As soon as Lucrecia vanishes, it becomes apparent that Jakardros is still under the effects of her influence, and he raises his bow to shoot another arrow at his daughter. Jak easily pushes off Theo’s feeble attempt to grapple him, but Fobias charges in and subdues the de facto Black Arrow leader before the shot goes off. But now the party has a decision to make – what to do with Jak? The charm monster spell is undoubtedly going to last for several days, and the party doesn’t want to deal with a liability. It is also worth noting that Jak’s initial shot didn’t do anything to improve his strained relationship with Shalelu. Shocking.
The party overwhelmingly decides that bringing Jak with them is worth the risk; he will most likely be fine so long as Lucrecia doesn’t show up again and order him to something detrimental to the party for a second time. Whether this will be a mistake remains to be seen.
Krask leads the group up the stairs into the main floor of Fort Rannick. He cautiously and silently begins creeping down the side hallway past a closed door to scope out the situation. Mostly everything in the rooms has either been destroyed, smashed, burned, or otherwise mangled. As he nears the middle of the hallway, Krask can make out four distinct voices speaking in guttural Giant. Theo translates the ogres’ words through Message, that the ogres are arguing over who gets to wear a horse head. Their squabble is loud and obnoxious. Understanding that the element of surprise is still on their side, Krask heads back to the rest of his companions to hatch a plan.
It takes a couple moments, but a relatively straightforward plan develops – Theo will Dimension Door with Vale and Barnaby over to the other side of the room after dropping a Stinking Cloud in the middle of the ogres. If all goes well, most of the ogres should become nauseated and when they come running out of the room to escape the noxious fumes, the party will be waiting to pick them off like fish in a cylindrical wooden enclosure. When Theo steps confidently into the middle of the doorway, the ogres are surprised and shocked.
And then the stink hits them. POW!
As the ogres start retching and vomiting, the party moves quickly to get into position. Everything is unfolding perfectly, until Theo looks up after casting Dimension Door; two more ogres are unsuccessfully putting on human-sized pieces of armor when they see Theo, Vale and Barnaby appear. For those keeping track at home, that puts the total ogre count up to six.
Over the course of the battle, two more doors open to reveal particularly nasty ogres. One of them appears to have a face stitched together with different kinds of skin while the other throws a decapitated body at Krask. Eight ogres.
Luckily, the party’s tactics have effectively divided the entire ground floor of Fort Rannick into three equally-sized mini-battlegrounds, each with its own squad of dedicated heroes. Fobias bounces between the north and south threats, stemming the tide as necessary when one gets a bit overwhelmed. Trace bull-rushes one of the more intimidating targets, wasted no time to show his bravery amid his new companions. Theo mutters hexes from the shadows while Vale and Barnaby execute ogres with exciting levels of precision. Krask, Shalelu, and Jak provide a steady stream of arrows during the assault, peppering the ogres with a smattering of fletchings.
One thing’s for certain – this encounter has been anything but quiet!
What will be the effect of this first ‘real’ encounter in Fort Rannick? How many ogres are on the premises? Who’s going to put on the horse head?
Image Copyright BoJack Horseman and Netflix