Session 0014 - The Rescue

General Summary

After gathering their wits, the Heretic continue on to try to break down the door where they can hear children crying from within. Mogoth, being the most sizeable, first trys to break the door down by hitting it with his shoulder. This attempt causes a lot of noise, attracting the attention of six Human soldiers who happen to be patrolling the corridors to the southwest of where the Heretic are.

Sken is the first to see the soldiers, the leader of whom yells out "what are you lot doing?!". Mogoth pulls his greataxe and hits the door once more, causing no damage this time. The players and soldiers roll for initiative and a fight ensues. The battle lasts several rounds and for the most part, the Heretic find no trouble in slaying their foes. Sken showed off his newly found magics and sent a swarm of bees after the initial soldier who yelled at them, ultimately killing him by stinging him to death. Another novel magic that Sken demonstrated was Vortex Warp, a spell he cast in order to distance himself from a few soldiers who were hitting Sken mercilessly, taking him to below half of his hit points.

One soldier in particular retreated from the fight and ran down a corrider to the northwest of where the battle began. Cathlynn ran to pursue him but at first could not catch up. Tigeth was sicced by Sken, who not only caught up with this soldier very quickly, but was within lunging distance. Unfortunately Tigeth missed his mark on his first attempt. Cathlynn got an idea to wildshape into a Kleg Narian War Mastiff, Tigeth's breed, and catch up to the soldier likewise. In the end, Tigeth was able to make a fatal blow to this soldier by pouncing upon his back and ripping out the back of his neck, leaving the soldier to bleed out on the dungeon's corridor floor.

The scent of blood attracted three more ghouls from a room to the north and west of where the soldier fell. Sken was able to cast Fire Bolt, which singed the first ghoul who attacked them, but Sken amazed everyone, especially Matteu, by imbuing Matteu with Dragon's Breath, a spell that allowed Matteu to breathe fire. When Matteu did so, he caused tremendous damage to the ghouls in front of them. The ghouls were destroyed after only a few rounds of fighting.

The Heretic then went back to the room with the children and between Mogoth and Ikiri, they were able to demolish the door. Inside, they found 11 children,who were in various stages of shock, horror, fright and trauma. Orianna was able to calm the children down enough to convince them to go with the party. Mogoth carried four children, Tigeth and Cathlynn in her wildshape form each carried two, and the rest of the party except Sken (too small) was able to carry one child each.

Child held in captivity by Chad Watson via Midjourney

The party promptly left the dungeon area, retracing their steps up the stairs through The Temple of Elemental Evil's main floor, and back on the road southwards from where they began. About an 1/8 of a mile south of the Temple, the party encountered Benneth, who led them back to the horses and cart.

The Heretic quickly left for Blüm. Upon their arrival 4 hours later, they rented a large room from the Welcome Wench to house the children for the night, and order everyone a large kettle of beef stew along with breads to get their bellies full. The party noticed that the children were in severe hunger stages and many were emaciated; clearly the temple's denizens weren't feeding these children at all.