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| The fearsome Gorgimera! |
Timekeeping
Player Characters Present
Downtime
Session Report
With some characters unavailable due to training, today's party was fairly lopsided in power. There was some discussion as to whether they should try an all out attack on the Talibandit base with their conventional troops, or a stealthy one with just the player characters. They also had to be wary of a powerful creature, the Gorgimera, known to inhabit this region. The group decided to send Sever and a unit of Pegasus Air Cavalry to search the area by themselves first, since their great speed meant they could get there and back quickly.
Nothing attacked the scout force, however, the search exhausted most of the day before they found something tangible; smoke coming up out of a chimney like area of rock. The surroundings matched those scried by Comfort Rod. When Sever reported back at nightfall, the party decided to head out with just the crack unit of PCs they had on hand, which they did the next day under clear skies. They passed the nostalgic location of the Dungeon of Refuse without issue, and upon entering the valley near their target mountain encountered a large group of Giant Eagles. These would have simply kept flying on, except Gurt suggested that an attempt at mental communication might be beneficial. While none of the PCs were strictly capable of this, I ruled that the helmet Sever wore (taken from Hawkmen last year, one of whom had later used it to communicate telepathically with the Ranger) would enable him to reply if the Eagles were of the mood to communicate. A reaction roll indicated they were.
The name of the leader of the Eagles was translated as "Big Wing", and he had some information that confirmed the location of the "men who devour other men"; by which he meant "preyed upon" in the sense of banditry, but which the players took to mean cannibalism and I made no real effort to clear that up for them. Big Wing also warned them about the Gorgimera, that it had taken one of the younger eagles that was part of his flock, and was very dangerous.
They thanked their new friend, moved on to the mountain itself, and quickly realised that it would be too steep for their horses; only possibly mountain ponies could scale it, and so they left their mounts with one of Gurt's hirelings in a convenient hollow at the base of the mountain. So began an arduous climb.
Combat #1: 5 Talibandit scouts
Yes, when Sever stuck his head through the illusionary stone face, he saw that one of his arrows had hit the fleeing Talibandit, who was lying dead at the end of the cavern. Slippery Pete was then able to discern the meaning of some writing etched into the wall nearby, "Bora Tora". Reciting the words caused a stone panel to pivot around and allowed them to advance into a long, straight tunnel/cavern. The Talibandit Patron (playing Usama Loot Laden) had provided me with an excellent map of this place along with defences and dispositions; all I had to do was work out the scale in some places, excellent job!Rounds, 5: Sever wins, sever wins, bandits win, bandits win, tied
Result: Sever Victory
Highlights: The scouts set off a small avalanche which nearly did for some of the lower level PCs and Henchmen. Seeing the Pegasus closing in, they then dived into a small tunnel which led to a trapped room, sadly for them the trap didn't even slow down Sever, who had used his Wing of Flying to good effect. Only one enemy got away from the ranger. The lucky survivor clambered further up the mountain to what proved to be an illusionary wall, which he ran through just as Sever's arrows went through after. Did they hit? The party would need to move up to find out.
Combat #2: Giant Undead Constructs & 20 Talibandit Archers
Rounds, 7: Monsters, Monsters, party, monsters, party, tied, tied
Result: Party Victory
Highlights: Skeleton damage reduction versus blades maximised the value of their hit points. The enemy took advantage of the lopsided party levels. Slippery Pete earned a new nick name, gaseous Pete. Sever, cursing the earlier use of his Wings of Flying, had to get up a wall the hard way.
While the party were getting comfortable engaging these foes, the tunnel ahead collapsed and filled with rubble. Then a group of archers appeared above, on a balcony built into the rock of the cavern, and began happily peppered them with arrows. An oversight by me saw these guys have a big disadvantage due to the range versus the Shortbows they had with them, but 20's could still hit and enough of those happened to keep people's head down. Anri was dropped to below 0 hp and her super high Constitution kept her alive; but this meant Gurt had to try and get to her to safety, taking him out of the fight.
Boduke and Morb made a run back the way they had come to the tunnel exit; but when they got there they could hear an odd, and very loud, scream/roar/bellow from outside. It was as though three monstrous throats gave voice at once. There was only one explanation; the Gorgimera! Fear stopped them in their tracks.
Slippery Pete chose to try and climb up stealthily to deal with the ranged threat, but instead drew their attention; he responded by quaffing his Potion of Gaseous form. This called for a reference to my seminal article on the subject of spell casting in melee. Potions take 2-5 (d4+1) segments to take effect, I rolled a 2 for this, and initiative came up as 3 for the party and 2 for the Talibandits. This meant that the Talibandits ranged attacks came in time ("segment" 3) for the arrows to pass through Pete just as the potion was taking effect (also "segment" 3). Safe, but unable to attack in this gaseous form, he used this effect to explore beyond the collapsed tunnel, but found nothing there that grabbed his attention and so returned (empty handed for a change).
Was the party going to get run out of the Talibandit lair with nothing much to show for it? Sever decided no. With tied initiative he shimmied up the rope he had managed to toss up there the in the previous round, and engaged the Talibandits. As there was only one officer and the rest were level 0, this fight was a slaughter reminiscent of the end of Rogue One; but Sever, somewhat uncharacteristically, managed to capture the officer, one Allo Owarya, which proved to be useful and very important later.
The captured leader became more and more crafty as I settled on his accent; he admitted that they had a prisoner matching Echellet's description and even offered to sell her for the right price, except that sadly he could no longer access the interior of the base and get her, so he also offered to lead them away down the mountain without attracting the attention of the Gorgimera. With no sign of further means to ingress, the party decided to take up his offer. Once safely back with the horses the return trip to Guarda was uneventful.
Bonus Patron info: Usama Loot Laden had been off on a diplomatic mission and so was unable to respond immediately to this incursion by the player characters. He returned a few days later and then allied with a local tribe, the Durka Durka's, who had likewise been offended by the "infidels" invading their lands. This alliance significantly increased Loot Laden's power. It was also during this period that Usama realised there might be something more to the "feisty warrior woman" his Gnolls had captured during his raid on Guarda weeks before.
Session Statistics:
Wilderness travel: 63 Miles
Combats: 2
Combat rounds: 12
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