An Unidentified Island in the Retic Sea, June 28th, AE 420
The three teams of assassins are led by Kwarion (the cat-headed-staff wielding man Corwin saw in an earlier scry), Glaron, and the half-orcish Tuck. Each leads two other roguish types. Tuck and Glaron’s teams approach through the mist near Aris, Brennen, Corwin, and Jovah, while Kwarion’s team shows up very near Gavin, Soldago, and Reana.
The fog is quite thick; it is difficult to see anyone past ten feet, making bowfire and distance magic difficult. The assassins get the drop on most of the party, and proceed to make them pay for it. Brennen and Aris take multiple deep dagger wounds from thrown daggers that find vital spots, and Gavin gets hit by Kwarion himself, who strikes open-handed. Meanwhile someone has cast fly on Tuck, and he swoops out of the mist to swipe at Brennen and zooms right past him to land on top of one of the columns, landing just out of sight.
Aris blasts Glaron with a lightning bolt, but the magical energy surrounding him counteracts the spell, rendering it inneffective. On the other side of the fight, Gavin strikes at Kwarion, and feels his strength ebb in return. Corwin stops by a staricase leading down from the surface, and prepares a spell.
“Hey! They’re draining me!” the former mercenary yells.
I’ve got a Mea Culpa to point out here; the spell giving the assassins their bonuses is Unholy Aura, and it only affects good aligned creatures – Gavin is the only party member who is neutral in alignment, thus he should not have been affected. We figured that out after a few rounds. But it all evens out – I forgot to have Kwarion use an item he had that would have hasted him for most of the fight!
Reana begins wailing into the rogues near her, and luckily resists the weakening effects of the unholy aura. On the far side of the fight, Brennen is less lucky, and is severely weakened. To add insult to injury, Tuck swoops down again and wacks him with his greataxe, laughing all the time. He zooms back into the fog, untouched.
At the gatehouse, Jalea can hear the commotion at the main fortress. He clears a path through his caltrops, and makes a running jump off the roof of the building, aiming for the bridge. Just as he passes the apogee of his leap, his ring of feather falling kicks in, and he lands noiselessly on the wooden bridge, tossing a few caltrops behind him as he touches down. He pauses, listening to see if anyone in the gatehouse heard him. There is no reaction. The elf runs up the bridge to the fortress to see what is going on.
Corwin fires off a magic missile or two, but they are mostly being resisted by the unholy auras. The assassins are proving tough to hit as well, though they are beginning to get whittled down by the fighters. Soldago is finding it hard to target anything; his enemies are concealed too well by the fog.
Kwarion blows a retreat signal with a whistle, and the remaining assassins pull back into the mist and away from the party. The group is fairly badly wounded, mostly from the intial sneak attacks and the effects of the unholy aura. Jovah is thinking hard about folding everyone out and coming back tomorrow.
“We’re in trouble, guys,” he says. “We’re hurt, and we haven’t even seen Kentfield or Quinn yet!”
Tucks zooms down to whack at Brennen one last time, still chortling at his strategy of spring attacking and flying. Unfortunately, Jovah and Brennen are ready for him. Jovah casts dispel magic on his fly spell, and Brennen takes a readied attack, cutting deep in the assassins hide. Tuck tries to fly away, but quickly realizes he’s on foot and seperated from his allies. He runs off into the fog, but Brennen and Aris follow him and cut him down. Jovah moves over to the staircase by Corwin
Reana sees another figure appear out of the mist. She readies her swords, but it’s only Jalea! The elf waves and grins and continues towards the center of the fortress. She shakes her head and follows Gavin, who is trying to keep up with Kwarion and the rogues.
Closer to the center of the fortress, the mist is a little less dense, and visibility is closer to fifteen feet. Gavin sees that the assassins are heading down a staircase opposite to the one that Corwin and Jovah are watching. Reana joins him, and they peer down into the misty central courtyard, which drops roughly thirty feet to a floor that they cannot see. The only way they can tell how deep it is is from several torches that light up the fog eerily. The sounds of running feet can be heard down there, somewhere.
“Hang on, Gavin,” Reana says.
She grabs him with one arm, holding her shortsword of controlling weather in the other, and jumps into the central courtyard. The feather fall property of the sword kicks in, and they float down to the bottom.
Corwin steps away from the stairway for a moment, leaving Jovah alone. The gnomish priest sees Jalea approaching, but before he has a chance to say anything the elf leaps into the open stairwell, trying to avoid the top steps entirely. Nice try, but it doesn’t work; the glyph of warding is triggered anyway. Jalea manages to tumble down the stairs and avoid damge from the loud sonic glyph, but Jovah is not so lucky and is bowled over by the thunderous roar.
The gnome shakes his head free of cobwebs, and runs down the stairs, following the elf. To back him up, or to beat him up, he’s not quite sure yet.
Reana and Gavin hit the ground at about the same time that Jalea reaches the bottom level of the courtyard. It’s three stories, with the surface level being the third story. In the center, they can dimly make out the figures of Glaron, Kwarion, Quinn, one of the other rogues, Lord Kentfield, and one other – a young woman, cloaked and unarmored. She draws two wicked looking longswords from sheathes at her side and brandishes them skillfully, twirling them and turning to face Reana and Gavin.
Quinn turns towards Jalea, and punches out towards him with his ring of the ram. The elf is sent hurtling back fifteen feet, over Jovah’s head and into a wall. Jovah can hear the crash of his friend smashing into the wall. Jalea manages to keep his footing, and staggers for a moment.
“What was I thinking?” Jalea wonders out loud. “Running into the room first should be Brennen’s job!”
The rogues and the cloaked woman fall back a little bit, to protect Quinn and Kentfield, who have their backs to a oaken door. Jovah grins.
“Don’t get too close there,” he grumbles, and calls down a flame strike on them! The fire burns away the fog in the courtyard, and Quinn look particularly unsteady. Moments later, Aris drops a fireball on them. This time, Quinn goes down. The assassins look unhurt, as does the cloaked woman. Gavin and Reana advance, and the battle is joined again.
