In this session, our party regrouped and snuck some prisioners out of camp…

Aegar and Pliny, super stealthy sneakers

• Pliny Pan and Aegar “Pots & Pans” Daendriyan circled around the plateau and found a spot along the south wall that was out of the line of sight of the remaining watchtower and near the suspected prisoners’ tent.
  • They noticed raiders milling about, mostly celebrating and settling down to eat or sleep.
• As the light faded into night, they changed into the black garb they had stolen previously, and descended to the camp in a “stealthy” fashion, and luckily were not noticed.
• Zoyana, in spider form, was able to notice the pair, and intercept them for a quick powwow. She shifted back into halfling form and sends them both a mental message saying,
  • “First off, shut the fuck up. You guys are too fucking loud.”
  • “Number 2, we need to reassess our plan real fast…” And the party discussed what Zoyana had seen:
    • “The raiders have no idea that the party or the people in Greenest know anything about what’s going on.”
    • “They don’t think that we thwarted them in any way. They don’t know anything about us.”
    • “Two, they have Leosin and they’re going to hang him in the morning. So we have to move quickly”
    • “Three, they’re hatching some dragon eggs in the cave right now. And if we don’t figure out what is going on with that then they’re going to have it fortified so we’re never going to get in.”
    • “I have even more guys, but that’s all we need right now”
• The party discussed what to do about the dragon eggs and how to find and save Leosin.
  • There’s one in and one out to the cave.
  • They could try to find Leosin
• The party’s deliberations were cut short by calls of “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Rescue Attempt

• Pliny came up with a plan: acting nonchalant and in full performance mode as a “guard” he collected Zoyana as a “prisoner”.
  • Aegar cast Shield of Faith on Pliny.
• Pliny and Zoyana walked between the tents towards the presumed prisoners’ tent.
• As they approached, one of the guards on the nearest tent turned to them: “What? Ho” and extended his arm and wiggled his fingers, “Hail Tiamat”
  • Pliny replied in kind with hand extended and “Hail Tiamat”
  • A discussion ensued about Pliny’s “capture” of an “escaped” prisoner, and the guard waived the pair on.
  • As they walked past, they spied Leosin inside that tent, strung up to a wooden X, arms and legs spread.
  • Zoyana passed a message through Fang to Aegar that Leosin was in that tent.
• Aegar approached the tent holding Leosin, and started trying to quietly cut a slit in the tent.
• One of the guards suggested that Pliny and he swap positions so that the guard could let Zoyana “loose” and “catch” her again.
• At the prisoner’s tent, Pliny again hailed the guards and introduced his “prisoner”, then brought Zoyana inside the tent.
  • Pliny and Zoyana counted 11 prisoners, including 8 humans that looked to be farmers or townsfolk that they presumed to be from Greenest and 3 dwarves.
  • After a short discussion/interrogation, they gathered that
    • “They work us till we die, then the feed us to whatever vile monsters they have in those caves.”
    • One of the prisoners named Rashida would not stop crying and calling out for her husband “Tom” who had been taken into the caves. She was sure he was still alive, because she would “just know” if he died.
• Pliny exited the tent and bluffed the guards into leaving to break up the fights because “Rezmir is tired of all the infighting” while Pliny stayed back to watch the guards. Somehow, the guards bought it and left.
• Back inside the tent, Pliny used Calm Emotions and his persuasive charm to convince the prisoners that he and Zoyana were there to save them, and they proceeded to untie and release the prisoners.
  • Seven of the humans and the dwarves looked shell-shocked but compliant, and the one lady continued sobbing “Tom. We can’t leave without Tom.” Zoyana punched her, and Pliny finally convinced her to leave with them.
• Pliny led the prisoners out of the tent in a line, as if they were on a prison walk, down toward where he and Aegar climbed down the plateau.
  • One of the guards on Leosin’s tent saw them: “Woah! What in the hell are you doing?”
  • Aegar snuck around the back side of Leosin’s tent while the guards were distracted
  • Pliny tried spinning a story about the walk being Rezmir’s orders as punishment for prisoner-Zoyana’s escape. It didn’t raise suspicion, but didn’t convince the guard to let them keep walking either.
  • Before the guard could reply any further, Aegar and Zoyana attacked.
  • Zoyana lashed out with her Thorn Whip, wrapping it around the neck of the nearest guard and pulling him towards her.
  • The Guard, on guard from the weirdness of the marching prisoners, responded quickly with a scimitar slash of his own.
  • The other guard, now on alert, turned toward Aegar and slashed out with his scimitar, hurting the dragonborn slightly.
  • Pliny stabbed the one attacking Zoyana, crumping him to the ground.
  • Aegar reached out to grapple his foe, to no avail, and then bashed the guard with his warhammer.
  • In the melee with Aegar, Zoyana missed the guard with her Thorn Whip
  • The guard swings twice at Aegar, plinging off the plate mail.
  • Pliny shoos his pastle of prisoners on, and then sends a corssbow bolt through the chest of the remaining guard.
• After looking around to ensure their brief scuffle wasn’t notice, Aegar ducked into the tent with Leosin and spied an additional 4 half-elf prisoners.
  • Agear wasted no time re-introducing himself from Leosin and releasing him from his bonds.
  • Leosin did a double-take, and then recognized Aegar and began to help.
  • Aegar asked about the half-elves, Leosin said yes, and Aegar freed them too.
  • Leosin went to step forward and collapsed, and then started to get up a little bit.
  • Aegar Laid on Hands, which made Leosin look much better, though still horribly exhausted.
• Aegar caught Leosin up:
  • The party got word that the cultist were trying to hatch dragon eggs. They planned to destroy the eggs before they left.
  • In Leosin’s opinion, it was a choice between a suicide mission to get the eggs or geting out of the camp. The dead guards were going to be discovered, and anyone going into the cave would be coming out to a camp on high alert.
  • Aegar and the party chose to try to get the prisoners out of the camp, and then return for the eggs if possible.
• Zoyana cast Pass without Trace on the entire group.
  • Moving extra slow, at half speed with all the exhausted prisoners.
  • They make it to the top of the mesa without signs of detection
• The party had a brief discussion of returning to raid the cave or focus on escaping the prisoners, or possibly destroying the cave now, and clarified the situation with Leosin:
  • The prisoners were clearly exhausted and needed more help than just being untied.
  • The cave was too large to destroy with the tools and abilities they had on hand.
  • Attacking the cave would take too long and couldn’t be done before the camp became aware of the prison break.
  • They probaby did need to take care of the eggs, but any fortifications would take days and weeks to build.
  • Leosin:
    • “We do need to get the get those eggs taken care of, because that’s not okay, whether you can get in there and smuggle them out, great if you can. Otherwise, you’d need to smash the eggs. Well, that’s a choice that you guys need to make. Either way, having multiple dragon hatchlings on the loose is not good for anybody.”
    • Time is of the essence right now
    • Leosin did know that the raiders were moving out soon, but didn’t know where they were headed. They were definitely planning to secretly transport the treasure disguised as a merchant caravan (which he caught while he was being tortured). They would probably be splitting the carts and incorporating them into multiple caravans.
    • He also thought that they needed to figure out what city they were headed to and what their travel plan was.
    • In fact, they had already started moving out some of the treasure they took from Greenest and other places.
    • Discovering their actual plans and disrupting whatever plans they had going inside that cave was probably a good idea.
  • When asked about what was in the cave, Leosin knew that there were kobolds and a barraks of cultists inside the cave, as well as Frulam (the black-haired lady) who seemed to be one onn point for the cave and the camp.
    • Rezmir was staying in the command tent, and was clearly in charge-charge.
      
    • The red wizard came in and out of the cave, and Leosin knew that there were supposedly a clutch of dragon eggs inside, though he hadn’t seen them. (not the same red wizard as the party had encountered in Phlan)
    • There were a couple other clerics or senior cultists or something going in and out. They were not wearers of purple, so they were not the in-charge folks.
    • They are (or have been) been storing the treasure and loot from their raids inside the tent. They would do some sorting out front, and then bring carts into and out of the cave.
  • The session closed with the party on the back side of the mesa at approximately 9PM on a dark night, with around a dozen exhausted prisoners, a very rough plan, and a camp that could notice the escape at any minute…