An untamed frontier. Dark cults. Fickle fey gods. Ravenous fiends. Nothing black powder and sorcery won't fix... . Timberlands Campaign Diary
Overnight, the heroes took some time to rest and strategize with their allies the Wrathyrst brothers and the captain of the Tempered Musketeers, Veerle Oldguard. It was decided that the assembled forces, scant as they were, would strike out for a roadside fort between here and Newpoole. According to rescued mercenaries (Session 36), a truly massive deadwood treant marched on the fortress days ago. While the mortal forces were low in number, they were quite skilled, and will luck could fell the fey forces besieging the fort.
That night Shinashe, the rabbit folk paladin, discovered exactly what massive meant. Atop her griffon mount, Hibou, the heroine scouted ahead in the pitch of the night. It wasn’t hard to spot the Deadwood Turret(legedary version enchanted to have fire resitance instead of vulnerability, larget in size, holding more troops). It’s red-light framed branches towered far above the treeline thanks to a thick cloud of direflies. Shinashe’s breath caught as she rounded the area. This deadwood turret had to be over sixty feet tall! The hulking plant stood at the forest’s edge, before it extended the muddy, battered clearing leading up to the fortress.
Shinashe avoided the deadwood turret altogether and soared over the fortress. It was still more or less intact. Some of the other palisades had been surrendered but the bunkers and inner wall still stood strong. Mortal troops kept watch on the walls between hidden cannons. The paladin was relieved, though she saw a watchman felled by a Waning Barb arrow from hundreds of yards away. Shinashe made haste back to the other heroes.
With this new information, the champion reconfirmed that they wanted to deal with the fortress instead of investigating the previous rumors of the waning fey seeking to entreat the services of a vile nature spirit nearby. They picked through the trees. Their musketeer allies formed a widely spaced line while the Wrathyrst brothers and their party took up key positions. Once they got within range, the mortals took up a defensible position and steadied their aim.
Cedwynn, the otterfolk sorceress, kicked things off by flinging a fireball into the mammoth deadwood. After all, fire had been the bane of every one of the twisted trees they’d run across so far. However, this particular legendary war machine wasn’t even rattled by the explosion. It merely turned toward the sorceress, tore off a boulder-sized hunk of direfly hive, and flunt it at her. Beside Cedwynn, Gwaedd the otter folk bard anxiously readied his newly-modied cannon and took aim. During the evening, the troupe’s artificer - the rabbit folk Freya, infused the personal artillery piece with enough magic that it would automatically reload with magical ammunition. Gwaedd blew off a chunk of the deadwood turrets bark with a cheer, and advanced with Cedwynn toward the battleline.
Power raced through the deadwood turret in eddies of raw, red magic. With a crackle, gates opened along its roots and two score of Waning Blades rushed out. Even as the mortal musketeers opened fire, the fey soldiers rushed headlong into the volley. Their unnatural natures made the bullets merely bite like sling stones. The NPC cleric, Kaspar Wrathyrst, buffed the soldiers and heroes with protective magics. His brother, the necromancer Simon Wrathyrst, peppered the fastest waning blades with magic missiles.
Ahead of the firing line, the other two champions, Freya and the eladrin echo-knight Nalyth, smashed into the flanks of the oncoming fey. Freya was backed up by her steel protector Remington and soon Kaspar was at close at hand. Naylth only had himself, as it were, for backup but as an echo knight he quickly made due. Shinashe swooped down to tack the middle of the waning blades line, her polearm striking from the back of Hibou as the griffon clawed and bit.
By the time the waning blades made it to the musketeer lines, they were already whittled down but still in deadly enough numbers. Likewise, Cedwynn and Gwaedd arrived. The two mustel flung spells and shot into the weaker part of the dark fey’s ranks. All the while the deadwood turret tossed chunks of hive down on the mortals, while the waning barbs on its nodules took sniper shots. The untimely arrival of the Waning Stormthrowers that had been tracking the heroes off to the far east flank turned the tide in the waning host’s favor.
While Simon the necormancer was able to block the stormthrower’s firing line with a darkness spell, it didn’t last long as he was crushed by a direfly hive. His broken body was pulled back and steps taken to keep him alive while the heroes retreated back into the treeline to regroup with the faltering musketeers. The deadwood turret had reached them, and its blows nearly crushed the life out of Naylth and Sinashe. Hibou was felled low by the deadwood turret, Shinashe leaping from the stricken griffon’s back to continue the fight.
Gwaedd decided to reconcentrate fire on the deadwood turret’s nodules. At the same time, Freya and Kaspar focused on keeping the downed mortals alive, and those that were still in the fight healthy enough to continue. Cedwynn joined in Gwaedd’s efforts, using metamagic to twist her spells into acid damage instead. It wasn’t long before all four of the deadwood turret’s nodules were little more than smoldering ruins, the dark fey on them dead. Still under bombardment and on the precipice of failure, the remaining heroes and their allies poured everything they had left into the advancing war machine.
It proved to be just enough. The deadwood turret swayed and toppled to the ground. A cheer rose from the besieged fort, the gates opened, and its forces cautiously advanced the wide length toward the heroes. All and all several of the musketeers were lost but Hibou and Simon would survive. The heroes had pulled victory from defeat yet again. How much longer would their luck hold out? The strength of size of the waning host still remaining was overwhelming.
That and those damn waning stormthrowers escaped, again!
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