The Severed Hand

Round 2 Summary

"Hey, miss. I was just wondering about your eyepatch. Were you maybe trying to pick your nose with your own glaive? And missed?" As Alalla furiously tries to keep from being impaled by a flaming sword, the bard's voice digs at her nerves like a cheese grater on a sunburn. The distraction costs her, and her opponent manages to score a hit on one of her arms, blade and flame biting deep (Alalla takes 26 damage. Also, she is Taunted by the bard, and so will have disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws for this next round).

Ug charges past the armored man to engage the wizard, but he feels another burning cut across his side as he goes (After resistance, Ug takes 11 damage). Four arrows bury themselves painfully into him (After resistance, another 57 damage), but the raging goliath pays them no heed. He bursts through the bubble of protective magic and bears down on the seemingly helpless wizard. The maul smashes downward three times, but with each swing glances off some other magical defense as she holds her hand out to ward him off (She casts Shield, boosting her AC by 5 for this round and so takes no damage). She curses as Ras' lightning bolt sears two of her party, but distracted as she is by Ug, she cannot spare the attention to counter the druid's spell.

The strong man takes the lightning bolt square in the chest, and then the bolt forks off to strike at the bard - who avoids the brunt of the spell by performing a rather surprisingly adept cartwheel. Still, his eyes go wide with surprise when he notices sparks tingling at the tips of his mustaches.

The wizard begins to cast a spell to remove the troublesome barbarian, when Fergy's impressive illusion makes her change her focus. She crushes the glass bead in her fingers, dissolving the bubble of magic around her, then throws herself into a new spell. A moment later a wall of force appears in front of the cannon, concave side of the hemispherical dome cupping around the mouth of the dragon cannon (Dropped her Globe in order to cast Wall of Force).

Having doused the smoking ends of his mustaches, the bard looks up at Fergy and Erevain and claps his hands once. Immediately a thunderous boom sounds in the air near them, but the concussive impact is mostly dulled by the shrieking winds of Erevain's warding winds (Fergy and Erevain each take 5 thunder damage).

Alalla becomes a flurry of strikes. This man might have muscle to spare, but she knows how to use that against him. She knocks one slash high, then releases the glaive shaft with one hand and whips it around the man's outstretched arm, where she seizes hold of it again, then pivots and bends, flexing her own considerable muscles. Though her opponent manages to keep his arm from being broken, he does lose his grip on his weapon, and it falls from his grasp, flames extinguished. Alalla whirls away from him and snatches the sword by the hilt before it touches the ground. The man screams in anger and pulls a shortsword from his belt. It does not appear magical, but he twirls it in his hand once to remember the feel of it (Uses Second Wind and regains 20 hp).

Round 3 Player Phase!!!

Round 3 Summary

Furious at the loss of his weapon, the strong man wades in with heavy swings of his sidesword, but Alalla easy blocks each one, then hurls her lightning glaive, crackling through her opponent and past him towards the wizard.

Seeing so many attacks focused on the wizard, and seeing Ras throw himself deeply into spellcasting, Erevain does his part to help distract the wizard. Three magical bolts fly from his fingers toward the wizard, darting around obstacles and combatants to streak towards her face.

The bard sighs dramatically, back of one hand to his forehead. "Why does no one laugh at my jokes?" He watches more lightning arrows pierce Ug, and the barbarian falls, trembling with jolts of electricity (Ug is unconscious). "Ah! Here's another one. Hey eye-patch lady, you see that goliath's loincloth? It's just SHOCKING, isn't it?" (Al is Taunted again) Desperate for an audience, he turns to call up to Fergy. "Get it? Because... Oh fine, just laugh already!" His words are laced with enchantment, compelling Fergy to drop everything and laugh, but Fergy manages to shrug off the influence (Go Fergy for making his wisdom save!). The bard sighs again and rolls his eyes.

This is not a good day for the wizard. This was supposed to be an easy job. And now she has a frozen barbarian in her face cracking down with a ridiculously large hammer, a lightning glaive (of all things) crackling towards her, and some fledgling elf wizard is actually casting magic missile. It's insulting. She calls again on her abjuration magic to block most of the incoming attacks, and lets her arcane ward soak up the rest (Casts Shield to block one of Ug's attacks, the glaive, and the magic missiles. Her Arcane Ward - kind of like floating temporary hp - takes the rest of Ug's damage and then is depleted). Too late, she notices the small gnome weaving a powerful spell, and can do nothing as it sweeps across the battlefield.

She rebuffs the paralysis spell herself, but is shocked at its strength. She watches in frustration as most of her party succumb to it. One of the archers is stuck with the fletching of an arrow glued to his ear, the bard is frozen mid-eyeroll, and her meat shield is caught in an embarrassing pose tripping over his own boots.

"That's it! I'm calling it off." She steps over Ug's trembling body and raises one hand high. "Erestor has played us all too well. I'm going to kill that elf... another day." She casts one of her most powerful spells, instantly teleporting herself and all of her companions to their home in Luskan.

With dim light from the moon and stars overhead, the heroes have held their own. In addition to the flaming longsword, they find several more items that their attackers left behind.

As Ras' spell takes effect, he can feel the Heartstone Gem throb nearby. It almost seems as if the artifact approves of Ras using divination magic.

Ras sees Halla lying bound on a pallet in a run-down building. The woman's eyes are closed, but she stirs as the she feels the connection to druidic magic. Judging by the dim light coming through a nervy window, it is night.

From the look of things, Halla must be in the upper story of the guardhouse near the Hand's drawbridge.