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Day 42 – Critical Upsets: deadly viper assassination squad redux

Things have not gone to plan at all. It seems they knew we were coming. There were patrols out in the surrounding woods looking for us and we were ambushed; Faldorn was killed - so much for her druid senses. Can’t say I was that upset, she was hella annoying after all, and she did take an arrow meant for me, ho hum. Maybe if she is lucky her druid buddies will find her body and res her. If she’s lucky.


rip

By the time we got down to the mine the upper compound was evacuated, intead there was a deadtough mercenary company waiting for us. They'd been hired to specifically kill us - we're that scary it seems. Imoen scoped them out while invisible – two powerful mages (not, like, better than me, just more powerful - like older) and two equally powerful fighters, one who had these boots on that meant they moved around as fast as lightning. It was obvious we were not going to be able to take them toe to toe, not even close - and if there is one thing me and Im are NOT keen on its "fair fights" (they are for losers). One on one, perhaps but all together, no chance in hell.


Arwen hunters

I had a think about what we could do and realised I had a scroll of immense and I mean immense power in my scroll case. It was a spell of cloudkill, far beyond my abilities to learn (for now!) but I could still cast it from scroll. I’d been saving it for something like this. Generates a powerful cloud of poisonous gas, only problem is, people tend to run away when that happens. Well, we had a solution to that too. Imoen trapped the drawbridge and I hit ‘em before they saw us with a web, followed by the cloudkill scroll and another web for good measure. The webs trapped them inside the poison cloud until it could do its horrid work. That took care of the mages but the fighters were, incredibly, still alive once the cloud had dissipated – holy shit how tough were these guys? I miss my fireball-death necklace so much.


horrible way to go

So commence stage 2: the lesser of the two fighters was blinded and invisibly blackstabbed by Im – deader than dead. The greater of the two I lured into Imoen’s traps then took down with various spells – though, they’d drunk some sort of magical resistance potion - very annoying. And the reward – these amazing magical boots that mean I can run circles round anything – I pulled them on. There was no time to waste, we entered the mines.

Im stealthily scouted out the top layer of the mines – every guard she found received a knife in the back, clearing out the tunnels. There were lots of sadsack looking miners wearing slave collars. We didn’t have the time to talk to them, more important things. Except one, who pointed out that the whole mine complex was once the site of an underground river, now held back behind a great plug. With the right key the entire mine could be flooded. That would solve all our problems and 100% destroy this little Iron Throne op, fuck yes. Only problem is the key was apparently in the hands of the mine supervisor, you guessed it – Davaeorn. We pushed on deeper into the mine-complex, looking for him.

Again, things did NOT go as planned. The second level was a terrible nightmare, I'm shuddering just remembering it. Fighting guards in these dark confining tunnels. Ambushes, overwhelming numbers of guards, cramped quarters, low ceilings, a claustrophobic's vision of the hells. We were already low on resources when we set out, I shoulda stocked up before we came but I was just so ANGRY at these people. We ploughed into Cloakwood without really thinking of what it was we’d set ourselves up to accomplish. A near impossible task as it turned out.


just one of many near lethal fights

But we prevailed against superhuman odds, killing everything on the second floor, including a powerful mage surrounded by a coterie of killers. Could not have done it without these boots of speed and an exploding bottle of burning oil, a luckywell placed charm spell, and endless command spells (its fun being able to snap your fingers and make someone fall over). The battle was punishing – in the end there were at least sixteen dead, I didn’t count, such bloody slaughter. There was even a dwarf who we freed from prison in the hope he could help us. No such luck, the archers cut him down in an instant.

My spell book was near empty. My scroll case was filled with weak and worthless spells. Only a few potions left. This was a nightmare, I started to think that me and Im would die for real here. All this would be for nothing, no revenge, no life of wealth, luxury and adoration… but we were committed – there could be no retreat. This was our only chance. The only option remaining was to go straight for Davaeorn and the key and let the floodwaters kill everyone else. We were too burnt out to do anything else.


victory but at what cost

We’d found a slave in the prison cells who pleaded with us to release him, saying he could free the slaves with some well-placed bribes – 100Gs. I didn’t care, if some of the slaves got loose maybe that would take the pressure off us. I shoved the money in his hands, me and Im drank an invisibility potion each and we descended further into this hell.