Session 6 - The One Where They Ended Up Back Where They Started

17th Oct 2020 19:00 - 22:00

In-game timeline: DR1489 Elesias 6 - Eleasias 6

Our "Heroes" are standing amongst a pair of dead goblins who paid a high price for daring to fire arrows at the party as they struggled to cross a caltrop-strewn floor. Our brave heroes, faced with an unknown number of unknown foes in an unknown room decided to turn back the way they came and look at a few other things more closely, that they only glanced at previously.

They crept back to the dragon fountain room and looked at the fountain a bit more. Then went back up to the place where they had killed some rats previously, and progressed a little further, finding another dry dragon fountain in a room with two disarmed pit traps. The traps seemed to contain bones, bits of metal and lots of dirt and mess, so the party ignored those and headed towards a connecting room. 

Carro spots movement in the room, and is not surprised when more giant rats emerge from the smelly mess to attack the party, including a large, disease-ridden rat that manages to sink its teeth into Carro, injecting him with a debilitating disease and forcing Carro to quaff the disease potion to cure himself. Not only that, but the teeth cause significant piercing damage. Meanwhile the rest of the party, carefully dancing around the open pit trap, join in the fight with the 3 giant rats and the large diseased rat. Kandi takes a hit from the rats on him, and, whilst Carro fights off his two attackers but taking more damage in the process, TC and Mahtis help out Kandi and manage to kill the two rats on him before they can do more harm, then turn to help out Carro with the last of his enemies.

With Carro and Kandi somewhat damaged, some healing is handed round, and Kandi pops his head into the room they emerged from, sees that it is covered in heaps of trash, but has no other exits, and proclaims it is empty. However, the group does, at the last minute, decide to send Meepo in to see if he can see anything useful.

As Meepo happily digs around the mess and rubbish in the room, pocketing anything he finds, he does shout back that there seems to be a Dragonborn body in here. This piques the party's interest and Mahtis and TC wander in to investigate.

It seems that the Dragonborn is the cleric, Karakas, that they have heard about, from the previous adventuring group. Kandi proceeds to steal his armour, TC grabs his daggers, whilst Mahtis finds a letter that she keeps to herself, a brooch that she seems to recognise, and tells the others is from her sister, and a poem describing Dragonsboon, a magical sword, and the artifact that the original party was apparently searching for. Along with this poem, Karakas was also carrying a large, iron key embossed with a dragon image.

Having stripped the half-eaten corpse of another adventurer, our 'heroes' leave his body in the mess and stink of the rat's lair, and head back towards the goblin archers, taking a short rest to recover some health and abilities before pressing on. Luckily this rest is uninterrupted.

Progressing back to the room where they killed the goblins, the group decide to cautiously open the southern door, revealing a corridor. Thomas went first, using the light from a torch held by Kandi behind, and slowly approached what appeared to be an archery practice range - which was currently in use, but luckily the archers were around the corner and unable to see the approaching party.

Much discussion then ensued regarding whether to sneak into the brightly lit area and hope to take the goblins by surprise, or charge and take them quickly by force, or run away. The decision was reached. Run away. It was phrased as "we'll try to lead them into a trap" but the only reason they were leading the goblins is because their attempt to sneak away quietly failed dramatically.

The group retreated into another room and waited for the pursuing goblins to appear, which they did. TC got confused, and thought that the door which Kandi was firing crossbow bolts through was actually closed, but he was, in fact, standing before an open door in full view of the goblins, who proceeded to fire arrows into his awaiting body. With a couple of very well-placed shots, Tommy was brought down, requiring Mahtis to spend her turn dragging his unconscious body to safety and healing him back to consciousness. Meanwhile Carro and Kandi were trying to pick off the goblins from a distance, which proved to be difficult, as the goblins were adept at firing and ducking to safety behind a covering wall, but Kandi did manage to drop one of them with a well-timed shot.

Realising that this tactic was really not particularly well, and certainly did not suit his 'melee only' approach, Tommy Cove, now healed up, rushes them, followed quickly by Mahtis. This proved a better strategy, allowing the goblins little chance to hide, and one of the remaining two goblins was killed quickly by a spray of poison from Mahtis. The last one tried to run, but a reactionary swing from TC's longsword as he ran past was enough to bring him down before he could fetch backup. A messy fight, but, ultimately, a successful one.

The party headed into the firing range, and heard low voices speaking draconic behind one of the doors. Unable to make out what they were saying, they asked Meepo to listen. After listening for a brief moment, Meepo started shouting and trying to pull open the locked door, begging the party to help him 'rescue' his friends. In order to shut him up before he brought in more enemies, the group used the key they'd found on one of the goblins to open the door.

Inside was a stockade of sorts. Three emaciated kobolds were tied to an iron stake in the floor, whilst a young, female goblin was locked in an iron cage at the back. Luckily there was someone in the party who spoke draconic, as that was the only language the kobolds understood, and TC, we suddenly discovered, spoke goblin, enabling him to talk to the captive goblin, who was called Hersch.

The kobolds were captured some time ago and they thought they were being held in order to be ransomed back. They knew very little of the power structure of the goblins, nor of the capture of Calcryx, as they were captured prior to that event. Hersch knew that the leader of the goblins was a hobgoblin named Durnn, but otherwise she had no idea why she was being held captive, and being badly treated, by her own people. When asked about magical fruit, she only knew that they were given to the goblins to sell by a druid, but seemed to know no more.

The party deliberated over what to do about the captives, and how to carry on in the Fortress when they were once again injured, and very low on abilities. It was (sensibly? TBC) decided that they should leave the fortress and have a long rest, though they knew that it was quite likely that the dead goblins would be discovered in that time. They also decided to make sure their prior presence here was definitely known about by bringing the kobolds and the young goblin with them. Thomas managed a feat of extraordinary strength in prying open the bars of the cage to release Hersch, and they made their way out of the Fortress to rest.

And so we leave our 'Heroes' resting outside the Fortress, debating whether to return to Oakhurst, escort the kobolds back to Yussi (and admit to not having yet found Calcryx), or looking for the druid, who apparently is the next step on the path to finding magical fruit. Decisions, decisions. Exactly what this group is so skilled at dealing with without dithering……