Now that Chenris is closer to the large body of orcs and is slightly past them, she feels that it is best to get as far from them as possible if she wants to survive. She takes a dash action in the direction of Hamnish.
Hamnish quickly looks at the scene in front of him. Although some of the orcs are busily pursuing the stampeding boros, the main group is still clustered near their camp. How can he draw them away? Once again, he attempts to draw the orcs away from the camp by attacking. Spurring his horse, Hamnish rides towards the orcs to within range. He looses arrows at orcs #1 and #4, then wheels around and heads back east, just far enough to stay out of the orcs powerful hands.
Attack with Longbow (Orc #1): to hit: 12, damage: 10 Bonus action (Hunter's Mark): Attack with Longbow (Orc #4): to hit: 21, damage: 10
Chenrisscampers through the long grass on her short little weasel legs, moving as fast as she can towards the pounding horse and its rider. As she runs, the thunder of the horse's hooves becomes terribly loud as Hamnishcloses to within a hundred feet to fire two more arrows at the clustered orcs. With a clang of their verdatch swords, the tightly grouped orcs block both arrows. "Come closer, and fight like a man!"Orc #8 roars, in Orcish. He grins at his comrades. "He'll have to, once his horse tires of scampering around."
Orc #5 bodily tears the arms off of the halfling who shouted and pointed. The halfling's terrible, agonized screams echo down the hillside. Orc #5 flings him down among his chained and huddled comrades, who are choking back sobs, trying to stay as quiet as they can.
"That's a waste," Orc #6says. "We've got two boros to eat tonight already, and that's one less slave to sell. You never think, do you? You idiot."
Orc #5 turns in a rage on #6. "You shut up," he snarls. "Or I'll tear worse off of your insolent face."
"You go ahead and try it!"Orc #6 sneers. The two bickering orcs have ceased to pay much attention either to their prisoners, or to the lone rider slinging arrows.
Several hundred yards north now, the distant rodeo of orcs #10, #11, and #12 trying to catch the boroscontinues...
"That'll do just wonderfully," the gnome woman says. "Let's go---those troops are thirsty!" The two gnome lads lean forward, straining on the yoke of the wagon. It lurches forward, its wheels rattling on the cobblestone streets. A few turns, and the cozy and pleasant streets of the Hearthhome give way to the muddy, cramped streets of the Weirhold, old brick buildings huddling close over the road, two and three stories of wooden tenements built on top of them. A few hucksters and beggars peek out from doorways and alleyways as the cart rattles by, but shy back out of sight as the gnome woman in the broad-brimmed hat shouts and hollers, "Make way, make way! Refreshment for the troops!"
Soon enough, the enormous city wall rises into site over the tops of the tenements. Seven feet thick and thirty feet high, the huge, imposing wall looms over the Leewall section of the city and the crammed carts, merchants, travelers, and soldiers pressing their way into and out of the city through the main gate. A single tower built into the wall reaches the height of sixty feet. Three imposing spiked portcullis make up the long gatehouse that guards the entrance into the city, and it bristles with hobgoblin guards, some of them holding large, ferocious looking dogs on leashes.
"Up, boys! Up for our special delivery!" Selphina's unabashed companion continues to call out. Throwing an arm around Selphina's shoulder, she beams and jostles her. "They'll like this batch, you be sure of it!" And she leans in theatrically to plant a big kiss on Selphina's cheek. But as she does so, she stops just short, and whispers into Selphina's ear: "If you have steel on you or anything of elves, we're dead. The dogs will smell it. But, deary, you know the rules, of course. Don't tell me what you've got or where. I'll give you one last kiss when it's time for you to run. Now stay calm, easy does it."
Selphina's only contraband is the page of a book, rolled up in her hidden inner vest pocket. She knows it's going to the elves, but it hasn't been there yet. She should be fine... and the wagon rattles towards the gate. A hobgoblin guard sees the party of gnomes and their wagon, and begins to raise the portcullis. The gnome woman smiles and waves at him.
Selphina takes a deep breath and pulls out her lyre. She gets into character (deception: 21) and starts to play and hum a song of calming and casual indifference, hoping to soothe the hobgoblins (performance: 18) into only slightly shirking their duties when it comes to their wagon.
Chenris sees that Hamnish is fairly close to her. She reverts back to her halfling form, takes a jump and calls to Hamnish to attract his attention. She then quickly takes the wild shape of a riding horse and starts moving toward Hamnish and past him to get as far from the orcs as she can. She whinneys as she passes to make sure he notices her and hopes he will follow.
"What?" Hamnish gasps as a movement in the nearby grass catches his attention. Was that a halfling jumping up and down? Hamnish glances towards the circled group of orcs. He can hear the taunts and jibes, but can see they are not moving towards him. Quickly, he turns back to the halfling and sees... a horse? The creature starts running in the opposite direction from the orcs, whinnying fiercely and looking at him as it rushes past him.
In a decision prompted by intuition and hope (one of the halflings escaped?!), Hamnish turns his horse around and follows the quickly retreating mare.
As both horses set into a dead gallop across the waving long grass, they quickly pull away from the hill on which the orcs are camped, the imposing vanguard of that terrible race's strength and brutality fading small into the distance, as if truly the horses' hooves had wings to carry them away from all threats and cares. They press hard to the east, far from the orcs and the direction that the boros stampeded in, even as the sun passes the noonday zenith and begins to sink into its course to the west. Hamnish's steed pours sweat--though long used to pitched battle speed and the endurance of many miles, Hamnish can tell the speed and frenzy of the battle have worn out his horse--the animal will need rest, water, and grazing before too long. And what about this strange mare? Was this the druidic magic of the halflings that he has heard such legend of?
He spares first a thought to the fallen Sardric... and then for the mentor he seeks, Eythorial, the Gift Giver of the Tree of Lights. His mission comes back to him, and if he allows his horse to slow, he sees that the longgrass around him now is overgrazed, speckled with spindly weed bushes, the grass shorter than the waving seas of it he so shortly left behind in his journey south towards Eisin. Those who hold Eythorial prisoner may not yet have landed at Baden's Bluff to start their own southward march to Eisin, but Hamnish can tell, courtesy of his mad dash after the magical mare, that the land here has been recently, though not too recently, grazed down by the long ranging herds of boro and sheep corralled to feed the orcish armies that march along the old King's Roads.
(OOC: You are out of combat initiative. You may talk to one another, decide on a plan, try to figure out where you are, or where you'd like to head next.)
The portcullis raises high like a set of jagged teeth framing a consuming maw. The gnomes pulling the wagon throw themselves into it without hesitation, and Selphina and her hat-wearing companion show themselves lively and laughing, whatever nerves either of them might have pushed into some small corner of their minds as they sell their confidence with aplomb to the guards. The hobgoblins virtually ignore them--raising the portcullis, lowering it with a clang behind the wagon, walking the huge dogs up on their leashes to sniff the wagon and its occupants--looking as bored with their routine as they could possibly be, with impatient glances towards the traffic lined up on either side of the portcullis.
Even Selphina's rapturous song, besides earning a snarl from one of the dogs, seems only to increase the hobgoblins' desire to move them along their way. Though it seems like an eternity before the second portcullis is raised to let them out of the city, it's barely a moment before they're walking free outside the thick stone walls, down through the heavy traffic of the enormous hard-packed road, the Road of Ruin as it is called now, that runs all the way to Eisin in the Westlands, a highway for the hobnailed boots of orcish armies in their thirst for blood and conquest.
Selphina's gnome companion sings along with her, waving to orcs, merchants, legates, and everyone they pass on the road. As the city traffic slows and the minutes seem to drag into hours, war camps speckle the roadside. Selphina just finishes her song as the gnome woman accompanies her climactic flourish with a stamp of her tall boot, and a muffled oath from one of the gnomes pulling the wagon filters up as the wagon grinds to a halt.
"Oh, lads, what is it now? Hit a rock did you? Come on, let's see to it!" The gnome woman leans over, plants a kiss on Selphina's cheek, and then stands up and jumps off the wagon.
Selphina remembers that was the signal to run. She looks around, and sees a wide ditch along the road, a series of rolling hills and woodlands descending south from the bluff. It shouldn't be too hard to slip away unnoticed, if she's quick and keeps to the valleys and trees.
(Describe your escape, and give me a Stealth roll!)
Looking back to make sure once again that the orcs were not following him and the wild horse, Hamnish slows his tiring steed to a walk. Feeling a bit foolish (what if the horse is just a horse?), he loudly says, "Of course, if you are just a horse, you wouldn't be staying with me, would you.?" As he talks, Hamnish is looking for a place to rest.
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Now that Chenris is closer to the large body of orcs and is slightly past them, she feels that it is best to get as far from them as possible if she wants to survive. She takes a dash action in the direction of Hamnish.
Selphina climbs up on the wagon and uses her disguise kit to make herself more presentable.
Hamnish quickly looks at the scene in front of him. Although some of the orcs are busily pursuing the stampeding boros, the main group is still clustered near their camp. How can he draw them away? Once again, he attempts to draw the orcs away from the camp by attacking. Spurring his horse, Hamnish rides towards the orcs to within range. He looses arrows at orcs #1 and #4, then wheels around and heads back east, just far enough to stay out of the orcs powerful hands.
Attack with Longbow (Orc #1): to hit: 12, damage: 10
Bonus action (Hunter's Mark): Attack with Longbow (Orc #4): to hit: 21, damage: 10
Hamnish and Chenris:
Chenris scampers through the long grass on her short little weasel legs, moving as fast as she can towards the pounding horse and its rider. As she runs, the thunder of the horse's hooves becomes terribly loud as Hamnish closes to within a hundred feet to fire two more arrows at the clustered orcs. With a clang of their verdatch swords, the tightly grouped orcs block both arrows. "Come closer, and fight like a man!" Orc #8 roars, in Orcish. He grins at his comrades. "He'll have to, once his horse tires of scampering around."
Orc #5 bodily tears the arms off of the halfling who shouted and pointed. The halfling's terrible, agonized screams echo down the hillside. Orc #5 flings him down among his chained and huddled comrades, who are choking back sobs, trying to stay as quiet as they can.
"That's a waste," Orc #6 says. "We've got two boros to eat tonight already, and that's one less slave to sell. You never think, do you? You idiot."
Orc #5 turns in a rage on #6. "You shut up," he snarls. "Or I'll tear worse off of your insolent face."
"You go ahead and try it!" Orc #6 sneers. The two bickering orcs have ceased to pay much attention either to their prisoners, or to the lone rider slinging arrows.
Several hundred yards north now, the distant rodeo of orcs #10, #11, and #12 trying to catch the boros continues...
It is Chenris' turn, then Hamnish's.
Selphina:
"That'll do just wonderfully," the gnome woman says. "Let's go---those troops are thirsty!" The two gnome lads lean forward, straining on the yoke of the wagon. It lurches forward, its wheels rattling on the cobblestone streets. A few turns, and the cozy and pleasant streets of the Hearthhome give way to the muddy, cramped streets of the Weirhold, old brick buildings huddling close over the road, two and three stories of wooden tenements built on top of them. A few hucksters and beggars peek out from doorways and alleyways as the cart rattles by, but shy back out of sight as the gnome woman in the broad-brimmed hat shouts and hollers, "Make way, make way! Refreshment for the troops!"
Soon enough, the enormous city wall rises into site over the tops of the tenements. Seven feet thick and thirty feet high, the huge, imposing wall looms over the Leewall section of the city and the crammed carts, merchants, travelers, and soldiers pressing their way into and out of the city through the main gate. A single tower built into the wall reaches the height of sixty feet. Three imposing spiked portcullis make up the long gatehouse that guards the entrance into the city, and it bristles with hobgoblin guards, some of them holding large, ferocious looking dogs on leashes.
"Up, boys! Up for our special delivery!" Selphina's unabashed companion continues to call out. Throwing an arm around Selphina's shoulder, she beams and jostles her. "They'll like this batch, you be sure of it!" And she leans in theatrically to plant a big kiss on Selphina's cheek. But as she does so, she stops just short, and whispers into Selphina's ear: "If you have steel on you or anything of elves, we're dead. The dogs will smell it. But, deary, you know the rules, of course. Don't tell me what you've got or where. I'll give you one last kiss when it's time for you to run. Now stay calm, easy does it."
Selphina's only contraband is the page of a book, rolled up in her hidden inner vest pocket. She knows it's going to the elves, but it hasn't been there yet. She should be fine... and the wagon rattles towards the gate. A hobgoblin guard sees the party of gnomes and their wagon, and begins to raise the portcullis. The gnome woman smiles and waves at him.
(Please roll a Deception check.)
Selphina takes a deep breath and pulls out her lyre. She gets into character (deception: 21) and starts to play and hum a song of calming and casual indifference, hoping to soothe the hobgoblins (performance: 18) into only slightly shirking their duties when it comes to their wagon.
Chenris sees that Hamnish is fairly close to her. She reverts back to her halfling form, takes a jump and calls to Hamnish to attract his attention. She then quickly takes the wild shape of a riding horse and starts moving toward Hamnish and past him to get as far from the orcs as she can. She whinneys as she passes to make sure he notices her and hopes he will follow.
"What?" Hamnish gasps as a movement in the nearby grass catches his attention. Was that a halfling jumping up and down?
Hamnish glances towards the circled group of orcs. He can hear the taunts and jibes, but can see they are not moving towards him.
Quickly, he turns back to the halfling and sees... a horse? The creature starts running in the opposite direction from the orcs, whinnying fiercely and looking at him as it rushes past him.
In a decision prompted by intuition and hope (one of the halflings escaped?!), Hamnish turns his horse around and follows the quickly retreating mare.
Hamnish and Chenris:
As both horses set into a dead gallop across the waving long grass, they quickly pull away from the hill on which the orcs are camped, the imposing vanguard of that terrible race's strength and brutality fading small into the distance, as if truly the horses' hooves had wings to carry them away from all threats and cares. They press hard to the east, far from the orcs and the direction that the boros stampeded in, even as the sun passes the noonday zenith and begins to sink into its course to the west. Hamnish's steed pours sweat--though long used to pitched battle speed and the endurance of many miles, Hamnish can tell the speed and frenzy of the battle have worn out his horse--the animal will need rest, water, and grazing before too long. And what about this strange mare? Was this the druidic magic of the halflings that he has heard such legend of?
He spares first a thought to the fallen Sardric... and then for the mentor he seeks, Eythorial, the Gift Giver of the Tree of Lights. His mission comes back to him, and if he allows his horse to slow, he sees that the longgrass around him now is overgrazed, speckled with spindly weed bushes, the grass shorter than the waving seas of it he so shortly left behind in his journey south towards Eisin. Those who hold Eythorial prisoner may not yet have landed at Baden's Bluff to start their own southward march to Eisin, but Hamnish can tell, courtesy of his mad dash after the magical mare, that the land here has been recently, though not too recently, grazed down by the long ranging herds of boro and sheep corralled to feed the orcish armies that march along the old King's Roads.
(OOC: You are out of combat initiative. You may talk to one another, decide on a plan, try to figure out where you are, or where you'd like to head next.)
Selphina:
The portcullis raises high like a set of jagged teeth framing a consuming maw. The gnomes pulling the wagon throw themselves into it without hesitation, and Selphina and her hat-wearing companion show themselves lively and laughing, whatever nerves either of them might have pushed into some small corner of their minds as they sell their confidence with aplomb to the guards. The hobgoblins virtually ignore them--raising the portcullis, lowering it with a clang behind the wagon, walking the huge dogs up on their leashes to sniff the wagon and its occupants--looking as bored with their routine as they could possibly be, with impatient glances towards the traffic lined up on either side of the portcullis.
Even Selphina's rapturous song, besides earning a snarl from one of the dogs, seems only to increase the hobgoblins' desire to move them along their way. Though it seems like an eternity before the second portcullis is raised to let them out of the city, it's barely a moment before they're walking free outside the thick stone walls, down through the heavy traffic of the enormous hard-packed road, the Road of Ruin as it is called now, that runs all the way to Eisin in the Westlands, a highway for the hobnailed boots of orcish armies in their thirst for blood and conquest.
Selphina's gnome companion sings along with her, waving to orcs, merchants, legates, and everyone they pass on the road. As the city traffic slows and the minutes seem to drag into hours, war camps speckle the roadside. Selphina just finishes her song as the gnome woman accompanies her climactic flourish with a stamp of her tall boot, and a muffled oath from one of the gnomes pulling the wagon filters up as the wagon grinds to a halt.
"Oh, lads, what is it now? Hit a rock did you? Come on, let's see to it!" The gnome woman leans over, plants a kiss on Selphina's cheek, and then stands up and jumps off the wagon.
Selphina remembers that was the signal to run. She looks around, and sees a wide ditch along the road, a series of rolling hills and woodlands descending south from the bluff. It shouldn't be too hard to slip away unnoticed, if she's quick and keeps to the valleys and trees.
(Describe your escape, and give me a Stealth roll!)
Looking back to make sure once again that the orcs were not following him and the wild horse, Hamnish slows his tiring steed to a walk. Feeling a bit foolish (what if the horse is just a horse?), he loudly says, "Of course, if you are just a horse, you wouldn't be staying with me, would you.?" As he talks, Hamnish is looking for a place to rest.