Ghouls Aplenty

 

Kevin (Hubert Gesäss) had volunteered to do this write-up, but a dog ate his homework. So this is a quick summary.

Present: Bernard Lapin (Jamie), Cooper Chapman (Ian), Gazala Haddad (Richard), Gunter Oelschig (Jeff), Hubert Gesäss (Kevin), Jacob Palowski (Chris), Mezmer the Magnificent (Shane), 

Marmalading: Fleur Jardin (Steven), Wonton Noodle (Darryl)

Party's Mercedes 770

They did a drive-by of Augustus Herschel's compound. The blaze was out; the damage was severe. There were no brown-shirted ghouls left and no fresh ones wandering around.

There were quite a few ghouls wandering around town, in civilian dress. The ghouls were apt to follow cars, or maybe it was that they could sense the baby skeleton in the boot, so the party used the Mercedes to lure the ghouls to some well-placed army machine guns. This way, they got 96.

Next they drove to the Banque de Tunisie (on Rue de Turquie). There was a shell crater in the road outside the bank, presumably fired from the French battleship Bretagne moored in the harbour. They could only guess that this was an attempt by some LE (French Foreign Legion) forward observer to direct naval shells to hit groups of ghouls in the streets.

The bank door had been broken down, and there were bullet holes in all the walls and shell casings everywhere. The casings were examined by the group, but no-one recognized them.  

Cooper manned the Mercedes while the rest of the group went down to the bank vault. While they were away, some ghouls (not brown-shirted) approached the car and so Cooper had to drive off, with the creatures in hot pursuit. He tried to use the car to run some of them over, but failed his Drive roll and hit a building. He was lucky enough to be able to pull away. He lured the creatures away, and then periodically returned in case the group had emerged.

Censer of Baal

Meanwhile, down in the bank vault, Mezmer did a Detect Mythos. Some of the bodies where definitely positive. Gazala calmly decapitated them with her big knife.

Mezmer then got nervous, and he beat a hasty retreat to “guard” upstairs. The rest stayed below.

Down in the main vault, the party's personal vault was broken open. It was empty. The Censer was gone!

They did a cursory search, then went back upstairs - just as Cooper was driving past. So he picked them all up.

Next stop was the Calomnie de Tunis newspaper and the party's apartment. Up on the roof, the generator was on fire, with greenish smoke. The building was evacuated, so they went upstairs. There was a three-armed creature up top next to the generator fire. They fought it. It caused two bouts of Insanity to Bernard and Mezmer.

Mezmer collapsed into a gibbering fetal position, whereas Bernard loudly proclaimed the party secrets in a gloating frenzy: "Avant de vous détruire complètement, laissez-moi vous dire ceci... " ("Before we wipe you out, let me tell you this... ")

• "Nous avons le bébé squelette dans notre coffre, en sécurité dans une boîte doublée d'argent !"
• "Nos puissants mystiques, Wonton et Mezmer, vous vaincra avec leurs pouvoirs impies !"
• "Perdre l'encensoir n'est pas un obstacle. Nous allons bientôt le récupérer et vous détruire !"

(We have the baby skeleton in the boot, sealed in a silver box. Wonton and Mezmer are powerful ungodly mystics who will destroy you. We may have lost the censer, but we will get it back!)

[ Bouts of Insanity can have troublesome (temporary) effects. ]

Gesass and Gazala's shot at the creature and it leapt off the building (down three storeys) to the alley way below. They then blew it to bits with another hail of gunfire.

Cooper determined that the generator fire wouldn’t cause any more damage and would burn itself out.

They met the newspaper manager in the lobby on the way out and reassured him the damage was contained.

The party then drove to the last place where there was a column of smoke - the Saint Croix church. A battleship shell had hit down the road from the church. But no more had been fired. The church nave was empty but they could hear chanting from the undercroft. So they sneaked down, as quiet as they could (not very). 

There was a group of eight (armed) German soldiers facing away from them, and chanting towards a robed figure who was doing some ritual inside a pentagram.

They fired, but it wasn't very successful, and they ended up in a big gunfight against rifles, pistols and bayonets. The party did manage to vanquish the Germans, but suffered bad wounds themselves with Gazala and Gesass unconscious. Jacob’s First Aid was essential in surviving that encounter.

Below the undercroft was the crypt. In their current state, no-one was willing to go down there, so Bernard dropped some grenades down those stairs.

They then limped back to the car, and drove back to the army camp. Inspector Heroux was now there.

They spent two nights (and one day) recuperating and licking wounds. They also ordered a stone box to be made for the baby box (still in the boot of the Mercedes). The theory was that a few feet of stone (granite) was better at shielding it than the silver-sealed tool-box (or the car's boot walls). This box would take a few days.

Out of the Frying Pan ...

Having reached a conclusion in the Witches Coven adventure (Not a final conclusion, but some form of intermediate conclusion) the players have temporarily abandoned the Known World and have returned to 1930's French Tunisia on the African continent. 

We have picked up the characters colloquially known as La foule de Bernard (Bernard's Mob), employees of the the Tunis newspaper Calomnie de Tunis (Slander of Tunis). You may recall them:

Bernard Lapin (Jamie), a Journalist from Tunis.
Cooper Chapman (Ian), a Rogue from England.
Fleur Jardin (Steven), a Medic from France.
Gazala Haddad (Richard), an Explorer from Algiers.
Gunter Oelschig (Jeff), a Rogue from South Africa.
Hubert Gesäss (Kevin), a Soldier from Germany.
Jacob Palowski (Chris), a Jewish Medic from Poland.
Mezmer the Magnificent (Shane), a Mystic from France.
Wonton Noodle (Darryl), an Antiquarian from China.

Having (they thought) taken care of the source of the strange occurrences in the city of Tunis by sealing the evil words of power into the carved granite slab using molten silver and dumping them into the depths of the Mediterranean Sea, they were returning back to Tunis from the isle Jaziret el-Monbasta (Plane Island). [Revision: The End?]

The Hotchkiss Machine Gun

A short distance outside the city of Tunis, they were stopped at a roadblock by a squad of 16 Légion Étrangère (French Foreign Legion) soldiers. Beyond the roadblock, four plumes of black smoke could be seen billowing up from locations spread across the city, and people were fleeing along the road and across the surrounding countryside. Occasionally, the chatter of the Hotchkiss Mle 1914 machine gun setup beside the roadblock would ring out, and one of the running figures would collapse to the ground. 

One of the soldiers rushed across to our Mercedes and peered in through the open window.

"Ello, êtes-vous La foule de Bernard?" he rattled off.
"Oui, oui" replied Bernard, "We are indeed La foule de Bernard"
"Inspector Heroux est seeking your elp" he stated, "ollow me"

The Shiny Mercedes 770

We moved the Mercedes off the road and parked up beside the soldier's large brown tent and followed him inside. He explained that he, Corporal Chauve, was in charge of this roadblock station under orders from Inspector Heroux, and that Inspector Heroux had asked him to watch out for our return. Corporal Chauve had heard that we were the experts in the issues that had been plaguing Tunis, and that Inspector Heroux had requested that we assist the Légion by investigating the compound of Monsieur Augustus Herschel, the German art dealer. Apparently, some of these possessed creatures that were being shoot down after issuing forth from the city were from his very own compound. 

"Isn't that where the closest column of smoke is coming from?" asked Gazala, having already identified the landmarks around the base of that particular column.
"Oui, oui" exclaimed Chauve, "Merveilleux, you are already on the case. Merci, merci"

Bernard noted that our armaments had been depleted and requested a resupply before we could "possibly take on such a dangerous mission on behalf of the Légion"

We still had four sub-machine guns with us, and Chauve provided a box of twelve grenades, a rifle for each of us, and a couple of boxes of ammunition. We were also carrying a few of the "magic" items with us from our previous adventures. Specifically, Jacob was wearing the Medallion (which controls the tracking skull, currently quiescent), Gazala had the Ghost Mirror and her Dagger, and the skeleton of the three-eyed baby was in the boot of the Mercedes, silver-sealed into an old tool chest.

As we were heading out from the tent to load into the Légion's transport de troupes, a rattle of machine gun fire rang out and a couple of the second class legionnaires dragged over a bullet ridden body, dressed in the typical German army "Brown Shirt" uniform. We had previously observed these "Brown Shirts" marching around in Herschel's compound. The body had a myriad of bullet holes across its chest, but no blood, and its fingernails were noticeably elongated and dangerous looking.

"Thees is wheet we are farcing" Chauve explained.

Gazala leapt forward, whipped out her Dagger, and sliced through the body's neck like a hot knife through butter. The Legionnaires staggered back, and as its head rolled across the dusty ground at their feet (again, no blood) Gazala yelled at them.

"Vous êtes des idiots. You must decapitate immediately, and then burn the parts"

Dusty Transport Truck

Then we all loaded into the back of the truck and the driver took off towards the city and the burning compound of Augustus Herschel. Gazala was still grinning at the dumfounded look on the faces of the two Legionnaires as we sped away.

The driver skidded to a halt some distance from the outskirts of Tunis and waved his arm in the general direction of the smoke. 

"C'est aussi loin que je vais" he grunted "This is as far as I go"

Columns of Smoke Billow up from Tunis

We leapt off the back of the truck, slung our rifles and machine guns over our shoulders, distributed the grenades and ammunition around, and made our way into the city. The stench of acrid smoke was everywhere, the northerly winds blowing the black clouds billowing up from Herschel's compound south across the city. 

There was hardly anyone around, so we easily made our way through the outer districts and soon arrived in the vicinity of Herschel's compound. Feeling like caution would be the safest option given the unknown situation ahead, Mezmer stripped off his clothes and sung his strange Invisibility chant and faded from sight. Gunter applied his Stealth skills and scouted a safe route to an abandoned warehouse building just across the street from the compound, Mezmer trailing him invisibly.

Looking down from the second level of the abandoned warehouse they could see that the smoke was billowing out from the roof of the two-storey main residence building at the far end of Herschel's compound. The whole compound was surrounded by a ten-foot-high chain-link fence topped with coils of barbed wire. At the far end, beyond the burning house, stood a tall steel lattice radio mast, while at the near end was a single storey building just inside the fence. 

Between the near building and the burning main two-storey residence was a large open courtyard where around ten brown clad figures could be seen lurching around the yard. They were staggering about aimlessly, and occasionally one of them staggered out through the gate and shuffled off into the city. Every so often, another similar brown shirt clad figure would stagger out of the burning building and join those within the courtyard.

Mezmer, still invisible, waited in the abandoned warehouse while Gunter snuck back to get the rest of the mob and lead them all back to the warehouse. Some discussion ensued, and it was concluded that a more subtle entry into the compound from the rear would likely be safer than using the front gate and passing all the possessed creatures.

"These might help" noted the invisible Mezmer, while a pair of wire cutters floated through the air.

We located another old warehouse, not so abandoned, but empty of occupants and full of grain, on the far side of the compound, and we all made our way safely over there. The view wasn't so good, but we could see the rear of the compound fence, and that there were no people, or possessed creatures, in sight. Just before we all moved to the grain warehouse, Mezmer reappeared, totally starkers, and calmly got himself dressed.

"What?" he exclaimed, "Never seen a naked man before?"
"Ewwww" winced Fleur.

We crept up to the fence at the rear of the compound, Cooper quickly cut out a small door flap, and we slipped through. We jogged past the radio mast and up to the rear wall of the burning two-storey residence. Cooper peered through a dirty window and reported some type of office inside.

"But the window is locked" he declared.

Bernard swung the wire cutters.

"La fenêtre is open" Bernard contradicted.

The room wasn't too smoky or too hot, so we climbed in through the window to the office. Gazala wasn't too keen to head inside, so she waited outside and stood guard, which turned out to be not as sensible as it sounded at the time. While we were rummaging through the office, looking for anything interesting in the cupboards, drawers, and files, Gazala let out a loud squeal.

One of the possessed ghoul creatures had come charging around the back corner of the house and launched itself at Gazala. She was quickly overcome and collapsed to the ground unconscious.

[Gameplay is based on a Simple Pulp Cthulhu (SPC) system. As Andrew states is his rulebook summary, SPC is an offshoot from Pulp Cthulhu which itself is a 2016 offshoot from Chaosium’s Call of Cthulhu version 7 rules. CoC started in the 80s and has gone through 7 versions since then. SPC is a D20 “roll-low”, skill-based system. Character skills are initialised from archetypes only (not professions & archetypes like V7). 
Richard rolled for Gazala's attack against the Ghoul using her attack skill of fourteen but rolled a twenty. A fumble! Since a fumble is definitely not good, Richard spent two of Gazala's Luck points to "stop the fumble" and the attack became just a miss. Rolls are opposed, so the creature's successful role meant that Gazala was hit. Having already decided to attack, a Dodge of the attack wasn't possible, and seven damage was inflicted. Gazala has more than seven hit points so was still up and fighting at this stage, but seven damage is more than half Gazala's hit points, so the attack caused a Major Wound.
Gazala also has the Rapid Attack combat talent which allows Richard to spend two more Luck points for a second melee attack in the same combat round. Which Richard did, but the second attack also missed. In the next combat round, Richard again decided to attack, and spent another two Luck to gain two attacks in the round. The first opposed attack roll was not successful, and the creature hit for another four points, enough to knock Gazala unconscious. All attacks are effectively simultaneous, and Gazala's second attack as she fell did actually hit for one point of damage. Gazala was Bleeding as a result of the Major Wound though, and needed to make a roll against her Toughness stat at the end of every round after the wound, or die!]

Not wanting to see another one of our own consumed by these creatures, Cooper bravely leapt through the window to hold it off, and Bernard lowered his rifle onto the windowsill and took a shot. The bullet took the creature through the forehead for fourteen points of damage, but it was still "alive" and attacked Cooper. The creature swung its elongated fingernails towards Coopers face, but missed, and Cooper's return knife swipe cut into its neck, and fortunately killed it.

Cooper scooped Gazala up off the ground and passed her in through the window to Jacob, who immediately performed First Aid. Gazala groaned and sat up. [Richard successfully made Gazala's Toughness roll, Gazala didn't die that round, and Chris successfully made Jacob's First Aid roll and cured two points, stopping the Bleeding and bringing Gazala round]

We were all in the office now, the only door was closed, and a small trickle of smoke was curling through under the door and wafting across the room and out the smashed window.

Smoke filled the corridor

Gunter cracked open the door, peered out into the smoke-filled corridor and crawled out on his hands and knees. After a few minutes, he crawled back in dragging a body.

"This guy was stuck halfway through a door on the other side of the corridor up there to the right. The source of the fire is behind that door, but I've closed it now. Hopefully, the smoke should dissipate from the corridor now" explained Gunter.

The body was a male, dressed in a white lab coat, no wounds, and thankfully with normal fingernails! Gazala cut off his head anyway and tossed the body and head out the window.

"Just in case" Gazala grinned.

"So, what was burning?" asked Mezmer.

"Couldn't really see. Lots of machines and pipes and stuff" answered Gunter.

Once the smoke had lessened in the corridor, we explored off to the left. One other door on the left leading to another office, and one door to the outside at the end of the corridor. With just the one other door that led to the fire, we were missing the stairs to the second level.

We found them in the second office. A door we hadn't spotted in the corner of the room led to the stairs. All was quiet up there, although the crackle of flames could be faintly heard. Gunter tried to sneak up the stairs quietly, but old timber staircases are notoriously creaky. No exception here ... "creaaaak"

At the top of the stairs was an obvious radio operators' room. Desks covered in radio equipment, power cable snaking all over the place, charts on the walls, and papers over all the desks. The stairs continued upwards to what appeared to be a trapdoor out onto the roof, and there was one door that led towards the centre of the building.

Gunter quickly moved over to the door and checked for heat. Not much, so he opened the door slightly and peered through. Thick black smoke billowed in. On the other side of the door was an open balcony to the whole other half of the building. The deep orange glow of flickering flames could be seen through the dense acrid smoke that was billowing upwards and into the sky through a giant hole burnt through the roof. The crackles and pop of timber and metals being consumed by intense heat filled the balcony. Not good at all.

Gunter slammed the door closed and prepared to head back downstairs.

Meanwhile, in the office at the bottom of the stairs, Wonton heard a scratching noise from the door to the corridor and gave a yell. Bernard, Mezmer, and Wonton all aimed their rifles at the door, and Gazala drew her magic dagger and stood behind them.

The door was flung open, and a figure surrounded by smoke entered.

"Blam, Blam, Blam" rang out as the rifles all discharged.

A brown shirt ghoul fell into the room and lay unmoving on the floor. No blood.

Gazala rushed over and decapitated it.

The door to the burning laboratory was open again, and the corridor was filling with smoke. Gunter volunteered to crawl up and close the door, provided he was covered by the rifles as he moved. He got to the door and was just pulling it closed when an arm swung down through the doorway from the room beyond and raked Gunter across the back. Gunter hugged the floor while the brown shirt ghoul stepped through the door and prepared to shred him.

"Blam, Blam" and the ghoul fell back into the burning room. Gunter slammed the door and scurried back to the others. 

"If they keep coming through there" Hubert noted, "We'll need to set up a kill zone covered by the machine guns and rifles. We should be able to clean them out in no time"

"Can we use this rope somehow?" asked Mezmer. 

He had this uncanny habit of finding useful stuff. 

[Mezmer has the Resourceful talent; spend two Luck to find a certain useful piece of equipment]

The rope was attached to the door into the burning room, the machine gun was set up on the floor in a prone firing position, and Bernard was standing with the rifle. Mezmer also found a broomstick which was used to push the door open. Smoke did pour into the corridor, but also another brown shirt ghoul. A round of machine gun fire successfully took care of that one, but Bernard's rifle jammed up. 

While the door was open, Hubert tossed a grenade, hoping to take out a few more creatures inside the room. Unfortunately, he missed the door and the grenade rolled off down the corridor and exploded. Everyone had ducked back out of the way, but the blast damaged the walls.

We reset the door trap and lured out another of the creatures, but the door was getting quite blistered and charred. It didn't look like it would last much longer, so we all withdrew to the original office where we had entered. Fleur, Gazala, Jacob, and Wonton clambered out the window and raced for the hole in the fence. Mezmer bravely decided that he might be able to recover useful information from the upstairs radio room and raced for the stairs. Bernard, Cooper, Gunter, and Hubert waited in the office, covering the corridor in case any more ghouls emerged, util Mezmer got back.

He never came back.

Mezmer drops from the roof

The flames soon burst through the door and the damaged wall, and we were all forced to retreat out through the window and back to the grain warehouse. Mezmer joined us soon thereafter. He had got trapped upstairs by the advancing fire, climbed out onto the roof, and dropped off the edge of the roof two storeys to the ground below. He barely twisted his ancle in the fall. [D10 falling damage, which could have killed him, but he luckily only received two points of damage]

He did recover some notebooks filled with German script, but they turned out to be transcripts of pretty boring supply messages. There was nothing more to be done there, the fire had escaped the laboratry room and had engulfed the whole house. We could feel the heat from the door of the grain warehouse, so we decided to head back to the roadblock and recover our Mercedes. That would get us around the city to the other fire sites a lot quicker than walking, and there were no other vehicles nearby that we could commandeer. 

The Church of Sainte Croix

It only took us a half hour to get back to the soldiers, where Gazala exercised her feminine wiles on Corporal Chauve. He was more than happy to resupply our spent ammunition and grenades. He also provided a replacement rifle for the one that Bernard had effectively destroyed. We quickly loaded up the Mercedes and headed back towards the city. Our target was the next closest column of smoke, and it was soon apparent that we were heading for the vicinity of the ancient Sainte Croix church. The very same church that had been the source of the earlier "problems" we had encountered in Tunis.

The church wasn't burning, but some buildings just along the street looked like they had suffered a bombardment of artillery and were definitely ablaze.

While we were watching, Wonton noticed someone staggering out of the church building in priestly vestments, behaving exactly like the brown shirt ghouls from Herschel's compound. In fact, there were quite a number of "bystanders" that were behaving exactly like the brown shirt ghouls from Herschel's compound. When they all turned and started lurching in our direction, Bernard hit the gas and we raced off, towards the next distant column of smoke. The creatures followed until we were around one hundred yards from them, whereupon they shuffled to a stop and started aimlessly wandering about at random.

"A hundred yards" noted Wonton wisely.

The source of the next column of smoke was the Banque de Tunisie. The very same bank that had the vault. The very same vault that was storing our magical treasure!

"Mon Dieu" exclaimed Mezmer, "Mes affaires"

Ghouls were also spotted there, so we raced off to the fourth and last column of smoke.

You guessed it, the office of Calomnie de Tunis. Our own newspaper office, and our apartment.

"Mon Dieu" exclaimed Mezmer again.

Final Encounter

Present: Myrtle [Andrew], Bear [Ian], Oliver [Jeff], Scuttle [Chris], Tu [Shane], and Gillard [Kevin]. 

Marmalading: Debbie [Steven] and Ouzo [Darryl].

Well, here we are, Dexter and myself, safe in the little hamlet of Hymer Saddle. We have no idea where the rest of the group ended up. Could be dead, eaten, in orc bellies. Could be slaves to the orcs, or impregnated by them [dark spawn can impregnate any creature, a la Alien]. Could be in the Saucy crater for all we know.

But let's take a step back...

We were in a corridor battle with some tough fighters who had struck from invisibility. The battle had used half my power, healing those who were damaged. During this fight, Oliver had found a secret door. Since the time we were in this complex, he was flipping from being possessed by his evil knife and sometimes not. At this very moment, the knife was stronger and he shot down a secret side passage, with Ouzo and Scuttle in hot pursuit. 

At my feet, Dexter suddenly woke up from his marmalade dreams. He was blind! I suspect this was a side-effect of Cellar (his cat) being killed. Well, no problem. I now had the Cure Blindness spell, so  ten seconds of casting, and he was right as rain.

As we could hear a group of orcs approaching (from the barracks we found earlier), and the last fellow had been dropped, I signalled to the rest of the group and we all took off after Oliver, down the secret side passage. Debbie had dropped with marmalade and was out of reach, so we left her to the orcs.

"Looks like honkey's back on the menu, boys!"

Down the secret passage, we stepped over the newly marmalading bodies of Ouzo and Scuttle, and entered a large Malechai shrine chamber, complete with an obsidian altar. There was a woman's body lying on it; I recognized her as Malechai witch Odette Pearson. Standing by the altar was Haley Price herself with a wicked dagger, and off to one side a third witch that I did not recognize.

This all took half a second, because in that time Oliver, boline in hand, pulsing black, stabbed it into Haley. I heard Tu next to me get off an arrow which hit the side witch.

Hayley screamed and then ... there was a mighty explosion.

"Oh no, not again," moaned Tu, who caught a massive chunk of the blast.

Bear copped a lot too, as did Dexter. And they all dropped like dead men. I was shaded by Tu and Bear so barely caught a zephyr. Surprisingly, Oliver, standing right next to the source, was unaffected - apart from being turned entirely black. Hayley and the other two were totally minced.

Tankard and Gillard were behind us down the passage, conducting a fighting retreat from the orcs who had just arrived. So they didn't cop any of the blast. And Ouzo and Scuttle were protected by marmalade.

So, I set to curing. Bear was brought up, which used most of my powers. Tu was too injured to even attempt, so the last of my Vingt et Un "resources" was spent on Dexter... and they fell short - not lucky today. I was now completely out of spells. What was worse, I could not get a link in this whole complex [ priests need to get a "link" to their gods to recharge spells ].

Bear ran down the passage to help Gillard and Tankard, just as Gillard fell. While he did this, I searched the bodies of the four near me and found our last heal potion on Scuttle. This was enough to at least rouse Dexter. 

Tankard and axe

Bear and Tankard managed to push the orcs back to the secret door, and slam it. And then the two could both hold it closed with their combined strengths.

Oliver found a secret door in the altar room. This led to a secret witch bedroom, so we searched that.

The orcs thumped and banged on the Tankard/Bear door for a while. Then it went ominously silent.

Scuttle began to stir, and then sat up [ Chris had arrived late ].

Tankard was very sick, so needed curing. Oliver had found a belt of small potions in the secret bedroom. One was a healing potion, so he claimed. He gave it to Tankard, who promptly collapsed. Was this the "evil Oliver"?

No time to wonder. There was another secret exit from the bedroom. It went to the magical room with shallow water (we passed this on the way in), so this was a viable escape path.

We made a plan to get me outside, to somewhere safe, where I could link up to 21 and recharge.

So, we all gingerly crossed the shallow water - only ankle deep but it reeked of magic. We all got across, except for Bear, who was carrying the unconscious Tankard; he suddenly sank into the water with no trace. He was shouting and we could hear him. It sounded like he was in the room, but nary a sign. He said he was in a dark deep pit.

Scuttle could hear the orcs down another passage (I guess they had circled around). So, we continued with the plan to get me recharged and, leaving Bear safe in the water room "pit", rushed outside. We found a rocky outcrop in the central canyon area, so hid the unconscious Ouzo, Gillard and Tu there. 

Scuttle sprinkled with
invisibility powder

Scuttle sprinkled the invisibility powder on himself, and used noises and taunting to lead the orcs outside, away from our "camp" and up the ravine (past the gargoyle sentinels). The hope was that the orcs would stay away long enough for me to get some spells.

 Scuttle reported back after about 25 minutes that the orcs were well away, at least for an hour.

Scuttle and Dexter kept watch over me while I recharged. I managed 90 minutes, which is about half. Oliver used this time to get some spells back too. 

The orcs were returning, so I quickly used all my spells to heal Gillard and Tu, bringing them both up. Then we all returned inside.

The orcs headed past the water room and off deeper into the caves. Maybe back to their barracks.

The material component 
of a Spider Climb spell.
This must be eaten whole, alive.

Returning to the water room, Oliver thumped on the floor with the staff he found in the witch's bedroom, and dropped through the water "floor" into the pit. It was three Olivers deep so his Armour spell saved him from the fall, and sure enough, Bear and Tankard were here. So, with a judicious Spider Climb on Bear and some rope, all three got out.

Tankard was carrying four healing potions himself! ("Where did these come from?" "Why did he not drink them himself earlier?" "Why didn't we search him earlier?"  "Did they just ... appear?") so we gave him two to get him up.

Tankard, straight away, attempted to attack Oliver for poisoning him, but a Charm Person sorted that. More evil behaviour by Oliver?

I needed to return outside again to fully recharge, so the plan was that I would take Dexter and Tankard as guards, and head back to our original camp (where the Price warhorses, gear, et al were). Oliver would need to help us get up the cliff wall with some more Spider Climb spells. 

Tankard loses his last two
potions

But Tankard didn’t make it to the top of the climb and fell, taking a massive amount of damage (which would have killed two normal men), but he survived. The fall smashed his last two potions too ...so Oliver claimed.

Oliver fetched Bear and they carried him back inside to the altar room.

So, Dexter led me to our camp. I was expecting the orcs and wolves to have found and ransacked it, but no. It was fine. The warhorses were fine.

During the night we heard a large party of orcs and wolves travelling about, but they didn't find us.

So, fully charged now, we headed back to the canyon cliff edge, planning to meet Oliver one hour after light, who would Feather Fall us down the cliffs. But no. The canyon floor area there was deserted, but there were signs of disturbance, and fresh barricades had been built in the tunnel entrance. We assumed orc trouble in the tunnels had prevented Oliver from getting out. Or maybe, with no healing, they were all dead.

We returned to the spot several times during that day, but nothing had changed.

We stayed one more night in the camp. There were more patrols during the night, and they were ominously getting closer. In the morning we checked the canyon edge, and no sign of anyone. 

Rather than risk another night, we headed klibwards back to Hymer Saddle. So here we are...

Myrtle Rust

Afterword:

"Looks like half-elf's back on the menu, boys!"

Unbeknown to Myrtle & Dexter, the orc activity had got more intense in the caves. The orcs had been reinforced and were breaking in past the secret doors to the shrine area. During one bout of exploring, the rest of the party (sans Debbie) came across another teleporting picture. They ended up back in Toluene.

What happened to Debbie? Maybe half-elf flesh was back on the menu after all, and the orcs had a good time eating marmalade-flavoured bard? 

This is the end of this campaign.