Well…they didn’t die. I will grant them that.
Our assault went well, through its first stages. We managed to sneak past several outlying patrols – except for the one in which Sered tripped over something and face-planted in front of a pack of orcs. Although I definitely heard Bingo stifle a giggle when that occurred, we were able to bluff our way past them after picking him up and dusting him off. I even managed to get directions from them to the chieftan’s lodge.
And a lodge it was, alright. This is no camp, it’s a forward settlement. Unless giants have taken to finding ways to port entire castles with them, there is no way this can be viewed as a temporary battalion train. They mean to stay. In fact, that they held off on sending war parties until this was all built up tells me that they also have someone pulling their strings behind the scenes. In spite of centuries of time difference, I don’t believe giants have changed that much for a second. Run-of-the-mill hill giants and earth giants simply don’t have that kind of restraint. Someone held a big rock over this chief’s head and told him to curb the children or they’d hit him with it.
I wonder who? And perhaps more importantly, why?
The centerpiece of this settlement was a lodge, which almost qualified as a fortress. Fully constructed, heavily fortified walls, this thing is a permanent edifice.
Just outside were a pair of ogres and a single giant standing watch. We managed our approach unseen by these guards, after slipping mostly unnoticed through their town. We huddled a bit, looking over potential tactics, before opening up with ranged weapons against one of the ogres.
In moments, some form of drake leaped out of the bushes next to the giant and ended up almost in the midst of us – its ability to cover distance was rather astonishing. As soon as it did, I put an arrow in its rear knee, setting it up for retribution from the rest of the group as soon as it chose someone to attack. Unfortunately, shortly after this, Sered managed to teleport it out of our midst and over to the relative safety of its ogre allies. I know now why my kind allies with devils…at least they are somewhat predictable, if a bit on the vicious side. Deva logic simply escapes me.
Our group split up almost immediately, some after the giant and some after the ogres, which of course diluted our force and gave them more time to hammer on the softer members of our number – at least Nix had the thought to blind the giant with a darkness spell. When a second giant came tumbling out of the keep, we’d already just about killed the first one, but we were still operating with a split force. Ebon had been hammering on the first giant from the door of the keep, and vanished as soon as he’d struck a blow on the second.
I would later discover that he’d been wandering around in the empty room, and trying to get through the door into the interior of the keep…while the rest of us were still tied up fighting the ogres. Fortunately, the giants inside the keep did not open the door until the ogres were just about done, and I had already run up to the entryway in order to reel him back or shout a warning to the others if a herd of giants spilled out on him.
Also fortunately, the contents of the next room were not overwhelming, though we could have used a few moments to regroup beforehand. Luck was definitely on our side here, as the doorway became a natural bottleneck, and the giants plowed themselves eagerly into it – this definitely enabled us to overcome our inherent disadvantage in being so spread out and having no time to prepare before this next bunch set upon us. Another of those drakes was present, and while at first I was concerned that it might leap up and exit the room via the smoke-hole to assault our rear, it turned out that the hole was too small to accommodate its bulk. Ebon conjured up two pillars of frost to either side of the doorway and backed out into the first room, which also aided us in dealing with the giants as they came at us. We focused on the bottleneck, and I made sure to keep the enemy angry enough to draw them into the focus of our fire.
As I suspected, Althea turned out to be quite good to work in concert with. We hammered out a few good combinations both against the drake and the taller enemies. She unfortunately drew the ire of a couple of them, and was nearly killed for her efforts, but managed to stay one step ahead of the scythe. Bingo also managed more than a few good shots with that bow of his…one or two of them, I think, buried so deeply that not even the nocks remained in the light of day. Wynter shambled merrily about, and although I’m pretty sure I saw an ear fall off along the line there he held his ground well. I suppose one advantage of being dead is that you don’t really feel pain. Or at least, the pain inflicted upon the stumbling meat is probably insignificant relative to the sound of the voice of one’s soul in the back of the mind shouting “What am I doing still moving?!?! I’m dead!! Dead I tell you!!”
What I wouldn’t give for one of those wheel-mounted ballistae and a sled-team of halflings to pull it. I could spear two of these giants on a bolt from one of those. One giant in particular gave us some trouble, an extremely tough priest or shaman who managed more than a few tricks with some great stone staff he kept waving about. Needless to say, in spite of his devotion to whatever spirit he venerated, in the end it did him no good at all. We pummeled him down like a child eating trdelnik at a festival. I don’t mean to make it sound easy – this was surprisingly difficult, but we did finally manage to pepper him enough with blows and arrows that he was convinced of the futility of it all, and succumbed to our greater force. Fortunately he never flung any of us into his firepit, and so far we haven’t found any trapped areas (despite giants having the intellectual capacity of my left boot, they are cunning when setting up log-falls or other hunter-style traps). Still, the day is young and we’ve only just penetrated the outer rooms of this wooden castle. If Mahar or Balenor was here, I’d probably wager him a drink that at least one of this company is going to get separated, killed, and sat upon by some giant who will find it funny…”Look, fellows, I’ve put one of the smallies in my pants!”
I am hopeful that observing the effect of the bottleneck will begin to set the stage for me to instruct the group on the use of tactical formations…it would be nice to see them – I mean us, come to think of it – begin to work as a team instead of a loose conglomeration of individuals. We shall see.
