Just a quick note, if Elfstan is still feeling ok, he should still be invisible.
If Elfstan is injured, Ghân has plenty of Goodberries.
Ghân is happy to continue discussing paralyse plants with Miron.
He is a bit nervous about diving into the orc lair with Hodwain’s plan. (He would also like to know the constituents of the Mead of Life.)
Hodwain, “Well now, I don’t think I could teach you how to make and even if I could, I don’t think I would at this point. But, needless to say it is an old recipe of us Mountain Bears and made with a base of Honey.”
Elfstan could probably use one berry to be safe and a good meal of course.
So options as we have it.
- Go into the Orc Lair tonight
- Deal with the Orcs in the open tonight
- Wait for Riglo, then go into the Orc lair tomorrow Night.
- Wait for Riglo, then deal with the Orcs in the open air tomorrow Night.
- Wait for Riglo, then return to Caramir and Minas Tirith.
Elfstan and I should be able to get the party into the lair unannounced if needs be.
We need to work out where the Vampire and any resident shaman are and deal with them. I don’t the general Orcs will be too much trouble by comparison.
Also, the lair has not yet heard of the battle where the main Shaman died. I think some opinions may change if they find out what has occured.
Personally, I would be interested in going in there tonight and doing as much damage as possible with the least amount of Orcs around. There are several cells we can probably lock them into to prevent them causing trouble. But it gives us a better run at the Vampire.
Hold on, what am I saying. Have a run at the Vampire? Then again, I don’t think it will be resident in the Orc caves.
What say the rest of you?
Could I clarify why we’re talking about going in at night? It seems to me like if we’re going to raid a potential vampire lair, it would make the most sense to do it in the middle of the day when we could retreat into the open air if things went poorly.
In any event, I like the idea of a fast, quiet, precise raid: it seems like the three most obvious high-priority targets are the chief, a shaman if they have one, and the vampire. If the hobbits could get us in and get us as close to one or more of those targets as possible, I like the idea of trying to quickly take them down in a surprise attack before the rest of the orcs rally. Once that’s finished, we could fight our way out into open air or clear the structure going room to room.
More Orcs will be outside at night looking for a tribute leaving less of them in the Lair. Perhaps a better time would be just after dawn when the Orcs and the Vampire will be tired after the night’s activities.
Renee: Any idea if a Vampire could move around during daylight or would it be fast asleep?
Forgive me for being slow, I’m just trying to think things through here… but how many confirmed entrances does the lair have? I’m thinking that unless they all leave en masse, we might consider ambushing the groups searching for tribute one by one: if we’re quiet, each individual ambush should be fairly low risk, and once we’ve cleaned out most of the patrols, we could hit the main lair at dawn.
Renee, "Forgive me, but most of our old stories of vampires are from the first age and before the sun first arose. I know that the vampires feared the sun like most of the servants of the Morgoth. However, for one to survive another 6000 years or be descended from those, I have no knowledge of what powers this vampire might have. I do find it interesting it lets the Orcs hunt for it and seems to feed only weekly. This seems important, but I don’t know what this means. I don’t get the feeling from what we have learned that it controls the Orcs as much as it is just getting a tribute from said.”
Hodwain, "Forgive me, but my message must get through, so by tomorrow morning I must move on to minas Tirith. If you would like my help it must be now, tonight or first thing in the morning.
Can I ask a favor? I am gathering information for the people in Rhûn and East. There is some powerful evil organizing an offensive, I think in 5 to 10 years a wave of Easterlings will flow over Rhûn and in the meantime the Southern Kingdom might try to take over Dorwinian. Could one of these Vampires by behind our troubles? We have conjectured everything from a lesser Ring Wraith, to an actual Ringwraith returning to even one of the fabled Wizards of old or some powerful human sorcerer they trained. We do know there appears to be cultist of Morgoth operating near the Sea of Rhûn.
This is a large part of why I am heading for Minas Tirith. Sadly I lost horse companions in an ambush to brigands, though all but one paid dearly for my friends lives."
Hodwain adds after hearing Miron’s suggestion, “Not bad, not bad. That should work well, though it won’t be as exciting.”
Does anyone in our party know the Middle Earth equivalent of Detect Evil? I’m still somewhat worried that Hodwain could be a vampire or hostile agent in disguise.
See post 387; FWIW, I think he’s OK.
Elfstan has been listening intently to what everyone has to say. Although he’s not still not completely comfortable speaking in front of so many Big Folk, he gets up the nerve to add his two cents.
"Of Mulligan’s options, I prefer the first. I believe that we can get in undetected, but getting Hodwain in through the front doors is another story. I think the battle will be on at that point. About the only way around that would be if Ghan or Miron had an herb that would make them drowsy that we could add to their food.
Renee brings up good points about the vampire. I don’t know what these things mean either, but I would like to remind everyone of the well used door we found that went to a tunnel with a cave in and caged animals. Something may have happened recently in this lair. Also, although the vampire may not be controlling these orcs, I still think it’s possible that it is somewhere inside that fortress.
With that in mind, I say we take advantage of Hodwain’s offers of help. I believe him when he says that if he gets inside, the orcs won’t be a problem. If the orcs aren’t a problem, let’s not delay, but instead strike while it’s daylight, hoping that if we do run into the vampire, it’s at its weakest."
"Besides… we need to save those animals… "
“I agree with the Hobbit,” says Thoroncir, eager to be off and mindful of the slow fall of the Sun towards the horizon. “What say you, Gil-Gandel and Ghan?”
Having said his piece, Elfstan remembers both his belly and the bites he suffered from the beetles. Seeing no signs of an immediate supper, he eats one of the eight goodberries that Ghan gave him before today’s scouting trip. Suppressing the urge to eat the rest of berries, Elfstan asks Ghan for a replacement for the one he just ate.
“I’m a little uncomfortable fighting such a large number of orcs at once,” Miron hisses in his usual whisper, “But if we’re going to do this, I’d prefer to do it during the daytime. I would be willing to abide by the hobbit’s plan.”
We could do it near silently at least three times; I’ve got up to three Sleeps prepared, and surely with all the archers we’ve got in this party, we could nail any holdouts.
I can tell that our glorious leaders are deep in thought, definitely a tricky decision this 
Hodwain, how long would it take to brew this mead of yours?
Hodwain, “I could prepare in it about 3 hours, I have all the ingredients I require to make the Mead of Life.”
Ghân does not want to rush in and fight a lair full of orcs plus a shape-changing Vampire, especially at night.
Although Hodwain appears to be a useful ally, Ghân is not keen on the whole party drinking his potion (especially as Hodawain won’t reveal the ingredients).
Therefore Ghân suggests that we give Hodwain clear directions to Minas Tirith (and wish him well in his mission), wait for Riglo (who should be just as lethal to orcs as Hodwain) and go into the lair with him during the day.
Thoroncir would not be drinking the potion in any event, but believes Ghan’s concerns are reasonable, and will follow his lead without grumbling.
Miron is far, far too paranoid to drink anything prepared by a stranger, and he is happy to abide by the decision.