Turn 26: The Thrappled Lemmings and the Sleep of Reason Part 1 (Five Leagues from the Borderlands)

 Lysanthir was grumpy. Someone had pickpocketed him and stolen 2 Marks. It wasn't the money that annoyed him; He had recouped that by selling spare weapons at the market. No, it was the lack of respect. I mean, who would pickpocket the area's most famous adventuring band? Some people needed a lesson in respect. If he ever got his hands on them, they would learn...

Meanwhile, Wido and Fulrad were training again, and Wido was definitely improving. He was also admiring his new bow that he they had recovered from the cultists. Turns out he was not a bad shot either.

Lysanthir reckoned they were ready and that it was time. Time to take the fight all the way to the Whispers from Beyond. He and the rest of the Lemmings gathered their gear and headed out. They had known where the Cultists had their hideout for some time, but it had not seemed important until the beer supplies were threatened. Well, he and his group would soon fix that.

The Lemmings groaned in unison. How many times before had they heard "Your money or your life?" from some random group of rag-tag brigands? Well, here were more of the sods needing a lesson in respect. And that barricade was not going to help them!

Brigands! Fahsands of 'em!

The Lemmings formed up in line and prepared to advance. As they did so, a horde of brigands raced out of the wooded hill to their right. For once, instead of bickering, the Lemmings formed up and manoeuvred as one! Sir Thiebault, Drogo and Lysanthir moved to engage them while Onesipe, Fulrad and Wido let fly with their bows. Wido's shot was true and the enemy archer behind the barricade died instantly. Onesipe's shot wounded the brigand leading the charge and Sir Thiebault finished him off.

As the brigand ambushers closed with the Lemmings, they soon found they were outmatched. Drogo had a close call but a low-hanging branch deflected a blow that could have felled him. Soon, the whole ambush party was dead.

The brigand leader yelled "Leg it!" and the rest of the brigands ran for their lives. With that, the Lemmings got down to the serious business of looting the corpses. Despite being impoverished, one of the brigands had clearly got lucky as he was wearing a pair of magical boots, and there was a war spear and a warhammer that had clearly seen better days but could still be sold for beer tokens.

"Reckon they learned some respect now," announced Wido as the Lemmings continued their journey.

In a surprise turn of events, I rolled six ones for initiative for the Lemmings on the first turn which meant all of them got to act before the brigands. Wido then rolled a 6 to hit the brigand archer and killed him instantly. This put paid to what I thought ought to be the brigand plan: an ambush party that closes while the archer snipes from behind the barricade. As it was, the archer never got off a shot and the entire ambush party was killed in the course of two turns. All of the remaining brigands then failed their morale checks and ran.

I did use a story point to keep Drogo on his feet. One brigand rolled rather too many sixes to hit him and he would have been out of it for the main part of this turn. Fortunately, the reroll bounced off his armour.