Week 10 - Revisiting the Stag Lord

The party laid low for a couple of days, recovering and then sent Rudy and Hebrin off to watch the Fort. Before long they saw the visiting group leave without the loot they had bought in, but decided not to apprehend them. Instead they continued to watch and realised that the guard schedule seemed to be pretty much the same as before with three guards on watch at any given time. So they decided to mount another assault, only this time they planned it a bit more thoroughly.

They worked out that the Zombies had been fairly slow to appear, so they decided to find the least observed route up the mound and go straight up, rather than trying to sneak up with scouts – and it worked. They got to the top before the Zombies got them. Then they put the boots of Climbing on Robert (The Cleric of Iomedae) and sent him over the palisade first, and he left a rope looped over the top for everyone else to climb. Hebrin was over quickly, while it took Rudy and Cassandra another round, with Ox coming over the round later.

Meanwhile, Robert had cast silence on a stone and he and Hebrin moved quickly up onto the walkways and attacked the first of the guards – laying him low just as the silence ran out. By this time the others were joining them and the second guard noticed something wasn’t right and called across. However, Robert got him with a Hold Person spell, which was fortunate, he is wanted dead or alive but there is a special reward for bringing that particular bandit home alive. They moved across and Hebrin tied him, but the alarm was raised by the third sentry.

A monster of a man, Auchs, was asleep on the top roof, cuddled up with some toy soldiers, and he awake to join in the battle – but it took both Ox and Robert to take him down. Rudy shot the third guard, but it was too late.

By the time the party had got down to the courtyard, there were another three guards, and their oficer, an evil looking man in studded leather carrying a rapier took one look outside and ducked back in. Caught in combat and making their way to the courtyard the party were surprised to see Dovan (the officer) run back into the courtyard followed by a crazed owl bear. Dovan used his acrobatics to leap out of the way and up onto the walkway as the bear attacked.

The last surviving guard then took the chance to run to the gates, pull then open and flee as the owl bear set about the party. Rudy, however, grinned and acrobaticsed up to the walkway to fight a rapier duel with Dovan. The noise of the battle roused another of the officers and large barbarian stuck his head out of the door, only to find himself flanking Ox … So he and the Owlbear laid into Ox – wounding him seriously and forcing him to withdraw. Hebrin didn’t have the same sense of fair play as Rudy, and he used his acrobatic skills to get up onto the walkway behind Dovan – and that flanking manoeuvre turned that combat in their favour Either that, or Hebrin didn’t fancy taking on the owlbear ….

Dovan was finally defeated as he tried to escape, and was cut down as he leapt over the walkway’s balustrade.

Down below the crazed owlbear had turned on the big barbarian, and finally managed to get a grip on his opponent pulled him in and started biting. When the barbarian couldn’t break free he dropped his sword and, drew his dagger, trying to gut the owlbear. However the noise had woken the Stag Lord himself and this huge man, wearing a stags head helmet, burst into the scene, shooting at the party with his long bow – with which he seemed incredibly accurate. However, Robert and a rejuvenated Ox closed him down and forced him into melee – where he was still a worthy opponent.

The barbarian killed the owl bear, which fell over on top of him, but he laid there waiting tom see what happened. But when Rudy took a stab at him, he pushed the owlbear corpse off, grabbed his sword and squared up to the Bard. At which point Rudy quickly started to parley ….

Unable to get much from the man in the heat of battle, Rudy told him to go – so he took all the horses that the bandits owned and rode away to start a new life elsewhere. Inside, the Stag Lord fought to the death – and the party claimed the fort for their own. A quick search of this level, and the dead bodies, revealed a stash of treasure and a few magical items – but not quite what you might have expected from a major bandit leader.

However, they know there is a strange old man who lives in the cellars ….

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