Initiative Order:Abu, Krogar, Jamenas, Darwin, Bugbears.
Abu's attack skitters across the ground and Darwin is quick to leap into battle. He's dexterious enough to whirl his weapon around for some extra damage, and seems to have given one of the bugbears enough of a whack to envoke an angry and pained growl.
Darwin follows up close behind and with a short thrust of his sword, kills the bugbear Darwin has already wounded. Hoping to continue on his streak, he whirls a blade around only for it to be met by a large morningstar to block it.
Then....
A flash of holy light washes over the two remaining bugbears,
Cause both to become frightened. They drop their weapons, and move to the far side of the tower, looking at you all, in quick panicked motions.
Krogar yells to the bugbears, feeling repulsed with the idea of striking down a fleeing foe. "Stop running and surrender to us, and we'll bring you to Red Larch for a fair trial."
"Fair trial for what? Living in a keep?"
"they would be alive."
"You can't strike down people who are running away! And for attacking people on sight. I firmly believe the whole keep is up to no good."
"The problem is, from a legal standpoint, we're the criminals here, not them. Assuming they own this land legally, we would go to jail for trespassing and murder."
"They have no intention to continue battle. They've already dropped their weapons."
Krogar is in the right. I doubt, however, that we'd be welcomed as heroes by all. We should just tell them to drop their weapons and not trouble anyone again.
"They've already dropped their weapons.Right, you heard this guy,"He gestures at Jamenas. "Just haul your @sses out of here and don't trouble anyone again."
As you finish arguing, a minute has passed and the bugbears snap out of their frightened state. Snarling, they both use their turns to rush to where they dropped their weapons, hell-bent on killing you all.
Players up!
Abu sees them coming. "We should have done something with them." Abu says as he looses an arrow at of his bow.
"You should have run while you still could." Krogar looks at the bugbears regretfully. "I'm so sorry."
Krogar marches up to one of them and gives them a good drubbing.
Abu's arrow bounces off the rough pelt like skin of the bugbear, but before it can strike back in revenge, Krogar's steps in and delivers a series of expertly placed strikes with his quarterstaff, rendering the creature dead.
The last bugbear, feeling cornered, Attacks Krogar in desperation.
it snarls as its morning star slams against the floor, cracking the stone tiles underneath.
"I gave you a chance to surrender and you didn't take it." Krogar growls as he continues to drub the bugbear.
Darwin will step in and finish the Bugbear if needed.
Krogar finishes off another bugbear, sending him careening into the wall behind you where he lays, unconscious.
With that you are free to look around, but though you poke and prod you find that this most likely served as the bugbears dwelling. However, there may be something useful in this....refuse.
"Do we want to search this junk or keep moving?"
Krogar looks at the refuse, pushing aside refuse here and there with his quarterstaff.
Krogar finds a nice pile of bones, several bite marks on them, but otherwise nothing interesting.
Abu grumbles as Krogar pushes him forward. "I get it, i get it... I'll look first.
Jamenas sheathes his sword and shows his shield. He picks up the bugbears mace, struggling with it.
Jamenas breathes heavily.
If they *pant* wake up *pant* with this within reach *pant* it's not going to end well for us.
Jamenas holds up the bugbear mace, frowning at its state of disrepair. However, it is still functional, and though a bit larger, it seems the roughly the size of one you might wield yourself.
The party descends the tower and following the map makes way to the armory. Abu does his best to remain silent and watchful, but the bugbears surprise attack must've knocked him off his game.
Nevertheless, you encounter no resistance as you make your way to the armory. Weapon racks along the walls of this armory hold spears. Barrels full of crossbow bolts and arrows stand near the doors. Open chests in the middle of the room contain suits of leather armor. The most unusual items in this armory are the shields - they are made of beaten copper and fashioned into the shape of horseshoe crab shells.
"Hmm, what do we have here?" Krogar wonders out loud as he picks a copper shield up and inspects it.
"Anyone know if any of this stuff is magical."
Jamenas looks over the shields.
These are interesting... maybe they are magical.
"Don't ask me, I have no clue. I am NOT a wizard." Krogar huffs. "I'd say pick one up first, get it identified at the next town later."
Abu picks it up and looks at it.
"Well, I don't know if it's magical. But it looks shiny." after thinking for a while, he dawns the leather vest. "How does it look?"
Darwin scoops up a shield that looks plain but serviceable.
"Okay, we should probably go head into the keep. Don't want to keep them waiting too long."
Krogar doesn't seem to see anything odd about the shield, and Jamenas can't feel a magical presence around the equipment.
The party continues on to the inner keep.
A large semicicular room occupies the western half of this floor of the keep. Three narrow windows look out over the countryside outside the castle walls. The room's furnishings are very plain, including a hard-looking bunk, a small wooden table, and a couple of simple chairs. Several large chest occupy the room's southern corner.
A very large man smiles as you enter the room. His sharp teeth reach from ear to ear as he greets you.
"So you're the ones who've been killing my men...any last requests before I tear you limb from limb?"
"Sure. Shut your eyes so you don't need to see us cut you down."
"Sure, give me a good fight. Your men were rather lacking when it came to that. Also, if you could point out your most valuable stuff, that would save us some time."
Jamenas slams the bugbears mace down on the man.
The large man snarls in anger as he is taken unawares and his eyes are seared by this holy flash of light.
Jamenas slams his mace into the man, but is surprised that it bounces back, not as effective as it would normally be.
The large man shouts, "I am Grimjaw! And you will die here!"
He begins to mutate, his body growing larger, his muscles growing stronger and the greataxe he hefts seems to be just a sharp bludgeoning object in his hand. With the speed rivalring that of the ferocity of a bear (which makes sense since he's half-bear now). He makes two greataxe attacks against Jamenas
Before Jamenas has a chance to move, both strikes slam into his body, and he can feel the force shudder through his being.
Krogar moves in swinging his stick of subjugation.
Darwin moves up and stabs into the monster hiding in a human's body, while saying "Man, you should be careful. With a face like that, you'll be stuck without any companionship. Women do not like monsters."
Abu comes up on the one on the right and stabs at him.
Jamenas strikes again, aiming for his head.