On the opposite side of the map from the Loot Bastards, a group of Halfings and humans gathered in a hidden burrow to plan their assault on the holdings of the Giantess Morwenna.
- Ashton "the Astounding" Humblehair, Halfling Magic User
- Falfer Humblehair, Halfling Magic User
- Gwimbly the HoBroken, Crippled Human Athlete
- Jack Fatherd, Human
- Roddy Applecreek, Halfling Alchemist
Their homes had been destroyed by Morwenna, their families eaten or enslaved. Or they were just sick of watching atrocities and not doing anything. They had a mission, explained to them by the Halfling Guerrilla leader Cruick and the Deep Elf Carnamagos, agent of the Hundred Hands from the Commonwealth.
Morwenna was going to die on her wedding day, Jack Fatherd would make sure of that with his empowered death spell. But that wasn't enough to stop her followers committing atrocities after she was gone. They had to be cut down to size prior the main event. And the most effective way to do that was to cut off their source of scrolls. They manufactured them using a magic item in their main base, southwest of the Giantess' steading. The five guerrillas had to either steal or destroy it.
They
worked out a plan where Carnamagos and Cruick would assault the
Giantess' meatcamp after the Guerrillas took out the scroll generator,
taking advantage of the confusion to wreck her demihuman abattoir and
free the captives held there. Jack Fatherd handed out a couple magic items he took with him when he left the Bastards, and they set off into the forest. It was already dark, which suited everyone just fine.
The Halfling hideout was only a few miles away from One Ear's camp, hidden by smart bushcraft and the shielding hand of their loving God Moonshades. The most direct route was through a camp of Goblin Wolf-Riders, whose canine mounts could scent even the stealthiest adventurers. Roddy set a forest fire, using flammable oils to ignite the damp wood and cloak everyone in smoke. The Goblins fled the flames and the soot masked the Guerrilla's smell. They crossed a ravine full of rainwater, Gwimbly leaping across on his good leg to secure a rope for the others. A couple hours later and they were perched atop a glacial erratic boulder, looking down into the soldiers' star fort a couple miles away.
The star fort was a pentagonal series of earthworks encircling a military camp, with a field of fire that covered the sawmill, dock and slave barn that stood in the shadow of Morwenna's mountain steading. The fort was full of soldiers, ogres and war dogs. The barn holding the slaves was defended by a couple grunts, maybe a hundred feet away from the main base. There were a few boats moored at the riverside dock, two miles south of the walled dinosaur garden on the lakeshore.
The Guerrillas went south into the woods, intent on fording the river out of sight of the fort. Gwimbly tossed his grappling hook across at the point where the trees grew closest over the water and the team shimmied across. They dodged a sleeping owlbear on the way down, curled up in the hollow of a tree on the riverbank.
Ironfeathers
The plan was: Jack and Roddy would sneak up to the edge of the fort, while Gwimbly and the Humblehair Brothers crept along the riverbank to the slave barn. They'd disable the guards, rescue the slaves, then send a signal to the other two at the fort, who would sneak in and disable the scroll printer. Then one of them would make a mad dash to the docks and steal a barge, using it to ferry the Guerrillas and freed slaves across the river to escape pursuit.
Gwimbly climbed on top of the sawmill and set up with his crossbow. It wasn't guarded at night, the soldiers weren't afraid of anyone stealing logs. The Brothers kept out of sight until they were within casting distance of the barn where the slaves were kept, and cast Sleep to disable the guards. They finished off the unconscious goons and took their weapons, but couldn't find keys to the locked door of the building. Fortunately the barn had a hay door on the top level, and when the brothers climbed up they found a pulley system still in working condition. All the soldiers did was remove the ladder leading up to the hayloft from the barn floor.
Outside, a group of six musketeers and a hunting dog went out to check on the soldiers at the barn, who were no longer standing out front in the light of the lantern. Gwimbly tossed a piece of pemmican off the roof of the sawmill to make the dog change course, keeping them distracted.
There were maybe forty slaves, mostly humans with a few Halflings and a single Orc. The Humblehair Brothers found three of their relatives amid the captives: Aunt Zenelle Cherryshine, their cousin Feinleigh Humbleshine, and their dad Nesire Humblehair. They woke up Nesire and gave him a piece of smoked trout, then told him to quietly wake the others. He woke up the Orc and the two of them roused the rest of the slaves. Ashton made a sound like a night chough to signal that the rescue had begun.
Otherworld
Jack and Roddy rushed across the dead ground outside the perimeter earthworks in an unguarded moment. The dogs inside the base picked up their scent momentarily, even covered with ash and smoke they smelled strange and threatening. Jack called on the Liberator and the Grain Goddess and the Tower of Pain to hide him and a soldier clouted the offending hound into silence, uninterested in its distressed whining in the middle of the night. They peered over the wall and noted three points of interest: an opulent tent, an important looking tent, and a dugout well away from the other structures that was probably the powder magazine.
The dog outside the fort found the food tossed by Gwimbly. The soldiers assumed it had just found someone's lunch dropped during the day and continued toward the barn. They shouted for the sentries to stop being drunken louts and come out. Not finished evacuating the slaves out the haydoor on the second level, Ashton threw his voice using magic. He shouted from the riverbank that he was sick, then made a convincing vomiting sound. The patrol assumed he had eaten some of the cannibal meat from the abattoir, mocked him and left.
Roddy and Jack scaled the wall and dashed across the open ground surrounding the powder magazine. Roddy quickly scooped black stuff from a barrel and made six improvised hand grenades while Jack found an empty tent to steal laundry from. The soldiers' uniforms wouldn't pass close inspection, especially on a Halfling, but they would mask their smell from the fort's dogs. After a little deliberation they decided to try the important looking tent first. It was guarded by a pair of dismounted dragoons, taking guard duty much more seriously than the sentries on the walls. There was no way to sneak past them. Jack shot one with a magic arrow and killed him instantly. Roddy slapped his in the side of the knee with his Dwarven baton, then stuffed an explosive charge in his mouth to finish him off. They dragged the bodies into the tent with them.
Ibid
Inside
the tent was a writing table with a huge roll of vellum, a big tub of
completed scrolls, three slaves asleep on the groundcloth (one of them
waking up as they entered) and an altar of Wild Magic: a sculpted
buffoon crucified on a wheel of fortune, grinning mouth perfectly sized
to accept a standard piece of parchment. The slaves couldn't speak,
their vocal cords had been removed to stop them casting from the scrolls
they prepared. Jack promised to rescue them and shoveled all the
scrolls into his dump bag. Roddy put one grenade in the statue's mouth
and another on the axle of the wheel, with anti-tamper fuses timed to
give the pair just enough time to escape with the slaves. Jack Fatherd sawed through the fabric on the opposite wall of the tent.
An ogre noticed the bloodstains on the flaps and shouted from outside the tent. The alarm was raised. The Halfling and human ran for the perimeter wall, accompanied by the three slaves. The soldiers fired their muskets, and only divine intervention on the part of Jack's Gods stopped them from mowing down Roddy. They hit the wall ahead of the pursuing ogres and a single war dog. Jack helped the slaves over, easily keeping the beast at bay with his enchanted shield until he could leap over and join them. Gwimbly fired his crossbow into the camp from the roof of the sawmill, pulling away soldiers with sniper fire from the opposite direction.
The charges on the Wild Magic altar exploded. A wave of supernatural energy passed through the star fort. The occupants were Hasted and Dimension Doored, teleporting them randomly throughout the area.
An Ogre and a Combat Scribe landed right in the middle of the forty slaves hiding behind the barn. The Ogre immediately began laying about with his greatsword, terrifying the escapees and sending them fleeing in all directions. The Combat Scribe identified the Humblehair Brothers as the real problem and immobilized them with a scroll of Hold Person. He leisurely approached for a coup de grace and was blocked by Nesire and the nameless Orc, who fought him using the sword and musket taken from the dead guards. The Humblehairs' aunt and cousin dragged the paralyzed duo out of the fighting to hide on the riverbank.
Ibid
Roddy and Jack had their escape blocked by a similarly Hasted Ogre and
swordsman. Roddy evened the odds with a grenade while the three slaves
ran for the treeline, and the duo finished the fight with hand weapons
before the speedy soldiers could inflict much damage. They made a run for the docks to steal a boat.
A light shone at the top of the hill, descending down the enormous earth ramp from the Giantess' steading. It was Morwenna herself, carrying a huge lantern with a mirror to reflect the bonfire inside like a searchlight. She carried soldiers on her shoulders and she shouted at her troops to rally around her in a skirmish line. Order was immediately brought to a chaotic situation, the scattered Hasted goons ran toward her to form up. Jack was caught in the beam of the lantern, but the stolen uniform prevented the Giantess from immediately identifying him as an interloper. He acted like he was getting into formation until she turned the light elsewhere then ran for the dock, where Roddy had already doused the boats with flammable oil. They cut the barge loose and poled it away from the dock. Gwimbly climbed down from the roof and ran along the riverbank, matching their progress.
The barge floated down the river, toward the bank where the rest of the Guerrillas were hidden. Morwenna threw a treetrunk and sank it with one hit. The broken barge and tree trunk got stuck, wreckage forming an impromptu bridge. Zenelle Cherryshine and Feinleigh Humbleshine hauled the still-paralyzed Humblehair brothers across before it got washed away. The immobilized duo caught one last glimpse of their father, fighting alongside the Orc against a wave of soldiers as Morwenna's troops cleared the landscape in a line. Then he was gone.
PrehistoryByLiam
Inside, Vovek the Gnome and a pair of garden slaves soothed a frightened Ankylosaurus, distressed by the sounds of gunfire and explosions from the south. Vovek assessed the situation and the two adventurers, brandishing nasty weapons, soaked in blood and powder residue. Jack Fatherd said he was leaving and she was welcome to come. Vovek made a barking sound, then a bird-like whistle. Inside a minute every dinosaur and every slave in the garden was outside the hut. She told Jack to lead the way.
If they fled west they'd be immediately spotted by the Giantess, so the group went east. The wedding venue was lightly defended and the handful of musketeers inside weren't interested in trying to stop the massive diplodocus or pack of raptors. The dinosaur convoy continued east to the pampa, where Vovek decided to release the dinos. Morwenna didn't care much about a handful of slaves, but cared a lot about her dinosaurs. A convoy of enormous lizards would ensure the Giantess followed them, whereas if the dinos were scattered she'd chase after them individually and give the slaves plenty of time to get away.
Jack, Roddy, Gimbly and the Humblehairs exfiltrated into the countryside, hoping the mission at the abattoir had been a similar success, albeit with more of the slaves rescued alive.
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