Embedded Files
Campaign Journal 49 -
PREVIOUSLY - CAMPAIGN DIARIES 48 - INVADING THE INVADERS
The Owlbear League scrambles down the steep hillside above Firehammer Hold, having escaped from the duergar invaders via a chimney flue. Nowhere uses her forest proficiency to lead the way. They assemble at the hostel for visitors where the secret passage is, and are reunited with Lady D. who is laying across two beds in the hostel for Firehammer Hold.
K'ronk says "Well that sucked!"
They struggle with where to go next, not having found Jekk, the focus of their mission. "We should just rush in and start cutting them down" says Nowhere.
"I'd prefer something more subtle." says Immeral "They might kill Jekk in a frontal attack."
Atlas asks "Maybe we should double-check that door to the north where the Duergar went in. Immeral could see the inside situation using the cloak of stars.
They agree to that, and go back to the service entrance to the North. Orryn tells Lady D. to stay put and she goes back to sleeping.
Immeral asks "should we rest first?"
K'ronk says "We haven't used a lot of spells."
Looking at the door, Orryn asks "nobody has a knock spell?" and the magic users and clerics all look around at each other shaking their heads.
Immeral flips up the hood of his cloak of stars and enters the ethereal plane, seeing the monochrome version of their world from the border ethereal, then passes through the door. Inside he sees a room containing a single unoccupied chair near the entrance and an immense stack of dried firewood along the southern wall. The huge brass door is indeed barred from the inside.
Down a hallway to the north is a door, and to the west, voices can be heard in a nearby room. Six duergar warriors can be heard and just barely seen from Immeral's distance. They are talking and drinking.
Six more duergar enter, and the deep dwarves switch shifts. The others depart quickly, leaving the new ones in the same state, talking and drinking. Immeral quickly checks the north door and finds a room with uninteresting bins of charcoal.
Immeral takes his hood off and appears back from where he came. He tells the others of the situation, and they discuss options, one including giving a giant-growth potion to Lady D, but they feel the door is too substantial for flesh to destroy. Another idea was to feign being attacked commoners looking for safety. Since none of the ideas gain agreement, they go back to Lady D. and into the secret passage deeper into the mountain. This time they head southwards and up the stairs to the main entrance, encountering no resistance. They unbar the main doors and Orryn gathers Lady D.
The League again marches down the stairs from the main entrance deep into Firehammer Hold, this time with Lady D. amongst them. The Owlbear and her rider Orryn nearly fills the passage.
They pass through rooms they have visited before including the double doors where they know Duergar wait to repel invaders.
The continue on to the end of the passage and a large room some 30 feet across and 60 wide. The 30-foot-high ceiling of this large room is supported by two square pillars. A 10-foot-tall statue of an armored female dwarf wielding a great sword wreathed in two spirals of flame stands in a recess in the northern wall. The southwest and southeast corners contain stools and benches arranged before two fireplaces. Halls exit the room to the northwest, south, and west.
The Owlbear League steps into the room and arrows start flying out from niches in the wall. One arrow misses Orryn narrowly. Dain is struck in the back by a second arrow and he cries out in pain. A third arrow hits Immeral as well.
Laughter and dwarven voices can be heard from behind the wall with the niches.
Nowhere runs over to the wall and sees the 9' wide niches are 3' deep, likely not reachable with a sword, but she tries, seeing the dodging of the duergar. She gives up and ducks down.
Seraphina runs over and casts sacred flame, but dodges out of the way, shrieking to the other duergar at the same time to "watch out".
Orryn rushes over and shoots an arrow back towards the duergar. He hears a cry of pain and the duergar on the other side start scrambling, then dashes north to get out of range of the arrows.
Atlas dashes into the room, and seeing the niches blocked, runs down the stairs to the northwest to try to get around to the duergar, and as she turns the corner to the east, she activates a trap, triggering two sets of heavy iron bars to capture her in the forty foot hallway. The others hear a slam from Alexa's direction, but are unsure what that means.
K'ronk runs behind the western pillar for cover and casts fire bolt towards the niches. It is a hard shot into the tiny niches, but the flaming mote strikes someone on the other side of the wall and a scream can be heard as well as some more duergar talking. "Load again and fire!"
Dain moves into the room and rushes down the stairs where Atlas went. He runs into the bars that have her trapped inside.
Immeral dashes down the stairs and also discovers Alexa trapped inside.
Lady D. looks to Orryn and he gives her a quick command. The Owlbear races into the room, grabs Seraphina, and runs back to the stairs where Atlas and others followed.
Arrows fly from the wall at the eastern end of the hallway and one arrow glances off Immeral's robe of stars without harming him.
Atlas turns and dodges a second arrow.
Dain manages to raise his shield in time and deflects the third arrow, yelling up the stairs "Atlas is trapped in a cage!"
Back in the main room, Nowhere takes a position directly in front of the arrow niches, intending to draw fire from the duergar defenders.
Seraphina runs down the stairs to lend aid to Atlas, but sees little opportunity to help. She casts shield of faith on Atlas, granting her additional protection for the ten minutes the spell will last.
Orryn looks around for a lever or switch, but seeing none, runs to the bottom of the stairs with Lady D, but sees there is a traffic-jam of sorts as his companions are crowding the landing. He manages to turn Lady D back around to run back up the stairs, yelling "Clear the landing for Lady D!"
Atlas calls to Dain "Help me lift first!" and she with Dain grabs the bars and using all their strength along with Atlas' gauntlets of ogre power they try to raise the bars, but it is to no avail, the bars seem locked in position.
Immeral casts chill touch to get at one of the duergar behind the wall of arrow niches behind Atlas. He definitely strikes one as he hears a howl from the far wall. He then runs up the stairs behind Lady D and Orryn.
Dain howls in rage and tries to pry the bars apart with Atlas' help, but the hardened steel barely bends.
The duergar launch another salvo of arrows in the southern room, striking Lady D. with an arrow as she clears the stairs. The other two arrows miss their targets of Nowhere and Orryn, and the unmistakable sound of a bow snapping comes from behind the wall. In the north, the duegar launch arrows into the cage where Atlas is trapped, but the dexterous monk dodges all the attacks.
Seraphina casts blink on herself, momentary entering the ethereal plane, then moments appearing in the cage with Atlas. She will continue to blink in and out of the ethereal plane for the next minute.
Nowhere screams into the arrow niches "Hit me with your arrows and I will set you ablaze!"
Dain races back up the stairs to make room for the powerful Owlbear to try bending the bars. When he clears the stairs, Orryn and Lady D. race down the stairs and Orryn tells her to pry open the bars. The owlbear places her powerful claws against the bars, but only achieves a slight bend in the heavy steel.
"What the hell are these bars made of?" Orryn cries.
Immeral peeks out from the pillar he is taking cover behind and casts chill touch again, but the spell does not seem to land on a target in the hidden space beyond the niches.
K'ronk casts fire bolt and a flaming mote flies into an arrow niche and strikes a duergar sending him screaming in agony.
The southern duergar redouble their efforts, shooting at Nowhere, but startled by their burning companion, the first duergar misses the easy target. The second arrow flies by Dain and Immeral and K'ronk.
The northern archers now fire another round at Atlas and Seraphina, Orryn and Lady D. The first arrow misses Lady D. The second misses Atlas, and the last hits Lady D with barely a scratch, but it seems to enrage the owlbear.
Seraphina runs to the eastern bars and casts sacred flame, and a magical radiance descends on one of the hidden duergar, and it burns them and he shrieks while trying to pat the false flames out. She blinks out to the ethereal plane again and this time reappears on the eastern side of the bars, out of the trapped. She is close to the arrow slits and sees stairs to the north descending downward.
Orryn tells Lady D to try to bend the bars, Atlas helping, and they bend slightly more, but they are incredibly strong.
Nowhere taunts the duergar, yelling at them "Is that the best your little shrimp-dick goblin-ass can do?"
K'ronk yells out to Nowhere "Duck!", and comes out from cover, points down the arrow niches, and casts fireball. A bright streak flashes from his pointing finger, past Nowhere's head, into the archer's room and blossoms with a low roar into an explosion of flame that somewhat shoots back through the niches. There is disarray and screaming duergar, several are unconscious, some that are moving are on fire. More are dead and smoldering. Some yell in dwarven "Water!" or "Put it out, put it out!"
Raging Dain rushes up on the burning duergar and launches a javelin through the niche, and right as a burning duergar runs by, it impales them through the head and they sort of bounce up and down a bit as their flaming skull is held upright near the level of the niche by the javelin. Capture Josh voice at 38:45
Immeral glances out and still sees movement within the niches, so he rushes out and throws a star from his robe of stars to launch seven magic missiles into the small tunnel. The magic missiles fly through and obliterate one of the remaining living duergar, the sound of him hitting the floor dead is clear. The wizard catches movement from the corner of his eye and looks down the southern hallway where at least two duergar emerge from the double doors, war picks at the ready, racing to attack The League.
One of the few remaining duergar in the south room screams at Nowhere as he launches an arrow right at her chest. It strikes true, and is blunted by her armor, but it is just what she wanted. The tiefling casts hellish rebuke and points her finger at the duergar while laughing, and the duergar archer is surrounded by hellish flames, and the flesh burns off his skull as he screams and dies.
Seraphina runs up to one of the northern arrow slots and casts burning hands sending a sheet of flame into the archer's room which strikes several of them, and they yell in dwarven and scramble to pat out burning clothes. They all still live to fight and start calling for defenders that the attackers (the Owlbear League) are at the northern trap. Capture Tom voice at 47:35
Lady D. and Atlas once again try to bend the metal bars, but the clawed Owlbear just can't seem to get a good grip. Capture Alexa voice at 48:00
Atlas realizes "We have to lift these bars or Lady D. won't make it through!"
Dain sees the duergar in the hallway, and screaming a raging attack, throws a javelin down the hallway, spearing the first duergar, just clipping him, but he still rushes forward to attack, laughing. Then Dain throws his last javelin, piercing the duergar's shoulder, shocking him, but he keeps running forward.
K'ronk sees the javelins being thrown, and repositions to see the hallway. He sees attacker piling out of the double-doors and releases a wall of ice from his staff of frost, knowing that only a single charge remains. Creating the massive block of ice right on the first duergar.
The spell fills the hallway and expands right around the duergar, and they are compressed by the forming ice, trapping them in the middle of the hallway, frozen to death. The tip of the javelin protruding just outside of the icy wall.
Dain, still raging yells in fury at K'ronk "My javelins!"
K'ronk (still concentrating to keep the ice wall up) says "I will buy you 50 javelins."
Dain replies "Fifty? OK." and seems to deflate as his rage abates.
Immeral sees some movement on the other side of the defender's wall, so he casts chill touch and hits another duergar with necromantic energy. It disappears, so either unconscious or dead.
The Owlbear League seems trapped. Will Atlas escape from her cage? What will Seraphina face alone on her side of the bars? Will the duergar breach the ice wall?
NEXT - Campaign Journal 50 - Cornered By the Duergar
This adventure used material from the D&D Module "Scourge of the Sword Coast".
Google Sites
Report abuse