Another Dragon at Icespire Peak - IC Thread

Lothlién's death save: 15

Rhok seeing his friend fall, screams and starts charging the lone orc loosing a bolt at it "Don't worry Lothlièn!"

Attack: 13 Damage: 4

Then moves to his fallen comrade and begins to prepare to heal him in the next round with cure wounds

The orc's hide armor provides little protection against a crossbow. Rhok's bolt hits its target, leaving the orc bloodied.

It's Xarroth's turn now.

21 Lia
18 Lothlién (unconscious, 0 hit points)
10 Rhok
  9 Xarroth (8)
  8 Orcs (three dead, one alive) (10)

The dragonborn is aware how hit he is and moves as far as he can away before a familiar flash of blue-white energy is gathered and fired at the remaining orc...

Ray of Frost

Xarroth's spell goes wide as he moves away from the orc. Seeing that the spellcaster is fleeing, the orc switches his attention to Rhok, who just shoot him. He runs to him and swings his axe.

Attack: 7 Damage: 10

Badly damaged from the ongoing fight, the orc misses his swing.

It's Lia's turn now.

21 Lia
18 Lothlién (unconscious, 0 hit points)
10 Rhok
  9 Xarroth (8)
  8 Orcs (three dead, one alive) (10)

Lia again sens her owl in to distract, as she launches another crossbow bolt at the orc.

To hit: 21

Damage: 6

Lia's bolt finishes off the last orc. You are out of initiative order, but Lothlién is still unconscious.

Rhok quickly touches Lothlièn, and casts cure wounds to bring him back from deaths door: 3

Lothlién recovers his consciousness  with a deep gasp
"Thanks, fella. I think I underestimated those brutes' power"

"Quite alright friend, Orcs can be quite nasty" Rhok says and heads over to the closest Orc and beings looking through its things "Lets see if they have anything of use"

Rhok starts looking through the first body, and also looks for any insignias, etc, and his fired crossbow bolts

Perception Check: 24

Investigation check: 19

Lia also looks for any crossbow bolts she can recover, but leaves the checking of the bodies to others.  she will send her owl out to scout and make sure there are not any more of them around.

Quote from Morden_Defmark >>

"Quite alright friend, Orcs can be quite nasty" Rhok says and heads over to the closest Orc and beings looking through its things "Lets see if they have anything of use"

Rhok starts looking through the first body, and also looks for any insignias, etc, and his fired crossbow bolts

Perception Check: 23

Investigation check: 8

The orcs are wearing hide armor, made from different animals, you can tell that one of them is mostly made of deer and another from goat, with patches from other beasts. Three of them had greataxes and one a greatsword, carved from a single bone. They have some war paint on their faces and upper arms, but no symbol that any of you can recognize. The orc with the greatsword is also wearing a necklace with a bear paw surrounded by various teeth.
You find and take one bolt out of one of the orcs.

Quote from DragonDenn >>

Lia also looks for any crossbow bolts she can recover, but leaves the checking of the bodies to others.  she will send her owl out to scout and make sure there are not any more of them around.

You find 2 bolts that seem to be in good enough state to use again, and one that is snapped in half under a fallen orc.
Your familiar flies up to get a better look at the surrounding area. There are no signs of humaniods near apart from your group, only birds in the sky and a few rabbits that quickly hop into a bush hearing the owl hooting.

Rhok removes the necklace and shows it to the group "Does this necklace mean anything to any of you?"

"How are you feeling about travel Xarroth, Lothlién? Should we take a short rest before we continue our trek to Gnomegarde?"

Holding up the broken crossbow bolt.  "And can someone please mend this for me?" Lia asks with a hopeful smile.

"I guess it'd be good to have a time to catch my breath, if you guys don't mind sitting around for some time" Lothlién says, worried that more trouble may come.

If we take a short rest, Lothlién will spent at least one hit die: 8

"Rather have you hearty and ready if we meet something on the hike." Lia reminds him and would spend the time having her owl do some scouting of their path from here to the gnome city.

Owl Perception: 19

You take a short rest in the ruins before moving out. Sabastian spots a shadow flying high in the sky, north west of your position. It moves from the south west and going north east too fast and too far away for any of you to react to its presence.

After the rest is over, you start traveling west, keeping the Sword Mountains to your right. Having Townmaster Harbin's map with you, you get to the place called Gnomegarde two hors past midday. No creature approaches you on your way, but Rhok is almost sure he spotted a bear in the mountains.

You follow a stream uphill to the base of the mountain, where waterfall erosion has carved out a natural concavity. The roaring waterfall creates a cloud of mist as it plunges into a shallow pool of water, within which rise two small islands covered with two-foot-tall red, green, and purple mushrooms. Several cave openings overlook the pool from rocky ledges twenty to thirty feet above. The mountain blocks any sunlight from reaching this place.

One of the caves has a path leading up to it, while the other are on top of rocky cliffs. You would need to pass an athletics or acrobatics check to attempt climb them.

OOC: plot reminder, the note you took from the job board reads "A clan of reclusive rock gnomes resides in a small network of caves in the mountains to the southeast. The gnomes of Gnomengarde are known for their magical inventions, and they might have something with which to defeat the dragon. Get whatever you can from them. If you bring back something useful and don’t want to keep it for yourselves, Townmaster Harbin Wester will pay you 50 gp for it."

"Guess we should head on up and see if anyone is home then..." Lia says, heading towards the path.

"Hmm, if I'm a group of gnomes that have magical things, I'd be in the hardest to get to cave. I'm going to try the one up the one on the rocky cliffs. I can throw a rope down to pull people up, or at least tie it onto something up there since I'm not the strongest" says Rhok

Acrobatics check 22

"Wait, why don't we look in the entrance on our leve first? maybe there's a way to get up there through the tunnels" Lothlién thinks out loud