Legacies of Exera: Session 15

 

As the party continues up the trail, they come across their old friend Stephononcles who looked defeated and like Stephonocles have had a difficult few nights out in the wilderness. After catching up, Anari notices some smoke out in the distance and the party decides to follow the smoke as they trek down a trail into a wooded butte that split from the main trail that was partially hidden by some bushes. 

As the party heads down the trail they notice three large white dogs keeping pace with them on the side of the woods before encountering a band of the Alpine Cavemen. Harl offers council about the benefits of retreat and starts to move back up the trail before the Alpine Cavemen sounds the charge and the dogs attack as Vladimir charges in blindly. 

The rest of the party are left with no choice but to charge in to attempt to save Vladimir from being surrounded as more and more Alpine Cavemen join the battle that were hidden in the treeline. As the battle rages on, Stephonocles watches Vladimir fall to the Alpine Cavemen's blows and Stephonocles fights his way towards Vladimir to heal but as soon as Vladimir starts to get up another Alpine Cavemen drops Vladimir again along with Enama. At the end of the battle Harl, Gareth, and Helenista are the only left standing and they spend some time dragging their unconscious friends to safety before helping the fallen members wake up. After a quick conversation, it is decided for Gareth to go on a stealth mission to discover what lies at the end of the smoke trail in the sky. 

When Gareth returns, Gareth reports that the smoke trail ends at a rather large Alpine Cavemen village and how the party should probably head back up the trail and leave the village alone. The party decides to go back to the large rock where they fought the hill giant to camp for the night with the safety of cover. 

The next day, the party nearly avoids a rock slide as they are noticed by two small red dragons out for breakfast. The party quickly responds with ranged attacks and spells before the dragons can get into chomping range. Enama and Anari have the honor of the final blows with fist and bolt. 

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PLAYER NOTES: It was fun to be reunited with one of the guest players ala "Stephonocles". The player always gets 100% into character which is always fun. The battle with the dogs and the Alpine Cavemen was a cluster and could have been avoided but decisions were made by other players that negated the effectiveness of the retreat. I thought it is going to be a TPK but we were able to squeak by and survive. The DM explained at the end of the session is that the DM has been heavy handed with random encounters to help us get to the level we should be at for the continuing journey.