This was the party's first attempt at real combat (not counting accosting teenagers, drug addicts, or various townsfolk as had been the case to date so far) with the new characters and it was different. Most people had different roles in battle than they were used to and we did not have everyone at the table which a few people were on "auto-follow".
What was a reminder was the possibility of death at 1st level as even single shots and lone melee rounds had the group watching how deadly only "6" hit points can be. Mind you, they went up against 13 or so effectively level 1 commoners (except for the 1st and 2nds in command) but they still accorded themselves very well.
Write up follows:
That evening we talked about whether or not we were going to
bring Verim and the villagers and the group, in light of Ironboar’s argument with
the Dormangers and Orin Dormanger’s dislike of Lirea and his son, were swayed
in the direction of NOT bringing the villagers with them. Would there beany
repercussions over this? We did agree to meet with them @ 8 in the morning but could
we get out of actually going with them? We decided that a visit with the Magistrate
should answer these questions.
However Tempi wanted…no demanded a visit with Fist’al, Ironboar
and himself at Zarik’s – and Flimflam should come as well before going to the
magistrate. Device was going to take Lirea with him to the temple grounds to
visit the hospice there and tend to the wounded vagrants (that she knew) as
well as talk to the High Priest Gavilerin.
At Zarik’s we sat at Zarik’s table and then spent some
considerable time with Tempi trying to prove that Fist’al was untrustworthy and
a dick. Zarik took the other tack and said that Fist’al was nothing other than honorable
in his dealings and trusted. The dick part was up for conversation. Ironboar
pretty much told Fist’al to take a walk and Fist’al got up from the table with
a flippant, “I don’t need this group or your shit Ironboar” response. Flimflam
and Zarik were able to establish a VERY tenuous peace but nothing was resolved
except for Tempi hearing from Zarik himself that Fist’al can and should be
trusted.
As for the Magistrate he had said that we were under no obligation
at all to take the villagers with us and we have all the right as per our
charter to make what decisions we deem necessary to perform our duty and keep
Shakun and its people safe. So no – fuck ‘em, they don’t HAVE to come.
We rested well that night and woke the next day early. We did
detour to Sern’s General Store to get another length of hemp rope and some small
sacks to both bind and blind any of the bandits we managed to capture. After that
we left Shakun.
It took us over 3 hours to leave Shakun, the homesteads, and
what places we had been before behind. From them we were walking in the low rolling
hills and grasslands, following what few landmarks Lirea was able to tell us on
our way to Mahr’s Tower and the bandit camp.
Eventually we found the valley in question and spied upon it
carefully from above. The tower was 120’ tall with some sort of metallic looking
spindly structure up top. There was a ruined remains of a small encampment and
village around the tower, the wall missing many sections in places. A number of
the buildings were still in decent condition and we could see a simple stablery
as well as a cook ground. A single bored looking fellow in a padded jerkin
walked a picket around the tower grounds and we could see maybe 5 or 6 others
about the place.
Plans were established and discarded for a bit until we decided
on sending Lirea down alone. She would go to the front of the place(the east
side) while we would pick our way around a few hills and approach the tower
from the west side. Everyone would go to see the pretty and friendly (and well
known – to them) young women and allow us to get within the actual grounds of
the tower and find the two leaders in question. Lirea pointed them out to us:
Thagorek (a shorter thick and brutish looking man) and Falag (tall, spindly,
greasy, and not trusted even amongst the other bandits). We asked for 10-15
minutes to get in place and then signaled Lirea with a flash of mirror that we
were ready.
It went off as we expected, she made a lot of noise and attracted
the attention of the camp and a total of 12 or so men and women between the
ages of perhaps 15 and 25 came out to meet her. She talked loud and long and
took her time making her wishes known to the group that she wanted her and
Brandone’s share of the money but Thagorek was not allowing himself to be swayed
and was telling Lirea to leave. As for us we crept down the hill fast and got
to the outer wall of the western side of the grounds. Only the stabler was here
along with a horse a few mules, and 3 camp dogs. We split up briefly and hit
the group with a sleep spell before charging in and dispatching the last of the
threats here (the bandit had been crushed by a falling , sleeping horse). It
was while we were trying to get all back together that we were noticed and
about half of the bandits gave chase across the yard towards us.
We ran around the wide base of the tower and actually came
upon the other half of the group swiftly. Arrows flew and our fighters plunged
ahead with spears and flails and swords flashing. The enemy did meet us and the
furthest 3 bandits had bows out and sent arrows falling amongst us. Half of our
party had turned the other direction and had weapons at the ready, expecting
the 2nd half to hit us from around the tower.
Whosea was vicious and Ironboar was just as terrible –the
two of them not pulling their blows but instead going for killing and rending
attacks when able to (Whosea had an excuse – he was a 120# German shepherd–
Ironboar was merely a barbarian deep in the rage). A few of us did get hurt during
the melee, clothyard shafts and sword burns but as a party we accorded ourselves
well until at long last the final bandits stopped fighting and gave up.
We bound them together and called out to any others still here
to show themselves (one did). We did note that those that were near both Thagorek
and Falag did smell rose scent coming from them as well seemed to grow tired
during the fight as if their strength was fueling the other mens’ attacks. We
looked over them briefly and noted a surprising lack of coin. Itwas thought
that any treasures might be in the basement section of Mahr’s tower where the
two leaders often stayed and we were going to explore that possibility next.
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