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Message: <blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 1513224" data-attributes="member: 9626">Good preparation will get you anywhere.  Bad preparation, well....After learning of their mission, the party took another few hours to prepare their equipment, spend the rest of the money on new items, and so on.  Time wasn’t yet a major concern, since Lerissa told them that there would be six days before the army arrived, and she was able to again provide them with teleportation to the front line.  However, slightly surprisingly, the party spent all of their new money on magical combat equipment, like better weapons, rings of protection, and so on.  Shortly after they teleported to the front line, and began to sneak through the tunnels leading to the city itself, they realized their mistake.The path they walked on was pitch black, and branched frequently.  Fortunately, they were told which paths would lead to the city, but they had no idea where any enemy patrols or guards would be stationed.  Of course, they had lights to use, but since they were attacking drow, they realized they would be obvious targets to everyone within sight of them.  But they had little choice at this point, and began their journey.  It was a surprise to no one when the first enemy patrol ambushed them.They appeared to have only one drow in the actual patrol, but he was guarded by two evil-looking wolves, and a strange hyena-like creature with a vaguely humanoid stance.  Dane charged the hyena monster, though he was more than a little worried after hearing the stories of were-creatures that served the enemy.  He nonetheless gave the creature a brutal slash into its back, but the monster responded with a bite of its own.  The drow withdrew slightly, sinking into the shadows and out of sight.  Quercus and Raz began fighting the wolves, but Raz found that his arrows were having little effect on the creatures.  Their wounds were healing as fast as they formed.  Quercus was having more luck, but by the time he reached the creatures, he could only get one swing off before the two monsters leapt out of the path of his sword.  One was a little slow, and was grazed by Quercus’ sword as it moved.  Tal targeted the hyena with magic, only to have his magic orbs vanish right in front of the monster.  Rudyard chose to help out Dane, in case it really was a lycanthrope, to make sure it died before it could potentially infect anyone else.Flix tumbled in behind Quercus, and neatly severed one of the wolf’s leg muscles, leaving it writhing on the floor.  Tsine noticed the trouble Tal had with the hyena, and focused his lightning bolt on the wolves, finishing both of them off before they could regain their balance and leap at Quercus.  Dane finished off the hyena monster as well, leaving only the drow.  For a brief second, the party searched the tunnel apprehensively, wondering if the scout fled or if he was still here.  Their question was soon answered when the drow leapt out from the shadows, blade pointed at Dane’s back!  He tried to move out of the way in time, but was a second too late, and the drow sent an expertly placed rapier wound right into his back.  The wound was agonizing, but the drow’s victory was short lived, and Quercus, Raz, and Rudyard quickly surrounded the villain and ended his life.The party carefully continued down the path, but before they could reach the city, another patrol just like the last found them.  They were able to defeat this one as easily as the last, but this time, the drow leader did not return after disappearing into the darkness.  The party waited tensely for a few minutes, but then cautiously continued on when they were not attacked.Tulivaron almost chuckled to himself.  This was too easy.  Though his patrol was wiped out, these fools clearly didn’t see him, or even know he was still there.  As they began meandering aimlessly towards the city again, he waited for the perfect moment to strike, or perhaps to sneak past them when they were distracted.Finally, later that day (if the term had any meaning this far underground,) the party neared the city.  They were entering a large chamber just in front of the city limits.  Once again, the party realized they were at a disadvantage, when chilling howls rose up all around them.  Suddenly, they were surrounded.  There was a half-dozen scrawny dogs, but the fact that they were able to fly clearly indicated that they were no ordinary dogs.  Even worse, they seemed to have a pack leader; a much larger dog-like creature, that was hidden in shadows even more than expected considering the environment.Flix was the first to realize the danger they were in.  He tumbled towards one of the six dogs, and quickly stabbed at it.  Surprised that their prey would recover and attack so quickly, the creature couldn’t avoid the blow and yelped in pain.  Quercus saw an opportunity and slashed at the same dog, finishing it quickly.  Rudyard and Raz double-teamed a second dog, while Dane slashed at a third.  A second and third dog fell to their attacks and Tal’s magic, while Tsine wounded a fourth.  However, just when things were looking up, all four of the surviving dogs howled, loudly.  The effect was terrifying.  Flix, Raz, and Dane looked at each other, with panic in their eyes.  Surely, these monsters will be the death of them!  Guided by little but fear, the three of them panicked and ran back the way they came, with Dane taking a nasty bite for the shadowy dog as he fled.  The fight suddenly looked far worse.  To make things even worse, while this was going on, a humanoid figure behind them saw his chance, and shimmied his way across the edge of the cavern.  He then made a dash for the city, eager to report the party’s arrival, just in case the dogs’ howling wasn’t enough of a warning.With half the party now gone, Quercus and Rudyard decided to focus on their most dangerous threat, the shadowy dog.  They flank the monster, and begin slashing at it.  Quercus especially gave the creature a vicious blow that sliced one of the creature’s ears off.  Meanwhile, Tsine also realized things were going badly, and used a volley of magic missiles to drop the wounded dog and a fifth one.  Tal began to fire at the last of the smaller dogs, but it wasn’t enough to finish the creature.  The dog then leapt at Tal, biting him ferociously on the neck, while the shadowy dog bit Rudyard and then dragged him to the ground.  Quercus aimed carefully at the distracted dog, and sliced into his back while Rudyard tried to crawl out of the monster’s claws.  Tsine made the effort irrelevant, as another volley of magical orbs silenced the dog, and Tal attacked the last dog with his own sword.  Though hardly an expert, his blade nonetheless pierced the creature’s heart.  As one, the four remaining heroes dashed backwards, trying to find their three friends before they got horribly lost in the dark, or even worse, were discovered by another patrol.  Fortunately, the fear of the dogs wore off in only a few moments, and the three stopped on their own volition, letting the party catch them quickly.Still, the party had little hope of entering the city unnoticed by now, and they knew it.  Realizing they had to get an idea of what was up ahead, they sent Flix out to scout.  He still couldn’t see, of course, but as they neared the city, they saw some torch fires ahead, so they hoped that would be enough.  Flix carefully began to work his way towards the city, unaware that as he did so, a shadowy figure had caught up to him going the other way, and began to trail him as he approached.  Flix knew that things were already against him when he was approaching.  So when he slipped and fell with a loud and audible clang, he realized it was time to through in the towel.  Fortunately, he was close enough at this point to at least see what was in the torchlight.  There was a wooden wall blocking the cavern, and it looked recently built.  It was guarded by more wolves, at least one drow on top of the wall, and more of the hyena monsters.  However, it sounded like there was a whole army behind the wall.  Even worse, he soon saw a drow woman riding a black horse through the sky above the wall.  The horse was leaving flaming hoof prints in the air, which Flix just knew was a bad sign.  And then, horribly, the dark, spotted-haired man also appeared on top of the wall!  Flix couldn’t risk being here any longer, so he fled back to the party.  And was being tailed as he did so, though he was unaware of it.Tulivaron was having the time of his life.  He listened with amusement as his quarry was actually briefly considering a frontal assault!  Sadly, they came to their senses and began a hasty retreat.  Despite their speed, Tulivaron was still able to follow them, and they still didn’t even know he was there!  Finally, about halfway back to their camp, they paused for a rest.  “You know,” the big stupid fighter with a sword said, “if I didn’t know better, I’d say someone was watching us arrive.”Tulivaron finally couldn’t contain himself any more.  He let out an audible chuckled before catching himself and holding a hand over his mouth.  Remarkably, the party responded instantly, looked around intently for a few moments, and then shrugged and continued on!  He had to hold both hands over his mouth as he continued trailing the party until they finally reached their camp, and then returned to the city satisfied.  It was a shame that he couldn’t have had the party wiped out before they could flee, but at least they were driven off with ease.  Let that be a lesson to the traitorous drow who abandoned their principles a millennium ago, and all who serve them!OOC Notes:  No, that really wasn’t embellished.  Well, much.  I really did try to warn them about the need to treat this as a stealth-based mission, and was amazed that they didn’t use any of their new equipment to that effect.  That being said, they really missed a lot of rolls near the end there.  Flix’s player rolled a one on his move silently check to reach the wall, and no one was ever coming close to figuring out they were being followed.  Well, they had an idea when he laughed at them, but they still couldn’t find them.Fortunately for them, they did much better the next time through.  I was afraid it would take a couple more sessions just for them to get through the front gate for a while!</blockquote>

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