Chapter Twenty-Four: Fire

We retreat from the skirmish.

Kriv heals himself with psionics.

We take a short rest.

Vex proposes that she turns into a shadow to make contact with the prisoners underground.  Vex leaves a wisp of her shadow with Aruna's shadow so they can communicate.  Rather than wait until night, the group plans to create a distraction to improve Vex's chances of sneaking in.

Once Vex has made a head start, Kriv tries to set fire to the large NE building with a flaming arrow.  The guards start panicking and Vex manages to slip inside the fortress through the broken wall. Vex sneaks through the building and makes an attempt to sneak through the courtyard into the trap door.

Kriv, Aruna, and Xa'oc keep shooting at any guards trying to put out the fire on the roof.  A couple of guards get killed with arrows, but they are managing to fight the fire.

Vex flits between the shadows of the guards running around in order to make it to the trap door.  At the bottom of a spiral staircase, Vex is noticed by a group of guards.

The guards manage to put out the fire on the roof, but another guard is killed.

Vex becomes corporeal, uses illusions to make herself look like a guard, and tries to convince the guards to go outstairs and help with the fire.

Kriv, Aruna, and Xa'oc set the roof on fire again.

The guards recognize that Vex is an imposter and try to kill her, so she teleports to the trap door and tries to blend in among the guards fighting the fire.

The guards from underground yell that there's an imposter, but Vex manages to shift the blame to a different guard.

The guards finally figure out where Kriv is firing from and hit him with an arrow.

Vex slips away from the guards on the roof and jumps, landing badly on her ankle, and starts running.

Kriv casts Pass without Trace, Aruna and Xa'oc keep firing at the visible guards.  Xa'oc looks extremely distracted.  Two guards appear holding Jenji with a sword at her throat and shout "stop or we'll kill her."

Vex blasts those two guards off their feet and then she keeps running. Jengi falls with the guards because they are holding her.

Kriv, Aruna, and Xa'oc keep firing at the guards trying to put out the fire, killing a couple more of them.

Vex get hits with a couple of arrows while she runs and is about to drop. More guards appear on the roof to fire at the fleeing Vex.  Xa'oc rushes out from hiding to grab Vex and carry her away.

Vex dashes for cover and bleeds from the arrows sticking out of her.  Kriv: "Pass me those when you're done with them."

Kriv: "Did it go well down there? It's been going really well out here!"

Fifteen guards leave the fortress and try to catch us.  We start shooting at the guards approach us, killing four of them.  They continue to pursue us, firing arrows now that they can see where we've been hiding. Vex gets taken out by arrows.

Xa'oc heals Vex, Kriv helps her onto the kank, and we bravely flee.  The guards continue to shoot at us while we flee. Vex gets hit with yet another arrow. Xa'oc and Aruna continue to catch arrows.  They cannot track us thanks to Kriv's Pass without Trace.

We take another short rest and calculate that there are 21 guards left. We resolve to take a methodical approach to hiding, shooting, hiding, moving, and so on, while continuing to set the roof on fire, until we take out all the guards or they stop trying to put out the fire.

While we are resting, Navarro speaks with Xa'oc.

Navarro: "Did you feel whatever that was?"

Xa’oc: "It felt like an insect was buzzing around my head"

Navarro: "There's something else going on in here"

Xa’oc: "Someone else in the sword?"

Navarro: "We did pick up an awful lot of souls in the Gray."

Xa’oc: "You, the halfling, and the goblin."

Navarro: "They're all blended together, maybe they needed time, they had been one entity inside the Caller for so long, I'm not sure what effect separating them has had."

Xa’oc: "Do you think a fourth entity is responsible for the insect in my mind?"

Navarro: "Could be, I'm not sure"

Xa’oc: "One day, perhaps, the sword will grow more powerful with more souls. Perhaps that will be enough to rescue the prisoners and keep everyone safe."

Navarro: "It did help us escape from the Gray, but if you don't keep feeding it souls, this is what's going to keep happening"

Xa’oc looks at Fana but says, "We've only been fighting at range, I haven't been able to feed the sword in a while. it makes sense, though, that it needs souls. I'll keep that in mind, look for an opportunity to feed it as best we can, at the same time we have to keep everyone safe and continue to attack from afar. the safety of the clutch is the most important."

Navarro: "Just because the sword doesn't have the same hold on you that it did before, doesn't mean it's safe."

Xa’oc: "This time, at least, I can put it down and walk away. And if it just needs to be fed souls, that can be easily taken care of, especially in the fortress. I can't afford any more distractions."

Navarro: "I don't want you to think that we know the solution to this. Putting more souls in the sword might not have that effect."

Xa’oc: "It's worth it so that our lives are not at risk. Feeding it is the only plan we have. so let's see what happens."

Xa'oc wants to affix Mistsong to his gythka in order to use it at range.

We set out to try and take the fort again.

We see many people standing on the walls: not guards, unarmed prisoners

Vex communicates telepathically with one of the prisoners.  The guards are using the prisoners as human shields. They have cover, and if we miss within that amount, we hit the slaves.  There are about twenty guards remaining.  The guards are freaking out and talk about making the prisoners pay for the lost product. There are about seventy prisoners, only one of the prisoners is capable of fighting, a big new mul who is underground.

They haven't had him working on the plant.  They want to use him to repair the wall.  They took him down because he was causing trouble.  His name is Selkin.

The guards on the ground are still protecting the entrances.  The prisoners aren't harvesting the plant at the moment.

We circle around and take one volley of shots at the guards on the ground at the broken wall trying to avoid hitting the prisoners.

Aruna's bow becomes damaged and suffers disadvantage.  We kill five more guards.  We hide again.

Vex graciously offers to accept their surrender.  They don't believe that we'll honour it.

Vex graciously allows them to flee south.  After a minute of deliberations, sixteen of them walk out the south gate.

Xa'oc hears in his head "C'mon bug."

We watch to ensure they are actually leaving.  Kriv feels bound to honour the contract.  Xa'oc and Aruna want to hunt down the guards and murder them.

We take the fortress.  Kriv starts building walls and sends people out to gather thorn bushes.  Fana runs inside and searches for Jenji and only finds her corpse.  Aruna figures out how to repair the wall.  Vex talks to Selkin about what to do with the fortress.  He confirms that reinforcements are coming.  If we continue to harvest the plant, reinforcements will continually arrive.

Vex proposes that we destroy the plant, send the prisoners to live with the dwarves, and then continue on our journey.

The prisoners would prefer that we deal with the first wave of reinforcements before so that they can rest for a few days.

Tenneth says that we are unlikely to be successful at planting a new one of these plants elsewhere.  No harm in grabbing some seeds.

Vex now proposes that we destroy the plant, we hold the fort long enough to deal with the first wave of reinforcements, making sure that we send the message to them that the plant has been destroyed, then we can give the prisoners the location of dwarf town, and then we can continue on our way.

Xa'oc and Aruna intend to hunt down the escaped guards.