Slain by Elf

A skirmish followed the Grimlocks' appearance, with more enemies coming from other sides. Two Orcs rounded a corner to confront me, and a couple of Drow appeared from the opposite side, so we were attacked on three sides. One of the Drow had a hand-crossbow, from which it fired a bolt that flew unerringly in to a soft part of our Fighter. Drow are known to use poisons as well, and this bolt was smeared with something that caused our Fighter to collapse, unconscious, to the ground.

With our big hitter out of action, and the Ninja and myself trying to take care of the Grimlocks and Orcs, our Mage had the idea to use the Summon Swarm spell to summon a swarm of bats to distract the Drow before we could deal with them effectively. The swarm worked well, forcing one Drow, who seemed quite weak compared to what we were expecting, to flee. The other stepped forwards in to melee with our Ninja, trying to get him out of the way before the unconscious Fighter could be disposed of with a Coup de Grace. The swarm of bats pursued the nearest Drow, which was the one now in Melee, and again distracted him enough for us to kill him quite easily. With the Grimlocks now down, the fleeing Drow down from his bleeding wounds, one Orc down and the other held with a Hold Person from the Cleric, our party was no longer threatened.

Or so we thought.

The Mage stopped concentrating on the Summon Swarm spell, as it was no longer needed. Knowing that the swarm would linger for a little longer after he stopped concentrating on it he then tried to dismiss the swarm. Hmm, that didn't seem to work. 'We have a bit of a problem, chaps', said he, as he pointed out that the swarm of bats was going to be with us a little longer, and that they tended to move towards the nearest living creature, whereupon they would attack. The only living things left near to the swarm were us, which wasn't good. What followed was everyone moving away from the swarm as soon as they could. Well, everyone who could move. The poor Fighter, being unconscious, was blissfully unaware of the bats swarming around him, nibbling on him like some sort of flesh buffet.

Still, once the swarm had gone we were able to tend to the Fighter's poisoned wound and revive him. He didn't ask about where the smaller wounds came from and, for some reason, no one was going to volunteer the information.

Having defeated the Sahaugin threat we head from town to the major city to see the Duke and report our findings. After some discussion with the Duke and signing a contract to help defend from and eradicate the threat to the city we retire for the afternoon. Having found out that the city is generally attacked by the enemy after dusk and after a caravan has arrived, and having arrived via a caravan ourselves, we get some rest in the afternoon and head out as it is getting dark to patrol the likely area of attack.

In the quiet, moonlit night, we are nearly ambushed by some monstrous humanoids, but our keen ears hear them approach in time, so we turn to ready against the attacks. Seeing these beasties come for us our Mage instinctively reaches for his now-trusty wand of Colour Spray, good for disabling enemies and friendly, summoned porpoises. Just before he discharges the wand, his memory kicks in and after a Knowledge, Nature check realises that what he faces are Grimlocks. With this knowledge are the facts that these creatures have blank eye sockets, and are totally blind. They have blindsight instead to 'see' their way around, and this makes them immune to gaze attacks, illusions, and other sight-based phenomena.

With this, the Mage moves his hand away from the wand of Colour Spray and thinks of something else to do.

Following the waterlogged tunnel that led out of the cavern we were soon in another cavern. On inspection, there was movement in the water, but from smaller beings than the Sahaugin we had encountered. Getting closer revealed these creatures to be the young of the Sahaugin, timid enough to keep away from us at all times and presenting no threat to anyone. Even so, our intrepid Mage, who was 'bravely guarding' the rear, by standing at the back of the party whenever we entered a new area, was keen to slaughter the helpless young. As he and the Ninja considered tactics on how to do this, and the rest of us trying to work out the most effective way of stopping them from even getting close to the young without outright killing the pair of them, the Mage's bold defence of our rear came in to effect, as several adult Sahaugin, most likely come to protect their progeny, charged him aggressively.

Remembering how effective the wand of Colour Spray had been on his own summoned porpoise, effectively sending it to its doom, he once again drew the wand and pointed it in the Sahaugin's faces, uttering the command word. Two of the three he could see were knocked out, giving him valuable time to get to the new back of the party where his valiant defence could once again be called upon, and the Fighter, Ninja and I readied ourselves to despatch our attackers. The one creature that resisted the Colour Spray, and thus proved itself hardier than a friendly porpoise, charged in to our front line, and a further Sahaugin followed behind him. These two were killed with some swiftness, with the Cleric coming in to deliver the killing blow to one, after the Mage waved a dagger in its direction ineffectually, pretending to help in the fight.

This just left the two unconscious creatures to deal with. The Ninja pressed on, and attacked with his trusty rapier one of the unconscious and helpless Sahaugin. Looking very pleased with himself, I asked him what vital spot he had pierced to gain the full effect of his skills. 'Um, his arm, or thereabouts', was muttered back to me.

'But he was helpless. Surely you could have poked his spleen, if Sahaugin have spleens, to deliver a more deadly and sneaky blow.' Now realising that the Sahaugin was in fact helpless and not just faking it, the Ninja stopped trying to defend himself from the legendary, mortal bite attack of an unconscious Sahaugin and stabbed somewhere that his keen Ninja senses told him would leave quite the scar if the victim survived. In this case, the victim did not wake up, so I guess Sahuagin do have spleens. You learn something new every day.

Our Fighter is an all-or-nothing kind of chap. When he is sure of a hit with his Greatsword he will use as much of a bonus from Power Attack as he can, ably felling some enemies with a single blow. When he is facing something a bit more difficult to hit he eschews Power Attack completely. The last fight with the Sahaugin is no exception.

There is one of the aquatic creatures left to defeat, and the others that we had killed in the fight showed them not to be too difficult to injure with a good swing of a weapon. Confidence brims in the Fighter once more, and he flexes his muscles to put everything he can in to his attack, reducing the finesse of the strike as much as possible in favour of hitting hard through the use of Power Attack.

The die skitters across the table, and it lands on a 20! Our heads spin as we try to imagine a number high enough that could represent the damage about to be inflicted by a power-critical. Except the die had landed slightly on the base of one of the miniatures; indeed, that of the Sahaugin, thwarting the Fighter's attack in an out-of-character way. The cocked die was picked up and re-rolled. No natural 20 this time, and the attack bonuses and penalties are applied until the final to-hit roll is calculated.

The result is one less than was required to hit. The Tao of Power Attack does not lie.

Pushing further in to the waterlogged tunnels, and having to quaff each of our potions of underwater breathing to get past some areas, we enter a fairly spacious cavern. Suspecting that the jig is up and the enemy knows we are there, because what sounds like a rather large gong sounds repeatedly right after we enter and we see shapes moving towards us under the water ahead, we prepare for battle.

Half-way through the fight with a few waves of Sahaugin that came upon us, the Mage looks around for the celestial creature that he summoned to help us in battle, and when he cannot see it asks, 'What happened to my porpoise?'

We had to remind him that it had it had sunk to the depths of the pool, probably wondering why its master, who had summoned it from another plane to aid him as best it could, a goal the porpoise took to heart and tried its very best to achieve, had cast Colour Spray at point-blank range directly in to its tearful eyes, laughing as he had done so.

Oh, perhaps some Sahaugin had been caught in the effect as well, but the true motive behind the spell was clear. What a wicked little Halfling we travel with.

Having approached things a bit cautiously for the start of the adventure we became a little cocky about not having taken any damage in the adventure after a few fights. The Ninja and I swam through a small pool of water to scout out possible exits to the room, and were attacked from beneath by a Sahaugin and a shark. The shark nibbles the Ninja's legs, and he becomes the first member of the party to be injured so far (except for the unfortunate puking incident, which also involved the Ninja). The DM rolls some more dice behind his screen for a second attack and sucks some air through his teeth after seeing the result. I muse that 'it's always funny when it happens to someone else'.

The DM doesn't look up from the book he is consulting to see how much damage he is about to inflict when he says, 'This is happening to you'.

'Oh.' Everyone else found this amusing, so in a way I wasn't wrong.

One of the players gets his character sheet back after having someone else play for him when missing the previous week. He scans it front and back to look for the tell-tale changes that indicate he's missing several limbs, has some interesting new diseases, or has beneficently bought everyone in the party a magical weapon from his gold reserves. We were somehow on our best behaviour as none of this had happened. One thing seemed to be missing from his sheet that he expected to see, however. 'Where has the XP gained from the last session been written down?', he asks, after checking all over the sheet.

'Uh, in the XP box.'

And he plays a character with high wisdom.

Our first foray in to Zul'Gurub and we are faced with a high priest channeler, or some such. Defeating her minions whilst she pays no attention, we then prepare for what is likely to be a tough battle. During our preparations, where we make sure all our buffs are running and we discuss possible tactics, a warrior comes up to me and asks if I could provide him with a Healthstone.

Well, he doesn't so much ask as open a trade window and say 'stone', which I thought was rather assumptuous.

'Say please', I request, believing that that is not too much to ask.

'plz'. Oh, maybe it was too much to ask.

'With vowels'. He acquiesces, speaking his language like a native, finally. He gets his Healthstone, ready for the fight.

'Does this boat serve breakfast?'

'Not in the evening, Master Gnome.'

'Nuts.'

Dashing and bold adventurers that we are, we encountered three ghouls and a ghast, and a poo monster recently. What with the successful turning attempt and a couple of big hits by our Fighter against the poo monster, as well as it's poor disorientation, the party as a whole has yet to be hurt or injured. The worst that has happened has been the Ninja losing his breakfast after smelling some bad fish.

Should this instill great confidence, or a feeling of impending doom?