"--damn," Johund grunts as the enormous club swings at his face. But Hanspur protects him and club bounces off of his iron-hard skin
With no time to praise the many virtues of the River Rat, Johund instead slams both his daggers down into the hulking man's neck, just above his collar bones. The poor sap starts to choke on his own blood even before Johund rips the blades free.
Eluvias staggered forward as he was hit in the back by the Stag Lord. A look of annoyance crossed his face.
He spun around at the bandit who had nearly hit him and slashed his electricity-covered blade across the man’s throat. Not deigning to watch the body fall, he pointed his blade at the Stag Lord. ”You’re next!” He called out at the bandits’ lord.
Barek hisses something unpleasant as he's wounded, gripping his axe he steps up and swings at the man who did it.
Hacking into the pest nastily.
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Amadeen stops just behind Jorin, cackling away.
Jorin moves forward and starts pushing the gate open.
"--damn," Johund grunts as the enormous club swings at his face. But Hanspur protects him and club bounces off of his iron-hard skin.
With no time to praise the many virtues of the River Rat, Johund instead slams both his daggers down into the hulking man's neck, just above his collar bones. The poor sap starts to choke on his own blood even before Johund rips the blades free... the onslaught is too much and the man collapses.
Barek hisses something unpleasant as he's wounded, gripping his axe he steps up and swings at the man who did it. Hacking into the pest nastily.
Eluvias staggered forward as he was hit in the back by the Stag Lord. A look of annoyance crossed his face.
He spun around at the bandit who had nearly hit him and slashed his electricity-covered blade across the man’s throat. Not deigning to watch the body fall, he pointed his blade at the Stag Lord. ”You’re next!” He called out at the bandits’ lord.
The Stag Lord starts sending a volley of shots towards Eluvias...
...aided by his bandits.
The two bandits by the front gate struggle against Jorin but start putting the bar in place.
Amadeen
Jorin Fortune!!!
Johund Fortune!!!
Barek
Eluvias
Bandits Light Blue -7 HP
Running through a hail of arrows, Eluvias’ blade jumped to life. Electricity swirled around the blade as he chanted the mystic words needed...and then once he reached the Stag Lord he struck!
Amadeen takes a genteel step forward and looks at one of the bandits struggling with Jorin.
She grins widely, cackles, then stares him in the eyes. Much like a mongoose transfixing a snake.
Johund charges the bandit before Barek, driving his blade to its hilt in the man's back.
Amadeen takes a genteel step forward and takes notes of where the sounds are coming from.
She grins widely, cackles, then begins to hack and cough.
And then she retches forth a stream of spiders, who begin clambering up and over the gate. Straight towards the bandit on the other side.
Barek swings at Byrdon again.
Amadeen takes a genteel step forward and takes notes of where the sounds are coming from.
She grins widely, cackles, then begins to hack and cough.
And then she retches forth a stream of spiders, who begin clambering up and over the gate. Straight towards the bandit on the other side.
Jorin isn't able to match the strength of the two humans.
Johund charges the red bandit before Barek, driving his blade to its hilt in the man's back. The man collapses to the ground.
Barek swings at another bandit but misses.
Running through a hail of arrows, Eluvias’ blade jumped to life. Electricity swirled around the blade as he chanted the mystic words needed...and then once he reached the Stag Lord he struck!
The Staglord whistles at the sparking blade protruding from him and calmly whistles? Another man moves up and tries to strike at Eluvias but misses him.
The Staglord slashes at Eluvias while he is distracted driving with his first strike through the Elf's midsection.
The rest of the bandits start firing at Johund and Barek managing to get a solid hit on Barek.
Amadeen
Jorin Fortune!!!
Johund Fortune!!!
Barek
Eluvias
Bandits Light Blue -7 HP, Wine -6HP, Stag Lord -31HP
Eluvias looked down at the blade in his chest. It was a bad wound to be sure. He thought to himself That isn’t good.
Most people would have screamed. Most people would have died. The Stag Lord must have thought one of the two would have happened. Instead, with unnatural calmness, Eluvias struck back.
"Barek, unlock ter door! We need t'others n'here now!"
"Nooo!" Johund screams as he sees Eluvias spitting blood. He races to the stairs in an effort to help his ally.
Amadeen cackles while tapping herself with a wand, and commanding the swarm to move along the length of the door - to where the sounds of another bandit struggling to keep the door closed can be heard.
Barek is bleeding heavily but realizes the wisdom of Johund's call and rushes to the gate, grabbing the bar and lifting it off to let the gate open.
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Amadeen cackles while tapping herself with a wand, and commanding the swarm to move along the length of the door - to where the sounds of another bandit struggling to keep the door closed can be heard... replaced by screams and then silence.
Jorin gets the gate open with Barek's help.
"Barek, unlock ter door! We need t'others n'here now!"
"Nooo!" Johund screams as he sees Eluvias spitting blood. He races to the stairs in an effort to help his ally.
Eluvias looked down at the blade in his chest. It was a bad wound to be sure. He thought to himself That isn’t good.
Most people would have screamed. Most people would have died. The Stag Lord must have thought one of the two would have happened. Instead, with unnatural calmness, Eluvias struck back before collapsing. The imposing figure of the Stag Lord throws his head back exulting in triumph and pain.
The Stag Lord lifts his bow and fires a single arrow at Johund "Another sacrifice comes to the altar of war."
The arrows of lesser bandits, bounce off or get stuck in Johund's armour.
The last bandit who helped bring Eluvias to his grave ducks down out of sight before slinking off.
Amadeen
Jorin Fortune!!!
Johund Fortune!!!
Barek
Eluvias -1 Bleeding Out
Bandits Wine -6HP, Stag Lord -62HP
Amadeen sees the gate open and rushes forward, seeking cover. Finding it, she goes quiet except for almost mumbled syllables. She ignores the spider swarm for now, leaving them to crawl over the slain bandit, his mouth still agape in terror.
And then a shower of sparkling, golden dust falls all over the bandits and the stag lord. Perhaps the last thing they will see.
Johund stumbles as the arrow slams into him, but utters a prayer to Hanspur to stem the flow of blood, and keeps on running.
Then he's up the stairs, standing beside Eluvias and the Stag Lord, staring into the eyes behind that hideous stag skull, reaching around the Stag Lord with one arm to draw him near, and then his dagger is slipping easily under the folds of the armor, drawing forth a groundswell of hot, scarlet blood that drips down to the scaffolding.
Johund whispers in his ear. "Sod off."
Amadeen sees the gate open and rushes forward, seeking cover. Finding it, she goes quiet except for almost mumbled syllables. She ignores the spider swarm for now, leaving them to crawl over the slain bandit, his mouth still agape in terror.
And then a shower of sparkling, golden dust falls all over the bandits and the stag lord. Perhaps the last thing they will see.
Jorin moves in trying to catch the Stag Lord in his in his bolas but it hits off the walkway.
Johund stumbles as the arrow slams into him, but utters a prayer to Hanspur to stem the flow of blood, and keeps on running. Then he's up the stairs, standing beside Eluvias and the Stag Lord, staring into the eyes behind that hideous stag skull, reaching around the Stag Lord with one arm to draw him near, and then his dagger is slipping easily under the folds of the armor, drawing forth a groundswell of hot, scarlet blood that drips down to the scaffolding.
Johund whispers in his ear. "Sod off."
Barek moves up the stairs.
As Eluvias lays on the ground his wounds clot.
Johund feels a blade pressing through his thick armour but it saves him from the worst of it. "Coming at us one by one isn't so clever." The bandit who helped take down Eluvias sneers.
The Staglord repeatedly stabs Johund but the Staglord is out of breath and close to falling. Johund falls to the ground with much blood dripping from the walkway very likely dead.
Johund drives his blade into the Staglord who collapses from the walkway. The bandits in panic begin fleeing making running jumps over the palisade from the elevated position, at least those do that can see.
Combat Over
Shortsword x12 5gp to sell each
Spear x5
Leather Armour x12 5gp to sell each
Composite Longbow (Str +2) x17
50ft of Hemp Rope x4
+1 Leather Armour
+1 Longsword
+1 composite longbow (+2 Str)
Amulet of natural armor +1
Stag’s helm-Magic Item
Alchemists Fire x14
Potion of cure moderate wounds X3
Potion of lesser restoration
Silver Stag Lord Amulet x8 20gp each
Knight and dragon toys worth 45 gp in all
13,509gp in coins, jewellery and trade goods
Pewter belt buckle depicting a pair of entwined succubi worth 30 gp
Silver charm bracelet worth 60 gp.
In the bedroom of the Staglord you find a journal sparsely entered into. It begins in shaky handwriting seemingly shortly after an even that turned his life into a new direction. A woman of unearthly beauty visited him. Prior to this he seemed like a common thug, a disappointment to his father a Druid of the Green Faith. After receiving the ladies 'favor' he set out to become her king and conquer the Stolen Lands. He found his body and mind strengthened in the coming months with the focus he felt.
There are also some notes on the Brevoy, your own group and the other expeditions. They are limited but it shows you were of interest to him as threats and a number of half concocted plans to kill you in ambushes or using catspaws had been considered by him.
Amadeen runs into the camp, racing to where Eluvias has fallen. She ignores the stumbling and fleeing bandits in her haste to assist her ally.
Two strikes later, he looks well enough to reawaken.
She gives the elf's prone chest a poke with the tip of her boot.
"Oi, sleepyhead! Time to get up! We've won!"
Johund chases after the blind bandit, tackling him and binding him for questioning later.
Then, Johund kneels beside Eluvias as he sits up, slapping him on the shoulder too hard, but delivering a dose of divine power. "Ha! Thought they'd kill us so easy, they did! Didn't know ter Rat'd sent some'f 'is sharpest teeth to claim this hunk 'o cheese!"
Eluvias opened his eyes as the healing magic flowed through him. Looking up he saw Amadeen and Johund. He sat up, and saw the body of the staglord dying in a pool of blood. Both his and the bandit’s.
”Thank you.” He said, sincerely. ”I thought that I was going to die.” He continued, flatly. ”An unpleasant experience, to be sure.” Eluvias got to his feet, and began to use his magic to clean the blood and gore off of himself. As he did so, he said ”What do we do from here? The land is ours, but what if it’s people?”
"I didn't see it all, but given how quickly you've both taken down enemies before I gather that the Stag Lord took a lot more killing than usual!"
She looks around at the fort.
"Well, we now have our own fort if we want it. And as for the people, I think they'll see benefits of having us in charge rather than bandits and kobolds!"
As ye examine the fort you can see it's built on the ruins of an older structure as a foundation, it still bears scorch marks possibly indicating it was burned down in a fire.
Some of the Stag Lords goods were he in an underground room, a part of the old ruins which survives intact, a door at the back of this room leads to another. This new room is only partially excavated with a few tools and a mosaic of a cities landscape in silhuette with the sky overhead in shades of yellow, perhaps representing a twilight hour.
Johund hauls the bound bandit before them, tossing him unceremoniously onto the dusty floor of the partially excavated room.
"Well?" He asks. "We doin' this ter easy way 'o ter harder way? Tell us what ter Stag Lord were up to, and what's so special 'bout this place of all places?"
He listens as Amadeen recites the contents of the journal. "'n who's this lady?"
"He just used to make some of the lads dig up the basement, more room for storage was my thinking. It's a good spot to set up we were fortifying it."
"I don't know anything about a lady."
"Aye, but he had to have other plans besides digging up a few old rooms. What was his big picture?"
As the others interrogated the bandit, Eluvias idly asked ”Are we recruiting these bandits or are we killing them when we are finished with them?”
He said this without even a hint of compassion. It was a purely academic question, and he didn’t care either way. ”I suppose it depends on how useful they are? Has this one provided any usable information yet? I was going to see what would happen when I mixed electricity and flames together, but that was before the Stag Lord impaled me. If we aren’t going to use this one, I could still see the results of the experiment.”
"Wait wait. He was getting more money and men. From here he was going to expand across the Greenbelt. We needed to show the trappers and hunters who was boss. Look the boss had a lot of plans but for the moment that was all we needed to know."
"Better! Now, what to do with you?" , Amadeen muses.
"He said recruiting? You could do that or let us go. We wont cause you any more trouble."
"It won't be banditry. If that's a problem, you can get out of our sight. And the land."
Amongst the goods taken by the bandits Svetlana's ring is nowhere to be found. One of the bandits remembers a ring like that but claims it went missing, every now and again a small item like that would disappear but he doubted any of the men so brazenly took it, they were all afraid of the Staglord.
"Hmmm. Anyone else pass through the camp lately?"
I'm going to speak with the others after this.
"Just some of the others that work for him, but once word gets out I think they'll not be sticking around."
"Yeah, that's not a bad idea. We're taking over and I don't blame someone for wanting to leg it. But banditry is over and there are kobolds to smack into line."
Ideas are brewing in Amadeen's head.
After exploring the land around the Stag Lords and resting for the night your group sets out by a different route north knowing at leasts the most organised resistance against you is dispatched you are aware the lands of the Greenbelt are still far from tamed.
You head north exploring this area and find the Shrike and the Thorn River meet.
You find a spot where the Thorn River grows unusually shallow just before it empties into the Shrike. The resulting ford is never deeper than three feet.
Following the Thorn River to the North West you come across a
The Thorn River winds through a twenty foot deep gulch here between a pair of hills. An old wooden bridge spans the gulch, allowing passage over the river provided that not many attempt it at once. The bridge can support one creature at a time, and groans and creaks ominously while it does. Clearly it has received no maintenance for some time.
Looming over all the hills in the northern Kamelands, a graying hulk of a sycamore tree clings precariously to its last years of life. The 100-foot-tall tree is a well-known landmark and is visible for miles around—but is also well known to be infested with mites.
You find a hidden entrance, which consists of a root-lined shaft that drops ten feet down into a tunnel.
The river and bridge are not so difficult to bypass for Amadeen, being fairly deft on her feet. She enjoys the relatively peaceful trip back. She glances at the sycamore without much in the way of concern.
Eluvias walked along, lost in thought. He had nearly died. And what bothered him was the knowledge that he didn’t care. He knew that was wrong. And he knew that this wasn’t always the case. He had changed after finding the blade. It was as if though he was slowly deteriorating, until there would be nothing left. Except, perhaps, for the blade. He decided, as they marched, that he would have to learn the truth. It would take time, and it would take resources. But he had little other choice. Fortunately, this group seemed to be making their own kingdom. And he was in a position to become a magister for the fledgling state. A position which would allow him to pursue this line of research.
Barek was unsure of this Kingdom business, he'd joined up to make some gold and see the world prior to settling down somewhere he could stand. But the people around here needed someone in charge, someone who was more concerned with peace and building rather than someone like the selfish, greedy nobles back in Brevoy.
'If you're going to moan about the nobles then you better be ready to step up and do something yourself!' He finally decides ruefully.
"Hold up!" He calls softly to the others when he spots the hidden entrance under the tree. "Looks like somethings lairing there?"
Your group begins encountering small fey but the diminutive mites quickly start to be dispatched. You uncover a kobold that they seem to have captured and tormenting, he is currently unconscious but alive.
A statuete depicts a crouching horned devil. The statue is nonmagical, but worth 250 gp for its crafsmanship.
The paper weighed down by the statuette is an accounting of the status of a 'war', as defined by key pieces of stolen treasure. Written in charcoal in Undercommon, the paper consists of two columns, one labeled “Us” and one labeled “Them.” The “Us” column lists only two things: “kobold statue” and “lots of spears and coins.” The “Them” column lists “magic dust,” “lots of coins” and “shiny human ring.”
12 Small spears
193 cp, 120 sp, and 32 gp.
Well now, ain't this fine?
Lord Struckland has a nice ring to it, don't it? What would his maw have to say to see her boy grow up to claim an entire Fort and surrounding lands?
Well, if this was to be their land, there'd need to be some improvements made. "This bridge won't do, no sir. Men need to cross, they do, and I'll see this crossing repaired. Safe travel on our soil!"
Keep out the likes of me, he thinks with a sly grin.
___________
Johund wipes the last of fey blood from the hilt of his dagger, where he had used it to smash some. "Pesky bugs! Now! What's this chicken scratch?" He offers the paper to the others as he begins to count the coins. "Maybe this little kobold'll know. Shall we wake em?"
Amadeen mulls over what she remembers of fey from her upbringing in the forests, as she steps over their corpses.
Once someone has read out the note , she stops mulling and starts yelling.
"Oi, kobold! We've rescued you from the fey! We want to know what the story is with this 'war'."
If she does not receive an understandable response in common, she'll switch to draconic. A loud draconic.
The kobold is roused by your yelling but only responds when Amadeen speaks draconic, he does however respond in a chirping common. "It's those stupid mite, they keep stealing our things. Our Shaman Tartuk says we must kill them. I am Mikmek of the Sootscale tribe. We made an attack on their lair here, we killed some but they captured me. You have my thanks. The nasty mites stole our sacred statue. If you bring it back Chief Sootscale will give you many treasures."
Descended from even smaller fey, the mites are among the most pitiful and craven dwellers of the dark. Hideously ugly, even goblins have been known to mock mites for their homely appearances, mockery most mites take to heart and nurture for weeks, months, or even years in their tiny homes, until their distress and anger finally overcome their natural cowardice and impel them forth on short-lived bouts of bloody vengeance from the doubtful safety of a spider’s back.
Mites, once closer to the strange realm of the fey, have grown larger and stockier after countless generations spent on the Material Plane. Yet still, their stature places them at the bottom of the pile in the dangerous caverns in which they live. Their traditional enemies are dwarves and gnomes, particularly the svirfneblin of the deep underground caves. The one thing that gives them a significant edge over an enemy in a fight is their natural ability to empathize with normally mindless vermin—mites are particularly fond of spiders, centipedes, and cave fishers, and a mite colony usually has a few of these far more dangerous monsters on hand to defend the group.
In a more measured common, Amadeen responds:
"Yeah, mites are vengeful, spiteful nuisances who get on well with giant spiders, centipedes and other vermin. I'm okay with cutting them down. So where is this Sootscale tribe? Any call phrases that will let them know we're friends?"
"Come with me and they'll let you in, once I let them know you've returned the statue there will be many treasures. Shiny gems and things."
After their close encounter with the Stag Lord Corpse, Johund's wary.