We began the session with our preparations for my solo scouting missions. These were brief. They mostly involved me handing most of my possessions to Cassius, just in case I didn’t make it back, before he turned me invisible. Then I went a-swimming.
However, overall, my scouting went much better than I was anticipating. Despite the nerve-wracking moment I rolled a mere 17 for Stealth when I had advantage with a +10 modifier, I managed to get through both lower floors of the castle, scout as many of the rooms as I safely could, and discern approximate numbers for the sahuagin without triggering any alarms. When I was done, I made my way back to the others with moments to spare on the Invisibility, and we quickly made our escape.
Back in Saltmarsh, we divulged what we had learned to the council and they determined a plan of attack. We were to be the vanguard, going in through the top entrance and wiping out as many sahuagin as we could before the main force attacked from both above and below. How well we did would determine how successful the assault was.
After a couple of weeks of downtime, it was time to begin the attack. Returning to the fort, we, meaning the party plus our sea elf friend, used Potions of Gaseous Form to slip through the door, where we found a small group of sahuagin in the antechamber and a larger group through the gate separating it from the rest of the floor. The first group attacked us, so we immediately dropped our gaseous forms and attacked back.
We wiped them out quickly, and then, with the gate still closed, Cassius cast Entangle through it. I picked off a couple of the sahuagin that got restrained before Leonardo broke the gate down and surged through. As we finished off most of the sahuagin, a couple escaped, each going down a different corridor. I decided to pick the closest one and give chase.
As I followed, I drank a Potion of Invisibility that had been gifted to each of us for this mission only. Just as well, as I followed the sahuagin to a room full of even more sahuagin, including a couple of stronger ones. I quickly backpedalled, with one of the sahuagin bumping into me as they came charging into the corridor towards the rest of us. I killed that one and ran away.
But even as I did, I saw more head down a different corridor, which I surmised lead to the other corridor from our first fight. As Leonardo stepped up to face the sahuagin in front of us, even while Cassius Shattered them, killing several and injuring more, I ran back around to where our sea elf friend was presenting something of a rear guard, with a dozen more sahuagin about to swarm him.
Cassius hit me with Greater Invisibility right before I ran out of the corridor, moments before the dozen sahuagin plugged it as they rushed the party. Meanwhile, Leonardo had retreated back to join the others, and there were another ten or so sahuagin blocking his side as well. There was no need to panic, though, as with two 3rd-level Shatters, Cassius subsequently killed about fourteen, single-handedly. Needless to say, this was some solid spell use.
While the others finished off the last few sahuagin, I tried to make the most of my invisibility by heading back to the large room with the powerful sahuagin. I began my attack, but there were enough and they were clever enough that they were able to land some attacks on me. But I managed to dance around long enough to take out a priestess before the others arrived from the opposite direction.
The sahuagin were forced to split their force in two, several still fighting me while the rest attacked the others. Between us, we whittled them down, though Leonardo was brought down and then healed back to his feet twice by Cassius, and I only survived thanks to the last sahuagin on my side whiffing its three attacks when I was down to 7 hit points. But in the end, we managed to clear the room, though it left us all severely depleted.
At that point, we were left with a choice. We could push forward, seeing what else there was to fight, or retreat and wait for the rest of the force. As much as we wanted to push forward, we were down on hit points and/or resources, so we decided to call it and fell back. It was, overall, still a victory, though. The rest of the alliance wiped out the remaining sahuagin, with some but not excessive losses, and then we all returned to Saltmarsh to celebrate.
And that’s where we ended the session. Surprisingly, having gone through a massive battle without anyone (especially me) dying. Things looked risky for a moment, but the dice continued to be reasonable. I can’t shake the feeling that they’re saving up for some brutal about-turn, but we’ll see if that’s just paranoia. In the meantime, tune in next week to see where the adventures of Kraken Jack and the others lead next.