Rusty Dagger - Rescue from Stonelock

 

The crew are hanging out in the local Rusty Dagger tavern, trying to count their loot without being seen to count their loot. They are pushing their snack foods around the table into piles. Jill is looking pensive. Finally she speaks up

“I’m not sure I want to go on any more adventures.”

“Things are getting dangerous and I have my brother to think about.”

“I’d like to take my share of the loot and cash out,    if that’s OK.”

“That’s fine Jill, the life of an adventurer is not for everyone and you have family commitments.”

So we give Jill 20 gold and she departs, happy.
“With that much money I won’t be dancing in taverns any more I will own the tavern.”

“Excellent! It will be nice to have somewhere to come back to after an adventure.”

The remaining crew order another round of drinks. They are settling back with their drinks when a hooded stranger approaches.

“I’m Vildy, I have a proposal for you.”

“The Baron of Leeford has a problem and needs your help.”

“Come and meet him, listen to what he has to say and then decide whether you want to help him.” The party leave with Vildy and go to the Baron’s estate. They meet the Baron and the old man starts explaining.

“My headstrong daughter Azalia has been carried off by raiders.” He casts down a jade greet surcoat with a writhing serpent on the breast. We know who took her and they will have taken her to the fortress of Stonelock.

“I don’t want my life to spend the rest of her life in a seraglio or sacrificed to those snake worshippers daemon gods.”

“I need a group of brave warriors to go in and rescue her.”

“A thousand warriors could not fight their way there and back but a few might be able to slip in and out.”

“Excellent, I will send Vildy with you to assist.”

The feared slaver Duggan and his gang of thugs and mercenaries

The team set off to Stonelock, when they get near the find a local merchant that will hide them in their wagon. Timing their arrival to dusk, the wagon won’t be unloaded until morning. The few guards look slovenly and unmotivated.

Under cover of darkness the team slip out of the wagon.

Arzag and Vildy are able to slide from the wagon and meld into the shadows. However Hesperina and Allendale get tangled up and crash into a pile of crates. This noise attracts the attention of the guards and they come slowly out of the ground floor kitchen where they had been sheltering rather than patrolling. Hesperina rolled a double 1 and with -1 to Agility that would have failed just about any test. Maybe her leg is not fully healed from having a temple roof fall on it.

There are 5 guards and one archer

The first guard moves forwards

Vildy opens his account by shooting the enemy archer in the head. He has the accuracy rule and does 2 damage when he scores 10 or more. He hits 13-6 and the archer falls over dead.

Turns out Vildy has some good stats, he has +2 Agility and Arcane and +3 Archery. The less said about the rest the better. He also has 12 health and is level 4.

A second pirate moves up to try and shut down this lethal archery.

Arzag moves up and misses the pirate 5-6 and 6-7 he then drinks his first iron skin potion.

“Some impressive swordsmanship there” mutters Vildy.

Another guard moves up.

The first guard misses Arzag 5-7, a second moves up and misses 5-8. I forgot that the guards had the group bash rule so the first guard should have got a bonus attack. If I has remembered the guard would have missed 8-14. (rolling it now)

A third guard moves up.

Arzag then primal rages, kills the first guard 8-6 and kills the second 8-7. Then moves into contact with a third guard.

Arzag kills the guard 9-6 and moves forward

The 4^th guard moves forward and attacks Arzag missing 7-12

Arzag’s return strike kills that guard.

The last guard, somewhat nervously moves forward and misses 7-10. Arzag doesn’t miss and kills the last guard 10-2.

Arzag looks at Allendale and Hesperina, “you two drag these bodies out of sight”. Allendale finds 4 gold and 5 arrows while moving the bodies. . Allendale picks up the arrows ready to reload Vildy who still has 4.

The party move out of the courtyard and down into the lower levels. The team find the dungeons but also the head guard, his pet snake and an archer we had not noticed.

(The actual scenario specifies a gelatinous cube but I thought a giant snake fit more with my idea for how the world would look. You are also more likely to be able to train a snake than a gelatinous cube)

This layout is unusual because 1/3 of the width is blocked off by the cell doors. I painted up my Guardedn of Morr walls for this scenario.

Vildy shoots the snake but it glances off its scales 7-7

He then shoots the snake 10-9 doing 2 damage.

The snake and the head guard move up.

Vildy shoots the snake 11-4 and then moves back because he is out of arrows. The snake is now dead.

I prioritised shooting the snake because I didn’t want to deal with any of the team getting caught in its coils and squashed.

The head guard moves up and takes a swing at Allendale missing 6-8. He then winds up with his greatsword missing 2-5.

Arzag runs over but his hasty swing misses 10-11.

The head guard is rolling D10+2 so is quite good. He also has the Skill Mighty Blow so can do 2 damage if he stays still.

Arzag heavy blows the guard 10-8 inflicting 2 damage

The guard swings back and misses 8-9 the follow up attack hits Arzag 10-8 the potion stops 1 so Arzag takes 1 damage.

Arzag then crushes the guard with his next strike10-6.

The team searches the guards and room and find cell keys. We release an old man who was locked in a cell. Even though Arzag is unlucky he rolled a 9 modified down to a 7 to find the keys. Allendale gives Vildy the arrows he was carrying.

The old man is able to tell us where the princess is being held. The team races to the indicated cell and use the keys to open the door. The princess is lying slumped on the floor of her cell. Hearing the noise she raises her head.

“Aren’t you a little underdressed to be a worshipper of Set?”

“I’m Arzag I’m here to rescue you! I’m here with Vildy”

“Vildy, where is he!”

Once again Arzag has gotten himself doing the rearguard and the rest of the party are out front.

While the team have the keys to the cell doors only Duggan has the keys to the princesses fetters so we have to escort her to the exit still wearing her chains.

While looking to leave the detention level, Duggan and 3 henchmen burst in.

“I thought there might be trouble with the princess, I see I was right”. “Kill them and we will put the princess back in her cell.”

The Princess looks over at Vildy, “This is some rescue, when you came in didn’t you have a plan for getting out?”

“Don’t ask me”, Vildy points at Arzag, “he’s the muscles”

Allendale takes cover behind some stores puts his token back in the bag.

Vildy shoots Duggan 11-7 hitting for 2 damage.

Arzag then drinks his potion of invulnerability and moves up. He then Primal Rages.

Duggan and his men move forward.

Vildy shoots Duggan hitting 5-3 trying to cut the head of the snake. All the dice rolled 1.

Duggan moves up and misses Arzag 3-9. Duggan is distracted by all the arrows sticking out of him.

A thug moves up and misses Arzag 2-5

Arzag chops down Duggan 11-6

Arzag heavy blows a Thug 5-3, the Thug misses Arzag 1-9

Arzag heavy blows a Thug 5-3, the Thug misses Arzag 1-9

A thug moves up and locks the princess in combat. “This time, there will be no escape for you Princess”

Arzag hits a thug11-2, the Thug’s return strike misses 2-8

The last Thug moves up.

Arzag heavy blows the Thug 5-4, bad roll but good enough. He then finishes the Thug with a quick stab 8-4. He then moves over to his next opponent.

Princess Azelia manages to stagger forward in her chains. She has been searching Duggan's body and manages to find the keys to her fetters.

The last thug frantically swing at Arzag and misses 2-9.

Arzag misses the Thug 5-6, he uses Primal Rage to reroll – into another 5…..

Arzag heavy blows the Thug 9-4

Vildy shoots the last Thug 11-4 – “That was taking too long”

“We will need something to cover our escape.”

“I have a cunning plan”

Lets use the pitch from those torches and set fire to the straw. Searching Duggan Allendale finds the keys to the Princesses fetters. He unlocks the Princess, Arzag chucks a torch on a pile of straw which bursts into flame.

“Right lets get out of here.”

The team escape the fortress of Stonelock which bursts into flame behind them.

“That’s what you get when you hire the A-Team”

Arzag gets 5 skill points and goes up to level 4, with 49 skill points. Arzag takes the +1 Swordsmanship bonus and puts the Skill Points 4 into Luck going from -2 to zero and 1 into Candor going from 0 to +1.

Heavy Blow works as expected. Very handy for chopping down opponents with lots of wounds.

Those Villans were not really very dangerous, Arzag was the only person to take any damage. Vildy was excellent. He did a great job with his bow especially on that snake.

I found a whole bunch of adventures on a French website. Some of the adventures are in English and translating the French bits is mostly about the narrative. So, there is a whole bunch more adventuring to do.

I'm not sure that there is much value in having companions that don't do anything except fail narrative challenges so we might have a corporate restructure before the next adventure.