Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
"Retake the Island" - Concluded!
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 2822885" data-attributes="member: 8530"><p><strong>Chapter Sixteen, “Into the City“, August 7th, 1018, 9:00 A.M.</strong></p><p></p><p>Back on the ship Silver Moon, at mid-morning, the other enemy adventurers came out onto the top deck. Once this occurred, the magic-user watching the crew became much stricter, making sure that none of the crewmembers spoke to each other. Two of these enemies were a rugged fighter in scale mail with a longsword and axe, answering to the name Kyle and his female comrade, a stunning female fighter answering to the name Sonja, with a longsword, leather armor, shield, and a metal helmet hooked on her belt. The two had apparently spent the night together in the Captain’s Quarters. </p><p></p><p>They were soon joined by a tall human Druid with a long white beard, coming up from below deck, who answered to the name of Spring, wearing leather armor and having a scimitar slung through his belt. The three of them spent the majority of the morning talking among themselves, and occasionally with the magic-user, who they called Bernard. The enforced silence among the crew actually helped to allow Jacob to eavesdrop on their conversations, him making sure that he was always the crew member working closest to where the enemy leaders were.</p><p></p><p>Jacob deduced that Spring was officially the leader, but that Sonja was the one who made most of the actual decisions. At one point they had a very heated debate about “what to do with the animals”. Sonja said that the animals “need to all be killed before we leave”; Spring was strongly opposed to this. Kyle noted that “we at least have to clip their wings, or else the prisoners or bugbears might be able to escape.” Sonja made a comment about how she would “take care of all of the prisoners”, but Spring chided her “That is contrary to Morgy’s orders”. No conclusion was reached, with Sonja saying, “We have a day to figure that out.”</p><p></p><p>Back on the ship Molly III, Silver Moon Island is finally spotted in the distant eastern horizon by late morning. The ship is further west that Fritz had anticipated, and going against the current, so it will still take some time to reach shore.</p><p></p><p>Back on the Island, in the cave, the combined group continues to compare information and strategize. As the only ship’s officer present, Lloyd takes charge of all eight non-human crew members, and sets up a rotating watch on the three prisoners. The group figures out that the tracking-device that the enemy is using tracks items created by Morgarth that they obtained on Alton‘s world. They survey those present, with items falling in this category being Blip’s broom, Fiona’s Belt, Serita’s ring, and a party-magic item within one of the bags of holding. Lannon thinks that he may also have something but cannot remember what it is.</p><p></p><p>They decide to head down to the city below the cave to search for party members. The crewmembers are left in the cave, along with the prisoners, plus the girl Jentile, and elvan healer D.C.. The other sixteen party members make their way around the mountainside and through the mile-long cave entrance that opens into the southeastern corner of the city. As they near the end of the cave four hobgoblins are seen guarding the cave mouth. The group debates what to do. Narg says “For Pete’s sake, let’s just go get them, its only four hobgoblins. Narg is reminded that they may have signal flare wands. Immy scouts ahead, also spotting two more hobgoblin guards just inside the city, about twenty feet from the other four.</p><p></p><p>Immy exits the cave and into the city, sneaking past the four guards, planning to take out the other two. Both Lannon and Luekia move forward, into position by the closest two of the four. Both Narg and Guice prepare to move up to join them. Immy succeeds in backstabbing the first hobgoblin, but is seen by the second. The bugbear moves to attack Immy, catching the attention of the other four hobgoblins. Lannon and Luekia use this as a signal, and take out two of them, Lannon backstabbing one and Luekia knocking one unconscious via an open-hand attack. Narg and Guice charge forward.</p><p></p><p>Lannon successfully hits one, with Guice finishing him off. Luekia strikes the remaining one unconscious, with Narg then jabbing him to death. Outside of the cave, Immy casts a Chromatic Orb to eliminate his remaining foe. Narg and Immy drag the bodies into the cave. Timothy and Jerry move forward, the other eight characters staying further back in the cave. Jerry is put in charge of the unconscious prisoner, and told to act as the scout for the second group which Serita is named the team leader of, as the other seven make their way into the city. Once the lawful-good characters, Luekia and Timothy, are out of sight Jerry takes care of the prisoner in his own way.</p><p></p><p>They carefully make their way to the center of the city, with Guice checking for tracks along the way. A patrol of four hobgoblins is avoided. They investigate Vallessa’s home, finding evidence of the battle that took place there. For the first time in anybody's memory, Narg appears worried. The group picks up a few supplies from her home, including one of Vallessa’s perfume decanters that Narg had filled with bourbon. Guice comments that Vallessa probably uses it as perfume now to make herself more attractive to Narg.</p><p></p><p>A group of ten hobgoblins is seen heading towards the east side of the city, and Luekia is sent back to warn those in the cave mouth of this, suspecting them to be a changing of the guard there. Instead, they turn out to be reinforcements to the bullywug swamp. While waiting for Luekia to return they spend the time telling Immy about the magic item the Candle of Kobolds, and its many uses. </p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, eight miles to the northwest, the ship Molly III has finally reaches the vicinity of Silver Moon Island. The skies grow worse during this, with it appearing that a major storm is imminent. The ship reaches the channel between Silver Moon Island and Mickey Mouse Island. They decide to head towards the northern inlet of Silver Moon Island, but immediately change their mind upon emerging from the channel, when a small sailboat is spotted six miles away, rapidly heading into the inlet. They immediately lower the sails, and turn the boat towards shore, hoping to avoid being seen by the sailboat.</p><p></p><p>Unbeknownst to those on the Molly III, the person on the sailboat is not an enemy, but rather a messenger sent to the island by Ki-Geloryn and the mage Derieki to inform them of what Kindor, Jennifer and Aldorn are doing to assist them. The messenger, an unusual man named Kale, has expertise in small boat sailing. As an anti-teleportation shield now surrounded the island Derieki had teleported Kale and his sailboat (specially designed for racing) to a point in the ocean far north of the island. They recommended that he start looking for the Silver Moon in the city at the top of the mountain, saying that if he can’t find them there it would still give him a good vantage point of the entire island.</p><p></p><p>In the City, Luekia rejoins the others, and they check out Narg, Mojo & Furynick’s home, finding Mojo’s room to have been disturbed. Narg’s room is also a disaster, but he says that is how he left it. He also makes a note to himself to give his butler Hobbson a raise. </p><p></p><p>They follow the hobgoblin tracks to Cassie’s home, and from there to the north end of the city. The hide from another patrol of hobgoblins, and decide they need to scout from a higher elevation, heading to a two-story building. Immy checks out the room, finding it already occupied by four goblins, across from the building that Phormosah previously occupied. They also spot four other goblins atop another roof. They conclude that it is a set-up similar to what they found at Crystull’s house, with Phormosah’s house being another of the ‘escape locations‘ that the lower-level group had been told of. They decide to leave it and the goblins as they are. </p><p></p><p>They deciding to stay with the idea of getting to higher ground to scope out the area, so choose to head to the highest point in the city, the four-story ziggurat-style building that Dennismore and Lono call home, located in the southwestern side of the city. As they near it, they see a contingent of over a dozen hobgoblins guarding atop the first floor roof of the building, and conclude that this looks like it could be where their friends are being held captive. They travel through the large building immediately to the north of it, getting to a series of windows across the street from their destination. They then begin to discuss how to get the party the fifty feet across the street without being seen. Immy volunteers to invisibly scout out around the building. The group decides to send Luekia instead, due to her quicker monk speed.</p><p></p><p>She takes the long way around, never actually approaching the building. She also stops by Serita’s house, and uses her speak-with-animal ability to talk to one of the black panthers prowling within the gates of Serita’s yard. She is told that the hobgoblins have been keeping themselves at a distance from the panthers. The big cats recall four people being carried to the Ziggurat building. After deriving a count of the number of hobgoblins atop the first floor roof of the Ziggurat, Luekia heads back to the others. She gives them the visual description from the panthers of each, the group concluding that Aradyn, Dennismore, Furynick and Hobbson are the ones being held within the building. </p><p></p><p>The group decides how to best assault the building. Narg is surprisingly apprehensive about attacking, wanting to first inform Serita’s group what they have found. Luekia is sent to relay a message to that group. </p><p></p><p>Several miles north, assisted by a very strong breeze, Kale managed to reach the north side of the island within an hour, continuing to sail through the northern inlet and up the stream towards the mountain. When the stream narrowed, he found some adequate foliage to hide the boat in, and continued on foot towards the mountain, half a mile away. </p><p></p><p>Back in the channel between Silver Moon Island and Mickey Mouse Island, the party had beached the ship Molly III on the Silver Moon side. They used the anchors to prevent the ship from being pulled back out to sea by the storm, and secure all of the sails. Vincenzo then led the crew and children on a trek through the woods, their destination being the abandoned home that formerly belonged to the magic-user Crystull, located a little more than a mile from their current location. Vincenzo felt that this might provide safe haven from the approaching storm for the children, as well as a possible base of operations.</p><p></p><p>In the City, Luekia travels over half the way back to the tunnel with the others when she spots another building in the southern part of the city that also has a large contingent of hobgoblin guards atop its roof. Rather than continuing, she heads back to inform her own group near the ziggurat. A lengthy debate follows, going over the merits of combining the forces to assault one building, or having the two teams strike both buildings simultaneously. The eventually decided upon combining the forces, and send Luekia the long-way back to the cave entrance to get the other nine (Blip, Fiona, Freyland, Isaiah, Jerry, Kruk, Mojo, Razou, & Serita), and then carefully bring them back to the group’s present location</p><p></p><p>Back to the northwestern shore, Vincenzo's team has hiked through the overgrown virgin forests, which takes a while, with the building eventually in sight. They send Horatio forward to investigate. Milo’s young apprentice soon returns, to inform them that each of the two doors of the building are slightly open, and that there are a lot of fresh tracks near the building. He reports also finding bodies of several bugbears on the trail east of the cabin, seeing more bugbear bodies further down the road. They appear to have been dead at least a day, and he also complains that they “didn’t have anything good on them.” The boy adds, “This is where Milo says to stop thieving and turn things over to the stupid fighters.” Offended by the term Stupid, Richard comments “Milo told you that?” Michael interjects “either that or he had lunch with Fiona (knowing of her dislike of fighters).”</p><p></p><p>The fighters Fritz, Michael and Lothar approach, and listen through the doors. They hear two distinct voices inside, speaking in Bugbear. They then gather the others together, and leave the three weakest crewmembers; who collectively have a combined total of only seven hit points, with the kids (where a good argument could be made as to exactly who was guarding who at this point). </p><p></p><p>The other six crewmembers, and Vincenzo, then storm the building, charging through both doors, weapons drawn. The two bugbears immediately surrender, and are then tied, bound and gagged.</p><p>Vincenzo and Fritz decide to question the two bugbear prisoners. They reveal that they have only been on the island a day, that they entered through a magical door. There were to hike to this cabin to meet up with a group of humans who would then lead them. Before reaching the cabin they saw a bright flash in the sky, and then were attacked. </p><p></p><p>Fritz tries to determine how many bugbears were involved, but the bugbears’ counting ability is limited to the terms ‘some‘, ‘most’ and ‘lots‘. They say that they ran away during the battle, and were the only two to later arrive at the cabin, although they know that some more did manage to get away. The bugbears appear to be fearful of their captors, and make no aggressive moves.</p><p></p><p>Back at the ship Silver Moon, this was a particularly windy day, but the six crewmembers were capable of keeping the ship sailing without a problem. What seemed odd was that Sonja did not appear to have any real course in mind, with her having the ship sailing primarily southwest, but occasionally turning in other directions also. At noon, the half-elf fighter joined the other enemy adventurers, who called him Kimball. He said that lunch was ready, and four of the enemy adventurers headed below deck. Hans then told Jacob that on the previous day Bernard was relieved on deck by Stokkes at 1:00 PM, and that Stokkes kept the crew further apart while they worked. Assuming the enemy would keep to this same pattern, Hans and Jacob decided it best to spend the next hour planning, as Bernard did not seem to care if they spoke to each other now that his leaders were gone.</p><p></p><p>They concluded that they needed to launch an attack within the next day in order to protect the animals, and that the best time for an attack would be during the 11:00 PM shift change. At that point in time, most of the enemy adventurers would be off sleeping and Jacob’s team would also be fresh. Assuming that the shift change would go as it went the previous day, there would then be a brief amount of time where both Hans and Jacob’s teams would be on the crew deck by the dining table, with their hands and feet untied. Unfortunately, there would still be the seven bugbears to contend with, as well as the cleric Stokkes. From what they had heard, Stokkes only had first and second level clerical spells, an indication that he was only at third or fourth level ability level, and therefore probably the weakest of the six main enemies.</p><p></p><p>Since Stokkes had promised to heal Jacob’s trio again this evening, they decided they would wait until immediately after he cast the third cure as the signal to launch the attack. Who ever the final healing spell was cast on would then have the job of preventing Stokkes from throwing any more spells, while the other two members of Jacob’s team would have the task of attacking the bugbears guarding Hans’s team. These guards would be just coming off sixteen hours on duty, so would be tired and less alert, and therefore be the best targets to potentially grab weapons from. </p><p></p><p>The job of Hans’s team’s would be to delay the fresh bugbears guarding Jacob’s team from intervening. Since each bugbear always stood behind the crewmember that they were each guarding, by having each trio attack each other’s guards, none of the crew would have turn around to launch an attack. The groups would also have to deal with the bugbear cabin guard, but he would be initially preoccupied with eating his own dinner. There was no point in planning what to do beyond that, as they concluded that even this plan had a slim chance of success, so it was best not to get ahead of themselves. </p><p></p><p>Their time to plan then ended, as Stokkes came above deck, telling Bernard “you’re relieved, go eat.” As expected, Stokkes made sure that none of the crew worked anywhere near each other. The weather continued to get rough during the afternoon, with heavy winds that occasionally gusted to 60 miles-per-hour. The other enemies spent very little time on deck that afternoon. At around 2:30 PM, Hans and Sammy were called below by Spring to again clean up the hold. They returned half and hour later, at which point Jacob’s trio were then sent back below to eat and sleep. </p><p></p><p>As they entered the room, the half-elf fighter Kimball was waiting for them in the dining room. He immediately sent Trent’s trio out of the room and above deck. He then had the bugbears tie Jacob’s team’s waists and legs to their chairs while they ate. After the quiet meal, Jacob’s trio had their hands and feet tightly tied by the fighter, and they were then dragged by the bugbears into the cabin to sleep. Jacob informed his team of the plan, and then they went to sleep.</p><p></p><p>Above deck, Hans managed to untie a line to a sail so that the next gust of wind pulled it loose, requiring both of his other team members to assist him in catching and retying it. During this, he managed to briefly inform them of the plan. Crewmember Reginon commented that “It sounds rather suicidal, but what the hell, we have to do something.” Hans was not able to get close enough to any of Trent’s trio to inform them of the plans, but this was less critical, as those three would still be above-deck when the attack was too be launched.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Silver Moon, post: 2822885, member: 8530"] [B]Chapter Sixteen, “Into the City“, August 7th, 1018, 9:00 A.M.[/B] Back on the ship Silver Moon, at mid-morning, the other enemy adventurers came out onto the top deck. Once this occurred, the magic-user watching the crew became much stricter, making sure that none of the crewmembers spoke to each other. Two of these enemies were a rugged fighter in scale mail with a longsword and axe, answering to the name Kyle and his female comrade, a stunning female fighter answering to the name Sonja, with a longsword, leather armor, shield, and a metal helmet hooked on her belt. The two had apparently spent the night together in the Captain’s Quarters. They were soon joined by a tall human Druid with a long white beard, coming up from below deck, who answered to the name of Spring, wearing leather armor and having a scimitar slung through his belt. The three of them spent the majority of the morning talking among themselves, and occasionally with the magic-user, who they called Bernard. The enforced silence among the crew actually helped to allow Jacob to eavesdrop on their conversations, him making sure that he was always the crew member working closest to where the enemy leaders were. Jacob deduced that Spring was officially the leader, but that Sonja was the one who made most of the actual decisions. At one point they had a very heated debate about “what to do with the animals”. Sonja said that the animals “need to all be killed before we leave”; Spring was strongly opposed to this. Kyle noted that “we at least have to clip their wings, or else the prisoners or bugbears might be able to escape.” Sonja made a comment about how she would “take care of all of the prisoners”, but Spring chided her “That is contrary to Morgy’s orders”. No conclusion was reached, with Sonja saying, “We have a day to figure that out.” Back on the ship Molly III, Silver Moon Island is finally spotted in the distant eastern horizon by late morning. The ship is further west that Fritz had anticipated, and going against the current, so it will still take some time to reach shore. Back on the Island, in the cave, the combined group continues to compare information and strategize. As the only ship’s officer present, Lloyd takes charge of all eight non-human crew members, and sets up a rotating watch on the three prisoners. The group figures out that the tracking-device that the enemy is using tracks items created by Morgarth that they obtained on Alton‘s world. They survey those present, with items falling in this category being Blip’s broom, Fiona’s Belt, Serita’s ring, and a party-magic item within one of the bags of holding. Lannon thinks that he may also have something but cannot remember what it is. They decide to head down to the city below the cave to search for party members. The crewmembers are left in the cave, along with the prisoners, plus the girl Jentile, and elvan healer D.C.. The other sixteen party members make their way around the mountainside and through the mile-long cave entrance that opens into the southeastern corner of the city. As they near the end of the cave four hobgoblins are seen guarding the cave mouth. The group debates what to do. Narg says “For Pete’s sake, let’s just go get them, its only four hobgoblins. Narg is reminded that they may have signal flare wands. Immy scouts ahead, also spotting two more hobgoblin guards just inside the city, about twenty feet from the other four. Immy exits the cave and into the city, sneaking past the four guards, planning to take out the other two. Both Lannon and Luekia move forward, into position by the closest two of the four. Both Narg and Guice prepare to move up to join them. Immy succeeds in backstabbing the first hobgoblin, but is seen by the second. The bugbear moves to attack Immy, catching the attention of the other four hobgoblins. Lannon and Luekia use this as a signal, and take out two of them, Lannon backstabbing one and Luekia knocking one unconscious via an open-hand attack. Narg and Guice charge forward. Lannon successfully hits one, with Guice finishing him off. Luekia strikes the remaining one unconscious, with Narg then jabbing him to death. Outside of the cave, Immy casts a Chromatic Orb to eliminate his remaining foe. Narg and Immy drag the bodies into the cave. Timothy and Jerry move forward, the other eight characters staying further back in the cave. Jerry is put in charge of the unconscious prisoner, and told to act as the scout for the second group which Serita is named the team leader of, as the other seven make their way into the city. Once the lawful-good characters, Luekia and Timothy, are out of sight Jerry takes care of the prisoner in his own way. They carefully make their way to the center of the city, with Guice checking for tracks along the way. A patrol of four hobgoblins is avoided. They investigate Vallessa’s home, finding evidence of the battle that took place there. For the first time in anybody's memory, Narg appears worried. The group picks up a few supplies from her home, including one of Vallessa’s perfume decanters that Narg had filled with bourbon. Guice comments that Vallessa probably uses it as perfume now to make herself more attractive to Narg. A group of ten hobgoblins is seen heading towards the east side of the city, and Luekia is sent back to warn those in the cave mouth of this, suspecting them to be a changing of the guard there. Instead, they turn out to be reinforcements to the bullywug swamp. While waiting for Luekia to return they spend the time telling Immy about the magic item the Candle of Kobolds, and its many uses. Meanwhile, eight miles to the northwest, the ship Molly III has finally reaches the vicinity of Silver Moon Island. The skies grow worse during this, with it appearing that a major storm is imminent. The ship reaches the channel between Silver Moon Island and Mickey Mouse Island. They decide to head towards the northern inlet of Silver Moon Island, but immediately change their mind upon emerging from the channel, when a small sailboat is spotted six miles away, rapidly heading into the inlet. They immediately lower the sails, and turn the boat towards shore, hoping to avoid being seen by the sailboat. Unbeknownst to those on the Molly III, the person on the sailboat is not an enemy, but rather a messenger sent to the island by Ki-Geloryn and the mage Derieki to inform them of what Kindor, Jennifer and Aldorn are doing to assist them. The messenger, an unusual man named Kale, has expertise in small boat sailing. As an anti-teleportation shield now surrounded the island Derieki had teleported Kale and his sailboat (specially designed for racing) to a point in the ocean far north of the island. They recommended that he start looking for the Silver Moon in the city at the top of the mountain, saying that if he can’t find them there it would still give him a good vantage point of the entire island. In the City, Luekia rejoins the others, and they check out Narg, Mojo & Furynick’s home, finding Mojo’s room to have been disturbed. Narg’s room is also a disaster, but he says that is how he left it. He also makes a note to himself to give his butler Hobbson a raise. They follow the hobgoblin tracks to Cassie’s home, and from there to the north end of the city. The hide from another patrol of hobgoblins, and decide they need to scout from a higher elevation, heading to a two-story building. Immy checks out the room, finding it already occupied by four goblins, across from the building that Phormosah previously occupied. They also spot four other goblins atop another roof. They conclude that it is a set-up similar to what they found at Crystull’s house, with Phormosah’s house being another of the ‘escape locations‘ that the lower-level group had been told of. They decide to leave it and the goblins as they are. They deciding to stay with the idea of getting to higher ground to scope out the area, so choose to head to the highest point in the city, the four-story ziggurat-style building that Dennismore and Lono call home, located in the southwestern side of the city. As they near it, they see a contingent of over a dozen hobgoblins guarding atop the first floor roof of the building, and conclude that this looks like it could be where their friends are being held captive. They travel through the large building immediately to the north of it, getting to a series of windows across the street from their destination. They then begin to discuss how to get the party the fifty feet across the street without being seen. Immy volunteers to invisibly scout out around the building. The group decides to send Luekia instead, due to her quicker monk speed. She takes the long way around, never actually approaching the building. She also stops by Serita’s house, and uses her speak-with-animal ability to talk to one of the black panthers prowling within the gates of Serita’s yard. She is told that the hobgoblins have been keeping themselves at a distance from the panthers. The big cats recall four people being carried to the Ziggurat building. After deriving a count of the number of hobgoblins atop the first floor roof of the Ziggurat, Luekia heads back to the others. She gives them the visual description from the panthers of each, the group concluding that Aradyn, Dennismore, Furynick and Hobbson are the ones being held within the building. The group decides how to best assault the building. Narg is surprisingly apprehensive about attacking, wanting to first inform Serita’s group what they have found. Luekia is sent to relay a message to that group. Several miles north, assisted by a very strong breeze, Kale managed to reach the north side of the island within an hour, continuing to sail through the northern inlet and up the stream towards the mountain. When the stream narrowed, he found some adequate foliage to hide the boat in, and continued on foot towards the mountain, half a mile away. Back in the channel between Silver Moon Island and Mickey Mouse Island, the party had beached the ship Molly III on the Silver Moon side. They used the anchors to prevent the ship from being pulled back out to sea by the storm, and secure all of the sails. Vincenzo then led the crew and children on a trek through the woods, their destination being the abandoned home that formerly belonged to the magic-user Crystull, located a little more than a mile from their current location. Vincenzo felt that this might provide safe haven from the approaching storm for the children, as well as a possible base of operations. In the City, Luekia travels over half the way back to the tunnel with the others when she spots another building in the southern part of the city that also has a large contingent of hobgoblin guards atop its roof. Rather than continuing, she heads back to inform her own group near the ziggurat. A lengthy debate follows, going over the merits of combining the forces to assault one building, or having the two teams strike both buildings simultaneously. The eventually decided upon combining the forces, and send Luekia the long-way back to the cave entrance to get the other nine (Blip, Fiona, Freyland, Isaiah, Jerry, Kruk, Mojo, Razou, & Serita), and then carefully bring them back to the group’s present location Back to the northwestern shore, Vincenzo's team has hiked through the overgrown virgin forests, which takes a while, with the building eventually in sight. They send Horatio forward to investigate. Milo’s young apprentice soon returns, to inform them that each of the two doors of the building are slightly open, and that there are a lot of fresh tracks near the building. He reports also finding bodies of several bugbears on the trail east of the cabin, seeing more bugbear bodies further down the road. They appear to have been dead at least a day, and he also complains that they “didn’t have anything good on them.” The boy adds, “This is where Milo says to stop thieving and turn things over to the stupid fighters.” Offended by the term Stupid, Richard comments “Milo told you that?” Michael interjects “either that or he had lunch with Fiona (knowing of her dislike of fighters).” The fighters Fritz, Michael and Lothar approach, and listen through the doors. They hear two distinct voices inside, speaking in Bugbear. They then gather the others together, and leave the three weakest crewmembers; who collectively have a combined total of only seven hit points, with the kids (where a good argument could be made as to exactly who was guarding who at this point). The other six crewmembers, and Vincenzo, then storm the building, charging through both doors, weapons drawn. The two bugbears immediately surrender, and are then tied, bound and gagged. Vincenzo and Fritz decide to question the two bugbear prisoners. They reveal that they have only been on the island a day, that they entered through a magical door. There were to hike to this cabin to meet up with a group of humans who would then lead them. Before reaching the cabin they saw a bright flash in the sky, and then were attacked. Fritz tries to determine how many bugbears were involved, but the bugbears’ counting ability is limited to the terms ‘some‘, ‘most’ and ‘lots‘. They say that they ran away during the battle, and were the only two to later arrive at the cabin, although they know that some more did manage to get away. The bugbears appear to be fearful of their captors, and make no aggressive moves. Back at the ship Silver Moon, this was a particularly windy day, but the six crewmembers were capable of keeping the ship sailing without a problem. What seemed odd was that Sonja did not appear to have any real course in mind, with her having the ship sailing primarily southwest, but occasionally turning in other directions also. At noon, the half-elf fighter joined the other enemy adventurers, who called him Kimball. He said that lunch was ready, and four of the enemy adventurers headed below deck. Hans then told Jacob that on the previous day Bernard was relieved on deck by Stokkes at 1:00 PM, and that Stokkes kept the crew further apart while they worked. Assuming the enemy would keep to this same pattern, Hans and Jacob decided it best to spend the next hour planning, as Bernard did not seem to care if they spoke to each other now that his leaders were gone. They concluded that they needed to launch an attack within the next day in order to protect the animals, and that the best time for an attack would be during the 11:00 PM shift change. At that point in time, most of the enemy adventurers would be off sleeping and Jacob’s team would also be fresh. Assuming that the shift change would go as it went the previous day, there would then be a brief amount of time where both Hans and Jacob’s teams would be on the crew deck by the dining table, with their hands and feet untied. Unfortunately, there would still be the seven bugbears to contend with, as well as the cleric Stokkes. From what they had heard, Stokkes only had first and second level clerical spells, an indication that he was only at third or fourth level ability level, and therefore probably the weakest of the six main enemies. Since Stokkes had promised to heal Jacob’s trio again this evening, they decided they would wait until immediately after he cast the third cure as the signal to launch the attack. Who ever the final healing spell was cast on would then have the job of preventing Stokkes from throwing any more spells, while the other two members of Jacob’s team would have the task of attacking the bugbears guarding Hans’s team. These guards would be just coming off sixteen hours on duty, so would be tired and less alert, and therefore be the best targets to potentially grab weapons from. The job of Hans’s team’s would be to delay the fresh bugbears guarding Jacob’s team from intervening. Since each bugbear always stood behind the crewmember that they were each guarding, by having each trio attack each other’s guards, none of the crew would have turn around to launch an attack. The groups would also have to deal with the bugbear cabin guard, but he would be initially preoccupied with eating his own dinner. There was no point in planning what to do beyond that, as they concluded that even this plan had a slim chance of success, so it was best not to get ahead of themselves. Their time to plan then ended, as Stokkes came above deck, telling Bernard “you’re relieved, go eat.” As expected, Stokkes made sure that none of the crew worked anywhere near each other. The weather continued to get rough during the afternoon, with heavy winds that occasionally gusted to 60 miles-per-hour. The other enemies spent very little time on deck that afternoon. At around 2:30 PM, Hans and Sammy were called below by Spring to again clean up the hold. They returned half and hour later, at which point Jacob’s trio were then sent back below to eat and sleep. As they entered the room, the half-elf fighter Kimball was waiting for them in the dining room. He immediately sent Trent’s trio out of the room and above deck. He then had the bugbears tie Jacob’s team’s waists and legs to their chairs while they ate. After the quiet meal, Jacob’s trio had their hands and feet tightly tied by the fighter, and they were then dragged by the bugbears into the cabin to sleep. Jacob informed his team of the plan, and then they went to sleep. Above deck, Hans managed to untie a line to a sail so that the next gust of wind pulled it loose, requiring both of his other team members to assist him in catching and retying it. During this, he managed to briefly inform them of the plan. Crewmember Reginon commented that “It sounds rather suicidal, but what the hell, we have to do something.” Hans was not able to get close enough to any of Trent’s trio to inform them of the plans, but this was less critical, as those three would still be above-deck when the attack was too be launched. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
"Retake the Island" - Concluded!
Top