Assault First, Negotiate Later

Summary:

The room calmed for a moment before a distant clatter came to ear through the locked doors. Gareth braced himself while yelling back to the rest of the party, "Incoming!"

As if on cue, a duergar mounted on a giant wolf burst through the door and tore into VoSFK's ranks. The mounted duergar held a flaming poker in one hand, a war hammer in the other. In the midst of the party's ranks, he shouted, "Glimmerzuhl!" and bouts of hot flaming burned the party with magical intensity.

They were followed by another mounted pair, flanked by three howling orcs. Taegahn thrust his nose in the air and inhaled deeply. He then tilted his head askew, listening. Notching an arrow he said, "Though much more used to the heavenly scent of my personally arranged floral arrangements, I nevertheless detect additional foes that my ears and nose hear and smell, but my eyes fail to see. Tred carefully my most dearest friends."

The party tred, though indelicately. The fight was a bloody affair and before it was over, both Gareth and Queequeg and fallen, the former twice. If not for the combined healing efforts of Shava and Gilic, the two would likely never had arisen again. The worgs used as mounts were a mated pair, and together the two let out synchronous howls that made party members hesitate, if only for a few precious seconds. As Taegahn had intimated earlier, a pair of orcs suddenly blinked into the middle of the battle, crossbows in hand. They unloaded a vicious attack before easing back into the shadows. One a time, the worgs fell. Unmounted, the dwarven riders proved equally lethal. They too fell eventually. Soon, the cloaked crossbowman and shock troops joined their comrades as still heaps on the granite floor.

The party rested next for their weariness was nearly as great as their hunger and thirst. Some hours later, they heard a knock on the door, now barricaded. Queequeg slid the obstruction aside and peeked out. A lone duergar stood waiting. The dragonborn quickly opened the door, grabbed the dwarf by his beard, and wrenched him inside. The duergar howled in protest as the party circled around.

The dwarf claimed to be a messenger, sent for having lost this section of the larger keep. He asked the party why they attacked, to which no one gave a good answer. Next, he asked the party's terms. After much haggling, the dwarf agreed to send message to his superior the party's requirements for a peaceful conclusion to the Horned Hold assault: that the slavers release all currently enslaved Cormyrians, abandon Horned Hold, and cease attacks on Cormyrian interests. The dwarf sighed with resignation while he wrote the bullet points to paper. Attaching the treatise to a bolt, he shot the terms across the expanse to an opposite hold.

TO BE CONTINUED

Phat Lewtz:

None /cry

Line(s) of the Night:

"So I can tie you up AND whip you." - Megan, enjoying the idea of employing both options on Simon? Blake maybe?

"Did you just have an elfgasm?" - Sean to Blake after Blake moaned with ectasy from pure elfy roleplaying joy.