rollohi-ch516-script

 Last episode, the great company, heavily burdened, left the chasm. Almost immediately, it is assaulted by thouls. These, while not entirely recognized by the party, are dealt with effectively. And those not already incinerated by Umbert's fireball are put back upon the ashes and further burnt. The company has only suffered one paralyzed retainer, Mesk: and he soon recovers as it marches very slowly because it is heavily encumbered, north of the river. 

It is following the river in order to get to the tollbooth that marks the boundary and entry to the barony that surrounds New Jhay. One encounter in the forest may be a coincidence. Two looks very much like a pattern. The company marches on, dragging helpless women and heavy baggage such as armor with it. As the first blush of dawn peeks through the thick forest, behind them, they see ahead of them clearings and glades. They are coming to the forest fringe. From here, it's a relatively short march to the Tollbooth. But in the gloom of the deeper forest, not right behind them, but north and east, half a dozen zombies stagger towards them. They have been marching tirelessly through the night after leaving the chasm, and now they have caught up. The spearmen are forming up quickly. Eryn, Xantu, Dorgun, and Kylie standing nearby. Umbert behind them with the crossbows and arches. But Ingle pushes to the front and extends the holy symbol of the divine eye.

Light of the holy burn you!

Now although these experimental rules are low is good, I have not applied that to the cleric turning table. There's too much complicated maths in the destroyed, turned, and so on. So high is good as Ingle rolls. Here we go. 11. I don't think he could get much better than that. Well sorry, no, I do know that 12 is better than 11, but 11 is extremely good on Turn the Undead. That's an extremely positive result, but it doesn't give Ingle any bonus, as he now rolls 2d6 of the number of hit die affected. 9, that's a relief. After rolling an 11 with the first roll, it would have been crushingly disappointing if the second roll had not taken out more than a couple of the zombies. As it is, a result of nine covers four whole zombies. The excess single hit dice is wasted.

Well done, Ingle!

Umbert squawks from the back.

I knew you had it in you. Good on ya.

Well I should say so, Xantu growls, walking over to Ingle and slapping him heartily on the back. 

Steady on, Xantu. You don't know your own strength, but yes, the Divine Eye has blessed us this morning. And look, Ingle continues, trying to rouse the men to fresh efforts. The sun is rising. 

Two zombies remain. As the things come closer, the reaction amongst those of the retainers, who don't have great loyalty, is obviously fearful. The spearmen are alright, but Hilu, Dorgun even, stir uneasily and begin unconsciously backing away. Now I think Kylie will have to intervene with Elion, but I will first give him a loyalty test. His base loyalty is eight. Four. No, he's fine. She speaks to him slightly sharply for her, in Elvish, and the two break formation. Kylie moving out slowly, encumbered by her heavy armor. And Elion loping, making himself a very obvious target for the zombies.

What's Kylie doing?

And Kylie! What are you doing? Ingle calls. Kylie turns, a slight frown on her little face, and signals rather than speaks. The signal is obvious. She's going to attack the zombies directly. She's instructed Elion to play the role of yapping dog. His ground speed is much higher than that of a zombie. All he has to do is make himself obvious. Kylie, on the other hand, is going to try to attack the zombies from a flank and take their heads. 

Round one, zombies lose initiative automatically. Elion mimics sending an arrow into them. He knows not to bother sending a real one. Although, to be fair, a heavy shaft from a longbow can smash a skull completely. Kylie runs in from a flank in the way that she planned. She burns a hit die and takes the zombie's head. 

It's the zombie's bound. It swings on Kylie, and she has plenty of time to see that it is probably a female orc. At least that's what its garb indicates. Some sort of ceremonial robe. It swings a hand powered by its undead muscles. It's a good hit, but Kylie takes it on her armor. 

Round 2. I'm going to give the zombie a reaction to see if it focuses on Elion, that would be a fail, or on Kylie, that would be a success. It's a fail. 

Elion's kiting is successful. Kylie comes in again. She misses with her first hit die burn, though it's a good wound on the first cut, and takes the head on a third hit dice. Pausing only long enough to see that they are not regenerating, she walks back as swiftly as she can in her heavy armor. 

She receives the congratulations of various among the company with her usual space cadet equanimity. Several of the spearmen sink to their knees in relief, sobbing. It has been a very long night, and it's turning into a forced march. 

One more watch, lads, one more watch, and we can see the tollbooth. 

Now Ingle is not a military man, although he is trained in the basics of war. His estimate of a forced march bringing them to the tollbooth may well be accurate. Let's ask the oracle. Yes, but just in sight of the toll booth. Rather than rolling 20-something CON rolls, I'm going to just make a 2d6 loyalty check. It's poor. 11. There are definitely some men and halflings that will be falling out of line if they keep to this pace. This means that they may not be able to push to their objective, and it also means that the large force of orcs may catch up to them. Eryn has a possible solution, but it does rather second guess their pursuers.

Ingle, are you sure that the orcs pursuing will be coming from the north?

Well, no, of course I'm not sure, but those zombies suggest the orcs are coming from somewhere we don't know about. Ingle continues, panting somewhat. Do you remember, Eryn? Our scouts thought there was a northern exit? 

Yes, of course I remember. It tied up with the attacks on the northern part of the road. Yes. Why?

Well, what I think is those orcs used the exit that we don't know about and are coming from the northeast. That's the direction the zombies came from, but we've partly outdistanced them, and they'll be coming from behind us now. The Whisperwood doesn't like orcs. It may be delaying them. Ingle unconsciously looks over at Kylie. She partly hears them.

I could not say.

Kylie is clearly in a little bit of difficulty. That heavy armor has been weighing her down and she won't be fighting at her full potential. Eryn, feeling that the explanations and side conversations are getting a little away from her, returns to the topic she was trying to raise.

Well, my thought is I could carry people across the river. You know, I, I could walk on water.

Oh, of course. We haven't used it much in the dungeon. So I'd kind of forgotten about it. But yes, in theory. Ingle has to keep marching. He too is very tired: Like Umbert, and Kylie, he's at minus one to attack and damage.

I don't see it as worth it. Xantu cuts in. Our spears are the tiredest since they're doing most of the dragging and carrying. And we need them in front of us if we're going to be facing down orcs.

Eryn nods. At least it's in the back pocket of the brain-trust, and they can consider redeploying if they need to. 

The other thought I had, Ingle pants, is it's dawn. I could pray. And Umbert, you could quickly study. Bring the fireball back up again.

Hold the 'easily.' You're forgetting Ingle. I can't memorize it if I haven't had a decent sleep. And I'd say the same applies to you. And to Kylie.

You're right. We haven't had a full sleep since we last cast the spells. Kylie certainly hasn't shot her bolt. And you have a number of spells. And I have, of course, the blessing scroll. Well, if that's what the gods will, that's what the gods will. We'll make the best of it. Our archers are good: crossbows likewise. Elion is deadly at range. Kylie can swap from bow to spell to sword. Stand ready lads!  We'll make a perimeter. 

The weary spearmen or crossbows and archers are arranged in quite a semicircle at the riverbank. And the eyes of all the defenders peer back to the east. And to the north. Back to the east. Back to the north. Looking for the first shadow of movement. And they have not long to wait. Seeming to have little fear of the growing daylight, a black line of enemy begins filtering through the trees. 

A rabid howling rolls up and down the line as the defense perimeter is sighted. Defiantly, Eryn holds up her sword so that it catches the morning light. Ingle can prepare his spell to what the defense may need. The scroll he has with him will cover the immediate semicircle of defenders. But the halflings don't fight like that. They will be a forward skirmishing mob, hiding between the bushes under cover. The orcs' advance guard, the lighter armored orcs, 16 of them, come on at a run! 

Reluctantly admiring the Orc Chief's gambit, Ingle casts Bless, hoping that it's not premature, and that uses up his blessed scroll. The halflings filter away before they can be easily seen. The first line of orcs keep running forward. They want to get to the defenders before daylight fully burns their eyes. Not too far behind them, perhaps 120 feet back, a further 18 orcs are arriving on the scene. Then the orc hearthguard, the chief, the shaman, and a few picked troops. 

It will be a mighty battle. Once again, Eryn roams behind the archers, reminding them to hold until they can shoot flat at the oncoming orcs. Nearby, crossbows snap and two elf bows hum. Those are all good hits. Three orcs for morale check for their front wave of orcs. Six, they're okay. They keep coming. Kylie puts her bow back and prepares to cast. And now the archers loose their three bows, and from the sides, halflings begin chipping in with snipe shots. Three more orcs fall. They're at close range. As they sweep past some innocent-looking bushes, two more drop dead. And the orcs take a final morale check as they fall below half numbers. They're still alright. 

Shift  your aim to the further targets, Eryn calls as she strides to brace the spears. 

Haste takes effect. The orcs smash into or try to leap over the makeshift barricade of baggage and pavises. Partly successful. Xantu and Dorgun kill the two that manage to leap through. With her longer reach, Eryn kills another. And with screams of defiance, the four spearmen that can easily jab kill the remainder. A quick cheer goes up, it's focused and furious. 

Does the next squad form a wedge? No, and knowing that there are spellcasters in the party ranks, it scatters, forming into couplets and triplets. 

Do the halflings spot the leadership group? No, and they're busy fighting what they can see. Now, as we know that the second group was 120 feet further back than the lead group, we need to turn our attention to the crossbows and longbow of Elion, and this occurred back in the previous round. These are stronger orcs. They don't have just seven hit points like the first group, these have eight. In the first volley of the three crossbows and the longbow, only one falls. Morale check. They are fine. 

They come on at a slightly slower pace. They are the equivalent of chainmail and a simple shield. But most of them bear crossbows, and they reply, barely caring that they may be firing into the backs of their dying comrades in front. Two spearmen take a nick as crossbow bolts plunge through the pavise and get slightly past their shields into flesh. Since we have eight spearmen, I'll make it a random d8. Numbers three and four. Those are Venu and Rann, each down one hit point. 

Nice of them to give us a target, one of the crossbowmen comments ironically, and they again let fly, this time at about 100 feet. Some of the orcs have shields up while they reload crossbows, and those are misses: two are hit savagely, one of those orcs dropped for a total of three down. And at the same time, since they are at about a hundred, they've just come within normal range of shortbows. And those three shortbows are all crits. A crit from a short bow is not enough to kill one of these big orcs, but one was already savagely wounded, and so that is two more drop. They are down to thirteen. 

The thirteen come on widely scattered in doubles and triplets, loosing and pausing to make sure they're shielded as possible. This time, four hits. Ophi hit the worst by far, he's down four of his nine hit points. Now I shall deal with the halflings shooting from roughly the same point as those orc crossbow because they have expanded out bush by bush during those two rounds, and they are all Hasted. The halflings have dropped three of those crossbows during that particular time, dropping the number of orcs in that wave to ten. And here are the longbow and crossbow results. The Haste spell is really making its effect felt. Four further of the ten remaining drop as they slowly advance. And finally, the three archers. Three more drop. Three remain. 

Morale check. They give back. They cannot take this kind of withering fire. It's not a complete catastrophe for morale, and so they retreat, loosing. Three attempts at disadvantage. It doesn't matter whether they're loosing into bushes trying to locate a halfling or into the pavises. One does manage to hit a halfling. And in fact, it's Cied. Well, she can most easily afford it since she and her hubby have 20 hit points these days. Afforded what is effectively a breathing space, Ingle steps forward and uses a staff of healing on Ophi. Disappointing. Ophi receives back three for a total of eight of nine. It's one thing to do a planned retreat, shooting as you go, but it's another thing to execute it without being hit by skirmishing halflings and long-range fire from a longbow and three crossbows. All eighteen are lying dead on the ground. Suddenly, the orc force looks a lot skimpier. There can't be more than three dozen now advancing from the cover of the trees and not enjoying their daylight. 

Here I have to step behind the scenes and find out if the orc chief was able to persuade his human mercenaries to join them. I've already checked for some deep dwarfs or duergar and the answer was no. But I don't know at all about those humans. Let's see. Yes. It's not so much the Orc Chief's charisma as his promise of bounty and allure of the magic items that the adventuring party they're facing must have. These are five level three human fighters and a level four human cleric. They have no fear of daylight.

It seems to me that these defenders are well equipped with missiles. And they must have defensive spells on. We should halt. Wait for the heat of the day to take its toll, then attack at the twilight.

But the Orc Chief feels his native and pervasive fear at the thought of staying in the day and risking the wrath of those armored riders from the north. He snarls for the attack to continue. This time it will be the turn of the humans with their cleric and the few remaining regular orcs to make their attack.