Kellek observes the opening of hostilities, before casting a spell.
With a wave and word Kellek sets the field alight with flame.
Flo pushes through the reeds after Kargas. Can't see a damn thing!
With Kargas starting to balloon and the Ogrekin in sight, she skids to a halt. Then an inferno blazes between them. "Don't get reckless, the one in back seems to be scheming!" Before the Half-Orc manages to get too large, she slips a platinum ring on his finger. "Don't get any ideas now, I know whose got their eyes on you!" she teases.
________
---
The red ogrekin cowers at the heat radiating off the towering flames until his brother behind him shouts "GO AROUND YA IDIOT!" Red circles around Guiness and steps into the reeds. His spear stabs toward the dwarf, but Guiness' armor proves too sturdy.
The leader of the four takes this opportunity and distraction to rush forward and sweep his meathook at Guiness with surprising speed. However, he's no match for Guiness, who knocks the blow aside with Dragonfist.
|||| INIT ||||
Kargas
Kellek
Colvyn
Flo
Guiness
ogrekin (4 dmg)
hulking ogrekin
Kargas grins his thanks at Flo and darts forward through the flames, tendrils of flame clinging harmlessly to his body and falchion for a second. Orienting on the nearest ogrekin, Kargas gets to work putting him down.
Kargas blows past the hulking ogrekin's guard and cuts deep into his shoulder before pulling back. Guiness follows up on the distraction by landing a solid smash with Dragonfist and a headbutt. The ogrekin sways, badly injured, but doesn't fall.
|||| INIT ||||
Kargas
Kellek
Colvyn
Flo
Guiness
ogrekin (4 dmg)
hulking ogrekin (53 dmg)
Running around and behind the ogrekin, Flo pulls her pearlescent knife. "We've got him Guiness!" she insists, taking enough of a swipe at the creature to get him to giver her at least a fraction of its attention.
________
Colvyn moves around trying to find a target. When he gets one, he sends a single arrow flying.
Kellek's wall continues to toast the larger ogrekin, but doesn't manage to bring him down. The red ogrekin spins around to rake a spear across Flo's face. She's able to pull back just enough that the speartip passes an inch from her nose.
The larger brute takes a step toward Kargas and bellows in pain and anger as he swings his meathook left and right. The first swing catches the bloodrager's thigh and tears , the second Kargas manages to parry with his falchion.
|||| INIT ||||
Kargas (22 dmg)
Kellek
Colvyn
Flo
Guiness
ogrekin (22 dmg)
hulking ogrekin (57 dmg)
Colvyn take another steps to make his way around the wall of fire and fire more arows. "Back up is coming big guy!"
Kellek assesses the situation.
Guiness is short enough that if Flo were to give the giant-kin a good shove he should fall over into the flames.
Colvyn's second arrow skewers the smaller ogrekin through the throat. He drops his spear and pulls the arrow out with both hands, only to faint from blood loss a moment later. Guiness lands a solid smash upon the larger ogrekin with his hammer, misses a followup swing, and then delivers a headbutt to the ungainly creature's flank. The larger ogrekin howls as he falls to the ground. His hook drops from his grasp and soon he lies still.
Combat Over!
|||| STATUS ||||
Kargas (11 dmg)
Kellek
Colvyn
Flo (11 dmg)
Guiness
Kellek lets his concentration drift from the wall of fire.
"Kargas, I think we'll be ok with the injuries we sustained, but let me know if you disagree and I'll patch us up. I say we press on and clear both buildings before anyone else learns we're here," Flo says, eager to press on. Can't imagine anyone lasts long in the middle of nowhere without a little cunning in them...
Kellek will take a moment to cast detect magic and look at the bodies for auras.
Kellek's sense for magic picks up little from the smaller ogrekin, but the larger one is surprisingly well equipped. His massive meathook has been enchanted to strike more accurately , and underneath his leather vest you discover a crude straw doll that also appears magical . On one finger he has a wooden ring inscribed with a rough image of a crow and inside his vest are two grimy looking flasks that contain an sour alcoholic elixir that functions similarly to a healing potion .
Looking back to the northwest, Guiness doesn't spot any action from either the barn or the farmhouse. No other ogrekin appear to have noticed the combat despite how loudly the ones you killed were yelling. Or if they have noticed, they're not showing themselves.
While you watch ahead, the fire started by Kellek's burning wall is slowly smothered by the wet reeds and boggy soil.
|
Seeing no threat immediately issuing from the compound, Guiness looks to his companions. With Floredana and Kargas hurt, he offers each of them a swig from his holy flask of Cure Light Wounds ale (1d8+1 healing for each of you if you accept).
Noticing Kellek searching the bodies, Guiness will aid in trying to find any mundane treasures, asking the wizard, "Find anything interesting, Kellek?"
"Barn seems good, I won't be thirteen feet tall for much longer." Kargas waves off the offered flask and sets off towards the barn.
"Oh! Thank you Guiness, I'll have some," Flo says, taking the flask and tossing a bit back.
"Barn it is, let's go!"
________
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Looking over the bodies for more mundane treasures, Guiness finds little of value (a few spears and leather armors), but he does find that each of the smaller ogres has a small cloth doll stuffed with straw. All of the dolls are badly stained and reek with the smells of old moonshine.
---
You return back to the barn to find the front room empty. Mounds of hay lie along the walls along with piles of grain. In the center of the room is a large but crude still. Two catwalks rise up along the northern and southern walls, leading to doors near the ceiling in the east wall. Lower, a pair of massive doors, boarded over with thick timbers, would grant ground access to the room beyond.
As you step in, you also notice something that Colvyn couldn't see from the door earlier. Just inside the barn hangs a chain of keys on an old, rusty hook.
"Huh," Kargas grunts, picking up the ring of keys. "What do you go to?"
While Kargas grabs the keys, Flo creeps around carefully, taking it all in. Nothing outlandish, but something about this place makes my skin crawl...
________
Colvyn walks up to one of the catwalk. He inspect the door, and if nothing is amiss, he tries to open it a little to get a peek inside.
Kargas peeks over Colvyn's shoulder from the ground floor.
Flo and Kargas don't notice anything hidden or unusual on the ground floor of the first chamber of the barn, other than a few discarded wooden bowls among the hay that must have recently held moonshine from the still.
Up on the catwalk, Colvyn carefully inspects the door and doesn't spot any hazards or traps. He cracks the door open. The room beyond is almost completely dark - the only light coming in from the door he just opened. Thankfully, Colvyn's darkvision allows him to see clearly in the ill-lit chamber.
The majority of this large, stuffy chamber is filled with filthy webs which grow denser and heavier toward the center of the room. While the strands around the edges are thin enough to cut through them easily with any weapon, those near the center are thicker than your thumb and likely incredibly sticky. These central webs are dense enough that its difficult to see past them. A catwalk runs around the rim of the room near the ceiling, twenty feet above the ground. In northeast and southeast corners, the catwalk expands into a ten-foot-square platform that’s fenced in by iron beams, forming cages.
Within the northeastern cage, Colvyn spots the forms of three medium-sized humanoids huddled together in the furthest, northeastern corner. They lie slumped against each other and are wearing rags that obscure their forms. They don't react to the sudden light from the cracked-open door.
"Colvyn, if they aren't moving, are you willing to carefully check on them and the room? Might be a trap, might be trapped, might be prisoners," Flo suggests quietly behind her friend. "Webbing gives me pause. Nothing Kellek said about Ogrekin makes me think they could have done this."
"Webbing usually means spiders. Big webbing could mean big spiders." Colvyn opens the door wider to let the light in some more. He peers in the room, trying to find some big eight legged creature. "Guiness, can you make it to the other door up there? We need more light."
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Cracking the door open wider, Colvyn sees that the three huddled humanoids in the north-eastern cage appear to be human based on their proportions. Certainly there's no sign of major deformities that would mark them as ogrekin. Unfortunately, the rags they're wrapped with obscure their identities.
To the south, Guiness looks into the same room and spots a south-eastern cage that currently lies empty.
With the additional light entering the room , the two notice the dense central funnel web quiver. They don't see any large eight legged creatures, but its difficult to tell thanks to the density of the webbing.
The webbing extends through the entirety of the room, though only very minimally into the cages as far as Guiness can tell. Both of you would also be able to tell that the strands are wet and sticky enough that it might take quite a bit of time for flame to propagate.
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Colvyn looks over at Guiness. "Keep an eye on the web, I'm heading in." With that, the small ratfolk walks toward the cage hoping to make it without signaling his presence to what ever is nesting there. This is a bad idea.
Kellek again casts the spell allowing him to detect magical auras. Moving slowly he inspects the space around him.
Kargas moves to join Guiness, waving his hand for the dwarf to proceed.
"Call me crazy, but what if we ask our resident demolitions expert to just light the funnel on fire? Maybe he can do it in a way that won't hurt the prisoners?" Flo suggests when Guiness tries to light the wet webbing on fire with his hammer. He wouldn't miss on purpose, would he? He can be a little cavalier, but I can't imagine he'd hurt prisoners intentionally, even with an explosive spell!
Then she notices Colvyn ducking and vaulting the webbing. "Haha! Never mind, we've got a Colvyn on the job!" she whispers.
________
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Kellek doesn't notice any magical auras beyond those created by the gear of his allies.
In the web-filled room, Colvyn ducks and twirls under and over strands of webbing and manages to make it all the way over to the cage without getting caught on any of them. Up close, he sees that next to the cage, a wooden ladder descends down to ground level. While the three humans in the cage are still difficult to identify thanks to the rags they're wrapped in, Colvyn is able to see a slow and steady rise and fall in all three of their torsos, indicating that they're asleep. He also can tell that all three are bound by rusty old manacles that have been attached to the bars of the cage. The cage itself is also locked.
To the south end of the room, one of the outer strands of the web begins to smoke as Flint's hammer works its magic. The central funnel quivers once more, but nothing immediately emerges.
Not wanting to waste time, Colvyn start working on the lock of the cage. Come on, come on... Open up, I'll be able to relax once I'm in there.
Colvyn makes quick work of the cage's lock with his tools, taking no more than a few seconds. As he swings the door open, he hears a soft rustling behind him. He looks over his shoulder, but the massive funnel remains unchanged.
Each of the three humans inside are manacled, but up close Colvyn is able to pull aside and reveal their faces. All three are hollow cheeked and are covered in old bruises. One is an older man with an eyepatch, a second one is bald and particularly broad-chested, and the last is a skinny fellow with a mane of red hair. They begin to stir as Colvyn inspects them.
The eyepatch man opens his one eye blearily, but quickly tenses up when he sees the unfamiliar figure outlined in light from the front room. He doesn't say anything, but his gaze moves toward the funnel in the center of the room, then back to Colvyn. The other two men stir, but don't open their eyes. All three move slowly, as though they've been gravely weakened or injured.
"Sshhh!" Colvyn starts inspecting the manacles. "We are here to help. Whatever is going to come out of that, my team will attract on the other side of the barn. We already took down five of the orgrekin, do you know if there is many more?"
The eyepatch-wearing man slowly shakes his head no, then winces as his wounds pain him. He tries to whisper an answer, but his parched lips crack and bleed before he can force any words out. Very quietly, you hear him say "Only saw three. And the spider."
Colvyn makes quick work of the first set of manacles, but its clear that the badly injured men are in no shape to stand under their own power. They'll at least need to be supported if they're to get out of the room.
"Anyone else deeply disturbed by the size of that quivering funnel? That just... that just isn't right. Am I crazy?" Flo asks the others while they wait. Don't to be the butterfly it manages to snare for dinner, that's for sure!