Session 19: Fighting Bandits, Both Human & Orc

The Adventurers finish their battle with the bandits started in the last session and start to search their hideout.

This is from Kay's notes from our December 13, 2023 session. Since our group is scattered around the country, we used Discord for our voice communication and Roll20 for our virtual tabletop.

Continued from: Giant Ants Continued… and Bandits

Date: May 15, 3517

10:30AM
Outside, the weather is partly cloudy, hot, and muggy, but inside the Mouth of Doom it is cool, although the air is also stale, musty and with a faint smell of rot.

Enough about the weather, we were in battle.

Elron had felt nauseous and his right hand felt numb ever since he harvested poison from the giant ant; he thinks he spilled some on his hand. Even with a numb hand, he fired an arrow through the door from the hallway and hit one of the bandits.

Breena moved forward and cast thunderwave, killing one of the bandits. One of them stepped up and closed the door; it’s invisible on this side.  The entire wall was the door.

Blaze’s flaming sphere, which was in the middle of the door, ended up on our side. Parahelia moved up to the closed door and held her position, and Breena moved back from the flaming sphere. Elron moved back to the corner of the hall’s T-intersection and readied to shoot again.

Artie, Gelver, Lark, Sinis and Beneddar were on the wrong side of the pit to help with the fighting. They all made it across with varying degrees of success, with Blaze helping the less successful.

Artie used mage hand to try to open the door from a distance; he would need to find a catch or switch; it might take some time.

Blaze dispelled the flaming sphere so people could work on the door. The party re-positioned themselves to best use their attacks if it opened.

Blaze suggested that Lark use his new Bastard Sword of Crushing to knock a hole in the door. Lark began hitting the door; the first blow knocked bricks out of the door, letting light come through between the stones; a second blow opened the hole large enough to see through. Lark looked through and a crossbow bolt came through, missing him. He ducked back, but saw four human fighters and two orcs all circling around and aiming crossbows through the hole he had made.

Gelver nervously began moving south down the hallway to get away from the party, but had to stop at the southern intersection when he ran out of light; his lantern was dry. Blaze noticed Gelver going south, and tried to help him leave; she cast light on one of his items and told him if he went west on the cross hallway he would get out of the dungeon. Gelver moved toward the west and Beneddar went with him to make sure he got out OK.
As they approached the door to the stairway out of the dungeon, Beneddar heard a voice to his left, “You stand at the entrance of Rappan Athuk, turn back.”  It was the message we got when we approached the northern door in the stair room the first time we came to the dungeon.

The door in front of them was open. Gelver heard the voice and stopped. Beneddar, hearing steps approaching, walked up to Gelver and whispered, “You might want to stay with us.”

Back at the hidden door, Lark was doing more damage to it, which was messing with Artie’s mage hand attempts to open it; Artie was pushing on each brick to find a catch, and Lark was knocking the bricks out. Two crossbow bolts came through the hole at Lark, missing him. Lark hit the door again, and this time the whole wall collapsed.

We saw three crossbows, one short bow, and one javelin about to be thrown at us. The orc with the javelin threw it at Lark.  The bandit leader who, we learned, was the infamous Tall Jack Rat, had the short bow, and the three human fighters had crossbows.

Parahelia moved into the room and attacked one of the human fighters, killing him. Sinis cast acid splash on one of the human fighters who had been burned earlier by the flaming sphere.

While she cast flaming sphere next to Tall Jack Rat, Blaze heard the sound of feet running towards us; it was Gelver, running back to the group with Beneddar, screaming the whole time. Beneddar heard feet behind him, chasing him; he moved back to our group and cast Toll the Dead on the southern group, but caused no damage. Breena moved south to guard our backs.

Back at the northern door, Elron moved up and shot into the bandit’s room, and killed the orc.

Artie cast fire bolt, but missed. One of the bandits shot a light crossbow bolt at Parahelia. Tall Jack Rat stepped back against the table behind him and shot at Lark, but Lark’s armor blocked the damage. One bandit shot Elron but caused no damage. The orc threw a javelin at Elron that glanced off his shield. Lark came into the room, moving to the left, and killed the orc with his sword. Parahelia moved to attack the fighter in front of her and hit. Sinis cast blur on himself to be harder to target. Blaze hit TJR but he dodged the flaming sphere.

Gelver screamed, “They’re behind us, too!”

We could hear the sound of a group coming from the southern hallway. Breena saw an orc coming around the corner of the intersection from the west hallway. Beneddar moved to back up Breena, casting sleep on the group to the south and two of them dropped to the ground. Breena shot her crossbow bolt at the orc, but missed him. Elron moved to the south, aimed at the orc holding a great axe, shot him with his longbow, and the orc roared with pain.

Back in the bandit’s room, Artie used his short bow and killed one. TJR leaped over the table and moved back; another bandit moved away from the flaming sphere. TJR shot at Parahelia with his bow and missed. Lark attacked TJR. Parahelia was hit and severely hurt by the bandit in front of her. Blaze finally hit TJR with the flaming sphere, damaging him. Gelver was still yelling. Artie shot TJR with his short bow and killed him.

With all of the immediate threats dispatched, Lark started opening chests. Blaze went to a door set in the east wall, and let the others know that it’s here. She found that we can open it on this side and waited for the others to catch up before opening it. Parahelia and Lark started moving to the east door.

Back in the hallway, an orc ran up to Breena from the south. She ducked and dodged. Another human fighter came up to Breena with two more following. The orc swung at Breena and missed, but a human bandit hit her with a scimitar, wounding her severely.

Sinis moved forward and cast burning hands on all four fighters coming at Breena.  The orc died and the three humans next to it were badly burned.

Beneddar then cast sleep on them, and all three humans went down. Breena, Sinis, Elron, and Beneddar finished off the sleeping fighters.

Sinis moved up to the hallway intersection, looking down the hallway to the west, and saw no one else coming.

Gelver went back down the hallway to the west again.

10:40AM
The battle ended.

Body count total: 18 (4 orcs, 14 humans).

 

Continued in Session 20: Goodbye Gelver, Hello Gelatinous Cube