"Freeing the elderly and children"
Played on January 29nd, 2012
22 February, 21 Years After the Departure (Atd)
Galtar stormed the mob of greyskins that had descended from the ladder.
Boulder was not far behind. Together they formed a sort of wall that the
greyskins were not able to penetrate, luckily for me.
Boulder even managed to scare off a few of them simply by shouting
some harsh words that I did not fully understand. Soon enough only the
two leaders were left, for the rest was either down or had fled (some even
by jumping into the river below! They must have been scared of the penalty
for failure I suppose...)
Atrocity
The two greyskins leaders put up some resistance, however with the help
of the true elvish arrows they did go down pretty quickly. At that point
I was astonished to see Boulder hacking away (literally) at the one
leader that was already down, while Galtar was still busy keeping him at bay
with only a dagger. Even worse, Boulder did seem committed to goring the
already dead greyskin for no reason. This awoke a rage in me, for while
the greyskins have never treated us well I cannot abide violence against
the helpless. I tried to stop Boulder but I doubt he even noticed; I am
not sure what I will do if he commits this act again. Luckily soon after
Galtar and Vaaluryan did dispatch of the other one as well and so we had
to make some quick decisions to avoid more greyskin activity.
Soniah
I wished to avoid venting my anger as Boulder had, so I tried to take the
lead and ran off to the other sleeping chambers. I had to free the others
even if Boulder did not want to. At that moment I did not care what his plans
were. It turned out that Tharen was already ahead of me, and had opened
the gate. Inside we found Soniah. I did not know she slept there, but I was
glad that we could free her along with the others.
Soniah had turned out to be a good comrade in the smithy for Galtar, and
in my dealings with her she was ok enough, even if she flaunted her
abilities a bit too much in my opinion. Still she was good company
always.
Anyway, I managed to gather up the people before Boulder entered so they had
some time to come to their senses. They did have shocking news however: the
children and elderly were still sleeping outside! In all the rush of
freeing Galtar I had actually forgotten about them.
There was no doubt in my mind that we had to go up and free them too.
Boulder argued against it, but Galtar, Soniah (who insisted she join us),
and I were not to be distracted, so he had to agree. We distributed a few
of the greyskins weapons among the able bodied, and sent the rest off
through the dwarven tunnel exit. Then we went upwards.
Smithy
We found ourselves in the smithy. Soniah and Galtar were right at home,
but unfortunately not much of value was found, so we continued. Next we
found the armory. Here we discovered a chest that Galtar thought held some
good weapons, but it was locked. Having already witnessed Tharen unlock the
brig, we thought this would be an easy task for him, but he was nowhere to be
found. It turned out that Boulder had sent him ahead already. I took it upon
me to climb up and come get him, which he promptly did. He seemed like a
practical fellow who knew what was important. And as expected the lock
was no match at all for him. Thus we could arm and equip ourselves a bit
more appropriately for a rescue attempt.
Rescue
The soldiers having quickly donned armor (I refused; it restrains me too
much), we climbed upwards. We found ourselves on the ground level. The
barracks containing the elderly and the children was to our right, a
windmill to our left. We went to the barracks entrance quickly and quietly,
leaving Tharen to watch for greyskin activity from the keep in the distance.
Unfortunately, again the door was locked and so I had to fetch him for a
second time. When we arrived at the door it turned out that Vaaluryan had
taken up the task of guarding the rear
After the seemingly simple procedure of picking the lock, I entered the
barracks and managed to calm most of the elderly people who (of course) were
quite confused at being woken in the middle of the night.
They did manage to compose themselves quite quickly, as well as gather
the children present, and so we managed to lead them back to the ladder
pretty soon.
More greyskins
Of course, our escape could not have gone completely unnoticed - when
most of the elderly and children were climbing down the rope, we saw
two large groups of greyskins come up behind us. Luckily, having suspected
something of the sort, both Boulder and Galtar were already standing
in front of the group of refugees. I later heard that Tharen was hiding
in an ambush, but at the time I did not see him. Vaaluryan managed to
secure a covered position behind the barracks wall from which he could
shoot his deadly arrows.
This time we faced about 20 greyskins and their leader, so I suspected
this would not be an easy fight. I did not count on Soniah's abilities
though -- she managed to conjure a ball of fire, and then rather calmly
moved, or rather, danced, herself into the middle of a group of greyskins
before spontaneously bursting into flame!
This, combined with a rather gory display of Boulders sword in the head
of a grayskin (at least this time the greyskin was actively attacking him),
led to a lot of dead and cowered greyskins; soon enough only a few were left
of the original twenty. But the leader was still standing in front of
Galtar...
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