Session 54: A Fire in the Woods (July 21, 2024)
Last session, our heroes hunkered down as they prepared for the arrival of an unknown party in a horse-drawn cart. Rormir sent Karrl to investigate, and recognized the passengers of the carriage as Sentin Thornwillow and Alsa Peonybark, his assistant and secretary. Accompanying them were four mind-controlled agents as well as Cacaw Chad, the Aarakocra scout that had missed their approach. With the information, the party planned a deception and ambush.
Rormir flagged over Cacaw Chad, hoping to appear still under the effects of the Geas spell. He claimed the encampment was attacked by vandals who took off with the goliath captives. The deception failed, however, as did both Rormir’s and Elias’s subsequent attempts at Charm Person, and Chad flew back to the cart to warn the others.
The cart slowly approached, and its riders arranged themselves to attack. Maho decided to rush out to start combat. First to act was a mage agent, who cast Fireball, injuring the party and knocking out Woahdoe Boedough. The fight continued, with melee agents going up against Maho while magic users attacked from range and Sentin occasionally poked out to use a spell. The fire spread through the tent fabric, and Heph did the same to the Lucien Dynastic wagon, forcing Alsa to act to put out the flame before it spread.
We left the fight with the melee agents defeated, and the mages, Sentin, and the Aarakocra still left. Maho lay unconscious on the ground. How will our heroes get out of this one? Find out…right now!
- Agent Mage casts Magic Missile on Rormir, dealing 16 damage
- Agent Rector casts Spirit Guardians, surrounding himself
- Maho fails a death save
- Heph moves out from behind a tree, launching a Fire Bolt at the mage, missing him but lighting the Lucien Dynastic wagon on fire
- Chad dives at Elias, stabbing at him and dealing some damage
- Elias flips off Chad, jumps over the crates, runs to Maho and feeds her a Bottle of Grace, then runs back and dives into a crate, which is full of rations, and starts snacking
- Sentin casts haste on himself, then Maho and Rormir notice him turn invisible, and Heph and Elias notice a flap in the fabric move as if someone passed through it, and Rormir with a natural 20 perception notices that the ground is not disturbed at all after
- Alsa attempts to put out the fire in the wagon, but is unable to do so, and escapes out of the wagon
- Rormir finishes crossing the river, and tells the mage to stand down or he’ll shoot, but the mage doesn’t stand down due to the mind control, Rormir shoots off two arrows but misses, and uses his starry form to launch a 3rd shot, but misses that too
- Karrl flies over behind the now burning wagon, and scouts out the area to keep and eye out for Sentin, but it seems pretty clear Sentin is flying
- Agent Mage launches a Fireball, but Heph and Maho save,
taking only 15 damage
- Agent Rector casts spiritual weapon which appears next to Maho, dealing a relatively small amount of damage to her, and then casts sacred flame, which Maho dodges by rolling out of the way
- Maho does a breakdance spin to hop up, jumps halfway across the river, and wades the rest of the way over to the mage, launching a wave of energy at the mage as she draws her blade, dealing a small amount of damage and knocking him prone
- Maho then action surges, slashing him twice with her katana and dealing a total of 28 damage
- Heph maneuvers between the trees, and shoots a couple of crossbow bolts at Agent Rector, causing Spirit Guardians to drop and dealing some damage
- Chad, a bit angry that everyone is ignoring him, flies through a flaming tree and dives at Heph, dealing some damage but running out of movement next to Heph
- Elias pops out of his crate, puts googly eyes on an arrow, and shoots at Agent Rector with his longbow, hitting him in the eye, taking him down but somehow non-lethally, then hides back in the crate
- Elias hears a voice, saying protect Sentin Thornwillow at all costs and protect his allies, and coordinate with your fellow agents, and a porcelain mask appears on one of the goliaths, and Elias hears it a second time and a second goliath is masked up
- Alsa steps further away from the flaming cart, carefully positioning herself and saying this is her chance to prove herself, and casts Cone of Cold, which both Heph and Rormir save from, and Rormir uses absorb elements to reduce it even further
- Rormir steps closer to the Lucien Dynastic horses, and tells them a hawk is coming to attack them on their right side and they need to run away from the hawk or they could die, they respond that they see the hawk, and turn towards Rormir and start heading towards him, Maho dodges out of the way but the mage is less lucky and takes a bunch of damage from being trampled and the flaming wagon, and Rormir jumps on the back of one of the horses, then downs a potion of healing
- The fires spread, the Lucien Dynastic wagon catching the
nearby tree on fire, and the fire from the hearse spreading to the box
Elias is currently in
- Agent Mage stands up and steps out from under the flaming tree and casts Cone of Cold, taking down Heph, injuring Chad badly, hurting Maho a small amount, and putting out the fire
- Maho sets Heph go down, and turning back to Agent Mage slashes through his shield, killing him, and her sword briefly goes cold, she then makes her way towards Heph, jumping halfway through the river and wading the rest of the way through the river, then throws a handaxe at Chad, who explodes in a burst of feathers and falls down dead, then uses second wind to heal herself up a bit
- Heph succeeds on a death saving throw
- Elias pulls out Jarles, asks him to close his eyes, and asks him how he could see before the googly eyes, and he explains he had some light sensitivity, but can’t identify where Sentin is, so he sneaks his way over to Heph, digs around in Heph’s pockets and pulls out a health potion, force feeding him the potion, then sits tight
- Health potions are poured into the mouths of Goliaths #1 and #4, and they begin to sit up
- Alsa moves out of the burning trees and casts Fireball, taking Heph down again, but Elias and Maho endure it
- Rormir swings the cart around and smacks Alsa, then drives it across the river towards Elias, Heph and Maho, the river extinguishing the flames as he does so, Karrl dashes over to where the wagon is, and Rormir launches a starry form shot at Alsa, landing a critical hit and dealing 9 damage to her
- The fire continues to spread through the tree that the Lucien
Dynastic wagon was in
- Maho heads over to the goliaths, smacking #1 in the mask a couple of times and forming a large crack in the mask, but knocking the goliath back unconscious
- Goliath #4 stands up and swings at Maho, but is a bit dizzy and doesn’t manage to land either attack
- Heph fails a death save
- Elias hides behind the horses, then pops out and shoots a Cupid’s Little Prick at Alsa’s shoulder, landing a critical hit and dealing 49 damage, knocking her unconscious, the hops up onto the other horse next to Rormir
- Sentin expresses that he thinks we are quite destructive and destroy people’s hard work, and he needs to protect his merchandise, and retreats, taking Goliath #1, #2 and #4 with him
- Rormir heals Woahdoe Boedough, and Maho stabs her
sword in the ground in frustration as the goliaths disappear
- Elias stabilizes Heph, and then searches Alsa’s body, finding scraps of paper with receipts and schedules, as well as a Hexicon pass with her name on it
- Rormir checks the wagon and asks the horses if anyone had a potion, and they say the boss was carrying some weird water
- Rormir finds papers in the wagon that have been burned, and some receipts and other invoice type things that haven’t been burned, and some of the receipts are for things that Sentin himself had purchased: an Amulet of Health, and schematics for the device we encountered with a trademark from Euxine Wares
- Maho approaches Woahdoe Boedough, who seems to empathize with her sadness, and asks if Woahdoe Boedough has anything for health
- Rormir notices that Woahdoe Boedough is saying “I’m so sorry, I wish there was more that I could do, I owe you such a huge debt for giving me that sugary treat, I just wish I could do more”
- Rormir relays this to Maho, who is impressed that Rormir can understand the horse, and Maho says thanks back to Woahdoe and picks up Heph and puts him in the wagon
- Elias brings Alsa back, and dubs the new horses Mystery 3 and 4,
to which Rormir decides to ask them, and Rormir
interprets their names as Prince Charming and Dut-dut-dut-duh-duh
- The first lifting its front right and rear left hooves and shook its mane, the other tapped out “shave and a haircut” on the ground
- Elias uses a safety arrow to stab Heph in the ear, healing him for 14 health
- Heph digs around the bodies, finding some weapons and armor, and the items in the crates are severely damaged from the fire but seem to have been holding adventure supplies
- Rormir wants to cut off some of the enemy’s legs, but Elias and Heph remind him that that would kill them and create imbalance, but Elias tells him to to do it to the dead bodies, which he does thinking it’s totally normal
- Elias also takes a bite out of Chad and says “oh, chicken!”
- Heph takes a closer look at the device, which is a shielding device, of a very different type of artificery than Lucien Dynastic’s, more like the gnome-ish version, and the shield it produced could be penetrated with an amulet, it was constructed from pieces on the spot quite poorly and released pulses in the ground as a result
- Heph uses Fire Bolt to heat the machine, and Maho and Elias smash it up, leaving behind a mess of bent super-heated metal
- The party heads away from the smoldering wreck of this area of the forest,
where an old friend was found and an enemy was confronted and rattled, but not
defeated
- The party takes the new Lucien Dynastic cart, with the cover turned inside out, Woahdoe Boedough joins, and Agent Rector, Agent Armor, Goliath #3 and Alsa are taken as well