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Abaos looks to Iorksan, as the young dragon sudden attitude shift surprises him.
"Iroskan, are you certain about this? A moment ago, you had pled caution in regards to this creature. Now you ask it to help us attack our enemy. Why the sudden change?"
"We too have been attacked by that group of apefolk. They are our enemies, and dangerous. We, and the great Iorskan, feel for your loss."
"They stole this wyrven's eggs. This is evil. If I was found dying on the side of the road, I would expect a fellow dragon to put me out of my misery. For they must defend their territory, and I respect that. But if my eggs were stolen? That is a horrible act, and any dragon worth it's scales would deem it so. Even if I were to be put down, I would expect an honorable kinsman to punish those who would steal our children, for either food, or worse, a life of slavery."
After a slight pause, he added "And...it is pragmatic. These creatures are within our territory now. They have no fear of this wyrven, which means that they will have no fear of us. We can have a powerful ally join us in driving these creatures away from what is ours. So this course of action is both the right, and pragmatic, thing to do."
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Abaos dips his head to the taztlwyrm.
"My compatriots and I were heading towards a known location the ape- men will come. With your help, we could hurt them terribly and perhaps chase them and extract your eggs. Will you help us, mighty one?"
Abaos attempts to be diplomatic as he explains the plan, not really certain if the wyrm will agree or not.
Abaos dips his head to the taztlwyrm.
The wyvern agrees that an ambush would be a good idea, and though it would personally rather tear down the walls of the fort and devour all within, she'll cede that you lesser beings probably need her help surprising people.
The party and wyvern notices that their new draconic pal is, despite their arcane healing help, still at less than full strength. Her wings have been broken, and will take months or more before she can fly on them. She's also lost the poison barb at the end of her tail.
The party walks as far as they comfortably can, and makes camp. The wyvern is happy to take a break. In the morning, you make your way to the Thorn River camp. I'll assume that Guthruc eats a flying animal at some point during transit.
The place where the bandits lived is now abandoned, permanent structures quiet, guard tower unmanned, and tents stricken down.
There is, however, a rather large ogre hiding behind a rather thin tree.
And four humans, dressed in ragged armor, with bows drawn and arrows nocked. They're nervously muttering to each other, eyes and bows trained on the party.
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It's a good thing Abaos was feeling particularly perceptive this morning; normally, he's pretty oblivious to things. For example, the time Abaos almost walked into a charging Guthruc when he killed a bird this morning. But, he could certainly tell that there was a something hiding behind that tree. Definetly a something. And it's hiding. That's not good.
Abaos quickly hides himself behind a tree, as well, and goes to creep up on the ogre.
Iorskan, unhappy at being thought of as a lesser being, confidentley(?) walked towards the ogre. Putting out his chest, and knowing that he had to prove that he was the strongest dragon around, he roared ”Ogre! I eat you!”
Mr. Winky scouts from the treetops before the party arrives.
Landing on Ozzy's shoulder, he whispers the locations of four hidden humans , which Ozzy relays to her companions before they have a chance to do anything stupid.
Without regard for his safety, nor care for the archers, Guthruc walks out to the middle of the clearing, remaining out of the ogre's reach.
"Put down bows! If hit, Guthruc and allies break you."
He turns toward the ogre, oblivious as to how ineffective his attempt at intimidation was.
"Ogre. You join Guthruc group of fight. Guthruc Ogre kill deer ruler. Leave man, join fight. Guthruc Ogre fight forest."
With his crude giant, Guthruc attempts to recruit the large ogre into his warband, accidentally mixing up the words forest and good/well.
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Seeing the courage of his companions, Abaos steps out into the light as well. Looking as menacing as possible, and with Guthruc's mention of bows, he hastily takes a guess "Kressel? If you're here, we know the game! That you work for the Stag Lord! Surrender now, and I'll make you the same deal I made Happs so long ago!"
He pauses, waiting. "I don't know how he got to you, but I meant what I said, Kressel, about starting something big, here. Just lay down your arms, and walk away. No harm will come to you, I promise."
He looks around, hoping to see her cooperate.
Lost in esoteric musings of the interpolation of happenstance and sidereal coincidence, Awn notices the "hiding" ogre, but little else. When notified, the seer acts accordingly, weaving strands of amcanhavewillhasbeen to ensure his allies move before their foes.
Everything is still for a moment.
The wyvern holds her action, Abaos, you're up.
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Abaos draws a dagger, but he's still hoping to win things over. He walks slowly towards the ogre.
"Kressel? Come one, let's talk. You and me. No need for the bows. Come on out."
He gently attempts to coax out the traitorous bandit queen, hoping to draw her to him. Unfortunately for him, she's not there.
Those of you of extraordinarily keen hearing hear Bandit #4, henceforth Jex the Snitch, mutter, "is that the wyvern that attacked us? Manticore said it was dead . . ."
And then Bandit #2, a fat man henceforth known as Fat Norry, releases his drawstring and the other bandits, following the lead of his slick and sweaty fingers, let their own arrows fly.
Bandits 1 and 2 target Guthruc, 2 and 4 have clear shots at the wyvern (a known threat) so they take them.
Guthruc takes four points of damage, and, if I understand the DR rules correctly, has two points of DR left this round.
The arrows splinter against the wyvern's thick scales. They do serve, however, to get the dragon's attention. She takes her held action, charging across the shallow water and trying to get the now rapidly backpedaling man behind the wagon.
The two-legged dragon lifts Jex the Snitch into the air, and shakes him like a rag doll before letting go, giving the unlucky projectile a head start on being buried in the muddy riverbank. If puncture wounds didn't kill him, and the broken spine didn't kill him, and the broken neck didn't kill him, then it must have been the fall.
She roars triumphantly, which makes Iorskan a little bit envious.
"What am I supposed to do?" the ogre complains, in a plaintive tone more befitting a child than a monster of it's stature. "You said to hide, you never said what to do after."
Stepping forward, Iorskan unleashed his full might on the ogre! He was, however, more than a little afraid, so his attacks had a ferocity to them born out of memories of bleeding out in all of the group’s battles thus far. But! But...he had to prove himself. His pride demanded it.
Guthruc shouts at Iorskan,
"Why small dragon attack Guthruc soldier?! Ogre join warband!"
Guthruc shouts at Iorskan,
"Why small dragon attack Guthruc soldier?! Ogre join warband!"
Iorskan fills his mouth with fire, and then lashes out with his long neck. The small dragon worries that he misjudged the distance through the branches, but the lumbering giant steps into the attack, so it all works out. Well, sort of works out- Iorskan hurts his teeth on the giant's metal carapace, and his jaw aches from puncturing the giant's thick skin. Worse, Iorskan doesn't think he even hurt the ogre that bad, after all the biting through metal and hide.
Now that Iorskan's closer he now has a better view of the giant. Massive, even for an ogre, Auchs stands five meters (15 feet) tall and almost as wide. His ludicrously bulky armor must weigh at least a hundred kilos. (220 lbs) Dragging behind him is an uprooted tree, a small one, no taller than Auchs, so actually kind of large, but not for a tree, devoid of branches and polished until it shines. The roots of the tree have grown around a red-brown boulder that's about the same size as Iorskan. The boulder has been chiseled into a better balanced shape, and serves as the head of the weapon.
"Ow! Ow! Hot! Hot!" Auchs wails, trying to put some distance between himself and the wyrmling.
Ozzy and Mr. Blinky look at one another in unison, then up at bandit #3. They charge in tandem, Mr. Blinky bounding a head across the creek, with Ozzy's outstretched spear right over his shoulder.
The fetchling and Mr. Blinky get the second archer before he can nock another arrow. It all happened so fast.
The armored ogre steps up and punts Iorskan, driving his metal-shod foot into the dragons ribcage and lifting it into the air. Iorskan flies briefly, flaring his wings to try and kill momentum and stick the landing, but the flight is too brief for him to right himself and he lands on his side, skidding across the ground before coming to an abrupt halt against a fallen tree.
Fat Norry is reeling from how quickly their stealth ambush turned into a massacre. "Auchs!" he shouts, "cover our retreat!"
"But I'm still looking for clues," complains the ogre.
"Later, Auchs! You can look for clues later!"
"You go, I'll catch up when I'm done asking them questions," insists the ogre. Norry, who doesn't actually care whether Auchs catches up, doesn't protest.
"Warband no hurt ally!"
Guthruc enters rage and charges the ogre.
As Guthruc charges, he gets clipped by Iorskan's attempt at flight, taking a wing to the face. By the time Guthruc regained his wits, it was too late.
Awn smiles in dismay as Iorskan flies higher than almost ever before, unfortunately an assisted aerial maneuver. The woodborn charges Auchs, T'lass whistling through the air as it leaves its sheath.
Round 1
Full Round Action: Charge Auchs, drawing elven curved blade.
[+2 Dex, - 1 armor, - 1 buckler]
[+2 Str, + 1 BAB]
[+3 THF, + 2 charge]
[+1 second sight]
Guthruc rushes the titanic ogre, but the giant's superior reach lets him hit Guthruc first.
For the first time in his life, Guthruc realizes he might be outmatched.
After withstanding an attack like that, it's a marvel Guthruc's still on his feet, for him to follow through with his own attack would take a miracle.
Fortunately, miracles have a tendency of happening when Abaos is around!
Ounce for ounce, there's nothing stronger than an orc barbarian. But Auchs has just a few more ounces than Guthruc; the ogre's armor sounds like a church bell, but Auchs rolls with Guthruc's attack and is unharmed.
"That's a pretty sound!" says the ogre, his wide face breaking into a genuine, happy smile. "Do it again!"
As the archer is holding a bow and Auchs just spent his AoO beating the stuffing out of Guthruc, no one can take advantage of Awn's poor acrobatics.
Kthoonk!!!: 1d10 + 3 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 3 + 2 = 8 [+3 THF, + 2 charge]
Auchs makes no attempt to dodge Bright Awn's attack, allowing the woodborn to line up a devastating strike.
Bright Awn dashes across the clearing, angling to the side of where Guthruc and Auchs trade blows. Stopping suddenly, he spins and transfers the momentum from his run into Tass'l, driving the well-built weapon beneath Auchs' arm, where he has no armor.
The giant's thick skin still slows Awn's blade somewhat, but this hurt him.
Angrily, Auchs turns and locks eyes with Bright Awn. , he eloquently explains, spittle flying.
The party's swarming tactics have left Auchs open to Anura, who uses his bounding boggard prowess to reach the giant's unarmored head and whack it with his morningstar.
This hurt as much as Tass'l did, and now Auchs doesn't know who to attack next. This confuses him, so he starts crying tears of frustration.
Abaos's starknife can't penetrate Auchs' armor. But, with this system of DR, the swarming does add up.
The surviving archers take withdraw actions away from the combat.
The wyvern, which is pretty slow over land, slithers closer to where the action is.
Still hurting from being hit, and from biting steel, Iorskan stepped forward. He didn’t want to...but Guthruc was in trouble! Despite the pain he went in for another bite.
Ozzy charges the ogre with her longspear while her eidolons pursue to the fleeing archers.
He can't catch up this round, but he'll get them eventually if that's where he wants to go.
UMD: 1d20 + 4 ⇒ (15) + 4 = 19 +3 if we had the chance to transfer the headdress...
Your Headress of Persuasion doesn't boost UMD.
Longspear: 1d20 + 4 + 2 ⇒ (1) + 4 + 2 = 71d8 + 4 ⇒ (3) + 4 = 7
Ones auto-fail attack rolls, so unless Abaos wants to reroll that it's a miss.
Still hurting from being hit, and from biting steel, Iorskan stepped forward. He didn’t want to...but Guthruc was in trouble! Despite the pain he went in for another bite.Iorskan chews grooves in the ogre's armor, because dragon teeth are, apparently, indestructible.
Auch's turn, I'll update in a moment.
Your Headress of Persuasion doesn't boost UMD.
Your Headress of Persuasion doesn't boost UMD.
Auchs swats at Anura with his greatclub.
The boggard hits the dirt, hard.
Auchs realizes that he still hasn't asked any questions, so asks no one in particular, "I'm looking for my friend Dovan. He used to be here, but now no one is. Have you seen him?"
Meanwhile, the archers scream in terror as the nightmare monster gains on them.
Guthruc, in his 8 int and 8 wis, decides to keep fighting.
Awn supplies another cut...but cuts only air...
Round 2
Standard Action Attack!
[+2 Str, + 1 BAB]
[+3 THF]
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Ozzy, while moving forward to attack, hooks her foot under an exposed root and has to scrabble to keep her footing instead of attacking. Except, while she's regaining her combat stance she accidently strikes her spear against Auchs's armor. This kind of thing happens pretty frequently in Abaos's vicinity.
Guthruc, sustained by rage, decides to stay in melee. (Perhaps an ill-advised choice . . . ) His furious assault knocks the ogre back a half-step and distracts Auchs from Bright Awn's sword.
Awn supplies another cut...but cuts only air...
Finding another chink in the giant's armor, the woodborn puts his sword there. Worryingly, this doesn't seem to slow the ogre down.
But Auchs, despite being stabbed and bludgeoned, can spare attention for neither of them.
Abaos cuts in and stabs the big guy again, taunting as he does so- "Dovan? That spy? Bit the dust, he did, not too far from where you're standing. In fact, stay still, I'll help you find him in just a minute...."
Auchs locks eyes with Abaos. Very, very quietly, he says, "You're lying."
Meanwhile! Archers' turns! They try to lead Mr. Blinky towards Auchs, hoping that the giant can save them. "Auchs! Help! Help!" Fat Norry shouts.
But Auchs doesn't look away from Abaos.
Ozzy stabs the ogre with her longspear while Mr. Blinky pounces on Archer #1.
Mr. Winky tries again to activate the wand of magic missile (targeting the ogre).
Fat Norry survives another round! Let's see if he can get out of this one alive, shall we?
There's an old saying that you don't have to outrun the shadowfiend, you only have to outrun your friends. Norry proves that that isn't entirely accurate; you just need to start five feet away from your friends.
Still, trying to ignore Bandit One's screams and gurgles as he tries to make it to the relative safety of Auchs's threatened range, Norry decides that if he makes it home tonight he's going to exercise more frequently. And make new friends.
Once he makes it to the giant he turns and fires an arrow at his pursuer, hoping it'll slow it down.
Mr. Blinky, seeing that there is no longer a risk of the archer (who he doesn't know is named Norry) escaping, turns his attention to the ogre who is threatening his master and her friends.
Mr. Winky continues to try (edit: in vain) to use the wand.
Meanwhile, Ozzy continues to jab at the ogre with her longspear, then hops back and, skirting the ogre's reach circles to help surround Norry and the ogre.