Battle at the Old Bridge

10 of High Sun, afternoon

The mage hadn’t looked well to start with, rat-like with pale skin tinted a jaundiced yellow like a smoker’s beard. But now, with Enid and Den bearing down on him, he was sweating and bleeding from a broken nose. He fired off a blast of arcane energy, staggering Enid. Den leapt onto the mage’s bended knee and hoisted himself up with a fistful of greasy leather vest so that he might pepper the spell caster’s already ruined nose with more punches.
‘Stop. Stop,’ the mage wailed, ‘I’ll walk away. I’ve done what they paid me to do, I’ve got nothing personal against you. I can just walk away.’
‘You’re not one of the Poor Sons?’ Asked Den.
‘No mate, me and Skarn were hired out of Triel. Paid to ambush you. It’s not personal.’
Den readied another punch, ‘Give me that potion of healing at your belt, and I’ll let you live.’
‘No way, I’m going to need this!’

On the other side of the ancient Elven bridge, Ilyad parlayed with the bandit captain, Roos. ‘Last chance, girly,’ he said, ‘Hand over the key, and I won’t cut you down, though the Gods know that John Shade wants you dead.’
‘What key?’ Ilyad replied.
Tossing the Turkey leg he’d been munching, Roos drew a flintlock pistol from his belt and shot her square in the chest. He then swiftly covered the ground between them, drawing a scimitar, which he raked across her body. The wards of Agathys were the only thing that protected Ilyad, sending a numbing frost creeping up Roo’s sword arm as he gritted his teeth.

Featherfew, still in the form of a Giant Wolf Spider, skittered away from the severed troll arm, thrashing blindly on the bridge, and raced to Ilyad’s side, biting into Roos, before emerging from his wild shape and resuming his human form. The mercenary, Skarn, swung his hammer at Burley’s head, which the Goliath game warden nimbly dodged. A brief look of profound regret washed over the tough’s battle-scarred face before Burley lopped it from his shoulders and turned to protect his friends.

The bandits perched in the scraggly bushes at the edge of the dried out creek bed, turned their fire onto Enid and Den, showering them with arrows. The mage showed Enid his upturned palms, as though to say, ‘I’ve surrendered,’ so she turned her back on him and opened the tinderbox that she received from the wizard, Robard Blandish. Inside, a tiny mote of fire pinwheeled with manic energy. ‘You know who I love,’ Enid said, ‘Eat the rest. Gorge yourself.’ And she blew the mote of flame toward the bandit blocking the bridge.

Pebbles crept around the corner of the house, peeping through a broken window to see the bard, Lapidarius Greylock, tied up and menaced by another bandit. Two fingers to his temple, he sharpened a thought into a needle and sent it lancing into the bandit’s unsuspecting mind. Stunned, the villain turned to the window, where he locked eyes with the young sorcerer, who held his gaze and hypnotically ensorcelled him. ‘The fight’s over,’ Pebbles whispered, ‘time to cut the old man loose.’
‘Aye aye,’ the bandit responded.

Chaos swept across the battlefield, as Featherfew’s familiar, Mrs Bunch, swooped at the bandits by the creek-side, and the troll arm snaked horribly toward Burley and Ilyad, its black talons clawing a the earth to drag itself along. As the wizard turned and ran for the treeline, Den bounded over to the riverside, leaping through the air to plant a two-footed kick on one bandit, knocking him down into the dried creek, where he crumpled into a barely conscious heap. Nimbly, Den danced across to the other precariously perched archer and attempted to knock him down too, but the man managed to hold his ground.

Inside the ruined cottage, the bandit untied Lapidarius, removing the gag from his mouth. As he did so, the bard uttered one of the great battlecries of his dwarven ancestors, sending the bandit flying with a thunderous boom. His body broke against the wall of the cottage and he fell still upon the ground. Then the elderly bard clambered to his feet and hobbled to the door of the cottage. Seeing the skirmish that was underway, he aimed an inventive stream of invective at the Dragonborn bandit, but it fell on deaf ears as Roos was intent on retrieving Ilyad’s key.

Roos growled and slashed at Ilyad again, the frost spreading further up his arm. But he knocked her down and as she fell, he tore her purse from her belt, then turned and ran. Burley swiped at his retreating back, but caught only thin air, but the severed troll arm bore him no love, and it clawed him viciously as he fled.

The mote of flame grew as it travelled through the air, taking on an impish form, and then, hovering above the bridge, its chest expanded like a great bellows, before disgorging a great gout of flame all over a screaming bandit. Enid whispered a quick prayer, before finishing the luckless man with a well-aimed javelin. The fire spirit seemed to grow rather than diminish as it let its light burn.

Featherfew administered a healing salve to Ilyad before racing in pursuit of Roos, while Burley hacked at the writhing arm, seemingly killing it. Revived, Ilyad also righted herself and pursued the fleeing miscreant. Pebbles saw Roos for the first time as he cleared the corner of the cottage, and noticed that the bandit wore a gleaming golden gauntlet, uncannily similar to the pauldron of Sir Starling that he had inherited from his mother. Taken aback and wanting to know more, he offered Roos a chance to surrender, hesitating in delivering a decisive blow.

Den knocked the other bandit into the creek bed and then raced back over the bridge to join in the pursuit of Roos. Lapidarius moved with surprising swiftness to Burley’s side, seizing the inanimate troll arm and flinging it into the gulch, shouting, ‘Get rid of it! Before it starts moving again.’ Seeing Pebbles hesitate, the Dragonborn seized his chance, and breathed a horrifying jet of acid across Ilyad and Featherfew, knocking them off their feet, and also caught the fast approaching Den. With that, he smirked at the halfling sorcerer, and darted into the thick foliage to the south.

Enid watched, somewhat horrified, as the mephit consumed the fallen bandit, growing larger as it did so. Fearing what she had unleashed, she threw a javelin at it, but the weapon ignited and burned away. The fire spirit turned, glowering at her, before hastening away, making strange crackling noise that sounded like a voice muttering, ‘Eat the rest. Gorge. Gorge. Gorge.’

Burley darted forward and tended to his friend Featherfew, ensuring that he was still breathing. Pebbles raced into the shrubbery, searching for Roos, but was immediately disoriented. The troll limb in the dried creek bed twitched and sprang back to life. Lapidarius ran to Ilyad’s side, but was unable to revive her: ‘This woman is beyond saving, I’m afraid,’ he said sadly. Den bounded after Roos as well, streaking beyond the baffled Pebbles, only to find himself similarly lost, his quarry vanished. Pebbles returned and revived Ilyad with one of the medicinal elixirs from Jago’s still.

Ilyad sat up and pulled off her boot, shaking it until a heavy silver key plopped out onto the dirt. Split-lipped and filthy, she grinned up at Pebbles: ‘He didn’t get it,’ she said. Somewhere far off, the party imagined Roos upending Ilyad’s purse, finding only a handful of coins, and some scant items.

Elsewhere, the last surviving bandit picked his way carefully and quietly along the dry gully, intent on escape and survival. But behind him, he heard a wild skittering of loose river stones and looked back, fearfully. The party heard a distant scream as the troll limb leapt upon the hapless vagabond and tore out his throat.

Depleted by this brutal encounter, the party decided to call an early end to the travelling day and set about making camp in the ruined cottage. Pebbles fossicked through the detritus and came up grinning, clutching his prize: an old glass eye! Outside, Enid buried the golden acorn Father Kendrick had given her in the loose soil by the bridge and said a quick blessing of Chauntea over it. Almost immediately, a tiny bright green shoot pushed its way to the surface and a subtle sense of calm and safety descended over the spot.

Around a fire in the cottage’s old hearth, the party chatted to Lapidarius, who told them how he had been ambushed by the bandits on his way to Margaux’s Farm - a sprawling estate on the other side of the Wind Way, where many amusing parties and celebrations were held. He marked the location on the party’s map, and suggested they visit some day. As a frequent visitor to the Dower, he knew of each of the friends, but had only really gotten to know Den in the past; grateful for their aid, he said that he would like to each of them better. He then asked for further help: some provisions to see him the rest of the way to his destination. In return, he told them a tale, one of the stories from his long repertoire.

Afterwards, Pebbles ruminated on old legends and tall tales, and fished the picture book his mother had made out of his cart. Leafing through it, he was struck by one page in particular, which featured a few familiar names; it seemed that his mother, when a young squire travelling with Sir Starling, had also met Sir Lamlas and Sir Hugo, Ilyad’s adoptive father! The party agreed that they would ask the old hedgewarder for more information next time they met.

As the fire faded to embers, and Lapidarius snored gently on his bedroll, the party kept chatting long into the night. They discussed the different ways in which casting magic felt to each of them, and where their various powers came from. Enid confided her feelings about Ma Marigold’s new charge, Verity, and her seeming rejection as Ma’s apprentice. Pebbles asked Featherfew what it was like to speak with animals, and Enid caught a glimpse at the young halfling’s sketchbook, in which he had drawn a suggestive picture of Boskin Morrow astride a muscular ‘dire pony.’ They also speculated on the identity and nature of Den’s mentor, Candlefoot, who never spoke nor removed his strange white porcelain mask. Finally, prompted by her friends, Ilyad closely examined her key, and prepared a ritual to divine its magical secrets…