Business concluded with dwarves, our happy little band resupplied, gathered up their owls, and took to the air once more to go and deal with the Ghost Lord and his creepy minions.
Naturally, there were some obstacles along the way, and not just the discussion of the relative merits of a nonstick coating for armor (Don’t ask. Really.)
We bedded down in the barn of an abandonned farmstead. As usual, the attack came in the middle of the night. Constance and Mal were on watch, and while Mal does have decent night vision that comes with being half elvish, but he doesn’t seem to notice things until they’re practically wiggling on top of him.
GM: Roll a spot and listen check.
Mal: I don’t spot anything. I’m distracted by the half-orc’s ass.
Constance: I could break you, little man.
Mal: (Excited) Oooo!
Medrin: He might pay for that.
All: He has.
In addition to the hobgoblins we’re used to seeing, there were some sort of magic-using, Infernal, goblin-wolf hybrid things (“bargasts,” or somesuch; Urgon, our gnomish scout, keeps track of that sort of thing, not Darya) we’d never seen before, and frankly, that I could be perfectly happy never seeing again. Fortunately, the watch heard the attackers in time to warn the rest of us. However, we had camped inside a Rope Trick, so getting out was…well, something of a trick. Constance waded into a tussle with a pair of hobgoblins crouching behind a wall, and this began the Battle of Bad Die Rolls.
Just as a point of note, it’s better to leave the structure you’re sleeping (or standing) in before you set it on fire. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Darya dropped out of the Rope Trick, rapier drawn, and approached the unfamiliar creature.
Darya: This could end badly.
GM: For who?
Darya: For me!! Who else matters?!
Anja: Our elvish princess has spoken.
Most of the others follwed; Medrin and Cedric, one of the mages and our cleric, respectively, ducked into and out of the Rope Trick to fire off their spells. Fortunately, our mages had a couple of new spells they wanted to try out, and I must say that they worked pretty well. We had one of the three groups pinned down outside one barn door. Mal started that end of the barn on fire when one of his Scorching rays missed. Still, we were holding our own both in the barn and outside of it…even thought half of us could barely hit the side of the barn, at that point.
Then, one of the bargasts got a spell off…which completed destroyed Medrin’s morale [read, he seriously failed his saving throw]. Deciding that we were all going to die anyway, he flung a fireball at the other end of the barn (and, incidentally, Constance)…neatly trapping us inside of a burning building. Fortunatly, Cedric was there to drop-kick (literally) Medrin out into the barn, along with our packs. As the rest of us took the fight outside, Medrin and Cedric hauled our gear to relative cover. Constance had managed to dispatch most of the hobgoblins, and the bargasts opted for a strategic retreat. Darya, tired of Medrin’s wailing and whinging (after all, she is the group’s designated whiner!), stalked over, grabbed his lapels, and kissed him deeply.
Darya: Does that make you feel better?
Medrin: (Starts crying again) Noooooooooo.
Darya: Then quit whining, or I’ll do it again.
Fortunately for all of us, Medrin snapped out of it shortly thereafter. We shall never speak of this again.
After that, what could we do but travel on? We hopped on our owls and continued heading southwest. On the way, we saw a troop of thirty or so Red Hand troops heading for a village that appeared to still be evacuating. Medrin wanted to try out a new spell, called Vortex of Teeth, which is rather like an infantry Cuisinart in action. As the spell went off, a huge cloud of razor-winged, rainbow-colored butterflies completely pureed the entire troup, less one individual who was standing stock-still in the eye of the storm…and a great huge puddle of–well, you can imagine.
We landed our owls in a circle around him, and to amuse herself, Darya convinced him that he’d been spared by the Happy Butterfly God, who protected the village. She also convinced him that he probably ought to start rejoicing and spreading the word, because he wouldn’t want the Happy Butterfly God to think he was unhappy…would he? The hobgoblin nodded numbly, discarded his symbol of Tiamat, and wandered off into the wilderness.
Anja just rolled her eyes. “Can we get our owls out of the mess, now?” Medrin asked. Darya’s opinion is that if Tiamat is involved, it’s a reigious war…and why shouldn’t we fight it on all fronts?
Our Heroes arrived in the village down the road, apologized for the mess upwind, and began helping with the evacuation; mostly loading the wounded and infirm into wagons. In the course of all this, we discovered that some how, rumors of our activities—and those of the Happy Butterfly God—had preceded us. So far, the two remain unconnected, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Our finishing touch on the strategic retreat was to set off a few large bonfires in the village, to make it look as though the troop we’d met earlier had arrived and accomplished its mission. Apparently, after finding all the booby traps we left in Draelin’s Ferry, the amry of the Red Hand isn’t taking any chances. With any luck, our feint will at least keep reinforcements out long enough for the villagers to get a good head start.
Finally, we arrived at the edge of the Thorn Wastes, and the Ghost Lord’s stronghold. Darya and Urgon stayed behind with the owls and the phylactery, while the rest of the group pressed on.
Let me tell you, the Ghost Lord takes his lion theme seriously. Ghostly lions flying around—and through—people and objects. A huge, lion-shaped fortress. Even a lion aroma. With more daring than sense, the advance team ventured into the fortress, where they had an entirely unsatisfying conversation not with the Ghost Lord, but with a very persistent, invisible reptilian(???) receptionist. We suspect, but did not actually see, that the hobgoblin bard known as Madame Stormcaller was there, eavesdropping. The long and the short of it is that Our Heroes were entirely unable to make contact with the Ghost Lord, and the conversation with what we’re pretty sure is a dragon hiding somewhere is about to get very, very unpleasant.
Tune in next time…
