Bhaalson Remodel 17 (Patreon)

Howdy all. This is the second-to-last chapter of the Beregost arc, and will see the siege of Beregost, a plot line I created, as well as Harry finally making a choice of something that has been waiting in the wings for a good long while. Hope you enjoy.

I had hoped that one of my reviewers could go through it for me, but just like me, only in a far less nice way, he too lost the majority of his weekend to RL things. So here we go. If you see any mistakes or think I’ve gone too far away from Forgotten Realms lore, tell me, and we can talk or discuss it.  It has been Grammarlied though, so there’s that…

Gamer-related color coordination for those who read the downloadable versions. Seriously, guys, it is a lot easier to flow all the Gamer stuff if you do that. Not having colors or even the ability to switch from all left to center really impacts how well this work can be read on Patreon.

Green – party-related stuff

Orange – Quest notifications.

Blue – NPC notifications/observations.

Dark red – Enemy observations/bestiary notes.

Red – directly related to combat notifications

Purple – Alchemy observations and notifications

And now without further ado, let us BEGIN…

Chapter 17: Blood in the Snow Part 2

Unfortunately for Harry and company, the paid bandits didn’t have any more information for them. The hobgoblin whom Khalid had captured hadn’t been a very high-ranking officer among the group, having been a leader of a band of six called the Brutes. It was a simple gang that had split off from a hobgoblin tribe to make it on their own, only to now be wiped out in spectacular fashion. He had a copy of their orders, but that was all, and even that copy proved that in some fashion, the gathering of this army threatening Beregost had been compartmentalized. Also vile and very descriptive of the overall goal.

To all those of ill intent and a willingness to shed blood, take this missive and the gold provided as a down payment for the deed to come. We have a need for your services.

Beregost of the Sword’s Coast has displeased us. Aid your fellows in wiping it out. No person within that town should survive. Let no house remain intact. Poison the well. Slaughter the animals. Salt the earth, making it a monument to what happens to those who displease us.

Take what you can from the wreckage, and you will receive five hundred gold more upon the completion of this task.

The note wasn’t signed, and the hobgoblin hadn’t asked any questions about who was really behind the attack. He’d only been concerned about how big the warband would be, whether or not they had the strength to do this task, and if his gang would end up being absorbed by some other mercenary group, if such they could be called. Really, Harry was getting the impression this hobgoblin and his little group had been bottom feeders of the sort that could always be found roaming around the Sword Coast or in Amn, away from its shining city of Athkatla.

When it became clear that the gang leader had no more information to give or even knew where ‘Big Drock’, the leader of the largest band that had been brought together within this force, had fallen, Harry allowed one of the guards to kill him. Hobgoblins weren’t considered monsters like gnolls, but they weren’t much better, and he had been caught in the act of banditry. Like human bandits caught like this on the Sword Coast, there was only ever one punishment for that.

While the guard in question dealt with the prisoner, Harry set out into the center of the road, where the majority of the dead hobgoblins were scattered, with Jaheira and Khalid following. With their elven eyesight, they would be able to pick out anyone among the corpses who was wearing something unusual or had any markers to denote rank. Among hobgoblins, it seemed that this was normally done by red painted buckles or stones sewn into the garments of their shoulders.

“This would be much easier if you didn’t want to keep your Greater Item Box’s abilities a secret,” Jaheira grumbled, kneeling down and turning over one of the bodies as Harry hefted another nearby off two more. “You’d only need to touch one of these bodies and be done with it. This is tedious.”

“W, w, we have been extremely spoiled with H, H, Harry’s abilities up to now, my dear,” Khalid murmured, before he teased his with a wry smile. “O, o, or have you suddenly become squeamish?”

“Bah, you know that is not it! I have seen to preparing of hundreds of animals after they have been slain, aided with poultice and bandage more adventurers than I can easily count. But you cannot deny that this is…” Jaheira broke off as she moved one of the bodies, only to instantly twitch away at the smell coming from the body underneath. It had been struck in the gut by an arrow, and the corpse had… relieved itself after death.

One thing that Harry AAS could not do was make the smell of the dead any easier to bear, and all three recoiled. “Fucking, ugh!” Harry grumbled, shaking his head. “You’re right, this is taking too long. Jaheira, tell the guards to head back to the camp. Tell them I’ve assigned them to clearing up the camp and getting everything ready to move out.”

“Considering most of what they will be doing is cleaning up after themselves, that makes sense,” Jaheira agreed hurriedly, eager to get away from this grisly duty, although it was the truth despite that. The adventurers had kept most of their stuff in their disparate item boxes, making a show of having issues with such occasionally when they went to retrieve something. In contrast, the guards had taken everything they had come out of Beregost with in way of supplies from their packs, and had spread out throughout the igloo in a way none of the adventurers had.

Harry and Khalid waited where they were, still looking around them at the dozens of dead hobgoblins, before the guards were out of sight around the stones. When they were, Harry knelt and touched one of the corpses. As before when he used this skill, he saw a series of notifications about each ‘resource’ this corpse had in common with all the others around them. In this case, gold, bows, arrows, and short swords along with the typical ear needed to be paid a bounty.

You have moved to harvest the resource, Hobgoblin Ear. There are fifty-seven other such ears available on your map. Would you like to harvest them all and place them in your Complex Item Box?

“You all might want to look away.” Harry paused, then added judiciously, wondering internally about how the numbers there didn’t match up to the bodies. I guess some of their ears were injured or burned beyond recognition? I know all the ears need to be on the same side of the head. “And cover your ears. Judging from what happened with the gnolls I used this one after our meeting with Drizzt, this is going to be disturbing.”

Khalid and the others instantly obeyed, and a moment later, there was a series of ripping noises. Alone, none of them was loud, but combined, they made for a disturbing choir. This was immediately followed by dozens of sprays of blood, although not much of one, all over the battlefield. Minsc was a little too close to one of the corpses, and was sprayed by one such across a boot, causing him to complain volubly. “For goodness, Minsc’s boots are made to put the buttkicking to evil, yet to have one such boot covered after the fact by the blood of our victory is not as pleasant.”

While Khalid chuckled at their friend’s bad fortune and Dynaheir and Jaheira remained resolutely turned away, Harry knelt down again to the body of the monster. A moment later, forty copies of the simple leather armor most of the hobgoblins had worn, their arrows and bows all shifted into his Complex Item box. All of that and the ears would be able to be sold, although the 20 Gold wouldn’t be much. Much like the experience, 35 for each hobgoblin, it would add up to a nice amount later on. 2,765 was nice to see, admittedly.

With the shared equipment came some gold, a hundred and forty gold, all told. Whatever the hobgoblins had already been paid for this task had apparently been sold or perhaps left behind somewhere. I know banks exist in this world. Would such groups have their own equivalent, or would banks… who am I kidding, banks wouldn’t care one way or another what groups they work with.

However, this left the unusual items behind, unfortunately. But watching closely, Harry was able to see the bodies that had gold on them. Figuring those would be the leaders, Harry headed to each of them in turn, with Jaheira and Khalid once more helping. Finally, on one of them, Harry found what he was looking for: another note, but one with a bit more information.

Big Drock, this job be stinkin’ to high hells, but money’s good. Beregost be for the choppy chop. You and yours’ll meet up with a few smaller bands. Take ‘em over if ya want, but Beregost be your target. You be joining with others, never worry. The mission be coming from humans, but they gots the okay from the shamans of Maglubiyet and they be after something special.

What they after don’t matter. A’loga was killed for askin’, but what do matter is they be bringing a horde.

Hundreds strong at least, humans, hobs, minos, ogres, even some weird’uns. You keep you and yours safe, and there be more than enough money afters ta be making you a Gag’lur.

Yous to be in position to attack on the fifteenth of Ches.

And stay away from the one named Hephernaan. He be human… but not. He be the one in charge and the one payin for the attack. But that don’t mean we of the Hob should be trusting him.

Keep your blade sharp,

Dag’uthur.

“Dag’uthur is a title, not a name, just like Gag’lur is. I don’t know what the latter means, but Dag’uthur means a leader of three hundred. Don’t be fooled by their lack of writing skill or personal lack of combat ability,” Jaheira stated firmly as Dynaheir and Minsc joined them while an orange notification had appeared in Harry’s vision. He ignored it for now as the half-elf continued speaking.

“Hobgoblins might have the typical violent and xenophobic tendencies of most monsters, but they are also highly militarized ever since one of their deities slew all the others in their pantheon. That would be Maglubiyet whom this note mentions. The larger a group, the more organized and stratified they become. If a Dag’uthur was willing to send a message like this with the missive we saw before, that means something. We should be wary of this Hephernaan too, as such a one would not be liable to jump at shadows or say anything they didn’t mean.”

“Yes, that ‘Human but not’ line worries me, as does the nature of the Soul Taker Dagger,” Dynaheir murmured. “Not human but seeming such can mean many things, but… this might be just a guess, but given the nature of that dagger and the information of where it came from, it could be a Doppelganger, or… or a demon smart enough and with enough magical power to transform into a human body. We in Rasheman had to deal with such nearly a decade ago. He had begun to corrupt one of our warrior lodges before we realized it, and banishing him took some of our realm’s strongest warriors working with the blessings of the Triad.”

That caused another orange notification box to appear in Harry’s view, and he held up a hand, reading them aloud. He first read the one that had just appeared.

The quest, Protect the Soul Taker Dagger (medium) has been updated.

You have at least one name to put a face on the individual(s?) behind the upcoming attack on Beregost designed to retrieve the Soul Taker Dagger. Whatever he is, Hephernaan is going ot be the commander of the attacking host that will be hitting Beregost shortly. You still do not know the real reason behind the attack, but if Haphernaan is a demon in human guise as Dynaheir suggests, then he might desire to release the soul of ********* within rather than use the Dagger in some fashion.

As per your agreement with the Harpers, you must protect the dagger. However, if Hephernaan is a demon skilled enough to take human form, he is almost certainly beyond your current abilities.

Warning: as this quest might collide with the existing quest and oath fulfilled, specific rewards are not calculable at this time beyond the goodwill of the Harpers, which will remain Exemplary…. If you survive.

“Well, that’s disturbing,” Harry mused, shaking his head.

“I would take it seriously, Harry,” Dynaheir warned. “I was not joking when I said that fighting one such took the strongest warriors of Rasheman could call upon.”

“Indeed, I remember that! Skull Gar the Grim, Aldri the Swift, Jerich the Strong and many others were sent against the monster when Minsc was young. The monster was eventually defeated, but few of those warriors returned to their lodges, and those that did had such a tale that never did one of them ever need to pay for mead or meat ever again,” Minsc said, his tone far more serious than normal, even if he ended on a joking tone.

Harry nodded at that, but considering there was little he could do about it, Harry waved that notification to one side and looked at the next one.

The quest, Protect the Soul Taker Dagger (medium) has been updated.

It has created another quest.

Blood in the Snow (Small quest) has been created.

That was all the second, or rather first, notification Harry had seen a moment before, said. When he clicked it away, a third Quest colored notification popped up instantly. Although like the one Harry had seen when entering the dungeon at Nashkel, this was more of a page rather than a simple notification. Regardless, he read it aloud for the others.

Blood in the Snow (Small Quest):

Note: Just because this quest is small, it does not mean it will be easy. The size of quests is based on the length of time you have to succeed in them or will spend time on them.

Note 2: Due to your past actions, this quest is mandatory. It has already begun, and you cannot back out of it without being Foresworn and becoming a Fallen Paladin, and almost assuredly turning most of your companions against you.

“Truth,” Jaheira, Khalid and Dynaheir said as one, while Minsc guffawed.

“As if friend Harry would ever turn aside from helping others against such a terrible evil! No matter the odds, true warriors of goodness do not care how high the mountain is. They only care about chopping it down to size!”

 “While I wouldn’t put it like that, Minsc, I will say you’re right. I doubt it’d ever occur to me to run away from such a challenge, especially not if innocent people were in danger,” Harry agreed. Indeed, the idea of running away hadn’t even crossed Harry’s mind. Not just because of the interparty issues, but because the idea of fleeing when so many people were in danger was so against his personality that it was laughable.

Waving any further interruptions away, Harry continued to read the notification.

Beregost, the town you are currently living in and are bound to due to your oath to win over the locals, is in danger. It will be attacked in three days on the Fifteenth of Ches, whether you are there or not. Whether Beregost survives or dies may be determined by you and your party.

This attack is supposed to come from multiple avenues of attack, and will consist of attacks consisting of human bandits, mercenaries, hobgoblins, ogres, and Minos, who you are intelligent enough to assume would be minotaurs. You do not have enough information to know what ‘weird uns’ could mean, but if they are connected to a demon in human shape, then they might be other planes walker of some sort. Regardless, this all means that Beregost is essentially under siege.

Your goals for this quest are twofold: Defensive and Offensive.

Defensive: Survive the Siege.

Beregost as a whole must survive. This matters far more than the lives of your party.

While Edwina and Viconia might have objected to that, none of Harry’s current companions did, and Harry went on.

1. Make certain that at least half of the inhabitants of Beregost survive

Fifty percent of the 1,537 civilians with no combat potential must survive.

Fifty Percent of the civilians with combat skills must survive.

25% of the Flaming Fist Garrison needs to live through the battle.

 Specific Individuals who must survive are:

Vai – Chief Officer of the town guards.

Kelddath Ormylr – High Priest of Lathander.

Gerard Travenhurst – Mayor of Beregost

Taerom Fuiruim - chief smith of Thunderhammer Smithy

If any one of these individuals falls in battle, then forty more normal citizens will need to survive to achieve this goal. Similarly, if more than 25% of the guards or 50% combat-capable civilians die, more of the civilians with no combat potential must survive in order to meet this goal.

Optional: Keep the majority of the town’s inhabitants alive.

Any percentage beyond the stated above is

“The fact your AAS knows how many people are within Beregost is fascinating, although I find it odd that it counts the caravan guards and the Flaming Fists as equal is unusual, as I would say only a few of the caravan guards are indeed equal to a Flaming Fist member in terms of skill and gear,” Dynaheir murmured. “Still, that sounds…doable? Although who is Gerard Travenhurst? Beregost has a mayor?”

“Please don’t jinx it,” Harry grumbled. “Especially since we aren’t there in Beregost right now to help plan its defenses. As for the mayor, he’s a merchant of some kind and is more than a bit of an ass, but keeps to himself most of the time. Imoen and Viconia did some job on his house, but I can’t remember if they said he was a perverted lech, or if it was his butler…”

“Ignoring the mayor and his apparent importance to our quest, I think we can trust Imoen to at least be able to work with the locals. More importantly, she and Viconia are certainly devious enough to do what they can. But we do need to get back there as fast as possible. Continue, Harry, and we will get on our way,” Jaheira said firmly, already putting her armor into her Item box to allow her more endurance.

Two: Keep the majority of the town intact.

At least two-thirds of the town must be intact physically by the end of the siege.

Important Buildings that must survive are:

Temple of Lathander.

Thunderhammer’s Smithy.

Feldepost’s Inn

Jovial Juggler

Flaming Fist Garrison building.

Optional: Keep the damage to the town to a minimum. Barring the farms surrounding Beregost, only five of the town’s actual buildings can be destroyed, none of which are among the most important.

“Well, at least the quest isn’t asking us to do the impossible,” Harry mumbled, shaking his head before he finally finished reading the end of the quest notification.

Offensive Goals. Destroy or decimate the attacking forces threatening Beregost.

1. Wipe out the forces moving to attack Beregost before they can reach the town:

1/????

Note: You have already wiped out one attack group prior to this quest being broken off from the larger, Protect the Soul Taker Dagger Quest. You lack any information on what constitutes an attacking force, and must assume they will vary in both size and deadliness.

2. Survive a battle with Hephernaan.

3. Help kill or kill four of the attacking ?????

4. Survive a battle with the low level ******

Note: you do not know enough yet about the attackers to see what or who these last two goals refers to.

Rewards:

Should Beregost survive you will be released from your Oath to the leaders of Beregost and your reputation with them will, at worst, be reset to neutral. Given the actions of your party and you, it may go as high as exemplary.

One item from Thunderhammer’s Smithy.

Exemplary status among the Harpers. So much so that any concerns about your heritage will become mute.

Experience for completing this quest, like the relationship gained with the people of Beregost, is variable and will depend entirely on the role your party plays in the survival or destruction of the down and how many of the goals you achieve. However some experience might go towards your leadership and Tactics skills if you get back in time to be involved I the final preparations before the attack is supposed to occur.

Time until the attack commences:

27 hours, 35 minutes, 22 Seconds.

21 seconds…

20 seconds…

“Well, that was a great deal of information, and little actionable right now,” Dynaheir grumbled. “I wonder how much of that is because of Harry’s Greater Observation skill.”

“That’s because we are stuck out of position. Get everyone ready. We’re going to be on the road in ten minutes. Jaheira, head to the camp. If the guards aren’t ready to go yet, chivvy them along as best you can, and tell them what we found... without mentioning the Soul Taker Dagger, anyway,” Harry amended as he swiped away the notification window with his eyes. Unfortunately, as he did, a portion of his map, which was always to the upper corner of his line of vision, shifted, showing a timer. COCK. “We need to go.”

It had taken the better part of three days for Minsc to get to Beregost and back. That meant that it would take them the better part of a day and a half to get back. Harry hoped to cut that down by running through the night, but had no idea how well that would work.

Jaheira nodded and raced off, moving over the hard-packed snow around the battlefield as the others, already standing on the road, simply turned their feet towards Beregost. Not ten minutes later, the three guards and Jaheira joined them. “We’re going to be pushing ourselves hard. We need to get back to Beregost as fast as possible. If we’re going to do that, we can’t be slowed for any reason,” Harry demanded. “We’ll eat as we move and store our gear in our item boxes. That means we’ll be carrying your armor so you can keep up with us.”

All three of the Flaming Fist guardsmen made to protest, but a glare from Jaheira shut them up. They pulled off their armor, quickly pulling on cloaks as their armor had doubled as a means to keep themselves warm, and Harry made a point of touching each pile in turn rather than a single pile as he could have with his Greater Item Box. Soon, everyone, even Minsc and Harry, who had the most endurance of the group by a wide margin, was bereft of anything but their cloaks and warm clothing.

Without another word, Harry nodded to Minsc, and the two set off, with the others following at a run. Underneath them, the crunch of snow sounded, as behind them, the gloom of a winter night closed in, the three wolves Jaheira had summoned calling out to their fellows to feast.

OOOOOOO

At around the same time that Harry and his group were racing back to Beregost, Edwina and Alora were encamping for the night. Vai had decided she needed to find out what had happened to the patrol she’d sent out to speak with Thalantyr and had sent four caravan guards along with Edwina and Alora out to do so.

Forcing their party to split again had not been a popular decision with Imoen or the others, and all of them, even Alora, had argued about it, but Vai had shut them down firmly. Some members of Harry’s adventuring party needed to stay in Beregost. “The pair of you especially are suitable for that… task,” she’d said at the time, glaring at Viconia before looking almost apologetic at Imoen.

Imoen’s connection to Harry had become well known throughout the town by this point. The outgoing jokester had been the one doing the most good for Harry’s party in the eyes of the citizens, and her interactions with Harry showed their familial connection clearly. Similarly, while Vai wasn’t certain there was anything romantic going on between who she labeled as ‘the drow bitch’ in her head and the young paladin-to-be to make the term ‘Drow Lover’ physically accurate, Harry had certainly put himself on the line for her. It would make no sense for him to break his oath now.

That had been a rather fraught meeting, but Vai had gotten her way in the end without anyone entirely losing their temper. How much of that had to do with some threats Edwina hadn’t quite been able to overhear Imoen make to Viconia, she didn’t know. But given the look of honest admiration on Viconia’s face, the threat had undoubtedly been effective and kept Viconia from attempting to immolate Vai with a Flame Strike or cave Vai’s face in with her hammer.

Unfortunately, that meant that Edwina and Alora were on this mission with four caravan guards. All of them were from a single caravan that was staying within Beregost for the winter. These troops were a nice addition to the overall strength of the guard, but lacked some of the discipline of the Flaming Fists. That had made Edwina somewhat leery of this task, but since Vai had made the perfectly sensible decision to put Edwina in charge, she had gone along with it.

They had started out near midday the day before, but with days so short and the going so tough, they hadn’t yet even come within sight of the High Hedge before they were forced to stop for the night.

The guards were split into two tents, while Edwina and Alora shared one. Their winter gear was quite good thanks to the retooling efforts the group had gone through over the past few months, so the tent was warm and cozy, and Edwina had set a Skull Trap outside just in case the guards got any ideas.

That they would wasn’t a question. The question was whether the foursome would be stupid enough to act on such ideas. I do not believe they looked that stupid, but a random stooge’s idiocy is only occasionally visible even to someone as attentive as myself. Yet given my body and the common folk’s reaction to before this, I will err on the side of wisdom.

Edwina’s body might be caused by the Cursed Girdle of Sex Change, but it had not just made the Red Wizard into the Red Witch, or Edwina into Edwina, and oh, how Edwina hated that such a name change had taken! Regardless of her annoyance with her new name, Edwina well knew that her body was physically perfect. Edwina had been in the Temple of Lathander and knew her body would not lose in comparison to the quartet of serines there, let alone any of the other women in Beregost. He also knew that his reflexes, hand-eye coordination, balance and anything else physical had been changed markedly.

But the whole physically perfect thing had come with a downside, well, beyond the obvious sex change thing, obviously. The reaction of men throughout Beregost had been annoying in the extreme at least twice a day since Edwina had put on the Girdle, assuming he had mastered its magic. And here I am heading out to the High Hedge and the duplicitous Conjurer within. UGH. I am suddenly filled with the urge to cast Magic Missiles at someone.

Intellectually, I can accept that this form has not been an outright Abyss-damned disaster. Getting used to this form and how physically superior it was to my own was irritating, but understandable. Of course, I dispute that is because the curse made me physically perfect. No, I was merely made into a female version of myself, but one who had decided to follow the low-brow mastery of the body rather than the mind and magic as I have.

Never let it be said that turning into a woman had done anything positive for Edwina’s ego.

I can even admit that being able to explore to my heart’s content has been pleasant. I knew breasts were nice, of course, but from this angle it has been most decidedly odd. Still, I think the next woman I am with will be more than happy with how I have perfected my finger work. Discovering other things about the female form has also been worthwhile.

The fact that women were more sensitive to touch was something Edwina had anticipated. The amount of pleasure she got from running her fingers through her hair was not, nor was how much time it took to make her hair look as good as Imoen’s and the others did. Smell was also heightened, which was bizarre, although not as bizarre as the fact that Edwina could not drink as much as she had when in his normal body. He remembered that now, and admitted that it was probably tied into the whole perfect woman thing.

Along with a few other, decidedly unnatural, things, which are definitely part of the Sex Change enchantment. The fact that I have no smell, no matter how sweaty I get, is bizarre. Indeed, Alora told me before turning in that she thought my smell was sweet! I could do without two of our current accompanying fools going out of their way to try and smell me, though.

Edwina shuddered, thankful beyond words that this female form of his had enhanced reflexes. One of the guards had tried to walk up directly behind her as they marched through the snow that afternoon and had been leaning in when Edwina realized he was there. Thankfully, the pseudo-Charm spell my body has wreaked upon their fragile minds means that is about as much as they are willing to attempt. Coercion would apparently be too much for their weak brains to countenance towards the object of their bestial desires.

Even more thankfully, Edwina had learned that prolonged exposure to her form did not deaden that pseudo-Charm. Indeed, while it might take more experimentation to be certain, it seemed to my most puissant senses that they were becoming more deferential, more quick to act on my orders. It will be most gratifying to see if that carries forward and especially into actual combat rather than simple orders while we are on the march like this. At present, it just seems as if it is an extension of their futile attempts to impress or flirt with me, which is much more tiresome than it is worth.

Edwina slid into her blankets. But being forced to work with such since our ‘leader’ left has made me even more Grateful for Harry, Minsc and Khalid not doing so, even if Khalid, with his mind so weakened by the Curse of the Dread One, occasionally needs a hit upside the head to help him along. It has been an oddly intellectually stimulating experience being on the distaff side of things, but I have no interest in taking my experiments with it to the point where including some other male or even female would be the next logical step.

With a small cantrip, Edwina put the lamp out, settling down in the darkness, before a thought came to her mind, unbidden. At least not with an actual person. A certain class of toys could perhaps open up new avenues of inquiry to make me an even better… no, no!

Edwina shook her head violently, shivering. Do not let your mind be corrupted further by this form, Edwina Odissiron! You are a male, you are Edwina, not Edwina! Your powerful intellect must be turned towards working on taking the blasted girdle off while keeping the positives and transferring them to your naturally amazing form, not experimenting further with your current guise!

As she thought that, Edwina thought of her original body, the last time he had seen it in a mirror. Yet for a horrible moment, Edwina had trouble remembering how he looked. There was a, a vagueness to the image, and instinctively the Red Wizard knew that it wouldn’t be enough to use a Shape Change spell, like Polymorph or some of the other transfiguration style spells.

Grimly, Edwina pushed forward, masking a sudden bout of horror and confusion, building the image of her old body piece by piece. My real body, my real body, blast it all! I will not be beaten by simple time spent in this cursed body, I will not!

That took the better part of the night, and Edwina woke up the next day irritable and with a temper that caused even Alora to stay away from her for a time. However, this actually worked in their favor. Instead of staying with the group, Alora forged forward along the quasi-trail heading towards the High Hedge. In this case, quasi meaning that thanks to the continual snow, the trail was only barely visible. The loose snow made for hard going, even with all of them, even the guards, having equipment to march through winter, eating at their constitution.

Which was a problem for Alora more than Edwina. As their scout, Alora moved ahead of the rest of the band, pushing herself ot keep ahead of them and use her Hide in Shadows technique, which wasn’t easy to use in an environment so stark and white as winter on the Sword Coast. Worse, Edwina’s female form had given him a marked increase in his Constitution, while Alora’s wasn’t much to write home about. It was why she was so quick to fall asleep the day before.

Now, though, her efforts were rewarded.

From her place in the column, Edwina stared forward, hearing the hunting cry of a shrike. “Hold, you useless pieces of offal,” she growled, and instantly the gour guards halted, looking at her with a mixture of adoration and wariness. Oh, if only that adoration was because you acknowledged me as your true superior, rather than lusting after this body of mine! “I heard Alora’s signal. We wait here.”

Shifting to place themselves on the leeward side of a few rocks allowed the troop to get out of some of the biting wind, and the guards started to share bits of jerky around themselves. For her part, Edwina pulled out two meat sticks, examples of some of the supplies that Harry had left behind for the group. These were some of his better food-related experiments he had created over the winter thus far, as they gave brief but decent boosts to someone’s stats. Although the name, Shafts of Endurance, is abysmal. Truly, Harry’s AAS is a most unusual gift from the gods, even to one who has the blood of a god himself.

Before Edwina’s mind could fall down that particular rabbit hole as it was wont to do, Alora came out of Hide in Shadows, racing through snow to the point she was kicking up a burst of it in her haste to reach them. Or rather, the Shaft of Endurance Edwina held out to her halfling companion.

“MMM… yumm! Thanks, Edwina,” Alora yipped as she grabbed the stick out of Edwina’s hand. It wasn’t warm any longer, alas. While Harry’s Complex Item Box seemed able to store food in such a way that it only slowly decayed, Edwina’s pack had no such artifice. They were still good, though, as evinced by Alora’s happy noises as she gobbled it down, attempting to speak in between bites.

“MMF, I, I found the actual trail crunch High Hedge. We’re almost halfway there. This snow’s slowed us down a lot, but munch I don’t think we’ll need to continue forward. Snarf There’s a band of bandits heading this way. Seven of them, with two mmm wounded.” Finishing off the meat stick, Alora stuffed the stick into her Item Box and continued more normally. Or rather, normal for her hyperactive, inquisitive self, anyway.

“They don’t seem to’ve come from High Hedge themselves or even within sight of it. I would say they came from the north, but I can’t be sure, I’m just guessing by how they seem to’ve come upon the more beaten down trail from that direction. As to the wounded, most of them are bandits, but three of them are wearing Flaming Fist-style plate mail. You know, the ones with the image of a Burning fist on the shoulder. Really distinctive, although I gotta say, the whole Flaming Fist thing, it’s not as intimidating as they think. Like I get it, things on fire are sometimes scary, but not always, and when I think of a Flaming person, I just---”

“Focus, Alora,” Edwina interrupted, fighting the urge to reach out and either pat Alora’s head or cover her mouth. “Did you see anything unusual among these bandits besides the spoils of their previous victory?”

“Sure did,” Alora said, before strangely holding up her hands to either side of her head as if trying to make horns. “They’re led by this big red-skinned critter with a bull’s head. I’ve never seen one of them before, but that’s gotta be a minotaur, right?”

“Indeed,” Edwina agreed, humming thoughtfully, not noticing how the sound caused the four heretofore silent men around them to shiver. “And that is most peculiar. minotaurs are somewhat rare on the Sword Coast. From what I know of observing games in the fighting pits of Thay, fighting them will be similar to fighting ogres in terms of strength, but their speed will be far superior to those lumbering creatures. A normal minotaur will also be better trained, as in, they will actually have some martial training, and they will be far more intelligent.”

“That matches what I saw,” Alora interjected. “The minotaur seemed ta be the one giving orders to the bandits. He also had a decent plate male armor. No helmet, though. And he’s wielding this big axe, like it’s huge, the handle as big as Harry’s bec de corbin. It’s double-headed, which is kind of weird.”

“For humans, it would be, certainly. For some reason, perhaps because their bodies possess two horns, minotaurs have a tendency to utilize weapons with two heads,” Edwina joked, causing Alora to giggle before the Red Wizard went on. “Where is this group going?”

“Oh! That’s why I said we didn’t need to go much further. The bandits are coming towards us. I think they’re making for Beregost,” Alora explained.

“Hmm… in that case, we need to get ready. While we might not have access to Harry’s formations, we can still take advantage of ambushing these fools,” Edwina muttered. “If they are indeed heading to Beregost, we would need to deal with them anyway, and seeing another group like this doing so adds credence to Harry’s warning about the conspirators behind the plot to throw the Sword Coast into war wishing to wipe Beregost out and cut off most communication between Amn and Baldur’s Gate.”

That was the story the party had decided to go with when Minsc returned with news of the large hobgoblin band Harry and his group had discovered and begun to trail. For her part, Edwina was just thankful that Vai and Kalddatth had no idea about the Soul Taker Dagger or how retrieving it was the real reason why the town was in danger. She rather thought that would be going against the intent of Harry’s Oath to Vai to protect the town. Thankfully, it hadn’t impacted it for some reason, and Edwina was happy to see it so.

The caravan guards did not argue. Indeed, one of them went so far as to raise his voice, delighting in “The chance to impress you, Lady Edwina!”

Regardless of their enthusiasm for the task, however, Edwina had to carefully place all of the guards in order to set up the ambush. This was hard in winter, with all the snow they had to shift through, leaving behind trails. And really, if the bandits were aware of what to look for, there was no way for the guards to really take the bandits by surprise. Still, Edwina’s impromptu plan didn’t need them to. Instead, the guards only needed to get the bandits looking in one direction.

The bandits came into sight from where Edwina was perched up in a fir tree a few moments later. The two in the lead called out to their fellows instantly. “OY, looks like there’s some other people out here, boys. Maybe another band of those Flaming Fools?”

A moment later, arrows began to fly from where the four guards were situated further down the trail and to the side. Edwina had put them on the other side of a large log that had once been situated over the trail, only to be shifted to the side. It and the built-up snow protected them from return shots, and a bandit fell, screaming as his leather jerkin proved no aide against the arrows of the guards at this range.

A louder voice bellowed, its tone far deeper than any human chest could have made it as the minotaur came into Edwina’s line of sight. “Push forward, fools! Get in among them, circle them, kill!”

The bandits obeyed their inhuman commander, but before they could get more than a few steps away, Alora and Edwina attacked. From one direction, Alora’s arrows hit, targeting the minotaur. His skin proved to be better armor than the leather of his companions, however, and her arrow bounced off his chest. Then Edwina’s Fireball struck the center of the gaggle.

Fire and impact flared into the center of the group, which consisted of nine, not seven, bandits and the one minotaur. They were all hit, with two of them, the previously wounded, dying, burning and screaming as they were blasted off their feet, the center of the Fireball almost on top of them.

The others were simply set on fire, although all of them, even the minotaur, had the presence of mind to jump into the snow. The soft-packed snow all around and underneath did very well to put out the snow, but the damage had been done. Alora fired again, with the guards firing a second later, and another bandit fell, while Alora’s arrow and a few others bounced off the minotaur.

“I cast Fireball!” Edwina cackled, her fingers already moving in the needed movements. “Die, die by fire, you weak-minded fools!”

“Get the mage,” the minotaur shouted, pointing in Edwina’s direction. “Archers, on herRRR!” he grunted, an arrow impacting its shoulder and penetrating this time from Alora.

Another Fireball hit. Having spread out as a result of the first Fireball, this one wasn’t as devastating on the bandits, with only one of the bandits being turned into a human torch, while the others had already been lunging into the snow as the Fireball streaked their way. They still got hurt, but none were set on fire, including the minotaur. Still, that was enough to panic them, and the remaining bandits started to break away.

That was, until the minotaur turned and shouted, “Stand and fight, cowards!” he seemed to activate some kind of skill, as he cut down one of the bandits, the double-headed axe taking the man’s head off like a Cleave technique. But as the body fell, the other bandits stopped trying to run away. Instead, as the minotaur shouted orders, they all raced towards Edwina with the minotaur behind them.

Before the bandits could push through the snow to get even to the tree that Edwina had climbed up, Magic Missile hit. The minotaur staggered, gaping wounds opening across his front from the impact of the raw magical bullets.

Even as the minotaur staggered, the hidden guards bellowed in fury. “For the Lady!” they shouted, charging out of their hiding place to close with the bandits from the side, forcing many of the bandits who had been moving to attack Edwina to turn and engage them. Longsword and short sword met, and Edwina took a brief moment to stare at this before shaking his head.

Pseudo-Charm indeed, she thought, sending an Acid Arrow at the minotaur just as Alora charged in turn, getting in close behind the minotaur. I would not have thought their infatuation with this physical form would carry over into, but good grief.

The minotaur was able to dodge Edwina’s Acid Arrow, seeing the sickly green arrow coming and leaping aside. However, he didn’t even see Alora coming, and her Backstab technique worked, hamstringing the creature. “GOOOAHHH!!” it roared, lashing out even as he collapsed, but missing Alora as she rolled to the side.

While the guards were engaged with the remaining bandits, Edwina decided to finish off the minotaur. Another Magic Missile spell flashed out, and the minotaur’s head erupted as it was strike by the raw magic missiles. With him dead, Alora charged forward into the back of the bandits. She moved this way and that, always moving to get in a Backstab. Two of the guards took hits, but none of them fell before the battle ended, with Edwina launching the last of her Magic Missile spells into the melee.

Jumping down from her perch, Edwina scowled a bit. The bandits didn’t break after the minotaur killed one of them. Fascinating. Truly fascinating, and dangerous. I wonder what kind of racial skill that was? I am seriously missing access to Harry and his Advanced Adventuring System right now.

Glancing around, Edwina had to bite back a sneer. The four caravan guards were all looking her way as if they were indeed now fully charmed, waiting for her words. Not, thankfully, to the extent they ignored their wounds, though. All four of them had been cut about in various places, with two of them holding broken arms to their chests. Another had the fourth man bandaging his head, where blood dripped from a nasty cut.

“The fact that the bandits did not break could have cost us sorely. See to yourselves. Alora and I will look at the corpses to see what we can discover,” Edwina announced crisply. “We need to know what they were planning and how much was part of a larger operation.”

The guards nodded and turned entirely to their wounds, their adoration for Edwina seeming to fade away as their adrenaline did. With that, Edwina and Alora looked around the corpses, with Edwina making a beeline toward the minotaur. On its corpse, he found little, but a single parchment had been tucked behind its belt. Thankfully, even these creatures prefer to not let their man bits swing around, she grumbled.

What little humor Edwina was feeling at that observation faded as she pulled out the parchment. Making certain her body hid her movements, Edwina unfolded the parchment only to stare at the image of the Soul Taker Dagger. Damn it, it looks like Harry’s concerns on this point are all too accurate. Blast and botheration, but what organization is behind this? Not Thay, for certain. I could understand the point of such a thing and would very much like the power it grants, the ability to take souls, but I have to assume that any Red Wizard worthy of the name would understand the downside. Such things use you far more than you use them, especially when you consider the power of the soul within.

Standing up, Edwina glared down at the body for a moment before shifting her attention to the first of the crispy corpses nearby, her breath coming out in a long line of fog as she did, matching the smoke still coming off the body. She found only a bit of gold on that body, which started a pattern as she worked her way to the other nearby bodies, leaving the ones where the guards had fought to Alora.

“Watcha thinkin’?” Alora asked, coming over after finishing her work. Some of the armor was being taken by the caravan guards, but everything else had found its way into Alora’s Item Box. “These guys don’t have anything much on them, sadly. Some gold, and a message about them getting paid a thousand gold each after the battle, with three hundred up front. Seems silly to me, I mean, why so little money up front?”

“I would wager these bandits were the ones brought into this attack in such a manner. The minotaur served the attack’s true masters directly while they were mere flotsam, to be tossed into the fire without much expectation or care,” Edwina mused. “Let me see that message.”

Reading it quickly, Edwina found a message much like the first one that Harry had found on the prisoner he and his band had taken and smiled thinly. Good, no mention of the Dagger. “Well, this proves the whole town is in danger. Come, we must turn our feet back towards what passes as civilization in these lands.”

“Good, I’m getting sick and tired of all this snow and stuff. Ugh,” Alora grumbled. “There’s a reason why nobody likes to travel in winter, you know, it’s boring!”

“I rather think there are more reasons than that for that decision,” Edwina chortled, although she had more than one reason to want to return to Beregost. We don’t only need to show Vai this evidence, but I fear what would happen if we ran into larger forces, such as the one Minsc reported they found. If this group had even two or three more bandits, our accompanying guards would have fallen at the very least, and I might have suffered some injury myself. That would be a true horror… as would the reaction of the enemy bandits if they came close enough to make out my features, come to think of it.

Edwina shivered a bit, wondering indeed how an enemy would respond to her ‘physically perfect’ curse form. But she shook it off quickly, reaching out to grab Alora’s arm as she made to pull a healing potion from her pouch. “Don’t. We may need all of those we can get, and these guards can go to the temple of Lathander for healing later. Let us be off now.”

And when we return, I will need to rework my spells. I think fewer direct attack spells and more summoning and Skull Trap or area of effect spells. If I had thought to summon up some monsters to help, the lack of strength in our erstwhile allies would not have mattered overmuch, Edwina reflected with just a hint of self-recrimination.

One of the guards spoke up then, looking as if he didn’t want to seem like he was arguing with Edwina, but feeling he had to point something out. “Er, but what about our mission to the High Hedge to speak to the Conjurer? Surely he should be warned if there are lots of forces like this out there, willing to attack Beregost itself?”

At that, Edwina let loose a guffaw, not a ladylike giggle, but a full-throated guffaw, while next to her, Alora also chuckled. For some reason, this unladylike sound seemed to reduce the impact of Edwina’s body on the frail psyches of the men around her as they backed away, staring at her. “I, ahahaha, I do not think we need to worry about Thalantyr. The Conjurer’s adamantine golems would slaughter hundreds of such cretins without even slowing down.”

The trip back should have taken half a day, if that, as they were simply going back over the route they had used while they came out. But snow began to fall soon after the troop left the scene of the battle, making visibility and the going far harder. Coupled with the wounds the guards had taken, it was well into the night by the time they saw the lights of the town. There, the caravan guards were all sent to find the temple of Lathander, with a message for Kelddath about what they had found.

Instead of heading to the hovel the party had taken over for the night, however, Edwina, knowing time might be of the essence, headed to the Flaming Fist’s local office. There, she found she and Alora were walking into an argument.

OOOOOOO

At the same time that Alora saw the minotaur, Harry stumbled, a bestiary page appearing in front of him as he had been working his way up a small slope of fresh snow. It had begun to snow heavily as the troop made their way north the night before, and had begun to create deep, thick windrows on the road, blocking their progress. Minsc had moved ahead of the group and had begun to use his arms to smash and widen a way through, but the footing was still extremely tough, with bits of fresh snow interspersed with packed snow to make for tricky footing.

Harry’s stumble sent him sideways, slamming into Khalid. The older warrior stumbled, the smaller, less built half-elf letting out a squawk of outrage as he and Harry’s legs tangled together. The next instant, both lost their footing, crashing into the snowdrift to one side of the trail Minsc had blazed for them. Both of their heads and even their upper bodies disappeared into the fluffy whiteness.

“As amusing as that was, what exactly brought it on?” Dynaheir asked, as she and Jaheira reached down to help Khalid up. Even unarmored, Harry was a large man, and with Minsc ahead of them still creating a path for the others, it would take all three of them to pull Harry up.

For a moment, Harry didn’t answer, taking in the bestiary page before he explained.

A party member of yours has met with a new monster and has thus created a new Bestiary page

Despite the distance between you, your Adventuring Party can still build on your overall knowledge of the world or add information to quests, although they cannot access your AAS in turn.

Minotaur

Minotaurs are a race of monsters that straddle the line between monster and simply a different race than those which are routinely seen as being ‘civilized’ because, like giants and orcs, members of this bipedal bull-like race can often be as intelligent as the so-called civilized races such as humans, elves and so forth. Much like the other demi-monster races, minotaurs can also breed with other races, and half-minotaurs can become adventurers just like half-orcs, although very, very rarely.

The vast majority of minotaurs are violent, somewhat evil beings who believe that strength is everything and have little scruple about attacking and taking advantage of those weaker than themselves. Tall and muscular with coarse fur-covered bodies and bull-like heads, minotaurs tend to favor axes, flails or maces, and are often as strong as ogres. Their fur acts almost like boiled leather armor, and they are routinely much more intelligent than their gray-skinned counterparts.

Minotaurs have the racial attack, Headbutt. This attack is as devastating as being run over by a bull.

Attitude towards Adventurers: Nuanced but largely negative. While a large number of minotaurs act as mercenaries, bandits and so forth, they are at times capable of realizing when they are over their heads, when not to attack, and… when to give special attention to certain adventurers.

Strengths: Immense physical strength, such that few humans or even dwarves can match them, is coupled with a warrior culture that gives them both skill and high morale. No physical contest or nonmagical battle will ever make them break. minotaurs also have greater endurance than ogres, able to march for long distances while carrying heavy burdens.

Weaknesses: While they are not dumb monsters by any means, fire and lightning can still spook them badly, either naturally or via spells. Further, minotaurs are aggressive to a fault. When in combat, they might become almost as uncaring of losses or danger as someone who has become Berserk. They are not very nimble and can be tripped up or trapped easily.

Hearing all this, Khalid frowned. “M, m minotaurs aren’t normally seen near the S, s sword Coast. I would have thought w, w we wouldn’t run into any of them, u, u, unless we headed into Amn, and e, e, even then, the southwest of Amn in t, t, the form of raiding parties or pirate c, c, crews. They are all warlike, e, e, exceptionally so, and very w, w, well trained. They w, w, will fight for h, h, honor at the drop of a hat, for slights b, b, both real and imagined, and believe p, p, physical strength is far and away t, t, the most important thing. And, yes, m, m, most of them act more like monsters t, t, than a sentient race. Half-minotaurs, o, o, on the other hand, are d, d, different, like half-orcs.”

“While interesting, right now what’s more important is that it didn’t give me any more information about what’s going on back in Beregost,” Harry pointed out as the others pulled him out of the deep snow with difficulty. It was practically a powder, and Harry had sunk well into it, finding little purchase to push himself back out with. If Harry had fallen into it face-first, he might well have been suffocated before his companions could pull him out.

“Oh, but something else did update,” Harry continued once he was on his feet, the first notification giving way to a second in orange rather than the dark red Harry thought was somewhat misleading when it came to bestiary pages. “The number of attacking groups we’ve destroyed away from Beregost went up by one. I’d assume Imoen and the others have been busy, although we’ve still no clue as to how many such groups there will be in total.”

“So effectively nothing new other than knowing these groups won’t be entirely made up of bandits, hobgoblins and possibly high-leveled demon kin of some kind,” Jaheira grumbled, as she and the others started to move, hurrying after Minsc while the guards behind them continued to make their own slow progress.

“S, still you have to admit k, k, knowing that the foursome we left behind h, h, has been active is a good thing,” Khalid said, trying more to raise everyone’s spirits. He could tell that the trek and the unknown nature of the threat bearing down on their friends was getting to Harry. Even Dynaheir was showing visible worry as the leagues passed by and winter slowed them. Given his strength and abilities, it’s occasionally hard to remember how young Harry is. His visible anxiety about things he cannot control or do anything about, he will need to be

Minsc paused as he pushed his way through the last of the large snowdrift, the fresh snow ahead of them only now coming up to just above his ankles, his head twitching to one side. “OW! Boo, what has Minsc done to earn himself a bite on the ear from your mighty dentures?”

Boo squeaked for a moment as the group continued on their way, his tone almost admonishing to Harry’s ears, something he had to shake his head at, while Minsc frowned at what he was hearing. “I do not even know what dirty thoughts are, and if I did, my righteous mind would be doing the butt kicking before such could even form! Unless… can thoughts not be kicked? Hmm…”

Harry, on the other hand, did know what dirty thoughts were and stumbled a little for the second time as now the term foursome went through his mind in conjunction with the four ladies they’d left behind. While Harry would never countenance flirting with Edwina, he had to admit that the body the Girdle of Sex Change had given Edwin was incredibly attractive. Similarly, while he and Imoen had fallen into brother and sister roles very easily, Harry could admit she was attractive, just like Alora was, despite her short, stocky stature. Then there was Viconia, who Harry felt was one of the sexiest women he’d ever met, and one Harry could actually let himself fantasize about, given their relationship.

Not that I will ever even think of flirting with any of the four but Viconia, but damn, did that put an image into my head. I am freaking glad that unlike monks, paladins don’t need to take oaths of celibacy, because I don’t think I would hack it.

As he recovered from his stumble, Harry found Jaheira staring at him, her lips twisted into a smirk. “Pervert.”

“I…have nothing,” Harry said, hangdog for a moment, before blinking. “Hey, wait, how did you know what I was thinking? Don’t tell me you’ve developed telepathy or something.”

“No, I don’t have mind-reading powers. I just know how the mind of a young human would work, paladin or no,” Jaheira quipped while behind her, Khalid got the joke, and began to chuckle.

Dynaheir rolled her eyes, although she was also snickering a little, while Minsc just looked confused. Harry was about to order them to pick up the pace again when, behind them, the guards came through the large snowdrift along the route Minsc had cleared. Their breath was coming in ragged gasps, their legs looking almost like Jell-O beneath them.

Looking at them and his own party, Harry frowned a little. He’d pushed them all throughout the night, and he was feeling fine for the most part. His Constitution of 19 meant that he could keep going for a massive amount of time before becoming exhausted. The guards I sort of expected to be flagging, but the others aren’t much better.

Dynaheir’s shoulders were visibly drooping even as she swayed in place, while the others were looking a little tired. For all his strength, Minsc didn’t have that much Constitution, only a 12 from what Harry remembered without looking it up, while Khalid and Jaheira also had low Constitution at twelve and fourteen, respectively. Or is the other way around? Regardless, Harry knew they could go on for a few hours more before starting to become fatigued, but the guards couldn’t.

“Minsc, slow down for a second. You all need a break,” he said, scowling at the necessity. And I have some food that can at least help them along for a bit. “I’ll whip us up a quick meal, then we’ll be on our way.”

While the others all fell out, slumping onto their rears in the snow, Jaheira leaned on her staff, staring at Harry as he went to work creating a small fire pit with Minsc’s help. Like her husband, Jaheira could tell that Harry was castigating himself for their current circumstances, large and small, and wasn’t going to let him try and brood about things. Moving forward, she laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Harry, I can see your mind working now that your moment of typical maleness has passed,” she quipped, trying to make a joke of it before going on more seriously. “You can’t let your worries torture you about how we are so out of position for the fighting to come. We are trying our best to get back in time, and if we can keep up this pace…”

“Can you?” Harry asked, cutting off Jaheira in a way that he normally wouldn’t do to any of his party members, but he was frustrated, anxious about how long this was taking them and knowing that even at their best, they might not make it back in time. The going was hard, with the snowfall impeding their vision and the footing pushing even for Harry. He hadn’t traveled this route enough times to have any idea of how much farther there was to reach Beregost, but estimated they were taking four hours or more to go the same distance that the party could travel in just a bit over an hour.

Despite that, he apologized a second later, scowling and looking back down at the meal he was preparing, whispering so the nearby guards couldn’t overhear. “Sorry. But the damn timer underneath my map is driving me crazy. I can’t get rid of it either. I’ve tried.” Harry had indeed tried, but much like having a small version of his map always in the upper right corner of his vision, the timer refused to disappear.

“G, g, given that a woman you are c, c, currently… romantically involved with a, a, along with a girl you see as y, y, your sister and an entire town whose d, d, defense you have sworn an oath to are d, d, due to be attacked by a force capable of w, w, wiping it out, the fact t, t, that you are still capable of even the s, s, simplest of courtesies is a wonder,” Khalid said, laying a hand on Harry’s shoulder other. “B, b, but this is also a younger man's issue, Harry. Y, y, you can’t do everything yourself. W, w we are not Beregost’s only defenders. W, w, we have already wiped out one group t, t, that would’ve caused tremendous t, trouble for the town, I, I, Imoen and the o, o others already w, w, wiped out one other. W, w, we can only hope t, t, that such trends continue as we g, g go forward.”

“Worry about the things you can control now, not worry about what-ifs, or castigating yourself for mistakes which you made acting on the only information you had at the time,” Jaheira said firmly. “It made sense for us to wipe out the large band of hobgoblins, and following the trail before that was part of why we were on patrol in the first place. If anything, you should blame my forest sense rather than your own actions, as it was my information we were acting on.”

As Harry and Khalid made to protest, Jaheira went on, looking around at the others for a moment, then back to Harry. “And, if push comes to shove, do not be concerned about leaving us behind. With your Constitution, I’m certain you could continue at this pace easily, even in this weather. The rest of us, I don’t think any of us will make it, even me.”

Jaheira’s eyes flashed in anger at that admission, and Harry held back a wince by turning back to his work on the skewers he was making. Given her Long Strider buff, Jaheira should have the Constitution, the endurance to keep up with Harry no matter how long or what kind of pace he said. But thanks to the Curse of the Dread One, that buff, which, like Imoen’s Fight Like a Jackrabbit Buff, should have activated on a journey like this one, had turned into an activated skill with a significant cooldown. Jaheira could use it to gain a second wind, but when it wore off, she would be utterly exhausted and would need to sleep eight hours to recover completely.

Staring down at the food he was preparing, Harry scowled but eventually nodded. “If it comes to that, I’ll leave you all behind. With the guards and all of your own skill set, I doubt I need to worry about you defending yourself against monsters or random predators. But you’re right. Even if it’s just me, a single sword in the right place can make all the difference.”

With that, he bent to finish the meal and soon had nearly a dozen meat skewers ready, smiling faintly as an alchemical notification popped up in his line of sight.

Skill Check Passed. You have correctly followed a recipe that you have previously created:

Shafts of Endurance.

Mixed with various vegetables, these meat skewers are both filling and give the eater a minor Buff to his or her of +2 to their basic Constitution up to a total of 4. This won’t do away with the Exhaustion Debuff, but even someone already working under that debuff will keep going for a good bit longer.

Buff Duration: 3 hours.

Negatives: none. You will simply lose the full status and the buff, but you won’t be any worse off. However, continued use will result in no impact to your Constitution. You can eat only two of them before needing to rest fully.

As a perfected alchemical concoction, food variant, these Shafts of Endurance can be stored without losing any of their bonuses.

I still don’t like that name, damn it. Although I will admit having Viconia moan that she liked my meat when she tried it, then her face when I told her the name was hilarious, Harry reflected. As if she had just literally bitten off more than she could chew, and suddenly very much didn’t like the taste. Shaking that thought off, Harry turned away from the small fire to look over at the guards.

“Alright, you three, and you Dynaheir,” Harry began, giving no more information than he needed to. As he spoke, he noted the trio of guards and Dynaheir were all dealing with the Exhausted buff, which seemingly came with a lining of yellow around their bodies to Harry’s eyes.

These Flaming Fist officers are Exhausted.

Under the impact of this debuff, movement, agility and awareness of the world around you will be impaired by a 50% debuff. Strength drops only 25% for those who are healthy, but to 75% if the Exhausted individual is not healthy.

              “You all take two of these each,” Harry went on, not even pausing as he read that line to himself. “Eat one now, keep the other for when you start to feel tired again. They’ll keep you going. Everyone else gets one of them for now. Minsc, before you eat, show me the technique you are doing with your arms. If we have to clear more snowdrifts, I’ll be the one to clear them. We move on in an hour, ladies and gentlemen. Don’t get too comfortable.”

OOOOOOO

While Alora and Edwina were off doing actually important things, thanks to Vai’s orders, Imoen and Viconia had been stuck inside Beregost doing odd jobs around the town. For Viconia, this meant basically staying at their house, reading a book. With her temper and the tongue lashings she had given out occasionally, Viconia was the least liked of their group among Harry’s team, and keeping her out of the way was easily the best thing to do.

That, and Viconia had recently gotten into books on farming of all things. None of the others knew how to take that, but the majority felt that she might be looking into farming because of Harry’s ongoing alchemy experiments.

In contrast, Imoen, by far the most outgoing of the group, moved around the town, then out into the farmlands beyond. Having gotten permission from the farmers a day ago when Alora and Edwina set off, she had begun to set up traps and continued on that work for most of the day until around evening time. By the time a Flaming Fist soldier found her and told her Vai wanted to talk to her and Viconia, the vast majority of the farmland around the town was full of traps, ready for what might be coming if Harry’s warning was proven right.

Imoen grimaced. The inclusion of Viconia probably meant that what Vai really wanted to do was rail at them, as she had done that morning when Imoen had shown up at the office to ask for permission to continue her work setting traps. And here I thought she had just woken up on the cunt side of the bed. Seems as if she’s just inhabiting it these days.

With a pout, Imoen put her hands together, looking soulfully at the guard. “Are you sure I can’t go to that meeting on my own?”

If Harry had been there, he might have seen a Charisma Check Failed notification because the guard shook his head reluctantly.

“Sorry, ma’am, but Officer Vai was insistent that both of you should be in her office by the sixth bell. Since that’s in a little bit, you’ve got time enough to grab your companion and head over,” the guard said apologetically. Imoen had been basically a one-woman diplomatic army for the rest of her group since they moved in before winter, and none of the guards felt she should be routinely pulled into whatever beef was between their commanding officer and the adventuring group’s leader.

Sighing, Imoen pushed herself to her feet, gazing down at the stake-based trap that she had created. One of many that covered this field. Here, she’d experimented a little with different traps, wondering if, with Harry so far away, she could tell if she was raising her skill in trap making. Unfortunately, she couldn’t in any meaningful way. She could tell it was becoming easier, but what that meant in number terms she didn’t know.

For now, Imoen set that aside and followed the guard back into the town proper. From there, Imoen went to the house, finding Viconia doing some exercises instead of reading. Since they had learned that such exercises could have an actual impact on her strength, she had been extremely dutiful about doing such exercises and was well on her way to adding another point to her strength bonus by this point, having added four in total since winter began so far. Another point would bring her strength up to the limit that such exercises could give.

“Vai wants to talk to us, Viconia. Come on, let’s get it over with,” Imoen said, gesturing back out the door.

Viconia scowled, but as Imoen hit her with a color change charm, causing her blue-black skin to shift into that of a normal elf, she pushed to her feet. “Very well, but even another threat equal to what you used the other day of hanging me by my tits from chicken wire in the middle of the town square, will not stop me from trying to cave in her head if that Vith’orbb (Spider Fucker) throws curses and taunts my way again.”

“If Vai tries to bring up the ridiculous idea that Harry is an oath breaker again, I might help you break face in,” Imoen admitted.

Moments later, with Viconia bundled up against the cold just as much as Imoen was, the two of them entered Vai’s office at the local garrison. Vai looked up at them with a scowl, shaking her head, and when she spoke, Vai proved Imoen’s fears all too accurate. “Another day gone, and Harry and the rest of your party are nowhere to be seen. If they’re not back in two days, Harry’s going to be called an oath breaker and a fallen paladin. I have to wonder, Viconia, with him going to all this trouble for you, do you think you’re worth it?”

Breathing a sigh of relief that Vai had waited until the door closed behind her to launch that at Viconia, Imoen opened her mouth, but Viconia beat her to it. Luckily, she didn’t attack Vai in turn, instead stating simply, “It doesn’t matter what I think, as Harry made that decision all on his own. I think him quite foolish for it, but I have to admit that there is a part of me that is actually enjoys seeing a paladin willing to stand up for someone who is, if not innocent, then at least not the pure evil that you all seem to think I am just because of where I come from.”

It would’ve been fine if Viconia had just left it there, and indeed, Vai’s scowl told Imoen the drow had scored a point there. Unfortunately, Viconia was patently unable to do so.

“Much like the harridans on the street whom I have often often exchanged curses with over the months here in your town that think elven women are after their husbands, you seem to resent me over the fact that Harry accepts me as I am and simply refuse to look beyond your own biases to do the same thinking instead he should be biased in turn. Harry is not like that, and you are unable to handle it. Unable to handle the fact that he is interested in me as a person, and unable to handle the fact that he is perhaps a better individual than you.”

Well, at least she didn’t say anything about being more attractive or having Harry’s interest rather than Vai, Imoen thought, grimacing and preparing to step in.

Vai’s face reddened a little, and she bared her teeth. “Or perhaps I know more about your people than Harry does. And I’m not a male, and thus you can’t pull the wool over my eyes so easily?”

“Or perhaps you’re just worried about what Harry told you and hate the fact that learning that information brought him out of position with Minsc and the rest, hitting the towns overall combat effectiveness hard, so you’re trying to take it out on us” Imoen said, taking a step forward to place herself between Viconia and Vai, interrupting their stare down and pressing Viconia back with one hand.

Playing peacemaker was hard, but Imoen had done it several times back when she was in Hogwarts. Indeed, making people get along was a key Hufflepuff trait. Doing it now, when she was about as done with this bint as Viconia was, was hard, but she still did it.

Vai glared at her in turn, shaking her head. “I should never have let Harry take out so many of your fighters. Dynaheir and Minsc should’ve stayed here! We’ve only got so many magic users, especially with Edwina out with Alora and the men I assigned them now. I’ll tell you true that if those men don’t return with your companions, I will know why! Edwina is almost as suspicious as your so-called companion is.”

That hit home a little, and Imoen had to concede the point, even as she breathed a sigh of relief at how she’d seemingly been proven right.

The fact was, there were no mages among the Flaming Fists or caravan guards, nor fighters who were the equivalent of Minsc, Harry or Khalid. Beyond the guards, there were actually only three other adventurers in the whole town at this point.

One was a mage Imoen had, somewhat surprisingly, met once back in Candlekeep, named Firebead Elvenhair. He was a routine visitor there, a Level 11 mage who specialized in finding esoteric books and knowledge. He had volunteered his services to the guards for the winter just in case and had been renewing small enchantments and so forth all around the town for the past few months.

The other two were too low-level thieves. They had been running some small-time scams around town, and Imoen and Minsc, her companion at the time, had finally traced the crimes back to the two of them. They had agreed to join up with the guard over the winter in return for lightened sentences, but they were almost useless in a fight, unlike Firebead. They were armed with daggers and small bows, but weren’t very good with either, although they said they could put down traps. I’ve yet to actually see them do that, though.

No, when it came to truly dangerous fighters within the town, the only groups that really mattered were Harry’s party and the Temple of Lathander. Kelddath had been getting into shape over the winter, and the last time Harry had seen him had mentioned to Imoen, who had been there to pal around with the sirines, that Kelddath was no longer a 27 with the physical abilities of a Level 22, but equal to a Level 26. And as strange as it might be to think about my dancing partners, I know they’re dangerous too. Charm, arrows and their invisibility spells. Heck, I would kill to be able to attack while invisible like they can.

“All right, I can concede that was a mistake, but attacking us like this is just making tensions between us worse, and you know it, Vai. I’ll even admit it’s kind of bad that Harry’s group is so far away. But the rest of us are here, and we’re willing to do what we can to protect the town if Harry’s warning about it being in danger is proven true.”

“A warning about a threat I am still not certain actually exists and could simply be a way for your friend to skive off!” Vai retorted, looking as if she really wanted to continue the fight, her voice rising in turn. Vai was not someone who enjoyed the idea that Beregost itself might be in danger. “I say again, if Harry and his party aren’t back by---"

At that point, the door opened, and one of the guards motioned Edwina and Alora back in. Vai turned her attention to them, her eyes flashing with suspicion and anger, but before she could say anything, Edwina held up a hand. “Before you try to castigate us for something that should really have been entirely out of our control, considering the simians involved and how foolish they can act at the drop of a hat… the guards with us are fine. We simply sent them along to the temple for healing.”

“And you standing here not looking as if you have a hair out of place,” Vai sneered, before shaking her head, and becoming slightly more professional as she really took in how exhausted Edwina and Alora both looked. “What did you all discover? It must’ve been something interesting to have you turn back from High Hedge. Unless you made a really good time, and considering the weather the town’s been hit with since you left, that’s doubtful.”

“We ran into a minotaur! He was with a band of bandits, but was definitely in charge, shouting orders and everything. He even cut off the head of one of them to rally the others, and it worked!” Alora said, before beginning to juggle with something in her hand. “He also had this on him; it looks shiny, so I took it.”

Imoen reflected that it was indeed quite shiny, as it was made of gold and silver. If Imoen had to guess, she would say it was a horn ring of some kind. It looked quite expensive, not that Alora really cared about that. The shine of the thing was more important to her.

“That wasn’t all that the minotaur had on him. He also had this.” Edwina said, placing a gentle hand on Alora’s head for a moment as she pulled out the message they’d found on one of the dead bandits from her belt. The image of the Soul Taker Dagger would remain in Edwina’s Item Box for now.

Vai took it, staring down at it, then tossed it onto her desk, leaning back and running a hand through her hair. “Why now? Why has someone decided to send these groups after our town now? How many more groups are there? I’ll admit that the forty-plus hobgoblins that Harry reported would’ve been difficult for us to deal with before they could reach the town proper without a warning or you all here, but they wouldn’t have been able to take the town. Same with this group you mention, nine bandits and a minotaur? That’s nowhere near enough force. You’d need at least a few hundred hobgoblins or what have you.”

“That just means there are more such groups out there. Probably a lot more, or at least larger or more dangerous bands,” Edwina said, shaking her head. “If I were going to attack this town, I would send a token force in from the west, fearing what Thalantyr would do if any strong force came his way. The real avenues of attack would be from the other directions, perhaps more north and south rather than directly east, considering the temple of Lathander lies there.”

Vai sighed, but frankly, with the message in hand, Edwina’s words made too much sense, and Vai could no longer afford to look askance at Harry’s warning. She stood up and moved around the group, shouting outside. “Someone grab a boy and send them over to the temple for Kelddath. We need to start planning a real defense of the town, I think.”

She turned back, closing the door and leaning against it as she stared at the four adventurers in front of her. “That still doesn’t tell me why whoever is behind this wants Beregost wiped out now, though.”

“It’s gotta do with whoever is trying to cause war between Baldur’s Gate and Amn,” Imoen ‘guessed’, hoping that her charisma would help sell the lie. Up to this point, they’d been able to keep the Soul Taker Dagger a secret, but they really didn’t want Vai or anyone else to clue in on the fact that it might not have been just their group’s actions, but something they’d actually brought into town that was attracting this trouble.

“Beregost has more ties with Balder’s Gate than Amn. What would the powers that be in the queen of the north think if a group that consisted of at least a few minotaurs, along with bandits and other flotsam, were known to have wiped out the town,” Edwina murmured, adding her own words in. “Isn’t there a large population of minotaurs to the south of Amn?”

“… Which means that your actions against Tranzig probably forced their hands to this extent. I can’t deny that the town would’ve been in danger even if you hadn’t discovered his presence here, how important he was to the overall conspiracy, but that certainly drew a larger target on our backs,” Vai grumbled, but there was no heat to it. She had agreed to move against Tranzig at the time, and very much knew that the safety and wealth of her town relied heavily on the trade between the two powers, which someone was trying to force into war with one another.

“But fine. The town will go to a full siege footing. I’ll meet with some of the local important figures, get the locals organized, and so forth. Hopefully, Kelddath will also believe that this is a real threat, as he’s got way more military experience than I do.”

Considering Kelddath was an adventurer and Vai, who had once been a low-level adventurer but was now a simple Flaming Fist officer, that went without saying in Imoen’s opinion, but thankfully for everyone, Kelddath arrived and instantly agreed. “If it were just the one band that Harry had run into and the so-called information he gave you, I would not be so concerned. But considering that this group was led by a minotaur not only wiped out a group of your guards, but moved closer to the town afterward, I think we have to take this threat seriously.”

The high priest paced around the room, frowning a bit. “With the temple here, anyone who has planned something like this should know how tough a nut to crack Beregost could be. What we’ve seen so far, they are far too small and not dangerous enough, not even if they attacked the town unawares. We need to fort up. I will talk to the mayor and get a Writ of Command from him.”

Seeing Imoen and the other adventurers looking confused, Kelddath explained. “With that, we can get the locals working on simple defenses like barricades and prepping the outer buildings, comb through the civilians for farmers and others who are good with axes or bows.”

He looked at Imoen. “That will free you all up for more long-range scouting. Ambushes can help us whittle down any attacking group, and also tell us more about what kind of total enemy force we’re dealing with.”

Imoen agreed instantly. “Me and the others could set up a lot of traps and use them to good effect. Heck, I’ve been doing that all day out in the farmland around the town itself.

“I don’t know. Harry’s already out of position, and I don’t want a wizard like Edwina or, as much as it pains me to admit it, a healer like Viconia caught up away from the town as well,” Vai argued.

Admitting that sounded as if Vai had been pulling out her teeth with a pair of pliers, but Imoen shook her head quickly. “Like Kelddath said, we won’t push out too far, say around a quarter of a day away from the farmlands and the temple. That’ll give us enough time to race back if possible. We’ll make a circuit of it: start from the southeast, work our way around, setting traps, hitting whatever raiding groups we come across. I’ll take those two thieves with us; that’ll give us four thieves to set down traps with.”

“No.” Kelddath shut that thought down instantly. “I’ve spoken to those two, and they are not exactly made of stern stuff. I will have them help set up more traps around the town while the majority of the civilians will be helping to fortify the town proper. Many of the outer buildings are of stout enough construction that they can serve as walls. Barricade some of the doors further against intrusion rather than winter, set up blockades along the roads into and out of the town, and then trap the roads leading into those chokepoints.”

Imoen agreed with that, but she was stunned when Kelddath went on. “If you are heading in that direction, though, which is probably the direction from which the main force will attack the town, I will assign two of the temple’s sirines to help you. The other two will work with me when we eventually turn over fortifying the town to Vai. You’ll start tomorrow morning. I think your two companions here need the rest.”

“We do, and I need to redo my spell book,” Edwina admitted. “We pushed hard to get back here and didn’t really rest after we ran into the minotaur and his bandit group.”

“I’ve still got a lot of energy though,” Alora said, happily. Her Constitution, Imoen remembered with some annoyance, was actually a bit higher than Imoen’s at 14. She had no idea about Edwina’s.

“In that case, for now, let’s the two of us get with those two thieves and start on those on-the-road-type traps. If you assign some of the townsfolk to work with us and at least hold torches, we can get a lot done even though it’s night out now before turning in. Then we can set out in the morning for the combat patrol. Just let the four of us have a meal together, and all head over and grab those two thieves from the inn they’re staying at.”

For agreed with that and waved her off. The group of adventurers headed back to their house, where they ate a quick meal made by Viconia, during which they talked about what kind of spells she and Edwina should set in their spellbooks that night. Then, they split off again, the two magic users heading up to bed early, while Alora and Imoen headed out to meet with their fellow thieves.

OOOOOOO

The night passed without incident, and the next morning, Imoen was up with the dawn. Thankfully, even though he was so far away from them, she, Alora and Viconia all still benefited from the automatic eight-hour sleep cycle the AAS required, and while Viconia made some breakfast for the others, a wide awake Imoen headed outside, determined to learn what had been going on throughout the night.

Passing through the main square, Imoen watched as Vai led three dozen men in archery training. There were three other such groups in sight along some of the main roads, while still more civilians were practicing with axes. These were axes for use around farms rather than real weapons and thus far heavier and less wieldy than a battle axe. Yet just like a smith’s hammer or the pitchforks and scattered billhooks among the citizenry, they could be used to guard the top of a barricade.

Of which there were a multitude, Imoen learned as she walked around. Vai and Kelddath had moved with remarkable dispatch and energy once they were certain the town really was in danger, and work on the defenses of the town had begun the night before and hadn’t stopped since. Luckily, a significant portion of those defensive measures had already been in place due to Beregost’s winter preparations.

All the outer farms, save for a few large farmsteads whose main buildings were made entirely out of stone and had been designed to be defensive keeps, had already been abandoned for the winter. Friends and family members routinely moved into houses in the main portion of the town or filled up the inns along with the caravan owners, drovers and guards. Now, even most of those outer farmsteads were also abandoned, bar a few guards and menfolk with crossbows or bows.

Within the town proper, the majority of the outer ring of houses that made up the actual town proper were also stone. Several of them even had outer garden walls made of stone where a group of guards could make things difficult for anyone trying to get close to the house. Once outer gates were barred by heavy wooden slats, anyway. What few doors led out and away from the town itself had also been barricaded and boarded up easily, while the majority of the roads leading into town had also been fortified with makeshift fortifications.

As Imoen examined one such barrier, groups of men with five guards and Lifari passed Imoen by. The blue-skinned sirine waved at her friend even as they passed by. “Hello, Imoen. Glory of Lathander’s dawn be upon you!”

“And may he ever shine over you, sister,” Imoen replied formally to the greeting, before asking, “Where’re you all heading?”

“High Priest Kelddath led a band of the locals to the north before dawn. Word came back that there’s no sign of any attackers coming from that direction just yet. So we’re going to be cutting down trees this morning, bringing in logs to help with the makeshift walls,” Lifari answered.

Imoen nodded at that, grateful that the group would have a larger screen than just the caravan guards that were going with them. The guards might be able to fight the equivalent of ten or so bandits, but not a group of thirty-five, the hobgoblins like the group that Harry had been intending to ambush.

Lifari moved closer, leaning forward to whisper into Imoen’s ear. “But there were a few signs of bandits and hobgoblins from the south. One of the families who routinely stay out on their farmstead in winter sent a boy in with word, and Firebead and seven Flaming Fist guards were sent that way to drive them out. There were also reports of a few sightings to the southwest of trappers reporting new tracks, but nothing more just yet.”

That caused Imoen to scowl a little, knowing that those outer farmsteads were within three hours at most on foot from the town proper in winter and that only because most of the time the smaller roads leading out to them weren’t kept clear. “That’s not good. Still, when we’re done forging east is the Temple into the Wood of Sharp Teeth, we’ll swing southward to meet up with them.”

Lifari smiled a bit at that, backed away, and, as the sun, which had been hidden for a moment, came out from behind a cloud, raised her hands upwards in song.

Watching, Imoen fought the urge to do the same, despite knowing her efforts in that area would not be welcome. Imoen had many talents, but singing was not among them. Yet she had begun to look into the faith of Lathander during her time interacting with Lifari and the other sirines over the past few months. There was a great deal to be said about the Morning Lord, and a large portion of his religion’s creed called to her.

She watched as the sirine returned to her group, still singing, noting that most of the men looked remarkably chipper despite the events going on all around them. How much of that had to do with the scantily clad sirine whose clothing did not reflect the winter conditions around them, Imoen wasn’t about to comment on.

Shaking her head, Imoen returned to the main plaza. There, she locked eyes with Vai, exchanging begrudging nods with the woman, before turning back and opening the door into the house she and the rest of them had commandeered so many months ago. Yet I’m still going to call it home. It doesn’t feel like that, and I don’t think it ever will. “Come on, you lot! Let’s get a move on!”

Soon, they were on the road heading to the temple. As they went, Imoen spoke to the rest of the party. She remembered all too well the issues she’d had with leading the majority of their band when Jaheira and Harry had been separated from them, and wanted to make certain nothing like that happened again. “Troops, let’s go over the ROE for this morning.”

“ROE?” Alora asked quizzically. “I know of cod roe, but that is said like roe; you don’t emphasize each letter like you did.”

“It’s an acronym, for rules of engagement,” Imoen answered, shaking her head, causing Edwina to hum thoughtfully. “I just want to make sure that none of you are going to have problems following me when the arrows start flying.”

She glanced in particular at Edwina and then Viconia. “I know you two might have more experience, but not working with a group. I’m not going to second-guess your use of Magic Missile single enemy type spells, but we’re going to be working like skirmishers and ambushers, and that’s a Thief-class’s specialty.”

Honestly, if she hadn’t joined Harry for so many days in the time loop that had them stuck at Candlekeep, Imoen wouldn’t be as certain of herself. The way her attempt to lead the group before had gone had kind of rattled her, and as Tonks (don’t call me Nymphadora), she hadn’t been more than an Auror trainee. But in Candlekeep, Imoen had been given what amounted to several crash courses in how to be an excellent skirmisher. Up to this point, she had only really used her scouting skills and just a bit in terms of traps, but this time, they were going to lean on traps and ambushes heavily.

Edwina scowled, somehow making the look seem pretty with her face, and yes, Imoen was a bit jealous of that. But thankfully, she and a thoughtful Viconia agreed, eyeing one another warily. It was clear neither would be willing to take orders from the other, and that might have been a driving point beyond their agreement. They both didn’t really care that Harry left me in charge, after all. Still, at least Alora doesn’t care.

This was extremely accurate, as Alora was simply standing to one side, having pulled out a few items to juggle with.

With that out of the way, Imoen continued. “First of all, remember we’ll be working with two of the temple’s sirines. My Blood Magic spells are going to be of limited use, as we still want to keep them a secret. I think I can get away with saying my invisibility spells or my sound muffling spells, and say those are activated enchantments from items I’m wearing. But other than that, I’m not going to be using any kind of offensive spells while we’re out and about unless there’re no witnesses. The same general rule goes for if battle comes to the town itself.”

While the others nodded at that, Imoen went on sternly. “We’ll be concentrating on keeping away from any direct combat as best we can, using traps, ambush tactics and long-range attacks. Everyone should have a few of the special types of ammunition that Harry left behind, along with your healing potions.”

As part of the tooling up project Harry had put the group through over the past few weeks, all of them had special ammunition on them or in their Item Box. Knowing there was a limit to how far away they could use his Complex Item Box, Harry had made a point of leaving behind most of their advanced supplies. Thankfully, control of those item boxes seemed to be one of the few things about the AAS that didn’t rely on distance to activate within the adventurers, so while they couldn’t all access Harry’s Complex Item Box, the group could pull out their slingstones +1, Fire or Acid Arrows with speed.

That secret Imoen wasn’t nearly as serious about keeping, either. She honestly didn’t think anyone but a high-level adventurer would pick up on it at all, really.

The quartet also all had two healing potions on them. Imoen had taken the time to add to their stores of such since Harry had left, giving the group, who, beyond Viconia, were not front-line fighters, the same number as Khalid, Harry and Minsc carried.

“But don’t use the special ammunition unless the situation warrants it. Similarly, I don’t want you to use any of your summoning spells for now, Edwina. Not unless we need them as a distraction to get away from being encircled or something. What kind of spells did you two decide on?”

Since even Harry sometimes ran into difficulty convincing any of the magic users to follow his orders on what spells to memorize, Imoen hadn’t even tried to simply command the pair on this score the night before. Rather, she had used last night's discussion to try and direct them to the proper mix of spells, defensive and offensive. Thankfully, her Charisma skill and past experience with directing conversations how she wanted them to go had worked pretty well.

“Anticipating our current tactical needs, I went for an eclectic list of spells. I have two Flame Strikes, two Cure Serious Wounds, three Cure Medium Wounds, one Spiritual Hammer, one Armor of Faith, and two Resist Fire,” Viconia answered instantly.

As a cleric, normally, Viconia’s overall level didn’t match directly the level of spells which she could memorize. However, thanks to her drow heritage, she could use two spells only two levels lower than her actual combat level rather than the normal three, hence why she could call on two Level 5 spells, like, in this instance, Flame Strike, rather than two more Level 3 spells. Imoen also knew that that was one of her favorite spells.

In contrast, as a cleric devoted to a dark Goddess like Shar, Viconia didn’t actually know any Level Six spells at present, despite being possibly able to cast them as a Level 8 drow Cleric. She would need to find spell scrolls just like the two wizards could in order to add to her repertoire going forward.

“Hmmpf, while I will not tell you all of my spells, know that I concentrated mostly on area of effect spells. I have four Skull Traps, three Fireballs, two Agannazar’s Scorcher, five Grease spells and so forth, along with two Monster Summoning 2 spells,” Edwina huffed.

Edwina was always more cagey about his spells than Dynaheir or the two healers. Moreover, she was a Conjurer. As such, for the small detriment of not being able to use any spells from the divination school, she could use an extra spell slot per level. That, and an enchanted amulet which allowed Edwina a second extra spell per level, made the cursed Thayan a very powerful spell caster who could fight above his (nominally) weight class.

“Sounds good. Your Skull Traps, can they be hidden under snow? Like, can you cast them, and then we can cover them with a large mound of snow where they’re hovering without breaking the trap? Those things’re deadly, but they’re not exactly subtle,” Imoen said.

Edwina blinked. “Occasionally, you remind me that you are not just one of the typical buffoons who run around doing so-called good deeds and getting into trouble for the joy of it. Astonishingly, I’ve never actually thought of that. I do not see why not. Certainly snow, no matter how hard-packed, would not stop the concussive force of the Skull Traps going off. The issue might be the hovering aspect of the skull, but we will need to experiment to see.”

“Good. Alora and I have a few bits and bobs to add to our traps, in terms of wine bottles, cooking oil and so forth, too.” Imoen said, before they reached the temple.

Leaving the others in the courtyard with the currently frozen fountain, she ducked inside, coming back with two of the sirines, Nifiri and Cara, walking on either side of her, bows strapped to their back and a quiver of arrows at their hip, but happy and bounding forward like two teens on a shopping trip. Nifiri was the first sirine whose acquaintance Imoen had made, and she remained Imoen’s closest friend among the four. Cara was the only sirine with hair that wasn’t pink, being instead a dark purple color.

The two blue-skinned girls joined the rest of the group, and they exited the temple’s environs, heading eastward towards the Wood of Sharp Teeth. Behind them, the temple emptied out, with the last of the laymen, pilgrims, and two sub priests, both low-level adventurers who were more clerks and healers than anything else, heading towards the town.

“I am surprised that your high priest would so willingly abandon the temple of such grandeur,” Viconia noted as she looked over her shoulder. Her tone came out with a faint sneer, matching that on her face for a moment. “I admit that it is a wise decision, considering how open the temple and its environs are. Yet just because it is wise does not mean it is one most priests, especially ones with such vaunted stations, would make willingly.”

“We wouldn’t normally, but given how little information we know of the numbers or the true strength of the attackers, High Priest Kelddath decided to err on the side of caution,” Nifiri answered, shrugging her shoulders, which did very interesting things to her bosom.

Like the other three, Nifiri didn’t seem to feel the cold at all, and their regular clothing made for great viewing for any men in the area. In fact, Imoen and Edwina both enjoyed it quite a bit. To Imoen’s surprise, Viconia also looked to be casting the pair surreptitious glances, although Imoen wasn’t certain why that surprised her, considering how well Viconia had dealt with her own flirting a few months back, and the whole matriarchal society thing the drow had going for them. And didn’t she seem interested the first time she entered the temple, too? She hasn’t done it since, so I can’t remember more than that she was worried about the whole place coming down on top of her due to being a worshipper of Shar.

With Alora plying the two sirine with questions, the expanded group trooped out over the snow. Here, that snow was heavy on the ground, making it a slog, but Imoen had quickly discovered that her Thief class gave her amazing footwork even in snow, leaving little in the way of a trail, something Alora also enjoyed. Similarly, the sirines bounded over the snow like it was grass, reminding Imoen once of a line she’d read in a novel back on Earth. Although unlike that elf, sirines don’t have little wings on their ankles. Edwina and Viconia left clear marks, though, something Imoen made a note of.

For once, with the sky clear above them, they made okay time and were able to reach the forest edge well before lunchtime. There, Imoen and Alora shifted ahead of the others, going off in angles away from the rest. As the pair of Thief Class adventurers went, they dropped small traps here and there. These were more to slow anyone moving through the woods than to actually do damage to a person or a group.

Meanwhile, behind them, the sirines shifted to either side and ahead of Viconia and Edwina, keeping wary eyes all around them. But while both sirines could cast spells to make themselves invisible, they could not set traps, and despite being racial abilities, they could only use such spells a certain number of times per day. Specifically, three times per day for each of them. Unlike Charm, which, as another racial ability, they could use any number of times.

It did not take long for the two scouts to hear noises in the distance.

With her boots silenced by a Blood Mage spell and Hidden Under Hide in Shadows, Imoen crept forward until she was within sight of whatever was making the noise. The moment she did, Imoen had to bite back a silent snarl. Ahead of her, moving through the woods, was a group of bandits. In a few seconds, she had counted twenty men there, although that was a quick estimate. Among them were two ogres, sticking out like sore thumbs, their massive forms looming over the bandits.

Scowling, Imoen observed them for a few moments before pulling back. As soon as she was certain she was far enough away, Imoen began racing through the woods, getting ahead of the group and back to the others.

She arrived just on the heels of Alora coming out of her own Hide in Shadows skill, pointing back in the direction the halfling had come from. “I nearly ran right into a large group of bandits coming this way! Five ogres, two minotaurs, and at least eighteen hobgoblins!”

Edwina blinked for the second time that morning, taken aback. “That… is a very odd group. Ogres and minotaurs do not normally work together.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Edwina, but they’re both there. And they’re coming this way.”

“They probably mean to meet up with the group I just found. This is the closest point to the temple from the Wood of Sharp Teeth,” Imoen said, frowning. “Although the group I found was mostly bandits and two ogres. I don’t suppose we could make them fight one another, could we?”

“My sister and my Charm skills would work well enough on one enemy at a time to do so certainly,” Nifiri answered with a grin. “But unless we get lucky and charm the leader of one of these bands, it’s doubtful we could set the groups at one another’s throats. Should we pull back and wait until they meet up, or move to attack one and then the other?”

“I don’t want us to attack outright any of them, not until we have time to set the battlefield. They’re too close to let us do that to both, though,” Imoen muttered, frowning pensively. “Alora, I think the group you found is more dangerous than the one I found. How far until we start hearing noises from them?”

“I’m pretty fast even in snow like this,” Alora said pensively. Thanks to the number of trees, there actually wasn’t all that much snow on the ground in comparison to the cleared land nearer the temple, but there was still a bit of it. “We should have time to head out and lay down some traps.”

“Good. Let’s do that, and let’s use one of your Grease spells, Edwina. We’ll cover the area with one of those spells, along with a few of our traps to ignite it,” Imoen hastily planned. The rest of you, find a place that’s a little more defensible back the way you came. Prepare hides and figure out angles of attack, then when we get back, we’ll lay out traps there too.”

Seeing that as simple good sense, none of her team members argued.

And let’s hope there aren’t too many other groups like this out there that’re already so close, Imoen thought, before shaking her head. Who am I kidding? Of course, there’s going to be more groups like this. A better hope would be to hope that they’re all basic bandits and so forth, nothing too major in terms of high-level adventurers or monsters. But it looks like Harry and the rest aren’t going to make it back here in time.

With Edwina in tow, the two thieves headed back out the way Alora came, Alora leading the way.

The halfling took them through the woods for the better part of what Imoen would estimate was around half an hour before she started to hear the noise of the group ahead of them. With that, the two thieves got to work, setting up numerous traps all around, with a few specialized ones that would ignite on their own. Normally, such traps weren’t all that dangerous, especially at the low level the two of them were, but when Edwina cast Grease over the entire area, that equation would hopefully change.

Once his spell landed, the group pulled back, heading back to meet up with the others. They did so quickly, and then it was Imoen’s turn to lead the way back outward, towards the group of mainly bandits that she had discovered. This time, she had Edwina set a Skull Trap to one side. With that done, she ordered her to bury it, and, ignoring her grumbles about such work being beneath her, Imoen and Alora began setting up numerous small traps around the area in a basic crescent area, spreading out the traps in small groups.

Unlike with the hobgoblins, the bandits weren’t moving through the forest like a column so much as a gaggle, and in this way, she hoped to catch more of them. Another Grease spell was added to their traps after that, and the trio then fell back a bit.

While that had been going on, Viconia had been creating a small hide in the snow for herself and Edwina which the wizard joined her in moments later. It was a bit too close confines for either of their comfort, with both of them bumping elbows occasionally as they shifted, but they were able to poke their heads up over the lip of the small hide without being easily spotted.

Meanwhile, the two sirines had joined Imoen and Alora in hiding themselves, using the first of their invisibility spells for the day.

Where they went, Imoen couldn’t tell after that. She didn’t have access to Harry’s map, and even I she had, the pair weren’t official allies. But Imoen knew Nifiri and her sister would hurt the enemy wherever they went.

For her part, Imoen and Alora took up station near their companions, essentially backing up the area with the Skull Trap in it at a safe distance. From here, they would be able to fire through the woods at anyone moving through that area and the zone she and Alora had taken time to trap. Most of those traps were simple trip traps, but combined with the grease everywhere, they would make for incredibly treacherous footing.

Viconia twitched, staring out into the distance, her greater Elven hearing having caught something. “I think that the group Alora spotted has run into issues to our north,” she murmured, before ducking back down. “And here come our first victims of the day.”

Edwina didn’t bother to answer, simply sticking her head over the side in turn. For a moment, she remained there, watching a group of bandits and one of the ogres trundling through the woods in a slightly closer formation than the rest of their band.

This, however, simply served them up on a golden platter for Edwina’s Skull Trap. They walked up to it, actually getting quite a bit closer than Edwina had thought they would be able to get. This indicated that perhaps the snow that she had piled up over the hovering skull interfered with its ability to detect enemies.

Regardless, it still exploded when they came close, the noise of it a dull CRUMP followed by the screams of the wounded. “The closeness they were able to assume to the Skull Trap made it all the more deadly. Fascinating.”

Three of the bandits were down, their bodies holed from head to toe, and the ogre screamed, its eyes impaled by flying bits of bone. In fact, its entire upper body had been perforated. It wasn’t down, but it was certainly out of the fight, ogres not having any kind of ability to regenerate. Three other bandits were not so badly hurt and simply fell to the ground with loud wails, their voices almost unheard under the ogre’s bellow of “WUOAHOAA!!!”

The next second, still screaming, the ogre flailed around blindly, finishing off one of the wounded bandits with a blow from a fist the size of the bandit’s head.

“What the fuck!?”

“What was that?”

“Where did that come from?” shouted a few other bandits nearby, staring at where the clumped-up group of their fellows had been torn apart.

Many of the bandits scattered around pulled back, grabbing at bows or short swords as he stared around them. “Are we under attack!? Out here?”

Their fellows further away through the woods heard those noises and paused, but too late. One of them walked right into a lone spike trap Alora had laid, and screamed as the spike went through his foot, causing the bandit to hop along on one foot for a moment.

Another one who had been backing away warily hit a tripwire. “WhaaaARGGH!!!”

The tripwire sparked a bit of flint and tinder set into the trap. With the snow everywhere on the ground, the Grease spell didn’t really spread the fire as much, but this man still screamed as his legs were set on fire.

He quickly began rolling in the snow, dropping his sword to hurl snow on his legs with both hands. But his rolling only served to trip another trap, catching both himself and one of his companions who had moved to help him in still more spikes.

Remind me to never get into a trap contest where speed matters with Alora. She put down far more spike traps than I would’ve been able to in that amount of time.

Tripwires galore tripped and caused people to flail, grease worked its magic as well, tripping still more, and soon only ten of the bandits were free from the trouble, along with the other ogre.

That ogre and one bandit froze for a few seconds as a lilting dulcet song wound its way through the woods. That noise caused the bandits all to look around wildly, knowing for certain they were under attack, but too late for the two fellows targeted by the sirines’ song.

A second later, Nifiri and her sister whispered orders only the two Charmed could hear. The bandit turned on his companions, short sword coming up to attack. Meanwhile, the ogre raged, lashing out in every direction.

A moment later, Imoen and Alora came out of Hide in Shadows, their bows firing. Edwina and Viconia took this as their own queue and pushed themselves up out of their hiding place, slings whirling. Edwina took the badly wounded ogre under fire, while Viconia concentrated on one of the two uninjured bandits that were closest to their position. The other charged forward but was hit in the side of the head by an arrow from one of the sirines, collapsing into the snow, gurgling his life away, the arrow having taken him straight through the neck.

With the grease incapacitating most of the bandits, the shock of the numerous traps and everything and now the sole ogre turning on them, the bandits' courage quickly broke. But none could escape the trapped zone, and for several moments, the sextet simply concentrated on finishing off the bandits one after another after another.

They were nearly finished with that task when Viconia looked up and through the woods to their right flank. “I’m still hearing noises coming from that direction! I think the other group’s going to be on us before we have time to set up more traps,” she warned

“Nifiri, split out wide again, please,” Imoen suggested, hoping that the two sirines would hear her and obey. “Use your Charm on them but keep it in reserve. Alora, Hide in Shadows. See if you can put down traps to our left flank as they come towards us.”

Through the woods came the hobgoblins. They were accompanied by four ogres and two minotaurs, which indicated that at least one of the ogres had been dealt with by the traps that Alora had put down in front of this group or the initial traps she, Edwina and Alora had made to slow them down. Many others were injured, singed around the edges. Evidently, the grease and the fire starter trap had done a better job of catching this group than it had the bandits.

Yet they were still coming forward in about as good a formation as they could manage in the woods, bows ready.

The first of the hobgoblins fell to precise fire from the four defenders, the four of them taking the two hobgoblins in the lead down before they could get off a shot. The others charged on, though, swords out as bows began to twang. This return fire forced the defenders into cover for the first time, as none of the bandits had been of any mind to use their own bows in the previous exchange.

“I would dearly like to have access to the Tangling Vines spell right now!” Edwina grumbled.

One of the ogres screamed as Viconia hit it with a Flame Strike spell, the bolt of fire coming down from on high to crash into the beast from above. The magical attack set it on fire and causing it to scream and flail, falling into the snow and trying desperately to put out the fire.

One of the hobgoblins directly behind it was open to a sling stone shot from Edwina, and the beast grunted as the stone took it in the head, looking stunned. This was followed by two arrows finding another hobgoblin, before a dozen of the hobgoblins came too close for comfort. The bandits had tripped too many of the traps, letting this second group through the makeshift kill zone too quickly.

“Edwina, pull back,” Viconia growled as she pulled out her warhammer, matching it to the shield she was already carrying.

Seeing Edwina move to obey, Imoen provided her some cover fire, coming out of Hide In Shadows to take a few of the hobgoblin archers under fire from the side. The next instant, Alora twitched around a tree and was somehow able to activate Hide in Shadows for a brief second. The next second, she was behind one of the charging hobgoblins, her sword stabbing into the creature from behind, hopping up and over the creature to join seemingly join Edwina in retreat.

Two of the hobgoblins about to attack Viconia suddenly became charmed, turning on their fellows. This let Viconia get the first strike in one of the others. A faint towards its head opened up its body, and her Warhammer crashed into its knee, sending it screaming to the ground, letting her twist around and block two strikes from another pair of hobgoblins. A strike got through, causing her to grunt, but Viconia wore one of the two pairs of Ankheg Plate Mail the group had commissioned, and a Small Shield +1. This allowed her to take the strikes or deflect them away with ease.

The next second, Alora suddenly shifted forward instead of joining Edwina. Putting her back against Viconia, the halfling shifted with her, concentrating on stabbing at hobgoblin knees and ankles. This worked to a great degree, startling the hobgoblins, causing their attacks to go wild, while Edwina and Imoen pulled back and to the right of the pair. Several of the minotaurs and a group of the hobgoblins had run into a few of the traps that the bandits hadn’t tripped yet on that side, thanks to Alora’s last-minute work there.

“Damn good job, Alora. Remind me to treat ya to something after this,” Imoen shouted as she pulled out several wine bottles and cooking oil bottles that she had taken from the house. Hurling them forward one after another, she nodded towards Edwina as they shattered on impact with the trees, hobgoblins, and one extremely unlucky minotaur, who took a bottle of oil to the face. This not only blinded him but also covered him with the substance. “Fire spells, please.”

Grunting, Edwina flung off one more stone before her sling was back in her buckle. With her hands free, Edwina’s fingers began to shift and move, preparing an Agannazar’s Scorcher. As she did so, Imoen moved ahead of him, her small buckler coming up to deflect an arrow, while another one cracked into her Shadow Armor, bouncing off and letting her grin for a second. “Yes! Holy hell, I completely forgot how good this Shadow Armor’s supposed to be.”

Several more hobgoblins closed with the pair of them before Edwina shifted around Viconia and launched his spell. Once more, fire erupted in the woods, catching the unlucky minotaur, one of the ogres, and four hobgoblins in its radius. Thanks to the bottles that Imoen had hurled, the fire also spread, catching still more of the hobgoblins who yelped and dove into the snow nearby, causing their fire to slacken.

That didn’t matter so much to Imoen for a few seconds as she found herself in close combat with three hobgoblins that had closed with her, ducking under blows and taking still others on her Shadow Armor to defend Edwina. Thankfully, her Fight Like a Jackrabbit Buff activated automatically, giving her enhanced hitting power and agility.

This was helped by the fact that her blade was enchanted to the +1 level. With it, Imoen cut into the forearm of one of the hobgoblins, cutting across its tendons and causing it to drop its sword. The next instant, her own short sword plus one plunged into its throat, and she twitched sideways with a grunt of effort, sending the corpse into the other hobgoblins just enough to deflect another strike. It still hit her but only her hood rather than her face, and thankfully, it didn’t do anything.

The Shadow Armor gave Imoen +3 armor to all kinds of weapons. This basically made her immune to the weapons of their attackers, something Imoen realized she should be taking advantage of. “Edwina, keep pulling back.”

So saying, Imoen pushed towards where Alora and Viconia were still fighting. Alora didn’t have nearly as good armor as she did, and Imoen castigated herself for not being the one to charge forward to help Viconia before this. She killed one more hobgoblin, then linked up with Viconia, who similarly had taken several hits, but her Ankheg Plate and Small Shield +1 had seen her through. “Alora, pull back with Edwina. Viconia and I have this.”

Soon, despite the Magic Missiles of Edwina and the arrows from the sirines and Alora, two of the ogres and a minotaur reached the embattled pair. Wary of the sheer impact of the larger monsters’ blows, the twosome retreated.

But then, two of the remaining six hobgoblins on the field turned yellow, the cooldown for the sirines Charm having expired. Directly behind one of the ogres, the hobgoblins attacked viciously, stabbing it several times before it could turn, smashing both of its attackers flat. This seeming treachery turned the other ogre against its fellows, and it roared as it began to attack the hobgoblins around it as well, while the minotaur continued to assault Viconia and Imoen alone.

The sheer impact of the monster’s mace hitting her buckler broke Imoen’s arm and sent her stumbling with a cry of pain, her sword and shield’s automatic effort to bring her shield to block the blow having not proven to be as intelligent as it might have otherwise.

 A backhand from that same weapon sent Viconia stumbling, but she had been able to block it. Reinforced by a girdle of strength, her own sword and shield technique was up to redirecting enough of the blow so that she too didn’t end up with a broken arm. A hammer blow struck the minotaur’s chest, but this only caused it to stumble back.

Then arrows sprouted from that same chest from the two sirines, causing it to growl, but not doing much damage thanks to its natural leather-like hide. However, it was wide open for Viconia’s next strike, which took it straight between its legs.

“AYIIEEEEEEE!!!!” The minotaur screamed in agony as its man parts were pulped. It slumped, going down to its knees and holding its personal agony, before another blow from Imoen came in from the side. Her Short Sword +1 was able to punch straight through the minotaur's natural armor, slicing through its neck to the bone.

At that point, the six hobgoblins still on the field suddenly realized that they were the only ones left in fighting shape. Ignoring their fellows stuck in traps or down with wounds, all of them turned to flee, but Edwina, the two sirines who were only now coming out from behind their invisibility spell, and Alora struck them down before they could escape.

Looking around herself, Imoen pushed herself through the pain for a second, smirking slightly. “Well, two bands of that size dealt with, and all we’ve got to show for it are a few dents in our armor, and my broken arm? I think that’s a pretty good return,” she said, before Nifiri approached her.

Viconia, who was about to use a Cure Medium Wounds on Imoen, paused, watching as Nifiri wordlessly handed Imoen a potion. “You’re going to need to hold her arm steady in a proper position for that to work,” she warned.

“I know. But Kelddath gave my sisters and me three healing potions apiece when the Morning Lord rose in glory. I think using one of them here rather than having you waste a Cure Medium Wounds spell is a good idea.”

“Damn! We should’ve thought about asking for more potions when we were at the temple,” Imoen grumbled.

“There weren’t actually all that many left, and what supplies the temple had were being taken into town,” the other siren said, coming up behind Imoen. She made almost to hug the shorter human, pressing into Imoen’s back in a rather distracting way as her hands reached for Imoen’s forearm. “I’m going to need to hold this still while you drink that potion,” she whispered, while Edwina looked on, torn between amusement and a bit of arousal at the sight.

Imoen nodded, then hissed in pain as her arm was moved in a direction, and the bone bits ground against one another. With Viconia touching Imoen’s shoulder, she was able to tell when the bone was properly set, and nodded for Nifiri to feed the healing potion to Imoen. Moments later, the wound was healed, and the two sirines shifted away, while Imoen wrung out her now healed arm.

“Alora, perhaps you should set up some more traps around here, and then to either side of the battle zone. We shouldn’t bother trying to collect anything from the dead. Once Harry returns, we can come back this way and do it with the rest of our gang helping,” Viconia suggested. By which she meant that Harry would be able to use his Complex Item Box to do much of the work.

“Good idea. You two should range around us for a bit, make sure that none of them got away,” Imoen said, smiling at the sirines. “Well, that and to make sure there aren’t any more groups coming in towards this position.”

Twice more, before the sun was starting to come down, the group met and defeated similarly sized groups coming in from the northeast and another group directly east, following up on the original bandits. During these engagements, they mostly relied on traps and long-range attacks. When the enemies got close, it fell to Imoen and Viconia to do the heavy lifting.

Luckily, again and again, the magical armor the two wore and Imoen’s buff helped them through those close-in combat, although both women did go through two of the healing potions that the sirines had on them. Fighting ogres or minotaurs up close and personal meant the sheer impact of their blows was quite bruising.

Worse, more than once, Alora and Edwina had made the decision to use some of the special Acid Arrows and enhanced slingstones to help them put down enemies faster. At the time, it was the right decision, but Imoen was worried about how many more such groups could be out there.

Eventually, true to her words to Lifari, Imoen led the group southward. There, they ran into still another group, but this time, Edwina laid out a skull trap that took the guts out of the group. With Edwina’s Magic Missiles and the sirines charming a pair of ogres, the remaining group was dealt with quickly.

From there, Imoen and Alora led the group almost heading straight west to come at Beregost a few leagues south of the town proper.

Coming out of the cleared area separating the forest from the farmland, all of them could see ahead, where a battle was going on around one of the farmsteads.

The guards and Firebead had gone to ground in the farmhouse, which was basically a small two-story keep, by the time the adventurers and their two sirene allies arrived. All around the farmhouse and well into the fields beyond, there were a few bodies, and the snow tramped down to show that retreat hadn’t been a quick one.

None of the bandits firing up into the windows or at the ceiling of the farmhouse noticed the two scouts, and leaving Alora behind to cast down some traps, Imoen retreated to the others to plan out their attack. Thankfully, the two sirines hadn’t made use of their invisibility spells beyond the first battle and used it again now. They moved forward, and Imoen and the others watched as two of the bandits became charmed.

“Kill your superior officers! Kill whoever is giving orders!” Came the twin cries from the sirines, invisible to all of the bandits thanks to the second use of that spell for the day. Even as several of them pushed forward with a makeshift battering ram to hammer the door to the house, the two charmed bandits pushed through their fellows and attacked one of their fellow bandits and one of the four minotaurs with the group. The minotaur chopped the head off his attacker quickly, but the bandit, who had apparently been shouting orders or else the charmed turncoat wouldn’t have gone after him, fell with a sword through the eye.

And then Edwina’s Fireball slammed into the center of the group of four minotaurs, sending cascading fire and explosive pressure over them and the nearby bandits. Several of the bandits lost their footing, while the minotaurs cried out in pain, with one of them actually losing his eyes to the flesh of fire and heat and beginning to panic. He was quickly put down by his fellows, though, as arrows began to fall into the back of the attacking mass of bandits from the two sirines, Alora and Imoen.

“Spread out and find them! Find them quickly!” One of the surviving minotaurs bellowed, turning and charging towards where some of the arrows were coming from. The two invisible sirines took him under fire, and Alora and Imoen retreated quickly.

The mass of bandits split up, with only about twelve remaining around the homestead and the rest pouring away from it towards their attackers. However, Imoen Alora and Edwina had taken some time to prepare traps. Hidden in a ditch that had previously marked where one homestead ended and another began, a third Skull Trap went off, killing one of the charging minotaurs and several of the bandits. Similarly, other bandits yelped and fell to their knees or were tripped up by tripwires and stakes or slid on grease only for Viconia to rear up out of the snow, her hammer seeking their lives.

All the while, arrows fell among them, killing and wounding. The walls separating the farmsteads became min-choke points. They made for great cover, and also hampered the bandits’ movement, forcing them to go around or clamber over, slowing them. The snow didn’t add to this much, thanks to how beaten down it was here, but even so, it made for treacherous footing.

An Aganazzar’s Scorcher flashed out from Edwina, separating one large group into smaller groups, slaying several while panicking others.

Before one of the two surviving minotaurs could restore order in the same manner Edwina and Alora had seen, one of them fell screaming to an Acid Arrow from Firebead, while the other became Charmed by one of the sirines. He roared, battering around himself with hand and massive mace, smashing three bandits to death before the others could realize their peril and begin turning their weapons on him. He fell moments later, but took two more bandits with him.

By which point, a large portion of the remaining bandits were panicking. Within moments, most of those bandits were in a complete rout, leaving only five to charge the adventurers, along with the group trying to batter their way into the farmhouse.

Imoen and Viconia met the five of them as they came around a low wall, switching out weapons to short sword and hammer, respectively, lashing out with them as the bandits closed. Viconia slew one of the bandits outright with a strike to the head, before Imoen’s opponent, who had ducked under her blow, received a knee to his boy bits for his trouble. He squealed and was then backhanded by Imoen’s shield, slamming into the side of his head.

“I wonder if that would be a technique of some kind?” She mused as her sword came up to block a blow, and her armor took two more, the enemy trying to concentrate on her for a brief second, thanks to the very messy death of the one that Viconia had dealt with.

This did not work very well for them as Viconia caught another one with a strike to the collarbone and neck, leaving only three bandits within striking range. “I rather doubt it, or if it is, it’s a technique that doesn’t give any special impact to the blow. Especially not from a tiny buckler like that.”

“Makes sense,” Imoen grunted as another blow caught her in her chest, but yet again, the Shadow Armor proved its worth. The non-magical weapons of their opponents simply couldn’t harm her when she was wearing it. Even the hood was able to deflect blows away from her head. Better, no bandit had the sheer strength to make her feel the blow despite her armor.

The next second, Imoen’s short sword stabbed out, but the bandit surprisingly blocked it. He did not see Alora coming up behind him, performing a perfect Backstab, her blade coming up from behind, severing his spine. “EHheheh, your back and your knees are at my mercy!”

Two bandits facing the pair broke, trying to get around the halfling that had surprised them, but the three adventurers cut them down quickly.

The others had concentrated their fire on the fleeing bandits, not wanting to give them any chance to regroup, and most of them had been dealt with before they got out of range. Meanwhile, the guards and the mage inside the farmstead had sortied out and were engaged in close combat with the remaining bandits, bar Firebead, who remained behind. Magic Missiles flashed down into the melee below, killing one bandit, and that seemed to do it. Those groups of bandits broke as well, only to be caught by the adventurers coming up behind them.

With that battle done, Firebead led the rest of his group out to meet with Imoen and her party.

“We’ve been fighting on and off with what we thought was one group all day, only to discover it was actually two groups. When a third band joined them, the attackers pinned us in place with about half their number and pushed on with the rest to Beregost,” the elderly elf reported, a scowl on his face. “I didn’t see anyone more dangerous than bandits and minotaurs, but there were at least eighty bandits in this group to start with, and I know I didn’t see all of them. There was at least another band that gave us a wide berth as they made for the town.”

“We’ve dealt with similarly sized forces several times already today,” Imoen also reported, staring up at the sky for a moment. It was well into the evening now, and she estimated they only had another half an hour, if that, of sunlight. Mind you, Edwina and I have infravision given by our items, and Viconia has her own night vision. “Are you all heading back to town?”

“We are. If you’ve been destroying so many groups, that’s good, but there could be others coming in from different angles, like the one that got past us,” Firebead said worriedly. He was not a very martial man, being an elf of thin stature even for his race, although he affected to have a long beard, something that most elves couldn’t grow or would even bother with if they could.

“We’ll push further west for a little bit, see if we can ambush one more group before falling back.” From here, Imoen couldn’t make out any of the town itself, but she could see segments of stone fences and so forth.

Firebead nodded and gathered up his guardsmen. Only a few of them had been injured, thanks to how close to the farmhouse they had been before being forced to fort up there, although three of the farmers themselves hadn’t been so lucky. Of them had died, and the other two were seriously wounded, to the point where Imoen asked Viconia to use one of her Cure Medium Wounds on the couple. She did so, and with the help of one of the sirine’s healing potions, the pair were able to be moved.

With that, the two groups broke up, with Imoen leading her five off, and Firebead led the guards and surviving farmers back towards town.

With night swiftly approaching, Imoen and the others raced on, with Alora and Imoen once more in front of the others. Both of the sirines also called upon the last of their invisibility spells now. It would only last them for an hour, but that would sustain them until darkness, when they would make for the town.

Moving through the outer farmsteads of Beregost, the group didn’t see any other groups pushing into the tilled, cared-for area out of the wilderness beyond, until Imoen spotted a group of twelve bandits, lounging around a farmhouse with its door smashed in.

This was followed by a group of women who Imoen could barely see in the windows of the house, tossing a pair of bodies out of the window. Imoen wondered if these were female bandits, although she was a little thrown by how similar they all looked. In the fading light, they all looked gorgeous, almost as good-looking as the sirines, except for the fact that their faces were twisted in sneers. Beyond the dead bodies they’d just dumped out the window for some reason.

That, and their hairstyles were… Well, Imoen had been very much a punk rocker in her past life. Yet even she would’ve thought that shaving half her head while leaving the rest to flow freely, or having your hair done up in spikes with bits of metal protruding from it at angles, was a bit weird.

Thinking nothing of it, Imoen retreated to the others, and with the sirines once more breaking off, set her group up on the other side of a separating wall that demarked one farm from another. From there, Viconia and Edwin attacked, using slingstones.

As the attackers left the farmhouse, they ran into traps that Imoen and Alora had set up in what amounted to the backyard of the farmhouse, connecting it to its next-door neighbors. At the same time, Edwina launched a Grease spell into the area, making the footing even more treacherous.

One of the bandits was unlucky enough to get a spike through the foot and then fall back, cracking his head hard enough on the side of the building to send him slumping to the ground. But the others were more inconvenienced and sent falling than anything else. That was enough, however, as arrows began to slice in from both sides of the area. Two of the bandits became charmed and turned on one of their fellows, the sirines not bothering to give any specific orders this time, simply holding the bandits in place as they came out of the house.

Here, however, the surprises began. The female bandits, or at least who Imoen had thought were female bandits, began to launch darts ahead of them. They were immensely accurate with them, too. One of them slammed into Edwina’s stomach, causing her to cry out in pain and fall back into cover. “ARGH! What in… aggh, it hurts… those darts are enchanted, my robe did nothing to stop that hit!”

Two more would’ve struck her, but Alora leapt in, blocking one of them with her own body. The other went through, and both of them were down suddenly, crying out in more pain than simple darts should’ve allowed for. “OWWWOW, it hurts, ugh, that’s worse than when Uncle Algie took a switch to me bum!”

“Duck and cover, pull back. These are not any normal female bandits,” Imoen shouted, shaking her head as still more darts flew their way. They thankfully bounced off her armor, one of them even bouncing off the hood of her Shadow Armor, but the damage had been done. Now, those users charged forwards. Twin short swords gleamed with magic as they appeared out of the shimmering doorways, crying out in delight before they disappeared from one step to another using the Dimensional Door spell that Imoen had only seen twice before.

They appeared instantly among the adventurers on the other side of the intervening half-wall. This showed that they were tiny, all of them around Imoen’s height, but they moved with grace and agility that put even Imoen to shame, their blows lashing out so quickly they looked like they had been hit by a Haste spell.

“These are not human bandits, these are Alu-Fiends!” Viconia grunted, scowling angrily as she lifted a hammer to block one of the incoming blows. Three of them attacked Viconia viciously, while the others charged in towards Imoen. Her Shadow Armor defended her valiantly, their blows battering her, but not penetrating, but her own short sword was deflected or blocked each time she struck with it.

Meanwhile, the arrows of the sirines continued to fall among the regular bandits, finishing off several. Imoen assumed that they couldn’t see how bad it had suddenly gotten thanks to the wall, the darkness and the angle of their attack. This left it up to her and Viconia to hold the line, as Edwina and Alora were still down, looking pained. Edwina had already taken a slash to her arm, while Alora had taken a cut to the head, but the Alu-Fiends, whatever they were, had mostly ignored the pair for now.

“Get Edwina and Alora out of here, Viconis,” Imoen shouted, and for the first time that day, made use of her Blood Mage spells. Her hand flicking in the same maneuvers that a wizard would use to use the Power Word: Stun spell, she slammed her shield into the chest of one of the attackers, causing that attacker to flinch, then collapse.

This allowed Imoen to push into the group around Viconia, defending her in as she pulled back. It also made her target number one for the Alu-Fiends, who all twisted around to stare at her in shock.

“A wizard of some kind, a sorceress with interesting techniques! Your screams will delight the night!” one of them snickered even as her twin swords flashed.

“Points for alliteration, but as that actually makes no sense, I’m still going to give you minus fifty for that line. Just like I’d give you minus fifty out of a hundred for your looks, you skanks,” Imoen grinned as she began to dodge and duck away, lashing out with her sword as best she could.

“How dare you! Minus fifty what? We are all a hundred out of a hundred, you bitch!” one of them shouted, seeming to take Imoen’s words to heart.

That caused Imoen to grin and start to taunt them, sending out a few taunts to each of them in turn. “Oh, please! Maybe if someone had a blindfold on, you’d be a sixty, your shape’s decent enough. But those faces, that hair, hah! You look like someone from a slag heap decided to prank you. Your eyes are too close together. Your nose is too big, oh, and you, darling, your lips look so big that it looks like a bee stung you.”

This worked far better than it should have, and all six of the still-attacking women shrieked, “How dare you!” before attacking with even more fervor.

The Alu-Fiends were completely sidetracked for a few moments, allowing Viconia to cast healing spells on their two companions. This also allowed the sirines to turn their attention to the Alu-Fiends. Normally, Imoen might have thought that was enough, but being battered backward despite her magical armor, Imoen was in no mood for half-measures. “Use the special arrows!”

This was proven correct a moment later, as the normal arrows from the still hidden sirines bounced off. The strikes didn’t do much damage but rattled the women a bit, taking their attention away from Imoen for a second.

Before the sirines could switch out to their special ammo, more of the bandits joined the fight, although three of their number fell to scattered traps around the farmstead, joining the four already slipping, sliding and otherwise unable to get to their feet.

The next second, Edwina was back on her feet and lashing out across the front with a Color Spray. The women all cursed and yelled, although they didn’t seem all that damaged by the spell. However, the cone-shaped spell flashed through and over the Alu-Fiends to catch the bandits beyond, knocking all of them out.

Viconia no became targeted by a few of the Alu-Fiends, but her armor held well enough to their sword strikes. Her own hammer missed badly as they were easily able to dodge her strikes. One slashed across Viconia’s face, cutting away the cheek guard of her helmet, before Imoen’s attack took the attacker in from the side. Her Short Sword +1 seemed to get through whatever natural armor the woman had, cutting her open from under her elbow across her chest, and causing her entrails to start to pool out.

“GAH!” The next instant, Imoen found herself on her knees a second later as a blow took her in the back of her knee. This was followed by a strike to her head that had her head ringing, even though the Shadow Armor’s hood stopped the blow.

Desperately, Imoen stabbed upwards, gutting the Alu-Fiend, which had hit her head, but Viconia was forced back and away from her. At the same time, Edwina retreated even further.

An Acid Arrow from one of the sirines dealt with one of the Alu-Fiends threatening Viconia, causing several others to turn as their fellow fell screaming. “AGGIEEE!!”

Viconia twisted around, lashing out with one of her healing spells to Alora, who groaned as the pain in her side and head receded, pulling out the dart that had hit her in the side. She rolled into the snow, activating her Hide in Shadows for a moment. With most of the Alu-Fiends concentrating on Imoen and Viconia, this worked, and a second later, one of them screamed as Alora backstabbed her, sending her down to the ground.

This left only three of the Alu-Fiends, but they fought doggedly, and Imoen winced as her head and shoulders rang again and again with blows against her Shadow Armor, which, although they couldn’t get through her armor, still hurt a little bit. In return, more Acid Arrows began to tell, and finally the Alu-Fiends fell, leaving an exhausted, battered group of adventurers behind.

“Sound off,” Imoen growled, wishing again that Harry was here as she popped open one of her healing potions. Without the Advanced Adventuring System at hand, she couldn’t tell how badly battered any of the others were, but she felt as if each of those strikes had taken off at least a hit point or so, and it had added up rapidly despite the Shadow Armor.

Edwina didn’t even bother answering, growling greatly and pointing at Viconia. “Heal me again, woman! Those two darts that hit me, they did a tremendous amount of damage!”

“Do not order me around, false female!” Viconia ground out, shaking her head and her hammer at Edwina. “I am in no mood for your tongue!”

“That could be taken so many different ways,” Imoen quipped, standing between, while Alora nearby downed her own healing potion, not waiting for one of the sirines to approach to offer one of their own. Not that they would at this point. Both of the Sirines had taken hits before this, and were down to only one each. “Let’s head back to town. And someone fill me in on what those Alu-Fiends are.”

“Dangerous. Both dangerous and telling,” Viconia muttered, shaking her head. “Two or three more Alu-Fiends with this group, we might well have all been overcome. Enough darts to put Edwina or me down right from the start.”

Nifiri nodded and moved to help Imoen, who was still a little wobbly on her feet, while Viconia, to her chagrin, did indeed heal Edwina once more, before turning her attention to herself. With that, the group set off towards the town, wondering how the rest of this battle had fared elsewhere.

The first clue that the town had indeed come under attack despite the adventurer’s best efforts came in the form of fires in the distance, the smoke of those fires nearly invisible in the nighttime sky. Seeing that, the adventurers and sirines hastened their feet, eager to get back to the town and discover what else had been going on today, now hoping that the night would give some them some respite, at least.

Hint: It didn’t.

OOOOOOO

“What in the heck…” Harry breathed, his feet slowing their pace for a moment as, while he had been getting much better at multi-tasking, he still wasn’t up to jogging through treacherous terrain and reading at the same time.

 Your companions have run into a new type of monster and have thus created a bestiary page.

Alu-Fiend

While not a monster race per-se, Alu-Fiend are half-devils which, in this dimension, act the part of monsters whenever they are summoned. Alu-Fiends are born of Succubae or Erinyes and a male of another race. An offspring of such mating is always female and beautiful, although unlike Succubae, they are just as skilled with darts and short swords as they are at seduction. There are enough Alu-Fiends that they are considered a separate race from other female devils, and they breed true, creating a devious, dangerous lower caste among female devilkind.

Like their mothers, Alu-Fiend can all use a few racial spells, in this case, Charm and Dimensional Door.

Attitude towards Adventurers: Condescending contempt with a spattering of interest. Like all devils, most Alu-Fiends look down on the mortal races, seeing them as easy targets, fools or tools, regardless of whatever race their father was. An occasional Alu-Fiend might actually fall in love with a mortal of either gender rather than emulate it to take advantage of them and try to leave behind their home dimension, but such examples are very rare.

Strengths: Much like all devils, they cannot be poisoned at all, either through physical or magical means. Alu-Fiends are also utterly Immune to any mental attack, such as Charm or Fear. They have a 50% resistance to fire and electrical damage, along with 25% resistance to cold damage. Alu-Fiends are almost always exceedingly well trained with their chosen weapons, up to the equivalent of a third slot on a normal adventurer, and all wield Darts of Wounding and twin short swords.

Weaknesses: Alu-Fiend do not have any natural immunity to acid damage, explosive or water-based damage, or anything that impacts their eyes or senses. Alu-Fiends do not have any natural armor and rely on agility and hampering their opponents with their Darts of Wounding. While their footwork and agility are both good, an Alu-Fiend ’s physical strength is similarly not much to write home about. Alu-Fiends are, much like their mothers, superlatively vain creatures and react poorly to simple verbal taunting about their looks.

Hearing Harry’s sudden shout, Jaheira looked up at him from where she had slumped down into the snow. Khalid was nearby, rubbing at sore legs.

Dynaheir and Minsc were nowhere to be seen. Even with a second helping of Harry’s Shafts of Endurance, the guards and the Rashemani Witch had succumbed to utter exhaustion around seven hours ago, despite Harry having carried Dynaheir for a few hours. Minsc hadn’t been far behind and had further refused to leave his witch, despite his visible frustration at not being able to push on and help the town.

“Gods damn this snow!” Harry shouted, staring ahead of them through the darkness. The sun had just gone down, leaving the group racing on in the darkness, but even if it had been daytime, Jaheira knew that she and her husband would be unable to continue on. “And I thought the timer going to zero was bad! Now I know that they’re being attacked, and just ran into something called an Alu-Fiend, who are—”

“E, e, excessively dangerous,” Khalid noted. “I’ve fought t, t, Alu-Fiends in the past, and they a, a, are tricky, smart, and work well in g, g, groups.”

“They are also devil-kin, whose inclusion into any kind of large-scale attack like this is a dangerous precedence. I am deeply concerned now about what other forces are being brought to bear to get the Soul Taker Dagger, and who could be behind it,” Jaheira scowled. “I haven’t run into such creatures, but I know they aren’t exactly common.”

“My bestiary page doesn’t mention their rarity, not that it matters. These Alu-Fiends are there, attacking the town, attacking our friends, and we’re all out here!” Harry grumbled, eating some Good Berries that Jaheira had conjured into being. Along with a Cure Small Wounds spell, they would set his health back to a hundred. He had hurt his arms a bit carrying first Dynaheir, then Khalid and Jaheira in succession for hours on end while continuing the same jogging speed he had been keeping since they had set out from the ambush site.

Carrying them had been an… experience, for certain, one Harry had tried hard not to examine during or since. Khalid was all bones and muscle. The older elf seemed, despite being slight of stature, just as well built as Harry or maybe more so. Dynaheir, on the other hand, was, well, she had bigger hips, bigger thighs and baps, and that had made for a blushful time for Harry, even if her body wasn’t really his type. Especially given how he’d had to grip her thighs as he carried the witch on his back.

Despite that, Harry had learned he preferred leggy athletic types, although he would never complain about a bigger bust to go along with it, like the one Viconia had. That meant that Jaheira was more his type of the two women, which was why Harry wasn’t looking in her direction right now. He was afraid he’d blush again.

Luckily for Harry’s composure, Jaheira was both married and had been carried like this before on several occasions. She had known how to push herself off his back occasionally to relieve the sensations and hadn’t tried to make light of things or play into it as Dynaheir had. Still, despite the knowledge she was married, the memory of Jaheira’s more modest chest, devoid of any armor, pressing into his back as he had his hands under her thighs, had been causing him issues until the message about the Alu-Fiend popped up into his line of sight.

Now, Harry paced around them, scowling. He was feeling it a bit now, but not all that much. His greater Constitution still allowed him to continue at the pace he’d set, which was the equivalent of a fast walk through the snowy terrain of winter. “The battle’s going on now. If we stop for eight hours, then…”

Jaheira shook her head wearily. “We can’t go on, Harry. It pains me to admit, but we’ve already talked about this. Go. We’ll follow as best we can. If my sense of terrain hasn’t completely left me, we’re within ten, maybe twelve hours of Beregost in this kind of terrain. You’re the only one who can keep going and maybe arrive in time to make a difference.”

“Will you two be able to set up a tent for yourselves?” Harry asked, already pulling out their tent and camp equipment as he asked. He knew they were right, but he’d still hoped to arrive with at least a few of his companions. He didn’t think anything around here was dangerous enough to worry either Minsc and those with him or the two half-elves. Rather, he knew that, as dangerous as he could be, Harry wasn’t nearly as dangerous as their whole group.

“Think you this will be the first night we have spent in the wild of winter on our own?” Jaheira teased, while Khalid chuckled. “Simply leave us some of those meat skewers and enough of the dry wood, and we will be more than fine.”

That actually won a chuckle from Harry despite his concerns for Imoen and the others, as Jaheira had never called the meat sticks Harry had created their ‘official’ name. But he nodded quickly and set about doing as she asked. Within moments, he was done and racing on into the night.

OOOOOOO

As good a job as Imoen and her force had been doing in intercepting attack groups before they could reach Beregost, they’d only been covering what amounted to, at first, a third of the territory around Beregost. The adventurers had done a magnificent job there, and no enemy had approached the town directly from the Wood of Sharp Teeth, but that still meant that the north, northwest, south, southwest and west had been left largely uncovered by the group best suited for skirmish-style combat.

The enemies coming straight from the West, from the direction of the High Hedge, came in small drips and drabs. Many of them looked more like they were running away from something by the time the Flaming Fist guards on patrol on that side of the Coast Way saw them coming. Some of the would-be attackers even surrendered, hobgoblins and bandits alike rushing in without weapons only to hold out their arms, begging to be clamped in irons, babbling about running into “Golems! Golems larger than ogres, wider than a human was tall! Our weapons, they bounced off them! Nothing we did hurt them!”

This proved to Vai and Kelddath that Thalantyr, as much as he disliked being forced to acknowledge the world beyond his laboratory, had noticed the sheer amount of bandits and other raiders moving around his manse, and had decided to do something about it. True to what Edwina had said, his adamantine golems could deal with thousands of low-level fighters like bandits or hobgoblins and not notice.

However, that was simply from that angle of attack. The rest of the west became a real problem at around the same time Firebead and his troops were forced to fort up. At that point, five bandits rushed forward with swords to try and get close to one of the larger houses on the northwestern side of the road. With the farmers held up there for winter, having seen them coming, none got close. But two hours later, that farmstead became besieged by a larger group of twenty-plus hobgoblins.

Vai herself led a group of Flaming Fist soldiers and caravan guards to relieve the farmers, only to run right into the victorious group of hobgoblins. Despite her leadership, it was only because of the traps that Imoen, Alora, and the two thieves had put down during the previous day and night that allowed them to get back into town. Most of those attackers came after them with reinforcements, and a vicious arrow duel began both there and elsewhere around the perimeter as more raiders appeared out of the wintry evening.

While Imoen and her band were busy to the east, Kelddath and his two sirines had patrolled northward, intending to intercept any of the attacking groups coming from that direction. They did so almost as well as Viconia and the rest, but they had actually been the first to run into the Alu-Fiends. Kelddath had issues with this group of ten Alu-Fiends simply because they would use Dimensional Door to shift away from him, keeping the range open in a way that the group that Imoen and the others hadn’t. Eventually, though, Kelddath was indeed able to get into close combat with them, while before that, his Armor of Faith and physical armor had been able to stop most of their Darts of Wounding from crippling him with pain.

However, in so doing, Kelddath had found himself out of position to stop large bands of bandits and hobgoblins from striking the town from the north and northwest. Soon, those groups began to spill out in every direction around the town. Arrows flew from both sides as minotaurs led direct charges alongside ogres to smash into the barricades or try to hack into the doorways of buildings to get inside.

Coming up from the south, a scene like this was what greeted Imoen and her group. Here, it was a group mainly consisting of bandits with only a light livening of hobgoblins and a handful of minotaurs, one of whom went down as the group closed to the point where they could all see what was going on through the light of torches and several fires that have been set in fields around the town.

With her Ring of Infravision, Imoen climbed up a tree, staring ahead of them, trying to determine where to go, and saw another minotaur trying to batter a door down to one side of where the majority of the attackers were trying to get through the barricade set directly on the Coast Way leading south. Archers were up on the rooftop or in buildings firing down into the mass of attackers, while several caravan guards and even a few civilians lined the barrier’s top, stabbing down with pikes. Pikes who Imoen vaguely recognized.

Heh, when Harry collected those things, I don’t think he thought that Taerom would just turn around and hand them over to the town for a moment like this. ‘Worth only as much as a handful of pug iron indeed!’ Imoen thought, fighting back the urge to giggle at the odd thought. The longer reach of those weapons was having a marked impact, killing bandits and hobgoblins alike, although the minotaurs and ogres seemed to go down far less easily.

However, it was the minotaur who was the main focus of Imoen’s attention, and she hopped down to the others. “Alora, you’re with me. There is a loan minotaur a little bit away from the main fighting, trying to get through one of the outer buildings. He’s just itching to be backstabbed. “Edwina, you got one or two Fireballs left, right?”

“Correct. I also have one more Skull Trap and several other spells,” Edwina smirked haughtily at Imoen. “Do not mistake me for a normal Level 8 mage, fool.”

Imoen frowned, then decided to ask a very pertinent question that it just occurred to her. “Do Skull Traps recognize allies? Like we’ve been careful to not be near one of those things when they go off before this, but…”

“Much like Fireball, Skull Traps do not recognize neutral parties,” the red wizard snorted. “As its creator, it would recognize me, and I would be able to pass unimpeded nearby. But the rest of you, or the townsfolk, no.”

“Then you and Viconia set that up somewhere hidden. If this group retreats, the Skull Trap can finish them off, or if…”

Imoen’s voice cut off as Firebead and the group of guards and farmers with him arrived on the scene. What had kept them from getting to the town before them, Imoen had no idea, but she watched as Firebead launched a Fireball of his own into the center of a group of hobgoblins. They were methodically firing arrows up into a building, trying to keep the defenders' heads down.

The Fireball burst, and she shook her head, watching as more than a dozen other attackers turned from where they had been piled in trying to get up the barricade. “Viconia, keep at least your final Flame Strike back and concentrate on keeping us and our allies on our feet. Edwina, you’re authorized to use one Fireball, but only use your Scorcher if you can get at least four or five of the attackers. Otherwise, husband your spells. This might be a very long fight.”

“Done,” Alora announced, coming out of Hide in Shadows to one side of the group, kneeling alongside them where they were hiding behind a stone wall. Like many of the walls outside of the town, these were more demarcation lines between one from another, but they served as decent cover and okay defensive points, especially at night. “One minotaur backstabbed!”

Imoen blinked, looking down at the cheerful halfling girl, then decided not to fight the urge to reach over, ruffling Alora’s hair affectionately. “Way to keep your eyes on the prize, girl! Ready to go out and do it again?”

The two silent thieves shifted away from the others, then charged forward to join the guards pressing into the attackers from behind. Their Hide in Shadows technique didn’t quite work as well as it had on that one lone minotaur. Still, both of them were able to get at least one Backstab off into a hobgoblin and bandit respectively, cutting them down before Alora retreated, shifting back into Hide in Shadows the moment she could.

In contrast, Imoen joined the fight, relying on her Shadow Armor. Just as good, her Fight Like a Jackrabbit Buff instantly activated the moment she was once more locked in close combat.

With Edwina hitting another group of archers away from the melee, the bandits started to fade quickly, losing heart until one of the minotaurs did whatever he had done the first time Edwina and Alora had run into one of the creatures, cutting the head off of a bandit and stiffening the resolve of the rest of them. This turned the fight into a true slog, but thanks to Firebead and Edwina targeting their archers and so many arrows coming from the defenders, soon most of the scattered archers among the attackers were down, and the defenders turned their attention to the melee.

There were a few friendly fire incidents on Imoen, but thankfully, none from her own team and the normal arrows that the rest of the defenders were using couldn’t do anything to her Shadow Armor. Viconia kept the guards and farmers with her on their feet, going through most of her Cure Minor Wound spells. The two sirines, meanwhile, targeted the minotaurs or ogres they could with their Charm technique, shooting any others they could. With Viconia and Alora joining in, the enemy’s elite troops soon fell.

Despite that, the attackers kept fighting, although thanks to Viconia, they only took a single guard with them. When the last of them fell, a ladder was lowered down the side of the barricade.

Here, the barricade had been made of stout wooden logs and stones, only backed up by carts. The Coast Way Road that ran through the town was by far the largest entrance into the town, and had been reinforced commensurate with that size.

Imoen scrambled up the ladder quickly, followed by the rest of Firebead’s group, and then her own as they rushed in. The sirines hastily looked around the interior of the town, which was well lit by dozens of torches and bonfires, but in the darkness, they couldn’t see any better than a normal human could. Even though the sounds of combat behind them had basically ended, in the distance, screams and the clangor of weapons could be heard, and Imoen shook her head.

Turning to her group, she shouted them over to her, before looking over at one of the caravan guards who seemed to be in charge of this area, given how he was directing a few civilians forward into the houses nearby with fresh quivers of arrows and crossbow bolts. “Do you have any idea how the overall battle is going?”

“I know that we haven’t begun to lose many people yet, and we haven’t been hit by anything too disastrous,” the man answered.

Imoen’s memory, always good at recognizing faces and voices, pulled up a name for her. This was Darris, ostensibly an officer of some kind among one of the better caravan guard groups. That wasn’t saying much, but they had at least as good armor and weapons as the Flaming Fists, and all of them used medium crossbows as well.

“We think at least two, maybe three of the families who opted to stay out at their farms were wiped out, but those are the biggest losses Beregost’s taken so far. Vai’s taken command over on the northwestern side of the town, and I think Kelddath arrived back when the sun came down. He’s pulled back into the center of the town and is dealing with the wounded along with the rest of the priests from the temple.”

Imoen slowly nodded at that, then looked over at her companions. “Nifiri, I’m presuming you want to head over to Kelddath?”

The sirine nodded and then bounded forward, covering the few feet that had previously divided them to give Imoen a quick hug. “We will. But this was a most magnificent day. You lead very well for someone who said she wasn’t all that good at it, Imoen. Hopefully, when Lathander’s light arises, we will all still be here, and you can join us in song and dance in praise of the Morning Lord again.”

The other sirine went so far as to give Imoen a big kiss on the lips, causing her to stiffen, before both of the nonhuman women raced off deeper into town. Imoen watched them go, and she wasn’t the only one. Many an eye on the defender had turned in the direction of the sirine the moment they came over the barricade. It took a shout from Darris to get those men looking back out into the darkness beyond the town.

The only one in Imoen’s party who didn’t look after the women was Alora, who was currently chattering the ear off of one of the locals who had come forward with a quiver of arrows. In her hand, the other thief held a large golden hor ring like the one she had taken off the first minotaur she and Edwina had fought. Where she got it from, Imoen had no idea, but wasn’t about to ask.

“Food and water, then we head to the center of the town and find Kelddath or Vai for further orders,” Imoen said, adrenaline slowly leaving her now, leaving her on the brink of exhaustion. They’d fought more than five times today, and it didn’t look as if the night was going to be any kinder. “Viconia, I don’t suppose there’re any of Harry’s Shafts of Endurance left?”

As the adventurers rested, with Firebead and the two thieves joining them after Viconia came out of the house with food, the battle around the town continued. Luckily, thanks to the early warning they’d had, and the nature of the houses that marked the outer edge of the actual town proper it wasn’t going well for the attackers.

Setting fires as they had out in the farmlands around the town actually bit them on the rear now, lighting up the approaches to the town, allowing the defenders to fire at them at slightly better ranges than the attackers could fire at the defenders. The attackers also didn’t have nearly as good cover as the defenders did up in various houses, or high up on the rooftops behind wooden banisters covered with heavy, thick cloaks or blankets. These acted like primitive gambesons, stopping incoming arrow fire.

However, losses did start to mount. Numbers would tell, and the hobgoblin archers began to pick off their counterparts, especially the armed civilians. The northeast sector was the first to feel this, as a group of forty hobgoblin archers basically began to rake each building in turn on either side of a smaller, less well-built barricade there.

It was to that area where the adventurers were sent next, but when they arrived, they sent that group of hobgoblins and the group of minotaurs, ogres and bandits into disarray quickly. Acid and Fire Arrows, along with lightning-enchanted stones hammered into them, killing or maiming with nearly every strike that went home. With Imoen’s request to keep Edwina’s last Fireball and his spells at bay, it left Firebead the only one who could use magic.

The large band raced from one place to another around the perimeter, but as they went, the older, more powerful mage reported that he was down to only a few level I spells. “And why I thought that Scorching Hands would be a good idea last night, I have no idea!”

“I’d say that is a better idea than using something as stupid as Detect Evil,” Edwina quipped, causing the older elf to blush rosily. Despite being an adventurer himself and far older than Edwina, especially in terms of the fact that he was an elf, he didn’t seem as immune to her beauty as Imoen would’ve thought.

Despite the lack of spellfire, the group dealt with that second trouble spot before pulling back, eager to get some more water and some rest. As they did, a shout of fear went up from yet another area around the town’s perimeter. “Where did they, argh! Trouble on the western side! Trouble on theEEE!”

The loud bellow from that side of the town, barely heard where the adventurers had gathered in the central plaza, cut off with an abruptness that was almost certainly final.

By the time it did, Imoen and the others were already back on their feet, shifting in that direction despite exhaustion beginning to weigh down on all of them like a heavy cloak made of iron. This time, though, Kelddath and the sirines also shifted in that direction.

This turned out to be a very good thing because what they found was bedlam. Nine extremely attractive women stood scattered around the interior of the barricade there, as another darted into a nearby building. There were numerous dead bodies at their feet, while five retreating guards were pulling back slowly with shields raised in front of them, little darts slamming into them with far more force than they should’ve been able to impart. Behind the Alu-Fiends came minotaurs and ogres, smashing through the barricade.

“Liseri, pull back and grab some of the civilians and the reserve supplies. We’ll need to plug this barricade when we're done clearing it!” Kelddath ordered, even as a glow began to encompass his entire body. Imoen wondered if that was something like Armor of Faith, or a specific Lathander-given type of low-tier skill, as the high priest charged forwards, moving faster than he had a moment ago.

Alu-Fiends didn’t have any better eyesight at night than humans. Before the Alu-Fiends could recognize the threat, Kelddath was among them, his mace smashing out to turn one of their heads into pulp with a single strike. That was undoubtedly the blunt object equivalent of Cleave, whose name escaped Imoen right now.

“Edwina, when we clear out the Alu-Fiends, you’re with me to move forward,” Imoen ordered as she started to fire her enhanced arrows at the Alu-Fiends.

“I do not need you to tell me what to do and every waking moment as if I were a typical simpleton!” Edwina shouted as one of his lightning-enchanted slingstones slammed into the chest of one of the Alu-Fiends, causing her to cry out in pain and stumble backward.

The others had all paused and were now raining fire down onto the Alu-Fiends from a range that was basically the equivalent of a house. With all the fires around, they couldn’t miss, not even against Alu-Fiends. Two of them went down, while three found themselves grappling in hand-to-hand combat with the far higher-level Kelddath. At the same time, the sirines use their siren song on four of the attackers, three ogres and a minotaur. Two of the ogres turned on their fellows behind them, turning the break-in into a bloodbath as the far larger attackers crushed skulls or shattered bones. Two other Alu-Fiends found themselves fighting the ogre and minotaur.

“Now!” Imoen shouted, just as one of the ogres went down, and the other reeled back, half of its head missing from a sword strike. She raced forward with Edwina on her heels, already preparing her spell, and when she heard the telltale sound of the final syllable, Imoen ducked forward, going into a roll.

Above her head, Agonnazar’s Scorcher flared, filling the gap smashed out of the barricade with fire and flame that shone out well into the crowd of goblins and hobgoblins still trying to get through. All of them screamed and shrieked, flailing and backing away, spreading the fire a little bit, as there wasn’t enough snow leading up to the barrier to help.

Suddenly, some enterprising soul from one of the houses nearby tossed what looked like a jug of cooking oil out into the mass of flame. It ignited, spreading the fires even further, and causing the entire attacking group to flinch away and retreat out of the area between the two nearest houses. Some of them panicked completely, but most just raced away to find snow to put out the flames. Given how much snow there was on the ground, despite the battle out there, that wasn’t exactly difficult, but it did pull them back away from the ruined barricade.

Seeing the final Alu-Fiend go down to Kelddath’s mace, Imoen asked Edwina and Viconia to stay where they were to help with arrow fire against the attackers on the other side of the barricade, as one of the sirines led a group of civilians forward to start to rebuild it. The defenders hadn’t lost anyone thanks to most of the Alu-Fiends concentrating on Kelddath as the biggest threat. “Alora, you’re with me. I saw an Alu-Fiend go into that house over there.”

What followed was a close combat exchange that Imoen only one thanks to her armor. That, and the fact that Alora was a sneaky little lass, who instantly shifted into Hide in Shadows the moment they were inside the house.

The Alu-Fiend had raced upstairs and had cut down three of the archers stationed there, all of whom were armed civilians rather than guards. She had been in the process of jumping out to a nearby building when Imoen attacked from behind. The two of them exchanged several blows, then, as Imoen twisted them around, Alora stabbed the Alu-Fiend in the back, causing her to scream and go to a knee, where Imoen’s blade caught her in the throat.

With the Alu-Fiends dealt with, the two of them shifted to one of the nearby windows, firing down into the mass of attackers outside the barrier, while reserves were pushed out in their direction from the center of the town on Kelddath’s orders. How long it took them to hold that position before the adventurers were called back to rest, Imoen had no idea, but eventually they were allowed to pull back into reserve.

Both thieves were exhausted as they slumped down next to one of the bonfires in the central plaza. Of their group, Viconia was sporting a nasty-looking gash across her forehead, which she refused to heal. Edwina was ringing out her arm, testing the shoulder and bicep, having taken a hit from something there.

“I am down to two Cure Medium Wounds and my Flame Strike. I used my Cure Serious Wounds on Kelddath when he was locked in battle and unable to see to himself,” Viconia announced grimly. “And I do not know about Edwina, but I am also down to the last ten enhanced sling stones. Killing those Alu-fiends took the majority of my remaining supply.”

“Then you are both in better straits than I and poorer. I have my Skull Trap, my Summon Monsters, and two Level 1 spells left, but I have no enhanced slingstones,” Edwina said grimly.

“I actually have a sufficiency of such. I always keep at least fifty such stones on me, and I’m not exactly good with a slingstone, unfortunately,” Firebead said, pulling out a bag of slingstones from his belt rather than his Item Box. As a regular adventurer, he would have the same trouble most adventurers did using their Item Box, and thus, like most, had begun to carry as many things as he could on his belt or in an actual backpack. “I have several scrolls on me that I can use, but I will keep those for myself.”

Wondering why Firebead was not trying to take over their little group and fervently wishing someone could as it was much too troublesome, Imoen nodded, then looked over at Alora. “I don’t have any Acid Arrows left, but I’ve got about twenty or so Fire Arrows. You?”

“Thirty Fire Arrows, no Acid Arrows,” Alora answered, shrugging and then lying on her back. “UGH… normally being out and about on cold nights next to a fire is neat because there’s good food and drinks. This is not nearly as fun!

“Taerom opened up the Thunderhammer Smithy,” one of the nearby civilians said hesitantly as he held out a glass of water to Edwina, who took it graciously. “They’re distributing all of the Arrows of Biting, Ice and so forth now.”

Groaning, Imoen, who had been about to slump down next to Alora, paused the motion, straightening up and gesturing the others to wait where they were. Ugh, I hate all this leadership shite. “I’ll head over to him and see if he’s got any supplies left for us. The Fire Arrows at least will keep us in good stead for now, but if he’s got any enhanced sling stones, we’ll make better use of that than anyone else here.”

Taerom smiled grimly at Imoen as the thief walked up to him. “You’ll be here to take some of my wear off my shoulders, then?” He asked, already holding out a sheaf of arrows in one hand, while two of his assistants hurried past, each of them carrying more and hurrying in different directions out of the smithy.

The smithy was one of the outer buildings of the town, but its back was made of heavy stone and no back door or other weakness out into the orchard beyond. It even had several guard posts on the top of the building, where several of his apprentices were currently manning. It was also on the eastern side of Beregost towards the temple, and neither the temple nor this territory had come under intense assault, although they had seen stragglers from both tests at the corners of the town.

Imoen nodded and gratefully took that she could, hurrying back to the others with two bags of fifty Slingstones +1 and two dozen Arrows +2.

The newly distributed enhanced long-range ammunition had an impact across the entire battle. When two Arrows +2 hit a minotaur or ogre, they did enough damage to put the larger attackers down. Even an Alu-Fiend could be put down by six such strikes, and with several of the better archers all across the perimeter targeting the larger attackers, this seemed to disorganized and hamper the attackers' ability to work together.

The Alu-Fiends were still a problem, though. As the night wore on, Imoen and the exhausted adventurers were called in to help deal with them alongside Kelddath twice more. Edwina was also forced to use his Monster Summoning Spell and several of his Level 1 spells.

Yet it seemed as if husbanding the enhanced ammunition and the amount of supplies that had been prepared to bolster battered barricades had made the difference. The attackers couldn’t break in again, and without being able to get to grips with the defenders, the better ammunition and the defensive positions allowed the defenders to wreak a monstrous toll among the attackers. To the point where, when a turn of the glass went along without any more Alu-Fiends being seen, Kelddath told the adventurers to see if they could take a nap in the center of the town rather than just rest there.

Kelddath did not. Instead, he stood to the north, staring out into the darkness beyond the torches and the fighting and the buyers. While Lathander’s power waned at night to a significant degree, there was still a measure of his God’s majesty within the high priest even in the darkest of nights. And it was telling him that something foul was coming closer. This battle was far from over.

Two turns of the class passed with Imoen and the others blissfully able to get some sleep, with Imoen ready to go down on one knee and give thanks to all the gods in the galaxy for the ability to conk out quickly, along with Viconia and Alora, thanks to Harry’s AAS. Edwina didn’t have such a gift. He tried his best, only for all of them to be woken by shrieks and shouts from the northern edge of the town.

All of the adventurers and sirines wearily got to their feet, as one of the runners assigned to that portion of the defenses came sprinting into the central plaza. “Master Kelddath orders the sirines to join him in the north! Master Firebead, you’re needed there as well.”

“What about the rest of us?” Edwina growled irritably, hoping to be told he could close his eyes again.

The runner shook his head, looking just as tired, soot-stained and absolutely done with everything as most of them did. “Master Kelddath didn’t ask for any of you. But Commander Vai is coming back this way from the northwest barricades.”

Deciding they could wait, Imoen nodded, then looked over at Viconia. “I don’t suppose you feel up to getting us some food? I doubt we’re going to get any more sleep.”

Viconia grumbled a little bit, but she did move over to a nearby fire and begin to cook a simple stew as rapidly as she could. While it would lack any kind of benefit to their stats or anything similar, hopefully, it would allow them some measure of energy.

However, before the group could eat their fill, a shout came from the southeast of the town. Or rather, not a shout, but rather screams and allowed way all of, “Demon! Gods preserve us, demon!”

This was followed almost instantly by the sound of shattering wood and stone and screaming. Lots of screaming.

Imoen looked over at all of the others. Viconia and Edwina both looked pale in the light of the campfire, something that was far more noticeable on Viconia than it should have been, given the color change charm that Imoen had been forced to renew three times already tonight. Which in turn had forced her to use her last healing potion. “Please tell me that’s just a phrase for more of the Alu-Fiends.”

“If it is not, this night has gone from possibly winnable to impossible in one easy step,” Edwina muttered, pushing herself to her feet as well.

With the sirines and Firebead already gone to back up the high priest, that left most of the adventurers where they were. Thinking quickly and consulting with Edwina and Viconia, Imoen sent the two thieves and a runner to find Vai, while the foursome raced out towards the source of the screaming.

What they found was horror. One of the buildings had been smashed into by some tremendous force. Both its side and the small nearby barricade leading into the town by one of the side streets that serve the farmsteads beyond had been completely smashed out of position. People were running away while more than two dozen hobgoblins were pouring in. But they hadn’t been the ones to do the damage. That honor lay with the massive red-skinned monster, which removed half of the man’s leg in one go as Imoen watched.

The creature was terrifying to look at, and Edwina and Viconia both hissed in fear and shock, retreating a step while Alora blinked, backing away rapidly, biting her lip so hard it bled. The monster stood at least fourteen feet tall, with a head that resembled that of a minotaur, only far more bestial, as if the minotaur’s head had been merged with that of a gargoyle, then that mouth lined with fangs that barely looked as if they could fit within, while its wide-set eyes gleamed with feral madness rather than any kind of intelligence.

The monster’s arms were long like those of a gorilla, ending with overlarge hands even for its size that were tipped with five claws the size of daggers. Its massive back was stooped a little, and from out of that back flared two batlike wings, looking large enough to lift the creature easily into the air, and perhaps it had done so, given where it stood in the rubble of the house. The monster had no weapons, but with those claws, those teeth, it didn’t need any.

All in all, it looked like the very definition of a devil from when Imoen, then Tonks, had looked up what non-magicals thought magical people got up to. Demon summoning had been one of the ideas, although demons and suchlike didn’t really exist as far as she had known back home. Now, Imoen was wondering about that and trying to hold her mind together as she stared at the creature, who seemed to be exuding some kind of aura of fear.

“Arrows +2, Slingstones +1, Flame Strike, and Edwina, lob your last Fireball right in the middle of those hobgoblins!” Imoen ordered, trying to instill her words with some of the determination and charisma that Harry always instilled his orders with, not for the first time that night.

A gleam of magic covered Viconia for a moment before she nodded firmly, beginning another spell. Imoen wondered if she had just used a Resist Fear spell on herself, but decided it didn’t matter as she pulled back on her bow, an Arrow +2 on the string. They’d already gone through a significant amount of those arrows, but she and Alora still both had seven of them each, and instinctively, Imoen knew that those weapons would be the only things that would let them hurt this beast, whatever it was.

“Do, do not expect any of us to survive in close quarters with that creature! It can see through Hide in Shadows or invisibility spells, is immune to Charm, and naturally immune to most weapons!” Edwina shouted, even as he launched one of his enchanted slingstones at the creature. It bounced off the wing, not even gaining the demons’ attention as it bounded forward, slicing several fleeing guards in two pieces with its claws.

Imoen and Alora’s arrows did catch his attention. It roared, and one of the surviving men nearby who had been fleeing stopped in his tracks, crying out as a greenish ooze seemed to be pulled out of him and into the monster. The demon then flapped its wings, another building and sent large chunks of debris in every direction, killing several of its own side as well as more of the defenders. This move widened the gap as hobgoblins poured through, more desperate to get away from the creature than to get into sword range with the defenders.

Some of that debris came Imoen and the other’s way, and she yelped as she ducked to one side, a chunk of stone bigger than her head went whizzing through where she had stood a second ago. “I really don’t want to test my Shadow Armor against that!”

“You show wisdom! None of us will be able to take a single strike from that creature’s claws! And if you were waiting for a chance to utilize your special talents, Imoen, now is the time!” Edwina shouted, just as Viconia finished her Flame Strike spell. It crashed into the monster, causing it to roar in agony, but it still barreled out of the debris from the house, charging towards them.

“Back away, back away!” Her group tried, but Alora found herself attacked by hobgoblins, forced to put her bow away and pull out her short sword before one of them could stab her in the side. She blocked that strike, but it opened her up to another one across her shoulder, and Viconia twisted around, her hammer catching that hobgoblin in the chest before it could finish Alora off. Thankfully, Edwina had been able to retreat quickly enough.

At the same time, Imoen, shouting, “I’m going to start using some of those scrolls!”

Edwina had moved to take up a position behind one of the inner barricades, which were scattered caravan carts loaded with empty wine casks and so forth that were supposed to serve to give the defenders cover as they fired on the approaching enemies. Luckily, while the hobgoblins seemed intent on spreading out, they were doing it in a disorganized fashion made even worse by the damage that the Fireball he had launched a second ago. The fire spell had seemingly not done much of anything to the demon, possibly because it was out of the spell radius, but at least twelve hobgoblins had gone down dead, and another few were injured thanks to how tightly packed they had been previously.

As Edwina watched, Imoen’s Incendio lashed out, crashing into the monster. To the onlookers, it looked like one of Edwina’s Aganazzar Scorcher spells, but powered by Imoen’s Blood Mage ability. Imoen also shaped the flame as if she were trying to latch onto the monster. But the spell did nothing, dissipating almost as soon as it touched the monster’s skin. That wasn’t good, and the next second, Imoen tossed caution to the wind, calling on her Reducto spell.

Heretofore, the demon had somewhat ignored Imoen, that flame spell not having been enough to get its attention. Instead, it had slaughtered a group of armed civilians and guards would hastily begin to retreat from a nearby house, charging into their midst and slaughtering them with gleeful delight.

However, that changed the instant Imoen's spell struck.

The Reducto blasted into its wing, almost tearing the entire thing apart, shredding the membrane and shattering bones, causing the demon to scream in pain and twist around, furious. It bellowed, and both attackers and defenders quailed, their courage breaking. Hobgoblin or man, they fled in every direction as the monster leaped forwards, charging towards Imoen even as some kind of greenish energy began to build up in its mouth.

“Alora, hit it with Arrow +2, quickly!” Edwina shouted, fear and horror touching her tone as she retreated further into the town, bellowing out orders to the defenders who were fleeing beside her. “Damn your eyes, stand and fight for your homes! Stand between me and this creature, fools!”

Even as some of the men among the defenders responded to that, buoyed by her tone and the pseudo-charm that Edwina’s beauty could cast despite the fact that Edwina had allowed some of her internal thoughts out there, Alora hastily obeyed, ignoring her injured shoulder for now as she shot an arrow at the creature. The arrow hit, disrupting whatever spell or ability the creature had been about to call upon, but doing nothing to stop its headlong charge towards Imoen.

Imoen ducked aside, but even as Fight Like a Jackrabbit activated, one of its claws caught her in the chest, crushing into her Shadow Armor with such force that the slight woman was picked up off her feet and hurled through the air to slam into and through the side of a building. Imoen hit the outer wall with such force that she felt something in her back break before she fell in a heap, only her Shadow Armor having protected her from being killed instantly.

Viconia instantly began a healing spell, even as Edwina and Alora tried to hit the creature with their weapons, the plus one weapon of Edwina doing scant damage, while Alora’s arrow again drew blood, causing the creature to turn in her direction. It roared, and now, Alora’s courage broke. She flung her bow down and screamed, turning and racing away. “This is no place for a halfling, I can’t fight that thing, its knees are above my head!”

This was a fact that all of the defenders felt, and now they were all in full retreat, pulling back from what little defense had been created at the secondary line. Only the fact that the attackers beyond the monster itself had also broken at its bellows kept this battle from turning from a rout into simple butchery. Edwina was the next to break, turning and fleeing. “Enough of this, no promise or hope of power is worth dying for!”

Viconia’s spell hit Imoen, and she gasped as bones knit together, allowing Imoen to push herself to her feet through a fog of raw agony. Whatever spell Viconia just used hadn’t been enough to deal with all of the damage that she’d taken. But it at least allowed her to try and Hide in Shadows and retreat. The two women backed away, with Viconia only standing there still thanks to the resist fear spell she’d used on herself earlier.

Roaring again, the monster turned its baleful gaze towards Viconia. It flapped its one remaining wing, then hissed, before charging forward, arms outstretched as if daring them to do their worst as it charged, kicking debris in their direction. One caught Viconia in the leg, upending her to crash to the ground. The other nicked Imoen in the side of the head, but even that impact was enough to send her senseless to the ground.

For a moment, all alone, Viconia felt despair. Then, from behind and to one side, a voice shouted, a voice she knew very well.

“Hey, arsehole!” Harry bellowed as he came through the fire and smoke, charging forwards to engage the creature in close combat. “Try me on for size!”

The devil turned lazily, its fangs bared, stretching a single arm up to catch the first blow from Harry’s sword, but that sword was a longsword +1 and cut deeply into its palm, nearly cutting half the demon’s hand off. This caused the lazy predator's look in the demon’s face to disappear. Its other arm came in a smashing blow that Harry barely blocked with his tower shield. He was sent skidding backwards with a grunt of pain, but remained on his feet.

From the moment Harry had seen the Tanar’ri through the smoke and fire, Harry had felt a, a wrongness from the demon, a miasma of evil, almost which made it clear that the demon did not belong. This creature was evil on a level that seeped into its blood and bone, or perhaps seeped out from its body into the world around it? Harry wasn’t certain which was the better way to describe it, but the feeling was there, and Harry remembered what he had seen of the monster’s bestiary page.

Tanar’ri

A Tanar'ri is a large, horned, bat-winged monster from the Abyss, a devil, in other words. Unlike the more intelligent and semi-social Baatezu or Alu-fiends, who actually have societies, culture, and generally speaking don’t always seek to simple conquer and dominate others of their own race, Tanar’ri are consumed by their desires to the exclusion of everything else. They are creatures of pure, raw evil, far more powerful than alu-fiends, but many of them aren’t exactly intelligent.

Like all devils, Tanar’ri have a few racial abilities that greatly resemble spells, but they cannot be interrupted like regular enchantments.

These include:

Death Gaze: a devil equivalent of Hold Person, but with the added benefit of soul damage. So long as the person is held in place, they will receive damage to their health as if they are being struck by an arrow every ten seconds.

Paralyze: Similar to Death Gaze in that it holds a person still, but does not do any ongoing damage to the individual in question.

Silence: With a fifteen-feet radius, this spell makes it impossible for any spell user to verbalize any spells or anything else when caught in the radius of the effect. The duration of this racial ability depends on the mental strength of the individual devil using it.

Vampiric Touch: Much like the kiss of a vampire or the Level 3 Necromantic spell of the same name,

Attitude toward Adventurers: Laughing Contempt. They will kill you, eat your soul, and the more intelligent of them will laugh while you do it. Even if summoned to do the bidding of a powerful evil priest, cleric or wizard, they will have contempt for their summoner unless the being is more powerful than they are.

Strengths: Immune to any mental assault and unable to be broken, the only way to defeat a Tanar’ri is to trap them in an alternate dimension or kill their physical body, which will banish devils back to their home dimension. Tanar’ri can see through Invisibility spells or techniques, but not through physical camouflage, have natural armor, physical strength equal to or exceeding that of ogres, and are completely immune to nonmagical weapons. To top off this pile of danger, Tanar’ri have a 50% cold resistance and are completely immune to fire, electrical, or poison-based damage.

Weaknesses: Holy magic, duh. While they cannot be outright banished most of the time without dealing catastrophic damage to their physical bodies, that doesn’t mean that such won’t hurt. They can’t use weapons, but then again, they have nasty claws, so that’s not exactly a weakness. They have sensitive hearing, so sound-based magic can at least disorient them, and their eyes can also be targeted. Tanar’ri are also somewhat slow of movement and cannot actually fly despite their wings, while on Faerun, although they can jump with style. Their wings are more susceptible to damage than the rest of their bodies.

At the Tanar’ri’s feet, the grass died. The stones nearby turned black and began to crack. The wood of the nearby houses rotted. Its scream seemed to warp the world around it, as that feeling of wrongness, of evil, reverberated through every breath it took, torturing Faerun with its presence.

As the roar of the monster battered his spirit, the world around them decaying as the demon strode forward, Harry grinned suddenly, raising his sword. “Fine then! For TYR!” He bellowed, shocking Viconia and Imoen, who wondered what had happened since the last time they had seen Harry.

Like the roar of the demon to those around it, that hated name seemed to cause the Tanar’ri pain, and it reeled back before coming on all the stronger. Harry’s shield was battered aside, and his eyes flicked, noticing how the pair of strikes it had taken the shield from a hundred durability to seventy-two. The next second, his sword came up, gashing the same arm he’d struck before, but his attempt to hit the inner elbow of the demon failed.

The next second, the Tanar’ri eyes blinked, something flashing over its eyes like a second membrane. Instinct had Harry ducking to one side as some kind of beam of magic flashed out, missing his head by inches.

You have dodged Death Gaze.

While mainly a Mental attack, this does not mean that you are immune to it as you would be to the weaker Paralyze attack. Beware!

In response, Harry lunged forward to the limits of his longsword, the tip of it penetrating the creature’s chest. But the beast had recoiled a little from releasing its eye-based ability, and so only two inches of Harry’s longsword penetrated. That would have been more than enough to kill or at least grievously wound a human or any monster Harry had fought before. The Tanar’ri barely felt it, and its claws reached for Harry from both sides. Harry’s shield took one blow, but he was forced to duck under the other. This left him open to a knee that crashed into his head. His helmet rattled, the metal that covered his lower face caving in to the point it became painful.

Rolling to one side, Harry avoided a follow-on blow, but a backhand caught him in the shoulder before his tower shield could raise to automatically block the strike. The hit was so strong it sent Harry flying sideways, and he crashed to the ground several feet away.

“Lay on Hands!” Harry hissed, pushing himself to his feet, his sword hand touching his shoulder as the tanar’ri turned slowly, black, viscous blood dripping from the two cuts on its forearm and the wound in its chest, as well as the mangled remains of its wing. It was looking battered, for sure, but not nearly enough, and it charged forward. “For Tyr!” Harry bellowed, charging forward, although this time he wasn’t going to be just using his blade. That brief moment had been enough to show Harry that the only two people in the area were the unconscious Imoen and Viconia.

Let’s see if this guy’s magical resistance covers my Blood Mage spells!

Ducking to one side, Harry then feinted with his sword towards the creature’s face. But as the demon, unable to stop itself, twitched its head away, Harry’s shield hand pointed down at the demon’s leg. “Bombarda!” Harry whispered.

The spell streaked down even as Harry grimaced at the hit to his health points. Still, he couldn’t argue with the results, which looked like someone had just broken a Vial of Explosion on the demon’s knee with a CRUMP sound.

“GRAAAAHHH!!” The demon shouted, going to one knee. Yet even as it did, the demon caught Harry’s sword arm in its undamaged hand. The Demon roared, wrenching to one side and squeezing.

Even as he felt his bones crushed under that grip, Harry moved with the wrench, stopping the monster from tearing his arm out of its sockets. Stronger, faster, can’t… FUCK. My armor’s not doing anything against this creature!

 Like Imoen before him, Harry was learning quickly the limits of armor against the demon. His full plate mail wasn’t magical like Imoen’s armor of the drow woman’s shield, and so lacked the strength to stand up against the tanar’ri’s brute power.

The demon hurled Harry away once more, letting him use Lay on Hands again, recovering some movement in his arm, although he’d been forced to drop his sword. He couldn’t spot it before the demon roared and launched some kind of spell his way again from its eyes, and this time, Harry couldn’t dodge in time. The beam of dark greenish energy struck, and Harry screamed, wobbling as a notification window popped up in front of him, watching through it in shock as the demon’s knee reknitted itself together.

Warning!

You have been hit by Vampiric Touch.

This version of the spell is a racial ability of demons like the tanar’ri.

This spell drains you for a level-based amount of health points, adding them to the tanar’ri’s health pool.

Blinking that away quickly, Harry pulled out his bec de corbin. Harry knew that the bec wasn’t magical, but he wasn’t intending to use the weapon for an actual attack, anyway. He hastily raised his shield as another blow flashed in, crashing into it with even more force than before. Harry found himself on the back foot, but his lashing up with the longer bec towards the creature’s face worked again, causing it to flinch, its next strike only smashing into Harry’s shield at an angle rather than full on.

“Lumos!” Harry hissed, and directed by his will, the speartip of his bec de Corbin gleamed with the light of a flare going off in the eyes of the demon. It screamed, stumbling back, both hands going up to its eyes, and Harry danced around it, letting his now completely trashed shield drop. This noise caused the demon to lash out, but again Harry dodged under the strike, although the demon stomped down on Harry’s shield, finishing the job of destroying it, turning the tower shield into so much mangled, flattened and shattered metal and wooden bits loosely linked by leather.

The next second, Harry lashed out with a sideways strike from his bec de corbin’s beak-like curved blade. Having dodged all the way around the beast, he lashed out towards its back, towards the base of its mangled wing. That was still a pretty gaping wound, and Harry hoped that there, his bec would be able to do more damage. At the same time, grimacing, he used another Blood Mage spell, adding a Difindo effect to the curved blade.

This worked, and the bec’s beak stabbed deeply into the monster’s shoulder, causing the demon to scream in rage. It twisted around so fast, Harry had to release the bec where it was, diving out of the way. However, the tanar’ri’s eyes recovered faster than Harry had expected from the flash, and it kicked out, catching him in the side even as he landed.

This lifted Harry up and hurled him away, cracking his chest plate and almost puncturing through, nearly gutting Harry. He gagged in pain and was flung away, landing on his side and rolling as he hit the rubble of one of the buildings the Tanar’ri had hit. Even as he did, Harry pulled out a health potion from his Complex Item Box, downing it as he rolled. This kept him in the fight, but Harry’s brief glance told him he was deep in the red. Not to the point where his vision would be impaired, but close.

An urge rose within him, as if a commanding voice was whispering into his ear, reminding him of something he should have remembered. With a wry smirk, Harry raised a hand and touched his chest, hissing, “Lay On Hands!” and could feel the holy magic hitting, healing him up to the point where breathing no longer sent pulses of agony through him.

This was helped a moment later when a healing spell hit him from the side. He glanced that way and saw Viconia there, her hand outstretched, her face a rictus of fear, her Remove Fear buff having disappeared, and her leg looking almost as blue black from impact as it should normally be due to her skin color. “Keep fighting, Abalolth!”

The demon snarled at him, plucking the bec de corbin out of its badly wounded shoulder, breaking the shaft in its fist and dropping the bits to the ground before lumbering towards Harry. It bellowed once more, then charged forward.

By the time it reached Harry, he’d used a second Lay on Hands and had also spotted something equally important. His sword lay a dozen yards away. “Accio longsword!” Harry hissed, using a Blood Mage Spell that pushed his health back down but not quite into the red, the spell not having any equivalent he’d yet seen.

Before the demon reached him, the sword smacked into his hand, and Harry once more used a Difindo on the blade, knowing that he wasn’t going to survive this exchange unless he laid it all on the line. “CLEAVE!” he howled, using the warrior technique he had learned when Minsc joined his official Adventuring Party.

The blow came at the demon from the side, but the demon had seen it coming and interposed one of its arms. Harry’s super-enchanted blade struck and sliced right through its arm into the creature’s side, but even as it bit deeply into the monster, it wasn’t enough. The blade hit the tanar’ri’s ribs and stuck there despite the sword’s own magic, the technique, and Harry’s Blood Mage spell.

Harry had barely a moment for his eyes to widen in shock before the demon’s claws stabbed in like a trident, puncturing the already badly warped chest plate of his full plate mail armor, stabbing deeply into his body. Instantly, Harry’s vision clouded with red, and he gasped in agony as he found himself lifted off the ground.

The tanar’ri raised Harry to its face, staring at him, and Harry glared back, an Acid Arrow appearing in his hand from his Complex Item Box. He hadn’t left all of the advanced ammunition they’d bought when he and the others had left Beregost. “For Tyr!” he shouted, and as the tanar’ri’s eyes widened in rage at that hated name again, he stabbed it in the eye with the arrow. The arrow wasn’t made for this, but the magic within allowed it to hurt the demon, and the arrow sank deep into its eye, turning it into a gooey mush.

The demon howled, and Harry found himself flung off its claws to roll away, as injury notifications proliferated in his eyes. Yet he ignored them, simply staring at the now horribly wounded demon as it twisted, marching towards Harry.

“Left. Deal with the demon. Right, move to engage the transformed Baatezu,” a loud voice intoned. It rolled over the entire town, yet seemed calm, almost condescending, certain in its power and almost dismissive of the threats to the town.

Viconia twitched, staring up above into the nighttime sky, which quickly began to glow with several light spells creating the equivalent of four glowing suns. Visible now, a mage hovered there, sitting on a dais in midair. From here, Viconia couldn’t see his features, but then her fear-addled brain recognized the voice as that of Thalantyr, the Conjurer of High Hedge.

Even as she contemplated that, a lumbering mass of metal the same size as the demon charged forward as if hit by a Haste spell. The next second, the adamantine golem crashed into the tanar’ri demon, its massive fists hammering into the demon, who screamed in pain.

As battered as the demon was after Imoen and Harry had done to it, Viconia had no doubt of the winner of that exchange. The sight of the demon actually retreating, a look of animal-like fear on its face, caused a vicious smile on her own, and Viconia pushed herself to her feet, looking around at the wreckage of the town, hearing the sounds of battle quickly falling away elsewhere in the town.

She moved towards Harry, grimacing as her badly battered leg dragged, unable to put much weight on it. Soon, she slumped to the ground next to him, looking over at where Imoen lay, before shaking her head. There was nothing Viconia could do for the girl; she would need to be resurrected by the High Priest. That last glancing blow had taken what remained of her health.

Hopefully, Kelddath too survived this battle, though at the moment, I can’t be bothered to care overmuch. With that, she pulled out both of her healing potions, staring down at Harry, trying hard to keep a feeling of awed delight and, although she would never admit it, a good deal of arousal from her face at how well he had dueled the tanar’ri. That monster should have been well above anything even the whole party could have dealt with at their current levels, but Harry had nearly killed it with only a bit of help from her and Imoen to start with.

Instead of giving that thought voice, though, Viconia kept her voice light as she growled, “If you even attempt to move, Harry, I will endeavor to drown you with this healing potion instead of letting you imbibe it normally.”

Harry chuckled at that, making Viconia marvel at his willpower even more than at his power. “Hehehe, ah, no, don’t think I’m going to be doing that. But… that voice… does that mean what I think it means?”

“Yes, I do believe it does,” Viconia said, pouring the healing potion down Harry’s throat slowly. “I do believe it means we’ve won. Or at least survived, which I can tell you from experience is more often than not the same thing.” She then smirked. “And since I have you captive here for a bit, I think you should tell me precisely how it came to be that you were able to use so many Lay on Hands spells. As well as why you were shouting the Maimed God’s name.”

“Heh… um, that’s, that’s a tale, for certain. You, um, you meet all sorts on the road,” Harry chuckled wetly again, his eyes far away before he began his tale…

End Chapter

I had soooo wanted Harry and Tyr’s meeting in this chapter. But while I think I’ve got the several of the prevalent points right, the whole scene just… didn’t work. Wasn’t good enough. I thus decided to remove it, and show it later as a flashback. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed this, and how I had everyone start to use a few more spells here in keeping with the kind of battles the quartet in Beregost faced.

Next chapter will be consequences, along with a return to more AAS stuff, more character interactions, the end of winter and the resumption of the group’s journey. Hopefully it won’t be as long before Bhaalson Wins again.