11/29/2023 Early afternoon, Waterday, Fertility Week, Sea Season, Year of the Overlord 2164 After interrogating the halfling prisoners, the party debated their next steps. Around this time, the party was approached by a large, muscular half-orc, who introduced himself as Garack. Garack was a paladin of Humakt, sent from Ivy Shade to assist the party. The party graciously welcomed Garack to the group. Bunce, Dethjak, and Helegan left Ole’s camp to return to Eleva. Meanwhile, Igny suggested a potentially risky plan to revert Rudolph back to human form. Mobec cast “Remove Curse” on Rudolph to remove the curse the witch had cast on him. With the curse removed, Igny cast “Moonbeam” on Rudolph, causing searing pain, but forcing the shapeshifter to return to his natural form! The party rushed forward and administered aid to Rudolph. After that, the party waited until dark to perform additional reconnaissance of Strum. While waiting, Ole told stories about the tunnels under Montlieb. The Uberhobgoblin had disappeared and with him, the party’s scrolls of reincarnation and resurrection from their bag of holding. However, many of the other, less valuable, items from the bag of holding had been left behind when the Uberhobgoblin disappeared. Rumors suggested that the Uberhobgoblin may be in the tunnels under Montleib searching for a portal that could lead it to the items needed to free an Old One. It probably meant nothing. That evening, Tempest cast invisible on herself and her familiar, Siris, and scouted the ruins on the south end of Strum. Chance also sent his familiar, Bruce the gremlin, to cause distractions. In the ruins, Siris found a broken summoning circle and a vast quantity of blood. From the summoning circle, Tempest was able to deduce that the type of devil summoned was an Orthon, which can turn invisible at-will, wield powerful weapons, and self-destruct when they die. Additionally, Siris observed several halflings being fed to the black pudding! That night, back at Ole’s camp, Stolson observed that the woods were “unhappy” due to some sort of disturbance in the far northeastern side of the forest. The next day, Clayday, the party set out to ambush the halflings’ resupply caravan. Since Garack was unknown to the halflings, he stood in the road to greet and stall the caravan, while the rest of the party hid in the brush. When the caravan arrived, Garack made conversation with the caravan drivers, and said he would accompany them to Strum. The caravan consisted of three wagons with halfling drivers and three guards walking alongside the wagons. Garack proceeded to climb into the lead wagon uninvited, causing the guards to become alarmed and draw their crossbows. Tempest reacted by casting twin “Guiding Bolts” at two of the drivers. Garack pushed the lead driver out of the wagon and turned to attack the guard walking next to the caravan. In no time at all, the party cut down all the halflings. In the wagons, the party found 47 sacks of barley and 573 lunars. The party knew that before long, the forces in Strum would realize the caravan was late and come to investigate. So, the party decided to stage a second ambush. The party emptied one of the wagons and transferred its goods to the other two wagons, which they hid off the road in the trees. The party then damaged the empty wagon to make it apparent that an attack had taken place and hid off the trail in wait for forces from Strum to come investigate. Before long, three dire spiders and one halfling mage came down the road. The party fell upon them quickly. Chance cast “Fireball”, Tempest cast “Lightning Bolt”, and Gunther cast “Ray of Frost”. In no time at all, the enemies were all dead. After this successful second ambush, the party guessed that the forces in Strum would probably mobilize in force when the spiders failed to return. Working on this assumption, the party circled around off the road to a point where they could remain hidden and observe Strum. After some time, the party saw a large force of spiders, halflings, and the black pudding depart Strum. With the bulk of the defenders out searching for the missing caravan, the party stormed Strum from the north, killing two halflings and two dire spiders guarding the town hall. Entering the town hall, the party freed the hostages in the kitchen, and some scribes in one of the back rooms. One halfling mage remained holed up in the main room upstairs. Tempest cast “Tasha’s Mind Whip” through one of the windows of the room, and Chance used “Eldritch Blast” to blow a hole in the ceiling of the first-floor room just below the halfling, killing him. On the body of the halfling, the party found a magic wand, a glass jar 3 inches in diameter containing some sort of restorative, and a couple of healing potions. And with that, the session ended. TL;DR: A half-orc paladin joined the party and proved that “tactics” can actually be more effective than rushing in.