Episode 1702: What the hell is that?!

When last we left this group we had dispatched a couple of faux owlbears and attempted to blow up one of our teammates and our travel abode. We did find an alarming amount of evidence at the owlbears' cave suggesting there was evil entities at work trying to penetrate the local rangers' guild and other shenanigans. As a reminder, this group consists of:

Tsedek, our charming Tiefling Rogue

Itanis, a devious High Elf Wizard, fond of controlling any situation we may find ourselves in

Leoven, our quiet but effective Wood Elf Ranger

Magnus, the Human Paladin of Heironious, he has followed a vengeance path

Elle, the small but sparky High Elf Wizard, fond of blowing things up with lots of fire

So the next day we set out to continue gathering intel, and hopefully locate the local rangers guild. Travel was going decently well, Itanis periodically adjusting things for more pleasent travel, when late in the day Leoven's "icky creatures" radar goes off. We decide to send Leoven and Itanis up on Storm, Mangus' griffon, while Magnus swaps to Itanis' regular horse. That horse is going to need extra grain tonight after hauling Magnus around. Also, these days Elle no longer rides with Magnus, as she has her own horse.

So our flying team went up and started searching about, while we followed on the ground. After awhile they indicate there's "something" in the distance, give us a direction, and Itanis proceeds to make the forested hills into a wide open plain to ease our travel.

Magnus does what Magnus does and takes off hootin and hollerin towards the closer of the two unknown blips. Basically, attracting all the attention. Tsedek does the opposite, he goes into hiding. He's still traveling with us, he's just not findable. Elle just shakes her head and keeps up with Magnus.

It doesn't take long for the first group of bad guys to find us. Magnus really is kind of a beacon for these sorts of things. We come across a pair of bat-goblins? Definitely evil creepy don't belong on this plane of existence creatures. So attack mode we go.

Itanis and Elle lead off with a pair of ice storms, then Leoven goes into sharpshooter mode. Magnus of course wades in, smashing with his hammer.

While we do a lot of damage, the creatures we're finding these days do a lot of damage as well. And while Elle is a lot tougher than her diminutive stature may indicate, when these guys hit they hit hard and do a lot of damage. One got in her face and got a solid hit in. She dropped a fireball point blank of course, classic move for her.

But we were able to dispatch the bat-goblin demons, and Magnus healed Elle up some before taking off after the next group of enemies. Leoven and Itanis on Storm flew a bit ahead to survey the oncoming trouble, and to mess with the environment to give us advantage.

Turns out the next group was a pair of floating ... heads? Not sure how to describe them, but definitely demonic and evil, riding a mechanical tank belching fire. Oh, goodie. So Itanis does what he excels at and changed the environment. He created a deep pond with straight 90 degree walls right in the path of the mechanical construct so it had no time to avoid. Bloop! Straight into the drink it goes.

While this is going on the ground-bound half of the party is beelining to the fight.

Turns out no one drowned, the floating head demons popped up out of the drink and started towards the ground party. Soon we started hearing loud kabooms coming from the pond as apparently the mechanical tank was blasting itself a ramp to get out. Hey, it slowed it down so definitely a success.

The floating head demons turned out to be much more difficult than their bat-goblin demon scouts, and while we finally managed to dispatch one of them, the other has disappeared on us. It may be going for reinforcements, it may be waiting to pounce when we are busy with the mechanical tank (which has now freed itself from the pond). But Itanis decided to try searching for the missing floating head by glitter bombing the area.

So that's where we'll leave the tale, with Tsedek, Magnus, Elle and all 4 horses covered in glitter.

More soon as believe it or not I'm finally caught up with this storyline!

PS: remember the old math problem we had as children "if train A leaves town A at X time going Y mph and train B leaves town B at Y time and Z mph when do they meet?" Yes, well, that problem we all loathe actually was used in this battle as the two parties barreled towards each other. LOL