Ironborn Slaughterhouse
Shadowsilver cautiously yells into the cavern, “Jonah!” and receives no response.
She looks back at the group and suggests they decide which of the loot they want to keep. They decide to leave behind the heaviest of the regular gear like the Plate armor. After collecting the gems and jewelry, the group deliberates on their next move. After hearing the others describe their reasons for what should be their next move, Tholannan casts Guidance on himself and uses his Insight to reason through this.
Tholannan determines his key pieces of evidence about this location:
- Jonah must have known about this place for some time
- The King of the Reach, Greydon Gardener, does not know about this place or else he would know where to send his troops
- No one else, or at least no one with authority, knows of this place or it would be destroyed by now
Therefore:
- The Ironborn must have been using this place for a very long time and would not expect anyone else to be here
- If they now know it is compromised, the Ironborn are unlikely to return to this place in the future
He goes further to deduce Jonah’s intentions:
- Jonah seemed to fight wholeheartedly against the Ironborn
- His current demeanor, or what could be sensed from an echoed laugh through the cavern, seems casual
Therefore: - He is not likely to be working with the Ironborn
Tholannan second guesses this somewhat: what if the next raiding parties paid for Jonah to take out this first raid? Hard to say… This is Jonah Bick after all… Who might be the highest bidder? Then again, the Ironborn are not known to pay the “gold price” for anything.
They decide to rescale the cliff and wait for the next ships to arrive and wait to see what happens. Ornogrim shrouds them all in shadows and they begin their climb. Once at the top, they look out into the fog and see the masts from two longships arriving at the shore. After beaching these two new arrivals on the port side of the first ship, the Ironborn begin offloading items from their ships and bringing their wares into the cavern. Moments later, yelling of commands, swords being drawn, and it looks like those on the shore are looking around to find who slaughtered and burned their men.
Ornogrim asks Tinkey to scout the cave system to learn what she sees.
The Ironborn dismisses the raven that flies into the cavern in their preoccupation with the situation at hand.
After several minutes, Tinkey returns badly hurt. After feeding her some Goodberries, Ornogrim speaks with her to understand the layout of the cave system.
Qhortho is just itching to take the fight to them, Qarzdaq wants to Fireball one of those ships, Shadowsilver wants to throw one of the cards from her Deck of Illusions.
Ornogrim also learns of a few toadlike biped creatures and some stalaGMites that intentionally fall from the ceiling. Fucking Piercers… damnit… It seems that’s an uninteresting little offshoot anyway. Perhaps they can bypass it. In any case, Tinkey sure is glad she gets THIS benefit at least from being Ornogrim’s friend.
It got too dark to continue too far and did not explore the cliff area along the main path.
Shadowsilver can’t take the inaction. She throws a card down at the base of the cliff near the cave opening. Upon reaching the sand, a Fire Giant spawns into existence. 30-feet tall if it is a foot. And with his body being more than 10 feet wide, he easily occupies 15 square feet of space comfortably… for him. Immediately Shadowsilver directs the Fire Giant to move away from its spawn point towards the closest ship. It begins to swing its enormous club at the nearby Ironborn.
The men now loading loot back onto the ships notice the enormous threat first. Those with bows quickly arm themselves and begin firing at the giant. In the panic, they fail to realize that their arrows pass right through it.
The men with swords and daggers retreat along the beach somewhat, in acts of self-preservation. With a group of them now clustered, their societal pressures surpass the drive of self-preservation as they look at each other. All it takes is one crazy bastard to yell and rush the giant for all of them to follow.
Taking advantage of the moment, Qarzdaq causes a Fireball to explode on the middle of the center ship. The sails ignite immediately and kill 20 of the instantly. The masts catch and continue to burn. Believing this has been brought upon them by the Fire Giant on the beach, some escape to the water, some along the outer rails of the ship to get out of sight.
They all begin swiping at the giant, some taking collateral damage in the process due to them being such close proximity; some are even hit with arrows from the ship.
Seeing that Qhortho is making movements as if he is about to scale the wall down to enter the fray, but Shadowsilver stops him. “Qhortho, hold firm. We don’t need to let them know where we are.”
Qarzdaq sets off another Fireball on the beach, killing another 15 Ironborn.
As the attacks meet no meaty resistance, the warriors below realize this is an illusion and they look around for the source. They fail to notice the shrouded party looking over the ledge from 80 feet above.
The Ironborn pick up their pace, loading their spoils into the two ships not currently burning. They continue to pass the illusory Fire Giant. It swipes at them as they pass without consequence, save a few men who “jump like little girly men” – a source of laughter for those nearby.
They finish loading the ships and shove off, leaving the middle ship burning on the beach.
The party has learned something more about the Ironborn in the way they fight: though they are men individually, together they seem no different than the Orcs they faced a few weeks earlier. However, when faced with a surprise threat, an individual Ironborn would experience fear like any other man.
Cave Re-Entry
Once they are out of audible range, the group scales down the cliffside. Qarzdaq takes a spill on the way down. Luckily it was only feet from the ground.
They enter the cave to find it totally empty of all remaining usable loot. All that remains are the heirlooms damaged by fire. They discuss briefly whether they should look for Jonah, explore the caves, or just get back on the road.
Shadowsilver intends to investigate the burning ship before it capsizes. She changes into her Dragon Scale Armor so she can get some fire resistance. This takes 1 minute to doff the leather armor and 5 minutes to don the scale armor.
She assesses the situation to figure out the best way aboard. The center and the very front of the ship is on fire. The mast is burning like a gigantic candle. The gangway is relatively open. She decides to use that as her way aboard and dashes through the center fire to reach the stern, which is still untouched by fire. She looks below deck and it is all rowing stations. No chests, no weapons, nothing. She looks around the upper deck and notices a small chest near the ship’s wheel. She picks the lock and finds some silver and a badge depicting a Kraken made of iron. She dashes back through the fire and regroups with the others.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group searched the bodies of the newly fallen along the beach, finding nothing. It appears that everything of value was to be compiled and divided later.
The cave, still littered with bodies from the first assault, seems a good place to take a long rest.
While they rest, Ornogrim relays all the information he learned from Tinkey, including the red and blue frog-like creatures and Piercers along the ceiling.
They ask him about what he thinks those creatures might be, and, as he thinks on it, Tholannan casts Guidance to help his memory.
ORNO: Those frog creatures make me think of some reports of mythical coastal creatures. The description I got from Tinkey…
TINKEY: GoLeft, GoLeft
Everyone looks at Tinkey.
ORNO: Thanks Tinkey. The description, as I understand it, doesn’t appear to be of giant toads or frogs like those reported farther south. These walk upright. There is something more mystical about them. I have no idea if they are poisonous, if they are just beasts, or if they understand any languages. I remember hearing stories of things like this, but I had never seen them, so I never had any reason to believe they were real.
After a few hours, they begin to explore the caves. They head to the pathway explored by Tinkey and see a cliff on the right side. Shadowsilver scales the 20-foot cliff effortlessly and looks around. A cave heads straight back, perpendicular to the cave down below where her friends wait.
SHAD: It’s a bit dark up here, but I can see that it is pretty long.
Qarzdaq grabs a loose stone and casts Light on it, causing it to glow.
QARZ: Hey Shadow, take this!
Qarzdaq tosses the glowing rock up to her and she continues to explore. Noticing no threats, she continues down the cave for a hundred feet. It continues to narrow as it curves to the right and slopes downward slightly. She runs back to the group.
Shadowsilver yells back to the group.
SHAD: It seems it goes on for quite a ways, do you want me to explore it to the end?
This echoes throughout the cave.
TINKEY: StayPut, StayPut.
They decide it’s worth exploring cautiously together, so they climb up the wall and continue down the cave and through the narrow passage single-file as it curves to the right. As they make their way through, it opens to a large cavern. A campfire is burning and there are lots of dead bodies around the fire. They realize there is an opening to the left to the outside. Then they realize… this is the main entrance and those bodies are the Ironborn they killed earlier.
Noticing this, they continue the way they started. They bypass the cliff on the right and continue to the bend around the left. Tinkey visibly relaxes. They spread out a bit to take advantage of the larger width of this area of the cavern.
WTF is a Slaad?
About 70 feet ahead, Qarzdaq can see a shadowy figure – a biped of some sort. Qarzdaq casts Message to the creature.
QARZ: Hey.
The figure stops moving. Inside Qarzdaq’s head he hears a coarser version of his word, “Hey.”
Qarzdaq sends another Message: “We mean you no harm.”
The figure looks around, still at distance, then half-hops off to the left side wall.
Qarzdaq approaches the creature carefully and diplomatically, hands in the air to show he is not a threat.
The rest of the group follows 10 feet behind Qarzdaq, readying themselves for anything that might happen.
The creature lunges forward into the glowing rock’s light. Qarzdaq immediately casts Shield, but the red creature shatters through it, clawing his flesh. He follows up with a bite to his shoulder.
Qhortho rages and charges at this abomination. The others follow suit with their attacks.
Some of the creature’s wounds look to close up. After a few more attacks though, the creature cries out as he falls.
Shadowsilver goes up to the creature and begins to carefully slice open the Red Slaad using the techniques she learned from the Citadel books. She pokes around for a bit and does not notice any glands or toxin systems.
SHAD: I don’t see anything in here that would be poisonous.
Ornogrim dismembers one of the claws at the wrist and wraps it in some material from his backpack.
Thinking that Ornogrim may know something she doesn’t, Shadowsilver slices open the other hand and traces conduits from the claws into small glands closer to the palm. The glands don’t appear to be anything like a poison gland, but maybe she can have it checked out later. Whatever is in these glands, it looks like it is directly injected from beneath its claws. She cuts off its hand at the wrist and wraps it the way Ornogrim did.
QARZ: Hey Ornogrim, do you mind if I get a few of those Goodberries?
Ornogrim generates a few Goodberries for Qarzdaq, who is amazed at their freshness.
Qhortho is keeping lookout during this time and alerts the others that two more of those Red Slaads are approaching.
He runs at them and slashes with his Valyrian blade. He looks like he might falter, so Tholannan inspires him as he rushes forward.
THOL: Come on boy, you got this, it’s so easy, don’t think too much. You’re good enough, you’re smart enough, and damnit, people die by your blade.
Qhortho lands his attacks like a pro.
QHOR: Thanks Thol!
The creature returns with a painful claw attack. Ornogrim runs up to aid Qhortho at the front.
Qarzdaq, seeing them about to take the hits for the rest for the group, casts a Twinned Haste on Qhortho and Ornogrim. Immediately, they both feel faster, making them harder to hit and able to act twice as fast as normal. Given that Ornogrim and Qhortho are able to attack twice with a single action, they can now attack four times when they get the chance.
Tholannan casts a Spiritual Guardian to protect them, providing additional damage every time the Red Slaads act.
A few more attacks and one of the Red Slaads falls by Shadowsilver’s arrow.
The second Slaad is hit by a couple of Scorching Rays, courtesy of Qarzdaq. This is quickly followed by Tholannan’s Guiding Bolt, providing an Advantage on the next single attack. Qhortho almost loses his balance, but Tholannan’s Guiding Bolt allows him to connect with a slash to the Red Slaads shoulder.
When the Slaad attempts to claw Ornogrim, but it stumbles into him and quickly attempts to push off him to regain its footing. This allows Ornogrim an Opportunity to strike. He takes it.
It turns out that regardless of how many attacks a person can make with an Attack Action, that person may ONLY make a single melee attack when an Attack of Opportunity avails itself.
The creature is simply too close and Ornogrim’s arm falls off. Tinkey hops onto the arm on the ground, “StayPut, StayPut!” Oh wait… No… That’s not what happens at all! The creature is just slightly grazed. Right.
All it takes is one more slash from Ornogrim and an arrow from Shadowsilver, and they are once again victorious.
But Tinkey warned them of a blue one of these things too. Fuuuuuuuuuuck…
About 30 seconds later, a Blue Slaad hop-walks out of the darkness, darting this way and that.
It attacks Qhortho right away, clawing deeply and biting hard.
Qarzdaq launches Scorching Rays with the strongest magic he has available, searing parts of the Blue Sladd’s skin. Tholannan hits with a Guiding Bolt, giving Qhortho an edge on his next attack. Qhortho’s first hit lands, but on his second swipe, the blade slips from his hand. Luckily, it slams the wall nearby, just within reach.
The blue Slaad claws Ornogrim’s skin deeply, and Ornogrim slashes the Blue Slaad’s face.
Qarzdaq sees this slaad as a bigger threat and tells the group he is going to cast Haste. Shadowsilver decides to Ready her Action until after she receives Haste.
Qarzdaq casts Haste on Shadowsilver and Qhortho. Unfortunately, Shadowsilver misses with both attacks.
Tholannan attempts to heal Qhortho and Ornogrim, but neither feels any healthier. He then casts Spectral Weapon to attack the blue piece of shit.
Qhortho picks up his weapon by his feet and attacks the Blue Slaad. He slashes once across the chest, then follows it up with a swift slash across the neck, decapitating it. Its body falls away from the head, which is left rotating midair before falling to its body and rolling down the cave.
They stand ready for any others, but no new challengers arrive. They decide to remove the hands from this Blue Slaad and get out of the area.
Ornogrim shrouds the group in shadows and they begin to egress the cave. Once they get to the campfire, they stop to assess the situation. Ornogrim, Qarzdaq, and Qhortho look to Tholannan to heal them.
THOL: You should be doing pretty well after the last heal I cast.
They look at each other, not knowing who he is speaking to. Clearly no one has felt any effects of healing.
Fuck Slaads
Tholannan is confused by this, but figures there must be some sort of poison in those creatures’ claws. He inspects his friends carefully and finds a jelly-like substance in one of Qarzdaq’s wounds. One of Ornogrim’s wounds looks almost scarred but it has a translucent blue tinge. Qhortho appears to have both types of wounds.
Though he has never seen these particular ailments, Tholannan relies on his medical background to diagnose the situation. Although his friends do not appear to have any restrictions on their movement, the fact that Qhortho and Ornogrim are not being healed makes him believe there is a poison or disease at work. Perhaps these are like maggots and can be killed by searing the wounds with fire? Qarzdaq likes this train of thought.
Tholannan wipes out the jelly from Qhortho, then casts Lesser Restoration, which should eradicate a disease from him, if he is infected with one. He watches both types of wounds while he casts the spell and sees the scarring appear to transform to a fleshy gash. Blood weeps from the wound. Though this looks worse, Tholannan knows this is an improvement and this bluish scarred wound is some sort of disease. He then casts a heal on Qhortho, which allows his wounds to close.
Deconstructing the fight, he realizes that Qarzdaq had only been hit by a red one, Ornogrim had only been hit by a blue one, and Qhortho had been hit by both. The Blue Slaad must have been responsible for the disease that prevents healing.
Tholannan casts Lesser Restoration on Ornogrim, which causes his bluish scarred wound to morph into a fleshy gash, oozing blood.
Ornogrim pops a few Goodberries and feels much better.
Qarzdaq, hoping the fire will cleanse his wound, casts Firebolt into his jelly-filled wound and takes damage as a result. The jelly fizzles, but he feels no different.
QARZ: Hey Qhotho, do you want me to Firebolt your jelly wound?
QHOR: Sure.
Qarzdaq fires it off and causes him almost twice as much damage as he caused himself.
Qhortho looks a bit dazed. This is obviously more than he was expecting.
This is the epitome of the battle of Fire vs. Water.
THOL: Here I am trying to heal and you’re over here just burning the shit out of everybody.
QHOR: Hey Ornogrim, let me get some of those Goodberries.
ORNO: Ohh… I ran out.
QHOR: Uh, can’t you just go make some more?
ORNO: Fiiiiiine…. But now I can’t cast Hail of Thorns.
QHOR: Alright, I’ll be fine. Don’t make any more.
SHAD: I have a great potion I’ll sell you for 700 gold!
He declines. Instead they decide to rest for an hour to regain some health.
The group decides it’s high time they finish exploring these caves.
Getting Roped Up in Exploration
They pass by the three dead Red Slaads and the Blue Slaad and make their way towards an area on the left. Shadowsivler notices a dead Ironborn ahead and checks his pockets. She finds a blunted silver knife used to break open seals on letters. She snags it and keeps it to herself. The others walk up without suspecting a thing and inspect the body. They find a few jelly-filled wounds, but nothing else out of the ordinary.
They continue around the curve and spot a small pile of silver. Shadowsilver begins to scurry up ahead; Ornogrim follows closeby. She reacts by walking a little faster; Ornogrim does the same. The rest of the group begins to follow. Shadowsilver starts running, Ornogrim and the others try to keep pace, but she outruns all of them and gets to the silver first.
Shadowsilver takes some of the silver off the top of the pile on the ground before anyone gets up there. No one sees her take anything, but it is awfully suspicious.
SHAD: There’s some silver here!
They split the pile on the ground “evenly.”
At this point Qarzdaq looks around for stalactites. It is questionable whether it was stalagtites, even with proper recording equipment.
They explore this area of the cave and make their way back to the main corridor of the cave. Progressing a little way farther, an offshoot opens to the left with many stalactites. A foul-smelling slime coats portions of the ground. The group is pretty sure those are the Piercers Tinkey encountered.
Shadowsilver tosses the glowing rock into the area. A couple of small pouches are in the middle of the offshoot.
Shadowsilver considers stealthily dashing out there to snag the pouches, but Qarzdaq beats her to the punch and uses a Mage Hand to retrieve one of the pouches.
A few of the stalactites crash down to the floor. They turn into slug-like creatures that make their way towards the walls slowly.
Inside the retrieved pouch are copper and silver pieces. Qarzdaq uses his Mage Hand to snag the other pouch, triggering more of the Piercers to fall. This pouch has more copper and silver.
Tholannan suggests they move along.
THOL: It may seem shameful running from a slug, but honestly, it’s more shameful for them that we don’t even want to deal with them.
QHOR: I want to go kill these things. We get more XP.
This is the second instance of a meta-gaming attempt by Qhortho’s Player, but it was vetoed by the rest of the group. Good thing, for Qhortho’s sake.
They continue deeper.
They come across another offshoot to the right. Two large stalagmites are visible but as they approach, two more are visible farther back in the offshoot. Nothing is on the ceiling.
They presume these to be Ropers and Qarzdaq shoots off a Firebolt at one of these stony growths. It scars the rocky façade and tendrils come alive, revealing this is in fact a Roper.
Qhortho Readies an Action to Attack if the Roper gets within twenty feet of the group.
The Roper moves ten feet towards the group and attempts to snag Ornogrim. This triggers Qhortho’s Action and he slices it in half.
The Roper then snags and grapples Ornogrim and Qhortho. It pulls Qhortho towards it, almost within range to bit him.
Shadowsilver dashes around to the other side of the Roper and fires an arrow. Since she is out view of the Roper, it is a Sneak Attack, dealing substantial damage.
Qarzdaq creates a Mirror Image of himself to protect himself a little more given his recent experience with the Slaads.
Ornogrim fails to release himself from the tendril’s grasp and drops a short sword in the process.
Tholannan casts Spirit Guardians.
Qhortho rips the tendril holding him in half and enters a Rage.
The Roper attempts to snag Qarzdaq but targets an illusory image instead. The next tendril snags Qhortho. Another tendril snags Tholannan. The Roper then reels in Qhortho and bites him.
Shadowsilver hits the Roper with another arrow, causing lots of damage, then dashes away from the fight.
Qarzdaq casts a Firebolt at the Roper, but it does no damage.
Ornogrim sheathes his short sword and grabs his great axe.
Tholanann attempts to break free, but fails.
Qhortho attacks the Roper, but nothing gets through.
The Roper crumples to loose rocks as the Spiritual Guardians take their toll. The tendrils fall from those restrained.
Ornogrim stashes his great axe and runs to his dropped short sword.
Four tendrils fly out of the darkness towards the Members still within the area before he gets to the sword.
Time slows for Qhortho as he enters another Rage. He sees the tendrils heading towards his friends and himself, so he rushes towards Qarzdaq. He attacks the tendril as it closes around Qarzdaq, but he is not able to slice through its natural stone armor. Qarzdaq, Ornogrim, and Tholannan are now grappled.
THOL: Shadow! Where did you go?! Help us out!!
ORNO: Shadow! There’s another one! Get back and help us!
The Roper pulls Qarzdaq 25 feet towards it.
Shadowsilver continues running away from their calls and finds a cavern on the left and an alcove to the right. The alcove is about 20 feet wide and 50 feet back. She runs towards the alcove and finds that the back wall has an opening that appears to be a tunnel. She enters the tunnel slowly, bow in hand, still wearing her Dragon Scale Armor. She gets about 5 feet in before being hit by a blast of fire from behind. This may be a trap from overhead or an attack from behind. The burst of fire lights up the tunnel ahead of her enough to see that it goes pretty far back. She could not see the end of it. If she decides to run out, she will have to face whatever caused the fire, whether it be a trap or something else.
Qarzdaq sends a Firebolt towards the Roper, which lands true.
Ornogrim slashes at the tendril around him. He deals damage but not enough to free him.
Tholannan attempts to get free from his tendril, but fails to do so.
Still Day 270, now with 26,970 total XP each, the Unlikely Assembly is at their most dire state yet.