Re: AAR: [8M] War Pigs (2021-03-11 @ 23:59 GMT)
Posted: Wed Mar 17, 2021 9:03 am
Bloodbeat’s Journal:
Juniper had another lead on the slavers. This time, it was a result of puzzling out the partially burned papers that we’d found at the estate of Dwolgret Woldbuckle. He gathered together our usual group, including Elisen (windling cavalryman and troubadour), Lazulin (troll raider and sun herald), Vralino (ork swordmaster and elementalist), and me.
I’ve already explained about Woldbuckle earlier in this Journal, here. This time, the papers led him to believe that the slavers, led by Woldbuckle, were responsible for a number of attacks on caravans and merchant ships. All the attacks were happening near Sosonopa. We confirmed this with local reports of banditry. I even talked to my contact at the Syrtis embassy, who confirmed that there’d been a series of attacks over the last few months.
In spite of our misgivings that we’d be called in to investigate yet another murder in Sosonopa, we made plans to travel there. But this time we wanted to be noticed. We bought trade good, including some cheap ordinary quartz pieces, and a few small light crystals. We packed everything up into a couple of crates with enough cracks between the slats for the curious to peek in and speculate that the crates contained lots of light crystals, or maybe some even more precious.
We tagged along with a caravan heading from Throal to Sosonopa. At every stop, Juniper and Elisen did their best to let everyone know that we were carrying valuable goods, but that it was so secret that they shouldn’t breathe a word of it. Well, of course, they did, and then some. But that was the plan. We wanted to be noticed so that the bandits — the slavers — attacked us and we’d have a chance to defeat them and maybe even follow them to their hide-out.
We began to hear rumors of someone amassing an army, somewhere north of the Serpent River. For each attack, they’d deploy up to about 20 men in order to overwhelm their target. Ishkarat was blaming Syrtis for the attacks on their ships, and vice versa. We figured that the bandits must have a spotter in Sosonopa; it was the logical place.
Once in Sosonopa, we did suddenly hear a woman cry out, “Murder!”, but we calmly walked away in the opposite direction. We had bigger fish to fry.
More importantly, we caught sight of a man who was trying to look inconspicuous, but it was obvious that he was watching us. Juniper backtracked and followed the tail all the way to our inn. At that point, the tail veered off and headed to the river.
At the inn that evening, Juniper and Elisen talked up our plans to sell living crystal at a community in the Scytha Mountains. It seemed thin and vague to me, but the locals lapped it up. Apparently, murders weren’t enough excitement for Sosonopa.
The next day, we crossed the Serpent by ferry and meandered through the hills. We were rewarded by an attempted ambush from a couple of archers and a few thugs. We managed to defeat them with two still alive to question. This group was hoping to attack us, take the goods and present them to Acufru, the bandit leader, to get into his good graces. They gave us the location of Acufru’s lair, which was west of us, near Blood Wood and north of the Serpent River. They also told us that Acufru used two weapons.
We found Acufru’s lair and surveilled it for a day. It was a fort, with a high wall with archers atop it, and several buildings inside. At any given time we saw at most 10 people, including the archers on the wall. We did note Willow — the illusionist and questor of Dis who we’d fought at a mining operation not too long ago. We saw her moving from one building to another, and then appear to do paperwork of some kind.
There was a portal of some kind in one of the buildings. We saw groups of people enter the building, but then never come back out. Even checking with Lifesight, we couldn’t find those people again. So they must have left through some magical means. We speculated that Willow had set up more of her magical doors.
We planned the attack. I brought up Friendly Darkness to give my allies a buff and some cover, and then snuck into the gate entrance. Once Elisen attacked, we all reacted. I began casting Foul Vapors, and moved into position to damage as many enemy as I could. But those archers were good! Even in the darkness, they hit me a couple of times. Then more of the close-combat fighters arrived and surrounded us. If it wasn’t for Vralino taking the hit for me — several times — I’d be dead, again.
But we did prevail, killed the slavers and saved about half the slaves. Some had already been sent away via portal, and others were sent into the Foul Vapors on purpose. Even though I dispelled it, I wasn’t fast enough to save them all.
Juniper found more papers in Willow’s office. So I expect we’ll be tracking down more slavers before too long.
Juniper had another lead on the slavers. This time, it was a result of puzzling out the partially burned papers that we’d found at the estate of Dwolgret Woldbuckle. He gathered together our usual group, including Elisen (windling cavalryman and troubadour), Lazulin (troll raider and sun herald), Vralino (ork swordmaster and elementalist), and me.
I’ve already explained about Woldbuckle earlier in this Journal, here. This time, the papers led him to believe that the slavers, led by Woldbuckle, were responsible for a number of attacks on caravans and merchant ships. All the attacks were happening near Sosonopa. We confirmed this with local reports of banditry. I even talked to my contact at the Syrtis embassy, who confirmed that there’d been a series of attacks over the last few months.
In spite of our misgivings that we’d be called in to investigate yet another murder in Sosonopa, we made plans to travel there. But this time we wanted to be noticed. We bought trade good, including some cheap ordinary quartz pieces, and a few small light crystals. We packed everything up into a couple of crates with enough cracks between the slats for the curious to peek in and speculate that the crates contained lots of light crystals, or maybe some even more precious.
We tagged along with a caravan heading from Throal to Sosonopa. At every stop, Juniper and Elisen did their best to let everyone know that we were carrying valuable goods, but that it was so secret that they shouldn’t breathe a word of it. Well, of course, they did, and then some. But that was the plan. We wanted to be noticed so that the bandits — the slavers — attacked us and we’d have a chance to defeat them and maybe even follow them to their hide-out.
We began to hear rumors of someone amassing an army, somewhere north of the Serpent River. For each attack, they’d deploy up to about 20 men in order to overwhelm their target. Ishkarat was blaming Syrtis for the attacks on their ships, and vice versa. We figured that the bandits must have a spotter in Sosonopa; it was the logical place.
Once in Sosonopa, we did suddenly hear a woman cry out, “Murder!”, but we calmly walked away in the opposite direction. We had bigger fish to fry.
More importantly, we caught sight of a man who was trying to look inconspicuous, but it was obvious that he was watching us. Juniper backtracked and followed the tail all the way to our inn. At that point, the tail veered off and headed to the river.
At the inn that evening, Juniper and Elisen talked up our plans to sell living crystal at a community in the Scytha Mountains. It seemed thin and vague to me, but the locals lapped it up. Apparently, murders weren’t enough excitement for Sosonopa.
The next day, we crossed the Serpent by ferry and meandered through the hills. We were rewarded by an attempted ambush from a couple of archers and a few thugs. We managed to defeat them with two still alive to question. This group was hoping to attack us, take the goods and present them to Acufru, the bandit leader, to get into his good graces. They gave us the location of Acufru’s lair, which was west of us, near Blood Wood and north of the Serpent River. They also told us that Acufru used two weapons.
We found Acufru’s lair and surveilled it for a day. It was a fort, with a high wall with archers atop it, and several buildings inside. At any given time we saw at most 10 people, including the archers on the wall. We did note Willow — the illusionist and questor of Dis who we’d fought at a mining operation not too long ago. We saw her moving from one building to another, and then appear to do paperwork of some kind.
There was a portal of some kind in one of the buildings. We saw groups of people enter the building, but then never come back out. Even checking with Lifesight, we couldn’t find those people again. So they must have left through some magical means. We speculated that Willow had set up more of her magical doors.
We planned the attack. I brought up Friendly Darkness to give my allies a buff and some cover, and then snuck into the gate entrance. Once Elisen attacked, we all reacted. I began casting Foul Vapors, and moved into position to damage as many enemy as I could. But those archers were good! Even in the darkness, they hit me a couple of times. Then more of the close-combat fighters arrived and surrounded us. If it wasn’t for Vralino taking the hit for me — several times — I’d be dead, again.
But we did prevail, killed the slavers and saved about half the slaves. Some had already been sent away via portal, and others were sent into the Foul Vapors on purpose. Even though I dispelled it, I wasn’t fast enough to save them all.
Juniper found more papers in Willow’s office. So I expect we’ll be tracking down more slavers before too long.