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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Skyscraper" data-source="post: 3329538" data-attributes="member: 48518">Freeing alliesThe PCs wanted to free some prisoners emprisoned in a small castle in the middle of nowhere.  So they set out to go there, the same group as before plus one and minus one, namely:The PCs (level 6):Thorak: male dwarf fighter (with one level of barbarian)Yorrick: male human rogue (with one level of fighter)Iaroslav: male human clericKrapounia: female human barbarian 3/sorceress 3Three NPC allies:Olaf: male human fighter 5Volchenkov: male human fighter 3/wizard 3Eben: female human druid 4They leave their horses in the forest nearby, together with the druid's trained wolf animal companion (not too close to the horses), and decide to infiltrate the castle at night.  It is presumably very lightly guarded for reasons i won't go into, so they figure that they can handle whoever will be in there.  Their group is now a bit stronger than before, and they feel confident [Smile]So they leave heavy armor with the horses and cross the sandy field that surrounds the castle, spotting a guard on the walkway of the surrounding wall as they approach under a starry sky, making their way when when the sentry has disappeared on the other side.  They arrive at the moat, cross it swimming, and then the cleric casts the spell "stone shape" to make a hole in the wall through which they can crawl into the castle's courtyard.  There, they walk all the way around the castle, and climb up on a balcony overlooking the courtyard, but are spotted in the process by an elf guard that has low-light vision and can see at night.  So as they are scramling onto the balcony, one then two bells start ringing as the alarm is raised.Since they're already there, they figure they'll just head inside and see what happens.So they hack at the door of the balcony until it's destroyed in short order, and they run inside the room.  One of the PCs casts a light spell, and they find themselves into a richly decorated living room from which stairs go up (they thought there wasn't anything higher), and a pair of doors are also present in the room.  One leads into a closet and they find a trap door in the floor, and block the other door with a very heavy wooden table.  They then go down into the closet trap door.They move around the castle through secondary passages, which allows them to go down a couple of storeys without hindrance.  They figure the prisons must be either underground (which is where they are) or in the large dungeon tower.  They decide to try to find underground prisons first since this is where the passages lead them.The castle includes at its center a great hall that spans three storeys with a massive wooden staircase that leads from one floor to the other in a central hole made in the second and third floors.  So there is essentially a ground floor and two rectancular balconies that overlook the ground floor, with the staircase in the middle. Anyway, i'll come back to this later, but they cross this important area of the castle as they make their way and eventually find a temple.  There, they decide to take the time to loot (tempting, isn't it? [Smile] ), which gives time to their opponents to gather in the castle and organize their search of the PCs.While they're in the temple, a couple of guards find them.  They're easily killed, but not before they shout that they've found the intruders!So the PCs leave the temple and find the prisons that were not so far off on the same floor.  The lone night prison guard surrenders and the PCs make their way to the prison cells, but find their occupants drugged and unable to walk.  Bummer.  So they decide to take the castle by force.  Hehe [Smile]Out of the prisons section, they're back on the ground floor in the central hall with the staircase and balconies, but they have to retreat from there because they're under fire from crossbowmen and an expert archer from above, that they can barely see in the dark.  Plus, there are apparently a couple of spell casters there too.They retreat back towards the temple portion of the castle, thinking they can go back up through the secondary helical staircase they arrived from, but find a group of opponents guarding it too.  They manage to kill this small group, and go up those stairs.This is where the main group of opponents, the heads of the castle, are waiting, since this portion connects to the central staircase portion.  There are three ways out of the temple part of the castle where the PCs are: through the main castle door where a first group of ennemies is located; through the central hall where the archers are; and through the helical staircase, then back towards the luxurious living room they arrived in.  So they opt for the latter option, figuring they know the way and won't suffer the archers (they already have a bit).Up they go, and start to fight in close quarters in a narrow corridor where one of the ennemy groups awaited them in ambush.  The PCs saw them, and decided to take the fight to them.  It rapidly becomes very complex, as the narrow corridor makes it very difficult to manoeuvre for everyone.  The biggest problem being that their cleric has a hard time moving to heal the frontline dwarf fighter who's fighting a number of opponents, including a tough old warrior with long grey-white hair that fights with a big warhammer and large shield.To make things worse, they get caught from behind as the expert archer from the central staircase and a powerful cleric (also from the same spot) with a couple of soldiers hit their rear line, while a female wizard joins the old warrior up front with soldiers there too.  They know the archer well as he's been a recurring vilain to some extent, likewise with the cleric.  The wizard is the baronness and head of the ennemies, and also the daughter of a now-dead baron killed by the PCs.  Almost a family reunion.The fight does not turn out well for them at all, caught in a trap between the ennemies that had time to organize themselves.  Olaf the human fighter dies at the rear guard, and the druid and fighter-wizard retreat to find the others putting down their weapons as they yield before a stronger opponent. The dwarf is unconsious but not dead.The human rogue and the druid both manage to escape, while the others are put into the prison cells.However, the battle took its toll on the castle troops, that now number only slightly more than a dozen, counting every fighting body. That's about half their initial number.  They figure they might have some visit from the escapees, so they increase the guard a bit, but a castle is a big construction for 15 people to guard day and night.Sure enough, the next night the rogue and the druid come back to rescue their comrades.  They find the sorceress and the dwarf in the prison cells, but the others are drugged (the two former resisted the drug up to now). When they try to get out, however, they're spotted by the ennemy archer that is walking around, guarding the place (he's an elvish ranger/rogue with a wolf companion).  The archer attacks them in the central hall, from an overlooking balcony, and his first full attack brings down and kills the cleric (who's drugs have been neutralized by a spell from the druid).  He then continues to rain arrows down on his ennemies, that try to find cover as best they can.  The archer's wolf also engages them in melee.The dwarf and sorceress take care of the wolf and one guard to escape through the door, while the druid (now played as a PC by an invited friend) throws a number of oil flasks that she had arranged before entering the castle into a sort of cocktail molotov.  Her throw strikes next ot the archer, but he's splashed by some burning oil and the baclony is set afire.  Most importantly, his retreat option through a nearby door is cut off.  He still manages to continue sniping from where he is , gradually moving away from the fire and eventually killing the druid PC/NPC too. However, the fire did its damage, and the archer eventually decides that it's time to flee as he is now weak and he sees his ennemies fleeing on their own side and doesn't want to run after them.  However, the rogue sees him fleeing and decides to let his comrades run. With his spider climb potion active, he moves up the main staircase super silently along a support column, hiding in the dimly litted corners, and manages to kill the fleeing archer with a devastating, sneaky point blank shot from his short composite bow as the archer was going to leave through another door.The dwarf, the sorceress and the rogue then ran out of the castle while the fire inside was dealt with by its occupants.  They also managed to carry out one of the ten other prisoners found in the castle prisons, a female rogue NPC.  However, the price to pay was heavy indeed: two of the NPCs that have been allies of the PCs from the start are dead, and one PC too.That entire game sequence (three game sessions overall) was quite something.Sky</blockquote>

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