Evil!Party: Burn the Manor, take Garamond

We continue the battle! Jenny is still murdering people and getting hit by lightning, Chuck is renewing his Greater Invisibility, and Durest is moving towards Jenny – and in fact ahead of her, so he’ll be ready when she goes up on the wall. 

Chuck has moved over to the manor, but can’t see anybody through the windows. Unsurprising, since the front of the house is on fire. Jenny comes up onto the wall and clears out a crowd of archers. Durest heals her, and she jumps from one side of the front gate to the other and wipes out a bunch more archers. Two are still alive. Lightning continues to strike Jenny. Durest moves over and restores Bob, who has been moving down the wall killing archers. 

Soldiers are swarming the mummy, and actually injuring it even as they die. (Commanding higher-level undead is fun.) Jenny continues her glowing rampage. (She has Light cast on her chain so that she can see, which is also why everyone on the field is targeting her.) Over at the manor, Chuck kicks in the door and jumps in past the flames. There’s a wizard waiting; he can’t see Chuck, but he fires a lightning bolt through the door the moment it opens. Chuck manages to stay silent, so the wizard isn’t sure what happened. Jenny continues killing and attracting enemy fire. 

Durest looks around and spots the druid up o the balcony of the manor, and teleports over there to get between her and the door. The soldiers are still trying to put down the mummy, and making some progress. 

Inside the manor, the wizard is trying to figure out if he’s actually killed somebody invisible. He decides on discretion and runs away. Over the balcony and down on the lower level there are a bunch of servants engaged in alarums and excursions. One of them sees the wizard run away and yells: “Please! Take them, not us! We’ll show you where they are!” This is a smart servant and we should keep him. 

Chuck gives chase to the wizard. Jenny, meanwhile, is annihilating archers. The druid turns around and does a touch attack on Durest, attempting to hit him with a Baleful Polymorph. Fortunately, Durest shrugs it off. Then the doors open behind Durest and a dire bear attacks, and just slaps the crap out of him with a claw. Bob finishes off the last archer on his section of wall; as a frost giant skeleton, he's just been moving down the wall and squooshing people, one at time. We're going to have to teach him "little bunny foo foo". 

 

Durest hits the druid with Destruction, damaging her, and is still getting scorched by the house. 

The wizard is still running from Chuck, who is still healing (and still invisible). There’s a second wizard on the far side of the balcony, and since he can’t see Chuck he moves around and throws a lightning bolt down the balcony, hitting Chuck by just aiming for where he might be. Chuck ripostes with Feeblemind, but the wizard shakes it off. Chuck decides to withdraw, and silently slips around a corner. 

The druid, meanwhile, takes a five-foot step and casts Bull’s Strength on her bear. The bear then attacks, hitting Durest hard. Durest drops Mislead and floats off the side of the house and out of the flames. He leaves an illusion of himself behind, and is now invisible. 

Chuck is still healing. The wizard fires off another lightning bolt, but Chuck isn’t there anymore. 

The Bear moves out onto the ledge, and an ogre follows it out. It’s a very well-dressed, well-armed ogre. Clearly, this is the other Solari we were told about: Samson. The bear swipes through the illusion, and the ogre yells, “Muriel! Look for invisibility! It’s an illusion!”

Muriel: “I don’t have that ready! Get the wizard!” she calls another lightning bolt towards Jenny.

Durest moves a bit further away and drops Fire Storm all over that side of the house. The druid and the bear soak part of it, but they’re all pretty displeased with the amount of damage that just did. 

The ogre jumps down to the ground. The wizard who was exchanging spells with Invisible Chuck flees down the hallway. “Holy Shit! What the hell happened in here?” Invisible Chuck moves silently to pursue. One of the downstairs servants calls: “I hear him, up on the balcony!” Smart Servant responds: “No you don’t! Secret passages! We can help you, just save us!”

Jenny, meanwhile, is still out in the courtyard and amusing herself by murdering archers. The druid realizes that she’s pretty damaged; she throws a Flame Strike at Jenny, then ducks back into the house. The bear follows, and they shut the door behind them. Bob is still coming. The mummy is still just beating down the footmen around him. 

Durest drops Hold Person on the ogre, paralyzing him, and heads for Jenny; she’s going to need to be at full strength for this. Chuck, meanwhile, reverses direction and comes down over the balcony. “I’m here. Tell me. I’ll save you and your friends.”

The servants starts leading the way, and Chuck follows. The servants opens a secret door in the back wall. Bob changes direction and heads for Jenny; he’s going to be flanking the ogre, we hope. The mummy is still taking out troops. Durest swings down beside Jenny and drops Heal on her. The archers step back and try to shoot at her… but her chain can hit that far out, and they go down. The remaining archers are still sleeting arrows at Jenny, and she’s still mostly shrugging them off. 

Chuck follows the servant through the secret door. “We have two options. We can come in behind the lord’s quarters, or we can come in behind his wife’s quarters.” Chuck: “Lord.”  So that turns out to be the second ladder, and the servant again leads the way. “This comes into the treasure room just outside his quarters.” Chuck can hear people spellcasting in the room above; somebody is casting Mass Cure Light wounds. 

The ogre charges Bob and power attacks. Bob shatters into disconnected bones. The druid and the bear have been healing and considering spells. The ogre makes a challenging gesture at Jenny, and Jenny focuses on the mithril breastplate with its solari symbol and his greatsword; then she moves in and attacks. He rocks with the blow, then nods at her. Jenny: “You are very handsome man. If we did not have to fight, we would do other things.” 

His face turns bright red. 

The druid continues layering on buffs. The mummy is still taking out troops. Durest casts Mass Cure Moderate Wounds on himself and Jenny, bringing her health back up and curing a bit of the damage that the bear did to him. 

The servant is still explaining the layout of the upstairs to Chuck, who promises not to murder him. He moves into the treasure room and renews his invisibility. 

Samson the Ogre Solari squares off with Jenny. He pulls a straight attack, hitting her twice. Jenny blows him a kiss. The mummy has removed all but one of the footmen, and Jenny leans in and power attacks cautiously. 

He dies. 

Durest brings Bob back, and instructs Bob to grab the ogre’s +2 greatsword. Jenny gets shots with arrows some more, but mostly ignores it. Chuck is still healing. Maximilian the rogue has been sneaking up behind Chuck, and stabs him. He shouts a code word: “Banana!” 

Yep, the smart servant was actually the Solari rogue. The problem is, he’s attacking a vampire and so even though everything hits he really doesn’t do much damage. Chuck: “This is going to end very badly for you.”

Then a wizard opens the door behind Chuck, and another shoots him with scorching ray. One manages to connect, despite Chuck’s being invisible. 

Chuck drops a fireball in the room with the wizards, hurting them and wiping out their mirror images. He also moves to the side, getting out of the doorway. Maximilian tracks the sounds of movement. Jenny heads for the next batch of archers. 

Muriel the druid drops a flame strike into the room with Chuck and Maximilian, and Max rolls deftly under a table while Chuck is reduced to invisible mist and starts drifting back towards his coffin. The mummy finishes the last footman and starts shuffling forward. Bob is back up and now wielding a magic sword, and heads for another line of archers. 

Jenny, meanwhile, is murdering archers again. The archers nearest Bob try to shoot him, but Bob’s a skeleton and arrows are a trivial concern for him. Between Jenny and Bob, the archers’ morale is broken. 

Bob and the mummy are moving forward, and Bob crashes into the first floor through the window. Durest flies up towards the second floor, and arrives outside the door on the ledge. 

The archers begin to flee. A wizard appears in the courtyard and attempts to Hold Person Jenny; then a rogue pops up behind her, and stabs her. Jenny turns around, and even though she only hits Maximilian once she does a lot of damage. Meanwhile, the druid and the bear have shown up beside Jenny. The bear is under a Blur effect (among others) and the druid has dropped most of her spells in the process of buffing the bear. She calls for another lightning bolt. Bob reverses course and comes to Jenny’s aid, while the mummy moves to come up behind the bear, and slams it; the bear soaks most of the damage, and shrugs off the mummy rot. This is a bear that's been protected with a lot of spells.

Maximilian tries to sneak attack while Jenny is flanked, but Jenny is a barbarian so he fails. He keeps poking at her with his daggers, but not to good effect. The wizards manage to tag her with Hold Person, but Jenny shakes it off a moment later. The druid drops another Flame Strike, but she’s running very low on spells now. The mummy slams the Druid, but fails to inflict mummy rot. Bob attacks Maximilian the rogue, but misses. Durest drops Inflict Serious Wounds, damaging everybody and healing the two undead. 

Maximilian tumbles away and skulks off into the shadows. Trust a rogue to run from the fight. The wizards turn their scorching rays on Jenny, but mostly miss. They manage, just barely, to take her down. Muriel takes a step back and calls lightning on the mummy, but fails to put it down. The mummy attacks the druid again, and this time connects. Bob charges the wizards, and takes one down with his lovely new magic sword. 

Durest touches ground and Cures Serious Wounds on Jenny, who comes up ready to murder everything. The wizards, meanwhile, are reduced to using Magic Missiles, and attack Jenny with them. Jenny lays into the bear, managing to damage it even through the spells the druid has put on it. The druid steps back and heals herself. 

Bob moves up and takes out a wizard’s mirror image. The mummy pursues the druid, but misses; Durest cures Jenny some more; the remaining wizards zaps the mummy. The bear attacks Jenny again, and Jenny attacks again, injuring it despite all its protections. The bear attacks again, injuring her further. 

The druid steps back, and cures herself a bit more. Bob moves over to help the mummy with the druid, but misses. The mummy does manage to hit, but doesn’t do much damage. Durest drops a Mass Inflict Moderate wounds and takes down the bear and heals his undead. Maximilian attacks him by surprise and does some damage. The undead continue harrying the druid, and actually do some real damage. Durest turns on Maximilian and takes him out with Slay Living. 

The remaining wizard runs. The druid moves and casts again, even with the mummy still harrying her; she manages a Cure Serious on herself. The undead are still harrying the druid, and Durest heals Jenny back to consciousness again. Jenny charges over and attacks the druid, but misses. The druid is now largely surrounded, and not in a good position to escape; she casts Cure Serious again. The mummy misses her, but Bob tags her with the greatsword and takes her down. 

Jenny promptly quits raging and passes out. 

We spend the next month living off Garamond, before we receive orders to go take Rockdale; there's a temple full of monks there. (Durest: "Aye, and they must be desperate if they're callin' in monks tae help."

While we're settling in, various things are happening. In the north, Duke Corbin's wizard has called back her Solari from the front. The dwarves also fall back to Janbridge. Lucien convince the Elf King to send to New Aramar for assistance, and a force of dark elf priests of Asmodeus shows up a month or so later... that probably isn't good news. The tarrasque was fought to the point of collapse at Morcoast by a heroic group of Solari... but woke back up the next morning and destroyed the city. The King has sent more Solari to try to slow the tarrasque and defend the coastal towns. They keep driving it back, but it keeps coming back and killing more of them. They call for even more reinforcements, and manage to drive it away. In March, while we're relaxing in Garamond, the Solari are holding the tarrasque at bay... but at that point Maodeus comes out of the swamp and his forces inflict heavy losses on the weakened main force. After five days, the battle turns and king's troops retreat to the dragonmound. They are now down to 145 Solari in the main force, and 109 on the south road.

The tarrasque takes advantage of the opening, and wipes out the town of Southfair instead. This isn't warfare so much as chaos. In the north, the dark elves are in Annon and the Janbridge forces have pulled back, leaving the general Joselle guarding the force by herself. It's now April of 558; the other party won't make it back from Fanaxia until May of 559. 

 

If I've got the math right, Ruin's children will be two years old before he finds out about them.