Blood, Gold, and Lizards - Friday Group - Session 2

Attendees
Hugo Underwood – Wood Elf shaman
Felix Lutsk – Human “acquisitioner”
Alset Alokin – High Elf magus

Hirelings:
Penrith the Steeplejack (Sergeant)
Lukyan the Fat
Fredek the Hare



The group started with some housekeeping. Hugo officially joined F&A Holdings. This tied down Fritz and Albrecht with getting the necessary paperwork through the New Zwicke bureaucracy [the players were unavailable]. Felix, Hugo, and Alset deposited their earnings from the previous expedition into the New Zwicke Bank for safe keeping. The group then used money from F&A Holdings to purchase healing potions at the Temple of Shallya, hire a trio of guards for camp security, and then food and extra horses for the entire group.

Originally the guards were simply going to be paid a flat salary for camp guarding. However, after some discussion the guards were offered a full share as a group if they also fought alongside the adventurers. Penrith negotiated a clause for payment of the flat rate if no treasure was recovered, but otherwise accepted the offer on behalf of his men.

The group headed north on the Estini Road, planning to return to the tower in the Wedge Wood and explore further from there. This plan fell by the wayside just outside of the farmlands surrounding New Zwicke when a pack of bandits attempted to rob the adventurers. During the ensuing fight, Hugo was shot off his horse by arrows [for being scary and dangerous with his Murder of Crows spell], Alset’s spells fizzled early on, but the hirelings proved their worth, keeping the bulk of the bandits away from the spellcasters and cutting many of them down. The fight ended with the bandit archers fleeing once the sword-weilding bandits were all dead or unconscious.

While the elves stripped the dead bandits of their gear, Felix interrogated the four bandits that were captured alive, killing one of them to make his point to the others. The remaining three bandits were very eager after that to share everything they knew, including that there was a raft hidden upstream where the archers were likely to run to and that the bandits had a camp in a small forest across the Arrow River from the ambush site. After Felix collected the heads of the dead bandits, the adventurers made their way to the location of the bandit raft [bringing along the manacles captives], discovering the archers just pushing off from the shore!

This battle was more of a slaughter as the bandit archers had no cover. One of the dead archers was recovered, as were all four long bows, but the other three bodies sunk (weighted down by their armor) and were washed away by the river current.

Alset used a series of teleports to move everyone across the river, except the draft horses the hirelings were riding. As the draft horses each massed more than Alset could teleport, Hugo had to swim them across. This took a couple tries as the horses were nervous, but eventually everyone and their mounts were on the western side of the river.

Hugo went ahead into the small forest to scout out the bandit camp but was immediately discovered.  [He completely blew his stealth roll.]  However, as he knew the password (“Applecake” – learned from the captives), Hugo was able to bluff his way in as a new recruit.  [He aced his Acting roll.] The bandits took him in and the senior bandit gave him the tour and explained that this was a raiding camp, their winter camp was elsewhere. Hugo noticed that there were only five bandits guarding the camp and the front gate and the back gate were not within sight of each other. He started formulating plans…

When Hugo had not returned from scouting after an hour, Felix led the rest of the group straight up to the front of the bandit camp. As the bandits drew their bows, Hugo cast Cloud of Moths, obscuring the sight of the bandits (and himself) with mass numbers of glowing blue moths. This allowed Felix and the hirelings to charge the gate and get in without getting shot. It was all over for the bandits at the front gate after that. The rear gate bandits heard the fighting and their friends dying and fled out the back with their lives and little else.

The adventurers spent the next hour thoroughly looting the bandit camp. The take was mostly foodstuffs and the meager loot gathered by the bandits so far this season. Felix beheaded the dead bandits and freed the three captives, telling them to run and never come to his attention again. They ran.

With loot to sell back in town (and the majority of that being perishable foodstuffs), the group returned to New Zwicke. They turned over the bandit heads to the Guard, receiving a small bounty (5s) per head after filling out a report. [This was due to Hugo being a member of a registered adventuring company. Otherwise the adventurers would have been treated as vigilantes and forced to pay a fine.] After selling off the loot, shares were paid out: one to each adventurer, one to the group of hirelings, and one to F&A Holdings. Penrith and his men were very pleased with the payment and stated they would be happy to work with the adventurers again.

End of Session