It was time for us to come up with a plan. Saving the winery was not only the right course of action because they needed our help, but it had literally become a necessary step in going forward with our other investigations. Many ideas were brought forth - I had suggested dealing with one problem at a time and lure the wolves to the edges of the vineyard and lead them into a trap to destroy them, then move on the house. Tetsuo was confident that his eastern shadow magic could conceal us as we stealthed up to the house, and if we did it down wind, the wolves would likely not detect us.
After much discussion, it was decided that we would go with a third option: Davion would use his ravens to tease and tempt away the wolves to the opposite side of the vineyard (As apparently the wolves hated the ravens) and we would use Tetsuo's powers to sneak up and into the winery main building. Davion had drawn us a detailed map of the interior which would help immensely.
This plan seemed to be working well but, as things happen, we encountered a tight group of six lost wolves who attacked as soon as we were discovered. The battle went fairly well and quickly, using the knowledge we had gained about fire overcoming their regeneration. Akkiir's green flame from his sword and my lit torch finished them off as they fell. Soon we were on our way to the loading dock at the rear of the winery.
We encountered no enemies at that point and noticed that some of the doors here were broken open and no longer able to close. We all moved into a narrow interior hall, spreading out as best we could. We knew that the set of double doors in this hall led into the main brewery room with it's large vats of fermenting wine, and decided that would be our first stop.
Taking a peak in, Akkiir at first saw nothing amiss but his eyes were drawn up to the surrounding catwalk above and he saw a filthy looking naked woman pouring something vile into one of the wine vats. In the corner of his eye he also spotted something small scuttling nearby, dodging behind the closest vat. Upon spying him, the evil druid dropped her vial directly into the vat and slammed her staff against the floor of the catwalk, causing dark tendrils of smoke to smolder around it.
Soon the battle was begun. The druid never had a chance to attack as she was quickly taken down by ranged attacks. Of course that was not the end of it - lost children started coming out from around the back of the nearest vat and they tried to bite and claw into our ranks. All manner of attacks were thrust at our assailants but it quickly became clear that they had regenerative powers as well!
I lit another torch to help out as much as I could. They were coming out in two's from a missing plank in the nearest great vat. Uphir stepped forward to plug up the hole and stop them from coming out. A spontaneous plan came into existence and Janlynn ran up the stairs to the walkway to look into the vat and saw scores of lost children crammed into the vat! She quickly dumped a flask of oil into the vat upon our enemies. Tetsuo snatched the torch from my hands and bounded up the outside of the vat, reaching in to set fire to the vile abominations inside.
Our troupe performed as amazingly as I had become accustomed to. The creatures made no cries as the vat became engulfed in fire, the only sounds being the odd crackling of their dried skin as they turned to ash. It only took a few minutes for the fire to have done it's work and they were all put to rest. Nim thought it important to try and barricade the doors to this large room so that enemies would not come upon us unexpected. Wine barrels were hefted and rolled into place to block doorways.
The closest place to investigate next was the cellar, and we prepared to creep down and investigate, with Nim scouting ahead first. He soon came back saying that there was a druid and several lost wolves among the wine racks below......
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