.

He then says that he is sick of his group being used as a pawn by the other team run by the mages. “How many mages?” asks Serita? Barthrock tells them that an ad hoc group of mages had been quickly thrown together from members of the various teams in order to capture Cassie-Andra, and that several died in the attempt. One member of that group was extremely injured and unable to return to the team he was supposed to lead on the attack of the school. That particular team did fine without him, so he has since then stayed here in the city with the other city group, which is also led by another mage.

The party informs Barthrock that they are aware of the building in the northeast corner of the city being observed by the goblins, designated as an escape location. Barthrock smiles, and says “Then I don’t have to tell you where to go to find them.” They ask about the tracking device, which Barthrock says is another sore point, as his team is forbidden to pillage until after all of the Silver Moon are defeated, yet a female mage with the tracking device was allowed to come into the city which her team and remove items from the buildings. He adds that magic taken off of the hostages was also carried away for supposedly safekeeping. They ask if this is the only tracking device. He says as far as he knows that it is.

Barthrock asks “Do we have the truce then?” Narg answers, “Yes, provided you return to us the two civilians.” “Agreed,” says Barthrock, and he calls over to his team to release them. Marcroft and Hardy soon join them. “Make sure you keep the others safe,” says Narg. Barthrock answers “We will. Only after this is completely over will I turn them over to whoever wins, which I suspect will probably be you.”

He then adds, “There are five of you who Morgarth is actually afraid of, Cassie, Mark, and the three Jawlt Council members.” Narg gestures to himself and Serita, saying, “We’re two of those.” They ask where Mark and Cassie are, to which Barthrock says he does not know, that another Mage teleported away with them. He also informs the party that , in addition to the hobgoblins and bugbears, the enemy also has with them twenty hairless giants, whose feet resemble those of elephants.

Barthrock’s concluding comment is “The truce is on, and you would be wise not to violate it. My team really is the best of the ten. We were the group who stopped Cassie after both mage groups had failed. For that matter, we also brought down all of the other hostages from this city, including all three of your rangers.” Barthrock leaves, and the party exits out the window.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter 19, “Ambushing the Hobgoblins”, August 7th, 1018, 4:15 P.M.

Back in the building to the west, Aradyn, Fiona and Guice climb up to the roof, and cautiously head towards the center south wall of the structure, just as the hobgoblins round the southwestern wall of this building. They lie in wait above an alcove, and wait until after all but the last dozen or so have past. Jerry and Freyland wait inside a door of this alcove, alongside Isaiah and Razou who begin a Chant spell.

The hobgoblin leader spots the seven climbing out of the window of the building to the East, and orders an attack. As soon as the hobgoblins start to rush forward, Fiona lets loose a Sleep spell, with Guice and Aradyn firing point blank into others below. Serita, Narg, Mojo and Timothy then charge at the group of Hobgoblins, as Blip flies her broom up to the roof of that structure. Meanwhile, those on the roof of the other building continue to fire down, as Freyland and Jerry exit the building to attack the hobgoblins remaining in the rear of the group.

Serita is the first to close ranks with the monsters in the front, followed by Narg, Mojo and Timothy who waste no time in cutting down the first line. A group of hobgoblin archers break off, and begin firing point blank into these four. Mojo pulls out his hammer, and begins picking off the hobgoblin archers one by one, the hammer returning to him after each throw. Narg, Serita and Mojo show no mercy, bringing down all that they can reach. The hobgoblins do very poorly with hitting back, with only one getting in a successful attack from behind, on Serita. Blip fires down from her roof, dropping several. The hobgoblins in the middle see their allies fall from both the front and rear, and many attempt to flee, only to be cut down from the rooftop.

One of the fleeing hobgoblins runs in the direction of the large tree, spotting Kale climbing down it. This hobgoblin points directly at him and yells “There’s another one.” just as Aradyn’s arrow strikes this hobgoblin down. Some hobgoblins retreat into the building, apparently unaware that several adventurers still remain within the structure, finding Adrianna and Kruk both more than willing to deal with them. Another runs into an adjacent building, with Luekia chasing after him, chasing him through several rooms before cutting him down as well. The last of the foes are taken down out on the street.

The party quickly gathers up some armor and weapons for those who need it, and heads back into the western building, gathering together their group. A quick assessment shows that the only injury from the hobgoblins was the single blow on Serita. They decide that the best place to retreat to is Serita’s house down the street, and all twenty-two exit from the front of this building, bringing with them the still unconscious prisoner Gina, and head west down the street.

Kale eventually reaches the base of the tree, to a point about 150 feet southwest of where the hobgoblin battle just took place. He is relieved to finally be off of the tree, as the heavy wind blowing against the branches above the crater caused it to continuously sway during his entire descent. He does not see any hobgoblins, or any other movement. The city is now extremely quiet, the only sound being that of the swift wind blowing above the crater. He makes his way over to the building that the group was last in, heading through it to the front door.

In Serita’s house, she quickly confers with the two large cats and large gorilla that she keeps as guards. They confirm that no enemy has breeched the safety of the house. This relieves her, until she checks the cellar for the Mimic Dave, finding him to be gone. She heads back to the party, informing them that “Dave’s not here.”

It is decided that Blip will head back up to the cloud giant Herculean's cave where they left the crew, to drop off Lono, Hobbson, Hardy, Marcroft and the prisoner Gina. Adrianna volunteers to accompany her as well. The six get into two bags of holding, and Blip sails off with her broom, staying low between buildings. She does not gain altitude until he is over the marsh, out of sight from a lot of the city. She arrives at the cave, and finds it empty. She chooses to head immediately back to Serita's house, again flying low between buildings to avoid detection. Blip notices that their Bullywug allies have now left the marsh, and are walking down the streets in small groups carrying weapons.

Kale continues to look and listen for signs of where the Silver Moon have gone. He investigates a part of a grove that appeared to be fireballed, finding the damage to be a few days old. In the corner of his eye he catches some very distant movement from the northern rim of the crater, something or someone dropping down quickly from the crater rim. He concludes that he cannot get to that part of the city fast enough to still be able to spot whatever it was, and continues west through the city. Suddenly, a three-foot tall person atop a broom comes flying out from the northeasterly part of the city at a very fast pace, coming around a building 250 feet north of him, and then turning south in his direction. Kale recognizes the broom flyer from the earlier battle scenes as being with the Silver Moon

Blip was almost back to Serita's house, having just passed behind Vallessa's house. She turns left to fly diagonally across the main street to the alley immediately north of Cassie's home, just east of Serita's. As she turns onto this main north-south street she spots a lone man looking directly at her from 250 south on this same street. He is a male, about six feet tall and is deeply tanned. He is wearing what appears to be a fur hat, dyed with blue and green alternating stripes. His leather armor is a shiny gray color. He has some sort of sword sheaved on his back along and a sheaf of javelins along side with an atlatl. A small shield is slung low on his back, and a net is slung through his belt. He also appears to have a small backpack, under the weapons.

Kale turns and starts to walk in Blip’s direction, waving at her and making a gesture for her to come to him. Blip waves back at him (a "come on" kind of wave), but continue on her flight across the street, leaving a mark at the next intersection indicating that she then went north rather than south to Serita’s.

Blip flies over the wall of Serita’s house and enters, frantically telling the party that there are three things are going on: “First, there are now street gangs of bullywug looking for a fight. Second, the cave is empty. Third, some bozo with a weird fur hat is out on the street.” Lono comments “A fur hat? He must be a pimp. I don’t need anybody to help me get chicks.” Blip empties the others out of the Bags of Holding, them being surprised to be back at Serita’s house instead of the cave. Serita suggests that she and Blip go deal with the Bullywug situation.

Kale continues to look for the party in the directions he saw Blip go, but not finding anything. He continues walking around the buildings on the western end of the city, looking for them.

Blip and Serita head out, avoiding the streets where Blip just saw the stranger. They soon run into the Bullywug, who Serita convinces to return to the marsh. They head back, Serita saying that the Bullywug are no longer an issue. “Like they ever were,” says Narg. Serita says, “They can be useful, you just need to learn their language.” “Speak with frogs? I think not,” is Narg’s response.

Mojo gestures to the gorilla and asks, “What’s with the walking carpet?” “He’s my valet,” she answers. “Why don’t you get a man,” asks Narg. “Until I can find a man who can actually control me I don’t need one,” answers Serita. She then begins a conversation with her chicken, who speaks back to her in common.” Lono says “Another one!” He then makes derogatory remarks about talking farm animals and particularly Silas’s talking pig.

Meanwhile, approximately six miles to the northwest, Vincenzo decides to return to the school, where he had instructed his daughter Jentile to wait the previous morning. He brings with him crewmembers Richard, Fritz, Michael and his wife’s niece Janet. They investigate the school, finding evidence of a fight having taken place on the second floor of the main house, and on the ground outside of the building. There is no evidence of Jentile.

They find tracks and move on southwest a mile to the old Silas family home along the coast, finding is surrounded by approximately forty hobgoblins. They discuss the merits of launching a rescue, the primary reason being to get Vinnie’s wife Jamie back to watch the children. They decide that there are too many enemies for the five of them to take on, and return to the school. At the school they load up with food and supplies, then trek back to Crystull’s house. The kids prepare supper, and the group settles in, as it looks like the impending storm is about to begin.

Back up in the mountaintop city, the party discusses what to do next. They conclude that they have four choices: (1) Attack the enemy mages in the city who are at Phormosah’s old house (2) Mount an assault at the Silas home where hostages are being kept (3) Try to find out what happened to the people left in the cave who are now missing (4) Mount an assault on the Tavern where more hostages are being kept. After a lengthy debate they decide on doing all of the above, by splitting up the party. Three teams will simultaneously work on the first three objectives, then meet up in the woods west of the Tavern for objective four. They conclude that there is still enough daylight to accomplish all of this, although the sky is now filled with dark clouds. [And the DM is very pleased that the players have decided to split up into teams with approximately one character per player in each.]

It is decided that the group of Aradyn, Blip, Furynick, Guice, Immy, Isaiah, Jerry, and Luekia will mount the assault on the Silas Estate. All of these except Blip climb into two of the bags of holding, which Blop picks up and flies off on her broome. Blip exits the city through the cave in the southwestern corner (avoided until now due to the cave’s underground lake as well as a rope bridge which tend to slow down movement but both of which the broom can easily fly across). At approximately 5:15 PM Blip flies her broom out of the cave entrance on the Southwestern side of the mountain.

Most of the others decide to assault the group of enemies in the city at Phormosah’s. They discuss the best way to get there through the city undetected. Mojo’s suggests Groucho glasses. Serita asks him if he can tie his tongue in a knot. He answers, “I can, but you’ll never know.” They evaluate the physical shape that everyone else is in. Lono, at only one hit point, mouths off “We’re fine, the only one who got hurt by the hobgoblins was Serita.” The group comments about how well they did in that battle overall, with Mojo (who previously lived on a 20th century world) adds “I haven’t seen that much carnage since my frat house went to two-for-one night at a fast food restaurant.”

It is decided that Hobbson, Marcroft and Tanner should stay at Serita’s house. Serita adamantly refuses to let the prisoner Gina remain in her home while she isn’t there. It is decided that Kruk and Adrianna will exit the city through the main cave to go look for clues as to the whereabouts of those left in the cave, and will bring the prisoner with them.

Serita suggests that Lono go too, to which he comments, “Yeah, I can lead that group.” She answers, “No, it’s because you’re too weak to be of any good to us and I won’t let you stay here.” He snaps back “I’m fine.” She yells back “You’re beat to Crap*!” “At least I wasn’t hit by a hobgoblin” is his comeback. “Shut the Heck * Up!” she retorts, and she slugs him. Serita connects, knocking Lono unconscious, and concluding “That felt good.” She tells Adrianna “He’s not staying here, take him too.” Kruk and Adrianna leave, carrying Lono and Gina. They head to the cave entrance at the southeastern edge of the city.

*Denotes that a family friendly Euphemism has been employed.


So the remaining group of Fiona, Freyland, Lannon, Mojo, Narg, Razou, Serita and Timothy leave the house, heading north through the city.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty, “Against the Mage’s Team”, August 7th, 1018, 5:00 P.M.

They reach the area of Phormosah’s house, and decide to first deal with the goblins that they had spotted on the roofs that morning. They split into two groups, with Fiona, Freyland, Lannon and Timothy going to the building on the southwest corner and Mojo, Narg, Serita and Razou going to the one on the northeast corner.

After an inordinately long period of time the four on the northeastern building eventually manage to get onto the roof and defeat their foes. The DM comments about how it took them nearly an hour of play for some of the most powerful characters in the group to take care of four goblins who they had the element of surprise on. “Are we maybe over-thinking this?” Mojo’s player asks.

Those on the southeastern corner quickly deal with their foes (aka a Lannon special), and then head around clockwise towards the center building, going through a grove of trees to the northeast. They see a group of trees not swaying to the wind, and investigate to discover an illusionary area. Timothy throws a Dispel Magic to remove the illusion, revealing a tent and four more goblins. They take out the two who are awake, Lannon slicing into one, Freyland using his “Freyblade” on the other, and then finish off the sleeping foes. The four then move on to meet up with the others, after first stripping the goblins of their signal wands.

All eight then enter Phormosah’s house, traveling through several rooms before finding a room that they hear voices inside of. They send a team of four to each of the two separate entrances into this room, and barge in together. The voices stop immediately as the doors open, and nobody appears to be in the room. "Great we're at the Invisible Family reunion," says Mojo. Unfortunately, Fiona does not have a detect invisibility spell with her. The group cautiously enters, being careful that nobody invisible slips out a door at the same time. Both doors are shut once the party is in the room, with Fiona and Freyland standing guard in front of each of the doors.

The other six check around the room, swinging their weapons as they walk. The wooden chairs at a table in the center of the room are checked to confirm that nobody invisible is currently sitting in them. Timothy approaches a stone staircase in the northwestern corner of the room, which heads up to a second floor. As he reaches the first step, he hears a noise about halfway up. The six-foot-three cleric rapidly bounds up the stairs, three steps at a time, with his mace connecting with somebody on the tenth step. He is then slashed by a short sword, the person holding it becoming visible. She is a human in leather armor. Lannon charges up after Timothy, who gets in two more hits, taking one in return. Mojo lets sail his mace into her, just as both Timothy and Lannon’s weapons as well as a magic missile spell from Fiona all connect, the enemy slumping onto the stairs, extremely dead.

Timothy then hears sound on a higher step. He again leaps upward, over the body of the fallen foe, and strikes into the next foe. This person also hits back, becoming visible, and becomes a target for the hammer that has just returned to Mojo’s hand. Both Timothy and Mojo hit, temporarily stunning the man. Timothy’s next hit is enough to knock the enemy off of the staircase to the stone floor below. Razou checks him out, finding the man to be very unconscious but not dead.

Fiona is then pushed away from the door that she is standing beside. A now visible woman in studded leather armor opens the door, but before she can exit the room, Serita uses her boots of speed to get right up to her. The woman tries to push Serita, who ducks, and then comes back up clutching a dart that is filled with Medusa’s poison. The dart is stabbed right into the woman’s neck. The party watches as the woman turns into a stone statue.

They continue to check the rest of the room for any more invisible foes. They then spend time searching the rest of the building, finding no evidence of the two mages. The unconscious prisoner is stripped and tied up. The “statue” is stripped of its possessions, as is the other body.

While this was going on, Kale continued to search the buildings, eventually spotting something that appears to be made of materials other than stone and wood. In a grove of small trees to his north he spots a canvas tent. Traveling to it, he finds that the tent contains the bodies of four very recently killed goblins, all killed by bladed weapons, one body decapitated. The tent faces to the southeast.

Kale looks for tracks, which proves futile, as any left behind having been blown about by the heavy wind blowing down into the crater. He decides to head to the top of a nearby building to scout around. On the roof he finds another four recently killed goblins, and spots more dead goblins on the roof of another building. He decides that the building located between these three groups of dead monsters should be where to check next.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-one, “Immy messes up“, August 7th, 1018, 5:30 P.M.

Meanwhile, Adrianna and Kruk complete their mile long path through the cave, encountering nothing. Lono begins to gain consciousness, Adrianna supporting him along the way. They reach the cave exit point at approximately 6:00 PM. Making their way through the woods, they travel counter-clockwise up the mountain, heading back in the direction of the crater. At around 6:20 PM they hear the sounds of an approaching group. Through the shadows of the trees, this distant group looks to be comprised of ten to twelve creatures, most of them larger than man-sized and carrying weapons.

Kruk has two healing potions left, and offers one to Lono. Lono claims to not to need it, but tells Kruk he will take it anyway "just to make you happy". Lono insists on taking point and checking out the critters. Once he is barely out of Kruk’s sight, Lono downs the potion for nine points of healing, bringing him up to almost ten. Scouting ahead, he sees that of the seven larger-than man-sized creatures with this group, six appear to be lizard men, and the other appears to be a bugbear.

Lono recognizes all of them and runs up and say hello to Bruce and the other crewmen. He then ask them why they left the cave, hearing their reply. He then returns, and informs Kruk and Adrianna that the group ahead are their ship's crew members and followers who had been left in the cave. They left the cave because the thief captured in the church escaped, someone apparently having snuck into the cave, cutting him free, and then leaving invisibly. Since the safety of the cave was compromised, they decided to go find the rest of the Silver Moon Adventurers.

Lono tells the combined group that they are now all going to go to the Silas house. He makes Bruce his second in command and tells the Lizard men to guard the prisoners. He also makes sure to remind Bruce the bugbears are polymorphed, but to act if as they are really bugbears in an attempt to terrorize them a bit. They head off down the mountain in a westerly direction.

The players next get into a discussion about pastries, with Lono’s player feeling that cake is superior to pie, and Narg’s player feeling that pie is superior to cake. This leads to a discussion as to why Serita’s player will allow Danish or strudel for breakfast, but not pie.

Back in the game, Blip arrives at the Silas family home (having just missed Vincenzo’s team by an hour). They evaluate the situation, trying to figure the best way to get inside of the building. Since Aradyn speaks hobgoblin, and is already wearing hobgoblin armor and using hobgoblin-made weapons, Immy loans him his Hat of Disguise to make Aradyn appear to be a hobgoblin.

Aradyn approaches the building, telling the hobgoblins by the door that he has just been assigned here, and asking for the leader. He is told that the leader is at the other door, to which Aradyn tells the hobgoblin “Why aren’t you leader?” After more flattery to the guard, Aradyn says he has to check the prisoners, and is let inside.

In the first room are ten more hobgoblins, all but two asleep. The following room has the four hostages and four enemy adventurers. In the third and final room are two more enemy adventurers, a very tall awake hobgoblin, and two sleeping hobgoblins. Aradyn returns to the party to tell them what they saw. Blip, Immy and Isaiah discuss spells that could be used to get inside. It is eventually decided that the Aradyn will return to distract the hobgoblins, while the group decides the best way to enter the building.

Aradyn returns, again flattering the hobgoblin at the first door, and finding out that the current group of hobgoblins at the building are comprised of two separate groups, pooled together from two teams of enemy adventurers, one of which left with the bugbears from both teams. Using this information to play one group off of the other, he approaches the second door to tell the leader there that the other group called them cowards who cannot be trusted. He says that that team plans to also run away at the first sign of trouble. The hobgoblin brings Aradyn inside, to tell the big leader this. The big leader then heads out the front door to lecture this group of hobgoblins. Aradyn gets all of the hobgoblins in the front room to follow him out as well.

Aradyn heads back out the side door, telling this group to head around front to listen to their leader, which they do. He then gets the two hobgoblins on the shed roof to climb down and go listen to the lecture by the big leader. Aradyn then takes up a “sniper” position, lying on the shed roof, and preparing his bow.

The others in the woods see the hobgoblins exit the building, and now all congregating outside of the front door. They decide upon several spells to get inside. Using a combination of Wrath form, Invisibility and Silence spells, they get Immy into the building while the others are all in the bag of holding that he is carrying [The DM gets so confused by the layered effects of the three spells that he allows it, not realizing until the next day why this combination of spells should not have worked].

Rather than going to the now empty front room to let all of the others out of the bag of holding, Immy instead enters the room with the hostages. In this room there are now all six enemy adventurers, eating their dinner. Immy moves to a point under the dining table, bringing the Silence spell with him, which immediately alerts the enemy, due to the Silence spell stopping all conversation.

They all rise to their feet, the cleric making a path to the opposite corner of the room to get out of the spell’s area of effect. Immy empties the first person out of the bag of holding, which turns out to be Guice. Guice’s immediate reaction is to stand up, picking up the table, and using it to pin the nearby female magic user to the wall. This action infuriates the now exposed Immy, whose yelling at Guice to stop is not heard due to the silence spell.

The silence then ends, as do the invisibility and Wrath form, because the enemy Cleric manages to exit the silence and then casts a Dispel Magic spell cast on to that side of the room. The spell also prevents Immy from being able to get anyone out of the bag of holding in this particular round. Guice continues to push the magic user with the table, knocking her into the hot bricks by the fireplace. He is then engaged in battle by a man declaring himself to be Donovan the Great, a massive red-haired bearded man with a two-handed sword. He swings the sword into Guice, striking him.

Immy uses his Wand of Magic Missiles to send missiles into the four enemies on the opposite side of the room. He then tries to pull the next adventurer out of the bag of holding. Guice swings the table around as a shield, deflecting Donovan’s next attack. Furynick begins to fall out of the bag of holding. Immy helps shake him loose. Rather than attacking, the two men at the opposite end of the room move over to the hostages, and get beside them, standing upon ropes attached to each hostage to hold them down and prevent them from moving.

Aradyn is unaware of what is going on inside of the building, and decides to initiate an attack as a signal for his friends in the woods. He fires two arrows at the hobgoblin leader lecturing his troops. The first shot goes wild, flying up into the trees, but the second shot hits its mark, striking the leader in the head. The leader survives, and orders his troops to attack. The hobgoblins all turn to attack, but are see no enemies, and also are not sure where the arrows came from. Aradyn stays low on the shed roof so as not to be seen.

Back inside, the enemy cleric gets a Hold Person spell off before Immy’s next attack, the spell stopping Guice in his tracks. Immy sends two missiles into the cleric, then turns and sends two more into the female mage beside him, as Guice is no longer keeping her trapped.

Donovan prepares to swing his sword onto Furynick. Seeing this, Furynick rolls to the side, Donovan’s sword striking the floor. Fury then thrusts his own sword up into the foe, striking him for maximum damage. Fury now notices Guice is held. Immy lets loose with a five magic missiles from the wand into the cleric. The mage near Immy throws her own magic missile spell into him, with four missiles striking.

The hobgoblins outside continue to search for enemies. One rushes towards the side door of the building to alert those inside. Aradyn hops down from the shed room, and yells “wait for me” as this hobgoblin approaches the door. Furynick has gotten to his feet, and shoves the table into Guice with enough force to break him out of the hold. As Furynick continues to engage Donovan in battle, Guice picks of the bag of holding. Rather than attacking or throwing a spell this round, the cleric issues orders to her two allies standing beside her with the hostages.

The monk along the side wall charges over towards Immy, who casts a Color Spray on him, knocking him unconscious. As he does this, the mage places her hand on Immy and casts a Polymorph spell, which the gnome successfully saves from. She then rushes for the door to the next room, with Immy following her.

As Guice dumps Isaiah out of the bag, the female cleric begins to cast another spell. Each of her two allies hold their magical longsword down, directly above the necks of two of the hostages (Kharole and Jaime). Guice continues to shake the bag of holding, as Blip, Jerry and Luekia are still inside of it.

The female mage makes her way into the side room, calling one of the three hobgoblin guards in this room to assist her. One guard moves towards the doorway where Immy is now entering, and the other two hobgoblins who are at the door to the front room also move in Immy’s direction.

Furynick’s character sheet is handed to Aradyn’s player, who makes the same observation that Mojo’s player made the previous week, that the listing under equipment for the armor’s “extra padding” actually looks like it says “extra pudding”, which they conclude would actually be more important to Furynick.

Isaiah, lying on the floor, quickly assesses the situation in the room to them being in deep excrement, and immediately casts a Prayer spell. Guice tosses the Bag of Holding to Isaiah as it still contains Blip, Jerry and Luekia. Isaiah manages to gets his spell off prior to the enemy female cleric’s Hold Person, but the bonus to saves of the Prayer are not enough to prevent Isaiah, Furynick and Guice from then all falling victim to the spell.

In the adjacent room, Immy throws a Color Spray spell into the hobgoblin and mage in front of him, dropping him, but she successfully saves. The door out of the building now opens, revealing two hobgoblins. Immy recognizes the second of these as being Aradyn, whose appearance had been changed by the Hat of Disguise. The female magician rushes towards the door, instructing both hobgoblins to attack the gnome. The one in the doorway charges forward, as Aradyn draws his bow.

Aradyn’s first shot misses, striking the far wall. The second shot hits his intended victim, the magic-user, who assumes that he just hit her by accident while firing at Immy. She rushes out the door, telling Aradyn to again attack the little guy. Back in the room, Immy see the three remaining hobgoblins moving towards him, and decides to head back through the doorway he came from into the other room. Only then does he see the two male fighter/thief types with long swords have now moved away from the hostages, and are converging on the same doorway.

The magic-user is now outside, moving in the direction of the front of the building, calling out to the large assemblage of hobgoblins there to get inside the building, where the enemies now are. With her back to him, Aradyn lets loose two more arrows point blank into her, which causes her to drop to the ground. Seeing over a dozen hobgoblins now charging at him, who witnessed his attack on the mage, Aradyn decides that he is now better off inside of the building. He rushes through the door, shuts and locks it, and tells the three hobgoblins in the room that enemy adventurers are outside. He calls two of the three over to guard the door.

Immy has now noticed that his three allies in this room are all held. The big fighter named Donovan charges directly at him, swinging his two-handed sword. Immy attempts a Chromatic Orb spell on the man, which fails. He then attempts to cast Dispel Magic to free his allies, but is struck first by Donovan’s sword. The Stoneskin spell on Immy prevents him from taking damage from the sword, but the force of the blow itself propels him to the side and into Guice, although still not hard enough to break the hold. Guice’s player curses his dice and asks to borrow somebody else’s instead.

Aradyn lets fire two more arrows, one cutting down the third hobgoblin in the room, the second hitting one of the male fighter/thief types in the next room. He then moves over towards the doorway to the next room, seeing Isaiah lying still on the floor.

Donovan is too close to Immy now to use his large sword, so drops it and grabs at the gnome with his hands. Immy tries to squeeze between Guice and the wall to escape, hitting Guice in the process to break the hold, which again fails. It takes Immy another round to get past Guice, hitting him again, but Guice remains held (and Guice’s player curses the dice). During this time the other two fighters make their way around to the other side of Guice to try catching the gnome.

Donovan pushes Guice out of the way, knocking him to the floor, in order to get to Immy. The player once again fails to make Guice’s saving throw to break the hold, even with the +3 bonus for being knocked down. Immy gets grabbed by one of the men in leather armor. Immy lets loose into the man with a five-bolt magic missile from his wand, but is still held firm by the man.

Aradyn notices the Bag of Holding lying on the ground beside Isaiah and discretely picks it up. The female cleric in the room moves over in his direction. Aradyn tries to play the part of a stupid hobgoblin that has no idea what the bag is, while holding it upside down and shaking it. The gnome thief Jerry falls out, landing right on top of the chests of the tie and bound female hostages Kharole and Jamie. Guice’s player puts in a request that “the next time you dump me out of the bag of holding that’s where I want to land.”

The cleric grabs at the bag of holding, and orders Aradyn to give it to her. He pulls back on it, saying, “Why, what is it?” They continue the tug of war, Aradyn winning with his exceptional strength. She moves towards him again, and he now uses the bow as a club to strike her. Jamie’s player comments to Aradyn’s “If he breaks Vallessa’s bow he’s going to be a dead man.” Jerry sees that the cleric is distracted by Aradyn, and the other three enemies in room are struggling with Immy, so decides to use the time to cut the ropes binding the hostages.

Aradyn runs into the next room with the bag, the cleric following him. The two hobgoblins in this room have opened the outside door, where the female mage, now partially healed, is standing with several more hobgoblins. “Uh Oh,” Aradyn say, as he charges towards the only other exit from this room, the door to the front room.

Immy lets loose another full five-charges from his now rather depleted Wand of Magic Missiles into the man holding him. This reduces the man to a pair of hit points, causing him to release his grip on Immy. Simultaneous to this, the door to the front room opens up, and several hobgoblins rush in. Ignoring the monsters, Immy makes a break for the door, slipping past several hobgoblins, as the three fighters yell for the monsters to grab the gnome.

Jerry has managed to cut Kharole loose. As she stands up to unlatch the shutters on the window behind her, Jerry starts to cut the bonds holding Jaime. Kharole opens up the window, and Jerry gives her a boost up and out of it. This catches the attention of one of the enemies on the opposite side of the room, who starts to rush over in that direction.

In the side room, Aradyn fights off the hobgoblins and makes his way towards the front room, barely making a saving throw from a spell thrown at him (where he would have failed except that this was the final round of Isaiah’s Prayer spell). More hobgoblins are now entering the room from the side door. The cleric and mage leave him for the hobgoblins to catch and head back into the room with the hostages.

Immy makes his way over to a window, climbing up to the sill and unlatching the shutter, as several hobgoblins grab at him. One of the human enemies grabs his shirt just as Immy leaps out the window, managing to slip out of the man’s grasp.

Seeing that Immy and Aradyn have left the room, and that four human enemies are now converging on him and the hostages, Jerry decides it is time to go. He scampers up to the windowsill and tells Jaime it is time to leave. She is reluctant to leave her sister Beulah and friend Silas behind, but follows his advice. The first of the enemy fighters reaches her, who she successfully slugs in the face, as Jerry pulls her up and out of the window. Jerry, Kharole and Jaime then make a mad dash towards the woods. Rather than following, the enemies shut and relock the window.

Immy gets away from the building towards the woods. He casts a Confusion spell back through the window into the front room to distract the hobgoblins and human enemy within that room. He then casts Improved Invisibility on himself, which gives him twelve-rounds of invisibility during which he can also take offensive actions.

Aradyn makes his way through the front room, recognizing the effects of the Confusion spell from earlier in the afternoon, and makes his way around the incoherent hobgoblins and out of the front door. Immy rushes over to him, saying, “It’s Immy, I’m invisible.” Aradyn asks him “What has transpired?” to which Immy answers “I misinterpreted the plan.”

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-two, “Kale’s Message“, August 7th, 1018, 6:00 P.M.

Immy then tells informs Aradyn that he is going back inside. Aradyn finds a safe spot in the woods, and releases Blip and Luekia from the bag of holding. Aradyn, Blip and Luekia spot distant movement in the woods, and go to investigate, running into Jerry, Kharole and Jaime. Jerry briefly explains how he got them out the back window. “Let’s get back to that window,” says Luekia, and she takes the lead.

Immy makes it into the front room, and casts an Improved Phantasmal Force, creating an illusionary group comprised of Narg, Mojo, and several burley fighter-types. It takes a few rounds for Immy and his illusionary party to get around the confused hobgoblins and back to the door to the rear room. Immy opens the door, to see that Guice, Isaiah and Furynick have been moved to the rear wall (and hit with another Hold Person spell) and placed alongside Beulah and Silas, and that four of the human enemies surround them. Immy does not see the Mage, and starts to have his illusionary troops charge the room.

Just as Immy starts to go through the doorway, the invisible mage lets loose with a Lightning Bolt into the illusionary party, which Immy barely manages to dodge out of the way of. He has the illusionary party react as if they were hit, and has a few of the fighter types drop. The bolt also takes out several hobgoblins, more in fact than the party had during this entire encounter.

The mage orders the party to stop or she will kill the hostages. Immy tries his hand at brinkmanship, and has the illusionary Narg order the enemies to surrender instead. “Take one more step and I kill hostages,” she answers. By this point Luekia is at the back window, and hears this exchange. Immy does not back off, having the illusionary Narg character press on. The mage orders one of her men to kill a hostage, and one of her fighters begin to thrust his magical sword towards Isaiah. The sword starts to cut into Isaiah’s neck before Immy finally realizes that she is not bluffing, and he then has his illusionary party back off.

The Mage orders Narg and his group to lay down their weapons and leave, that this will be their only chance. Immy finally has his illusionary party do as commanded. The mage has twenty hobgoblins clear a path to let them out. As they and Immy leave, the mage tells them that any further attacks on this building will result in an immediate execution of a hostage, without any further warnings.

The near-assassination on Isaiah had broken the hold on him, and the enemies permit him to cast Cure Serious Wounds on himself to stop the bleeding and partially heal the wound. The enemies then tie and gag him to prevent him from being able to cast any more spells. Guice and Furynick are also bound before the second Hold Person wears off.

Immy makes it out of the door as his Invisibility spell wears off. He finds his way through the woods, and reunites with the others. They question Immy as to what has taken place during the past half-hour. He apologizes for misinterpreting the original plan. The group assesses that Jaime and Kharole are currently in no shape to be of much help, even though Kharole is in favor of mounting a full frontal assault on the building. “So we gained two, and lost three” is Blip’s summary. “And we didn’t even get a first round draft pick,” Guice’s player mutters.

Jaime is very concerned about has happened to her children. They relate to her that the children were taken away in a ship, but that Vincenzo was free, and followed after the ship in Merman form. They also say that when they last saw her daughter Jentile, she was fine and with a lot of the rescued ship’s crew, and carrying Jaime’s magical sword (being careful to omit the fact that, as far as this team knows, that group is now missing).

Immy says, “All may not be lost, I have a plan.” Luekia cuts him off, saying, “You plans have sucked. You almost lost the entire party.” The group discusses the situation, and they conclude that they should probably fly to the tavern to meet up with the high-level party. The comment being “Maybe we should regroup somewhere safe, like the Kralt Lordholding.”

Immy volunteers to remain behind to watch this building. The group shows some hesitation to this. Immy emphasizes how the enemy may try to move the prisoners, and how he could still help to stop them. Jerry interrupts him, saying “We’re not leaving you here Ryan, Mycroft or whatever you name is.” Not getting Jerry’s reference to the two former party members best known for their incompetence, Immy starts to question why not.

Jerry tells him “No offense but I do not know you or trust you.” Jerry concludes that someone with thieving skills should stay behind, and that he is in the best shape currently, other than Blip who has to play taxi, so he should be the one to stay. Immy casts Invisibility on Jerry, and the rest of the party get into the bags of holding. Blip picks up the bags and flies off eastward on the broom, again staying low and between the trees.

Inside the building, Buella, Furynick Guice, Isaiah and Silas were moved away from the exterior walls of the building to the center of the room while still under the enemy’s second Hold spell. The number of hobgoblin guards around them was increased and the other hobgoblins were assigned to peer out the windows, with a minimal number put into position in the now falling rain outside of the doors. The enemies locked the door and stacked furniture in front of it.

The female magic-user, which the others called Valerie, told the fighter called Donovan “I’m going to go get Jo-Ann’s team. You are in charge until I return. Kill two of the hostages if you are attacked again.” She then teleported away. The enemy cleric, called Machelle, exhausted her cures healing himself, the monk and the two thieves. Isaiah was then forced to use his own remaining cures on these enemies, upon the threat of the execution of Buella if he did not cooperate.

Back in the city, the group in Phormosah's house plans what to do next. Kale enters the building through its front door, into a room with a long hallway and two interior doors. Listening at one of the doors, he hears voices on the other side. Peering through the keyhole, he sees adventurers who match Ki-Geloryn’s descriptions of Narg and Timothy. The party has stripped all three of the dead and unconscious enemies of their possessions, and is discussing what to do next, when they hear a knock on the door and voice yell out “Yo, Silver Moon Dudes!” They open to the door, to see the odd-looking man that Blip had seen in the city two hours earlier, discovering that the blue and green striped fur hat that Blip described is actually the man’s hair. His armor is a shiny gray, to which Mojo comments that “I’m not sure, but I think that he skinned a heating duct.”

Weapons drawn, they party lets the man enter the room. He says “Like, I’ve been trying to catch up with you guys.” He starts to explain that Derieki and Ki-Geloryn had sent him, but mangles the pronunciation of both names, calling them Del Rickey and Key Grain, which takes the party a few minutes to figure out who he means. The man introduces himself as Kale, and says that his father and Derieki had previously adventured together, and that Derieki sent him to give them a message.

The game shifts back to the group back at Crystull's house, the DM describes it as being Vincenzo with a house full of thirteen children. “Sounds like the sixth level of Hell” is Mojo’s player’s response. It is decided that this group will stay put where they are for the night.

Moving on to the next group, Blip continues to fly in a roundabout manner, avoiding all buildings during her flight to the tavern. The suggestion is made that while flying on her broom she should spell out the message in the sky “Surrender Morgarth”. Blip’s player points out that she has nothing to use to write such a message, and it suggested that she take Razou with her, as he has lots of ways to create interesting smoke. She stops in the woods near the tavern. The other group does not appear to have arrived yet, which concerns Blip. She lets out the majority of the party, leaving Immy alone inside of his own bag of holding.

Lono's group continues on their path towards the Silas family home. Along the way, Lono checks out Fiona’s house, finding it surrounded by bugbears. They eventually arrive in the woods near the Silas home, at which point Jentile’s hobgoblin-detection sword starts to glow, causing Lono to exclaim “Dare’s hobgoblins in dem dare woods.” Lono moves forward to scout out the building, hearing a voice say “Lono, it’s Jerry, I’m invisible.” Jerry asks Lono who is with him, getting the answer “I have most of the Green Bay Packers, who do you think?” Jerry asks what he has for spellcasters, to which Lono, after thinking of D.C., replies “about all I have is a Kheogten’s rocket launcher.” The two exchange information, then Lono has Jerry accompany him back to the others.

Jerry becomes concerned when he sees that they have three prisoners with them, fearful that the prisoners might make noise to alert the other enemies nearby. Jerry is also concerned about Jentile, and says that they should get her back to her mother Jamie. “But then she’ll want her sword back,” is Jentile’s comment.

Jerry asks Lono “Have you figured out where we will spend the night?” Lono answers “Gee Jerry, usually I like to be romanced a little before we get to that.” Jerry slowly counts to ten, then says “I meant the group! We now have thirty people, which is way too many people to fit into Freyland’s cave, where I’ve spent the past two nights.” Jerry suggests that three of the lizardmen crewmembers stay to scout out the building, as the rapidly approaching rainstorm won’t effect them much, and that they can also quickly escape via the ocean if necessary. The lizardman Haas is put in charge of this trio, due to his prior experience adventuring with the party.

Lono takes charge of the rest. It is decided that he will lead them to the school, where they can stock up on supplies, then move on to Crystull’s house, which Kruk confirms appeared to have been vacant when the party teleported in the previous day. It is felt that this building is in an isolated enough location that the enemy won’t wander upon them, allowing the group to rest up for the night. (Which the DM is happy to say will finally get all four groups together in one place, to hopefully help relieve the player confusion of “who knows what” that has been developing during the module).

Jerry volunteers to travel to the tavern to inform the others of the plan to go to Crystull’s once they finish there. While still invisible, he approaches the small barn near the Silas estate, and quietly makes off with one of the party’s horses that the enemies had stolen, being careful to stay out of the line of sight of the hobgoblin guards back by the cabin.

Back in the City, in Phormosah’s house, the high-level group is dealing with the odd man named Kale. They ask about his odd-colored blue and green striped spiked hair. “This is my doo,” he answers “like, this is the way it is done.” Lannon comments that “You look like a rabid raccoon is on your head.” “What’s a raccoon?” he asks. A few more cracks are made at his expense, to which he says “Dudes, you’re mocking me.” Narg comments “Get used to it.” Fiona states that “Either Alton’s gonna love him or..” “smoke him,” Mojo interjects. Narg says to Kale “Let me offer a bit of advice, get a little less flashy.” They ask Kale what his message was, and he relates the following (again, mispronouncing most names):

“This morning, in the Thenossian coastal city of Halla, Lord Kindor called a meeting with himself, the Jawlt Lordhodling leader, the Thenossia Lordholding leader Queen Jennifer, the Aldorn Lordholding leader Lord Aldorn, Lord Aldorn’s magician daughter Aldoria, and four of the eight Jawlt Council members: Army Commander Tenbar, Navy Commander Waller, Security Chief Melito, and Diplomatic Liaison Ki-Geloryn.” “Pretty much everybody except us,” Serita comments.

Kale continues: “Ki-Geloryn told them what he had discovered about Morgarth’s threats yesterday to the Silver Moon in the city of Cantage. All eight present at the meeting agreed that they needed to help the Silver Moon. Attempts were made first to magically view the Silver Moon party, and then to teleport to the island itself, which both proved to be unsuccessful. They concluded that Morgarth had erected a magical barrier around the island. After a short debate about strategies, a plan was put into action. The news of the impending substantial hurricane ruled out sending troops directly to the island, as the ships would not be able to reach their destination prior to the storm.

It was decided that Ki-Geloryn would teleport himself, Tenbar, and Waller on to the Jawlt Lordholding town of Gelorynth, where Ki is the ruler. From there, Tenbar and Waller would each begin to mobilize the Jawlt Army and Jawlt Navy respectively, moving them to Gelorynth, the closest community in Jawlt to Silver Moon Island, sixty miles northeast of the island. The Jawlt military would then set out for Silver Moon Island once the storm passed.

Queen Jennifer had no formal military of her own, but anticipated being able to quickly muster together in Halla a contingent of 250 to 300 troops comprised of Halla city guards, retired soldiers and mercenaries.” Mojo interjects “Plus a few old lovers and a cranky Boy Scout.”

Kale continues “Jennifer immediately commandeered four large merchant ships currently docked in the city. Along with her own warship, Thenossia’s Pride, she planned to then sail these forces east to the Thenossia town of Grammel, sixty-five miles northwest of Silver Moon Island. Once the storm passes, they also will set forth for Silver Moon Island.”

“Kindor realized that these reinforcements might arrive too late, so the other four at the meeting embarked upon a different mission. It was decided that Aldoria would teleport herself, Aldorn, Kindor and Melito, to Modvicton, the capital city of the Zalpar Lordholding. Lord Kindor and Lord Aldorn would then set up a meeting with the Zalparian leaders to apprise them of the return of the Zalpar Lordhodling’s long-time enemy Morgarth, and then work with the Zalpar Magicians Guild to try to ascertain his current whereabouts. Aldoria and Melito would pursue a parallel strategy, attempting to find whatever current information they could about Morgarth through their own contacts within the city.” “Great,” comments Narg, “I hope they find him. I want to clean that guy’s clock once all of this is done.”

Kale goes on: “Ki-Geloryn teleported his trio to Gelorynth. He made arrangements for temporary housing for the Jawlt military troops that would soon arrive. He also realized that it was important to try to get a message to you dudes, the Silver Moon. Working with the town’s resident Mage and long-time Silver Moon ally, Derieki, they discovered that the anti-magic shell extended out twelve miles beyond the island itself. They were fearful that sending anything magical through the shell would either fail completely, or send out an alarm to Morgarth, so needed to come up with a non-magical means to quickly get word to the Silver Moon.”

“That’s when they got a hold of me” says Kale. “Derieki and my dad had adventured together, and Derieki knew dad was an excellent sailor. Dad wasn’t home when Deriki arrived so I volunteered to come instead. He teleported my sailboat right outside of the barrier around six hours ago, and I sailed in and trekked up here.”

Narg asks what else he saw. He tells of the group of enemies who had the prisoners, describing them as a group of lizardmen and a bugbear with a few humanoids. To this Serita interjects “That was us you stupid idiot!” Kale is taken aback by the insult. Freyland apologies for her, telling Kale “You have to understand, she’s had a really bad day.” “How can you tell if she’s having a bad day?” asks Mojo. “On a good day, her anger is only directed away from the party,” answers Narg.

Kale then goes on to describe his encounter with Blip, the “short Dude riding a broom.” “That’s Blip, the teenage gnome,” is Mojo’s answer. Freyland asks about the shiny gray armor Kale is wearing. Kale explains that is was made from sharkskin, and that he is from a water-world (leading to comments disparaging all films that Kevin Costner has made during the past decade). Freyland comments that “You’re entire world is made of water? You’re from Hell?’ Narg says “let me introduce you to Freyland, our resident hydro-phobic.” The group concludes that since Kale knows a lot about sailing that he might be useful as a member of the crew. Kale goes on to describe how he is well known in his world’s boat-racing circuit, their major sporting event. Razou comments “Eh, Mahn, I like this guy.” “You would!,” says Mojo.

Narg says “Let’s head down to the tavern.” “You always say that,” comments Mojo. “Hey, it works,” answers Narg. “Can I go with you Dudes?,” Kale asks. “Sure, once you sign a waiver,” says Mojo, adding “pay special attention to the Vincenzo clause.” Fiona says to Kale “You realize that if you do stay, you have to sleep with the lizardmen.” “Their heads are at least the same color,” comments Lannon.

 

[Silver Moon]

The following chapter is considered by my players to be the single most fun game night in our group’s twenty-four year history.


Chapter Twenty-three, “The Jeep Battle“, August 7th, 1018, 6:30 P.M

The high level group concludes that they have too many people for the one bag of holding, and do not want Serita to have to use up three of the limited teleports from her ring to get them all there. Mojo reminds them that one of Alton’s Jeeps is nearby, and that he knows how to drive it, having acquired that skill during his stay on the technologically advanced world of Carvel. The group heads over to Alton’s house and gas up the vehicle. Mojo gets in the driver’s seat as Narg and Serita cram into the passenger seat. Timothy and Razou stand behind the two seats, holding onto the roll bar. Freyland, Lannon and Fiona get into the back, and Kale stands atop the rear hitch behind it, demonstrating his “surfing” skills. The tied and bound unconscious prisoner is lashed to the hood, and off they go.

They head through the mile-long cave at approximately forty miles per hour. They discuss leaving the jeep by the mouth of the cave, and continuing on foot, but Mojo has other ideas. He guns the engine just as they approach the cave exit. Bouncing and bumping at a speed far exceeding any attempt at safety, the Jeep goes barreling down the side of the mountain, with Mojo only occasionally tapping the brakes to slow them down. At one point during this, the prisoner regains consciousness, only to faint at the sight of his current predicament. By the time they reach the base of the mountain most of the party are glad that it had been a while since they last ate, as it takes a few minutes for their stomachs to settle.

Stopping only briefly, Mojo has the Jeep spin out in the dirt along the road. He floors it for the ride the remaining four miles to town. He discusses driving straight into the tavern at top speed, but the rest of the party strongly suggests stopping first to find the other team that was to meet them there. “No way,” says Mojo, “we have the element of surprise, lets use it.” Fiona points out that they don’t know exactly where the enemies are at the tavern, so the “bull in the china shop” approach might not be best. Mojo makes no sign of slowing down. Narg says to him “Mojo, come-on, what about the other group.” “Let them get their own Jeep,” is Mojo’s reply.

Eventually, Mojo reluctantly listens to the others, and slows down as they approach the tavern. He stops the Jeep a few hundred yards away from the building, far enough off that the enemy guards did not hear the vehicle approach. Blip and her group, being a lot closer, heard the distinctive sound of the Jeep’s engine and head over to investigate. Those in the Jeep see Aradyn, Blip, Fiona, Jaime and Kharole approach them, and climb out of the vehicle. Seeing Jaime and Kharole, but not five of the others who had gone with that team, Narg asks “What did you do, make a trade?” “And a bad one at that,” comments Mojo.

“I’ll let him explain,” says Blip, as she finally empties Immy out of his bag of holding. Immy starts to tell them all how he botched the plan. “How could you screw up Get’Em?” is Mojo’s comment. Immy summarizes what has happened, the party’s only relief being hearing that the others were captured rather than killed. Blip points out that the enemy has threatened to kill the hostages at the first sign of another attack on the building. It is also mentioned that Jerry is free, that he stayed behind to watch the building. “Good,” says Narg, “It’s probably better that he not be here in case we decide that we have to burn down his tavern and inn.” It is pointed out that neither Jamie or Kharole are in any shape for a fight, and should get some rest. “Since when has Kharole ever needed to rest?” comments Mojo.

Luekia and Lannon decide to go scout out the building, staying clear of the hobgoblin and bugbear guards at each of the exterior doors. They make their way up to the tavern roof, and over to the second floor of the inn. Once there, they climb through a window. Lannon invisibly checks out the hallway, finding bugbear guards at the door by the staircase as well as the doors to the master suite at the end of the hall (four interconnected rooms).

They head back outside the building, and unlatch the shutters to these four rooms, peeking inside to see both the hostages and enemy adventurers in these rooms. They return to inform the others. Luekia confirms the identity of four of them from the previous tavern battle, the fighter Cronin, the half-ogre Gorthe, the assassin Albert and cleric Kingsley. The other fighter and the mage are not recognized, and it is assumed they were assigned here as replacements for the three killed or captured in the prior battle.

A horse approaches on the road, ridden by the still invisible Jerry. He tells them of his encounter with Lono's team, and sending them off to Phormosah’s house. They ask about any secret doors built in and around his tavern and inn. He hesitates for only a minute and then tells them of three secret doors from his room in the back of the tavern. They ask about tunnels or other ways to sneak in, with he says has never been important to have before, but he’ll make it his next priority construction job. They decide to send Jerry inside to check out the inside of the tavern via his secret doors.

Jerry returns to tell them that the interior of the tavern is filled with hobgoblins and bugbears, over a dozen of each, mostly asleep. He adds that they appear to have been spending a lot of time drinking. Narg comments, “speaking of that, did you bring back any?” Jerry produces two bottles of 180-proof whisky. Narg starts to consume one when Jerry comments “I actually brought them to use as Molotov-cocktails.” They give some to Kale, who finds it a bit strong.

The group debates the merits of rescuing the prisoners now, or waiting until later. It is pointed out the it would be good to get back Blake, as “he is good at getting away with stuff and doesn’t get caught.” “He’s like an anti-Ryan,” comments Mojo. (The player doesn’t know whether to take this as a compliment or an insult, as both Blake and Ryan are his playing characters.)

The group decides to execute a three-prong assault on the Tavern. A group comprised of those with thieving skills thieves: Blip, Immy, Jerry, Lannon and Luekia, will get into position outside of windows of the 2nd floor of the inn. A second group: Aradyn, Narg, Mojo, Razou, Serita, and Timothy will create a distraction in the tavern, to hopefully draw some or all of the enemy adventurers away from the prisoners. A third group: Freyland and Jaime, will serve as support troops for the distraction group, helping to initially clear the front door and then following-up with wounded and stragglers. Fiona, Kale and Kharole will stay behind at a rendezvous point to guard the prisoner, and protect any hostages rescued from the Tavern.

They discuss using the Jeep for the tavern assault, to which Narg tells Jerry “Let me put it this way, I’d start talking to door salesmen if I were you.” They decide to construct some sort of wooden battering ram for the front of the Jeep, as Alton will be very upset if they break the vehicle, since he lost his other Jeep to a fireball two days earlier. They also take the time to remove the glass windshield and mirrors, which will be nearly impossible to replace. Mojo comments about this being the first time they ever entered a tavern violently, although that is often how they leave them.

Mojo gets behind the wheel. Serita takes position next to him as a back-up driver in case Mojo winds up unconscious, since Alton has given her some rudimentary driving instruction [Editor’s note- doesn’t the combination of Druids and cars appear to be an inherent contradiction?]. Aradyn takes position in the passengers seat. Narg stands right behind the seats, holding onto the Jeep’s rollbar. The two clerics hunker down in the back. Mojo decides to drive back away from the tavern an eighth of a mile, in order to have room to get up to a really good “ramming speed”.

The thief group takes position. Using his Slippers of Spider Climbing, Lannon invisibly positions himself outside a second floor window on the main street. Immy activates his giant fly, and hovers outside of a window of the next room. Standing on the tavern roof, Luekia and Jerry position outside of the third room and Blip outside of the forth room. Below, both Freyland and Jaime take position at the edge of the woods, approximately eighty feet away from the rear double-doors to the tavern, which is guarded by a pair of bugbears.

Mojo floors the jeep, accelerating up to a speed of ninety-five miles an hour. As they bump and rattle down the dirt road, Serita reminds him “The goals is to kill them, not us.” “Don’t be such a worry-wart,” answers Mojo, “I know exactly what I’m doing.” Narg rolls his eyes at that comment.

As the Jeep begins to near the tavern, the two bugbears guarding the door hear it in the distance. Jaime and Freyland use that as a signal, and begin to fire their distance weapons (slings and arrows) into the bugbears. By the time the Jeep approaches the door, one bugbear is down, and the other is very wounded. Both clerics time their Prayer spells to kick in just prior to the vehicle’s entry into the building.

Mojo decides to use the wounded bugbear in from of him as “padding”, catching him between the battering ram and door, as the Jeep goes smashing through. Narg’s player begins throwing out lines from the “Blues Brothers” movie, from the scene where they drive through the shopping mall.

Ten feet from the door is a long table, five feet wide and thirty feet long, on which four bugbears and two hobgoblins are sleeping. The jeep’s collision with it sends the table and its occupants flying back into the southeastern corner of the room, and onto another table of sleeping monsters. Mojo then runs down a hobgoblin that was standing in the center of the room, and Narg jabs his Nargblade out just before the Jeep reaches a standing bugbear, letting its momentum create the slashing action. Aradyn stands up and fires arrows into bugbears in the far corner, Serita helping to steady him. In the rooms on the second floor of the inn, the enemy adventurers begin to exit the rooms to investigate the loud crashing sounds below.

Mojo turns the Jeep towards another table, and then sharply turns the wheel, sending the Jeep into a spin, to stop before hitting the far wall. This table is struck at a forty-mile-an-hour impact, with similar effect to the first table hit. Mojo hits the brakes, as the Jeep comes to a stop after hitting a third table, knocking out the two table legs on that side, with the three hobgoblins on top of it sliding beneath the Jeep's tires.

Jerry and Luekia enter the first inn room vacated by the enemy adventurers, being careful to not be seen through the doorways by the other enemy adventurers in the two adjacent rooms. They quickly but quietly begin moving four ship crewmembers into the bag of holding. The only enemy now in the adjacent room with Blake and three of the tavern employees is the half-ogre, who had been sleeping. He awakens, and starts to put on his armor. Lannon deduces that it would be best to take out this opponent before he gets on his magical platemail, so moves in through the window for a backstab.

By now all remaining monsters in the tavern have awakened. The first two enemy adventurers, a Fighter and Cleric, enter the tavern from the inn door in the northwest corner. Mojo makes this his next destination, and floors the Jeep, finishing off the hobgoblins beneath the vehicle. Between him and the corner of the room is a table with two bugbears, who do not have time to move before the Jeep strikes, sending one flying and the other beneath the wheels. This gives the cleric time to move back through the doorway into the inn, but the fighter is hit full-force, and pinned between the Jeep’s battering ram, and a now splintered table in the corner.

Upstairs, Lannon backstabs his foe for fifteen points, followed by a dagger thrust for another six. This causes the half-ogre to turn around, rather angry. As the fighter reaches for his two-handed sword, Lannon hops back out the window. The half-ogre moves over to the window, to the doorway to the next room. Luekia makes a hasty move to keep from being seen by the half-ogre, as Jerry jumps under the bed.

The now stopped Jeep is near the bar, on top of which several armed hobgoblins are now standing. Narg jumps onto the hood of the Jeep and then onto the bar, sword out, killing a hobgoblin while also clearing a space for himself to land. Mojo notices that the wounded fighter in front of the Jeep is still alive, so backs up five feet, then floors it into the wall to finish him off (damaging one of the vehicle’s front fenders in the process, sorry Guy) . Mojo scans the room, seeing that two tables of monsters still remain between him and the southeast front doors, so decides to head that way.

The room that Immy is outside of is finally vacated of enemies, so he enters and starts putting the four tavern employees into his bag of holding. Blip also is now able to enter the room, although she can still spot the back of a bugbear in the main hallway, so cautiously enters and calls over for Luekia to help “bag” the remaining crew members.

Narg is having fun atop the bar, cutting down his opponents, as Jamie and Freyland enter the building. Jaime starts to target monsters still standing, while Freyland checks out the crumpled bodies along the wall, making sure that they are all dead. They watch as Mojo splinters the remaining tables, and several more foes, this time accelerating rather than braking as he hits the front door full force, just as the bugbear guards outside of the door on that side begin to enter the tavern to investigate what is going on inside. One of these bugbears is run down, while the other gets caught onto the battering ram. Mojo drives straight across the street and into a tree, sandwiching the bugbear in the process. He then backs up, and accelerates towards the other pair of bugbears guarded doors in front of the building.

Upstairs, two bugbears spot Blip and Luekia rescuing the last ship’s crewmember, and charge into the room. Blip and Luekia make a hasty retreat out the window, with one bugbear following. Two rooms over, Lannon sneaks back into the room, and cuts the bonds on Blake, and them moves in for another backstab on the half-ogre, which is now nearly dressed. Lannon hits, but then gets cornered by the enemy fighter. Jerry comes to his rescue, moving into the room, and backstabbing the half-ogre. Blake starts to cut loose the other prisoners. A bugbear rushes in to help the half-ogre, and Lannon engages him in combat, leaving a hopelessly outmatched Jerry to fight the half-ogre by himself.

On the return trip into the tavern, Mojo hits one of the two bugbears that had been guarding the other doors. The second bugbear becomes the target of arrows from both Aradyn and Jamie. By now, Narg has eliminated all of the foes on the bar, and two other hobgoblins that had been behind the bar have surrendered. Mojo notices one table of foes remains, twenty feet away behind him in the northeast corner of the building, so throws the Jeep into reverse and drives into it. These three monsters, being hit at a slower speed than the others, are only wounded, so the Jeep’s occupants all exit the vehicle and deal with them. Deciding that Jamie and Freyland can clean up the rest, Narg charges towards the stairs through the door into the inn, calling for the other five from the Jeep to follow.

Luekia and Blip make it back to the woods with their full bag of holding. Immy arrives outside of the window where the battle is taking place, and Blake helps put two of the hostages into Immy’s bag, filling it. Blake then climbs down from the window, and follows Immy to the rendezvous point. Back in the room, the remaining hostage, the simple-minded tavern bouncer named ‘Yeah‘, goes to tavern owner Jerry’s assistance after Jerry yells for him to “Come save the boss!” Seeing no other weapon at hand, Yeah picks up the bed frame, and hits the half-ogre with it. The half-ogre swings at Yeah, as Jerry gives Yeah a “follow me” gesture, and then runs into the adjacent room, and hides.

Narg starts to bound up the stairs towards the second floor of the inn, as the door opens and a bugbear charges down at him. He hits with the Nargblade, which cuts off the creature's leg, causing it to tumble down the stairs. Narg manages to dodge out of the way of the falling monster, but it knocks those behind him back down to the base of the stairs.

Meanwhile, Lannon finally finishes with the bugbear he was fighting and rushes out that door of the room into the hallway, only to find himself looking at a corridor filled with four enemy adventurers: a fighter, mage, cleric and thief. Fortunately for him, all four are looking away from him towards the staircase. Lannon moves in for a backstab on the nearest one, the thief, but is seen before he can reach him.

The mage moves to the top of the stairs, and hits Narg with multiple Magic Missiles. This does not deter Narg, and he continues charging up the stairs, causing the Mage to move back, and the fighter Cronin, in full plate mail, to move into position blocking the doorway. Narg and the fighter exchange blows, both connecting for much damage on the other. Mojo throws his hammer, missing for a change, and a player comments “He’s loosing his touch when he’s not wielding a Jeep.” Serita uses her boots of speed to hurry up the stairs, and casts a Warp Wood spell onto the floorboards beneath the fighter’s feet. The board bends, causing Cronin to fall, as Serita casts a now-needed cure onto Narg.

Back in the far room, Yeah hits the half-ogre again with the bed frame. The ogre swings his sword, smashing the frame in two. Yeah decides to follow Jerry’s advice, and rushes into the next room. The rather angry half-ogre follows and becomes a sitting duck for a backstab by the hidden Jerry, hitting for twenty points. The enemy is dazed, so Jerry uses the round to push Yeah out the window to the tavern roof to escape. Yeah jumps down, as Jerry rushes into the next room. The half-ogre is confused as to which one to pursue, and calls out that they are both cowards. Jerry yells back “You know it buddy, why don’t you go pick on somebody your own size.” This enrages the fighter further, who charges after Jerry. Jerry slams the door shut in the half-ogres face and locks it, then runs to towards the door to the hallway. The half-ogre heads back to the room he was sleeping in, to finish gathering his things.

Lannon engages the thief in battle, only to have the enemy cleric also move in to reinforce him. At the other end of the hall, the enemy fighter stands back up, with Narg bounding up to the top step yelling “You are not welcome on my island!” Narg swings the Nargblade for a severing blow on the man’s leg, cutting it clean off. The enemy leader Cronin falls, giving Serita a chance to bound up into the hallway, and cast a Faerie Fire on the other enemies. Meanwhile, the enemy mage places his hand on Narg’s shoulder and casts a Polymorph Other spell, which Narg successfully saves from. Mojo and Aradyn make their way to the top of the stairs.

The enemy cleric Kingsley decides the adventurers at the staircase are a greater threat than Lannon, and starts to move back in that direction. Jerry enters the hallway, which distracts the enemy assassin Albert. Lannon breaks off his attack on the assassin, hitting the cleric instead to prevent a Hold Person spell from getting off. Of course, turning your back on an assassin is not always the wisest course of action, and Lannon is successfully hits him for a significant number of hit points.

In the suite of rooms nearby, the half-ogre quickly searches for any remaining hostages, discovering them to all be gone. He then has to deal with the floor falling out from under him, as Immy, from outside of the window creates an illusion. The Half-ogre grabs onto the windowsill to keep from falling to the first floor. He ties to pull himself up further, and falls. Only then does he discover that he is still on the second floor. Immy flies off..

The fighter Cronin shows incredible fortitude, continuing to fight in spite of the severed limb, and mutters “I’ve had worse,” under his breath. Narg ignores him, leaving him to Mojo, and charges at the mage ten feet away. The mage gets off a Hold Person spell, which only manages to affect Aradyn. Serita assists Mojo in finishing off the fighter, then she moves over to break Aradyn out of the hold.

Narg gets over to the mage, getting in two hits. On the second attack, Narg’s player rolls a natural “20” which is a severing blow, which then rolls up to be a decapitation, thus ending the threat from the mage. Timothy makes it to the top of the stairs, and casts a Hold Person on both the enemy cleric and assassin, neither of which make their saves.

As Narg searches the mage, the rest of the group heads over to tie up the two held enemies. With impeccable timing, the half-ogre fighter decides to head out into the now quiet hallway, and opens the door right next to where Jerry is standing, with the other six Silver Moon party members still fifteen to twenty feet away. As the half-ogre begins to jab his massive sword into the gnome, Jerry’s immediate reaction is to yell out to the others “Whoever kills him first I’ll rip up your bar tab.”

The enemy’s two-handed sword strikes downward, the blade missing Jerry’s face by millimeters, and pinning the gnome’s beard to the floor. Just then, Mojo’s hammer and one of Aradyn’s arrows strike the half-ogre, followed by a dagger thrown by Lannon, a second arrow from Aradyn, and a hammer thrown by Timothy. Not wanting to be left out, Serita rushes up to the fighter with her boots of speed, becoming the target of the half-ogre’s fists, which she effortlessly ducks under. She then hits him with her scimitar, just as two more of Aradyn’s arrows, Mojo’s hammer, and Timothy’s staff find their target, dropping the enemy to the ground. Serita, Mojo and Lannon each hit him one more time for good measure.

Aradyn pulls the sword up from the floor, freeing a very grateful Jerry, who declares the bar tabs for all of them to be negated. Mojo comments “Good, since that will include all of the damage we just did to your tavern.” “How much damage?” asks Jerry. “You don’t want to know,” Timothy answers.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-four, “Escape Attempt“, August 7th, 1018, 7:45 P.M

Narg has rolled up the mage’s head into a blanket, saying that he’s going to take it with him, which the others find to be a bit morbid. Aradyn points out to Narg that the mage was the one who had attacked Vallessa during the City battle, which makes him doubly pleased.

A quick survey of the situation determines that all fourteen hostages are freed and four enemies from the tavern are captured (the cleric, assassin and two hobgoblins). They also determine that around a half-dozen enemy hobgoblins and bugbears, which had been guarding outside of the exterior doors to the inn, have run away. The group concludes that it is therefore not safe to linger here much longer. Blip and Immy offer to take a group to safety in the bags of holding. The eight tavern workers, five crewmembers, and the five prisoners are selected for the first trip. They fly off on the broom and fly, their destination being Crystull’s cabin, ten miles to the west. They depart just as the rain storm begins and the last light of day disappears.

The others use the time to load up the Jeep with the magic stripped from the dead enemies as well as supplies from the bar. Jerry wanders through the bar, shaking his head, and comments “Well, at least you didn’t set fire to it, like you did yesterday to Timothy’s church.” Narg answers “That’s because we consider your bar to be a more holy place.”

Mojo and Serita prepare to head off in the Jeep. Freyland agrees to go with them, as his magical axe will be needed to cut down saplings that have grown on the trail to Crystull’s cabin during the six years since she left the island. Once they have driven out of sight of the tavern, Mojo asks Serita to hand him a bottle from one of the cases of whisky that they loaded. She becomes angry that they had packed it, feeling that it was not a necessary supply, and also says he shouldn’t drink and drive.

“Who are you, my mother?” he answers. Freyland tells him to wait until they reach their destination, adding “It’s raining. I’m getting wet! If I can make that sacrifice, you can wait an hour to have a drink.” Every time they stop for Freyland to cut down a small tree blocking their path Serita complains about the killing of an innocent tree, making Freyland and Mojo question why they brought a druid with them.

Back at the tavern, Jaime cooks up a fine meal for the rest, who maintain a tight watch for any returning enemies. Blip and Immy soon return, with Blip telling Jaime “Good news. Your husband and all of your children are safe, and waiting for you at Crystull’s house.” “Good, I’ll stay here,” she answers. “Don’t you want to be with them?” asks Blip. She answers “Not really, as long as I know they’re safe. Personally, I’m now enjoying the peace and quiet.” Looking out the kitchen doorway, into the tavern full of bugbear and hobgoblin bodies, Timothy comments “I don’t think that the term ‘peace’ really applies to this situation.” The others manage to persuade her that their present location is not safe, and the rest of the adventurers climb into the bags of holding for the trip to Crystull’s house, arriving there by 10:00 P.M.

Even through Crystull lived in a rather large cabin, the party conclude that it is a bit small for a total of now seventy-five people, and decide that the ten prisoners can be moved outside. The twenty ship’s crew members also move outside, with tarps from the inn brought in on the Jeep being set up for them to guard the prisoners from. A rotation is also set up for party members to supplement the crew in guarding these enemies. The prisoners are stripped of all possessions, including their clothing.

The group surveys all of the magic items obtained, inquiring about being able to tell if any items are cursed. Timothy says “I have an aura” to which Mojo quips “I been meaning to talk to you about that.” Timothy goes on to say, that he can detect evil-aligned items, which none of these appear to be, but that the aura will not detect cursed items. The group decides that the bracers from the high-level mages should be identified first. Fiona determines that the bracers from the mage leader at the Church are armor class two. Fiona and Kharole then head off to rest. Jerry begins to interview everyone present about who they fought and when, taking many notes.

Meanwhile, it is now late in the evening on board the ship Silver Moon. Hans saw the lanterns from within the Captain’s cabin come on. At around 10:00 P.M. these lights were extinguished. Approximately an hour later, Kimball informed the bugbears guarding Hans’s trio to “get them below and send up the replacements.” The bugbears then did as they were told.

The trio traveled down to the crew deck, standing as a group by the bottom of the ladder, as Jacob’s trio got ready to head topside. Jacob reminded Stokkes that he had agreed to cast cures on them. Humphry received the first cure, followed by Jacob, then lastly Bink. Bink then grabbed at the magical mace on Stokkes belt, causing Stokkes to jump back and signaling the others to attack.

By this point Humphry and the bugbear guarding him were already on the ladder up. Humphry dived off of the ladder, knocking the bugbear behind Reginon to the floor. Reginon rushed forward, hitting the next bugbear on the ladder and knocking him off of it.

Hans charged at Stokkes, catching him by surprise. Jacob rushed over to attack the bugbear behind Sammy, grabbing the axe in the monster’s hand. Sammy dived across the table into the bugbear behind Jacob. The bugbear guard eating stood up, and charged after Hans.

Reginon spends a few rounds trying to fight his opponent, but the first level fighter is soon overpowered and falls. Sammy has much better luck, managing to steal his opponent’s weapon and use it against him. He then has to contend with two opponents, as the bugbear who defeated Reginon charges him as well, but Sammy is able to keep them both at bay with sweeping blows.

Hans manages to push Stokkes into the rear hallway, to position the cleric between him and the two bugbears coming to Stokkes assistance. Bink continues to fight his bugbear guard without much success, eventually retreating under a table (the comment from the group being that it took longer than usual for a crewmember to be under the table, although it is usually as a result of alcohol rather than opponents). Sammy strikes a fatal blow into one bugbear, but is also struck during the same round by the other bugbear.

Jacob and Humphry have more difficulty with their foes, Jacob managing to push the axe blade into the bugbear, but never able to get the monster to release his grip on the weapon. Humphry gets hit, and has to retreat under the table to escape his foe, who turns to fight Jacob.

Hans manages to get the magical mace away from Stokkes, and then strikes its owner with it. He then has to contend with a bugbear as the now wounded cleric retreats. The bugbear hits Hans for all but one of his hit points, so Hans then decides to make for a hasty retreat, heading for the aft storage compartment, which has a ladder down to the bilge deck. Bink continues to evade his opponent, decided to head up the rear ladder to the deck above. As he opens the door at the top of the ladder, his bugbear opponent grabs his leg.

Humphry assists Jacob by tripping one of the bugbears, allowing Jacob to grab that monster’s sword, and use it on the other opponent. Humphry dives onto the fallen monster, and jabs his thumbs into the creature's eyes. The group concludes that Humphry must have had older sisters, as he fights dirty. The bugbear stands up to get away from the annoying man.

Hans gets into the storage room, and it takes all of his strength to hold back the door from the two bugbears on the other side after him. The player for Hans inquires about simultaneously opening the trap door down with his foot, while still holding the door. The DM stays that it would be a real stretch, but he will allow it on a Dexterity roll of a one. The player then rolls the one, so Hans is then able to jump through this now open door into the bilge water below.

Jacob is struck into unconsciousness, dropping his sword, which Humphry immediately grabs. The bugbear attempts to lift the table to get at him, only to get the sword thrust up into him, fatally striking a delicate location. The bugbear that defeated Jacob then charges at the table, with Humphry scampering across the floor to get away from him.

Hans swims through the bilge water to the aft bilge doors on this deck, opening a door, as the two bugbears slosh through the water after him. Hans manages to barely squeeze through the doors, which are too small for the bugbears to follow through. He climbs onto the dinghy being towed behind the ship, and begins to untie it. The bugbears yell out at him, and he makes an obscene gesture at them. The bugbears head back up to the deck above.

Stokkes comes to assist the bugbear holding Bink, and Bink realizes that he cannot escape the grip of the bugbear that grabbed him. Instead, he dives off of the ladder and to Stokkes, which provides enough of a distraction for Humphry to rush over to the ladder in the front of the room.
Humphry successfully climbs up, with both the bugbear that was after him and the one who was still fighting Sammy charging up after him. Sammy rushes over to assist Bink.

Sammy and Bink both fight Stokkes, until Bink is struck by a bugbear and falls. Sammy then gets a thrust into Stokkes that drops him, although not fatally. Sammy trades blows for a few rounds with the remaining bugbear standing in the room, He spots the two who had pursued Hans returning, at which point he decides to head up the rear ladder to the deck above.

Humphry reaches the deck above, and moves around the mast to the ladder on the opposite side, which leads to the hold. He climbs up to the top of the ladder, finding the door to the hold locked. He remains up here, partially shielded by the mast, as the two bugbears chasing after him reach this deck. They do not see him, and head down the hallway to the rear of the ship, assuming he ran that direction. This is unfortunate for Sammy, as he climbs onto this deck just as these bugbears are approaching him. Now with five bugbears after him, Sammy runs for the stairs to the deck above.

Humphry uses the sword to pry open the hold door, and climbs in. He tries to remove the ropes on the first pegasus, finding them unmovable. He then starts try to free the pig and pond dragon from their cage. Since this is in an area of silence, he fails to hear the druid Spring move up behind him. Spring grabs Humphry, who slashes out with the longsword, hitting the druid. Spring moves back, Humphry going after him, and out of the area of Silence.

Spring asks, “What are doing?” Humphry answers “I got lost.” Spring demands “No, tell me the truth, what are you trying to do?” Humphry then answers “Trying to free the animals.” He is shocked when Spring answers “Good, then I’ll help you.”

Sammy reaches the weapon’s rack at the top of the staircase, noting that the magical weapons are all missing, but that it still contains a few non-magical swords and around a dozen pole arms. He starts to grab the weapons and hurl them down the staircase. A few strike the ascending bugbears, and the other weapons manage to create obstacles on the staircase. Once the rack is emptied, Sammy rushes onward, having bought a few more rounds of freedom.

Spring states a command word releasing the bonds on the pegasi. He also casts a spell and speaks directly to Timothy’s pegasus. Humphry points to the rainbow colored wyvern, and says “what about him?” Spring answers “That’s a dangerous monster.” Humphry responds “Maynard? A monster, hell no, he’s domesticated.” “Fine,” answers Spring, and he casts a spell to communicate with Maynard. He then releases the ropes on the wyvern.

At that point, the side door to the ship’s hold is kicked open by Sammy. Sammy yells to Humphry “Bugbears after me” and then charges at Spring with the sword. Humphry yells for him to stop, and Spring tells Sammy “Go help your friend, I’ll deal with the bugbears.”

Spring steps out into the hallway, and tells the bugbears that the one who ran in the hold is stopped, but that the other has double backed to below deck, and to go find him. The bugbears do as instructed. Spring reenters the hold, and heads towards the opposite door. Humphry asks about opening the cages, to which Spring answers “Leave them shut. The wyvern can carry the cages, and the animals inside won’t fall out. We don’t have much time, be ready to get the animals out when the hatch opens" He exits the room and heads up to the top deck.

Once on the top deck, Spring tells the half-elf fighter Kimball “There is an escape attempt on the crew deck below. Take these three bugbear and get below to stop it now!” He gestures towards the prisoners, adding “I’ll watch them and wake up the others. Hurry!” Kimball and the three bugbears rush below deck.

Spring approaches Silver Moon crewmembers Trent, Spike and Stephen, and says “We don’t have much time if you want to help get the animals off the ship. Go open the hatch. If any of my allies stop you, the story is that you three caught me off guard and pushed me overboard.” Spring then dives off of the ship and into the ocean. Once out of sight, he transforms into a duck, and discreetly flies back up to a spot behind the front mast, where he transforms back into his human form still unseen by the Silver Moon crewmembers. By this point, the three crew have thrown open the hatch cover.

Spring pulls out a wand, and uses it on Stephen, dropping him unconscious. Maynard flies upward, out of the ship's hold, grasping onto the two cages with his claws. A second beam from the wand drops Spike and a third drops Trent. The pegasi begin to fly upward, with Humphry and Sammy on the backs of two of them. Spring uses the wand again, with Humphry falling off the mount and onto the deck. Sammy saves from the wand; forcing Spring to pull out a magical sling and sling bullet, which successfully knocks Sammy from the pegasi and dropping him twenty feet onto the top deck into a state of unconsciousness.

A short while later, Humphry, Spike, Stephen and Trent awaken, Spring having cast a dispel magic on them to negate the effects of the wand. They are again tied and gagged, and alone with Spring in a cabin on the ship. He tells them “I agreed to help free the animals, not the people. All nine of the creatures are safely gone. I would advise you not to speak of my temporary cooperation with you to my allies, as mine is the only voice arguing against executing at least some of you for the attempted escape and the killing of two of the bugbears.” He then adds that, by stopping them from leaving atop the mounts he has probably also saved their lives, as they had no prior experience with riding a pegasus, as well as the lack of saddles and barding on the creatures, so there was no way that they would have been able to stay on the creatures through the heavy wind and rains, and would have most-likely fallen into the ocean and drowned.

Spring goes to the door, and lets in four bugbear who untie them, and lead the four back up to the top deck. An angry Kimball supervises them, as they resume sailing the ship through the rather heavy storm.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-five, “Splitting Up“, August 8th, 1018

Back at Crystull's cabin, Jaime and several of the children wake the party, having cooked up a fine breakfast for everyone. During the meal Jerry passes out copies that he has made of this notes, detailing all enemy groups encountered [Mojo’s player complains that the handout isn’t in color-coordinated spreadsheet form, with cross-references and footnotes, to which the DM humbly apologies].

Back at the Silas home, a fully healed Valerie returned accompanied by another group of enemies. The female mage leader, apparently named Jo-Ann, had some sort of device in her hand that scanned the possessions taken from Guice and Isaiah. “Nothing,” she said with a disappointed look on her face. She then cast “Detect Magic” and confirmed that both of their suits of leather armor, and the sword Guice had used, were magical. The armor was given to the two thieves from Valerie’s party, referred to as Pat and Litock, who quickly put them on. The fighter Donovan took the magical longsword. Donovan asked Jo-Ann “Any word from him?” “Not since last night,” was her reply, adding, “I wish he’d let us know where they have gone to.”

The hobgoblins, and some bugbears, began to bring all of the group’s supplies outside. The five hostages were then each picked up by a pair of bugbears and carried outside. The other three were thrown into the back of Vincenzo and Jaime’s farm wagon. Guice and Isaiah were then thrust inside of the rather ornate stagecoach, pulled by a team of four horses unfamiliar to the two of them. Near each of these conveyances were large groups of both hobgoblins and bugbears.

Seated in the coach was an armored cleric. Isaiah and Guice both also noticed an indention in one of the other coach cushions, where an invisible person was apparently sitting. Jo-Ann then entered the wagon. The cleric complained about traveling without his magical mace. Jo-Ann told him “Barry, it’s too risky to keep it inside here, which is also too small for you to effectively use it in. Besides, Ken and the bugbears will guard the outside, and we have our spells if we are attacked.” The coach then started moving. Jo-Ann immediately fell into a very deep sleep.

At Crystull's, Narg declares that “They’re all dead. They’re on my turf!” “Your turf?” asks Mojo, “Does that mean that they’re all dead drunk and under a barstool?” Immy reminds the group that within the next hour he will be able to again use his Crystal Ball. The group review Jerry’s notes to determine who to have him look for. They deduce that the enemy ship Grand Enigma is most likely still near the island, as it would not have attempted to leave the anti-magic shell with all of the party’s stolen magic on board. The enemies on board this ship had been closely seen by several of the ship’s crew, so Immy uses his Medallion of ESP to obtain images from the crew of these people.

His first two attempts fail, but the third reveals to him an enemy, wearing simple clothing, sailing the ship through the rainstorm. This man is being drenched with rain, but is acting completely indifferent to the weather. Immy sees a body of land in the distance behind the ship, but is unable to describe this land formation well enough for the group to determine where this is. Aradyn asks to borrows the Medallion of ESP to draw this image from Immy’s mind, as Aradyn has flown all around the island on his Pegasus and knows what the different landmasses look like from all angles. He is easily able to identify the land that the ship is sailing away from as Northpoint Island, which is immediately northeast of Silver Moon Island. It is noted that there is no safe place for a ship to dock anywhere near there on the main Island, so the group decides to wait to better determine where the ship is going.

Immy and Aradyn continue to monitor the image, as the group begins to plan out an attack. Fifteen minutes later, they view the Grand Enigma sailing parallel to Silver Moon Island, and drop anchor. They then watch as ten of the hairless hill giants with elephant feet and legs cross the top deck, and climb overboard. Standing on rocks and in the water near the shore, these ten creatures form a line within arms length of each other, to cover the approximately 120 feet to shore. They then pass overhand approximately two-dozen hobgoblins and bugbears to the shore, followed by six enemy adventurers.

Immy and Aradyn describe the six enemy adventurers to the others, with them concluding that two are the high-level mages who had escaped from the battles in the city and that two more are the human and the half-orc fighter that were captured on the Molly III and later rescued by their mage team leader. That mage is also viewed, but he does not leave the ship with the others. The other two people off-loaded are not recognized, but are described as both wearing metal armor. The ten giants also then travel to shore to join the others, and the Grand Enigma pulls up anchor to set sail again.

They continue to view the Grand Enigma, which appears to now be heading back towards Northpoint Island. There is only one safe harbor on this island, with a single dock, so the group has a pretty good idea as to where the ship is heading. The mage heads back below deck. In addition to the man steering the ship, they only glimpse two other enemies on board, who both meet the crews descriptions of enemies from that ship.

The party decides that, while there are fewer enemies on the ship, it would be best to either attack it while it is still at sea, not knowing what reinforcements may be waiting for them at the dock. Since there is still a quarter-hour left on the Crystal Ball usage, Immy and Aradyn continue to monitor the situation as the remainder of the group plans the attack. It is also pointed out that another group should go monitor the group of forty enemies that have just been off-loaded, to make sure that this particular cabin isn’t their destination.

Kale points out his seafaring experience, and suggests he might be of use. Narg is annoyed at this newcomer interrupting his strategy session, and cuts him off, saying “You want something to do. Fine, I have a job for you, we’re out of cocktail olives!” Kale immediately responds “Dude, use a small onion.” Narg hesitates for a second, and says “Hey, the kid’s right, that would work.” Kale interjects “Dude, my dad is an ambassador and diplomat, cocktail parties is something I know.”

Mojo suggests sinking the ship before it gets to the island. Razou suggests waiting for it to arrive, and sinking the island. The idea of sinking the ship by attacking it from below is debated, as Blip, Luekia and Vincenzo each have alternative aquatic forms, Serita could also transform into an aquatic creature, the group also has a Helm of Underwater Action, and they could also bring along the lizard man crewmembers. Narg gives the whole group a rousing pep talk, about how they need to now pull together, work as a team, and go get the enemy.

Immy and Aradyn continue to monitor the enemy ship Grand Enigma through the crystal ball, as the crewmember guards outside notice somebody approaching. It is the lizardman Freth, one of the three left to watch the Silas Estate. He tells the party that an hour after dawn a horse-drawn stagecoach arrived at the building accompanied by approximately fifty bugbears. Mojo has a great difficulty comprehending Freth, due to his accent, and mistakenly thinks he is talking about the play “Stagecoach.”

Freth says they saw two enemy adventurers exit the coach and go into the building. A short while later, the hobgoblins and bugbears looked to be preparing to leave the area, loading up both the stagecoach and the school’s wagon with supplies. Mojo interrupts “Hold on, are you saying they’re putting on production of “Stagecoach” or “Paint your wagon”?” “Will you shut up?” Serita asks. “Hey, how can I understand what he’s saying while he’s spitting,” comments Mojo, “There’s more viscous fluids flying around here than in a two-hour episode of ER”

Freth continues, stating that the five hostages were then taken from the building, two loaded onto the stage and the other three onto the wagon. At that point, the lizardman leader Haas decided to send the strongest of his group, Freth, to go tell the party, and that the other two would follow the enemy after they leave. Freth says it has taken him an hour to an hour-and-a-half to reach them, first swimming several miles in the ocean, then walking the last two miles overland.

The party discusses options, deciding to send a group out on the Jeep to intercept the stagecoach and wagon while they are still moving. The group decides to also stick with the original plan of sending an assault team to the enemy ship while it is still at sea. Another group will be sent out to monitor, but not engage in battle, the forty enemies that had just been offloaded from the ship to the northeast end of the island.

The ship assault team is assembled, comprised of Blip, Luekia, Mojo, Narg, Vincenzo, plus the lizardman crewmembers Lars, Spudnick and Ssam. The group decides to go with the aquatic assault plan, giving Narg the Breathe without Air Ioun Stone and Mojo the Helm of Underwater Action. Both fighters leave their armor behind, wearing the two pairs of recently identified Bracers of Defense. Narg uses his Decanter of Endless Water to fill up a Bag of Holding with water.

Narg suggests that once they take the ship, they should proceed on to the dock as if they are the people expected to be on it, to take anyone on shore by surprise. Mojo says “Ah, the old double sneak,” Narg interjecting “The switch-er-oo,” “The old McGuffin,” adds Mojo, “The Stature of Liberty Play,” Narg comments. “Enough already!” Serita yells.

Immy casts a Dispel Magic on Blip, Luekia and Vincenzo, the trigger to turn them into their aquatic forms of a Selkie, Triton and Merman respectively. Narg comments “Geesh, I don’t even know you people any more.” “Next time don’t take two years off,” is Serita’s comment. Luekia, Vincenzo and one of the lizardmen get into the water-loaded bag, and Narg, Mojo and two lizardmen get into the other. Blip reverts to her once weekly Gnome identity while in Selkie form (Editor's Note: Yeah, I know, it gets confusing for me too), climbs onto the Broom of Flying, grabs the bags, and flies off to the northern coast.

Meanwhile, another group had been sent out to monitor, but not engage in battle, the forty enemies that had just been offloaded from the ship to the northeast end of the island. Immy volunteers to transport this group inside of his bag of holding, as he can reach this area via his “Fly” figurine within the hour. Jerry volunteers to accompany him. Also selected for this group are three of the ship crewmembers: First Mate Fritz, Albert, and Bruce the Bugbear. They leave immediately.

Meanwhile, a next group had decided to head off on the Jeep to intercept the stagecoach and wagon while they are still moving. This group is comprised of Aradyn, Blake, Jaime, Lono, Razou, Serita and Timothy. Serita gets behind the wheel, with Jaime and Lono joining her in the passenger seat. Aradyn takes position standing behind the roll bar behind the Jeep’s roof. As before during the tavern assault the night before, the clerics Razou and Timothy hunker down in the back, this time joined by the halfling Blake (who is reminded to be careful around Timothy, given an unfounded rumor of him having a fondness for little men).

They travel East four miles towards the mountain, before turning onto the road South, traveling counterclockwise around the mountain. The storm has intensified, with strong gusts of wind, making for rather treacherous driving conditions. At several points Serita has to stop the Jeep for Aradyn to clear fallen branches and trees out of the way. Lono starts to complain “Are we there yet?” Razou then starts to complain too. Serita yells for them to “shut up, or I’ll light you both on fire.” They comply as they think she is serious, which she probably is.

Meanwhile, on the northeastern coast, Immy arrives at his destination, and lets the others out of the bag of holding for some fresh air. The enemy tracks continue southward, which is a relief that they are not heading west in the direction of Crystull’s cabin. Thanks to the heavy footprints on wet ground from the elephant-footed hill giants, the tracks are easy to follow, and the other four resume their place in the bag of holdings as Immy continues on his Fly.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-six, “The Grand Enigma“, August 8th, 1018

Blip continues to fly eastward. After nearly an hour navigating through the storm she spots Northpoint Island in the distance, with the ship Grand Enigma sailing towards it, now about three-quarters of a mile from the dock. The two-mast merchant ship measures 100 feet long, with a rounded shape to it, being nearly fifty feet wide at its greatest point. There is a single aft-castle on its last twenty-five feet, with the man viewed through the crystal ball steering the ship from the top of this uppermost deck.

Blip comes in low, spotting a total of three people on the topside of the ship, the one steering on the uppermost deck, and two more below, handling the rigging, tacking the sails to take full advantage of the strong winds. Staying low to the water, she gets a short distance ahead of the ship’s bow, to allow her party time to get oriented in the water before the hull reaches them. She empties the party out of both bags of holding and into the ocean. The group assembles alongside the port side of the ship, grabbing onto an external ladder. Blip flies behind the ship, and hovers behind the man steering on the top deck.

Narg holds onto the ladder and hoists himself up, using the Wand of Exchange on the enemy crewmember nearest him. This causes Narg to appear on deck, and the man to appear in the air beside the ladder. As the man drops into the ocean, the lizardmen Lars and Spudnick both grab him, and drag him beneath the water towards the ocean floor. The man manages to catch his breath before going under.

On deck, Narg moves back to hide behind the nearest mast before the other enemy nearby spots him. He is unsuccessful at this, as the sail reacts to no longer being tacked on the port side, and the man to starboard glances to his left to find out why. Mojo takes this as his cue, and lets loose the Hammer of Scull Crushing, striking the foe. Simultaneously, Blip flies in for a backstab on the man steering the ship.

Vincenzo begins a Prayer spell as Luekia climbs the ladders up to where the ship’s wheel is located. Narg is struck by Magic Missiles thrown by his opponent. Mojo lets loose his hammer, striking the foe for eleven points and knocking him down onto the top deck. Narg charges forth, with the man turning himself invisible once Narg is close to him. Above, Blip is unsuccessful with the backstab, and the man moves away from the ship’s wheel to attack her. Luekia lets fly three star shurkens, which pass between the foe and Blip. Vincenzo motions Ssam to climb aboard and follow her.

Meanwhile, eighty feet back and forty feet below, the submerged enemy is doing remarkably well, managing to continue to hold his breath and thrust his magical sword into the two lizardmen. Spudnick is reduced to a single hit point and is forced to retreat to the surface, leaving Lars alone to fight the man.

Mojo is not able to target his foe, since the man has turned invisible. Narg however, was close enough to be able to now see where the rain is falling on the person, silhouetting the body (with player references to the Kevin Bacon film Hollow Man) and successfully strikes the man. This causes the foe to quickly crawl further from Narg on the deck, consuming a healing potion along the way. Narg draws his Rope of Climbing, and uses it to attach a loop onto the foe’s ankle. Narg then pulls the rope towards him. Watching the end of the rope, Mojo is now able to target his next hammer throw.

Above, Luekia’s next shuirkins also miss, enabling Blip to realize that the foe is wearing a Cloak of Displacement, which she communicates to Luekia, who rushes forward swinging her Bo-stick in the general vicinity of where Blip sees him. He in turn lashes out, with rapid speed, and grabs the stick in mid-air. The two continue what is obviously a monk-tug-of-war.

Well behind the ship, Spudnick surfaces and swims towards the ship. Below, Lars attempts to try to force the magical sword out of the man’s grip. He is successful, but only after the enemy gets a very good thrust into him, reducing him to a pair of hit points. The foe rapidly swims up towards the surface, as Lars dives after the now falling sword.

Narg and Mojo each strike their invisible foe, stopping him from moving. They quickly start to search the body. Mojo removes a ring, causing the body to become visible. Mojo, acting like a kid at Christmas time, puts his new bauble onto his finger and makes himself invisible. Narg and Mojo head over towards the doors to the rear cabins on the deck, listening at them, but hearing nothing.

Above, Blip comes to Luekia’s assistance, and casts a Blindness onto the monk she is fighting, preventing him from seeing. She maneuvers him over to the edge of the boat, and throws him overboard. Blip flies down to where she expects him to surface, but he does not come back up.
The lizardman Ssam takes the ship’s wheel, and continues to sail towards the island.

Blip sees the enemy fighter surface, and swim towards the ship at a very rapid pace. She yells out “Vinnie, incoming!” Being in merman form, he quickly intercepts the man. Vinnie grabs the man and swims downward. This time, the man fails to get a good breathe before being pulled under, and begins to drown. Vinnie keeps him under a while before resurfacing, dragging the body after him back to the ship, where both injured lizardmen are now on deck. Looking at the body, Spudnick recognizes him as Lorne, the ship's captain.

Mojo opens the door to one cabin, seeing an armored fighter sitting inside and reading a book, totally unaware to what has transpired outside. Mojo leaves the door open a crack. They then wait until the wind and rain blow through the opening and catch the fighter’s attention, and he heads over to close the door. Mojo lightly holds the knob outside of the door until the fighter’s hand pulls on the knob on the other side of the door. Mojo then yanks the door open with his full strength, pulling the fighter out into the storm on the main deck, where both Narg and Mojo then attack him. (This series of actions also proves to be both the best and luckiest player accomplishment of the game night, as any fighting inside of this cabin would have alerted the mage, currently resting in the cabin immediately below it.)

The enemy fighter proves to be quite formidable, slashing his broadsword into both Narg and Mojo in the first round. They continue to exchange blows for several rounds, with the man taking over seventy points of damage before giving any real indication of being hurt. Above, Luekia rushes over and starts to hit him from above. The three eventually manage to drop him, but only after both Narg and Mojo have taken considerable damage.

Narg, Mojo and Luekia check out the other cabin beneath the aft-castle, finding a ladder down. It leads to a room with two doors, one to the ship’s hold, the other to an adjacent cabin. Narg opens the door to the adjacent cabin, staring straight at a mage. The mage lets loose a Magic Missile spell, hitting Narg with eight missiles. Narg and Mojo both charge into the room towards the mage. The mage draws a wand and points it towards Narg, who makes his saving throw. Luekia heads into the ship’s hold, heading towards another door into the room with the Mage.

Mojo closes on his opponent the, planning to strike the mage with the Sword of Cancellation. The mage points the wand towards Mojo, and muttering something softly. Mojo throws his sword just as he begins to transform into a swan. The sword sails through the air, striking the mage for minimal damage, but the cancellation magic also negates all of his memorized spells. Not letting the transformation into a large bird deter him, Mojo continues to charge the man, and takes a chomp at the man’s crotch [Editor’s note, feel free to insert you own comment here, as a few stated at game time are not deemed suitable for a family audience].

The swan is successful at keeping the mage from using another spell, but does not keep him from pointing the wand at Narg and softly saying what sounds like the word “Arm”. Narg transforms into a female sheep [Again prompting some comments unsuitable for publication].

Just then, Luekia opens the door into cabin. Still distracted by the Swan attached to him, the mage does not see her approach. She hits his arm with a karate chop, causing him to drop the wand. The Sheep picks up the wand, but is unable to get it to operate. The mage is unsure of what to make of this martial-arts-using female Triton, and attempts to move back. Luekia strikes the mage again, this time on the head, knocking him unconscious. She immediately pulls out a rope and ties him up.

Luekia then takes a good look at both Narg and Mojo in animal forms, deducing what has happened when she sees their armor and clothing piled on the floor, and uncharacteristically bursts out laughing (in the eight years with the group, nobody has ever seen this character smile, let alone laugh). This uncontrollable laughter continues, much to the annoyance of the sheep and swan. Eventually, she calms down, and carries the sheep up the ladder to the top deck, followed by the tied up mage, the swan flying after her (and continuing to peck at the mage).

Luekia drags the mage out onto the top deck, following by the two animals. Blip gestures to the animals, and asks “What’s with the livestock?” Luekia again breaks out into uncontrollable laughter, which takes some time to die down. She then tells them that the sheep is Narg the swan is Mojo. Vincenzo, Blip and both lizardmen, Lars and Spudnick, also break into laughter, again to the annoyance of the two polymorphed fighters. The lizardman Lars comes over to Narg and asks “How are ewe, get it, ewe?” Narg kicks at him.

All five adventurers gather together, and Vinnie casts a Dispel Magic on them, transforming them all back into their usual humanoid forms. Both Narg and Mojo get dressed again and demand that all present be sworn to secrecy, and not tell anybody else about their animal transformations. Vinnie says “You’re just lucky Jerry or Serita weren’t here to see it, you’d never hear the end of it.” Blip asks “How are you feeling?” Narg answers “Fine, other than this sudden craving for hay.” A search of the ship finds no one on board, as well as none of their magic.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-seven, “Bowling for Bugbears“, August 8th, 1018

While the group with the Jeep is traveling around the base of the mountain they encounter several places where the rain runoff is beginning to wash away the road. Twice they have to navigate around mud and rocks that have washed into their path. The stream by Blake’s home, usually less than a yard across, has swelled into a raging river, fifteen feet wide. They are able to drive through it, with the water rising up to the doors and splashing into the vehicle.

Blake comments about dreading the thought of eventually revisiting his nearby Hobbit hole, as he had built it alongside the stream to allow for easy water access. “What you complain about,” says Razou, “A little water not hurt anybody.” “It’s not a little water that I’m worried about,” answers Blake, as he watches a chair from his living room float by.

At the northern end of the island the tracks that Immy is following through the woods intersect a little over a mile later at the point where the hundreds of enemies had first arrived on the island via a Dimension door, that Immy and the “big guns” had tracked to two days earlier. The tracks continue southward along the road to the tavern. Knowing where this road leads, Immy takes the faster route above the trees, heading towards the tavern and town.

Back at Northpoint Island, the ship is almost at the dock. Most of the group hide, but docking proves to be uneventful, with nobody there to greet them. They tie the ship up to the dock, and Blip heads off on her broom to scout out the island, with Mojo offering to loan her “his ring”. She files off as the others secure the ship, and have the lizardmen set up guard positions.

The Jeep eventually reaches the fork in the road on the southeastern side of the mountain, where the road from the buildings west merges in. Aradyn heads out and checks for tracks. Lono comments how, with the now soft ground and very obvious ruts from the stagecoach and wagon that had recently come by, even a blind man could find these particular tracks. Aradyn tells him to “Be quite, I’m working,” leaning down by the road as he studies the ground immediately in front of the Jeep. Lono tries to hit the gas petal, Serita stopping him, and saying “Cut it out or I’ll pretend you are a helicopter.” Aradyn concludes that both the stagecoach and wagon have recently passed by this point, to which Lono sarcastically states "No, you're kidding, good thing we pay you the big bucks."

Blip soon discovers that Northpoint Island itself is rather small, approximately one by two miles in size, and mostly covered with small trees and shrubs. As the storm intensifies, she continues to look for anything unusual. Near the highest hill on the island she finds a small cave entrance, covered by recently cut tree limbs. She lands and makes her way through the improvised barrier and into the cave itself. She walks through the cave, which is barely tall enough for her gnome size. After about sixty feet, the cave opens up into a chamber, from which she hears voices in a language she does not understand.

Peering into the room she sees four creatures. One is a fox, the other is a humanoid badger wearing clothing, and the other two are oriental humans in armor similar to that of the Silver Moon crewmember Toshiro Mitsubishi. One human is definitely too tall to have entered through the cave. Behind them, randomly strewn about, are the magic items taken from the other members of the party. The two humans and badger-man continue to talk among themselves, with the fox appearing to comprehend what they are saying. Fearing detection due to keen animal senses, Blip slowly and carefully makes her way back out of the cave, and flies back to the ship.

The Jeep group continues eastward around the base of the mountain, stopping three miles later at the next fork, where the tracks of the two enemy conveyances branch off into different directions. The wagon and hobgoblin tracks continue east towards the town, while the stagecoach and bugbear tracks continue to the north on the road around the mountain. They decide to head after the stage, which causes Lono to complain about wanting to go back to the tavern instead.

Inside the Stagecoach, the previous two hours were uneventful for Guice and Isaiah, without any conversation from the enemies in the coach, the only sounds being from the rain and wind hitting the vehicle, which moved along the road at a rather slow pace. The coach eventually stopped, and the cleric Barry shook the mage Jo-Ann, taking her a while to wake up. The door to the coach then opened, with Valerie entering, her leather cloak being drenched with rain. “Well?” Valerie impatiently asked Jo-Ann. Jo-Ann answered “All is going according to the plan. The others have landed. Proceed to the destination, and they will meet you there. We’ll see you later this afternoon.” Valerie then left, and the coach continued onward. Jo-Ann again fell into a deep sleep.

Half-an hour later she abruptly woke, yelling for Barry to “Stop the coach”. He pounded on the roof, and it came to a stop. The door opened a few minutes later, and the fighter from her team entered, drenched with rain. With concern in her voice, she told the fighter “He needs our help. Some of the adversaries are with him. Quick, double time back to the first entrance.” The fighter asked “What about the bugbears?” She answers “Tell them to catch up as quick as they can. Hurry.” He leaves, and in a few rounds later the coach takes off again. It then makes a 180-degree turn, traveling back a quarter mile, before making a sharp right turn. It now continues at a much faster pace than before. Jo-Ann remains awake this time.

Shortly thereafter, the Jeep reaches another fork in the road a mile later, seeing stagecoach and bugbear tracks going in both directions. Aradyn confirms that they first went northeast on the road to the tavern, then came back and headed north on the road around the mountain base. He also confirms that the bugbear tracks north are now fresher than the stagecoach’s, and indication that the stage came past here separate from their support troops. Serita guns the engine, in that direction, while also killing the lights.

Meanwhile, Immy and his team arrive at the tavern. From a distance he sees smoke coming from chimneys of Jerry’s Tavern and Inn. Immy also sees several hobgoblins and bugbears through the now door-less entranceways into the tavern, as well as light coming from rooms inside the adjacent inn. He circumnavigates around the building from a distance, heading towards the nearest building to it, the home of the crewman Reginon. Once inside, he lets the others out of the bag and they take up surveillance of the tavern and inn.

Approximately fifteen miles to the east, flying above the worst weather, and with a strong tail wind from the approaching hurricane, Sea Castle Fiona had made record time, and at approximately 9:00 A.M. reaches the magical barrier. Upon striking the barrier, the carpet immediately stops working, and the Pegasus and ropes enlarge to their full size. The owl Deanna grabs the carpet to keep it from falling into the sea, and Fiona struggles to climb up the ropes and onto the Pegasus.

Having never ridden a Pegasus before, Fiona has considerable difficulty for the first few minutes. However with her telepathic echo to the animal, creating a form of empathy that allows her to anticipate its movement, plus her previous experience flying with the carpet as well as riding experience on horses, she is soon able to work out the mechanics of flying this type of mount. They continue their northwestward trek, occasionally dropping below the storm clouds to get their bearings. They descending upon Silver Moon Island and continue to circle around the island, staying low near the treetops to avoid being seen by the enemy, although with the reduced visibility from the storm, the probability of them actually being seen is minimal.

At Northpoint Island, Blip arrives back at the ship. She tells the party about what she has seen, and they discuss strategies, the three alternatives being (1) to teleport in (via a one-time teleportation item of Blips) and fight them; (2) to smoke them out, or (3) to try talking to them. The group, not knowing exactly what these creatures are, are somewhat cautious. Luekia favors talking, but is overruled. Rather than using the magical smoke jar, they decide to fire in one of the signal flares.

They get into the bag of holding, and Blip flies them up to the point near the cave. Blip suggests going in alone, as the cave is rather narrow. Mojo answers “Hey, an hour ago I was a swan, I don’t mind crawling.” Luekia and Mojo get into the Bag of Holding, with Narg and Blip making their way through the cave about half-way to a point where the flare can be sent into the chamber. The flare is launched, exploding into red fireworks, some of which fly back down the cave and hit both Narg and Blip. Narg then sees a Panda Bear charging directly at him through the cave, taking up most of the cave itself as it runs. Narg grabs Blip, yelling “go”, with her teleporting them into the room. Unfortunately for them, the fireworks are still ricocheting off of the walls when they arrive, and some hit them. All creatures have exited the chamber, them hearing the last of the creatures moving up the cave with the sound of banging metal. A loud explosion then follows, deafening them.

They recover quickly, and let Luekia, Vinnie and Mojo out of the Bags of Holding. The group then begin to fill the bags with all of the stolen magic. They decide that, with the enemy creatures still on this island, it is best to not leave the ship and the three-lizardman crewmembers behind. They debate crawling out of the cave, but decide that wounded animals are not something to deal with, and instead use Kharole’s Helm of Teleportation to get back to the ship.

The group reviews an island map, and decides to head for the inlet at the north-central point of the main island. Luekia tells the others that her home is near there, that she knows the channel well. “Fine, you can be the navigator,” The lizardman Ssam tells her. Ssam begins to give all present instruction, asking Blip and Luekia to untie the ship from the dock and for Mojo and Narg to assist Lars and Spudnick with striking the sails. The storm continues to intensify as the ship begins to leave the dock. Vincenzo watches the unconscious magician prisoner.

Ssam speaks to the entire group. He tells them that he is well aware that his usual role is that of their employee, and that he is not even an officer on the Silver Moon. However, if they want him to be able to get this unfamiliar ship safely to harbor, given both the severity weather and the rocky coastline on this side of the island, they need to all understand that for the next hour or two hour he is their Captain and they are his crew, period. Nobody disagrees, and the ship sets sail to the west.

Back with the Jeep, Aradyn is the first to spot a group of approximately fifty bugbears marching on the road ahead, and quickly tells the others. “Do it just like my cousin Mojo taught you,” comments Lono as Serita accelerates, bringing the Jeep up to about sixty-five miles-per-hour by the time the reach the enemy. With the heavy rains and winds, the bugbears do not hear anything until the Jeep is almost upon them, at which point she turns on the lights (on high-beam) while simultaneously hitting the horn. The Jeep plows into the enemies like a bowling ball hitting bowling pins, for a perfect strike.

Several bugbears go flying in all directions, and many more fall beneath the vehicle. A few get jammed between the right side of the Jeep and the two right hand tires and fender, stopping these tires from turning. The caught wet bugbear bodies atop the wet muddy ground, while the two left tires are still spinning, cause the Jeep to slide to the right, ending up off the side of the road, where Serita brakes before hitting a tree.

Before any of the other bugbears can react, Serita throws the Jeep into reverse, dislodging the bugbear bodies, then forward again. She strikes the middle group of enemy bugbears while traveling diagonally across the road. She runs down several more before going off the road on the other side, coming again to a stop.

She floors it once more, pulling back on to the road into the bugbears at the front of the line. Leaving the carnage behind in her wake, she proceeds down the road at high speed. Aradyn looks back, estimating that she killed around a third of them and wounded another third. The ones that appear relatively unhurt chase after the Jeep, but are soon left well behind. She again turns off the lights.