This session, Soldier Number One, Kai the Druid, and the hireling Soldier #2 woke up and chose violence. They made a quick plan to finish off the orcs in the cave system under Ashes Island. They met in the inn for breakfast, where they asked me to roll and see who was there. I rolled the adventuring party that was previously met by Sir Goldborn the Paladin. Since Sir healed them basically for free and they had enough time to recover, I rolled a reaction check for whether they would join the party on their mission. They do!
The spearheads of the party are Kurt the Fighter and Walt the Magic-Missile-User. They command 7 hirelings between spearmen and crossbowmen. Everyone takes the boat to the island, paying Frank 5 sp per person for the service. They arrive at the entrance of the cave and go in without looking much around.
The next 3-4 hours are a blur. The party just marches through the dungeon, murdering everything in sight. They pass the now empty entrance chamber and go straight to where they know the Orcs reside. Meeting their enemy, they charge! But the 16 Orcs set their spears against the charge, so this could hurt. Kurt the fighter impales himself on an enemy spear and perishes immediately. Since he was the leader, I check morale for the 7 hirelings. Thanks to high Charisma, Walt was able to hold the troops together and seamlessly takes the leadership.
(I realize just now that as a Magic-User he couldn't command >5 men... oh well, let's say that one of our fighters temporarily served as a Sergeant for Walt).
The fight turns around quickly. The Orcs suffer casualties and must make their first Morale check. Kai helps out with Faerie Fire and Insect Swarm to summon a group of biting ants. The Orcs' Morale breaks and they flee in panic! The party pursues the Orcs deeper into the dungeon, across a garbage-filled room with giant rats. But in the end, the free attacks are brutal and the Orcs are forced to turn around and make a last stand. They are all eliminated with no further losses from our party.
Unfortunately, after the last adventure the Orcs had no treasure left, so our party marches on. They enter an open area, a big cave with a deep chasm dotted by giant stone pillars connected by wooden bridges. Here, they continue their rampage by murdering a party of six Hobgoblins that was resting on top of one of the pillars. They loot treasure of 1000 sp and 250 gp. Not really satisfied but mindful of real-life time, they turn around to go toward the exit, when they encounter a small number of wandering Skeletons. I'll let you guess what happened next.
Eventually, they make it to the exit, and everyone minus Kurt make it back to the village of Trilo. Remarkably, the in-game time spent in the dungeon, 21 turns so 3h30, matched precisely the time it took in real life.
For downtime actions, SNO tried to hire soldiers but enough time passed before we got to our next session that his funds were gone in upkeep costs. Kai tried to persuade Walt and his men to join him on whatever the next adventure was going to be, and he succeeded at that (normal reaction roll for Walt, straight no-modifier reaction roll for each one of the men-at-arms).
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