Rollohi-ch503-script
[Ingle is having a nightmare. Umbert wakes him]
In truth, the village is under attack, but it's not as bad as Ingle's dream has conveyed to him. That was merely a warning sent by his particular deity, the Divine Eye, should things be left to go untendered. In fact, Xantu, Dorgan, and the fellow they are thinking of now as the best archer, Seni, were on watch at the central Balefire. As an ogre-like shape rushes into the village with unnatural speed, Xantu tosses dry faggots onto the Balefire and it flames up. Behind the ogre, the dwarves can just glimpse at least half a dozen more smaller humanoids, eyes flaring with that particular glint that nocturnal creatures have. With a hearty bellow of Stand To! Invasion! Xantu rallies the defense.
However, nor is the situation ideal. The adventurers have each been allotted quarters and they're not together. The grateful villagers competed with one another to offer hospitality, and so Eryn and the other woman, Rima, are off well to the north, the halflings in yet another house, and a command center has been set up in the south, where, unfortunately, both Ingle and Umbert fell asleep over their paperwork. Each of them has a few retainers, obviously the Halflings have the Halfling retainer, Hilu, and Eryn has with her Rima, who is beginning to act as her page slash squire.
But several more retainers are available nearby each to spring to action, gather shields, and get out into the street to defend the village. Moreover, one of the village heroes, Quinze, still has his leather armor and has a borrowed spear.
The invaders have attacked from the east through one of the gates that the original invasion by five ogres burst in. To allow myself to manage all of the various moving parts of this battle, I'm using a couple of tools, principally Virtual Battle Mat. This is available from VBM.games, grabbing suitable line drawings off Pinterest if I don't have them already, and for the village, I have from my years of collecting PDFs quite a lot of the village backdrop series from Raging Swan Press, and from that I have selected the Black Hill Jail Village backdrop. It has the right combination of about the right number of buildings linked together on the outer part of the village by a fairly makeshift wall and gates that one can visualise having been kicked in or out by the ogres as they came through. Even better, its orientation is about right for a village that lies on the main road with side trails.
Virtual Battle Mat is not perfect, but its squares can be rounded up or down to the most simple way of moving. For example, a heavily armoured character would move 20 yards on the outside, and that might be two moves to move a single square, whereas an ogre with a base move of 30 can double speed, so that would be two squares in a round.
Their scout did a terrible job of scouting. All he noticed was the burst-in gate and reported back that it would be an easy job. He had no idea that adventurers were in the village and a balefire had been set up. The charge from the invaders is led by Ebby, a female ogre, who has downed a potion of speed, which, properly speaking, was the property of the orc leader.
That orc, Aux by name, is very cross at Ebby and will probably not support her if she gets into trouble. He and his 19 other orcs are in the village, or about to be in the village, to wreak destruction. Ebby is not at all bothered by the light flaring up in the village square, and determines to crush it down so that her orc allies, or followers, as she prefers to think of them, can more successfully attack.
She rushes at the Balefire and is met by an arrow and a mace that clubs her unbelievably hard. Yes, Dorgun has missed his strike, but Xantu has made a crit, and Seni, despite the disadvantage of not being able to see Ebby until she gets within 40 feet of the Balefire, has managed to hit her. A solid hit for 4. Total, 15 damage out of Ebbie's 22 hit points. She drops to 7 hit points. Well behind her now, as they fan out through the open gate, Orcs heads hard left.
The next group of orcs head hard right. It remains to be seen what the next two groups of five orcs are going to do. Most likely, swing away from the Balefire towards the north hard right. And speaking of hard right, in the north corner of the village, Jack, who had bedded down in a different room from Eryn, is now ready with his bow. He's waiting for the women to finish getting their gear together. But in the meantime, he has the door to the exterior street flung open. And from here, he can snipe. If it's a villager, they've better make sure they're looking friendly.
On the southeast edge of the village, very close to where Chief Aux has peeled off and is leading his boys to sack and pillage and burn. Enonny, Seni's brother Lem and Rann are awake, but only Enonny is just about ready for his shield and spear. Rann is still trying to figure out where his shield was. It doesn't seem to be where he left it last night.
[ML check for Ebby]
Nope, she's okay. Her objective is no longer to put out the fire, it's to crush that dwarf. It would be a good hit if the dwarf didn't have his shield up and was not heavily armored. As it is, Xantu takes one impact damage. He drops to 21 hit points.
Initiative for the next round. Village 3, monsters 2. That's good news. This is bound 3 of the attack, and the fastest defenders, other than the watch of Xantu, Dorgun, and Seni, are now ready with their shields and spears. All of the archers are ready to loose. The trouble is, the only Balefire going is right in the village square, and as has been already told, some of the orcs are working their way around the sides of the village. Up to the north, Jack remains in hiding. But not far from Jack, Tilu and Daro unite with Quinze, organizing torches. Up above Ebby, windows open, and the three halflings directly target her. With eight more damage, Ebby falls dead, disgusting greasy hair catching flame as she falls into the Balefire. Ordering Seni to do the best he can to build the fire up higher, Xantu moves forward to the east. Dorgan close behind him. He yells a battle cry at Dorgan to challenge the incoming enemy.
Elsewhere to the north, a couple of misdirected arrows flub into buildings or skim off orc shields as the first northern attack comes in. In response, the orcs brush the archer's position. Tilu and Daro each take four hit point damage, and they are desperately wounded. Daro has two remaining hit points, Tilu just the one. In the furthest easternmost point of the village, Aux the chief and his surrounding orcs kill villagers and begin setting fires. The screams are terrible.
The fastest or closest on Ebby's heels group of orcs heads toward the dwarves. But with their movement rate and counter speed, won't get to them this round. The last group of orcs moves in and moves just south of the northernmost group, looking to plunder and loot and burn some of the more prosperous buildings.
Initiative round 4. Village 2, orcs 1. Let's have a quick check how Seni got on with that fire. Cerditable. Alright. He's going to loose at the orcs headed towards the doors. It bounces off an orc shield. Three halflings. Loose on the orcs. Three solid hits will cross off two orcs from that group. Three remain. The dwarves move forward slightly and kill a third orc from that group. It's a little frustrating for Xantu. His plus three mace is not really doing the kind of damage he expected. He still has to make the hit. In the north quarter of the village, with 10 orcs attacking. The light provided by Quinze and the two archers is vital. Jack slots an arrow home, not quite killing them all. And then Rima, spear extended, advances, with Eryn just beside her. Rima thrusts forward with the spear. Eryn swipes with the longsword, she clashes on a shield, she expends a hit dice, and crits. Two orcs are immediately dead thanks to the wounds from Rima, Jack, and the crit from Eryn. Still better, Quinze also thrusts with his spear, Eryn's erstwhile Lance, and he manages to kill another as well. In that wing of the town, there are now only six orcs.
But now, it is the orcs' turn. And we've got a couple of morale checks to do. First, the central group. The one that's been nailed by archers and battered by dwarves. 9. They're going to flee. This is not looking good. And second, the six strong northern group. Ten, even worse. With missiles coming in from multiple angles, and a strong warrior woman taking them apart, it's time to pull back. Using fighting withdrawal tactics, eight orcs cluster back towards the gate that they entered in.
Aux makes a rally check. That's excellent. Taking new heart. Seeing as that there are now 13. The Orcs rally around Aux and prepare to fight for their lives.
Round five. Even. All sides will move and attack as one. Behind the line, Ingle and Umbert call encouragement to their spearmen who are finally assembling, getting into a line, with archers lining up behind them here and there. The main thing that Ingle can see is the sturdy shape of Xantu. And then from the north, slightly illumined in the more limited light of a couple of torches, he sees Eryn striding forward. With a roar, the orcs charge rapidly and are met with arrows. But in fact, only the halflings with their superior elevation are able to achieve a result. One more orc falls, the orcs are down to 12. Eryn takes a savage cut of an axe as she delivers a death stroke, and Rima thrusts forward. Rima rams a spear right through an orc, killing it. Eryn's hit points drop to 22. Xantu finds himself opposite the leader who skillfully uses the distractions of his fellow orcs to thrust a vicious broad spear into Xantu's chest. Xantu takes a crit of eight points, he falls to 14 hit points. But in response, Xantu's stroke is good this time. The orc chief falls dead. Dorgan manages a solid hit, wounding a further orc. As that one has been whittled down a little by an arrow shot, it's another orc dead.
Now it's the turn of the spears thrusting in from the south. Those are good strokes. In turn, the spearmen are wounded. Of the 13 that began that round, only five orcs remain. And it looks as though the net is closing in on the orcs. With their leader dead, they'll be in for a much more difficult morale check next round.
Initiative. Morale check. They actually make a good check rolling a six, even with a penalty for their leader down, but still fight on. The five remaining orcs decide to sell their lives dearly, loyal to their chief to death. Going from south to north, Enonny takes a nick. Another of the spears is completely missed. Dorgun is clobbered with four, so his hit points fall to two. Eryn takes a further nick. And Rima takes four damage, dropping to one. With Spearmen and the dwarves and Eryn really closing in around those five orcs, it's no longer possible for archers to be of any help. Going back the other way, from the north, Eryn kills an orc, dropping the total to four. Xantu kills an orc, dropping the total to three. Dorgan makes a solid hit, heavily wounding an orc, which is finished by a spearman. Two orcs remain.
Foolishly brave, Enonny and Lem press forward. Enonny rams his spear right through an orc. There's one orc left. But Lem's spear scrapes off the shield.
Final round, initiative. It's even. The last orc is facing Enonny and Lem. Despite the disadvantage, it's a good stroke. Luckily for Enonny, it falls on the unwounded Lem. He takes two damage, dropping his total to three hit points. Xantu steps behind the orc and neatly drops it, head smashed. He raises his voice:
"We need some scouts out", he growls. "There could be more coming from the woods. Whose brilliant idea was it to send the elves out?" He looks around with some contempt at Engel, who at the moment is really feeling like a failure.
It's not at all helped by Umbert saying, "You know, if you just pulled back, I could have used fireball to take care of all of them."
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