Consulting a map, it seems your journey will be leading you back into familiar territory; the most direct route is the road leading southwest out of Freybourne, which passes through Corcoran before terminating at Dale-Town, which itself is not far from the heart of Lakewood Forest. This seems to please Varel, whereas Nibben is not at all eager to go anywhere back near the lair of the snake people. For his part, Salbadore requests a coach rather than traveling on foot, and Orthos is able to negotiate a reasonable fare for a one-way trip.*****
The group departs Freybourne on a bright, auspicious morning with clear skies and a pleasant breeze. The driver estimates six days to Corcoran, and then four more to Dale-Town. Three days of travel pass uneventfully for the most part, though there are a few moments of tension when a wasp flies in through one of the carriage windows.
*****
The fourth morning’s ride begins under the pall of a light drizzle that lingers throughout the remainder of the day. As twilight approaches, the driver begins talk of stopping for the night to make camp when there is a sound of thunder in the distance. Is it a mundane storm, or a harbinger of something dire? The group decides to press on for now, hoping to put more distance between themselves and the source of their unease.
Two hooded figures suddenly leap out from behind a stray boulder on the side of the road, their weapons drawn, and shout, “Stop!” The driver, seeing that an arrow is pointed directly at him, reins the horses to a halt.
A third fellow, his face hidden by a helmet, floats around the boulder on a white disc of light and settles between the other two. All three have conspicuously pointed ears.
He speaks. “Greetings, travelers! Lovely evening for a storm, is it not? Your poor horses seem awfully fatigued; surely you don’t mind if we Elves do them the favor of lightening their load a bit? And lest you get any big ideas, I should warn you that six more of my people are hidden in the grass around you. So exit the carriage, if you please, and place your valuables on the ground.”
He speaks. “Greetings, travelers! Lovely evening for a storm, is it not? Your poor horses seem awfully fatigued; surely you don’t mind if we Elves do them the favor of lightening their load a bit? And lest you get any big ideas, I should warn you that six more of my people are hidden in the grass around you. So exit the carriage, if you please, and place your valuables on the ground.”Beginning of rounds:
End of Round 1:
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"Let me see if I can talk to them." Laurie steps out of the carriage and walks up to the "brigands" in the middle of the road, pulling off her hat to show her pointed ears.
She speaks in Elven, "Perhaps we can negotiate."
The three "Elves" are rather surprised by this. (As is the driver of the carriage, but more on that later.)
The hooded one with the mace says quietly to his levitating companion, "What are we supposed to do?"
"We stick with the plan," he says, and throws a sack at Laurie's feet. "Go back to your companions and fill it up," he tells her.
Orthos oblivious at first, suddenly realizes the coach hasn't stopped for Laurie to answer a call of nature. Hopping out of the coach, he brandishes his rapier with a flourish. "I've survived an Elven attack before. I've got a shiny coin that says you're not but common brigands. If you want my valuables, come and take them!"
Mercurio turns toward the rest of the party and mutters: "Get me back."
Mercurio hops down from the wagon, arms raised, his morning star dangling from a strap on his left hand. He walks toward the bag. "Ho there friends," he says in an uncharacteristic voice, "I'll collect our belongings, let's leave the lady out of this."
As he kneels down to collect the bag, his cloak drapes down over his knees, covering his right hand.
Suddenly, he jumps up! A dagger flashes forth at one archer! Merc dives at the second, whirling his morning star around to both hands.
[Rounds! Colin, group initiative. IM or gmail actions to me.]
Salbadore's demeanor has slid across a spectrum of moods over the past few days.
On this fourth day, the rain has noticeably made him nervous.
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The carriage comes to a halt at the brigands' blockage. Hearing the demands of the would-be robbers, Salbadore's hackles raise. He hisses. "Ingrates! Why . . ." First Laurie unboards, and then Orthos. Sal nods acquiescence to Markus and watches him step out. With the new floor space available, he begins to draw a circle . . .
On Mercurio's actions, Laurie draws her bow and goes for the leader.
Round 1:
Mercurio’s dagger lodges itself in the brigand’s shoulder! At that same moment, the arrow he had trained on the driver is loosed and, missing its target, strikes one of the horses. It rears up in pain, inducing panic in the other horse. Their combined thrashing causes the carriage to heave wildly as the driver struggles to keep them under control.
Nibben leans out of a window of the coach and fires his crossbow at the bandits’ apparent leader, but the unpredictable motion of the carriage causes his bolt to narrowly miss. Meanwhile, Salbadore manages to complete his circle and, placing a tiny jar containing a bee within it, intones: “Ortus Iterus!” He then quickly throws the jar out the window as the bee swells to equine proportions. “Attack the flying one,” he commands it, pointing at the “Elf” on the disc. The insect complies and heads straight toward its target.
On the other side of the rocking carriage, Orthos shouts, “Dance of Death!” With preternatural fluidity, he leaps and twirls toward the brigands, his rapier whistling as it slices through the air.
With one smooth motion, Laurie draws her short bow and nocks an arrow. Letting it fly, it strikes the leader of the “Elves” in the arm! Grunting in pain, he reaches for something in his tunic.
Meanwhile, the hooded archer readies another arrow and trains his sights on Laurie. But here comes Orthos! The dancing wizard slashes his blade across the bandit’s face and slices off an ear! The man screams and falls to the ground, blinded and bleeding freely from numerous wounds.
Mercurio charges toward the brigand with the heavy mace, who swings at his attacker and misses widely. Still tumbling and rolling, Orthos comes to his feet with an upward thrust at the bandit, but his attack is deflected as his foe’s cumbersome weapon crashes down to the ground.
As the bee bears down on its target, three more hooded men spring up from the tall grass, train their crossbows on it, and fire. Two bolts find their mark and plunge into the bee’s abdomen, causing the insectoid behemoth to crash clumsily to the ground with the crackle and squish of crushed chitin.
*****
He couldn’t understand what was happening, how it all could go so wrong. Who the hell were these people?? Oh, cruel irony, that their plan was to masquerade as Elves and rob passers-by, only to have run up against Elves masquerading as human wayfarers! And where had that monster bee come from?
He certainly hadn’t planned on this, and their rapid frontal assault on his position had forced him to play the card he was saving for the least favorable of situations. Pulling out the scroll, he focused all his attention on the words and began to speak them. He may have been a college dropout, but he knew how to read magic well enough.
The dancing swordsman ran him through the thigh just after the final syllable had been uttered. Gritting his teeth in pain, he manages a smile…
*****
Orthos completes his deadly dance, wounding the brigand leader in the leg. At that moment, a brilliant bolt of lightning is unleashed from the “Elf’s” hand and impales Orthos right through the chest (21 damage!!) before incinerating both horses and the driver and setting the carriage ablaze!
Nibben, Salbadore, and Varel leap out of the flaming coach. “Oh no!!” Varel exclaims. Seeing Orthos’ smoking body in the road, she rushes toward him, heedless of danger.
"Withdraw!" The brigand leader yells as his floating disc begins to carry him away from the battle.
Round 2:
Varel slides into the dust and gravel beside Orthos’ body. Miraculously, he is still alive, albeit grieviously wounded and knocked senseless by the force of the lightning bolt. Still, it could have been much worse; clearly the young wizard is made of sterner stuff than his appearance would suggest.
Laying her hands upon the smoking crater at the center of his chest, she invokes her healing magic (+13 hp). Laurie joins in the effort, quietly singing a song her mother used to soothe skinned knees and elbows, and restores the rest of Orthos’ health.
Orthos leaps to his feet and swings his blade at the thug who is already trying to fend off Mercurio, but fails to connect. However, the momentary distraction is all Mercurio needs to deliver a solid blow to his foe’s leg with his morning star!
Nibben and the archer nearest to him face off, crossbows ready. But the gnome’s hand is the much quicker of the two, and more accurate as well; before the archer can even pull the trigger, a tiny bolt lodges itself in his eye! He screams and drops his weapon to claw at his face.
Meanwhile, Salbadore has drawn another circle in the dust and places a pinch of coarse hair within it. “Ortus Iterus!” The porcine essence in the hair is reconstituted by the genomantic energies of his operation into a living, breathing wild boar! “Attack that one,” he commands it, pointing at the brigand on the disc. The dumb beast rakes the dirt twice with a hoof and obediently charges toward its target, squealing madly. In that moment, the brigand archer nearest to Salbadore shoots him with his crossbow but inflicts only a flesh wound (2 damage).
For his part, the brigand sees the oncoming boar and prepares a spell. As it nears, he scatters a small handful of multicolored sand into the air and unleashes a vivid cone-shaped spray of colors at the beast’s face. The boar reacts as if it had just rammed headlong into a brick wall: it reels, shakes its head, snorts, and collapses. Unopposed for now, the “Elf” continues to retreat.
A crossbow bolt whizzes past Varel’s head, missing her by a mere fraction of an inch. Angrily, she reaches down and digs her fingers into the dirt. To their surprise and dismay, the remaining enemy archers find themselves bound where they stand as roots suddenly spring from the earth and wrap tightly around their ankles and legs! Unable to free themselves, and unaccustomed to facing magic-users, they announce their surrender by raising their empty crossbows to the sky.
Similarly, Mercurio’s opponent finds himself unable to withdraw. Wounded, hemmed in by two skilled foes, and entangled by ensorcelled vegetation, he drops his mace and declares, “I yield!”
The party's genomancer is frothing from the corners of his gritted teeth. He hurriedly draws another Wurfkreis - as always, Salbadore moves with uncanny alacrity as he completes his diagrams - and raises his open palm above it.
As if holding his finger on a crossbow's trigger, he declares, "That's it, you filth! Drop your weapons and lay down in the road!"
The archers drop their weapons while the brigand on the floating disc continues his retreat. He seems to be preparing another spell in case anyone comes after him.
With the combat at hand seemingly at a close, Mayna settles onto her master's shoulder. "Good Mayna."
Salbadore waggles his fingers menacingly over the circles. "In the road, schweinehunde!" he barks.
"- else, my bird will have your eyes!"
"kr-raw!"
The archer nearest to Salbadore responds uncertainly: "Um, sorry guvna, can't. Me feet's stuck in magick'd grass er sumfin."
"You're damn right they are!" Varel replies. Combat seems to have at least temporarily abated her depressed mood. She then releases the brigands, ready to cast another spell should they take aggressive action or flee.
"Wooh! Did you guys see that? That just happened! We just kicked evil in the nuts. In your face evil!"
As soon as Varel releases her spell, two archers attempt to flee in opposite directions as fast as their craven legs will carry them.
The third archer would probably run if he could, but is too preoccupied with a crossbow bolt in his eye to do much except scream and flail about.
The wounded brigand with the mace, having already surrended to Mercurio and Orthos, remains where he is.
Meanwhile, their leader continues to retreat.
"Ah. Very well," he responds to the bound archers, as he rises from his circle.
When Varel releases the highwaymen from her vegetable clutches, Salbadore casts a glance to the skraftbiest that he had shaped. Watching the archers flee, he mutters, "no use wasting another boar sample just now," and sighs. "That'll do, pig - Adquietum!" The blinded boar settles its squeals, sets to making itself comfortable, and finally comes to rest on its sides.
". . . in the nuts!" declares Varel.
"Hah-haa!, lass, unquestioned!" Salbadore scans the present group. "You with the arrow in your face! - don't go anywhere!" He jogs to the brigand shot down by Nibben, and inspects the man's horrible wound. "Good bolt, Master Gnome!" he declares with disgust and somewhat sedated bravo. "Sit still you fool," he commands. Salbadore draws a circle.
The one-eyed rogue passes out from the pain and is still.
Laurie is determined not to let the leader of the "Elves" escape. She readies another arrow and aims.
Seeing this, the spellcasting brigand gestures and waves a stick of incense in the air. The area around Laurie, Mercurio, Orthos, and Varel suddenly dances with a mesmerizing display of swirling colors and lights.
Laurie maintains her concentration on her target and fires true, disrupting the wizard's concentration and causing the hypnotic pattern to disappear.
"Leave me alone!" He shouts.
Salbadore completes the circle. He turns to the wounded bandit and unbelts him. Before preceding with the medical operation, Salbadore pulls the rogue's britches around his knee and fastens the belt around the pantless man's arms. "No sense you getting up and hurting anyone." He carefully removes the arrow's shaft from the man's face. "Propero Levis!" Energy courses through the lines of the Blütekreis and the man's eye socket seals itself into a thick layer of scabs and scar tissue.
At this moment, the sleeping boar deflates around its skeleton like an air cake taken from the hearth too soon. Its skin and bones rapidly begin to dissolve.
Orthos leaves the bandit to Mercurio, and addresses Varel and Laurie.
"My thanks to both of you, there was a powerful invocation in that scroll."
He sighs as he looks over the scene.
"I'm not really sure what to do now. That poor driver. Does anyone know how far it is to a town?"
Orthos watches Laurie fire another arrow, and looks surprised that there is still fighting.
"Come back here to join the rest of your misfit Elves and you will continue to breath."
Laurie keeps her bow trained on the man, waiting for him to come to the remains of the carriage.
In Elven again, "It's people like you who give us a bad name."
The brigand sighs and hangs his head. He steps off the floating disc, which then disappears. He limps over to the group of heroes and pulls off his "elf ears," which you now see appear to have been made out of pigs' ears and fastened over his real ears with sap.
Varel frowns. "Poor piggie."
Responding to Orthos, Salbadore says, "We're three days from Corcoran, are we not? On this road?"
He pulls the ears clear off of the archer. He chuckles a little as he inspects the disguise elements. "I fancy in Corcoran we might find a wallow full of earless sows . . . These lads'll show us the way to town if we get lost - won't you, piggy?"
Mayna caws and clatters her beak. She draws Salbadore's attention to the man at Orthos' feet. "I say!" He rushes to the main group, and sets to staunching the man's open wounds. "The sheriff's bound to have a few coppers' reward for your for besting of this scum, Orthos." Sal quickly binds the man with his own belts and performs the Propero Levis operation once again.
Laurie puts her bow away, and puts her hat back on. "You know what they say, 'To know your enemy you must become them.' You're lucky that I'm not really an Elf either. They would have slaughtered you all for daring to insinuate you might be one."
Salbadore makes sure that each one of the brigands has a belt around his arms and his pantaloons around his knees before he does anything else. He bends down and begins to rummage through their pockets.
"One of you lot ought to come here and bind them in a way suitable for walking," he advises the others as he makes the brigands markedly uncomfortable. "I never have had to bind criminals before, and if we are to take these men to the sheriff, then we shall require sturdier knots than these."
"Not the sheriff!" They implore. "We'll hang for sure!"
Salbadore's search of the brigand leader turns up a dagger, 12 gold pieces, 29 silver pieces, and 18 copper pieces. He also finds a pearl necklace and a pair of silver earrings. Apprasing them, he estimates their worth at 35 and 20 gold pieces, respectively.
The spellcaster is also carrying a book of what appear to be illusion spells, the (rather pathetic) slimness of which suggests he did not make it far in school.
The one-eyed archer is carrying a dagger in addition to a handful of crossbow bolts. The actual crossbow remains in the grass where he dropped it.
The wounded thug has nothing of value on him. His heavy mace is still on the ground from where he surrendered to Mercurio and Orthos.
All four are wearing chainmail shirts.
Varel addresses the prisoners. "So what drives a group of brigands such as yourselves to raid? Crops have been bad. Were you hungry?
I've looked into your hearts and I know that you'll raid again. You deserve to have all your ears cropped for what you did to those poor piggies, but we might be more lenient if you tell us what ailes you."
Their leader addresses Varel. "Um. Well, we just got th' ears from a butcher, you know."
"We been robbin' people cuz the taxes on our crops and wood and stuff are too much for us. We got mouths to feed besides our own! But we've learned our lesson, we'll not be robbin' anyone anymore. We swear."
Orthos is unusually silent, interjecting the occasional lewd comment, but for the most part, he appears befuddled.
Salbadore is finished going through their pockets. "I say, Varel: you're practically penning their excuses for them. These decisions are not for us to make.
"'We'll hang for sure,' the lot of 'em cried. They knew the consequences of their crimes. Very well then! Let us lead them to a destiny that they have willed upon themselves. There may even be rewards for doing so."
Mayna inspects each one of the bound brigands with her typical combination of pecking and fluttering backwards. Peck-flutter, peck-flutter; she tests each man two or three times before she accepts that none of them are edible yet.
Salbadore puts his hands on his hips and looks to his companions. "One more thing while we decide if we're taking these hoodlums in." He (throws more than) draws a fairly simple circle on the wet ground with light-colored sands. "Deprehensio!"
In the meantime, the raven has found a pig ear. She rolls about with it in the damp sand of the road, clucking and purring. Variously tossing her new bit of carrion in the air and nibbling at its edges, Mayna is distinctly pleased.
"Now then! It is raining. If someone who knows how to properly use a rope could bind our prisoners in a way suitable for marching, we can be off."
Varel sighs. "No, take them away Salbadore. They live by human laws, so I guess these things have to take their proper course. I stopped trying to save bird eggs from snakes a long time ago. Same thing, don't you think?"
The brigand leader glowers at the group. "Yeh, yer all so high an' mighty an' law-bidin', ain't ya?"
He looks to Varel. "Been a while since school, but I din't recognize any of that spellcraft of yers. Can I see your credentials? You know the sheriff's gonna wanna see 'em, too."
"He'll have no shortage of questions, I'm sure. Now -- are we really worth all that trouble? Because I swear we ain't goin' down alone."
"Maybe you're right. Maybe we should just hang you here. Or maybe you can keep your mouth shut until we ask you a question."
Salbadore looks up from the prisoners to respond to Varel. "Why . . . yes, I'd say so." He puts his finger to his lips and thoughtfully begins, "Tell me, we would be neither sna-"
The brigand leader interrupts him. "Can I see yer credentials?" he facetiously asks Varel.
Casting a glance to the young - Indeed, what manner of healer is she? he finds himself asking. Folk genomancer? - Salbadore rests his hand in his inner breast pocket and fingers his licenses.
Orthos retorts appropriately: ". . . maybe you can keep your mouth shut until we ask you a question." Salbadore watches Orthos expectantly.
Orthos motions to Salbadore, and walks behind the wreckage of the coach to speak with him privately.
Salbadore follows Orthos around the burnt-out carriage. After what must have been a brief discussion, Salbadore returns from behind the carriage, backpack open, counting something. "Ten . . . eleven. Aye, I've enough rations . . ." He eyes the brigands with pride. When his gaze falls upon the leader, Salbadore finishes his thought: ". . . to feed you." He scratches his nose. "What fate will fall upon you others - well, that dour lad there knows."
It is difficult to hear Orthos' and Salbadore's hushed conversation above the crackling of the carriage and the intermittent pittering of the drizzle.
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