Ambush on the Eastway

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Tensions are high

Surprise Attack!

Round 1 - Eastway Ambush

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Tensions are high

Fizz's sharp eyes dart from tree bandit to tree bandit as the party speaks to the two toll takers. Even his enhanced hearing can't pick up the conversation, but he really doesn't like the fact that the party is in range of those crossbows with no knowledge of their location. Thinking quickly, Fizz silently slips into a good position to attack the crossbowmen that are targeting his friends. Finding a cluster of branches to hide him from view, Fizz shifts back into gnome form, and quietly prepares a couple of spells to eliminate the shooters.

He waits. One twitch of a crossbow string will be enough.

Spell reaction ready - Thorn whip

Azalie listens quietly as the bandits make their proposition. She allows herself a flicker of amusement at being called pretty, but there is no world in which she’s going with them.

She remains perfectly still, aware that Mellon might spook and take flight if startled. As long as he stays close, they remain melted into the snow. He’s still such a young bird.

Out of the corner of her eye, Azalie notices Fizz shifting into position, his small form resolving into the familiar blue gnome. Taking his lead, she begins to reposition, angling herself closer to the northern sniper. She moves slowly and deliberately, scanning the area. There are always others.

She slips to within a few feet of the northern enemy, bow at the ready, an arrow already notched. She waits, poised for whatever might go wrong.

Adrenaline hums through her veins as she holds her breath. This is exactly the kind of exercise she’s been missing. A tussle before noon always gets the blood moving.

Mutt presses his back against the wagon wreckage he had been hiding behind. He sees the giant emerge from the tree line through a crack in the splintered wood and curses to himself. Seeing Azalie creeping into position, he decides to try and keep the bandits' attention as long as he can. He shouts at the bandit's leader from behind cover and tries to keep all the bandit's attention fixed on him.

"I can see why you lot would want to keep things simple. Based on the looks of you, simple is about all your minds could handle!"

Mutt shifts to behind cover and readies his crossbow. "As much as I respect a good money-making situation like what you lot have going on here, you caught us at a bad time. You see, we just finished killing off an ancient beholder and his legion of undead. That's bad news for you for two reasons. One, we're low on supplies and coin. Truth be told, I wouldn't give you the steaming pile of yellow snow I'd pissed upon, but besides that, the second reason is that we just lost a good friend of ours and we're really looking for someone to take it out on. You may have a giant, but we have a halfling with a teddy bear, so I'd turn around and go back to whatever rank hole you crawled out of if I were you."

Orin lets Mutt's words hang in the air while he stays very still near the broken wagon. Eyes moving, mind working.

No obvious casters, Orin notes. That simplifies things.

The giant’s presence complicates everything else.

Orin shifts his weight and shuffles enough to keep his line of sight clear, inching toward the wagon. Preparing.

The wards around him are already in place and his attention turns inward, rehearsing the snap-response of a Shield spell should the world suddenly decide to come at him very fast. At the same time, he measures distance, angles, and timing, quietly selecting a target among the visible bandits.

Orin glances once toward Mutt. Just a brief, steady look of confirmation. I’m with you.

Then his gaze returns to the half-orc as the giant looms behind him, waiting. He says nothing. He lets Mutt keep their attention.

He trusts that the silence behind the trees means their allies are exactly where they need to be.

Mutt’s words hang in the air longer than they should.

The half-orc doesn’t answer right away.

He studies Mutt again. Then Dorf. Then Orin.

For the first time, something like doubt crosses his face.

“You don’t sound scared,” he says slowly. Not accusing. Curious. “Most folks are, once they see him.”

The human beside him shifts his spear, eyes flicking once toward the trees. A quiet, questioning glance.

The half-orc exhales through his nose, almost amused.

“Huh.”

A pause.

Then his expression hardens, the uncertainty curdling into something meaner.

“Well,” he says, rolling one shoulder, “we were just going to take a toll.”

His eyes slide back to the wagon. To the illusion. To the road.

“But a dead party gives us everything.”

Somewhere in the woods, a crossbow creaks.

That is when it happens.

The half-orc opens his mouth to say something else—

And the moment stretches just long enough for someone to decide how this ends.

Roll for initiative.

Fizz and Azalie: Because of your positioning and concealment, you may each take one surprise action now, before initiative order begins.

This window is immediate. If you do not take a surprise action now, you will act normally on your initiative count.

Everyone else will act in initiative order as normal.

Current Time: 12:45 PM

Date: Firstday 11, Ches, 1742

Temperature: 21°

Current Phase: Combat

Surprise attack!

The Ambush Breaks

For a heartbeat, the road holds its breath.

The half-orc’s last words still hang in the air when the woods answer first.

Azalie, from below the branches

Azalie ears prick at the mention of a dead party. She hears every word but the goblin above her hasn’t noticed the arrows pointed from below.

A sideways smirk shows as she steadies her stance. Drawing her flame arrows, still unnoticed. Without hesitation she releases both charred arrows.

The goblin never knows it’s over.

Two flaming arrows tear upward in perfect silence, punching through fur, bone, and breath in the same instant. The arrows, striking with a critical hit deal 36 damage! The tree shudders as the goblin’s body goes limp, heat flashing once before vanishing into the snow below.

Azalie is already there.

She catches the falling weight, eases it down, and lays the body into the drift without a sound. No cry. No warning. Just absence where a threat used to be.

Then her focus shifts.

Her breath slows. Her jaw tightens.

“Mark…”

The word is barely more than a thought, but the magic answers.

An arcane sigil flares briefly against the giant’s massive back, invisible to him but unmistakable to her. Vulnerable. Chosen.

She looses again.

Two more flaming arrows slam into the giant’s flesh, fire blooming against grey skin as the magic bites deep. The impact rocks the brute forward a step and this time, there is sound.

A roar—raw, furious, and shocked—rolls out of the treeline as pain finally registers.

Snow explodes around its feet.

Fizz: The Whip Snaps

At the same instant, the forest betrays another predator.

A vine lashes out from the shadows, fast and cruel, wrapping tight around a half-orc’s throat. There’s just enough time for a startled grunt before the magic yanks hard.

The half-orc is torn bodily from his perch, branch cracking as he’s ripped free and slammed into the snow below in a tangle of limbs and breath. The impact knocks the wind clean out of him, leaving him gasping and stunned, eyes wide with sudden understanding. He takes a total of 12 damage from the vine and 5 damage from the fall, 17 total.

This is not a toll.

This is a mistake.

Chaos Realized

For a split second, no one speaks.

Then everything happens at once.

Bandits shout in alarm, spinning toward threats that were never where they expected. Crossbows swing wildly, bolts loosed too late and aimed at shadows that are already gone.

The human toll-keeper staggers back a step, eyes snapping to the half-orc choking in the snow, to the giant bellowing in rage behind him.

“What—?” he starts.

The giant answers for him.

It rears up fully now, branches snapping as it lumbers forward, fury replacing patience. The ground trembles under its weight, its club dragging through the snow as it searches for whatever dared to hurt it.

Somewhere nearby, Whimsyweft gives a sharp, discordant twang—no melody, just tension made sound.

The ambushers finally understand.

They are not the hunters.

They are surrounded.

Initiative is rolled, combat has begun.

Current Time: 12:45 PM

Date: Firstday 11, Ches, 1742

Temperature: 21°

Current Phase: Combat

Round 1 - Eastway Ambush

Mutt is first to act, stepping forward with mockery sharpened into a weapon. Locking eyes with the Half-Orc Bandit, he jabs with a grin:

“Was your big, dumb friend supposed to intimidate us? The day we all met we killed a giant! You might say it’s what brought us together in the first place.”

The insult strikes deep. The Half-Orc takes 6 psychic damage and stumbles, cursed with disadvantage on his next attack.

Hidden in the trees, a Human Crossbow Bandit spots what he believes to be Azalie.

“It’s a surprise attack!”

he shouts, firing his bolt — only for it to pass harmlessly through her illusion.

Nearby, a Half-Orc Crossbow Bandit, dazed from an earlier fall, shakily raises his Thunderstrike Crossbow. firing with disadvantage. Even so, the bolt strikes Orin, dealing 11 lightning damage — absorbed entirely by his magical ward.

Orin moves into position. Calmly, as if the battle hasn’t yet touched him,

Orin’s ward shimmers and cracks as it takes the brunt of the crossbow attack. Trusting his art to protect him, he doesn’t flinch…He casts Hold Person at the crossbowman — but the enemy resists the spell’s grip, shrugging off the effect with a snarl.

Fizzbum  darts through the brush and takes his shot.

Sneaking up carefully behind the Human Crossbowman. he whispers to himself. With a deep breath, he stretches his arms and claps with thunderous force. The Thunderwave erupts, blasting the bandit from the treetops — he takes 12 thunder damage, then crashes to the ground, taking another 5 fall damage for a total of 17. The bandit lands prone.

Before fading back into the forest, Fizz grins and activates his Vanishing Charm, Grasping his charm in his hand, Fizz bobs his head once, and promptly disappears into the shadows of the forest. Hidden again, he prepares his next strike.

Meanwhile, Dorf unleashes a storm of fury. Entering Rage, he moves into striking range of the Half-Orc Bandit and lets loose with a blinding combo of Reckless, unarmed attacks:

1. A hammering punch to the jaw – 11 damage

2. A backfist that cracks more teeth – 11 damage

3. A brutal elbow to the nose – 9 damage

4. And a finishing hook to the temple – 11 damage

After a few swings, Dorf really starts letting loose, all his pent-up rage from Uptharr’s death exploding with punches and kicks on the Half-Orc. The Half-Orc staggers, barely standing, bloodied and stunned.

From the woods, the Hill Giant storms forward, roaring,

“Little human! Me smash!” and slams his club into Dorf for 30 damage, halved to 15. He raises the club again — “Me smash you to GOO!” — and smashes Dorf for another 24, halved to 12. The ground trembles under each hit. Dorf reels but refuses to fall.

The Human Bandit flanks Dorf with a poison-tipped spear.

“You should have paid the toll, fool!”

he growls, landing a strike for 15 damage, halved to 8. Then:

“We will bleed you like a stuck pig, midget!” — and he hits again for 8 damage, halved to 4.Dorf, iron-willed, shrugs off the poison with a successful CON save.

From her cover, Azalie sees the giant towering over Dorf.

“Go to sleep, you ugly fuck,”

she whispers, loosing a fire arrow and a sleep arrow. The poison takes hold — the Hill Giant stumbles and collapses with a CRASH, taking 12 damage from the fall.

Relocating across the field, Azalie lines up another shot.

“No one calls my friend a midget.”

She fires two fire arrows at a Human Bandit, both hitting for 12 fire damage total.

Nearby, Mellon, Azalie’s blood hawk, circles high above, scanning the chaos, ready to strike.

From a hidden perch, a Goblin Crossbow Bandit suddenly appears, cackling:

“Aah a wizard! Me shoot!”

The bolt slams into Orin’s side, dealing 10 damage — his ward finally broken.

Back in the melee, the Half-Orc Bandit, reeling from Mutt’s earlier insult and bleeding from Dorf’s blows, attempts to retaliate.

“You picked the wrong group to stand up to, maggot!” he growls — but Mutt’s vicious mockery takes hold, and his swing goes wildly off-course, missing Dorf and accidentally smashing the Hill Giant for 6 damage.

He tries again, spitting blood onto the snow:

"A halfling with a teddy bear huh? Where your bear, little one?”

— and this time, the warhammer connects, slamming into Dorf’s face for 7 damage, halved to 4.

Finally, the Human Crossbow Bandit who had been blasted from the tree earlier rises from the snow, dazed but defiant. Spotting Azalie among the trees, he grins:

“The Elf! She’s in the woods!”

He fires and scores a hit, landing a crossbow bolt in Azalie’s arm for 9 damage, ending the round on a sharp note.

End of Round One

Current Time: 12:45 PM

Date: Firstday 11, Ches, 1742

Temperature: 21°

Current Phase: Combat

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