All warfare is based on deception. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

With my plans made and executed relatively quickly, I made good time returning to Eastern Tear and was there before the team had completed their preparations. As a result I was able to spend a little time relaxing, getting centered and dialing in my game plan.

With a little help from my magical device minions, I made some adjustments to the airship. I simplified the craft to excel in the kind of low altitude operations I expected to be important over the next few weeks. I could no longer fly extremely high, but the craft was more extremely stable, could carry a larger payload and could navigate autonomously to a beacon. I could have opened up plenty of possibilities if I could have made it completely stealth, but I wasn’t quite there yet. About the closest I could come would be painting it light blue and I didn’t think that was really going to fool anyone.

My plan was to be on the ground with my party and to be able to use the beacon to summon the airship if necessary. I had created some new goggles with a bunch of lenses that I could switch on and off. They looked completely ridiculous, but they allowed me to target and range find in a number of conditions and through a range of covers. Besides, you don’t need to look good if your stealth is good. I also had long distance weaponry, including an upgraded buster rifle version of the magic particle gun and a large bore rifle. I wasn’t planning on using any explosive ammunition, but the extremely dense rounds that I had prepared could punch through plenty.

I was planning on following behind my party as they advanced and picking of any tails, ambushes or other shenanigans that Elen and her compatriots had up their sleeves. We had some short range communications devices that were basically like the setup that Leirin had mixed with a walkie talkie and an earbud. This allowed us to coordinate as needed in real time, which I though of as a huge upgrade for us. The team had decided that I was going to focus on the elves and that they were going to focus on everyone else.

Based on the intelligence that we had at the time, we felt that there was a good chance that we’d run into an ambush as we got within about twenty miles of the Emerald Sea. We weren’t exactly trying to avoid this unwanted attention, as it seemed better to have this behind us before we were pulled into the defense of the outpost. The airship was hovering just behind the team, following a beacon that Karen was carrying in her pack. This made us easy to follow, but also created the impression that I was high above, rather than sneaking around the woods with my stealth on max. There were risks to using my full stealth skill in this scenario, but we all thought that they were vastly outweighed by the potential benefits.

Just about a day’s hike from the outpost, we passed through a large clearing with a dry creek bed running through the middle. I could see plenty of activity in the trees to either side and in front of the team as we approached. I listened to the open channel on the communication device and was happy to hear Kelly report signs of a concealed force, which Queakers and the large bear that Sarah was riding at the party’s rear corroborated. The team began to prepare themselves for a fight without letting on that they had detected the ambush. As soon as the party stepped into the dry creek bed most of the hidden force broke cover.

Our friends and former instructors were still concealed beyond the treeline at the edge of clearing, but approximately two dozen individuals of all stripes rushed from the trees on three sides of us. In front of us was a row of four armored melee fighters that were apparently there to protect two support casters and two offensive mages. On either side there was a mix of melee fighters and rangers. It seemed like overkill until the field exploded with roots to harry the attackers and a small army of plant monsters burst forth from the foliage and started attacking.

The ambushing forces were largely tangled up and were momentarily unable to advance. I had given each human party member a cylinder of my shield disks powered by the blue magic crystals that I harvested from the Giantspire Mountains. The cylinders briefly hovered in the air as they broke into individual shield discs that set about deflecting any ranged attacks launched at our party. These devices pulled some of my focus during the fight, but with all of the practice that I had with these tools and heightened awareness it was something I hardly noticed.

The team organized around collapsing one side of the trap while preventing the enemy from fully encircling us. As Jim and Karen waded into the line of physical fighters that they had targeted, working to protect each other as they dished out the damage. When Kelly got close enough to the shade of the forest, she disappeared completely and slipped over to the ranged fighters that had blocked our initial path behind their armored escort. Kelly quickly dealt several crippling injuries to the support casters, which threw that side of the trap into chaos. The combatants on the western side of the trap advanced on the party, but, between Sarah, her bear and Queakers fighting defensively and the near nullification of ranged attacks by the shield discs, they weren’t making fast progress. I snuck around behind the western side of the trap and work to get into a good position to provide any support needed.

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Elen and company likely planned to soften up the party with the ranged attacks, push in with their fighters and then kill or capture whomever was left standing after the fighting was over. Used in a situation like this my shield discs weren’t nearly as effective as they were when I was just protecting myself, but they were still soaking up or deflecting the vast majority of the ranged attacks directed at my teammates. The hired muscle for this mission was unable to fight on equal terms with my party and Queakers had prevented them from all hitting the team simultaneously, so their strategy had effectively collapsed at this point.

They still had a large numerical advantage, so I could see why they didn’t pack it in, but if I were Elen or Karl I would have tried to sneak away. They hadn’t given any hint that they knew that I was in the area and with things going relatively well I just kept focused and waited for things to develop further. If they were going to strike, the right time to do it would be when the team turned to face the brigands that were regrouping on the western side of the original box. There was a chance to draw the team into a pincer attack with the hirelings in the front while the concealed elites attacked from behind.

Since Karen and company knew that their friends and former instructors were concealed further to the south, they could have drawn them out by appearing to fall into this trap. However, my party had no interest in taking a chance like this and we very much preferred not having to fight our friends. Kelly rejoined Jim, Karen, Queakers, Sarah and her bear as they all pulled back to the north. They managed to put both the regrouped hirelings and the concealed elites in front of them in this way. The shield discs moved with my party and they deployed another cylinder of shield discs to shore up their defensive formation as they paused to see what their assailants would do.

After what looked like a quick discussion. Karl, Lando and Lyle revealed themselves and began to move directly toward my teammates. At the same time, Elen, Ruven and Phraan began to circle behind the rest of my party while Erin stayed hidden to the south. I guess it wasn’t a terrible plan based on how I gathered that they saw the situation, but again I think that I would have already retreated at this point. As the elves worked their way through the trees they passed very close to my position and I got a good look at their equipment. They had some pretty nice energy armor, but nothing that was going to be an obstacle for either the large bore rifle or the upgraded magic particle buster rifle. Phraan was equipped with a leather Brigandine and two swords. Elen had two hunting knives, but currently had her shortbow prepared for a shot. Ruven had a rather handsome shepherd's crook style staff with several large gems embedded that I expected were magical foci. I was planning on keeping that one.

We all agreed not to attack our friends if we could avoid it, but I wasn’t friends with Elen, Ruven and Phraan. They tried to kill me, my dog and my actual friends. It wasn’t going to be over until they were out of the picture and I didn’t think that there was going to be a better time. I was half worried that it was some kind of trap. They were right there full of hostility, probably about to try to kill my dog again, but you aren’t the good guy if you don’t give them a chance to surrender, right? I dropped my stealth skill when they were twenty yards ahead of my position and said, “Disarm and surrender. I will make a citizen’s arrest and turn you–”

I couldn’t even get the whole thing out before all three of them attacked. No surprises there, but there was no hesitation. I suppressed my shield discs and took it all with my energy armor, which at this point was almost three inches thick. Phraan’s swords were both stuck to my armor as were a half dozen of Elen’s arrows. I had also weathered fireballs, electrical discharges, wind blades, water jets and rock javelins courtesy of Ruven. I started again, “Just for clarity’s sake, that was me turning the other cheek. So again. Disarm and surrender. I will–”

Ruven turned the ground around me to quicksand. That was actually a pretty good idea. The hole just kept going down and as I slipped down into the slurry of dirt and water I could hear Elen say, “Finally. Let’s seal this fool in. He can rot down there until he suffocates. Now let’s go kill the rest of them. We need to get back to town. I am not sleeping out here another night and we need to get the rest of the plan into motion or the safe zone will still be active when the goblins arrive.” Well, I’ll give them that they weren’t as dumb as I thought. It was a good lesson in overconfidence, for everyone really.