Ordrud hisses at the loud man, "stop. We don't have to be enemies, but you must be silent." He regretfully slashes at the man.
Lord and Lady Galekin continue to hurry the freed prisoners along. Esgalwathel quickly and stealthily moves out in front, keeping an ear and eye open for any of the barbarian warriors, but apparently the three men kept their word and stayed away. Harek heads down the stairs, and leads everyone thru the storage area that contains the armor, shields and longswords then over to the secret panel and has them move down the tunnel with instructions to wait at the end, while Lady Galekin tells everyone to pick up an armor, shield and sword and continue out.
Upstairs, Ordrud swings at and wounds the man as he kicked open the secret door. The man tries to push through, but one mores swing of his sword, and an arrow from Lothalian put the man down, and bleeding out.
As the man goes down, Miah moves over to the rest of the prisoners and hurries them up, knowing that reinforcements should soon be coming.
If available, Harek re-arms himself with morningstar and shortsword. He also grabs a hand axe and throwing axe, if possible.
"Arm up, and let's move. We need to go, and we need to go now!"
Ordrud looks to Lothalian and Sirasa and suggests, "can one of you hustle to the kitchen and find some things to jam doors? I'll be rearguard, but I'd like to firmly seal doors if we can."
While Ordrud withdraws following the villagers, he tries to calm and focus them with reassuring words, "stay calm and quiet. Help one another. I'm right behind you."
Lothalian goes over to the bleeding man and casts Stabilize. You want to take him with us and question him later? He asks Ordrud.
"No. The villagers are our priority." Ordrud replies to Lothalian.
Sounds good to me! Lothalian replies and takes his normal position in the rear.
"Lothalian and Sirasa, can you hustle to find something to seal doors? Please." Ordrud repeats.
Lady Galekin moves down the secret tunnel with the prisoners following her, while her husband stays behind in the arms room, handing each person a longsword, shield and splint mail armor as they go past. Harek takes the morning star from Lord Galekin, and sees only longswords in the armory, so he waits in the hallway in case barbarians come down the back stairs.
Sirasa, after instructing the lantern archon to guard the now partially open secret door, and Lothalian quickly search thru the kitchen area and the storage rooms and find some items that can be used to wedge closed the doors. They find some items that they use to wedge close the door to the servant hallway as the last of the freed prisoners go thru, and Miah and Ordrud follow, bringing up the rear.
Finally all the freed captives are in the tunnel and heading thru to the graveyard. Esgalwathel waits till everyone is thru and then after closing the secret door, jams the mechanism that opens / shuts it, hoping to slow down any pursuit.
You finally gather everyone at the chapel, using the building and terrain as a shield from the prying eyes in the fortress, which is just less than a quarter mile from you.
Lady Galekin tells you that their estate is about three days due south from where you are, going cross country, and it is defensible.
As you ponder what to do, Miah and ten folks get into the splint mail armor, strap on the shield and look eager to get going and get away from here.
Ordrud moves through the villagers with a grin and words of encouragement.
Getting to Lord and Lady Galekin and his companions, he suggests, "we need to make it to your estate before sunset, after which the drow will have the advantage. The first of our pursuers will be those flying stone creatures. We need to travel in such a way that no one can be carried off. Were there any bows in the armory?"
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"Three days? I don't think we are going to make it before sunset. Too bad we didn't grab some food when we were in the kitchen as well." Sirasa looks at the Lord and Lady. "How far are we from town?" With the perpetual darkness Sirasa has lost track of time and distance. Not to mention this is unfamiliar territory.
"Either way, we need to keep moving. Harek, if you see a defensible place to rest before nightfall, let's take it. Unless someone else has a better idea, we need to get these good folk to safely."
"Aye, I agree. I will keep a close eye out. Elsgawathel, perhaps you can range out a bit while I look close by here? Everyone, stay tight and watch out for each other. Noone goes anywhere by themselves. Pair up and keep close."
Harek looks for a decent spot to bed down, as best as he can. survival, perception
"Three days? I thought you said three miles. Why don't we stay in this secret passage until we can secure enough supplies to make the trip. This place is a defensible bottleneck."
"I have a week's worth. I don't know about the rest of you, but that ain't too appealin' to me."
"What do our supplies currently look like? Does anyone have rations?"
"Not for 50 villagers." Ordrud replies not sounding snarky.
"If we can survive the night, I think we'll need our cleric friend to pray for food. Unless a moose or elk just walks across the path, that is." Harek frowns momentarily, doing math for their food stuffs in his head.
"Any of you villagers competent hunters or trappers? Know this place at all? It may be a hungry couple of days at this rate."
"I have about a weeks rations also, and I can forage for some food along the way and still keep up with the group." She pauses in her thoughts, then continues, "the closest village is Rybalka using the road, but with the folks here it would take four of five days to reach it. Our estate is three days south of here and will provide shelter and food till we are sure that the drow are either not after us or are taken care of. Then it would be about two more days to Rybalka. My husband and I must return to our estate, because our children are still there in the care of their nanny and our gardener, and we need to get them to the safety of the village."
Her husband just nods, and looks on with his wife to the discussion.
"I can help forage if needed. My skills are mostly for the darklands, but I can surely help."
A couple of the villagers, raise their hands when asked if they are hunters, however when questioned, they admit to not being well versed with swords and the like, but do hunting with bows.
hmmm...It sounds like we should head towards the estate. I can help hunt. The elven cleric offers.
50 villagers. Little supplies. Three days to safety. What's the worst that can happen? Ordrud thinks and prays to Iomedae to bless this crazy plan.
"Harek, why don't you take point with the Galekins. I'll take the rearguard. Let's move with a purpose while we have a bit of surprise."
"Agreed. Stay sharp, and call out if you see anything sinister!"
Harek offers a javelin to any of the hunter types who will take them.
"It's better than nothing."
Agreeing that the best of bad alternatives is to head due south to the Galekin estate, you form up the captives and start moving. At least the prisoners had some food today while captive, so for now hunger is not an issue, but may be the next day. During the day you cross several small streams in the overland trek so folks are able to at least slake their thirst.
Esgalwathel ranges ahead, reporting back every hour or so to Harek and the Galekin who are at the front of the procession. Several of the warriors who grabbed armor and swords flank the column to protect the civilians as best they can. Ordrud, Sirasa and Lothalian bring up the rear as that would be the most dangerous area if the drow are following.
During the day Esgalwathel spots a small herd of deer, and sneaking back to the column, she gets Lady Galekin and the two of them manage to bring down one deer. Quickly butchering the animal they distribute the edible portions to the villagers so there would be at least some dinner.
Spirits are high today. Miah tells the party that they are true heroes and he wishes there were dozens more like them, for the drow are even worse below the surface than they are here.
During the day, Harek sees shadowy figures riding giant spiders thru the woods off to the side of the overland trail that the group is following to the Galekin estate.
As it nears early evening and normal darkness begins to creep over the land, you have a decision to make.
"Well, they seem to be traveling parallel to us. Dark figures, riding giant spiders. I can only guess who that is." Harek let's out a brief drawn curse ans spits into the dirt.
"They have the advantage in the dark, but we can't travel at night like them. Most of you can't see in the dark at all, and certainly not as well as then damned dark elves. I say we camp, watch as best we can, and be prepared for a fight."
"Agreed. We should divide ourselves into two divisions. One to stand watch in the night. The other to split their sleep between now to sunset and sunrise to breakfast. Most of the fighters and those with darkvision will be in the night division. The Galekins can lead the other division. We can eat while we rest. Let's select the best campsite that we can, so we have a deep perimeter to protect the sleepers. Last time they targeted the villagers, we should expect similar tactics. Does anyone have any better ideas?" Ordrud offers and then asks everyone.
"And we should organize into smaller groups within the divisions, so we can best keep track of one another in case the drow try to pick us off one at a time."
"Hmmph. Agreed." Harek unbuckles his armor and beds down for a few hours, leaving his weapons near to hand and shield as his pillow.
I too can take first watch since I pray to the Dawnflower in the morning. Can we surround the camp with torches? That way it would negate the drow's night time advantage. It is not like they know where we are. The Elf offers as he takes inventory of his arrow quiver.
Perfect! Lothalian says as Sirasa begins casting light on the sticks. While it will not stop the drow from coming, it will level the playing field.
As morning comes, the deer meat that butchered the previous day is quickly cooked, and between half the rations that the group has and the meat, everyone gets at least a couple of bites of food. Not much to go on, but enough to take away the starting pangs of hunger at least for now.
During the day, both Harek and Esgalwathel see the spider riders paralleling them in the western forest. Harek notices that instead of just two or three of them, there are more, and what looks like some figures walking also.
When mid afternoon approaches, you come to a barely traveled road, more like a footpath, running east west next to a river. Lady Galekin tells you that the river is fordable here, however there is a bridge about a mile downriver, however she has heard rumors of creatures guarding the bridge and demanding tribute from folks trying to cross so it might be best to cross here.
"Tribute may be more than we can handle with this crew. Fording at this narrow may be chancy, but we should be able to handle it, I reckon. Allow me and Elsgalwathel to cross first. We can fix a rope to make it easier for everyone else to come over."
"Harek, I agree. Let's inventory our ropes, and use as many as we have." Ordrud adds.
Lothalian looks around and sees that it would be a perfect time for an ambush while they are crossing. Not wanting to alarm the townsfolk, he instead says, I'll be one of the last ones over. He then nooks an arrow and scans the forest.
Ordrud shrugs and takes Sirasa's coil of rope. He gets his coil out of his backpack and bring them to Harek. "I'll anchor the rearguard. We should prepare archers to cover the river crossing. Maybe send a group of fighters across with you first to anchor the far side."
Ordrud shrugs again and replies, "guess I'll go with Harek and a few fighters to secure the other side."
Deciding to ford here, rather than go several miles out of the way and perhaps run into trouble, you setup rope lines on the north side of the small river and send Esgalwathel, Harek and Ordrud across to secure the south side of the river and prepare the rope lines.
A few of the warrior / hunter types cross over with you and help set the lines. Lothalian, Sirasa and Lady Galekin keep watch on the north side, and Lord Galekin and Miah work with the rest of the folks, helping and encouraging as needed.
About half of the folks get across, and there are still people in the water and on the north side when four small columns of water rise up about twenty feet downstream from where everyone is crossing and turn into small humanoid creatures with thin, leathery wings, small horns, and a mischievous smile. The loudly shout at everyone on general, "you foul our water with your dirty selves!" While not outright attacking, they do appear to be close to being hostile.
Ordrud hustles toward the potential threat. Since they speak before attacking, he replies in kind, "we mean no disrespect. Most of us have recently been prisoners without the ability to clean. We head toward a refuge across the river. How can we avoid conflict with you?”