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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7318108" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 42: STREET FIGHTERS</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Castillan Ivenheart, elf bounder 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Darrien, half-elf ranger 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Gilbert Fung, human wizard 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 12</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Aithanar Ivenheart, elf fighter 3</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Feya Cloudshadow, elf expert (herbalist) 5</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Harriet Fung, orc sorcerer 4</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Jinkadoodle Dundernoggin, gnome illusionist 5</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Marta, human ranger 2</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Winkidew Dundernoggin, gnome wizard 6</p><p> </p><p>Game Session Date: 6 January 2018</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>It had been over a year since the last wave of orc and goblin marauders from the Vesve Forest. Since the attacks had come regularly between 6 and 12 months for the past two decades, there was hope that whatever had been driving them was no longer in effect. However, despite the overall hope that the attacks might somehow be over, there was still a general wariness in the air. But defenses were still in place: Chalkan’s arcane archers guarded the forest and garrisons of mercenary soldiers - funded by the treasures unearthed by King Galrich's heroes - still patrolled the borders.</p><p></p><p>However, after the horrors of the Abyss, the group had decided to spend some time with their respective families and planned to meet back up at Battershield Keep in three days’ time.</p><p></p><p><strong>THE FUNG COTTAGE</strong></p><p>Throughout the Fung cottage, all was quiet and still. Harriet Fung lay asleep in her bed, the dark-green hair spread across the pillow framing her orcish face. She dreamed of her childhood in faraway Kozakura, back before she had been forced to flee at a young age from an undesired arranged marriage. On his perch upon the nightstand, Harriet's black-feathered familiar, <strong>Kurotori</strong>, dreamed his raven dreams. In Gilbert's bedroom, Mudpie stood silent guard over his sleeping master, who was sprawled out across his bed in a tangle of sheets and blankets. And in the family room at the front of the house, Hagan slept in his bedroll, his weasel familiar Wezhley nestled against his chest. Hagan had only recently returned from a visit to his own parents on the other side of the Vesve Forest and had taken Gilbert's offer to stay a few days with him; the half-orc had taken the opportunity to brush Harriet up on her lessons on the Orcish language. She'd been tutored by King Galrich as time permitted, but the duties of running a kingdom were many and her lessons thus far had been short and sporadic. Hagan, a natural speaker of his father's language since he was a little lad, was a much more fluent speaker than the king and Harriet's adeptness with the unfamiliar language was improving immensely.</p><p></p><p>Hagan wasn't a deep sleeper, but even he failed to hear the slight pop of air displacement as an unseen form materialized in the Fung's foyer, the result of a softly-spoken <em>dimension door</em> spell. The invisible figure opened the door to his companions and they, being a more brutish lot, slammed the door open in their haste to enter and loot the building. One room away, Hagan's eyes snapped open as he was awakened by the sounds of heavy boot-steps in the hallway.</p><p></p><p>The first two figures were hulking orc brutes covered in hides and pelts, with great stone axes in hand. Behind them trundled others of the orcish race, these wielding smaller, curved blades of bone and horn. Seeing perfectly fine in the pitch blackness of the unlit chamber, they split up and headed in both directions, the barbarians heading right, towards Hagan, and the others starting to go off in the other direction.</p><p></p><p>Sliding silently from his bedroll, Hagan scooped up his familiar and dropped him upon his left shoulder; Wezhley was savvy enough to remain silent, feeling his master's wariness. The half-orc readied a <em>lightning bolt</em> spell to blast at any enemies who might enter the family room from the open doorway to the front foyer, where all the noise had come from. Absently, the sorcerer noted the sounds of someone clambering up onto the rooftop, which made it less and less likely that the sounds he'd heard were of an innocuous nature.</p><p></p><p>But Hagan wasn't the only one alerted by the noisy orcs; Mudpie had heard the three climbing up onto the roof from either side, as did Harriet. The orc sorcerer slipped out of her bed, slipped on a flowered robe, and reached up on the wall for her grandfather's ceremonial katana and wakizashi. Thus armed, she crept to the sliding door of her room and listened intently.</p><p></p><p>Down the hall, Mudpie had awakened his master and Gilbert had slipped his own robe on, grabbing up his pouch of spell components. "Let's go see what up!" he whispered to the earth elemental beside him.</p><p></p><p>In the family room, Hagan had heard the unmistakable sounds of Orcish being spoken. He silently crept to the doorway to Verdant Gristwold's study, across from the doorway to the foyer. There, captured perfectly in Hagan's darkvision were the two orc barbarians, headed his way. He cast a <em>chain lightning</em> spell, focusing on the one he could see the best and sending arcs of electricity out to the one behind him and two other orcs in view down the long hallway at the front of the Fung cottage. Four orc voices cried out in pain and anger; the primary target had been severely hurt by the spell and the other barbarian showed scorch marks where he'd been badly burned as well, but the two orc warriors down the hallway had been slain outright. There was no longer any doubt: the Fung residence was under attack!</p><p></p><p>Having heard the sounds of combat from the front of the house, Gilbert cast an <em>expeditious retreat</em> spell on Mudpie. "Make sure Mom okay!" he commanded, sliding open the door panel to his room. Mudpie scampered out to obey, traveling at a much faster pace than his usual lumbering gait. Down the hallway, Harriet had cautiously opened her own sliding door panel and stepped out onto the wooden walkway flanking the open garden in the middle of her home. She released Kurotori to fly up through the opening in the ceiling, to scout from above and let her know who was attacking the house, and from which direction.</p><p></p><p>As the raven flew up through the central ceiling hole, three orcs used that same opening to leap down into her garden, two on the eastern side of the building but the other one landing right in front of a startled Harriet. Despite her gruff appearance in her orc body, Harriet gave a small shriek of surprise. But Gilbert, acting quickly, cast an <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> spell on the part of the garden he could see in the moonlight, catching each of the orc interlopers in the rubbery embrace of writhing appendages suddenly rising up from the ground.</p><p></p><p>"Good job, Mudpie!" Harriet called to her son, using his childhood nickname and confusing her son's elemental of the same name who wasn't sure why he was being praised. She slid back another door and went down the hallway towards the kitchen, the earth elemental dutifully following to keep her safe.</p><p></p><p>In the front hallway, the singed orc barbarians made a rush for Hagan, swinging their greataxes. One caught the sorcerer in the arm, slicing through his sleeve and cutting into the flesh beneath. Hagan moved to take a step back to give him room to cast an attack spell, but he bumped into something he couldn't see - the invisible wizard had used another <em>dimension door</em> spell to get behind the half-orc. Stumbling to the side, Hagan fired off a <em>cone of cold</em> spell that encompassed both barbarians and one of the other orcs who had followed behind to see what the fuss was about. The orc warrior and the barbarian who had been burned the worst from Hagan's first spell dropped immediately, dead on the spot, while the remaining barbarian roared in pain and rage and slashed out wildly with his weapon, missing the sorcerer.</p><p></p><p>The two remaining orc warriors decided to try out the other direction, moving past a western-style dining room (boring) and into a kitchen (much more interesting). Upon spotting Harriet's collection of steel knives, they gave out a cry of delight and grabbed them up, wielding one in each hand and stuffing the others in their belts. "Metal weapons!" they crowed in their guttural language.</p><p></p><p>Harriet listened from the other side of the kitchen door, this one wood with a handle in the style of the western world. It sounded like they were shouting "metal weapons" in their brutish language, but she wasn't sure - she'd have to ask Hagan when she saw him.</p><p></p><p>But Hagan was busy fighting off an enraged barbarian in the family room. He'd been hit again, a glancing blow across his chest that left a line of blood dripping down his torso. He'd also been attacked by a spell that felt like it wanted to cloud over his vision, cast by an invisible spellcaster somewhere in the room with him or in the doorway to the study. Fortunately, Hagan had managed to shrug off the spell's effects; had he been blinded as intended, he doubted he'd still be alive by now. He wasted another <em>cone of cold</em> spell on the remaining barbarian, on the one hand hating to use up so powerful a spell on a single enemy, but on the other hand wanting to be sure he killed him as soon as possible. The spell did the trick; the barbarian fell over, dead. Now all Hagan had to do was to fight another spellcaster, one who couldn't be seen!</p><p></p><p>Having grabbed up all the kitchen knives, the orc warriors each went to open one of the two wooden doors out of the room. The one on the right found a pantry and cried out again in joy, stepping forward into the small room and stuffing his mouth full of various foodstuffs. The other one opened the door and found a good-looking female orc in a flowered robe, wielding twin blades - of metal! "What group are you with?" he asked her, so astonished by seeing another of his race from a different assault group that he failed to notice the small earth elemental standing behind her - or the heavyset wizard turning the corner at the end of the hall behind her, having ensured his <em>Evard's black tentacles</em> spell had finished off the three orc warriors in the meditation garden.</p><p></p><p>Instinctively, Harriet lowered her head, mumbled "Excuse me," and rushed past the orc, headed toward the family room and Hagan. The orc's gaze followed her; as a result he didn't see the incoming <em>magic missile</em> spell that slew him standing there in the kitchen. Gilbert and Mudpie strode into the kitchen and heard the sounds of an impromptu orc feast in the pantry. Slaying this second orc with another <em>magic missile</em> spell, Gilbert called out to his mother, "Flee to neighbor's house! We come for you after we finish here!"</p><p></p><p>Hagan felt another <em>blindness/deafness</em> spell try to rob him of his sight and fail, and realized this unseen spellcaster didn't have much else to work with - after all, why try to rob an opponent of his sight when you were already invisible? He assumed his foe was hoping for Hagan to be easy meat for his other orc allies, but from the sounds of things Gilbert had taken out the rest of them. With a mental shrug, Hagan cast his last <em>cone of cold</em> of the night, encompassing the entirety of Verdant's study and apparently - judging by the moan of pain from the corner of the room - catching his unseen foe in its area of effect. But then there were the mumbled words to another spell, followed by silence; Hagan had recognized the words to a <em>teleport</em> spell and realized he wouldn't likely have to deal with that particular foe for the rest of the night.</p><p></p><p>Outside on the porch, Kurotori landed on Harriet's outstretched arm. "No other enemies in sight," he reported.</p><p></p><p>"That good," affirmed Gilbert, stepping up behind his mother. "I leave Mudpie here with you. Hagan! You okay?"</p><p></p><p>"I'm fine," reassured the half-orc sorcerer, stepping into the room. "Hello again, Mrs. Fung."</p><p></p><p>"We have to assume other areas under attack, too," Gilbert reasoned. "I got <em>teleport</em> spell ready. I go check on Finoula. You want to check on one of others?"</p><p></p><p>"I'll go see if Darrien's okay," replied Hagan. "He and his mom live way out there in the woods."</p><p></p><p>"Sound good." And the two spellcasters departed.</p><p></p><p>"You strong enough to pull dead bodies outside?" Harriet asked Mudpie. "I no want them in here. You do that, I go get broom. This place a mess!"</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p><strong>CLOUDSHADOW RESIDENCE</strong></p><p>Feya Cloudshadow sat in her bedroom, caught up in her nightly reverie. As her body rested, her mind sorted through centuries of memories: her childhood in the forest; her two husbands: one elven, one human, both now dead; the birth of her two daughters, Finoula and Feron, separated by many years between them. A smile on her lips showed that most of the memories of her life were pleasant ones.</p><p></p><p>Down the hall, Finoula sat in a similar stance in her own room, but in her much shorter span of life she'd amassed more than a few unpleasant memories. She awakened from her nightly reminiscences by the sudden realization that there was a powerful evil there in the room with her. She snapped her eyes open, and in the moonlight streaming in from the window she saw looming above her the incubus Malaterminus.</p><p></p><p>"You stupid, mortal whore!" he sneered. "Did you really think I had taken no precautions against an untimely death? That I had no one to return me to my unholy life? Well, I'm back! And now my only problem is do I want to make you watch while I kill your mother in front of you, or shall I do you first while she watches?" He reached down for the horrified ranger, his excitement of the night's prospects visibly evident....</p><p></p><p>Finoula awoke from her reverie with a start. She looked about her, but there was no evidence that Malaterminus had been there in the room with her; all was as she had left it when she began her reverie that evening - even Wrath, her faithful timber wolf, lay by her side with his head resting on his front paws, fast asleep. Finoula knew that if she had indeed been visited by the evil incubus she'd just slain, Wrath would have been instantly awakened and leaped to her defense. So it was just a dream, then. With a deep sigh of relief, Finoula settled back into position and tried to still her racing mind.</p><p></p><p>But then she heard the noise again, the noise she recognized as one that had originally helped awaken her from her resting state, the one that sounded like somebody scrabbling around on the rooftop.</p><p></p><p>Rising effortlessly to her feet - a process which elicited a <em>whuff?</em> from her faithful wolf as he rose, instantly alert for danger - Finoula reached for her weapons. She had on a tight-fitting garment she wore beneath her leather armor; it would have to do. She opened the door to her room and padded down the hallway to the top of the stairs. She heard a sudden <em>thud!</em> from the ground level, over by the kitchen - somebody cascading down the chimney, perhaps? With sword and whip in hand, Finoula went to investigate.</p><p></p><p>In the master bedroom, Feya had awakened from her reverie as well and was tying the sash to her robe when she heard another sound on the rooftop above her. She went to go check on her daughter, but by the time she got to the doorway there was a crash behind her as her window exploded inwards, smashed in by a spidery-looking appendage. With a shriek, Feya closed the bedroom door behind her.</p><p></p><p>"Go stay with Mother," Finoula commanded her wolf as she started down the stairs, her senses straining. Wrath obediently bounded over to Feya, right as Finoula's elven eyes picked out motion over by the kitchen. It was a goblin, blackened with soot from his dive down the chimney, striding as bold as you please to the front door, where he was apparently going to go let in his associates. "Hey!" the ranger yelled, racing down the rest of the stairs. The startled goblin looked in her direction in fear, but he had already opened the front door, and another trio of goblins stood there, waiting to be let in.</p><p></p><p>Finoula's <em>flaming whip of thorns</em> came lashing out at the goblin intruder, slaying him instantly. But the goblin trio was already pushing its way into the living room, and pounding behind Finoula indicated more goblins trying to bash in the back door and others trying to force their way into the door leading to Feya's workshop.</p><p></p><p>Up in Feya's bedroom, a spidery figure scrambled into the room from the shattered window. This was a spider the size of a man, and upon its hairy back, perched in an elaborate saddle/harness, sat another goblin. He steered his arachnid steed over to the bedroom door, then reached out and turned the knob - steeders were excellent transport beasts, capable of traveling up sheer surfaces and even across ceilings, but they weren't very good at opening doors. As the door exploded outwards into the hall, Feya screamed and started down the stairs, Wrath at her heels.</p><p></p><p>The three goblins in the living room spread out and attacked Finoula, smirks and leers written on their faces at having to deal with a single elf - and a female at that! Finoula wiped the grins off their faces by slaying two of them in the space of as many heartbeats, striking one with her whip and snapping his neck while skewering the other on her blade. The remaining goblin's face drained of color, then he regained a bit of confidence as the back door was smashed open and goblin reinforcements rushed in.</p><p></p><p>Wrath needed no encouragement or instructions; he leaped at the first goblin through the back door and ripped out his throat. Unseen, another pair of goblins smashed through the door to Feya's workshop and made their way past the tables of herbs and spices and alchemical equipment.</p><p></p><p>A scrabbling sound on the roof above indicated the progress of another goblin-mounted steeder, as became apparent once it dropped to the front lawn and was visible in the open front doorway. Recognizing the pair as her greatest likely threat, Finoula activated her <em>lightning amulet</em> and blasted herself right through them, slaying the goblin instantly and scorching the spider.</p><p></p><p>However, the other steeder by this time had scampered down the stairs and bitten Feya. Its rider brought a blowgun to his lips and shot a dart at the elven herbalist, but the dart went whizzing past her head to stick into the wall beyond. Dribbles of poison leaked down from the dart's tip.</p><p></p><p>Without any command from its slain rider, the other steeder scrambled into the house, attacking Wrath, who the giant arachnid saw as nothing more than a potential meal. The poor wolf was also simultaneously attacked by two goblins at the back door, but he managed to slay one of those with a vicious bite. The other goblin decided right then and there that his assault group had obviously picked the wrong house to attack, and turned tail to flee back the way he'd come.</p><p></p><p>Finoula stepped back into her mother's house, flailing away with her magic whip. She'd caused rivulets of blood to come streaming from the riderless spider's abdomen; insanely, while in battle for their very lives, part of Finoula worried about how difficult it would be to get the blood out of her mother's floors. Wrath spun around and snapped his jaws at the same spider but missed. However, not liking the odds and without a rider to prod it on, the spider had at that time decided to flee as well. Both doors were blocked, one by the wolf and one by the elf, but it had carried a goblin up to the rooftop with it so he could scurry down the chimney; that was another avenue of escape. Unfortunately, before it could put its half-formed thoughts into motion, Finoula lashed out again with her whip and killed the spider before it could get very far at all.</p><p></p><p>The mounted steeder scurried down the rest of the stairs and bit Wrath; its rider, meanwhile, had turned in his saddle and shot a poisoned dart at Finoula through the use of a blowgun. She slapped it away in irritation with <em>Tahlmalaera</em>, then used the move to thrust the blade into the body of the last of the goblin trio to have entered through the front door. Just as she was kicking his skewered body off of her blade, though, the other two entered the living room from Feya's workshop.</p><p></p><p>And then, out of nowhere, a portly wizard appeared in the middle of the room. Finoula's brow creased in puzzlement at the sight of Gilbert Fung in her mother's living room, but then put her focus back onto the fight at hand.</p><p></p><p>As his steeder bit Wrath, the goblin spider-rider turned and shot a poisoned dart at Gilbert Fung, missing him by a hair. Gilbert responded with a <em>burning hands</em> spell which slew the goblin and burned a patch of fur off the steeder. Gilbert was then attacked by the two goblins wielding handcrafted morningstars, looking like knobby masses of pulplike wood with shards of glass embedded in them. He cursed at the little buggers, but Finoula assumed he had things in hand with them and concentrated on the remaining spider. She carved it up with her sword, slaying it in one well-pressed attack. Then, partly to show Gilbert she didn't need him to come teleporting in to save her, she handily dispatched the goblins who had been attacking him with a few quick strikes from her whip. Deactivating the whip's thorns, she started rolling it back up now that combat was over.</p><p></p><p>"Gilbert," she said, acknowledging his presence and his assistance.</p><p></p><p>"Finoula," he replied, nodding his head.</p><p></p><p>Feya looked at the dead bodies scattered across her house and headed for the workshop. "I think I need some calming herbs," she said.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p><strong>MARTA'S CABIN</strong></p><p>In the log cabin they shared out in the woods on the outskirts of Kordovia, Marta and her son Darrien were both asleep in their beds. Marta had a rather normal bed, whereas Darrien's was a loft, occupying the upper half of the east end of his room, with a small desk beneath it. Perhaps because he was situated so close to the roof, it awakened him when he heard something crawling around up there.</p><p></p><p>More times than not, it was squirrels who crawled around up on the roof. The woods were crawling with squirrels, which made for good eating and excellent target practice with his bow; there were already two skinned squirrels in the pantry for tomorrow's stew. With a sigh, Darrien tried to block the noise and get back to sleep. But there was something almost <em>sinister</em> in the sounds on the roof, like whatever was up there was trying to be stealthy about it (and failing miserably to the ranger's trained ears).</p><p></p><p>Then there was a sound of something tumbling down the chimney between the two bedrooms, and all thoughts of a possible squirrel incursion were removed.</p><p></p><p>Darrien leaped down from his bunk, wearing only the pants to his armor and a comfortable under-shirt. He grabbed his amber amulet from the desk and slipped it over his neck, then grabbed up his <em>Arachnibow</em> and strung it. Slapping his <em>quiver of Ehlonna</em> on a belt around his hips, he crept to the door and peered out.</p><p></p><p>There was a skeleton crawling out of the fireplace. It was the size of a man but somewhat brutish, almost apelike: an orc, perhaps?</p><p></p><p>Not wanting to have his mother be taken unawares - for Darrien could hear more scrabbling up on the rooftop - the ranger bellowed, "MOM! SKELETONS!" at the top of his lungs as he mentally activated his amulet.</p><p></p><p>There was a twisted figure embedded in the hunk of amber he wore around his neck: it was a praying mantis encased in the golden substance. However, upon Darrien's activation, the mantis in the amulet disappeared - leaving a mantis-shaped bubble in the glob of amber - and a giant mantis taller than a man appeared in the central room of the cabin. It a flash, it struck out at the orc skeleton with its claws, catching it, imprisoning it, and biting it all in one quick motion. The combined attack was enough to destroy the skeleton, which fell apart into a pile of bones on the wooden floor.</p><p> </p><p>There was a sudden pounding and banging on the cabin's only door. The mantis spun to face this new threat, but it sounded like it would take a moment for the attackers to break their way through.</p><p></p><p>Marta, meanwhile, climbed out of her warm bed and threw her robe around her. Then, with a hatchet as a weapon, she peered out of the shutters of her bedroom window. She was dismayed to see countless skeletons ringing the cabin - it looked like Darrien hadn't been kidding, waking her up in the middle of the night like that!</p><p></p><p>Another skeleton dropped down the chimney and started climbing out of the fireplace. Darrien destroyed it with a flurry of arrows, but it took four to bring it down. The ranger realized that arrows - even ones enhanced by magic like the ones his <em>Arachnibow</em> shot - weren't the best weapons to use against skeletal undead. He spotted a dropped weapon on the floor by the chimney - it looked like a hardwood club: perfect! He grabbed it up, just as his mother practically exploded out of her bedroom. The reason for her haste was fully explained by the skeletons crawling through her bedroom window, having burst the wooden shutters open.</p><p></p><p>"Into then bathroom--quick!" Darrien commanded, and his mother hurried to comply. She slammed the door shut behind it and barred it in place. "Don't come out until I tell you it's safe!" Darrien added, and Marta nodded to herself - her boy could handle a few skeletons; he was an <em>adventurer</em>, after all!</p><p></p><p>The front door finally burst open, revealing a pair of skeletons and, surprisingly, a living foe: a goblin spellcaster of some sort, judging from his getup. He motioned for his undead minions to attack the ranger (at least that's what Darrien supposed he said, not speaking the Goblin language himself, but the pointing gesture and look of hatred were pretty universal).</p><p></p><p>As quick as a wink, the mantis pulled a skeleton into its claws and crushed it to pieces; the bones rained down onto the wooden floor. The other one, though, slammed into the bug's carapace with its knotted club, and - worse yet - the goblin spellcaster sent what Darrien recognized as <em>magic missiles</em> flying into his mantis. Once activated, the mantis had only a limited time before returning to its amber prison for the rest of the day, but Darrien was worried that at this rate it wouldn't even get to stick around that long!</p><p></p><p>Another skeleton dropped down the chimney and started crawling out of the fireplace; Darrien brought his borrowed club smashing down on the thing's skull, destroying it with a single blow. But more skeletons were pouring out of Marta's room - <em>just how many were there?</em>, Darrien wondered. Seeing more lined up outside the front door, ready to enter the cabin and attack, Darrien cast an <em>entangle</em> spell out the front door, causing the grass and roots to rise up and entwine around the ankles of the skeletons standing there, binding them in place - at least for now.</p><p></p><p>But in the moment it took to cast the simple spell, Darrien found himself surrounded by orc skeletons, all bashing at him with their clubs or clawing at him with their skeletal digits. The goblin sorcerer was focusing his <em>magic missile</em> attacks on the mantis, apparently not realizing it was anything but what it appeared to be: a giant insect, possibly a living pet, rather than the summoned aspect of a magic amulet which would soon enough disappear on its own. For its part, the mantis kept grabbing up and crushing skeletons in its claws, unable to make its way past the animated undead to get to their goblin master.</p><p></p><p>Moments passed, in which Darrien bashed one skeleton to pieces and the mantis crushed another between its claws, before the goblin's spell took the insect past its damage threshold and it reverted back to its imprisoned form inside the amulet. <em>It was good while it lasted</em>, Darrien thought, grateful that the mantis had slain as many enemies and taking as many attacks as it had before being shut down. But now the goblin pointed directly at him and commanded its undead forces to tear the ranger to pieces. Darrien swung his club left and right, battering away at his skeletal enemies, but they were wearing him down and he had no reprieve from their endless assault.</p><p></p><p>And then Hagan appeared in the main room.</p><p></p><p>He was immediately flanked by two orc skeletons and hit with their clubs, but after taking an initial beating the half-orc sorcerer cast a <em>chain lightning</em> spell focused on the goblin in the doorway (as Hagan imagined he was the leader of the attack) and arcing off to every skeleton he could see. The goblin shrieked despite his protective measures (he had a <em>bear's endurance</em> and a <em>false life</em> spell active, without which he'd have been instantly slain by the electrical spell), then cried out even louder when all of his skeletal minions in the cabin dropped as one into piles of bones.</p><p></p><p>Of course, more clamored into the cabin, from the chimney, from the front door, and from Marta's bedroom, and in a short while the cabin was filled with animated undead once again, clawing at the heroes and slamming them with their gnarled clubs. The goblin sorcerer cast a <em>magic missile</em> spell at Hagan, hoping to take him out quickly, but the sorcerer replied with a repeat of his previous attack: another <em>chain lightning</em> that crisped every skeleton in the cabin and scorched the goblin further. Darrien took care of the last few stragglers coming in from his mother's bedroom, and then Hagan cast his final <em>chain lightning</em> spell, instantly frying the goblin where he stood. It was the matter of mere moments to then pick off the few orc skeletons that remained.</p><p></p><p>"Mom? You okay in there?" called Darrien.</p><p></p><p>"I'm fine!" she answered, still gripping the hatchet in case the door should be battered down.</p><p></p><p>"It's safe to come out now."</p><p></p><p>Marta opened the bathroom door and looked about at the state of the cabin. Loose bones were strewn everywhere. Then she looked up and saw Hagan standing by her son.</p><p></p><p>"Darrien!" she cried out in alarm. "You didn't tell me we had guests! Come here, Hagan, would you like some pie? Darrien, get the plates! You do like cherry pie, don't you, Hagan?"</p><p></p><p>"Yes, ma'am," the half-orc replied with a smile. On his shoulder, Wezhley grinned his silent agreement.</p><p></p><p> - - -</p><p></p><p><strong>THE LUCKY HAND TAVERN AND WINKIDEW'S POTION SHOP</strong></p><p>Winkidew Dundernoggin was awake when the screaming began. He was in his laboratory overseeing the brewing of a batch of potions that required particular care; even the slightest change in temperature as they steeped could throw off the whole mixture. As such, he was only one room away from the front room of the shop, and the screams coming from the street just outside were quite audible. To the gnome's ears these weren't screams of revelry or joy, they were screams of terror, as if some type of indescribable horror was playing out in the streets of Kordovia.</p><p></p><p>The gnome alchemist knew just what to do: he cast a <em>ventriloquist</em> spell and shouted down the stairs at full volume, "GET UP HERE, LADS, AT ONCE!"</p><p></p><p>Downstairs, Jinkadoodle awoke at the sound of his father's spell immediately. He rushed upstairs in his pajamas to see what was so important it had the old man bellowing in the middle of the night. "Where's Bink?" asked Winkidew when his son popped his head up from the basement. "We'll probably want him to deal with this."</p><p></p><p>Binkadink was at that very moment sound asleep on a sofa in the family room, wrapped up in a thick, woolly blanket. He liked staying with his uncle and cousin, although close proximity to Jinkadoodle always carried with it the risk of the unleashing of the next round in their incessant prank war.</p><p></p><p>"GET UP HERE, BINKADINK!" bellowed Winkidew a second time, this time making it seem like the voice was coming from his son's posterior. Jinkadoodle just shook his head in disbelief and popped back downstairs to give his cousin a shake. Snapping out of it as he crashed to the floor (for Jinkadoodle determined the best way to wake his cousin up was to pull the sheets and blanket off the couch from underneath him), he scrambled to his feet, barefoot and wearing only his underpants.</p><p></p><p>"Screaming outside! Grab your weapons and armor!" Jinkadoodle advised, but the gnome fighter merely grabbed up his trusty magic glaive and scrambled up the stairs. By the time they both got back up the stairs and into Winkidew's potion lab, the potion maker had cast an <em>invisibility</em> spell upon himself as a protective measure. "Go see what that bother's all about," he groused. "I cannot be disturbed at this critical juncture." With his <em>ventriloquism</em> spell still active, he couldn't resist making it sound like he was talking from inside Binkadink's briefs.</p><p></p><p>But a pounding on the front door brought all thoughts of joking about to a crashing halt, especially since the pounding sounded like it was being made with heavy weaponry. Sure enough, just as Binkadink rushed through the door to the customer area out front, the front door shattered inwards and two burly orogs rushed in, greataxes in hand, looking for people to kill and stuff to steal. Behind them tramped a handful of goblins, each carrying a leather sling, with a pouch of stones dangling from their belts.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink wasted no time; he sent his glaive slicing deep into the first orog, who hadn't considered a three-foot-tall gnome in his underpants a serious threat. That changed about the same time as a gout of blood erupted from the gash in his chest. With a howl of pain, he brought his weapon down at the gnome fighter, his counterpart doing the same. Binkadink took a couple of hits but didn't let them bother him; they weren't deep enough to mess up his aim or his strength. Nonetheless, from the potion lab behind Binkadink, Winkidew cast a <em>bear's endurance</em> spell on his nephew, granting him an added bit of vitality for the fight ahead of him.</p><p></p><p>Jinkadoodle followed his father's lead and cast an <em>invisibility</em> spell upon himself, fading immediately from view. By this time, about a dozen goblins had swarmed into the potion lab and were climbing over the front counter. A few took aim against Binkadink with their slings, and the gnome fighter found himself being pelted with sling-stones while he was forced to concentrate on the orogs before him, either one of which looked strong enough to cut him in half with one blow.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink lashed out again at the wounded orog, and he looked about ready to fall over (whether from accumulated blood loss or simply from embarrassment at having been bested by a gnome was open for debate). But neither orog was about to back off from the fight; they each struck at the little fighter, who stabbed out at the first one as he stepped forward, skewering him in the chest and dropping him like a sack of corn meal before cleaving off to the other one and getting in a deep cut across his torso. It was hard to believe, but it looked like this little runt was about to get the better of both of the orog fighters leading this group of goblin slingers....</p><p></p><p>Two doors down, the Lucky Hand Tavern was still open for business despite the late hour. Castillan and Aithanar sat at a table with two fat human merchants, playing cards. Screams arose from the street outside, causing the merchants to leap up in fear. "We'd better check it out," offered Aithanar, standing and reaching for the longsword at his hip.</p><p></p><p>"Dammit! I suppose," agreed Castillan, slamming his cards down on the table - he'd had a <em>really</em> good hand, but now it didn't look like he was going to be able to finish this round. More screams came from outside, making the merchants decide they'd be retiring immediately from the game; they scooped up their coins and dashed up the stairs to their rooms.</p><p></p><p><strong>Langley</strong>, the half-orc who both owned and ran the tavern, reached for his greatclub from behind the bar as Castillan walked up to the door and Aithanar peered out of a glass window looking out into the street. Outside stood two orogs - massive brutes with the blood of both orcs and ogres running through their veins - as well as a quartet of orcs wielding some sort of flail with skulls at the tips of each strand. One had dragged a screaming man from a nearby building and was bludgeoning him to death with his weapon, while the two orogs raised their heads and sniffed the air. As one, their heads shot toward the Lucky Hand Tavern, the smell of whiskey and other brews too tantalizing to pass up.</p><p></p><p>Castillan decided to try calming the brutes down. "Hey, fellows," he said in the Common tongue. "Come on in, let us buy you a pitcher of ale!"</p><p></p><p>Neither the orcs nor the orogs spoke or understood the Common tongue, but they could pick up the tantalizing aromas of alcohol through the open door. Half of the forces made a bee-line for Castillan, while the other three took the expedient measure of running through one of the glass windows at the front of the building. Shedding glass fragments, the orog roared defiance to the world at large, while his counterpart pushed through the main door and brought his greataxe down upon Castillan, who only barely avoided being decapitated. He struck at the orog with his short sword, backing toward the stairs, but his brother beat him there, racing up the steps as fast as he could go. Despite the appearance of cowardice, Aithanar was actually heading to the room he and his brother had rented, where he knew Castillan's bow and arrows were at hand. Aithanar didn't mind a fair fight, but six against three wasn't anything to look forward to, especially with brutes these size!</p><p></p><p>Langley stepped forward from the bar with his greatclub in hand, doing his level best to look menacing. "Stand down!" he ordered. "There's no need for bloodshed, but I'll shed all I need of yours if it comes to that!"</p><p></p><p>Snapping his left fingers, Castillan brought his <em>stonepiercer dagger</em> to hand, then lashed out with both blades at the orog before him, drawing twin lines of blood across the brute's face. Two of the skullslinger orcs came forward, attacking the bounder with their bolas. Castillan dodged one attack, but was struck on the arm with the other; the orc tried pulling the elf to the floor and when that didn't work, Castillan tried pulling the weapon from the orc's grasp, without any success either. Finally he settled for disentangling himself from the weapon and backing further up the stairs.</p><p></p><p>"Aith!" called Castillan, afraid to look behind him and take his eyes off the three foes in front of him. "Where are you?"</p><p></p><p>"Up here!" called Aithanar, punctuating the response with an arrow shot at one of the orcs menacing Langley. The other one caught the half-orc's leg with his skull-bola, pulling the bar owner to the floor. He scrambled hurriedly back to his feet, but without his greatclub in hand.</p><p></p><p>Continuing to back his way up the steps, Castillan realized they were outnumbered and outclassed. Langley was bum-rushed by the orcs and thrown to the ground, where the orog stomped heavily on his face. "Get over here, Aith!" the bounder called, and Aithanar finished his shot at the orog menacing Langley and ran over to his brother. Castillan finally turned and ran down the upper hallway overlooking the tavern area, the orog and two orc skullslingers hot on his heels. Below them, Langley extricated himself from his foes and made a rush for the bar, hoping he could fight the three off one at a time in the limited fighting space there, but the orog chased after him and the orcs jumped up onto the bar itself, swinging down at the bar owner with their skull bolas. It didn't look like there was anything to be done for poor Langley...</p><p></p><p>...so Castillan grabbed his brother by the arm and activated his ring.</p><p></p><p>Instantly, the surrounding Lucky Hand Tavern was replaced by the customer area of Winkidew's Potion Shop, although the place wasn't as he had expected it to be when Castillan <em>dimension doored</em> in with his brother. For one thing, there were two dead orogs on the floor. For another, there were screaming goblins everywhere. The reason soon became apparent, for not only was there Binkadink standing there in his underpants wielding his massive glaive, but in the back room there were three more identical Binkadinks, all screaming in battle-lust. (These last three were courtesy of a <em>major image</em> spell cast by Jinkadoodle, after having seen how frightened the goblin slingers seemed to be of just the one Binkadink.)</p><p></p><p>"You guys okay?" Binkadink asked, skewering three goblins on his glaive in rapid succession.</p><p></p><p>"The bar's been overrun," Castillan exclaimed.</p><p></p><p>"Langley's?"</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, that's the one. I think Langley's dead, though."</p><p></p><p>"You guys can handle it here?" the gnome fighter asked. Castillan looked around and saw a handful of screaming goblins, all trying to flee the illusory Binkadinks; compared to what they left back at the bar, this looked like a simple clean-up job.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, we got this," the bounder replied, as Aithanar stabbed a goblin through the chest with his longsword.</p><p></p><p>"Good!" yelled Binkadink on the way out the splintered front door, racing down the street on his little gnomish legs. (Sadly, his <em>gnomish stilt-boots</em> were downstairs with the rest of his armor.)</p><p></p><p>Arriving at the tavern, Binkadink took the closest entrance into the place - the smashed window. Avoiding the worst of the glass shards (he was, after all, in his bare feet), he saw a pair of orcs guzzling down bottles of alcohol from behind the bar while a massive orog drank straight from a keg. There were two more orcs and an orog upstairs, running from room to room and looting the place. (They'd just smashed in the merchants' room and slain them.) Langley was nowhere to be seen; only afterwards would they find his shattered body dumped behind the bar.</p><p></p><p>For now, though, the orog noticed the gnome's arrival and dropped his keg. Grabbing his greataxe back up, he rushed at the gnome; hearing this, the orog upstairs leaped down the steps three at a time and joined his fighting partner, pinning the gnome between the two of them. Their greataxes came down upon the gnome, and only quick maneuvering on his part let him extricate himself from between them with all of his limbs intact. Staggering off to the side, where he could give himself plenty of swinging room for his glaive, he sent its blade slicing through the air to bite deep into one of the orogs, slaying him instantly, and then, having ripped clear through the orog's body and hide armor, tearing into the other one. It was likely only the slowing of the blade's momentum by having to cut through the first orog that prevented Binkadink from slaying the second one as well with the same blow.</p><p></p><p>Seeing this, the two orcs scrambled back over the bar to help their orog group leader, while the two from upstairs came whooping down to join the combat as well. Four orc skullslingers and an orog against a little gnome? This was going to be fun!</p><p></p><p>But by the time they got down the stairs, two more elves had joined the fight. Castillan and Aithanar had made short work of the remaining goblin slingers at Winkidew's shop, and decided to return to Langley's to see what help they could give, The orog caught sight of the two elves suddenly appearing back in the bar and it distracted his attention for a mere second, but that was all Binkadink needed. One quick strike of the glaive and the last of the orogs fell to the floor, dead.</p><p></p><p>Castillan stabbed out at one of the orcs rushing down the stairs and his short sword went deep into the skullslinger's belly; pulling it out, the blade was red with blood and the orc was drained of all life. He crumpled where he stood.</p><p></p><p>That left three orcs against a pair of elves and a gnome. One of the orcs made a stirring speech in his native tongue, which unfortunately for him was only understood by the orcs present. "You're all dead, do you hear me?" he roared. "The three of us are enough to kill you all!"</p><p></p><p>The other two skullslingers, though, had been paying closer attention to Binkadinks' fearsome combat prowess. "Good luck with that!" they called, racing each other out the front door. Binkadink followed but knew he could never catch up to the faster orcs. That didn't matter, though, for Castillan could. He left the last skullslinger for his brother and chased down the two fleeing orcs - a good thing, too, for they had pocketed some of the valuables from his room!</p><p></p><p>Finally, after having slain the last pair, Castillan and Binkadink returned to the tavern to ensure Aithanar had fared as well. He had; the last orc lay dead in a pool of his own blood.</p><p></p><p>"Pity about Langley," sighed the elven fighter. "He had good service, decent prices, and the beds weren't too bad." He and Castillan spent many a night in Kordovia staying in various taverns and inns, neither wishing to spend time at home when their father was around. The Lucky Hand Tavern was one of their favorites.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah," agreed Castillan, rubbing his chin in thought. "Say, Aithanar," he mused, "what do you think about buying the deed to this place and running it ourselves?"</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>In the days that followed, an investigation took place into how the orc and goblin troops had managed to make it this far into the kingdom undetected. It turned out the brutes were adapting, using their cunning to their best advantage. Normally, they'd come rushing out of the Vesve Forest, where they'd be spotted ahead of time by one of Chalkan's arcane archers who were stationed in perches among the trees, ready to send a signal arrow high into the air as a warning of their coming approach. This time there had been no warning, but only because an orc scouting party had crept on ahead and taken out a group of these sentries, all in a row. This allowed the small army to enter the kingdom from the forest unannounced. They were also apparently aware of the mercenary patrols and able to avoid them. Thus, for the first time since the beginning of the attacks, they'd made it into the heart of the city.</p><p></p><p>"They're getting sneakier," observed King Galrich. "Adapting to our defenses."</p><p></p><p>"Aye," agreed Aerik. "What can we do?"</p><p></p><p>"What we really need," mused King Galrich, "is a way to bring the fight back to them. Where's that Fung woman? We need to speed up her lessons."</p><p></p><p>"Aye," repeated Aerik. "I'll have her brought t' ye at once, Your Majesty."</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>When I first started this campaign and decided there will have been waves of orc and goblin attacks on the kingdom for years, I realized it would be cool to do two things: one, have the PCs fight off an attack on Battershield Keep (which I did in our 20th adventure), and two, to have the PCs fight off separate groups individually, which I finally got to do here.</p><p></p><p>The players quickly glommed on to the fact that the invisible spellcaster at the Fung residence was likely the same invisible spellcaster they'd encountered before during "Assault on Battershield Keep." In fact, I was lucky to keep him alive at all, as Hagan's final <em>cone of cold</em> spell (cast upon the entire room, thus negating any advantage his invisibility gave him) brought him down to a singe hit point! He teleported out of there just in time.</p><p></p><p>Of the players, it was Joey who fared the worst, overrun as he was by a goblin sorcerer and his 32 orc skeletons. Dan wanted to have Gilbert teleport straight there once he saw how bad a time Darrien was having, but as there was no way for Gilbert to know how badly Darrien was faring compared to the others we had him roll randomly to see who he'd decide to check in on, and he ended up with Finoula (much to Vicki's disappointment, as I think she didn't want to have anybody help her). Once it was pointed out to Harry that Hagan also knew <em>teleport</em> (and was a sorcerer to boot, so he could cast it multiple times), we decided to let him choose to go to Darrien's cabin, given that he had no way of knowing which tavern Castillan and Aithanar were at and we reasoned he'd assume Binkadink, Winkidew, and Jinkadoodle could take care of themselves, as could Ingebold, whose father's a 20th-level fighter/dwarven defender.</p><p></p><p>I had no real way of knowing how long this adventure would take to run through, given the individual battles. Unlike normal battles, where I assemble my initiative deck with all of the combatants, this time I "clumped" them into groups based on their locations. So while it mattered who fell where in the initiative order between Darrien, Marta, the goblin sorcerer, and the animated orc skeletons, I didn't really care whether Castillan's initiative order would have come before or after Darrien. In effect, I was running five separate combats, one round at a time, moving clockwise around the table. (As Hagan was staying with the Fungs, I had Harry swap with Logan so Hagan's player was sitting by Gilbert's player and the Fung Cottage battle map could sit between them.) For the record, though, we finished the adventure in just a little over four hours.</p><p></p><p>I also ran into a problem with not having enough of the appropriate miniatures, so I had hobgoblins pulling duty as orcs and bugbears pulling duty as orogs and the like. Some of the more numerous creatures got their own homemade stand-up tokens (like the 32 orc skeletons).</p><p></p><p>All in all, it was a fun change of pace. And the bit about Malaterminus at the beginning of Finoula's combat situation was added at the last minute, as I had just thought of it the morning of the game and wanted to see what Vicki's reaction would be. (As expected, it was initial surprise followed by extreme relief.)</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: I have a green "Family Reunion" T-shirt with a tree silhouette in white, which I felt was a good representation of this adventure, given that the PCs were spending time alone with family.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7318108, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 42: STREET FIGHTERS[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 12 Castillan Ivenheart, elf bounder 12 Darrien, half-elf ranger 12 Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 12 Gilbert Fung, human wizard 12 Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 12[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Aithanar Ivenheart, elf fighter 3 Feya Cloudshadow, elf expert (herbalist) 5 Harriet Fung, orc sorcerer 4 Jinkadoodle Dundernoggin, gnome illusionist 5 Marta, human ranger 2 Winkidew Dundernoggin, gnome wizard 6[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 6 January 2018 - - - It had been over a year since the last wave of orc and goblin marauders from the Vesve Forest. Since the attacks had come regularly between 6 and 12 months for the past two decades, there was hope that whatever had been driving them was no longer in effect. However, despite the overall hope that the attacks might somehow be over, there was still a general wariness in the air. But defenses were still in place: Chalkan’s arcane archers guarded the forest and garrisons of mercenary soldiers - funded by the treasures unearthed by King Galrich's heroes - still patrolled the borders. However, after the horrors of the Abyss, the group had decided to spend some time with their respective families and planned to meet back up at Battershield Keep in three days’ time. [b]THE FUNG COTTAGE[/b] Throughout the Fung cottage, all was quiet and still. Harriet Fung lay asleep in her bed, the dark-green hair spread across the pillow framing her orcish face. She dreamed of her childhood in faraway Kozakura, back before she had been forced to flee at a young age from an undesired arranged marriage. On his perch upon the nightstand, Harriet's black-feathered familiar, [b]Kurotori[/b], dreamed his raven dreams. In Gilbert's bedroom, Mudpie stood silent guard over his sleeping master, who was sprawled out across his bed in a tangle of sheets and blankets. And in the family room at the front of the house, Hagan slept in his bedroll, his weasel familiar Wezhley nestled against his chest. Hagan had only recently returned from a visit to his own parents on the other side of the Vesve Forest and had taken Gilbert's offer to stay a few days with him; the half-orc had taken the opportunity to brush Harriet up on her lessons on the Orcish language. She'd been tutored by King Galrich as time permitted, but the duties of running a kingdom were many and her lessons thus far had been short and sporadic. Hagan, a natural speaker of his father's language since he was a little lad, was a much more fluent speaker than the king and Harriet's adeptness with the unfamiliar language was improving immensely. Hagan wasn't a deep sleeper, but even he failed to hear the slight pop of air displacement as an unseen form materialized in the Fung's foyer, the result of a softly-spoken [i]dimension door[/i] spell. The invisible figure opened the door to his companions and they, being a more brutish lot, slammed the door open in their haste to enter and loot the building. One room away, Hagan's eyes snapped open as he was awakened by the sounds of heavy boot-steps in the hallway. The first two figures were hulking orc brutes covered in hides and pelts, with great stone axes in hand. Behind them trundled others of the orcish race, these wielding smaller, curved blades of bone and horn. Seeing perfectly fine in the pitch blackness of the unlit chamber, they split up and headed in both directions, the barbarians heading right, towards Hagan, and the others starting to go off in the other direction. Sliding silently from his bedroll, Hagan scooped up his familiar and dropped him upon his left shoulder; Wezhley was savvy enough to remain silent, feeling his master's wariness. The half-orc readied a [i]lightning bolt[/i] spell to blast at any enemies who might enter the family room from the open doorway to the front foyer, where all the noise had come from. Absently, the sorcerer noted the sounds of someone clambering up onto the rooftop, which made it less and less likely that the sounds he'd heard were of an innocuous nature. But Hagan wasn't the only one alerted by the noisy orcs; Mudpie had heard the three climbing up onto the roof from either side, as did Harriet. The orc sorcerer slipped out of her bed, slipped on a flowered robe, and reached up on the wall for her grandfather's ceremonial katana and wakizashi. Thus armed, she crept to the sliding door of her room and listened intently. Down the hall, Mudpie had awakened his master and Gilbert had slipped his own robe on, grabbing up his pouch of spell components. "Let's go see what up!" he whispered to the earth elemental beside him. In the family room, Hagan had heard the unmistakable sounds of Orcish being spoken. He silently crept to the doorway to Verdant Gristwold's study, across from the doorway to the foyer. There, captured perfectly in Hagan's darkvision were the two orc barbarians, headed his way. He cast a [i]chain lightning[/i] spell, focusing on the one he could see the best and sending arcs of electricity out to the one behind him and two other orcs in view down the long hallway at the front of the Fung cottage. Four orc voices cried out in pain and anger; the primary target had been severely hurt by the spell and the other barbarian showed scorch marks where he'd been badly burned as well, but the two orc warriors down the hallway had been slain outright. There was no longer any doubt: the Fung residence was under attack! Having heard the sounds of combat from the front of the house, Gilbert cast an [i]expeditious retreat[/i] spell on Mudpie. "Make sure Mom okay!" he commanded, sliding open the door panel to his room. Mudpie scampered out to obey, traveling at a much faster pace than his usual lumbering gait. Down the hallway, Harriet had cautiously opened her own sliding door panel and stepped out onto the wooden walkway flanking the open garden in the middle of her home. She released Kurotori to fly up through the opening in the ceiling, to scout from above and let her know who was attacking the house, and from which direction. As the raven flew up through the central ceiling hole, three orcs used that same opening to leap down into her garden, two on the eastern side of the building but the other one landing right in front of a startled Harriet. Despite her gruff appearance in her orc body, Harriet gave a small shriek of surprise. But Gilbert, acting quickly, cast an [i]Evard's black tentacles[/i] spell on the part of the garden he could see in the moonlight, catching each of the orc interlopers in the rubbery embrace of writhing appendages suddenly rising up from the ground. "Good job, Mudpie!" Harriet called to her son, using his childhood nickname and confusing her son's elemental of the same name who wasn't sure why he was being praised. She slid back another door and went down the hallway towards the kitchen, the earth elemental dutifully following to keep her safe. In the front hallway, the singed orc barbarians made a rush for Hagan, swinging their greataxes. One caught the sorcerer in the arm, slicing through his sleeve and cutting into the flesh beneath. Hagan moved to take a step back to give him room to cast an attack spell, but he bumped into something he couldn't see - the invisible wizard had used another [i]dimension door[/i] spell to get behind the half-orc. Stumbling to the side, Hagan fired off a [i]cone of cold[/i] spell that encompassed both barbarians and one of the other orcs who had followed behind to see what the fuss was about. The orc warrior and the barbarian who had been burned the worst from Hagan's first spell dropped immediately, dead on the spot, while the remaining barbarian roared in pain and rage and slashed out wildly with his weapon, missing the sorcerer. The two remaining orc warriors decided to try out the other direction, moving past a western-style dining room (boring) and into a kitchen (much more interesting). Upon spotting Harriet's collection of steel knives, they gave out a cry of delight and grabbed them up, wielding one in each hand and stuffing the others in their belts. "Metal weapons!" they crowed in their guttural language. Harriet listened from the other side of the kitchen door, this one wood with a handle in the style of the western world. It sounded like they were shouting "metal weapons" in their brutish language, but she wasn't sure - she'd have to ask Hagan when she saw him. But Hagan was busy fighting off an enraged barbarian in the family room. He'd been hit again, a glancing blow across his chest that left a line of blood dripping down his torso. He'd also been attacked by a spell that felt like it wanted to cloud over his vision, cast by an invisible spellcaster somewhere in the room with him or in the doorway to the study. Fortunately, Hagan had managed to shrug off the spell's effects; had he been blinded as intended, he doubted he'd still be alive by now. He wasted another [i]cone of cold[/i] spell on the remaining barbarian, on the one hand hating to use up so powerful a spell on a single enemy, but on the other hand wanting to be sure he killed him as soon as possible. The spell did the trick; the barbarian fell over, dead. Now all Hagan had to do was to fight another spellcaster, one who couldn't be seen! Having grabbed up all the kitchen knives, the orc warriors each went to open one of the two wooden doors out of the room. The one on the right found a pantry and cried out again in joy, stepping forward into the small room and stuffing his mouth full of various foodstuffs. The other one opened the door and found a good-looking female orc in a flowered robe, wielding twin blades - of metal! "What group are you with?" he asked her, so astonished by seeing another of his race from a different assault group that he failed to notice the small earth elemental standing behind her - or the heavyset wizard turning the corner at the end of the hall behind her, having ensured his [i]Evard's black tentacles[/i] spell had finished off the three orc warriors in the meditation garden. Instinctively, Harriet lowered her head, mumbled "Excuse me," and rushed past the orc, headed toward the family room and Hagan. The orc's gaze followed her; as a result he didn't see the incoming [i]magic missile[/i] spell that slew him standing there in the kitchen. Gilbert and Mudpie strode into the kitchen and heard the sounds of an impromptu orc feast in the pantry. Slaying this second orc with another [i]magic missile[/i] spell, Gilbert called out to his mother, "Flee to neighbor's house! We come for you after we finish here!" Hagan felt another [i]blindness/deafness[/i] spell try to rob him of his sight and fail, and realized this unseen spellcaster didn't have much else to work with - after all, why try to rob an opponent of his sight when you were already invisible? He assumed his foe was hoping for Hagan to be easy meat for his other orc allies, but from the sounds of things Gilbert had taken out the rest of them. With a mental shrug, Hagan cast his last [i]cone of cold[/i] of the night, encompassing the entirety of Verdant's study and apparently - judging by the moan of pain from the corner of the room - catching his unseen foe in its area of effect. But then there were the mumbled words to another spell, followed by silence; Hagan had recognized the words to a [i]teleport[/i] spell and realized he wouldn't likely have to deal with that particular foe for the rest of the night. Outside on the porch, Kurotori landed on Harriet's outstretched arm. "No other enemies in sight," he reported. "That good," affirmed Gilbert, stepping up behind his mother. "I leave Mudpie here with you. Hagan! You okay?" "I'm fine," reassured the half-orc sorcerer, stepping into the room. "Hello again, Mrs. Fung." "We have to assume other areas under attack, too," Gilbert reasoned. "I got [i]teleport[/i] spell ready. I go check on Finoula. You want to check on one of others?" "I'll go see if Darrien's okay," replied Hagan. "He and his mom live way out there in the woods." "Sound good." And the two spellcasters departed. "You strong enough to pull dead bodies outside?" Harriet asked Mudpie. "I no want them in here. You do that, I go get broom. This place a mess!" - - - [b]CLOUDSHADOW RESIDENCE[/b] Feya Cloudshadow sat in her bedroom, caught up in her nightly reverie. As her body rested, her mind sorted through centuries of memories: her childhood in the forest; her two husbands: one elven, one human, both now dead; the birth of her two daughters, Finoula and Feron, separated by many years between them. A smile on her lips showed that most of the memories of her life were pleasant ones. Down the hall, Finoula sat in a similar stance in her own room, but in her much shorter span of life she'd amassed more than a few unpleasant memories. She awakened from her nightly reminiscences by the sudden realization that there was a powerful evil there in the room with her. She snapped her eyes open, and in the moonlight streaming in from the window she saw looming above her the incubus Malaterminus. "You stupid, mortal whore!" he sneered. "Did you really think I had taken no precautions against an untimely death? That I had no one to return me to my unholy life? Well, I'm back! And now my only problem is do I want to make you watch while I kill your mother in front of you, or shall I do you first while she watches?" He reached down for the horrified ranger, his excitement of the night's prospects visibly evident.... Finoula awoke from her reverie with a start. She looked about her, but there was no evidence that Malaterminus had been there in the room with her; all was as she had left it when she began her reverie that evening - even Wrath, her faithful timber wolf, lay by her side with his head resting on his front paws, fast asleep. Finoula knew that if she had indeed been visited by the evil incubus she'd just slain, Wrath would have been instantly awakened and leaped to her defense. So it was just a dream, then. With a deep sigh of relief, Finoula settled back into position and tried to still her racing mind. But then she heard the noise again, the noise she recognized as one that had originally helped awaken her from her resting state, the one that sounded like somebody scrabbling around on the rooftop. Rising effortlessly to her feet - a process which elicited a [i]whuff?[/i] from her faithful wolf as he rose, instantly alert for danger - Finoula reached for her weapons. She had on a tight-fitting garment she wore beneath her leather armor; it would have to do. She opened the door to her room and padded down the hallway to the top of the stairs. She heard a sudden [i]thud![/i] from the ground level, over by the kitchen - somebody cascading down the chimney, perhaps? With sword and whip in hand, Finoula went to investigate. In the master bedroom, Feya had awakened from her reverie as well and was tying the sash to her robe when she heard another sound on the rooftop above her. She went to go check on her daughter, but by the time she got to the doorway there was a crash behind her as her window exploded inwards, smashed in by a spidery-looking appendage. With a shriek, Feya closed the bedroom door behind her. "Go stay with Mother," Finoula commanded her wolf as she started down the stairs, her senses straining. Wrath obediently bounded over to Feya, right as Finoula's elven eyes picked out motion over by the kitchen. It was a goblin, blackened with soot from his dive down the chimney, striding as bold as you please to the front door, where he was apparently going to go let in his associates. "Hey!" the ranger yelled, racing down the rest of the stairs. The startled goblin looked in her direction in fear, but he had already opened the front door, and another trio of goblins stood there, waiting to be let in. Finoula's [i]flaming whip of thorns[/i] came lashing out at the goblin intruder, slaying him instantly. But the goblin trio was already pushing its way into the living room, and pounding behind Finoula indicated more goblins trying to bash in the back door and others trying to force their way into the door leading to Feya's workshop. Up in Feya's bedroom, a spidery figure scrambled into the room from the shattered window. This was a spider the size of a man, and upon its hairy back, perched in an elaborate saddle/harness, sat another goblin. He steered his arachnid steed over to the bedroom door, then reached out and turned the knob - steeders were excellent transport beasts, capable of traveling up sheer surfaces and even across ceilings, but they weren't very good at opening doors. As the door exploded outwards into the hall, Feya screamed and started down the stairs, Wrath at her heels. The three goblins in the living room spread out and attacked Finoula, smirks and leers written on their faces at having to deal with a single elf - and a female at that! Finoula wiped the grins off their faces by slaying two of them in the space of as many heartbeats, striking one with her whip and snapping his neck while skewering the other on her blade. The remaining goblin's face drained of color, then he regained a bit of confidence as the back door was smashed open and goblin reinforcements rushed in. Wrath needed no encouragement or instructions; he leaped at the first goblin through the back door and ripped out his throat. Unseen, another pair of goblins smashed through the door to Feya's workshop and made their way past the tables of herbs and spices and alchemical equipment. A scrabbling sound on the roof above indicated the progress of another goblin-mounted steeder, as became apparent once it dropped to the front lawn and was visible in the open front doorway. Recognizing the pair as her greatest likely threat, Finoula activated her [i]lightning amulet[/i] and blasted herself right through them, slaying the goblin instantly and scorching the spider. However, the other steeder by this time had scampered down the stairs and bitten Feya. Its rider brought a blowgun to his lips and shot a dart at the elven herbalist, but the dart went whizzing past her head to stick into the wall beyond. Dribbles of poison leaked down from the dart's tip. Without any command from its slain rider, the other steeder scrambled into the house, attacking Wrath, who the giant arachnid saw as nothing more than a potential meal. The poor wolf was also simultaneously attacked by two goblins at the back door, but he managed to slay one of those with a vicious bite. The other goblin decided right then and there that his assault group had obviously picked the wrong house to attack, and turned tail to flee back the way he'd come. Finoula stepped back into her mother's house, flailing away with her magic whip. She'd caused rivulets of blood to come streaming from the riderless spider's abdomen; insanely, while in battle for their very lives, part of Finoula worried about how difficult it would be to get the blood out of her mother's floors. Wrath spun around and snapped his jaws at the same spider but missed. However, not liking the odds and without a rider to prod it on, the spider had at that time decided to flee as well. Both doors were blocked, one by the wolf and one by the elf, but it had carried a goblin up to the rooftop with it so he could scurry down the chimney; that was another avenue of escape. Unfortunately, before it could put its half-formed thoughts into motion, Finoula lashed out again with her whip and killed the spider before it could get very far at all. The mounted steeder scurried down the rest of the stairs and bit Wrath; its rider, meanwhile, had turned in his saddle and shot a poisoned dart at Finoula through the use of a blowgun. She slapped it away in irritation with [i]Tahlmalaera[/i], then used the move to thrust the blade into the body of the last of the goblin trio to have entered through the front door. Just as she was kicking his skewered body off of her blade, though, the other two entered the living room from Feya's workshop. And then, out of nowhere, a portly wizard appeared in the middle of the room. Finoula's brow creased in puzzlement at the sight of Gilbert Fung in her mother's living room, but then put her focus back onto the fight at hand. As his steeder bit Wrath, the goblin spider-rider turned and shot a poisoned dart at Gilbert Fung, missing him by a hair. Gilbert responded with a [i]burning hands[/i] spell which slew the goblin and burned a patch of fur off the steeder. Gilbert was then attacked by the two goblins wielding handcrafted morningstars, looking like knobby masses of pulplike wood with shards of glass embedded in them. He cursed at the little buggers, but Finoula assumed he had things in hand with them and concentrated on the remaining spider. She carved it up with her sword, slaying it in one well-pressed attack. Then, partly to show Gilbert she didn't need him to come teleporting in to save her, she handily dispatched the goblins who had been attacking him with a few quick strikes from her whip. Deactivating the whip's thorns, she started rolling it back up now that combat was over. "Gilbert," she said, acknowledging his presence and his assistance. "Finoula," he replied, nodding his head. Feya looked at the dead bodies scattered across her house and headed for the workshop. "I think I need some calming herbs," she said. - - - [b]MARTA'S CABIN[/b] In the log cabin they shared out in the woods on the outskirts of Kordovia, Marta and her son Darrien were both asleep in their beds. Marta had a rather normal bed, whereas Darrien's was a loft, occupying the upper half of the east end of his room, with a small desk beneath it. Perhaps because he was situated so close to the roof, it awakened him when he heard something crawling around up there. More times than not, it was squirrels who crawled around up on the roof. The woods were crawling with squirrels, which made for good eating and excellent target practice with his bow; there were already two skinned squirrels in the pantry for tomorrow's stew. With a sigh, Darrien tried to block the noise and get back to sleep. But there was something almost [i]sinister[/i] in the sounds on the roof, like whatever was up there was trying to be stealthy about it (and failing miserably to the ranger's trained ears). Then there was a sound of something tumbling down the chimney between the two bedrooms, and all thoughts of a possible squirrel incursion were removed. Darrien leaped down from his bunk, wearing only the pants to his armor and a comfortable under-shirt. He grabbed his amber amulet from the desk and slipped it over his neck, then grabbed up his [i]Arachnibow[/i] and strung it. Slapping his [i]quiver of Ehlonna[/i] on a belt around his hips, he crept to the door and peered out. There was a skeleton crawling out of the fireplace. It was the size of a man but somewhat brutish, almost apelike: an orc, perhaps? Not wanting to have his mother be taken unawares - for Darrien could hear more scrabbling up on the rooftop - the ranger bellowed, "MOM! SKELETONS!" at the top of his lungs as he mentally activated his amulet. There was a twisted figure embedded in the hunk of amber he wore around his neck: it was a praying mantis encased in the golden substance. However, upon Darrien's activation, the mantis in the amulet disappeared - leaving a mantis-shaped bubble in the glob of amber - and a giant mantis taller than a man appeared in the central room of the cabin. It a flash, it struck out at the orc skeleton with its claws, catching it, imprisoning it, and biting it all in one quick motion. The combined attack was enough to destroy the skeleton, which fell apart into a pile of bones on the wooden floor. There was a sudden pounding and banging on the cabin's only door. The mantis spun to face this new threat, but it sounded like it would take a moment for the attackers to break their way through. Marta, meanwhile, climbed out of her warm bed and threw her robe around her. Then, with a hatchet as a weapon, she peered out of the shutters of her bedroom window. She was dismayed to see countless skeletons ringing the cabin - it looked like Darrien hadn't been kidding, waking her up in the middle of the night like that! Another skeleton dropped down the chimney and started climbing out of the fireplace. Darrien destroyed it with a flurry of arrows, but it took four to bring it down. The ranger realized that arrows - even ones enhanced by magic like the ones his [i]Arachnibow[/i] shot - weren't the best weapons to use against skeletal undead. He spotted a dropped weapon on the floor by the chimney - it looked like a hardwood club: perfect! He grabbed it up, just as his mother practically exploded out of her bedroom. The reason for her haste was fully explained by the skeletons crawling through her bedroom window, having burst the wooden shutters open. "Into then bathroom--quick!" Darrien commanded, and his mother hurried to comply. She slammed the door shut behind it and barred it in place. "Don't come out until I tell you it's safe!" Darrien added, and Marta nodded to herself - her boy could handle a few skeletons; he was an [i]adventurer[/i], after all! The front door finally burst open, revealing a pair of skeletons and, surprisingly, a living foe: a goblin spellcaster of some sort, judging from his getup. He motioned for his undead minions to attack the ranger (at least that's what Darrien supposed he said, not speaking the Goblin language himself, but the pointing gesture and look of hatred were pretty universal). As quick as a wink, the mantis pulled a skeleton into its claws and crushed it to pieces; the bones rained down onto the wooden floor. The other one, though, slammed into the bug's carapace with its knotted club, and - worse yet - the goblin spellcaster sent what Darrien recognized as [i]magic missiles[/i] flying into his mantis. Once activated, the mantis had only a limited time before returning to its amber prison for the rest of the day, but Darrien was worried that at this rate it wouldn't even get to stick around that long! Another skeleton dropped down the chimney and started crawling out of the fireplace; Darrien brought his borrowed club smashing down on the thing's skull, destroying it with a single blow. But more skeletons were pouring out of Marta's room - [i]just how many were there?[/i], Darrien wondered. Seeing more lined up outside the front door, ready to enter the cabin and attack, Darrien cast an [i]entangle[/i] spell out the front door, causing the grass and roots to rise up and entwine around the ankles of the skeletons standing there, binding them in place - at least for now. But in the moment it took to cast the simple spell, Darrien found himself surrounded by orc skeletons, all bashing at him with their clubs or clawing at him with their skeletal digits. The goblin sorcerer was focusing his [i]magic missile[/i] attacks on the mantis, apparently not realizing it was anything but what it appeared to be: a giant insect, possibly a living pet, rather than the summoned aspect of a magic amulet which would soon enough disappear on its own. For its part, the mantis kept grabbing up and crushing skeletons in its claws, unable to make its way past the animated undead to get to their goblin master. Moments passed, in which Darrien bashed one skeleton to pieces and the mantis crushed another between its claws, before the goblin's spell took the insect past its damage threshold and it reverted back to its imprisoned form inside the amulet. [i]It was good while it lasted[/i], Darrien thought, grateful that the mantis had slain as many enemies and taking as many attacks as it had before being shut down. But now the goblin pointed directly at him and commanded its undead forces to tear the ranger to pieces. Darrien swung his club left and right, battering away at his skeletal enemies, but they were wearing him down and he had no reprieve from their endless assault. And then Hagan appeared in the main room. He was immediately flanked by two orc skeletons and hit with their clubs, but after taking an initial beating the half-orc sorcerer cast a [i]chain lightning[/i] spell focused on the goblin in the doorway (as Hagan imagined he was the leader of the attack) and arcing off to every skeleton he could see. The goblin shrieked despite his protective measures (he had a [i]bear's endurance[/i] and a [i]false life[/i] spell active, without which he'd have been instantly slain by the electrical spell), then cried out even louder when all of his skeletal minions in the cabin dropped as one into piles of bones. Of course, more clamored into the cabin, from the chimney, from the front door, and from Marta's bedroom, and in a short while the cabin was filled with animated undead once again, clawing at the heroes and slamming them with their gnarled clubs. The goblin sorcerer cast a [i]magic missile[/i] spell at Hagan, hoping to take him out quickly, but the sorcerer replied with a repeat of his previous attack: another [i]chain lightning[/i] that crisped every skeleton in the cabin and scorched the goblin further. Darrien took care of the last few stragglers coming in from his mother's bedroom, and then Hagan cast his final [i]chain lightning[/i] spell, instantly frying the goblin where he stood. It was the matter of mere moments to then pick off the few orc skeletons that remained. "Mom? You okay in there?" called Darrien. "I'm fine!" she answered, still gripping the hatchet in case the door should be battered down. "It's safe to come out now." Marta opened the bathroom door and looked about at the state of the cabin. Loose bones were strewn everywhere. Then she looked up and saw Hagan standing by her son. "Darrien!" she cried out in alarm. "You didn't tell me we had guests! Come here, Hagan, would you like some pie? Darrien, get the plates! You do like cherry pie, don't you, Hagan?" "Yes, ma'am," the half-orc replied with a smile. On his shoulder, Wezhley grinned his silent agreement. - - - [b]THE LUCKY HAND TAVERN AND WINKIDEW'S POTION SHOP[/b] Winkidew Dundernoggin was awake when the screaming began. He was in his laboratory overseeing the brewing of a batch of potions that required particular care; even the slightest change in temperature as they steeped could throw off the whole mixture. As such, he was only one room away from the front room of the shop, and the screams coming from the street just outside were quite audible. To the gnome's ears these weren't screams of revelry or joy, they were screams of terror, as if some type of indescribable horror was playing out in the streets of Kordovia. The gnome alchemist knew just what to do: he cast a [i]ventriloquist[/i] spell and shouted down the stairs at full volume, "GET UP HERE, LADS, AT ONCE!" Downstairs, Jinkadoodle awoke at the sound of his father's spell immediately. He rushed upstairs in his pajamas to see what was so important it had the old man bellowing in the middle of the night. "Where's Bink?" asked Winkidew when his son popped his head up from the basement. "We'll probably want him to deal with this." Binkadink was at that very moment sound asleep on a sofa in the family room, wrapped up in a thick, woolly blanket. He liked staying with his uncle and cousin, although close proximity to Jinkadoodle always carried with it the risk of the unleashing of the next round in their incessant prank war. "GET UP HERE, BINKADINK!" bellowed Winkidew a second time, this time making it seem like the voice was coming from his son's posterior. Jinkadoodle just shook his head in disbelief and popped back downstairs to give his cousin a shake. Snapping out of it as he crashed to the floor (for Jinkadoodle determined the best way to wake his cousin up was to pull the sheets and blanket off the couch from underneath him), he scrambled to his feet, barefoot and wearing only his underpants. "Screaming outside! Grab your weapons and armor!" Jinkadoodle advised, but the gnome fighter merely grabbed up his trusty magic glaive and scrambled up the stairs. By the time they both got back up the stairs and into Winkidew's potion lab, the potion maker had cast an [i]invisibility[/i] spell upon himself as a protective measure. "Go see what that bother's all about," he groused. "I cannot be disturbed at this critical juncture." With his [i]ventriloquism[/i] spell still active, he couldn't resist making it sound like he was talking from inside Binkadink's briefs. But a pounding on the front door brought all thoughts of joking about to a crashing halt, especially since the pounding sounded like it was being made with heavy weaponry. Sure enough, just as Binkadink rushed through the door to the customer area out front, the front door shattered inwards and two burly orogs rushed in, greataxes in hand, looking for people to kill and stuff to steal. Behind them tramped a handful of goblins, each carrying a leather sling, with a pouch of stones dangling from their belts. Binkadink wasted no time; he sent his glaive slicing deep into the first orog, who hadn't considered a three-foot-tall gnome in his underpants a serious threat. That changed about the same time as a gout of blood erupted from the gash in his chest. With a howl of pain, he brought his weapon down at the gnome fighter, his counterpart doing the same. Binkadink took a couple of hits but didn't let them bother him; they weren't deep enough to mess up his aim or his strength. Nonetheless, from the potion lab behind Binkadink, Winkidew cast a [i]bear's endurance[/i] spell on his nephew, granting him an added bit of vitality for the fight ahead of him. Jinkadoodle followed his father's lead and cast an [i]invisibility[/i] spell upon himself, fading immediately from view. By this time, about a dozen goblins had swarmed into the potion lab and were climbing over the front counter. A few took aim against Binkadink with their slings, and the gnome fighter found himself being pelted with sling-stones while he was forced to concentrate on the orogs before him, either one of which looked strong enough to cut him in half with one blow. Binkadink lashed out again at the wounded orog, and he looked about ready to fall over (whether from accumulated blood loss or simply from embarrassment at having been bested by a gnome was open for debate). But neither orog was about to back off from the fight; they each struck at the little fighter, who stabbed out at the first one as he stepped forward, skewering him in the chest and dropping him like a sack of corn meal before cleaving off to the other one and getting in a deep cut across his torso. It was hard to believe, but it looked like this little runt was about to get the better of both of the orog fighters leading this group of goblin slingers.... Two doors down, the Lucky Hand Tavern was still open for business despite the late hour. Castillan and Aithanar sat at a table with two fat human merchants, playing cards. Screams arose from the street outside, causing the merchants to leap up in fear. "We'd better check it out," offered Aithanar, standing and reaching for the longsword at his hip. "Dammit! I suppose," agreed Castillan, slamming his cards down on the table - he'd had a [i]really[/i] good hand, but now it didn't look like he was going to be able to finish this round. More screams came from outside, making the merchants decide they'd be retiring immediately from the game; they scooped up their coins and dashed up the stairs to their rooms. [b]Langley[/b], the half-orc who both owned and ran the tavern, reached for his greatclub from behind the bar as Castillan walked up to the door and Aithanar peered out of a glass window looking out into the street. Outside stood two orogs - massive brutes with the blood of both orcs and ogres running through their veins - as well as a quartet of orcs wielding some sort of flail with skulls at the tips of each strand. One had dragged a screaming man from a nearby building and was bludgeoning him to death with his weapon, while the two orogs raised their heads and sniffed the air. As one, their heads shot toward the Lucky Hand Tavern, the smell of whiskey and other brews too tantalizing to pass up. Castillan decided to try calming the brutes down. "Hey, fellows," he said in the Common tongue. "Come on in, let us buy you a pitcher of ale!" Neither the orcs nor the orogs spoke or understood the Common tongue, but they could pick up the tantalizing aromas of alcohol through the open door. Half of the forces made a bee-line for Castillan, while the other three took the expedient measure of running through one of the glass windows at the front of the building. Shedding glass fragments, the orog roared defiance to the world at large, while his counterpart pushed through the main door and brought his greataxe down upon Castillan, who only barely avoided being decapitated. He struck at the orog with his short sword, backing toward the stairs, but his brother beat him there, racing up the steps as fast as he could go. Despite the appearance of cowardice, Aithanar was actually heading to the room he and his brother had rented, where he knew Castillan's bow and arrows were at hand. Aithanar didn't mind a fair fight, but six against three wasn't anything to look forward to, especially with brutes these size! Langley stepped forward from the bar with his greatclub in hand, doing his level best to look menacing. "Stand down!" he ordered. "There's no need for bloodshed, but I'll shed all I need of yours if it comes to that!" Snapping his left fingers, Castillan brought his [i]stonepiercer dagger[/i] to hand, then lashed out with both blades at the orog before him, drawing twin lines of blood across the brute's face. Two of the skullslinger orcs came forward, attacking the bounder with their bolas. Castillan dodged one attack, but was struck on the arm with the other; the orc tried pulling the elf to the floor and when that didn't work, Castillan tried pulling the weapon from the orc's grasp, without any success either. Finally he settled for disentangling himself from the weapon and backing further up the stairs. "Aith!" called Castillan, afraid to look behind him and take his eyes off the three foes in front of him. "Where are you?" "Up here!" called Aithanar, punctuating the response with an arrow shot at one of the orcs menacing Langley. The other one caught the half-orc's leg with his skull-bola, pulling the bar owner to the floor. He scrambled hurriedly back to his feet, but without his greatclub in hand. Continuing to back his way up the steps, Castillan realized they were outnumbered and outclassed. Langley was bum-rushed by the orcs and thrown to the ground, where the orog stomped heavily on his face. "Get over here, Aith!" the bounder called, and Aithanar finished his shot at the orog menacing Langley and ran over to his brother. Castillan finally turned and ran down the upper hallway overlooking the tavern area, the orog and two orc skullslingers hot on his heels. Below them, Langley extricated himself from his foes and made a rush for the bar, hoping he could fight the three off one at a time in the limited fighting space there, but the orog chased after him and the orcs jumped up onto the bar itself, swinging down at the bar owner with their skull bolas. It didn't look like there was anything to be done for poor Langley... ...so Castillan grabbed his brother by the arm and activated his ring. Instantly, the surrounding Lucky Hand Tavern was replaced by the customer area of Winkidew's Potion Shop, although the place wasn't as he had expected it to be when Castillan [i]dimension doored[/i] in with his brother. For one thing, there were two dead orogs on the floor. For another, there were screaming goblins everywhere. The reason soon became apparent, for not only was there Binkadink standing there in his underpants wielding his massive glaive, but in the back room there were three more identical Binkadinks, all screaming in battle-lust. (These last three were courtesy of a [i]major image[/i] spell cast by Jinkadoodle, after having seen how frightened the goblin slingers seemed to be of just the one Binkadink.) "You guys okay?" Binkadink asked, skewering three goblins on his glaive in rapid succession. "The bar's been overrun," Castillan exclaimed. "Langley's?" "Yeah, that's the one. I think Langley's dead, though." "You guys can handle it here?" the gnome fighter asked. Castillan looked around and saw a handful of screaming goblins, all trying to flee the illusory Binkadinks; compared to what they left back at the bar, this looked like a simple clean-up job. "Yeah, we got this," the bounder replied, as Aithanar stabbed a goblin through the chest with his longsword. "Good!" yelled Binkadink on the way out the splintered front door, racing down the street on his little gnomish legs. (Sadly, his [i]gnomish stilt-boots[/i] were downstairs with the rest of his armor.) Arriving at the tavern, Binkadink took the closest entrance into the place - the smashed window. Avoiding the worst of the glass shards (he was, after all, in his bare feet), he saw a pair of orcs guzzling down bottles of alcohol from behind the bar while a massive orog drank straight from a keg. There were two more orcs and an orog upstairs, running from room to room and looting the place. (They'd just smashed in the merchants' room and slain them.) Langley was nowhere to be seen; only afterwards would they find his shattered body dumped behind the bar. For now, though, the orog noticed the gnome's arrival and dropped his keg. Grabbing his greataxe back up, he rushed at the gnome; hearing this, the orog upstairs leaped down the steps three at a time and joined his fighting partner, pinning the gnome between the two of them. Their greataxes came down upon the gnome, and only quick maneuvering on his part let him extricate himself from between them with all of his limbs intact. Staggering off to the side, where he could give himself plenty of swinging room for his glaive, he sent its blade slicing through the air to bite deep into one of the orogs, slaying him instantly, and then, having ripped clear through the orog's body and hide armor, tearing into the other one. It was likely only the slowing of the blade's momentum by having to cut through the first orog that prevented Binkadink from slaying the second one as well with the same blow. Seeing this, the two orcs scrambled back over the bar to help their orog group leader, while the two from upstairs came whooping down to join the combat as well. Four orc skullslingers and an orog against a little gnome? This was going to be fun! But by the time they got down the stairs, two more elves had joined the fight. Castillan and Aithanar had made short work of the remaining goblin slingers at Winkidew's shop, and decided to return to Langley's to see what help they could give, The orog caught sight of the two elves suddenly appearing back in the bar and it distracted his attention for a mere second, but that was all Binkadink needed. One quick strike of the glaive and the last of the orogs fell to the floor, dead. Castillan stabbed out at one of the orcs rushing down the stairs and his short sword went deep into the skullslinger's belly; pulling it out, the blade was red with blood and the orc was drained of all life. He crumpled where he stood. That left three orcs against a pair of elves and a gnome. One of the orcs made a stirring speech in his native tongue, which unfortunately for him was only understood by the orcs present. "You're all dead, do you hear me?" he roared. "The three of us are enough to kill you all!" The other two skullslingers, though, had been paying closer attention to Binkadinks' fearsome combat prowess. "Good luck with that!" they called, racing each other out the front door. Binkadink followed but knew he could never catch up to the faster orcs. That didn't matter, though, for Castillan could. He left the last skullslinger for his brother and chased down the two fleeing orcs - a good thing, too, for they had pocketed some of the valuables from his room! Finally, after having slain the last pair, Castillan and Binkadink returned to the tavern to ensure Aithanar had fared as well. He had; the last orc lay dead in a pool of his own blood. "Pity about Langley," sighed the elven fighter. "He had good service, decent prices, and the beds weren't too bad." He and Castillan spent many a night in Kordovia staying in various taverns and inns, neither wishing to spend time at home when their father was around. The Lucky Hand Tavern was one of their favorites. "Yeah," agreed Castillan, rubbing his chin in thought. "Say, Aithanar," he mused, "what do you think about buying the deed to this place and running it ourselves?" - - - In the days that followed, an investigation took place into how the orc and goblin troops had managed to make it this far into the kingdom undetected. It turned out the brutes were adapting, using their cunning to their best advantage. Normally, they'd come rushing out of the Vesve Forest, where they'd be spotted ahead of time by one of Chalkan's arcane archers who were stationed in perches among the trees, ready to send a signal arrow high into the air as a warning of their coming approach. This time there had been no warning, but only because an orc scouting party had crept on ahead and taken out a group of these sentries, all in a row. This allowed the small army to enter the kingdom from the forest unannounced. They were also apparently aware of the mercenary patrols and able to avoid them. Thus, for the first time since the beginning of the attacks, they'd made it into the heart of the city. "They're getting sneakier," observed King Galrich. "Adapting to our defenses." "Aye," agreed Aerik. "What can we do?" "What we really need," mused King Galrich, "is a way to bring the fight back to them. Where's that Fung woman? We need to speed up her lessons." "Aye," repeated Aerik. "I'll have her brought t' ye at once, Your Majesty." - - - When I first started this campaign and decided there will have been waves of orc and goblin attacks on the kingdom for years, I realized it would be cool to do two things: one, have the PCs fight off an attack on Battershield Keep (which I did in our 20th adventure), and two, to have the PCs fight off separate groups individually, which I finally got to do here. The players quickly glommed on to the fact that the invisible spellcaster at the Fung residence was likely the same invisible spellcaster they'd encountered before during "Assault on Battershield Keep." In fact, I was lucky to keep him alive at all, as Hagan's final [i]cone of cold[/i] spell (cast upon the entire room, thus negating any advantage his invisibility gave him) brought him down to a singe hit point! He teleported out of there just in time. Of the players, it was Joey who fared the worst, overrun as he was by a goblin sorcerer and his 32 orc skeletons. Dan wanted to have Gilbert teleport straight there once he saw how bad a time Darrien was having, but as there was no way for Gilbert to know how badly Darrien was faring compared to the others we had him roll randomly to see who he'd decide to check in on, and he ended up with Finoula (much to Vicki's disappointment, as I think she didn't want to have anybody help her). Once it was pointed out to Harry that Hagan also knew [i]teleport[/i] (and was a sorcerer to boot, so he could cast it multiple times), we decided to let him choose to go to Darrien's cabin, given that he had no way of knowing which tavern Castillan and Aithanar were at and we reasoned he'd assume Binkadink, Winkidew, and Jinkadoodle could take care of themselves, as could Ingebold, whose father's a 20th-level fighter/dwarven defender. I had no real way of knowing how long this adventure would take to run through, given the individual battles. Unlike normal battles, where I assemble my initiative deck with all of the combatants, this time I "clumped" them into groups based on their locations. So while it mattered who fell where in the initiative order between Darrien, Marta, the goblin sorcerer, and the animated orc skeletons, I didn't really care whether Castillan's initiative order would have come before or after Darrien. In effect, I was running five separate combats, one round at a time, moving clockwise around the table. (As Hagan was staying with the Fungs, I had Harry swap with Logan so Hagan's player was sitting by Gilbert's player and the Fung Cottage battle map could sit between them.) For the record, though, we finished the adventure in just a little over four hours. I also ran into a problem with not having enough of the appropriate miniatures, so I had hobgoblins pulling duty as orcs and bugbears pulling duty as orogs and the like. Some of the more numerous creatures got their own homemade stand-up tokens (like the 32 orc skeletons). All in all, it was a fun change of pace. And the bit about Malaterminus at the beginning of Finoula's combat situation was added at the last minute, as I had just thought of it the morning of the game and wanted to see what Vicki's reaction would be. (As expected, it was initial surprise followed by extreme relief.) - - - T-Shirt Worn: I have a green "Family Reunion" T-shirt with a tree silhouette in white, which I felt was a good representation of this adventure, given that the PCs were spending time alone with family. [/QUOTE]
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