Following our hard-fought battle with the bandits, we back-tracked and found Allustan, Chloe and her mother. To our very great surprise, Allustan was leaning heavily against a tree, with the corpses of four more bandits lying at his feet. He had, apparently, been ambushed. When we asked him carefully what had happened, and how he was able to defeat these men (who, on closer inspection looked far less equipped and scrawnier) without any offensive spells available to him.
Looking sheepish, Allustan admitted that he had a small collection of scrolls – or he did have; the scrolls were almost entirely used up when he was ambushed by the bandits.
Whilst we dragged the bodies into the ditch (pocketing any small items of gold and trinkets as we did so), we muttered amongst ourselves about what spells the mage might possibly have prepared, with no spells of travel, divination or offense, and he hadn’t offered to prepare any of us for the battle at all. We resolved to let him borrow Endo’s spellbook that evening.
.oOo.
We pressed on towards the fort, and a little after lunch were told by Allustan that we were now only half a mile from our destination. The land around us was getting swampier between intermittent hills, and as we rode on we noticed a large number of flies, together with the tang of smoke and blood on the air. As we rounded another hill, sounds of open conflict reached our ears. Endo’s raven was sent up to investigate, and returned a few minutes later to tell us that the keep was under siege by a small army of lizardmen; some 25-50 of the green creatures were ringed around the fortress.
We dismounted, and walked the horses forwards, whilst Flynne dashed up before disappearing into the undergrowth. His report was more detailed. The fort was a spire protruding from a false hill, and its door was on the far side of the hill from us. On the hill itself were a number of wooden stakes to stop a force advancing on it.
A short distance from the fort itself lay a corale for horses, whose door lay open and a dismembered horse was lying in the gateway. Dotted around the keep were 8 groups of lizardmen, each with either 5 or 6 members armed with clubs and javelins. The lizardmen ignored the keep’s occasional flurry of arrowfire, and were plainly content eating the corpse of one of the soldiers they had butchered in their initial assault.
Flynne crept around the whole perimeter of the lizard camps, learning that 2 of the groups had larger and stronger looking lizards within them, and a third group had a lizardman clad in green robes accompanying them.
.oOo.
Upon Flynne’s return, we discussed our options, and learned that Allustan did have a spell which could assist us – we could cast a spell of mystical sending to give a message to the wizard within the fort. Scratching our heads to limit ourselves to a 25 word limit Allustan set upon the message, we decided to send her a message to say: -
“Myself and 4 adventurers outside. Resources low, propose waiting until morning. How serious is your situation? Raven will carry further messages. Reply 25 words.”
The wizard at the other end of the spell was plainly not familiar with its use, and also didn’t understand the last part of our message. “Lizard lair. Caught,” came the reply. We stared at one another in mute incomprehension.
.oOo.
Whilst the rest of us made a brief camp to try to recover spells if we could, Flynne crept in closer to the lizard camps; he heard them discussing their options, and that they planned to attack at nightfall. One of the lizards expressed concern at the plans, and was promptly slapped down to a snarled “Kuchak will have your hide if you don’t obey”. Flynne’s conclusion was that Kuchak was the warlord.
A second group was also heard to say that ‘the druid’ was having to take Kuchak’s orders as well.
Upon receipt of these messages, we wrote a note to the inhabitants of the fort, to let them know the time of the impending attack. The black bird flew into the keep, and we all held our breath whilst it was out of sight.
Endo’s raven returned with very bad news. Many of the men within the castle were dead, and others were suffering from the ravages of some kind of infection. The worst of the infected were locked in the fortress’ basement. There were only 14 able bodied men within the building, and three soldiers and the mage had all been captured. The meaning of the sending spell began to make a little more sense.
.oOo.
It was clear that we weren’t going to have time for Allustan to come to grips with Endo’s spellbook. He offered to return to Diamond Lake by using the last of his scrolls, and to return with some men from the garrison there. We agreed to this, and were heartened by the news that his scroll had sufficient power to carry Chloe and her mother with him.
We rested, and prepared for the fight.
.oOo.
Once I was refreshed, I crept forwards with Flynne’s help in the faltering light. Once close enough, I cast one of my more powerful spells, and began to read the thoughts of the lizardmen in the closest group. Scanning through their minds, I was able to learn their plans, which were close to coming to fruition.
The lizard assault was to be started by a lighted arrow fired through the air. The druid was then under instruction to cast a spell, and then the groups were to advance to within 60 feet of the building. Most of them would then throw lit javelins at the windows, whilst 2 of the groups would try to break down the fort’s doors.
Endo’s raven went up again, and flew into the fortress. We waited for a few minutes, and then saw the windows being barricaded. The raven did not come back out again. Worried, we discussed our plans. Having decided our best course of action was to try to stop the druid from casting his spell, thus restricting the lizards to a physical assault on the fortified building. We readied our weapons, cast a flurry of magical spells of protection and reinforcement, and then looked around.
“Here, where’s Igmut?”
The half-orc had wandered off…
.oOo.
We didn’t have time to go looking for Igmut, and had to take our fight to the enemy immediately. We crept towards the group which contained the druid, taking advantage of the failing light and with Flynne’s instructions. However, Malachite made the mistake of looking up and standing on a fallen log to get his bearings. From 50 feet away, I could hear the expression of surprise from the lizardman who could see the adventurer silhouetted in the moonlight.
Thinking quickly, I triggered the magic of my mystic chapeau to make me look like a lizardman, and then tackled Malachite, taking him to the floor. Silhouetted myself in the moonlight, I made a show of stabbing him enthusiastically before standing and waving an ‘all clear’ at the watching lizardman.
Shouting at me in the draconic tongue, the lizardman summoned me over, demanding “how much money did he have?”
I approached, telling the lizard that it had merely been a farmer, and tossed the creature a few copper pieces. I then announced that I was patrolling the outskirts of the encampment for any stray humans, and dashed into the undergrowth.
.oOo.
Rejoining the others, we approached our targeted group (leaving Malachite and Clive hidden in the long-grass). Almost as we moved into position, the lizards lit a series of fires, and our attack was begun. Endo and I cast spells at the druid, although mine failed to interrupt the lizardman’s speech, Endo managed to wrap it in the familiar evil flesh-tearing spirits. An instant later, Malachite’s spell sprang up, wrapping all the lizards in the druid’s group in thick binding grasses. Endo, Flynne and I readied our bows, and my well-timed shot was sufficient to distract the druid at the instant he tried to cast a spell in return.
We continued our volley of missile fire into the group of lizardmen, return fire coming in the form of inaccurately thrown javelins, and no sooner had the druid managed to summon up a ball of flame and fling it at me did Malachite summon a massive wolf (which ran straight into the weeds and got entangled itself), and the druid was slain.
A second of the lizardman groups noticed us and ran in to join the combat, to be confronted by Flynne, Clive the ape, and a huge summoned lion called into being by Malachite. Flynne backflipped out of the combat, dropped to one knee and fired a series of arrows into the lizards fighting against the druid’s summoned animals, whilst Endo and I poured arrows into the tangled lizards, killing two of them.
Clive, Flynne and the lion were similarly effective on the flank, splitting up and then slaying the second group of lizardmen, leaving only 3 who were wrapped tightly in the thick grasses twining them through Malachite’s magics.
As we watched, one of them tore free of the weeds, and was immediately targeted by two crossbows, one sling and a large recurve bow. He didn’t manage to take more than three steps beyond the limits of the spell, and his two companions followed him under a hail of arrow fire.
As the last of these two groups of lizards were slain, and the summoned wolf disappeared, we heard a crash from the side of the fort – the other lizardmen had managed to fight their way through the doors!
