Malthu realizes that he should be targeting the lizard's soft underbelly, and manages to stick a spear into the beast, ending its life quickly.
Grod fires a crossbow bolt at the orc in front of Yver , then reloads his crossbow and whistles for Cera to return to him.
Crit?
The bolt takes the blue orc in the eye, and it drops.
Shivarra turns her attention to the last enemy still uninjured, attempting to hex it.
Yverstrix looks at the orc that managed to break a section of the barricade with a curious look on his face, muttering, "I know I'm after being a mite winded, but it looks like you're made of sterner stuff than that I flattened -- ", then stops as the orc falls backward, a bolt where his eye was. "-- slightly sterner stuff, that is," he finishes his thought with a chuckle as he goes through the hole using his body to fill the gap as he steps over the fallen orc's corpse and attacks its unwounded companion.
for
Orange swings a double axe at Yverstrix, and back again, but suffers from the misfortune of Shivarra's hex (and some bad dice rolls!)
Pink takes a swing at Omast, but his armor prevents the blade from cutting him.
Grod casts the crossbow aside once and gain and motions for his companion to follow. Then he dashes for the last orc, drawing his greatsword as he goes. The half-orc and his rhino bracket the axe-wielding orc and attack.
Grod:
Cera:
As you defeat the last orcs, and struggle to prepare for the next wave, the engineers fix the portcullis and bring it back down! The area is now secure.
You can still hear the sounds of war around you, but this might be a good time and place to take a bit of a rest and re-group.
When you are ready, there is still another fire to light on the other side of the wall.
Omast nods. "You all did good work today. I thought I was a goner. Now, you get to that last beacon as soon as you can, and I will round up some more help to hold here."
You collect the useful items from the orcs.
leather armor (4)
hide armor
studded leather armor (18)
falchion (19)
javelins (75)
dagger (3)
orc double axe
pilums (9)
shotel (3)
composite shortbow (+3 Str) with 20 arrows
scabbard of honing
potions of cure light wounds (5)
acid (2)
antitoxin (3)
caltrops
alchemist’s fire(7)
smokesticks
tanglefoot bag
45 gp
(added to loot sheet. Anything you don't want we can sell off when you have a chance.)
Yver leans heavily against his hammer, then motions toward a healing potion, "I'd not be minding one of those... or another kiss from the wand."
Breathing heavily, Grod nods. "Yes, I could as well." As Cera trots up beside him, he scratches her behind the ears. "We all could, I think."
The doctor sits down heavily, bumping the seat of his pants on the dusty courtyard and breathes heavily - not through exertion as Yver and Grod might - but through sheer exasperation and rising panic.
Now that the fight was over, for now at least, black shadows were closing in on the sides of his vision, threatening to fill all that he saw. In a disconnected manner, he realised that he was having a panic-attack. He thought back to the very first Osirion tomb he had visited back as an undergraduate.
It wasn't much of an archaeological dig, in truth it was more of a tourist attraction by that point. And yet it still filled him with wonder. But as he was examining the delicate wall paintings in the treasure-room the short corridor linking that to the outer hall suddenly collapsed and sand begin pouring in.
The rest of the team dug their way through within half an hour but in those minutes he felt his chest tighten and the blood pounding in his ears. That was how he felt now. Trapped. With sand pouring in all around him.
Shivarra sets about patching up the group's wounds once more.
"Get the valuables from that pile. The bow, definitely, and all the flasks - that stuff tends to fetch a nice price," she prods the fighters who are free for the moment. "We'll have to go back and pick up the loot stashes we've left later, but I'd be surprised if at least half of those aren't picked clean by the time we get to it, so best not leave the good stuff behind."
Grod nods and begins pocketing flasks. When he comes to the scabbard, he looks it over for a minute. "Hmm. Not sure my sword'll fit, but let's see." he plunges his sword into the scabbard, and marvels as it grows to fit the blade. "Fancy." Testing the bow he says "Doc I think this one might be a little stiff for you. Yver, Malthu, anybody want a bow?"
...mwah?.. Sam mumbles incoherently as Grod says something about a bow or some such.
Yver shrugs, "I'm after carrying a sling for hunting... And I'd rather be meeting my foes at the end of my axe or hammer..."
Healed and better armed, you look at the gate and the wall to climb over. Clearly carrying a rhino over the wall will be a problem.
Eventually, you convince the watch to raise the gate long enough for Cera to get through, while the rest of you guard the area by climbing over the wall first.
You head towards the Hopespring to light the last fire.
Sam stumbles along, his mind and heart racing, wondering just how badly cut out he is for this hero lark.
He moves up on shaking legs to the wall of the building closest to the fire, hoping to cover his companions as they move up to light it.
Malthu and Yverstrix notice a yellow-white powder coating the logs and stones of the fire pit.
It looks all clear. Can one of you light it? I'll....um... cover you. That's the phrase isn't it..?
Yver nods, "It might be that, but they weren't after saying anything about powder... I'd be thinking pitch or oil would be easier. Anyone have any idea what it might be?"
The witch squints at the logs, examining the powder, and swears vociferously.
"Explosives, that's what it is. The kind that's set off by fire. Anyone's guess if there will be enough of the pit left to produce meaningful signal fire if we try to light it - and we're doing that from cover well away or not at all."
Doesn't that mean it's a trap then? They must know we want to light these beacons and trapped this last one to deter us from doing so. I can try shooting a flaming arrow into the pile?
Yver asks, "Are we sure the explosion will burn and signal the others? Might be finding it a better idea to make a new fire that won't be exploding?"
Grod slowly backs away from the pile of logs and definitely doesn't reach for any torches. "Yeah, may as well try to light it up from a distance."
Well then let's do it. the doctor says, hoping that this day would just come to an end.
He wraps a piece of cloth around one of his arrows and uses a flint and steel to light it. It smoulders at first the then catches.
With the added weight of the wrapped cloth the bow feels unwieldily but he doesn't have to be hugely accurate and so he levels his aim and fires.
And with that, the bonfire explodes! Of course, had anyone been close to it, they would have been severely singed, but luckily you all escaped injury.
Good fortune also smiles upon you as the fire stays lit bright.
You have now successfully lit all of the fires, helping to turn the tide of this battle by taking away the darkness that was benefiting the invading orcs.
Trunauan guards arrive, but they are still threatened by flaming boulders launched from orc artillery behind the Barterstones outside the town.
"Someone needs to get out there and take out that catapult!"
Just to clarify, we are not yet in combat, but you can initiate it.
Sam moves to his right, the massive boulders blocking his line of fire and as he rounds it he hopes the numbers of enemies are nothing like their previous encounter
Yverstrix says, "Let's go... though I'm wondering if we can't be turning it against the attackers? Not that I mind smashing it"
"Eh, big catapult like that probably can't hit moving targets very well. They can use it against Trunau's buildings, but we probably wouldn't be able to hit anything." Grod says.
Malthu determines the barricade isn't difficult to climb over (1 extra square of movement to do so). But it will prevent a charge.
Yverstrix rushes past Malthu, using his long stride to devour the distance, leaping up onto the barricade, drawing his long hammer as he slides down the other side.
He plants himself solidly, then calls out to the Orcs manning the catapult, "Oy! You lot! If you're looking for a fight you have a chance at winning, right now there's after being a lot of you and just one of me. Soon, you'll be both overmatched and outnumbered, and that won't be ending well... If you were being smart, you should just be running...."
He smiles and hefts the weapon, "But I'm thinking we all know that's not the case."
With the massive boulder and some of his team-mates between him and the enemy, his shot is more hopeful than anything else.
Shivarra picks up her pace to catch up with the fighters in the front.