Torches in Twilight Session 23, Bat Hunt Begins

Admittedly writing this session report a couple weeks after the fact.   Kormatin and his allies, having opted to end their lengthy espionage quest behind Swynfaredian lines.   On the plus side, Kormatin slew a slimy spy master and bolstered the anti-dragon blood Swynfaredian Lantern resistance with some useful information. Kormatin met a new half brother at established him as a information source Howell par Gruffyl. He got a little bit of loot.   On the negative side, Kormatin not only failed to kill two other spy masters but he tipped them off that he was targeting spy masters and ended up leaving rapidly with his tail between his legs.   By the time Kormatin made it back to the Borderlands, there was a letter from Howell waiting for him telling him that the Queen of Swynfaredia herself authorized the hiring of at least 50 camazotz mercenaries. Once Kormatin reported this to King Henryk the king commanded Kormatin to eliminate the threat of the camazotz because they would make the king's new kalazotz messenger system worthless and cause a diplomatic incident if his kalazotz guests were horribly murdered.   But Henryk is a good leader, not a tyrant. He made sure to give Kormatin a lot of resources to accomplish this task. In the king's name, Kormatin acquired a decent quantity of Dizzy Poison and borrowed some of the king's elite archers as well as a knight, a volunteer kalazotz named Preylot, Sir Gerwin, who is a skilled archer and a transmuter wizard capable of casting "Darksight" and "Fly".   He also offered Bendek a knighthood and had a little ceremony for this. Sir Bendek was named Kormatin's second-in-command as investigator.   Kormatin also made a point to buy a new Bags of Holding and recruit his favorite recurring guest stars Aleesia the satyr and Noggra the tengku.   While the group was split (Ragani and Bendek were buying the Bag of Holding), Brigid and Kormatin were attacked by six fairly incompetant bounty hunters while traveling outside the capital. The bounty hunters include four local Fumayan riffraff and two Swynfaredian Children, a human female and male kobold. To the Children's supplies, the spirit ravens they summoned refused to attack Kormatin though they made a show of pretending to attack him.   Kormatin connected the dots to Greymoria telling him She wanted him to live, but he remember She wanted him to show restraint with her minions, so Kormatin let them go with a warning. He was on the clock, so he took the names and locations of the four local bounty hunters for later (as militia recruits).   He finishes his recruitment his usual party convened near the southern border of the Duchy of Palbuc with Kormatin, Sir Bendek, Ragani, Noggra, Brigid, Aleesia, Sir Gerwin, Preylot, and a six of the king's rangers. As cover, Brigid was going to impersonate a dragonblood commander and the rest would be her minions. Preylot dressed as a gnome in a hood relying on Brigids illusions if they had to get close to people.   Noggra was able to get them past the border guards without problems, but they bumped into a patrol, and Brigid failed to bluff them, so Kormatin and company had to fight them easily. Because they were behind enemy lines, they couldn't take prisoners even after a helpful interrogation where they helped point in the general direction of some camazotz. At least they got some Swynfaredian uniforms. They also learned that the camazotz were not in close contact with the Swynfaredian military, in a lot of ways, they were a fire and forget missile.   While hiding the bodies, they bumped into another patrol resulting in more bodies to hide.   They did manage to avoid further patrols. Nogra is a fantastic navigator and forest survivalist and Aleesia can magically cover tracks.   While camping at night, Preylot heard a ping of some camazotz sonar communication. The camazotz were hunting a deer, they didn't know or care that two patrols of human soldiers were missing and they certainly didn't know that an elite Fumayan party was hunting them.   Kormatin and company slew all the camazotz fairly easily though one of the rangers almost got killed, Ragani was able to magically heal him just fine.   They tracked down the tent where the camazotz were sleeping during the day. They surprised and captured their four human handlers (three Uskalans and a Swynfaredian, no special training though the Uskalans could speak Zocatec and the Swyfaredian had a written order to tell other Swynfaredians, "Yes, the batpeople are supposed to be here."   Again they couldn't take prisoners. They killed them quickly and humanely but they mutilated the corpses and wrecked the humans tent to try to make it look like the camazotz turned on them.   Session ends.