Battle for Merrick

...

The first task handed to us was straightforward: take out a group of Hill Giants that were attacking the walls of the town. We were joined by Durthen, somewhat of a hothead who wanted to show off his combat powess. It was going to be a tough fight, so having an extra sword along with us could only help, right? We snuck toward the Hill Giants under the cover of invisibility.

There were four, and thanks to our invisibility spells, we had the element of surprise. The fight was brief and conclusive. The four giants lay dead moments later. Durthen had a series of techniques that proved very effective against the giants. As we were catching our breath, we were summoned back to town. The giants attacking another wall had broken through, and we needed to make our way back and form a defensive line.

We set up at a street that led to the town square. The town defenders had already constructed a crude barrier that would slow down the attackers. We had Obegard and several of the town militia move up to nearby buildings to get a better vantage point. Borrow hid himself from view as Ili, Durthen, and myself stood behind the barrier. It wasn't long before we heard the thundering footsteps of the horde come near. I cast a series of defensive spells on ourselves as we prepared to face them. Obegard cast a spell that doubled my size as I called upon my innate lycanthrope powers to give myself the features and power of a bear.

Our foes soon approached, and the first line leaped into the barrier. I felt myself moving faster as Obegard cast a spell that sped up our movement. Our foes were quickly slaughtered as between the three of us, we unleashed a whirlwind of slashes, punches, and hammer blows. However, it wasn't long when the next wave arrived in the form of several of the largest worgs I'd ever seen, along with riders on top. Just as we fell this line, a new line of beserkers rushed forward, heedless of the fact that we'd just taken out at least a half dozen of them. Several of them broke past our line and tried to surround us, but that also gave Borrow the opportunity to dart in and thrust his sword in their kidneys.

Just then, we saw several Hill Giants approaching -- barely recognizable under their plate armor. A bugbear sorcerer also appeared and launched a fireball into our ranks, and I yelled for Obegard to take him out, though it came out more as a loud growl. This was when things started to get rough. The cuts were starting to add up, and I needed to back off to change back into my human form, because I still did not have enough control over my shape shifting to intone the incantations to cast my spells of healing. Fortunately, Obegard must have had the same idea about the sorcerer, and I saw the sorcerer go down as Obegard launched a fiery ray right into the bugbear's chest.

However, just as Obegard was about to cast a spell to envelop the battlefield in sticky webbing in order to buy us more time, I saw one of the Nothrog beserkers swing his axe high over at Durthen, I tried again to yell out a warning, but he wasn't able to understand until it was too late. I saw him go down in a heap, and I was unsure if he was alive or dead. Obegard covered them all in a field of webs, including Durthen, so that the Nothrog would have a difficult time even noticing that Durthen was lying there, underneath all the webbing and Nothrog corpses. The situation was getting desperate, but just in the nick of time, Thaddeus appeared close to us, and unleashed a spell that took out the Nothrog that had overrun the barrier. He told us that the town was most likely lost, and that we should quickly get out when we still could.

I grabbed ahold of Durthen through the webs, also one of the Nothrog corpses, so that I could later question him. I held my breath as Thaddeus incanted the words that whisked us away. Teleporting always made me feel a bit queasy.