TO SAVE THE FALLEN, Part 2 |
February 26, 1999 GM: Kenneth Newquist |
| WHAT HAS COME BEFORE |
| The Blackrazors have rescued their lost comrades and a contingent of Obsidian Bay citizens from enslavement in a Scarlet Brotherhood adamentium mine. [Read "To Save the Fallen, Part 1"] The Blackrazors have eliminated the Brotherhood opposition at the mine, and are now planning to destroy the slaver’s seaport. |
| THE STORY |
| The last time the Blackrazors had tried this, they’d been
ill-prepared and wildly optimistic and it had gotten them captured. This time, things were different. They’d carefully scouted out the camp, noticed the location of the enemy, and received a full briefing from the defeated -- and subsequently freed -- Blackrazors about the strengths of their enemies. The half-elf blade Greggor, the human mage Aesop, the human priest of Pelor Karaan, the cleric of Trithereon Kalib Ironfist, the bizarre elven mutant spellcaster Malacylpse and the elven mage/ranger Tanevir Calywyn took up positions in the jungle surrounding the Brotherhood’s slaveport. From their vantage points, they could see the complex’s huge "cross" shaped form. Near the western road, they saw two small skiffs tied up at the dock. The slave pen near the dock was empty, but the two towers guarding it were not. At the end of the southern road, they saw the remains of the Brotherhood’s ore pile. Next to it was the blacksmith’s forge, and next to the forge was one of the guard barracks. On either side of the eastern road were two full slave pens and more guard towers. To the north of these, along road leading out of the slave camp, were two more guard barracks and a second empty ore dump. Overlooking all of it, mounted on a small hill near the shore, were two small wooden buildings. From previous experience, they knew the buildings were home to the camp’s elite warriors and Brotherhood leaders. The Blackrazors were ready. * * * The battle opened with Aesop casting hold person on the guards in one of the towers. The spell failed. Greggor attacked and killed one of the individuals on the same tower. As body fell, other guard saw the bard and turned to raise an alarm. His shouts didn’t make it beyond the sound bubble Greggor had raised around him. Realizing his shouts were failing, the guard fired a poison arrow at Greggor. The arrow hit, but the master of the blade shrugged off the poison. Meanwhile, Karaan and Malacylpse managed to hold four guards in two of the camp’s other towers. On the ground and still hidden at the jungles’ edge, Kalib took out one of the patrols with a sleep spell cast from his gloves of missile snaring. Malaclypse incapacitated the guards in a second tower with a spell, and Tanevir flew up to help bind them. * * * With the initial attack over -- and the camp still unaware that the battle had begun -- the Blackrazors continued. Greggor killed the guard who shot him while Kalib slept four more guards. He looked around the camp nervously, waiting for something to go wrong. Something has to go wrong, he thought. It just wouldn’t be natural otherwise. Aesop cast reduce and shrunk one of the patrolling dark rangers down to less than a foot in height. The ranger’s companion noticed his sudden change, and let out a shout. As the guards struggled to understand what was happening, Malacylpse flew to another tower near the docks and killed the guards there. Still hiding in the jungle, Karaan took out three of four guards in a patrol with a hold spell while Scrappy finished off the last guard with a well-placed backstab. * * * After two minutes of fighting, nothing had gone wrong. The Blackrazors pressed onward. Malacylpse attacked a third tower, killing another guard. As the guard fell, several of his collegues came running out of a barrack. They saw Aesop hovering above the camp, and opened fire. The mage was hit by two shaft arrows, but didn’t falter. Seeing his friend was in trouble, Tanevir unleashed a fireball. The guards were instantly incinerated, and the attack inspired Aesop to let loose his own wave of destruction. He fireball four of the towers near the slave pens, destroying them in a wave of flaming death. His attack did not go unanswered. One of the Scarlet Brotherhood monks -- a man one of the dying slavers later identified as Brother Greeder -- dispelled Aesop’s fly spell. The mage fell to the ground, and as he hit it another guard fired an arrow at him. The mage struggled to remove it, but then succumbed to the powerful, paralyzing poison that had coated the arrow head. When Karaan moved out of the cover of the jungle to get closer to one of the towers, he stopped in mid-stride by an entanglement spell. Two arrows then slammed into him, fired by two of the dark rangers operating at the jungle’s edge. * * * With the slavers alerted to their presence, the Blackrazors had to act quickly. Another contingent of guards had erupted from a barracks, but Malacylpse turned them against one another with a confusion spell. Tanevir continued his pryrotechnic assault by fireballing another of the barracks. The guards inside screamed in agony as they died. Kalib, having spotted Brother Greeder and a dark ranger emerging from their hilltop building, cast Evard’s Black Tentacles from his glove. The spell succeeded, and ensnared both men. At that moment, another Scarlet Brotherhood spellcaster -- apparently the camp’s Elder Brother -- tried to counterattack with a hold person spell cast against Kannett, but the ranger eluded its magical grasp. Gnarth and Kannett ran to help Aesop, but were stopped by magically-animated weeds and roots as the dark rangers cast a second entanglement spell. * * * Alarmed by the appearance of the second Brother, Kalib summoned a pillar of flame to strike the man down. The fire blasted the Elder Brother and his dark ranger companion, but they did not fall. Instead, as the flames subsided, the Elder Brother summoned a sphere of sickly green light. The light quickly enveloped him and his guardian, and the two men disappeared. With the Elder Brother gone, the rest of the camp’s guards and dark rangers attempted to flee in to the jungle. A third of them were cut down in their tracks by Malacylpse and Tanevir as they lanced them with waves of magical disruption. The rest escaped. * * * With their enemy’s routed, the Blackrazors turned their attention to the village. They released the nearly two hundred slaves from their pens. The men and women -- most of whom looked to be from Obsidian Bay -- immediately began cheering their liberators. They especially praised Kalib, who was known to be a priest of Trithereon and one of the defenders of liberty on the Pomarj. Of the adamentium that the slaves had been mining, there was no trace -- the ore had obviously been transported away, probably by one the Brotherhood’s many ships. With the slaves freed, the Blackrazors began exploring the Brothers’ building on the hill overlooking the camp. In it they found three chests, all of which were trapped. "Why don’t we just someone stand behind the trapped chest, and hit it with a hammer?" Karaan asked. "Because that would be incredibly stupid," Malacylpse answered, restraining himself from killing Karaan on the spot. The first of the three traps resisted Malacylpse’, Greggor and Scrappy’s efforts to open it. Kalib was forced to resort to Karaan’s suggestion, and smashed the chest. A cloud of noxious gas shot out from the chest, and Kalib fell to the ground choking. Karaan cast neutralize poison on Kalib, which momentarily kept him from dying, but then he got another lungful of the gas, and he started choking again and collapsed. Karaan ran forward and dragged his fellow cleric to safety. Not understanding why Kalib was poisoned a second time, he tried casting cure light wounds. It had no affect, and Kalib continued his struggle to breath. Finally Malacylpse pulled out a universal antidote he’d been carrying, and shoved it down the cleric’s throat. Within moments Kalib was breathing again. The second and third chests proved easier to open. After pooling the treasure, they listed the following items of note:
After dividing up the treasure, the re-united Blackrazors returned to Blue, arriving in that city on the 10th of Reaping, CY 588. |
This page was last edited on 07/25/99 -- The Griffin's Crier -- hosted by www.nuketown.com |