The Raid of Langdale

Military action

Seeking a means of crossing Nystor's Path, the party arrive at the port town of Langdale to find it assailed by pirates. The partial Pack rushed into the danger, fought back the pirate crews, and parlayed with the operational leader of the assault. Buck learned of the slaving plantation he was destined for and Hali gained an odd inclination towards a ghost story from the region, the Tertalak. In the end, the party was victories in their defense of the town, and the reputation of the Fractured Pack continued to grow once more a party of four.

The partial Pack came to Langdale as the first stop along the colonial highway seeking out a means of crossing Nystor's Path. Langdale serves as a hub location and is one of the few villages of the Cobblestone Serpent to grow all the way into a town. This town was in distress though.   As they approached, they found the dock warehouse burning, ships run aground, and the only two sailing vessels attacking the populace. One of the raiding crews managed to escape before Broxon or Hali could get to them. Continuing along the rubbled walls of the shore, the four approached the fortified drydock for Phaloxil's ship repairs in the area. The second ship assaulted the bay doors and town walls while pirates atop the walls launched volleys out. The bridge was held by a band of pirates with an old man hostage. Only after an invisible Anna flew a levitating Broxon over top for a barbarian airstrike was it revealed that the hostage was a plant. Well, not a plant, a mole. Eh, not a mole. All of these sound like druid things. Wizard. He was a deck wizard. Anyway, the battle commenced on the bridge below and the wall above while Buck and Hali closed the distance. Broxon took the brunt of all of it surrounded by the crew thugs, the chain brute, and pummeled by the electricity and frost of the deck wizard. As men fell, the chain brute retreated asking for just a little more time. Hali summoned in an enhanced , contorted abomination of her familiar Byakhee to drive the wizard off as well. Amid his arrow shots, Buck called out for aid from the guards of the town but they only returned with offers of payment in desperation for you to solve the problem. Buck was more concerned with aid in saving Broxon who finally fell under the blows and arcane blasts. The guards failed him. But not Anna though. Seeing the situation, Anna sent her little jay down to channel her own arcane power into Broxon, saving him when no one else could.   Continuing on inside, the adventurers found the ship rigged to blow and crew throughout to ensure it. At least, they were meant to ensure it. The four heroes worked in tandem to drop pirates, put out the fuse, drive off the deck wizard, a bosun, and sporadic crew. Under the captains command, many of those stell standing fled by rowboat or simply swimming. Left behind was the captain and one of his chain brutes, the first dead at the captain's feet. The captain was heavily injure, sword bashed from his hand. He heard the fuse snuffed out after Hali's mad climb up the crane just high enough for her incantation before dropping back to the pier. Seeing his death coming anyway, rather than draw a sidearm, he drew a white handkerchief, surrendering and bidding parley as his last effort to save his life. Crew fleeing in boats and treading water, you lot surrounded the two officers, Buck removed the fuse of the explosive barels and filled the entry hole with wax.   The captain, Jayden the Crude, parleyed for his life with the heroes. Sharing information on the crew's base of operations, he ensured being dubbed a traitor if the party ever found their way to Craven Cove. He informed buck of the slave plantation's use of bestial slaves stolen from the distant reaches of the Dendishome and Nystor's Path: kidnapping people the politicians wouldn't miss from distant locales too far to come save their peoples. While Jayden could confirm shifters were generally among the aarakocra, tabaxi, gnolls, and other peoples taken, he couldn't say for certain if Buck's people were among them. Jayden was one of the enforcer captains working against the military ships of the Everstorm Sea, not one of the slavers that collected people.   More than just saving the life of himself and one of his men, Jayden was also abandoning the cause. The sight of Hali's contorted Byakhee had convinced him of it. Jayden hesitantly informed the party of the ghost stories used to keep the slaves in line. Of the Tertalak, a beast of shadow and slime that hunts the jungles at night. It was supposed to be a ruse to get the slaves brave enough to flee to at least mark their flight with torchlight. But Jayden had thought he witnessed something more. Seeing Hali's summoned aberration convinced him that it was real. Unknown to anyone else, the mere mention of the unknown name "Tertalak" had caused a light breeze to blow across the back of Hali's neck and a raspioong whisper fills her ears: “Grotesque Insolence. Unabashed Revelry. A Shame to be Crushed”. The genasi took the opporunity to telepathically intimidate Jayden into signing her tome for continued haunting thoughts through the future.     With the pirates gone, the two parlayed ones silently let to down the shoreline, the party returned to Langdale proper. Buck and Hali aided with the wounded while Anna and Broxon ruminated. When the captain of the guard came to pay the party for their good deeds, Broxon only accepted partial payment. The village needed the money more for repairs and aiding the people who lost their homes and livelihoods in the raid. In return for this, it was asked that Langdale take care of their horses and carriage while the party traveled across Nystor's Path and that the heroics of the day be shared as those of the Fractured Pack, all four of them.