Krask quickly devises a plan that he believes will allow him to escape this caper with his life. He leads the kuchrima sentries towards the group, speaking loudly in his conversation with them. Hopefully the party will hear him.
The kobold leads the guards to a pile of rocks, which he describes as his alleged campsite. Meanwhile, Fobias and Fyn hear Krask talking about Magnimar, which is quite odd. Fyn casts some Invisibility spells and Barnaby uses his cloak to investigate the situation.
Once they’re within range, it appears as though Krask is heading back with the sentries to one of the demolished buildings on the edge of the city. After all, wouldn’t it be better to sleep in a partially-destroyed house than under a pile of rocks? Krask agrees.
Fortunately, Fyn is ready to disrupt this little tryst. He casts Sunburst, which deals a small bit of damage to a pair of kuchrima, and blinds another. While the sentries are reeling, Barnaby, Trace, and Fobias step up. Fyn manages to get off a blistering Acid Fog before these enemies even know what’s going on.
Meanwhile, Krask goes invisible to regroup, shouting all the while that he has no idea what’s happening. This basically equates to him yelling, “Monsters! Monsters!” over and over.
Trace uses Sunbeam as the kuchrima escape from the acid fog. They’re shooting arrows, clawing, and biting as they attempt to restore order. It doesn’t go well.
Barnaby’s blade chops off the head hand of one guard, and flies to engage another. Fobias’ reach also comes in handy as he fights the sentries flying ten feet above the ground. Overall, Fyn’s spells don’t have much of an effect. Between magic missiles being absorbed, kuchrima flying out of the fog, and them making their saves, they’re largely unhampered by his magic.
As the kuchrima continue to fall, the party doesn’t let a single one get away. Fobias even uses Feather Step and his Boots of Haste to traverse the rocky terrain and skewer the final sentry before he can escape.
But the clock is ticking. What will happen when the kuchrima realize that half of their numbers have disappeared? Surely it’s not going to go unnoticed.
The party decides to enter the city and seek shelter among the ruins. With a city as sprawling as Xin-Shalast, they anticipate that it might be easy to pass through undetected. If they play their cards right, that is.
They also have a secondary motive of finding these skulk tunnels. If they can bypass the giant camp entirely by wandering through the caverns under the city, that might be their best bet for survival.
As the group begins investigating the western buildings, they see some kuchrima fly off the wall, circling above the fortress’ courtyard. Their search for tunnels is unsuccessful, so they press further into the city proper.
Inside a large governmental building, Fobias and Krask hear falling rocks in a nearby room. Per the usual, Krask goes invisible to investigate, but only after shouting out a customary kobold greeting: Hello?
He discovers a gray-skinned creature that appears kind of lumpy, that he deduces is a skulk. It appears to be afraid, so Krask speaks with nature’s comfort language by quickly placing some rations on the nearby rocks. The skulk looks surprised, but snatches the food and begins eating it ravenously.
Krask heads back to tell the others of his find, and the party agrees that this might be their ticket into the tunnels. Trace doesn’t detect any evil, so surely this can’t possibly fail.
Where did this skulk come from? Do they know how to navigate through the city, or under it? How come it’s Book 6 and the GM still doesn’t know how to scale an encounter?