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<blockquote data-quote="Rybaer" data-source="post: 373731" data-attributes="member: 118"><p>Session #13.3 – The No-win Situation</p><p></p><p></p><p>The group collected up their gear and thanked Jonas and the rest of the Thunder Guild for their help and hospitality. Shortly after sunrise, they were mounted up and on their way. They expected to be going cross-country for the entire first day as they cut southeast toward the road between High Hill and Unicorn Valley. The terrain was gentle hills, mostly grass covered, with frequent pockets of light woods.</p><p></p><p>Hooty flew well above and ahead of the party, scouting for anything unsavory. Amlin, walking on foot with his new dog, generally led the rest of the party by a hundred yards or more. Everyone else stuck close together on horseback.</p><p></p><p>During the first day on the road, Hooty spotted a pair of hill giants and a small group of dozing trolls. The familiar easily routed them around any encounter. They passed the first night away uneventfully in one of Zalman’s conjured huts.</p><p></p><p>The second day on the road proved to be a bit more exciting. By mid-morning, they found the road and started heading east toward Unicorn Valley. They were already a little bit beyond the spot where they had come upon the Shadow and his thugs ambushing a wagon several months back. On the south side of the road, the woods were considerably denser and the open grassy hills all but disappeared.</p><p></p><p>For half the day they traveled and met no one. Hooty was taking a rest break on Zalman’s shoulder when crashing sounds in the woods to their right jolted everyone out of their thoughts.</p><p></p><p>Moments later, a rather large hydra burst out of the woods and onto the road, almost exactly halfway between Amblin and the rest of the group. It immediately charged the majority of the group and it was all they could do to keep to the saddles of their shaken mounts. Rurik, in fact, was thrown from his horse, which immediately bolted in the opposite direction. The dwarf, realizing that he wouldn’t be able to outrun the beast, quickly drew his axe and shield.</p><p></p><p>Zalman didn’t like the situation or their odds. Through his study of monster lore, he knew that there are several different species of hydra and that each has different immunities and means by which best combat it. He was completely unable to tell what kind this one is, though…aside from being very large and having eight heads. (Fumbled Knowledge: Monsters roll.)</p><p></p><p>Amblin ordered his barking dog to stay put. The monk then closed the hundred-foot distance between him and the hydra in a single leap, delivering a sharp kick to the creature’s back. He fondly recalled the stunning blow he had planted on a hydra-like creature on the demi-plane of time and was looking to recreate that bit of history.</p><p></p><p>Nigel and Bommer both dismounted. Nigel quickly fit an arrow in Star Slayer and let the arrow fly right into the base of one of the creature’s necks where it crackled with released electricity. The hydra seemed largely unconcerned, however, and continued to bear down on Rurik. Bommer, giving the creature a wide berth, circled around to the backside where he hoped he’d be able to find an opening to the creature’s spine.</p><p></p><p>Zalman stayed on his mount. He wanted to be able to flee quickly if this fight turned against them. He directed Hooty to scan the rest of the area to make sure nothing else was going to join the fight. In the meantime, he moved his horse off the road a bit to get a safe angle from which to hit the hydra with a lightning bolt. Much to his dismay, the hydra scarcely flinched. He was getting a very bad feeling about this fight.</p><p></p><p>Rurik endured the first couple snapping bites of the hydra and then stepped up close so that his axe could reach the base of the creature’s necks. He swung Sleet hard and felt it cleave through one of the necks, dropping one of the eight heads to the ground. He immediately hacked away at another head, but only grazed it. The wound almost instantly closed up. Rurik made mental note to himself – it was all or nothing on each attack he made, either the head came off or it would just heal.</p><p></p><p>Amblin continued to spring in and out of the hydra’s reach, each time planting a hard kick to the hydra’s body in hopes of stunning it. The creature seemed very resilient to the attacks, though, and only a couple heads even bothered to peer around at the disturbance.</p><p></p><p>Bommer soon joined Amblin around the creature’s backside and tried to stab it several times in areas that looked soft and weak. His short sword bit into the hydra’s flesh repeatedly, but each time the wound simply closed up. It did annoy the hydra enough than a couple of the heads reached around the back and snapped at him.</p><p></p><p>Nigel continued to pepper the hydra with electrically charged arrows. He soon came to the realization that the hydra was completely oblivious to them. As much as he didn’t want to close into melee with the beast, it was becoming clear that chopping off heads was going to be the only way to bring it down. He shouldered Star Slayer and drew out the long sword that he was using until the day that he recovered his flaming long sword from the Shadow.</p><p></p><p>Zalman continued to hit the hydra with a variety of spells, hoping to find something that would bother it. In the back of his mind, though, he was wracking his memory for details on how to slay these things.</p><p></p><p>Rurik’s heavy armor and magic shield saved his life, protecting him from the worst of the hydra’s attacks. Several had gotten through, however, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand toe-to-toe with the hydra for much longer. Retreating would just give it more chances to snap at him, so he chose to stick it out and hack away some more. Sleet swung true and another head dropped. He really wished there was someone else in the thick of things with him, if for nothing else than the moral support. He really missed Boaz at that moment. The new guy, Amill, would probably have been a great deal of help with that big falchion. Too bad he was in his utterly useless ethereal phase right now.</p><p></p><p>Nigel finally closed in to give Rurik a hand. He managed to hack through one of the creature’s necks, bringing it down to just five. Two heads bit back at him in return and Nigel gritted his teeth in pain. It was going to be a tough fight, the elf knew, but as the heads continued to fall it would get easier quickly. Then something happened that caused him to almost panic – from out of one of the severed stumps, two new heads sprouted out. Almost immediately, these new heads joined the fray of snapping and biting.</p><p></p><p>Rurik hadn’t missed the growth of the new heads. While he was busy trying to lop off another one, two more heads sprouted from another of the stumps. The creature had started with eight heads. They’d whittled it down to five, but now it had nine and presumably a couple more on the way from the third stump.</p><p></p><p>“Zalman!” Rurik yelled. “How the hell do we kill this thing!?” He felt a bit of panic welling up from within as well.</p><p></p><p>Zalman was frustrated at the mental block he was experiencing over how to deal with this type of hydra. He was pretty sure that all of the heads had to be removed simultaneously. He also thought there was a way to prevent new ones from growing back, but the mechanism eluded him. Acid? Fire?</p><p></p><p>“I really think we need to flee!” Zalman said. He knew they didn’t have the time to find out the means by which they could drop the beast. Even if fire or acid would cauterize the stumps, he had only one Fireball and one Melf’s Acid Arrow memorized. That wouldn’t be enough to handle all the heads. Until his friends could get clear, however, he fired an Acid Arrow at the remaining stump where it sizzled and popped.</p><p></p><p>Rurik was taking a pounding, and Nigel had taken a few bad bites already. In spite of Zalman’s call to flee, they were both too close to it to safely withdraw. Amblin and Bommer both continued to hammer it from the backside, but to no avail. Two more heads were severed, but more just kept coming back. During a moment when there were two exposed stumps, Zalman cast his one Fireball spell. He targeted toward the backside of the hydra, in hopes of keeping Rurik and Nigel out of the spell’s area. He knew that Bommer and Amblin were both quite adept at rolling out of the way of harmful spells. The fireball went off and successfully cauterized two more stumps.</p><p></p><p>In spite of their minor success, the hydra still had eight heads and as much bloodthirsty energy as it had started the fight with. Rurik and Nigel were in bad shape. The dwarf finally had to pull back far enough to heal himself a bit. Nigel suffered a few more bites in the meantime, though, and was at risk of being taken down.</p><p></p><p>“That’s all I’ve got for useful spells, guys!” Zalman called. “I’m leaving now. I suggest you all do the same.” He was frustrated that his companions hadn’t made more of an effort to retreat. True to his word, though, Zalman turned his horse around and started to head off.</p><p></p><p>Amblin told Bommer to pull back and get to one of the horses. Amblin, of anyone in the group, was in the least amount of danger from the hydra due to his incredible speed and mobility. Bommer heeded Amblin’s advice and hurried back to the horse he shared with Nigel.</p><p></p><p>Rurik stepped back into the fray long enough to plant a curative spell on Nigel, then the two of them fled from the hydra as quickly as they could. Nigel let Rurik hop on his own horse with Bommer while he ran along on foot. Amblin stayed back long enough to taunt the hydra off of his companions, and then he too fled, calling his dog after him.</p><p></p><p>For some time the group fled on horseback down the road to the west, back toward High Hill. They were encouraged by the fact that the hydra was pretty slow on its feet and Hooty reported that after a while it lost interest in pursuit and had wandered back into the woods. Rather than press on for the day, they found a secluded spot well off the road and made an early camp. The encounter with the hydra had drained them and they needed time to rest and recover.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Next session: A lead to the Shadow's lair, and unexpected residents.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Rybaer, post: 373731, member: 118"] Session #13.3 – The No-win Situation The group collected up their gear and thanked Jonas and the rest of the Thunder Guild for their help and hospitality. Shortly after sunrise, they were mounted up and on their way. They expected to be going cross-country for the entire first day as they cut southeast toward the road between High Hill and Unicorn Valley. The terrain was gentle hills, mostly grass covered, with frequent pockets of light woods. Hooty flew well above and ahead of the party, scouting for anything unsavory. Amlin, walking on foot with his new dog, generally led the rest of the party by a hundred yards or more. Everyone else stuck close together on horseback. During the first day on the road, Hooty spotted a pair of hill giants and a small group of dozing trolls. The familiar easily routed them around any encounter. They passed the first night away uneventfully in one of Zalman’s conjured huts. The second day on the road proved to be a bit more exciting. By mid-morning, they found the road and started heading east toward Unicorn Valley. They were already a little bit beyond the spot where they had come upon the Shadow and his thugs ambushing a wagon several months back. On the south side of the road, the woods were considerably denser and the open grassy hills all but disappeared. For half the day they traveled and met no one. Hooty was taking a rest break on Zalman’s shoulder when crashing sounds in the woods to their right jolted everyone out of their thoughts. Moments later, a rather large hydra burst out of the woods and onto the road, almost exactly halfway between Amblin and the rest of the group. It immediately charged the majority of the group and it was all they could do to keep to the saddles of their shaken mounts. Rurik, in fact, was thrown from his horse, which immediately bolted in the opposite direction. The dwarf, realizing that he wouldn’t be able to outrun the beast, quickly drew his axe and shield. Zalman didn’t like the situation or their odds. Through his study of monster lore, he knew that there are several different species of hydra and that each has different immunities and means by which best combat it. He was completely unable to tell what kind this one is, though…aside from being very large and having eight heads. (Fumbled Knowledge: Monsters roll.) Amblin ordered his barking dog to stay put. The monk then closed the hundred-foot distance between him and the hydra in a single leap, delivering a sharp kick to the creature’s back. He fondly recalled the stunning blow he had planted on a hydra-like creature on the demi-plane of time and was looking to recreate that bit of history. Nigel and Bommer both dismounted. Nigel quickly fit an arrow in Star Slayer and let the arrow fly right into the base of one of the creature’s necks where it crackled with released electricity. The hydra seemed largely unconcerned, however, and continued to bear down on Rurik. Bommer, giving the creature a wide berth, circled around to the backside where he hoped he’d be able to find an opening to the creature’s spine. Zalman stayed on his mount. He wanted to be able to flee quickly if this fight turned against them. He directed Hooty to scan the rest of the area to make sure nothing else was going to join the fight. In the meantime, he moved his horse off the road a bit to get a safe angle from which to hit the hydra with a lightning bolt. Much to his dismay, the hydra scarcely flinched. He was getting a very bad feeling about this fight. Rurik endured the first couple snapping bites of the hydra and then stepped up close so that his axe could reach the base of the creature’s necks. He swung Sleet hard and felt it cleave through one of the necks, dropping one of the eight heads to the ground. He immediately hacked away at another head, but only grazed it. The wound almost instantly closed up. Rurik made mental note to himself – it was all or nothing on each attack he made, either the head came off or it would just heal. Amblin continued to spring in and out of the hydra’s reach, each time planting a hard kick to the hydra’s body in hopes of stunning it. The creature seemed very resilient to the attacks, though, and only a couple heads even bothered to peer around at the disturbance. Bommer soon joined Amblin around the creature’s backside and tried to stab it several times in areas that looked soft and weak. His short sword bit into the hydra’s flesh repeatedly, but each time the wound simply closed up. It did annoy the hydra enough than a couple of the heads reached around the back and snapped at him. Nigel continued to pepper the hydra with electrically charged arrows. He soon came to the realization that the hydra was completely oblivious to them. As much as he didn’t want to close into melee with the beast, it was becoming clear that chopping off heads was going to be the only way to bring it down. He shouldered Star Slayer and drew out the long sword that he was using until the day that he recovered his flaming long sword from the Shadow. Zalman continued to hit the hydra with a variety of spells, hoping to find something that would bother it. In the back of his mind, though, he was wracking his memory for details on how to slay these things. Rurik’s heavy armor and magic shield saved his life, protecting him from the worst of the hydra’s attacks. Several had gotten through, however, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand toe-to-toe with the hydra for much longer. Retreating would just give it more chances to snap at him, so he chose to stick it out and hack away some more. Sleet swung true and another head dropped. He really wished there was someone else in the thick of things with him, if for nothing else than the moral support. He really missed Boaz at that moment. The new guy, Amill, would probably have been a great deal of help with that big falchion. Too bad he was in his utterly useless ethereal phase right now. Nigel finally closed in to give Rurik a hand. He managed to hack through one of the creature’s necks, bringing it down to just five. Two heads bit back at him in return and Nigel gritted his teeth in pain. It was going to be a tough fight, the elf knew, but as the heads continued to fall it would get easier quickly. Then something happened that caused him to almost panic – from out of one of the severed stumps, two new heads sprouted out. Almost immediately, these new heads joined the fray of snapping and biting. Rurik hadn’t missed the growth of the new heads. While he was busy trying to lop off another one, two more heads sprouted from another of the stumps. The creature had started with eight heads. They’d whittled it down to five, but now it had nine and presumably a couple more on the way from the third stump. “Zalman!” Rurik yelled. “How the hell do we kill this thing!?” He felt a bit of panic welling up from within as well. Zalman was frustrated at the mental block he was experiencing over how to deal with this type of hydra. He was pretty sure that all of the heads had to be removed simultaneously. He also thought there was a way to prevent new ones from growing back, but the mechanism eluded him. Acid? Fire? “I really think we need to flee!” Zalman said. He knew they didn’t have the time to find out the means by which they could drop the beast. Even if fire or acid would cauterize the stumps, he had only one Fireball and one Melf’s Acid Arrow memorized. That wouldn’t be enough to handle all the heads. Until his friends could get clear, however, he fired an Acid Arrow at the remaining stump where it sizzled and popped. Rurik was taking a pounding, and Nigel had taken a few bad bites already. In spite of Zalman’s call to flee, they were both too close to it to safely withdraw. Amblin and Bommer both continued to hammer it from the backside, but to no avail. Two more heads were severed, but more just kept coming back. During a moment when there were two exposed stumps, Zalman cast his one Fireball spell. He targeted toward the backside of the hydra, in hopes of keeping Rurik and Nigel out of the spell’s area. He knew that Bommer and Amblin were both quite adept at rolling out of the way of harmful spells. The fireball went off and successfully cauterized two more stumps. In spite of their minor success, the hydra still had eight heads and as much bloodthirsty energy as it had started the fight with. Rurik and Nigel were in bad shape. The dwarf finally had to pull back far enough to heal himself a bit. Nigel suffered a few more bites in the meantime, though, and was at risk of being taken down. “That’s all I’ve got for useful spells, guys!” Zalman called. “I’m leaving now. I suggest you all do the same.” He was frustrated that his companions hadn’t made more of an effort to retreat. True to his word, though, Zalman turned his horse around and started to head off. Amblin told Bommer to pull back and get to one of the horses. Amblin, of anyone in the group, was in the least amount of danger from the hydra due to his incredible speed and mobility. Bommer heeded Amblin’s advice and hurried back to the horse he shared with Nigel. Rurik stepped back into the fray long enough to plant a curative spell on Nigel, then the two of them fled from the hydra as quickly as they could. Nigel let Rurik hop on his own horse with Bommer while he ran along on foot. Amblin stayed back long enough to taunt the hydra off of his companions, and then he too fled, calling his dog after him. For some time the group fled on horseback down the road to the west, back toward High Hill. They were encouraged by the fact that the hydra was pretty slow on its feet and Hooty reported that after a while it lost interest in pursuit and had wandered back into the woods. Rather than press on for the day, they found a secluded spot well off the road and made an early camp. The encounter with the hydra had drained them and they needed time to rest and recover. Next session: A lead to the Shadow's lair, and unexpected residents. [/QUOTE]
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