Kelgan shakes his head. "No good. That will take too long. You sneak closer if you wish, but I'm getting their attention now. No telling how long that poor sod in the rubble is going to last once the ogres wise up."
As with the drakes, he sets his tower shield in front of him and props it up with his glaive in the notch on the side. He loads his heavy crossbow and braces it on top of the shield, making a stable firing platform. This takes him a few moments, giving his allies that wish to hide an opportunity to do so.
Then, using methods developed by generations of brigands and highwaymen in his culture, he steadies his aim and fires.
"Hyah!" he calls out, in challenge to the ogres as he reloads and prepares to fire again .
You're about 100 yards upslope when you decide to unload on them; even with a -4 for distance, your bolt smacks nicely into one of them, prompting a cry. It quickly turns and scans for an attacker; seeing your tower shield, it begins slogging its way up the hill. The blinded ogre is still stumbling about; one of the rock-throwers keeps at that, and the fourth seems uncertain whether it should throw rocks or march upslope.
"Catch this!"
Alchemists fire
Ranged touch attack On a hit deals
a miss deals 1 of splash damage
Jaegr will advance a bit ahead "I'll try and keep them off of you"
Wyvurn will follow Kelgan's lead and take a shot with his composite longbow before disappearing into the various rocks and shadowing Jaegr.
Cricket pops his head out from where he is hiding and sees that all of his companions have advanced without him.
He hastens to catch up.
And rolls for initiative:
Caspian's slung flask hurles among the monsters. The one advancing up the slope takes it head-on; on contact it explodes into flame, eliciting a bellow from the ogre. It is quickly followed by a cloth-yard shaft fired by the hobgoblin, who disappears again into cover far more swiftly than any normal archer should be able to do. Cricket scurries ahead, sideways, and back into cover, moving stealthily up to within spell range.
Jaegr gets impatient, "I'm getting tired of waiting for these brutes to get here!"
The other ogres grow dimly aware that their companion is under attack. The blinded one is still blinded, but the indecisive one now comes lumbering up the slope to get in on this new fun.
Jaegr, assume you act first when they/you finally reach each other.
Wyvurn will continue the routine. Not sure how close the orge coming towards us is now, so there probably is still a range penalty.
As the ogre draws near, Jaegr uses his training against larger creatures to good use.
AC 26 HP 51/42 (9 Temp)
The ogre comes wading through a hail of arrows and fire, weakening all the way, and is finally struck down by Jaegr's pick, just as he reaches the top of the hill.
The second one isn't far behind; pausing to pick up a rock, he hefts it at Jaegr on the way up (as the goblins are nowhere to be seen):
The third, hearing his companion's death screams, leaves off throwing rocks at the rockpile and begins to climb the ridge as well.
The blinded ogre attempts to follow, but the terrain is too much; he stumbles off a cliff and fails to survive the impact.
Caspian begins to inspire, starting moves like Jaegr.....just as the first one meets the pickaxe in question......
As the rock sails by, Jaegr moves downhill to attack the Ogre
Wyvurn will continue to snipe the third ogre that is still a ways off.
[occ]I am totally lost on initiative order. Someone gimme a shout when it's my turn.[/ooc]
Well, lacking any missile weapons and still unrecovered from last night's scary, spell-denying dream, Cricket will sit this combat out unless the ogres get up the hill.
Cricket obviously has a higher Wis score than he pretends to!
To make a long story short:
The ogres trudge up the hill, fired upon by Kelgan's crossbow and Wyvern's Incredible Invisible Bow, and eventually reach the top, where Jaegr mashes them and Cricket conks them on the head with a shillelegh and/or frying pan. Without Caspian's performance, it would take an extra round; with his support, it's pure butchery.
Not that you feel too bad about it; you have a score to settle with a group of ogres.
A female voice calls out from the rockpile: "Who are you people? State your names and lineage!"
"I'm Jaegr of the Dverge. The ogres have been taken care of, you can come out of there."
A small elven woman, dark-haired, emerges cautiously from the rocks; she holds a wand in front of her.
"I had no idea mountain dwarves were venturing out of their burrows now," she said. "No matter; I appreciate your timely aid. I am Miralda of the Timberfells, daughter of..." (goes off on a bunch of begats you don't care about) "... and cousin to Delmar Fenrift, who sent me here. I followed you from Skarn Keep, and was pretty sure I wasn't being followed in turn... until those ogres attacked me. I'm not clear on the logistics, but I think they were sent after you."
Looking at the corpses, "Obviously whoever sent them badly underestimated you."
Jaegr bristles a bit when she mentions his home as a burrow, but puts it aside for now, "Someone did us a kindness then of sending us ogres to rid the world of. Why were you following us again?"
She walks up the hill, stoppiong to fire a magic missile from her wand into one of the ogre corpses.
Indicating Kelgan, she says, "This guy was supposedly on some kind of B.S. diplomatic mission to the lizardfolk tribes, so I was trying to follow up on the kidnapping of cousin Delmar's daughter. There's an old grudge between him and a priest named Donaldson. Looking into Donaldson, I couldn't find him, but learned he had some truck with a very sinister guy named Dispar Anasovin -- a necromancer who keeps his soul separate from his body somehow, and who wants bring back the Elder Gods through blasphemous sacrifices... you know, that sort of stuff. I guess his mommy didn't love him."
She smiles a bit self-consciously, then continues, "There are rumors in the village of Wolvishton, that the places is under three curses laid by Anasovin. I immediately discounted these rumors and figured I'd have better luck looking into the kind of places an insane necromancer would favor, and Skarn Keep is of course high on the list -- the third such place I checked, in fact. But when I got there I saw you guys, and then you left without going in -- I figured you knew something I didn't."
"I didn't want to be eaten."
Miralda has apparently been shaken by what she saw, or else has a very high opinion of everything you say, or maybe both.
"Wait -- is there something in the keep that would have eaten you? When I saw you pull back from there and head for the linnorm's tarn, I figured you were luring something else there to get eaten!"
I am Cricket, Honored Brother of the Tuelvi, and Speaker of Dreams for Old Mother Tree. Wassup.
Cricket's eyes kinda glaze over for the rest of the conversation when he sees that Miralda is a girl elf. After a bit, he gets bored and starts looking through the dead ogres' pocketses.
At the end of the search, Cricket's rich haul consists of 16 pieces of pocket lint, 12 lice, and 5 copper pieces.
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Cricket eats the lice for the extra protein.
"Whatever is in the keep is more dangerous than some run of the mill cultists. With walls of bones and malevolent creatures of spirit guarding the outer areas, it was obvious that only our deaths awaited inside."
"So, that's probably his new headquarters, then; I think that's safe to assume. But then why isn't he doing anything? Presumably, if he were inside performing some dread ritual to destroy the cosmos or whatever, there would be some signs of impending doom, but it just looks like a normal cloudy day. If he were gathering troops to conquer the world, one would expect to see them massing and assembling and whatever troops do -- but all there are were some skeletons patrolling mindlessly."
"So I don't think he's home. Which makes me wonder where he is, and what he's doing."
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"Cricket's our peeping Tom and bath-house bandit, if anyone knows what a man's doing in his secret chambers it would be Cricket."
"Tell you what -- I'm a bit nervous about sleeping this close to the linnorm, but let's travel a little ways and get some rest. If you're willing, I'd like to stop into Wolvishton and look into these so-called 'curses' and see if they provide any clues. Wait -- cancel that. It looks like you guys are a step ahead of me, so if I can assist you in whatever you're up to, I think that would be a priority. I have some small arcane skills, but I expended my last spell on those ogres and haven't been able to prepare more."
Wyvurn comes back from the ledge checking to see if the ogre that fell is still moving. He toes the other two that Miralda didn't fire a magic missile into to make sure they are dead.
"I don't like being followed, by ogres or elf girls. We had a companion from the lizard tribes that was overcome with grief once he saw his village slaughtered. It wasn't a BS diplomacy mission. That being said, when we found the keep instead of your kin, we headed back to find aid in tearing down the abomination and whatever is in it.
If you think we can find that help in Wolvishton, then we're with you and welcome you as a traveling companion."
Wyvurn says the rest in high elven.
"Keep up the verbal jabs at my friends, though, and I'd worry about sleeping too close to me."
Her eyes open wider as Wyvurn speaks, and she studies the hobgoblin carefully before lowering her gaze.
"Forgive me, sir Anhardd -- you are right. Sometimes I forget that out here, all men and elves and dwarves are equal, and must be addressed as such. I can only plead fatigue and resolve to be more diplomatic henceforth. I would be grateful if we could pool our resources -- in finding this aid you speak of first, if you feel that's a better course."
In Tuelvi, Cricket sez S'okay, milady.
Back in Common, I don't care what we do as long as we get far enough away from that undead castle so that I can get a good night's sleep and prepare some spells.
Aw-oo-oo chimes in Wolvie.
"Truthfully our plan was simply to put as much distance between us and that keep as possible and warn folks along the way. The other part was to warn a powerful wizard that one or the other of the two threats might be something he would be interested in."
She smiles selfconsciously. "I'm no powerful wizard, that's for sure," she says. "And in truth the only one I know personally never leaves her tower in western Aviona, so I can be of no help there. As for warning people, certainly Count Fenrift needs to know of this as soon as can be, but I feel the other folk nearby -- like those in Wolvishton village -- should be told as well, especially if we can do so on the way back to Fenrift Keep without overmuch delay."
"Mayhap a powerful wizard could warn them all at once with a spell, but I have no such power."
"Wolvishton seems like a good bet to me. And apology accepted. I think we shall get along fine. But warning folks isn't enough. We need a way to strike at this necromancer."
Miralda seems to be keeping dismay in check. "The rumor is that Dispar Anasovin hid his soul in a phylactery -- while it is safe, he cannot be killed. Strike him down by running him through the heart, and he gets right back up. Crush his head like an eggshell and he can still function. Hold him under the sea and he simply waits until he can get free again. So striking at him may not be so simple, even by warriors as daughty as yourselves."
She frowns. "Hopefully just old wives' tales. My expertise in the darker phases of necromancy is scant, but I suspect it might be possible."
In Wood Elf she says to Cricket, "What is your opinion, Sachem?"
In Common:
Sounds like some serious shiznit to me. I, uh, think we should go to Wolvishton, too, warn people, find that wizard Caspian mentioned, and, uh, kill the lich?
Cricket trembles and, secretly, rolls Sense Motive, which is now Bluff, which he doesn't have any ranks in, alas.
Miralda doesn't appear to be bluffing -- and, based on her interactions with Wyvurn, doesn't seem to have much inclination or capacity to do so. She was fervently hoping that Cricket knew more about this kind of stuff than she does.
"I don't think he's a lich, exactly -- or at least I hope not, yet! I mean that, technically, he'd probably be considered 'alive.' Although that's an interesting philosophical question that I once discussed with a priestess of Wee Jas..."
"That is something we can look into in Wolvishton...have they a sage or a library?'
Miralda chuckles. "I've never been there, personally, but from what I hear they have a tavern, some farmhouses, and maybe a smithy."
Miralda looks as if she's chasing a stray thought, then shrugs and closes her mouth. Whatever it was, she's not able to remember it.