Session 2/Session 3 - Battle of Sussex

There on the North Wall was Aurthur directing the defense of the city. Bleys and I went to meet him. I saw our armies preparing to do battle. More dark troops had arrived, but who had led them this time? Steady archery fire rained down on the dark troops and Sussex had already sent out a pair of phallanx units to halt the assaulting army. Aurthur was co-ordinating with a heavy cavalry unit's commander to make flanking attacks. It looked like our unit would arrive first, but they'd almost surely have to fall back after the first strike at the flank.

Authur was delighted to see me. He even gave me a great big hug.

"Last time these forces attacked they showed a fatal flaw in their strategy. They do not know the value of retreat and thus do not guard against enclosure. If we can pin them in against the city walls and encircle them we can score another total defeat."

"Ah, it is good to have my advisor back. How do we bait them to the walls?"

"Simple. Order the infantry to give up the center and split to the sides. Our unit will hold the opponent in place until the heavy cavalry force them into the gaps left by the infantry. Once they are surrounded they will be open to attack from archers as well as bombarment will flaming oil and debris. They'll be massacred."

Aurthur was nodding in agreement. Even Bleys seemed to like the plan. So be it. I cast A Conduit of the Thoughts on the north wall's flag marshall and passed my plan along to him. I held open the connection in case I needed to update the plan. Next, I turned my attention to the Logus Sorcerer. I snapped the end off a standard to create a quarterstaff.

"I don't think that would be a good idea" said Bleys. "Look." he pointed over to where nearly a dozen large winged creatures were rising up around the sorcerer's disk.

I nodded. We watched as my plan went into action. The men were getting used to their opponent and the dark troops were acting predictably now. The infantry shifted to the sides as our cavalry drove in hard on the attackers' flanks. Winged creatures sprung up from the back and from around the leader's disk and flew towards the walls. Bleys zapped a few from the sky with powerful blasts of magical lightning while archers downed a few others. The rest of the flying creatures engaged us on the wall. Authur, Bleys, and I split up to defend the wall. The creatures were much stronger than men and used their wings and claws to great effect, but I found they could not stand up to powerful staff blows. They also had trouble getting close while I wielded the long weapon. I defeated four, Aurthur three, and Bleys defeated a dozen. Soon the wall was clear of enemies. Our forces below were crushing the dark troops. The Logus mage was doing his best to salvage his army. He was raining bursts of fire down on our cavalry. I sent the order the the flag marshal to have the cavalry retreat. It was now time to attack their leader. I cast three Effortless Floatings and we went after him.

The first thing I tried was to confuse him with a mirror image illusion. I cast Deceptions of an All too Common Nature on the Logrus mage to make it seem like we all had two duplicates. At first it looked like it might work. While we disabled his few remaining demon-guards he must have figured out the ruse. Either he disbelieved the illusion or dispelled it, but whatever the case he now saw what was before him. Korvan had a lso fought off my illusions using his magic. I need to develop a better tactic for use of my spells. My magic needs to be more dynamic now that I'm facing spell casters.

The Logrus mage blasted Aurthur with a tunnel of flame. I think Bleys have cast a protective bubble on him (or perhaps it was Caliburn's doing!) because Aurthur was merely jarred by the deadly blast. He sunk to the ground, dazed. I spun around to the mage's back as Bleys assaulted him lightning. This was all too much for the mage. His forces were destroyed and he himself was nearing capture. He drew out a card and Trumped out.

After the battle I tended to Aurthur and examined Korvan's memories while Bleys analyzed the magical fields.

Eventually I received a my very first Trump call. It was Benedict. He invited me a training session.