Commotion

Nymm 3, 998 YK
near Mossmantle in the Eldeen Reaches

I healed Defender as best as I could, and Alayi healed Tomas. Before we could plan our next actions, we heard voices behind us in the corridor. Someone had seen our torchlight and mentioned it to his companion, who said “Go tell Darvin” and “The beast is dead.” Not wanting a bigger fight than we were about to get, we charged down the corridor, coming to four somewhat startled bandits. We made quick work of them, making sure no one could go back and alert any more thugs to our presence.

We decided to go in the opposite direction from where the bandits had come; and soon heard more voices and saw lights. Creeping forward, we found ourselves looking over a cavern with torches, tables, benches and dozens of male humans gathered; at the far end, a wooden pen was filled with what appeared to be captive farmers. There were two more passages leading out of the cavern. As much as we wanted to rescue the prisoners, there was no way we could fight our way to them— we needed to encounter those bandits a few at a time.

Deciding we could wait for another patrol to come looking for the first, we went back to the displacer beast’s lair and moved the bodies of the dead bandits and closed the gate. It wasn’t long before we heard voices from beyond it: “Damn gate is closed; where the hell are they?” and “Tell Nature Boy his beast is loose.”

While they obtained keys and fumbled with the gate, we had prepared to ambush them, and though the ambush didn’t go quite as intended, we killed two of them. Unfortunately, “Nature Boy” was an Ashbound druid who sicced at least seven wolves on us, so he and another of the men made an escape while we dealt with the summoned creatures.

After the battle, we noticed that Defender wasn’t moving. We were not capable of healing him, but somehow Tomas new that the warforged had a “repair kit” with him, so we dragged his 300-pound mass out into the forest and set about trying to repair him. Well, Tomas and I did, Alayi had to care for her wolf companion who had not fared so well against the summoned wolves.

repairing a warforged is not a quiet affair— it took hours, but eventually he was able to move and talk again, which also meant he could handle further repairs on his own— but only at the expense of the rest of us getting any useful rest.

One of the retired priests in the Cathedral uses a small device to quiet his snoring during services— perhaps we could get something like that for Defender when he’s “fixing” himself. Though, a potion of some sort to restore his body the way a healing draught restores a flesh-and-blood creature may be more effective for now— it would certainly be quieter and quicker.