Thursday night we continued our D&D 2E campaign. In preparation for the session, Max and I wrote two parts to a story of Skurn praying (which you'll get to read later). Also, it's been decided that Ackerman's druid, Uskilian, was pretty much a weak and extremely useless character, so Ackerman rerolled a wizard named Dr. Marshal Theophillis. But we'll get to that later as well.
We started the session picking up right where we left off. Abidan and Aremar, having just arrived to the Trigatha grove, get to work locating and talking to the High Druids while the party takes time to regale each other with what's been going on the past few days. The two high power NPCs return to inform the group that it's time to prepare for war, so they go off and begin building siege weapons while the group trains the druids in basic combat. At the same time, Skurn wanders off to go pray and returns very late that night after receiving a response. The next few days are spent traveling to Treeshade, allowing the group time to train up some proficiencies.
After reaching a safe place to rest and prepare for battle, the party is called to action by Abidan. He informs the group that he has learned of prisoners being held by the elves of Treeshade. He wants to rescue them before they are accidentally smashed by the siege weapons in the morning, or just the DM using an excuse to give us more stuff to do. Either way, Abidan sneaks off that night towards Treeshade with Erikr, Caelrath, Althor, Elirail, and a few red shirted elves. Before they leave, Abidan gives Skurn a ring to wear and asks him to stay up and keep watch.
At the 20 foot wall surrounding Treeshade, it is decided that only three will go over in order avoid too much noise. Caelrath, Althor, and Elirail are chosen. After spending some time trying to decide how to get up, Caelrath decides to just climb up with which he has no problem doing. Althor and Elirail follow after a few more moments are wasted discussing how Althor could have just climbed up and lowered a rope to his less agile companions. Once on top of the wall the trio find that the prison they are looking for is conveniently located right in front of them. So they climb down and Althor attempts to unlock the door. After several failures, Althor successfully breaks one of his lockpicks in the keyhole, thus preventing any further chances of a stealthy entry. Elirail, being the strongest, is volunteered to kick down the door which he does with ease. Althor and Elirail enter the dark prison while Caelrath remains at the doorway, facing out, to keep an eye out for any trouble. Althor spots a guard on the other side of the room who failed to hear the splintering of the wooden door while he continued to walk in sleep land. Althor, still a little frustrated from his failure with the locked door, decides to employ some stealth. He sneaks up on the guards and frees him of his binds to his now lifeless body. Althor plucks the keys from the dead elf and hands them to Elirail, who happily frees the four prisoners: a useless elf, a strong looking half-elf, a badly injured elf, and a frail looking human carrying a book.
Having completed this side-quest, the trio plus their quartet of jailbirds climb back over the wall. Delicate care is given to the injured elf who is handed down to Althor who amazingly balances on a on 10 foot pole and carries the elf down, using the notches in the pole. After everyone reaches the base of the wall safely, noise is heard over the wall as Erikr says its time for them to go. As the party
flees bravely runs away, they are chased by some of the residents of Treeshade who follow them all the way back to the camp site. Fortunately, help is waiting as Skurn was warned by Abidan through the magical ring. The injured elf and other prisoners are led to safety as Erikr, Caelrath, and Althor turn around and take shots at their pursuers. Skurn blesses his companions as Althor manages to kill one elf while Erikr is able to shoot down two more. Caelrath, proving his worth, takes down four elves and ensures none return back to Treeshade. With the immediate threat solved, the escaped prisoners become the next issue. Skurn attends the injured elf while the frail, book-carrying human introduces himself. He claims to be a doctor (whatever that is) and says his name is Marshal Theophillis. He says that he was captured and stripped of all his possessions except for his "medical" book. Knowing another PC when they see it, the party welcomes Dr. Theophillis to the party. Dr. Theophillis quickly proves his worth by informing the group that the arrows being used by the elves of Treeshade are necrotic magic and bewizarded to cause continuous bleeding. With all this done, the party goes to sleep in hope of gaining some rest before the big battle.
The next morning is filled with preparation, as war is upon us. With Erikr and Skurn out front, the siege weapons begin to fire on the great wall of Treeshade. After they successfully crumble a good portion of the wall, the ground begins to shake. To everyone's amazement three 12 foot tall iron dwarves rise from the ground in front of the siege weapons and begin marching forward. Without hesitation, the party and the assumed forces of Trigatha and the other groves follow behind. As everyone races forward, sounds of a dwarf are heard trailing the giant wonders screaming out whoops and praises to Rhugarth. The intimidating dwarven triforce reach the gap in the wall first, since no one in the party wanted to get in their way, and annihilate the first two rows of the opposing army. Caelrath takes shots as he continues running up, dropping a couple more elves. Dr. Theophillis produces pretty lights that causes three other elves to drop unconscious. Then, before anyone else can reach the remaining forces, the three iron giants put away their axes, pull out their shields, then release cones of fire into the now fleeing army of Treeshade. With no one left standing their ground and victory insured, the 12 foot iron dwarves sink into the ground.
Leaving cleanup to the NPCs, the party marches forth to the home of the High Druid of Treeshade. Erikr kicks down the door and stomps around the house searching for the leader of Treeshade. While everyone else checks the rooms, Althor goes thieving and snags a thin, book-sized piece of glass from one of the rooms and places it into his bag with no one noticing. Finding nothing, the group begins to doubt anyone is home when the sound of crackling alerts them to one of the rooms. The group runs in to find a fire forming into a humanoid form heading towards them. Skurn tried to extinguish the flame many times, all with no effect. Fortunately, Caelrath more rationally runs outside to get the help of one of the druids who runs in and tells everyone to leave the room. After closing the door behind them the party is almost immediately hit by a shockwave that knocks them all unconscious. Erikr, who managed to withstand the wave's impact, drags everyone outside, including the unconscious druid in the now fire free room. Skurn and Dr. Theophillis wake up right away. Caelrath takes minutes to wake up, the victim of undisciplined dice, and Althor takes just as long, the victim of unskilled rolling. The druid wakes up as well and informs everyone that he returned the fire elemental to where he came from and suggests that the High Druid is still inside somewhere.
The party proceeds to gather some more druids and they encircle the house. They concentrate and are able to make the High Druid appear. The group reenters the house and confronts him. The tricky druid turns Althor into a gecko for having a smart mouth. After half-assed role-playing the druid is convinced to go outside and talk with the High Druids of the other groves. After turning Althor back, he takes a few steps outside before he sinks into the ground. As he disappears into the dirt, lighting fills the sky and strikes at the party. Skurn, despite being in fullplate, is able to avoid any of the strikes. Caelrath and Erikr avoid any major harm but Althor and Dr. Theophillis are greatly wounded. Althor, now a crispy corpse, is dragged inside as well as the weak body of Dr. Theophillis. As the group tries to figure out what to do, they hear commotion outside. The High Druid is floating in the air attacking a group of about 40 druids, who are losing badly. Erikr and Caelrath step outside and get to work firing at the airwalking druid with arrows and bullets. Skurn, feeling useless, gets an idea and throws his knife at the druid (which misses wildly). He then rushes inside and grabs all the knives off the dead thief and runs back out to throw them pathetically as well. Thankfully, Erikr was able to lodge a few bullets into the druid allowing Skurn to heat them up, finishing off the druid. With the now very dead High Druid taken care of, the party attempts to help some of the injured druids. They in turn help the party by resurrecting Althor who had a 67% chance of surviving the spell.... and rolled a 67!!!! (Keep in mind James has rolled horribly the entire night but the one time that it matters... he succeeds...just barely. It was a very intense moment.)
With the party whole again, the matter of figuring things out begins again. With help of Aremar, the group learns from some of the captured elves that the necrotic arrows came from a hooded female who travels through the forest about once a month and sells to Treeshade. Not wanting to sit around for a month, Erikr asks the druids to keep an eye out and inform him if they see this mysterious lady again. In the meantime, Brother Barik has come to see how things went and learns about what happened. After Brother Barik hears about Rhugarth's mighty hand in the victory, the party learns from Aremar that Althor's parents have a house in Unity. All quite curious, Aremar transports the party to the gates of the house, while returning Brother Barik to the temple.
At the gates of Althor's home, Aremar suggests Althor opens the doors first and invite everyone in. The house is found to be in perfect condition. Three floors of a beautiful home with expensive and rare plants surrounding it. Inside is found multiple rooms, a nearly floorwide master bedroom, and a combination lab and library on the third floor. While everyone takes time to eat and relax in the kitchen, Althor, Dr. Theophillis, and Aremar head to the lab and examine the glass object Althor took from the High Druid's house. Aremar informs the thief and the "doctor" that the glass allows one to remove magical text from scrolls, runes from books and other objects, and leaves the source material blank. Althor is awed by the object as a fireball is used to demonstrate the glass sheet's power. Having learned what the object can do the three return downstairs where the rest of the party waits for the next session to find out what happens next.
So what did we learn in this session?
1. Training large groups of elves doesn't provide training experience.
2. Side quests are useful tools to introduce PCs, even on the eve of battle.
3. Sometimes the DM is too lazy to move a jail away from the easy access wall.
4. Coup de grĂ¢ce is okay as long as no other party member sees you do it.
5. We get it, the pole has notches in it. Whoop di do.
6. Necrotic arrows are heavy because they are evil.
7. Sometimes prayers are answered with giant metal dwarves that do all the hard work, ending a battle in a few rounds.
8. Paladins aren't easily knocked unconscious by banishing fire elementals.
9. Never trust a druid, even if he just wants to go outside.
10. If you have to make a roll, rolling the exact number you need to survive your resurrection is a good one.
11. Make sure no one in your party is a vampire before you invite them into your spell protected house.
PLEASE NOTE: I'll post links to the story written to Skurn's prayer later. Right now, it's late.