Today we played DnD! I
decided I was tired of writing this a week later when I have forgotten half of
what happened and what I remember may or may not be accurate, so I started
writing it right away! Boyle was tired
and we didn’t get much done! But that
was more the undertaking of the campaign than anything else, as most of this
session was spent in combat. It’s still
my longest entry in months. Writing the
day of helps you remember details and stuff.
So, after the party finished up with the town of druids, the
druids gave the party a guide who took them through the woods to Barrelhelm,
and thus they reached the village of Barrelhelm without anything happening
along the way. The party said goodbye to
their guide, who turned and hightailed it back to Druid Village, and the party
began investigating the area.
Between them and Barrelhelm was a large river flowing east
out of the western mountains, at a span of about five hundred feet. There was a pair of towers on either side of
it, which rose to a height of 100 feet, with a bridge spanning the river at the
top level. The towers were each wide
open at their base, with an entrance 40 feet high. A turnstile upon the top level lowered
through the empty tower a platform that carts could be raised up upon to the
top level to then travel over the river.
There was also a ring of stairs along the interior of the tower that
traveled up to a stone door that one could enter to reach the top level.
The party spent two days on reconnaissance, and saw there
were was a cluster of Orcs on the North Tower, as well as some kind of winged
beast. This spying was being done by
Hannah flying about in Superdragon’s cloak with invisibility cast on her by the
Bard, so she wasn’t entirely certain what the winged creature was. On the Southern Tower (that would be the one
on the opposite side of the river) there seemed to be a pair of giant
creatures, possibly ogres. In the
village beyond, all the gnome huts appeared empty. Beyond them, built into the western
mountains, was a fortress. And the
second day, Hannah saw an Orc riding a giant wolf come up from the south and
bring a message to the fortress.
The party decided that attempting a frontal attack on the
first tower might be dangerous, since it might call out reinforcements from the
fortress, so the party opted to bypass it by having Hannah carry each member of
the party over the river with her flying cape.
They waited until dark to begin the crossing, and Hannah began with
Dragon Man. But! As they reached the halfway point of the
river, they saw flying straight towards them, from the opposite shore, the
winged creature that was nesting on the North Tower.
It was a Manticore.
Hannah and Dragon Man turned about to fly back to the other
side, as carrying a Dragonborn is not that ideal way to fight a Manticore. But
the Manticore was flying faster than them.
The night was moonless and cloudy. The rest of the party had
no idea what was happening. (Also, we
were all failing our spot-checks. Hard.)
The Manticore
attacked Hannah and Dragon Man, and after a couple rounds Hannah was forced to
drop Dragon Man into the river, where he was swiftly carried away by the
current. Flying on towards shore, under constant
attack from the Manticore, she called out to the party members on the shore. Eventually, the Bard saw what was following
her, and pointed out the flying creature in the darkness to his
companions. Nory and Ulfgar unleashed
spells at it, and after getting hit, the Manticore turned tail and ran.
The Bard and Ulfgar ran off down the river to try to catch
up to where Dragon Man was getting carried by the current. Hannah followed them, but in the air. Nory stayed behind to continue hurling spells
at the Manticore until it was out of range, as Nory’s spells have an extra long
range. Also, Nory doesn’t really care
about people, what with Cthulu ending the world soon and all.
Dragon Man in his armor had been struggling to stay above
water this entire time, and was just about to go under when Hannah was able to
throw a rope down to him. With the rope as
a guide slash Hannah pulling him, he was able to swim easily to shore.
The party regrouped on the riverbank. Ulfgar pointed out Manticore’s are capable of
speech, so at this point any element of surprise was pretty much boned, so they
just took off for the North tower to, as Dragon Man put it, go HAM.
When they came up to the tower, four Orcs stood on the
parapet throwing javelins at the party. They
didn’t have much success against the Melee fighters, but neither could the
melee fighters do any damage to them, so the Bard, Hannah, and Dragon Man ran
into the entrance of the Tower, which led the Orcs hurling javelins at Ulfgar
instead. Meanwhile, Nory stayed well
back and, with his super long-range Eldritch Blast, succeeded in killing one of
the Orcs up above.
The Manticore had by this time ridden back into view, this
time with a blue-skinned Orc riding on his back. The Manticore flew in low and hurled spines
at the Melee fighters in the entrance of the North Tower. So, Ulfgar encased the Manticore and his
Orc-rider in a Fireball.
Hannah and Dragon Man took this as a good sign to not be in
the entranceway and started running up the stairs to the tower top, but the
Bard stayed behind. Meanwhile, Nory
killed his second Orc javelin-thrower.
The remaining two Orc soldiers decided that maybe standing
up high while a gnome warlock picks you off from out of javelin range wasn’t
the best idea, so they backed away from the parapet. But, the Blue Orc hadn’t
appreciated that Fireball none too much, so he dive-bombed the Manticore straight
at Ulfgar, and hit the dwarf hard while rolling past him.
Ulfgar was stuck between a blue-skinned Orc badass and a
giant Manticore. So, he cast Fireball on
the Manticore.
And the Manticore died.
Ulfgar moved straight back from the Blorc (as John called him), and
called out the the Blorc that he was surrounded by spellcasters now, so he
should probably surrender.
The Bard noticed that Ulfgar was pretty messed up at this
point, so he ran out and cast healing on him while Nory hurled more spells at
the Blorc. The Blorc, noticing Nory the
Gnome Warlock, exclaimed that he hated Gnomes, and ran off to mess Nory
up. And did, pretty much straight
away. Nory was able to get off another
attack, as was Ulfgar, but on the next attack the Blorc took Nory down hard
like it wasn’t no thing.
Thankfully, Ulfgar was able to kill the Blorc right after
that with a Scorching Ray, and then the Bard was able to run over to heal Nory
and loot the Blorc’s corpse. (He found a
pair of waterskins not full of water.
One was all foul-smelling alcohol, the other seemed to contain about
seven doses of healing potion. That’s
350 gold worth of healing potions! Sweet!)
The Bard, Nory, and Ulfgar than ran into the tower and up
the stairs, to find Hannah and Dragon Man ineffectually trying to open the
stone trap door, as the remaining Orc pair laughed at them through the stone. Try as they might, the door wouldn’t
budge.
The party decided on a plan.
Hannah and Dragon Man would travel down to the base, and then Hannah
would fly up the side of the tower while Dragon Man, with Spider Climb cast
upon him by Ulfgar, would walk up the tower’s side. They would jump over the side and kill the Orcs,
then open the trap door and let the rest of the party in.
But when they stormed the side, the Orcs were running down
the bridge! And far too far way to
catch!
Thinking quickly, they opened up the trap door and ushered
in the others, and pointed out the two fleeing orcs to Nory the Boss of
Long-ranged Spells. Nory strutted down
the bridge while casting Eldritch Blast until the two Orcs were dead.
The party took a short rest to recoup, then continued on
across the bridge over the river. As
they got closer to the South Tower, they heard what they quickly determined was
indeed a pair of Ogres, who were arguing over who had to cook the dead gnome
they were waving around. So, Nory cast
thoughts into their heads suggesting they kill each other, and the Ogres, who
are very dumb and can’t really distinguish between their own thoughts and ideas
beings whispered in their heads, started fighting each other.
The fight was pretty evenly matched, but finally one of the
Ogres succeeded in killing the other. He
barely had time to enjoy his bloodied victory when Dragon Man walked into the
tower and used his breath weapon on him.
And the Ogre was so worn out that (even though he made his saving throw)
he died.
So the party took out a pair of Ogres without taking any
damage.
As the Towers were ancient Dwarven constructions of the
finest engineering, the party opted to spend the night there, closing up the
turnstiles and weighting the trap doors with Ogres corpses, and took a long
rest.
The next day, they ventured into the village, and found no
signs of life. They made their way to
the place that the gnome back in the river village said his treasure was
hidden, and it was there! And they
dumped it all into Nory’s bag of holding.
While they were moving about the village, finding little
sign of supplies, an Orc riding a giant wolf left the fortress, heading towards
the village. The party set an ambush,
and killed him and his wolf. They found
he was carrying a letter, sent to some strange leader figure. It stated that all the gnomes had finally
been killed (so much for rescuing anybody), and that they would soon revive the
corpse of the Copper Dragon who had guarded village.
Were the Orcs creating
a Zombie Dragon?!
Dungeons and Dragons Cliffhanger!
(Really that’s as far as we got. Boyle was really tired. He had like three hours sleep total all
weekend.)
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