Session 3 - The One Where They Attended A Kobold Meeting
20th Sep 2020 19:15 - 22:00
In-game timeline: DR1489 Elesias 4 - Eleasias 5
Having finally managed to cross a bridge, our "Heroes" sally forth into the Kobold den.
The first door they come to has a slight sound of buzzing from beyond it. A mild buzzing that scares our group of intrepid explorers. Scares Mahtis so much, in fact, that she moves at a pace further into the den without any thought or care for what is to come.
And she promptly falls into an expertly covered pit. The group is beginning to learn that kobolds are, in fact, experts in traps.
Nursing her wounds from the fall into the 10' deep pit, Mahtis waits for the rescue rope to be passed down to enable her to get back up. While the others are faffing about handing the rope from one to the other, she looks into one of the 4 quite large holes that are in the walls surrounding the pit. And sees a movement beyond.
Sensibly, Mahtis puts her torch into the hole, which serves to stop whatever is down there from emerging - it can't be good, whatever it is. Unfortunately Mahtis has only one torch, and there are three more holes. This point is emphasised perfectly when three giant centipedes emerge from the other holes, crawl around the walls and floor of the pit, and attack Mahtis.
The first sinks its teeth into a concerned Mahtis, managing to get its fangs between the links in her chain mail, and under her natural scales, to cause considerable damage. Luckily the poison that seemed to be injected with the bite did not take hold. Unluckily the next centipede scores a hit too and Mahtis falls unconscious to the ground.
A rope finally appears down the pit, but it is too late - the Dragonborn is unable to take hold of it. Carro fires an arrow into the pit, killing one of the three centipedes, as one of the others climbs up the wall and out of the pit. TC lowers himself down the rope and uses his healing powers to revive Mahtis, in time for the centipede to make another attack on her, but misses. The centipede at the top takes a bite at Kandi and hits, doing enough damage to fell Kandi in one go. Meanwhile Carro misses, TC helps Mahtis out of the pit in order that she can stabilise Kandi before he bleeds out, and between them TC and Carro then take care of the remaining centipedes before they can land another hit.
With one member down, but stable, the other three discuss what to do next. Whilst considering resting up in the middle of a den full of kobolds, having alerted them to the presence of intruders, the decision was taken from their hands when three kobold guards appeared and demanded to know what was going on.
Having a Dragonborn in the party who not only resembled a dragon, but also spoke the language of kobolds - draconic - did help the party. Mahtis managed to persuade the guards that they had seen the goblin attack on the kobolds and came here to offer help. The guards were suspicious, but allowed the group to see Yussi, their queen, on the proviso that they give up their weapons.
Despite being a man down, and injured, and out of healing, and exhausted, and probably surrounded by kobolds, and having almost been wiped out by slightly larger than usual insects, there was still some debate about whether to give up their weapons. In the end, unusually, common sense prevailed and the party relinquished their 'obvious' weapons and followed the guards for an audience with Yussi.
The party struggled to place where the kobolds originated from, as their accents, and indeed their entire way of speaking, seemed to vary wildly, even with only one person speaking. They hoped that this would eventually settle down to a single form of vocalisation, so they will in future know if it is a kobold speaking, rather than a Russian / country bumpkin / scouse / Romanian person.
After some discussion with Yussi some of the previous events started to fall into place. It turns out that the group of goblins (and some hobgoblins, apparently) had evicted the kobolds from their previous home in the Fallen Fortress, which was once a temple dedicated to an old dragon named Ashardalon. The kobolds had to set up home in this less salubrious 'den'. There has therefore been a lot of resentment towards the goblins for a while now. Recently a group of kobolds came upon a small band of the goblins and attacked them, stealing their possessions which included a large, white pear. Knowing that the goblins somehow seemed to regularly (maybe once or twice a year) have possession of a large fruit which they claimed had magical healing powers, and which the goblins managed to sell for large amounts of money, thus helping the goblin clan maintain a level of power in the region, the kobolds decided to try to sell this fruit. None of this was done with Yussi's knowledge, or blessing. The kobolds sold the fruit to a band of adventurers a couple of weeks ago.
It turned out that the fruit was deeply poisonous and Karakas, the only adventurer who hadn't eaten any, took his revenge on the kobolds who sold them the fruit, believing that they knew it was poisonous. One of the kobolds got away, but he suspected that Karakas managed to find out that the kobolds got the fruit from the goblins and may have headed to the fortress to try to extract more revenge. As the escaping kobold ran off he thought he heard the dragonborn claim that his friends had all been killed by this fruit.
Yussi was most apologetic for the problems that her subjects had caused, though was pleased that in fact one of the adventurers had not (yet) died, and gave the party some money and magic items in recompense. She also brought Kandi back to consciousness. She then explained that only 2 days ago the goblins, angered at the kobold's attack on their band, had raided the den and stolen their 'pet', which turned out to be a white dragon wyrmling named Calcryx. The loss of Calcryx was a great disaster for the group, as she was a revered 'pet'. Yussi brought Calcryx's 'keeper', a very lowly kobold named Meepo, before the group to explain a little more about the wyrmling. Meepo was convinced that he and Calcryx were great friends and that she loved him. The recent scars over his face and arms may tell a different tale.
The party agreed to help Yussi to recover Calcryx, as they were keen to go to the fortress anyway, potentially to find this rumoured red fruit that may help the comatose elf. Yussi was delighted that they were offering to help, and said that Meepo would accompany them to show them the way to the fortress.
On the way out, they visited Calcryx's 'home' which turned out to be a rather small cage. It was unclear whether they mistreated Calcryx, or whether the blood on the floor was actually Meepo's. The party told Meepo to bring along some small jade figurines that he had brought with him from the fortress, which he didn't question, despite being a rather strange request. Meepo then offered Mahtis some rancid meat from their 'larder' of food for Calcryx, which had gone off days ago. Mahtis politely declined.
Back at Oakhurst, with Meepo camping outside the town, the group spoke to Corkie. The comatose elf's health seemed to be declining, but they told Corkie the name of the elf - Erdan - which they had discovered from Gwen's Journal. Corkie agreed to send a runner to the High Forest as soon as one was available, with this news, as well as the news that Carro was here trying to help.
The party then spent a day or so recovering from their ordeals so far, and levelling up to LEVEL 2. Mahtis decided to follow her heart and study in the druidic arts, whilst the others progressed in their previously chosen classes.
And so we leave our "Heroes" in the town of Oakhurst, having promised to try to rescue a small white dragon who may or may not be in the fortress, whilst also progressing their respective objectives in the meantime and trying to remember any requests they may have got from other people they have met. They also may want to do a little shopping with their little remaining coin before they set off.