So there they were…
Momentarily victorious! The party, consisting of Ula the half orc barbarian, Gnofulk the gnome barbarian/ranger, Turnin the human monk and Kylar the human wizard, and Comfort the tiefling sorceress, had again braved the Mournland to investigate the Rock of Clan Urza, a small crown of stones in former Cyre on which Ula’s clan had settled a few generations ago.
After her half brother killed their mutual father to ascend to be chieftain Ula had gotten black out drunk, stolen a sacred tower shield – the stretched head of an archdemon, and came too in Sharn, the city of towers, in the neighboring country of Breland. Then the Mourning happened – mysteriously and cataclysmically extinguishing all life in Cyre. That was almost five years ago.
They had mostly found warforged so far… no living orcs. The warforged belonged to the dangerous and mysterious Perpetual Legion; and Comfort decided to retreat to warn the party’s crew on their fiery airship, now named Eat Ship n Die. The rest of the party poked around the rock, getting into fights.
As the tiefling jogs back to the Rock, she sees Ula, now huge and a gorilla, King Konging a rustic watchtower, and Turnin, running out and delivering a stellar people’s elbow to a crippled warforged that was crawling away. The tiefling is… surprised. The party started without her!
The party brings Comfort up to speed, and all decide to press on. They’re here, after all, and everyone wants to help Ula and see this through. Plus, Turnin thinks Skullbuddy might be around…
As Comfort is helped onto the 10 foot high ledge that is the rock formation constituting, the Rock of Clan Urza, she trips over a corpse. The party had been pretty intent on smashing warforged that they momentarily neglected to look around…
This orc is slumped next to the timber supports of the rustic watch tower. The small earing and broken tusk suggest that this is Ghob, Ula’s best bud in the clan and fellow drunk. The half-empty wind skein nearby confirms the orc’s identify. In the tower, a warrior is slumped over, like she had collapsed at her post.
Ula the huge gorilla is starting to think none of her clan may be alive. She is saddened and conveys her desire to bury her fellow orcs; to put them to rest by some old rite. The rest of the party is empathetic to wanted to put her ancestors and fellows to rest, but surrounded by Dead Grey Mist with an unknown number of warforged around… burial might have to wait.
The party decide to stealthily continue exploring the Rock. The Longhouse holds their interest, but Ula has also spoken about Malacath, an orc shaman so old no one knows his age… his dwelling was separate, and nearby. Kylar in particular wanted to explore the abode of a fellow caster… maybe he’s got some spells sitting around.
Gnofulk and Kylar use cantrips to conjure mist in spots around the party. It’s not Dead Gray Mist, but it should help them sneak around.
It seems to work, and the party stealthily stealthily approaches the small dwelling of Malacath. Turnin creeps up, and pushes open the door with his cool staff. Fortunately, no warforged are inside. Unfortunately, Malacath appears to be absent as well.
All but Ula shuffle inside. The “orc” is still a huge gorilla, and cannot fit inside the small abode. She sticks her head in, but cannot enter. Meanwhile Comfort and Gnofulk politely look around, Turnin and Kylar really dig in.
The dwelling isn’t much; Malacath wasn’t much for hosting social events. Simple timber frames the house, with thatch and reed forming the walls. The Urza’s weren’t builders. Hanging from rafters and beams are all manner of totems and trinkets. They see a bedroll, and a few small tables covered with candles and reagents, and as they poke around more, they accidentally disturb a small illusionary ward…
Shimmering into place is and ancient looking orc. With a wispy beard and innumerable wrinkles, the corpse is doubled over and face down. Turnin pokes at him with his cool staff, and eventually flips him around. Ula grunts an affirmative that this is Malacath, and the monk and wizard search the body, with the latter deciding not to Detect Magic and to trust his hands.
Kylar procures what he assumes to be the orc’s spell focus, a long claw that appears to be drippy and melted, and sees that the orc corpse is clutching a small necklace, in the form of an imp shrunken head. Turnin finds a pouch with a broken little trinket that looks like an ankh.
Unfortunately, Ula’s huge gorilla form, about as big as the hut and lurking outside it, has attracted the attention of a warforged patrol, as it almost bumps into the gorilla.
…unfortunately, there isn’t too much to do. Kylar inspects the corpse of Malacath again, but doesn’t glean much additional information. The wizard has seen dead bodies before, and this one looks more like someone cowering than anything else, and it doesn’t appear to be trapped. As the fight erupts, Kylar pilfers the ankh, a pouch of reagents and the imp skull necklace.
Gnofulk scampers through the legs of Ula, and decides that these two aren’t worth raging against; they’ll need to be dealt with quickly and intelligently… he only gets one good hit in against the warfroged though. Ula turns around to fight, sidestepping to get close to both opponents. Unfortunately, the gorilla is apparently more uncoordinated than she was previously. Only one huge punch hits, and the sword-wielding warforged nearest the party remains standing.
Turnin walks out, swings and misses against the sword-wielding warforged. The monk is tired, but the warforged decides to stab at the bigger threat, Ula. The second warforged was carrying one of the big crossbows, but drops it in favor of the short sword sidearm. However, he manages to miss both attacks against the gnome…
Last to act is Comfort, who decides to go big, using her sorceress powers to twin a Witch Bolt spell against the two warforged. The Mournland, as ever, twists the spell, and the spell’s targets is actually tripled! But the third target is herself….
Kylar exits the dwelling, and gets an angle on the crossbowman using a Firebolt. Like Ula, Gnofulk has positioned himself adjacent to both combatants, and the gnome starts flailing. With a backhanded, off-hand attack, the Gnome’s scimitar connects, and fells a warforged, robbing Turnin of the kill.
Ula’s gorilla fists pound down, but can’t seem to hit the final warforged. Turnin’s swing connects, but without Ki to spend, his attacks are too few to kill it, and the monk takes a cut in return. Comfort decides not to risk it, and drops concentration on the Witch Bolt. The tiefling avoids damaging herself, and kills the second warforged with a Firebolt.
Having looted the corpse of the old orc, and already being outside his dwelling, the party decide to press on, and in hushed tones, make ready to storm the longhouse, the home of the clan’s chieftain and elite warriors…
The party creeps a hundred feet or so to the edge of the longhouse. It’s roughly a halfmoon in shape, with the points being for sleeping, the round bit for storage, and the center for council. When asked hoe many entrances there are, Ula the gorilla signals 2: front and back. While the construction is nicer and sturdier than the other dwellings, the party is pretty sure they can make more entrances if they need to…
Turnin wants to sneak in. Ula wants to smash in as a gorilla, and teach these warforged a lesson about… something. Kylar wants more information though.
The wizard sends his familiar up, closing his eyes to see through the creature’s. The wizard is guarded by Turnin and still-gorilla Ula, while Comfort and Gnofulk begin stealthily climbing the sloping roof of the longhouse. Together, they and the familiar find a third entrance of sorts, and open for smoke, should the clan need a warming fire during a meal or planning sesh. The wizard starts casting message to converse with his fellow adventurers…
The longhouse appears to still be organized as Ula claimed; two sleeping “wings” storage, and a communal meeting area. Several racks of weapons stand nearby, as do some manakin torsos holding crude orcish chain and scale mail, along with several larger pauldrons. Some armor is scattered about, as if discarded.
The sees no orcs though; the longhouse is devoid of them. It does however, have some warforged. Go figure…
Sitting at the short planning table is a resplendent looking warforged. It long staff is balanced on his knees, and his metal head is topped by a bronzy crown or helmet. Along his back is a long scale mail cape. Kylar has never seen such a warforged, and assumes it must be the leader, as it not only looks the part, but is flanked by two hulking warforged brutes, which the wizard assumes to be guards. Kylar seems to be correct, and overhears the tail end of report from two warforged shooters.
The gist is that the warforged have decided that it is time to leave the Rock of Clan Urza. Someone or something named Bard is waiting on a second shipment (of something), and this place has gotten dangerous; patrols have gotten smashed over the last half hour… they can return once the spooky Dead Gray Mist has dissipated from this place…
Kylar still has a high level spell slot remaining for the day, and convinces Comfort to use here sorceress abilities to convert one for herself. As the warforged dally for a moment (the leader had to get to his feet, after all), the wizard hatches a plan of on straight-up ruthless murder. As the presumed warforged leader gets to his feet, Gnofulk begins to descend, to cover the rear entrance, as prompted by Kylar.
Time is running short, and Kylar needs to see inside. He climbs into Ula’s hand, and beckons her to chuck him up towards the smoke hole. She tries, but Ula the gorilla is off this session. She hurls him, but at a terrible angle, and the wizard is forced to cast Fly on himself to avoid crashing through the roof (and into harm’s way). As a consequence, Ula’s polymorph wears off, and she becomes a half orc again.
Kylar and Comfort peer over the ledge, eye up the warforged, and unleash their surprise.
The wizard summons a mighty Wall of Force, trapping the presumed leader and the two brute bodyguards as one would a spider under a cup. The sorceress adds an Insect Plague… in the cup, or something. This is a bad analogy now.
This double-dip of potent magic is impossible to ignore, and the longhouse becomes a flurry of activity.
Gnofulk is ready, and when the insects start buzzing, he he charges in, knocking open the rear door to the longhouse, and only stumbling a little bit as he starts raging and swinging at the two bewildered crossbow-toting warforged. Apparently it wasn’t the Mist after all that smashed their comrades…
Ula, unfortunately shifted back into her half-orc self, dashes towards the rear entrance while Turnin runs up the roof and drops down into the melee.
The warforged leader shouts, his voice far louder than one would expect. It carries well. Unfortunately, all he can do right now it seems is shout for help; the insects continue swarming, gnawing away at the composite bodies of the warforged, all trapped within the bubble of force.
Comfort and Kylar peek out from above, and lob Firebolts down at the shooters, hitting their backs. Unfortunately, this allows the trapped warforged to spot them, and the leader is soon calling out instructions.
Gnofulk must be getting tuckered out, as none of his numerous attacks land against the warforged shooters.
Holding her massive tower shield in front of her, Ula rages, and attacks recklessly, landing a strike against one of the shooters. The spiritual ancestors surround her, protecting her and the gnome. Gnofulk glances at the face of one of the spirits, wondering if they’ve found the body of this one yet.
Unfortunately, no. The one closest to the gnome doesn’t seem to even have a distinct face. It’s vaguely orc-shaped, with tusks and such, but it lacks any defining features. None of the others are distinct either. Even raging, this puzzles the gnome.
Comfort is startled as the insects stop buzzing and her spells ends suddenly. Peering over the ledge with Kylar, they infer that this warforged can cast magic. They fire a pair of Firebolts down against the shooter warforged as the rest of the party hacks them down.
Unfortunately, time is not on the side of the party, as two sword-wielding warforged soldiers enter from the long house’s rear entrance. The party decides to retreat, and is soon running away.
The dense Dead Gray Mist helps them escape. A few errant crossbow bolts whiz by, but they were blindly fired.
As they flee, Turnin is handed one of the pieces to Kylar’s artificer cube, storing the Invisibility spell. The monk activates the piece…
…and finds himself both stuck in place and invisible. There seems to be some crystalline prison holding him. Fortunately, it is invisible too. The monk will stay behind and spy while the party regroups back at the Eat Ship n Die, their fiery airship.
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