A few arrows fall into the dirt at Edward’s heels as he ducks inside the east tower after his friends. Inside, you all make yourself a barricade at the bottom of the stairs and wait for an attack...that doesn’t come, at least not right away. The footsteps above you stop as the men up there ready themselves for you to attack. Peering out the doorway, you see no signs of an attack that way. A stalemate of sorts.
As they barricade themselves in, Edward peers upward toward the ceiling. "Okay, gentlemen, it would appear we are at a stand still with enemies just above us." He then looks upon the others. "How do you all fare injury wise? Are you all able to proceed? Conri? Those dogs were cleverly trained and executed their training to perfection, so, let us not forget the wand given to us by Lady Valla. If you are in need of it, please, do not hesitate to let us know." Glancing back upward a moment, "So, I would suggest taking the fight to them but obviously that is simply walking into an ambush. If there were another way up...," he leaves that spoken thought hanging as he ponders the situation.
"Yeah, well keep a look out for a moment. They might not be the only people we have to worry about," Ty says before creeping before creeping in the direction the muddy footprints that Richard pointed out go.
Ty sees a well-hidden outline of a secret trap door behind the stairs. If the brigands has wiped their feet better, you’d probably never have noticed it.
A quick test shows it’s not locked or trapped.
Ty explains the trap door to everyone.
"I don't know, maybe all of these towers are connected under ground? Which means we have more places where we need to watch our backs. But if we take care of those guys first," Ty points upstairs, "we could probably get the jump on the guys in the other towers. Unless I'm completely wrong."
You have enough time to heal Conri to full.
It takes one more charge.
A voice calls out something in a harsh, guttural language none of you know, though they sound like orders. You hear a short acknowledgement from the west tower and from above you.
"Welp."
Ty sneaks up the stairs to see what he can see.
There’s a closed trap door at the top of the stairs. Through gaps in the wood, Ty can see shadows of two men standing on either side of the trap door, clearly planning to strike anybody who opens the door.
One of the men seems to be standing on a particularly wide gap in the floorboards, covering the gap with his boot sole.
Richard reloads his crossbow and asks "Edward, did you find a way to attack those above us?"
Edward shakes his head. "Unfortunately, I fear not, Richard." He then watches Ty move up the stairs. Edward follows to the foot of the stairs and looks up, noticing the boot-covered gap. Studying it a moment, A weapon might just fit right through there. Hmmmm...
He then waves the others in close. "Okay, I believe I may have something that would allow us to gain an advantage on those above. There's a hole in our ceiling which would be their flooring. One of them is standing right on it. If I - or any of us for that matter - were to stab him in the foot, that would cause enough of a distraction for one of us to explode through the trap door and hold them off until the rest of us can make it through, thereby, outnumbering them. What say you all? I'm open to suggestions."
Sighing as the pain fades away and simply opting to watch his companions. Defiantly an interesting group, though motley groups tend to the stuff legends are made of. Flinching at the seeing Ty go off on his own but choosing to trust the urchin. Now is not the time to ogject and Ty seems to hold his own, much better than he did after all.
Rubbing at his arm, "I'm not much for stabbing but I do seem to have some magic. And I think I will opt to stay back a bit."
The gap isn’t wide enough for a sword, but a dagger should just be able to slide through.
Hinges are on the other side, so no luck there.
"A blade through the gap in the boards is just what I was thinking!" Ty enthuses to Edward. "I can do that! But no offense, you being the most heavily armored, you should go in first. I mostly rely on my reflexes, but there won't be much I can do on a ladder and going through a trap door."
Ty ticks off three fingers, "So, dagger to the boot, you burst up through the door, the rest of us follow as quick as we can. I think that's a pretty good plan!"
So Ty, make a Stealth check before your attack roll to see if they notice any movement between the floorboards. If you beat DC 8, you’re considered invisible giving you a +2 attack bonus. Either way, you can apply a sneak attack if you hit, since even if they see you, they aren’t expecting an attack so you’ll get the surprise round.
If Ty manages to hit, the distraction will ruin their readied actions and let you move before them; otherwise, they will get AoOs on whomever first goes up the ladder into the room. These guys have the same stats as the man down below, except one of them is a half-ooc and has orcish ferocity.
Edward nods while grinning confidently. "Brilliant! You shall do the stabbing then and I shall burst through the door. After you, good sir. You're 'signal' will begin our victory," he says as he moves near the foot of the stairs and awaits Ty's attack, ready to move the instant it happens.
Stepping light as a feather and as quiet as a breath of wind, Ty ascended the staircase and/or ladder until he was right below the crack in the floorboards exposing the man's boot. He lines his dagger up with the crack and swiftly shoves the blade up.
As the man above him screamed in pain, Ty stage-whispers to Edward, "THAT'S THE SIGNAL!"
Edward hurries up the stairs and bursts through the trap door and up onto the flooring. "Hello, gentlemen. Fight and die or surrender and live. The choice is yours," he says quite pleasantly.
Climbing the stairs is a double move for everybody. The only one of you who can attack again is Ty (through the floor crack). The red guy is Ty’s victim, the purple guy is the half-orc.
With the trap door open, folks could target magic through if they wish.
Richard threads the beam of fire past Ty and into red dude, further exacerbating his injuries.
Moving behind Richard and calling the clearly not divine magic to his fingers again.
Ty lands next to the bandit, balanced on his toes, daggers ready to strike. He hols his attacks when he hears Edward's call for surrender, however.
The fact that they’re flat-footed means no AoO.
Ty scoots around the bandits while they recover from random blades and beams of fire. Edward offers them quarter, which they readily decline. The half-orc raises his falchion against the lad, who therefore stabs him, almost hitting an artery. The tiny dagger wound isn’t going to stop him however, and the falchion’s blade scores a deep gash along his shoulder.
Clank! The injured human fails to penetrate Edward’s armour.
You’re all up!
Ty screams out in pain, and, daggers flashing, responds in a frenzy like a cornered dog.
As Edward takes a nasty hit, he just manages to angle himself so as to absorb some of the damage instead of taking the brunt of it.
In pain, but yet, still smirking, "Good. I do find the thrill of combat to be quite exhilarating," he says as he brings his sword down upon the enemy and lands a solid blow.
Ty stabs the half-orc in the shoulder. The half-orc snarls. Ty stabs the half-orc in the gut. Blood and bowels spill onto the floor, but still the half-orc stands through sheer strength of Will and malice. Having enough of that, Ty digs deep into some reserve and slashed across his throat, finally bringing him down.
With only one enemy left, Edward is able to easily run the human through, dropping him to the floor. Richard runs up the stairs, weapon ready, all dressed up, but nobody’s home.
In this room, you see many arrow slits in all four walls. Through the south wall, you can easily see the path you had all been travelling on. On the floor are two gross mattresses and a small chest. It is neither trapped nor locked and inside you find some old clothes and a leather purse with 90 gp inside. Both warriors were wearing studded leather armour, the human has a long sword, the half-orc a falchion, and they both have a very decrepit longbow with arrows. Both bow and arrows are of such poor quality it’s a wonder they hit anything at all.
Nodding to the others, "Well done, all. Richard, it would appear our young friend, Ty, could definitely use that wand right about now." He then peers through the arrow slits. "Far too much open field. I would gather we are simply going to have to make a run for it to the nearest tower. Take our chances with the arrows and hope for the best. What I can do is move out toward the middle, hopefully draw their fire, and during that time the rest of you can make your approach to the northernmost tower. Once you are all clear, I will then follow. Sound fair?" he asks, curious if they may have something better planned.
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Ty's wounds come to Richard's attention immediately upon his entry up the stairs.
"You appear to need some healing Ty. Let me use the wand provided to us."
The wounds appear deeper than Richard originally thought so he uses the wand again.
"Is that sufficient Ty? Or would you like me use another charge?"
"Is that sufficient Ty? Or would you like me use another charge?"
"Hit me again, doc! I'm not wearing metal armor like you and Edward, here! Speaking of which," here Ty turns to address Edward.
"We should check out that trap door we found down below! If there's a way to get from one tower to another underground, we can use that to our advantage. Honestly, it's the only way having three towers out here in the middle of a field makes any sense. Sort of."
Edward looks to Ty and rolls his eyes at his own forgetfulness. "That is brilliant, my good man! I totally forgot about that being mentioned earlier. A FAR better idea and it absolutely makes perfect sense. Let us investigate." Edward immediately heads back down to check out said trap door.
You head down the stairs and around behind to the trap door. Edward’s sharp eyes notice that the door to the west tower is slightly ajar with a shadow of movement just inside.
Ty eagerly makes his way around to the trap door, examines it for traps and finds none. He carefully lifts it up to reveal a rough wooden ladder leading down about twenty feet to end in a featureless room cut into the dirt below with an exit to the west, towards the other towers.
From the west tower, a voice calls out, ”4 dark green!” and another voice calls out something in that guttural language you don’t know.
Edward makes his way safely down the ladder into the room below. A five foot wide (and high) passageway heads 40 feet due west before curving to the north and cutting off the view beyond. It’s pitch black, but of course, that doesn’t matter to you four.
Ty whispers to Edward, "You go first, but let me check out any intersections or doorways we come to."
Catching sight of something just out of the corner of his eye, Edward narrows his vision to study it a moment. "We definitely have movement in the west tower. Be on alert." Upon hearing the voices, Edward listens intently to the one he can't understand. Must be orcish like the other one. Note to self: learn orc.
Ty whispers to Edward, "You go first, but let me check out any intersections or doorways we come to."
Edward nods and proceeds onward, having to move at a much slower pace due to the confined quarters.
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As his companions descend into the tunnel Richard's nose picks up a similar smell from the cellar of his company's warehouse. Ugh, I really dislike this smell. It reminds me of all those times when I got into trouble as a child.
"Conri, it looks like Ty has found a way to the other towers. Let's go check it out."
Richard moves down the ladder and proceeds until he joins up with Edward and Ty.
"Do we have a plan once we reach the other towers? It is unlikely that these guys are going to surrender."
Edward approaches the turn in the corridor and carefully peers around the corner, jerking back quickly as he sees company.
At the end of this corridor, he sees a 25 by 25 foot chamber with exits leading west and north. A rough wooden table has been laid down on its side to form a barricade keeping you out. There are four humans, including the man you sightly injured when you first arrived (red), holding long spears on the other side of the table, though how they'll be able to see you, you have no idea. Edward also sees a pair of half-orcs: one similar to the man you killed topside who looks ready to throw something, while the other looks especially mean with a nasty scar running from one ear to his jaw.
Immediately stopping and throwing his arm behind him with a hand held up, Edward steps back behind the curved wall while motioning for the others to do the same. He then looks to Richard, "No, Richard, we shall give no quarter to this lot. Not that it matters due to the simple fact that surrendering does not interest them anyway." Peeking back around the corner, "There are six of them including the one we encountered with the dogs. They've fortified themselves behind a table and four of them possess spears. Behind them are two half-orcs and neither look happy to be here." He retreats his head back and turns to the others, "They have the upper hand with their defenses in place. I do not suppose we've any sort of ranged arsenal among us, do we? Otherwise, we are truly at a disadvantage," he says, looking pensive as he attempts to somehow work out a way to combat these villains without getting himself and his allies all killed.
Ty listens to Edward's description of the situation. "Well, I've got my bow, but we know they've got their bows, too," he says quietly.
He pauses to think.
"If we can somehow lure them to us, this seems like the perfect place to spread out caltrops -- which, quite frankly, I don't get to use often enough -- but it seems unlikely that they'll do that. I didn't bring any oil, but maybe if we lit that table on fire and they want to get away from the smoke. Speaking of smoke..."
Ty rummages around in his quiver as he continues speaking. "Here's an idea. I've got three 'smoke arrows.' I've never used them before, but they're supposed to release a lot of smoke, the idea being that it provides cover if you need to move without someone seeing you. I could shoot one down there ahead of us, and we could get close while they couldn't see us, maybe get inside of those longspears. We'd have to push that talbe out of the way, though.
"Those are my ideas."
While the party talks over what to do, Ty takes a peak down the tunnel himself looking for any caltrops or other hazards the bandits may have placed.
"Let us do both. You, Richard, send your flaming bolt as you suggested. And you, Ty, go with your plan of firing your smoke arrows. And just in case, keep those caltrops handy; they may prove useful. And unfortunately I do not possess any oil, Richard. I am finding out quickly that I am horribly ill-equipped. That will have to be remedied at first opportunity," he thinks out loud. "Anyway, once you all have acted, then as Ty said, we will get close and work to push that table out of the way. So with that being said, proceed when ready."