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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8920577" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 16: DOUBLE HEADERPC Roster:Ageratum Purslane, halfling rogue 6             Alistair Mandelberen Pastlethwaite, human sorcerer 6             Chaevaris Noarunal, elf archer 6             Harlan Starblade, half-elf paladin 6Game Session Date: 23 January 2023 - - -Returning to the Stone Keep after their adventures in the sewers of Ghourmand Vale, the four heroes were surprised to see a trio of unfamiliar horses reined in the front of the building, along the hitching posts.  "It would seem there are visitors here," observed Harlan.Sure enough, when they entered the keep to check on Julianna and her twins, they found Father Scarborough holding the two babies as their parents embraced and spoke quietly to each other.  "I say!" declared Alistair upon seeing his brother this far from Greyhawk City.  "Atherton!  When did you arrive?""Just this morning, little brother," replied Atherton.  "The three of us."  There were two strangers standing alongside Atherton; Alistair was fairly sure he'd never seen them before, yet they did seem awfully familiar.  They were certainly nobody Alistair had met before in his previous circle of acquaintances among the Greyhawk nobility, given their rough-cut garments of fur and leather...with a start, Alistair realized where he'd seen them before.  "I say!  You're--you're the statues we rescued!"Sure enough, these were the two statues the Trained Professional Adventurers had rescued from the fishmen after the ship upon which they'd been being transported had been sunk and looted, now returned to flesh and blood.  The man stood with his arms crossed, a rather regal expression on his hard-weathered face, whereas the woman was much younger.  These, apparently, were two members of the frost barbarian tribe which lived in the colder northlands above Greyhawk City."I'd like to formally introduce you to Larson Clearspike and his daughter, Gundrun Clearspike.  I understand I have you four to thank for their rescue and return.  Well done, all.""Happy to have been of service," replied Harlan, as he started a series of handshakes all around, introducing the strangers to the members of his adventuring band.After the greetings were finished, Atherton added, "I would like to hire you to continue your rescue efforts.  You see, Larson here is the leader of his tribe, and they have been assaulted by slavers - most of his people, about thirty in all, have been captured and are being transported south.  I would like to hire you to travel back to Greyhawk with us - to include my wife, children, and Nanny Rogers - and then, once there, I will take my family and the Clearspikes north while you investigate where the slavers have taken the frost barbarian tribe members.  All we know at this point is that they were heading south from there.""When would you want to depart?" asked Chaevaris."Tomorrow, optimally - I know you'll need time to prepare for a journey of that duration.  I understand you have a wagon, correct?  We'll let my family ride in the wagon, while the Clearspikes and I ride on horseback.  I trust you all have steeds of your own?""Quite," replied Alistair, trying to impress the older brother to whom he'd always looked up.  He quietly mouthed the words to a prestidigitation spell, surreptitiously polishing his boots and cleaning his garments of any mud he might have picked up since the last time he'd used such spellcraft to enhance his appearance.The rest of the day was spent making preparations for such a long journey: the four heroes recalled it had taken them 19 days to travel via caravan from Greyhawk City to Ghourmand Vale, although they'd spent a full day tracking down a pair of kidnapped children who had been taken by hungry kobolds.  They'd need food for themselves and the animals (although Chaevaris said she'd be able to hunt plenty of animals while traveling, as she had done on the caravan), extra blankets and tents for Atherton's family and Nanny Rogers, and little odds and ends like extra axle grease for the wagon.  But they finished their provisioning by that evening, got a good night's sleep, and were on the trail not too long after sunrise the next morning.Travel back to Greyhawk City was quite different from their initial caravan; they had but the one wagon, for one thing, and a pair of very young babies who needed constant feeding and changing, and who kept odd hours - those on night watch detail often saw Julianna up with one or both of her babies at all hours of the night, getting them back to sleep.  Ageratum, Chaevaris, and Gundrun were occasionally pressed into service in rocking the babies back to sleep if they happened to be on shift, a task neither seemed to resent.  And Nanny Rogers was always there to lend a practiced hand as needed, having raised Atherton and Alistair since they had been mere babies themselves.All in all, the first week and a half on the road was pretty uneventful.  It was on the 11th night that Harlan, during the first two-hour shift of guard detail, encountered a group of four people advancing towards their overnight camp.  "Who goes there?" the half-elf called out, unsheathing his flaming burst longsword to show the newcomers he was prepared to defend himself and his companions, but also to add to the feeble light coming from the campfire, which had burned down almost to embers.  The cloudy night sky, obscuring the stars and the moons, didn't help matters."We come in peace," called out one of the four, and they cautiously entered the ring of illumination so the paladin could see them better.  They wore garments of skins and furs, and they held no weapons in their upraised hands."You look weary," Harlan observed.  "Please, sit by the fire - I'll add some firewood to keep you warm.""Thank you," replied the apparent leader of the four bedraggled men.  "We have had a hard few days."  They made themselves comfortable around the campfire and began their tale, but they only got as far as having been taken by orc slavers before Harlan interrupted them.  "I think Larson should hear this," Harlan said, and at the name of their own tribal leader the frost barbarians gasped in astonishment and cheered.  It wasn't long before the whole group had been awakened - including the twin babies, crying at the interruption of their sleep.Larson Clearspike confirmed these were part of the 30 or so tribesmen who had been captured from his tribe.  The tale they told was astonishing: the band that had attacked them had consisted of about a dozen orcs, a two-headed ettin, and their leader was an elf mage.  Some of their number had been given to the ettin as food, and he had devoured them in front of the others, which made for a very effective bit of negative reinforcement, for the elf often threatened to feed the slower slaves, those who couldn't keep up, to the ettin when they stopped.  Still, these four had managed to sneak off in the early morning, when the sun was first rising, and escaped north, bumping into the campsite quite by accident."Wait, I'm confused," said Ageratum.  "I thought the frost barbarians lived north of Greyhawk.  That's still eight days away from here.""That is correct," replied Atherton."Then what are they doing all the way out here?  That's way out of their way.  I thought we were being hired to check south of Greyhawk for the missing slaves?""It would appear the slavers' plans have changed," relied Atherton.  "Perhaps they are taking them further west than we had heard.""But I was under the impression orcs didn't like bright lights," piped up Alistair.  "Why were you all camped out overnight?  I would have thought they'd want you to travel in the night hours, so they could sleep when the sun was up.""Well, it's the elf that was calling the shots," the escaped slave replied."Still and all, it seems we should head south and track down these slavers," Alistair said.  "We can head out the first thing in the morning; if it took these four all day to get here on foot, we should hopefully be able to cover that distance in three or four hours on horseback.""Do you wish to head out now?" asked Atherton."Heavens, no!" answered Alistair, enjoying being the one with the most knowledge on a given subject for once.  "Riding our horses at night, with any speed, risks one of them breaking an ankle in a gopher hole or something.  Better we head out in the morning.  Of course, the slaves will have been moved further south by then, but we should hopefully be able to track them without too much difficulty.  Elfy here is an extraordinary tracker."  Chaevaris just squinted her eyes, debating whether she was more pleased by the young fool's compliments or displeased by the nickname "Elfy.""In addition, those of us who cast spells will require our sleep if we're to have a fresh allotment in the morning," added Harlan.  That, then, was the plan - the next morning, the group would split up, the four heroes taking one of the escaped slaves with them on horseback to retrace his steps from the previous day, while the others continued on their trek to Greyhawk City.  "Catch up with us if you can," offered Atherton, "otherwise, we'll see you in the city."The next morning, one of the escaped slaves volunteered to go with the four heroes to backtrack to where the slaver force had made camp overnight two nights ago.  The other three would return with Larson and Gundrun Clearspike to Greyhawk, accompanied by Atherton and his family.  Alistair said goodbye to his brother and sister-in-law, then gave his best regards to Nanny Rogers.  "You be careful fighting those awful slavers," she admonished the young sorcerer."It's alright, Nanny," Alistair replied, with a hint of pride in his voice.  "This is what I do now."Chaevaris offered to ride double with their barbarian scout, as she was the smallest hero who rode a full-sized horse.  They made excellent progress, and the barbarian excitedly pointed out landmarks he'd remembered passing by as they made their way north.  "We made camp in an old, abandoned mine," he told them.  "We should be getting pretty close to it.""Then let's slow down and go in carefully and quietly," suggested Harlan."Why?" argued Ageratum.  "They should have moved on yesterday morning.""Perhaps," agreed Harlan.  "Still, humor me, just in case."It turned out the paladin's hunch had been correct, for after securing their horses (leaving their barbarian guide with them) and making their way toward the mine entrance on foot, they saw five orcs spread out on guard duty, squinting in the morning sunlight.  Harlan guessed it to be about two hours before full noon, and the orcs looked none too pleased out in the open on guard duty.  The four heroes made their way to a line of trees, noting there were several sections of raised stone before the mine entrance, offering them plenty of passageways between if they wished to sneak up on the orcs."I've got a better idea," Chaevaris said in a low whisper.  "You guys stay here and be ready to charge once they figure out something's going on.  I'm going to head off to the right and see if I can't pick them off, one by one."  And with that, the elven archer ducked and moved half a hundred feet to her right, positioning herself behind a tree where she could see all five of the bestial guards.  Nocking her first arrow into place, she sighted down her bow and targeted the orc at the farthest point on the right.  He looked to be armed the same as the others, with a falchion and a javelin.  Taking in a deep breath and holding it, she let fly with her arrow, and it went whizzing silently a hundred feet or more to bury itself into the orc's throat.  He fell over and died with barely a gurgle.But the leftmost orc was about 60 feet closer to the heroes than the others, who were all bunched up at the mine entrance, and he had apparently seen Chaevaris's arrow come flying from the trees.  "Guys!" he cried, "We got attackers!"  He held his javelin ready to throw, but squinted into the sunlight, trying to pick out a target.At that, one of the orcs turned and made as if to enter the mines, no doubt to warn the others.  But Alistair was ready for him; standing up from behind a rock, he cast a magic missile spell that struck the orc in the back and sent him face-first onto the ground, dead.One of the other orcs leaped down from his higher ground and ran along a channel towards the heroes.  Chaevaris was able to track him with her next arrow, though, and it buried itself in the side of the brute's head.  He died without even knowing what had hit him.Alistair raced forward, running along a channel between the raised rocks on either side of him.  Ambrose flew alongside him, keeping low so as not to be a target for any of the remaining orcs' javelins.  As a result, the sorcerer didn't get to see Ageratum's first use of his new stratagem: days earlier, he had found a couple decent-sized boulders during their travels and cast shrink item on them, then gave them to the little halfling for safekeeping.  She kept them in a separate pouch, all by themselves, so she wouldn't get them mixed up with her other sling ammunition.  But now she loaded one of these magic stones into her sling and fired it off at the orc who had shouted out a warning.  The sling bullet struck the orc in the forehead, and then, as per the specifics of the spell, was immediately restored to its normal size upon impact.  As the initial strike had caused the orc to fall backwards a step, the boulder returned to its original size and immediately fell upon the orc's chest, crushing him beneath its weight.  Of the four orcs taken down thus far, he was the only one within range of the Blood Mirror and thus while he was unconscious, his wounds were stabilized by the magic gemstone Harlan kept upon his person.  (The other three orcs were quite dead.)That left only a single orc still on guard duty, but seeing his companions taken out so quickly, he wasted no time in turning tail and running into the mine entrance, disappearing from view.  "Drat!" cried Alistair.  "He'll alert the others!""That may be for the best," returned Harlan.  "Fighting them out in the sunlight works to our advantage."  Now that their presence was already known, he unsheathed his flaming burst longsword and mentally set the blade ablaze.  He then ran up to meet the reinforcements when they came spilling out of the mine entrance.He didn't have long to wait.  From the mine entrance spilled out half a dozen more orcs ready for battle, trailed by the one who had ran inside to fetch them; he dawdled a bit behind his brethren, already knowing how dangerous these attackers were.  Alistair proved his point by sending another magic missile spell striking the first out of the mines right in the face, dropping him like a stone.  By this time, Harlan had moved up enough that the Blood Mirror stabilized his wounds as well.Ageratum was moving up as well, but unlike Harlan she wasn't charging straight into battle; she ran along the left side of the area before the mines, taking the time to stop by the orc she'd knocked out with her pebble-boulder and slitting his throat with her dagger.  She knew the Blood Mirror didn't discriminate about who it stabilized, and the little halfling was determined to ensure those that should have died actually did.Harlan charged the nearest orc, slicing him across the torso with his flaming blade, dropping him with a single stroke.  The other six orcs all made for the half-elf, screaming curses, but then one of them screamed even louder as an arrow buried itself in his gut and he fell over, dead, before reaching the paladin.  But Harlan was quickly beset by three orcs, and he was unable to deflect all of their attacks with his shield; one of the brutes' falchions got past his defenses and cut into the half-orc's flesh.  However, if they thought a paladin of Pelor could be taken down by a single blow when there were slaves to be rescued, he'd show them the error of their ways!At that moment, the half-elf saw another orc exit from the mine opening and behind him came a two-headed figure rising heads and shoulders above the orcs.  So this was the ettin - let him come and taste his burning steel!Alistair blasted another orc with a magic missile spell, glad to see he could take out an orc with every spell cast; he'd save his more powerful wand if needed against the ettin.  Harlan cut down one of the orcs before him and then cleaved to the side, bringing down a second in as many seconds.  There were now five orcs and an ettin on the battlefield; somewhere there was supposed to be an elven mage in the mix, but he had yet to show himself.Chaevaris, still back behind the tree from which she'd started sniping at the orcs, set another arrow in place and lined up her shot against the ettin; not sure if a head-shot would kill a two-headed creature, she opted to aim for the creature's heart - surely he had only one of those!The last orc to arrive couldn't wait to get into hand-to-hand combat range; he threw his javelin at Harlan, catching the paladin in the shoulder.  The ettin approached Harlan as well, a massive spiked club held in each beefy hand, but then Chaevaris let fly with her arrow and it buried itself into his chest.  He roared in pain, but remained standing; these ettins were a lot tougher than the orcs accompanying it.At that point, unknown to any of the heroes, the elven mage - one Elessair Oronar, the head of this slaver party - exited the mine entrance and made his way out onto the battlefield, veering far enough away from Harlan and the orcs that he wouldn't get caught up in their melee.  But he was secure in the knowledge that he'd had his battle-eager lackeys engage the enemy long enough for him to have cast upon himself the spells mage armor, shield, protection from good, and most importantly, the invisibility spell that kept anyone from knowing of his presence among them.Alistair pulled out his wand and fired off a shot at the ettin, figuring the brute was worth sending five missiles to do the job instead of the three he could muster on his own.  The ettin screamed and cursed with two different throats at the unexpected assault, but didn't let the pain distract him from his chosen melee target, Harlan Starblade.By this time, Ageratum had moved up - completely unnoticed by any of the slaver party - close enough for her to throw one of her kobold spears when a target presented itself.  She held the pose, ready to throw, waiting for her moment.Harlan saw the evil intent in both pairs of the ettin's eyes and backed up, taking a moment to heal himself with a laying on of hands, allowing Pelor's healing power to flow through his fingertips and seal up the worst of his cuts.  This also meant he'd delayed the ettin's eventual attacks by a few seconds, which the paladin well knew could often be the turning point in any battle.  One of the orcs raced up at Harlan, but before he could cross the distance Ageratum had found her moment and took him down with her thrown spear.But then the ettin charged, moving much faster than the half-elf had given him credit for.  Chaevaris took her shot, hitting him in the side by one armpit as he ran, but he remained upright and his spiked clubs came smashing in at Harlan, dealing an impressive amount of damage.  But just as the ettin refused to fall, so too did Harlan.  He just grinned up at the two-headed brute, a trickle of blood running down his lip, likely from a punctured lung.A blast of flame went whizzing past Alistair's head, close enough for him to feel the heat of the blast.  He recognized it as a scorching ray and looked about for the attacker.  There he was, a mere 15 feet or so from him - the blighter must have been invisible!  The sorcerer was sorely tempted to respond in kind, to see how the elven spellcaster liked a taste of his own medicine, but he'd fumbled the spell twice in a row when fighting those fishmen and feared he might do the same this time.  Seeing his hesitation, Chaevaris called out, "Take down the ettin first, Alistair!  Harlan can handle the wizard!"Trusting that the elven archer was better versed in combat than he was, Alistair ignored the suddenly-visible elf before him and shot another magic missile barrage from his wand at the ettin.  That did the trick; four eyes crossed on the giant's faces and he fell over to the ground, merely unconscious due to the nearness of the Blood Mirror.  But Ageratum was there in a moment to take care of that issue, leaping upon the ettin's back and stabbing her short sword through his kidneys, killing him for good.  And then, proving Chaevaris's recommendation to be absolutely true, Harlan charged at Elessair and ran him through with his flaming blade, piercing him through the belly such that the point of his sword projected out of the mage's back.  When Harlan pulled his flaming blade back out, the elven mage tried for a moment to cast a spell at the half-elf but then collapsed at his feet like a marionette with its strings severed.Alistair cast a detect magic spell and examined the dead mage's body as Harlan ran off to engage the remaining orcs.  Sure enough, he had a magic amulet of some sort around his neck, which Alistair removed as spoils of war.  He also took the masterwork rapier from the elf's belt; Alistair already had two but this one was rather nicely made, and the elven slaver certainly had no further use for it.  He felt for a pulse while he was at it, but Harlan's blade had apparently done more damage than even the Blood Mirror was able to handle.Ageratum made herself useful moving from orc body to orc body, slitting throats where necessary, after first checking that Harlan's attention was on taking down the remaining orcs.  You never knew with paladins - sometimes their morals stopped them from doing what was arguably right.  She waited until he had gone inside the mine entrance to see about freeing the slaves before she dispatched the last few he had taken down.The enemy forces slain, Chaevaris finally moved up to join the others.  "That was a refreshing change!" she exclaimed.  "I don't often get to put my sniper skills to much use!"There was movement over at the mine entrance, causing Alistair to ready another magic missile spell, but it was only Harlan returning with just over a dozen slaves.  They wore the same types of hides as the four who had come to the heroes' campsite the night before.  "There are nine dead frost barbarians inside here," Harlan said gravely.  "We'll need to build a pyre - it's the way of their people.""I'll get right on that," Chaevaris promised, pulling a hatchet from her belt and heading back to the trees."Are we going to burn these others?" asked Alistair, looking at the bodies of the orcs, the elven mage, and the ettin."The slavers?" scoffed Harlan.  "No, those we let rot under Pelor's rays."  It was the answer Alistair had been hoping to hear. - - -We've figured out that with 14 frost barbarians traveling with us on foot, we'll never catch up to the others on horseback and in the wagon in time, so we'll have to meet up with Alistair and the Clearspikes at Greyhawk City.  Dan has hinted that Atherton will be hosting a dinner party there at his house, inviting both Alistair and their father, Lord Ambrose Pastlethwaite, which will bring my PC's backstory to a close.  That ought to be interesting.</blockquote>

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