14th of Marpenoth, 1492 (Afternoon) The party gathers in the front lawn of the manse, gathering orc and half-orc bodies and weapons as the noon passed and the sun starts to head towards the sea. Briar reaches into his pocket and he blinks, glancing down to his hand as he pulls out a parchment. He glances over it and realizes it's a letter he'd passed over while exploring the broken lab. "I seem to have gathered something extra when raiding that lab." He begins to read to the note to the rest of the party, which seems to be a note to the half-orc anchorite performing the ritual within the home. At that point, Naisys points out the moving trees in the nearby forest, Kia and Ivaran take notice of what she's pointing out as one of the trees suddenly turns a part toward them, a wooden-looking elongated face starting at them. Ivaran frowns at this "Oh.. yeah no that's, that's not good. That thing is pure evil, I can tell." The horses nearby were suddenly spooked as a wooden hand swipes at them, Rimma gets scratched by its claws which sent the horse into a startled gallop, Fjalar having to follow suit as the two dash off into the forest, pulling the party's wagon with them. Quickly the party leaps into action, splitting into the two groupings of Needle Blights to quickly deal with them. Briar quickly moves behind his sister Kia and he casts a dark necromantic spell . Five dark tendrils reach out and whisp past her, sending a chill around her as the necromantic energy saps the warmth from nearby, as they reach out to the nearby half-orc and orc corpses, seeping into the dead bodies. The bodies twitch and begin to rise, the energy surging within them causing advanced necrosis to set in, causing the rotting flesh of the orc and half-orcs to fall off the bones, leaving behind their skeletal frames. Briar sends out his undead half-orcs and new skeleton minions to attack the needle blights. As the party lashes out towards the needle blights, they notice the rest of the boars in the area began charging them, striking some of them behind with their charging tusk attacks. Quickly facing off at these enemies from both sides, starting to make quick work of the ambush, a rolling thunder can be heard from overhead as dark dangerous clouds form above them. An arc of lightning lashes out in the middle of this battlefield, nearly blinding everyone with the bright light, giving pause to the fighting if only for a moment. The group turning to see where the lightning hit saw the remaining orcs standing there, having gotten back up, fully healed, and staring right at Briar with white arching lightning flickering in their eyes. Briar is suddenly charged upon by these orcs, risen by Talos himself, and set forth to deliver his anger towards Briar. Briar quickly casts Shield to protect himself from the oncoming barrage of greataxes coming towards him, however, the combined strength of the orcs struck through and he took a couple of hits from the axes. As the rest of the party deals with the needle blights and boars, Briar just flatly looks at the orcs as he charges up thunder energy into his hands, before clasping them together to make a thunderous wave burst out around him. He gives pause as he notices the orcs around him had not moved, each of them smirking down to him, as his spell had no effect thanks to Talos' protection. Kia calls out to him "It's Talos, the god of storms! He likely is protecting them from the thunderwave Briar!" At that, he watches as each of the four orcs around him drop their greataxes, and similarly start to charge thunder energy into each of their hands in turn. "Well.. Shit" is all Briar can say before he and his siblings were suddenly met with wave after wave of thunderous bellowing from these orcs, blasting the siblings backward into the mud and dirt while they blast Briar backward into the manse doors. Briar regains his footing and huffs, a trickle of blood pours out of his nose and out of his ears, a constant ringing in his ear at the least tells him he hasn't lost his hearing from that, yet. Alatar and Kia come up behind the orcs and they start to lash out at the orcs from behind, both taking strikes at these orcs. They're met with another surprise by Talos as each strike they hit the orcs with, a secondary thunderwave is released back at them. Enduring this, the siblings fall back to the orcs, Briar commanding his undead to follow suit, push through the waves of thundering force, try their best to maintain melee distance to bring these things down. Beaten and battered, Briar is chased by these charged orcs, their focus entirely on him as they blast the party back with the reactive thunder waves, rushing into the decrepit home, and continue to dish out the thunderous attacks against him. Briar is continued to be pushed deeper into the home, ending up in the broken-up dining room. Briar seeing he's being cornered begins to ready his fireball, ready to take these things down with him. Before that could happen, Ivaran rushes in vaulting over the orcs and running up the wall to land next to Briar. Briar suddenly felt himself get grabbed, and he watches as the room rushes away from him, as Ivaran throws the beaten Briar through the window slats and out of the room. Swaying, Ivaran stumbles after him, reactively deflecting a blow from a nearby orc into the face of his friend. Briar turns back to see Ivaran leap out of the window after him as a thunderwave rocks the wall of the home. The rest of the siblings outside just watch as the home vibrates and creaks dangerously. Ivaran looks to Briar, huffing and battered from all the fighting, offers him a hand "Come on, lets get outta this mess, I can run us around the house faster." Briar, kinda taken aback by all this, agrees and he hops on the furbolg's back. Ivaran uses his step of the wind ability to extend his movement speed and run Briar away from danger. Alatar and Naisys start to harry the remaining orcs with their ranged weapons before Briar tosses a fireball into the room through the open kitchen. They watch as two explosions hit the inside of the home as both fireball and thunderwave trigger together, causing the stairs to collapse and the doorway separating the foyer and the dining room to break apart. Alatar's eyes go wide as he notices this happening, seeing the ceiling start to bow as supporting structures were being destroyed by the waves of thunderous damage keep hitting within. Naisys throws one final dagger at the last remaining orc as they whittled them down with their ranged, the last thunderwave causes the northern half of the home to finally cave in and collapse. As Ivaran and Briar round the corner, Alatar drops to his knees in disbelief. "Noo! Damnit my plans!" Naisys looks to him confused, as Alatar looks on sadly "I was planning on making a brewery here! These pumpkins would've made great ale!" Rolling her eyes, Naisys turns away from him to see Kia finish off the last needle blight. Having dealt with the ambush, the party regroups, battered quite badly, they huff and groan in pain, a victorious pain, but pain nonetheless. Kia helps relieve that pain with her clerical abilities before Naisys uses her tracking abilities to hunt down their wagon and horses. Taking a good while, the party rests as she goes off, returning with them about an hour later. Groaning lightly and exhausted, the party mount up and say good riddance to the manse, all but Alatar still groaning about his brewery plans. As the sun begins to set behind the trees, they make it back to Falcon's hunting lodge, where his stable hand Pell takes in their horses and locks up their cart for the evening. The party finds Falcon in his trophy area, doing some general cleaning and making sure his displays are in order, as the party files into the dining area below. Kia heads up to the landing where Flacon is "We've returned, that was quite the fight, and we wanted to be sure you guys were alright" Falcon looks to her and smiles lightly "I see, you and your siblings seem to have had quite the fight." He glances to Ivaran with a small tilt of his head "I don't think we've met" Kia steps in "He's with us, he helped us clear the manse" "I see" Falcon replies, "Well, you've certainly completed your end of the deal. What was that about checking in on us?" Kia proceeds to explain to Flacon that the half-orcs were planning an attack when they arrived, and they wanted to be sure that hadn't happened while they were gone. Falcon nods at this looking a little troubled by this news, "I see... then we should prepare for that to happen nonetheless, there's likely more out there, and they're ruthless enough to go through with it even if you've defeated the manse. Well, I thank you, adventurers, for aiding me in ridding that place of the evil half-orcs there. It certainly wasn't easy, but I do need to ask if you would aid me further in defending my lodge from the coming battle." Kia smiles lightly at him and nods, "Of course! You're our friend and we'll help fend off those nasty orcs" Falcon smiles a bit more to her and nods "I thank you, and to show my thanks, you're more than welcome to rest up and recover with all my hospitality at your disposal. Oh, speaking of, for clearing the manse, I feel these would aid you more than they would me." Falcon turns to a nearby display case and he opens them, Kia sees him produce a pair of green elven-made boots, and he offers them to her. "As thanks" Kia happily accepts them and nods to him "Thanks! These look fantastic!" As the two return down to the dining area, Falcon explains "Yes, an elven noble gifted me them for his stay at my lodge. He was quite happy with the family hunting trip he took here" As the two rejoin the party at the dining table, the party greets Falcon as Corwin comes out with dinner. He notices the extra people and he starts giving out drinks before he prepares to make more food for the rest of the guests. As this happens, Kia offers Briar the boots "Look brother, Falcon gave us these, they magical?" Brair looks to them and instantly recognized them "oh, yes I've seen these before! These are boots of elvenkind !" He exclaims. He begins to explain how they work, getting up and putting them on "See look, they have magical properties that make my step silent" He walks around, stamping his feet a bit to show that the noise was much quieter than expected, the only sound being the other items he wore. Enamored by this gift, the siblings got to work bickering as to who should get them while Ivaran and Falcon watch on amused at the sudden family quarrel of who needs it most versus who can utilize it the most. The food was eventually brought out, and the family enjoys a filling meal and a restful night. For they expect within the next day or so the orc attack to happen very soon... Session Paused 14th of Marpenoth, 1492 (Evening)