Chapter 6: Assault on Urgruem Caverns

Myrdin Doedance: "Okay, this is it. Are you ready Nerea?" The invisible moon elf whispered

"Yes," Nerea responds quietly. She has eschewed her bow in favor of wielding the sword Rhenwald gifted her in his hut, though it feels clumsy in her hands. Anticipation coils tightly in her gut.

Nerea quietly draws rope from her pack. Securing it with Myrdin's help, she tosses it over the edge and watches as it pools at the bottom.

While Nerea and their new associate secure the ropes, Rhenwald quickly drags the bodies of slain orcs to a nearby bush to hide them from sight. As the rest of the party starts climbing, he makes sure to wipe the blood stains as best he can with his boots and cover them up with dirt and fir-needles. Whispering a command to his dog, he makes his way towards the ropes, probably the last of the group, and ties the end of one rope to Lissie, telling the hound to sit still. With a silent wave of his palm, he asks the people up high to drag Lissie up, while the ranger himself starts climbing the second rope.

Glad that they manage their first step without being noticed, Imarra glances over the edge to the other entrance to figure out at what angle things are no longer visible. She then takes her backpack off and places it flat on the ground, near the wall, so it can't be easily seen from below and she isn't weighed down by it. Taking her healing potions and the pearl of power into the small pouch on her belt.

"I imagine we will have a fight on our hands in there. Should I bolster someone with my magic now?" the witch asks, imagening Kardalis or Lissie being the ones most likely to get close to enemies.

"I will gladly take whatever you have to give."
Turning to the group as a whole he mentions a plan he has been thinking of on their way here.
"When we get close to where we think a fight will break, I will gladly head in first and see if I can get behind whoever it is we're fighting, without them noticing. Hopefully then they will believe that we have them surrounded somehow"

Arrows at the ready, Rhenwald silently joins the rest, keeping close to the stone wall, and whispers to Imarra:

"If you're gonna bolster anyone, bolster Kardalis. He's our trump card in close combat." He proceeds to pat Nerea And Avis on the shoulder from behind. "Watch out for the sorceress. Once she appears, she's our priority target."

Leaning against the wall, fingers fiddling with an arrow on the string, Cyrus nods to Amra. "Ready when you are."

As nobody else proposes a better need for her enhancement spells, Imarra casts 'Bull's Strength' and 'Blurr' on Kardalis. Channeling the weave through some hair from a bull into Kardalis. It settles in his muscles, strengthening them (+4 enhancement to Strength). Then she speaks some more magical words and his form becomes harder to see, like viewed through a foggy mirror (grants the subject concealment (20% miss chance)).
Once both spells took effect Imarra readies her crossbow with a bolt and proclaims "Okay, it will last for a few minutes. Let's focus on the shaman if she tries to cast spells that don't take effect immediately, those are usually more powerful.".

Mage Armor still shielding her and her feathered familiar, Avis tightens her grip on her loaded crossbow. "Stay close, Ikkri," she whispers. "This will get bloody."

Ikkri hops from Avis's shoulder to her hood, where he nestles safely.

Myrdin Doedance: "Moonlight Goddess, fill our hearts with courage and guide our aim!" Myrdin prayed in an otherworldly chanting voice and a golden light emited from his folded hands and spread into a sphere around the party, his deity's blessing filling them with courage, grating them a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls and on saving throws against fear effects.

He then placed a hand on Kardalis casting shield of faith and aid on him, and then lastly cast bull's stregnth on himself.

"Ready!"

Amra Braegen: "Let me just summon my little friend and cast a few spells of my own." Amra then summons her dragazhar (night hunter bat) familiar, a human-sized bat-like creature with a 7-foot wingspan, a long, triangular, razor-sharp tail, velvet black fur and violet eyes. She then proceeded to cast shield on herself and shield of faith and aid on the dragazhar, and then lastly she casts spectral hand.

"Time to send some orcs to Lord Kelemvor!"

Amra Braegen: "After you, foul orcs." The priestess sends the floating skeletal hand engulfed in eerie purple light towards the orc chief, then casts a spell coating the spectral hand in rime and giving it a frosty-cold aura, before touching the Cave Father with it, doing 1 negative energy damage.

Her violet-eyed dragazhar emits a weird, echoing, loonlike scream and flies over to the right-most orc warrior, slashing it with its razor-sharp, triangular tail for 4 slashing damage, and attempted to bite, but missing with that.

Myrdin Doedance: "Die wretched orcs!" Myrdin runs to the right of the orc whom the dragazhar attacked, striking it with his magical sword for 13 slashing damage.

Urgruem Warrior: "Dar sharkul furkhas, sharkul murkhas akh um zurkand zakhar!"

Language (Orcish/Daraktan):

The six orc warriors each attack a separate target.

Orc 1 attacks Kardalis, Orc 2 attacks Lissie, Orc 3 attacks Rhenwald, Orc 4 attacks Amra, Orc 5 attacks the dragazhar, Orc 6 attacks Myrdin.

The one attacking Rhenwald hits him for 12 slashing damage. The others miss.

Without ado, Rhenwald shoots at one of the attacking orcs, the bodkin arrowhead plunges into his chest right above the heart. The orc, however, contrary to Rhenwald's expectations, barely stops and finishes his sprint towards the hunter, slashing him on the left arm with a falchion just as the second arrow leaves the string, now diverted as Cyrus has to protect himself. He takes a step back, his forearm badly wounded and bleeding. Lissie throws herself onto the orc and bites his leg with a growl.

"Finish him!" the ranger shouts. "I need healing here!"

(Lissie and Rhenwald deal 19 damage to the orc.)

As the line of orcs rushes their group, Kardalis finds himself toe-to-toe with one of them. He growls quietly "This is not how I like to fight".
The orc takes a wild undisciplined swing at Kardalis, which he deftly sidesteps, and returns with a sharp stab straight into the armpit of the brute.
"You've got to try a little harder than that, phindar"

(11 damage to Orc 1)

As one of the orcs slashes at the ranger, Ikkri crows with worry when blood splatters from Rhenwald's arm. Avis scowls and raises her crossbow. "Don't worry. This one's mine," she says. She trains the crossbow's tip on the orc, waiting for an opening. When Rhenwald slouches to the side, grasping his bloodied arm, she looses her bolt. It shoots over Cyrus's shoulder and into the orc's eye for 4 piercing damage. With a satisfied (and relieved) smirk, she begins to load her next bolt.

Cave Father Orgashram Urgruem: Just as the orc with the bolt in his eye goes down, the Cave Father throws two javelins at the now exposed ranger, but Rhenwald is quick enough to deflect both with his hefty longbow. "Alert the rest of the cave! Death to the intruders!" Orgashram growls, spittle flying from his tusked mouth.

"There's no need to shout," Nerea says, as she reaches out to touch the back of Rhenwald's shoulder. "I'm right behind you."

Her eyes fluttering shut, she relinquishes her hold on Summon Monster II to spontaneously cast Cure Moderate Wounds. Rhenwald's injuries begin to close as he heals 18 points of damage.

"Am I useful yet?" she asks, in a flippant aside to Avis.

Avis looks up from her crossbow just in time to see Nerea's spell. Rhenwald's wounds knit themselves closed before her eyes, staunching the bleeding. It's an impressive feat, to be sure, but Avis is not one to admit fault so easily. "I'll be impressed when all of us get out of this alive, how does that sound?" she says, eyes searching for her next target.

The counterattack of the Orcs comes surprisingly fast and with a strength that is to not be underestimated. Looking around herself she sees the curved swords swinging at her allies and them retaliating as best they can. The words of the orc-leader make Imarra shudder with the thought of the amount of orcs that Doedance mentioned earlier. Stepping back and to the left (5 feet) Imarra readies her crossbow and looks to the orc closest to the side. Not sure who would try his luck to run off, she loosens her crossbow bolt at the orc engaged with Kardalis (for 4 Damage) and loads another bolt.