Recap - 20181006 Arresting Brother Scour Part 2 - The Battle of Homlet - Post SL Adventure

20181006 Recap – Arresting Brother Scour of the Raven Queen (aka Cobalt of Orcus)
An 11th Level Side Track Adventure in the Post Slave Lord’s World

Gird (Human Monk – Art)
Alyce (Halfling Female Bard/ Warlock – Steve)
Raistlin (Elven Wizard – Arthur)
Bannor the Bloodguard (Human Fighter – Brendon)
Souldun (Human Warlord – Vic)
Kazoo! (Halfling Druid/ Rogue – Ross)
Enzo (Githzera Hunter – Mick)


As our heroes missed catching Brother Scour who they later learned is Brother Colbalt of Orcus, Baron Bruce urges the heroes to follow up on some leads from a few of the baron’s scouts.  So, Gird, Alyce, Bannor, Kazoo and Enzo hear how the scouts sighted one of the priest’s associates near the mostly abandoned village of Homlet.  The baron advises the party to hurry to the village in case Colbalt is on the move.  Once arriving at the village, the heroes should attempt to confirm the priest’s presence and capture the priest if possible.  The party heads off right away and choose to approach the village from the hills rather than the open farm lands or the main highway.  

While travelling through the hills, Gird and Kazoo! hear some noises up ahead and spy a group of orc warriors with a hill giant mercenary companion.  Stopping the rest of the group, Gird and Kazoo back up and the party swings around to the east to avoid the humanoid raiders.  

Approaching Homlet from the south, the party is overlooking the village from a high ridge and see a lookout on the rooftop of the large building in the southeast corner of the village.  The group sees a second guard near the fountain.   From the highpoint, Gird sees three ways into the village complex; down the rocky slope in front of the group and crossing a forty foot open area until reaching the cover of the buildings.  Second, circling around far to the west and approaching from the forest.  Last, using the ridge as cover and moving to the north of the village and crawling through a grassy field and then along a shallow ditch.  The group chooses to move around through the forest just as Soldun ambles up.  With Kazoo and Gird assisting everyone with telling them when to move through the clearings and with the bard using her vocal skills to make bird calls to hide the party’s movements, everyone makes it to the buildings.  Kazoo then turns into a dog and scouts the village, finds that there are at least five guards and some captured villagers.  When the party is in position, Kazoo strikes at the northern guard.   The rest of the group moves into action with Alyce, Bannor and Souldun heading south and Enzo and Gird moving north to join Kazoo.  Assisted by an arrow by Enzo, Kazoo quickly finishes off the northern sentry.  Bannor, encouraged by the warlord, takes down the sentry in the south.  Gird runs around the corner to free the villagers and is shot in the back with an arrow.  He ducks inside and finds a number of elderly people, women, and kids, not the fighters he was looking for.  Enzo exchanges arrows with the rooftop sentry.  As Bannor passes in front of the fountain to help Gird, a pair of water elementals lash out.  Bannor, Souldun and Alyce are sprayed several times with water bursts as the elementals take turns blasting the trio.  Gird moves out of the northern building and battles the fountain guard and the elementals.  Gird takes down the fountain guard with a solid back kick into the fountain.  Kazoo battles a charging sentry and takes them out and then Kazoo starts climbing up to battle the rooftop sentry but Enzo and the bard combine to finally take out the sentry on the roof.  Bannor, Souldun, Alyce and Gird continue to battle the water elementals and after standing up Bannor scores a solid hit (45) on the first one, draining some of the monster’s strength!  The second elemental moves in and together, Bannor and Souldun hit it from either side, definitely turning the tide (40 hits).  Although the elementals seem to add their strength to each other, especially supporting the most wounded one, Bannor again scores a solid hit, taking down the first water spout.  He side steps to the left and again, working with Souldun, the pair strike from either side and succeed in downing the second fountain monster.  Bannor then sprints to the pig pen and strikes the archer and Kazoo strikes from the flank and ends the fight.

The party questions and releases the thankful villagers who head toward the Baron’s town.  After searching the few remaining buildings, Gird and Kazoo find a hidden trap door.  Alyce and Raistlin find a magical portal within the small underground room.  After some discussion, the group decides to move through the portal.

Arriving within the extra dimensional temple of Orcus, the heroes see Brother Colbalt speaking with a tall, very pale skinned woman at the far end of the room.  A mind flayer stands in the far corner.  There are two wight wolves, pets of the woman, guarding the gate, along with an undead spectral soldier in each corner of the room.  The mind flayer immediately creates a gate and leaves.  Bannor is swarmed by a pair of specters and one of the dogs.  The other dog chases Enzo around the room.  Souldun moves in to support the fighter.  Alyce and Kazoo maneuver towards the far end of the room.  A fast moving battle erupts in every area of the room.  A knot of undead battle Bannor and Souldun in the south and eventually, Bannon downs one of the specters and the largest of the two wight wolves.  Souldun downs the other specter and finally the south east corner is clear.  Kazoo goes after the priest and gets tied up with a specter.  With several heroes concentrating on the priest he is soon down even after using the protection of his god to ward off several vital attacks.  Two specters make an attempt to drag the priest off to safety but Kazoo takes down the first and Raistlin takes out the second one.  With the priest down, the woman flies out the gate.  Kazoo drags the priest out of the gate, followed by the rest of the party.  Even though Enzo, Gird, Soldun and Raistlin forget to say the magic words, they are close enough to full strength to resist the evil effects of the gate.  The team regroups near the village square and immediately head out.

Partway back, the heroes are suddenly blocked by a magic gate, out of which emerge three mind flayers, a shadow beholder, a wood golem and a number of Orcus cultists.  The beholder blasts a number of the group’s magic items and the mind flayers unleash with multiple mind blasts.  Bannor is grabbed by a mind flayer who nearly eats his brain before being saved by the bard.  Raistlin creates a gate and everyone but the bard rushes through.  Alyce flees as fast as she can and luckily out distances all of the (slow) monsters.

The group returns to the town and is richly rewarded for bringing in the priest  Intelligence report to follow.