But wait, what’s this? Pillars of smoke highlight a sullen red glow on the horizon. Fearing the worst five of the caravan took the 5 horses (our PC’s of course) and rode hard ahead of the caravan to see what was going on. They found their town in the aftermath of an attack by Zizzors from the swamps to the east. A large number of zizzors lay dead but tragically just as many of the town’s fighting age/experience villagers lay dead and many more wounded. Several buildings were burned down but the fires were now under control. With the fishing fleet out to sea for another week at least most of the hale and hearty are children and women.
Even worse they learn that the zizzors captured many children and young women and fled with them.
Our party immediately goes in pursuit. Even drastically thinned out from the fight there is still a sizeable force of zizzors that got away.
They proceed on the trail and find the body of a zizzor guardian (large brute) and Gulank (barbarian) moves up to investigate. Zizzor forces come up out of concealed pits, Gatherer’s (minions), Spinethrowers (artillery), and Redfin Drakes (raptor like pets – skirmishers) and the party is surrounded. They defeat the combat not easily but without anyone dying, this encounter was at the low end of Hard.
Next up is a three part skill challenge, “Find the Trail through the Swamps”, “Avoid the dangers of the Swamps” and “Reach the Lair Undetected”. This required 8+ successes to reach the lair and be in an good spot and be undetected. They made 11 rolls out of their 15 (DC 19) and made it. If they’ d of failed the consequences would have ranged from the loss of a some Healing Surges by the time they reached the lair to additional encounters against various swamp beasts or zizzor patrols. Â Since I’m awarding experience by quest, the additional encounters would have simply been another chance to get someone killed so this is a good thing.
They reached the lair in good shape and without being detected. They moved to investigate and encounters 2 Guardians (brutes), 2 Spinethrowers (artillery), 1 Clutch Master (elite soldier). The guardian and clutch master’s free OA when an adjacent enemy is bloodied as a Immediate Reaction proved very hazardous for people but they were able to take care of things although Gulnak went down more than once and only the ability of the party to spend tokens to recharge one attack power kept them alive. Which is what those things are for and what the system is designed to do so it all worked out very well.
With one of the Spinethrower’s escaping the fight to flee into the gaping mouth of the lair leading down to darkness they were forced to retreat. Two very good Nature and Stealth rolls had them making a secure camp that should see them through the night. Both of them 29′s versus DC 23′s. It was a spur of the moment thing to do the secure hidden camp but given the area with Zizzor’s roaming around I just decided to have them roll a Nature check to find a good place and a Stealth check to secure it and the Druid and Ranger both nailed their rolls.
We’ll get back to in in a little while (this was on Wednesday) and see if they can find the children and rescue them. Or die in the attempt. Or just say to hell with it and go on.
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