Silver Insanity

Willoughby travels a short distance from the scouting party, and begins to write.

Willoughby addresses the missive to Michael. He writes of the army's strength, organization, and oddness. He also asks Michael to send a messenger on to House Greywind to inform them of the nature of the serpents and the condition of the fort, and to seek information regarding the serpents, armored displacer beasts, and the strange insignia displayed by Cass; he also includes some information about Cass, but decides that a full description would be too lengthy to be carried safely. Finally, he encodes the message in the Greywind cipher as a precaution against its interception.

Carefully sealing the message with the Greywind seal, Willoughby removes a small silver figurine from his pocket, and watches it expand into a normally-sized raven. He attaches the letter to it, and sends it off to Michael.

Following this, he returns to the scouting party. Willoughby does not sleep; instead, he watches the orc camp through his telescope, trying to discern its activity.

For approximately three hours, the activity level seems normal; orcs settling down to sleep, arguing over who gets the best sleeping spots, fighting about it until all the combatants get burned into obedience, and so on.

During this time, which fliers are maintaining a watch from far above changes once; the three that were in camp taking off, and three from above coming down and parking in the fire.

At the end of that time, though, six of the larger serpents start heading up the mountainside, in the general direction of where you are camped.

Willoughby quietly wakes the scouting party. "It seems we have been detected. Six of the larger serpents are ascending the mountain. Maya, Ennesby, Lester, Blackbog: judge their position carefully, and then unleash the logs. Mirri and Ametrine, incapacitate the winged ones following Maya's attack. That is vital. After this, proceed with the plan we have established. Destroy their food and water. Use the torches.

I myself shall investigate the camp."

And with that, he vanishes.

Ametrine nods, and finds a good hiding spot to wait until the initial attack.

After preparing with the help of the bard, Fang and Fierce enter an ambush position, and spring in at the six serpents, bathing them in cold and springing away behind whatever cover they can find. As they spring away, two trees repell down the mountain in the direction of the serpents.

The serpents hiss in surprise and annoyance at the winter wolves' attack - but do not seem terribly wounded by it. A few blasts of flame lash out in retaliation, but the sound of falling logs proves to be a greater distraction than the wolves' freezing breath.

Five of them turn their attention upslope. Just before the logs would have hit, there is a massive blast of fire around the serpents - and all that reaches them is ash. In the aftermath, the stone beneath them glows slightly, and you can hear the hiss of snow boiling into steam.

Maya sends down another tree, just one though. As they start casting to destroy the incoming tree, Fang and Fierce attack whichever serpent is most isolated in unison, going for a flank if possible before bounding off in opposite directions and hoping to avoid as many attacks as possible.

Ametrine flies above the large serpents at full speed, preparing to pull the wings off the flying lizards.

Invisible, Mr. Willoughby advances cautiously in the direction of the camp, moving from hiding spot to hiding spot. Once there, he picks further positions from which to overhear conversations between the orcs.

The flying snakes are still circling high above the orc camp, but it's easy enough for Ametrine to buzz the bigger serpents on his way over.

This provokes a few (easily dodged) fireballs thrown at Ametrine - which means the next tree gets through somewhat intact. Again, the impact (though certainly enough to kill an average human) seems to deal relatively little damage.

The relatively low fire output since the last major blast is explained, however, when Fang and Fierce move in to attack: a whole sequence of precise bolts of fire leap out at Fierce. For those close enough, there is the definite smell of burning fur, but she is not seriously injured. Of more serious concern is the single bite that one of them manages to land on her; it is almost certainly poisoned. Still, there's no obvious immediate effect...

And then Fierce and Fang land their attacks, ripping chunks out of the targeted serpent and retreating once more. This is a noticeable injury, but the serpent at least isn't acting like it's particularly concerned. At least, it's not concerned until Mirri swoops past, hunkered low on Scrit's back, wielding an iron lance that glows with visible power, and yelling her battle cry, "For the light!"

The result is one serpent down, a gaping hole in its chest, and Mirri continues her flight up towards the flying serpents - though Ametrine is already far ahead of her.

The remaining serpents, ignoring the threat of possible further attacks from wolves or logs, turn as one to deal with Mirri. Obviously a paladin ranks high on their list of threats; an entire volley of flame bolts lash out at her, leaving her badly burned and only barely still clinging to her saddle. The lance she wielded falls, landing somewhere on the snowy mountainside.

Still, she's not dead, and (from the few bolts that missed) it looks like they won't have time for another volley before Mirri is out of range.


Mr. Willoughby:
Infiltrating the camp is easy enough. The orcs are, of course, grumbling to each other - as orcs do. Their main complaints are not being allowed to join in the fight they can see upslope; getting burned; and how bland all this conjured food tastes.