Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rybaer" data-source="post: 120115" data-attributes="member: 118">Session #11.4 – Halfling in the nightLohna raced upstairs and decided it would be worth the effort to go by the guest rooms first to rouse Nigel’s companions.  Judging by the gear they reportedly had been toting and the stories they had shared, they would be more useful in a fight than any of her staff.  She raced by their doors, knocking on them loudly and announcing that there were intruders approaching from beyond the gardens.  Lohna remained only long enough to tell them that she had left Nigel at the corner of the house (conveniently the same corner their rooms were at) and that she was off to rouse the rest of the household.Amblin peered out his window, but even with the dim lighting the garden provided he didn’t immediately see the threat Lohna spoke of.  Kisty joined him from her room across the hall, sling in one hand and buckling her dagger-laden belt about her waist with the other.  She took a peek out the window and then pointed to the pair of girallons that were pointedly making their way through the garden toward their back corner of the house.In the next room over, the corner room on the second floor above Nigel’s hiding spot, Zalman and Rurik were likewise looking out across the gardens.  Zalman recognized the creatures for what they were, and wondered where they had come from.  He didn’t think girallons were at all common to these parts.  Something in the back of his mind warned him that they might be summoned.  Rurik hastily grabbed his axe and shield and looked longingly at his magical full plate armor.Zalman decided to open the window a bit further so that he could get a clear shot out with any spells.  As he did so, however, a blast of lightning erupted from somewhere along the back edge of the garden and obliterated the window and tore a good-sized hole in the wall of their room.  Zalman suffered mild injuries and Rurik also suffered a few cuts and burns from the bit of lightning that made it through the wall.  Everyone in the party had seen Zalman throw around enough lightning bolts to recognize that there was a spellcaster out there who wanted them dead.  Who, or why, however, were questions they didn’t have time to ponder.Amblin turned to Kisty, but found that she was already gone.  Kisty, seeing that there was a wizard out there, had run for the stairs and the front door.  It was her intent to sneak through the gardens and try to catch the wizard by surprise.  Given the distance she had to go, however, she just hoped to make it before the assailant completely destroyed the house or her friends.  Amblin, assuming she was doing her own thing, just turned his focus back to keeping an eye on the giant four-armed gorilla things running toward them.Nigel concluded that he was useless without his bow or sword.  After his bad experience in close-quarters fighting with the pair of trolls a month or two back, he was in no hurry to try to engage the girallons with anything other than a handful of sharp pointy sticks from a healthy distance.  So, he slipped back around the side of the house, climbed up to and through the second floor window in the hallway just outside their guest rooms, and ran over to the room he shared with Amblin.Zalman and Rurik were both trying to spot the wizard so they could retaliate with spells, but failed to find any other sign of his presence.  The girallons, running through the garden straight for their location, now became the more serious threat.  One of the pair leapt up the side of the house, using two arms to grasp the gaping hole left by the lightning bolt and the other two arms to reach in and try to hit Zalman and Rurik with wicked claws.  Zalman desperately backed up while Rurik hacked away at the arms.  When Zalman finally got over the debris and to the hallway, he turned around and launched a fireball that he spontaneously converted to electricity (so as not to set the house on fire).  It detonated just behind the girallon and the beast let out a satisfying cry of pain before dropping back to the ground.In the next room over, the second girallon similarly leapt up to the window, using two arms to hold itself in place while it reached in after Amblin and Nigel with the second pair.  Amblin tried to hit it with a few punches and kicks, but found that the girallon hit back much harder.  Realizing that he was losing his advantage of mobility by fighting from this room, he tried a different tactic.  He leapt toward the window and planted a stunning kick on the girallon’s jaw, causing it to drop back to the ground.  Seizing the moment, Amblin leapt out the window and was out in the garden, free to use his spring attack style to full utility.  Nigel, meanwhile, had strapped his sword belt on, picked up his bow, and started peppering the girallon with arrows.Zalman risked stepping forward to get a good look at the girallon so he could nail it with a barrage of magic missiles.  The missiles, combined with Rurik’s axe work and the lightning ball, were enough to drop the monster.  Seeing the second creature just outside his companions’ room, Zalman cast a patch of Glue right underneath it, successfully pinning it in place.  Amblin took a good look at the stuck girallon and decided to leave it to the others to finish off.  He was the fastest in the group and figured that he would have the best shot at taking out the wizard, wherever he, she, or it was hiding.  He started to follow a circuitous route, moving quickly but hoping that by staying to the shadows he wouldn’t draw the attention of the wizard.  While his theory was sound, execution was another story.  The wizard, from his hiding place in the back of the garden, cast an Evard’s Black Tentacles right in front of Amblin’s path.  The tentacles burst forth from the ground and half a dozen of them lashed out at Amblin, tearing and grappling the poor monk.  Luckily, the first tier of tentacles “accidentally” flung Amblin’s unconscious body out of their own reach.  (Amblin’s second of three fate points.)Nigel did not pause in firing a barrage of arrows at the now immobile girallon.  The monster was starting to resemble a pincushion.  Zalman, admiring his own handiwork with the Glue, took out a flask of alchemist’s fire and dropped it into the glue patch, igniting it and the trapped girallon.  The extra action cost him, though, as the enemy wizard was afforded another opportunity to hit Zalman with a lightning bolt.  Zalman was now seriously injured and was forced to retreat back into the hallway where Rurik took a moment and called upon Moradin’s blessing to heal his injured friend.Nigel, who had missed the fact that Amblin was out of action, finally finished off the burning girallon.  It, like the one that Zalman and Rurik had slain, disappeared in the same manner that Zalman’s conjurations did when killed.  Nigel quickly ran to the next room and checked that both Zalman and Rurik were okay, then leapt through the hole in the wall and took to the shadows in the garden.  As he crept quickly and quietly through the bushes and flowers toward the perceived location of the wizard, he spotted the small form of Kisty ahead of him, also making a stealthy approach.  Nigel changed strategy a bit to help Kisty out – he would flank more around to the side, and try to find a good spot from which to fire arrows, possibly drawing attention away from her sneaky approach.Once Rurik was satisfied that Zalman would live, he followed Nigel’s lead and leapt through the hole to the gardens below.  Not seeing Nigel or Kisty or Amblin’s fallen form, he chose the dwarven approach and charged full speed through and over the garden straight for where he last saw the lighting come.  He silently wished he’d had a chance to put on his armor.  At the very least, he thought, Zalman might get a good look at the wizard’s location when I get blasted.Lohna returned to the guest rooms and got the quick update on the situation from Zalman.  She still wore her evening gown, but now carried an elegant longsword with the ease of one who’s quite comfortable with its proper implementation.  She paused at the hole in the wall to survey the garden and then leapt out after the others.  Zalman noted that her movements were quick and sure.  She wasn’t moving quite as stealthily as Nigel, but she was clearly gaining on Rurik.Rurik found himself slightly disoriented among the hedges and plants of the garden.  When the hidden wizard nailed him with another lightning bolt, however, he was again pointed in the proper direction.  The blast barely caused him to break stride.  His darkvision finally revealed a small form crouching behind some bushes just up ahead.  As the dwarf vaulted a low row of bushes (something he’d not have attempted in his full armor), he came across something that did impede his motion – a massive iron wall spontaneously appeared right before him, propped up between a couple of trees.  He picked a new direction and started to head around the wall.Nigel had moved far enough to the side of the garden to have a decent view of the origin of the lightning bolt.  As the wall of iron appeared, he was able to get his first halfway decent look at the caster hidden in the bushes.  With the surety of shot that any Arcane Archer has, he let fly with and arrow and plunked the diminutive spell slinger.Zalman, who realized that he no longer had any spells with a range necessary to hit their opponent’s location, had spent the last few moments summoning forth several celestial dogs.  Once the wizard fired his lighting at Rurik, he set the dogs on the wizard.  There was little else he could do now but watch.While Nigel fired off a couple more shots, Lohna, Kisty, and Rurik all converged on the wizard almost simultaneously.  To their surprise, the wizard was a male halfling dressed in gaudy red robes.  If it weren’t for the glint of hatred in his eyes, they’d have been unable to take him seriously.  Knowing that allowing the wizard to cast another spell would be the worst thing they could allow to have happen, everyone charged him recklessly.  The halfling clearly had some magical defenses up, but still Lohna and Rurik were able to hit him and Kisty moved to flank him to prevent any escape.  By the time the dogs arrived, the halfling was panicking and tried to cast one last spell (a teleportation) – he never got it off.With the wizard dead, Nigel and Lohna, along with her staff that was just now arriving, swept the grounds for signs of any other intruders.  The found none.  Rurik and Zalman found Amblin’s body just inches out of the reach of the Black Tentacles.  Zalman identified the spell but was unable to dispel its effect.  He told everyone that it was harmless as long as no one ventured too close to it.  Rurik, almost depleted of spells, healed what injuries of Amblin’s that he could and then saw to it that the monk was resting comfortably back inside the house.The halfing’s body was looted, and they recovered a number of magical items including a ring, a couple scrolls, and a wand.  Zalman hazarded a guess that it was a wand of lightning bolts.  Catching a lucky break, the command word was inscribed on it.  Lohna had her staff bring the halfling’s body inside and then set up a heightened watch for the remainder of the night.  Everyone else, exhausted from a long and trying day, fell into a deep slumber.Just before dawn, the group rose and healed up a bit further.  Rurik also prayed for the means by which to question the halfling from the afterlife.  Unfortunately, the halfling’s will proved to be too strong and they were unable to get any answers from the slain wizard.  Lohna’s staff proceeded to bury him out in the woods.  The group had already apologized to Lohna for the damage to her house and the inconvenience.  Though they weren’t certain of it, they suspected the halfling had been targeting them and not the countess.  Lohna told them that she had many enemies and that she wasn’t overly bothered by the incident.  They were still welcome to stay whenever they wished.  Nigel and Lohna had said their farewells before the others rose as she was going to be unable to see them off on their trip back to Water Break once dawn broke.  Linnea provided them with simple breakfast fare for the ride back to Water Break.  She reiterated the countess’s open invitation to return at any time and without advance notice.  And, with that, the group mounted up and rode back to the city they had no real desire to visit.  But, business had to be done.  Kisty again donned the Hat of Disguise and became an aged female gnome, Nigel’s new personal servant.  They rode quickly but cautiously, ready for another ambush but still uncertain of who wanted them dead and why.  Talk of course turned to Misty and the Thieves’ Guild, but speculation and conjecture could only get them so far.Next session: The griffon corps, Rurik gets an anonymous and disturbing note, and Zalman's live-fire duel.</blockquote>

Verification