Our party headed into Ashton so that Lord Dyme could inspect the state of things.

Dyme was greeted by a trusted childhood friend named Pitpet who had been manning the front gate and the wall that had been constructed. He quickly filled Dyme in on the happenings of the city. Of special note were the orc scouts that had been spotted probing the wall.

The young Pitpet campaigned to be appointed as Dyme’s “reeve” in the village. However, he was also lobbied by a gruff elder named Loga who dismissed Pitpet’s abilities and believed he should be made reeve due to his experience being chief of a village.

Dyme decided to mull the decision, and the group first went to the local tavern where there were reports that a group of bullies were holed up.

There were some tense moments as the two groups faced off. Aside from Floben punching one of the bullies firmly in the gut, the standoff ended without bloodshed and the bullies were escorted out of the tavern.

The barkeep was pleased by this and Fizban even gave him an extra 100 gp to help with lost revenue.

The party then decided they would head out meet the orc threat head-on before the monsters would have a chance to attack.

Before leaving, Dyme displayed some astute human management abilities by splitting the duties of town management. Loga was appointed as Chief Magistrate and Pitpet as Captain of Arms and both seemed satisfied with this arrangement.

On their path to the orcs, the party was halted in their tracks by a majestic sight. A unicorn had graced their path and the party was awestruck at it’s beauty.

After trying to decide what they should do… Venn decided he would try and hug it. He was successful and felt a massive infusion of experience before the unicorn trotted off into the forest and disappeared.

They then found an old friendly gnome named Martin that the party encountered way back in Session 2. Of course only Fizban was part of the party back then (the rest being killed in action) but Martin seemed to remember him.

They all did some drugs together (aside from Dyme who abstained). However, while they were chilling they were besieged by manticores, a grizzly bear and then the orc horde!

Fighting in this impaired state was not ideal. Kefka the cleric was swarmed by orcs and knocked out early. Thankfully, Fizban called his insects to distract the orcs from delivering a death blow.

One particular acrobatic orc proved very difficult to kill as he deftly jumped around on the backs of the party and the grizzly bear. He connected a strong kick to Floben’s genital area and then blew a horn to rally even more orc reinforcements.

Fizban called in his magical djinni to help stem the onslaught of raging orcs. Some were even riding on the backs of vicious wargs! The djinni performed his duty admirably and drew plenty of damage upon himself. Sadly, it was defeated in combat (permanently) and the magic ring that Fizban wore was reduced to a worthless trinket.

Praetor smartly utilized his magical resurrection stone to bring back the dead manticores and grizzly bear to assist in the fight!

Many magical spells and combat abilities were employed to win this bloody forest battle but our party eventually emerged victorious and eliminated the orc threat to Ashton.

Kefka was brought back to consciousness and the party headed back to the village.. Bloodied and bruised and coming down from the effects of Martin’s drugs.