At the end of last session, we left our heroes battling against a swarm of seemingly possessed villagers and their fishy frogmen brethren.
The PCs now had the upper hand, but as the last villager on the southern beach fell to their blows more of the strange frogmen clambered from the canal. Karelia finally identified the creatures as skum—servants of the ancient and alien aboleth. This revelation led to almost universal concern as to what might lie beyond the wall at the end of the canal, but in the throes of battle nothing could realistically be discussed.
More and more skum joined the battle and although the party found slaying them relatively easy, their numbers began to tell. At the same time, the villagers from the north beach move slowly into the fray. Narfu held them back on the narrow path by the canal and their greater weight of numbers availed them naught.
With bodies everywhere the skum now changed tactics instead trying to disarm and pull their foes, chief among them Zainnis, Narfu and Grooble, into the canal. However, in this they were unsuccessful and the three heroes seemed well able to contain the threat.
As the battle dragged on, several of the party turned to dealing with the unconscious villagers—stabilising their wounds and trying to make them more comfortable–as clearly they were not acting on their own volition. However, Sarif was not of the same mind. As Cortana and Karelia worked on saving the villagers Sarif tried to stab one to death surruptiously. Sadly, several of the heroes noticed this heinous act—the paladins seemed particularly incensed—and the party seemed on the edge of disintegration (or at least protracted quarrelling and in-fighting).
By this time, it seemed clear there was no end to the skum emerging from the canal. Given this, the brewing argument and the fact that the party’s resources were running low, they decided to retreat from the beach…
