During the short rest after last time’s battle, pieces of 2 chests similar to the one we found the 400 gp in were found. They also had the crest of the stone mason’s guild. The thought of two more piles of 400 gp spurred further searching and discussion but none was found. Meanwhile, the Fighter went out to tend to the orcs’ horses and he spotted a large orc further up the mountain, watching the ruined estate. He started whistling a tune that only the Holy Paladin noticed. When he went out, the Fighter told him about the orc although he did not spot him himself. He returned, told the rest and advised preparing for another battle. The Rogue and the Monk started sneaking up the mountain. The Rogue did not spot the orc and took the opportunity to use her invisible mage hand to loosen the Fighter’s sword belt. However, he noticed, re-secured it and gave a growl. The Sorcerer and Paladin decided to hang back to allow the sneakers to sneak. The Wizard casually walked to the horses. About the time he got there, the orc had spotted the Monk and had pulled back. Since the sneaking part seemed over, the Wizard mounted and started up, asking the Fighter to join him. It was a bunch of chaos with people starting at different places but ultimately everyone ended up a couple of hours up the mountain looking at a miner’s camp.
There were several small buildings of a quality higher than one would expect from orcs and evidence of mining activities. From the cave/mine emerged a big orc chieftain with a huge maul and his pet Worg. We could also see two of those advanced orcs which seemed to be on par with a 5-6 level fighter. The chief spoke to our Fighter who became our spokesman. There were a lot of back and forth and threats and misunderstanding, etc but I’ll try to summarize. He wanted to know why we had broken the deal and attacked his men. And he wanted the final payment (the chest we found) or the deal was off. The Monk declared the deal invalid because the stonemason who forged it did not speak for the town. The Fighter offered the hand of peace, stating that if they stayed up here and stopped attacking the town, they could keep this land the stonemasons had evidently given them. We had no such authority to do so and we very much doubted this was the stonemason’s land to give either. But we didn’t really know and the town’s ranger had stayed behind at the estate.
Meanwhile, it was discovered that there were humans in the huts. The Wizard questioned them. They were hired by the stonemasons and the orcs were there to protect them. From what, we’re not sure. Unfortunately, they were not under duress so we couldn’t attack on those grounds. They claimed to be unaware that the orcs had been terrorizing the town. The only person they saw was the stonemason guy who came up with supplies and took away the ore. Even though the Holy Paladin could sense great evil coming from him, we really didn’t have any proof of wrongdoing. No one could pull the trigger and start the fight so we went back to the ruined estate to talk to Bryn. It was just as well because, without a long rest, we would have likely been killed although we still had the Fighter at this point which would have helped.
The Rogue elected to stay and watch them from the trees. The rest went down. Bryn told us about what we expected. The stonemason did not own this land. It was owned by the lady that hired us. Although out in this wilderness, ownership is more likely a matter of control than legal right. Armed with that, we decided to return and attack them however the Wizard suggested a long rest which was agreed upon. The Monk went back up to tell the Rogue however that got complicated by the orc they sent down to watch us. Neither side ran into each other and other than the fact that the Rogue left her tree to follow the orc, thus beating the Monk back to the estate, nothing came of it. There were some discussions about how to best get that long rest but eventually, Andy just declared morning to get this moving again. After another nonproductive argument, this time about whether we should take the horses up or not, the Fighter logged off.
So we had no choice but to pressed ahead. We decided to try to sneak into camp along the east side and got as far as a couple of buildings before we ran into one of the orcs. Again we started to debate amongst ourselves if we should talk and assert our authority but thankfully he started to attack. He got hit a couple of times but not dropped. He was quickly joined by the other orc and the Worg. The chief also advanced but used the cover of the buildings to kept him out of spell fire. That also slowed him down a couple rounds, thankfully. Andy was rolling great, especially for damage. The Monk got critted and hit a couple of times and was down in a couple rounds, leaving Holy Paladin as the only hit point buffer. The Rogue got munched by the Worg. The Sorcerer’s first twinned chaos bolt missed twice. The Wizard’s first Shatter did 11 points and 2 of the 3 targets saved for half. All and all, it was going poorly.
When the chief joined, he said something in orcish and his maul started to glow silver. Unfortunately, the only the Monk spoke orc and he didn’t catch the command word. He was formidable but it wasn’t clear which of his powers were from the maul and from himself. The Holy Paladin did crit him on his first swing, adding in some radiant damage to boot, but he had plenty of hit points left. They all were doing 1d12 or more of damage and with Andy rolling 12s, it added up fast. I think the Monk and Paladin went out 3-4 times each. The Rogue and the Sorcerer went down a couple times each. The Wizard didn’t go out but couldn’t hit all night so he didn’t have much of an impact. He tried to cast Hold Person on the chief, figuring automatic crits for the Paladin and the Rogue would be devastating but the chief rolled 17 on the die and despite the Bane cast by the Sorcerer, he saved. It was the Prayers of Healing from the Sorcerer that saved us. He brought several characters back to life with those but they used up all his 2nd level slots which normally would have been doing damage. We also had to use 2 healing potions.
After some rounds, despite the fact that most of us were on minimal hit points, we had taken out the Worg, one orc and the chief was heavily damaged. So we thought they were on the ropes. But then he raged and soon after unleashed a 30’ radius Fear attack at DC 15. Everyone failed their save except the Wizard who was out of the area. All the rest could do was to flee at top speed which was significant for some. Someone even took an opportunity attack as they fled. They got a new save each round and returned as best they could but our effectiveness plummeted. He did that Fear thing twice more. He was also getting a third attack from the small end of the maul (butt attack?) for 2d6. The Holy Paladin rolled a 20 on a death save, popped up with 1 hit point, laid hands for 19 and then got a prayer of healing so he was almost back to full at the end. Eventually, we managed to take him out but there were a couple of times where only one character was up and not running in fear. Without the long rest, being down two players, we would have been orc meat. At that point it was 2 AM (4 Am central) and we quit. Plenty to do next time. Search for loot, give the maul to the Fighter, look for miners, take a short rest, investigate the cave, etc.
