Morning comes all too soon for some of you, and you resume your march, Jon, Mikodin and Farad scouting ahead.
After about a half a mile, the passage turns west. The march is uneventful, until late morning, when you come to an intersection with a narrower passage running southeast - northwest. Jo-owrn still thinks that you are too close to the other passage where you had the near-fatal encounter, and so directs you westwards.
Shortly before you are ready to stop for the night, Jon, Mikodin and Farad, who as usual were scouting on ahead, hurry back to you.
"What's up?" Beth asks the scouts.
Farad smiles. "Another chance to rid ourselves of some drow."
He describes the area. "Up ahead is a small cave. Actually a number of branching caves running off of the main passage. To the south are three hill giants, at the entrance to a cave. But three drow and thirteen bugbear are to their south."
The elf smiles.
"The giants and the drow are our biggest threats. I suggest I take two of our best fighters and appear directly behind the drow. Thus closely engaged they won't be able to use any spells, and we can take them out while the rest of you launch spells at the giants and bugbears and then engage them as well."
Aldarin draws his sword and smiles, "I am prepared for such an assault. If there are drow involved, I will be first to draw blood."
Humphrey says, "I'll volunteer to go with you Farad. I look forward to being of more use than I was last time."
Mikodin listens to the talk politely, and finally speaks up, "I am not yet worthy enough to join the great fighters in their destruction of the drow, but I may be of some use as cover for the mages. I can also shoot from a distance with my crossbow. I would be honored to be of service in either capacity."
Farad nods. "Jo-owrn, why don't you also come?"
The ranger nods.
"I'm better against giants, though."
Farad nods. "I know, but the drow are definately the more dangerous of these enemies. And I'm hoping the initial magical assault should eliminate the giants as a sizable threat. The drow have to be taken out with swords however.
"The plan is this. The three of us appear behind the drow, forcing them to turn away from the rest of you and deal only with us. Faced with hand to hand combat they should be unable to use any spells.
"The noise of the combat should also draw the attention of the others. Once they come into your view, the mages will hit them with lightning strikes and other spells to soften them up before you charge."
"Sounds like an excellent plan," says Ayazin, drawing his scimitar and readying his shield. "I am ready to spill some bugbears' black blood."
"As far as I was able to determine there isn't a second group awaiting us this time down the hall. The giants and bugbears are useless to us so kill them, but we'll try not to totally kill the drow and see if we can get any information out of them, binding their wounds when they fall unconscious."
Farad looks around, asking if any have any questions. He prepares himself with a protection from evil spell as well as a shield spell.
Sharone casts a 'prayer' just before the group disperses. "Idun will aid our cause."
Aldarin draws his sword and prepares to cast a Lightning Bolt spell into the group of beasties.
Humphrey looks around to the clerics, "Do any of you have a spell that can be cast to make a fighter immune to hold spells?"
Mikodin chimes in, "I'll stay with the mages, using my crossbow, until whatever is left comes for us."
With that, Farad takes Jo-owrn and Humphrey, and fades away into the border ethereal.
With Farad, Jo-owrn and Humphrey gone, the rest of the party creeps forward as stealthily as possible. You have not gone too far before you smell the delicious smell of barbequed meat.
You move forward, more careful than ever, until you see the glow on the walls of a fire flickering ahead. Silhouetted against it are the forms of three giants, eating loudly, while making crude wisecracks to each other about various unsavoury bodily functions. They sit before the entrance to a side passage or cave.
Suddenly, from somewhere within the side cave/passage, comes a yell in bugbear, followed by more. Evidently, Farad and company have arrived...
Sharone moves off to one side and slings a continual light bullet amongst the giants.
The bullet sails through the air and strikes a giant in the side of the head, sticking in his ear. The fellow lets out a yelp, more out of annoyance than pain, and they look up the passage and spot you.
Brennon follows to one side, and if he can cast spells will be ready to cast a magic missile should anything head this way.
Aldarin steps forward and releases his lightning bolt into the giants, forking it to help cover more area.
His bolt catches two giants, as they all stand up and reach for some nearby rocks to hurl. The bolt rebounds off of the tunnel wall, and strikes one giant a second time, blowing him to pieces.
Aldarin then readies his sword for combat.
Mikodin waits to see the direction the giants move.
Two stones sail through the air towards you. One lands at Aldarin's feet; the other looks like it should have struck Ayazin, but inexplicably misses.
The two surviving giants rush you. Brennon casts a magic missile, striking one. Mikodin releases his crossbow, but misses.
He starts to reload.
"Excellent, Aldrain!" Beth cries, before reaching her fingers out in a dramatic Battle Sorceress pose as she fires off her own lightning bolt at the onrushing giants.
Ayazin steps to the front to take the giants' charge with scimitar and shield, telling his wolf to stay back.
A giant meets him, swinging his blunt instrument like a golf club...and missing.
Ayazin fares no better with his scimitar.
Aldarin draws a dagger from his belt and throws it at the face of the nearest giant. The drow dagger sails wide. He then meets their charge with his sword.
The elf and the giant trade misses.
Mikodin shoots one more time with his crossbow. The bolt nicks the ear of the giant battling Aldarin. He drops it, and meets the charge of the giants with a flying kick high enough to do damage.
Sailing over Aldarin...he misses the meleeing giant completely.
Brennon tries to stay out of direct combat, since he a little gun-shy now. He throws a dagger at the closest of the giants. His dagger misses the giant attacking Ayazin.
Raz steps forth and sends a flurry of magic missles at the nearest giant.
He puts quite a dent in one of the giants with his first spell.
Seeing Beth start to cast Kelar waits until she releases her spell and then charges forward.
There is a crackle, and Beth's bolt flies, striking both giants but not rebounding. The giant on Ayazin takes little damage, but the other one one Aldarin has his head thoroughly blackened, and screams in rage.
"Mages get past the giants quickly. The others probably have their hands full!" shouts Kelar as he starts his charge.
Kelar leaps to Ayazin's aid, missing with all weapons.
Britan hurries forward...and also fans on a giant.
Raz's second spell goes off, and four more missiles pour into the same giant as he attacked before, leaving the monster badly hurt.
Sharone looks to move past the giants and move to help with the drow. Leaving the mages and fighters to clean up the giant fodder.
She has her shield and sling ready to defend herself.
As she starts to move past the giants, six bugbears come charging out of the side passage by the giant's fire, spot you all, and charge to the aid of the giants.
A general melee erupts.
Out in the passage:
Seeing the bugbears, Sharone moves back to the group. Switching to her sling and bullets she targets the nearest bugbear.
Aldarin continues to melee with the giant, hoping for a groin shot. As the elf swings his sword he is crunched for 7 hit points by the giant. That is the hill giant's last hurrah, though, as Aldarin next brings him down with his flaming sword.
A bugbear leaps at him.
Mikodin scrambles back behind the giants/fighter's front lines to safety, and picks up and reloads his crossbow to shoot a bugbear, shouting encouragement to his fellow adventurers:
"Send these vile beings to the pits they crawled out of!"
Brennon draws his other dagger, and waits for the onslaught to come using the wall and the others for some protection. He will defend with his dagger should anything get near him.
Beth casts a magic missile spell, spreading the missles between two bugbears. Her spell softens up four bugbears.
Ayazin keeps the giants busy in melee. This time the giant swats him for 7 hit points, as the druid barely manages to miss with his scimitar. Beside him, Kelar does a better job of missing...first with his falchion sword and then with his scimitar. Unfortunately, Britan fails to make it a complete sweep of failure, connecting and landing a grazing blow.
In the cave:
Jo-owrn finally finishes off the leader drow, and jumps at a bugbear.
Humphrey easily chops down a bugbear.
Farad is dinged for 7 hit points by a bugbear, as he fans with his sword.
In the passage:
Aldarin finds himself in melee again, as he swings his blade while dodging a blow. He misses.
The last giant still preoccupies Ayazin, Kelar and Britan. Ayazin misses but Kelar connects and kills the fellow at last. Bugbears rush forward to take the giant's place. The cavalier greets the first one with a deadly blow, chopping him down.
A bullet strikes another bugbear in the shin, and you hear bones break. The monster howls. His troubles are compounted when a quarrel embeds itself in his shoulder.
In the cave:
This time Farad cuts down his foe.
Once Farad is able to finish the foe before him, rather than immediately engage the next, he uses the few instants before another can step up to release a lightning bolt before him, hopefully taking out not only the next bugbears but any behind it as well.
Jo-owrn makes extremely short work of another bugbear, as does Humphrey beside him.
Farad releases his bolt, blowing the last bugbear in the cave into little bits.
Out in the passage, six bugbears still remain.
Brennon slings his remaining dagger at the closest bugbear, hoping to finish one of them off, and to help somewhat.
Unfortunately, the dagger flies wide.
Aldarin continues to melee with the new menace before him. This bugbear is particularily large and ugly, and an unpleasant cesspool smell follows him about. Aldarin's blade bounces off of his splint mail as he sidesteps a blow from the bugbear's sword.
Mikodin shoots a crossbow bolt at the nearest bugbear, reloads, and continues shooting until no more targets are available.
The monk nicks another bugbear.
Ayazin rushes to melee the missile-injured bugbear, leaving the fresh ones to the more talented fighters. The bugbear he turns away from takes a swipe at him but misses.
Farad runs to join the melee, sending two spells of magic missiles before him at any bugbears already engaged in fighting. His spells distract the bugbear that Ayazin was attacking, and nearly topples another on Kelar.
Beth fires off her other magic missile spell, attempting to coordinate with Farad by aiming at two bugbears that he's not attacking, and in generally going after the strongest looking ones. Her spell blasts into the monster on Aldarin.
Seeing all the mages starting to cast, out of the corner of his eye, Kelar smiles, knowing this battle is about to become a fireworks stand and continues attacking with both swords.
"It is going to get bright in here real soon, I think," says Kelar to no one in particular.
Raz decides to enter the fray, and starts casting magic missile spells at the various bugbears. With one missile he kills that pesky one pursuing Ayazin, topples the one on Britan, and finally kills the one that the druid was hoping to attack.
Kelar is whacked for 5 hit points, as he fans with all weapons. Humphrey arrives, and misses too.
Britan faces another bugbear as Jo-owrn rushes over. The cavalier dings the bugbear, causing him to miss. The ranger, though, kills him handily.
Two bugbears remain. Farad makes short work of the bugbear that had been assailing Aldarin, and Kelar does likewise with his foe.
No more of the enemy remain alive.
Pleased with yourselves, you search the bodies, and come up with 2400ep, 1200gp, 4 gems (500gp ea.), 221cp, 117sp, 104ep and a further 65gp.
Jon swaps his drow clothes with ones from the dead drow, just to make sure that they are fresh.
He says, "How do we divide the money? Take a 12th share?"
While this is being discussed, Jon detects magic around the area using Geerzo.
"Nope! Nothing here!" says the sword.
"Why don't we worry 'bout treasure up top where we have time?" states Kelar to Jon.
Beth agrees. "If we can just divide it for now amongst people who won't be too overburdened by carrying it, we can mix it together with anything else we find and divide it next time we're out of here."
"Why not rest here for the night? It looks defensible."
Mikodin agrees with Jon that stopping soon for the night is a good idea, but, "Perhaps our group should move a little way from the battle scene -- lots of large dead bodies is sure to attract unwanted attention, and this group may have been waiting for someone, someone we don't want to meet with much of the group's offensive spell-casting ability shot in this fight."
Mikodin then checks for secret doors, sliding or illusionary walls and the like with Jon.
No one finds any secret doors.
This little cave complex actually sits at an intersection. A primary passage heads off to the northwest, while a narrower passage runs west.
"Nice work everyone..." says Kelar, looking over the dead bodies. "For once, things went our way."
He turns to Beth.
"We do need somewhere to stop...any suggestions?" asks Kelar of the map maker.
Beth looks around. "Uh..."
"Northwest for us, when we're ready," says Jo-owrn, looking pleased.
Brennon recovers his errant daggers, and sees if any other daggers are lying about at the various battle scenes that he can add to his arsenal. Also noting that others have acquired drow garb, cloaks and boots, he does likewise.
The drow wore chain mail and had bucklers, a dagger apiece, shortswords and hand crossbows. Each carried ten bolts for the crossbows. One drow also carried an atlatl with three javelins. None of the equipment radiates magic, but it is all of very good quality. The bugbears wore splint mail, and had shields and longswords...all of poor quality.
"I think it's a good idea to find a secluded spot to rest. I for one need to relearn some spells, and I am sure the other mages need to likewise."
When the others are ready to move on, he will follow.
You set off to the northwest down the widest of the passages. After an hour or so you spot a narrow crack in the left wall, and, when you scout it out, discover a small cave down a short tunnel beyond. You stay here for the night, and Farad heals you all up.