Present:
- Sophia Beauchamp (half-elf priest 21) - Ian
- Joe Manco (human fighter) - Shane
- Balder Dash (gnome wizard) - Jamie
- Slim Jim (human rogue) - Darryl
Walton Formalin (half-elf mystic of 21) - AndrewMamba & Hackeron region - Red Feuersturm (human temple fighter of Hob) - Chris
- Donk Platebreaker (human fighter) - Jeff
- MARMALADE: Malcolm Gandhi (gnome thief) - Kevin
By Walton
We were on a barge on Lake Mamba, fleeing from agents of Zephyr the Turk and the Draser Globe Casino. We were headed to Hackerton, the nearest big city, where we could get refuge. We were looking after the seven rescued slave girls (including Selina Porshay) from Zephyr's saffron farm. A few days ago, we left the Duchy of Draser when we crossed the great divide of the Oble range, and were now in the Duchy of Furness.
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| multiple locks |
Hackerton was on the Free Coast, which was where slavery was illegal, but we were not out of the woods yet. The girls would be safe there.
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| Wanted "Sophia" - an appalling likeness |
On Lakeside's Wanted board were wanted posters for Walton, Sophia, Joe and Gandhi "Dead or alive - approach with caution". Joe and Gandhi's caricatures were excellent, but Sophia and my ones could have been any pointy-eared individual. The bigotry in Draser runs so deep that their caricature artists go way over-the-top when drawing other races. (Gandhi is a gnome, sure, but he lives up to his caricature)
We were moored one hour out of Lakeside, on the Pugsville side. We were loath to stay in Lakeside because of the wanted-poster reason and also Jasper, the captain of our barge, didn't recognize anyone in the town - despite having visited it many times; strange. He didn't go as far as claiming they were all possessed by doppelgangers or simulacrums, but it was damn suspicious.
It had just gone dark. Jasper didn't like using his heavy horse, Mister Ed, to pull the barge during the night at the best of times, and now was certainly not a good time. So Mister Ed was safely stabled on the barge, and the barge was out in the lake with mooring lines to the shore and lines to an outer anchor.
During the night, at First Watch, we were attacked by shadowy figures from the shore with arrows and spears. They turned out to be lizard-men. Everyone was rudely roused and joined in the battle. Unusually, these lizard-men did not take advantage of their marine capabilities, and only attacked from the shore. So, it was an easy fight and we ended up killing five - the other eight fled.
But, it turned out to be a wicked diversion. When the battle was over, and we were licking our wounds, we noticed that the barge was starting to list. Jasper and his two crew quickly checked, and the hold was filling with water. We kept the seven saffron girls down below, safe in the hold and away from any combat danger. Gandhi was marmalading so he was down with them too, tightly strapped to a sturdy gnome bunk.
During the fight, a large hole had been cut in the wooden hull of the barge, underwater, and water was pouring in. Jasper quickly got Mister Ed working and pulled the barge up on to the beach.
All seven of the girls (including Selina) were missing, plus the marmalading Gandhi, plus one of Jasper's barge crew, a shifty chap called Traitor Monk (new epithet: "the traitor").
We found the body of one of the girls, Carole, drowned. Serendipitously, another one of the girls Jacinda, who had been having a secret tryst with the lecherous Slim, was safe in one of the deck cabins.
The hole had been cut by hand-saws, and the circular cut-out was still lying, intact, in the hold. So Balder used the Mending spell to re-knit the wood of that cut-out back into the cut hole. That would at least speed up Jasper's repairs.
In the morning, we undertook a thorough search of the lake edge towards and away from Lakeside. Sure enough, tracks - 14 lizard-men, numerous pairs of barefoot girl feet, and a heavy sack containing an morbidly obese marmalading gnome - were found emerging from the lake 50 or so paces in the Pugsville direction.
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| Lizardmen trouble |
Slim, tracker extraordinaire, and us all followed these tracks. After a few leagues, they followed a stream away from the lake, then into a cave.
We had an Invisible potion from ages ago. Sophia was one of our quietest sneakers (2nd only to the obese gnome), so she drank it and went for an explore.
She spotted a guard post with two lizard-men, but it was getting near expiry time (potions give you 30 safe minutes plus 30 random minutes), so she returned to the group.
The next trip, Balder and I both took a Diminution potion and perched on each of Sophia's shoulders. This way, we could both cast Sleep spells on the two guards. Which we did.
Beyond that, there was a system of tunnels and caves, and it became a complex maze of tunnels, caves, alcoves, ledges, streams and chimneys.
Our best attempts to avoid Plan A failed, and the whole thing descended into Plan A, in spades. At one stage we set up a defensive position at the mouth of a cave, trying to initiate a tactical withdraw from a large group of the lizardmen (these ones were unhyphenated). Slim managed to get around behind them unseen, and the battle was looking good, but three badly-timed criticals severely injured Donk and Red. With those two being tended by us healers, Slim was then overwhelmed and dropped.
Then another group of eight lizardmen attacked from the rear, and Balder, in a fit of stressed combat fatigue, miscalculated and detonated a Fireball spell behind them - in the narrow tunnel. The broiling flame engulfed the lizardmen, sure, but the flames got most of us too!
By now, Donk, Red, Slim and Balder were all down; the first three of them majorly wounded*. Sophia, Joe and I were still up, but we were all badly injured, and almost out of magic.
Cliff-hanger, indeed!
* = When your hp go below 0, you have a Major wound. Until tended, every round you must make a CON roll or die, plus even when your hp go back above 0 (with a normal Cure), all rolls after that are made at Disadvantage. Note: there is a 2nd Level cure spell to fix this Major-wound state.
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