Fight for the Keep

The Vast

The band joins up with Rista, while Legolars sets off to attend a sacred autumn festival of the Wood Elves.

With the ranger gone the adventurers have to rely on the werewolf Tasha as their guide. They leave the village in a certain hurry as the locals seem to know about Tasha and are set to have her expelled. Rather than to raise a further fuzz the gang leaves and moves into the wilderness again.

As the journey goes through the northern wilderness Tasha explains that there are loads and loads of old ruins and remains of short-lived dominions in the area where villains may potentially lurk.

She advices against disturbing the ancient cairns on top of many hillocks since they might house evil spirits known as Those Who Hate.

Despite this, a nosier member goes up to look at a cairn but wisely decides against touching anything.

Eventually they find the remains of an village, abandoned only a few years back along with some chickens gone feral. They decide to camp in one of the least dilapidated buildings to get out of the rain as weather has grown increasingly worse during the last few days.

During the night they find themselves attacked by Shadows! Apparently they managed to draw the attention of Those Who Hate somehow and a fight in the darkness ensues.

Using magics to bring light to the scene and Rista and Gates calling upon their gods to drive the undead away they emerge victorious and only Rob is badly affected by the attack. He regains his strength after some badly needed rest.

By now the protagonists have grown cautious and slowing their pace in favour of traveling unseen. Said, attempts to woo Tasha during the voyage since he's attracted to the fit and buxom lycanthrope. He is rebuffed but this makes him only more determined to bed her.

Presently they come upon a keep which is in suspiciously good shape excepting the outer walls. Rob and Tasha (the latter in werewolf form) decide upon moving in through a hole in the outer walls while Said and Jaden scale the side of the keep itself. Rista and Gates, being very noisy in their heavy armour, act as rear guard and will only move in once battle is joined.

As Tasha and Rob moves in they are accosted by two skeletons posted as guards. They swiftly dispose of the two undead sentries and push into the courtyard proper only to find themselves facing a dozen orcs who rush out from one of the towers. Battle ensues where Rob takes down several of the orcs and Tasha does well too.

More orcs and skeletons come out from the keep and with Gates and Rista eventually reaching the battle lines the fighting in the courtyard reaches a fever pitch!

From a window a wizard casts a fireball to aid his minions (or at least slay our heores for he fries a few minions in the process). Suddenly the wizard reacts to something inside the keep however and using Fly to flee the scene.

With no archer present the villainous spell caster escapes into the night.

Meanwhile Said infiltrates through the roof and finds himself in a library and later a laboratory or workshop of some sort.

Jaden enters through a lit window and clashes with two heavily armed zombies who prove annoyingly difficult to destroy. Just as the duskblade is about to gain the upper hand he is attacked in the flank by a huge orc barbarian and is sorely wounded. Jaden flees out the window using Spider Climb and rushes to the roof to warn Said who now is indoors.

As Said cautiously moves towards the din of fighting he fails to intercept the wizard mentioned above but rather finds himself attacked and struck down by the furious orc chieftain who stalks the building trying to find the escaped Jaden.

The latter has crept back inside the keep through the hole in the roof made by Said and now sees his comrade lying bleeding at the feet of the savage orc. Throwing caution to the wind he attacks the brute with all the might he can muster! Jaden manages to slay his opponent but just barely escapes with his life as well. Using a magic potion to stabilize the bleeding Said the two battered comrades eventually begin to move down through the keep in the hope of attacking the enemy from behind.

On the courtyard the fighting goes on and the orcs and skeletons find theor forces bolstered by the presence of a priest wearing the blasphemous insignia of vile Orcus!

Pushing through the throng of enemies, Gates decides to take the heavily armoured opponent on personally. He soon finds, however that the adamantine armour worn by the demonolator allows the latter to shrug off all but the mightiest of blows and his spells allow him to heal what wounds that are inflicted upon him. Even with Rista, Rob and Tasha joining in on the gang-up once having disposed of the last orcs and undead, the evil priest stands his ground!

Until Said rushes up on the cleric and slams the pommel of his scimitar in the back of the head of his enemy. The Orcus cultist drops like a sack of bricks.

As the comrades heal themselves and prepare to quiz the now captive cleric the sun rises and ends this episode.