First thing in the morning, we came downstairs to the dining area of our inn and found someone waiting for us. A dispatcher of Her Highness Queen Abrigail II was interested in meeting us and he had a mission. He talked about some kind of Breaching Festival being held at the Academae. That some other adventurers were invited to by the Headmaster of the school. The dispatch told us to gather our things and meet him back at the inn and he would teleport us to a different inn outside of the city of Korvosa in Varisia. We went and bought some potions from a local apothecary and some other mundane items.
After purchasing these items we gathered our carriage and the horses that Trajan had acquired. He plans to have Morin kill them and raise them so that they can pull the carriage without any stoppage for food or water and we can run them constantly with no rest. The dispatch performed the teleport spell because we had to intercept the other adventurers before they reached the city. Unfortunately something caused the spell to launch us off course. We ended up in the middle of the forest near the biggest ape I have ever seen. Of course I have only seen one at the zoo so my judgement is not the greatest in this matter.
The ape charged us with hunger in its eyes and he started pounding on Malcon. Now as funny as it is to see his highness get beaten upon by a monkey, we had to take care of this crazed animal. After a few moments of back and forth combat the great ape was laid low.
The battle took a lot out of us and we were somewhat disoriented by the teleport. After looking around we found a major caravan road. Luckily once on the road we spotted the signs of a city on the horizon. The dispatcher had informed us that the rival party was staying at an inn just outside the city on the southern trade road. Malcanthet was allowing his pet hellcat “Mittens” to scout around up ahead of us. The fiery beast was the first to discover the inn a couple of miles from where our teleport spell dropped us. There must be some kind of warding that bars people from teleporting into the city.
The inn was more dilapidated that we thought. Just outside of the building we noticed a huge gathering or squirrels on the roof. Chattering with anger as we approached the little critters seemed ready for a fight. As we got closer, we noticed the tree rats were clothed and walking upright. Almost all of them were dressed in what seemed like pajamas and armed with little swords in both hands. As soon as we were within range we discovered how deadly they were. They swarmed off the roof running over top of each other to try to attack us. Morin cast a spell I have never seen before and almost all of the creatures just stopped moving. A few of the larger and quicker squirrel people survived and attacked furiously.
Each of my party took stock of those left over and attack back with spells, claws, teeth and iron. There was one that seemed to be barking orders at the others its crazy language. Malcon took the chattering as a direct challenge and a furious battle ensued. The little vermin just didn’t have the strength to stand toe to toe with the antipaladin. Every hit against Mal seemed to do little to no damage to him. Every stroke that Mal returned tore into the leader. After a furious exchange, the Skiurid (I found out later what they were actually called) used some kind of smoke pellet and disappeared. He turned up right behind Morin a split second later and tried to attack the necromancer.
The other squirrels were getting pummeled by the rest of the party. My hellhound was grabbing the critters by the neck in his teeth and shaking them vigorously. The master made a final attack and saw that all of his followers we dead or bleeding out on the ground. He decided that discretion was the better part of valor and disappeared again. We quickly regrouped and started to patch up our cuts and scrapes the little terrors caused.
Of course whenever Trajan gets bored he likes to cause havoc for the party and he kicked in the door of the tavern. Luckily Thori my hellhound followed after him. Trajan got a face full of a really nasty spell for his efforts. The disintegrate spell was cast by one of the adventurers that we were supposed to take the place of. Trajan was almost killed by the spell and had to retreat. A furious battle of wits and spells took place in the door way as the paladin of Iomedae charged Malcon. The tiefling was able to strike down the paladin with the help of his hellcat and a still wobbly warpriest before he was able to smite the demonic antipaladin.
Many spells were cast by both parties causing mass damage to each other. Luckily the ranger had miscalculated and tried to set an ambush. We never set foot inside of the inn while combat raged. He basically kept himself out of the battle on his own until it was too late.
If Trajan had not been so devasted from the disintegrate spell it would have been epic to stand back and shoot arrows into the bar at the enemy. But Thori was destroyed and sent back to Hell in order to heal for combat at a later date. After the spell battle, Trajan was left a couple desperate moments from death. Lying on the ground outside of the bar, we were able to force some healing mixtures down his throat quick enough to keep him alive. After being revived, Trajan used his daemonic divine abilities to heal the rest of the party. we rummaged through the dead bodies to find their goodies and set out towards Korvosa again.
