With a few days remaining to prepare for their assault on the shadar-kai slave camp, Aengus used his divine magic to craft powerful bolt cutters for breaking chains, and, with Urs’s helpful words of “encouragement”, he hammered out a dozen daggers for arming the slaves they hoped to free.
Aengus telepathically messaged his kin: Sven, his great uncle twice removed, and sons Gen and Ren, who were en route to Valonara to aid in freeing the youngest son Gren from the shadar-kai’s bonds. Sven said he didn’t yet know if he would pummel his perceived traitor-nephew or hug his son’s savior. Aengus only hoped that a successful rescue would earn their trust and another chance for reconciliation at home.
Desmond searched the town for alchemical supplies but came up empty. Vara attempted to commune with the mortar and pestle bequeathed to her by the spirit of the lake but found the endeavor incredibly draining.
With one day of preparations past, they settled down for another long rest in the abandoned barn. Desmond and Bean took first watch. While Desmond scouted as an owl from the air, spotting a hiding shadar-kai across the lake, Bean became spooked after convincing himself he was seeing shadows move near the barn. When Desmond returned, Bean easily transferred his nervousness and paranoia to him. Upon seeing one shadow move, the druid cast Daylight on the spot, revealing a second, startled shadar-kai scout crouching behind a building.
Cooler heads might have withdrawn at this point, hoping the capable assassins—who previously KO’d them in one round and who had been peacefully keeping an eye on them for days under their master’s orders—would back off. However, Desmond felt her presence threatening and thought this was the Rovers’ chance to catch their foes off guard. After all, if they couldn’t beat an isolated and surprised shadar-kai away from the safety of her slave camp, how could they hope to raid the place in a few days?
As it turns out, planning does count for something, and allies asleep in their pajamas instead of armor are much less able-bodied than prepared warriors attacking in coordination. What’s more, there was at least one more skulking elf nearby, as Desmond well knew.
Desmond followed up his Daylight spell with Plant Growth, creating a tangled thicket of vines and branches hindering the shadar-kai’s retreat from the light. So that Bean and his other allies could charge in, Desmond allowed one path out of the brush, directly towards the barn, which the elf immediately sprinted down. The others were rallied by shouts for help, and in a matter of seconds a groggy Urs, Vara, and Aengus stumbled out of the barn. Together they did a sizeable amount of damage to the elf, who was at first focused on escape rather than fighting back. However, the second, spellslinging shadar-kai appeared only a few moments later to provide cover fire for her ally. Quickly the tables turned, and Urs and Desmond both sustained massive damage. Seeing this and believing they were outmatched, Aengus raised his hands and called for a truce, arguing to the shadar-kai that Desmond overreacted to being startled in the night. The first elf vanished as the second declared the Rovers’ actions had “escalated the war” before retreating into the dark.
The Rovers regrouped and argued about Desmond’s itchy trigger finger and their odds of a successful infiltration. Desmond argued that their mission was doomed from the start if they couldn’t handle just two shadar-kai caught off balance, an argument that swayed at least some. The unpleasantries were punctuated by the discovery that the bag of holding, which held the majority of their wealth, as well as Vara’s mortar and pestle, had vanished with the shadar-kai. Now, it seemed, they had what they wanted in the first place.
With new bruises and anxious thoughts, they returned to sleeping in shifts. When it was Aengus’s turn to watch, he was contacted again by his god:
“I need a champion, which is why, when I saw the strength of your will even in bondage, I chose you. But now you live in fear, take orders from children, and have forgotten your purpose. How can you sleep peacefully knowing your family has wrongfully rejected you? Can you still be my champion?”
These words reignited in Aengus a sense of what was most important, which he spent the remainder of his watch meditating upon.
Vara’s watch too was eventful. The unknown force behind her mentor’s healing power, which she so longed to connect with, reached out to her:
“I am Torm, and I have guided the Lady of Valonara for generations. Though they were not compelled, always the Lady chose the path of self-sacrifice for others, taking on others’ pain so that they might be healed, as I once did before ascending. I see that you are no longer the Lady in Waiting, but you appear to be on a different path. Which do you follow?”
Vara marveled at this revelation and contemplated her time following Eldrith’s dichotomous paths. When she told Torm his mortar and pestle were stolen, he indicated that she could not proceed down his path without the artifact.
Morning mercifully came, and the Rovers had to decide what to do. Aengus argued they may not be safe to sleep in Valonara for even one more night, given the shadar-kai’s declaration of war. Now that they had seen their enemies’ might under more favorable circumstances, attacking the slave camp with the aim of killing all of the slavers seemed like suicide. Surgical strikes in which slaves were enabled to escape might be less dangerous, but still very risky.
The group seemed to arrive at a consensus that they were not ready to take on this challenge yet, so Aengus recommended going north to help repel the duergar’s guerrilla assaults on his ancestral home. If they were successful, perhaps they could rally more support for this fight.
To that end, Aengus messaged his Uncle Sven to warn him they were outmatched and planning to head north. In response, Sven expressed his contempt for his cowardly nephew and some doubts that Aengus was telling the truth about sighting Gren in the first place, and he warned Aengus that they better not cross paths.
Aengus also messaged Stinger, whom he warned of the shadar-kai’s strength and suggested attempting recovery of the stolen loot if she felt safe enough to try. Finally, Desmond requested Tyrisha and Mason get word to Vitus to call off the arcane mercenary he had procured for them, whose agreed upon fee they would now have difficulty paying!