They have had better days. The good faith mission to pay ransom to the unseelie fey for safe return of Trilosso Limburger’s kidnapped infant was on-track until a detestable team of Darkwater gnolls operating on behalf of an unknown client pear-shaped the entire deal by springing a trap. Now the fey are ooze and gnolls are whooping threateningly outside the keep. Worst of all, Bizzle’s helm of teleportation (PHRRT), by which they arrived at the remote keep, is damaged. Ranger Tricksy will have to guide them back through perils known and unknown.
A quick search of the room gets Bizzle a magical belt of two charges and gets Gnome a dagger of silver from the oozing fey. Some dead Darkwater gnolls have a meatstick each.
Slick grabs the unharmed Limburger baby in its basket. Bizzle grabs the unpaid ransom. Tricksy takes to the ceiling. Gnome gets stunned by a voice on a cold wind that assures the party it will not survive this treachery. Stone skeletons spring from the keep floor.
Tricksy and Bizzle start to clear the hallway out while Slick and Gnome take out the skeletons threatening the baby. Gnome casts orbiting Melph’s minute meteorites and declares he am pyromancer, spraying empowered meteorites and scorching rays from his jar wherever Tricksy hasn’t already left dead skeletons. The path is clear and the pyromantic heat is dissipated by a ramping cold wind shoving them down the hallway toward the exit.
Bizzle cautiously peers left and right where the keep opens into a courtyard. Gnolls. Gnome, aided by the cold wind, sails past Bizzle as readied gnoll arrows crisscross his showmanship. Meteorites and scorching rays kiss the four gnolls waiting to ambush them. Tricksy picks off the wounded gnolls from the outer wall.
Slick hangs safely back with the baby. The cold hallway wind pulls the baby basket out of Slick’s grasp and back up the hallway even while pushing Slick out. Slick scrambles upwind and catches the basket. Gnome suspects KK Girl Missus of this trick. Everyone else suspects Gnome may have a loose toggle bolt.
Ranger Tricksy surveys the landscape and chooses a forest route rather than marsh or hills. They are all her favorite terrain, but the forest, although the longest route to a nearby town, may offer cover for their escape. Or cover for malevolent forest plants and fey.
The team advances cautiously through the forest with Bizzle on point looking for traps, Tricksy guiding them along keenly aware of danger, Slick safeguarding the baby, and Gnome bouncing conspicuously around looking for rotting fruit and twigs for his Tricksy voodoo doll project. Tricksy becomes aware of a tree waiting to ambush them up ahead. Wood woads emerge from trees along the path and bludgeon Slick to the point he has to down his salvage bar. Quicklings zip across striking at Gnome, almost faster than he can give them impromptu names. Signpost the giant tree person sidles up and punches Gnome in the back of the head knocking him out.
The wood woads and quicklings recede into the forest. Bizzle stands on Gnome to force feed him a healing potion. Gnome critically immolates Signpost who quickly burns himself down after some arrows from tree topped Tricksy. Slick watches the wood woads meld into trees so he logically sets a tree afire with his torch. Gnome notes that he is not the one who has first ignited the forest and therefore can’t possibly be culpable if and when he lights the forest even more on fire. He scorching rays killing one of the wood woads when they emerge to attack Slick and Tricksy. The quicklings continue to zip around, and Bizzle manages to kill one accidentally by holding a scimitar out when it goes by. So that’s what they look like. Gnome stomps at the quicklings.
The party resumes forward movement despite the continued attacks, trading hits whenever the wood woads and quicklings present an opportunity. Bizzle rounds a turn in the path and finds a pair of gnolls directionally indicated by the arrows protruding from him. Gnome, informed by his belief that explosions can solve all problems great and small, sends a massive fireball back at the gnomes killing both and a third no one even knows about yet. Through the smoke and flames of burning gnolls emerges none other than Mutt, strongman of Darkwater. The hazy outline of Dingo can be seen even farther back. A couple of gnolls approach behind the party, but Tricksy and Bizzle quickly slay them.
Gnome attempts to reduce Mutt to teacup size, but Mutt shrugs it off. Gnome immolates Mutt. Slick draws his rapier, ready to defend the baby. Mutt smacks Slick with a flail, paralyzing him. Mutt snatches the baby and runs for waiting Dingo. Bizzle chomps his salvage bar and action surges to dash in front of retreating Mutt. Gnome does some weird magic stuff and blasts a pair of empowered fireballs at Dingo. Tricksy puts arrows into Mutt’s marked retreating backside. Dingo eats a meatstick of hangering and advances to smack Bizzle in back of his head. Mutt tosses the baby basket into the forest toward one of several growing fires and charges Gnome, knocking him out. Mutt swings his flail up at Tricksy in the tree.
Bizzle goes after the baby basket and grabs it away from the fire. At the urging of voices vaguely from the direction of his scimitars, he activates the belt of two charges looted from the unseelie fey. Bizzle blinks into the ethereal plan where he and the baby can safely watch Dingo and Mutt exchange beatings with Slick and Tricksy while Gnome enjoys slipping into death’s peaceful embrace.
Mutt chases after Bizzle, but finds neither Bizzle nor baby. Mutt screams in a frustrated way very unlike Mutt. Dingo breaks a sword across Slick’s armor and also screams in a frustrated way very unlike Mutt. They break away in retreat.
Slick stands on Gnome to force feed him a healing potion. Gnome can’t help but launch a couple of meteorites to chase Dingo already disappearing into the forest. A long forgotten Quickling slashes by Gnome nudging him closer to death’s door yet again. When the situation is safe, Bizzle returns to the material plane with the baby.
Tricksy leads the bedraggled team to the hamlet of Yoriick where they take a short rest until dark. Slick gets directions from a tavern, and they steal a couple of horses. They ride back to R&S headquarters and file a mission report with Rooster. It’s a double win by any measure, but Rooster is irritable anyway. Rooster needs a vacation.