As the party prepares to move on and the hammering on the outside doors continues to reverberate up the hall, Boog-Boog looks longingly at the two inch crack of light between the doors. He shows no inclination to move on. The bannerman says unsympathetically in dwarven: "Does the gnoll need some encouragement to move on?"
That makes it easier. The multiracial charades become easier once Gallak casts his magic. The gnolls', speech is now understood by the dwarf:
The bannerman looks sheepishly at his banner when the words are explained to him. "Should I roll up and stow the standard?" The dwarf looks like he would be lost without the banner in his hand.
INT: 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (1) - 2 = -1 After wiping off his beard of suds and foreign objects the bannerman belches loudly and interjects:
"Well we have six if you count humans as a full dwarf."
Kib is 115' exactly south of Khazad and Big Mug, who are both carrying/dragging someone and 450-115=335' north of the handholds out of the air shaft. Big Mug stepped five feet into the west hall to grab Magnum and collect the dropped hammer. He has Magnum in an improvised carry now. "Let's get ready to run past those buggers together, they can only get so many of us. I'll go first." The bannerman is preparing for a dash past the two dark dwarves threatening the intersection, one with an axe, the other with a spear.
I have the darkness on the map. The duergar barbarian has a twenty foot radius darkness centered on his body. One of the other dark dwarves has darkness. That leaves a five foot by ten foot section of dim light between the two groups. Magnum is standing in one patch of dim light, the other patch is empty. "See if you can hit me. Sod you you sodding sods."
Excerpts from Big Mugs journal------
The battle in the tunnels grew desperate as we were beset from two sides and cut off from the surface. The dark dwarves used a devastating tactic of elementals to move through dirt and walls and polearms backed up by a solid defender or expendable elemental. We were promised to be ransomed if we surrender, but you never know with deep dwarves. The barbarian duergar was a skilled warrior capable of vicious two handed blows while enraged. Order of Action
Hon:
My dad came to me after the first mission. He aske me to write and gave me a single magic feather to communicate with him. I am sure he talked to Durnak now, although I asked him not to. The stoice bannerman addresses Brask and Nar. "Ready to go. The banner is even stronger."
On the trip home Big Mug cries to Hon, "I didn't know that Durnak was using me as a spy. When Brask tells Rock, he'll pick another bannerman." Hon and Magnum try to make the stocky dwarf fell better, to no avail. The stoic bannerman is unconsoleable and refuses to enter the warehouse, pacing outside most of the night.
A large burly dwarf enters the office carrying the dwarven banner of the hammer and anvil. He looks at Durnak and tosses a silver medalion on the floor that depicts an old dwarf on a throne and a single inscription underneath in dwarven that translates: Dwarf and pure or dwarf and dead. "I am no longer in your club; I stand with Brask. I am going to drink with the humans if they will have me." He turns around and leaves.
After going outside to get a breath of fresh air, Big Mug the bannerman sees a huge black bird racing for the caravan ahead of the coming storm. The bird easily catches up to the burly dwarf as he rushes back to the caravan. All the flustered dwarf seem to get out is 'Bird, bird, bird' as he rushes back. You see a quick glimpse of majestic black bird as he alights on the ground and quickly changes into a portly dwarf with some flecks of white in his beard and hair. Strolling into the camp, the dwarf looks around and his face lights up when he sees the cider. He pulls a battered mug from his pouch and looks serious.
"Better word for word an no laughing at what you already know. Brask, there are dwarves out to meddle in your business as much I have tried to keep you sheltered from the squabblings in the dwarven council. These dwarves are defying my authority and are acting outside the clan. They are solely responsible for their actions." "These dwarves belong to the Traditional Old Hall, a faction of dwarves that do not like what they call progressive dwarves. Progressive dwarves are any dwarves that try anything new. The Traditional Old Hall dwarves had a majority in the council and the ruling king was of this faction for years. This stopped when a certain king ran afoul of the Dark Owl and since that day no king was has come from the Traditional Old Hall faction." The portly dwarf hands some dispatches to Thograt and Ninni, and as they read them they prepare to depart quickly. Thograt leaves to change into plain robes and warm clothes and returns with his gear for Brask to give to his replacement. The dwarf druid points to the hasty actions of Ninni and Thograt. "They are ordered to rush back to Hon's ancestral home and stop the human barbarians from trying to burn it down. It seems these Traditional Old Hall dwarves paid the human barbarians to burn the Dark Owl stronghold to the ground. Obviously it is not easy to burn down, but the humans are still trying to do it."
"This is nice. The rest of the place is a dump compared to this."
Magrim looks at him and smiles. "Why not, you got to do the book first? This looks like the afterlife to me, how about you boys?"
I tend to surprise the party with the power of the banner as it levels up. One ability is a double strength channeling of positive energy once per day. I think you need this to manifest, so I am having the power chose to manifest itself based on need rather than wait. The unholy flame is countered by positive energy--I think this needed to happen too.
Big Mug screams as he dodges the two explosions of burning skeletons near him, but still stays on his feet despite massive wounds. Hon takes incredible heat damage from being next to the two skeletons near him and starts to dodge the two exploding skeletons near him. Thograt feels the banner has increased in power and the next channeling of positive energy will be extra powerful. As he begins to channel the power of goodness the resulting divine energy snuffs out the unholy bonfire and the flame on the remaining two skeletons that were previously aflame. Thograt can choose 2d6 of healing or 2d6 of undead damage. I would not suppose to roll for this. Note: Hon is probably collapsing without healing and Ninni is hurt and unconscious.
Khazad's attack shatters the skeleton, but the in the fire he sees it begin to knit together again. Brask finished off the ghoul with another well-placed shot. Kragg hits and injures a skeleton, but the piercing weapon seems marginally effective. Big Mug advances to protect Khazad. "Glad those blades didn't get us."
Kragg notices no problems with the trap. His movement stepping on the stones doesn't trip anything. Kragg strikes the flatfooted skeleton which explodes into pieces for 1d6 ⇒ 6 fire damage REF save DC 11 for half rounded down. Kragg manages to remain in a defensive stance to meet the onslaught. Brask shoots through a bonfire, through a ghoul covering behind a skeleton, and squarely hits the ghoul with a now burning arrow. It is an uncommonly good shot. The arrow does both piercing and fire damage and the ghoul's eyes lack the spark they had before. "Kragg is in trouble, I can't watch him get overrun by skeletons. We can't disarm these squares one at at time. Thograt, what do we do? He must not have heard Brask or he's got that good ole dwarven battle lust."
Big Mug starts to strip the mwork breastplate off the undead Bannerman. He also looks on his person and finds a journal similar to the one he has been keeping. He reads, "We go to find out what has been troubling these people in these ruins. I do not trust these humans who have been so polite to us or their promises." "An earlier entry reads--our stealth mission to the human depot allowed us to boost some real good equipment. We can take from one group and sell to another. The thieves guild contact has helped us with some of our more high profile goods. There is a map and a mark on this Big Swallow Inn. This human capital city is huge."
Big Mug keeps his balance and moves out of the grease to keep the undead from shifting into the corner to bring more numbers to bear and moves to the corner himself. Hon's crossbow bolt does absolutely no damage to the skeletal wizard. The sneak attack appeared ineffective and the skeleton seems highly resistant to piercing damage.
Round 3
Hon to go with clear shot to an injured ghoul out of melee
"You can knock some of us down, but we have hard heads and always come back for more."
"I'll keep them from rushing Brask." Big Mug moves behind Brask and gets ready to brace him. Two tiny horrors rush Brask and he swings in defense 1d20 ⇒ 161d10 ⇒ 6 splatting his third little one.
All eight of the tiny, smelly monsters lay mangled on the ground. The big ones don't even think of rushing a dwarf and escape out the southern door in a flurry of scratching noises of claws on stone.
Round 1
During the delay to remove snowsuits, Neji casts mage armor on herself and Ninni. I do not know if the entire scout team is concerned with color coordination, but Hon is going back to earth tones. Magnum and Big Mug decide to dump their snow suits too. "I don't know if the undead respect the banner." Big Mug pokes Ninni with the banner to test the mage armor--are you there Ninni?
"Actually, had we arrived on time, I bet they would have been in place. After we arrived early, Brask caught them sneaking out. Everyone is healed during the week of debriefing. Time is spent improving skills and abilities. Thograt is also scheduled to address the troops. Please update the character sheets. Everyone will increase hp at HD/2+1 to ensure no drastic variations.
Journal of Big Mug: We marched back having given the humans the fight of their life. Outnumbered three to one and we fought them to a draw. Liri and Thograt took 24 hours of healing to get on their feet, but they were fine. Liri decided that the rigors of the mission were too much, and asked if Thograt could find a replacement for her. She could continue, but not with a full heart. The supplies were quickly distributed to the community. A whole year of necessities were what the people really needed. Another keg of GT was unrolled and we reveled well into the night. With trepidation we went to see Rock for the debrief.
Big Mug's journal:
From Big Mug's journal (hopefully not found in the frozen ground covered with blood outside the human settlement): "We approached the human encampment early to trade for the five crates of equipment our community needs. Negotiations broke down, so Thograt and I appealed to the honor of the humans. Little did we know the humans had prepared two fortified ambush points. We came early, so the humans actually had to sneak out to their ambush points while we negotiated in good faith because they were too lazy to wait in the cold. The insults our leader withstood were a tribute to his patience. When Brask noticed the humans trying to flank us on two sides and catch us in a crossfire, he opened fire. It was six of us against 18 humans; although it seemed unfair, we were not about to let them have any reinforcements to make it more fair.."
Khazad and Neji are together where they like. Big Mug is left of Liriana. Init All Thugs/Cbow1-3/Cbow4-6/leader 1d20 ⇒ 161d20 + 2 ⇒ (19) + 2 = 211d20 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 81d20 + 1 ⇒ (1) + 1 = 2
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