I consider myself VERY lucky to be alive right now. For all that he goes on and on about battle tactics and working as a team, Wrench almost got us all killed. I cannot BELIEVE how dumb he acted. Let me lay it out for myself while it’s still fresh in my mind (tho’ writing this while still green from poisoned wounds).
So, the dinner was pretty fun (I thought, anyway). Food was just passable, but ok. Drink was copious. Some guy I know slightly from the enclave set his homunculus on Bruce and then proceeded to be a total drunken flirt – hilarious. Had a very nice chat with Alystia – until Zeffan butted in, anyway. Then Alystia received a message from Egg that Lord Viorr’s house had been attacked. I ran back to my room for the haversack of items and Alystia and I hurried off to catch up to the other two at Lord Viorr’s. At first it looked like Lord Viorr had been killed. I was shocked, sure that his defenses couldn’t be that easily penetrated. Luckily that turned out to be the case and he was actually alive and well. He had recognized one of the attackers, a warforged called Crutch who had once worked for him, and asked us to go find him and try to discover what he knew. He also noted that there was a minotaur in the group of thugs and told us that we might find Crutch in a certain bar in the waterfront district. He speculated that the attack might have been to prevent him from meeting with the King the next day when he was due to be in town.
After explaining to Zeffan that we couldn’t go to the waterfront district in nice clothes, I went back to my room to change quickly before meeting up with everyone at HQ. Then it was off to the bar. Alas, Daleka was busy on another assignment and couldn’t come with us. Really too bad. She might have prevented the scene that resulted.
Now, apparently, MY interpretation of Lord Viorr’s orders did not coincide with Wrench’s. To me the clear thing to do was to surreptitiously (if possible) find Crutch and follow him to see if he might lead us to his boss – or at least see if we could catch him alone. We might also be able to discover who his cohorts were and set up surveillance on them as well. Wrench apparently thought that the thing to do was to find Crutch and immediately start trying to kill him. Too bad he never told any of us that’s what he planned to do. There we were, all scattered around the bar, never suspecting Wrench was about to do his best to get us all killed. I had less than half of my daily allotment of infusions left. There were TWO minotaurs in the room. We had NO IDEA how many associates Crutch might have there or who they might be. Does it then make any sense AT ALL to suddenly start attacking Crutch right there in the middle of the bar? NO, yet that is exactly what he did.
I am still stunned by the truly epic stupidity of it all. Hardly anyone in this group can be counted on to act as a reasonable person might expect in any situation. Clearly, we cannot do ANYTHING without laying out a precisely defined plan beforehand. Lesson learned. (Wonder how many of these “lessons” I will survive…)
Anyway, it was fortunate that I was near both Alystia and the front door, unfortunate that we were near the brawling minotaurs. I got off an infusion on her armor just before one of the minotaurs charged her. A lizardman shot two arrows at me that miraculously missed. A kobold was headed our way. Meanwhile, Zeffan was busy trying to blend into the crowd and sneak away, and Wrench was engaged with Crutch – no help on either of those fronts. Strategic retreat time! I slipped out the door and darted down the street to gain some distance – amazed the minotaur didn’t take me down in the process as he was right next to me. The lizardman followed me – not great, but at least then I only had to deal with him. I used my scroll of Scorching Ray to zap him and sent Bruce charging in to engage him. Alystia came out of the bar too and the minotaur kept on her heels. I took two arrows from the lizardman (which were poisoned). Things looked bad, very bad. I decided to try screaming for the guard, hoping the noise alone might discourage our foes since the guard probably wouldn’t come quickly enough to help. But Bruce did quite a bit of damage to the lizardman – saved my butt for sure. And Alystia, heavily wounded, finished the minotaur in a whirl of slashing blades. I used another of my scrolls to put up a Wind Wall between me and the lizardman so he would have to move forward to attack me again. Instead he ran. I caught him and finished him off with a blast from the wand of Magic Missile.
PHEW! Survived! BY LUCK ALONE. And I think Alystia was surprised to find herself still alive too – she was sorta out of it for a while there afterwards even after using a potion to heal herself a little.
Naturally, the guard arrived after it was over. I played the hysteric and babbled about being suddenly attacked. When questioned I said we had been looking for a “friend” – a half lie. Alystia quietly explained things just a little more and the guard took our word. Come on, like it’s not believable that a minotaur would start a bar fight? Would they have had an easier time believing me if I had a few more arrows sticking out of my body? Anyway, I had Bruce collect the goods from the lizardman in the meantime.
But wait, I’m not done yet. It gets even better. Zeffan came out and told us that Wrench managed to make off with Crutch’s non-functional body. Great. Don’t know what we’ll do with that. Perhaps Egg knows a way to extract information from it (could be very instructive to see just how that’s done!), but I am not getting my hopes up on that. Repairing and questioning him will be useless. How could we possibly make him answer us? Disastrous mission, in my opinion.
So we were about to head back to HQ and Zeffan decided to FIRST heal himself, THEN heal Alystia (using two spells), and ignored me completely. Didn’t even bother to say anything, like, “Oh, I’m out of spells, sorry.” Nothing. Finally, realizing he wasn’t going to do anything I was forced to use some of my own potions. I have just about had it with him. He doesn’t act like a decent cleric; he doesn’t act like a fighter. If anything, he is still acting like a rogue – despite his claims that he has left that life behind. What a crock! As far as I am concerned he is dishonest and not to be trusted. AND he has some kind of obsession with Alystia. He is always watching her and following her around. It’s creepy. I am sure Alystia is made quite uncomfortable by it.
Made it back to HQ, at least. I dashed off a quick report to Lord Viorr. I figured he’d want to know that any chance of finding out who hired his attackers was pretty much gone, plus he couldn’t count on anyone thinking he was dead. Yeah, in addition to the fact that we had been forced to kill or be killed, Wrench just announced to Crutch that they had failed to kill Lord Viorr. ANYONE could have overheard, though word would probably have gotten out sooner or later. Maybe not truly disastrous, but not a rousing success either. Sooooooo lucky none of us were killed. I am so mad at Wrench right now!
I must stop here – too exhausted to write more.