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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rybaer" data-source="post: 68134" data-attributes="member: 118">Okay, so I didn't quite get to the rematch part of this post.  Here's what I've got so far...Session #10.1 – The Incident in High HillIt was just after noon when the group was finally on the road for High Hill in earnest.  They had to assume that those who had learned of Kisty’s location from Zalman would have moved quickly on her position and likely had at least a six or eight hour head start.  It had been about a casual three day ride the first time they’d taken the road, so they decided to push their horses hard and try to make up as much as possible.  They briefly contemplated taking a more direct route, but that would lead them near or through the troll-infested marshland to the west of Water Break.  Having no familiarity with the land aside from what they’d seen on the road, they chose not to chance it.The first day they pushed the horses well past dark before finally resting.  There was a steady rain that night, though no thunder.  During Amblin’s watch, a large bear stumbled into their camp.  Amblin, in spite of his blindness in the complete dark, lunged to attack the unknown assailant, relying on his blind-fighting skill.  It turned out he was a bit over-matched as the bear tore him apart badly.  The others awoke soon enough and used a combination of blinding, distracting, and brute offensive tactics to slay the bear.  Rurik healed Amblin while Nigel began his turn on watch, skinning the bear to while away the time.The next day they pressed on hard again.  It rained on and off and was dreary and humid the rest of the time.  Hooty, flying advanced scout, reported a few sightings of trolls off the road a way, but they posed little risk.  Biting insects were their main concern and annoyance.  That night’s camp was uneventful, though the rain continued unabated.Morning was heralded by only a slight increase in light.  The storm clouds hung dark and heavy, pouring rain and lightning in abundance upon them.  Judging by their progress, they anticipated reaching High Hill by late afternoon or early evening.  That was before they ran across a flooded gully shortly after beginning the day’s ride.The gully was relatively narrow, varying between fifteen and twenty feet wide in most spots.  They didn’t think it likely more than three feet deep, either.  However, the sheer volume of rain water had turned it into a raging flash flood.  They knew well enough to not try crossing either on foot or on horse.Amblin could easily leap the river, and by exchanging his Ring of Jumping, they could almost all make it across – with the possible exception of Rurik.  Zalman even had a couple spells that could get one or two across.  The problem was the horses.  Nothing they had could get them across.  Without their mounts, they would lose hours of precious time in getting back to High Hill and Kisty.  They considered other spell options, including but not limited to ways of tunneling under the river, diverting it, or temporarily damming it.  However, the river was simply too fast and powerful for any solution to easily present itself.They scouted further upstream, where the river flowed through a more heavily wooded area.  Finally, they found a suitable tree trunk that laid across the river.  The once mighty oak had a trunk diameter nearly of nearly three feet.  If they cleared some of the branches and build make shift steps up to the trunk, Nigel thought they might be able to blindfold and carefully coax the horses across.Amblin leapt across and started clearing branches with a small hand axe.  The others hastily built steps and blindfolded the horses.  Nigel led the first horse across without incident.  Rurik then crossed, crawling on hands and knees.  Zalman went next, and that was when the problems began.  He badly failed his balance roll, as well as his subsequent roll to activate his staff of immobility in time to catch himself.  The staff froze in place, just to the side of the trunk, but his hands slipped through it and the wizard plunged into the rapids.  Like a shot, he was hurled downstream, popping in and out of the water and completely at the river’s mercy.Amblin raced downstream, looking for a place from which to try to help fetch Zalman.  Rurik summoned a triton that tried its best to swim after him.  Nigel tried a completely different approach.  Pulling out his bow, he uttered the command word for his quiver to produce a magical rope arrow.  Taking careful aim, he fired at Zalman.  The arrow, followed by a brilliant streak of yellow light, plunked right into his friend and instantly solidified into a rope.  The resultant jerking of the arrow in Zalman’s body as Nigel wrapped the end of the rope around a handy tree was unpleasant at best for the hapless mage.  However, it did stop his progress.  The triton managed to catch up and help lift Zalman to a low-hanging branch just before it unsummoned.  Amblin leapt across the river and helped drag him the rest of the way out.  Zalman was bruised, battered and exhausted.  His new clothes were shredded.  He had been shot with an arrow by his friend.  He decided that he was having a very bad day.  Rurik arrived, pulled the arrow out, and applied a liberal dose of healing.  Zalman retrieved his staff as he very carefully made his way successfully across the river.  Nigel got the remaining horses across the river without incident and they were glad to be gone from the flooded gully.The rain lessened a bit by afternoon and was a mere sprinkle by evening.  The clouds remained dark, however, and night fell early in the region.  It was around sundown when the group finally reached High Hill’s inn.  A boy was summoned to tend to their horses.  As they entered the inn, Zalman cast a minor spell that dried them all instantly, much to everyone’s relief after days spent soaked to the bone.The inn was doing a brisk business, with many seeking haven from the foul weather.  They found the inn keep tending the bar and inquired as to rooms for the night.  He told them that they were all taken already.  The weather had holed up several out of town folk for the last couple days and a large group of men had ridden in earlier today.  This raised a couple eyebrows among the group.  Nigel then asked if the inn keep had seen the halfling with whom they had been with when the first stayed at the inn about a week earlier.  “The girl, you mean?” the inn keep asked.“Yeah,” Nigel said.“No,” the inn keep said as he dried a couple mugs.  “Can’t say I’ve seen her since about the time that you guys left town.  I thought she’d gone with you.”“Oh, I see,” Nigel said, wondering if she had actually stayed around as she said she would.“Odd you mention her,” the inn keep added.  “That group of guys that rode in earlier today were asking around about a female halfling as well.  Kinda matched the description of that one, I think.”“Really?”“Yeah.  Don’t know if they ever found her, though.”“Are these guys still around?” Nigel asked as he and his companions glanced around at the folk populating the tavern.“Yeah,” the inn keep said.  “They’re actually in the private room round back.  You know, the one you were using last week.  Say, I suppose I could rent you that room tonight if’n you’re interested.  No beds, but I could throw some spare blankets and such in there.  At least it’d be dry.”The others discussed it briefly and agreed upon a price with the owner.  They then settled at the only vacant table in the room and ordered a large, hot dinner.  Roast meats, hot bread with butter, boiled potatoes and greens.  After three wet days on the road, they savored every bite.Once dinner was complete, they huddled together around the table to discuss what to do about the “other group” that had come in to town earlier today.  It was safe to assume that they were in some way linked to the M. Goodbread who Zalman had encountered.  It was also safe to assume they were after Kisty, though from the sound of it they probably hadn’t found her yet.  Just to see how they’d react, the group asked a serving girl to send the group in the back room a round of drinks on them.  She obliged and took a large pitcher into the room.  When she came back out a moment later, a surly looking human with dark hair and an unkempt beard peered out the door until he made eye contact with the group.  The group recognized the guy by hoisting their own glasses in his direction.  He didn’t react, but merely sized them up and slowly closed the door behind him.The group waited for a while and finally decided to just play it cool for now and wait for the others to make a move.  After another trip into the back room, the same serving girl returned to the group’s table and approached Zalman.“Excuse me, sir?” she said.“Yes?” Zalman replied.“The men in the back room wanted me to ask if you were in the market for any magic rings,” she said.Zalman got a dark look.  When he had been stripped and left naked in the alley, he had lost two magic rings.  “Tell them that I don’t purchase stolen property – particularly when it’s mine.”  The girl suspected that there was some bad blood between the two groups, but agreed to carry the message back.  She went into the room but almost immediately popped back out and went up to the inn keep.Nigel, with his sharp elvish hearing, could just make out her telling the owner that the men in the back room had disappeared.  The group, having been in the back room before, knew that there were no other doors, just two medium-sized windows.  They decided to just wait them out.Next session:  The rematch!-Rybaer</blockquote>

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