Slain by Elf

Needing to recover from several encounters forces our retreat from the orc fortress. We don't think they'd leave us to sleep peacefully only to get up and fight them refreshed.

We exit the fortress, head a bit further up the valley, and find somewhere safe to rest. Maybe this will confuse the orcs too, as we rush in, kill a couple of them, and run away again. Mind you, I don't suppose it takes much to confuse an orc.

After a night's rest, we head back to the fortress, and get inside in much the same way as before. We know what we're doing this time. Well, up to a point. At least the gelatinous cube is gone, although the hole to the oubliette is covered once again, and the initial barricade has been rebuilt too.

As before, Pasha throws a firebolt at the barricade to start it smouldering, hopefully making it easier to break down. Our mage also reaches in to his bag of tricks, hoping to get a creature out of it that can threaten the orcs whilst we get through the barricade.

Pasha grabs the small ball of fur, pulls it out of the bag, and tosses the ball over the barricade. Within seconds, a giant hyena has appeared on the orc side of the barricade! That's a pretty good result.

The GM gives the stats for the hyena to Pasha, 'and remember that the giant hyena doesn't like fire, so if that blaze gets any worse it may panic.'

'Hey, just because I rolled two 1s in a row there's no reason to start panicking!'

'Not you, Blaise.'

Getting in to the orc fortress in the canyon, thanks to finding a hidden lever that opens a door in the rock face, only leads to more problems. To get to the door we had to pass arrow slits where orcs waited to fire opportunistically at us. Even orcs aren't so stupid for us to be out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and we have to accept that they not only know that we're inside, but also just inside their entrance.

Sure enough, right around the corner from the entrance is a small barricade, with a couple of orcs behind it with bows. Rather than exchange shots with opponents who are behind cover, we decide that closing the distance as quickly as possible is the best idea. That is until, a few steps in, Nerrick falls down a covered pit, and comes face-to-six faces with a gelatinous cube.

As we weather arrows from the laughing orcs, we try to help Nerrick escape the clutches of the gelatinous cube before it engulfs him. I lower down a rope to help Nerrick climb back up, but the cube tries to swallow him and Nerrick has to dodge deeper in to the oubliette.

Despite our best efforts, with Nerrick stabbing the cube and Pasha's flaming sphere burning in to its top, the gelatinous cube swallows Nerrick. We have to get him out of there! 'I'm going down in to the pit.'

'Are you going down on the rope?'

'The one I'm holding? No, that doesn't sound right.' Instead, I jump down, pull out my weapon, and, with Pasha's assistance from the outside and Nerrick's from the inside, we all deal enough final damage to the cube for it to dissolve and free our colleague. Now we just need to get out of the pit and deal with the orcs. If only we had a positive strength modifier between us to help climb that rope.

At the end of the canyon is the orcs' fortress, seemingly built in to the walls of the canyon itself. We spot some tracks that the orcs have left, but they seem to lead directly in to a stone wall.

Getting closer to the wall where the tracks disappear doesn't offer any clues as to possible openings, and, given that there are two illusionists in the party, we naturally assume that magic must be shielding the entrance.

'I'll throw a pebble at the rock face.' It bounces off the rock face, much like a pebble would normally bounce off a rock face. 'That's a pretty good illusion. Pasha, run in to the rock face where the tracks lead, and really believe in yourself!'

'Roger that. I cast Haste!'

'Lord help you if you ever come across a smart enemy.'

'Well, you play all the NPCs, so we're probably okay.'

'Where did the orc come from?'

'What? I don't know. It's just an orc. There's no detail about where he's from, or anything like that in the adventure!'

'No, I just meant where up here, in this crag. He seemed to appear from nowhere.'

Defeating the guards leaves us looting the battlefield. 'Is there any loot?'

'Chain shirts, spears, a heavy crossbow. And their 15 horses, of course.'

'I'll put them in my backpack.'

'...what are you putting in your backpack?'

'The horses.'

'I'm not going to allow that, because, first, you're not very strong, and second, you would need to compress 15 horses in to a small backpack.'

'I'm surprised that second point had to be relegated to be the second point on a list to disallow the carrying of 15 horses in a backpack.'

Some guards are left behind with the horses about half-way along a canyon, and our attempt to convince them we are on their side fail. Weapons are drawn.

One of the guards throws a spear towards Pasha, our wizard. 'Or his owl familiar.'

'Okay, on a 20 he hits the owl.'

The D20 rolls a 7, a miss. 'If everyone could refrain from sighing, that would be great', says Pasha. Another spear flies in, this one more accurate. Much more accurate. To rather inappropriate cheers, a critical hit of 20 is scored.

Not wanting to find out if the GM is serious about the hit roll of 20 meaning his owl familiar dies, or indeed how much damage he will take himself to critical damage, Pasha uses his Lucky ability to dodge the hit. But it is only in the following round that a second critical hit looks to land on our wizard. 'I'm lucky! I'm still lucky!', he says, as he relies on another use of the same ability.

'Yeah, two critical hits in consecutive rounds. You certainly seem lucky.'

'Climbing up on to the guard wall, you've been spotted by guards, but they're about 60 feet away. Are you going to climb down the other side, or jump?'

'How far down is it?'

'About 15 feet.'

'Jump.'

'Okay. Everyone give me either an Athletics/Strength check, or Acrobatics/Dexterity check.'

'20.'

'17.'

'19.'

'20.'

'Blimey. Okay, you may be lacking strength, but you have the agility of ninjas as you deftly jump off the wall, landing with sublime grace.'

'How long do we have to stand here like this?'

'Until we reach maximum coolness. ... There it is. Let's go!'

Winning the initiative against the barbarian gives us an advantage. Who'd've thought? A quick charm spell, aided by a forced failed saving throw, makes him think I'm his buddy, and we convince him to withdraw to another room, isolating us from his two-headed hound.

Another spell, this time a suggestion from Pasha, gets the barbarian's sword from him. Unarmoured, unarmed, and without his pet, it actually looks like we've managed to enact another decent plan, as we ambush the barbarian on our own terms.

The barbarian isn't quite down, though. He shoves his way past me in to another room, where he is able to find something as an improvised weapon.

'...like a statue?'

'Right, a bust, or something similarly hefty.'

'What did I just do? Why couldn't I have tried to think of something that could never possibly destroy us, like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man? Me and my big mouth!'

Entering a room where a barbarian awaits us, donning his armour near a two-handed longsword, with a two-headed dog on the other side of the room, fills us with some level of pessimistic dread. Enough dread that the topic of new characters arises.

'The problem with needing new characters will be how to introduce them in to the adventure.'

'Oh, it won't be so hard', says the GM. 'You just turn up at Perrett's Fort and drop in.'

'Yeah, we're a band of renegades who...'

'Hey, don't give new characters a backstory. We're not dead yet!'