Connor collapses out of the saddle.
Larisa reloads a bolt into her weapon and fires on the troll, "Connor!" she yells fearfully.
Seres winces at seeing Connor take the heavy blow.
"Hargulka! You need to go check under your bed... you forgot something there," Seres calls out as he focuses fey magic upon the armored troll.
"Larisa, I can't get to Connor! You have to save him!" shouts Veronica as she draws her morningstar and ditches her bow.
Larisa grips the Green Man's Ankh around her neck. "Green Man, I call on you. You promised to come to my assistance, please I need you!"
Ezekial manages to slash Hargulka as he charges past.
Larisa fires a bolt through Hargulka's shoulder as she calls upon the divine power of her patron - the Green Man.
Between Sere's arrows and Larisa's bolt the armored troll now is pierced by five shafts. He takes a step back and begins to totter.
Seres attempts to enchant Hargulka but the troll only appears momentarily bewildered.
Veronica draws her morningstar and prepares to engage the troll soldier attacking Ezekial.
Connor sags in his saddle as the last of his life blood drains. Cinder dances nervously knowing that her master will soon depart this world.
Ezekial slices the troll leader deep when it turns to face Veronica.
Hargulka withdraws and staggers away from the battlefield.
The troll soldier snarls and sinks both of its claws into Ezekial and begins rending his flesh . Ezekial recognizes this troll as one that he cut down back in the caverns.
The rock troll shambles towards Ezekial and pounds at him with a gem encrusted fist, but the rogue's armor pads the blow.
Connor's wounds mysteriously stabilize - anchoring his soul before it can take flight. The stricken beast rider is momentarily infused with the green energy of creation as his wounds mend and his body is made whole. Connor then miraculously opens his eyes - he has returned to life, but has somehow changed irrevocably .
; E
;
;
; E
Having dropped his lance and shield when knocked unconcious, Connor comes alive with a gasp and a shudder casting about the battlefield. Cinder takes matters into her own hands sensing her rider's return and begins charging the fleeing troll leader. Connor comes around quickly, ripping his greataxe off his back in time to take a vicious swing at Hargulka.
Left to herself against a troll, Veronica makes one futile attempt to bash it and waits for the inevitable rending.
Seres holds his bow and concentrates, using magic to gain an intuitive sense of the future.
Larisa fires on one of the trolls, but misses.
Seres casts a spell on his bow.
Veronica smites the troll soldier with her morningstar.
The resurrected Connor sallies forward with new found vigor. Hargulka turns at the last second and sees his doom as the lance slams into him and pins him to the ground.
Ezekial slashes the soldier troll and dives.
The troll soldier turns and rips Veronica with one claw and clamps its jaws onto her right arm .
The rock troll dives at Connor and catches him with one claw .
; V
;
;
; C
;
Larisa fires on the troll attacking Veronica.
"Can anyone get a fire going before Hargulka gets back up?" Seres says, moving around Larisa and firing at the near troll.
;
Connor and Cinder full attack the adjacent troll.
"I have this torch!" says Veronica to Seres, nodding at the torch stuck in the ground at her feet (which she was using to light her incendiary arrows).
Facing down imminent death, Veronica grits her teeth and swings her morningstar again. There's nothing else she can do in the face of the troll's reaching claws.
Larisa reloads and fires on the marauding troll attacking Ezekial and Veronica, but she can't find a clear shot through the melee.
Seres releases the taut string of the double curved bow and the arrow flies with magical precision - hitting the troll square between the eyes. The troll howls in rage and turns its burning gaze a moment on the fey sorcerer before turning its attention to Ezekial.
Veronica uses the divine power of Erastil to again bash the troll soldier with her morningstar.
Connor and Cinder devastate the rock troll with a combination of axe, bite and hoof - dropping the brute to the ground. This time its gaping wounds will not soon heal.
Ezekial rolls back in to press the troll soldier, but he can't connect with his kukri.
The troll soldier turns and slams Ezekial with its massive balled fist .
; 1=E, 2=S, 3=V
;
;
;
Frustrated with her lack of accuracy Larisa focuses on the Troll of a moment and draws deep on her anger before she unleashes a string on insults at the Troll in Giant, weaving magic into the words.
Connor charges the remaining troll with his greataxe.
Seres keeps firing his bow...
;
Grimacing, he then charges the troll, yelling and circling counter-clockwise, hoping to distract it.
This is going to hurt!
"Veronica, the torch... now! Take it and run!"
Veronica ditches her morningstar and, hoping that Connor's mighty charge and the constant strikes of her allies will fell this troll, she yanks the torch out of the ground and rushes into position to the west.
The onslaught from Connor, Ezekial and Seres brings down the last troll. Veronica then efficiently ignites each troll as it lays twitching.
The last rays of the sun fade behind the western horizon and darkness envelops the forest. You are surrounded by silence and the glow from the fading embers of the incinerated trolls.
Larisa looks at the darkening sky as the Trolls burn. "That was close, praise Erastile." She says to no one in particular. "We should take shelter in the fort for the night, recover before we try and make the journey home." With a nervous look at Connor she mounts her horse. "How do you feel?" She asks the knight, moving up beside him.
Veronica breathes heavily as the last of the trolls ignite with a terrible stench.
"I was very, very worried there," she says. "Gather around, let Erastil bring refreshment to weary bodies."
Connor looks back at the smoldering body of the troll sorcerer in confusion.
"Pretty sure he bested me then ... I cant remember ... he was fleeing and i was fine. Something feels ... different."
Larisa looks guiltily at him. "You were dying, actually you were pretty much dead. So I called on the Green man to save you, I think he did something to you, imbued you with the first world maybe." She reaches over to touch him gently on the shoulder. "Sorry."
"Thought we'd lost you there for a second," Seres smiles at Connor.
A waft of smoke makes him wrinkle his nose at the stink of burning troll flesh. "That was tougher than expected. Hargulka was a magic-user! I think we should clear the inside... make sure there aren't any trapped prisoners or anything."
|
Yea Connor, betcha your gonna grow antlers or something similar now. Ezekial jests, making light of something that is likely not light at all. There maybe other enemies in that place. Are we strong enough to go back in? Even with Erastil's healing I am pretty beat up still. But if there might be prisoners I guess we gotta go back in. Lets make sure we have all that is valuable from these three first.
"I will scout the place invisibly. At least then we will know if any more threat remains."
"I feel you, Zeke, but we can't leave Jubilost in there ... assuming he is in there ... one moment longer with any living trolls. They may take him apart just to spite us. We must strike while the iron is hot. Seres, cast your spell and find out what's ahead for us."
Seres smiles and shrugs. "As you wish. You've got seven minutes. Be quick, and be silent," he says, then casts invisibility on Zeke.
As Zeke takes the potion to drink, Veronica squeezes his arm and says, "And be careful!"
Ezekial finds the caverns quiet and empty of any trolls.
Moving into the next unexplored room (R6), stacked boxes, barrels, crates, and bags fill this room from floor to ceiling and line the crude wooden shelves along the walls. A rough hole gapes in the southern wall, leading deeper into the hillside.
Left of the first fork (R7), the rough tunnel widens into a thirty-foot-high natural cavern hung with dripping stalagmites. Gnawed bones litter the floor, while the northern portion of the room holds a collection of severed, humanoid heads arranged around a large circle drawn on the floor with dried blood.
Right of the fork (R8), the floor of this wide cavern is littered with half a dozen pallets made of branches, leaves, and smelly, uncured hides.
Moving right the last fork (R9), the air in this cavern seems somewhat cooler than that of the rest of complex, but the stench of decaying flesh hangs heavy in the air. Along the walls are stacked the carcasses of dozens of beasts, from foxes and wolves to deer and elk, as well as a couple of horses and what appears to be a skinned bear. The southern portion of the room holds a grislier collection of corpses: the bodies of several humanoids, from gnomes and halflings to humans and elves. Most of the cadavers seem to have been decapitated.
Finally, left at the last fork (R10), The ceiling of this cavern arches thirty feet overhead. A wagon with its wheels removed sits against the eastern wall, heaped with smelly furs, and a single barrel stands in the southwest corner. Against the northern wall, a crude throne carved from a giant tree stump sits atop a makeshift dais made of boulders, with a large bearskin spread on the floor before it.
Veronica starts as Zeke speaks up invisibly upon his return, then lets out a sigh of relief.
"Well at least it's over with, unless there are trolls out hunting who will come back later," she says. "I don't know how well we'd fare against more of them."
Seres also sighs when Zeke returns, but he remains troubled. "No survivors?"
"Let's go see if we can identify the dead, then see to their cremation." He rolls up his robe and girds up for a long day.