After hearing my account of the situation at the top of the hill, Sorrell decided that we should go and introduce ourselves to the two druids up there, and maybe find out what was going on. We therefore climbed the final stretch of the hill and started through the gap in the wall. I kept myself partially hidden in the shadows however, so that if things went wrong I would be able to intervene from a more unexpected direction.
Things started going wrong pretty rapidly however. Sorrell started with a fairly innocuous greeting to the druids, and expressed a wish to know more about the Circle of the Scarlett Moon. The response from one of the druids was a fireball spell lobbed right into the centre of the party. I was blasted off my feet by it, and severely wounded, and I noticed that Sorrell was similarly hurt. The other three seemed to be in better shape. Instinct took over at this point, as we all leapt into action. Feyabelle had her bow drawn in a single action and had loosed two arrows into the priest who was chanting. Arielle stepped into the shadows behind the wall and stepped out of the shadows on the scaffolding behind one of the guards, striking him from behind with surprise. I used one of my spells to create an illusion of a water elemental coalescing out of the group and surging towards the wicker man, which served to distract the first priest. Sorrell cast her Thorngrowth spell under the feet of the two priests and Thorg then used his Ring of the Ram to hit the chanting priest with a mighty force-punch. The combination of damage from the ram and the thorns was enough to kill that priest, but the other one quickly took up the chanting in his place. Arielle stepped away from the guard who had struck at her, and out of the shadows on the far side of the tower, striking the guard on that side who was similarly bewildered and failed to strike her with his sword. Feyabelle shot now at the first guard, who was wondering where Arielle had disappeared to. I attempted to fire a Ray of Frost at the priest, but missed, and his chanting now took effect as a fire elemental surged forwards from the wicker man. That didn’t stop Thorg cutting him down with a couple of blows from his sword though. Almost immediately, another guard with two flame-breathing hounds appeared from behind the pile of rubble next to the tower, where Arielle was continuing her mad jumping from shadow to shadow, as the guards desperately slashed at thin air. Seeing the threat to Thorg, I used a Web spell to pin down the hounds and the new guard. Meanwhile, he unleashed a flurry of mighty blows on the fire elemental, which fortunately was distracted by the illusiory water elemental that it obviously perceived as a greater threat. The guards on the scaffolding having been dispatched, Feyabelle turned he arrows on the hell-hounds, and felled them both as they struggled to free themselves from the webbing. The guard did free himself just as Thorg dispatched the fire elemental, and proved to be the next item on his menu. Suddenly there were no foes left standing. The whole fight had probably only lasted half a minute or so, in a whirlwind of destruction and mayhem. We were bloodied, badly singed in many cases (although our new druid friends had performed miracles to get Sorrell and myself back on our feet), but victorious.