The vast majority of tonight’s session was taken up by a Fight. Which was fine. We don’t break out Fight very often so we were all a bit rusty, but it was still a lot of fun.
The GM had us fast forward a bit from the last session. So we found ourselves right in the middle of a situation (a Fight), but we didn’t really know how we got there. The plan was to finish the fight and then back fill. Which was a great idea, but we kind of ran out of time and didn’t have a chance to fill in the blanks, so that’ll happen next time.
To Arms!
Flint, Kardin, & Geyrok (along with Drake) find themselves in the middle of a dense forest. From off in the woods Sven (previously missing) runs towards them with his hands bound. Before they know it there are pygmy men everywhere having chased Sven from wherever they came from.
Suddenly a huge roar issues forth from the forest. Out of the dense woods comes a huge 4-armed gorilla, wielding a spear.
The area breaks into chaos. Flint readies Marina (his arbalest) and faces off against the gorilla. There are 3 pygmy men menacing Sven so Geyrok charges towards them. Finally Kardin and Drake square off against a couple other pygmy men.
Flint manages to keep the gorilla at bay (successful Engagement), while most of the pygmies manage to make use of their superior reach with their spears against Kardin & Geyrok (failed Engagement).
Flint immediately lets fly a crossbow bolt, which seems to barely affect the gorilla (B13 wound, which turned out to be Superficial for the gorilla), then manages to draw his hammer out while getting battered by the gorilla and being saved by his Dwarven Mail and fails to disarm the gorilla of its spear.
Geyrok fails to make much progress against the three pygmies he’s facing and they manage to get the upperhand and get in close to start grappling him and trying to drag him away.
Kardin, with help from Drake, is able to put down two pygmy men and get a little breathing room. He has a quick moment to look around (successful Assess in the Eye of the Storm) and he spots Geyrok getting dragged away. Nearby he spots what looks like a sinkhole of some sort that may be of use.
Flint is unable to get the upper hand against the gorilla’s superior reach, but then manages to knock aside the gorilla’s spear and get under its reach just as the gorilla starts moving two of its hands and making odd chanting sounds (beginning to cast a spell).
As Geyrok is getting pulled away by three pygmies Kardin moves in to engage and help him out. While they’re distracted he’s easily about to knock one of the pygmy mean off his feet and into the sinkhole Kardin had previously spotted. After that Kardin is easily able to deal with the two remaining men.
Flint manages to land a hit on the gorilla just as it stops waving its hands around. It opens it’s mouth and belches forth some sparks and smoke (harmless dissipation from a failed casting of Fire Breath). Flint’s hammer smacks against the gorilla’s head, but it seems barely phased (second Superficial hit) .
Meanwhile Kardin has another few moments to check out his surroundings (successful Assess in the Eye of the Storm). Kardin spots some ripped clothing that must have come from what Lea was wearing when she was abducted from the ziggurat. He’s able to tell which way she was dragged off which is an entirely different direction than where Sven came running from. Whatever caused them both to go missing doesn’t seem to be directly related. There’s definitely more going on.
By now the rest of the Dwarves in the area have managed to make short work of the pygmies. With no more backup and unable to make any headway against the armored dwarf (Flint), the gorilla beast runs off into the forest.
Aftermath
Flint makes sure Drake made it through the melee okay as he wants to make sure he makes it home uninjured. After that Flint’s anger gets the better of him so he decides to make an example of the pygmy men. He has them strung up, nailed to trees, and mutilated in the hopes of sending a message not to mess with the dwarves. The scene is grisly and effective (successful Intimidate).
Geyrok grabs some scouts and quickly determines which way Lea would have been taken. The tracks stop cold at a huge quicksand pit with no obvious way around or over.
Kardin starts to question Sven about where he was. Sven admits that he was with some other dwarves when he took his chance to get away. They were still alive when he left.
Also, Flint confronts Drake about just what the hell that gorilla thing was. Drake’s a little wide-eyed “I never thought I’d see one. I thought they were just myths…” Flint presses him harder for information. Drake says that the gorilla is something they call a “Great Man”. Powerful beings that brought knowledge to the various peoples that live in this part of the world. He said it’s how some men have spirit binding, some other able to summon things and some are given the power of alchemy. It sounds like they are some sort of deities almost.
The End
The GM straight-up told us that Sven was lying. So he’s hiding something, but we don’t know what. That’s something we’ll get straightened out next session.
We also cut off the Fight when it was obvious there wasn’t much more to do. With Flint’s Dwarven Mail (gray-shade armor) it was unlikely the gorilla would ever do any real damage to him, but on the other hand the gorilla was so tough that it would have taken forever to wear him down, so it made sense to just have him run off for us to deal with another day.
Also, Reorx’s player had to skip this session, which will make back-filling the story of what happened between the previous session and the Fight even more interesting because the way that left off was Reorx was possibly in a position to disobey Grahm. So we’ll see what happens next time!
Derailed 