The Slave Barge

As the party got closer to the city of Pontyver, they found much of the land had flooded and was now more delta than solid land. Small creeks and streams constantly blocked their way and they had to lead their horses through the water. Eventually, they came across a river, and it was too wide to cross. Heading north, away from the ocean, they hoped to find a more narrow place to cross. About 3 miles upriver, there was a significant bend and they could not see beyond, but could hear what sounded like people. Some yelling orders and others moaning in pain and discomfort.

As the noise grew they could see 5 floats chained together with cages on the middle three, 15x15. There were smaller floats, 10x10, at the beginning and end with armed men on them. The cages were filled to capacity with humans, dragonborn, and dwarves. They were certainly worse for wear and the party surmised they were going to be sold as slaves.

On the first skiff was a dragonborn, that rivaled Ekeraath in size, a dwarf, and a tiefling. On the rear skiff, a human, an eladrin, and another dragonborn.

Hailing the lead skiff from the banks of the river, Rudy managed to successfully purchase all of the slaves for 500 GP. With the barge pulling up to the shore, Rudy dropped the money and backed away. The slaves were released, and began to flee as the party attacked. The slavers, not surprised by the treachery, were ready.

The terrain proved an interesting diversion as did the monstrous Dragonborn and Eladrin Fey Knight. Rudy managed to control his blind hatred of everything tiefling, long enough to take care of business.

Kuppies faced the greatest challenge as he came face to face with the Eladrin fey Knight. He managed to land a blow to Kuppies that inflicted a fair amount of damage while also restraining him. Then, he turned the table on Ekeraath, marking him and inflicting 4 points of damage every turn against him.

Somewhere in the middle of this, 3 archers rode into range on the far side of the river and began raining arrows down on the slavers.

As the battle turned against the slavers, the tiefling and smaller dragonborn leapt into the river and attempted to swim away. Rudy and Ekeraath would have nothing to do with letting "their" 500 GP get away, so they went into the water after it. After much page turning(figuring out swimming rules), they recovered their gold and left the tiefling to drown.

I will add, NEVER, in a MILLION years, would I have expected the party to try to buy the slaves. It is not uncommon for them to catch me ill prepared for something...I can only anticipate so much, but buying the slaves...NEVER.