Session 5 - Into Fangwood!

Extract from the Collected Letters of Mallius Vane

The first day in the woods was a busy one. Xin organised the four warriors into a watch, planning patrols around the camp and finding good vantage points from which to observe anyone approaching.

Folgrun, Aubrin and Rhyna tended to the wounded and those suffering worst from shock, later joining Abraxas and the rest of the townsfolk in building shelters and fishing in the nearby stream.

Ban and I went hunting and foraging. We took the few townsfolk that had some experience and, by the end of the day, had found enough that...with the fish caught by those at the camp...we didn't need to use any of the meagre provisions we had brought from the town. Ban even managed to find a sheep that must have escaped from one of the nearby farms...if we could only find more of them!

Shortly after we returned from our hunting so did Kana. She had gone back to Phaendar to find out if the Ironfang Legion had moved on. Sadly, they had not. She had spent some time observing them, seeing that they had been busy setting up what looked like a permanent base...bringing up heavy equipment, setting up a forge and sending patrols out.

That night we settled down as best we could. Enough shelters had been built that all the townsfolk were warm and dry...sadly there were not enough for Xin, Abraxas, Kana, Ban, Folgrun and myself. It was going to be a cold, damp and uncomfortable night.

As we huddled together, trying to keep warm and settle down for the evening, Folgrun told us a tale from dwarven legend...a tale about Kraggodan and the Onyx Portal, a mysterious gateway that allowed dwarves to magically travel from one place to another. He's convinced that the tower the Ironfang used to attack Phaendar has something to do with this Onyx Portal. If that is the case then the Ironfang Legion can attack anywhere...with total surprise. It doesn't bear thinking about!

We awoke, cold and stiff, to a misty morning and a steady drizzle. Jet was just putting together a meagre breakfast when one of the watchmen shouted out a warning and, just as I leapt for my bow, a man came crashing into the clearing. Covered in mud, his clothes torn, he was sobbing and babbling incoherently. Abraxas and Rhyna managed to calm him down enough that he could sit and have some food and water and tell us his story.  He was called Edran, a merchant who had been in Phaendar for the festival when the attack happened. At this point, Folgrun recognised the man as a regular visitor to the town. Apparently, he had managed to escape into the woods but not before he had seen some horrors...in particular, he kept talking about a monstrous being that had torn a man limb from limb right in front of him. It seems he had then wandered lost for hours until, hearing voices he had stumbled into our camp. Leaving Rhyna and Aubrin to tend to the newcomer, the rest of us set about our jobs for the day...either working on the camp or foraging for food.

And so the next couple of days passed...until we had enough shelter for everyone, a stockpile of provisions and places to store and cook them and even a few more sheep. Kana, meanwhile, had spent her time watching the town. As we built our camp so the Ironfang Legion built their base in
Phaendar. They had also just about finished a makeshift rope bridge to replace the stone one we had destroyed.

After some discussion we decided that, in order to hinder the Ironfang Legion's movements on our side of the river, we would make an attack on the bridge and burn it down. So, on the night of our fourth day in Fangwood, Abraxas, Xin, Ban, Folgrun, Kana and myself made our way to the edge of the forest from where we could observe...a few hundred feet away, the bridge. As Kana had told us, there were just a few tents, with a couple of hobgoblins and a wolf guarding the area.

Xin had rubbed scent cloak into his clothes and, after drinking the potion of invisibility that we had found in Oreld's shop, proceeded to carefully make his way onto the bridge. Moments later the far side of the bridge was suddenly engulfed in flames as Xin used his magic to set it alight.

This was our cue to attack. I immediately let loose with an arrow...hitting the wolf...as the unlikely duo of Ban and Kana charged forward weapons drawn. Folgrun bowed his head and muttered some words of blessing on us all and Abraxas pointed at the centre of the hobgoblins campsite whereupon a ball of bright light appeared. In moments, the battle was joined...and more hobgoblins emerged from the tents! Six of them...with one particularly big, ugly bastard, no doubt their leader. I managed to hit him twice with my bow...but, laughing, he just took a phial out and drank it before attacking Ban with his scimitar. The fighting quickly became fierce and desperate as Ban and Kana were soon surrounded by the enemy.

Folgrun, meanwhile, raised his hammer and called on his god for vengeance. Pointing with his hammer at one of the hobgoblins, he commanded it to strike its neighbour...which it proceeded to do, the two of them turning on each other. He then raced forward to join Ban and Kana in the thick of the fighting.

Abraxas, too, after muttering unintelligible words and making strange gestures with his hands, leapt forward...with his blade dancing in the air in front of him.

The battle was hard fought. As I've said before, these hobgoblins are fierce fighters and it was close for a while. Ban and Kana both fell to the vicious blades of the hobgoblins at some point. I too was wounded after joining the fight with my sword when my bow string snapped.

Xin, however, had managed to rejoin us after carefully making his way off the burning bridge...which, by this time, was well past the point of saving....and with his help we slowly
but surely managed to whittle the bastards down one by one, until finally Abraxas, with a great flourish, cast the same spell he had done on the night I first met him...an explosion of vivid colour which blinded two of the remaining hobgoblins, including the big bastard. While they reeled about blinded and confused, one more hobgoblin skulked over by the tents reluctant to join the fight but with nowhere to run...

For a slightly easier read, a PDF copy of the write-up on Google Drive here.