Session 5 - Where the Caravans Are
General Summary
May 8, 2023
The party was on the road to Orlbar when they encounter the scalykind. Across the river, and unknown to the party, a gnome witnessed the entire exchange. His name is Zephyr, and he speaks draconic, so he understands what is going on.
The group faces off against the scalykind until someone twitches and attacks.
Rivenn flings an axe at a creature, hits it, and it snaps back on a string to his hand. It worked so well, he attempted it again, and again hits the Scaly Kind.
A figure intones some words, and spreads his hands out. The grasses under the party's feet move and try to grab the parties' feet. They manage to avoid being grabbed, but the entire area is difficult terrain.
To the observing party, they see a gnome steps out from some bushes and throw some ropes to the ground. He casts a spell. Zephyr targets the scaly folks, and shoots a color spray at them. He catches two of them that turn around and they are blinded. He then moves back into the tree and hides.
Jakahaiel drinks a potion of cat's grace. He then acrobatics to vault over the creek. It was poorly done, leaving the quarterstaff on the other side of the river! He thinks the lizard folk he can see are caster types, but is unsure of what type. He moves up to one, and tries to punch it. The lizard shakes off the effects but does take damage from the punch.
Benny moves up to support Jakahaiel and throws a tanglefoot bag at a caster, who brushes it off.
Then 2 water elementals move up to Benny since he is stupidly in front. The first hit smacks him with a water limb. The second tiny elemental misses Benny.
Nilgan casts mage armor on himself, and then casts ray of frost on a water elemental. Part of it freezes and falls to the ground, frozen.
Joice looks over the battlefield. He uses monster lore to identify the water elementals. He realizes that going into the water with these creatures is 'bad.' He moves up, uses destruction judgement, and attacks with the sword of Nicolas! The creature falls to the ground, possibly not dead but definitely senseless. Without hesitation, he stabs the senseless creature, and without any effort, cuts the head clean off the scalykind. He then looks across at the next one, and stares him down.
Another water elemental rushes Benny, and keeps an arm in the water as he attacks. The first attack missed, but the second one hits Benny right in the gut.
Joice is then rushed by an elemental, but the water tentacle simply slams against the armor, not once but twice, unable to get past his defenses.
A small elemental rushes Jakahaiel, with one hand in the water, who is able to easily dodge the first swing. The second swing is even worse, it's as if the creature isn't even trying.
The scalykind named Snacen moves up and swings at Joice twice but misses both times, and cannot even bite the warrior, as again the enemies of Joice are defeated by his shiny armor.
The chicken head caster casts acid splash at Joice, spitting 3 times, getting past the tanglefoot bag goo, and hitting him all 3 times.
A lizardkind spins around to face Jakahaiel, concentrates so he won't be interrupted, and throws a spell at him. Jakahaiel is able to throw off whatever the spell was going to be, his will being too strong. So, he then tries to bite him, but the monk who easily avoids the bite.
A large water elemental rushes Jakahaiel, using the water for a boost, and tries to slam him. He manages to get a solid hit on the monk! He tries again, but the monk is having none of that and moves out of the way.
Another tiny elemental, using the river and attacks Joice. The first attack misses but he manages to get through on the second attack! It wasn't much of a hit, Joice barely feels it.
Rivenn whips his axe out at a creature attacking Jakahaiel and hits him from behind. Not once but twice, knocking the creature prone! Down but not dead. His next throws are at the water elemental, but it goes right through, not doing any damage.
The blind lizard moves onto shore and tries to hit Jakahaiel, but misses both times swinging randomly in frustration.
The mystery gnome Zephyr moves out again and with three quick cantrips, hits the blinded lizard 3 times with cold.
Jakahaiel moves over and punches the water elemental. He hits it once, and then tries again. He swings and again hits it. The creature shudders and seems to be diminished from the attack.
Benny pulls out the lizard dagger and stabs the lizard attacking Joice. He saw Benny, and tried to shift, but he completely sneak attacks him. The dagger starts vibrating really fast in Benny's hand. And it just suddenly pulls Benny's hand forward and it goes right up and cuts into the lizards heart, killing him. From the dagger, everyone hears something, "Thank You" In a very deep voice. He then attacks the small water elemental next to him, hitting it, and the entire creature shudders and water falls off of it. He follows it up with another attack, killing it.
The big elemental punches Benny, hitting him, nearing killing him. He dodges the 2nd attack, but the 3rd attack drops Benny to the ground and the dagger clatters inches out of his reach.
The little elemental moves over and attacks Joice. And, of course, cannot hit him. He tries again, but his armor is just too great.
Nilgan targets the elemental over Benny and hits it with ice. He does it again and again, all 3 attacks hit, but the creature takes them and is still there.
Joice moves down to where Benny is, and 3 water tendrils come out and swing at him, but none of them can connect because he is wearing the greatest armor of all. He grabs the dagger from the ground and pours a healing potion into Benny to keep him alive.
{"God damn it Jim" as he rolls a 2 for a total of 6 points healing, lame}
A small elemental leaves the water and attacks Joice, but obviously can't hit him.
Another one moves out of the water and attacks Jakahaiel, but as with Joice, can't hit him.
Chicken head caster again uses his magic, casting at Joice, spitting acid at him. He manages to hit him with one acid spit but misses on the first attack. After the attack, magic flares up on the armor, going around it and encasing it; the armor now has acid resistance +5.
A large elemental moves out of the water and tries to strike Jakahaiel in vain as after 3 swings, it simply cannot strike the monk.
Another little elemental moves up to Joice, but none of its attacks hit.
Rivenn throws his axe at an elemental, finds its center, and pulls the axe back as the creature explodes. He throws at another small elemental, and hits it, but doesn't kill it in one blow. So, he throws again, and this time he causes the elemental to melt away into a puddle, destroying the second one.
The blind lizard heard the fighting, and moves forward and swings, missing everything. He stops, swings again, hearing something, and attacks the large water elemental, but can't hit that either. It roars in frustration.
Zephyr shoots ice attacks the chicken head wizard, striking him twice with cold damage.
Jakahaiel steps up and pounds on the blind lizard folk, striking him twice and killing him. He then takes a 5' step, and attacks the tiny water elemental. He slams his fists into it so fast, the water explodes, sending droplets through the air. Not finished, he then charges the chicken head lizard and tries to kick him in the back of the head. He easily lands the blow, causing the caster to spin around and face him.
Benny takes a potion of Cure Moderate, uses acrobatics to jump and weave while reaching out for his fallen sword, manages to get out of the way and stand up with his sword in his hand. This causes the larger elemental to move up and kill him again with a critical attack.
The little elemental moves up and attacks Joice, hitting him once but missing him on the 2nd attack.
Nilgan moves over and pours a potion down Benny's throat, using some sort of teleportation to get there. He then shoots a ray of frost at the large water elemental.
Joice swings at the larger water elemental, critically strikes him and kills it, and then continues the swing to cleave through the little water elemental, and cuts it down too.
He then moves up to the chicken head lizard, and using the magical dagger, strikes. At that moment, he realizes what happened to Benny, as his hand goes forward of its own volition and stabs the lizard in the heart, killing it. "Yes, More Please," says the dagger.
The large water elemental rushes over to Zephyr and attacks him, striking him twice with water tendrils as it slams into him.
Riven throws his axe from the back, and with one single cut, rips the thing apart in a critical strike ending the battle as the last creature turns into mist.
When the fight is over, they approach the gnome and ask him who he is and what is happening. He introduces himself, Zephyr, and says he was with another group that left Llorkh to find out what was happening. They got ambushed and taken. While being held, one of the others would be taken away and not come back, to be sacrificed! Zephyr knew he was next and had gotten out of his bonds but then with the group showing up, made it easier to get free.
"Scaly Folk killed one of my mentors. They made my list," says Rivenn.
"They attacked my village and killed everyone there but me," says Nilgan.
"I think, since you are alone, you should come with us as we are on the same quest. At least until we get to another town. If everyone is OK with that," comments Benny.
They decide to have Zephyr join them in their own mission, since it's the same.
In Town at Stonebridge, Joice does a great job of haggling for all the gear we are selling. They started at 1800gp for the weapons and Joice got 2700gp from them. And the hide armor, they were going to give 70gp, and they talked them into 100gp for it.
There is a temple here, they do have 1 potion of cure serious, 1 potion of cure moderate, 7 potions of cure light. Joice manages to get good prices on the items: was 1400gp he sells them for 650gp.
We decide to stay in town at an inn, because we know Joice will do magistrate duties. Benny suggests that Zephyr will want to stay in an inn tonight. Zephyr figured out that Joice is an inquisitor who is an unbiased outside perspective to have an objective opinion. He spends over an hour at this town doing this.
We determine Stonebridge has also not seen any shipments. They do have the trading costers here, and they have some stuff. But they are wanting to see the trade come through again.
They decide to stay there and rest. It also allows them to convert some coins so they don't carry as much weight.
They stay the night and head out the next day. Late afternoon they come to Brookshire. There are some buildings further out but they soon come to the town square. There is a fog only in the area of a statue.
"OH, uh, do you happen to be adventurers," asks a townsfolk person
"Yes, we are on a mission for Llorkh," Answers Joice.
"Do you mind if I ask what that is?" This is obviously just a simple farmhand, nothing out of the ordinary or that is sensed about his motives.
"We are investigating the missing caravans from Orlbar."
"But they are arriving here, we send them on to Brookshire."
"Well, they are not getting to Brookshire, nor anywhere past there."
Rivenn wonders if he missed something on the road here.
"That is interesting, but do you guys see that an hear that? We were hoping that since you are adventurers that you could check it out and see what is going on." He says as we move closer to the walled in statue.
While the group does want to head back out and find the shipments, they are also curious about the fog and what is happening in this town. Several go over to have a closer look.
Looking in there, we all get an unease. There is definitely some magic held in there and that is held in check by the archways. Even the local has looked at the entry, but stops.
“Well, we sent in some guards, and they went in there, but haven't come out. So, this is kind of a rescue mission as well. We sent them in this morning, and this all started this morning," says the townsfolk.
From outside, Joice doesn't sense any evil. But when he looks through the archway and into the fog, he does sense some evil. It just feels like a presence. So Joice casts detect undead and looks closer.
As he looks through the archway and into the mist, there is definitely some magic going on. As he looks in, the statue seems to suddenly look like it is much farther away than the fifteen or twenty feet that it should be.
"Great, you guys take care of it and we will have a reward for you once you figure it out. Don't worry, I can speak for the town."
Suddenly, a little girls voice calls out, "Is anybody out there?"
GM Notes
- We got Jock's character entered and up to speed and then started.
- I did give Jock his character's background.
- Zephyr was with another group that was trying to figure out what was happening with the shipments from Orlbar.
- They were attacked in the middle of the night and taken to another place and slowly sacrificed. Zephyr was to be next when the PCs showed up.
- The fight wasn't as tough as the previous ones, I don't think.
- Yes, one character went down and a few were low enough to step back and heal themselves but not near as close as before.
- They also got better healing results, with one exception.
- I did get a voice changer and used that for a few things.
- I hope to get a lot more use out of it.
- Need to do more research.
- Maps were from Dungeon Alchemist and I'm mostly happy with how they turned out.
- They are a bit large, though. I don't want to sacrifice quality but they could stand to be smaller if possible.
- Still working on other map types as well.
- We have dice stats! (below)
- I'm not sure if I agree with them as we rolled more than 18 d20s!
- Need to look into that.