Zoom 2021-06-17 21:00

DM confirms purchases of silverware, hip flasks and other specified items. Sale of loot from Tres Amigos and bodies from pyre and cellar sold at 40% RRP.

Quercuis prepares to dig up the sapling: She gets a nice pot of compost for the sapling and invites it to transfers itself to the pot. Nothing happens – except for a bit of sniggering from the party and comments of ‘Who does she think she is – Prince Charles?”. So with deference to the Tree and the sapling, Q digs up the sapling: It has a small root ball for an oak sapling – but as soon as she removes it completely from the ground its starts to shrink – ending up after a few minutes as a small lump of amber with an even smaller oak tree preserved within in it. Q puts it in her pocket – but notices a slight tugging from the amber – to the East.

The rest of the party prepare the courtyard for battle, including Caradoc scattering earth and caltrops – and letting the party know where they are! He then takes his position at the scanning bowl.

## More ‘guests’ - and one very unwelcome visitor

There is an urgent knocking at the door: Joshua uses the view screen to see that there are 3 badly beaten up Elves outside – Sereph, Kilan and a Dark Elf. Kilan is in the worst shape, and is being supported by Sereph. Joshua takes his time to satisfy himself that this isn’t a ruse – and the knocking gets more urgent. Then a smoke bomb or similar goes off around the 3 Elves, and with party consensus/urging he opens the door and lets the 3 Elves in. They come in and another smoke bomb goes off around them. There appears to be a fourth person within the smoke – and it plants a dagger in Kilan’s back – poisoning him and leaving him unconscious and barely alive. Meanwhile Joshua desperately tries to close the door and calls to Umar for help – but he does succeed in closing it despite some obvious resistance from the other side. Caradoc is able to observe several more burly figures outside the gates.

Only characters with infravision stand a chance of hitting whatever is in the smoke – so Umar wades in followed by Bazin and the hobbit monk/mages.

The three ‘friendly’ Elves make it out of the smoke – a Lay-On-Hands by Brokef (who then goes to fight) and a Neutralise Poison from Q. stabilises Kilan – followed next round by a CLW from Wun to bring him back to consciousness.

## Combat in the smoke:

There is a single, extremely agile opponent (seems to be AC1) with 2 attacks a round with poison daggers – does damage, con loss (1 or 4), 1HP/round poisoning (for 6 rounds) cumulative for every hit. If the victim fails their saving throw they are left incapacitated, writhing in agony on the ground. Nasty!

No missiles/spells can be directed at the enemy in the smoke without major risk of friendly fire. Even melee in there is not risk free.

Umar takes on the hostile and suffers some dagger blows but saves against the poison. As Joshua is there, he decides he might as well try and take swing. Bad move! Next round Joshua is the target and goes down from the poison. The hostile is seen to bend down and take something from Joshua who lets out a strangled cry of ‘the key!’. Meanwhile Brokev joins the fight – fumbles and skewers Joshua. Hamish starts thwacking but Dougal decides to go for the door – to pack some earth into the key-slot to make it (temporarily) unusable. He gets a couple of dagger blows for his troubles – but manages to make it out of the smoke and later gets a CLW from Wun before the poison would render him unconscious.

In the meantime, Francis has been given an ‘infravision’ spell by Sereph, so he is able to join the fight. The fight continues with Umar, Brokev, Bazin. Francis and Hamish fighting in the smoke. All manage to land the odd blow now and again – but the rest of the party also hear various desperate cries of ‘Medic!’ emerging from the smoke – but there is not much they can do.

As the smoke starts to thin a little, Francis gets two excellent hits in on the hostile which takes it down. Francis makes sure that it stays down by judiciously slitting its throat. Also on the floor are:

* Umar – unconscious on 0?(HP), taking 4 (?) hp/round poison damage.
* Brokev – conscious and writhing, taking 1 (?) hp/round poison damage ( ? more rounds of poison left)
* Hamish – unconscious on -3HP, taking 3 hp/round poison damage ( 4 more rounds of poison left)
* Joshua – unconscious on -1HP, taking 1 hp/round poison damage ( 2 more rounds of poison left).

A CLW from Bazin gets Umar conscious and a Slow Poison from Kilan stops him from taking any more damage. The other heals are TBD – Hamish is the most urgent.

Honours for the fight go to Francis for the killing blows, Brokev for his Prot-Non-Wyldwood that made a significant difference – and to Caradoc whose caltrops made another vital contribution (all from the safety of his armchair.) Brickbats to Joshua for being careless with the key, and getting in the way of Brokev’s spear.