Wherein Arn Dreams, Orcs Raid and Elves Are Treated With.

Arn Rainaldsson is wandering the forest. He isn’t quite sure how he got here or, for that matter, where here actually is. Far more troublesome to him, though, is that this particular region appears to be a no-mana zone! Picking a direction, he starts walking, hoping to get clear of either the forest or the magical dead zone.

He walks for an unspecified amount of time but appears to make no headway. The sound of someone approaching him causes him to momentarily hope his friends have found him but instead, he finds a sinister-looking figure in a black robe with the hood up striding toward him. This figure clutches a staff and does not answer when Arn calls out to him nor does he respond when issued a warning. Believing himself in danger, Arn attacks with his spear and the two exchange a flurry of blows … but the stranger is far better and Arn finds himself thrown to the ground. Looming over him, the mysterious stranger thrusts his fanged staff at Arn’s throat so the fangs are on either side of his neck and then growls out in a guttural voice, “Arn. I know who you are … but you do not. Seek me out. Remember me!” The stranger withdraws and flees into the forest. Moments later, Arn realizes that Zistral comes thundering into view.

And then, Arn wakes up. He is still in his bed in Defiant and has been evidently screaming in his sleep which caused by Haruki and Zistral to investigate, thinking something truly dire is happening. Convinced that magic has been involved, Arn seeks out Finn – who is very cross at having been woken due to a bad dream – and then will later seek out the local priests to get a sketch of the fanged staff.

Two weeks have passed since Defiant was retaken and, in that time, everyone has been very busy, especially poor Finn as his father, Ser Dane, has consistently tasked to handle pretty much all of the leadership matters (which makes everyone wonder whether Lord Sardock is ill or simply lazy.) Reconstruction of Defiant continues, with the sound of hammering and sawing and similar noises commonplace. There are no idle hands allowed.

An alarm is sounded and the armcry is taken up: a fire on the horizon! Finn rushes to the wall to get a better look and finds himself alongside Ser Malfoy; upon seeing that both Haruki and Ilanna mean to investigate impulsively, Finn calls out an order for them to hold before instructing the others of his usual group – Arn, Thorn, Yusuf and Zistral – to ready themselves. He then tells Ser Malfoy that he will take a team to the farm to determine the nature of this fire, especially since this might simply be a diversionary tactic for a much larger assault. Malfoy agrees and sends the well-meaning but simple-minded Sloth with them.

The farm is well ablaze by the time the adventurers reach it though there is no sign of who is responsible; Zistral and Arn notice movement in the smoke and, upon being advised of this, Finn quickly splits the group to flank the motion. As they sweep around the area, Jakob Marsyas, the farmer whose small house this is, stumbles forward, half-blinded by smoke and blood on his face, where he wildly attacks Thorn with a hoe; Thorn easily dances back out of the way and Jakob immediately realizes his error before begging that the adventurers retrieve his wife, Annette. Orcs raided and took her! Finn promptly instructs Ilanna and Zistral to start looking for tracks, then, upon seeing Jakob’s two children stumbling out of the barn, instructs Sloth to escort the family back to the castle. The well-meaning but slow-minded Sloth eagerly agrees.

Into the woods they go in hot pursuit of the orcs. As they draw closer, they hear the sound of a woman sobbing followed by some guttural grunts and the sound of a pimp slap. Finn decides that the team will approach via stealth and attempt to counter-ambush the orcs, but Yusuf opts instead to break away from the group and charge forward by himself to draw all eyes away from the sneaking party. This is done without first clearing it with Finn, a fact that will infuriate the younger man, but the team decide to use this distraction anyway and begin their wide approach.

As Yusuf approaches, banging his sword against his shield, the orcish sounds disappear and moments later, a trio of crossbow bolts flash out of the woods toward him, inflicting only flesh wounds. Recognizing that he is terribly exposed, Yusuf rushes to cover, bounding from tree to tree, all the while calling out threats and challenges to the hidden orcs. He experiences a second salvo of bolts, taken even more flesh wounds, but continues to advance. Upon realizing that this isn’t working, Yusuf opts to charge in an oblique angle, away from the direction in which the other adventurers are approaching; while attempting to be especially acrobatic, he ends up briefly falling to the ground but scrambles back up and continues to press forward. In the process, he stumbles upon an orc who abandons attempts to reload his crossbow and stands, readying an axe. They exchange blows and then, a second orc springs forward to attack. Yusuf scrambles away, now badly wounded, but is hotly pursued; his luck appears to be running out!

Seeing that Yusuf’s mad charge has put him in dire circumstances, Finn quietly instructs Zistral to flank wide and use his superior speed to cover the ground; the centaur scout eagerly does so, then, like Yusuf, begins calling out challenges to draw all eyes. At the same time, the rest of the group continues creeping forward, noting the positions of orcs as they abandon their hiding places; Finn points out targets for Haruki, Ilanna and Thorn, and once Ilanna looses her shot, he gives them the go signal. As one orc reels from an unexpected arrow to the back, another is dropped by Thorn’s sword blow to the head and the others react with surprise at this sudden attack. In a handful of seconds, there are more orcs on the ground than are upright, though by then, Yusuf has been overcome by his injuries and has passed out. Two of the orcs, upon seeing Haruki splatter the head of one of their fellows, turn and flee. Finn, seeing that Yusuf is down and the battle effectively won, abandons his overwatch position and sprints forward to his unconscious ally where he weaves a mild healing spell.

Without warning, elves appear out of nowhere, bows at the ready. Surrounded and caught with their metaphorical pants down, the adventurers all show their willingness to cooperate and Thorn calls out in elvish that they are friendly. The leader of these elves coolly slits the throats of any downed orcs and then approaches the unconscious one at Thorn’s feet. Despite not being particularly good at diplomacy, Thorondil asks the elf to not kill the orc as they wish to interrogate him; the elf considers it, then turns away. He stops when Thorn introduces himself and mentions being Caithnessers who have retaken Defiant; the elf responds coldly that these are not their lands and they have come here uninvited so they should leave. Thorn persists by pointing out that they have to look to the defense of their people; to this, the elf half turns to face him and responds that their presence will cause problems. The orcs and Bulgaren will come seeking vengeance. Finn recognizes this name as that of a dwarf banished from the Bronze Mountains who rallied the orcs against Defiant and relays this information to his friend in his broken Elvish. Quickly shifting approaches, Thorn then inquires if this stranger knows an elf named Erandil who was said to have come to these parts. At the utterance of this name, the stranger turns to face Thorn and approaches, demanding to know what he knows of Erandil. Once Thorn has explained his relationship and his quest, the elf relays that Erandil is likely dead as he was captured by Bulgaren many years ago. Finn attempts to get the elf’s name but he does not respond except to Thorn, identifying himself as Nildor. The elves depart.

Finn wakes the knocked out Annette Marsyas who initially struggles, then clings to him as she sobs in relief at being rescued. With Haruki carrying the unconscious Yusuf while Zistral carries their equally insensate orcish prisoner, the team (plus Annette) return to Defiant where they all are pleased to witness the Marsyas family reunion.

Player Notes:

• No game next week. Four of the Players are definitely out, one is likely out, and two were going to be late so we’re having a bye week.
• We joked that the hooded stranger Arn was fighting was actually Future Evil Arn which the GM declared was cooler than his original idea … so this may come to pass. Probably not, though.
• Sloth is an actual statted out NPC based on the character from The Goonies. Creating him was the GM’s idea, originally to serve as a temp PC.
• Yusuf’s decision to charge off by himself and be a distraction is going to result in Finn having some words with him for doing so. Frankly, he’s lucky that he’s only in the negative HPs instead of dead; without benefit of the Plot Point mechanic (in this case, thing Impulse Buy for injuries to become Flesh Wounds), he would probably have been killed since the orcs were shooting from ambush and he had no idea where they were at first. Nearly all of the time we spent in the fight was basically him getting shot at and trying to find the shooters while the rest of us snuck around. In retrospect, the GM probably should have had the other players take over the orcs as once Finn gave the ‘go’ signal, the fight ended within three rounds..
• As Finn’s player, I have had to start re-evaluating how to play him. With Arn’s introduction, the combat magic aspect is handled (which is good since I’m using RPM and my skills are still too low to really be effective with it yet) so I’m now concentrating on him trying to be ‘the captain’ (in the whole “Call it, Captain” frame of mind) who happens to have some magical capabilities. This was the first actual fight where he intentionally held back from rushing forward to engage hostiles and instead hung back to direct traffic.
• All PCs were asked by the GM to have a ‘Personal Plot’ and Thorn’s involved him being asked to carry a letter to Erandil from his family; Erandil was one of Thorn’s old instructors who came to the Defiant area to ‘hunt orcs.’