Session 6 January 2 2010 A Journey and Discovery part 2

Attending:
Tom, Sean, Dave and Leigh

Party Update and Review

Dayereth (Day-err-ethh) Eladrin Wizard -

"Handsome" Luke- Half-Orc Fighter -

Nadarresh (Nah-Darr-resh) - Dragonborn Ranger -

History: Deciding to help Luke and the church of Heironeous, Luke, Nadarresh and Dayereth will take the ransom for the Amulet of Hextor and one thousand gold to the Dragonspire peak by the Full moon.  Arendis having been in town recently would not join them right away.  They make ready while in Brix and set forth early in the morning.

All is quiet as they move from the north gate of Brix, Dayereth keeps pace with Luke and Nadarresh on his newly acquired horse.  Making their way west and slightly north past the Well of Souls towards the river Kelix and the bridge that is the only way to cross the great river.  They had talked about:

A) A direct route  (North west) trying to find a way across the rapids through the ravines

B) Travel west to the abandoned bridge then north through the foot hills.

C) Travel North to Peargrove and cross the river via ferry and head west crossing the open plains on the south edge of the sea of grass, likely two days longer.

Luke looks to the rest of us and says, "I'm happy to go whatever way you all think best.  It might not be the easiest journey but we'll get there.  I think Heironeous is guiding our steps on this mission, no matter which route we take.  But anyhow, if you want my opinion, we should take that abandoned bridge to the west.  We're already heading out in that direction to get to the Well of Souls.  And it's probably the fastest way to go."

Luke counts off the options on his fingers.  "Peargrove is the long way round.  Trying to go straight and hoping to find a way across the river might turn out to be an even longer way -- who knows how many days we'll have to spend looking for a bridge across a ravine or something.  So the bridge way is probably the fastest.  And that means we can get to the Drakespire soonest.  Which seems like a good idea.  The sooner we're there, the more time we might have to scout out the area so we don't get taken by surprise.  We might even be able to lay an ambush for those Hextor-worshipping bastards.

Nadarresh takes it all in, nodding in agreement at Luke's suggestion.  "Heironeous might not be Bahamut but the two share in that they would want us to succeed in helping the poor souls that have suffered here, like the priests."  He finishes solemnly.

Luke looks at Nadarresh and then continues saying, "Sure, the bridge might be sketchy, but who knows what we'll find out there?  Maybe some bandits, but then you can find bandits in a lot of places round here lately.  And if there are bandits or monsters at the bridge, maybe we can defeat them and make it safer for people to travel that way.  At least if anybody wants to travel that way who isn't going to climb a mountain to have a meeting with some evil cult followers."

He shrugs.  "But whichever way we go is fine by me."

As they make some headway, Nadarresh notices a large set of tracks, crossing their path heading to the north.  He notices them to belong to Needle tooth drakes, describing them as tiny, cat-sized, brightly green colored which chirp and whistle as they cascade across the ground. Named for their incredibly sharp fangs, these dangerous predators hunt in swarms but are also seen by themselves.  They can be so deadly because they attack en masse!

Realizing they were not an immediate threat they moved onward, but were soon tired from a full twelve hours of travel, so making camp on a hill, so they could better see the surrounding areas they set off to sleep soon after setting a fire. 

Dayereth took the first watch and was sharp enough to notice at least a dozen eyes shining back at him in the grass at the base of the hill.  Since the group was near the full moon, it was bright enough for him to see them.  As they didn't move up the hill, he kept watching them then woke up Luke for his watch.  Hearing about the creatures below they decided to wake Nadarresh in case something happened.  Nadarresh hearing about creatures drew his swords and asked where they were.  Pointing to the base of the hill, Dayereth moved towards his horse to calm the rapidly excited creature.  Nadarresh reaching into his pack for his oil flasks, dumps two pints of it behind them near the fire and lights it.  As he does this the group sees that there are in fact hundreds of the creatures moving towards them.

Moving en masse they came forward and Nadarresh hoped to drive them away and threw a lit pint of oil at the pack.  A few were hit but the sheer number of them charged and knocked him onto his back.  Dayereth and Luke dove into the fight as Nadarresh finally got back up and despite the three of them killing dozens of the creatures, the swarm seemed to hardly be affected.  After a few spells and some hearty fighting they trio finally managed to kill enough of the creatures to send them running.  They tried their best to rest up and continued by midday.

As they neared the river, the area opened up into a valley lined with a trail that seemed faster but more exposed.  The three decided to drive onward the next day into the shorter path, through the forest despite the thickness of it all.  Nadarresh was looking to the ground suddenly, noticing some fresher tracks but despite this missed the Drakes, one a spitting Drake that stood less than twenty feet from him.  he recovered quickly but not before one spat its acid at him, burning him slightly.  His toughened skin was able to stave off the effects, dulling the pain more than anything.  Four Drakes stood before them and they were extremely tough, Arendis' bow was sorely missed.  Nadarresh was vicious in his attacks but barely managed to scratch them and Luke drove into two but still they stayed up.  Flanked by a pair Nadarresh went down the Drake continuing to tear into his flesh, three of the four managing to take him down.  Dayereth and Luke now a man down used their strength of sword and will to shred the remaining drakes, sore and tired they knew Nadarresh was nearly dead having been attacked continuously even after he went down.  He was bleeding from many wounds and the pair having no potions or healing magic tried five times before they finally stabilized him.

Resting in camp the pair were worried if Nadarresh would be up anytime soon but by mid-morning he finally came around and the three made plans to rest up and continue onward by the afternoon.  After more than eight hours they decided to press on despite the sun had dropped below the ridge of the mountains.  Eight more hours of travel later with the sun coming up, they could hear the river and knew they were close.  They reached a bluff that overlooks the bridge crossing the river.  The bridge, almost 400 feet long with a central tower in the middle is worn but strong but they notice the central tower is a smoldering ruin of what it was, seemingly attacked quite recently.  As they stand looking down they notice that the bridge has many moving shapes  and looking closer they realize it's by drakes.  Making plans on how to cross, they can not help notice the a giant humanoid figure that seems to stand at least twice the height of a man and with such girth it makes Nadarresh shudder realizing how monstrous he truly must be.  Making camp without a fire this time and they sit and begin to create a strategy on how to get past the Drakes on the bridge.

Nadarresh knelt down and then sat down on a large, flat, stone shaped like a mushroom except the flat top.  As luke spoke he commented, "I agree that the cloud of daggers spell was very effective but even if he could cast many of them, the Drakes move too fast for them to be effectively caught by them.  If Dayereth concentrates on the spells only he'll be distracted and may be vulnerable to attack.  Last time, we were lucky that they attacked me more than the two of you.  They are smart and will realize how powerful Dayereth truly is to them.  We should use the daggers spell but I think we should try to herd them towards us or drive them away.  That's what I was hoping the oil would do, keep them away, or we could shove them into the fires..." he trails off, looking to the others.  "I guess I should have explained that."

The bridge is at least 4 people wide which means that even if we stood shoulder to shoulder, we'd still have some space and then there's the rails...they're wide enough for a person so we'd have to cover them as well."

He continued on adding to what Luke had started drawing in the dirt, including the railing walls as well as adding a few stones representing themselves and sticks to show the drakes.  Talking some more he described some pit traps and spike traps that they could use but then as he spoke he told them all how it would take too much time to setup.

He did show them some simple ideas on how to create some long sharpened poles that may not hurt the Drakes immediately but could help to herd them.  He wondered though how long that would take as well.

They kept at it...

((Leigh, it would be helpful if you could clarify for us exactly how much time we have left and how many days' travel is still ahead of us.  I was hoping it would be feasible to take a longer rest here to cure Dayereth's exhaustion, but maybe it's not...))

Luke: "I don't much like our chances of somehow sneaking all the way across that bridge.  I don't know what would be a good enough distraction, but I doubt setting fire to the tower thing in the middle would do it..."

He scratches his head. "Oh, hey, wait a second!  What was that thing you did a while back... Tenser's Floating Disk, was that what you called it?  Any chance we could use that to get across the river without using the bridge at all?"

Dayereth shakes his head.
"The disk must follow behind me, and it stays close to the ground. The weight which it can carry is also limited, although it could probably carry Narradesh plus spare equipment, I'm not sure I could conjure a disk which would be able to carry both of you."

Luke looks doubtful.  "That doesn't really sound like a distraction to me.  Isn't a distraction supposed to make them look away from us, or make them think we're somewhere else, or whatever?  You basically want to shoot arrows at them to make them come and attack us.

"If we're going to start a fight, we'd be better off doing it on the bridge itself, not drawing them over to our end of the bridge and maybe having to fight them on the ground on this side of the bridge.  Being on the bridge would actually help us a bit, I think, since we're probably outnumbered.  It's a little bit narrow, so it would make it harder for them to just surround us on all sides.

"I guess one advantage for us is that we don't really need to kill them all -- we just need to fight our way past them and then run off in the other direction.

"But maybe we should try to count exactly how many lizards we're really dealing with here.  Let's watch the bridge for a while."

Luke takes his hat off and crawls to a position where he hopes he can see without being seen ((under a nearby bush or in some tall grass, whatever's available in this terrain)) and observes the bridge, attempting to count lizards.

"No matter what we do, we'll have to attack them during the day."  Nadarresh whispered, keeping as quiet as possible.  "I can see how pulling them towards us might be a bad thing but if we can get them to cluster, we'll have a better chance of taking them down, create some confusion.  Perhaps some of us could move towards the tower silently, then start by getting inside if it's possible...I mean as long as it's not destroyed.  We could get behind it or up into the tower and have the advantage of height, then when we lure them into it, the others could move past them, setting fire to the tower from the outside to block their escape.  We, at the top could jump safely from the tower into the water.  ok well maybe not the water but the railing with a rope we could setup.  they'd be coming up to get us but would be distracted, we'd escape, the others while moving across could cover our escape by using the daggers spell at the towers doorway or other exit.  Even if we don't have help from Arendis' bow, we could definitely sneak in and then draw them to attack us at the tower.  As for that big guy though...."

((Leigh, does Dayereth have access to Pyrotechnics and Control Normal Fires?))

((Before I reply to this, I'm going to wait for Leigh to confirm or deny that the bridge is configured as Nadarresh has described it: with opaque 3-4-foot railings at either side and enough room for us to crawl along on the outside of those railings without falling off the bridge.))