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• Arhian Vos – Human Monk
  • Pet: Pabu (Young Red Panda)
• Hartmut Helmsworth – Elf Monk 
  • Pet: Kalistia (Young Blink Dog)
• Sindri Waggletop – (Forest) Gnome Wizard – Absent this session
• Rettniss Kulvith – Water Genasi Druid
• Avacyn “Jolyne” Uloth the Merciless – Half-Orc Paladin
• Twilight Skybane – Tiefling Bard 
  • Pet: Gem (Sailor Parrot With A Mouth)

• With the successful return of Stephanie Everspring from the evil thrall of Lord Rapture, Twilight returns to the caravan and begins playing joyful music. So ecstatic to have Stephanie back among them, the people of the caravan are quite pleased to tip so generously to Twilight, since she’d been a part of Stephanie’s safe return that, by the end of the night, Twilight has earned 160 gold for her efforts.
• Rettniss decides that she wants to partake in the pit fighting event, stepping in with confidence – but she’d believed that she’d be betting on roosters. Stepping into the ring is a goblin wearing leather armor, looking coy and roguish – the announcer introducing him as Gavark Boo’tark. Gavark manages to out maneuver and smack Rettniss, but his constant movement tires him out and allows Rettniss to out last him, allowing Rettniss to win one round, which means she lost 50 gold.
• Rettniss decides she wants to try again and challenges Gavark to a rematch. The goblin shrugs and accepts the challenge and re-enters the ring. This time, Gavark has the upper hand in the first round, but the following two rounds Rettniss wins, and as a complication nearly delivers a near fatal blow, which causes the crowd to strongly dislike Rettniss (Disadvantage with any “social” check with caravan members and merchants)
• A commotion around Captain Kariss Ironstone draws the party’s attention as some man frantically yells at Captain Kariss Ironstone about something – while wildly gesturing behind him
• Arhian and Hartmut walk over to investigate what the commotion seems to be about and learn that this human is yelling at the Captain of the Caravan that there’s something tailing the caravan the last few days. He’s seen a shadow up in the clouds following along with the caravan – and it looks fairly large – and believes it’s a dragon.
• The Captain tries to assure the human that nothing is tailing the caravan from the sky; especially a dragon. Had it been a dragon, surly it would have attacked the caravan by now rather than tailing it for several days. But the man refuses to believe that there isn’t something – because he’s seen it in the clouds – a dark shadow. He goes on to say he’d gone out hunting for food and herbs while the caravan was stopped and saw it circling in the shadows just at the edge of camp.
• Hartmut looks at the Captain, who nods to him and steps in and says, “OK, we’re listening. Can you tell me where you were when you saw this shadow in the clouds just recently?”
• The man looks at Hartmut and says, “Finally! Someone who will listen! This Captain is useless! He should have sent some of his soldiers the first time I reported this shadow in the clouds.”
• The Captain explains that it could be a trick of some kind, to lure the guards away. It may be bandits with a mage using magic to create this illusion of something in the clouds, which is precisely why this “shadow” has never attacked in the last three days that it’s been seen.
• The man explains that today he was out hunting deer and herbs for the caravan when he saw the thing in the clouds – and this time, he could smell something – something that smelled of rotten meat. Like a dragon who had eaten something recently and the raw flesh still stuck on its teeth was in the air.
• Hartmut thinks about flying animals – besides dragons – that could fit this description, while Arhian looks the human over to see if he’s being truthful, and perhaps not intoxicated by drinks or mushrooms, since he was looking for herbs
• Arhian can tell the human seems to be telling the truth; and Hartmut recalls that the perytons – or what they called “the deerbirds” – were predatory animals that used deception to hunt their prey and smelled of rotten flesh because of the nature of them feasting on humanoid hearts.
• Hartmut asks, “Do you usually see this shadow when you’re alone? Or when did you start seeing it?”
• “It wasn’t until we took this path,” the human explains, “into these mountains, to avoid the main path because hobgoblins were known to attack on the main path because it was so well travelled.” (Noted in Session 19 – Captain Kariss Ironstone explains it’s going to take longer than normal, because the caravan will be using an alternate route, due to the recent increase in hobgoblin activity attacking and ambushing caravans – so over all, it will take about a week)
• Arhian looks at the man and asks, “Have you heard voices while you were away from the Caravan?”
• The man looks insulted, “Do I look crazy to you? You’re no better than the Captain here.”
• Arhian tries to explain perytons and how they can mimic human voices to lure people away, but the man will have none of it – convinced that what is behind them is a dragon that is toying with them.
• “We will look into this,” Arhian and Hartmut explain. The Captain thanks them, still believing this may be a ploy of bandits or hobgoblins that may have moved up on this path, since other caravans were now taking this alternate, but longer route to reach Ridgecrest.
• Arhian and Hartmut find Avacyn, who is at the bar drinking and drag her along, with the promise of a fight. Sindri explains he needs to study – and that if they need him, they can come get him. (This is because Sindri wasn’t present for this session, so this was an easy excuse to explain why his character isn’t with them). They next find Twilight trying to comfort Rettniss and convince both of them to come along to see what might be going on.
• As they walk, Twilight explains that she had tried to get people to come support Rettniss at the pit fighting, but didn’t have a name for the group to say something like, “Come support Rettniss from the Adventurers of Tomorrow!” And after some discussion, they all settle on calling themselves the “Twilight Brigade.”
• Twilight explains to the human that they will look into it tomorrow, because they need to rest and recoup from the fight with Lord Rapture; as some of them are wounded, and need rest for memorizing spells. The man sighs and says, “Fine. But if the dragon attacks, it will be your fault now.” And then proceeds to draw a rough map in the dirt of where he’d been when he smelt the decaying flesh; he explains he’d snuck up on some deer and just as he was going to strike the deer suddenly fled and he could smell the rotten meat smell – and believes the dragon may have been flying lower, closer to the tree tops to avoid being seen in the sky.
• The human introduces himself as Bran Bladesong, and as he stares down at his drawing of the map – and realizes how well done it was – the extra details, despite it being done in the dirt – takes a moment to admire his work and ponders why he never chased his childhood dream as an artist, and instead became a weapon vendor, just because that’s the family business.
• Twilight pulls out a parchment and mimics the map drawn in the dirt by Bran onto her parchment and rolls it up. The party decides to only take a short rest for now (and those that need it Expend Hit Dice to recover some health – A character can spend one or more Hit Dice at the end of a short rest, up to the character’s maximum number of Hit Dice, which is equal to the character’s level. For each Hit Die spent in this way, the player rolls the die and adds the character’s Constitution modifier to it. The character regains hit points equal to the total (minimum of 0). The player can decide to spend an additional Hit Die after each roll.)
• Arhian, Hartmut, Avacyn, Twilight and Rettniss head in the direction that Bran had mentioned by Bran – and almost immediately feel – just as Bran had mention that they were being watched – and soon after, the scent of rotten flesh – just as Bran had said. It’s at that moment a massive creature swoops down – but the party, already on edge – is not surprised by the vile creature’s attack!

• Emerging from the tree tops is a vile looking creature…

• As combat starts, it seems the heroes are going to get a good chance of damaging the Manticore before it gets a turn…

• Twilight, the leader?, of the Twilight Brigade begins to load her crossbow and…

• As Twilight pulls back on the bolt, it misfires and hits her foot for 3 damage (half of the normal damage) and pins her foot to the ground.
• Arhian fires two shots with her longbow hitting twice
• Rettniss, recalling how well the Lightning spell had done against Lord Rapture, unleashes another bolt and also strikes the Manticore
• The Manticore seeing Twilight pinned to the ground knows she is going to make the easiest target (actually just randomly rolled to see who it would attack and landed on her) and unleashes a volley of tail spikes – while the first missed, the next two struck – and struck hard, which instantly leaves her bloody (meaning she has half her maximum health/hit points)
• Twilight rips the crossbow bolt out of her foot and limps along into the trees, to find some cover, and casts Cure Wounds on herself
• Arhian fires two more shots, and hits twice, while the Manticore manages to avoid Rettniss’ Frostbite spell
• Hartmut fires one shot and hits, and in his haste to load a second arrow, he misfires and strikes Avacyn

• Avacyn throws a javelin that lands a hit, then casts Bane which it fails to save against
• The Manticore feeling the presence of magic cast on him directs the next three tail spikes at Avacyn, but all three of them miss
• After his attack, the Manticore begins flying away, having taken considerable damage and knowing that magic was impacting him
• As it flees – the party tries to use mathematics to determine the distance of the manticore

• Twilight manages to cast Dissonant Whispers before it gets out of range, and in its haste to flee, it critically fails (it rolled a Natural 1 on it’s save)
• Arhian fires off two shots, one of which hits
• Rettniss returns to her new favorite spell and casts Lightning Bolt which the Manticore, in its attempt to flee – is struck for full damage (failed its savings throw)
• Avacyn rushes over to the deer corpse and rather than taking the manticore spikes out of it, he picks up the deer corpse and uses it as an improvised weapon, throwing it at the manticore and actually striking it (DM Note: Yes, in RAW – Rules As Written – There’s no way that this would have physically worked – but it made for such a fun, epic moment to end the manticore fight, that I always will allow these kinds of exceptions if it creates a memory that my players will not soon forget! It’s not always about the rules, but about the fun and memory! The rules are more of… a guideline)
• After being struck by the deer, the manticore crashes across the forest top and eventually crashes into the nearby mountain side, where its corpse slams into the stone and tumbles down to the ground and everyone rushes over to ensure the manticore is dead
• They party sees that the manticore is on a ledge and that they will need to climb the mountain; as they do Arhian and Avacyn both hear voices coming from somewhere above them that sound very gutteral
• Avacyn believes it sounds very similar to orcs; it’s definitely a language she’s heard before but not familiar with. She gestures for everyone to be silent and looks around and she spots what appears to be two ogres standing in front of a cavern entrance on a stone path not far from them. She’d heard the sound of ogres many times in her youth, a language she never cared to learn, but her father commanded small armies of ogres. For a moment she considers the idea that the ogres could be in league with her mother and father, since they had dealt with both not too long ago. (See: Session Six, Session Seven, Session Eight and Session Nine) – and her human mother, with her dark arts, may have found a way to enslave or encourage a manticore to serve them.

• Hartmut casts Pass Without Trace (DM Note – I explained as long as no one critical fails on Stealth, you will be able to make it… and never am I disappointed…)

• The ogres become alerted when Rettniss missteps and twists her ankle, letting out a yelp of pain
• Hartmut releases his hold on the cliff side and uses Slow Fall while firing his longbow (DM Note: Another one, probably rules as written – often called RAW – would not be possible – but I laughed and said I’d allow it and it’s very Matrix like, and we all joked about how Hartmut would be making slow motion sounds. While this isn’t how Slow Fall really works, again, it created a very fun visual that everyone latched onto so I allowed it for this session) – and both of his arrows find their mark
• Arhian attempts the same move, however, her first shot misses; and her second shot critically fails, striking her in the knee as she’s leaping off from the ledge, doing a fair amount of damage to her knee as she lands on the ground and sees a large gash in her leg
• The first ogre, having heard Rettniss scream knew she would be an easy target with a twisted ankle and lunges a javelin with all of its brute strength, striking Rettniss for a significant amount of damage

• Twilight uses Minor Illusion to make a Manticore in hopes of scaring the ogres, however, she is distraught as one of them pauses to wave at it, and in guttural common say, “Hello! Come over here!” As if they were expecting the manticore’s return
• Avacyn uses her ability to misty step between the two ogres, using her attacks against them – hitting once for great damage, and landing a Critical Strike on the second attack

• Hartmut fires two arrows in the midst of Avacyn swinging wildly and lands two hits
• Arhian fires off two shots, one of them hits, but the second flies off, missing
• Rettniss on her turn uses Cure Wounds to mend the wounds she earned against the ogres
• Twilight, seeing Avacyn at the top facing the ogres, using all her movement climbing the difficult terrain to reach the top
• Avacyn tries an unarmed strike to try and grab the ogre, but the ogre shoves Avacyn away (Ogre got a Natural 20 Strength Check) and shoves Avacyn off of the ledge – but she manages to grab the ledge and only falls and takes some damage from the jagged rocks from the impact, leaving Twilight near the top alone
• Hartmut lands two more hits with his longbow attack – and the first ogre perishes as it pierces its eye
• Twilight hears the ogre scream as a large shadow falls over her, and she looks up and sees one of the large ogres is falling directly on her, and his mass squishes her against the mountain causing her minor damage
• Arhian fires two shots, and both shots miss again and Hartmut leans over and says, “You should have made the slow motion sound.” She then uses Step of the Wind to run back up to the top.
• Still thirty feet away, Rettniss uses an old trick and tries to Thornwhip the Ogre (DM Note: The ogre was standing further than 10′ from the ledge, but I gave the idea that the Ogre could be pulled over if it failed its dexterity save; and since their dexterity is low, I thought the plan would work out… I put the DC at 12. The Ogre rolled an 18 total on its Dexterity which is impressive, meaning it rolled a 19!)
• The ogre in response decides to club Rettniss across the head, and put her into critical position (dropping her below 0 hit points) with a critical hit

• Seeing that the tide of battle has gone against the heroes, Twilight casts Darkness on the top area, so that the Ogre can not see anyone else
• Avacyn rushes up into the darkness from the side that she’d fallen and begins swinging wildly; and despite being disadvantaged, manages to hit the ogre twice
• Hartmut uses Step of the Wind to run up the mountain side and get to Rettniss who is lying on the edge, barely visible beneath the Darkness spell and uses Medicine to stabilize Rettniss – and rolls a Natural 20.

• This gives Rettniss life back, as she regains consciousness
• In an attempt to cause a distraction, Arhian tries to attack the ogre in the darkness, but only manages to strike the ogre’s club, which the ogre is swinging wildly about in the darkness (Critical Fail)

• Rettniss manages to thorn whip the ogre and yank him off the cliff side; the ogre falls and takes some damage, but through some miracle does well on its dexterity check and doesn’t fall far, so it climbs back up to the cliff and clubs Rettniss, despite being disadvantaged, and once again sends her collapsing to the floor, dying…
• Twilight Thunderclaps but the Ogre makes his constitution save
• Rettniss is stabilized again, and this time Avacyn gives Rettniss some health with Lay On Hands
• The monks focus on the Ogre and manage to stun him and put an end to him – just then a boom voice roars from inside the cave and steps into the darkness
• A hill giant has joined the fight…

To Be Continued.