Session 50 - Turning up the Heat

10 Felmont 1010

General Summary

Covered by Pass Without Trace again, the party makes their north through the alleyways, staying away from the wall. As they near this tower Continuing until they are even with the northern wyvern tower, they see Wyverns taking off in all directions from the tower, apparently alerted to the likely attack on the Wyverns. swing east. As they approach the western side of this tower, the party considers their options, and decide to try taking the tower from within this time. They see some troops both entering and leaving from the south side and they assume that is the guard entrance. When they poke their heads around the corner of the building they can see that there is a guard posted outside the door. After a quick chat, Leo disguises himself as a guard (stretching his height up to 5ft) and runs up "out of breath" and tells the guard help is needed, there's trouble around the corner, and turns to run back toward the waiting party. The guard calls into the door for another soldier, and then follows Leo once a guard comes out.
As they round the corner, they run into the waiting party, and are killed in moments. With their confidence boosted, the party comes around, and tries the door, which is open. Unfortunately, the party gets in its own way, comically blocking each other from slipping into the room, but after a while, the team is well placed to deal real damage to the six hapless guards remainig inside. They do fight valiantly but, against the much better armed and experienced Captains of Saltmarsh in a 1:1 fight, they never stood a chance. Before they have all been dealt with, one of the guards calls up the stairs for reinforcements.
Tork and Stavos explore the room to the east (the one the bigger doors open into) and they find a lift mechanism that can run up through the center of the tower - ropes for which they saw through the windows of the other tower. Leo locks and bars the door they came in and keeps an eye out toward the stairs and the door Tork and Stavos entered. Tork begins to cut the ropes of the lift platform, and Stavos decides to bar the big doors and put pitons into them to further secure them. Meanwhile Seraphina is watching the stairs to the 2nd floor, which are a spiral staircase. after a bit of commotion, Seraphina hears footsteps coming down, and Elincia and Leo prepare for a fight. The first soldier down the stairs is cut down by Elincia and Leo, not even giving Seraphina a chance to swing. The second soldier, seeing what happened to the first, turns back around and sprints back up the stairs.
Seraphina sprints up the stairs after the fleeing guard, and as she is reaching the top she hears someone call for pitch and, knowing that that could be a bad thing for their plans to take the tower, sprints headlong up the remaining steps and into the room. Stavos, who had sprinted in just before the first soldier reached the bottom of the steps, also sprints up the stairs after Seraphina. A grate is being lowered over the stairway, but Seraphina batters her way through before it can be closed, she and Stavos surprise and overwhelm the three soldiers that are in the room, two of which are trying to close a grate over the staircase. Leo also runs upstairs, but by then the soldiers holding the grate have slammed it shut, and he is unable to make it through. Tork, with his crazy run speed, is behind Leo in just a moment, and Elincia decides to risk the pitch as well. Between the three of them, they are able to flip the grate up and out of the way. Meanwhile Seraphina is in a clear rage and shatters the weapon of the first soldier that was holding the grate, and kills him outright. Stavos handles his side as well, and Tork joins the fun, setting up another devastating critical from Seraphina, breaking yet another sword as she takes down her second guard in two swings of Shatterspike. Still running on adrenaline, the party continues through the door to find a room with beds and six more guards in varying levels of donning their armor, clearly caught unprepared. The party spills into the room and Stavos, using his Lunge ability, weaves between Seraphina and Tork to strike a guard unprepared. With only partial armor, the party quickly dispatches these troops and spreads across the rest of the floor to find any other defenders.
Tork heads back into the stairwell room to check the other rooms attached to it. The first contains more beds, perhaps officer quarters, but no occupants. Seraphina opens the door off the barracks room to find a ladder headed up, and another door beyond that. Tork checks another room off the staircase room and finds a kitchen space, where two guards are prepping the vat of pitch over a fire. Tork surprises them, and they put down the pot and pull some maces out to attack, but he is able to take them down before any of the other party members can even tell there is combat. Seraphina, moving into the next room beyond the ladder, finds another bedroom, with many beds and different gear, including saddle related tools and equipment. She assembles a kit of leatherworking gear, while Elincia makes a new improvised grappling hook from various hooks and ropes in the room to replace the one that was left on the roof of the building they scaled to attack the first tower. It seems this room was the bunk room for the Wyvern riders.
Having explored this floor fully, they head up the ladder to the third floor, which is the first of the Wyvern roost rooms. There are what appear to be four Wyvern stalls, plenty of hay strewn about, and the shaft in the floor that leads to the platform on the first floor for bringing in hay and other supplies. Leo looks out the southern doors to see how the fire is going at the other Wyvern roost - he is satisfied to find it fully ablaze. They quickly check the fourth floor roost as well, to find it also empty of Wyverns (unsurprisingly). He and Elincia begin stoking fires on the upper roost and work back down to the third floor. The party elects to get down to the ground floor via the rope for the elevator platform and, once the fires are well underway, they make their escape. Leo, in his typical lack of athleticism, finds himself a bit tangled part way down and falls unceremoniously to the floor; thankfully not significantly hurting anything but his pride. Stavos recovers his pitons from the doorway, and they head out the northern bays onto the street.
The party, feeling extremely powerful and effective after their assault on the second Wyvern tower, decides to head for the northern barracks. Winding through the small alleyways to avoid notice, they do see a group of soldiers of various types making double-time south. They decide to stay unseen, as they are probably responding to one emergency or another away from the barracks.
Along the way, Captain Kazimir messages Stavos to say the gold has been delivered to the ship, and the Blue Half-Dragon said they would be headed to the tavern to get the party. Stavos replies quickly to the Captain that the party is no longer at the Tavern, and that he should get the ship free of the port as soon as they possibly can. With any luck they are able to break away from the docks without notice, and before Langdedrosa realizes what happened at the Tavern.
Continuing on their journey, they soon come into sight of the barracks. They find a large, two-story stone building with no windows on the bottom floor, lots of arrowslits on the second floor, and signs of murderholes and other unpleasant forms of defense near the first floor entrance, along with some guards at the door as well. They search around a bit, and see a Wyvern rider perched on the rooftop of the Barracks. Starting to feel less confident of the idea of storming the Barracks directly, and a bit worried about the various Wyverns in the air (at least the eight from the second tower). They quickly change plans, and decide to try taking down one of the Ballistae on the wall. They slip back into the alleyways unnoticed, and consider how best to get to the top of the tower. It is decided (perhaps not quite quickly or quietly enough) that Stavos will take Belfur's Eagle Whistle, fly up to the top of the wall and secure a grappling hook to the crenellations at the top. This will allow the party to climb quickly up the wall and hopefully move to the presumably less secure doors to the tower battlements. Unfortunately, before Stavos can make his move, two guards catch sight of them, and call out "Hey! What are you doing over there". Elincia hesitates, but Leo and Tork do not, and take the two guards down very quickly and silences them for good, but not before one lets out a cry for help. Meanwhile Stavos flies up the wall. Once the rope is secured, the party begins to move up, but just then a Wyvern circles over and spots Stavos, banking around. Stavos moves away from the rope, hoping draw the wyvern's attention and reducing the risk to the climbing party members; it works and the Wyvern goes directly for him. Bracing for an attack he avoids any damage from the first pass, and by now the rest of the party has arrived on the top of the wall.
Tork, remembering how poorly Leo climbed DOWN a rope, decides to fireman carry him up the wall rather than risking another Leo fall. Stavos returns to the area of the party and, seeing the party clustered together, the Wyvern rider casts a spell. Leo, worried that it is something like the Fireball they faced at the Tower of Zenopus, casts Counterspell, nullifying it before the red mote blossoms into an explosion. Tork takes the battle to the Wyvern, not wanting it to take off again, and lands a stunning blow, then uppercuts the Wyvern Rider trying to force him off the mount. The Wyvern is definitely incapacitated, but the rider is able to hold his ground. He doesn't seem to like this situation much however, and casts a cloud of Fog over the area, dismounting unseen and retreating towards the nearest tower - the spell also shrounds the Wyvern and Tork from anyone's view.
Elincia pulls her Wind Fan from her pocket and casts Gust of Wind, clearing a path all the way through the center of the fog, and reveals the situation. The rider is now near the doorway, shouting something in goblin. Since he is now visible, the party strikes at him and the Wyvern, downing the Wyvern for good. The rider fearing that Leo is casting something major, counterspells his Eldritch Blast. Unfotunately, Leo no longer has any spell slots available when the rider responds with another fireball, engulfing the party and lighting the night up for the guards below to see. The party is damaged, but not broken by this fiery blast, and is able to take down the Hobgoblin rider before he is able to wreak any more havoc.
The party moves toward the door, this long, wet night not nearly through.

Report Date

25 Jul 2021

Primary Location

Fort Doom / Halag