From the journal of Caesar Bonaparte, human illusionist.
P.S. I do want to appologize if I seemed grumpy and out of sorts during the game. I did have fun and am glad I got to play. But still, I think this is the journal entry Caesar would write.
A traveler brought a letter from the small community of (hex 45.06) across the Throalic Mountains right on the Serpent River. Pavar's Hill was looking for help, an unusually aggressive flock of birds was attacking their livestock, which would then sicken and be eaten by the birds. A large party of us answered the call. Too many really. The six of us had a very difficult time coordinating our actions, we were constantly getting in each other's way or spoiling each other's plans. I don't know if our group had an unusually large percentage of knuckleheads, or if it was just that the people in the back could not hear what the people in the front were saying, or what, but we never once got all six of us working the same plan for more than 6 seconds in a row.
The trip to Sossanopa was uneventful. Travelers reported rumors of Bandits in the planes to the West of the road, but our well armed party saw no sign of them. At Sossanopa there were reports that Mericor, up at lake Vors was having various troubles, including unrest, breakages, and rumors of sabotage. The day after we arrived, we booked passage on a Scavian barge headed downriver. Valoric, the dwarf Gauntlet, negotiated our passage, which he did very quickly. I learned later that "Kapitan Kasimere" named a price, which Valoric immediately agreed to without any effort to negotiate. The boatman, perhaps a bit taken aback to have his initial offer accepted without haggling, then said that in addition we would need to both load and unload cargo whenever the barge stopped, and fight if the barge was attacked. Again this was instantly agreed to without the slightest suggestion that these services ought to reduce the price of our passage. This despite, mind you, the fact that just the day before the Sossanopa Harbormaster had mentioned that performance of these services were often agreed upon as part of a fare reduction package by those unwilling or unable to pay the full fare. I am trying to remember if Valoric had been among those of us who had squeezed into the Harbormasters office when he had told us that, and if this failure to have heard this could be attributed to our too large party. But in any case, Valoric seemed perfectly happy to both pay full initial asking price, plus sign us all on as both common stevidors and as skilled guards, without any fare reduction in return for these labors. I made a mental note to never let Valoric negotiate prices that included me again.
We were on the "Rusalka" for a number of days. The barge was remarkable, it was not made of wood, but rather strange stone like nothing any of us had seen or heard of before. The stone barge both floated and moved through the water with remarkable speed. The barge was propelled by oxen walking upon a treadmill, which we were told turned propellers below the water. The large barge seemed amazingly maneuverable and speedy. At a glance, the barge looked old and rundown, but once upon it, we could tell that it was remarkably sturdy, strong, and well crafted. The crew also seemed like experts in their field. At one point we were attacked by a gigantic swarm of Water Striders, and the barge fought them off easily and quickly. We passengers helped, but it was clear our help, while appreciated, was not really needed. The crew was writing down numerous detailed observations about all river traffic.
We were told legends of a stretch of rapids called "Synopas Gift", but while the rapids were exciting, and while we could tell that stretch of water might be dangerous to a less skilled crew, we observed little of note there.
At length we disembarked upon the Pavar’s Hill dock. Not far from the dock was an establishment called "Astenders Rest". It was a very nice place with excellent food, drink, and company. At first I thought it was a tawdry brothel, but it was explained that the community had suffered a dangerous amount of inbreeding though the scourge, and this was an attempt to bring new blood into the community. The Rest induced a goodly amount of river traffic to stop, and the goal was that babies less inbred would result.
When we told them we were the adventurers responding to the letter they had sent to Throal, they sent for the Elders, who briefed us on the situation. The troublesome birds were the size of medium large dogs, they have Yellow and Green Plumage, and more commonly glide like a flying squirrel than actually fly. They seem really smart and are hard to hunt. The village is calling them Plague Falcons. because the livestock scratched by one gets sick, and the sickness spreads to other animals unless the infected ones are isolated or cured. The elders told us all about where they had been seen, and what they had tried as far as dealing with them. We set out that very afternoon to a place where they had recently been seen.
After a brief search, we found the flock perched in a tree. Under the tree were a young child and his dog. Both had been infected by the plague falcons. Surprisingly the birds were talking to each other in Throalic!. We could only make out the occasional word until I reattuned on the fly and cast "cloak" upon everybody, allowing us all to sneak up to within 20 yards of the tree. We could not get closer than that because the clearing had no cover closer than that. The birds were telling each other how bad they felt about being forced to attack a youngling (as they called the small human child), and how horrible it would be if "HER" was not obeyed. From our closer vantage point we could see that the birds were pretty battered, with broken limbs and other wounds.
We approached and talked to the birds. Eruriel, the Elf Cavalier attempted to use Animal Bond on the birds, but it did not work. We did learn that HER had already used Animal Bond upon them, and that they hated it. We also learned from the birds' reactions that HER was an Elf Beastmaster and that they did not like Elfs or Animal Bond. We were able to talk some more and learned that HER was back at the river, and that she wanted to "collect shiny". The birds did not want to do the things HER told them to do, but that they would be tortured or killed if they failed to do as bid.
I once again reattuned on the fly and then cast Trust upon the closest bird. The spell worked really well, as if the birds were extra susceptible to mind magics, and my target calmed right down, however all the other birds recognized my spellcasting as mind magics, and all the other birds grew very upset, squawking about how bad mind magic was, and making noise about how we were bad people for trying to control them. Nyxallah Praetor, the human Seeker, fearing the flock was about to attack us, ran up to the tree and attacked. There were two birds within easy reach, and for some reason she chose to attack the one bird that I had cast the Trust spell upon, and thus was the one bird that was not upset and squawking at us. This, of course, immediately broke the trust spell, making that bird hate us all even worse than the others. See what I mean about adventuring parties getting too big to keep track of what is going on and what your comrades are doing? She severely damaged the poor creature. I went forward to the young child and attempted to treat his infection, but the sickness was too well established for me to do anything about it. I could tell that the child would probably die soon if he did not get better treatment within hours. Meanwhile the other birds of the flock flew off.
We carried the boy, the dog, and the nearly dead bird (still feebly squawking his defiance at us) back to the Astendars Rest, where we knew there was a Questor of Garlen. As we arrived we heard screaming and other sounds of commotion. As we approached the bashed in back door we could hear and see parts of the confrontation within. The questor of Garlen and two of the village elders were within the common room, along with at least 4 elves. Apparently some river pirates had just busted in mere moments before and were attempting to extort the village elders. The leader (the female elf beastmaster named Mavka - also known as HER) had her Claw Shaped hands around the Questor of Garlens throat and was was saying that she would torture the Questor to death (starting with skinning the flesh off her face) if they did not give into her demands for tribute. She gloated that the death of the Questor of Garlen would allow the plague to kill the rest of the village. She threatened that if they offered any resistance she would instantly rip out the Questors throat. The Questor seemed to be the granddaughter of one of the elders and everybody inside was taking the threat deathly seriously.
We could see that one of the pirates was on lookout near the doors (where we were listening). Everybody else was in the far side of the common room and did not have line of sight to the busted in door. I, for one, also believed the pirate leaders statement that she would rip the Questors throat out at the first sign of trouble. I very much wanted to take the guy guarding the door out of the fight quickly and quietly. I moved up next to the door and peeked in, seeing the guard as I quickly wove the thread to a "Trust" spell. The others moved up behind me. There was a muffled rustling behind me as apparently one of the others tried to step into the doorway itself, but one of the others held him back out of sight so that our surprise would be preserved while everybody got into position ready for a sprint into the room.
I held up my hand with three fingers up, indicating three seconds, folded one down indicating two seconds, and started to fold one more down indicating that I only needed one more second to get my spell off. I think my plan was excellent. If I could have gotten the trust spell off, then the guard would not have attacked any of us so long as we did not attack him. All our people could have rushed right into the room without having to stop and attack the guard. Further, I am confident that at the same time I could have either intimidated, or even just asked the guard to leave the fighting area (I have both mystic and Devine powers I can bring to such interactions). I am confident that if Garak had just delayed for 2 more seconds I could have quickly and quietly removed from the fight 1/4 of the known opponents, the only one who could see the door we were coming in.
Unfortunately for my plan, our team were never able to follow a common plan for more than 6 seconds at a time. Garak, the Ork Archer, reasoning that I was unlikely to be casting a buff spell upon himself, concluded that whatever I was doing had nothing whatsoever to do with him, and therefore whatever I was doing was utterly unimportant to him and that there was no reason for him to wait until after I had done it. He pushed past me and walked right up to my target. The door guard attacked him, which meant that the Trust spell would be useless. The door guard did no damage to Garak, but on the other hand, Garak did little to no damage against the pirate leader, who then did as she had threatened and tore the throat out of the Questor of Garlen. The others rushed through the door all piling up near the door guard whom they were unable to get past until they slew him. If only Garak had waited two more seconds! Nyx did great damage to the door guard, but was in turn perforated by arrows from the archers on the 2nd floor (which we had not seen or heard because they were on the 2nd floor, and not talking), and fell unconscious.
The pirate leader, after killing the Questor, barged though a window to the outside and started running away. She was quickly run down by Eruriel the cavalier (who spurred away to deliver her most devastating blow just a second before I would have reached her to cast a Monstrous Mantel buff - such a crowded battlefield, you can't tell when a friend is coming to assist you! Her blow would have been a bit more devastating if she had just noticed me running up behind her). In the end one pirate managed to swim away, the others were cut down, with the survivors hanged the next morning. Both of the elders were very seriously wounded in the fight we started, as the pirates believed that terror attacks were sometimes better than attacks against combatants. The Questor of Garlen had deadly wounds, but a Last Chance Salve managed to revive her.
When we had done, we tarried in Pavar's Hill, and particularly in Astener;s Rest for a goodly period of time before taking passage back upriver and returning to Throal. I did not let Valoric negotiate the price of my passage. Statistics:Posted by ChrisDDickey — Tue Feb 22, 2022 12:15 pm
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