The bad guys get a series of horrendous rolls which set up a strange tactical situation, unenvisioned by the DM. they walk into a bar full of Iron Circle, one at a time, walk past the bad guys to the bar, and order drinks. The Iron Circle are completely pre-occupied and and don't notice an armed group of strangers walking in until...
The last one, wearing his hood comes in. Then suddenly they break from an engrossing conversation? sober up? and all turn to look at Qazzy standing in the door. Instead of using the element of surprise, the rest of the characters bring themselves to the attention of the bad guys:
Hey, wanna pick a fight with him, you have to fight us too!
Really? yep, really.
A couple of the bad guys go after Qazzy, who retreats, out the door, while the rest of them confront the party that moments ago, was behind them and had surprise on their side. Chop, slash, hack. Crossbow shooting in the window, duck, cover. Qazzy is surrounded outside, but holds his own until his cougar, who was off doing cougar business, shows up, and the rest of the party fights their way outside to help finish the bad guys off.
They meet Dar, the rebel leader, who explains the situation, and that they desperately need weapons if they have any chance of beating the Iron circle. Spy's say there's a wagon full of goods headed out, his scout will guide them to an ambush point...
Harno, a veteran Dwarven saergent from Hammerfall, who speaks with a Kaliphornia accent, counsels the Qazzy and John on how to set up an ambush, and what a kill zone is... Perhaps it would have been better to explain this to fighters, but they are teenagers and are sleeping late. We have a short window to play today. The set up is OK, but not enough communication happens. So things go immediately awry.
John succeeds in pulling the driver off the cart with his Thorn Whip, which stops the cart. The Spellcaster starts laying down fire on John and sends his faithful companion to root john out of the bushes. The fighters charge in and start whacking the guards, while the spellcaster continues to target John. Quazzy sends his cougar to charge the spellcaster, on the wagon, which... spooks the horse. The horse going away from the cougar goes off road, breaks a wheel on the wagon, which comes to a stop. The cougar and the faithful companion are battling it out, while the driver comes up and releases the horse.
The boys start arguing about who is going to get to keep the faithful companion, once they kill the spellcaster who is still reigning down fire and destruction on the party.
Qazzy, John, Vash and the cougar are bleeding out (below zero HP - dying), while all the guards lay dead and finally Mari kills off the Companion and the spellcaster. John never did get to heal anyone, as he was the first to go down. Mari saves the day, and Vash sees the driver riding off into the distance on the horse.
Mari helps everyone heal up, and the boys loot the bodies and find the keys, so they don't have to hack open the wagon. Inside is more treasure than described, a few suits of armor, weapons and gold.
Unfortunately, it's in a wagon with a broken wheel and no horse. They are conveniently closer to the next town, than the town in the direction that the horseman rode off.
Can they fix the wagon wheel? Can they sneak into town to steal or buy a horse, and get back before reinforcements arrive?
I keep saying if you take out the leader, some of the other bad guys may flee or surrender. But no one listens to me.
