Ivellius
2013-03-14, 01:03 PM
After reading through several of these and making use of suggestions, I've decided to write up and chronicle my group's adventures through this module. We've been going for a couple of months, but with my thesis mostly behind me, this is the first good chance I've gotten to write up their adventures so far. It covers the first seven sessions of our adventure, so it's a large first post, but I plan to update this weekly after our sessions.
Session 1 – The Ruined Tower
Our party thus far: Slade, Half-orc Swordsman; Fabio, Kalashtar Psion; Caspar, Changeling Assassin; Norin, Elf Archer; Aurren, Human Truenamer
I decided to run a campaign in Eberron, just to provide a bit of grounding for the campaign and a setting on which I can fall back for flavor. After consideration, I decided to place the Elsir Vale on the eastern edge of the Eldeen Reaches. But we can’t just throw a party into all of this, can we? I felt like it needed a bit of build-up, so I decided to adapt WotC’s “A Dark and Stormy Knight” to gather them together. So everyone but Slade filed in and had a bit of conversation with each other before lightning opened the rest of the crypt for exploration. I’d replaced the vargouille with a weakened mezzoloth statue that, when touched, would summon the daemon. The truenamer immediately obliged, his curiosity being too much to overcome, and they had a difficult time getting past its damage reduction. Slade entered while they were fighting the creature and went toe-to-toe with it. They eventually brought it down without too much trouble.
Deeper into the tower they found a couple of infernal goblins—Red Hand scouts sent to look for the sword that had been buried with the Dark Knight. They died without incident, so the party decided to open the burial chamber. Slade engaged in melee while everyone else stood back and attacked. The highlight of the fight was Caspar hitting Slade with a Shadow Garotte for 27 damage, which dropped the half-orc. Despite this setback, they dispatched the undead warrior swiftly enough, and the session more or less ended there. The Dark Knight had a flaming longsword with a red-dragon head for the pommel, which Norin took, and they discovered the name “Tiamat” on his tomb’s inscription.
Session 2
The second session began with some exploration of the ruined tower. Some of them tried climbing the slick outside surface with unpleasant results; falling damage combined with the problems from the previous night’s encounters meant that the three more martial characters had low-to-moderate health. Finding what was left of the goblins’ camp spooked them a bit, but after they decided the old tower had nothing left for them to find they moved on.
The road ambush took almost the entire rest of the session. As they realized they were surrounded, they began dividing up to take on enemies in different sections. Caspar teleported to take out the enemies on the east side, Slade began making his way to the west, and Aurren…well, Aurren was left as the most viable target for the enemy archers and took a hail of arrows that seriously injured him. Fabio weakened the hellhounds with Inflict Pain, and Norin began sniping at enemy archers with little success (tree cover seriously hindered him here).
Slade did some work in cleaning up the west side of the road. Caspar and Norin took out the east side before Caspar engaged in the most pathetic melee combat of the session. He and one of the ambushers spent several rounds stabbing at each other to no effect, so they had little involvement on the rest of the battle. Fabio took down one of the hellhounds with a Cold Ray, but the second one dropped him into negative hit points. Aurren began healing him and backpedaling down the road, while Norin turned his attention to helping the spellcasters and finishing the other hellhound. Horns were heard off in the distance.
Fabio regained consciousness just in time for the bladebearer to arrive. Slade likewise decided he was needed in the road—they saw reinforcements arriving. At this point, everyone was sure it would be a party wipe. They were all pretty low on hit points, although everyone was up and fighting. (“You’re trying to kill us!” was heard.) While Fabio, Norin, and Aurren took down the bladebearer, Slade found himself attacked by the priest. With just a few hit points left, Slade saw six more soldiers arriving and did the heroic thing—he charged into the mass of them, dropping two of them immediately with Steel Wind. I made a morale check, but the other four surrounded him. The priest and bladebearer eventually died, but Slade went down under a critical hit from one of the soldiers, dropping him to -12 instantly.
I had a cavalry patrol arrive from Drellin’s Ferry when there were only three warriors left; it would’ve been mopping up anyway. They took the bladebearer’s swords and priest’s holy symbol as loot. Aurren explored the farmhouse and found the money the raiders had collected. Strangely, he lied to the rest of the group about it, but they felt he was hiding something and pressed for more information. After some debate about what to do with Slade, the sergeant offered to take his corpse to Drellin’s Ferry and present it to a local druid who could reincarnate him. With everyone worn out from combat, we stopped there.
Session 3
Our party now far: Slade, Orc Swordsman; Fabio, Kalashtar Psion; Caspar, Changeling Assassin; Norin, Elf Archer; Aurren, Human Truenamer
While it wasn’t exactly a short session, much of it was spent messing around in town. Slade came back as a full-blooded orc. They sold the bladebearer’s swords and pooled almost all of their money to pay for the reincarnation. A few of them gambled much of their savings away with Kellin, and Caspar decided he had a crush on Jarett Nurth (renamed to “Jara” for my campaign). He even bought Jara a cheap amulet before Slade took a midnight swim across the river and wandered around the west bank for a bit. I’m leaving out a few things, but I didn’t find it particularly interesting.
However, they did agree with Speaker Winston to help the town figure out what was going on, but they didn’t ask hardly any follow-up questions (they requested a map and got it) and were fairly rude, so I didn’t offer the hook for Jorr or much in the way of suggestions for exploring the forest. They decided to stay off the main road and take the Witch Trail into the forest, so I ran the hydra encounter at the first crossing.
The battle was probably frustrating for them, despite them being relatively well-equipped to handle it. Slade and Caspar waded into melee, although Caspar took a lot of damage and extricated himself from combat quickly enough. Fabio shot fire, but Norin’s arrows proved ineffective. On learning that hydras were weak to fire and acid, he took a single shot with dissolving spittle before deciding to rush into melee with his flaming sword. That didn’t go particularly well for him; he died to hydra bites. The others finished it off not long after, but he was already dead. Aurren happily donned the mithral breastplate they found, however.
Session 4
Our party now far: Slade, Orc Swordsman; Fabio, Kalashtar Psion; Caspar, Changeling Assassin; Norin, Changeling Archer; Aurren, Human Truenamer
This was a short session due to time constraints, but they spent some time going back to town and bringing Norin back: he became a Changeling. They went back up the Witch Trail where, at the second crossing, they came across their first random encounter: a troll. Slade woke him up with his clanking, but the fight went very poorly for the troll. Slade basically kept him in melee while everyone else murdered him with varying amounts of attacking. We had to end there, which was a bit disappointing for me but necessary.
Session 5
After wandering the woods for the rest of that day and most of the next, they eventually came across the territorial marker, which creeped everyone out. As I’m running the adventure in Eberron, the Twistusks are now an old lycanthrope group hunted almost to extinction by Amery Vraath. They decided to go further up the road, where they encountered the now-afflicted werebear Amery cooking a large boar. He mentioned the goblins might be holding Vraath Keep but expressed a strong desire to keep to himself. They tried pretty forcefully to get him to help them and ended up angering him by mentioning his condition and the Church of the Silver Flame. Fabio, who had been urging more caution, realized that things were going extremely poorly and charmed his allies to get them to leave. He yelled at them for a bit after they left the old fortress, and as it was getting late they decided to make camp nearby.
As Fabio kept watch that night, he saw centipede swarms coming out of the hill just north of their camp. He shot fire at them and kept yelling at the others to wake up as the swarms approached. Slade got up and ran around uselessly, despite now being in possession of the flaming sword (he took it after Norin’s death to the hydra). Caspar, Norin, and Aurren all awoke to centipedes devouring them, and a series of unlucky Dexterity damage rolls found Aurren paralyzed and being eaten. Caspar did what little he could, while Norin spat acid on them until they too were brought down by the swarms. Slade finally moved in with his flaming sword after Fabio exhausted the last of his power points, and the pair stabilized Norin at -9 hit points. Caspar and Aurren had been long since devoured by the swarms.
Session 6
Our party now far: Slade, Orc Swordsman; Fabio, Kalashtar Psion; Morag, Dwarf Psychic Warrior; Norin, Changeling Archer
This session began with burials, as Fabio and Slade looted all useful scrolls, potions, and money before burying their fallen comrades. The use of some of these potions brought Norin and themselves into a good enough shape to continue, so after finishing the night they moved south to inspect Vraath Keep. On the way, they encountered a tendriculos, which devoured Slade and Norin. Morag, a dwarven mercenary who’d heard about the raiders at Drellin’s Ferry and had come to scout Vraath Keep himself, arrived during the battle and cut the creature open after Fabio dropped it with fire. Injured but still determined, they decided their new friend was trustworthy enough and moved with him to reach the keep.
Morag informed them that wolfrider patrols occasionally left the keep, and so they decided to take the long approach from the west. They were able to secretly climb the west wall, but Morag wanted to find a less dangerous approach and refused to climb. As the other three stood atop the wall, they made friends with the manticore. Thinking quickly, Fabio bluffed that Morag was affiliated with Koth, and the manticore brought the dwarf up to the wall as well.
From there, Slade went to descend into the keep while the other three surprised Koth in his study. He panicked and fled into the barracks to rally his troops. Slade opened the barracks door to find four hobgoblins and a minotaur preparing for battle. Without missing a beat, he said, “Sorry, guys—did I miss the meeting?” Slade is already badly hurt, but with the minotaur moving to engage him no one else can really reach. He gets considerably lucky with a critical hit and takes out Karkilan in only two attacks. Grievously wounded, he retreats to the courtyard and hides behind a boulder. Koth makes his way across the courtyard to get the worgriders moving.
The other three, meanwhile, have been making combat preparations and being too scared to open the door. They could hear the brief fight between minotaur and orc, and eventually Morag opens the door and throws in a smokestick. He wades into the barracks and has a confused melee with the hobgoblins, but Norin and Fabio decide such a situation is not suitable for them and they climb back outside.
Slade begins taking fire from the worgriders, although none of them hit them. I decided to make a change here and give the goblins muskets—one of the scary things about the Red Hand Horde in this adaptation is their development of firearms. Fabio and Norin begin exchanging fire with them. Fabio and Slade eventually drop to dying, but Norin stabilizes Fabio and then tries to get across the courtyard to help Slade (who, with Diehard, doesn’t have to worry about such checks).
Koth, meanwhile, comes back outside to yell at the manticore for not joining the fight, when Morag, who cleaned up the hobgoblins in the barracks, comes rushing out to deliver a grievous axe wound. By this point, Koth has had enough, so he drinks his potion of fly as the manticore drops down to fight the dwarf. Norin drops one of the goblin riders (as a DM kindness and because it made some tactical sense, the other two had gone outside the keep to see if anyone else was approaching). Morag battles with the manticore and is nearly dead, but his axe has wounded it just enough. Fabio uses the last of his power points to fry the manticore, and as it drops dead the remaining goblin raiders flee. At this point, everyone is badly injured, but they have all survived.
Session 7
Our party now far: Slade, Orc Swordsman; Fabio, Kalashtar Psion; Morag, Dwarf Psychic Warrior; Norin, Changeling Archer; Rodir, Human Scout
This session begins with the group taking stock of their situation. A human approaches—he claims he lives in these woods and keeps watch over them, and he noticed the goblins fleeing. He also saw Koth rejoin them on the road and ride north towards Skull Gorge. Although suspicious, they allow Rodir to accompany them. They find the vault passage in Koth’s study and loot the treasure vault. As none of them are particularly skilled at opening locks, they have Slade and Morag batter down the iron gates and Norin dissolve the iron coffers with acid. Fabio nabs Amery’s diary, Slade makes off with a +1 construct-bane heavy mace (though he doesn’t know that’s what it does yet), Morag stuffs the entire contents of the chest into his bag of holding, and they generally make off with a great deal of money. After looting the keep, they decide to see what’s going on at Skull Gorge, so Rodir leads the way north. They make camp not too far from Vraath’s new lodging.
By midday the next day, they arrive at Skull Gorge bridge. Slade is as unstealthy as ever, so he alerts Ozyrrandion to the group’s position, and the tower archers provide supporting fire. His breath weapon knocks Morag and Slade into the negatives, but the others force him to retreat. Fabio destroys both hellhounds, but the three remaining are not doing well by the time Ozy returns. He demands surrender from Fabio, but Norin’s continued shots anger him. He charges and bites the changeling into negatives. Using the last of his power points, Fabio nearly kills the dragon with electricity, but Rodir is unable to deal another 9 damage to the dragon as he flies away. They eventually kill the first two archers, and, not wanting a party wipe, I decide that the rest of the garrison retreated to a safe distance after Ozy left.
This is where we currently are, and I have the soldiers ready to return if they think the bridge is in danger. However, I don’t think such a thought has crossed their minds. They’ve used a lot of potions to get everyone back to positive health. Given their current state, I expect they’ll retreat and go back to Drellin’s Ferry to warn the people there. They’ll probably make their way back to Skull Gorge afterward, but they may find quite the surprise waiting for them.
Session 1 – The Ruined Tower
Our party thus far: Slade, Half-orc Swordsman; Fabio, Kalashtar Psion; Caspar, Changeling Assassin; Norin, Elf Archer; Aurren, Human Truenamer
I decided to run a campaign in Eberron, just to provide a bit of grounding for the campaign and a setting on which I can fall back for flavor. After consideration, I decided to place the Elsir Vale on the eastern edge of the Eldeen Reaches. But we can’t just throw a party into all of this, can we? I felt like it needed a bit of build-up, so I decided to adapt WotC’s “A Dark and Stormy Knight” to gather them together. So everyone but Slade filed in and had a bit of conversation with each other before lightning opened the rest of the crypt for exploration. I’d replaced the vargouille with a weakened mezzoloth statue that, when touched, would summon the daemon. The truenamer immediately obliged, his curiosity being too much to overcome, and they had a difficult time getting past its damage reduction. Slade entered while they were fighting the creature and went toe-to-toe with it. They eventually brought it down without too much trouble.
Deeper into the tower they found a couple of infernal goblins—Red Hand scouts sent to look for the sword that had been buried with the Dark Knight. They died without incident, so the party decided to open the burial chamber. Slade engaged in melee while everyone else stood back and attacked. The highlight of the fight was Caspar hitting Slade with a Shadow Garotte for 27 damage, which dropped the half-orc. Despite this setback, they dispatched the undead warrior swiftly enough, and the session more or less ended there. The Dark Knight had a flaming longsword with a red-dragon head for the pommel, which Norin took, and they discovered the name “Tiamat” on his tomb’s inscription.
Session 2
The second session began with some exploration of the ruined tower. Some of them tried climbing the slick outside surface with unpleasant results; falling damage combined with the problems from the previous night’s encounters meant that the three more martial characters had low-to-moderate health. Finding what was left of the goblins’ camp spooked them a bit, but after they decided the old tower had nothing left for them to find they moved on.
The road ambush took almost the entire rest of the session. As they realized they were surrounded, they began dividing up to take on enemies in different sections. Caspar teleported to take out the enemies on the east side, Slade began making his way to the west, and Aurren…well, Aurren was left as the most viable target for the enemy archers and took a hail of arrows that seriously injured him. Fabio weakened the hellhounds with Inflict Pain, and Norin began sniping at enemy archers with little success (tree cover seriously hindered him here).
Slade did some work in cleaning up the west side of the road. Caspar and Norin took out the east side before Caspar engaged in the most pathetic melee combat of the session. He and one of the ambushers spent several rounds stabbing at each other to no effect, so they had little involvement on the rest of the battle. Fabio took down one of the hellhounds with a Cold Ray, but the second one dropped him into negative hit points. Aurren began healing him and backpedaling down the road, while Norin turned his attention to helping the spellcasters and finishing the other hellhound. Horns were heard off in the distance.
Fabio regained consciousness just in time for the bladebearer to arrive. Slade likewise decided he was needed in the road—they saw reinforcements arriving. At this point, everyone was sure it would be a party wipe. They were all pretty low on hit points, although everyone was up and fighting. (“You’re trying to kill us!” was heard.) While Fabio, Norin, and Aurren took down the bladebearer, Slade found himself attacked by the priest. With just a few hit points left, Slade saw six more soldiers arriving and did the heroic thing—he charged into the mass of them, dropping two of them immediately with Steel Wind. I made a morale check, but the other four surrounded him. The priest and bladebearer eventually died, but Slade went down under a critical hit from one of the soldiers, dropping him to -12 instantly.
I had a cavalry patrol arrive from Drellin’s Ferry when there were only three warriors left; it would’ve been mopping up anyway. They took the bladebearer’s swords and priest’s holy symbol as loot. Aurren explored the farmhouse and found the money the raiders had collected. Strangely, he lied to the rest of the group about it, but they felt he was hiding something and pressed for more information. After some debate about what to do with Slade, the sergeant offered to take his corpse to Drellin’s Ferry and present it to a local druid who could reincarnate him. With everyone worn out from combat, we stopped there.
Session 3
Our party now far: Slade, Orc Swordsman; Fabio, Kalashtar Psion; Caspar, Changeling Assassin; Norin, Elf Archer; Aurren, Human Truenamer
While it wasn’t exactly a short session, much of it was spent messing around in town. Slade came back as a full-blooded orc. They sold the bladebearer’s swords and pooled almost all of their money to pay for the reincarnation. A few of them gambled much of their savings away with Kellin, and Caspar decided he had a crush on Jarett Nurth (renamed to “Jara” for my campaign). He even bought Jara a cheap amulet before Slade took a midnight swim across the river and wandered around the west bank for a bit. I’m leaving out a few things, but I didn’t find it particularly interesting.
However, they did agree with Speaker Winston to help the town figure out what was going on, but they didn’t ask hardly any follow-up questions (they requested a map and got it) and were fairly rude, so I didn’t offer the hook for Jorr or much in the way of suggestions for exploring the forest. They decided to stay off the main road and take the Witch Trail into the forest, so I ran the hydra encounter at the first crossing.
The battle was probably frustrating for them, despite them being relatively well-equipped to handle it. Slade and Caspar waded into melee, although Caspar took a lot of damage and extricated himself from combat quickly enough. Fabio shot fire, but Norin’s arrows proved ineffective. On learning that hydras were weak to fire and acid, he took a single shot with dissolving spittle before deciding to rush into melee with his flaming sword. That didn’t go particularly well for him; he died to hydra bites. The others finished it off not long after, but he was already dead. Aurren happily donned the mithral breastplate they found, however.
Session 4
Our party now far: Slade, Orc Swordsman; Fabio, Kalashtar Psion; Caspar, Changeling Assassin; Norin, Changeling Archer; Aurren, Human Truenamer
This was a short session due to time constraints, but they spent some time going back to town and bringing Norin back: he became a Changeling. They went back up the Witch Trail where, at the second crossing, they came across their first random encounter: a troll. Slade woke him up with his clanking, but the fight went very poorly for the troll. Slade basically kept him in melee while everyone else murdered him with varying amounts of attacking. We had to end there, which was a bit disappointing for me but necessary.
Session 5
After wandering the woods for the rest of that day and most of the next, they eventually came across the territorial marker, which creeped everyone out. As I’m running the adventure in Eberron, the Twistusks are now an old lycanthrope group hunted almost to extinction by Amery Vraath. They decided to go further up the road, where they encountered the now-afflicted werebear Amery cooking a large boar. He mentioned the goblins might be holding Vraath Keep but expressed a strong desire to keep to himself. They tried pretty forcefully to get him to help them and ended up angering him by mentioning his condition and the Church of the Silver Flame. Fabio, who had been urging more caution, realized that things were going extremely poorly and charmed his allies to get them to leave. He yelled at them for a bit after they left the old fortress, and as it was getting late they decided to make camp nearby.
As Fabio kept watch that night, he saw centipede swarms coming out of the hill just north of their camp. He shot fire at them and kept yelling at the others to wake up as the swarms approached. Slade got up and ran around uselessly, despite now being in possession of the flaming sword (he took it after Norin’s death to the hydra). Caspar, Norin, and Aurren all awoke to centipedes devouring them, and a series of unlucky Dexterity damage rolls found Aurren paralyzed and being eaten. Caspar did what little he could, while Norin spat acid on them until they too were brought down by the swarms. Slade finally moved in with his flaming sword after Fabio exhausted the last of his power points, and the pair stabilized Norin at -9 hit points. Caspar and Aurren had been long since devoured by the swarms.
Session 6
Our party now far: Slade, Orc Swordsman; Fabio, Kalashtar Psion; Morag, Dwarf Psychic Warrior; Norin, Changeling Archer
This session began with burials, as Fabio and Slade looted all useful scrolls, potions, and money before burying their fallen comrades. The use of some of these potions brought Norin and themselves into a good enough shape to continue, so after finishing the night they moved south to inspect Vraath Keep. On the way, they encountered a tendriculos, which devoured Slade and Norin. Morag, a dwarven mercenary who’d heard about the raiders at Drellin’s Ferry and had come to scout Vraath Keep himself, arrived during the battle and cut the creature open after Fabio dropped it with fire. Injured but still determined, they decided their new friend was trustworthy enough and moved with him to reach the keep.
Morag informed them that wolfrider patrols occasionally left the keep, and so they decided to take the long approach from the west. They were able to secretly climb the west wall, but Morag wanted to find a less dangerous approach and refused to climb. As the other three stood atop the wall, they made friends with the manticore. Thinking quickly, Fabio bluffed that Morag was affiliated with Koth, and the manticore brought the dwarf up to the wall as well.
From there, Slade went to descend into the keep while the other three surprised Koth in his study. He panicked and fled into the barracks to rally his troops. Slade opened the barracks door to find four hobgoblins and a minotaur preparing for battle. Without missing a beat, he said, “Sorry, guys—did I miss the meeting?” Slade is already badly hurt, but with the minotaur moving to engage him no one else can really reach. He gets considerably lucky with a critical hit and takes out Karkilan in only two attacks. Grievously wounded, he retreats to the courtyard and hides behind a boulder. Koth makes his way across the courtyard to get the worgriders moving.
The other three, meanwhile, have been making combat preparations and being too scared to open the door. They could hear the brief fight between minotaur and orc, and eventually Morag opens the door and throws in a smokestick. He wades into the barracks and has a confused melee with the hobgoblins, but Norin and Fabio decide such a situation is not suitable for them and they climb back outside.
Slade begins taking fire from the worgriders, although none of them hit them. I decided to make a change here and give the goblins muskets—one of the scary things about the Red Hand Horde in this adaptation is their development of firearms. Fabio and Norin begin exchanging fire with them. Fabio and Slade eventually drop to dying, but Norin stabilizes Fabio and then tries to get across the courtyard to help Slade (who, with Diehard, doesn’t have to worry about such checks).
Koth, meanwhile, comes back outside to yell at the manticore for not joining the fight, when Morag, who cleaned up the hobgoblins in the barracks, comes rushing out to deliver a grievous axe wound. By this point, Koth has had enough, so he drinks his potion of fly as the manticore drops down to fight the dwarf. Norin drops one of the goblin riders (as a DM kindness and because it made some tactical sense, the other two had gone outside the keep to see if anyone else was approaching). Morag battles with the manticore and is nearly dead, but his axe has wounded it just enough. Fabio uses the last of his power points to fry the manticore, and as it drops dead the remaining goblin raiders flee. At this point, everyone is badly injured, but they have all survived.
Session 7
Our party now far: Slade, Orc Swordsman; Fabio, Kalashtar Psion; Morag, Dwarf Psychic Warrior; Norin, Changeling Archer; Rodir, Human Scout
This session begins with the group taking stock of their situation. A human approaches—he claims he lives in these woods and keeps watch over them, and he noticed the goblins fleeing. He also saw Koth rejoin them on the road and ride north towards Skull Gorge. Although suspicious, they allow Rodir to accompany them. They find the vault passage in Koth’s study and loot the treasure vault. As none of them are particularly skilled at opening locks, they have Slade and Morag batter down the iron gates and Norin dissolve the iron coffers with acid. Fabio nabs Amery’s diary, Slade makes off with a +1 construct-bane heavy mace (though he doesn’t know that’s what it does yet), Morag stuffs the entire contents of the chest into his bag of holding, and they generally make off with a great deal of money. After looting the keep, they decide to see what’s going on at Skull Gorge, so Rodir leads the way north. They make camp not too far from Vraath’s new lodging.
By midday the next day, they arrive at Skull Gorge bridge. Slade is as unstealthy as ever, so he alerts Ozyrrandion to the group’s position, and the tower archers provide supporting fire. His breath weapon knocks Morag and Slade into the negatives, but the others force him to retreat. Fabio destroys both hellhounds, but the three remaining are not doing well by the time Ozy returns. He demands surrender from Fabio, but Norin’s continued shots anger him. He charges and bites the changeling into negatives. Using the last of his power points, Fabio nearly kills the dragon with electricity, but Rodir is unable to deal another 9 damage to the dragon as he flies away. They eventually kill the first two archers, and, not wanting a party wipe, I decide that the rest of the garrison retreated to a safe distance after Ozy left.
This is where we currently are, and I have the soldiers ready to return if they think the bridge is in danger. However, I don’t think such a thought has crossed their minds. They’ve used a lot of potions to get everyone back to positive health. Given their current state, I expect they’ll retreat and go back to Drellin’s Ferry to warn the people there. They’ll probably make their way back to Skull Gorge afterward, but they may find quite the surprise waiting for them.