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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 3894851" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter 12,"Battle on the River", June 28th, 1005:Serita recognizes the forests as being those to the north of Kohlorahdooh City. The group travels east, soon running into the river that flows south to the city. By mid-afternoon a large boat is seen coming down the river. The boat is recognized as one belonging to the Lords of Curigull rather than Lord Kohlorahdooh, so Augustine flags it down to ask for a ride. Once they are on board the group spots soldiers in addition to town guards, and the ten are forced to surrender. They are put below deck beside the other members of their party.[DM’s Note #16: This was an unexpected turn of events. I had the Sceptre teleport bring them to a point by the river so that they could mount a rescue of the group captured on the boat, and did not anticipate the group surrendering and then joining the others as prisoners. I was not sure how the only two free characters, Belegurth and Adajai would be able to rescue them. This was further complicated by the fact that the players for both of those characters were going to be absent from the next game. In a conversation with Belegurth's player, he pointed out that since his character was originally from this area, he would probably know the location of various monster types, who he could then manipulate into assisting.]Belegurth leads Adajai further ahead of the boat. They go to where he knows an underwater lair of Koalinths (aquatic hobgoblins) is. Since Koalinths do not like sunlight they normally would not attack a boat during the daytime without great provocation. The two elves swim down to the lair, killing the only Koalinth on guard duty. They then swim into the lair, and wake the chief by stealing his jewels. The elves swim back to the surface, just as the boat is coming around the bend in the river.Some two dozen Koalinths then reach the surface of the water. Due to their poor vision during the day the two elves manage to get to a small island on the river, and hide there. The monsters attack the only thing they see, the boat, assuming that that is where the elves have gone.As the Koalinths started to make their way downstairs Natasha pleaded to the three soldiers guarding the prisoners to "let us go and we'll help fight." One soldier is soon killed, and two more monsters make their way downstairs. The other two soldiers decide to take Nat up on her suggestion, and untie and arm them. Once freed, Natasha and Annie backstab the two soldiers Meanwhile Augustine charges the Koalinths. They begin to fight.[DM’s Note #17: I had decided that it would be dull for the players to just watch me play out the battle between the monsters and the soldiers, so I gave each of the players four Koalinths to play. Since nobody was concerned about these critters getting killed they played very offensive, quickly killing most of the soldiers and keeping Lord Kalinin very busy. Augustine's player happened to be playing the first group of Koalinths to make it below deck, and as they both "hit" Augustine. The player looked up and said "This isn't fair, I'm killing my own character!]The Koalinths are all killed by the party. They retrieve their own weapons, and make their way onto the topdeck. Kalinin is the only human still alive, and fifteen more of the aquatic monsters have surfaced as well.Adajia and Belegurth begin to fire arrows at the creatures from the shore. Kalinin is grateful for the group's assistance. Once the monsters are all killed though, he foolishly orders the party to "drop your weapons, and go back down below." The group decides that nineteen of them are enough to take on one fairly wounded seventh level fighter, and attack him. Kalinin manages to avoid their first attacks, taking on Mark. Mark narrowly misses three swings of Kalinin's Vorpal Blade. Zakariah moves in from behind, Kalinin pivots toward her, and his "V" Blade connects, decapitating her.[DM’s Note #18: Since the beginning I had encouraged each player to have two characters, in order to alternate them for apprenticeships as well as have a back-up in case their primary character got killed. Kharole's player had been playing her exclusively, and very reluctantly rolled up the character Zakariah. When the fighter died in her second week the player was not at all upset about this turn of events, and returned to playing Kharole exclusively, using the excuse "I tried that, it didn't work" whenever asked to roll up another character again.]Mark connects, and Kalinin starts to stagger. While the fighting is going on nobody thinks to steer the boat, and it runs into some large rocks in the water, coming to a grinding halt. Everyone on the boat goes falling to the side. Kalinin falls into Phuddipeduzh's sword, and dies. He then falls over the side. Phuddi makes a desperate reach at the Vorpal Blade, grabbing the handle before it falls into the water. The boat is damaged beyond repair. The group all swims to shore.They make a fire to dry out their clothes, and discuss what has transpired during the past few weeks. The group finds a scroll case floating in the water. Inside it is a note that Kalinin was delivering from Bennett to Kindor, the leader of Lord Kohlorahdooh's army. The note names Natasha, and tells of the attacks in Curigull. The party heads south. Belegurth and Adajia wander off from the main party, and neither of them are seen again.[DM’s Note #19: The girlfriend of one of the players had an argument with the DM this week during a pick-up game that she abruptly ended shortly after it began. She then decided that the two of them would no longer play with the group.   Thus, the characters of Adajia, Belegurth, Trimble and Silas departed from the story.]June 29th, 1005:The group heads south for about fifteen miles. They encounter a pimp and two harlots, who try to interest the men in the party. The two monks manage to get all of the fighters to ignore them, and the group continues onward. They head west, toward the city.Klaaze checks the Rod to see if it is leading them to the next piece. It does not indicate anything, so the group concludes that since they are now near the City, only the final piece will be there, so to look elsewhere. They then change direction, traveling directly east.[DM’s Note #20: This was rather unfortunate, as if they had continued west for two more miles the rod would have started tugging them toward the City. The DM even tossed out tons of hints that they might not want to change direction, to no avail. This led to them spending several games on various interludes and encounters totally unrelated to the main mission. It also gave their main opponent, Lord Kohlorahdooh, the opportunity to find and retrieve the 7th piece of the rod to go with the 6th piece that he already had. ]The group travels until they reach a road, then start to head north-eastward.</blockquote>

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