Session 46 - "Collapse" Report

Venen 14, 1247

The story continues where it left off: with Olena, Foenix Stolnent, and a newly-freed citizen of Valorum plummeting to their deaths after a kobold in plate armor cut the ropes of the bridge they were stuck on!

Olena, thankfully, is quick on her feet. She grabs onto the citizen and holds on tight to the bridge as it falls free, slamming into the cliff wall.

Thais, also used to working under pressure, pulls free her pitons and rope from her hip. She slams the piton into the soft jungle floor and leaps off the cliffside, diving after Foenix. She grabs ahold of his wrist as the rope goes taut, and they swing back towards the wall. Thais is able to brace for impact, but Foenix hits the wall wrong. The crack of his head hitting the wall is loud and painful, and he goes limp in Thais' grasp.

A moment's pause as the party catches their breath. The kobolds and their prisoners are gone: down the path beyond the bridge, even as H011-3 uses her wall of light to lob some last bolts of energy at their fleeing forms. The ropes of the bridge and Thais's mountain climbing gear creak as they sway in the breeze.

Jacob Sterling steps forward, and using his staff of power casts levitate down on Olena, lifting her and the citizen to safety. Thais begins to climb. Slowly, having to manuever with one hand as the other one holds Foenix's listless wrist.

The priest of death knows that something is horribly wrong as soon as Thais throws herself and the halfling over the cliff's side, back on solid ground. Foenix is too still - too pale. In fact, his spine, where the skin of his neck bares the curvature, looks wrong and bent. He's dead, that much Ambrose is certain of. It must have been the hit against the side of the wall, and when Thais looks over, notices his state, and begins to desperately lay her hands upon him and even attempt to revivify him, Foenix does not come to consciousness. Not even Holly's mending does anything to help the rogue. Ambrose is aware that some souls do not want to come back, or resist the call, but his reassurances that "these things happen" is somewhat undercut by Iros-est's sudden appearance.

The god of misfortune somewhat smugly sympathizes with the Fate-Steppers, apologizing for their "terrible luck." Thais is immediately suspicious that he had something to do with Foenix's death, but he is offended, stating that he is the manifestation of the concept. He does not cause bad luck. He simply is bad luck. He shows up where it happens. Olena, in her grief and anger, demands an apology from Iros-est. He steadfastly refuses, even turning it around on the Valset warrior and asking for an apology from her.

When she refuses to do such a thing, he vows that he will dog Olena's footsteps with chaos and bad luck until she breaks and apologizes. Then he disappears into the jungle.

With little else to do at this point, the party turns to the civilian Olena rescued, who says his name is Duncan. He agrees to take Foenix back to Valorum for them, and so the party presses on to find the other hostages taken by the kobolds.

Holly uses fly to take the ends of the rope bridge to the other side and mending to afix them once again. Once they cross the bridge, Olena's wolf senses make it easy for her to track the kobolds to an encampment in the jungle.

There are tents and wagons - probably stolen from other prisoners who were traveling through the jungle - and a large pit with an opening leading into a cave located under ground. The outer circle of the pit has a series of six ballistae set up, all facing into the opening. Several kobolds mill about, doing various menial tasks to keep the encampment running, such as gathering firewood and clearing the underbrush out.

Thais takes a moment to cast heart to heart on Jacob, while Holly casts gift of resilience on Ambrose. Olena takes a moment to commune with her Urðr ancestor: Ólmr the Savage. He gives her the information she seeks about the cave below: it's depth (only a single room), how many people are down there (eighteen kobolds and six humanoids), and if there are any creatures from other planes (a scent of celestials, but they are now gone).

With that information, the Fate-Steppers attack the kobolds with ferocity! Though they are in the end victorious, the ballista prove to be quite a challenge. They are heavy and difficult to move, and require more than one to operate efficiently (one to load and one to fire), but they strike true and strike hard. Thais takes most of the bolts, staggering but not falling to their blows (though one does knock her off her feet), and Jacob nearly gets taken out by one that pins him to the ground through his shoulder when a kobold notices him ducking behind a tent after casting a silence spell that neuters the kobold spellcasters' abilities to do much of anything and decides that "through" a tent is just fine for an attempted shot on the sorcerer.

Having defeated the kobolds outside of the cave, the party now enters, to avenge their friend and save their family....