In the morning, I enchanted a rapier for Treble, and tried my hand at brewing a couple of potions. The potions are a new craft for me, and I'm pleased with the results. I gave one to Brogar and one to Morangan. We made a rough plan for the others to follow somewhat behind, and I headed up to the lodge, dressed as one of the battleragers. An orc was there, with a white flag of surrender. When he saw me, he ran up and shouted with relief "Brock! I'm so glad to see you. What happened?" ...so I guess that made me "Brock." Check. He said he was trying to find Agrawal, to give him a message from Thorn, but since I reported being unable to find Agrawal, he suggested that we go together to give Thorn the update. I was a little worried when he looked expectantly at me, being as I didn't know the layout of the place, so I told him to lead the way. We passed a hall on the right where it's clear that slaves are being kept... I saw their cages out of the corner of my eye and heard the ruckus from the room. And right down the hall we went, through a door into an office. Behind a large desk sat Thorn, dressed in black chain. There were two warforged against the wall behind him, holdin' quarterstaves. To the right of his desk was a striking Eladrin archer lady, and to the left of the door was an ogre, noisily chugging some foul-smelling concoction from a mug the size of a bucket, his giant club resting on the wall next to him.
Thorn asked what happened, and I relayed (uh... basically) the truth: that Agrawal must have betrayed him, that he and his men had drawn "our" guys out with a ruse and then stormed the lodge, killing most of its occupants, with only a few of us left to drive him out. I told him I had been searching for him and his crew but had been unable to find them. He was extremely angry, and ordered me and Murg (oh, so that's the guy who led me in here...) to clean the place up.
Murg helped me carry one of the bodies out of the lodge to the river. Next time I disguise myself as such a high-ranking officer, I should remember to give orders with more confidence to avoid arousing suspicion. Thankfully, Murg was naive and stupid, so he didn't catch onto my blunder. As we exited the lodge with a body, I said somewhat loudly, "Let's take him over to the mouth of the river and give him a water burial," unsure of whether my allies were within earshot. Apparently they were, though; that shiny rapier I'd just enchanted and polished for Treble appeared, sticking through Murg's chest before we even reached the river. I shouted "Murg, get down!" and brandished my greataxe. I fully intended to take a swing at Treble if need be, to keep my cover, but Murg was running like hell for the lodge and I swung at a post instead, to give the appearance of attacking our "common foe."
Poor Murg never made it to the door. I did a quick once-over on his pockets to see if he held any keys of any type but found only a few silvers, which I left on his person. I stood guard in front of the lodge, where Aurora approached and asked what she should do, posing as one of the shifters we had fought the previous day. I ordered her loudly to search for the intruders, and in a softer voice I told her to relay to the others what we had seen.
Shortly after, Thorn roared down the hall, ordering me back to his room. I obeyed, and he was properly livid. He accused me of working with Agrawal, and I denied it. He said he had just seen Murg be killed, a magic I will have to investigate when I have the time to devote my attention to it. The lies dripped glibly from my mouth as I told him Agrawal's guys were out there launching an assault on our lodge while I was trying to defend the outer doors. He totally bought it; although he seemed somewhat confused, he couldn't help but believe my convincing story. Then, to my surprise, he told me to go find Agrawal or whoever was in charge, and send 'im in.
I headed back to the front, and found my party there, about to launch an assault on the lodge. I told 'em that the boss wanted to see whoever was in charge, and backed away from them into Thorn's office, where he told all of 'em to come in, which they did. Brogar posed as the fellow in charge of us all, and told Thorn that he intended to take the slaves. Thorn didn't appreciate this too well, and ordered us all to be killed, as by now he had begun to believe that Brock had betrayed him. (First Agrawal, then Brock... Thorn wasn't having a good day.)
The ogre attacked Brogar, and battle ensued. Soon into it, Thorn escaped to save his own skin. Between the two warforged and the eladrin, we found ourselves often knocked to the ground. Some of the others got up, just to be knocked down again. I saved myself the trouble and stayed down. I think I need to work on my tactics a bit, but the others did well here: Phelaia launched a round of devastating attacks, Colvin erected a wall of bolstering light, Brogar bravely fended off the ogre and a tiger as well (until the ogre finally crushed him, at which point I healed him and he got back up and kept fighting), Aurora whirled her blades around like a madwoman, Morangan shot arrow after arrow, and Treble teleported to flank the ogre and bring the massive creature down. This battle was another tough one; at one point we had Phelaia, Morangan, Brogar, and Treble all bloodied before Colvin healed them with his wall, saving Morangan from falling unconscious the next round. In the midst of all this was the Eladrin, shooting pot shots at us from down the hall until Colvin went to chase her down as the battle wound up.
In the end, Colvin, Phelaia, Brogar, and Morangan went after the eladrin while Aurora and Treble searched the two rooms in the back. I was somewhere between the two sets of my allies, waiting to act as a reinforcement. After several minutes, we all rejoined together. Colvin, Phelaia, and Brogar brought the eladrin back with them as their prisoner, Treble reported finding a secret passage behind a bookcase in Thorn's bedroom, and Aurora reported finding some papers, a secret lever that opened a trap door to a fifteen-foot-deep pit in front of the desk, and an odd mirror (which I plan to investigate further).
We all healed up, and the questioning of the prisoner commenced, as I rifled through the papers that Aurora had found and examined the eladrin's magic items: a ring and an amulet. I think we'll be going after Thorn through the secret passage next, to try to stop him from getting away. The next likely plan is to free the slaves.