Location: Forests south of Rilan

Date: early Trical, 1333 Avard

Characters: Chimes, Hiko, Roland, Toox

After their battle with the roper and the cleansing of an undead pool of magic, Eingrim wanted to push on a bit. With gaps in all of their memories but Toox – perhaps because she was a changeling – Roland and Eingrim especially wanted to get a better feel for the other members of their party.

An orc party snuck up on the troupe. Thanks to Hiko's familiar, the party was well aware of the pending ambush before it began. Half a dozen orcs and a half-orc / half-ogre orog were snuck in on a bluff looking down on the camp, while a single orc snuck up on them from the other side. The single orc shit on his hand and then flung it at Eingrim – and ran.

When the party refused to chase after the single orc, the orog and his group withdrew. All of the orcs met at a cave not twenty minutes away. Only later would the party realize the orcs could have attacked them at any time in the night, but chose not to.

Renegade orc bandits were becoming problematic after the War of the Four Winds and the Ogran Invsaion. Eingrim and Roland felt obligated to investigate, and Toox and Chimes were curious. Hiko wanted to flee, but grudgingly went with the party. Ironically, his familiar was the best option to stealthily investigate the orcs.

Hiko altered his familiar from the form of an octopus, to that of a owl. Cloaked with an invisibility spell, the owl flew into the cave. Hiko watched through his familiar's eyes while the party guarded both the entrance and the elven illusionist.

Eingrim had visited the ruins some years before, and thought he knew them well. The orcs, however, had uncovered a new passage. When Hiko's familiar flew into the passage to investigate, it became trapped behind some kind of magical wall. Hiko immediately popped his familiar into a pocket dimension while the team discussed options.

They decided to take the fight to the orcs, as the orcs seemed to have holed up in the caves as far from the new passage as possible. Roland and his plate armor and shield, plus the blessings of his patron goddess Xoriah, held one end of the line quite easily against the orcs. The other end of the line had trouble, as a veritable cloud of javelins erupted.

Hiko very nearly bled to death, and Eingrim was taken prisoner, unconscious but alive.

Hiko yelled in ogran at the orog and the orcs to let Eingrim go, but the ograns yelled at Toox to investigate the new passage. The troupe figured that fighting the orcs was better than walking into traps, and so they mounted a second offensive.

Toox changed shape to that of one of the orcs from the other end of the line, whom Chimes had managed to knock unconscious. Hiko, revived, attacked with illusions, while Chimes hit one of the orcs with a crown of madness. Toox rushed into the orcs and yelled in ogran (thanks to coaching by Hiko) to throw Eingrim to her. The confused orcs, witness to the orog's seeming madness and the infighting from the crown of madness, complied.

Toox and the team rushed out of the caves, only one orc having been killed during the encounter, and fled. They found a bear cave, thankfully unoccupied, and buried deep within it to lick their wounds.

Date: APR2020

DM's Notes: After some back-and-forth, exploration of a one-shot ( oneshot-020 ), and starting a new season, we returned to Season 2 after we eased our self-imposed coronavirus quarantine by allowing Michael to rejoin us on a regular basis.

Reference: Campaign X
Previous Episode: Xs2e11
Next Episode: Xs2e13

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