Session 06

## Session 06 - November 9th, 2017 - "Tracking the Raiders"

### Tracking the Raiders

The session began with Barlo having a vivid dream, walking through a forest on an uphill path. He wound a corner and came upon a cave entrance, heard a low deep growl and saw two bright yellow eyes. Then, he woke drenched in sweat, and went out to the Greenest keep’s courtyard and joined the rest of his newfound party. The group informed Barlo of the request by the governor to track the raiders, and of the information they gleaned from the prisoner’s ‘interrogation’ while he slept. The party began gathering supplies for the immediate trip, and the governor and castellan were gracious enough to open up what remained in the armory, food stores, and town’s general store for their free use.

Just outside the keep’s main gate the party was milling about making final preparations when they were approached by a monk in the same garb as Marcus. He spoke first to ‘brother’ Marcus and told him that their master, Leosin, was missing. They were separated during the raid last night and he fears Leosin intentionally was captured or attempted to infiltrate the raiders. The monk has heard the group is going after the raiders and Marcus tells the brother they will indeed look for their master - that was his entire reason for coming to Greenest in the first place! Finally, the monk informs the group he has already sent his other brother back to Elturiel on horseback with word of what has happened, but it would be more than a tenday before any further help would arrive.

Thia led the party along the easy to spot trail left by the raiders southeast out of Greenest. The flat grass plain of the Greenfields made it obvious when there was a wide swath of tall grass smashed to the ground forming a literal path away from town. Among the grass path there were hundreds of footprints, mixed between human and kobold, and well as numerous heavy laden wagon tracks. The party traveled along the flat Greenfields for about four hours and ten miles, until the land began to rise to slightly rolling hills. The Endscale Mountains loomed in the distance, and they now entering the outer areas of the foothills, when they rounded a hill they saw a thin smoke trail beyond the next hill.

### A Tale of Two Ambushes

Rufus and Thia investigated by hiking up the hill and as they crested it they saw what appeared to be a makeshift cooking fire with a group of humans and kobold raiders roasting hens. They were encircled by a collection of large boulders at the base of three hills where the footpath of the raiders wound through. Apparently, they were not concerned of anyone seeing their cooking fire. After returning to the main group the party decided to split up and surround and ambush the stragglers. Once Rufus initiated the ambush with his signature bird sound, the party surprised and was able to take out the entire group of four human and eight kobold raiders in mere seconds. None were left alive.

The party continued along the raiders trail, which was now just mass numbers of foot and track trails within a small area as it wound between larger and more stony foothills. As the path wound between the hills, many of them became much more craggy and in some places no more than four men could travel abreast. About a mile from where they encountered the stragglers the group came upon a particularly narrow passage with ten foot rocky outcroppings on either side, littered with boulders, as was becoming a common sight. Unfortunately, only two of the party members noticed the hiding raiders behind the boulders as they pushed most of them down, from both sides, onto the party in the bottom. The damage inflicted from the surprise of the boulders was massive, but only Selwyn fell unconscious then.

The party lept into action, with only Marcus, Rachen and Cadmus scrambling up to engage in melee, as the rest of the group stayed in the bottom path and fired at those above from behind the new cover granted by the boulders. Cadmus had healed Selwyn as the raiders rained down spears from both sides upon the ranged members of the party, and the melee combatants quickly engaged numerous foes. Cadmus then found himself locked in combat with what appeared to be the leader of the group, the only one armored in anything beyond black leather. This foe eventually knocked Cadmus out, Thia and Rufus shot down a runner, and then Thia cast *Cure Wounds* on Cadmus returning him to the fight. In the end, Marcus knocked a human raider unconscious to take prisoner, and the party ganged up on the splint wearing leader, killing him.

After the battle the group bound the unconscious raider and looted the bodies of the fallen, only finding the weapons and armor they had on them. In total they recovered a small amount of silver, and ten suits of human sized black leather stylized with dragons, scales, and wing protrusions, clearly Cult of the Dragon outfits. Just before the party continued down the path, the session ended. It is roughly late afternoon of the first day after the raid on Greenest.

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