22nd Day of Reaping, CY 580 - It's evening now

The following events occurred during some online chat sessions over the course of two weeks, so we were able to advance the story forward before the next session.

DM's Note: It turns out Pontus drank Oil of Etherealness, which is supposed to be rubbed on the body and clothing/equipment. Some crueller DMs than I might have determined that such a thing would kill the character (after all, if your insides go ethereal while your outsides stay intact, your body surely cannot survive). I decided it just meant that the body would go ethereal, but not clothing or equipment, and so Pontus disappeared, leaving his stuff behind.

Being unable to communicate or interact with the party, Pontus decided to use his altered state to explore the lower levels of the fortress. While below, he discovered that Markessa was very much still alive, and had some powerful allies around her. He also managed to map out a good portion of the lower level to help the party when and if they should decide to come down here.

In the meantime, the rest of the party, suspecting, but not knowing what happened to Pontus, decided it was not safe to stay where they were, and packed up to leave. This included placing the statue of Luapan in the new found large bag of holding. The party then covered themselves in dead worf pelts to mask their scent before Sarril cast Invisibility 10' Radius to aid in the escape. They managed to slip past some hobgoblins who were bringing in a makeshift siege wall from which they could try to block the party in the room while shooting at them from safety. That plan certainly wasn't going to get executed.

The invisibility worked well to get the party into the inner courtyard, where they started to encounter trouble. The hobgoblins in the courtyard were using boggles to track scents, and one of them managed to pick up on the smell of humans through the worg scents. Alarms were sounded and enemies began closing in. The party decided to rush for the gatehouse and work their way up to the battlements above, taking arrow fire but not fighting, so as not to break the invisibility. With hobgoblins hot on their trail, they broke through several rooms, running into more enemies, dodging weapons and running.

They managed to make it to the corner of the south and east walls, when a very lucky arrow struck Jarrus in the neck, taking him below zero hit points. Having no time to stabilize him, Cadwin and Jarrus propped him up between them, held on, and lept over the 30 ft. wall, using Jarru's Ring of Feather Falling to allow them all to safely land. Cadwin then cut off Jarrus' ring finger (for later resurrection) and then ran with Sarril into the distant woods.

Meanwhile, Pontus had returned to the room to find it empty and began searching the upper level for signs of the party. Still being ethereal, he moved slowly, but could pass through all walls. This allowed him to map the rest of the upper level, and soon see the commotion that had just started on the battlements above. He floated up to where the party had just been and followed the trail of Jarrus' blood down below. As Pontus tried to check out what looked like Jarrus' dead body, he began to rematerialize, which started drawing arrow fire from the hobgoblins. Jarrus was not dead, though at this point he was one round away from it. Pontus was able to use his First Aid skill to stabilize Jarrus, taking two arrows in the back in the process. He then picked up a nearly dead Jarrus and bounded away to the south and started to hide. It was then that the orcs captured the two of them and took them to their encampment.

These orcs call themselves the Bloody Hand, and it turns out are the same orcs the party had encountered on the road earlier that morning - or at least were part of the same organization. Amongst these orcs, however, were several very bad-ass looking half-orc leaders. One of these leaders Pontus recognized as Grunk, the half-orc gladiator who had previously killed him in the arena. After some exchange of words and expressions of mutual respect, Pontus was introduced to the clan leader, a fearsome half-orc by the name of Turrosh Mak. Pontus bargained for the life of Jarrus, who was currently being kept in a cage, and not expected to live through the night. Although Turrosh despised

Turrosh Mak

elves, he soon recognized that they were fighting on the same side. Turrosh was also a former slave, and has been very busy uniting the many hundreds of humanoid clans of the Pomarj to fight against them. Though Turrosh wanted Pontus to join him to help lead his armies, Pontus refused, but he did offer to help Turrosh in another way if possible. And thus the deal was made. Turrosh agreed to save the life of Jarrus and, in return, Pontus agreed that he and his companions would re-enter the Slavelord's fortress and clear it out and open the gates to turn it over to the orcs, who would be arriving the morning after next.

And so Turrosh kept his bargain, healing Jarrus just enough to get his hit points into positive territory. The next morning, both men were escorted from the camp. And this is where we left off with the online gameplay, in preparation for our next session. It was morning of the 23rd Day of Reaping, CY 580.