For all of you that missed Ray's game this Sunday (or are too far away to participate), I thought I would provide a rundown. It was a very fun game, and we kicked butt. Those involved, please reply to all with any corrections and/or additions. Be warned; lots of spellcasting involved.

This is the Viking campaign. We are currently stranded on an island, which is being overrun by an alliance of gnolls and traitorous humans. There have been several adventures as we were sucked into helping the residents of the island. Amazingly, we have made our own alliance with the orcs on the island, who are all enslaved. They are mistreated, starving, and ready to rise up against their captors. However, their shaman has been captured, and is being used by the evil alliance to cast glyphs, particularly on their heavy defenses (ballista bolts). The orcs will not make a move while their shaman is imprisoned.

Find the caves that our intelligence shows the shaman is in. Bring him back so the orcs will join our side. In the process, try to keep our asses in one piece.

Volan the Vulgar - A powerful skilled ranger native to the island. Played by Thomas Morin

Helga the Witch - A, um, witch. Of the Norse variety. Don't mess with her. Played by Evelyn Delgado

Asmund Sea-Eyes - A Viking skald, known for owning a boat, and recently for his indiscriminate use of magic. Played by Ray Guerrero

We proceeded by boat to the NW corner of this island. (For the record, this is a very large island. It would probably take a week or two to cross it. That's not counting the mountains in the way.) While tucked away near the coast, we spotted another vessel heading in our direction, manned by gnolls and with a cargo of large crates.

Our scheduled arrival was in the middle of the night. To give us more time under cover of darkness, Asmund touched a crest upon his leather armor, and the boat glided faster through the ocean. When we reached our destination, we landed on the shore in a mini (very mini) boat, which we hid in the sand. There was a road headed west; the direction we wanted. We headed off, with Volan scouting ahead.

Volan, being quite silent, discovered a nest of 4 gnolls watching the road. Asmund cast a spell, and fog rolled in around this guard post. Volan snuck past them down the road. Helga put on, for lack of a better term, her scuba gear, and swam past. Asmund, being not as quiet as Volan, and having no scuba gear, scuttled along the surf's edge as best he could. After passing the post, Asmund tried to scale the small cliff to get back on the road. He failed, and landed on his ass. Good for a laugh. However, let me say now that it was the first AND ONLY misstep of the adventure. While on his ass, Asmund grabbed a handful of pebbles, and tucked them away for later.

We continued west, with Volan scouting. The good news; he spotted a cave entrance. The bad news; there was a chain bolted to the rock face outside, and leading into the cave. Volan snuck up to the cave entrance, and surprised a giant sleeping hyena that was tethered to the end of the chain. He fired off 3 arrows. The hyena stirred a bit, then moved no more. Volan spotted something interesting in here; another chain was bolted to the cave wall, and the chain led around a curve. He rejoined Helga and Asmund to report. We decided that the 4-foot height of the cave made it an unlikely choice for use by gnolls. So we continued.

We came upon a much larger cave entrance; definitely usable by those of gnoll size. We were about to attempt to sneak in, when Helga made a VERY smart move. She threw Detect Magic. The mouth of the cave glowed. She then threw a Find Traps spell. Sure enough, the mouth of the cave had a Wyvern Watch and a Glyph of Warding on it. That would have been a Bad Thing if we just walked in. So Volan threw a Dispel Magic, and was able to do away with both. (I encourage the readers of this to look up all the spells mentioned here, to really get the gist of it all).

We then peered into this cave. It was a 40-foot long passage, ending in a t-intersection. At the end, there was an alcove with a barricade 6 feet in height. Visible over the barricade were 2 gnolls. Helga's Find Traps was still effective, and spotted that the floor in front of the barricade (i.e. the intersection) was trapped. That would have been a nasty surprise. Would have.

The question remained; who/what else was behind the barricade, or to the left or right at the intersection? Asmund threw a Clairvoyance, fixing it a foot above the barricade. He spotted a hyena along with the 2 gnolls behind the barricade. The right passage also had 2 hyenas. To make a long story short (too late?) we used a combination of magically-enhanced stealth, a Sleep spell on the gnolls, an Invisibility to Animals to get past the hyenas, and we carefully stepped around the trapped section of floor.

We chose the right passage, because there were 2 extra hyenas guarding there. We snuck a bit, then Helga cast a Locate Object on a holy symbol other than a gnoll holy symbol. We figured; either the shaman was wearing it, or more likely the captors only let him wear it when they needed his spell-casting. Either way, he would need it to be useful. The results of the spell told us we were heading in the right direction.

Volan scouted ahead, and saw an interesting sight. It appears the crates on that ship ahead of us had various dogs. The large hyena was brought out, and herded them together. It seemed they were forming packs. Anyhow, the hyenas/dogs left, leaving several gnolls. One was a bit larger, and had an ornate staff and a symbol around his neck. A shaman. Helga's locate object pointed beyond a heavy door behind the shaman. Looks like it was showtime.

Helga stepped into the room, and cast an Enthrall spell. She proceeded to talk to the gnolls about dogs, hyenas, and their breeding. They were a captive audience. Except the gnoll shaman; we assumed he was a bit too tough to fall for that. So at the same time, Asmund stepped out and Hypnotized the shaman. With only one target, it's save was at -2. It was mesmerized.

Volan then strolled into the room, walked up to the door, determined it was locked, and ripped it right off the hinges. He walked into a small room. No orc shaman, but he found some obvious looking holy symbols. There were also some shields and weapons, but he stuck to the task at hand. He then continued down another passage out of this room.

Helga and Asmund continued entertaining the gnolls. A human stepped into the room. Asmund tried to extend his Hypnotism to the human. He was able to hold him and the gnoll shaman. However, time on that and the Enthrall was running out. Volan discovered an "interesting" room, but decided it was time to head back to the room with the others.

All three of us retreated out of the room back down the original passage we came from. Read up the Enthrall and Hypnotism spells. For the latter, if the subject fails their saving throw, I can implant a small suggestion, plus they have no recollection I was even there. I suggested to both of them that they were sleepy an should go lie down in the little room (where the holy symbols were). After stopping the Enthrall, the subjects will continue to discuss the topic at hand while the caster slips away. The gnoll made his save on the suggestion. The human did not. So the gnoll looks at the human and says in Common "when did you walk in.?" The human shrugs, yawns, and walks into the small room to lie down. The shaman tries to talk to the other gnolls, but all they want to talk about is that interesting lecture about dogs, hyenas, and breeding. The shaman is yelling asking what the hell they're talking about. He sees the human in the small room. he notices the symbols are missing, and starts yelling at the human, asking him what he did with the symbols. And thus the comedy ensues as we slip back down the hall.

We get back to the original intersection (where the barricade is). We step around the trapped floor. The gnolls are still snoozing, and we have another Invisibility to Animals in effect, so the hyenas ignore us. Since we don't have the orc shaman yet, we take the left to go look. This passage goes down a bit, and then splits left and right. We go right.

We end up in a room with a pentagram on the floor. Volan insists this is the "interesting" room he came across from another direction. He says he spotted a map on one of the walls. He prepared to throw a Dispel magic. Now, Asmund doesn't have personal experience with this, but he has heard mention of tales of Rangers doing things to pentagrams, and how much trouble resulted. Volan acquiesced, and we went back to take the left.

We heard screaming from this direction. This must be the way we thought. We passed a partially disassembled ballista, and some colored ballista bolts. Wondering if these had been doctored up already, Asmund grabbed one to bring back as a sample for testing. The screaming was louder.

We entered a large area. In the center of the room were 4 gnolls forming a loose circle. Within this circle were 2 humans. They were in the process of kicking the crap out of an orc. Looked like paydirt. From a smaller chamber off to the side, we heard screaming.

Now the fun started. So much happened here that I know I WILL forget something. So step in and help out, those that were there.

• Asmund cast a Pebble to Rock spell. He then pulled out 3 pebbles from the beach. The wind up, the pitch, and one gnoll was smeared against the wall.
• Helga did something nasty (or was it Volan?), and one of the humans was history.
• The other human cast a spell; there were now 6 identical images on him (bloody Mirror Image).
• Volan headed off to the small side chamber.
• Did I mention there was another entrance to this chamber, and we heard the sound of many people/things approaching?
• Volan snuck up to this other room. There were 2 gnolls in there, doing unspeakable things to a female orc. There was also a human in the shadows in the corner. Volan used his bow and filled the lurker with arrows. He (the lurker) keeled over.
• Volan approached the gnolls, and dispatched one with great ease. As he wiped out the other one, someone attacked him twice from behind. Without even looking back, he swung his weapons around and sliced the human's head right off. The head had a scar on each cheek. We had seen this before.
• Volan untied the female orc, and slung her over his shoulder.
• Back in the main room, Asmund pitched another pebble, which changed in mid-air to a boulder, which smashed one of the 6 human images. Too bad it wasn't the real him.
• Out of the other entrance poured out the gnoll shaman, the gnolls from the other room, as well as the other human (who appeared to have been recently beat up.). There were also hyenas, dogs, and a huge mastiff hound.
• Well, at least, this was what could be seen before the fireball from Helga flashed all over them. The gnoll shaman was standing, as was the mastiff and one gnoll.
• This gnoll broke morale, and ran back down where he came.
• Asmund touched a rune on his leather armor, and wound up one last time. Poof, another image vanished.
• Helga swung with her staff, and another image vanished. There were three left.
• The gnoll shaman was holding forward his staff, which was glowing. A bolt of lightning burst from it, heading straight for Asmund. Not a bad move for a gnoll.
• Too bad Helga had struck yet again with her witchy ways. She had cast a Wall of Force in front of the gnoll shaman and the mastiff. Oops. The bolt bounced back it, engulfing the shaman and the mastiff. There may have been another gnoll left around, now that I think about it. Not after this.
• The gnoll shaman broke morale, and booked out of there.
• Oddly, the huge mastiff hound appeared unscathed by the fireball and lightning bolt. Good thing that Wall of Force was there.
• The rune Asmund had touched glowed, and Asmund was under the effect of a Haste. He now touched another rune on his armor, and a glowing duplicate of his axe appeared next to him, cutting and slashing through the air.
• Asmund held his own axe high, and from it appeared a duplicate of himself, composed of swirling red and blue mist. Asmund let out a Wolverine war cry, and charged (along with his companion axe and duplicate) towards the three remaining images of the human.
• I do believe he doeth shittest his pants at this point. The human took off, moving at great Haste (he must have cast the spell, or has an item). We considered pursuit, but realized we had what we came for.

We grabbed the shaman, retracing our steps. Asmund led, and ran into 2 gnolls. He again held his axe high, screamed something about fearing him, and the gnolls took off. We made it back to the barricade, stepped around the trapped floor yet again, and made it outside. We heard quite a commotion from inside, including the sounds of many dogs and hyenas.

Asmund cast a Wall of Stone, sealing them all inside. We then headed back east to where we hid the boat. On the way, we passed the guard post with 4 gnolls. Helga cast a Scare and Asmund cast a Spook. Four more gnolls running for the hills.

We made it back to the boat, uncovered it, and headed back to the main boat and back home. We discovered the 2 orcs were charmed, and had to cast a Dispel Magic on them. It turns out this orc shaman was not THE orc shaman. That one was killed a while back. But this one would do.

Asmund eventually pieced together who that spell-casting human was. It turns out he was also a skald, from the island. He had been imprisoned for writing bad things about the local rulers, or something like that.

That's the tale, kiddo's. All comments, corrections, or rude remarks are welcome.