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Tantras - Forgotten Realms Campaign
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<blockquote data-quote="Corran" data-source="post: 79601" data-attributes="member: 85"><p><strong>Session 8 – Wednesday, January 23, 2002.</strong></p><p></p><p>The battle is swift, furious and pretty one-sided; I think we got more nicked when shaving that morning. Celedor proves his enormous value again when he, at the beginning of the battle, drops three orcs with his signature sleep spell. Varsk must have scarred the orcs pretty good, all screaming and kicking he leapt into battle and killed four orcs. I think I injured one and I saw our employer killing another. Borric gets slowed down a lot by his shorter stature and heavy armor, when he arrived the battle was all but over. After the battle two of the sleeping orcs were killed, I almost stop protesting the inevitable. They then interrogated the third one and learned that their fortress is fifteen miles to the North West. There are supposed to be about ten orcs in the camp right now but it normally holds eighty. When we returned to the horses I once again asked Darvear how he could see the orcs from so far away, but he refuses to answer the question. Most peculiar.</p><p></p><p><em>5 Ches</em></p><p></p><p>Late in the afternoon we arrive at a crest overlooking the fortress. It consists of a stone keep of several floors surrounded by a high wooden palisade. Some smaller wooden structures are built against the palisade on the inside. Five wooden towers are positioned at the corners of the palisade. In them is one goblin guard each, at least one of them is sleeping. The plan is to sneak a close as we can to the fortress and to try and open the gate and get in and exterminate the inhabitants. I’m not happy about this plan at all, it seems very risky, also because we have no idea how many enemies might be in the keep.</p><p></p><p>I’m so glad to still be alive and free!! I still can’t believe what happened to us. I think it’s best I’ll tell everything in the order it happened. I’ll also put it under the date it happened. Now if I can just put my pages back in my journal all will be all right again. Please remember that some of what I’ll write I have learned from the others I have not observed everything myself.</p><p></p><p>The beginning of our plan works fine; we all get to the palisade without being spotted. Calim then climbs over the palisade and opens the gate for us. Then Besheba gives us our full attention and everything goes wrong. Calim is heard and an orc rushes to the gate, the few goblins in the courtyard on the other hand run to the keep. Borric kills the orc at the gate and we all rush into the courtyard. The courtyard however is empty only the goblins in the towers remain. Varsk rushes to the door to the keep and tries to break it down. It is a reinforced door and even the strong barbarian has problems getting through. The goblins in the towers start have also wakened up and start shooting arrows at us. I run around the corner to the back of the keep and I find a trapdoor on the ground. The trapdoor uses some kind of spring mechanism to close automatically and probably leads to an underground level. I do not think it wise to enter it and I return to Varsk and Darvear to tell them of my discovery. When I round the corner I discover that quite a bit has happened in the short time I was away.</p><p></p><p>Three orc shamans have appeared on the roof and they have caught Calim and Celedor in a web spell while they were killing a goblin in one of the towers. Right in front of me Varsk is lying on the ground and now Darvear is trying to bash open the door. I rush towards the barbarian to see if I can heal his wounds. When I examine him I hear him softly snoring! The orcs must have used a sleep spell! The cads! I shout this fact out to Darvear; in response he kicks Varsk, pretty hard. Painful it may be it has effect. Varsk wakes up and starts to bash the door again. Cadrach casts some spell at the roof but there’s no noticeable effect. Calim, even hampered by the web he is caught in, manages to fire an arrow and kills one of the shamans.</p><p></p><p>The orcs respond in kind, and how. They cast more sleep spells and Borric, Calim and Celedor succumb to the arcane enchantment. <span style="color: orange">[Talk about off day: seven (count ‘em) roleplaying veterans and all of us forget that elves are immune to sleep spells. ;-) ]</span> The door to the keep suddenly crashes open and hits Varsk full in the face. Just our luck; to find one of those rare front doors that open outwards. One human and two orc fighters are inside trying to rush out. Varsk and I land solid blows on the human but he does not go down. Cadrach also charges in, but his swing just misses the man. The man adjusts his position to give the orcs room to come out of the building and thankfully misses Varsk with his sword thrust. The first orc moves out of the building and he lands a solid blow on Varsk, the barbarian is in real pain now. The second orc, still standing inside, swings his wicked axe in an overhead blow and lays me open from collarbone to crotch! At least that’s where I think he hit me, blissfully the shock made me lose consciousness instantly. <span style="color: orange">[Bloody criticals! I had 21 hitpoints and he did 24 damage, our wizard would have instantly died from that.]</span></p><p></p><p>The next thing I remember is Cadrach standing over me, telling me he has just healed my wounds and to get up and kill the bad guys. While I was out of the fight both Varsk and Darvear have been brought down, I don’t think our employer has hit an enemy in the entire battle. The priest then casts a spell creating a very dense fog all around us. I can hear some one running away but there are still plenty enemies left. I manage to kill two orcs while Cadrach heals Varsk. The barbarian runs after the adversary that just left. He finds the human bandit in one of the guard towers with Borric’s unmoving body. The man warns Varsk not to get any closer or he’ll kill the sleeping dwarf. Varsk tries to negotiate but we are in no position to make demands. When he tries to move closer the man shoots Varsk with a crossbow, a shaman on the roof follows up with a second bolt and the barbarian sags to the ground again.</p><p></p><p>Once again my chain shirt proved mostly useless as another orc hit me and I dropped unconscious to the blood soaked ground again. Note to self: I must pray and tithe more to Tymora it seems. Cadrach has by now moved out of the fog and he has managed to throw a stone at Calim, thereby waking the ranger. Calim shoots an arrow at one of the shamans on the roof but his shot goes wide. The orc shaman then shoots a crossbow at our priest and now Cadrach is also out of the fight. Calim fires another arrow and has the pleasure of seeing it connect solidly with one of the shamans. His pleasure is short-lived however; one of the orcs climbs the ladder to the guard tower and hits him with a savage blow. Now the ranger is also out of the fight.</p><p></p><p>The fight is over and we lost. We all awake inside some dungeon, tied to the wall. Our captors have taken no risk, we are all tied securely and even our fingers have been set individually as to prevent spellcasting. We are also gagged of course. After an indeterminate amount of time the human bandit comes into the dungeon. He tells us: ‘Him (pointing at our employer) I will ransom, you I will sell as slaves.’ With that he leaves again. Later we get fed some soup, through a straw!</p><p></p><p>After a few days we overhear a conversation between our captor and an orc. The orc wants to kill ‘the dwarf,’ there’s no doubt he’s talking about Borric. The human tells the orc that if he can buy him he’s his. They start haggling over the price and the human does not want to go lower than hundred and twenty gold pieces. The orc loses his interest and then asks how much the man wants for ‘the elf.’ Celedor is for some unknown reason a lot more expensive his price is four hundred and fifty gold pieces.</p><p></p><p><em>9 Ches</em></p><p></p><p>Still very weak, we are taken outside. Four wagons are in the courtyard and around forty people, humans, orcs and half-orcs. A half-elvish woman seems to be in charge, she is wearing a banner later identified by Calim as being of Zhentil Keep. The woman casts a spell and the gags are taken away from everyone but Cadrach and Celedor. It is then that I notice that Darvear is not with us, it seems the bandit has indeed other plans for him. The Zhent woman then pays the bandit with two filled pouches; it seems we have just been sold. She now addresses us and tells us that we can either make it a pleasant or an unpleasant journey until she sells us again. Varsk then boldly asks the woman if he can have his crystal back as it is a memento to him. She gets it out from our belongings and decides that is has resale value so does not give it back. I then all of a sudden remember my journal and I ask her if I then can have it back. She looks at it and rips out the pages! She stuffs the pages in my shirt and tells me the book is still useful to her.</p><p></p><p>Cadrach has all the time literally been chomping at the bit. I couldn’t make out what he was trying to say, but apparently the woman could. She has the bit removed and Cadrach tells her he wants his money back! She laughs in his face of course. He then offers to have his family pay her for his release. ‘How much do you think you are worth,’ she asks him. ‘You tell me,’ Cadrach replies. The woman tells him she’ll take him along to Zhentil Keep all the same and once there she will find out if he is worth more there or to his family. A new glimmer of hope has just been revealed to me and I tell the woman that my family will pay for my release as well. She tells me the same deal applies to me as to Cadrach. While I am of course sorry that the others do not have a family that can pay for their release I think that’s no reason to try and obtain one myself. I can then always prevail upon my family to buy the others or if they refuse try and set up a rescue myself. I’m sure; I took the correct course in this.</p><p></p><p><em>14 Ches</em></p><p></p><p>For days now we have been travelling in our wagon. The caravan is moving north, edging the eastern side of Anauroch desert. We are tied up all the time and only at night we are taken out of the wagon for a short time. I think my entire body is cramping, if they didn’t give us that one hour each day I think we would all lose the ability to walk; permanently. We are all in excruciating pain and we don’t talk much during the long days either. Everyone is facing some personal demons I think.</p><p></p><p>Tonight something very strange happened. Calim suddenly saw a dark shape of a man all of a sudden appear behind our guard. Our ranger pretended not to notice and the guard had no inkling of what had happened behind him. The man looked both us and the guard over and then he vanished again.</p><p></p><p><em>15 Ches</em></p><p></p><p>At midnight the same figure appeared again. We were now all ready for it to happen and saw him the instant he materialised. The man put a hand over the guard’s throat and swiftly cut the jugular. It was a particularly unpleasant sight to see the blood spurting out of the guard’s throat, Zhent slaver or not. The man moves very silently and takes the keys from the dead guard. With the keys he frees us from our manacles and we move out of the wagon. Varsk takes the swortsword the guard had been carrying. The man in black points towards ten shadowy figures moving toward the camp. Ten meters from us we see another dead guard lying in a pool of blood.</p><p></p><p>The dark figures rush the camp; there is the flash of magic and the clattering of swords. The battle is over quickly, we were not involved in it and all the Zhents lie dead in record time. We get our belongings back from the wagons, Varsk is very happy to get his crystal back again. Not everyone is so lucky; it seems the orcs kept some of our belongings. We loot the rest of the caravan and find out it is carrying quite an assortment of wares. I find a rapier, some daggers and an armor. There are also plenty of blankets, bedrolls, torches and other equipment one can’t be without in the wilds. We also find two small chests containing over eight hundred gold pieces. Most importantly I found a good composite longbow. I still can’t believe I forgot to buy one when we were in Suzail, Tannyth would call me adle-brained and I’m afraid I would have to agree with her. Our rescuers still haven’t spoken a word to us and we join them in a nightlong trek to the Desert Mouth Mountains.</p><p></p><p><em>16 Ches</em></p><p></p><p>We stop at the foothill of the mountains in a very defensible position Borric points out. The men start to make a camp and we finally thank our rescuer. He does indeed talk and tells us we will rest here until midnight. We ask him what the plan is and introduce ourselves. He tells us his name is Iskaren Themthyl and he asks how we got captured. We tell him the whole story and he seems interested by Darvear Huntinghorn. Varsk asks him what language the man had been speaking with his men. He answers that it is the language of his people. When we ask why he freed us the truth seems less romantic than we might have hoped. He tells us we were inside a target of his and as we are not his enemy, he figured the enemy of his enemy must be his friends.</p><p></p><p>When asked why he is at war with the Zhents, he tells us he’s not but he will attack them whenever he sees them. After this somewhat cryptic remark Varsk asks again what people he might be of. He let us know that, ‘we will hear of his people soon enough.’ ‘I am from a city and it is now in Anauroch.’ What a strange statement; it is now in Anauroch? When pressed, Iskaren tells us that the city flies! I guess anything is possible but this seems pretty far-fetched. Cadrach asks what exactly he is doing out here and he says he can’t talk about his mission. All that he can say is that he is travelling to a place called the Dales. He makes it sound as if it is some exotic place for him. The man tells us to get some sleep and walks away.</p><p></p><p>Not much later we see another shadowy figure appear next to our rescuer and after they have talked and gestured south and at the mountains our dark friend returns to us. The other figure has disappeared again and Iskaren tells us he has some bad news. The group has to leave, they have gotten new orders it seems. He tells us that forty miles to the south we can find a place called Shadow’s Gap and that we from there can get to Shadowdale. It seems he just got a crash course geography. The dark band leaves at once, they go north.</p><p></p><p>It doesn’t take any persuading from me, we all agree to not go to Shadowdale but to go back to the Fortress. My reasoning is that maybe now they still have Darvear and our money (I lost fifteen hundred gold pieces to the bastards) and they might not have their security back up to strength. I know I am not a violent or vengeful man, but these bandits just pissed me off big time. The others agree with my sentiments and after some sleep we leave for the fortress.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Corran, post: 79601, member: 85"] [b]Session 8 – Wednesday, January 23, 2002.[/b] The battle is swift, furious and pretty one-sided; I think we got more nicked when shaving that morning. Celedor proves his enormous value again when he, at the beginning of the battle, drops three orcs with his signature sleep spell. Varsk must have scarred the orcs pretty good, all screaming and kicking he leapt into battle and killed four orcs. I think I injured one and I saw our employer killing another. Borric gets slowed down a lot by his shorter stature and heavy armor, when he arrived the battle was all but over. After the battle two of the sleeping orcs were killed, I almost stop protesting the inevitable. They then interrogated the third one and learned that their fortress is fifteen miles to the North West. There are supposed to be about ten orcs in the camp right now but it normally holds eighty. When we returned to the horses I once again asked Darvear how he could see the orcs from so far away, but he refuses to answer the question. Most peculiar. [i]5 Ches[/i] Late in the afternoon we arrive at a crest overlooking the fortress. It consists of a stone keep of several floors surrounded by a high wooden palisade. Some smaller wooden structures are built against the palisade on the inside. Five wooden towers are positioned at the corners of the palisade. In them is one goblin guard each, at least one of them is sleeping. The plan is to sneak a close as we can to the fortress and to try and open the gate and get in and exterminate the inhabitants. I’m not happy about this plan at all, it seems very risky, also because we have no idea how many enemies might be in the keep. I’m so glad to still be alive and free!! I still can’t believe what happened to us. I think it’s best I’ll tell everything in the order it happened. I’ll also put it under the date it happened. Now if I can just put my pages back in my journal all will be all right again. Please remember that some of what I’ll write I have learned from the others I have not observed everything myself. The beginning of our plan works fine; we all get to the palisade without being spotted. Calim then climbs over the palisade and opens the gate for us. Then Besheba gives us our full attention and everything goes wrong. Calim is heard and an orc rushes to the gate, the few goblins in the courtyard on the other hand run to the keep. Borric kills the orc at the gate and we all rush into the courtyard. The courtyard however is empty only the goblins in the towers remain. Varsk rushes to the door to the keep and tries to break it down. It is a reinforced door and even the strong barbarian has problems getting through. The goblins in the towers start have also wakened up and start shooting arrows at us. I run around the corner to the back of the keep and I find a trapdoor on the ground. The trapdoor uses some kind of spring mechanism to close automatically and probably leads to an underground level. I do not think it wise to enter it and I return to Varsk and Darvear to tell them of my discovery. When I round the corner I discover that quite a bit has happened in the short time I was away. Three orc shamans have appeared on the roof and they have caught Calim and Celedor in a web spell while they were killing a goblin in one of the towers. Right in front of me Varsk is lying on the ground and now Darvear is trying to bash open the door. I rush towards the barbarian to see if I can heal his wounds. When I examine him I hear him softly snoring! The orcs must have used a sleep spell! The cads! I shout this fact out to Darvear; in response he kicks Varsk, pretty hard. Painful it may be it has effect. Varsk wakes up and starts to bash the door again. Cadrach casts some spell at the roof but there’s no noticeable effect. Calim, even hampered by the web he is caught in, manages to fire an arrow and kills one of the shamans. The orcs respond in kind, and how. They cast more sleep spells and Borric, Calim and Celedor succumb to the arcane enchantment. [COLOR=orange][Talk about off day: seven (count ‘em) roleplaying veterans and all of us forget that elves are immune to sleep spells. ;-) ][/COLOR] The door to the keep suddenly crashes open and hits Varsk full in the face. Just our luck; to find one of those rare front doors that open outwards. One human and two orc fighters are inside trying to rush out. Varsk and I land solid blows on the human but he does not go down. Cadrach also charges in, but his swing just misses the man. The man adjusts his position to give the orcs room to come out of the building and thankfully misses Varsk with his sword thrust. The first orc moves out of the building and he lands a solid blow on Varsk, the barbarian is in real pain now. The second orc, still standing inside, swings his wicked axe in an overhead blow and lays me open from collarbone to crotch! At least that’s where I think he hit me, blissfully the shock made me lose consciousness instantly. [COLOR=orange][Bloody criticals! I had 21 hitpoints and he did 24 damage, our wizard would have instantly died from that.][/COLOR] The next thing I remember is Cadrach standing over me, telling me he has just healed my wounds and to get up and kill the bad guys. While I was out of the fight both Varsk and Darvear have been brought down, I don’t think our employer has hit an enemy in the entire battle. The priest then casts a spell creating a very dense fog all around us. I can hear some one running away but there are still plenty enemies left. I manage to kill two orcs while Cadrach heals Varsk. The barbarian runs after the adversary that just left. He finds the human bandit in one of the guard towers with Borric’s unmoving body. The man warns Varsk not to get any closer or he’ll kill the sleeping dwarf. Varsk tries to negotiate but we are in no position to make demands. When he tries to move closer the man shoots Varsk with a crossbow, a shaman on the roof follows up with a second bolt and the barbarian sags to the ground again. Once again my chain shirt proved mostly useless as another orc hit me and I dropped unconscious to the blood soaked ground again. Note to self: I must pray and tithe more to Tymora it seems. Cadrach has by now moved out of the fog and he has managed to throw a stone at Calim, thereby waking the ranger. Calim shoots an arrow at one of the shamans on the roof but his shot goes wide. The orc shaman then shoots a crossbow at our priest and now Cadrach is also out of the fight. Calim fires another arrow and has the pleasure of seeing it connect solidly with one of the shamans. His pleasure is short-lived however; one of the orcs climbs the ladder to the guard tower and hits him with a savage blow. Now the ranger is also out of the fight. The fight is over and we lost. We all awake inside some dungeon, tied to the wall. Our captors have taken no risk, we are all tied securely and even our fingers have been set individually as to prevent spellcasting. We are also gagged of course. After an indeterminate amount of time the human bandit comes into the dungeon. He tells us: ‘Him (pointing at our employer) I will ransom, you I will sell as slaves.’ With that he leaves again. Later we get fed some soup, through a straw! After a few days we overhear a conversation between our captor and an orc. The orc wants to kill ‘the dwarf,’ there’s no doubt he’s talking about Borric. The human tells the orc that if he can buy him he’s his. They start haggling over the price and the human does not want to go lower than hundred and twenty gold pieces. The orc loses his interest and then asks how much the man wants for ‘the elf.’ Celedor is for some unknown reason a lot more expensive his price is four hundred and fifty gold pieces. [i]9 Ches[/i] Still very weak, we are taken outside. Four wagons are in the courtyard and around forty people, humans, orcs and half-orcs. A half-elvish woman seems to be in charge, she is wearing a banner later identified by Calim as being of Zhentil Keep. The woman casts a spell and the gags are taken away from everyone but Cadrach and Celedor. It is then that I notice that Darvear is not with us, it seems the bandit has indeed other plans for him. The Zhent woman then pays the bandit with two filled pouches; it seems we have just been sold. She now addresses us and tells us that we can either make it a pleasant or an unpleasant journey until she sells us again. Varsk then boldly asks the woman if he can have his crystal back as it is a memento to him. She gets it out from our belongings and decides that is has resale value so does not give it back. I then all of a sudden remember my journal and I ask her if I then can have it back. She looks at it and rips out the pages! She stuffs the pages in my shirt and tells me the book is still useful to her. Cadrach has all the time literally been chomping at the bit. I couldn’t make out what he was trying to say, but apparently the woman could. She has the bit removed and Cadrach tells her he wants his money back! She laughs in his face of course. He then offers to have his family pay her for his release. ‘How much do you think you are worth,’ she asks him. ‘You tell me,’ Cadrach replies. The woman tells him she’ll take him along to Zhentil Keep all the same and once there she will find out if he is worth more there or to his family. A new glimmer of hope has just been revealed to me and I tell the woman that my family will pay for my release as well. She tells me the same deal applies to me as to Cadrach. While I am of course sorry that the others do not have a family that can pay for their release I think that’s no reason to try and obtain one myself. I can then always prevail upon my family to buy the others or if they refuse try and set up a rescue myself. I’m sure; I took the correct course in this. [i]14 Ches[/i] For days now we have been travelling in our wagon. The caravan is moving north, edging the eastern side of Anauroch desert. We are tied up all the time and only at night we are taken out of the wagon for a short time. I think my entire body is cramping, if they didn’t give us that one hour each day I think we would all lose the ability to walk; permanently. We are all in excruciating pain and we don’t talk much during the long days either. Everyone is facing some personal demons I think. Tonight something very strange happened. Calim suddenly saw a dark shape of a man all of a sudden appear behind our guard. Our ranger pretended not to notice and the guard had no inkling of what had happened behind him. The man looked both us and the guard over and then he vanished again. [i]15 Ches[/i] At midnight the same figure appeared again. We were now all ready for it to happen and saw him the instant he materialised. The man put a hand over the guard’s throat and swiftly cut the jugular. It was a particularly unpleasant sight to see the blood spurting out of the guard’s throat, Zhent slaver or not. The man moves very silently and takes the keys from the dead guard. With the keys he frees us from our manacles and we move out of the wagon. Varsk takes the swortsword the guard had been carrying. The man in black points towards ten shadowy figures moving toward the camp. Ten meters from us we see another dead guard lying in a pool of blood. The dark figures rush the camp; there is the flash of magic and the clattering of swords. The battle is over quickly, we were not involved in it and all the Zhents lie dead in record time. We get our belongings back from the wagons, Varsk is very happy to get his crystal back again. Not everyone is so lucky; it seems the orcs kept some of our belongings. We loot the rest of the caravan and find out it is carrying quite an assortment of wares. I find a rapier, some daggers and an armor. There are also plenty of blankets, bedrolls, torches and other equipment one can’t be without in the wilds. We also find two small chests containing over eight hundred gold pieces. Most importantly I found a good composite longbow. I still can’t believe I forgot to buy one when we were in Suzail, Tannyth would call me adle-brained and I’m afraid I would have to agree with her. Our rescuers still haven’t spoken a word to us and we join them in a nightlong trek to the Desert Mouth Mountains. [i]16 Ches[/i] We stop at the foothill of the mountains in a very defensible position Borric points out. The men start to make a camp and we finally thank our rescuer. He does indeed talk and tells us we will rest here until midnight. We ask him what the plan is and introduce ourselves. He tells us his name is Iskaren Themthyl and he asks how we got captured. We tell him the whole story and he seems interested by Darvear Huntinghorn. Varsk asks him what language the man had been speaking with his men. He answers that it is the language of his people. When we ask why he freed us the truth seems less romantic than we might have hoped. He tells us we were inside a target of his and as we are not his enemy, he figured the enemy of his enemy must be his friends. When asked why he is at war with the Zhents, he tells us he’s not but he will attack them whenever he sees them. After this somewhat cryptic remark Varsk asks again what people he might be of. He let us know that, ‘we will hear of his people soon enough.’ ‘I am from a city and it is now in Anauroch.’ What a strange statement; it is now in Anauroch? When pressed, Iskaren tells us that the city flies! I guess anything is possible but this seems pretty far-fetched. Cadrach asks what exactly he is doing out here and he says he can’t talk about his mission. All that he can say is that he is travelling to a place called the Dales. He makes it sound as if it is some exotic place for him. The man tells us to get some sleep and walks away. Not much later we see another shadowy figure appear next to our rescuer and after they have talked and gestured south and at the mountains our dark friend returns to us. The other figure has disappeared again and Iskaren tells us he has some bad news. The group has to leave, they have gotten new orders it seems. He tells us that forty miles to the south we can find a place called Shadow’s Gap and that we from there can get to Shadowdale. It seems he just got a crash course geography. The dark band leaves at once, they go north. It doesn’t take any persuading from me, we all agree to not go to Shadowdale but to go back to the Fortress. My reasoning is that maybe now they still have Darvear and our money (I lost fifteen hundred gold pieces to the bastards) and they might not have their security back up to strength. I know I am not a violent or vengeful man, but these bandits just pissed me off big time. The others agree with my sentiments and after some sleep we leave for the fortress. [/QUOTE]
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