"I agree to approaching now. Though it will be a tiring fight, I have confidence in each of you!" Vors makes sure to adjust his less-loud armor in place, fixes his shield, draws his throwing axe, and prepares to follow.
Vors stops a ways back when it is clear that he can't step quietly to save his life, and waits for the signal to charge.
Farfadet announces his plan to his companions.
"It would be best if I approached the lookout and casted a sleep spell to disable him. What do you think?"
"If you can do so undetected, that will certainly make the approach easier. But from your description, perhaps you can also do so against the gathered others."
"I'll come up with you to provide cover and engage whichever of the bandits aren't affected by your spell," Ardainn says to the gnome. Then turning to Vors and Asha. "While you two can move in once they bandits are alerted to our presence."
I will stay back as well to not alert them and shot from afar.
Asha will try and quietly follow Ardainn or Farfadet, whomever would be ok to lead her closer to the camp. "Get me so I have a good shot at the ones around the fire."
Vors fixes his eyes on the fire through the trees, and prepares to approach.
Vors approaches the fire (30' movement) as quickly as he can through the darkness.
Vors attacks the minions with power attack (+5 to attack, 1d8+5 to damage), but fights normally against the woman with hatchets (+6 to attack, 1d8+3 to damage).
Farfadet is about to start casting his spell. He does so whenever everybody is ready.
Ardainn draws an arrow and readies a shot at the bandit in K3, shooting as soon as Farfadet finishes casting his spell. [ooc]Assuming Farfadet is targeting the bandits gathered around the fire.
Asha, need your initiative roll.
Catching the bandits by surprised, Vors moves closer preparing to charge. Asha follows, lining up a shot. Ardainn's shot thuds into the slats of the blind, you hear a loud shout: "Up! Up! We're under attack! Archers!". Farfadet begins his casting.
Bandit 3 & 5 awake at the yells, grab their swords from their sides and stand up. Looking around, trying to spot where the attack is coming from. Bandit 3 spots Vors and Asha and calls out directions to the others, continually to yell at those slower to awaken.
Asha takes aim as she moves up until she has a clear shot. As she let's loose her arrow she shouts "Lay down your arms!"
Ardainn takes another shot, this time at the woman with the axes, and then drops his bow, moving between Farfadet and the main group of bandits and drawing his sword.
Vors charges in to the closest bandit and takes a powerful swing:
clanging off the bandit's armor.
Ardainn's aim is true, but barely draws blood.
The bandit in the western blind drops and maneuvers to get behind the party. Three of the other bandits around the fire, stumble awake and grab their weapons.
The bandit in the eastern blind shoots at Vors:
missing wildly, calling out "This one is heavily armored!"
Farfadet finished his spell:
Two of the bandits fall asleep, while one shakes off the effect of the spell.
The lady with the hatchets stands and focuses her eager expression on Vors.
Vors takes another swing at the closest Bandit...
...then steps 5' to the west to open Asha's sights for a shot.
Vors steps across the log to attack the next bandit.
Farfadet, as satisfied look on his face, gets nearer with the clear intention of causing more mischief very soon. He hides behind one of the sleeping lookouts.
Sword drawn, Ardainn rushes up to engage the bandit fighting Vors.
Barely scratching him.
Asha pulls out another arrow and aims for the leader, moving up a bit before loosing the arrow.
At the last minute she trips on a branch a little and the arrow flies wide.
One of the bandits finishes strapping on his armor and moves into flanking on Ardainn.
Vors scores a mighty hit, dropping his opponent.
Ardainn, seeing that Vors' opponent is already down, spins and strikes at the bandit behind him; landing a light blow.
The bandit from the western blind moves into firing position and shoots at Farfadet.
, narrowly missing Farfadet
Another of the bandits moves around the tree and gets behind Farfadet.
The final, awake, regular bandit closes with Ardainn, swinging:
. Missing in his haste.
Asha's shot goes wide.
Farfadet's spell captures another two in range:
both falling asleep.
Their leader takes one look at the five downed combatants and begins to run away.
Vors takes an instant to ponder the wisdom of chasing the bandit woman into the forest at 3 in the morning in the middle of winter...
...and thinks better of it, waiting to see what the others will do.
Ardainn has no such compunctions, but he runs to where he dropped his bow, picking it up and sheathing the blade.
(+1 ranger tracking, +2 favored enemy, +2 woodcraft (racial trait), +2 wisdom, +1 rank, +3 class skill)
Asha moves through the sleeping bandits trying to keep a train on the fleeing bandit and loosing another arrow.
"Keep with Ardainn, I'll take care of these!" Vors grabs a rope from his pack and starts binding arms and legs of the bandits. He keeps his sword at hand in case one wakes up early.
"I'll help you, Vors. Ardainn, Asha, both of you go after the leader. We can't let her escape, but my short legs won't help you much." Farfadet then helps out Vors with the restraining of the sleeping bandits.
Farfadet takes a careful step away from the bandits near him, and casts another arcane spell to daze his closest assailant.
Vors moves to engage the bandit on the ground just west of the blind .
Farfadet's spell dazes the nearest bandit.
Vors readies an attack against the remaining competent bandit, but that bandit refrains from closing, choosing to shoot at Ardainn.
, hitting for
Vors seeing that the western bandit isn't closing, strikes at the daze'd bandit, dropping him
Asha will move after the fleeing bandit as best she can with the light from the camp diminishing. If able she will line up a shot to try and slow the bandit.
The western bandit turns tail and runs. Both the woman with the hatchets and this final bandit manage a clean escape. The women appears to know these woods well, Ardainn's strong tracking skills would allow him to easily follow the trail, but he's slowly falling further and further behind. As Ardainn has a light source, Asha is keeping pace. How long do you wish to pursue?
Vors and Farfadet secure the camp.
As the woman gets out of range and Asha sees Ardainn strating to track the woman she asks "Should we continue without the others. She is bound to stop at some point and we might be able to catch her. Though Vors and Farfadet may begin to worry and if we do catch up will the two of us be able to handle her?"
She shrugs to herself before continuing "At least they don't know who we are or where we came from so their shouldn't be any blow back on Oleg, unless she reconnects with the bandit that escaped earlier. Perhaps we need to try and ambush him if he was headed back to this camp?"
After a minute's hard pursuit, Ardainn stops and looks at Asha, shaking his head. They won't catch her at this rate, but they have horses, and she is alone in the wintry forest with nothing but her axes.
"We'll join the others," he says. "We'll be able to follow her trail in the morning." He carefully checks the arrow wound made by the bandit as they chased the woman.
"Strange that with their leader fleeing that the bandit would shoot at one who was no immediate threat," he says, thoughtfully.
Asha shrugs to Ardainn "Who knows. Do you need me to try and tend to your wound?"
-----
Asha follows Ardainn back to the bandit camp and throws up her hands as she sees Vors and Farfadet "We lost them." She takes a look around at the other bandits "Looks like you both have things handled here. What is our next step?" She begins to yawn and covers her mouth.
"Well, we've just finished tying them up." states Farfadet joyfully, as if taking pride in his recent work. "We were about to search them, put everything on the mules, then get a good rest. We'd need someone to keep watch though, provided you agree on resting here. What do you think?"
Asha nods "Probably a good idea. I was telling Ardainn that we probably should stay here and be ready with an ambush in case the one runner from earlier today finds his way here."
Searching the six defeated bandits you find:
6*leather armor
6 long bows
116 arrows
6 short swords
12 days rations
60 gp
Farfadet yawns, his eyes half-closed as he absent-mindedly listens to Asha's answer.
"I'll take the first watch," Ardainn says, and sits down by the fire, the warmth quickly putting him to sleep.
Vors finishes tying up the last bandit, then sets to tethering them each to a different tree just inside the heat radius of the fire. "Can't let them be too close together. They might untie each other. But, don't want 'me to freeze to death, either. Hrm-de-derr..."
When all are bound and gagged, he turns to the returning Asha. "Couldn't be helped. But maybe one of these knows where she might go next - and we could get there first to set an ambush. Speaking of, I should probably take one of you with better eyes and go get the horses from where we left them."
---
Vors nods at the pursuit plan. "She can't run forever, and though I've little interest in a night chase, it'll likely turn up something."
He then begins collecting sticks and placing them in a wide perimeter at the edge of the firelight, hoping to craft a crude alarm in case something should approach during watch.
Finally, he offers to take the second watch, sets up his tent near the fire. stretches out sore muscles, and lies down to sleep.
---
Asha will gather everyone around calling on Erastil to heal their wounds.
Asha looks at the others ”I think we should press on if we can. First light isn’t too far off and by Erastil’s blessing I can ease your fatigue. Let me pray in the early morning and then we can start to track her.”
As the sun breaches the trees she will use the water from her waterskin to wash her face and hands, she will let down her hair and poor the rest over it, removing any leaves or other debris before squeezing it out to dry. She will find a nice spot facing the rising sun and get down on her knees, pulling out her holy symbol and spending some time praying to Erastil and thanking him for another day to work and grow this new community. Afterwards she will tie her hair back up in a ponytail with her ribbon and start prepping her gear for the hunt.
She will glance back at the captured bandits ”Do we just leave them here, tied up until we return?”
As the sun breaches the trees she will use the water from her waterskin to wash her face and hands, she will let down her hair and poor the rest over it, removing any leaves or other debris before squeezing it out to dry. She will find a nice spot facing the rising sun and get down on her knees, pulling out her holy symbol and spending some time praying to Erastil and thanking him for another day to work and grow this new community. Afterwards she will tie her hair back up in a ponytail with her ribbon and climb back up into her blind to continue keeping watch.
Yes, that's correct. I know I'm making up rules here now, but I don't think the intent of it is to let a party do without sleep near indefinitely -- so a) the penalty on the fatigue check roll would still increase after the next 24 hours (so they'd still count a fatigued when making that roll), and b) for each additional day of missed sleep, i would require an additional use of calming touch. Ie the fatigue conditions from missing sleep stack -- and are canceled, not removed, by calming touch.
Vors turns to Asha: "If you can keep us upright, then yes, let's press on! These miscreants can stay bound until we return."