A summary of what happened during the game sessions:

August 17, 2001 - Session 13

The debate in the morning revolved around how to approach the settlement ahead, with the bugbears possibly alerted to their presence, and also how to get information on what was going on in there without being seen.

After much debate, it was decided that the group would travel to about an hour's travel distance from the settlement (using the information Hildegaard provided), and Rylan would cast invisibility on himself and on Sana. Rylan would then also cast a fly spell on himself, and the two of them would fly in and scout out the area.

Hildegaard then changed her shape, her body flowing into an eagle form. She and Olivio, her owl companion, flew with the two invisible scouts toward the settlement, while the rest of the group waited.

Sana, carrying Martin so that she and Rylan could converse somewhat, and Rylan circled the settlement and observed only about a half-dozen bugbears, doing various tasks outside the buildings. They appeared to have used some of the houses' construction materials to fortify the other houses, dismantling some of them completely while repairing/building onto others.

After a few minutes of observation, a troup of bugbear scouts came in from the west and proceeded toward the largest building. There were about ten of the humanoids, and they entered the building, which must have been a small inn (or had hoped to one day be such, as safe travel increased). Rylan saw an opportunity to get rid of a bunch of the enemy, and went to converse with Sana.

The bugbears had not yet come out of the house. Further study revealed what must have been an area for the family's animals on one end, that had been enclosed to enlarge the building. Sana and Rylan discussed his plan, and decided, due to time pressures of the spells' duration, to enact it.

Rylan flew down to close to the house, but not too close. He looked in a window and saw some movement, and then let fly with a fireball spell, and shot straight upwards in the air to clear out before anyone saw him, as his invisibility spell vanished.

This obviously attracted the attention of the other bugbears in the settlement, who began moving and shouting and trying to get water from the nearby river to douse the flames. But no bugbears came out from the house - the only thing that fled the burning ruins were two rather singed horses, from the newly-enclosed area.

With time as close as it was, the two of them flew back to where the group waited, but noticed that neither the eagle nor the owl followed them, continuing instead to keep circling lazily above the settlement.

When they returned, they were greeted with questions, and Sana relayed the story. While the exciting tale was being told, Jack was keeping watch, and noticed some movement to the east and south of the group. A contingent of bugbears were approaching!

Battle was quickly engaged, and it took some time to play out for a variety of reasons. One being Rylan's limited spell selection, as he had cast quite a number of spells already. The other was cover; it was hard to move in the thick forest where they had waited, and while not really hindering movement, it didn't allow for charging. And the last obstacle were the four special bugbears that had approached from the north, these ones being especially sneaky and stealthy. Two of them, one obviously more advanced tactically than even the other three, managed to sneak up on Jack and catch him unawares, injuring him rather severely.

However, in the end our heroes prevailed. The leader bugbear, however, managed to get away. He crushed a potion on himself as he was the last one standing, and began to disappear before their eyes, even as they threw some final blows at him. He moved away quickly and quietly into the forest.

Ezhno immediately began to search for his tracks as the others tended wounds and began searching the bodies of the fallen bugbears. But Jon shouted out to head to the village, before the leader bugbear could have much chance to warn the others. As the group debated in the few minutes it was taking the healing to be delivered, Ezhno continued to search for the tracks...

No quote of the evening was recorded.