Session 11/17/07

                Maia 26, midnight: The siege of Brindol rages unabated as more Red Hand shock troops storm over the barricades.  Behind them is the Walker’s Cathedral, with Tredora Goldenbrow and her group of hard-fighting but exhausted clerics huddling inside for protection.  Nine hobgoblins of the Khulkor Zul charge the party’s position as a pair of snarling manticores swoop by overhead.  Klar, Jack and Kaelin take their positions in the front rank and cut down the hobgoblins with studied efficiency while Altaer blasts at the flying manticores.  He blows one out of the sky, but the other flies past him towards Besha’s bandstand, where a group of more than a half-dozen dancers and musicians play on without regard for their safety.  The manticore swipes its tail out and a hail of spikes peppers the bandstand, but Besha desperately uses some enchantment of his own making to provide concealment for the non-combatants against the spikes.  Altaer wheels about and electrocutes the second manticore with a lightning bolt, whereupon it crashes to the ground twitching and dead.  Ayotunde heals Klar from afar with her healing ward, and as Altaer looks up he sees that his companions have destroyed the rest of the hobgoblin wave.

 

                A blood-curdling warcry bellows forth from the Red Hand’s ranks and eight gray-furred bugbears with rage in their eyes leap past the barricades into the party’s ranks.  These are the Blood Ghost berserkers, an elite and fearless cadre of goblinoids bent on the group’s destruction.  Kaelin bravely charges forward to delay them and is quickly surrounded and cut by their greataxes, but Ayo’s timely healing keeps her on her feet (though just barely).  Klar wades into the unarmored Blood Ghosts and tears flesh and sinew from bone with his ancestral axe, howling his own battle cry to Ijruk.  Jack springs forward and decapitates one of the berserkers with his scythe, its blade ringing even through the din of battle, and the remaining bugbears turn their attention to him.  Before long the bodies of the dead bugbears litter the Dawn Way, and the heroes catch their collective breath while Matriarch Goldenbrow’s clerics sally forth to provide some much needed healing.

 

                Just as the clerics reatreat to the safety of the Walker’s Cathedral, the yowling and screeching of Red Hand worg riders fills the streets and five mounted goblins pound the pavement down the Dawn Way towards the party.  A rumbling stampede of six rhino-like bluespawn thunderlizards follows, and electricity arcs off their vile blue scales as they push forward, shattering the last of the barricades.  The party readies a defensive line against the worg riders, and Altaer unleashes a powerful fireball into their midst, scattering most of the goblins and their riders.  The thunderlizards charge forward undettered, and damaging bolts of lighting shock Kaelin, Klar and Jack as they stand against Tiamat’s spawn. 

 

                Just as the situation grows dire and the three brave front-liners are about to fall under multiple arcs of lighting, a familiar voice cries out “Chaaarge!  For the Luminous Order of Bahamut!  The Order is with you, friends!”  The paladin Del Werner and his four knights have broken through the Red Hand’s ranks and spur their warhorses into the thunderlizards, lances poised to strike.  Upon impact, Del takes down the lizard that was menacing Kaelin, skewering its innards with his silvered lance.  His knight Cara supports Klar with a flanking charge from horseback, puncturing another lizard through the neck.  The spawn of Tiamat turn their fury back upon Del’s knights, trampling two of their number and brutally shocking Werner himself to death, but the charge buys the heroes enough time to heal their many wounds and destroy the last of the bluespawn.  Though the battle continues throughout the city, the teeming lines of the Red Hand send no more waves of troops towards the cathedral.  Ayo falls to her knees, exhausted and nearly depleted of Shandae’s divine energy, and Altaer sweats heavily in the summer night, summoning up the last of his own reserves for whatever may come.  Jack wipes the gore from his scythe and leans up against a building, heaving with fatigue, while Klar and Kaelin survey the streets for any sign of immediate trouble.

 

                After an all too short respite from battle, Ayo hears Captain Ulverth’s voice over her telepathic bond once again.  “Friends, the battle continues!  Though the walls have fallen, many still live and fight for Brindol.  However, Lord Jaarmath himself has fallen to a sniper’s poisoned arrows.  Our elf scouts report that the same sniper who murdered Lars’ son is holed up in a coffinmaker’s shop just up the Dawn Way.  Dispatch the assassin at once!”

 

                The companions gather their strength and run at top speed towards the shop, which lies about a quarter mile down the main street.  Klar sprints ahead, using his superior speed and growling his anger as he works up a froth.  As he comes into sight of the coffinmaker’s shop a volley of arrows rains down from the second floor window.  The sniper’s aim is true, but Klar’s anger will not be contained.  He crashes through the front door and kicks open an inner door to the upper floor, leaving splintered wood in his wake.  Just as Jack and Altaer arrive at the front of the shop, Klar is racing up the stairs to slam into his foe with his double-axe.  His eye catches a glimpse of the shadow attacker, recognizing it as the same blackspawn raider from before: the assassin known as Skather!  Klar bellows as he cuts deeply into Skather, who hisses acidicly as he draws his own twin scimitars.   Bleeding heavily, the assassin uses his ghost step ability to vanish from sight…

 

                But he has no idea that Jack, whose fey sight allows him to see the invisible, has come up the stairs right behind Klar.  Jack plays coy for a moment and then dashes towards the unprepared Skather and channels a massive hideous blow through his scythe, cutting the blackspawn badly.  He desperately crashes through the upper window, tumbling towards the ground, but he does not live to reach it.  Altaer waits outside with a readied magic missile, which immediately impacts his scaly body and ends his life.  Skather’s corpse crumples to the ground, and the top assassin of the Red Hand is no more.

 

                The party re-forms its ranks and heads back to the Walker’s Cathedral.  The night is still deep, and off in the distance they can hear Ulwai Stormcaller chanting her songs of devotion to the Dragon Queen.  The volume increases, and companions turn to one another and acknowledge that the Wyrmlords of the Red Hand must be on their way towards the Walker’s Cathedral to finish the fight, one way or another.

 

                Over the din of battle, Klar hears his father’s voice.  “Klar, my son!  The time of reckoning is at hand.  Your doom is nigh.  You shall pay for the destruction of Abithriax with your miserable life.”  The red-skinned orc Wyrmlord Hravek Kharn marches toward the Walker’s Cathedral as Besha’s band of musicians continues to cavort mady atop the platform.  Kharn is accompanied by the others surviving Wyrmlords: the goblin ranger Saarvith dives from the sky upon the black dragon Regiarix, and the strangely beautiful Wyrmlord Ulwai Stormcaller stands to his right, her proud and deep operatic voice filling the streets.  An elite force of Red Hand bodyguards – two raging hill giant barbarians and four armored ogres – lead the Wyrmlords’ charge, snarling and spitting their hatred as they advance.  The final battle at the Cathedral has begun.

 

                Klar looks behind his father and notices a small retinue of Bloodflayer orcs from the Wyrmsmokes, his home territory.  The orcs meet his gaze, looking back and forth between Klar and General Kharn.  For the moment, their loyalty to the Wyrmlord holds and they begin drumming and chanting an orcish battle dirge while a pair of shamans enhance Kharn and Ulwai with divine magic.  Kharn wields a wicked curved falchion, and he wastes no time, aggressively moving forward with his ogres and giants to engage the party’s three frontline warriors.  Klar’s double-axe sings in the night as he collides with a hill giant, hamstringing it and leaving it vulnerable to Kaelin’s follow up attacks.  Kharn steps aside and savages Klar with his falchion, cutting his son deeply in several places.  However, Ayotunde is quick to expend a charge from her Staff of Life, which heals Klar fully and keeps him fighting.

 

                Altaer fries Saarvith and Regiarix with a deadly lightning bolt as the two sweep down from the sky to pelt him with arrows, but both assailants survive the blast of electricity.  Just as Jack and Kaelin finish off a pair of ogres, Klar takes an opportunistic attack against one of the hill giants, disemboweling the monster with his axe.  He parries several of Kharn’s strikes, buying the others more time to engage and destroy the other two ogres.  The last remaining giant bulls past Klar, and again his axe strikes true, severing an artery in the giant’s leg and dropping him in a bloody heap on the dawn way.  Ulwai keeps up her chanting, and each time her song reaches a crescendo she lashes out with a shocking bolt, supporting General Kharn from the rear.  The Bloodflayer orcs watch from the rear as well, keenly interested in the ongoing melee between Klar and Kharn.

 

                Ayo and Jack spot their friend Sorrana Anitah running up the Dawn Way to engage their foes.  Sorrana dashes past both the orcs and General Kharn, smiling sweetly at Jack and hailing him as she bolts for the Cathedral.  However, Ayo’s keen senses sense a wrongness in Sorrana… she catches a gleam of Abyssal corruption in the warrior’s eyes, and calls to the others: “It’s the succubus!  Laurazhi is here!”

 

                With a curse and spit, “Sorrana” transforms into her native bat-winged form and takes flight, speeding towards the Walker’s Cathedral.  Faced with a conundrum - the battle at hand is too intense to turn their attention away from, but Laurazhi is a hated enemy – the group elects continues to focus their attacks on Kharn and his retinue. The succubus flies through the broken stained glass window on the Cathedral’s second floor and vanishes from sight.

 

                Shrieking and cackling at the party’s misfortune, Wyrmlord Saarvith wheels Regiarix around for another pass.  Ayotunde glares hard at Saarvith and casts a roaring flame strike on both dragon and rider, immolating the annoying little goblin and badly scorching his mount.  Regiarix attempts to fly off away from the battle, but Jack casually points towards the wounded dragon and releases a crackling eldritch blast, catching him full in the chest and sending him hurtling to the ground at last.  With that threat eliminated, Altaer is able to move closer to the melee and thus within short range of Wyrmlord Stormcaller.

 

                Kaelin rushes towards the lady hobgoblin as well, cutting her across the chest and arms with her longsword.  Altaer sees his chance, and aims three consecutive scorching ray attacks at the vulnerable and wounded bard.  All three rays strike true, and the third is more than Ulwai can take.  Her flesh catches fire and her beautiful, terrible aria to Tiamat finally ends in screaming agony as her body is incinerated by Altaer’s fiery draconic magic. 

 

Now alone but for the support of his orcs, Wyrmlord Hravek Kharn, General of the Red Hand, makes his final stand.  Unfortunately for him, Kharn’s orcs have a different take on the situation.  The wardrummers change their cadence to fall in line with Klar’s movements and strikes, and the spirit shamans – quietly at first, but then progressively louder – chant Klar’s name along with that of Ijruk, rather than Kharn’s.  The Wyrmlord nods grimly at his son, with just a hint of a smile crossing his lips as he strikes.

 

 

                Redoubling his ferocious attacks, Kharn turns from Klar to Ayo and lays into the cleric, nearly crushing her with the deadly blows of his falchion.  However, Tredora Goldenbrow runs forward from the safety of the cathedral and delivers a timely heal spell to Ayo, avoiding Kharn’s blows and retreating back to safety.   Kharn’s attention again turns to fighting his son, and he executes a devastating full attack against Klar, slashing his body and forcing him to the ground, bleeding and unconscious.  However, Ayo still has a few scant spells in reserve, and as Kaelin and Jack distract the general she activates her healing ward, giving Klar just enough strength to heft his fallen weapon and attack his father from a prone position.

 

                “Klar, my foolish offspring!  The battle is mine, and now you die,” claims the Wyrmlord, but his speech is cut off by a surprised “Urk!” as Klar grasps the haft of his ancestral double-axe and swings wildly at Kharn’s feet, trusting Ijruk’s guidance.  His aim is true, and one blade of the axe lodges deeply in Kharn’s thigh.  Klar roars a bloody howl of triumph and swings again, lodging the other blade in his father’s chest cavity.  Literally climbing up from prone atop the Wyrmlord’s body, he lays into Kharn one last time, opening his torso from belly to sternum and ending his life.  The blood of his father bathes his axe, steaming and boiling on the tempered steel despite the warmth of the night, baptizing Klar’s blades in the blood of his corrupt kin.

 

                Despite their exhaustion, there is no rest for the band of heroes.  Kara and Elaine, the two brave survivors of the Luminous Order’s charge, call out a warning: “Demons!  Spawn of the Abyss are within the cathedral walls!”  The doors of the cathedral burst open and Tredora Goldenbrow and her shaken, wounded clerics evacuate into the courtyard.  A hideous vulture demon, which Ayo identifies as a vrock, follows on their heels, screeching in rage.  Klar charges down the Dawn Way into the cathedral, but Laurazhi suggests that he return to the street to ensure that Kharn is truly dead.  Confused by her guile, Klar turns around, nearly knocking over Kaelin and Jack, who dash past him to engage the Vrock.  Altaer turns his arcane fury on the demon, pelting it with conjured orbs, and Kaelin and Jack take up flanking positions against it.

 

                Just then a burbling growl thunders out of the cathedral basement and a hezrou emerges.  Jack peers closely at the demon, recognizing it as the same one summoned through the gate of Slaughtergarde by the gnoll warchief Gashkarr.  The toad demon sloughs forward and engages Jack, whose scythe gleams in the torchlight as it cuts into demonic flesh.  Kaelin fells the Vrock with a solid blow to the head after Altaer’s magic left it staggered, and its body crumbles to black dust in a few moments.  Klar returns from his hiatus to savage the hezrou along with the others, but it stands strong against the party’s might, trading blow for blow.

 

                Laurazhi teleports out of the cathedral and appears before Hravek Kharn’s corpse.  She clasps his dead right hand and cuts it off cleanly at the wrist.  “Azarr Kul looks forward to your visit at the Fane of Tiamat,” she taunts, “and I too will be there to thank you for your part in these proceedings.”  With Kharn’s hand in one hand and the Tome of Slaughtergarde under her other arm, she uses the distraction of the hezrou’s attack to teleport away from the battle with her odd prize, and is not seen again.  A moment later, the hezrou gives a deep, groaning laugh and teleports to safety itself.

 

                Silence falls over the cathedral grounds, and the distant sounds of battle fade as the remnants of the Red Hand horde break ranks and scatter out of the city.  The routed goblinoids army is pursued by the triumphant Lions of Brindol, and numerous Tiri Kitor elves fly on owlback, yelling joyfully as they feather the backs of the fleeing horde with arrows.  With Kharn and the other Wyrmlords defeated, it takes only a scant two hours for the horde to disperse completely, leaving Brindol intact and in the hands of its brave defenders.  Thanks to the five companions’ might and mettle and the sacrifice of hundreds of the nameless valiant, the Siege of Brindol ends in a great victory for the forces of light and hope.

 

Azarr Kul's Ambition