Searching the bodies of the barbarians yields an elixir of dragon breath(green dragon), war paint of terrible vissage, a +1 full plate, +1 heavy steel shield, +1 bastard sword, javelins (3) and 42 gp each.
The frost drake has no loot.
Friendly reinforcements arrive to crew the siege engines and defend the bastion. Hirah sends her tigers off to assist the dragonkin fighting in the air and harass the ground troops who are trying to climb up the wall. Eventually the defenders manage to fight the current wave off, and the party is offered some rations by the defending Triaxians.
"Við virtum hafa weathered þessa bylgjulaga, þú gerðir frábært starf þarna úti. Ég heyrði að þú átti lengi flug inn, betra borða á meðan þú hefur tíma."
I think we've managed to fight off this wave, you did a great job out there. I heard you had a long flight, better eat while you have time.
Commander Pharamol sends telepathic instructions to the party that they need to go to the south east, there's enemy movement.
By the time they get to the south eastern wall, they see a siege tower full of Drakeland soldiers being pushed by a pair of war hydras(60 feet from the wall), up a slope, defended by two frost drakes flying 30 feet in the air.
Commander Pharamol orders you to stop the siege tower from getting to the walls, or the defenders of the walls will be overwhelmed.
Mr Whiskers recognizes them as advanced seven-headed cryohydras. They have fast healing 7, and are vulnerable to fire.
Greta tells the party that the siege tower has been covered by wet hides to prevent it from being set on fire, but the steep angle of the rocky slope makes the tower extremely unstable. An attack against the towers rear wheels would likely destabilize the tower, causing it to trip over, possibly sliding back down the slope and dragging the hydras with it.
To reach the rear wheels, the entrance is at the back at ground level, and the wheels can be disabled device in 2d4 rounds or you can simply hack at the wheels itself - hardness 10, hp 60.
The hydras can only push the heads 10 feet per round.
The frost drakes swoop down and each spit a ball of freezing mist at the party.
Everyone except Crummock gets the brunt of the first freezing ball. Greta is totally unaffected.
Forewarned, Crummock, Geist and Hirah manage to get out in time, but Einar and Mr Whiskers still get the brunt of the blast.
With a grin, Crummock dumps a Fireball into the hydras.
Geist then pounces on whatever is left.
Crummock's fireball catches them both, charring one of them badly, though the other manages to dodge the worst of the blast.The siege tower is also scorched by the blast and the party can hear screams of pain from the roasting Drakelands Legions inside.
Both hydras bite at Geist as he approaches, both harmlessly glancing off his breastplate.
Geist claws, then rips apart the hydra that managed to dodge the worst of the blast.
Barely alive, Mr. Whiskers says "Tell Crummock I'm sorry about Geist." and then brings up a wall of fire in front of the siege engine.
"If you can keep me alive long enough, the wet hides shouldn't make any difference. Kill the lizards before they can breath on the wall."
The party hears the sound of screaming and smell burning flesh from the tower.
Hirah observes the siege attempt and immediately summons a large earth elemental to tip the tower over.
The Earth elemental heaves, then flips the siege tower, sending it flying through the air. It crashes into the ground with a thunderous roar, drowning the screams of the Drakeland Legions trapped in their doomed structure. It splinters on impact, sending the pulverised and burnt bodies of the Drakeland legions scattered across the snow.
The frost drakes roar with rage as the siege tower is destroyed and eye Hirah with hatred in their reptilian eyes. The remaining warhydra hisses at Geist.
The cryohydra begins to try to bite Geist, scoring 2 bites on him.
Einar points his Frost Thunder Hammer at one of the frost drakes and it immediately becomes encased in ice and it falls 90 feet towards the ground. Thankfully the ice doesn't shatter.
Greta immediately charges and attempts to grapples the remaining frost drake to prevent it from going to the aid of its friend, getting bitten in the process. She does not manage to grab it fast.
The other Frost Drake swoops down with amazing speed to break its friend out, and Greta bites at it as it swoops downwards.
The frost drake, it's icy prison broken, struggles to gain height, and flies back to the level of the walls.
Geist attempts to finish-off the injured hydra...
The hydra falls to the ground, but the party can see its still breathing.
With a grunt of annoyance, Crummock charges forward, and stabs it.
Crummock stabs it with his steely knife, but he just can't kill the beast!
Seeing Hirah destroy his distraction and Crummock ignore his injuries, Mr. Whiskers is forced to flee. As he flees he draws out a healing potion and then drinks it gets ready to drink it.
Drat! If she had gone after the drakes like I asked instead of the siege engine, the next breathe weapons would have likely been against my wall! I do hope they ignore me!
Hirah's earth elemental pulverizes the hydra into a pulp, and it stops moving.
The drake at wall level, predictably, spits a ball of ice at Hirah and Einar. Einar doesn't quite manage to get out of the way in time.
The second drake charges towards the wall, its fangs outstretched to bite Hirah's throat, but misses.
With a frown, Crummock tosses a Fireball at the drakes.
He then urges Geist to attack one of the drakes!
Greta charges to the back of the drake, who lashes out at her viciously, scoring on her flank.
She tries to bite the drake's tail, which she does, and the drake screeches.
Both frost drakes catch the full fireball, and after Geist has gone after the one that just breathed the iceball, he rips it apart.
Blast, need to kill that thing and help Hirah, having the hammer in hand, Einar begins to rage, his cambion ancestry becoming apparent, he swings the giant hammer at the drake, first hammering down then across at the reptilian beast.
Einar smacks the drake on its head twice and it falls over, crashing onto the snow below and breaking its neck.
Crummock breathes a sigh of relief when the last drake goes down.
"Good job, everyone!"
He then sets about healing the party.
(leaving Mr Whiskers down 1hp)
The party heaves a huge sigh of relief as Einar smacks the last drake out of the air, thankful to be alive. They start fiddling with their cure light wounds wand.
They are barely done when Commander Pharamol's telepathic voice rings clearly in your mind. "Damn, the attack on the wall was a diversion! They've somehow managed to smuggle in troops into the North East Quarter! You'll need to stop them from getting into the blockhouse - it's the route to our upper quarters!"
The party makes their way to the North East Quarter to see a Drakelands Sorcerer and two Drakelands barbarians trying to force their way into a blockhouse. The Sorcerer is 25 feet in the air, with his barbarian bodyguard keeping a close lookout on the surroundings.
Shaking his head, Mr. Whiskers says "I disagree, we really need to coordinate more."
Looking to Crummock apologetically, he says "I am sorry for any burns my wall caused you and Geist. I was trying to stop the advance of the siege engine and force the Frost Drakes to use their next breath weapons against something other than us."
Looking to Hirah, he explains "That was part of the reason I had asked that the drakes be attacked. It would have created a situation for their command where they would want to divert forces or try to command a creature vulnerable to flame to go through the wall."
With a sigh, he admits "As it went down, they could focus on us and my wall got in the way of my own friends more than it hurt the opponents. For that I am truly sorry."
Crummock grins, and dumps a Fireball on the sorcerer and his bodyguard...
Geist then charges forward, aiming for the tender/squishy sorcerer, before he has a chance to act!
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Crummock waves off Mr Whisker's apology.
"There be no need for that - truly it is a rare plan that survives contact with the enemy. The important thing is that we all survived, and we can be learnin' from it... Also, in case ye hadnae picked up on it, I can now understand, well, everything that I hear or read, but when I get a wee bit excited, I understand that I can still be a wee bit difficult to understand."
Mr. Whiskers flies forward and readies an action to counter whatever the sorcerer does.
Puzzled, Mr. Whiskers says "Everything?" Looking impressed, he says "I didn't know that. So what languages can you use in battle? I know all the elemental tongues if that helps."
Both take the full brunt of the blast, but don't seem to take as much damage as they should have...probably because they were warded in advance. Those fireballs on the other side of the wall must've been REALLY visible....
The sorcerer is badly injured by Geist, and grappled as well, but still up.
Crummock shrugs apologetically.
"I dinae really know; just that whenever I get stressed or excited, pretty much everyone else be havin' trouble understandin' me."
Mr. Whiskers purses his lips for a moment as he thinks. Looking to Crummock, he then asks "Next battle could you try speaking other languages so that we can find out if there are any we can understand? I know Hirah has learned Aklo, but if there is another option it might be useful to know."
The sorcerer realizes he's not going to be getting that large tiger off him and blasts Geist in the face with an icy cone.
Geist nimbly ducks out of the way.
The barbarian Einar smacked, tries to stab him back, and even tries to bite him, for that matter.
The other barbarian concentrates on battering the door down.
His adamantine hammer makes good inroads on the door, looks like the door won't take another round of pounding!
'leaning down and whispering in Greta's ear, charge that body guard.' Finding hugging the saddle with his knees more difficult than he desired, Einar hangs on while he rages, causing his Cambion ancestry to become very prominent. As he lets out a roar ”Aaauuurrrggghhh.”keeping his size normal, he draws the hammer and attacks the body guard.
Einar manages to clobber the barbarian a good one.
Greta tries to bites the same barbarian but he blocks it with his heavy shield.
Mr. Whiskers moves forward and a little way away from the tower to a position that he can see the enemy destroying the door. This is unlikely to work, but I have to give it a shot!
He casts Grease on the barbarian's weapon, sinking a point of reservoir in order to make it slightly more powerful.