Building Bhakashal - Session Report - Summer Camp Day 4

The Party:

Magic-user (human) - Dhaklan the Ryne

Fighter (human) - Borak blackhand

Cleric of Bast (human) - Jek Rallah

Ranger (aaracockra) - Creeg Mar

Fighter (lizard man) - Golgan Torg

Druid - (aaracockra) - Fara Chald 

Illusionist (Malu - Fish man) - Phost the Grim

We started back today in the middle of a fight with a patrol of yuan-ti. The party was going to take down the patrol as evidence that they had the muscle to take down Horan, and win the favor of the bullywugs, who guard the pan lung’s egg. Well, three rounds into combat and things were not going as they had hoped. 

The yuan-ti were proving more resilient than expected, but the session started off with promise…

Shielded by his allies in front, and the druid multiplied by mirror image, Dhalkan cast monster summoning 2, waiting to see what the spell would bring him.

Creeg swept down from the sky and maneuvered between crossbow bolts and flashing blades to cut at the wounded yuan-ti, between several sword strokes and a barrage of magic missiles, one of the snake creatures was on it’s last legs. Creeg attacked from above, slicing open it’s head, and the beast collapsed to the ground, dead.

One down!

Another yuan-ti targeted Dhalkan, hoping to polymorph him into something benign, but Dhalkan focused, concentrated and shrugged off the transformative magic. The main party was still on the roof of a nearby building, only Borak was amongst the yuan-ti. One of them was still blinded by a light spell, and was concentrating. Seconds later, he was surrounded by 7 snakes, transformed from nearby sticks. The snakes formed a ring around the yuan-ti and hissed at all who would approach.

One of the yuan-ti had avoided being hit, enchanted or otherwise attacked. This one concentrated on Creeg as he looped around for his next dive attack, and suddenly the ranger was overcome with horror. In this case though, he did not flee, instead he struck out in blind terror at whomever was closest to him, which in this case was his own party on the nearby roof, he dove down and slashed at the party priest, tagging him on the shoulders.

Borak Blackhand was long away from the party, the fear spell that drove him to bolt was powerful. At that time Golgan arrived on the scene. He had been off in the jungle looking for some rare flowers that Dhalkan could use for an enhanced version of sleep, he checked in with the bandits and was sent towards the party. However, he saw Borak fleeing in terror, and decided to follow him. 

The pursuit was good fun. Golgan was faster (move 12” compared to Borak’s 9”), so, in essence, for every 3 squares Borak fled, Golgan traveled 4 squares. However, there was a distance of 80’ between them to start, and this meant that Borak was able to turn down an alley, make it to the end and exit before Golgan arrived in the alley to see which way he fled. When Golgan emerged he guessed wrong and lost Borak in the darkness

He decided to head back to the fight.

Back at the rooftop, the party druid, still duplicated by a mirror image spell, stood in front of the party illusionist to protect him.

Then, from the north, a buzzing noise, Dhalkan’s summoned monsters, three volts, came out of the sky and surrounded the warlock, flying around him in a circle. 

Golgan was approaching the site  of the conflict when he turned a corner and saw a group of yuan-ti, another patrol, in the distance. They also saw him, and he decided to flee. The yuan-ti blew a whistle three times and pursued.

Now, at this same time, two of the three yuan-ti (the two who were not blinded) decided to flee, they fled in different directions, leading the party to become confused about who to pursue. And right after the whistle sounded three times, Phost looked in that direction and saw the second yuan-ti patrol heading in their direction. 

Phost was far less of an optimist than the other party members, he knew they couldn’t handle any more yuan-ti, so he unfurled a scroll and cast a spell, shadow door. While an illusory version of him entered this illusory door and fled into the building, the real Phost fled invisibly and undetected into the night.

The screech of Creeg in the air above signaled his terrified descent for another sweep at the party. Fortunately he strikes one of Fara’s illusory duplicates as he screams. If anything, his fear appears to increase in intensity.

Borak - gone

Creeg- attacking

Phost -gone

The party decided on the spot that they were not going to win this one, and they threw down their weapons and surrendered. 

Given they had slain one of the yuan-ti and proven their prowess, and also gained some enmity, I decided to roll to see what they would do. They decided to wait, blew the whistle in a complicated series of bursts, and the new yuan-ti arrived, instructing the party to kneel and wait. They ended the fear spell on Creeg.

In short order Kwarino arrived, with 8 yuan-ti abominations in tow. She walked towards the party with confidence and arrogance. She knew she had the advantage.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of adventurers in the Forbidden City, you came to pillage, to slay?”

The party debated whether or not to be forthcoming, then one blurted out, “We only speak to Horan!”

I rolled an encounter reaction roll to see if that infuriated Kwairno or amused her. 

Her black laughter echoed between the buildings.

“Oh strangers, I have every plan to bring you to Horan, but first, all of your gear and weapons on the ground now.”

The party shot looks at each other, but begrudgingly agreed, tossing everything into a pile, which was quickly scooped up by the yuan-ti.

The party was bound, and the casters all gagged, and they were taken to Horan.

Meanwhile, Borak had fled to the farthest corner of the Forbidden City, and was climbing a cracked, ancient set of marble steps that lead into a dark cave, when the fear spell finally wore off. He collapsed for a minute and regained his breath. Fortunately he had not run into anything while fleeing in terror.

He grimly turned back and began to run to return to the party, hopefully in time. Golgan was heading in the same direction, and the two saw each other before reaching the site of the combat. By the time they did arrive, the party had been hauled off by Kwairno and the square was empty except for bloodstains and dirt.

They decided to go back to the bandit camp for now and regroup.

Meanwhile Dhalkan, Jek, Creeg, and Fara were marched into Horan’s home. They were brought to a large main room where they were told to kneel and wait.

Eventually, Horan appeared, clad in bright yellow silk robes, a strange looking creature at his side, it looked like a dog, it was about the size of a small pony, and it had a vaguely, disturbing looking human-like face. 

Horan greeted the party with apparent pleasantness, “I don’t get many visitors here that can survive an encounter with my yuan-ti, anyone who lasts a while is to be brought to me.”

The party nodded, a bit awestruck and unsure what to say. 

“I have two options for visitors such as yourself who show up uninvited”, Horan scratched the head of the creature which had entered with him, “but first, you must answer a question, did you know I was here?”

The party all shook their heads.

The creature beside Horan growled and barked, it was a very unnatural sound.

“Ibisal here has a very sensitive nose, people who are lying sweat as their heart rate speeds up, Ibisal can smell that.”

The party ranger looked at the rest of them and spoke, “We knew you were here at some point, we weren’t sure if you were here now.”

Horan nodded and smiled briefly, “There, that wasn’t so hard now was it?”

The sorcerer took a deep breath, “Let me make this simple”, he looked at the party individually, “there were more of you when the fight started, you will need to call in your comrades so my patrols don’t slay them… unintentionally of course.”

He paused, taking a sip from a goblet that had been on the small table beside him, but no one had even seen. 

“I have been here in the Forbidden City for a year or so now, and I have managed to gain enough power to rule, my yuan-ti, my pan lung, the patchworks, my bandits, all of these give me power here. So I have two options for you. One is to slay you, dismember you and reassemble you as patchwork. However, I have opponents here in the city as well, monsters which are selfish and willing to slay my forces and even threaten me. Can you imagine? I have not the time to hunt them down and slay them, and I don’t want to risk my precious yuan-ti. Your  arrival gives me another option, I let you live, and you dispatch some of the more recalcitrant creatures in the city for me.”

There was some OOC discussion, which I interpreted as a pause.

“Oh, come now, you would have happily slain these creatures if you found them on your own, why get squeamish now, unless you were here to sight-see.” 

There was some further talking, and the group decided to cooperate with Horan… for now. 

“The agreement seems fair, give us back our weapons and items and we can work for you.”

Horan smiled.

“Not quite yet. You all seem quite intelligent and driven, I have a… feeling… that you have been talking to others in the city, conspiring against me. Is this true?” The party didn’t know that the bullywugs had told Horan about their plan. There was then a HUGE conversation with the party about whether or not to tell Horan everything, they were worried his creature would detect their lies. So they decided to be straight up. They told him about trying to enlist both the bullywugs and the pan lung, and how they had made an alliance with the bandits.

Horan smiled, and sipped from his goblet again.

“I have suspected for a time that the bandits were conspiring, so it isn’t a surprise. Bandits are easily replaceable, you know, I could send an agent to the nearest city to the north and have a whole new crew of warriors here in 2 weeks. Actually, I will do just that. These bandits served their purpose; they have raided for me for a year now, bringing me fresh fodder for my experiments, but they have obviously lost their fear of me. If they are at the point of conspiring with outsiders to slay me, it is time for a change.”

Horan waved at the yuan-ti in the room, “they should know better, my yuan-ti are deadly as they are beautiful”, he then pointed at them, “I will give you each one of your weapons, and you will slay the bandits, every last one of them, and bring me the heads of their leader and their wizard. Once you have completely wiped out your co-conspirators I will be confident in your loyalty.”

The party had a good amount of OOC conversation, but decided that the bandits were terrible anyway, so why not? They agreed. Horan had the yuan-ti give each party member back a melee weapon to fight with, and sent them off to slay the bandits. 

When they arrived Borak, Golgan and Phost were there with the bandits. They conferred with them silently and agreed that they would wake the next morning, prepare spells and such, then slay the bandits by surprise. 

By sunrise the party was ready, and at a signal all hell broke loose. The two party fighters are 7th level, and get 7 attacks per round against 0-level bandits, so things got messy. With longsword and broadsword in hand respectively, they went to work. They almost couldn’t miss, and each hit’s minimum damage was almost enough to slay. It was a bloodbath, in the first round 14 bandits went down. They tried grappling, but unfortunately for them the party warlock did fire off Magic Missile, slaying 4 more, and the party ranger managed to pick off two from the air with arrows. The party druid slayed one, the party illusionist had his spell disrupted, and the party cleric brought one down with a Cause Light Wounds.

22 bandits down in one minute.

Whoof.

The bandits did have a higher level fighter and a wizard, the wizard lined up three party members (Dhalkan, Borak and Jek) for a lightning bolt, this did a good amount of damage, but all three were doing OK for HP beforehand so it wasn’t decisive. The bandit’s leader hefted a javelin at the party ranger but he missed.

18 bandits were left, they formed a half circle around their wizard and prepared to defend him as he was their best shot at winning.

Golgan waded into the warriors, he cut down 7 in the round, reducing them to 11. Borak did the same and brought down 5, two managed to survive as he missed. 6 were left. They finally broke morale and fled in terror. The party druid entangled them when they reached the nearest foliage and cut them each down with his scimitar.

Stone cold.

Finally, the party priest cast Hold Person on the bandit leader and the wizard, both failed their saves, and both were paralyzed. Golgan, fresh off slaughtering the bandits, decapitated the two paralyzed leaders and collected their heads for Horan.

The party decided that they will let Horan be their new patron, and they will follow his instructions… for now. When the time is right they plan to turn against him. That’s assuming that he doesn’t turn against them beforehand. Unbeknownst to the party Horan has an Aerial Servant at his disposal, and it is following the party around from this point forwards to ensure they are behaving and to report on their schemes. 

We finished there, and in a few weeks we will be resuming regular campaign play with the party working for Horan in the Forbidden City. 

We’ll see how long that lasts…