4/11 Session Recap

The party spent the evening in Dorset at Sal's Tavern (and Inn), and June and Melicertes played the crowd. The next morning, they set out on the long road to Evansville. They passed a couple of guarded caravans coming the other direction, but on the third day, they were pretty much alone on the road.

Suddenly, from over a nearby hill came a platoon of about 20 bandits, all of them charging the wagon. The party's guards barely got into position before melee started. June and Cyrus started throwing sonic bursts into the crowd of attackers, and Melicertes started causing bursts of electrical energy to sprout among them too. Several attackers dropped their weapons upon being hit with these area-of-effect attacks, but about half were still skirmishing with the guards.

A mage in the back of the attackers started throwing magic missiles at Melicertes, and a cleric enlarged one of the bandits, making him a big target. One of the bandits drank a potion to heal himself, and June cried out, "That's our loot!"

Another person entered the fray from behind the bandits, wielding a massive greatsword. He charged into the back of the ruffians, slaying a couple of them fairly quickly. He then turned his attention on the cleric. With one upward sweep of his blade, he cut the cleric diagonally in half. Then, before the pieces had even slumped to the ground, he decapitated him.

June told a joke about Dolan, casting a spell at the same time, and the enlarged bandit fell over howling with mirth. Roveles ended his laughter with an arrow under the jaw and into his crotch. Melicertes concentrated on the mage who had been assaulting him, and caused him to collapse instantly. Cyrus was at Melicertes' side, healing him from the magic missile damage. Four of the bandits ran for their lives, abandoning their spears in order to run faster.

Once the killing was over, Cyrus approached the newcomer and started a conversation. Roveles, always a little slow on the uptake, called for the man to surrender and drop his weapons. Annoyed and confused, the man continued to speak with Cyrus. Melicertes stared and concentrated, and the man suddenly fell silent. June, noticing that Melicertes was using his powers on the poor guy, nudged him in the ribs, and asked him to stop it. He relented, and the newcomer snapped out of his daze.

The guy introduced himself as Rosenkrantz, and every other word out of his mouth was 'fuck'. He promptly nicknamed Melicertes 'fancy pants' and June 'pipes'. He said he'd been following these bandits for a couple of days, but hadn't had a good opportunity to attack them until they engaged the party in combat. He also said that he was of clan Evangard, and could help them out with introductions in town. He also said that he was hunting ogres, since they had killed his remaining family while he was up north fighting alongside the barbarian clans.

Engrossed in the conversation, and fuming at the (understandable) lack of respect, Melicertes decided to order the henchmen to loot the bodies, which June said was probably a bad idea. Roveles quietly told the lead henchman, Ray, that his guys could keep 10%. The henchmen started doing as they were told, and then a few minutes later, Cyrus cast a spell to detect any magic treasure. There were a few potions and a single wand that were magic, and Rosenkrantz offered up the loot he found on one of the bandits to the common loot pile.

Upon seeing that the henchmen were looting the corpses and pocketing it, Melicertes blew his stack. Ray explained that it was common for warriors on the battlefield to be allowed to loot, and that there were plenty of other bodies if Melicertes wanted to get some spoils. After some argument amongst the party, and a private conversation between Melicertes and Roveles, it was agreed that the henchmen would be allowed a single share to split amongst themselves. Ray and company then offered up gold to the pile in the middle, and it was divided up.

There was more conversation about continuing on after Evansville with the henchmen, but Ray spoke up again and said that they were under contract and honor bound to get the party to Evansville, but that they planned to stay local, and would be parting ways once they reached town. Rosencrantz, however, was open to a continued partnership after Evansville.