(IC) Against the Giants PBP Group 1

When the bugbears were out of their cots and geared up, the captain told them, "Right, you lot! Let's go see what's needed of us from the Chief. Form up!"

Though there was a lot of stretching and they were not quick to do it, the bugbears formed a double-file line. The captain led them out of the barrack's room and across to the stairs. The captain had time to place one foot on the bottom step, and then looked up to see Jack's crossbow leveled at him...

Quinn speaks some words and draws a looped pattern with his sickle. At the same instant a wall of fire springs from the ground under the bugbear captains feet and streaks down across the left line of bugbears and then across the room cutting off access to the gongs.

Quick as a wink, Eoghan muttered a few arcane syllables and the Wall of Fire grew another five feet and blocked the opening as well. He moved up to right behind his Minor Illusion, drawing his rapier in case someone did try it.

Tenibor sees the bugbear captain torched by someone else's fire.

He carefully steps behind Jack and tells that bugbear that he will die horribly.

(Toll the Dead 10 dmg, Wis DC 16 for half).

Jack pulled Darling's trigger and heard a satisfying thunk as the bolt hit home.

~Need to cover those doors to the north,~ Jack projected mentally to the others. Suiting his words, he leapt down the stairs and skirted the surprised bugbears and wall of flame, situating himself in the doorway. Once there, he took a quick glance to the north.

"Gads, nothing worse than the smell of burning bugbears," he muttered.

Bible rounds the corner and starts down the stairs, throwing her handaxe at the burning captain.



Continuing down the stairs, she draws her sword and brings it down on him as she gleefully joins the melee.

As Jack loosed a quarrel that struck the bugbear captain hard in the chest, Quinn caused a wall of flames to burst across the room running its way down the left-hand column of bugbear soldiers. Bugbear fur was dense and oily, and it burned with a terrible odour. Their discipline was tenuous at the best of times, and the ordered line fell apart immediately as bugbears ran for cover and/or patted at their flaming fur.

Jack hopped down the stairs and moved northward as Bible first threw an axe, and then ran her sword through the body of the captain, as Tenibor signalled the captain's demise with an ominous note of doom. The captain fell at the base of the stairs, still enough in the fire for the corpse to continue to burn.

The bugbears were entirely disorganized, but they instinctively moved for cover. The two original guards called out to each other. The one caught in the firewall managed to slip to the south, and after putting himself out, he headed for the eastern gong, taking no notice of Eoghan the orc nearby. The other threw a javelin at Bible, which bounced off her shield as one of the other bugbears escaped the flames by shoving his way past her on the stairs.

Jack peered into the room to the north, which was dimly lit by a hanging brazier, much like the rest of the place. In the room, behind a desk, sat the ugliest giant that Jack had ever seen. One eye was scarred shut and he had an enormous hunchback. As Jack watched, the giant rose to his feet and grabbed a large, double-bladed axe that was leaning against the wall. From under his desk scampered two ugly and fiendish-looking apes.

Then Jack was momentarily distracted from observing the room when a bugbear found itself next to him after fleeing from the heat of the wall.