The Wild Rovers continued traveling westward until they arrived at a small trail deviating from the main road into the forest. After a (non-unanimous) consensus was reached that the rented horses should be released rather than tied up, the Rovers ventured into the woods with their merries in tow, leaving their rented carts by the side of the road.
Just as Urna said they would, they found an encampment, surrounded by walls and guarded by watch towers. Knowing that bum-rushing the camp would play to their strengths better than a stealthy approach, Jani kicked things off with a fiery explosion launched at one tower, and the others charged in with weapons drawn.
The encampment’s defenders — a motley crew of shadar-kai, duergar, and orcs — were quick to respond with javelins, blades, and spells. A well-placed darkness spell forced the Rovers and company to fan out in search of the captives they came to rescue. After blasting through the wall of an outbuilding with a lightning bolt, Jani found herself squaring off with one of their shadar-kai nemeses wielding stupefying magic to pacify her brawnier allies. Vara was repeatedly harassed by another of Urna’s agents who disapparated after every cruel strike with her chains. After dealing with a few orcs, Urs was quick to rush into the main two-story building, with a couple dwarven merries following in his wake. With some mind magic of her own, Jani drove away and killed her assailant, and Vara dispatched hers, both women just hanging on to life. Aengus, after getting himself wedged into a hole à la Winnie-the-Pooh, bamfed himself and Jani to the main building where they and Vara could finally join Urs.
Inside they were met with a death trap, with another of Urna’s lieutenants staring them down from across a narrow hall like they were fish in a barrel. With little regard for collateral damage to her non-elven allies, the shadar-kai unleashed chain lightning and draining psychic assaults upon the Wild Rovers. In a wave of devastating attacks, she knocked out most of the party, only to have Aengus dish out divine healing so thinly spread as to barely keep everyone alive again and again. Just when it was almost too much and Aengus had nearly reached his limit, Bean was able to deliver some crucial extra healing to Urs in the form of a potion, and Urs and Vara were able to smash and slash the sorceress before finally separating her body from her head.
Utterly spent but intensely relieved, the Rovers had a chance to heal their merries who had fallen, catch their breaths, and notice Aengus’s captive friends in the corner…