We arrived at Bale Keep and heard battle inside. No bodies were to be found outside of the Keep. No signs of breached walls.
The gate keepers seemed to be friendly so Valeria persuaded them to let us in to help them fight the attackers. Apparently lizard men were appearing within the walls and attacking the Keep.
Grim was ushered up to the ramparts right away while the rest of us wandered into the courtyard to see what was happening.
Ash round-house kicked the first lizard man attacker for an instant kill.
Janaar and Kildrak slaughtered a few more ahead of us and proceeded to push forward.
Grimm ran quickly along the ramparts – met a few scared young guards and ended up near a tower where he heard battle inside.
At this point we decided some of us should join Grimm to support him so Kildrak, Valeria and Ash ran up the ramparts to follow him.
Ryp casts burning hands to wipe out a group of lizard men, then Janaar went on a 5-kill streak wiping out many of them.
Nyneve and Zymon get ambushed from behind. Nyneve casts Thunder clap to wipe out a whole group of 6 lizard men. Zymon melts one the others.
Grimm gets trampled as a bunch of enemies attack through the door by the tower. He attacks back and kills a few.
Ash engages a few more. Valeria mocks the enemies, killing them with her nasty words and then manages to enlist the aid of the scared young guards.
Ryp runs back to help Zymon and Nyneve. He casts Flaming Sphere to annihilate another group of lizard men.
Zymon zaps the face off one of the lizards. d.e.d.
Ryp suddenly feels the presence of the other lantern and has a flood of strange memories and begins to behave strangely. Zymon and Nyneve see this and are concerned and question his motives.
Nyneve casts a spell that goes wild and she mutates into her true form – an adolescent RED DRAGON. She storms off and brings death with her.
Grimm starts fighting on the rooftops and gets overwhelmed. He finally manages to overcome his foes but is hurt in the process. He seeks shelter by jumping off the roof into a hay cart and awaits his friends’ aid.
Valeria commands her underlings to successfully get their first kills in battle without having to get blood on her sword.
Ash has a Jackie Chan moment with lizard men at the tower door. Open. Shut. Open. Shut.
Here comes the red dragon. She wipes out a whole slew of enemies but her fire breath unintentionally hits Grimm rendering him unconscious (?? I think??)
Ash, Kildrak and Valeria fight along the ramparts (?? I was reading a comic book) and shit happens.
Kildrak finds a toasted Grimm and gives him the Slug ale from Grimm’s backpack. Grimm is stabilized.
Ash has an epic Kung Fu battle in the courtyard. River undercuts bank. Ash is victorious.
Nyneve kills a lots more lizard men. Cause she’s a mother fuckin dragon.
Kildrak starts breaking down that portal tent thing.
Janaar, Zymon and Ryp run through the stinky cloud and go after the lantern. They find a black clothed mummy who’s not really a mummy. He’s fishing the lantern down from the ceiling with a really big stick.
The dude freezes Janaar. Shit.
Zymon zaps the mummy.
Ryp roasts the mummy. Dead. $2
Janaar grabs the lantern and the Barbarian gets some magic. Ryp’s lantern goes up a level.
Ash, Kildrak and Valeria run up the tall tower. They vanquish the last of the foes and save the Lord and Lady of the tower.
Nyneve turns back into a human. Boo.
Everyone starts calling Ryp “Henry”. Weird.
We stay and help reorganize Bale Keep. We learn that Alandra de Winter frequented this placevand that Ryp (Henry) was also quite close to all these people.
Zymon reads some magic book that the lady of the Keep showed us. I was pretty drunk at this point and don’t remember what was discussed about that.
Oh yeah something about the Keep is built on top of another entire underground Keep in the shadowvale. Need some clarification here as I forget the details.
Valeria writes a Nickelback song about the Battle of Bale Keep. Oh well, it’s catchy.
We all try to sleep and regain our spells but NOOOOOO. Oh shit we all get woken up and there’s a huge army outside now.
Most of us want to stay and fight more on this cool map for another night or two.
Valeria can’t stand the idea of word getting out that we bailed on Bale Keep.
Nyneve, Kildrak (and Ash at first) can’t stand the thought of the women and children dying without at least trying to help.
Ryp wants to stay and learn more from these people. Especially why the call him Henry.
Zymon, Janaar and Grimm ain’t got time for all that.
So what do we do now?
A) Stay and fight
B) Bail on Bale Keep and run to our boat. Ryp has a plan for a distraction / Nuke if it comes to this
C) Retreat to the underground tunnels (and try to bring as many people with us as possible)