Session 3: The Great Escape

'''Session 3 of the Campaign. '''[Played on 11/8/16 and 11/17/16]
 * Taman - Kyle Heisler - Human Ranger
 * Renaia - Leah - Gnome Rogue
 * Slaplen - Kyle H-S - Tiefling Warlock
 * Krusk - Eddie - Half-Orc Paladin
 * Oras - Brian - Human Monk

Scene 1
Captured by the goblinoids of the Broken Shield Band, the party and their fellow survivors of the Soggy Soufflé are divested of their possessions, manacled, and forced to march more than ten miles inland. They leave behind the sandy coast, passing through thorny scrubland before finally entering the perimeter of a great rain forest. Therein, they are brought to a fortified encampment milling with goblin and hobgoblin warriors. Archers man several watchtowers around the perimeter of the camp, which is marked by a deep trench lined with wicked wooden spikes. Glancing into the trench reveals the rotting remains of a few would-be escapees, their impaled corpses left for carrion birds.

As the sun sets, the beleaguered adventurers and their companions are divided and locked into four slave pens, joining a handful of other unfortunate souls who seem to have suffered no small abuse at the hands of their goblin captors.
 * A battered, disheveled female halfling crouched defensively in one corner of the pen watching everyone, cagy and unblinking.
 * A thin, sandy-haired man not yet into his middle years but already bearing something of a scholar’s stoop (Caspen).
 * A boisterous, bellicose dwarf with ruddy cheeks and a black beard, who seems to think the locked pen is the only thing stopping him from taking on the whole Broken Shield Band (Dagren Battlemore).
 * Four dirt-crusted, demoralized Telunians locked in a separate pen (i.e. one not containing any of the heroes)

With the party are the survivors of the shipwreck: Captain Samke Sarosa, the Cook (Falby Tenor), first sword Ezrik Manshark, crewman Ruck, and the youngest crew member, Danin Gaspy.

Not keen on suffering the indignity of their confinement nor finding out what grim fate the masters of the Broken Shield Band have in store for them, the party begins engineering a plan to escape. Separated and limited in their ability to communicate, they work to contrive a means to open their cages. Able to communicate telepathically with Kindo, whom she bade to follow from the coast (after securing her most valuable possessions), Renaia gathers information about the camp. The raccoon investigates the closest structures, finding a small armory as well as some kind of barracks for goblins—and at least one worg.

Renaia is able to communicate some of what she sees and intends to her companions in the other pens by way of the thieves’ cant, which Ezrik Manshark knows as well.

The slave pens are separated by several rows of cruel spikes akin to those lining the bottom of the trench surrounding the camp. A rotating detail of hobgoblin warriors stands guard over the prisoners, directed by a bugbear jailer.

Scene 2
After getting a dagger from Kindo, Renaia bids the raccoon to filch the cage keys from the bugbear jailer. He is successful, and the gnome surreptitiously tosses them to Oras while Krusk provides a distraction (whether intentionally or not).

When the bugbear jailor attempts to punish Krusk and the others sharing his pen, Taman takes advantage of the chaos to wrest a sword from the hobgoblin closest to the bars of the cage. Realizing he no longer has the key, the bugbear attempts to break into the cage with help from the hobgoblins.

As things begin to heat up, Krusk throws his might against the locked door of his pen—and rips it from its hinges. At the same time, Oras is able to get his pen open, and the party—although unarmed—takes the fight to their jailers.

Despite the party’s best efforts to look out for one another and the crew of the Soufflé who’d come this far with them, the escape attempt has at least one early casualty. In the initial tumult of the jailbreak, the bugbear jailor crushes Ruck’s skull with his bludgeon.

Slaplen and Krusk engage and manage to take out the brutal bugbear before he can kill any more of their companions, but even as they do, two monstrous worgs emerge from nearby goblin barracks. One heads straight for them, while the other circles around, engaging Ezrik and later Dagren.

The fighting continues as a second and third wave of hobgoblins and goblins join the fray from the main camp. Burning through spells and other valuable resources, the party manages to keep the upper hand, even when the ogre that guarded them on the way to the camp comes running to subdue the upstart prisoners. Not fazed, Renaia responds with a perfectly placed arrow that buries itself into the ogre’s chest, emboldening her allies to take the fight to the giant.

After a brutal but swift exchange of blows (and arrows and eldritch blasts), the ogre falls and the party is left to pick off the remaining hobgoblins and worgs.

Scene 3
Their immediate vicinity clear of threats, the party can nonetheless hear the rest of the camp mobilizing, preparing to descend on the pens and punish the escaped prisoners. The adventurers and their companions have less than five minutes to arm themselves as best they can with the supplies from the armory and what they can find amongst the fallen goblinoids guards and to execute a plan to get over the spiked trench and escape into the forest.

While raiding the armory for gear, the party plots their escape. They work out a plan to get over the spike-filled trench by making use of the corpses of the goblinoids they’ve killed, with the assistance of the less heroically-inclined prisoners.

While the non-adventuring folk attempt to execute the corpse-arranging part of the plan, the heroes and their new allies position themselves to fend off the incoming goblinoids. Taman gets into position on the watchtower, while the others form a line in two parts to engage two incoming waves of enemies. Renaia sets fire to the armory and the goblin barracks, and she dispatches Kindo to look for the remainder of the party’s important items, which must be stashed somewhere else in the camp. The hitherto reserved halfling takes up position and shanks a hobgoblin that charges past the burning armory, while Taman fires arrows at the Broken Shield archers. Oras and Dagren engage the goblinoids in melee combat, while Slaplen and Krusk—with the aid of the Soggy Soufflé crew and the party’s more mookish new companions—force the doors off of the other three slave pens to position over the spikes in the trenches. Retrieving the doors turns out to be more trouble than it seemed, but with the rest of the party buying time, Slaplen stopping to hurl eldritch blasts, Renaia and the halfling taking the lead in getting across the trench, and at last Oras and Dagren retrieving the step-ladder from the watchtower, the party is well on its way to fashioning a makeshift bridge over the spikes.

It's worth noting that the scholar Caspen took charge of the other prisoners to bend and break spikes away from the main path through the trench, in addition to getting them to arrange the bodies in a constructive manner, building something of a foundation just in time for the doors to be laid down. And not a moment too soon, as the party loses ground to the Broken Shield goblinoids and their leader, the bugbear archer that led the patrol that escorted them to camp. Before long, it comes time for the group to get across to the ostensible safety of the woods.

Krusk and Nyran tend to the party’s wounds as best they can, helping to keep them alive as they ready themselves to cross the deadly chasm…

Throwing down his weapon and shield, Krusk dashes full-speed at the trench, and jumps. The half-orc’s athleticism is nothing short of heroic, and he lands with both feet on the other side of the fifteen-foot gap. The halfling offers a hand to steady the paladin, and Krusk turns, readying himself to aid the other escapees.

The tide of battle turns against the party. The bugbear archer leading the Broken Shield closes in, flanked by a handful of lesser soldiers. As the bugbear and other bowmen pepper the adventurers with arrows, a dark shape emerges from the camp, a tall black shadow against the flaming backdrop of those buildings torched by Renaia: another ogre. Oras and Dagren are quick to engage the ogre, keeping it from the other escaping prisoners. The monster cannot stand against the concerted wrath of the party and their allies for long, but it metes out considerable punishment before falling; one of the brute’s attacks all but sunders the bones in Oras’ forearm as he blocks it.

As the party struggles to worm their way through the spikes in the trench, the bugbear and the camp’s archers close in, preparing to perforate the exposed prisoners with a barrage of arrows.

Ezrik, still gravely wounded from the fight within the camp, takes a hobgoblin’s arrow through the chest. It kills him instantly. Likewise, Danin Gaspy, finally inspired by the party’s valor, finds his courage and attempts to give everyone time to get into the trench. He falls to the archers, as well.

“Surrender now and return to your pens,” the bugbear leader calls out in harsh Common. “And you’ll only get a maiming!”

At last the thoroughly bloodied adventurers find themselves beyond the trench, just a sprint’s length from the treeline of the forest. Yet, even as the last of their number struggles to escape the spike-filled pit, the halfling tugs on the Renaia’s leather armor, drawing her attention toward the movement she hears out in the darkness. By virtue of her keen gnomish night vision, Renaia is able to make out what the halfling cannot—though she at once wishes she could not. Three goblins skulk in the shadows, lying in ambush alongside a beastly worg. And even as Renaia relays this dire revelation to her companions, the Broken Shield soldiers within the camp take position to loose arrows and bolts upon the escaped prisoners as they attempt to cross the open ground to the woodlands.

Free of the trench and alerted to the new threat, Dagren Battlemore charges the worg like a mad ox, denying the predator an opportunity to close in and force the company back into the spikes. Taking advantage of the monster’s momentary distraction, Renaia looses arrow after arrow, striking the worg three times and killing it before it can kill Dagren and rush the party. As the beast goes down, however, one of the goblins hits Dagren with a bottle of combustible alchemist’s fire. The flaming dwarf is forced to the ground in order to snuff out the flames. Just a few steps behind Dagren, Oras engages the goblin grenadier and delivers a powerful blow—one that explodes the creature’s next incendiary cocktail just as it winds up to throw. The ensuing blast knocks the monk off his feet.

Meanwhile, Slaplen continues exchanging fire with the goblinoids on the other side of the trench—with the bugbear leader, in particular. After one well-placed eldritch blast, the bugbear staggers back, forced to retreat behind the legs of the watchtower. “Surrender now and you’ll only get a maiming!” Slaplen taunts.

Infused with the dark power of his patron Zazobal, the warlock unleashes a final surge of fiendish energy, snuffing out the last of the bugbear leader’s life force. Even with half their camp casting tendrils of flame up into the night sky like a giant’s bonfire and their leader slain, the Broken Shield Band is far from undone. Chaos and confusion sweep their ranks, to be sure, but the disciplined hobgoblins keep some semblance of order. The party can see more of their archers heading for the perimeter of the camp—more than enough to spoil their escape, so close to succeeding. With the worg and goblins dead, there is nothing between them and the jungle; the adventurers and their bloodied allies break into a sprint for the ostensive safety of the trees.

The ranger Taman leads the party as best as he can in the unfamiliar wilderness, putting as much distance between them and the camp as they can in two hours before finding a relatively defensible location for a short rest. The group spends about an hour getting its bearings, recovering from their harrowing escape and flight into darkness.