Ogre Infiltration: finale

The way to Pavis...

 

1621, Fire Season, Harmony Week, Waterday 

After selecting the goods they want to salvage, the party decides to help the three wounded Last Step fyrdmen onto a horse, and the victim is loaded onto the fourth horse.  There is little room for other gear to be taken along, so the party leaves behind the barrels and crates in the cave, and return straight North towards the Pavis road.  Before long, they notice movement underneath the sand, and they see three giant centipedes appear from underneath the sand.  The huge creatures are slow, but still undoubtedly can dish out a lot of damage, so Alwynn starts distributing shield and protection spells.  Giomanach attempts a few palsy spells, but has no chance to break trough the huge animal's endurance defense.  Herculon goes into a heroic frenzy, and starts hacking up the giant creatures.  The party tries to stop two of the slow creatures at once, and so they have to split up.  Raiko gets a serious wound on his leg, but is able to retreat on foot before collapsing into the soft embrace of Alwynn.  Herculon hacks one of the centipedes in two, and Daerius finishes off a second one, while Herculon heads for the third one and dispatches him with two devastating hits in the head.

The party failed to notice the approaching ogres.  Herculon and Daerius sprint forward to allow the ogres as little time as possible to prepare for battle.

The fight barely over, and with everybody focudes on wounded Raiko, the party fails to notice a four horse wagon approaching from the north.  Seeing where they are, the chances are big that these are the ogre warriors, returning from New Pavis or the Rubble.  And considering where the party is, the ogres must have a good hunch what is happening.  All this turns out to be correct.  Herculon, still in his heroic frenzy, cannot be held back, and he charges forward, followed by Daerius.  This leaves the ogres too little time to prepare for the fight, as the pressure in upon them straightaway.  Giomanach manages to palsy a younger female ogre, leaving only three enemies.  A few seconds later Herculon crashes into two Ogre warriors, unable to break through to the headman.  Daerius soon joins him, and the two try to dispatch the ogre warriors quickly, but they turn out tougher than expected.

The headman, rather than join the battle against the two warriors, is able to summon his ancestor spirit, then decides to close the 70 some meters to the wizard and healer, and Alwynn needs to act quickly to heal Raiko so that they have some defense against the charging ogre. Meanwhile Herculon has beheaded one of the ogres with a massive blow, and seriously wounds the second one before his great axe is snatched out of his hands.  It takes a frantic few seconds before the second ogre is dead as well, and the entire party can focus on the headman, who has decided to change strategy and run for it.  Jaya follows him, riding on her zebra, and the headman cannot escape.  The ancestor spirit decides to change strategy and discorporates, trying to capture Jaya.  Jaya has no defense, and is taken over in seconds.  All of this has taken place without the party knowing, and as Jaya returns no-one suspects anything, until Daerius gets hit.  A chaotic fight ensues, with everyone trying to stop Jaya without having to kill her.  It takes an acrobatic roll from Raiko to unsaddle possessed Jaya, and everyone jumps on her in order to stop and subdue her.

The wagon is empty, and the party heads to Last Step to return the wounded family members and deceased.  They are given a heroes welcome, even though there is one dead to grieve about.  The Shaman from Whitefly exorcises the possessing spirit from Jaya, and the party head to New Pavis, to inspect  the ogre house.  The house turns up a lot of sellable items, and the party take their pick and sell off a large quantity of armor and weapons, and find other valuables, including jewellery, herbs, and a document with a seal, asking the reader to give full support to the bearer of said document.  The document is signed by the Etyries High Priest from Furthest.  The party accumulate a large amount of silver, and start looking for possibilities to spend their money.