| Session Date | March 7, 2020 |
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| Base XP Gained | Carry Over |
Back in the little village of Tolit, the talk was of the seeming inevitability of an attack by the werewolves, wererats, and otehr creatures of Castle Silver. The villagers reported that wolves had been prowling about the previous night, no doubt having followed the freed prisoners who'd returned on foot. The party's six Dwarf soldiers were grim, saying they were ready to die wherever the party ordered them to do so. Leptos, one of the freed prisoners (who named himself a Champion of the Dry Tree, though the villagers called him brigand, albeit not to his face). sarcastically thanked the party for rescuing him so he could die more quickly here. It was late afternoon and the party sought for a way to protect the villagers and themselves, but there seemed few options. There were no caves nearby to hide in. The village was largely indefensible. Slow moving villagers would be vulnerable in the open to harrying by werewolves and possibly even worse. A hard fight to get clear of, to be sure. The party considered just mounting their horses and fleeing south but ZZ (of all people) said that he would stay to help regardless of what everyone else did. Given his oath, the party decided to get the villagers to flee south by the forest trail towards Far Andor. They would fall behind to screen the refugees. The worst part of the situation, however, was that the party members were all sorely wounded and their spells largely depleted; they were hardly in a position to offer the best possible defense. The villagers were ordered to make ready to flee; their will to stay and fight evaporated. The situation seemed impossible.
As the villagers rapidly prepared to flee, Iban and ZZ scouted afoot towards the main forest trail, accompanied by the local hunter Donal, and with Cadwaladyr flying invisibly above. It was a little less than a league to the main trail to the east that paralleled the Caron River. But even before they arrived, Cadwaladyr saw a sight to chill the heart. Crossing the river just to the south were dozens of wolfmen and ratmen swimming the Caron; also, two boats ferried across Hobgoblins by the dozen. Above them flew an Ogre Mage providing overwatch. Dozens of enemy were already across the river and all would soon be there, ready to move on Tolit. Cadwaladyr quickly informed Iban and ZZ what he'd seen. They sent Donal to run back quickly and tell the villagers to flee west at once and tell the rest of the party and Dwarves to come at once. The three adventurers knew that minutes would matter and decided to attack the river crossing operation at once to disrupt the enemy and give the villagers some added time. The enemy was far too spread out for Cadwaladyr's spells, so the three decided they would essentially make a glorious last stand with everything they could throw at the enemy.
Cadwaladyr would start the attack. The wizard flew up to the Ogre Mage lazily circling above and hit him with a feeblemind spell from a scroll. This worked, and the now dunced Ogre Mage began to spiral downwards towards the river. This caused several things to occur. First, ZZ winded his Horn of the Earth Dragon to summon a force of evil Dwarves. Meanwhile, two previously invisible Ogre Magi appeared near the first and blasted Cadwaladyr with their magic -- he was saved as he had used his Staff of Power to cast globe of invulnerability just prior to his attack. Finally, Iban invoked the chaos god Anansi, a "special consideration" given him in the Temple of Chaos some time past. A tiny spider barley visible appeared on his should and spoke to him. It said that his (i.e. Iban's human) gods forbid him to manifest his power directly in this world, but that "if you don't tell them, I won't." The spider winked (if such was possible) and vanished. Moments later a great hissing sound erupted as the Caron River began to boil, throwing off steams and the loud screams of those lycanthropes caught in the midst of crossing. Two whirlpools also formed and sucked down the Hobgoblin boats. From the woods, insects large and small came flying up from every direction to swarm the two fighting Ogre Magi, quickly engulfing them such that they vanished in whirling clouds of color. The feebleminded one simply spiraled down out of control into the boiling river and vanished. Those enemy on either shore seemed utterly perplexed at this strange turn of events, but now many trees began to move, their roots and branches grabbing those enemy near the shore and throwing them into the boiling river, where their screams added to the noisy chaos before they fell silent and sunk below the frothing waters. Other enemy, further from the river, fled in every direction. But as they went, crevices opened in the ground at their feet, dropping them to some unknown depth moments before the crevices closed back up.
In a minute or so it was over; the boiling ceased, the insects swarms dispersed leaving not the slightest trace of the Ogre Mage, and silence fell on the woods. There was not the slightest sign that an enemy army of over 100 strong creatures had been there. Iban saw a quick glimpse of the tiny spider, smiling, and it was gone. The party was rather dumbstruck by the miraculous intervention (though they lamented that whatever gear and treasure the enemy had was lost...true adventurers!). After Cadwaladyr flew about to verify that none survived, the party quickly returned to Tolit. The locals were already fleeing west but were quickly recalled, though they seemed most perplexed at the continuously changing news. Donal ran out to see the results of the battle for himself, soon returning to confirm the miracle. As the shock began to wear off, the locals became downright celebratory, and wine and ale began to appear in every hand. Leptos of the Dry Tree was pleasantly shocked; he was now leaving as he'd planned, but said the party were worthy folk and that they were welcome to to come to the Castle of the Dry Tree if they wished; they should use his name if they ran afoul of his fellows in the woodlands.
As the celebration of deliverance expanded, ZZ crushed up a huge gem to toast the unexpected victory; he also wished to placate his own god at the invocation of an alien one to their aid (surprisingly, he received a vague impression that not only was he held blameless, but his god was pleased at his role in these events). The Dwarf also gave a mug of beer from his magical cup to each of the rank-and-file Dwarf soldiers. Meanwhile, Iban began to throw gold around to really fire up the local celebration, and soon there was a roaring bonfire in the village common surrounded by everyone in the village (except Donal, who slipped out to keep watch, though he never saw anything). The celebration was raucous, though the party did not over-do themselves, as they were sorely in need of rest. Iban even slipped away to check on Leptos (traveling in the woods) and Lord Alcibard (scrying failed).
The party rested two full nights in Tolit to recover. Iban checked on the two men with his crystal ball again (Leptos was on the woodland trail; Alcibard was apparently reviewing the army of Manston at some formal parade). Otherwise, the day was spent with much healing and resting.
The following morning, the party left early with Donal to the Caron, where the huntsman ferried the party (now all invisible) across with his hidden boat. He withdrew to the western shore and would await the party's return. They made their way back to Castle Silver without incident or encounter to find the place seemingly deserted. They slipped into the partially ruined building with the dead Hill Giant (still there) and down into the dungeon via the secret passageway. They now explored the areas they'd missed previously. Room after room had clearly been occupied, but all were now empty of occupants, though not completely of treasure. The first one with an enemy, however, proved to have four female Werewolves. These were slain with little trouble and a large treasure recovered (it was apparently the lair of the Werewolf chieftain, presumably slain at the Battle of the Caron).
Further on, the party ran into a large force of Trolls. They fell back from them, hoping to draw them into a long corridor for blasting with lightning bolts. There was a choice of direction and ZZ, leading the party as the formerly front ranks fought the Trolls in melee, fell into a pit trap and vanished. Fortunately, no one else followed him into it. The Trolls were numerous, and though a lightning bolt and fireball softened them up, the fight proved to be extremely tough (it also proved to be the most crit-heavy melee I've probably ever seen, both hits and misses by both sides). Bel nearly broke her halberd from a bad strike. One Troll killed its fellow while another nearly killed itself with an ill-judged bite. Amadin struck Bel (again). Also, some of the Trolls had ran around some other direction and came at the party from the other end of the corridor, though fortunately it took them so long that the party was able to shift their fighters to deal with it. Iban was nearly slain, as were others! But, the Trolls were eventually cut down and their bodies burned, just as ZZ made his way back to the party (the pit trap dumped him to a known location and, though injured, he was able to make his way back without further trouble).
After some healing spells, the party decided to finish their explorations of Castle Silver...