Chapter 16 - The March Begins
The next few days were a lot of planning, and a lot of movement coming from Defender’s Heart all the way down to the camp at the south. Many soldiers, crusaders, guards, adventurers, and mercenaries headed out towards the southern camp. Most were not made aware of the true plan, with fear that some of the group were still traitors to Kenebres. The party, staying behind, rested up in their room, and waited with Irabeth as they coordinated with her to move out on Oathday.
Finally, as the last group departed to the south, Irabeth sends her wife, Anevia, to assemble the party. Anevia asks the party, before she delivers her message, to keep Irabeth safe, and they say they can do their best. Her leg is still broken. Arriving at the conference room, its only Irabeth and Orlun that’s there. Irabeth goes over the plan one more time and the party how the teams will communicate. Orlun reveals a stone that he hands to Irabeth. It looks like a normal rock with a stick sticking out of it. He hands it to Irabeth and explains its usage. Depressing the rock and moving the stick in a direction changes the color of the rock. He shows off the other rock he has in his pocket, looking identical. He moves the stick around, and the color of the rock changes. He then shows the result on the other rock.
Orlun explains that the attack will only be able to be kept up for up to 2 hours each day, and the rock color will change if they feel they need to retreat. After Orlun sits down, Irabeth explains that her scouts have located the best route to the safe house and marks it on the map. It will serve as the best way to approach the Gray Garrison without being seen. With that, everyone says their goodbyes, gathers their supplies for the oncoming battle, and departs. Orlun waves as his group marches to the south, while the party, Irabeth and five Mongrelmen head to the west to get to the safe house.
The party heads along the path provided to them, making sure they try to make as little noise as possible. After a full 5 hours of travel, they reach the safehouse. A drab looking winery building, and she brings everyone around to the alleyway service entrance where it hosts a lone tree. Irabeth clears off some foliage, and it appears there’s a passageway underneath. She into the dark tunnel, with the party in tow. She lights her blade as they descend two floors, the party hiding the entrance behind them. They come to what looks to be a T-Junction and Irabeth instead stops in front of the wall, and pushes in a stone, which recedes the wall, and it moves to the side, allowing the party in. Irabeth motions for everyone to come inside, and it looks like this safehouse has been prepared for their use: cots have been setup around this small room, with shelves stocked with trail rations and water for everyone for a week. Everyone sits down and Irabeth closes the door, and sits down at one of the cots, starting to take off her pack and armor.
Through the rest of the night, the party waits and discusses different things. They take stock of their supplies and sit around the small fire they started to warm up the room.
Chapter 17 - The Attack on Grey Garrison
When the party wakes in the morning, they make their normal morning preparations, and then Irabeth asks if everyone is ready. After she gets an affirmation from everyone, she tilts the stick on the stone, and it changes purple for a second. After a minute, it changes to the color yellow, and she nods, reporting that everyone is ready. Reid, curious about the stone, asks what the color code. Irabeth then explains:
- Purple - Ready for Attack
- Yellow - Acknowledged
- Red - No/Don't do it/Not Ready
- Black - Retreating
Waiting at the Southern exit to the room, a low roar starts coming from the south outside, and then it turns into clanging. Finally, the stone Irabeth is holding turns purple. She nods and she tells the party, “Its time.” She leads the party down the southern exit, and it ends at a dead end. She pulls out a key, and inserts into a hidden hole in the wall, and the wall recedes, revealing a long dark passageway. She walks through and lets everyone through, then closes the wall on the other side. Walking about 200 feet, the party comes to another wall, which Irabeth then opens, and lets the party through, to an identical room, albeit this one is void of anything, including supplies. The party then heads up to the surface, to see they are on the south part of the wall, and they can hear the roar of combat much more easily from here.
The party then sneaks over to the west and comes to the North side of the Gray Garrison, where they see a three-story building that seems to have been boarded up, or entrances blocked with stone shape spells. The only entrance is a single set of double doors guarded by two bloated naked humans carrying scythes. The party recognizes one of the humans as a bloated version of Lord Hulrun and Reid recognizes the other human as the head of the Nyserian Manor, Kandro Nyserian, albeit also very bloated. The party decides to engage directly on the two creatures. Irabeth steps up and the two “guards” at the front door decide to move around her and attack the party. The guards laugh as the party slices at “Lord Hulrun,” exclaiming “Oh, so you would slice at your Lord’s body?” The party questions why these two would say this, and these two naked men with scythes start to attack the party. The party drops down the health of “Lord Hulrun” and the party starts seeing the skin of the creature starting to sluff off, revealing its real form, a Vermlek.
In the resulting battle, the party destroys these creatures and takes the remainder skin and stuffs it in burlap sacks for later proper burial. The party then looks at the front door to try to figure out what to do next.
They notice one openable door on the 2nd level. Reid argues that they should take the sneaky approach, but the rest of the party decides going through the front door is better. Reid pulls out a
Chime of Opening to try to open the door. Reid clangs the
Chime of Opening and it fails to open the door, and tries again, where it does nothing. He hands it off to Bosco, and Bosco tries twice, which also fails to open the door. Finally, Reid decides to knock on the door, proclaiming that the party is there with Vorlesh.
The Tieflings behind the door let them in, but they had setup an ambush. They had been watching the previous fight from the door and were ready for the party to enter the place and had surrounded the party. The rogues start to engage the attacking party, and one Tiefling runs off to gather more reinforcements. Blocked from following the Tiefling runs away unhindered. The rest of the rogues start to flank the party, stabbing them from all sides while the party hears more reinforcements coming from the next room. The battle is now on, and the party starts taking up defensive positions to try to fend off the creatures. Reid, which charged in first, is now surrounded and takes some damage from the enemies, which he subsequently uses Vanish to disappear into the corner. The enemies start flanking Yuhia, starting to wail on her. Setra shoots from the door at the enemies inside, dealing some damage. The rest of the mongrelmen start to shoot into the room, missing most of their targets. In the ensuing battle, the party starts whittling away at the Tieflings as their friend starts knocking on doors.
After a little bit, a large hulking beast with a bloated frame comes rampaging around the corner at the party. Bosco yells at the rest of the party, “We got some Dretches!” The demon approaches the party, snarling its teeth as its friend joins, and then a third. Bosco moves up to engage the Dretches. As the party finishes up with the remainder of the Tieflings, Bosco holds off the Dretches at the doorway.
The party finishes off the remainder of the Tieflings and turns their attention to the Dretches. Bosco moves to the side to prevent flank and allow the party in to be able to attack the Dretches. Reid throws a Grease into the room and has two of the Dretches fall down. Irabeth finishes up the final Tiefling on the west area, and Setra moves in to be able to assist in taking out the Dretches. Irabeth then moves in to be able to take out the Demons.
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