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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rybaer" data-source="post: 44628" data-attributes="member: 118">Session #8.2 – Fight and PursuitThe party woke to the smell of bacon cooking.  Several of the knights had prepared a breakfast of porridge, bacon, bread and cheese.  The party was welcomed to eat with them, and several of the knights expressed their personal congratulations to the group for taking on the Shadow and surviving to tell the tale.Rurik checked up on the young girl, Jaqueline deLitt she gave as her name, and found that she was now conscious.  He used Moradin’s power to heal the remainder of her injuries, for which she was grateful.  Overall, though, she was quite distraught by the previous day’s events and the sudden loss of her parents.  She explained that they were wine merchants and had been traveling to High Hill to pick up a supply of casks for later in the summer.  Shadow and his gang attacked them shortly after they had pulled off the road to make camp for the night.  She had some family in Unicorn Valley, which the knights said they’d reach by noon, and she would stay with them.With breakfast finished, the knights packed and were mounted by the time the sun had fully crested the horizon.  The girl rode behind Rurik while the dwarf prisoner was strapped to one of the knight’s supply horses.  Based on the account of the fight, they assumed him to be some manner of spellcaster and thus he was bound and gagged firmly.  They would interrogate him after they reached their outpost in Unicorn Valley.The first couple hours of the morning’s ride were pleasant.  Then they found the giants.  A pair of hill giants that had been concealed in a small wooded area not too far from the road started pelting the knights with large rocks.  One knight was pummeled on the first surprise volley and another’s horse was struck hard.  The knights, who were trained to handle this sort of problem while riding their regular road patrols, quickly moved into action.  The captain encouraged our heroes to seek cover or support in whatever fashion they cared to.The knights split into groups with about one third firing heavy crossbows at the giants’ position while the others split into two squads that prepared to charge with lances in two waves.  The woods in which the giants were located were thin enough to support this sort of activity.  Nigel, who had a particular dislike for giants, dismounted so that he could put his longbow to good use, repeatedly peppering the giants with well-placed shots.  Rurik, also with a keen dislike for the brutes, dismounted and told Jaqueline to ride the horse into the relatively safe cover of another nearby cluster of trees.  Amblin was already moving in a roundabout fashion toward the giants, and Rurik hurried after him.  Zalman took the more cautious approach and accompanied the girl toward cover.  With the knights racing all around the giants, it just wasn’t safe for him to try flinging lightning bolts of fireballs into the fray.The knights’ first charges were modestly successful.  Both giants were injured, but not as badly as they could have been.  Those knights who had fired crossbows now switched to lances and began another charge of their own.  Nigel continued to pepper away with his bow and Amblin and Rurik closed for melee – seeking the thrill of combat.  Zalman, after seeing the girl safely to the cover of the trees, decided to ride closer so that he could support his companions with magic.  The fight, which had digressed into pure melee, went mostly in favor of the knights.  A lucky shot by a club-wielding giant killed a knight, but otherwise the dim-witted pair realized that they had picked the wrong fight this morning.  Amblin nimbly jumped in and out of reach of the giants and Rurik relied on his magic armor and dwarven fighting skills to avoid getting hit too hard.  Once one of the giants dropped, Zalman cast Glitterdust on the other, blinding it.  The knights quickly finished him off.Two knights had perished (both victims of critical hits from the giants) and one horse was badly injured.  Several had taken lesser injuries, and Rurik helped heal the worst of them.  As they were wrapping things up with the giants, someone finally noticed that their captive was missing.  The dwarf, who had been tied up and left slung over a packhorse, had been left behind and ignored during the fight.  The horse was still standing on the road, but only some burned rope fragments were left of the dwarf.Immediately, the group suspected that the vile Shadow was responsible.  They had no trouble imagining how he could have followed them invisibly and waited for an opportunity to rescue his companion.  The fight with the giants would have been distraction enough to pull it off.  The fact that the ropes had been burned through rather than cut was an unexplained oddity, though.Nigel found tracks, only those of the dwarf, heading the opposite direction from which the giants had attacked.  They led straight into a larger section of woods.  Zalman sent Hooty ahead to scout from the air.  Amblin, throwing caution to the wind, ran quickly through the woods, following Hooty’s cries.  The others, fearing that the Shadow could still be somewhere nearby, were more cautious.  The knights had only just begun to figure out what was going on and were slow to join up.After a minute or so, Hooty screeched frantically, indicating to the others that he’d spotted the dwarf.  While Amblin raced that direction, Zalman suddenly got a jolt through his empathic link to his familiar.  Hooty had been slammed hard by some unseen force and was significantly injured.  Zalman immediately ordered the owl to retreat, which the bird happily agreed with.Amblin, well out ahead of the others, finally started slowing down and scanning the woods for the dwarf.  He knew he was close, based on Hooty’s guidance, but he could not spot the renegade.  Then, the same wave of pummeling force that had hit him several times the night before during their fight came again.  He gritted his teeth and took it, and kept looking for the dwarf.  Again and again the pummeling came, and still he kept looking.  He was getting a little worried, though, as the damage was quickly adding up.  Finally, just as Nigel was arriving with Rurik and Zalman close behind, Amblin spotted the dwarf buried in some brush at the base of a tree.  The monk, along with his companions, did not return to the knights with a live prisoner this time.Once the bodies were secured and the scene of the fight cleared up, the knights and the companions returned to the road.  Zalman sent the healed Hooty back to scouting duty, with the express intent of keeping them from finding any more giant ambushes.  Hooty did spot a couple more hill giants, but they were over a mile off the road and not a threat.  By early afternoon, they reached the small farming community of Unicorn Valley.The captain offered them accommodations at the knights’ barracks should they care to rest overnight.  He said that they could reach Water Break by nightfall if they left immediately, but they might find themselves locked out of the city for the night.  With Rurik depleted of spells, they chose to stay the night and shoot for an early afternoon arrival the next day.  Unicorn Valley offered little in the way of entertainment or supplies, so they spent most of their time eating, resting, and tending to their gear.Next session:  Water Break's tourism council welcomes our heroes with open arms.-Rybaer</blockquote>

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