The World of Telvar

The plan was hammered out after Quentin and Kain scouted in crow form. We found that there were in total about 40 gnolls, an ogre in chainmail, 10 worgs, and 20 wolves. The worgs and wolves were in their forest, a significant distance from the gnoll camp where the gnolls and ogre resided. This was achieved party by having an invisible, silent, odorless Alduin scout the whole place out.

So we decided to split into two groups to deal with the wolves and gnolls. The timing of two groups attack would be done through the massive explosion of a Call Lightning.

(The trick here was that we couldn’t let any number escape without endangering the farmers in the area, so we had to make sure we hit them hard instead of piecemeal.)

The first group was the gnoll assault force, consisting of Kain, Quentin, Felix, Balinor, Alduin, and Albee. The party was in position and watched the camp until dusk, which is when most of the gnolls are in camp. There were 23 gnolls clustered around the campfire, picking bugs out of the air and throwing them into the fire. One of them picked up a really large bug, and threw it in.

Much to his surprise, the fire blew up.

Quentin’s Lightning streaked down and blasted the fire, instantly killing all 23 gnolls and sending the other fifteen or so into instant panic, running for the ogre cave (all the gnolls took 48 points of damage). Felix and Balinor invisibly followed them into the cave and surrounded the unknowing ogre. The ogre took massive damage and died.

The gnolls, wide-eyed with terror, somehow held their ground and faced off with Felix and Balinor, who proceeded to bash two of them into the ground, despite being scratched by the gnolls.

Several had broken and ran from the cave into the waiting arms of the ranged people. Two gnolls exploded in a gory flash as a second Call Lightning from Quentin hit them. The others were shot at by Alduin with his magnificent short bow, Kain with his sling, and Balinor with his crossbow.

Kain Held two gnolls, leaving only a few for the bloodthirsty ranged people. To add insult to injury, Quentin and Kain patrolled the immediate forest for more gnolls and found six of them eating pidgeon-on-a-stick.

They blew up.

Meanwhile, the Call Lightning from Quentin had prompted the other attack, which consisted of a heavily prepared Cassian, Donald, and Morgan. Cassian and Donald were Levitating at the upper tree level, and Morgan was Flying. There were seven worgs and 22 wolves near the den.

At the sound of the other explosion, Cassian slammed five of the worgs with her own Call Lightning (doing an absolutely sad 34 damage—don’t blame Katherine, I rolled it) and only killing two. Still, it looked bad for the wolves, and thing got considerably worse when Donald Slowed all the remaining worgs and a few wolves. The wolf pack took off for the gnoll village, but the Slowed worgs were in trouble. Cassian’s hawk was Silenced by Cassian and was flying over the worgs, rendering their spells useless. Morgan, a Flying and Silenced elf, descended upon each one and killed them one by one with his nasty longsword.

The wolves were headed toward the gnolls camp, and Donald polymorphed into a crow (the world needs another one) and warned the people at the gnoll camp. The wolves reached the gnolls… and began dragging them into the woods and eating them. We waited until they were finished and collected treasure.

There was actually more than the will’o’wisp had. We found about 5000 gp in cash and gems, potions of extra-healing, climbing and three healing. There was also a Wand of Magic Missiles (9 charges), a Brooch of Shielding (35 charges), scale mail+1, a large shield +1, and a Ring of Invisibility. We gave up the shield, the scale mail, and upgraded Donald’s 17 charge Brooch of Shielding. The Magic Missile is eventually headed to Chiaro. The Ring of Invisibility is on Alduin, and the potions were distributed.

About a week later, the Baron informed us that some bandits had settled in and had killed a caravan east of Restenford. Quentin and Kain found them camped about 2 miles east of Restenford, eight orcs around a campfire with the boxes of goods stacked nearby.

The party decided simply to sneak up on them and take them out.

Leaving behind Nakumanu and Bogomel, we took Balinor, Felix, Cassian, Donald, and Albee in an Invisibility 10’, and Morgan, and Alduin were Invisible due to rings on the far side of the camp. The attack would be triggered by Donald casting a Sleep spell. Kain and Quentin were crows overhead.

Donald appeared and cast a Sleep, but we never found out what happened.

Huge explosions went off everywhere, slamming every party member except Kain and Quentin with flames from the ground around us. Although no one dropped (35 damage, two saves for half of half), Balinor managed to incur five fire wounds and was unable to move without extreme damage.

All of the orcs were instantly incinerated.

In the next instant, things went from bad to worse. Apparently the Invisibility hadn’t fazed our adversaries, as they started chucking bad things our way. A halfling popped out of thin air and shot his short bow, nailing Donald and almost dropping him. A camouflage cloaked man appeared and shot a lightning bolt into the air, which WOULDN’T HAVE HIT ANYONE, but came down and slammed Morgan.

Then things became intolerable as someone used a Potion of Half-Orc Control to takeover Felix, despite a valiant attempt from Peacemaker. The sword screamed out to everyone that Felix was going to kill them, but it was too late for the unfortunate Donald. Without giving him a chance to react, Felix swung about and skewered Donald, killing him instantly.

Horrified, Cassian dropped Felix with a timely Command, dropping him in a neat pile on top of Donald’s body. Kain landed on a rock as a crow. Both Quentin and Morgan noticed a mysterious blind that had appeared nearby (and within the last 48 hours, as this area is regularly patrolled). Morgan advanced that way, drinking an Extra-Healing potion as he went, and Quentin landed in that area and began to change back into a half-elf.

Cassian and Kain whirled on the reloading halfling and Commanded him. At the same time, a gnome appeared from thin air and Commanded Cassian. The halfling fell and Cassian stayed up.

Albee appeared and began to finish off the dropped halfling. Kain spun around and dropped the gnome with another Command (thus earning Kain the nickname “Fastest Mouth in the West”). Cassian and Albee were suddenly frozen in place by a Hold Person.

Alduin had snuck around toward the blind, when he narrowly failed to notice the jaw trap he stepped on. He took only minor damage, but black stuff squirted all over his boot, making that part of him visible. It was enough for another unseen opponent to drop Alduin with a Command. A fighter came out of the blind and began to finish off Alduin.

Quentin dropped a Faerie Fire, illuminating the combatants and thankfully finding no additional invisible people outside of the blind (which was now glowing with Faerie Fires as there were FOUR people in there).

Morgan moved onto the roof of the blind and slammed the man killing Alduin, dropping him with his Thunderstruck power. Balinor knocked Felix senseless and downed an Extra-Healing potion, then pulled the Ring of Health off of Felix.

Kain was turning back into a half-elf when another nasty guy in full plate attacked with a staff. There was a flash, and Kain was blasted. Worse still, the guy appeared to be Hasted and disrupted Kain’s Command, smashing him a second time and leaving Kain in bad shape. Desperate, Kain waited for him to miss.

The camouflaged mage came out of the blind and shot Magic Missiles at Morgan, who whirled and stabbed the mage, wounding him as he retreated back inside.

Miraculously, the staff guy missed Kain, who dropped him with his final Command. Kain whirled and dropped three Cure Lights on Balinor off scroll, who had just come up with the Ring of Health. Between everything, Balinor had been restored to 53 hp. Kain was planning to kill the fallen gnome and Balinor was going to mash the staff guy.

Alas, this was not to be as another Hold Person caught both of them.

At this point, the only active people on our side were Quentin and Morgan. Quentin realized that the situation had gone to dire and used his staff that he had received from the Druidic Court as a reward for the Kraken item. He jammed the staff into the ground and began an Entangle as the staff slowly turned into a tree.

Morgan had dropped off the roof and faced off with a longsword-wielding fighter in full plate. The odds didn’t look good, but Morgan made a good showing, whacking the man twice without being hit in return. Alduin finally woke up and tried to hand-off the “juice of goodness a.k.a. healing potion) to Morgan.

Quentin’s Entangle was disrupted by the halfling. Quentin turned and told the treant that had formed to smash the blind to bits and kill everyone inside. The tree moved quickly and began bashing the roof.

The guy with the staff had just woken up, as had the gnome. They both began to get up, when Quentin lobbed a second Entangle, this one successful. It caught the halfling completely, rendering him immobile, and messed up the staff guy in one bizarre way. He had to get up straight, putting him right in line with the Held Kain, his arm pointing at the staff man.

Although he couldn’t move, Kain had one weapon left in his arsenal. The man disappeared and turned into a small fox!

The roof of the blind began to buckle and rubble injured some of the people inside. The mage was throwing darts at Morgan, but missing as the squirmy Morgan had dropped a second man inside. But the longsword man was pressing the elf. Their sparring combat was at the entrance to the blind.

Quentin began a Dispel Magic. Suddenly, it was apparent that our Invisible cleric enemy was IN the Entangle! The cleric downed a potion of some sort and began ripping through it like paper.

Morgan was dropped by the longsword man. In the same instant, the roof of the blind collapsed, killing everyone inside except the longsword man. Morgan muttered, “Held just long enough…” and collapsed.

The treant turned to face the stricken longsword man (who had taken severe crushing damage in the collapse). Alduin backstabbed him from behind! The man was reeling and was pummeled into the ground by the treant, Alduin escaping.

Quentin directed the treant at the cleric in the Entangle, hoping to disrupt his spells. The cleric panicked and tried to use up his items, burning off what turned out to be a scroll of Heal. Quentin disrupted one of his spells with a timely spear thrust.

The treant bashed the cleric into the ground, leaving him bleeding but not dead. The gnome had long ago surrendered loudly and insistently, and the halfling was immobile. Quentin healed Kain and Morgan, bringing them up, and Morgan shot a humming bulb arrow into the air to signal Restenford. When Cassian was freed, she insisted that we save the cleric for questioning.

Well, we got the bandits.

In the end, we had done alright. Only Donald was dead, and he was Raised successfully in Barnacus. From our attackers we got Bracers AC 4/10 (!), a ring+1, a dagger of acid dripping, a scroll of Raise Dead, a longsword +2/+3 and some other items.

We discovered that the halfling and gnome were henchman of this evil party. They were chaotic neutral; in fact, the gnome was a cleric of Dionysus (god of mob rule and parties). But the other two clerics were of the Queen of Grottoes, our old nemesis.

Clearly the encounter had been heavily planned, as many of the items were specially designed for use against us. The lightning bolt, the blind, the half-orc control potion…

In the end, the cleric, the halfling, and the gnome were kept alive. They were questioned, and claimed to have been hired by these adventurers (who they knew were brutal) to kill pirates and bandits. The gnome said they told us that we were brutal, evil adventurers who had mercilessly slaughtered priests of the Queen of Grottoes and Hindus.

In a light note, after the halfling told us nothing useful, Balinor knocked him out with his hammer. Before we ungagged the gnome, Kain told him that he would tell us everything he knew in seven sentences or less, or the treant would bash his head in.

“Greetings, Defenders!” the gnome began.
“That’s one.” Kain grunted. The gnome blanched.

We haven’t fully settled this yet, and I suspect much information will be forthcoming next time.

Joel/Balinor (Cassian this time)