"A different idea." Grace says, "If I may interject, dears. If I can be taken to the prisoners, or close to them, I can deliver supplies. Weapons. Healing potions. Magic. And then we have allies in this fight instead of liabilities."
"How?" Don't say 'pretend to get caught'.
Delendir stares at Grace "Yes, how to bring you there safe?"
The half-elf taps on his bow "We must decide on a way to go, the more time we hold us undecided the more likely the ogres will come up with an strategy to attacks us"
"... the ogres don't know we exist."
Krysta considered and then said, "I can't fly two up at once. I could make two trips, or if someone has one of those bags of holding maybe both could cl8mb in and I then fly the bag up and let them out."
"Sunday has a point. If they knew, we'd already be fighting them off," Ragnhildr replies in response to Delendir's mention of the ogres attacking them.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Elisai takes Grace's suggestion seriously, thinking for a moment before politely responding. "I don't like the idea of Grace going in. Its risky, because they could just decide to kill her immediately, and furthermore there is no guarantee the prisoners will take up arms. They might not be in a good condition to fight, they might not have our experience, and we would be asking them to go up against ogre kin. They might be a less of a liability, but if they decide to purely flee in the chaos, not only do we lose equipment that might be more useful to us - but we don't actually get additional allies and all the while you would be in a vulnerable position. I just think there are too many variables for us to go with a risky option."
"Perhaps" Delendir musses as a response to Daud, then sighs.
He then nods to Elisai "The woman is right. They might be just merchants and become to scared to even run in the right direction. We must take all the attention of the ogres to keep them far from their prisoners"
"Who are in cages, and the Ogrekin might not even have the keys. So I say we draw them out and then go take care of the spider."
"We are hoping they are the Rangers, yes?" Grace points out.
"Rangers or not, there's not much you can do if you've been caged and starved and who knows what else for days." Sunday says solemnly.
Shalelu looks hopeful at Grace's comment but clamps her mouth shut when Sunday speaks hard the truth. She adds, "My arrows are ready to destroy these heathens whichever path you deem is the most feasible. How is it you think we can lure only some out of the front and not all of them?"
"I'll go up and see if they want their brother back. When you see them, start shooting." Sunday offers.
"We are likely to face them all at once that way, but if that is the case so be it, we will bring our full power to bear." Yavenee says fiercely.
"Don't really see a way to bring them out one by one in any case."
"If it wasn't for the prisoners, I'd say just set the blasted place on fire and strike them down as they exit." Grace grumbles. She's not feeling particularly charitable toward this bunch.
"Fire always solves problems. As soon as we get the prisoners out we can do that."
Shalelu offers, "Maybe there is a way to do that. Krysta, how many exits lead from the area you were in to the larger area in the front?" When the young dragon explains that there were a pair of closed double doors on the ground floor and two separate doors up on the catwalks (one on each side), she frowns. "Nevermind then, too many possible exits to blockade. I was thinking we could start the fire on the front doors of the barn and then attempt some form of rear entry. Once inside find a way to barricade the lower doors and prevent entry from the front room, but it sounds like they could simply take the catwalk to enter from the other side."
"Wait, could we knock the barn over? Would the cages protect the prisoners?" Sunday interjects.
Shalelu looks skeptical. "Knock it over? How? Also, didn't she say the cages were on the upper floor? They'd fall first for sure."
Sunday shrugs. "By getting some rope and pulling? Or just hacking the support beams." He stops and scratches his head. "Could we sneak in through the top and knock down any ladders so that the ogrekin can't climb up? If not I'll just draw them away and then you all can go in and hopefully only have to deal with the spider."
"If it was built to house ogrekin, nothing short of giants will knock it down. If we cannot get in to save the prisoners without alerting them, then we need to kill them all first." Yavenee says sating at the barn.
"Then would you prefer I just draw them for a little bit so the archers can get a lead?"
"Two people attacking the Spider, moving through the back, the rest (and ideally archers), crush the ogrekin and rescue the prisoners. I don't mind who you kill Sunday, provided we prioritise freeing the prisoners first" Elisai remarks.
"It's a spider that spins webs though, so it might not even leave its web till someone goes up to the catwalk. We could probably take out the ogrekin first and then go after the spider." Sunday suggests.
"True, but I don't want it spinning webs against the entire team and blocking our movement and trapping everyone either Sunday. I want it having to pick between spinning webs around the force attacking the ogres (in which case the two people can stab it freely), OR spinning webs against the two people attacking it (in which case Delendir can poke it full of holes while our majority crushes the ogres. Thinking tactically, its the best option." Elisai responds
"If we're outside the barn it can't get to us."
"Webs are easily destroyed by fire. If the spider is in the webs...all the better. It is how we deal with plains spiders." Yavenee says.
"Fire deals with plenty of things." Sunday giddily adds.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Krysta, bored with all of this waiting and complicating a serviceable plan, looked at Shalellu and then back before she said, "I'm going in, and going in through the front, the ogres will die, then the spider, the ogres will be the first opponent so put them down quickly. If you aren't coming I'll kill them myself." With that the dragon made her way towards the barn, intent on going in with or without the rest of her companions. She rose into the air, staying just above the ground, and when she reached the door, took a deep breath, and then sent a ringing roar of sound slamming into the wood in an effort to rip it down and expose the ogres inside.
With a shrug, Ragnhildr follows and once the door is broken down, follows up with a blast of icy frost.
"Well that settles that." Yavenee says as Krysta advances. While everyone is still in range, the witch begins to chant, her rapis words seeming to slow down as everything around her companions seems to as well, their entire beings and very perceptions accelerating, altering the flow of time for them.
"Well good to know this all was a compete and total waste of time." Sunday says as he drops the head he had been carrying and following after the others.
Once he saw one of the ogrekin he charged.
While the party is conversing the dragon takes matters into her own hands. Hovering above the front of the barn she unleashes a reign of fire down upon the the front of the building. The door weren't barricaded, not even locked in fact, and her breath blows them clean off the hinges as the doors explode open in a burst of flame.
The inside of the front of the barn the layout is more or less as the party expected it to be. The barn houses several mounds of molding hay, grain stores, and even a large but crude still. Two catwalks rise up along the walls, leading to doors near the ceiling in the east wall. Lower, a pair of massive doors, boarded over with thick timbers, allows ground access to the room beyond. Several dingy kennels are built into the walls under the catwalks.
Only three of the five creatures Krysta senses are currently in sight. All three seem less than surprised to see you. Facing the entrance with weapons in hand, they seem to have known this moment was coming.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Delendir smiles as the dragon charges in and exclaims "I am liking more and more that dragon!" He then starts to run towards the doors himself while Yavenee's enchantment's starts to take him into an stasis.
When the sonic blast of Krysta's breath kicks off the door from its hinges and the half-elf spots the large giant in the middle of the room, Delendir stops, steps to the front readying two arrows into his bow and let's them fly to the big creature.
He follows up with more arrows afterwards.
When the door bursts open, the enemies thought they were prepared to engage whatever was coming at them. Clearly the ogre did not expect the torrent of arrows to be the first thing through the door. Three of the ranger's strikes sink into his foe, only one barely missing.
Inside the barn, the ogrekin shift positions and prepare for an assault by the party.
Yavenee advances, remaining off to the side. As the door is blasted open and her companions begin their assault, she targets thow of the ogrekin she can see off to the side, unleashing a cloud of glittering particles to blind them.
Delendir's barrage of arrows completely annihilates the large creature in the center of the barn before he can even cry out an insult. Sunday charges in after the arrows stop and cuts into the first ogrekin he sees, nearly taking him down in a single blow as well. Ragnhildr's cold blast follows immediately after and catches the two ogrekin on the steps to the upper level off guard as frost forms on their hands and fingertips. Finally Yavenee continues to control the crowd of ogrekin by blinding the two northern creatures with her sparkly dust patterns.
As soon as an opening presents itself, Shalelu screams as she charges headlong into the barn with her arrow ready to unload on the large ogre. When he falls from Delendir's assault she simply runs up to him and steps on top of his body, pivots and fires an arrow into the back of the skull of the ogrekin Sunday was engaged with.
Krysta sideslipped over to get in range of Ragnhildr's target, her jaws snapped at the Sunday's target from over his shoulder and above before rapidly spinning to lay into Raghilder's with both claws and a second snap of her jaws but the strange sensation of moving so fast threw all of her attacks off and she missed with every one of them.
Elisai steps right up to Sunday's opponent and swings her sword, hoping to finish the work that Sunday had started, and eliminate the giant like creature before it could retaliate.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Delendir whistles calling Ghina to follow him.
The half-elf ranger holds then his bow with a single hand while walking at his fastest to the entrance of the building "Shalelu! Take it calm! Wait for us!"
Ragnhildr, grinning as the battle is joined, rushes in and turns to attack Krysta's opponent with her blade.