16 May 2021
⏪ Previous - Session 13
The party
· Kisandra Starlight –Half-Elf Sorceress (Heather)
· Barendil Dawnwood – Elf Ranger (Robert)
· Guillerme don d’Lyonne – Human Paladin (Martin)
· Friar Buck Norris – Human Cleric (Silas)
· Nobby Nobbs – Human (probably) Rogue (Tom)
‘The Compleat Dragon Hunter’
While relaxing at Brida’s cottage that evening, recuperating
from the fight with Stormfang, Kisandra noticed that there were quite a large
number of books on various shelves and piled around the room. Brida clearly had
an interest in studying, something that surprised the scholarly sorceress to
find out here in the wilds. While perusing the books, she noticed one
particularly tatty-looking volume which had a rather intriguing title, so she
pulled it out from the shelf and had a quick look through. She passed it around
the rest of the party for their own perusal. The book was missing a lot of
pages and it appeared that Brida had made a number of her own notes in her copy,
but the party read it with interest by the light of the fire as the sun
gradually set outside.
Dawn of the Undead – an Early Morning Start for Zombie Hunting
The adventurers felt refreshed the following morning. They
had each reflected on their success the previous day fighting the dragon – defeating
the dragon – and were rightly pleased with themselves. All agreed that
Thundertree needed to be cleared of the incumbent monsters to truly call this a
victory, however, and allow the town a chance at recovery. Brida was certainly
pleased to hear this sentiment.
She was less pleased at the constant pestering by Guillerme,
who repeatedly asked who it was he should talk to about renaming the town when
it was restored to its former glory. Failing that, he wondered if it might be
possible to twin Thundertree with his home town of Lyonne. The druid looked at
him with disdain, trying to explain that she held no authority here, nor was
she remotely interested in these issues. She had set herself up in the town
after it had been destroyed to combat the evil as best as she could and protect
any innocents who wandered too close. Guillerme shrugged at this with a genial
smile, saying that everyone had their own pursuits and drives, and that it was
unfortunate that he came from a line where these things were important.
“Yes, it is unfortunate isn’t it Guillerme?” sniped
Kisandra, who had been listening to the conversation with increasing
frustration.
Nobby, perhaps feeling sorry for the paladin for a change,
suggested that maybe the Tyrant of Ankh-Morpork would be happy to twin his city
with Lyonne. Of course, that would depend on Nobby finding a way back through
L-Space and home again, and then having a conversation with Vetinari that
didn’t end in the rogue’s painful torture and horrible demise… but anything was
possible!
Getting back to the matter at hand, the party examined the
map of Thundertree that they had and crossed off all the places they had investigated
and cleared of enemies. There were five unexplored buildings to the west of the
town, one of which they knew contained undead thanks to Guillerme’s ability to
detect the unnatural. As Brida hadn’t seen any undead within the town that were
anything other than zombies, it was a fairly safe bet that it was zombies
infesting that building. They didn’t know what might be found in the other
buildings, so they agreed to search them one at a time, starting from the south
and working their way northwards. Brida declined their invitation to accompany
them on their monster hunt – after seeing their prowess against the dragon, she
felt confident that the party could handle whatever they encountered. Kisandra
asked Brida what might be lurking in the buildings, and whether the druid had
seen anything to be wary of, particularly in the southernmost location. She
replied that she knew there were plant monsters lurking in all sorts of places
within the ruins, hence the warning sign she had put up on the road into town,
but they were very difficult to detect from a distance when not moving, so she
couldn’t confirm their presence in that specific building. The adventurers
would have to move in for a closer inspection.
 |
| The party's plan for the day ahead to clean up Thundertree |
Stealthy like a Fox Elephant
Guillerme was trying to make a joke with Brida about whether
she had any chemicals that would kill weeds. Despite their previous dealings
with the various plant monsters, both large and small, within Thundertree, he
didn’t seem to appreciate the magical significance of these beings. Or perhaps
he just thought that he was really funny. Brida didn’t appear to agree with him
on that front, and was likely offended by him repeatedly referring to her as
‘Brenda’, so she walked off without a word.
“I’ve had enough of this nonsense,” huffed Barendil, “come
on Nobby, let’s go.”
The ranger led the rogue out of Brida’s cottage and towards
the southern building, crouching low and moving quietly across the path and to
the trees. The two of them moved like shadows, darting forwards without a
sound. Then Kisandra ran out behind them both, not wanting to be stuck in the
awkward atmosphere within the cottage, calling out that she wanted to join them.
Before they knew what had happened, she had tripped over her robes and fallen headfirst
into Barendil, knocking him into Nobby and throwing him against the rotten door
of the building, making an almighty racket. The echoes reverberated in the
still morning air, counteracting the stealthy efforts of the scouting pair.
As Barendil looked at Kisandra with a sigh and she responded
with an apologetic shrug, Nobby noticed movement within the tumbled-down walls.
The building appeared to be an old farmhouse of some kind, but much of the
structure had fallen down and there were trees and plants growing through the foundations.
Some of those plants were responding to the sound caused by Kisandra’s bumbling
misadventure, pulling their roots out of the ground and ambling towards the trio.
 |
| Four plant monsters pull their roots from the ground and amble from within the ruined farmhouse to attack Barendil, Nobby and Kisandra |
Nobby drew a bottle of oil from his pack, remembering his
earlier successes drenching these monstrosities in the flammable liquid. This
time, however, he failed to throw the bottle accurately and it harmlessly
smashed on the ground, spilling its contents into the ruins and leaving the
plant monsters unaffected as they continued their implacable advance.
Two of the willowy creatures attacked Barendil while two
grabbed at Nobby – fortunately for Kisandra, she was bringing up the rear and
had inadvertently pushed her companions into harm’s way while she herself was
out of reach of the grasping branches. One of the plants managed to scrape at Nobby,
causing the rogue to yelp in pain, while Barendil managed to fend off his two
attackers.
In response, the elf ranger drew his sword and slashed
ineffectually at the walking weeds. From behind him, Kisandra summoned magical
energies in front of herself and sent three rays of scorching fire streaking
towards the combat. One struck a plant monster squarely, setting the creature aflame
and crumbling it to ash within an instant in a magical conflagration. She felt
that this may make up for her earlier mistake.
By this time, Buck and Guillerme had heard the commotion and
began running from Brida’s cottage, though they were hampered slightly as they
were still doing up the clasps and buckles of their heavy armour. The two warriors
both murmured prayers to their gods as they made all haste to come and support their
companions, Guillerme casting Bless on Barendil, Nobby and Kisandra while Buck
placed a Shield of Faith around Barendil. Meanwhile, Kisandra felt a telepathic
message from her new pseudodragon friend, indicating to her that more plant
monsters were swaying through the field to their south, also coming to join the
fray.
For now, the scouting trio stood alone with the three remaining
plant monsters from within the farmhouse, and Nobby drew another bottle of oil
which he deftly used to douse both of the leafy bastards in front of him. Grinning
cruelly, Nobby went to flick his dog-end at them, but found that perhaps this
one had been in his mouth a little too long and was a little too damp – it was
barely alight and fell wetly to the ground as he tried to flick it. The two plant
monsters, though covered in oil, were not aflame but despite this were unable
to land a twig on the wiry rogue. The third monster, attacking Barendil, did
manage to connect with the elf, catching him a glancing blow that did little to
stop him from retorting with his sword. Swinging double-handed, Barendil hacked
down and the sword bit deep into the wooden creature.
Kisandra cast a quick Fire Bolt at the two oil-doused plants
in front of Nobby, igniting them both in a surprisingly large fireball. As the
two plant monsters erupted into flame and were totally consumed, Kisandra asked
whether she had now redeemed herself. Nobby turned around, his face blackened and
eyebrows singed by the inferno that had occurred immediately in front of him
and gave her a thumbs up.
Buck and Nobby had now made their way to join in the melee,
just in time, as two more plant monsters and a large tree man emerged from the
nearby field, advancing towards the party. Buck drew his new axe, eager to
observe its effects on these wooden foes, but Barendil called back that a
ranged spell might be the better option considering the distance between the
cleric and these new enemies. Nodding his head, Buck stopped running and clapped
his hands together, calling down the fury of the storm and casting Shatter on
the three plant monsters. One of the smaller ones was blasted apart by the
shockwave, falling as kindling to the ground, while the larger tree and other
smaller one were both severely shaken by the magical blast.
Guillerme ran forwards, eager to chop his glaive into the
walking tree, but couldn’t quite close the distance. He remained outside of
what he thought was the tree’s reach, but was horrified as the tree continued
marching implacably forward and raised two of it’s branches like massive fists
to smack down onto his head. The swinging branches walloped into Guillerme, buffeting
him left and right and dazing the paladin.
“Don’t worry mate!” called out Nobby, “I’ll deal with the
big bastard that just slapped you silly!”
The rogue drew out his crossbow and took aim at the
monstrous tree, hitting it squarely but finding that the crossbow bolt could
not pierce very deeply into the thick bark. Nobby was disappointed at the lack
of discernible damage his carefully-aimed shot had achieved.
Barendil was still being attacked by one of the plant monsters,
though it missed the elf entirely. The final plant, which had been damaged by
Buck’s spell, swayed in alongside the walking tree to attack Guillerme. The
paladin was crouching low to the ground, nursing his sore head and holding the
glaive aloft to try and protect himself. As the plant monster brought one of
its branches down towards him, it inadvertently sliced off some twig-like
fingers on the sharp blade. Guillerme opened his eyes to see the creature
drawing its injured limb back and decided it still counted as a good hit by him…
 |
| More plant monsters and a walking tree stagger from the poorly-tended field to attack the party |
Barendil hacked his longsword, Talon, chopping straight through
the plant monster in front of him and splitting the creature like a log. He looked up as he heard Kisandra chanting,
her voice increasing in volume as she stood and extended her hands forwards,
shooting three Scorching Rays straight at the monstrous tree that had attacked
Guillerme. The rays flew straight over the cowering paladin’s head, hitting the
treeman one after another, staggering the massive beast backwards and igniting
fires across its bark. It fell to its knees, burning with an almost unbearable light
as pieces started to fall from its body. Finally, the tree fell backwards,
smoke rising into the sky to indicate its demise. Kisandra breathed a sigh of
relief and wonder at the magical power she had just unleashed.
Buck was amazed at what he had just seen from the slight
figure of the half-elven sorceress, but he was still eager to use his new magic
battleaxe so ran towards the final plant monster that stood over Guillerme. As
he ran, he figured that it would be good practice to try and wield the axe
two-handed to really get his weight behind it, but he already had his shield strapped
to his left arm. Attempting to run forwards, hold the axe and undo the shield’s
buckles proved a little too complicated for the cleric and he ended up dropping
both the axe and the shield to the ground and tripping over them before he
could reach the sapling that he intended to chop down. He stooped to retrieve them,
hoping no one noticed his fumbling.
Guillerme was likewise impressed by Kisandra’s magical
prowess, as he sat on the ground recovering from the treeman’s mighty blow. He
vowed internally to stand back and look at a situation with more care before running
in next time, to perhaps avoid similar mishaps in the future. Still, there was
one more foe to despatch and he wanted to be the one to do it, so he swept the
leg using his glaive, dropping the damaged plant monster to the ground and
finishing it off by driving the blade into its head.
It appeared that all the plant monsters in the vicinity had
been destroyed. Kisandra sent a mental image to her pseudodragon, asking it to
fly into the air and check their surroundings to make sure they weren’t going
to be ambushed again. From what it could see, the little creature felt that the
only plants remaining nearby were ones that didn’t walk, so it seemed that they
were safe. For now.
Barendil stalked into the farmhouse to see if he could find
anything useful inside. It was little more than a ruin and the elf couldn’t
find anything of value left in the rubble, so he moved out and indicated to the
party that he wanted to continue north to explore the final few buildings in
Thundertree.
Guillerme walked quietly up to Kisandra, extending his hand to shake hers without a word. She nodded back knowingly, trying to hide a little half-smile.
More Wood for the Fire
As they walked up the path, back past Brida’s hut, Barendil
poked his head in and let her know that they dealt with a group of plant
monsters in the farmhouse opposite. She nodded approvingly. Kisandra followed
up by letting her know that they were headed to the northwest part of town,
where they knew some undead resided. She asked the druid if she knew what
undead may be awaiting the party up there. As far as Brida was aware, it was
most likely zombies – she had seen no other undead monstrosities in Thundertree.
When Kisandra asked Brida if she wanted to accompany them, the druid declined,
stating that she was confident the adventurers could handle themselves, and she
had things to tend to.
“As we’re near Brenda’s, perhaps we could…” began Guillerme,
before being interrupted by Buck.
“It’s Brida,” snapped the cleric with annoyance, “get it
right!”
Friar Buck was quite sensitive when it came to the helpful
druid, feeling that he needed to defend her honour – especially when someone
like Guillerme couldn’t even be bothered to learn her name properly! Buck had mentioned
to some of the others that Brida reminded him of old times, when he lived
closer to nature with a band of good-natured brigands in a forest far away. He
thought she was enchanting and could see himself settling down in Thundertree
one day, when the town was rebuilt, and his current adventures had come to an
end. Of course, that depended on how Brida felt about the matter, and he hadn’t
discussed it with her yet… he hoped he would find the right time to broach the
subject with her. For now, he didn’t want Guillerme’s insensitivity to colour
her perception of the party.
They continued up the path, leaving Brida to her own devices,
advancing towards the first house on the left-hand side of the path. Kisandra and
Barendil hung back, while Buck and Guillerme stood ready near the door, but not
too close. Nobby sauntered forward to go and investigate the building, thinking
to himself all about what he might be able to make out of dragon leather one
day, keen to get on with butchering the corpse they had left in front of the
tower. He managed to snap out of his reverie just in time to quietly poke his
head into the building, not making a sound, and examine what was inside. Narrowing
his eyes, he spotted six shrubs dotted within and around the cottage that, despite
the fact they were currently not moving, had some tell-tale signs that they
were in fact the same sort of plant monsters that the adventurers had
previously encountered. He also saw that this cottage almost connected to the
one behind, particularly now that some of the walls had fallen down so there
was no barrier between the two buildings.
Creeping back to his companions, Nobby let them know what he
had seen and they began to prepare themselves to charge in and surprise the
waiting plants. The group had a quick huddle to discuss their plan of attack,
intending for Nobby to sneak in and douse some of the slumbering plant monsters
with oil before getting out the way for Kisandra to magically ignite them. He
would continue moving to attempt covering more of the enemies with oil, while
the rest of the party moved in to chop down the stragglers.
Putting their plan into action, Nobby accurately threw a
vial of oil that coated two of the stationary plants with oil. Kisandra’s Fire
Bolt, boosted with True Strike, was just as accurate, igniting the first two
plant monsters and incinerating them to ash before they were aware what was
happening. At the same time, a third plant monster was hacked to pieces by Barendil
charging in with his longsword held aloft. Nobby was repositioning, satisfied
that their plan was working so far. Then Buck charged in. This time, he had already
safely slung his shield across his back and was gripping Hew, his magical
battleaxe, in both hands. The balance of the axe was quite different to the
warhammer that he was used to, so he found that his swing was ineffective
despite his opponent being immobile.
Guillerme saw his companion struggling with his new axe so
decided to slide in and show Buck how it was done. Being too busy showing off,
the paladin’s glaive whooshed through the air and missed the plant monster
entirely, which was now waking up and starting to move. He did ensure, however,
that he was attacking using the full reach of his long-handled glaive, bravely standing
just behind Buck and therefore relatively safe from retaliatory strikes.
The plant monster flailed is branches but was unable to hit
Buck. Another plant monster lurched forwards, only able to reach the cleric as
well, though it also missed with its attack. A third monster emerged from
behind the cottage and advanced slowly towards Barendil, clacking its branches together
but unable to get close enough to attack the ranger.
Nobby looked over and figured that Buck and Guillerme, armed
as they were with large chopping weapons, probably needed a bit of a hand from
him and his rapier. He scurried over, feeling quite pleased with himself, and
trying to squeeze between the two warriors. Whatever bad luck seemed to be
affecting them clearly rubbed off on Nobby and he tripped over someone’s foot,
he couldn’t tell if it was Buck’s or Guillerme’s, and fell flat on his face.
The smug look drained quickly away as Nobby tried to scramble back to his feet.
Leaving the three amigos to sort themselves out, Kisandra
decided to use Fire Bolt to try and prevent the other plant monster from
reaching Barendil. More bad luck spread through the party as the sorceress
found that the spell fizzled and popped in her hands, scorching her fingers and
achieving nothing more than causing her some considerable pain.
Ignoring the kerfuffle around him, Barendil maintained his
professionalism and leapt forwards, swinging left and right to cut the plant
monster into pieces, leaving a pile of sticks and twigs on the ground around
him. He looked over towards Buck, who finally managed to get control of his axe
and hefted it overhead, bringing it down onto the plant monster. The weapon
glowed faintly as it bit into the wood, easily slicing through the monster and
splitting it into two halves that fell away as Buck drew the weapon back and
look approvingly at it.
Emboldened by the example of his companions, Guillerme swung
his glaive round over Nobby’s prone body, burying it into the final plant
monster. At least, it was the final plant monster… looking up, he saw two more plant
monsters swaying towards the party from the next building. Amongst them was
another towering treeman. Guillerme groaned in despair. Was that tree even
bigger than the one they just dealt with in the field?
Nobby jumped up, hitting the plant monster in front of him
and dropping it to the ground, allowing Guillerme to pull his glaive out of the
stricken beast. Now the party had to focus on the three monsters advancing towards
them. Kisandra’s scorched fingers were unable to form a Fire Bolt and Barendil
charging round behind one of them was unable to strike his foe down.
Feeling the rage of the storm, Buck cast Shatter once more
and empowered it with all his divine energy, causing both small plant monsters
to explode in a shower of twigs and staggering the treeman backwards slightly.
Barendil covered his face as he was peppered by the remnants of the plant
monster in front of him.
Guillerme now felt a sense of purpose. He moved forwards,
trying to find a way to scale the crumbling walls in front of him, thinking he
might find a good perch from which to strike the tree from above. Nobby nodded
encouragingly, giggling to himself as he could see just how precariously the
wall was standing up and figuring it would be pretty funny to see Guillerme
attempt to climb it. The paladin disappointed him though, deciding instead to stay
on the ground as he ran round the treeman, looking for a soft spot on its back
to attack. Swinging the glaive as hard as he could, Guillerme found that in
fact the bark of the tree was quite hard all the way round its trunk, and he
managed to hit a particularly hard knot in the wood that caused his glaive to
bounce backwards and the shaft to vibrate violently in his hands. The paladin staggered
backwards with a surprised expression on his face, his hands aching from the
blow and his ego hurting from the spectacle he thought he must have made of
himself. Completely unaffected by Guillerme’s attack, the monstrous tree turned
ponderously to swing a branch at Guillerme, but the paladin had staggered just
out of reach so it flew harmlessly by in front of his face.
Nobby tried to aid Guillerme using his rapier but failed to
hit the tree. The rogue danced backwards out of the way, much to Guillerme’s
disgust. As he disengaged, Kisandra sent Magic Missiles flying forwards,
smashing bark from the walking tree. Barendil also leaped forwards, slashing
his longsword down wherever the missiles had chipped away some bark, allowing Talon
to bite deeply into the wooden monster.
Friar Buck followed the ranger, roaring and brandishing his
axe high in the air. He brought the magical battleaxe down in a vertical strike,
again hitting the point that had been weakened by Kisandra and now Barendil,
and he carved a great gash in the trunk that caused it to nearly be split in
twain. Guillerme tried to cut into the same gash but missed as the tree swayed
around, flailing its branches and retaliating against Buck, dealing him a
vicious blow in response to the pain he had inflicted upon it with his axe.
Nobby jumped up onto the treeman, stabbing down with his
sword into the great wound and pushing the two halves of the tree apart so
that, finally, the monster fell apart with an enormous cracking sound. The two
halves lay motionless on the ground and Nobby dusted himself down as he looked
around with satisfaction. He felt that he’d seen quite enough of tree monsters
for some time!
Buck stretched his shoulders. That last blow from the
treeman had been particularly painful. “Maybe I’ll see if Brida has some sort
of salve she could apply…” he said to no one in particular, with a little glint
in his eye. Kisandra just rolled her eyes at his crudity.
Nobby investigated the three empty cottages while Buck and
Guillerme had a short rest, recuperating from their wounds. The rogue managed
to snuffle out a flagstone in one of the cottages that could be lifted up and
contained a small chest within a hidden alcove underneath, full of coin that
the owners would presumably not need any more. Kisandra made sure she was watching
Nobby’s activities so that he didn’t pocket the coins for himself and, despite
his careful examinations, he couldn’t find anything else of value in the ruined
buildings.
While he was resting,
Guillerme was thinking out loud about the nature of the plant monsters that
they had encountered. He wondered if they might be the people of the town,
transformed into plants… Kisandra didn’t know the answer, but Barendil’s
knowledge of the natural world told him that, no, these were plants that had
been magically animated. The people of Thundertree had either fled or been
killed.
The Walking Dead
Finally, the party made their way to the northern building
where Guillerme had previously detected the unnatural stench of undeath. As Brida
had said to them, they anticipated there would be zombies within the building,
which resembled a tavern. Nobby had brought something along that he thought
would be useful – brains taken from the dragon cultists. As far as he was
concerned, zombies ate brains, so he liberally spread the grey matter around
the outside of the building in an attempt to lure the zombies into an ambush,
much to his companions’ horror when they saw just what he was doing. This was a
new low for the already-repellent rogue.
Nobby crept back to his companions, feeling pretty pleased
with himself, and settled down behind a tree stump with his crossbow drawn. He
sighted the weapon at the door to the ruined building and waited. And waited.
And waited… nothing was happening. Nobby looked at his companions with a nervous
laugh before rising to his feet and running over to the door, knocking loudly
then scampering back to his spot. After a few silent moments, slowly the door
creaked open with a dead and withered hand gripping round the wood, pushing it
open against the resistance of the rubble and detritus on the ground. This door
had not been opened for a long time.
A grisly, undead face followed the withered hand, and a
group of zombies started shuffling out from within the gloom of the ruined
building. They ignored the brains that Nobby had scattered on the ground,
treading on the wobbling pieces of grey jelly with their bare feet, causing it
to squidge up between their toes. The zombies moaned and stretched their hands
out towards the adventurers, clearly more interested in the living flesh in
front of them.
Guillerme asked Buck to use the Gust of Wind to keep the
zombies pinned back, as he had done to great effect the previous day, but the
cleric felt drained and could not summon the energy for the spell.
“We’ll do this the old fashioned way,” said Nobby grimly as
he aimed the crossbow at a zombie wearing a striking red dress. With a THWACK,
the bolt sailed through the air and stuck fast into the zombie’s skull, piercing
straight through the undead monster’s head and wrenching it back unnaturally.
If the monster hadn’t already been dead then it would have certainly been
killed by the pinpoint accuracy of Nobby’s shooting, but in this case the
creature continued staggering forward, moaning. Guillerme followed up with an
uncharacteristically precise shot from his own crossbow, hitting the same
zombie in the side of the head and sending it reeling from the force of the
blow. Unfortunately, this still wasn’t quite enough damage to stop the
monstrosity’s implacable advance and it took another wavering step forwards. Dodging
to the side, Buck also raised his crossbow and sent a third and final bolt
hurtling into the red-dressed zombie, dropping it to the ground once and for
all.
Barendil stood up, muttering a magical incantation as he
drew his bow, and fired into the centre of the mass of zombies that were clamouring
to get out through the door. His arrow found its mark and magical thorns
exploded outward from that point, piercing the nearby zombies with a number of
tiny projectiles. The zombies staggered but continued moving towards the party,
gnashing their jaws together with unsatiated hunger.
Kisandra circled her hands in the air in front of her,
attempting to form a Scorching Ray spell, but found she lacked the magical
energy required. Like an addict, she felt bereft without the feeling of power
that came from casting her higher-level spells. She also felt somewhat helpless
– yes, she had some lower-level spells and cantrips that she could fall back
on, but the effect of the Scorching Ray on the plant monsters and treeman earlier
had been devastating. She wanted to wield that power again and the realisation
that she couldn’t was upsetting. It highlighted to her the challenges inherent
in combat with waves of enemies and how she needed to keep her wits about her
when she became drained of power. Instead, she fired a Magic Missile, three
darts of force streaking towards one of the zombies. The three magical
projectiles swept into the monster, throwing it one way then the other as each
of them pierced its dead skin, but it just wasn’t the same.
Across from the sorceress, Nobby took aim with his crossbow
once more and lined up another good shot that stuck through a zombie’s arm, altering
the creature’s gait as it could no longer swing its arms properly. Meanwhile,
Friar Buck placed his own crossbow on the ground and summoned a Thunder Wave
that swept out from him and shook four of the zombies in front of him with the
force of a magical storm. One of them was shaken to pieces, falling to the
ground like a puppet with its strings cut, while the others remained standing,
just.
Barendil’s Hail of Thorns remained in effect as he loosed
another arrow, smacking into one zombie so hard that it flew backwards and
landed hard on the ground, unmoving. The magical thorns exploded outwards to
hit the other undead nearby, though they kept advancing. The zombies that were
still on their feet had finally shambled close enough to reach their attackers,
though their attempts to claw at Barendil and Buck were ineffectual.
Kisandra shook off her feeling of unease related to the lack
of powerful magicks she could currently unleash and sent more Magic Missiles
flying from her outstretched hands, decapitating one zombie and hitting a
second square in the chest. Two zombies now remained a threat, at least until
Nobby fired a crossbow bolt into the side of the head of the one that was attacking
Buck. Now freed up from the clutching undead hands, Buck used his own crossbow
to fire into the final zombie, which was finally destroyed by an arrow from
Barendil’s expert archery. Looking around, the party saw limbs and body parts
strewn around on the path, the partially decomposed zombie corpses having
fallen to pieces during the battle. None were moving and the danger appeared to
have been dealt with.
Nobby wasted no time in scurrying towards the door to see
what he could find within the building. A weathered sign could be seen in front
of the door, partially covered by rubble and zombie bits, but from the part
that was exposed it seemed to depict a brown horse holding a flagon of ale. Within
the building, Nobby could smell stale beer and he saw that the old tavern was
in better condition than the cottages he explored on the other side of the
road.
A bar at the back of the room had sagged and fallen down.
Nobby called outside that there was no sign of any beer remaining, which
elicited a single tear from Buck’s eye that glistened on his cheek. As the rogue
moved further into the building, Kisandra called out that she was coming with,
and she hurried inside – Nobby felt like, for some reason, he wasn’t fully
trusted! However, as well as watching what Nobby was up to, the sorceress had a
keen eye for detail too so she was able to help Nobby explore the ruins for
anything of value. Between them, they found a few coins on the bar and a couple
of intact drinking vessels, though most had been smashed and destroyed.
Remaining outside, Guillerme probed his senses outwards to
detect if the party had missed any undead creatures in the immediate vicinity,
but he couldn’t feel the presence of anything unnatural nearby. As far as they
could tell, they had explored all the buildings in the ruins and destroyed all
the vile creatures that inhabited this beleaguered town. For all intents and purposes, it seemed that
they had saved this doomed settlement.
Dragon Harvesting
The party now turned its attention to the dragon corpse (in
truth, it had never left Nobby’s mind). Barendil decided to return to Brida to
inform her of their victory and discuss any future plans – besides, he declared
that he had no interest in carving up the lizard. Nobby was able to find a
barman’s apron in the tavern, and he strode off towards the dragon’s corpse in
front of the tower, drawing a whetstone from his pocket to sharpen his knife.
The sheer excitement could be seen on his face and was making his hands tremble
with anticipation. Buck caught up with him and saw what a state the rogue was
in, so decided that he should take over the butchery of the carcass – it certainly
wouldn’t be the first time Buck had used these skills, though he had never
dismembered a dragon before!
Walking up to the large, blue-scaled corpse, the pair prepared
to remove the parts that they felt were the most useful. Nobby had written a
list and he indicated to Buck what he wanted. The wing membranes were successfully
sliced away with little damage, providing the basis for curing some fancy leather.
Buck carefully removed both the dragon’s eyes and sliced out its tongue, all of
which were dropped into jars of dragon blood that Nobby had prepared to keep
them in. Unfortunately, cutting into the rib cage proved challenging, so the
heart was damaged beyond use and the gall bladder (that Nobby was particularly
keen on for some reason) was completely mangled. Buck apologised, but this wasn’t
the same as butchering a deer, and he’d never been interested in eating gall
bladder before anyway!
They then concentrated on removing the scales. Many scales
had been damaged during the battle, and Buck’s attempts to remove the undamaged
ones proved harder than he anticipated and he ended up damaging more of them.
He was able to remove some of the scales intact – insufficient for a full suit
of armour, but enough for something smaller he expected.
Finally, they turned their attention to the beast’s head. Buck
swung his axe cleanly through the beasts neck with no difficulty. He did wonder
about how they were going to carry this stinking head back anywhere, but he
knew Guillerme was particularly keen to have it as a trophy so it was his
problem. The two butchers carried the harvested items back to Brida’s hut,
covered in dragon blood and gore, but grinning inanely.
Guillerme was particularly pleased to see that Buck and
Nobby had brought him his trophy head and he excitedly asked Brida if she wouldn’t
mind looking after the dragon bits while they travelled onward. The druid
agreed, thinking it a small price to pay for their assistance in ridding
Thundertree of danger. Guillerme asked her whether she knew if the town was
free of enemies and she confirmed that, as far as she was aware, it was. While
the party had been busy to the northwest of the town, she had flew through
Thundertree in her hawk form and could see no monsters remaining anywhere within
the ruins. That wasn’t to say that they were completely safe – Neverwinter Wood
remained a dangerous place, populated by all manner of beasts – but the
immediate threats to rebuilding this place had been dealt with.
 |
| Progress in exploring the remaining buildings of Thundertree |
Next Steps
Having completed their current mission to save Thundertree, the
party now discussed what they should do next. They had the location of Cragmaw
Castle, so were eager to get there as quickly as possible to hopefully save
Gundren Rockseeker and move on to Wave Echo Cave. However, there were other
concerns – the heroes were keen to ensure that Thundertree was well-protected
and given a chance to be rebuilt, for which purpose they thought they could
leverage the support of one of the factions they had joined (The Lords Alliance
perhaps being the most likely candidate in this case). Additionally, Kisandra
wished to return Mirna Dendrar’s necklace, which was one of the main reasons
they came to Thundertree in the first place, and she knew doing this in person
would be very important to the poor widowed woman. Nobby’s opinion was that it
might be worth returning to Thundertree – he wanted to offload some of the
valuables they had acquired, restock and resupply, and he had some ideas in
mind to get some artisans working on. He kept quiet about exactly what those
plans were, for now.
Barendil, Buck and Guillerme were all of the opinion that
going to Phandalin would add a significant time delay to their arrival at
Cragmaw Castle. However, it would be travelling by road rather than through the
forest, which may speed things along. Brida also pointed out the dangers within
Neverwinter Wood – although the path through the forest was shorter and more
direct, she felt it was likely to be more dangerous. The decision, as always,
was with the consensus of the party.
After much discussion, Kisandra changed Barendil’s mind.
Although he was keen to send Perry with messages back to the town, he conceded
that talking to their faction contacts in person would be much better than
simply sending a letter. A delay of a couple of days would have to be lived
with, as they did have other pressing concerns and commitments. The others
agreed as well, and it was eventually decided that they would take the harvested
dragon parts with them and walk back to Phandalin along the main road before
heading out again to Cragmaw Castle. They agreed to send Perry on ahead to
deliver letters to their faction contacts, alerting them that they would be
arriving soon and asking for any assistance that could be provided.
Nobby was pleased to hear of the decision to go to Phandalin
first. He sheepishly decided to share the details of the commission he had been
thinking of… he had a scrap of paper that he had been scribbling on during the
evenings. He held it up to the others, who fell about laughing at the sheer
insanity of the sketch. Looking slightly hurt, Nobby explained that he wanted
to use up some of the 30 beaver pelts they had picked up in Tresander Manor.
And he thought it might be confusing for their enemies. It certainly confused
the rest of the party.
As the day was drawing to a close, they decided to sleep one
more night at Brida’s cottage before departing Thundertree in the morning. A
flapping noise alerted them to something approaching, which turned out to be a
letter which appeared to be flying all by itself towards Kisandra’s hand. It
turned out to be an enchanted, and enchanting, letter from Bran Hornraven,
responding to her previous letter.
 |
| Nobby's sketched idea for a suit made of beaver pelts - resembling either the etchings of a madman or demented scrawling of an unstable child |
 |
| A letter from Hornraven to Kisandra that magically flew to her hand before leaving Thundertree |
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| A letter sent from Barendil to Daran Edermath, Order of the Gauntlet |
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| A letter sent from Guillerme to Sildar Halwinter, The Lords Alliance |
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