The Wildemount Irregulars (2020)

Silent swears and turns back to Alton, growling. Fight up ahead, smells like more godsforsaken wizards. Time for a quick decision lads, wanna stick our noses into it? He is tightly wound up, ready to start advancing towards the action at the first sign of affirmation from Alton and Balassar. 

Balassar just grabs his shield and draws his scimitar before they head out. As the flashes occur and Silent speaks he just grunts a little "Could lead to something related to those undead things we've encountered...or some poor wizard was traveling out in the open and got jumped."

Alton nods to Silent and Balassar, "Lets go check it out and hope for the best." He takes the torch from the mage hand before it poof out and hold his hand crossbow in the other as he takes up the rear guard spot. "What I wouldn't give to have that fairy fire spell for this or maybe a light spell."

You get closer, and the sound of battle gets louder. You hear shouting, in common for the most part, though there's a few words in halfling and elvish thrown in here and there.

Moving quickly, you see the mass of fighters, perhaps two dozen in total. Closer still, you can make out a little more of who they are. There are more than a dozen wearing the uniforms of the Righteous Brand, several mounted on horseback, wielding longswords, short swords or spears. Most look to be human or half-elf, though you see at least two halflings and a dwarf among them. With the horses they are more mobile, and they seem to be surrounding the other group, hemming them in and preventing their escape.

In the middle of the mess, you see perhaps eight figures; in the dark, all you see is the shape of their heads to tell you that they are likely elves. A little closer, and there's no doubt that these are drow, wearing garb that suggests camouflage. You are still over sixty feet away, and with the intense battle none of the participants have noticed you - yet.

The battle seems to be fairly even so far, but there are badly wounded individuals on both sides. It seems you have come face-to-face with the war.

What would you like to do?

When Silent hears the elvish words and picks out the drow, he freezes in place (maybe falling behind Alton and Balassar if they keep advancing), lowers his blade and thunks it into the ground point-first, leaning on it like a walking stick. His legs are jelly. For the moment, he find himself completely tongue-tied and unable to get a single word out. 

Balassar’s face contorts into one of anger and rage as he lifts his blade and shield up “Not again.” Slips from his lips as he charges into the battle. As he picks up speed the shout of “FOR THE EMPIRE!!!” escapes as he looks to put himself between the nearest wounded soldier and the attack elves.

OOC:

He’ll dash to get into the fray trying to put himself between the nearest wound soldier and the ambushing drow.

Alton snuffs out the torch with prestidigitation and turns to see Balassar charge off into the fray before he can get his attention. He then looks to see Silent frozen in place and with a groan brings out his mage hand and uses it to give Silent a flick on his forehead, right between the eyes. "Looks like Balassar is going to drag us into this fight, even if we don't join in. We better follow before he gets himself into more of a mess." Alton will then follow behind Balassar looking to see who might be about to pass through death's door.

(OOC: We won't play out every single detail of the battle, as that would take forever. We'll run specific groups that you interact with, and I'll roll behind the scene for the others.  You left the horses behind with the cart; Ghost would have followed for sure.)

Everyone roll initiative please.  Here's what you're looking at:

Silent's Initiative 8 

Alton’s initiative: 7. 

Balassar's Initiative: 13

Alton is a halfling, and can re-roll 1s. :)

12 12 3 21 10 9 2 7

12

Okay, I have the initiative order - Alton will go last this round, but then slot into his correct initiative next round, if that's okay.

Your order is Balassar, then Silent, then Alton.

Round One:
Balassar rushes forward to try to intervene between two combatants, Alton follows him, and Silent freezes.
Ghost will also stay back with Silent, alarmed by the noise and danger.
(For this battle, I will still be controlling Ghost. If you keep training him, you will gain more control over time.)
Balassar, most of the soldiers on both sides look to have taken some wounds, aside from the two mounted Righteous Brand soldiers nearest to you.  Perhaps the two most badly wounded are RB6 and RB7, fighting in melee on the southern side of the battle.

Round Two:

Balassar is up.

(Silent is still where he was, to the right. I wanted to zoom in to the battle, but for Silent please refer to the map in the earlier post.)

Alton's initiative reroll with halfling luck: 10 
(OOC: That works for me.) 

Balassar is up.

Balassar continues to rush into the fray moving in between two of the soldiers "We're here to help." he says as grows in size and brings his sword down on one of the drow.

OOC:

Moving in between RB10 and RB6 (using movement and then action to dash)

Bonus Action: Giant's Might

Action Surge: Attack on D5: 15 Damage: 7 Giant's Strength Dice: 6

That's a mighty blow from Balassar; the Righteous Brand soldiers seem wary and on their guard as he approaches, but with a single massive blow he cuts down on the drow, killing her instantly as he almost bisects her torso.

The battle continues around you Balassar, the drow fighting with weapons that look no different to those your family has made in the past. One near to you takes a stab with a shortsword:

Attack: 6 Damage: 4

But your shield catches the blade easily, and he swears in a language you do not understand.

Alton is up.  You can think of the battle as taking place in three zones; if Alton wants to join, he can join the blue group as Balassar has done, or focus his attack somewhere else.

Alton heads towards the top half of the group, stopping just above the bush. Looking straight ahead at the fight, he yells, "Xhorhas to be kidding me! A night raid by drow, how original. What's next, a swarm of spiders?" at the first drow he sees; casting vicious mockery.

Movement: Moves 30 feet towards the orange group, ending up on the square just above the bush
Action: Casts vicious mockery at D3, DC 14 wisdom save or take 1 psychic damage and have disadvantage on the next attack roll.