29/11 Battle in Fort Rannick, Claw killed.
30/11 Survivors reach Turtleback Ferry. That night they sneak back to Fort Rannick and recover the heads of Claw & Jakadros Sorvak.
4/12 Quillax and the Mayor working together Reincarnate Claw in a new fresh body. Will take until 7/12 to have enough materiel to attempt the same with Jakardos.
Sephiria's Account
The Attack on Fort Rannick… continued
As we pause for breath, we hear the chaos outside in the courtyard as the barracks building that Sephiria had earlier fireballed collapses, trapping several ogres inside who are burned to death. There’s no time to rest as there are still two ogres ahead of us trapped by the door closed between them and their comrades in the rest of the fort. One is dissolved by an Acid Arrow from Sephiria while the other is slashed by Claw.
Rather than taking time to recover from the fight, we decide to push forwards, hoping that the ogres of the fort will still be in disarray from our attack. Quillax remains behind with Moncey to safeguard our exit. With a mighty kick Claw demolishes the door with such force that the ogre standing behind it is knocked to the ground. Between Claw’s axe and Neril’s martial arts, that ogre is quickly killed while Sephiria blasts Silas Kreeg, the ogre who had come up behind it. The spell staggers him but it takes a second scorching Ray then Claw’s axe before he too is defeated.
Neril rushes upstairs to get a clearer idea of the layout and spots a large room, apparently a chapel, from which he hears the deep voice of what is surely a large ogre giving orders to a smaller ogre. As we move up to support him it seems our luck has started to change as the ogres start to rally their defences. Within seconds the empty corridor we had been in fills with four ogres and we catch sight of a female ogre witch doctor.
The ogre in the chapel turns out to be Jaagrath, the leader of the ogres at Fort Rannick. The witch is another Kreeg ogre named Dorella. She blasts a lightning bolt down the corridor, heedless of the fact that she seriously injured on of her own soldiers. Vale ducked the worst of it; Neril dodges out of the way entirely; but Kib is almost killed.
Jarrick pushes into the chapel to take the fight to Jaagrath and is soon joined by Vale, Sehiria and then Claw. Sephiria blasts Jaagrath with the Wand of Scorching Ray pushed to its maximum, but the damage that would have obliterated any of us seems barely to faze the ogre chieftain. Outside the other ogres are continuing the fight and we hear the sounds of further reinforcements.
In seconds, with the ogres now fully on the alert, the fight has gone from a successful raid to a potential deathtrap. Neril reads the situation and urges retreat, so Sephiria grabs the person nearest to her – Jarrick – and Dimension Doors the tow of them to the tree line outside the fort. Neril slips into the shadows and evades the reinforcements as he races for the secret entrance to Lucretia’s chamber and the tunnel to the waterfall.
The ogres in the corridor manage to close of Jakadros and kill the archer. Kib’s last act is to attack his friend’s killer and that ogre will wear the scars from the cougar’s final attack. In the chapel Claw and Jaagrath are locked in a bitter death match as with each blow they both inch nearer death. Vale assists where he can but falls when even more ogres rush to their leader’s aid. In the end Jaagrath’s inhuman stamina wins out though he is reeling and near death when he finally manages to land the death blow on Claw.
Outside, tired and disheartened, we rendezvous with Quillax and return to Turtleback Ferry. On the way we hatch a plan to help Claw thinking that the ogre chieftain will likely want to display the head of so formidable an adversary as Claw, and that head is sufficient for Quillax to be able to reincarnate the Shoanti barbarian.
Using some of the gems we had put aside for Revivify spells, we pay the village Mayor to collect the unguents necessary for the spell while we return to Fort Rannick. In the meantime we continue to advise the villagers on constructing defences for the village against an ogre attack. Our plan is to reconnoitre the fort using Sephiria’s Arcane Eye to check if the coast is clear for a teleport. If a distraction is necessary to draw any ogres to the battlements, Quillax is standing by to create a diversion using Call Lightning should Moncey give her the pre-arranged signal to do so.
Not surprisingly the ogres are now on high alert and we spot a patrol of eight ogres led by one of the Kreegs leave the fort but we manage to avoid it. In the end the plan goes off without a hitch as Sephiria and Neril sneak in using Pass without Trace and then, once they’re close enough use dimension door to quickly get in to grab Claw’s skull before dimension dooring back out. It’s an unlooked for bonus that we manage to grab Jakadros’ skull as well and plan to reincarnate him if we can.
Back in Turtleback Ferry Quillax casts the spell, but even as she calls Claw’s spirit back to the body created for him, she senses three foul creatures trying to destroy his spirit. She relates what she sensed to Sephiria who links it to a Varisian story told before the Chelaxian invasion of four fey sisters, one of whom was Miriana (who we met in the Shimmerglens) and three others who were eaten up inside by their vanity. They became three annis hags, known as the Sisters of the Hook.
The stories give their names as Briselda, a hump back with huge talons; Gralthaga, tall, almost skeletal-looking with purple skin; and Larastine, with sagging breats and whose face is a mass of warts and weeping pustules. When each looks at her own reflection she sees inhuman beauty and laughs at the ugliness of her sisters… We think it’s likely that they, and not Lucretia, were the real power behind using the sihedron rune to drain the unsuspecting townsfolk.
Our current plan is to attack the ogres piecemeal, attacking their patrols when they leave the fort before once again risking an attack on the fort.
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