Thursday 3 November 2016

GURPS Free Cities Session 25: The Wall Just Got 10 Feet Thicker

Party:
Arc Sol - Human Cleric of Pelor, the god of the sun (340 points)
Aurum Red-Brand - Human Wizard (329 points)
Zaxod - Half-Orc Knight (339 points)

Player Absent:
Mor'ath Enanqua - Elven Swashbuckler/Thief (323 points)

Day 70 (Cont.):
Weather: Sunny, Light Clouds
Date: Coreli 1st, 2526
The party returned to Chryssa's Rest and noticed that there were short earthen walls around some of the town, as well as stakes with Continual Light cast on them lying 10, 20, and 30 meters out.  They refilled power items, and decided against trying to get the Skull Crusher ogres on their side, as they figured they would be too stupid to understand what the Blood Drinkers had done.

Eventually, they decided to go find where the Night Wolf orcs had their camp to the south.  After finding them, they'd come back with Jaron so that he could help patch their relationship.

Day 71:
Weather: Overcast
Date: Coreli 2nd, 2526
They picked up the trail to the southern plains and followed it for several hours, until Arc saw a group of orcs leading a mule off in the distance.  Mor'ath Camouflaged them under a fallen tree, and they watched as the orcs approached.  As they got closer, Arc was able to spot that they were wearing the same heavy dwarven armour with a crude symbol of a wolf howling at the moon as the Night Wolves who had come into town to trade.  As the orcs came closer, the lead orc spotted them and asked who was hiding there in Giant.

Arc stepped out, and explained that they were agents of Chryssa's Rest, and were trying to find the orcs and apologize so that they would come back to town.  Another, shorter orc responded that they were already on their way there, and then left, taking a wide berth around the party's cover.  Arc waited until the orcs were gone and then started following the new tracks, and a hour later the party lost the trail in an area of plains with a rock outcropping and a small copse of trees nearby.

After a quick look around, Arc noticed that part of the outcropping was loose, and with a bit of force from Zaxod, was shoved aside to reveal a tunnel down.  Content that they had found the Night Wolves' base, they headed back to Chryssa's Rest.

They arrived, and found that Jaron and Harthex were talking with the orcs in the middle of town.  Not one for talking to orcs, Zaxod went on a walk around town and ran into the swordswoman Vel.  They briefly discussed recent happenings before Zaxod left to go patrol away from the beautiful woman.

Meanwhile, Harthex, who couldn't speak Giant, left the negotiating to Jarron and informed Arc that the Night Wolves mostly wanted to trade old weapons and armour in exchange for food, and negotiations seemed to be going well.  Harthex went to go fetch a smith to examine the equipment to see if it would be worthwhile, and the party regrouped.

With a bit of spare time left in the day, but not enough to do anything about either of the remaining orc tribes, they decided to go back to the Blood Drinkers' cave and add some more stone to the wall.  Arc listened through Mor'aths spy horn and heard impacts through the stone, and Aurum added another 1.5 meters before they headed back.

Back at Chryssa's Rest, they found that the militia had been raised again, and were informed that trolls had emerged from the mine shortly after they had left, but had been repulsed without any casualties.  The party continued on to the mansion and discussed the attack with the other adventurers, where they found out that six trolls had attacked, and that Trugal the halfling was annoyed that he hadn't managed to kill any because he didn't have any fire sources.

Day 72:
Weather: Sunny
Date: Coreli 3rd, 2526
Arc cast Continual Light several times and the party descended into the mine, which was only a five minute walk from the center of town.  They walked down into the caverns, passing several adamantium veins, and after three hours of exploring dead ends, Arc saw a troll hiding around a corner, and told the party to hold.  Just as they stopped, the troll charged, quickly followed by a second.

Despite being told by Aurum that troll limbs continued moving after being dismembered, Zaxod cut the lead troll's left arm off and then bashed its skull in as it raked Arc's torso with its claws.  The second troll charged Zaxod, but failed to hit, and Arc backed away to ready a healing potion while Aurum cast Flaming Weapon on Zaxod's good axe.  The severed arm swung at Arc, but missed.

Mor'ath stabbed the second troll in both eyes, blinding it and knocking it prone, while Zaxod knocked the first troll down.  Aurum charged a Fireball and burned one troll to ashes, while Zaxod cut the other with his flaming axe until it too turned to ashes.  Just now realizing that it would be easy to get lost in these caves, Aurum decided to try to retroactively map them as best he could remember.

With four trolls left to go, the party continued further down, and came to a narrow hallway filled with dozens of reflected lights on either side.  Mor'ath was sent ahead, and called back that they were skulls, with hexagonal coins in the eye sockets, resting on worked stone shelves set into the walls.  Aurum identified them as dwarf skulls, and the party debated graverobbing while Zaxod continued past and into a larger room.

He saw that there were five other short, narrow alcoves similar to the one they had entered, an iron portcullis on the far wall, and iron double doors to the left, with a troll facing away from the party in front of them.  The rest of the party came into the larger room, and the troll began slowly sliding towards them, without moving its legs.  Arc was barely able to see a shimmering slimy outline around it, and realized that the troll was stuck inside a gelatinous cube.

They easily kept their distance, retreating down the alcove they had come from, while Aurum threw Fireballs until the cube dissolved, and then threw some more at the still mostly intact troll until it burned to ash.  Zaxod and Arc picked up some loose pebbles and threw them down the alcoves to check for more cubes, and then sent Mor'ath to check them for traps/loot.  He found that there were mostly coins, though he also located a potion and a stone figurine of a lion, but they eventually decided against graverobbing for now.

Notes:
Aurum got Hue the Many-Coloured to case Dye on his blue robe.  It is now red for 7 days.

Aurum has Lend Energy, but Arc doesn't, surprisingly.

Jaron has mostly worked out a trade deal with the Night Wolf orcs where they get a cut of the next year's harvest.  As part of the deal, nobody can go south to try to find their home.

The first charging troll actually rolled under 9 for all three attacks while Move and Attack-ing, and wore down Arc's defenses.

Trolls now supernaturally burn to ashes when they've died to make it easy/obvious.  They also have to take a minimum of 1xHP as fire/acid damage.

Troll Regeneration was too slow to be of help mid-combat when both melee fighters are doing 20+ damage twice per turn.

Three trolls still to go.  Good thing nobody has any fire or acid sources other than Aurum.

Aurum wanted to graverob, but Arc and Zaxod are against it.  "What if we take the coins, and some dwarf in dwarf heaven gets sent to dwarf hell because of it?"

XP:
1 for general progress
1 for roleplaying
1 for the troll fight
0 for loot
0 for quests
MVP went to Aurum for being instrumental in defeating the trolls

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