Expedition 0: Calaelen Castle (Agamemnon)

This is a good party of people.  They all have confidence in what they are doing, and with good cause: they are good.  We make an effective combination.  This bodes well.

En route to the castle we spied something atop a hill in the middle distance.  Shnookums, a stout paladin of Dwerfater, has a ridiculous name, a fact I got over as soon as I saw him swing his hammer.  Warhammers are not known as weapons of grace, poise or great accuracy.  Using one to obliterate a stirge that is actively grappling your head requires a deftness of touch and the sort of control that cannot be disrespected.  His reluctance to investigate the statue atop the hill was born purely of pragmatism; similarly his holding back at the cave was simple, sensible caution.  This has not stopped me ribbing him for his 'cowardice'.  He is, after all, a dwarf, and I am, after all, a priest of Darach-Albith.  There will be banter aplenty - banter he will be able to hear very clearly as I will be standing right next to him when the fighting starts.

Amerasu, a ranger of the catfolk, was also keen to investigate the statue atop the hill.  Catfolk I have met in Elven lands were known for their curiosity rather than their caution.  As a fellow archer and a fellow worshipper of the First Elf we had an immediate rapport, and I respect her adventurous spirit.  I am sure we will have many conversations in the future.

Ami entering the cave with the dwarf and I was not a great surprise.  The three mages remaining outside was also not a great surprise - as humans they would not see well anyway, and it is not wise to wander into a dark cave when your line of sight is your only protection.  What did surprise me was the tengu joining us.  Shades is contracting our services.  She does not need to venture into danger herself, she has hired us to do that for her.  This wasn't even her castle; this was a random dank hole in the ground full of decay, stench and stirges.  I don't know if she was driven by curiosity or a love of the fight - tengu faces are not easy to read.  I do know that her boomstick is fucking loud when it goes off ten feet to your right in a small cave.

The sorcerers came into their own once we had reached the castle.  I had thought Kruin's fishing with lightning bolts back at Selkor's Ferry either an affectation, an attempt to impress or just plain frivolousness.  Nothing of the sort.  She seems to live lightning - as the kobold, gnolls and skeletons found out to their cost.  For a sorcerer she is very resilient, and seems to have a keen tactical mind.  I get the feeling she doesn't so much call forth the lightning a few times a day as keep it restrained the entire rest of the day.

Suirlang and the Changeling (I won't waste the ink committing their name to paper) made an effective pairing.  Combat is a lot more enjoyable when the odd ball of force flies from over your shoulder and smacks the gnoll you're facing clean in the eye.  For me, anyway; not so much for the gnoll.

The castle was guarded by four gnolls who were about as tough as you would expect gnolls to be, fleeing as soon as one of them went down - although I had a narrow escape myself when one of the belligerent fellows attempted to charge me off the bridge.  I'd thought his self-sacrificing charge was a sign of bravery, running at a man with a spear being a very risky maneuver, but I later downgraded this to stupidity when he ignored the dwarven warhammer swinging in at about knee-height and taking his legs clean out from under him.

The gnolls did pique our curiosity by howling up at one of the towers.  We never managed to get up there, but it apparently housed a fiendish roc, who flew off as we were finishing off the last kobold.  We will eventually have to check up there to see if we can find any explanation for what it was doing there, but that can be left for another day.  The castle is ours now, though it took some significant fighting to get to this point.  We first had to clear a group of kobold who had set up in what I presume was once the great hall.  The dwarf kept two of them pinned down in one corner while spells and ranged attacks made short work of most of the remainder.  Two of the little bastards were getting about with oversized weapons whose inertia alone was a threat, but they had no idea what they were doing with them so in the end we ended them without much trouble.  I spent most of the fight trapped in a net thrown by one of the gnoll attendants, unable to lend much assistance, though I did summon Gwerif, my celestial friend, from my prone position, who was enough of a distraction to allow Jax, the human rogue, the opportunities he needed to get in there.

Jax is an odd fellow.  He is handy with locks and knows his way around traps, he carries surprising quantities of gear for a man of such unmuscled physique, and he seems, on the surface at least, to be purely motivated by money.  At this point you would usually write him off as a self-serving thief, someone to keep around for his expertise but not to rely upon.

So why then did he roll through the swipes of three summoned undead at great personal risk in order to face off against a blighted priest of death, on his own?  This wasn't reckless abandon or an attempt to flee; it was a tactical decision that paid off, but it was one hell of a risk to him.  Out there on his own he couldn't even flank the bastard; it was just him and two daggers face to face with a mace radiating such evil that even the untrained could see it.

I'll have to keep an eye on him - and this is the first time I've ever said that about a rogue and not meant "in case he steals my stuff".  I get the feeling that creating space for him to work is going to occupy a lot of the tactical decisions the paladin and I need to make going forward.  That, and stalling long enough for the massive amounts of ranged firepower this party brings to bear to decimate our opposition.

It will be very interesting to see how many of these people are interested in entering Rappan Athuk.  I hope it is all of them because we are one hell of a team.  Although I will need a better set of armour because I am going to be spending a lot more time on the front line than I had anticipated.