After some exploring and dickering, The Friends of Orthos manage to follow the mountains south and come across the pass heading north.
During the trek up the mountains, Vespertine begins anxiously checking her black shadowy orb. After some probing, she reveals to Talari that the trapped Lady Alindra will soon be emerging, but she cannot be sure when.
Up the pass, The Friends come to a stone wall on a upward slope. The men atop the wall are aligned to Lord Adam, and demand a tithe of 500 orthosian crowns!
500 gold is a lot of money, since we moved to a new economy, but the players have money to burn and don’t really have much to do with it yet. I think they were happy to reclaim some stuff.
As The Friends provide treasures to the guards at the gate, Talari takes the chance to show off his prestidigitation spell with a shower of sparks. This catches the guards attention. Their lord may have use for a sorcerer. The Friends use this opportunity to barter for half the tithe and enter the keep to meet with Lord Adam. He tells them of some bugbears down the at the end of the pass, down the right fork. They have a magician with them that Lord Adam wants, preferably alive. He will allow them to pass with only half the tithe if they take care of this task. The Friends agree, and camp outside the castle before setting off.
A mere day later, while walking down the trail, the orb in Vespers pack quivers and ejects the Lady Alindra. She has been in the orb for 12 days, but due to powerful necromantic sorceries, to her it has been 12 years of dark and cold.
She is dumped onto the ground, falling to her hands and knees. The interior of the fel orb has taken its toll. One of the gauntlets on her arm is bent, and stretched, like it’s swolen. The Friends try to de-escalate, but Lady Alindra is out of her mind. She attacks relentlessly, but one knight alone cannot hope to take down 7 foes. She is finally put down by The Rod of the Magician of The Red Realm. Normally it splits its victims into their seven constituent parts - flesh, blood, spirit, conscience, memory, mind. But when Lady Alindra screams and her material form splits into seven forms, there is an 8th - a shadow - that oozes out of the swolen arm. As Lady Alindra is scattered to the wind as if she never existed at all, the shadow escapes up into the air. The Friends momentarily contemplate what it is they just let into the world, then move on.
At the end of the pass is a large palisade wall. Beyond it, on one side, is a further walled camping ground and two bugbears guarding a gate. A plan is hatched: Talari will turn Monkey, Balthazar, Siriel and himself invisible. While Vespertine and Saint distract the guards, they will sneak over the wall and into the camp. Icorioal will stay with the horse and cart, as he very much hates bugbears and is not on board with The Friends plan to ask questions first and attack later.
Vespertine approaches. When the guards spot her.
A reaction is rolled.
They come forward and yell, in broken Korianian (Common) “what does the castle say?”
Vesper sidles over to steer the guards vision.
“I don’t know what the castle says? We are from there, but not with the lord.”
The bugbears consult one another for a few moments, working out what exactly was said.
“You not from castle?”
“No.”
The brow of the bugbear furrows. The huff in frustration.
“Come.”
The lead Vesper over to the opposite side of the wall covering the pass, and open a small door.
“Go. Do not come back.”
Vesper lingers some moments to give the rest of The Friends time to get over the wall before being ejected into the foothills beyond the wall.
On the other end of the wall, the invisible Friends throw a rope over the wall, fastening it to one of the spiked logs. They bring themselves up and over.
I make them roll stealth here, even though they’re invisible. They protest at this, but throwing a rope over a wall is not an easy thing to do, it generates noise, and can still be seen by a guard. However, I know that the consequences for failure (and they do fail) are not dire. A rope over a wall doesn’t immediately lead to an alarm being raised. Still, I have noticed my tendency to want to inject drama into situations can sometimes be a little bit frustrating for the players who want an easy victory. Though my job as the DM is to place challenges before my players, I think an easy victory here and there would have been better. I tend to do this thing where instead of an easy challenge leading to interesting, challenging material, I make what should be easy more difficult in an attempt to make the adventure meaningful. Going with the flow and letting the easy things be easy is a skill I should lean into when running games on the fly.
One guard, who has been watching Vesper from afar, now turns to head back to his post. He notices a rope hanging over the gate. He does not understand what he’s looking at but he is familiar enough with rumors about magicians that he feel its best he goes to the camp magician for help. He rushes through the camp to the big tent.
The Friends of Orthos beat him there. In the tent they find several bugbears, a bugbear in a robe and a large brutish bugbear with a two-handed axe. They look over a map of the mountain pass, with a circle on the keep of Lord Adam. The bugbears (as with most humanoid monsters) speak a language similar to Korianian, enough for The Friends to glean the phrases “march”, “attack” and “reclaim.”
It becomes apparent to The Friends that the bugbears lived in the keep before Lord Adam and his men. After some (out of character, oops) debate, Talari reveals himself to the shaman, hoping his reputation as a magician will be enough to spare him.
It is. In a short conversation the bugbear magician, who is from Orthos herself, respects Talaris power and will allow him and his allies passage so long as they do not interfere and do not return. Talari accepts. Before they go, the bugbear magician tells him to avoid the land of grey towers and blocks to the north, for they are the domain of the mad druid.
The Friends of Orthos faced decisions in this session but I don’t feel they were very meaningful. It was mostly “do this!” and “okay.” That being said, I have realised through playing that even taking the obvious route is still worth something to the experience of play. It’s fun to be in control even if you’re driving in a straight line. I think that’s the nature of the generated stuff on the fly. I was also kinda hungover and working off of an incomplete map because I forgot my folder lol.