RealmsToowoomba Recap # 79 [RPG]

[29 Flamerule 1372 continued]

Late at night, at his campsite in the High Forest, Rufus awakens suddenly, pulse pounding and breathing rapidly.  He has a strong feeling that something is wrong, and soon discerns the scent of smoke in the air.  The High Forest is on fire!  Seconds later, he hears something crashing through the trees; when he investigates, he finds an elf on the ground, bleeding from a spear through its back.  The bronze spear is of ancient design, rarely seen outside the private displays of collectors of antiquities.  Although dying, the elf survives long enough to fulfil his final mission.  He tells Rufus that groups of attackers have appeared suddenly all over the High Forest, well past the perimeter sentries.  They are unliving things, the elf says, and have attacked the Grandfather Tree and Silvanus' sacred grove with fire and rot.  Although Faevid and others are barely holding the line, a small band of the attackers have broken off and are heading straight for a nursery of Treeant saplings a few miles away.

Rufus is torn by a moment's indecision on whether to help Faevid or protect the Treeant saplings, and then chooses the latter course.  With Sheila's aid, he makes fast time to the sapling nursery but finds the attack already underway!  Several skeletal warriors, girded with bronze and leather breastplates and headdresses, have closed in on the grove.  The unholy things carry furnaces of magickal fire in their bellies, and from time to time they hurl balls of flame at the defenders: a Treeant and the trees he's animated for his aid. The blazing skeletons clearly have a goal in mind, as they dart mercilessly towards the saplings and set them aflame.  The Treeant and animated trees are powerful, but too slow to block the incredibly fast attackers.  Rufus quickly opens a doorway to the elemental plane of water to douse the flames on the nursery, but the attack is renewed and in mere seconds the saplings are destroyed.  Worse, when the Treeant and his animated trees group closely together for an attack, they're incinerated by more fire!  Fortunately, Rufus is not alone: Sheila pounces on one of the skeletons and begins biting and ripping at it, while more creatures suddenly appear at the druid's call.  Hippogriffs grab hold of three of the strange attackers and fly them high into the air before releasing their holds and letting them fall to the ground with a literally bone-jarring crash!  By making himself resistant to fire, Rufus negates the most dangerous attack of the flaming undead and soon clears the battlefield of opposition.

Meanwhile, and far to the northwest, the other adventurers launch their planned raid on Nesme.  Having appeared outside the city's walls, Cain sends his fire mephit to the nearest guard tower to attack while temporarily summoning more mephits to join in the assault.  Shirloch turns invisible and levitates himself into the sky in hopes of seeing more of the city and finding his alchemist friend.  Mellia devastates two nearby guard towers with evocations of pure fire, killing several of the city's militia instantly.  Ralkin cleverly uses a telekinetic spell to turn a nearby ballista in the direction of the soldiers, and even pulls the trigger!  In barely thirty seconds, the guard towers nearest the adventurers are nothing more than blackened stone and grisly lumps of bone and burnt flesh.  Inside Nesme, Wrex is roused by the explosions which have rocked the city and hears the ringing of bells.  He rushes to find a fellow gnome, Rosalina, whom he's befriended in his recent days trapped within the city, and succeeds in taking her to a place of safety.