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Day 42 - Return to the Caves (continued)
Day 42 - Return to the Caves (continued)
The party had vanquished the kobalds and some of their group participated in the divisive slaying of their young. They then explored the last room in the kobald complex, a food storage room with foul, decaying humanoid body parts left rotting around the room. Someone grabs an arm for Lady D, and they decide to depart. At the cavern entrance, they see it is some time after noon, and few creatures make their way around the valley below. One orc lumbers up from the stream and heads uphill to a cave entrance uphill from where they are, and Dain and Nowhere chomp at the bit to attack the hated orcs.
Even though the league had just been talking about leaving the complex since they were wounded - needed rest and healing, they were overruled by Nowhere the Tiefling and Dain the Berserker, their hatred of orcs overpowering their sense of danger. Atlas is hesitant, he is torn between action and his recent oath to seek justice on only those that have committed a wrong (he may have forgotten that the entire complex has been staging raids on the Triboar Trail). While debating, cheers come from the canyon below. A party of bugbears is carrying in 3 humans hanging below long horizontal poles. They have obviously been beaten and captured by the bugbears, but for what purpose is unclear until a figure emerges from a cave at the head of the canyon.
He is completely garbed in red and black robes, with a mask covering his face, but he calls out to the canyon in the common tongue. "Creatures of the canyon! In celebration of completing our mission, tonight we feast!". Cheers go up from the array of creatures in the valley and at the mouths of caves, and chanting begins in the common language... "Food, food, food, food, food!". The tied up humans, two men and one woman start struggling, but to no avail - the bugbears take them to their cave across the canyon, and most of the remaining creatures return to their hovels. Likely salivating for the feast to happen after dark.
Immeral tells the group that the garb the leader wore at the head of the canyon wore is likely related to elemental fire, and that he is probably a priest of that devotion. He goes on to explain that the elemental plane of fire is connected to their reality, but apart from it. It can be visited, and is inhabited by creatures and gods immune to fire. He ominously remarks that Nowhere's fire resistance may come in handy. They discuss how to save the humans, but there seems no easy way across the canyon without traveling out and around, so they decide to continue taking down one cave complex at a time.
They charge up the hill directly into the orcs lair. Immediately inside the entrance is a wall of masks, which they ignore as they cut to the right. In the room, there are four orcs sitting at a table, and Dain attacks in a barely constrained berserker rage, cutting one down before it can rise. Nowhere and the others follow, and take down the orcs, but not before one gets off a yell of some orcish exclamation.
Orcs shortly appear down the hallway past the masks and in the large room beyond. Immeral creates a quick illusion of a rockfall, while Nowhere creates the sounds of a collapse. They know they only have a minute before the illusion is over or the orcs realize the ruse. They decide to take the offensive. The party prepares their weapons and rushes into the rocky illusion, dispelling it, and they quickly cut through two nearby orcs examining the illusion. They have the chance to run out of the cave and avoid a battle with a dozen orcs, but they press on and K'ronk tells the party to stand aside. He uses his breath weapon to blast eight of the clustered orcs in a great dining hall. Then the battle is on and the rest of the party stream in to attack the villainous creatures. The orcs are strong though, and K'ronk goes down from the slash of a great axe across his chest. Others take damage too, but they vanquish the orcs and heal K'ronk with their last healing potion. At a hallway at the head of the table, at the bottom of a sloping corridor, a huge orc warchief stands in obvious rage at the party. His eyes widen, his teeth clench, and he looks as if he is about to utter a war cry and attack, when he turns and races up the slope - likely to get reinforcements.
The party gathers themselves. They find in the next room some orc children, and consider taking them as hostage, but they think that will be useless, so they flee the caves and race back into the woods - sprinting back to the camp to regroup.
The weight of their situation is great. They want more healing potions from Linene who has sent them to end the raids, but is days away. They need time to rest and heal, but there are captured humans likely to be eaten in a few hours. There are not any reinforcements nearby except Lady D, who is chewing on the arm that had been collected for her, but she is not invulnerable, and they worry about losing her in a battle. Even if they walked away, Harbin back at Phandelin would use this failure to prove his belief that the Owlbear League is doing more harm than good, and they want to prove him wrong. They have advantages though. They have not been discovered yet, and they know which cave the fire priest is in. It is high on the far end of the canyon, but maybe they can ascend to the top and descend from the forest above to infiltrate the caves of the fire robed priest.
They trudge back to the canyon, this time with their owlbear companion in tow, and they get to the top of the canyon near dusk. Many creatures are milling about in the valley, and it looks like they are gathering wood for fires in six great fire pits. It's clear there is not much time left. Lady D. is asked to wait above, and the party sneaks down to the landing and the priest's cave. It is not a cave though, it is a manmade cavern with finished walls and sconces with torches lighting the way. The group cautiously enters and makes their way deep into the mountain. There are two doors, and they listen and hear voices from within. They pick up a bit of the speech and there is discussion of a leader named "Lucern" and something about the boredom of their duties, the filthy inhabitants of the canyon, and other mundane discussions. The group decides on misdirection - the party hides to the side as Nowhere slams open the door and uses her Thalmaturgy ability to flare the small brazier on the table in front of the four humans in the room. They are dressed in simple red robes, and it is obvious that Nowhere has startled them.
"Lucern is upset with your lackluster performance. He wants to see you now." Nowhere demands.
"Performance regarding what?" one of the robed figures asks.
"Everything." Nowhere replies.
"Who are you?" another asks.
"Your worst nightmare." Nowhere replies. "Go see Lucern."
As the group stands and goes to walk by Nowhere, one states "Parlor tricks don't scare us." and casts a similar spell to make the fire in the brazier dance into a small tornado of flame.
He is one of the last ones to fall as the party jumps the four acolytes and takes them down. They take a pair of the robes, shut the door, and hurry on.
Up a sloped passage, the party heads right along a wide hallway and finds a pair of doors with more voices, seemingly both opening to the same room. This time, two of the party enter in the disguises of the acolytes they beat, but this time they are no dealing with acolytes.
"Acolyte! What is wrong with you? You enter without permission again and you will be praying for the flame!" one of the armored, weaponed, fierce-looking adepts barks at them.
"Ummmm" responds Atlas in disguise.
"Get back to your barracks or I will beat you into a puddle!" Atlas and Immeral race out the door.
"Idiots! I recognized Durgen, but who was the other Acolyte?" someone back in the room asks.
"Not sure, some new imbecile. He'll probably be eating with the gnolls." and the others laugh.
The party splits, facing the two doors to the room, and rush in to attack. This time though, they are fighting seasoned possessors of magic. The one dark acolyte commands "Halt" empowered with magic, and half the party is stopped in their tracks. Luckily, there are enough of them to take down the evil clerics, but it is not easy going. They take some damage, but defeat the foes, and the frozen heroes shake off the results of a Command spell.
The clock is ticking. Can the Owlbear league find and defeat the fire priest of the Caves of Chaos? How will they save the human prisoners soon to be dinner? They are tired, wounded, drained of spells and healing, how will they succeed without a rest and recharge?
NEXT - Escape from Chaos
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