Keep on the Borderlands - The Path of Evil - Session 35e

SESSION 35e: DAY 17 – CAVES OF CHAOS

ROUND 3B

·        Clovis must take a morale check. He’ll pass on anything but a 1 and he rolls a 9 and will fight on.

·        Talmark observes “I think we should move our formation into the cave, though perhaps Clovis should hang back and hopefully not die from infection in the meantime. A torch could be thrown deep into the tunnel once we are in that first chamber to help us see what is down there.”

·        Kord shouts “I agree.” He picks up a thigh bone and casts Light upon it and hands it to Talmark and states “Throw this. It’ll be more reliable than throwing a torch.” Kord has now used his standard action and he is the first to move as he uses his movement action to move into the cave. The light that was previously on his shield goes out as soon as he casts the Light spell onto the bone.

·        Talmark is the next to move. He immediately moves up 20ft. As he was at the cave entrance he is now 20ft into the cave and can only see 10ft until the darkness robs him of any vision but because he’s carrying the “bone torch” now he can see another 30ft but he still cannot see any foes. He decides to try to throw the bone torch 40ft forward. We’ll treat it as a thrown weapon using the oil/alchemist rules for throwing increment (10ft range increment see page 160) and an AC 5 for a splash weapon (see page 202). If he misses the bone torch will scatter 3 squares (ie one for each range increment). So he needs to hit AC5 + 2 x 4 (for four range increments) = 13. He rolls a d20 = 1 + 2 for dex + 2 for BAB = 5 and misses. The bone torch scatters, in the direction of, 1d8 = 5 with a 1 starting towards Talmark and going in a clockwise fashion. The torch goes deep. Much deeper than the clumsy Talmark had intended as it ends up 60ft away from him. As it passes through the chamber it goes over an evil looking gnoll with a long bow into a passage beyond the chamber, one which turns from east west to the north. The archer gnoll is clearly back lit by the torch which throws light out 30ft in all directions. There is no sign however of the hyena.

·        Malandir seizes the opportunity and moves up to almost point blank range of the gnoll and fires an arrow (he doesn’t have the movement allowance to quite make point blank range) but he misses.

·        Fremont advances 30ft and fires an arrow at the monster and hits it in the left leg for 7pts of damage, badly wounding the enemy archer.

·        Barret moves up 30ft to flank Fremont (he has his shield and sword prepared at the moment and cannot fire).

·        Per moves up but with his chain mail armour slowing him down he cannot reach the front of the group.

·        Lucien moves up 20ft.

·        Clovis stays at the back of the party with Lucien.

ROUND 4A

·        As it turns out, Talmarks throw was genius. The gnoll looks behind it for a space in darkness to move into but there is none there. It decides to back off 25ft to the west to the partial cover of the corner and to fire an arrow at Fremont. The arrow flies true and hits Fremont in the left shoulder for 8pts of damage. Malandir is amazed at the speed of the arrow. It has clearly been fired from a masterworked strength bow. “That’ll be valuable” he thinks to himself. 

ROUND 4B

·        Fremont must take a morale check. He rolls an 18 and passes. He’ll fight on.

·        The badly wounded Fremont fires an arrow at the gnoll and hits it in the head for 7pts of damage. The vengeful shot is deadly and the gnoll sumps to the ground. Satisfied, Fremont 5ft steps to the south to relative safety and to make room for the others to advance.

·        Talmark calls Lucien up to bring forth the light so that they can see better and advance. Lucien moves up 20ft and takes the space left by Fremont in the line.

·        Taking tactical command, Talmark tells Barret to advance 20ft. Barret moves to the west 20ft. As he does he suddenly realises in horror that around the corner another gnoll and the wounded hyena have been waiting in ambush. He can only just see their menacing form in the dark shadows and flickering light provided at the extremity of Lucien’s torch but it is enough. He shouts a warning to the rest of the party.  He’s pretty confident that there are no other monsters in the room as the combination of Lucien’s torch and the Kord’s bone torch now adequately light the room.

·        Per cannot get into combat so he double moves forward to start to engage the monsters next round. He places himself towards the middle of the room. With his reach weapon, he’ll cover the passage way out should the monsters choose to retreat.

·        Malandir moves forward 30ft and takes a clear shot at the gnoll. It’s a point blank shot and he hits it in the right leg for 9pts of damage, almost dropping it with one arrow.

·        Talmark cannot get into the fight this round either so he double moves 20ft and then 10ft to the flank of both Per and Barret.

·        Clovis moves up to be with Fremont. He doesn’t want to be left outside the cave by himself.

·        Kord double moves up to form off Barret’s eastern flank. 

ROUND 5A

·        The monsters must take a morale check as they’ve now taken 50% casualties. They roll an 8 on 2d6 and will fight on.

·        The hyena is the first to act. It advances 5ft to the south and attacks 1-3 Barret, 4-6 Kord, 6d = 2 = Barret. The monster lunges at the man at arms and misses him. The ever cautious Barret sighs with relief.

·        The gnoll 5ft steps to the south and attacks 1-2 Talmark, 3-4 Barret, 5-6 Kord, d6 = 2 Talmark. It stabs at the fighter with its spear and but the monsters attack cannot penetrate his armour. 

ROUND 5B

·        Per 5ft steps to the north and stabs at the gnoll with his glaive and hits it in the back dealing 12pts of damage and putting it down for good.

·        Kord strikes at the hyena with his heavy mace and hits it in the chest dealing 9pts of damage, killing the beast. 

As the party begins to relax after the fight and to think about their next moves they hear a lot of whooping and hollering coming from the western corridor. They immediately suspect that reinforcements are on the way. 

The party has 6 seconds, ie one round of actions, to act.

DEW