| Session Date | February 13, 2021 |
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| Base XP Gained | 13182 |
| Player Notes | ZZ's Notes |
Back in Durnton at the Goat and Bull tavern, Iban attempted to scry Lord Solen, but failed. A second attempt on the half-orc from his castle also failed. As this transpired, there was a commotion as three folk entered the tavern. Their leader, Merrin, told all present that they were Rangers and had spotted a large force heading towards the village from Castle Solen. Although surprised that the villagers already knew and were making preparations, she did have precise numbers of the enemy. The other two rangers were Hal, and Womak. The lead group, all humans, consisted of 90 soldiers. Following them was a force of humanoids, including 40 Bugbears, 12 Ogres, 8 Trolls led by a Half-Orc warrior. The party asked if she saw Lord Solen, but she did not. Indeed, she saw no spellcasters of any sort. The party assumed that the wizard was likely invisible, and perhaps airborne. Merrin further informed them that the humanoid force seemed to be quite undisciplined, and periodically crowded the humans on the track before them.
The locals had managed to muster 50 militia bowmen as well as 20 halfling slingers. The party took charge and deployed them primarily in positions from which they could cover the sole stone bridge across the Durn Flow. The entire west side of the village was abandoned except by Knar and Iban, who would take positions there in order to draw out and kill Lord Solen. The Tannery was burned down to open up a better field of fire. The roof of the large carpenter's building was covered with oil soaked rugs with the thought that, if the enemy used it for cover or to fire back, it would be torched as well. Non combatants fled the village, most taking the track south to Bristol while others fled north and east into the wilderness (most of the locals are herdsmen, so it was to be expected they would know the terrain round about quite well). Merrin the Ranger pitched in, passing a necklace of missiles to Knar. In return, the party gave her the arrow of wizard slaying with direction to kill Solen if he should appear (the Ranger claimed to be quite skilled in archery). A local cleric of Nora, one Anodos, pitched in as well, healing Iban a bit and taking charge of a force of locals.
Soon after, ravens returned and reported the enemy approaching. Knar and Iban carefully coated themselves in dust of disappearance; the former took position near a tree north of the track and Iban took one to the south on a low rise. Soon, the enemy appeared, just as the Ranger had described. The humans were clearly being crowded a bit by the humanoids. As they came into the area of the village, the humans began to fan out, small groups carefully approaching buildings and then torching them. Meanwhile, the leading Bugbears charged forward. Many ran into nearby buildings, plunder clearly on their mind. Indeed, there were several skirmishes and blows between humans seeking to torch buildings and Bugbears seeking to plunder them at the same time. Most Bugbears, however, rushed the bridge despite the fact that archers were clearly visible across the river. Those lead Bugbears ran into a meat grinder. ZZ had cast spike stone on the bridge itself, which blunted the initial charge. This was followed by a flame strike scroll from Mordecai, a blast of a lightning bolt from a wand wielded by Amadin, and a hail of arrows from both party and locals. Nearly a score of Bugbears was obliterated before a single one could cross the bridge.
The human enemy remained disciplined, methodically setting fire to buildings before moving on to the next, and yet not bothering to shoot at the defenders or otherwise push against the bridge (no doubt many saw what happened to the Bugbears!). Behind the Bugbears came up the Ogres and Trolls, also seemingly set on plunder. However, a strong force of these creatures, escorting the half-orc, took position on a rise east of the road to apparently observe the battle. The human officers remained along the track or southeast of it, apparently directing and/or observing the burning. About this time, Iban sounded his horn of Valhalla and went after the half-orc with spells and blade. A sharp fight erupted that lasted for some minutes, as Maerling warrior, Ogre, Troll, and heroes fought a complex battle. The half-orc went invisible at one point to escape, but Iban caught and slew him before slipping away himself. Further north, Knar began to pepper nearby Trolls on the road, who had ceased their own charge after watching the destruction of the Bugbears; he would eventually kill them all, as they were unable to locate him. Indeed, the humanoids not busily plundering seemed to fall into confusion and did a good deal of milling about rather than fighting. This opened them up to fire from archers, as well as repeated blasts from a wand of winder wielded by ZZ. The latter was largely ineffective for a time, turning militia longbows into flowers, causing a mighty tree to suddenly grow next to the bridge, and providing one lucky Bugbear with an expensive silk weskit with gold buttons. A final blast, however, shot a death ray which slew five human soldiers.
Most of the structures west of the river were now aflame, and there was clearly no appetite to attempt another bridge crossing. Thus, the human soldiers began to fall back in good order towards their officers. The humanoids, under heavy fire from the defenders east of the river (especially Bel, Amadin, and the Rangers), also began to back out, but with greater alacrity and far less discipline. The party's goal had not changed from turning the human soldiers. To that end, Iban and Knar began to go after the two enemy officers, throwing a variety of spells at them. The spike stones on the bridge had vanished (another result from the Wand of Wonder), so ZZ, Thunderfist, and Floi rushed across, easily brushing aside the few remaining humanoids in their way and making towards the human forces. The more junior of the officers was caught away from the main force, as the three dwarves charged him and the few soldiers with him. ZZ ordered him to surrender, but they chose to fight. That melee lasted a short while and it seemed that they would all be killed. But, ZZ tried one last time to convince them to surrender, and this time the officer did, and his surviving men followed suit. Further down the road, Iban began to shout at the main force to abandon their commander or suffer his fate, and this caused most to back away from him. Knar, above, took advantage of this and cast a web spell to pin the man to the ground.
The surviving humanoids were now fleeing headlong back whence they'd come, while the human soldiery merely milled about uncertainly. The party, with Merrin and another Ranger, had now grouped up and were conferring with the surviving officer, one Waylim. It seemed that he was rather popular while their commander was not. The party questioned him (under ESP) for a short time, but garnered little useful information, aside that only about 40 soldiers remained in the castle, along with an undetermined number of humanoids. Lord Solen's orders had been to burn the village in retaliation for aiding the party and, it was hopes, to find and kill the party. Solen himself "greatly feared" to come with his army for some reason the officer did not understand. The commander, Fedrim, did not know where the gem of seeing was hidden, except that it "must be somewhere in the dungeon below the castle." The interrogation complete, he was put to death, seemingly to the approval of many of his former men. Meanwhile, ZZ gave out handfuls of gold coins to the soldiers (10 GP each, a handsome sum!), much to their pleasure. The mood turned festive among them, and many said they would be happy to fight for Manston instead of Solen. They universally hated the Giant King and his minions, it seemed. In fact, they decided to form a mercenary company f their own, under Waylim as captain and would attache themselves to Manston (details to be decided later, including a name!). In the meantime, they would assist the locals in extinguishing the fires they'd set. A few words were enough to mollify the local militia, though clearly there was no love lost there.
Merrin now spoke up. She told the party of the spider riders, and that one of her group had been lost trying to discover more about them. She was one of the Rangers of the Barrens, the same group that included their old friends Winfrith and Calidor (they sent their greetings, she said). She was aware of two other groups operating in this region, one in the center of Manston's territory and one further south. She knew nothing of them beyond that, as they kept their information compartmented in case of capture and interrogation with magic. Their orders were to observe and warn the locals as they saw fit. She intended to continue that activity. Most of the her folk were busy further south, many focused on the brigands the party had fought the previous year, so they were spread extremely thin. She did know that a very large humanoid force was camped west of Castle Solen, and was clearly intended to either occupy the castle or use it as a staging ground for attacks into the Manston region; when it would march was unclear, but it was clearly ready to do so "any day" and this battle might precipitate things. She had one other valuable piece of information. Some weeks past, when they'd first arrived, she had seen a figure emerge form the waterfall along the bluff before the castle. She surmised that there was a secret entrance of some sort there, though she had not investigated further. This sealed the party's plans. They would return to Solen as soon as they'd recovered from the battle and find the gem before the Giant King occupied the castle and made further explorations impossible.
Meanwhile, the cleric of Nora blessed the "Battle Tree" that had appeared to signal their victory...