"Retake the Island" - Concluded!

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-eight, “The Stagecoach“, August 8th, 1018

Less than a mile ahead, the stagecoach soon appears in the distance. The road is too narrow at this location for Serita to come alongside of the stage, so she slows to a speed keeping with it while they reevaluate their strategy. She is instructed to come up behind it, keeping a few feet back, as Aradyn, Blake and Lono climb out onto the hood of the Jeep.

The plan is to get Blake over onto the roof of the stage, and for him to then tie a rope for the others to climb across. Aradyn picks up the halfling, and tosses him up onto the stagecoach. The stage proves to be too slippery for him to get a grip, and he slips off, falling between the stage and Jeep. Aradyn looks back, not seeing any dead halflings in their wake. Lono leans over, and sees that Blake has managed to grab onto the log fastened to the front of the Jeep as a battering ram. Lono tells Blake to climb up the log and reaches out his hand for the halfling to grab onto.

Blake starts to climb the log, releasing one hand to grab at Lono’s, only to have his other hand slip, and he falls beneath the moving Jeep (Blake‘s player was rolling really poor this night). He hits the ground hard, but has the good judgment to immediately roll to the side, so that he is between the two rear tires of the passing Jeep rather than under one of them. He lies on his back in the mud as the Jeep continues past.

Razou and Timothy notice the still halfling lying in the road, and tell Serita to stop, that Blake got run over. “I didn’t feel any bumps,” is Serita’s compassionless reply, as she continues onward behind the Stagecoach. Razou quietly asks Timothy “Should we make her stop?” Timothy, clearly displaying his exceptionally high wisdom, answers Razou with “When she’s in mood like she is today we don’t make her do anything.”

“Shall we try again?” asks Aradyn. “Sure,” says Lono, as Aradyn signals for Serita to move forward. The Jeep almost bumping the stage, Aradyn hoists Lono up, Lono managing to grab onto the top edge of the stage and pull himself up. He then secures a rope, tossing the other end down to Aradyn, who ties it onto the Jeep. Aradyn then climbs across, Lono pulling him up on top. Jaime the unties that end of the rope, and Serita backs off a few yards, complaining that it’s hard to see around such a big vehicle.

With the heavy rains falling down, the enemy fighter driving the stage does not notice the elf and half-elf moving up behind him on the top of the stage. Lono gets in a good backstab, and the fighter now turns and sees them. Aradyn then also attacks. The fighter attempts to fend them off while still controlling the vehicle on the narrow roadway. The fight on the roof continues, with Lono taking a slash.

Serita sees a spot in the road ahead that is wider, and guns the Jeep as soon she reaches that point, heading up and alongside the side door of the coach. Jaime uses her sword to smash open the window on the coach’s door, as Timothy quickly hoist her up and tosses her through it. Once inside the coach, Jaime sees two rather surprised enemies, a mage and a cleric. Guice and Isaiah are tied and gagged within the coach. The mage tosses Magic Missiles into Jaime, who is not deterred.

Timothy starts to climb through the window after Jaime. Jaime strikes the Mage with the Rod of Cancellation to negate her spells (which the mage manages to save from). Both Guice and Isaiah, despite their being restrained, try to disrupt both enemies from casting any more spells. An invisible enemy thief then strikes Jaime. Timothy finishes climbing in, and engages the enemy cleric in battle.

Serita sees the road narrowing ahead, so accelerates to a point parallel the horses to force them off of the road. The group comments about “another Druid trying to kill horses”. She manages to force the horses to the side, with the coach following and abruptly crashing into a tree. Both Aradyn and Lono barely manage to stay on the vehicle.

Inside of the coach, the impact with the tree causes both Isaiah and Jaime to fall to floor. Isaiah gestures to the gag and the ropes binding his hands. Jaime drops a dagger by him. She stands to reengage the enemy, as the thief again hits her. The mage casts another spell, which Jaime successfully saves from. Isaiah manages to cut his hands loose, and pulls off his gag. He then casts one of the spells he still had memorized, Silence, to prevent further spellcasting by the enemies. A player comments about the irony of Isaiah, of all people, engulfing the group including himself in silence.

Outside, Serita backs the Jeep up and blocks the road, to prevent the stage from being able to get going again. The fighter on top stands and continues to engage both Aradyn and Lono in battle, with multiple attacks into them. Lono is now in rough shape, and Aradyn also has taken much damage, so they decide to "stop fighting him on his terms”. They knock the man off the stage roof to the ground below. This puts him right near Serita, who casts a “Heat Metal” on his armor and sword.

Inside the stage, Isaiah begins to cut Guice loose, as the thief fights Jaime and the cleric fights Timothy. This gives the mage time to smash open the rear window of the coach and climb out. She starts to head towards the woods. Razou sees her, and also recognizes her as the mage who had used the tracking device to find them earlier. He quickly tells this to Serita. Serita jumps off of the Jeep and runs in the mage’s direction, ducking under a sword swing from the enemy fighter. The mage notices Serita moving in her direction, and discretely casts a Haste spell on herself, then charges into the woods.

With Isaiah and Guice both now free, they assist Jaime and Timothy in trying to stop the other two enemies. Jaime hits the enemy cleric with the Rod of Cancellation to negate his remaining spells (which he also manages to successfully save from, although still cannot cast any due to the silence spell).

Now hasted, the enemy mage charging into the woods plans to get far enough ahead of Serita to have the time needed to throw a Lightning Bolt back into her, however with her own Boots of Speed, Serita manages to keep pace. Back on the road, the enemy fighter realizes that his armor and sword are getting hot, tosses the sword into the woods behind him, and starts to strip off his armor
.
Inside of the coach, the enemy thief and cleric, now outnumbered, exchange signals with each other, then both surrender. The others in the coach begin stripping them of the their weapons and other possessions. In the woods, the mage tries her best to loose Serita, climbing and running by branches, bushes and fallen logs, but Serita manages to avoid tripping over them. Lono and Aradyn see the two women running further into the forest, and decide to chase after to assist Serita, jumping down from the top of the coach. By now the smoldering enemy fighter has stripped down to the cloth padding beneath his armor, and runs off into the woods behind him. Isaiah and Jaime tie up their two prisoners.

Blake is continuing to head up the road to catch up with the party, and hears the sounds of the angry bugbears coming up from behind. He uses his Boots of Speed to increase his pace. He soon sees the stagecoach and Jeep stopped ahead. He also spots movement in the woods nearer him, with Serita chasing an unknown woman, so heads in that direction to intercept them.

Blake attempts to trip the mage. She manages to avoid him, but this slows her down enough for Serita to grab her, and knock her partially to the ground. The woman jumps up, and slashes at Serita with a dagger. Serita draws her scimitar, and the two spend a few rounds dodging each other’s blows, with Serita connecting once. During this melee, they converse. Serita orders her to surrender, saying this is her only opportunity.

The mage asks for terms, to which Serita says “unconditional”, which is echoed by Aradyn as he arrives to assist. The mage arrogantly refuses, saying "Not good enough" to which Serita says; “You just blew it.” The mage answers “No, you did. You just don’t realize it yet.” Aradyn assists Serita, soon joined by Blake and Lono, the combined group knocking the women unconscious. Serita begins to search the body, when Blake reminds them that the bugbears are almost to where they are. They pick up the mage and hurry back to the stagecoach.

They use the Jeep to back the stage up to get it back on the road, just as the angry bugbears come into sight down the road. Aradyn and Jaime lay down covering fire of arrows to help deter the attackers, although their arrows mostly miss due to being deflected by the driving wind and rain. Timothy begins to drive the stagecoach, while Blake, Jaime and Razou ride inside of it, closely watching the three tied and gagged prisoners. Both the cleric and mage are hit again with the Rod of Cancellation (to which she again saves, although the cleric fails). Aradyn, Guice and Isaiah join Serita in the Jeep. The first of the bugbears reach the vehicles, just as the party starts down the road. A few bugbears attempt to climb onto the stage, but are easily knocked off by Timothy.

The group continues to proceed counterclockwise around the mountain, leaving the group of angry bugbears well behind. Isaiah and Guice ask for an “information dump” about what has been happening with the rest of the Silver Moon. They then tell Aradyn and Serita about what has transpired during the sixteen hours since being captured the previous evening. The four of them then discussion about exactly who the “he” might be that both Donovan and Jo-Ann referred to.

Back at the tavern, several hobgoblins and bugbears have been sent outside into the rain to guard the doors and doorways. Since he is wearing armor and holding weapons that match those of the enemy, Bruce the bugbear is sent out to “blend in and see what you can discover”. Fritz tells him to be careful, and to say as little as possible. “And don’t try to get a date,” adds Albert. Bruce avoids the other bugbears, heading to a door guarded by hobgoblins, which move aside to let him in. Once inside the first floor of the inn, a human fighter stops him, asking, “What were you doing out in the woods?” Bruce answers “Saw something moving in the woods, but was just an animal.” The man tells him to go join his friends in the tavern, Bruce heading in that direction.

Once at the tavern, he sees that the elephant-footed giants have raided the beer storeroom, and all ten are now “chugging” kegs. The bugbears and hobgoblins gathered in the room are also consuming beverages. They pay no more attention to Bruce than they do the rain and wind blowing through the doorways. He picks up a small keg and several mugs, and heads outside to offer it to the others guarding the doors, which happily accept it. He then says, “Isn’t that a pig?” “Where” asks a bugbear guard. “Makes good eating. I’ll get it,” says Bruce and he rushes off into the woods waving his sword. Once out of sight, he doubles around to Reginon’s house to tell the others what he saw. Immy decides that he needs to get a message back to the rest of the party, but had not studied the spell that he needs for this. He says that he needs to rest for a few hours before he can study it, and not to wake him, heading into Reginon’s bedroom.

The Jeep reaches the intersection of the road back to Crystull's cabin. Seeing other tire tracks on the road Lono blurts out “Oh my god, they have a Jeep too!” “Those are our tracks from a few hours ago you idiot” Serita exclaims. Once past the fork, they stop, and the group to spend the next twenty minutes covering up their track, to give the impression that they have continued south around the mountain along their previous tracks. They then head the remaining four miles back. Once back they turn the prisoners over to their crew guards. The group enters the cabin, and tells the others what has transpired.

The Sea Castle Fiona continues to fly around the Island. Eventually, the pegasus is able to pick up the Silver Moon Fiona, and they fly in that direction. Fiona senses that her Pegasus in nearby. Several members of the group move outside, to see the animal come in for a landing, being ridden by…Fiona. The Silver Moon Fiona immediately recognizes her alternate-reality counterpart from the Sea Castle Adventurers. The others are a bit surprised to see both of them together. Sea Castle Fiona immediately passes to the party Cassie's owl familiar and Kharole's cat familiar.

Fiona Sea Castle relates to the party how the ship Silver Moon was rescued by the Sea Castle Adventurers. She tells of her party leader and four of the other Sea Castle team being currently en route to the island with their crewmember Hans. "Which others?" asks Lannon. She says "Our leader, the magician Aurora, the Viking fighter Torvald, dwarf fighter Flashis, and our Razou.” "Great, just what we need, two Razou's" comments Lono, "Not that either of them will probably notice."

She goes on to explain that when she struck the Anti-magic barrier, all eight of her magic items ceased working, and all spells were wiped from her memory. A very exhausted Fiona Sea Castle, having been up most of the night, first rescuing the ship Silver Moon and then getting to the island, is then given a bed to rest in. Before going to bed, one of her magic items regains its magical properties, her Ring of Feather Falling (a useful item to own when you have a Carpet of Flying).

Meanwhile, back on the ship the Grand Enigma, the party is having a rough time sailing through the storm. A flare goes off in the distance over Northpoint Island, briefly lighting up the sky. Narg begins to now complain about having to take orders from the Lizardman. Luekia points out that Ssam is the most experienced of them at sailing a ship, and for Narg to just shut up.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Twenty-nine, “Interrogations“, August 8th, 1018

At Noon, back at Crystull’s, the group of Aradyn, Blake, Guice, Lono, & Serita decide to question the newly acquired prisoners. They start with the thief, who proves to be totally uncooperative, refusing to answer any of their questions even when sufficiently threatened. They return him to the guards. Next they question the mage Jo-Ann. She too proves to be uncooperative, although she is rather talkative. With total arrogance, she makes it clear to the party that she will tell them nothing useful, as she fully expects to be rescued in the near future. Even death threats fail to bring any change, as she is confident that even if killed Morgarth will resurrect her.

They do find out from her that she is “one of the five”, the five being the leaders assigned to the five teams who were not at fixed and open locations on the island. The “five” are all past associates of Morgarth, and are expected to be the winners of the contest. She is also convinced that the party will do nothing until after their high-level allies return, with her informing them that they are “on the way back”. She is returned to the guards.

The third prisoner, the cleric Barry, is seen by Timothy to be “less evil” than the others. Although he worships a lawful evil deity, his alignment is closer to lawful neutral, the alignment of his other two deities. He is very concerned that the parties not kill his team leader Jo-Ann, and is far more cooperative in the answering of questions.

From him they find out that Jo-Ann’s team initially had the mission of first capturing Mark, however he was not at his home at the time of the assault. After that, they were to use the scanning device to obtain the fifteen magic items that had once belonged to Morgarth. When asked why they left the Silas family home, he says that Morgarth’s chief Druid predicted that it would be washed into the sea during the peak of the storm.

They ask what his team’s destination was, to which he says that his team was scheduled to meet up in the afternoon with those offloaded on the northeastern part of the island. Both of the groups then, as well as the group holding Beulla, Furynick and Silas, would ride out the remainder of the storm in the two stone structures, the church and the observations tower, as it was determined that wooden structures might not survive the hurricane.

They ask about the rescue that Jo-Ann is expecting, and he reminds them that their team’s fighter got away. “Oh sure, he’ll do a lot of good alone and naked in a storm” answers Lono. Barry is unable to answer many of the group’s questions, including the locations of Cassie, Mark or Morgarth, stating that that information is known only to the team leaders.

The group debates whether to allow the man a blanket as a reward for his cooperation. Barry requests that they be held captive in the Stagecoach, which Guice becomes very suspicious of.
Guice returns to the stage, and does a search for secret doors or cabinets. Finding none, he uses his sword to rip apart and pry open the seats. He finds nothing beneath the rear seat, then moves onto the front seat. His search is rewarded by a large cache of magic, hidden beneath the bench. This is comprised of a magical mace, potions, wands and Jo-Ann’s magic book. He calls his friends over to show them what he found. The cleric Barry is then informed of Guice’s find, which greatly diminishes the cleric’s enthusiasm and willingness to cooperate.

Five miles to the East, the Grand Enigma is sailed into the northern inlet, and tied up to the shore not far from the cave where Luekia lives. Once the ship is secured, the party gets into the bags of holding, and Blip files them back to Crystull’s cabin. Blip empties the others out of the bags of holding, and the unconscious mage is placed under guard. Both groups exchange information about what has transpired, after which Narg and Mojo decide to again question the female mage and the thief.

A discussion between Blake, Guice, Isaiah, Lannon, Mojo, Narg and Serita then follows regarding Guice and Isaiah’s suspicions regarding Immy. Fueled by the fact that they were recaptured after Immy had delivered them directly to the enemy the previous evening, this group runs through a list of other evidence that indicates that Immy may not be who he appears to be, and might actually be a spy working for Morgarth. Narg concludes that all of the evidence is circumstantial, but that the group should watch him carefully from now on. As he is currently away with Jerry and three of the crew, it is currently a moot point, but will have to be addressed after he returns.

The group of Blip, the Silver Moon Fiona, Kruk, Lannon, Lono, Luekia, Narg, Mojo and Serita have the thief brought to them. Narg starts to question him, the response being him spitting at Narg’s face, and missing. Narg calmly tells him “I might suggest that you be a bit more cooperative, seeing as to how you can’t even hit me with saliva.” Serita wants to kill him, stating that “He is on my island, which is enough of a reason.” Lono fully concurs. Narg informs the man “You may want to listen, she’s not known for her patience.” They decide to bring him back, Serita yelling out “Don’t you dare touch any of my trees with him.”

They pull out the female mage to question her. She continues to be uncooperative. They reveal to her that her hidden magic inside the stagecoach was found. “Maybe we can negotiate,” she now replies. Narg sarcastically exclaims “Yeah, right, with you naked and tied to a tree you don’t have much to negotiate with .” Lono mutters to Mojo “By that comment, I gather that Narg doesn’t have much of a sex life.” Fiona overhears that comment, and mutters “fighters” under her breath.”

She comments about being willing to give them information, but first wanting assurances that they will return to her the gold wands. “Sorry Babe,” states Mojo “I’m having them turned into a lamp.” She mouths off to the party, stating that they will do as she says or she won’t tell them anything.” Narg comments, “Well, she’s sure got balls.” Mojo comments “She does? You must be looking at a different angle.” Serita tells Narg “I think you need a class in sex education.” Lannon adds “Well, he has been away for a few years.” Narg restates his comment “I meant she’s got chutzpah”.

“Come on, let’s discuss this,” Narg says, moving the party away from her. They leave her tied to the tree, not putting the gag back over her mouth. She turns her face away from them and begins to softly speak an incantation, and then totally disappears. Luekia and Fiona rush over to where she was, confirming that she is gone and not just invisible.

Fiona points out that a "Teleport" spell requires only a Verbal component, so that she could have still cast it naked and bound, if her spells had not been cancelled. After a very short discussion, the group realizes that she would have been aware that three of the enemies four designated "Escape Locations" would have been compromised, and would have probably gone to their fourth. Unbeknownst to the mage, the group knows this location to be Araby's cabin, and they quickly assemble a team to go there.

The group of Kharole, Kruk, Lannon, Mojo, Narg, Serita and Timothy teleport to the woods near Araby’s house. The soon locate one of the observation platforms atop a tree near the house. Lannon climbs the tree and comes in behind the two waking goblins. He has never attempted a double-backstab before, but tries it now, succeeding in silently taking out both opponents. He locates the anticipated wand, this one violet in color, and then eliminates the two goblins sleeping on the lower platform. From the observation point he is able to spot the approximate location of the other two observation platforms, and concludes that they are close enough to each other that they will need to be hit simultaneously.

He climbs back down and informs the others of this. Kharole volunteers to deal with one while Lannon takes the other. She uses her levitate spell to get up behind, and casts a Magic Missile spell, sending two missiles into each goblin, which is enough to kill them. Lannon sees the missiles, using this as a signal for another attempted double-backstab, which again succeeds. They both then deal with the sleeping goblins, and head back down with the wands.

Lannon approaches the cabin, being able to pry open shutters to windows of three out of the four rooms to the building. One room is empty, another has an awake pair of hobgoblins. In the third room is the recently escaped Jo-Ann, now attired in a tunic. Also in the room with her is the thief who had escaped from the party in Herculean’s cave the previous day, now attired in leather armor. Lannon returns to tell the others, also warning of the fourth room, where he was not able to look inside.

Narg and Mojo decide to head to the outside door that opens into he room with the hobgoblins. Kharole and Serita head to the other outside door, to the room with the two enemy adventurers. Timothy, Kruk and Lannon take up position outside of the windows to the room with unknown occupants. Kharole peers into the same window that Lannon had pried open, seeing the two enemies. She signals Serita to be ready, and casts a fireball into the room. The fireball explodes, catching both enemies. The fireball also blows out part of the wall into the next room (the empty room) as well as the front door and a section of exterior wall to the right of the doorway. Serita and Kharole both move over to this now much wider opening to peer inside.

At the sound of the explosion, Narg kicks in his door and charges into the room, both hobgoblins moving into attack him. Mojo invisibly follows. Kruk smashes open the window to the other room with Timothy helping him quickly get inside, followed by Lannon. Inside the room is a lone Bugbear lying in a bed, now waking up to the sounds around him. Kruk takes the bugbear on, as Lannon heads across the room, over to the room with a door that opens into the room with the two enemy adventurers.

Back in the hobgoblin room, one manages to strike Narg for eight points of damage. Narg retaliates by decapitating him. Mojo hits the other, severely wounding him. Narg leaves Mojo to finish off his foe, and heads into the next room. Once through this door, he can sees not only into this room, but also outside and into the adjacent room with the enemy adventurers, due to Kharole's fireball remodeling. By now Serita has rushed over the burning debris towards the enemy thief, who is attempting to stand up. Lannon is moving in towards the unmoving enemy mage.

Before Serita can reach her foe, Kharole drops him with a Magic Missile spell. Serita and Lannon each finish off their foes. Kruk and Mojo have taken care of theirs. Narg glances at the fireball damage to the wall and doorway, and tells Kharole “You’ve been in semi-retirement for the past decade, but you still haven’t learned how to open a door!” She replies “My way is more efficient.”

A section of the roof, with an undercoating of thatch, has caught fire from the fireball. Even though it probably will not have spread due to the heavy rain, the group decides it is best to fully extinguish it so as not to inadvertently signal the enemy as to what has happened. Narg is hoisted up to the roof, to use his Decanter of Endless water to douse the fire, which is soon put out. The others fill one Bag of Holding with the five bodies taken from the cabin.

After a short discussion, they decide not to use any of the three remaining uses of Serita's Ring of Teleportation, as she can change shape to fly them back the three miles to Crystul's cabin. She opts to transform into a Pegasus, as Timothy can ride it, the others getting into the bag of holding. The flight is less than smooth, due to the heavy weather and Timothy riding without a regular saddle or barding. She almost looses him over the lake (to which Kris, Jon and Tim all simultaneously snap their fighters in disappoint about). They have to land a few more times for him to adjust the makeshift rope-and-blanket saddle arrangement that they set up for him, commenting that in the future they should maybe keep a saddle in the Bag of Holding "just in case."

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Thirty, “Cassie Awakens“, August 8th, 1018

Back at the tavern, Jerry observes a large group of monsters approaching, comprised primarily of Bugbears. Bruce is once again sent out to blend in with the enemy, which he is able to do very easily, by merging with a group of wounded bugbears in the rear of the new group, assisting one of the more severely injured. This group heads into the tavern, where most begin drinking. A human fighter wearing ill-fitting bugbear armor leads this group. He orders the bugbears accompanying him to “have no more than two drinks, and eat some food with it.” He then supervises the movement of six of his most injured bugbears into the inn, where they are placed in beds in three of the first floor rooms. Bruce is then able to eavesdrop on a conversation between this new group’s leader and a mage leader of the group that was at the inn.

Bruce lingers around, feigning concern about his injured comrade, and overhears that this new group encountered their enemies a few hours earlier, and that these enemies were riding a “magical metal dragon”. During their courageous battle with the dragon, half of the bugbears were killed or injured. This “dragon” then attacked the stagecoach, capturing it and all of its occupants except for the fighter. “How is it that you alone escaped, and without your armor?” the mage asks. The fighter replies “I was attacked by the dragon, which chewed up my armor, and tried to swallow me whole, but I fought it off with my sword”.

The mage appears skeptical of the fighter’s story, but informs him that “My Orange Squad now includes members of both the Red and Turquoise Squads, and we would welcome the addition of a Gold Squad member too.” The fighter declines, saying that the Gold Squad is far from beaten, that his leader had a contingency plan in case of her capture, and that he will stay loyal to that group until he sees a gold flare in the sky. The fighter then criticizes the mage for allowing his troops to get drunk. The Mage says that they cannot move on the enemy until they know where they are hiding, and that morale was so low among his monsters that he needed to do something to lift their spirits before asking them to fight on in these ever-deteriorating weather conditions.

Bruce is seen loitering about by a different man who yells at him “Hey you, what’sa matter, don’t like the dampness in the tavern. Get the hell back there, you wimp.” Bruce takes this as a cue to leave, and returns to the tavern. As before, he offers to deliver beverages to those guarding outside, taking a small keg out on his shoulder, which he uses to refill all of the mugs of the guards with. After this, he again disappears into the woods and returns to Reginon’s house. Bruce tells Jerry what he had heard, Jerry deciding that the enemies don’t appear to be going anywhere soon, so the information can wait until Immy wakes up.

Finding the ever-increasing wind troublesome to navigate in, Timothy and Serita eventually complete their three-mile flight back to Crystull’s house. They land, Serita opting to remain in Pegasus form. Timothy enters the building and lets the others out of the bag of holding. They also unload the bodies from the second bag of holding, and strip the magical armor off of the thief.

Meanwhile, on the southeastern coast of the island, the Viking longboat carrying the Sea Castle Adventurers and Silver Moon Second Mate Hans, comes to shore. They carry the boat into the woods and hide it beneath branches, then start to head north on foot towards the town. The Anti-magic barrier has wiped Aurora and Razou of their spells, as well as temporarily negating the magical properties of all magic items. Aurora suggests that the group keep a low profile until their magic items function again, although Billy Bob is quick to point out that his M-1 Rifle was unaffected by the barrier. “Fine, you cover the rest of us,” is Aurora’s reply.

Elsewhere, after nearly three days of being unconscious, Cassie-Andra finally awakens. She is in an unusual location that is covered by a pink-and-blue colored fog, where she appears to be floating on air. She sees occasional flashes of light, and also what appears to be several floating geometric shapes of various size and color, with a texture that resembles stone. She has no possessions of any kind, and her body appears to be made of iridescent golden light. In addition to being unclothed, she also notices that she is currently bald.

Near her, sitting on the edge of a light green oval shaped flat rock, are two men. Their bodies are also made of the same type of iridescent light, although with more a silvery hue. The men are also without any possessions. They bear a very strong resemble to each other, and look to be tall, healthy, muscular and robust humans in their early twenties. Both men have long flowing hair nearly down to their waists. One is clean-shaven, while the other has a neatly cropped beard and mustache. They gesture for Cassie to approach them, the one with the beard calling her by name.

Cassie is suspicious of them, and very angry about what has transpired. She begins her conversation with them by rattling off a series of accusations and angry questions. They calmly answer her questions, and soon convince her that they mean her no harm, telling her that they are on a specific section of the astral plane. They also explain how the brightness of their forms is a reflection of alignment, and how evil thoughts and lying causes the hue to change, so that it is impossible to tell lies undetected. They explain her brighter hue than theirs being her good alignment and theirs being closer to neutral. They introduce themselves to her as Hendry and Rainville, and that they are twins.

They explain how in their culture the father is the absolute ruler, and how it was their father who committed them to working with Morgarth, and this was not of their choosing. She asks where their father is now, to which Rainville, the one without the beard, replies “Dead. He was the first casualty in this confrontation.” She notices Hendry briefly flush with the color of negative emotions. His silvery hue returns, and he adds “You killed him. While in dragon form you grabbed him and crushed him against a wall of force. It took us a few days to get over our anger towards you for that, eventually coming to realize that you were merely defending your home, and that the fault of his death lied with another mage. That magician was the one who first blew our father’s ambush plan by altering you prematurely to their presence, and the same mage who later kept the wall of force up while father was being beaten into it.”

They then relate to her their family history. They are from the Forrest Dawn Kingdom, a distant land, where the practice of primogeniture (land and power passing to the eldest male) is strictly practiced. They tell how their grandfather, Carter, is the leader of the land, which she would equate as the King. Carter had several sons, but only one daughter, Carlissa, who he regarded as his precious baby. When Carlissa was a teenager, thirty years earlier she fell in love with a young mage named Hendry. “So you are Hendry Junior?” Cassie asks the bearded one. “I was, but with our father’s death I am now just Hendry” is his reply.

Rainville continues the tale “Grandfather had not yet arranged a marriage for his daughter, but was against her marrying this commoner. Rather than breaking her heart by forbidding the union, Grandfather decided to let Hendry break her heart instead, by requiring both Hendry and his father to relinquish their claim to primogeniture, with Hendry agreeing to become subservient to his bride and her family. Grandfather was certain that no man would ever agree to this, to essentially deny his manhood, so this would end any talk of marriage. Hendry, however, was so deeply in love that he would have agreed to anything to marry Carlissa, and Hendry’s father was pragmatic enough to realize that his son’s future would have more opportunity as a member of the royal family, so also agreed. The two soon married.

Although Grandfather’s plan had backfired, he now became the absolute ruler over our father, beginning what to our father turned into three decades of utter hell. Hendry was appointed the title of Chief Mage and Ambassador, a role intended to keep him away from both the Kingdom and his bride. Our mother, however, had a mind of her own and insisted upon accompanying her husband on as many trips abroad as she could. Grandfather objected, but was never able to deny our mother anything she truly wanted, so eventually gave in. This was, however, curtailed when she became pregnant with our older sister, then later our older brother Carl, and then finally with us. For the next decade she again was confined to the kingdom to raise the children, and we saw very little of our father who was kept away on diplomatic missions.

Grandfather became a surrogate father to our sister Carrie, training her to be a fighter like himself. Our brother Carl would also have become a fighter, were it not for his natural tendencies towards sneakiness. When we became teenagers and it came time for us to choose professions, Grandfather insisted that I too become a fighter.” Hendry interrupts “Yes, in spite of both of us showing an inherent disposition towards magic. Thankfully Grandfather did permit me to study magic, as he always hated me for being named after our father, and Grandfather recommended that I accompany my father on missions, where I suspect he hoped we might both perish.”

Rainville continues “This plan of Grandfather’s also backfired. For with our mother having been trained as a Priestess, our family unit of six now had representation from all major classes, so was able to travel abroad as a self-contained adventuring team. This we did for eight years, up until last year when tragedy struck. While fighting a Demon on another plane our mother perished. Upon return to the Forest Dawn Kingdom, Grandfather tried to have her resurrected, but that proved to be unsuccessful.

In a fit of rage, Grandfather blamed Hendry for her death, and permanently banished him from the kingdom and his family. Hendry then pointed out how, with the permanent death of his wife, his contractual agreement with Carter had ended. While as King Carter could indeed banish him from the Kingdom, Hendry had now become the head of his family, and decreed they would all leave with him. We left the Kingdom that day, never to return.”

Hendry picks up the story from there “To my brother and me this past year has had many great opportunities. We were never happy in our Grandfather’s kingdom, and also never completely happy with the occupations chosen for us. During the past year I have begun to also learn the fighting occupation while my brother has begun to learn to use magic. Unfortunately, our father has been depressed and despondent over the loss of our mother. This has turned him into a bitter man, exacerbated by our sister who wishes to return to the Forest Dawn Kingdom. Our brother’s wife also misses her home, and continuously nags Carl about returning.”

Cassie asks how they came to be associated with Morgarth. They state that, twenty years earlier, their father had been apprenticed once by the chaotic evil arch mage. While the two then parted company due to their different outlooks on life, the arch mage always kept in touch with his pupil after that. Morgarth recently initiated contact again with their father, taking advantage of their father’s current bitterness. Their father saw this current mission as an opportunity to enrich their family again, hoping to again provide his children with a lifestyle similar to that which they had become accustomed to in their Grandfather’s land.

Rainville and Hendry point out how, with the death of their father, there is no clear line of succession. Normally, their older brother would take charge, however their sister has pointed out that she is the oldest, and since their family had been a Matriarchy, she should rule. Their sister Carrie wishes to leave the island now, and return to their homeland, bringing with them the body of their father. Both Rainville and Hendry strongly oppose this, as they not only do not wish to return there and also feel that Grandfather would not have Hendry’s body resurrected and would instead permanently destroy it.

“Brother Carl is torn as to what to do, but has declared that they we an obligation to continue the mission to which father had committed the family to.” Cassie comments about how “he’s just thinking with his groin, and will do what his wife wants.” Rainville adds “Perhaps, although Carl’s wife Lisa is also at an impasse, in that she would like to follow Carrie’s suggestion, but does not want her husband to relinquish control of the family to his sister, wishing for him to be the new head.” “Which would, in effect, let her rule,” adds Hendry, “Whereas she is the least experienced one of our team, being only a fourth level monk, that would probably not be wise.”

Rainville continues “The discussion, however, was a moot point until about an hour ago. With father’s death, Morgarth’s second in command, a powerful cleric named Roger, was put in charge of our group. It was only an hour ago that he departed on an errand. At that point we initiated a family discussion as to our next course of action. Hendry continues “We did get them to agree to allow us to bring you here for this conversation. We wanted to get to know you better, and find out what type of person you really were.” They then ask Cassie to tell them about herself, which she does for the next half-hour.

Back at the Tavern, Immy wakes up. Jerry fills him in about the new enemies next door. Immy studies his Whispering Wind spell, and to send a message to the others, putting together a twelve-word message to Serita stating “Serita, at Reginon’s, almost one-hundred drunk enemies at tavern and staying, Immy. The message goes off in the breeze, traveling twelve miles west and hitting the ear of the Pegasus Serita. She transforms back into the half-elf form in order to relate the message to the others, beginning with “Immy is doing something weird” and then telling them the message content. Lono and Mojo are noticeably upset about the idea of the monsters drinking all of the booze at the tavern. They suggest sending Timothy to scout out the tavern, in Pegasus form via the Belt of Shape Change, but disregard this idea once they realize that in that form he would not be able to bugger any gnomes.

They decide to talk again to the cleric Barry, who had previously been forthcoming with information. They choose to not tell him about them killing his magician friend, as he had been concerned before about her safety. They ask him again about the number of groups of enemies, and find out that initially there were 500, but that 92 were killed during the initial assault on the island on the fifth. Prior to Morgarth threatening the other group in the city of Cortange another 92 bugbears were sent as replacements (and were the first ones hit once the big guns arrived). Fiona complains “See, he cheated. He said 500 but he actually sent more.” “What’s this world coming to when you can’t trust the word of a chaotic evil villain” comments Kruk.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Thirty-one, “Astral Conversations“, August 8th, 1018

Narg continues to try to get information out of the cleric, asking about who his mage leader was in contact with while she was unconscious in the stagecoach. Mojo rants “Is this the same Narg? He talks instead of killing. I don’t know you any more!” The man relates that she, and the other apprentices of Morgarth have a way to communicate telepathically. The party agrees to reward Barry with a blanket and fewer restraints if he promises to not try to escape. He says he will not try to leave on his own, but if somebody comes to rescue him he will let them. The party agrees that that seems reasonable.

The other members of the group decipher what was said, coming to the realization that the high level mage that they brought back from the ship Grand Enigma would also be one of the “five” apprentices of Morgarth. Lono suggests killing him. “But we need to get information first” says Narg. “That’s what a Speak with Dead spell is for,” answers Lono. The mage is still unconscious, so they ask Timothy to revive him. Timothy casts two successive Cure Light Wounds, after which the man remains unconscious. Fiona blurts out “He’s not unconscious from wounds, he’s in communication with Morgarth right now!” “I guess we may have to kill him,” says Narg. Not needing to hear that twice, Lono immediately does the task, ramming his sword through the mage’s heart.

Back on the astral plane, Cassie’s conversation comes to an abrupt halt as a bright red wave of light sweeps over them, sending an unpleasant feeling of nausea through her system. “What was that?” asks Cassie. Hendry answers “Somebody’s body just perished on the prime material plane while they were mentally here.” “Who” asks Cassie. “Well, since the only other ones on this plane within the Anti-Magic shell are us and three of Morgarth’s top aides, it must have been one of them. Come with us, we need to investigate this further.” They each take one of her hands, and with a thought, rapidly move to a different area of the plane. They see a translucent man of maroon color, and stop near him. “That’s Roger,” says Hendry, “I’ll talk to him, you two wait here.” Hendry goes over and the two exchange words, Roger pointing towards Cassie and visually expressing some anger.” Roger then moves off away from them.

Hendry returns. Rainville asks “One died as we through?” “Yes", says Hendry, "Actually, he was the second, another one died shortly before we came here, leaving only Roger. He is going now to retrieve the bodies of both of them to resurrect one or both.” “Why did he point to us?” asks Cassie. “He was upset that we had brought you here, but agreed once we explained why. He was also unaware that our father had taught us how to access this realm, so was surprised by our presence.”

Cassie follows up the comment “You have not been completely forthcoming. Why did both Roger and your siblings agree to allow you to bring me here?” A long pause follows, and the two exchange glances. Hendry answers “Your familiar had been taken away on a ship by Morgarth’s chief Druid to prevent your party from using it to find you. Very recently, that familiar returned to the Island. By bringing you here, your mental state is now fully on this plane, so the familiar will not be able to mentally find your physical body.”

Cassie is upset by this, and says “So, I am still fully your prisoner, in spite of what you’ve said.” Hendry answers “It was for both your self-preservation and ours. We are as trapped as you are, as Roger has erected barriers around where your body is that prevents all not of his alignment from entering and leaving.” “That was stupid of you to allow yourself to be trapped,” says Cassie. Rainville answers “We were unaware of his doing that until after the fact. To keep the familiar from finding you Carrie wanted you killed. We suggested this as an alternative.”

Cassie asks about the one who was killed and what had happened to him. They explain that since he was one hundred percent on this plane when the body was killed it severed his anchor to the prime material plane, causing his form here to explode in all directions and dissipate throughout the plane. “So, that will happen to us if our bodies are killed?” she asks? “To you, yes,” answers Hendry, “my brother and I are not fully here, a part of our essence is still back there, so that our siblings can alert us to come back if necessary.” “And you’ll just leave me here?” she asks. The two men confer, and Hendry says “If we are called back I will stay here with you while Rainville goes.”

Back at the Tavern, Immy and his crew are surprised to see a trio of creatures head up to the tavern from the southern part of the town. The trio are a woman on horseback, a heavily armored centaur, and a Balrog (Yes, I said a Balrog!). She leaves the horse outside of the tavern and the three head inside. Immy decides to once again send Bruce in for reconnaissance.

Bruce the Bugbear again infiltrates the enemy’s compound, first viewing inside the tavern from outside of the open doorways. He then heads around and into the Inn. Immy notices that all of the enemy guards outside of the inn doors had moved slightly inside of the doorways. Bruce entered the inn, being let in by a pair of hobgoblins, then exited just a few rounds later. He headed into the woods, and made his way back to Reginon’s house. While Bruce was away Jerry suggested that he and Albert could go steal the horse, and use it to get back to Crystull’s house with a message.

Much to their surprise, Bruce also brings back with him Haas, a lizardman crewmember that he had just now ran into in the woods. Haas had been observing the tavern as well, as he was one of the three lizardmen crew who had been left to observe the Silas family home the previous evening, and all day long had been following the group of bugbears marching from there who recently joined up at the tavern. Haas reports that several of the party had attacked this group of bugbears with a Jeep, and apparently also captured the Stagecoach that the monsters were supposed to help protect. Haas looks exhausted, so Jerry tells him to go rest.

Bruce reports that the Balrog has taken command of the monsters within the tavern, and that the hobgoblins, bugbears and elephant-footed giants were all sitting and quietly, giving the Balrog their undivided attention, and that none of these monsters were eating or drinking. Bruce adds that he also saw the slashed body of a bugbear lying on the tavern floor, and fresh blood dripping from the Balrog’s sword, so he was not surprised by the current level of obedience from the monsters.

Bruce goes on to say that he saw none of the enemy adventurers or the armored centaur in the tavern, he again made his way over to the inn, being let in by a pair of hobgoblin guards. Once inside, he heard the sounds of a heated argument from the second floor of the inn. Bruce tried to make his way upstairs, but was stopped by two bugbears guarding the bottom of the staircase, which ordered him to go back to the tavern. Bruce then quickly exited the inn, and headed back.

Bruce thankfully has a nearly photographic memory and relates the smattering of conversation that he overheard. It consisted of a female voice yelling “I don’t give a damn about them. They’ve lost, that’s their tough luck.” A male voice responded to this with “They haven’t lost until their flares are seen. You missy, need to have more respect for your superiors. I’m ordering you to accompany us.” The woman yelled back “And who do you think you are to order me!” He screamed back “You insubordinate bitch. I’m your designated team leader, or have you forgotten that?”

After a short pause, she answered “I have forgotten nothing! Any connection that you had to our team ended three days ago when you didn’t bother showing up, and left me to take charge. Since then, we’ve defeated the enemy TWICE, we still have our hostages and our team is fully intact, while you’ve had to scrape together the remnants of four teams to get a comparable force!” A different male voice interjects “I haven’t joined his team,” to which both of the previous voices yell in unison “Shut up!”

The female voice continues: “I’m only here now because Roger thought that your new team needed me to tell you what was going on and to bring you these powerful allies from the White team, my own team is doing just fine. And my name is neither ‘Missy’ nor ‘Bitch’, you arrogant twit. My name is Valerie, and you’d best remember that, as I’m planning to win this contest.” The man starts to yell a reply, but in interrupted by the other male voice, who loudly says “Enough! This is getting us nowhere. Valerie, why don’t you tell us exactly what is going on?” At that point Bruce was then ordered back out of the Inn.

Immy decides that they need to hear the rest of the conversation. He casts the Invisibility onto Jerry, telling him to steal the horse and “Get a message back to the others if I don’t return in an hour.” Immy then casts a Wrathform on himself, and floats over to the tavern.

Back at Crystull’s house, they decide to go ahead with the Speak with Dead spell, Timothy calling it up with Isaiah’s magical mace. They first ask for the location of Cassie and Mark, being told that they are on Southpoint Island. This leads to a major “I told you so” from Mojo. He had suggested way back at the Regal Carriage Inn in the City of Cortange that they initially head there on the island, as it would be the point first hit by the hurricane and therefore a likely spot to be holding hostages.

The next question asked is “What did you last say to Morgarth”. They are surprised by the answer, as the response indicates that their last conversation was two days earlier, prior to the barrier being erected. “That means they have not been communicating with him, but only with each other,” is Fiona’s conclusion. The final question from the spell asks for Morgarth’s current location, the answer being that he is “At his mountain top castle in a very distant land”. That answer does not help much, other than confirming that the arch mage has personally removed himself from the present situation, leaving it up to his lackeys.

The group decide that an all-out assault on Southpoint Island is in order, assembling the high-powered assault team of Aradyn, Blake, the Silver Moon‘s Fiona, Guice, Kharole, Kruk, Lannon, Luekia, Mojo, Narg, Serita, Timothy and Vincenzo. Mojo suggests bringing both Fionas along. Lannon comments “Why, so you can get bitched out twice as much? They hate fighters.” Mojo mutters “There goes my twins fantasy”. It is pointed out that the Sea Castle Fiona is still without spells, so would be of little use.

The group discusses modes of transportation, deciding upon Serita using the Belt of Shape Change to transform into a Storm Dragon (to blend in with the clouds, as a less visible target). Since she is using the belt rather than a natural transformation, she can shape her back into saddles for Aradyn, Fiona and Timothy to ride, as they are use to aerial travel due to being pegasus riders. Aradyn takes the front, Fiona the middle and Timothy the Back. The other nine pile into the two bags of holding, and Serita takes to the stormy sky.

Back on the astral plane, Cassie initiates a discussion about what happens to those linked to the astral that die while they are mentally on the prime material plane. She is told that part of their essence remains on the astral plane, at the corresponding location to where they died. This essence would in effect be a shadow form, which would dissipate over time. She asks if, should they find that location corresponding to their father, if they would be able to communicate. They say that they might, however do not know exactly where that location is, due to having never been in the city on top of the mountain. As Cassie’s suggestion the three head off to a higher elevation in search of the astral shadow of Hendry Senior.

At the tavern, Immy catches the end of the argument between the woman who rode up on the horse and the other enemy adventurers. A short debate ensures over whose “banner” to travel under. The woman points out that they would be foolish to travel under the senior mage’s Orange Squad, as that team was the first to lose. The Mage says that occurred during the initial assault, before the high-level Silver Moon party arrived, so it did not count. She answers “You honestly think loosing to a lesser group doesn’t count? Be serious.”

This prompts an argument from the others. The male fighter points out that his team’s three gold wands are within the coach and are retrievable. The others point out that each pair of Turquoise and pair of Red squad members have their wands with them, so should use either or both of those as their team color. The fighter agrees to this “but only until I get the gold ones back.” The centaur acknowledges that he and the Balrog do not have any of their white wands, but don’t care about the contest, only pleasing their master.

The fighter then asks the woman for the return of his hobgoblins. She says “You want them back, fine, I’ll send them up to you. You can keep my bugbears too. He thanks her, and says they will wait until the hobgoblins arrive to move out. She heads down stairs, and Immy quickly returns to Reginon’s house. He does a quick information dump, as they watch the woman get on the horse and ride back south. Immy considers attacking her now, but decides she is too close to the other enemies and he had been sent to observe not fight. An invisible Jerry and Albert head off on foot after her horse. Half an hour later, they see twenty hobgoblins arrive from the south. A short while later Albert returns. He says that the woman and her group are not far away, at the Ukko church, and that after the hobgoblins left Jerry was successful in stealing the horse and riding off to the west to spread the word.

On the road, a half-mile west of the town, the Sea Castle Adventurers hear the sound of an approaching horse, so they quickly move off into the woods to avoid being seen. As the horse rapidly rides past, Hans tells Aurora that the rider is one of the Silver Moon. She yells out for him to stop, but due to the storm and the speed that he is traveling, he does not hear them, and is soon out of sight.

“That was Jerry”, Hans tells the group. “The tavern owner,” Flashis exclaims. “A fine man” says Torvald. “Runs a good bar,” comments Billy Bob.” “Has good drinks,” comments Razou. Aurora declares, “We’ll never be able to catch up with Jerry, let’s keep heading towards the town.”

She then looks at her companions and says, “Since arriving on this alternate reality we’ve visited this island on five different occasions! Have any of you four ever gone anywhere on this island other than the bar?” “Does walking on the road from the ship dock to the bar count?” asks Billy Bob. “NO” she yells back. Flashis states “See, this walk through these woods the past two hours has broadened our horizons.”

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Thirty-two, “Beware the Jabberwock my Son“, August 8th, 1018, 3:00 P.M.

In the skies, about a mile south of Araby’s cabin, the Storm Dragon Serita is startled by the sudden appearance of a Chimera darting out of the clouds towards her. Aradyn lets loose a few arrows, one of them striking it. The creature goes for an attack on one of Serita's wings, the chimera’s dragon head, lion head and goat head all missing, due to a sudden turn by Serita.

Serita, Fiona and Timothy are then struck by a Flame Strike, with them turning to see a rather large human in black armor riding atop a black dragon. They head for a direct assault, Fiona letting loose a Magic Missile into the enemy rider. The two dragons swing by each other, both missing. Serita rises back up into the clouds, obscuring them from the enemy. They continue onward to the southeast, looking out in all directions, but no seeing the enemies again.

Back at the Tavern, Immy and company watch as a group of over one hundred monster head off to the west, led by the flying Balrog. They wait a while until the enemy has left, before heading over to see if anything, was left behind at the tavern. They find nine enemies still at the tavern, the six wounded bugbears, one drunk bugbear who is barely conscious, and two unconscious drunk hobgoblins. Fritz and Immy have no qualms about dispatching these monsters, and then investigate the rest of the tavern, finding nothing particular of use.

Four miles to the southwest, Jerry is now rounding the southern rim of the mountain, being ever mindful that the survival of the children is dependent upon him reaching Crystull’s house prior to the army of monsters. He is very grateful that the horse he is riding is the one owned by Jaime, as it has been trained to ride with small children on it, and has little difficulty is carrying the gnome who is unaccustomed to riding a full-sized horse.

Meanwhile, seven miles south of Jerry’s current location, Serita continues to fly inside the clouds where Serita estimates them to be above Southpoint Island she descends. They land at the only point on the island where Aradyn knows there to be a cave system, as this cave had been occupied by a group of evil bugbears when the group first occupied the island, which Aradyn and Mark had then eliminated.

They land near the only known entrance to these caves, finding a series of tracks less than two hours old, left by the elephant-men and a dragon. Half of the party stays by the cave mouth, as Aradyn, Guice, Kruk, Lannon, Mojo and Narg follow the tracks. They continue on for half-a-mile, ending on a cliff near the ocean. They conclude that the creatures must have left the island from this point, probably through a magical door. They return to the cave.

Nine miles north, Jerry has now reached the intersection east of the mountain and the road to Crystul's house. He is relieved that there are no tracks from the enemy army. He lets the horse rest for a few minutes, and climbs a few hundred feet up the mountain, giving him a good vantage point to confirm that the enemy has not yet in sight, viewing a mile further up the road.

Seeing nobody, he climbs back down, gets on the horse, and charges down the road at full gallop, soon seeing the tracks left behind by the Jeep and Stagecoach five hours earlier. During this last three-mile stretch, he has to circumnavigate around four trees and multiple piles of branches that the increasing storm has caused to fall across the road since the time that the vehicles last came past.

Back on Southpoint Island, Serita stays outside of the cave in dragon form. Blake, Fiona and Mojo decide to stand guard near the cave entrance, as the other nine party members make their way into the caves. The first two rooms encountered have bedding and food scraps apparently left behind by the elephant-footed giants. A room is found with what appears to have been bedding for the chimera and dragon, with a small treasure pile of mostly worthless items.

In the next hallway Guice is overwhelmed by pain, and moves back. When he tries to move forward again, he finds his way blocked by an invisible barrier. Timothy comes forward, and identifies via his ability to sense evil auras, that the next ten feed of hallway is covered with evil. Others try breech the barrier as well, Aradyn and Vincenzo also being stopped and feeling great pain. Kharole and Narg, however, are able to pass through. Vinnie casts a Dispel Magic, which causes the barrier to blink out for a single round, during with he and Aradyn pass through. Lannon also is able to make it past the barrier, but Kruk and Timothy are stopped, each taking double-hit-point damage from the pain. The five who are through decide to continue onward by themselves.

August 8th 1018, 4:00 P.M.

At the next intersection, they head left, finding three rooms. The first two rooms have hay in one and food stored in another. The third is blocked by a door, which Lannon recognizes as an illusion. He walks through, finding himself face-to-face with a minotaur. Narg and Aradyn come to his assistance, and make short work of the monster. A search for secret doors reveals none (even though the room had one) so they head back to go the other direction.

This too is blocked by an illusionary door, which Narg walks through, to be faced with a creature of a type that he had not seen in twelve years, a Jabberwock. This creature is smaller than the one he faced on Thibaultia, but still a formidable opponent. Lannon and Narg both move in to attack it. The creature reaches his front claw towards Lannon. Lannon thrusts his sword through the palm of the creature’s hand, but is still grabbed up by it. The creature moves the hand up towards his mouth, apparently intent on consuming Lannon’s head. Kharole arrives, and casts a Web spell to pin the creature's arms, legs back and wings. The monster falls back in an attempt to break out of the webbing.

Meanwhile, Narg strikes the creature’s torso with his Nargblade, almost getting caught in the web himself, as Aradyn fires arrows up into the creature (and Mojo’s player complains that Narg’s player is not letting anybody else play). Lannon pulls out his oil of slipperiness, pouring it between him and the creatures hand, while squirming with all of his might. This is successful, with Lannon dropping to the ground rather than being decapitated by the creature, which Lannon concludes has very bad breath. The oil also helps keep Lannon from getting stuck in the web. Aradyn, Kharole and Narg finish off the creature, as Vincenzo arrives. They burn off the remaining web, and decapitate the monster. They start to proceed down the hallway, encountering yet another invisible barrier.

Back on the astral plane, Cassie, Rainville and Hendry have spent an hour and a half unsuccessfully looking for the essence of Hendry Senior, during which they also discuss what might happen next, with Cassie suggesting that perhaps she could mediate between her friends and the Hendry family.

Back at Crystull’s house, Jerry rides up and dismounts at the front door. He blurts out that “An army of over a hundred monsters, including bugbears, hobgoblins, the elephant-footed giants, seven enemy adventurers, a centaur and a Balrog are marching HERE, and could arrive soon!” A near panic starts to break out in the cabin. Hydrophobic Freyland, who had been bordering on the edge of having a mental breakdown anyway due to the extremely wet weather as well as the stress from the current situation, finally cracks. He starts to mutter (in the Dustin Hoffman “Rainman” voice) “Very bad. Very bad. Gotta get outta here. Gotta get outta here.”

Jerry tries to calm everyone down, saying that the monsters are now still at least two miles away, possibly more, but that the group needs to move out NOW! The crew is alerted to get ready to move the prisoners. Adrianna helps to secure the prisoners together, as the children and hirelings gather up supplies and the unidentified magic items. The group debates leaving by Jeep, but conclude that since the only road it could go on is the one with the approaching monsters, it is best to just hide it behind the duck blind for now.

Fiona Sea Castle is abruptly woken up, Mojo asking her “Did you order a Balrog?” “Not that I remember” is her reply. She is informed that an army of over a hundred monsters is on the march, with their cabin as its destination. She is told that they do not know how soon this group will arrive, but it could be any time now. At this point Fiona has rested long enough to restudy her spells. A check of her magic items reveals that some more have now regained their magical properties. Items still not functioning are her Bracers A.C. 4 and her +2 Ring of Protection. She also brought a scroll, which still remains blank. She realized there was high risk to bringing a scroll through the barrier, but given the incoming storm and the fact that one of the four spells on it was Control Weather, she felt it worth the risk. The other three spells that were on the scroll were Monster Summoning I, Plant Growth, and Delayed Fireball Blast.

The group debates what to do with the prisoners. Lono decides to take this matter into his own hands, and heads outside. He orders the crew around the front of the cabin, in order to have privacy during which to kill the prisoners. Isaiah figures out what is about to happen, and heads outside to prevent it. Isaiah and Lono get into a very heated argument about what to do with the prisoners, Lono threatening "To kill you too!"

The lawful good cleric eventually wins due to the intervention of other party members. (Unbeknownst to Lono, Isaiah’s confrontation has also saved his life, as the enemy cleric had the building under observation, waiting for an opportunity to rescue the prisoners. Any attempt by Lono to kill a prisoner would have made him an instant recipient of a Flame Strike spell.)

The party debates whether to travel south to the school or northeast to the ship Molly III. A discussion follows as to the ability to sail the ship in this weather. Lono suggests taking it to the city. It is pointed out to him that sailing a ship up a mountain in not very feasible. They talk about having the non-combatants, the children and tavern help, taking the ship across the channel to Mickey Mouse Island. Several of the older children are insulted at being called “non-combatants” pointing out that they were the ones who retook the Molly III in the first place. Lono mutters “This is like a filthy version of Space Camp.” Since the group is unsure about where a safe location on Mickey Mouse Island would be (as well as the risk of re-igniting the ongoing debate of exactly how large this particular Island happens to be), they decide to head south to the school.

Back in the cave on Southpoint Island, Both Narg and Kharole make it through the second barrier, however Aradyn, Lannon and Vincenzo are unable to. Vinnie even tries to toss the bag of holding through, with Lannon and Aradyn inside of it, without success, the bag stopping at the barrier as though it were a solid wall. Narg and Kharole continue onward, when a pair of arrows fly out at them from a side wall. Narg moves forward, causing a female archer to pull back. Narg pursues, with Kharole behind him. The woman continues to retreat behind the curved wall, throwing more arrows, until she moves out of sight.

Kharole activates her Ring of Invisibility and scouts ahead. She sees the woman change weapons to a sword. Meanwhile, Narg gets backstabbed for thirty-six points of damage. He cries out and staggers slightly, while swinging the Nargblade around and into his opponent, a human in leather armor holding a longsword.

Hearing the sounds of battle and Narg crying out, Aradyn, Lannon and Vincenzo briefly debate whether the sounds indicate that the two have either run into enemies or are having a sexual encounter. “Knowing those two, it could be either one,” comment Lannon. Aradyn points out that Kharole is intelligent enough to not cross Vallessa, so it must be the enemy. Lannon hurries back to the previous intersection, yelling for those on the other side of the first barrier to get the others to come help. Timothy hurries back with that message to those guarding the entranceway.

Back in the hallway, Narg and the man exchange a few more blows, one of Narg’s connecting. The man calls out, and the woman then charges at Narg from the other direction. Kharole lets loose a Magic Missile Spell into her, as Narg swings a sword back in her direction. The woman again retreats, Kharole becoming invisible again, as she sees another woman join up with the fighter.
Kharole heads back down this side corridor to where Narg is while the two women head the other direction, this passageway linking up with the main passage where the man is fighting Narg.

Back at Crystull’s cabin, the first of three groups are sent out. This group is comprised of the six adventurer prisoners, six of the ship’s crew, Isaiah and Adrianna. They head south through the woods. (The enemy cleric, watching this, goes to organize his troops. He has his forces set up an ambush a quarter mile ahead of where this group is heading). Jaime organizes together a group comprised of herself, her horse, Fiona's pegasus, all fourteen children, seven of the crew and the nine tavern and inn employees. They start to head westward, to travel a short distance before heading south.

Back on Southpoint Island, hearing Timothy’s emergency message, Serita turns back into her half-elvan form, and heads off with Blake, Fiona and Mojo. The four of them, with Cassie’s owl, attempt to breach the first barrier, with Blake, Fiona and Serita succeeding. The owl and Mojo stay behind with Guice, Kruk and Timothy. Kruk decides to tunnel his way past, and pulls a shovel out of his backpack to start digging (a rather futile gesture, but hit keeps him occupied).

Blake, Fiona and Serita quickly reach the Jabberwock room, and this same trio then successfully breaches the second barrier. Hearing the sounds of battle ahead, Serita and Blake both go into high gear via their Boots of Speed, leaving Fiona behind. At the intersection ahead, Narg gets in two good attacks on the man, causing him to stagger and nearly drop. Just then, both enemy women move in to attack Narg. The one in loose cloth clothing attacks him with a jo-stick, which Narg is able to dodge.

She pulls back, to the wounded man leaning against the passageway wall, as the woman engages in battle with Narg. The other two enemies quickly retreat down the passageway behind the fighter. The woman proves to be a formidable opponent for Narg, and gets in one good blow to the two that she receives, the damage not effecting her much. She then starts to withdraw down the hallway after her allies, parrying Narg’s attack as he presses onward, followed shortly thereafter by the invisible Kharole.

At a four-way intersection the woman moves off to a side passageway, turning and running. Narg runs after to catch up. While this is going on, the first two enemies to retreat from the battle make their way through a secret doorway, into a room with the unconscious bodies of Hendry, Rainville and Cassie. The woman heads over to the unconscious two men, grabs their hands and yells for them to “come back”.

On the astral plane, Hendry senses this signal, and informs Cassie and his brother that they need to go back. The three immediately move back to the location where they first were, and Rainville says “I now feel it too. I’ll go, you stay with her as promised.” He then vanishes, leaving Cassie with Hendry. They immediately see a whirlwind of crimson dusk stir up, and surround them. Cassie asks “What is happening?” She is not comforted by his answer of “I don’t know”.

Rainville regains consciousness, seeing his sister-in-law Lisa beside him and a very wounded brother Carl standing against the wall, consuming a potion of extra healing. Outside of this room, Carrie continues to run through a side bedchamber, kicking a bed into Narg’s way to slow him down. She exits the room, into the central dining chamber. He follows her to that room, seeing her disappear through a secret door in the far wall. Carrie enters the room with her brothers and sister in law, telling them that “That half-elf fighter is right behind us. What should we do?” Rainville says “I think Hendry and I can salvage this. Let me go back for him and the prisoner.” Rainville then mentally exits.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Thirty-three, “Cassie’s Truce“, August 8th, 1018, 4:00 P.M.

Outside in the dining room, Serita charges into the room, as Narg heads over towards the wall with the secret door. “About time somebody else got here,” says Narg. "There’s a secret door here that they went through.” Serita tells him to wait, that others are coming. Blake next enters the room, followed by Kharole and Fiona.

Back on the astral plane, the crimson dust has enveloped Hendry, leaving Cassie alone. Where it convalesces on his body it takes on an almost liquid appearance, and begins to cover over his arms and half of his head. Hendry opens his mouth, and the crimson liquid flows in, preventing him from breathing.

Rainville then reappears, seeing his brother in grave danger. Rainville grabs Hendry’s hand, and the crimson immediately flows off of most of Hendry’s body, only to then flow back and begin to also flow over Rainville. Cassie asks “What are you doing?” Rainville answers “We’re trying to mentally force this away.” “How can I help?” she asks, and Rainville thrusts his other hand towards her.

She grasps it, as he tells her to “Mentally project it away from us.” She does as he asks, telepathically hearing both Hendry and Rainville's thoughts. The three of them give a focused blast of energy, with the synergised messsage of "Get Off". The red creature immediately jumps off of them in multiple directions, then begins to reform into a whirlwind about fifteen feet away.

Hendry says “It’s Etronne, the mage that was killed.” Rainville asks “How? He should have dissipated across the astral plane…of course! The anti-magic barrier kept him his essence contained. When it struck the barrier it bounced back and reformed.” Hendry adds “And waited for an opportunity to attack just one of us, hoping to overtake my mental form here, in order to then assume my physical form back on the prime material plane!”

The crimson creature begins to start to move back in towards them. “We have to all go back,” says Rainville. Hendry points towards Cassie, and says “Agreed, but then her allies will be able to find us.” “They already have, let‘s go” is Rainville’s answer. The two grasp Cassie’s hands, and the three mentally depart the plane.

Shortly thereafter, Narg opens up the secret door, to see a short hallway and darkened chamber beyond it. A male voice yells out “Stop. We request mediation.” Narg answers “What? We have nothing to talk about.” The voice yells back “We disagree. We request mediation, and that Cassie-Andra be the mediator.”

This request takes Narg and his four allies by surprise, Narg asks his allies “What should we do?” Fiona answers “It’s probably just a trick.” The voice from inside the room then yells “Hold on, I’m coming out.” Blake is sent to invisibly wait outside of the passageway, as Fiona and Kharole position themselves in the corners of the room. A handsome young man in his early twenties, wearing a bright red robe and expensive clothing exits from the corridor into the dining room.

He introduces himself as Hendry, and says that will allow Cassie-Andra to act as a mediator for the two groups. Narg orders him to go get her. Hendry does this, carrying her unconscious body over to the dining table. They notice that she is wearing only a cloth tunic, and is bald. He explains that she has a potion in her system keeping her body unconscious, but that he has been in mental contact with her, and it was she who suggested mediation.

Serita and Fiona are both suspicious about this actually being Cassie. Fiona does a Detect Magic, which only shows her to be currently affected by Magic. Hendry explains that this is due to the potion in her system, and says that a Neutralize Poison will be needed to negate it. Serita reluctantly uses the spell, after which Fiona confirms the magical presence to be gone. Cassie regains consciousness, and is helped off of the table.

Cassie starts to explain who Hendry is. Hendry requests to go get others in his party, to which they agree. While he is gone they ask Cassie more questions, and she relays to them much of what Hendry and Rainville have told them. She also warns them to be careful of the older sister, and not to trust her. Hendry returns with his older sister and older brother. He introduces them as Elaine and Carl. Whereas Cassie had been told that the sister's name was Carrie, this leads to an angry outburst from Cassie about how she will not be lied to. Hendry is confused, but then goes on to explain how Elaine is his sisters first name, but how he usually refers to her as Carrie, her middle name, which is what her Grandfather Carter always addressed her as.

The discussion after than gets tense, with the party demanding that Mark and Herculean also be brought out, with Elaine adamantly refusing. Fiona suggests that one of them be brought in to confirm the safety of the others, to which Elaine agrees. Fiona (with Blake following) heads into the room, finding Lisa and Rainville guarding an unconscious Mark. Herculean is also unconscious, six inches tall, and contained in an energy cage. The mimic Dave, in chair form, is in another energy cage. Also in the room is the mangled body of these people’s father, Hendry Senior. Fiona returns, and tells this to the others. When she describes the body Narg asks “What happened to him?” Cassie answers “He touched my library.”

Meanwhile, the Sea Castle Adventurers arrive in the town. They see that the church is surrounded by hobgoblins. They circumnavigate around through the woods and up behind the home of the Silver Moon crewmember and navigator Smiddle, which is about one-hundred-fifty feet away from the church with a direct vantage point of the church from the southern windows. They decide to use this building as their headquarters. Both Aurora and Razou go to rest on Smiddle’s bed and couch respectively. Torvald and Flashis watch the church, while Billy Bob and Hans discreetly sneak over to Han’s house for food and supplies.

Twelve miles to the west, in the forest, a quarter mile south of Crystull’s cabin, the chimera that had fought the other group now charges out of the forest towards crewmember Lloyd, who is leading the group of prisoners. Simultaneous to this, ten elephant-footed giants rise up from their place of hiding eighty feet away, and start to charge toward the group.

Several crew members yell “retreat”, and start to turn to run. Adrianna, feeling tricked, turns towards the prisoners and fires an arrow into the back of the prisoner Gina. The evil cleric Roger then hits Adrianna with a flame strike, hitting her for twelve points and frying her bow string. The other five prisoners dive to the ground. Isaiah organizes a rapid retreat, as the chimera moves to the end of the line of fallen prisoners, and stops, standing guard over them.

The Southpoint island mediation session that Cassie is facilitating continues, including a lengthy side conversation about Narg’s unwashed socks and whether his possession of them constitutes a Chaotic Evil act. Narg adds that one of the reasons he is anxious to get back to the city is so that he can put the socks outside for the hurricane to wash. The comment about the weather leads to the group receiving information from the Hendry family that the storm's peak won't actually be for another thirty hours.

It soon becomes clear that the Hendry family does not necessarily want to either help or harm the party, the main thing they want is out of the caves they are now trapped in and then find a place to safely ride out the storm. They agree to turn the prisoners over to the party, provided that all five of them and their father’s body are brought to a place of safety. At that point they agree to send up a White flare, indicating that their team is out of the contest. After much debate, the party agrees to these terms. They then discuss how to get past the barriers, considering use of the Wand of Exchange.

Back at Crystul's cabin, the remaining adventurers (Blip, the Sea Castle Fiona, Freyland, Jerry, Kale Lono and Razou) decide to send the stagecoach down the road towards the approaching army, booby trapped to explode and filled with the enemy bodies. Leaving the six monster prisoners tied to trees, they then head off south into the woods with the remaining five crew members.

Within five minutes they meet up with the rapidly retreating first group that had headed off, hearing about the approaching monsters. Freyland quickly exclaims “It’s not the Balrog…it better not be…I hope it isn’t”. They conclude that they are in no shape to fight such a formidable collection of foes, especially with other enemies on the way, so head off west after their second group. They find the trail of the second group a quarter mile west, and follow it as then turns to the south.

At Southpoint, the deal is explained to Rainville and Lisa, as Fiona and Kharole investigate the magic barriers holding Herculean and Dave. Hendry says that he is unable to open them, although suspects that a Dispel Magic would do the trick. But unfortunately that spell would also cause Herculean to enlarge to his full size, which would exceed the size of the room they are in.

Further down the cave, it finally dawns upon Mojo that he is carrying the Sword of Cancellation, which can be used on the barriers! A test of this shows that the barrier itself does not cancel out, but that the sword wielder is protected from the barrier’s effect while the sword is within it. They send Timothy back to get Luekia, and head through the barriers one after another, sliding the sword back to the next person. This gets the remaining eight characters, plus Cassie’s familiar through.

This group makes their way towards the dining room, being surprised to find Narg and Serita sitting down at a table and talking to the enemy rather than fighting. Mojo mutters to Lannon “What ever happened to the old Narg?” Kharole, Narg and Serita introduce the others and explain the deal that was negotiated.

Hendry, glancing at all of the members of the Silver Moon now present, has a disturbed look on his face. Cassie asks him “What is it”. “You brought all of these people here,” he says. “Right, we’re thorough” exclaims Mojo proudly. “So,” asks Cassie. Hendry replies “Then who did you leave with the prisoners and non-combatants?” “Lots of other powerful team members,” Mojo assertively answers.

Now suddenly worried, Cassie replies “Why do you ask?” Hendry answers “Because Roger left here with the Black Dragon, the Chimera and ten giants, to go there to rescue the prisoners, three hours ago! This throws several members of the party into a panic, especially Vincenzo who realizes the immediate danger to his wife and children and that they may already be too late.

They quickly organize everyone together, realizing that total number present now far exceeds the capacity of the two bags of holding. They discuss leaving the Hendry family behind, which Elaine adamantly protests would violate the terms of their agreement, saying “If you leave us trapped here the prisoners have to stay too.”

Cassie says “She’s right, that was our deal, and I personally don’t want to stay here a minute longer, so figure something else out.” They conclude that with the high level cleric soon to return it is best not to leave anyone behind, with the possible exception of the mimic Dave.

They decide to keep Herculean in small form, and Hendry uses his remaining Reduce spell to make their father’s body small and portable too. They have everybody present dump all excess non-magical possessions, then plan how many at a maximum can fit into the two bags. They conclude that they can get all but four inside provided that at least two of these four are the two large human clerics, Timothy and Vincenzo. Serita very reluctantly agrees to let Timothy use her teleportation ring. Vincenzo uses the belt of shape change to turn into a mouse, climbing into Timothy’s pocket.

Serita assumes the form of a Faerie Dragon, landing on Timothy’s right shoulder, as the owl Deanna lands rides on his left shoulder. Aradyn is to be carried on Timothy’s, bow extended, to deal with any immediate threats. All of the others get into the two bags (setting a new capacity record). They remind Timothy to get them out fast, as the air inside the bags will be used up in minutes with such a large group in each. He then teleports to a spot near Crystul’s cabin, behind the duck blind.
They arrive beside the camouflaged Jeep. Seeing and hearing nothing other than the sound of the rain, Aradyn exclaims “Oh no, we’re too late.”

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Thirty-four, “The Balrogs are Coming! The Balrogs are Coming! Run and Hide!“, August 8th, 1018, 5:30 P.M.

Serita flies towards the cabin, as everyone else is dumped out of the two bags of holding. The others head towards the cabin as well, finding it empty. Both Guice and Aradyn check the area for tracks, discovering tracks less than twenty minutes old of the elephant-footed giants, both approaching and then leaving the area. Serita flies around the perimeter to confirm that none of the monsters are still nearby. She sees something in the sky, slightly above the trees, about three miles to the east, however due to the weather cannot make out what it might be.

Blake investigates the Jeep, finding it to be in good condition. Aradyn and Guice confirm that there does not appear to any indication of a struggle. Shortly thereafter, they also find the tracks of the several people including children and a few horses traveling west. They conclude that the party appeared to have left here before the monsters arrived.

Serita does reconnaissance again, to check on the location of the flying creature, which she assumes was the black dragon flying away. Instead, she sees that the object is orange in color and is getting closer, but still over two miles away. She lands and tells the party this. Hendry says “I think I may know what it is.” Guice yells out “We want to know”. Hendry says “The cleric Roger has a Balrog for a bodyguard.” Guice answers “I think I liked not knowing better.”

Around two miles up the road to the east, the approaching army of monsters sees the stagecoach and horses ahead of them, having stopped as a result of a fallen tree across the road. The fighter Kenneth, who had previously been the stagecoach driver, starts to move forward but is stopped by the lead mage who sends a thief to investigate instead.

The booby traps are found and removed, and then the entire enemy party checks it out, finding it full of decapitated bodies. "I think they left this here as a warning to us," the enemy mage leader comments. Kenneth is particularly upset to find that the Gold team's hidden cache of magic has been found and removed. They debate taking the horses, but since these are draft horses rather than riding horses they decide to leave them where they are. The army continues west, more cautious now than before.

At the cabin two miles west, the group debates their next move. Mojo adds “I vote that we fight whatever is not a Balrog. I just want to say that now.” “What’s a Balrog?” asks Jaime. “A powerful fire-demon from hell,” is Narg’s answer. “Sounds rather invigorating,” comments Kruk, prompting Lannon to hit him up the side of the head. They suggest that Serita start up her “call lightning spell.

The members of the Hendry family confer among themselves. Elaine demands that the Silver Moon comply with their part of the agreement, and find them a place of safety for the duration of the storm. Narg angrily replies “This was a place of safety up until the Balrog decided to show up.” Fiona points out that the Hendrys still haven’t sent up their white flare to surrender yet, so for the party to be careful. Narg suggests the flare wand be used now, to which Elaine answers “Not until you complete your side of the agreement". Mojo blurts out “We could just kill them, and pry the wand from their cold dead fingers to use it.” To say that this suggestion does not go over well with the Hendry family is an understatement. Fiona tries to pass off Mojo’s comment as a fighter mouthing off, telling them to just ignore it.

The group resumes their discussion of what to do next, narrowing the choices down to stand and fight or run away. Elaine again asks about being brought to a point of safety, to which the Bag of Holding is suggested. Elaine says that her family refuses to be imprisoned inside of there. Narg angrily states “Look Honey, I’m loosing my patience. I suggest you get in the damned bag.” She is about to slug him in response, but is restrained by her fighter brother Rainville, who whispers something in her ear that calms her down.

Aradyn has gone on ahead to scout out the road. He returns fifteen minutes later, declaring that it is not just the Balrog coming, but with him is an army of over a hundred enemies, including ten of the giants, an armored centaur, hobgoblins, bugbears and many enemy adventurers, and that they are less than fifteen minutes away. Mojo says “Let’s run away up the main road.” It is pointed out to Mojo that that is where the enemy is coming from. “Then can I hide in the Bag of Holding?” is his response. “I think he’s got a point,” says Lannon, “Mark is our chief giant slayer and he is unconscious, Cassie is without spells, and several of the rest of us are in tough shape.”

The group decides that retreating is the best option. Since Serita has already begun her Call Lightning spell, they decide to leave her behind to cover their escape. “Let’s see,” says Narg, “We all get to safety while leaving Serita to the Balrog.” “A plan with no down side,” blurts Mojo. The others all head west as Serita takes up a position on the building’s roof. The Hendry family very reluctantly gets into the Bag of Holding, and only after Cassie agrees to go in there with them.

A little over a mile to the south, the first group who had escaped from the cabin reaches the main trail south. On it, they see two sets of giant tracks one heading to the school and the other heading away from the school. Jaime & Vincenzo's adopted son Oblong had been receiving some ranger training from Mark and Aradyn, and he successfully identifies the tracks heading south to the school to be the freshest and less than five minutes old. The group concludes that heading in that direction may not be the best idea after all. They decide that the closest place other than the school is Fiona’s house, which is about four miles away. The group unanimously agrees to head there, especially since they have Fiona’s pegasus to help lead the way.

As the enemy comes into sight of the cabin, Serita brings down the first bolt of lightning into the Balrog, which does not appear to effect him much. Since she is still in Faerie Dragon form she is rather small, so is able to fly over to a place of safety in the trees while continuing the spell. The enemy approach cautiously, with Serita bringing down a second lightning bolt ten minutes later, again into the Balrog. He acts slightly annoyed by it, but not really hurt. She decided to pick another target for her next bolt.

Ten minutes later, she sends the next lightning bolt into the Centaur, which appears to hurt it significantly. Unfortunately, this time the Balrog is able to locate where the spell originated from, and heads directly towards her. She tries to fly away, but is not successful as he uses his Power Word Stun ability to incapacitate her. The Balrog picks up the stunned Faerie Dragon Serita, and brings her over to one of the high-level mages as a present. As the mage starts to take her, the stun wears off, and she flies out of his hand. She then uses her Ring of Teleportation to get the heck out of there.

Back at Serita’s home in the city atop the mountain, Narg’s butler Hobbson and his two assistants, Marcroft and Hardy are continuing with the cleaning and tidying of the house under the watchful guidance of Serita’s gorilla valet. The white Faerie Dragon, wearing Serita’s ring, suddenly appears in the center of the room. Not the slightest bit startled, Hobbson asks “Madame, shall I fetch your slippers.” “Don’t bother,” she answers, “I’m off to bed. Don’t wake me unless it’s an emergency,” as she flies off to her bedroom.

Marcroft asks “What would she constitute as an emergency?” Hobbson answers “Let’s see, something that is significant enough to justify waking up Serita when she wishes to sleep? I can’t think of anything off hand.” “What if this house gets attacked by the enemy?” asks Hardy. Hobbson answers “Then we let the enemy wake her, so she’ll take it out on them rather than us.”

An hour later, the first group has traveled to the eastern edge of the lake, and is approaching the main road. They reach the point where the trail crosses the stream. The small bridge has long since washed way, and the normally five-foot wide stream has now been replaced by a thirty-foot wide raging river.

Hydrophobic Freyland blurts out (in the Dustin Hoffman ‘Rainman‘ voice) “Not in the stream, definitely not in the stream. Not in the stream. Definitely not.” The group notices some trees that have been knocked down by the storm, and find one wide enough to traverse the river. Freyland chops the branches off the tree, then Adrianna, Kale, Jaime and Janet haul the log over. With help from the horse and pegasus, they manage to get the log across and to get the group over one at a time, although this takes a while.

Once on the other side, the winds pick up to steady gusts of up to forty miles an hour, causing the group to get off of the road and more into the woods to shield them from the driving sheets of cold rain. Traveling the final mile to Fiona’s house takes almost an hour. They arrive just as the group with the “big guns” reach the river, which has widened even further but has not yet washed away the log bridge. They cross, and continue onward, Fiona telling her allies “The others are heading for my house.”

As night approaches, the first group reaches Fiona’s cabin, with the other group arriving a half-hour later. Cassie and the Hendry family are let out of the bag of holding, along with the still unconscious Mark. The building itself is rather small, too small for a group of seventy, so the ship's crew and tavern employees settle into the stable and barn as the others set up in the house. A few of the crew object to sharing the stable with the two mounts, until Fiona points out, referring to the pegasus, “It’s her home. If you have a problem with sharing you can sleep in the woods.”

Given that they have now stopped, after several hours of hiking through thick forests during a major storm, they decide that “sleep" will be the main agenda item. They can see lights on at the School, three miles away on the other end of the Lake, and conclude that this must be where the enemies are, so not to use any light sources at Fiona’s which could be seen by the enemy. They decide that it is safe enough to get the wood stoves going in the house and stable, as the storm and the darkness will keep the smoke from being seen that far away. Jerry and Blake volunteer to go do a quick reconnaissance of the school, borrowing the Rings of Invisibility from Kharole and Mojo.

Jaime and Jentile cook up food for everybody inside the house and food is brought out to the barn for the tavern employees to cook up. The party decides that there are enough non-spellcasters to take the night watches to allow all of the spellcasters to get a full night’s sleep. When deciding on watches, Freyland blurts out "Definitely no watch's for me... too wet yeah too wet, gotta sleep and stay dry definitely stay dry and sleep." They decide to allow him an “exemption for the mentally ill”. The crew set up a watch rotation in the stable. Not bothered as much by the in climate weather, the lizardmen are assigned paired watches outside along the perimeter.

Before going to bed the clerics exhaust their healing spells onto the various spellcasters as needed, and the Ring of Regeneration and Fiona’s Ioun Stone of Healing are given to those on watch duty, with instruction to pass them on with the watch changes. The healer D.C. decides to join Lannon and Narg on the first watch, to get a “healing tea” cooked up on the stove for those who need it. “Fine, just so you also keep the coffee flowing,” is Narg’s answer. After a very tiring day, with them now in a warm dry building with a hot meal in their bellies, the children all fall right asleep. The adults follow soon after, with the whole cabin quiet by 9:00 P.M.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Thirty-five, “The Hendry Family Escapes“, August 8th, 1018, 9:30 P.M.

Back at Smiddle’s house, Aurora and Razou Sea Castle wake up. Approximately half of their magical items now appear to be functional, and the writing has reappeared in her Traveling Spell Book. Studying by candlelight in a closet (to keep the building dark) she memorizes an Invisibility spell. Since she does not have either of her team’s thieves with her, and since Hans is the one most familiar with the church building, she decides to send him to discretely scout out the church. She loans him her Bracers of Defense to replace his noisy armor, then casts the Invisibility spell on him, instructing him to be careful and take his time. She then instructs Billy Bob, Flashis and Torvald to get some sleep once Razou is finished praying for his spells. She then goes back to memorize more magic-user spells.

At 11:00 P.M., Back at Fiona’s cabin Adrianna, Lono and Kale are woken up to take second watch, and those on first watch go to sleep. Blake and Jerry finally return, informing those on watch that the school buildings are occupied by the hundred or so enemies, as they saw bugbears, hobgoblins, giants, humans the centaur and a half-orc. They did not see the Balrog but also did not go out of their way looking for it. They reported that at least forty of the enemy were alert, awake and apparently expecting to be attacked during the night. The two get a quick bite to eat and then immediately fall asleep.

August 9th, 1:00 A.M.

Guice, Jaime and Kruk are woken up to take the third watch. They are told of the results of Blake and Jerry’s scouting mission. Those from second watch then go back to sleep.

Back at Smiddle’s, Hans returns from the church, apologizing for taking so long, but explaining that he had to keep waiting by doorways until hobgoblin guards opened and closed doors to get in and out. He reports that there are ten hobgoblins guarding the front door and another six by each of the two back doors. Inside of the church, in the main sanctuary, are four more hobgoblin guards alert and guarding the room where four enemy adventurers, including both of their spellcasters, are sleeping on the church pews. She asks for detailed descriptions of these people, which he supplies.

Hans continues, telling her that in one of the two rear rooms are another twelve hobgoblins, all sleeping. The other rear room, the one with the guards outside of the door, has three prisoners guarded by two enemy fighters, one awake and one asleep. He reports that their prisoners are three of the toughest members of the Silver Moon, Buella, Furynick and Silas, who should be strong enough to get out on their own once their bonds are cut. Aurora tells him that he did an excellent job scouting, and for him to get a few hours sleep. She says that they need to wait until everyone in their group is somewhat rested and for their last few magic items to become functional before mounting a rescue mission.

Back at Fiona's, Hendry has waited patiently while pretending to be asleep. At the 3:00 A.M. shift change, those from third watch wake up Aradyn, Luekia and Mojo. While these Silver Moon characters briefly converse with each other Hendry softly casts his “Unseen Servant” spell. He then gives the servant an opened invisible vial, containing more of the same potion that had been used on Southpoint Island to keep their prisoners unconscious. The servant pours the contents of the vial into the beverages within Aradyn and Mojo's mugs. Hendry nudges his family awake. They then wait patiently for the next ten minutes waiting for Luekia to get herself something to drink, unaware that the stoic monk does nothing on guard duty except watch. Mojo falls asleep, followed shortly thereafter by Aradyn. Luekia soon notices this, forcing Hendry to shift to his back up plan. He casts a Otiluke's Resilient Sphere spell on her, which envelops her in a shimmering globe. She struggles inside of the sphere, but is unable to break it, with sound also not traveling out of the barrier.

Whereas the sphere has only a seven minute duration the Hendry family quickly move it towards the door. Little Wisdonie, Jamie’s youngest, starts to stir but does not waken. Keeping the front door open as short a time as possible, they roll the sphere outside. Hendry casts a Haste spell on his brother Carl, who along with the monk Lisa, rapidly roll the sphere away from the building as far as they can before it dissolves. Avoiding being seen by the Lizardmen Lars and Spudnick, who are on guard duty outside, the other members of the Hendry family quickly join them.

Weapons drawn and surrounding Luekia, they immediately tell her that they wish her no harm, but have no choice but to escape given that Mojo had threatened their lives. Luekia says "He is all talk, you would not have been harmed." Elaine answers "He seemed very serious to me, and the stakes are too high for us to take that risk. Come with us peacefully, and I promise that you will not be harmed. We will release you at the earliest opportunity."

Luekia weighs all of her options, evaluating that with five-to-one odds she will is unlikely to defeat them in combat. She evaluates that their monk is probably at least as fast as her making escape unlikely. Yelling out from this distance, given the noise from the rain and strong winds, would also probably be futile. She therefore agrees to their terms and asks where they are planning to take her. They answer that there is a cabin a mile east that is one of their designated escape locations. Luekia accompanies them, choosing not inform them that Araby's cabin has already been breached by the party. During this journey she is surrounded, with the other monk walking directly beside her.

Meanwhile, back at Smiddle’s house, the rest of the Sea Castle Adventurers are all woken up by Flashis. They have a quick breakfast, and review the assault plan in detail, as success will depend upon timing and watching for key signals. Their goal is to rescue all prisoners while taking little to no damage themselves. The fighters are reminded that killing the enemy is fine, but that is to be a secondary priority. Razou asks “What about damage to the church?” Aurora answers “Buildings can be replaced, people can’t. Besides, the storm will extinguish any small fires that might start.” Flashis whispers to Torvald “Mandize would object to damaging a Lawful Good church.” The Viking whispers back “Be quiet, he’s not here this time to limit our options.”

At around 4:00 A.M., the Hendry family arrives at Araby's, quickly discovering the devastation from Kharole's earlier fireball as well a few of the dead goblins that the storm has knocked down from the treetop lofts. They find that the two rear rooms are still fairly dry, so Carl, Elaine and Lisa bring Luekia to one while Hendry and Rainville head into the other.

Back at the Ukko church, the Sea Castle Adventurers initiate their attack, Aurora again uses her standard team strategy of paired teams with specific assignments. All three teams move into position. They then have to wait a painstaking half-hour until a hobgoblin guard change occurs for the team of Hans and Razou to invisibly enter the building.

At Fiona's house, Cassie hears the voices of Hendry and Rainville in what appears to be a dream. She is back with them on the astral plane, although all three of their bodies are less solid than they were during her last encounter on this realm. "Cassie, we had to speak to you again," states Rainville. "Why" she asks, somewhat confused. Hendry speaks "We have gone. Our sister and brother felt that we could no longer trust your team, and feared for our safety." "Did you leave the wand?" Cassie asks.

A brief pause follows. Rainville answers "No. Elaine feels that since your team failed to fulfill the second half of our bargain we were under no obligation to complete ours. Consider the fact that we freed all of our hostages as agreed and that you helped free us from being trapped in the caves to be sufficient." "But that was not the full agreement," says Cassie.

Hendry speaks "Our agreement was tenuous at best. Members of both of our groups were reluctant, and untrusting of the others, regardless of how the three of us felt. As far as our sister and brother we concerned, the agreement ended the minute your fighter Mojo threatened to kill us, and to quote him ‘Take the wands from our cold, dead bodies‘." Cassie replies "Mojo was bluffing." They answer "We could not take that chance. Elaine and Carl both believed him, and others of your party appeared to be of the same frame of mind. You saw how Elaine and Narg almost came to blows. It is best that we left when we did."

Rainville interjects "We do need to thank you for forcing us to go into your Bag of Holding. Apparently, when we were in there, the cleric Roger returned to the cave on Southpoint Island, and finding us gone, went looking for us. By being in another dimension, he was unable to find us." Hendry continues "Yes, thank you for agreeing to go into the bag with us. Until that point our sister would have been unwilling to, feeling that your friends would have just left us in the bag until the air ran out." "No," answers Cassie, thinking of a specific situation once with Milo "we only do that to our own party."

Hendry continues "We ask that your party does not try to hunt us down. We wish to find a safe place to hide for the next two days until Morgarth comes to get us." "You feel that Morgarth will come for you?" Cassie asks. Hendry answers "Yes. Once the storm has passed, and the barrier comes down, he will come to designated locations to pick up whoever is waiting there. If we still have our wands, indicating that we have not lost, we should be able to convince him to help to resurrect our father. All that we ask is that you do not come after us. We were careful to do no permanent harm to those who were on watch when we escaped."

Cassie asks "And who were they?" Hendry answers "The elvan archer, and the fighter Mojo. We exercised great restraint in doing no real harm to him, given his threats against us. Regrettably, we had to bring your female monk with us, but will release her as soon as we end this conversation with you. We are now at the cabin a mile to your east but we will leaving here shortly.

We have more information for you as well. We have been in contact with Roger. When we returned to this plane he was partially here, still looking for us. Although we could not lie to him without his knowing it, we were careful of our words so as to not betray your current location. He asked what had happened. We told him of Etronne's attack on us on this plane. He was initially angry that I had not allowed the evil mage to take me over, saying that a fifteenth level mage was of far more use to him than a seventh. I reminded him that I, like all people, have a strong reflex towards self-preservation. Right now Roger has gone off on this plane to look for Etronne, which is why we felt it safe to contact you now, while they are both distracted."

Rainville continues "We told him how Etronne attacked Hendry simultaneous to over a dozen of your team's top adventurers breaching the caves on Southpoint Island. Roger had seen the remains of the Minotaur and Jabberwock. We truthfully stated that the other three of our group engaged your team in battle, but how it was unrealistic to expect them to have won against such a great force. Thus, we implied that they had been defeated, without having to explain our agreement."

Hendry continues "We went on to again truthfully explain how your team had us trapped in the Bag of Holding, but that we managed to escape after finally being let out. He asked where you were now. We said that your group traveled south from the cabin in the woods, with the planned destination of the school buildings on the west side of the lake. They then changed their minds once they found the giant tracks, and headed east from that point towards the mountain, with the city at its top. Based on that, he now thinks that that is where you have gone. Roger is afraid for his own safety, and has recalled the Balor Demon (the Balrog) to him at the cave on Southpoint Island. He apparently plans to stay there with his three bodyguards, the demon, dragon and chimera, until Morgarth returns."

Rainville continues "All of his other troops will leave their present location early in the morning with the destination of the city. Roger has told us to wait for them here, to join their assault team. We will obviously be gone by then, to another location".

Cassie starts to suggest a place, but Hendry interrupts "Thank you, but we have a place in mind. If Roger should find us again we will simply tell him the truth, to a point, that our location where we are now was found out by a monk in your party, forcing us to relocate. Be mindful, that the road this army will be traveling on takes them directly past your present location." "So we will have to leave," Cassie comments. "At least temporarily," Hendry answers.

Hendry continues "Do us one favor. The mage leader of the army coming after you in the morning, clean his clock for us. It was he who ruined our father's initial attack plan, and who kept up the Wall of Force that you beat father into." "Sorry about that," answers Cassie. "We do not blame you," says Rainville, "we blame that mage. Please get revenge for us.

Also, when talking to your party, please make them aware that we have told you all of this, and what we have kept your location from Roger. Perhaps that will keep them from hunting us down. Remind them that when we left your building we not only did no permanent harm to any of your group, but also that we did not take anything. Those backpacks filled with the magic items that you have obtained were stilling in plain sight for the taking, which our brother Carl clearly wished to, but we left them where they were. We even left you a present, the invisible vial that held the sleep potion in it.

The tone of Hendry's voice changes "This is probably the last time we will ever speak. We will not be able to enter your thoughts once we are further apart. We would not have been able to do this now if you had been awake, or if you had been wearing that magical crown of yours." Cassie says "Well, you can always write. I would welcome either of you in my home."

Hendry replies "Perhaps, but many of your party would be unlikely to ever allow us back." "Mojo, pay no attention to him," she answers. "I was thinking of the feisty Druid," answers Hendry. "Serita, she's just a bitch," comments Cassie. "But a possessive one," answers Rainville, "I am sure she would never allow us to return." "I truly wish that we had met under other circumstances," says Hendry, and he appears to be about to break into tears. The three say goodbye, and the three drift away from the astral plane. Back at Fiona's, Cassie still remains asleep.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Thirty-six, “I got my idiot, you get yours", August 9th, 1018, 5:00 A,M.

At the Y-shaped Ukko church, another twenty minutes have passed before Hans is able to get to the rear door of the church, outside of the room where the prisoners are kept, while Razou makes his way over to a side window near the altar. Razou quietly opens the window a crack, and then activates his Wand of Wonder to create a signal outside, to alert his team's next pair to take action.

The wand causes a flock of ten chickens to appear outside of church. The noise from the birds immediately distract the outside guards, who look at the birds rather than towards the woods. Billy Bob and Torvard charge out of the woods, and cover half of the distance to the church before they are seen by one of the guards. At this point Billy Bob lets loose with his M-1 Rifle as Torvald lets out a loud Viking yell, waving his Bastard Sword in the air. Inside, as the enemies wake up to the sound of gunfire, Razou centers a Silence Spell on female mage enemy leader. Hans continues to wait impatiently by the rear door. Razou then starts to move across the church near the altar, towards the opposite wall.

While the enemies outside are now distracted from the east side of the church, Flashis and Aurora charge out from behind the nearest building to the west under Haste spells, to get to a side window as quickly as possible. Inside the church, Razou casts a Hold Person, which stops two of the enemy adventurers, the cleric and a thief, as the four hobgoblin guards and the enemy monk charge toward him, weapons out. The rear door opens, with one enemy exiting, as Hans slips in. Razou was watching for this, and casts a Continual Light spell, blinding the enemy monk, as well as temporarily blinding the first two hobgoblins that are almost to him. This light spell is also the signal for Flashes and Aurora to start the next phase of the attack.

Outside, Torvald slashes into the few hobgoblins still standing, as Billy Bob lets loose a volley of bullets towards the hobgoblins by the rear door, cutting down two, and causing the other four to retreat around the corner. Razou has now moved to a side window, and is attacked by two hobgoblins, one hitting. Outside, Flashis uses his +4 Battleaxe to smash open this side window, as Aurora moves into position outside to cast spells through this opening.

Knowing what is coming next, Razou dives straight out this window. Flashis tries to catch him, unsuccessfully, with Razou taking five points of damage and dislocating his shoulder as he strikes the ground. One hobgoblin also dives out the window after Razou, Flashis picks up his axe again to deal with the monster while also protecting Aurora. Once Razou has cleared the window Aurora casts the first in a series of three successive Fireballs into the building.

Hans, still invisible and keeping his presence secret from the heavily armored fighter still in the room, uses a +3 Dagger of Sharpness loaned to him to cut Furynick’s bonds. Hans then places his own magical scimitar into Furynick’s hand. Not knowing or caring who his new “guardian angel” is, Furynick attacks the enemy fighter, as Hans cuts loose Beulla and Silas.

Outside, both Torvald and Billy Bob move in the direction of the rear door, as Razou quickly makes his way towards the woods. As soon as the four hobgoblins hiding behind the wall see Torvald and Billy Bob approaching they run away in the other direction. Billy Bob raises his rife to fire, but Torvald stops him, saying “Save your ammunition, we may need it later.” Torvald then kicks open the rear door of the church, the splintered door barely missing Hans.

The held, blind and/or silenced enemies inside the main sanctuary are sitting ducks for Aurora’s three fireballs, each centered slightly differently so that each of the enemy adventurers will be caught in at least two fireballs. The fireballs explode for a combined total of one-hundred-twelve points of damage. Aurora is thankful that the building is a stone structure, protecting her party outside from brunt of the fireball backlash, as all of the sanctuary windows are blown out, several wooden support beams collapse and most of the roof is blown to smithereens. The rest of the roof starts to catch fire, as do many of the wooden furnishings inside.

Thankfully, the unarmored Furynick was previously captured by a Hold spell rather than being beaten unconscious, so still has enough hit points to survive the devastating first three attacks from the enemy fighter. Outside the door, Torvald sees that Furynick is in trouble, and charges into the room to attack the opponent, while Hans hurries Buella and Silas out the door. Torvald and the enemy both exchange double attacks in the next round, each with their respective bastard sword and each hitting once. The enemy laughs, and yells out "Finally, a near-equal opponent for Donovan the Great."

The hobgoblins that had been sleeping in the other rear room rush out that door to escape the burning building, and run towards the woods. Two of these see Aurora and Flashis, and break off to go attack them. Flashis swings his axe into the first one. The axe gets fully imbedded in the monster's chest, killing it. This causes the other hobgoblin to reconsider. As this hobgoblin starts to run towards the woods Flashis tosses a dagger into the creature's side, causing him to trip. Before the hobgoblin can get up again Flashis is upon him, finishing the creature off with a shortsword.

It soon becomes obvious that both Torvald and Furynick are totally focused on their fight with Donovan, completely ignoring the burning and collapsing roof above them. Hans has to hit Furynick to get his attention, becoming visible, and yells for Furynick to “Get out now.” Furynick begrudgingly backs off, Hans pulling him out of the door. Hans tells Billy Bob "I got my idiot, you get yours". Billy Bob moves in and points his rifle, but his field of vision towards the enemy is completely blocked by Torvald.

Billy Bob waits for an opening, then lets loose a three-bullet burst into the enemy fighter’s leg, causing him to fall to the ground. Billy Bob then grabs Torvald’s shoulder, as says “We've gotta go. Leave him to the fire.” “A more fitting punishment indeed,” answers the Viking, who follows him comrade out. As they head towards the woods Torvald glances back at the raging inferno behind them, and asks Billy Bob “What was that she told Razou about small fires?” Billy Bob answers “Hey, he bought that line, didn’t he. What did you expect from somebody named ‘Aurora’?”

Once Razou sees that all the hostages and their rescuers are free, he activates the signal wand that the enemy Druid Spring had given to them the previous day. This creates a huge green firework display in the sky above them, ending with a loud explosion. In addition to their now having fulfilled their obligation to the druid, this also signals Aurora and Flashis that the others have completed their mission, and to break off the attack. Still hasted, the two start to head back towards the town to a pre-determined meeting place, with Flashis stopping briefly to grab up a burning chicken. Aurora gives him an odd look as Flashis, still running at top speed, starts to rip the burning feather off. The dwarf glances to her, and says “It's for breakfast, I love roasted chicken”.

Immy and the four crewmembers with him are woken up by the sound of the explosion and a green fireworks display in the sky above the tavern. He sends two of the crew to investigate, with them returning to say that the church is on fire, and that they saw a wagon with two people heading out on the peninsula towards the signal tower. Immy heads out alone to investigate, finding the storm has extinguished most of the fire. He makes his way through the debris, finding two bodies. On one of the bodies he finds a violet-colored signal flare. He then follows the wagon tracks for the four miles to the tower.

Four miles to the east, the green flare and subsequent explosion also wakes the party at Fiona's house. Those who awake are surprised to see nobody awake on guard duty. They soon discover Luekia and the Hendry family are gone, and that both Aradyn and Mojo are unconscious. Fiona Sea Castle informs the group that the Green Flare is the one that her team leader Aurora had agreed to fire up for the druid Spring. This therefore means that the Sea Castle Adventurers are safely on the island, and over in the direction of the town.

 

[Silver Moon]

Chapter Thirty-seven, “Another Negotiation", August 9th, 1018, 6:00 A.M.

The previously unconscious Mark is finally waking, the poison having worn off. Jaime says “I’m going to water and feed Mark.” “What is he? A pet?” comments Mojo. Jaime explains that since he has been unconscious for half-a-week, they need to get him functional again.

Cassie wakes up and blurts out “The bad guys are coming.” “What do you mean?” asks Mojo. Fiona says “Cassie, you have to talk slower for the fighters to understand.” Cassie does an “information dump” regarding about her conversation on the astral plane with Hendry and Rainville.

She tells the group that Aradyn and Mojo have the sleeping poison in their systems, and it will need neutralized, and that Luekia should be on her way back. She tells them that the monsters think they are in the city, and that is their destination. Narg suggests that the group mount a “last stand at Serita’s still.” The clerics neutralize the poison in Aradyn and Mojo’s system, which causes them to wake up.

The storm has intensified, making travel more difficult for both friends and foes. Fiona notices that the lakefront, normally one-hundred feet away from the cabin is now only seventy feet away, as the lake itself is nearly ten-feet higher than usual, breaking the previous high-water mark by a couple of feet. She isn’t terribly worried, as she built her cabin on a hill, so it is still twenty feet above the water level. The group decides that, since the enemy are all leaving the school and traveling east on the road on the south of the lake, that the crew, the children and the other non-combatants could simultaneously travel west to the school on the north side of the lake, and stay there for the duration.

Several of the children, especially Janet, are offended at being called non-combatants, and being sent home. Narg tries to tell her that “You’d change your mind once you see a Balrog.” She disagrees. Narg then tries to tell her that what is going to happen to the enemy “Won’t be pretty and is not a sight for children.” This again fails, Janet reminding him that the children both witnessed and participated in the violence on the Molly III, as well as seeing Vincenzo naked, which was also not a pretty sight.

Next Narg tries to play to her ego, which also fails. Jerry suggests to Narg to “Quit while you’re behind. You can’t expect to get away with B.S.ing a teenager. Even when you tell them the truth they think you’re B.S.ing them. Let Jaime handle this.” To this Narg whole-heartedly agrees, concluding that he is not good with children, and reminding himself why he supported Vallessa’s decision two years earlier to send her teenage daughter Dani off to be with their spin-off group Da’Bears.

Jaime convinces Janet that she is needed to protect the other children, and how the crew are all capable fighters too, but are going as well. Janet asks her aunt, in reference to the enemy “You’re going to kill all of them, aren’t you?” Jaime evades the question, other than personally promising to rescue Janet’s mother (and Jaime’s sister) Beulla.

The group quickly looks through the piles of obtained magic, picking out the flares and a few other items needed, and sending the rest on with the group heading to the school. They decide to also send Adrianna, D.C. and Kale with this group, along with both of the mounts. They debate sending Freyland, him blurting out “Definitely gotta go, not stay here, gotta go gotta go.” They ask if he wants to accompany the kids, him responding “Not with the kids, not with the kids.”

The group realizes that Serita has not rejoined their group yet, “Not that I really care,” adds Narg. They conclude that if anyone in the party is capable to taking care of themselves, it is Serita, so not to worry. Luekia returns, telling Aradyn and Mojo “I hope you realize now that coffee is bad for you.” “Only when it’s spiked with poison,” retorts Aradyn.

Aradyn heads outside to scout on the road. He returns shortly, telling them that a group of approximately four-dozen enemies are coming down the road. Five of these are humans, and four of those five are former prisoners of theirs, the fifth being the fighter who escaped from the stagecoach battle. The others are all monsters, approximately half bugbears and half hobgoblins.

The group argues about what to do about these, as Jerry heads out to watch the road. Lono mutters about how they wouldn't be in this situation if he had been allowed to deal with the prisoners as he saw fit. Jerry returns, saying that most of the enemies have stopped on the main road, at the end of the long driveway to Fiona’s house. Four enemies, two humans and two hobgoblins have continued east down the main road, and a pair of humans are now walking up the driveway towards the house. Lono bursts out an "I told you so," and turning to Isaiah, says "This is all your fault."

They see the two approaching, recognizing them are the cooperative cleric prisoner Barry and the fighter who had escaped the stagecoach battle. The two are holding a while flag. Narg and a few others confront him outside, the two enemies asking if they could get out of the weather and go inside. Luekia opposes this, but Narg points out that “there are two of them and twenty-three of us, I think we can handle it.” This group of twenty-three characters is now comprised of Aradyn, Blake, Blip, Cassie, Fiona, Fiona Sea Castle, Freyland, Guice, Herculean, Isaiah, Jaime, Jerry, Kharole, Kruk, Lannon, Lono, Luekia, Mark, Mojo, Narg, Razou, Timothy & Vincenzo.

They go inside. Barry introduces his ally as Kenneth, and says they want to talk. Freyland interrupts with “We can talk, definitely talk.” Barry goes on to say that “You have several things that we would like, and we have information that you would like, so perhaps we can work out an agreement.” Luekia totally opposes this, feeling that this is just a stalling tactic, while the other enemies get into position.

Jerry points out that “They’re probably on the level. Back at the tavern both Bruce and Immy overheard considerable dissention between Kenneth and the other leaders. These guys are probably not working with them.” Barry and Kenneth go on to explain how indeed, they want nothing to do with the other enemies, that Kenneth and his troops only went with them the previous afternoon in order to rescue his two teammates.

Timothy does an alignment detection on them, finding Kenneth to be Lawful Neutral, and Barry primarily Lawful Neutral, with an emanation of Lawful Evil from around one of his three holy symbols. Barry explains that he follows three deities, the two Lawful Neutral Egyptian deities Ptah (Greater god "Opener of the Ways") and Horus (Lesser god "The Avenger"), and out of an obligation, the Babylonian deity Druaga (Lesser god "Ruler of the devil world"). He says that his other two deities understand this obligation, and have not problem with this agreement. [Note- his co-operation with the party has been largely due to his following of his main deity, Horus, as he recognizes their current quest as one of vengeance.]

The group asks what items they want. Barry answers “The head of our leader Jo-Ann, the three gold wands and the tracking device.” They explain that these items are needed for them to leave the island. “When you meet with Morgarth,” asks Cassie. “Correct, he is our only way off the Island,” answers Barry. Given the current hostilities, the group is obviously reluctant about giving them anything, until Barry says that they will not need the items until two mornings later, and could come up with a designated meeting place to give them the items then. “You would trust us to do that?” asks Narg. “We would trust his word” answers Barry, pointing to Isaiah (Isaiah's having kept Lono from killing this man has apparently made a favorable impression).

Luekia is still totally opposed to any deal. Cassie adamantly refuses to give back the head, reminding the group of how many past dead enemies have returned to attack them. The party questions why these two really want her back, with Barry giving an unconvincing story about their past association with her and sense of obligation. Kenneth finally reveals that they need her head back in order to cast a Speak with Dead to find the place and time to meet Morgarth at, as she knows it and they don’t. This revelation seems to elevate a lot of the tension in the room, with the group saying that they will allow Barry to cast that spell now, for all of them to hear the answer, and then they will have a deal. Barry says that would be good, and that they have other valuable information about the other enemies.

Luekia again objects, saying “we already know the other information they have. That Roger has returned to Southpoint Island with the Balrog, dragon and chimera, and that the enemy are at the school are heading east, and think we are at the city atop the mountain.” Barry and Kenneth are surprised at the party knowing all of this.

Kenneth adds “That is all true. But we can also help you in other ways, as they have sent us on two hours ahead of them as scouts. Our team used this particular cabin as our headquarters for the three days up until yesterday morning, and know how we left it. When they reach the main road out front we could tell them that there was no evidence of you here, and then later find fictitious tracks up to the mountain, as I am the only one of either group with any tracking abilities.”

Mojo presses “And why would you do this. You’re all working for Morgarth.” “We’ve never even met the man,” answers Barry, continuing with “You’ll also note that our team was always on a different mission than the rest. The other nine teams had a mission to defeat you. Our mission was only to obtain the fifteen of Morgarth’s magic items that your group had.” Fiona, remembering the attack on her and Parisi by this team at the school three days earlier, reminds them of that.

“Our assassin was after the magic belt, that was the sole objective of that attack,” states Barry. Blip is still opposed to returning the Tracking Device to them, as it tracks her broom. She suggests “If we give it back, let’s break it first.” Barry answers “That won’t matter, as Morgarth has many more. We need it intact, and the wands, to show that we were not defeated.”

Cassie suggests giving back two wands, but firing off the third prior to that. Barry adds “We obviously would want all three to declare us the winners, however I suppose we accurately could claim that you got one wand from Jo-Ann.” Guice comments “Does this mean if we have all of the wands we will be declared the winners?”

The group agrees to the arrangement. The Speak with Dead spell is done, confirming that Morgarth will pick them up on the southern face of Southpoint Island at noon on the 11th . The group agrees to meet with the pair at a rendezvous point at the Ukko church for 8:00 AM on the 11th. The two agree to lead their team into a safe hiding place until then. The party asks where, to which they say “We told the other group that we would only scout for them until the road forks off to both the mountain and to the town. From there we would be going to the town as the church seems like the safest place to wait out the storm. I imagine that that is what we will do.”

When asked about the other four who had continued east twenty minutes earlier, the party is told “That is the remainder of the Pink squad, the two humans and two hobgoblins that you had captured at the tavern a day-and-a-half ago. They consider this fight over, and are heading back to the town to find a safe building to hole up in during the storm. They walked with us this far, feeling it safer than traveling by themselves, but had no desire to wait out front of here in the rain for the next two hours, so they continued on.”

The final information given out by these two is that the upcoming enemy group of seventy-five is comprised of the centaur from the White Squad, and the remnants of the Orange, Red and Turquoise Squadrons. The centaur has no wand, and an Orange wand was already used, so they are traveling under the combined banners of Red and Turquoise. If the party fires off wands of those colors, it should have a detrimental effect on that group’s morale.

They also point out that the giants belong to a near-extinct race, and that Morgarth instructed them to follow the orders of only Roger and Etronne, neither of whom are currently with this group. Cassie suggests using their Belt of Shape Change to impersonate one of these enemies to redirect these monsters, but Barry points out that “The problem with that plan is that the giants have a very strong sense of smell. They would know you aren‘t who you appear to be.”

The two leave, and head out front, as the party continues to plan when and where to attack these enemies, with Narg also staring to plan the attack on Southpoint Island two days hence. The group decides to wait until they reach whatever destination they decide on to enlarge and revive the Cloud Giant Herculean. Possible places discussed to attack this group are either from behind after they pass by this location, while they are climbing the mountain, while they are traveling through the mile-long cave tunnel to the city, or after they arrive in the city itself. No firm decision is reached, although the tunnel seems to appeal to the majority.

Based upon the information given to them by both this pair and what was told to Cassie by Hendry and Rainville, it sounds like this group of seventy-five enemies is the only group now actively searching for them. They conclude that once this group is defeated, the only agenda items would be to rescue Beulla, Furynick and Silas (since they are unaware that the Sea Castle Adventurers have already done this) and then the big showdown on Southpoint Island two days later.