Session 306

# April 20th, 2023 - The Golden Shower

## Prisoner of War

The session began with our heroes rushing on horseback separately through the tree line, to the south and east of the grasslands around the guard tower. They had planned on regrouping along the Coast Way road about a half mile into the forest, but Carlton first went back to the west side of the road to recover his stashed plate mail. Each of the party members ran through the trees and bushes in the dark of the predawn morning with their draft horses. Joakim had the most trouble controlling his steed, and he attempted to steer it in the direction he thought to go. The warlock’s tired mount reared back and he was thrown from it, as the horse emerged from a stand of trees to find a patrol of the enemy soldiers and their guard drakes.

Joakim was quickly overwhelmed and bound with rope, blindfolded, and thrown onto the back of a nearby horse. The rest of the party one by one regrouped at the designated spot along the forested road, with Carlton returning last with his plate mail set tied up in a jumble clanging on the back of his horse. They waited a few moments, but when Joakim did not return they knew something was wrong. About the same time, a group of soldiers appeared north along the road, with one carrying a torch, and the party could hear one yell out “there they are!” The group rode south a little further as the enemies chased, then most of the party dashed east into the forest as Raven and Watch continued along the road to attempt to draw them away. When the enemy group did not follow along the road but instead went into the trees following their friends, the two circled back to pursue.

Watch and Raven were easily able to catch up to the soldiers who were on foot, riding them down and then unleashing area of effect magic against the bunched up group. Watch erupted another *spike growth* while Raven cast an exploding *ice knife* that combined to kill the regular soldiers. Only after a moment of triumph, the pair was ambushed by the enemy's four guard drakes that charged from the nearby brush with one leaping to knock Raven from his horse. Watch avoided another pouncing drake by leaping into the trees above, with the horse he rode on taking the brunt of the attack. From his elevated position Watch began firing *eldritch blasts* (enchanted rocks) at the drakes, while Raven *shapeshifted* into a dire wolf and started to engage.

The four guard drakes circling were going to be too much for Direwolf-Raven, and so he took the risk and ran east past the drakes towards his party members. The beasts mostly followed with one barking up the tree Watch was in, but the warlock started jumping and expertly swinging from the tree branches to follow Raven while continuing to pelt one of the drakes with his eldritch rocks, eventually killing it. The rest of the party had steered north and reached the tree line once again, watching as the light of morning began to come over the horizon. They saw Joakim bound and on the back of horse surrounded by a patrol group and their drakes as they crossed the grasslands back to the guard tower. They could also see slight smoke rising from the bridge where they attempted to burn it down, but it appeared as if the soldiers were able to put out the fire - they after all had a number of white and silver dragonborn among their numbers who could breath cold.

Direwolf-Raven followed the scent of his fellows and emerged from the brush to find them looking north over the grasslands. He motioned behind and growled and so the party prepared as the following guard drakes emerged and attacked. Combined with Watch firing from the treetop the group was able to kill the remaining drakes and started to plan how they would rescue Joakim and follow through with taking out the bridge. Over the next two hours while the party rest and planned, Joakim was dragged into the upper floor of the tower and interrogated. Surrounded by the stone tower he didn’t risk unleashing his fire breath while the enemy knight beat him within an inch of his life, and asked numerous questions.

## The Golden Shower

Joakim refused to really answer, and thus it was Lord Joffrey who joined the room and told the knight that the captured warlock was one of those who were escorting him. That their group had no more than seven. If Lord Joffrey was being held against his will, he was surely cooperating. Afterwards, Joakim was muzzled with more rope and taken down to the basement of the tower that was filled with crates and barrels of supplies. He was further beaten and soldiers came down taking turns urinating on him.

After two hours of rest and preparation, the party began their rescue plan. Watch *disguised* his appearance as a wounded dragonborn soldier with a *shapeshifted* spider-Raven in his pocket, and he ran through the trees towards the tower. It was now mid morning, and as expected the main group of soldiers at the base of the guard tower started to come towards him as the rest of the party on horseback came charging out after the ‘wounded soldier’. They let their rouse go as long as possible until the enemy troops began firing crossbow bolts at them, and they turned to retreat back towards the forest. Watch was escorted by the soldiers back to the tower, telling them of how the party killed the rest of his patrol with magic (*spike growth* and *ice knife*).

Watch was able to get a good view of the bridge, and confirmed that it was still intact. Inside the tower's first floor the majority of soldiers were drinking from the ale supplies, and the warlock was given the opportunity to go down to the basement and ‘have his way’ with the captured soldier. Before Watch went downstairs, spider-Raven was deposited upon a nearby wall and climbed up to the level where the knight leader and Lord Joffrey were talking around the round table (where he previously saw soldiers playing cards). On this level were also two doorways into larger bedrooms than in the below floors, he crawled around and peeked into one with an open door, but decided instead to crawl under the closed second doorway.

This room appeared to be taken by the enemy's leader, as there was a nice sized locked chest and a number of papers sprawled out on the table inside. Spider-Raven crawled upon the table and looked at the papers, noticing there was also a small wooden box opened with a golf ball sized emerald gem giving off a slight glow. Its glow washed over some of the nearby papers and in that light transformed the indecipherable glyphs they had seen previously into draconic text. Raven shifted back into his natural state and unable to read the text, but realizing the importance of the gem and papers, stuffed them all into his pockets and then tried to open the locked chest. He was unable to do so, and then looked around and decided he could make a nice distraction by shoving the entire chest out of the window.

While Raven was scouting the upper levels, Watch descended into the storeroom where Joakim was bound and soaking wet curled upon the cold stone floor. He saw that among the barrels and crates was not only more ale, but also oil for the signal fire. He told Joakim it was Watch, and untied him revealing his plan. Watch created a *minor illusion* of the bound and soaking Joakim where he had laid, while then casting *invisibility* upon his wounded warlock companion. As Watch went back to the ground floor of the tower with the invisible Joakim behind him, they heard the crash of the treasure chest outside and the clanging of hundreds of coins.

Stepping out into the tower many of the drunk soldiers were pouring out the front door toward the sound of the distraction and Watch/Joakim followed, going around the north and west side of the tower. The knight leader had run into his room where the chest was thrown from, but Raven had already returned to his spider form and was crawling down the outside of the tower, effectively invisible at such a small size. With the distraction of the tower soldiers and the rest staying guard at the bridge entrance, Watch and the invisible Joakim were able to loop around the long way to the west back to the forest and make their way back to their waiting party members. Spider-Raven eventually returned to the group, returning to his natural state and revealing the papers and magic decoding gem he had found.

The party examined the documents, most from the previous Black Landing inhabitants, but the magically coded papers spoke of troop movements. The map they had recovered from the rebel camp was held up to the magic gem and the glyphs transformed into draconic, which the party discovered detailed two battalions moving to converge in the farmland north of Black Landing. One battalion (a thousand soldiers) was marching south along the Coast Way, and based on the dates on the map, they counted that they only had one more day until the soldiers would cross the bridge. The second battalion was sailing south by ship and would land at the peninsula north of Black Landing, to converge with the land battalion to attack the army stationed at the town of Grainvic. The same army camp the party came through on their way to the rebel camp.

The party would only have one more opportunity, and so they decided to wait the rest of the day until nightfall to attempt their final assault on the remnants of the enemy company guarding the tower and bridge.

That is where the session ended, in the middle of the eleventh day after leaving Black Landing.

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