Ches 19
Ches 19, 1370:
High = 10, Low = 0
Moderate precipitation (2" snow) starting @ 5:50am
Wind gusting to 25 mph from the prevailing direction.
Cloudy.
The party travels to the small forest NW of Amphail, there they
encounter a patrol of 7 soldiers on medium warhorses. They defeat
them and manage to dispell the charm on them by means of Steve
casting Dispell Magic while wearing the Helm of Beefy Will.
They question one of the guards (Orask Rivengod) about the
Jhansczil estate and learn that an inner palisade has been
constructed and an outer one is partially complete.
1700xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere,
Staric and Steve for capturing the guards.
The party waited until the afternoon, sent the uncharmed patrol on
its way and headed towards the Jhansczil estate through the snow.
Moments after crossing the High Road and entering Jhansczil land,
they encountered a second patrol, which they dispatched quickly,
wounding two badly and using Sleep or Color Spray on the others.
Not wanting to spend their last Dispel Magic on them, they
bandaged them, tied them up, and left them in the magic tent in a
wooded area with Ursula to keep an eye on them.
1700xp to Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles, Maanamere,
Staric and Steve for capturing the guards.
When they got closer to the estate, the party discovered that the
forested area that they had planned to hide in had been cleared
for wood for the palisade, but visibility was low enough that they
were resonably concealed from 200 feet away anyhow. Denyae stood
outside of the protection of the Helm of Beefy Will and as soon as
she fell asleep from the chimes, the party woke her up and headed
for the gates. Deringa used Phantasmal Force to increase
the snowfall between the party and the gate, so that they were
able to approach without being seen. When they arrived, there
were no signs of guards on either watch platform. Henkles
"sproinged" up to one platform and found that the two guards on
either platform were asleep, as were the three behind the gate
down below. He hopped down and opened the gate.
Beyond the outer pallisade, there were the stables, barracks, and
other buildings that were there before, but there were also rows
upon rows of tents housing additional soldiers and the barracks
was being doubled in size. They proceeded past all of them
unchallenged and Henkles lept over the inner gate as he had done
at the outer. Here he encountered one guard who was still awake,
but he fell asleep after one round of combat.
10xp to Henkles for half a fight.
200xp to Henkles for pulling of all of those jumps without
falling asleep.
The party made their way cutiously inside and encountered no awake
guards on the first floor. Staric showed them the way up to the
second floor via a concealed stair that came up near Dagar's
room. While the party was moving the Windchimes of Dusk up on the
outside (Henkles and the Flying Carpet), Dagar's younger brother,
Emaric, showed up and demanded to know what was going on and what
Staric was doing with Dagar's Helm. It quickly became apparent
that he was wearing a Broach of Beefy Will and therefore not going
to fall asleep and also not charmed. It also became apparent that
he was young enough to think the whole "take over Waterdeep" thing
sounded like an awesome idea. They argued back and forth for a
bit until he threatened to go get his elder brother, at which
point the party said "Sure."
The party barely had time to crowd out into the hall before Emaric
got Arrikes Jhansczil to come out of a nearby room. He was joined
by Tarkas Silmerhelve, eldest son of house Silmerhelve, Luth
Ammakyl, Staric's father, Rinril Goblinblight, a half-elven
mercenary captain, and Throvain, Son of Thomnain Valkagar, a
dwarven mercenary captain. Arrikes spotted the Helm and realised
he couldn't charm this problem away, so battle ensued.
Highlights of the battle included:
* Arrikes's pistol blowing up in his face.
* Arrikes's party getting webbed and setting themselves on fire
to escape (which woke up the two of them who had fallen asleep
at that point).
* Arrikes getting killed by multiple near-simultaneous attacks.
* Arrikes's father, Harkas Jhanczil, arriving with a bodyguard
of three fighters, two of whom promptly fell asleep.
* Harkas firing at Henkles with his weapon of specialization -
an Arquebus - (for massive damage) and only missing because of
Dexter's Prayer
* Harkas introducing the party to the concept of a "stinkpot"
(see 2nd Ed. Arms & Equipment Guide, Staff-Sling.)
* Steve Snilloc's Snowballing Arrikes's group and waking
up more people than he knocked down.
* Emaric getting hit with a Blindness spell but still
being the last opponent standing.
13725xp to Ag, Darius, Denyae, Deringa, Dexter, Henkles,
Maanamere, Staric and Steve for sundry shedding of blue blood.
Dexter grabbed the Coronet using gloves and the inside of a sack
and tied it up in the sack. Then he approached Emaric while he
was blinded and managed to win a struggle to remove the Broach of
Beefy Will. After that Emaric quickly fell aleep. The party
gathered everybody they had been fighting on the second floor
together, tied them up, and cast Dispell Magic using the
Helm as before. They didn't stick around to see if it worked.
When Dexter bagged it up, he kept having these feelings that he
didn't need to do that. In fact it would probably be fine if he
just wore it home. At the urging of his comrades (and himself) he
elected not to.
Knowing that twighlight was fading, the party hastily tracked down
Dagar and put the broach on him, which seemed to cure him, after
which they filled him in. He was not pleased that they had killed
his brother.
After that they left Dagar and fled with the Chimes, Helm and
Coronet. Staric and Deringa elected to stick with the party for
now. The party rejoined Ursula and hobbled the members of the
patrol they had captured earlier. AFAL sent the guards trudging
towards the estate and headed south. They ducked into Amphail and
retrieved the strongbox and then camped in some woods a few miles
away.
