Heroes on the Borderlands · Session 06
The road to the ambush strips away blood, trust and almost every last resource.
Scene 01 · The Master’s reinforcements
Winvarl assigned two keep guards to reinforce Fit, Harvey, Norman and Bartho for the journey to the meeting point.
The fens answered with stirges. The blood-drinking creatures tore across the whole column but savaged the two guards most severely, knocking one unconscious. The party survived—and refused to spend healing on either escort.
Scene 02 · Trust breaks first
When the guards recovered and realised nobody intended to tend their wounds, they announced that they were returning to the Keep.
The party threatened them with death and won the standoff. The guards remained with the column, still bleeding and now fully aware that the people they had been assigned to help might be the greater danger.
Scene 03 · Giant spiders
Two giant spiders caught three adventurers in heavy webs. For the guards, the opening was unmistakable.
They ran. The one free party member chose to turn back for the trapped companions rather than pursue the deserters. Whatever consequences waited at the Keep would have to come later.
Scene 04 · Hobgoblins on the causeway
Still carrying every wound from the earlier attacks, the party met a hobgoblin patrol on the fen causeway.
Fit, Norman and Bartho went down. Harvey alone remained mobile. He used speed, distance and the reeds to keep the hobgoblins chasing him, then picked them off one by one before they could finish the fallen.
“No single fight killed them. The road nearly did.”
Scene 05 · Four survivors
Battered, bloodied and alone, the four survivors finally reached the island chosen for Praal’s meeting.
They checked the oil, caltrops, hidden positions and narrow approaches. The battlefield was ready. The people who had to hold it were almost out of everything.
Somewhere beyond the reeds, Praal was still coming.
Session 06 · Aftermath
“No single fight killed them. The road nearly did.”
