Session 312

# August 24th, 2023 - The Battle of Grainvic

## Survivors

The session began with Carlton leading the party and their rescued soldiers north back through the woods. They passed through the two battle sites they fought in previous toward the sounds of continued fighting. East through the trees they heard weapons clanging and saw flaming arrows and trebuchet objects streaking across the sky as the main battle was being fought. Surprisingly, the group of soldiers was able to approach the northernmost clearing of the forest quietly. There, pausing on the edge of the clearing they peered through the darkness to see the combat just completing. With the winners being their side, mostly humans.

Those surviving soldiers saw the group of dragonborn at the party’s front and reacted quickly, starting to run towards them thinking they were still being attacked. The group then heard Captain Almer from somewhere behind yell out, “idiots, don’t you recognize your own?” That stopped the soldiers, and the party and group emerged to help regroup those who remained. With the party and the captain, they now numbered thirty two soldiers, out of the original one hundred in the company. Captain Almer however was gravely wounded, sitting against a tree bleeding heavily from his side.

Fax went to help the captain, using a medicine kit to do his best to bandage the wound, but the party could tell from the captain's yelps and pushing Fax away that the work was not effective. Regardless, pushing through the pain the Captain got to his feet and started to lead what remained of his company back south through the forest. At the edge of the southern rim of the forest the group gathered and watched the battle. The enemy did not take the time to climb the large hill south of the forest's edge, but instead set up their artillery at the hill’s base. The main forces of soldiers were fully engaged in the melee, and flaming objects from the trebuchets were being fired in addition to arrows and bolts flying in both directions.

The group in the forest was closest to the trebuchets, and beyond them in the rear of the enemy line was a command group. Through the dim fire light the party saw what looked to be the enemy commander, mounted in exquisite armor and flowing robes atop a warhorse, with two warhorse mounted knights beside her. Around them were about seven heavily armored veterans. Behind that command group were about fifty mounted soldiers on wyverns. Captain Almer tried to inspire his soldiers who were looking bleak in the face of such overwhelming odds.

After a few more minutes of waiting in anticipation as the battle continued, the enemy commander sent up a blue magical streak into the sky. At that signal, the group of wyverns behind ran and took to the sky, starting to fly over the battle towards the Red Sun archers in the rear. Then the event the party’s company was waiting for occurred, as the sky broke open in red light with three flaming *meteors* streaking down towards the melee. They smashed into numerous wyverns and two landed on the enemy side of the battle line, with one landing on the Red Sun side. Each erupted into massive explosions as they hit the ground and sent large amounts of earth into the sky. Combined with arrows firing at the wyverns it looked like many had fallen, but a fair number still flew down to attack the Red Sun from the rear.

## The Battle of Grainvic

Captain Almer yelled out, “that’s the signal, attack!” and he stumbled forward toward the artillery and the enemy manning them. The rest of the company soldiers waited only a moment until the captain was out in the field and then rushed out behind him, overtaking him and charging toward the enemy soldiers. The party had decided they would let the rest of the company cause a distraction and do their best to stop the artillery from firing, while they used the darkness and silence of Raven’s *pass without a trace* spell to sneak up to the flank of the enemy's command group to eliminate the leader. They proceeded to do so, with flashes of light erupting every now and then with lighting and fire bolts or breaths being unleashed within the battle. When the group approached under the silence of Raven’s spell, Watch started their attack by casting a *spike growth* underneath the command group.

The party surprised the enemy, firing their spells with Carlton atop Alastor, Daelain, and Fax charging forward. They collectively killed one of the mounted knights before it could react, and then the enemy soldiers mostly dispersed outward to get away from the *spike growth*, injuring most of them in the process. However, the enemy commander *misty stepped* out of the growth (leaving its horse), and cast *confusion* upon Carlton and Daelain. The enemy veterans charged toward the party, who focused their fire to kill a number of soldiers. Raven conjured another set of raptors to charge the enemy leader. This leader in turn took an opportunity to unleash an incredibly bright (upcasted) *fireball* towards the party members in the front.

Watch tried to use one of their *counterspell* scrolls to counter it by summoning forth a wall of ice to block the fireball, but the beam was too strong and pierced the icewall erupting in a bright explosion. Not only did it take out two of the enemy soldiers, it did massive damage to Carlton, brought Fax unconscious, and even ***killed*** Daelain. Raven’s raptors surrounded the enemy commander and combined with Watch, Joakim and Orsais’ fire they hurt the leader considerably, despite her using a *shield* spell. Perhaps realizing the fight was not going too well in their favor, the enemy commander yelled out that “you will not kill me!”, and polymorphed out of her dragonborn shape into her natural form. Growing into a huge adult copper dragon.

The party realized they were in trouble, with the dragon buffeting its wings knocking down a couple of Raven’s raptors and leaping into the sky over them landing near Raven. The dragon then unleashed a line of caustic acid breath through Raven reaching Joakim, burning both to the ground unconscious. Amid Carlton’s *confusion*, he did swing his weapon wildly at enemy soldiers surrounding him, but was still unable to break the spell’s hold. Orsais came to the rescue, magically *healing* Raven who was able to wake up and then *wildshape* into a deinonychus that then leapt at the dragon, slashing and biting. The dinosaur’s leap forced the dragon down prone. Orsais then *healed* Joakim, while Fax miraculously awoke himself, barely alive, stumbling to his feet.

Ignoring the rest of the enemy veterans the best they could, the party focused their attention on the dragon. Between spell and claw and its previous wounds, the dragon was getting quite hurt and decided enough was enough. It was not going to die here today, but instead flew up into the sky circling the battle realizing the tide had turned against them, as even the trebuchets had stopped firing. The dragon bellowed out in draconic, “retreat!” The remaining veterans fighting the party started to flee north, and then the rest of the army started to run towards the party’s direction as well. They picked up Daelain’s corpse and moved east towards the trebuchets as the enemy routed past them, with Red Sun soldiers giving moderate chase and still firing flaming arrows.

The storm had picked up intensity, and smoke billowed up from the various fires on the battlefield, but the night had been won. After ensuring the enemy had fled the field, the next few hours had the Red Sun scouring the battlefield, killing enemy survivors, picking over the dead, and tending to their wounded. The party scavenged the bodies of the enemy knights and veterans they fought, and with great sadness carried the body of Daelain with them back to the camp. They did not have access to a *revivify* spell to bring him back from the dead immediately, and would thus need to seek out the aid of a powerful cleric to resurrect their fallen compatriot. But they had been successful in all they had been charged with by Alburt, not only taking out the bridge and causing the enemy who had taken its tower to flee, but they were instrumental in winning this battle and routing the enemy.

And that is where the session ended, at the dawn of the sixteenth day since the party left Black Landing.

**Click Here for the next Session**

**Click Here for the Session Summary Page**