6/6 Session recap

The party assembled in Dorsetville on their way back to Bos. Roveles travelled back to Evansville with Kerstan and company to pick up the brigands, the wagon, and Cyrus before heading to the rendezvous. The rest of the party travelled with Queen's emissary Andrus and his guards.

Once assembled, the group headed south towards the river, and the border of Bos. Before they could reach the river, however, they came across a group of over a dozen men. They blocked the road, and asked how much it was worth for the party to pass by. Rosenkrantz flew into one of his vulgar tirades, and Melicertes quietly stopped the highwayman in mid-sentence with his mental powers. Another highwayman, sensing that there was a fight to be had, called out "Let's get 'em, boys!"

June set off a deafening blast of sound among the attackers, to little effect. One was stunned. The hooded figure in the back of the attackers gestured, and Melicertes froze in place. Roveles fired arrow after arrow into the attackers, and was beset by two of them at close range. Rosenkrantz engaged two of them himself, and received several lumps from their clubs. Two attacked the wagon, and ended up lightly wounding the former brigand, Ben.

Andrus' guards drew swords and rode to the flanks, engaging three or four of the highwaymen on each side. Andrus himself stayed safely to the rear. The hooded attacker cast a spell and vanished, and June concluded that he had teleported away.

Most of the party were wounded during the fight, but as the attackers started to get the worst of it, a small group retreated to be healed by one of their clerics. Roveles decided that it wasn't fair that his target had been healed, and so he put an arrow into the cleric. The other cleric was stopped cold by a timely casting of Tasha's Hideous Laughter from June.

Melicertes spent most of the fight mentally assaulting his foes, and one of them clubbed him while he was stll paralyzed. June cast laughter at the guy, and while he rolling around on the ground, Andrus rode over and intentionally trampled him to death. Melicertes continued to fight the effects of the Hold spell, with no success for nearly a minute.

June jumped off of the wagon and into the fray. She delivered a glancing cut to one of the attackers with her rapier, and he cracked her in the shoulder with his club in retaliation. She then incapacitated him with her laughter spell. Enraged that an enemy had attacked June, Rosenkrantz ran up and decapitated the man rolling on the ground in mirth, demonstrating that it was no laughing matter.

About half of the attackers were killed, but about half tried to run. Most of those that ran were cut down by Rosenkrantz, but two ended up getting away. Roveles mounted up and gave chase. He dismounted when he closed to his maximum range, and loosed a single shot that wounded one of them. That one stopped trying to run, but the other persisted. Roveles re-mounted and switched to his shortbow, and chased the last one down. After several misses, he landed a hit with one of his arrows. Realizing that he couldn't get away, the final man turned and decided that he would go down facing his enemy. As he charged, Roveles put an arrow into him, and he tumbled to the ground in the high grass. Roveles fired arrow after arrow into him, just to make sure that he wasn't pretending to be dead.

In the end, two prisoners were taken. One of them was a cleric, and the other one just a regular guy. The latter spoke freely about how the rich northerners were spitting on the southern duchies, and how the true path of Tulgus had been revealed to him by Jarvis BelSoto, a vocal cleric of Tulgus in the lands to the south and east of the Heartlands. He said that he had been following the will of Tulgus for over a month, using his strength and luck to take what he needed on his way to extract payment from the decadent northerners. Like the party, he had been released from military duty. He didn't really know much about the hooded guy, except that he was another cleric, and a friend of Jarvis. They asked if Jarvis gave speeches, and he said yes. They nudged Cyrus, and he started a long sermon on Phazorra that was very compelling.

Afterwards, Rosencrantz haltingly petitioned Cyrus for some healing, and handed him a few gold pieces. Cyrus obliged, bringing Rosie to full health. The party found about 300 silver on the attackers, but when they tried to share the loot with Andrus and his guards, their look was one of distaste, and they declined.