Mansday 27th Zeptambor, Year 599 (continued)
After shopping a bit, the 3 Dragonslayers of Fallcrest headed out, determined to go south and find the goblins that were attacking the farms.
Not long after leaving town, they ran into a human wizard called Kudes, who seemed lost. He had absolutely no recollection of his past life, nor of what he was doing here. He knew the lay of the land, his own name etc, but nothing else. After hearing they were heading out to kill goblins that were praying on helpless farmers, he offered his services to the Dragonslayers.
Passing by the farm of the Johnssons, which had been burning down last the Dragonslayers passed by, they soon ran into Jessica and her husband, who were heading to her sister's for a birthday party. They talked a bit with the couple about goblins, but they had seen nothing. Nor could they enlighten the heroes about trails going west into the forest. The husband was oddly silent, but after eating a bit of their cake, the Dragonslayers went on their way.
They headed into the forest, making good speed. After a couple of hours, as they were passing over a small river, Kavaki was attacked by a big lizard, a venom-eye basilisk. The poor basilisk, despite getting the jump on the Dragonslayers, never stood a chance. Soon enough it found itself on the back and being brutalized.
The Dragonslayers continued westward for the rest of the day, and with no sign of goblins, they were forced to make camp. Often they would be cursing that River was not with them, as his tracking skills and ability to lead them silently through the forest was missed.
They decided to camp on a little hill, and when it was his turn, Kavaki climbed up in the tree on the hill, in order to get a better view of the surrounding area. Soon enough, he spotted 4 dark shadows creeping closer. Goblins! As they approached the camp, he dropped down a weapon to wake the others and then proceeded to swing himself down via a rope he had set up, Tarzan-style. He hit the ground running, and charged down the small hill, towards the shocked goblins. Unfortunately for the goliath, he had misjudge the steepness of the hill, and he ended stumbling down, landing face down in the middle of two the goblins.
Battle started, and while most of the heroes were unarmored (and Garel-Kai almost slept through the whole thing), the 4 goblins were really no match for the Dragonslayers of Fallcrest. Of course, they forgot to keep one alive to question him. Ah well, c'est la vie, and after reminding each other to do so the next time, they decided to go to sleep again and attempt to follow the trail the next morning.
Tirsday 28th Zeptambor, Year 599 The heroes followed the goblin tracks for most of the day, deeper into the forest. As it was getting dark, they suddenly realized they were being followed. They stopped at a couple of rocks, determined to fight with their back at something. As it turns out, they were being hunted by 8 hungry gray wolves, who attacked shortly after. A while they were certainly wounded, the combination of might and magic made the wolves an easy fight.
Once again, they rested, and this time, nothing disturbed their sleep.
Onsday 29th Zeptambor, Year 599 Shortly after beginning their tracking of the goblins, they arrived at a 100' deep ravine. Looking over the edge, they could see the entrance to a dungeon, a lair, and 4 goblins patrolling outside. The Dragonslayers walked further down, along the edge of the ravine, and found a spot where it looked as if they could come down. By some miracle, they all 4 managed to climb down without making enough noise to alert the goblins. When down, they started to edge closer to the guards, and almost succeeded in closing in on them, when suddenly Kudes thought it would be wise to walk into a tree.
The goblins howled, and were about to attack, but Kavaki charged and killed one, and the magic of Garel-kai took care of the rest, before they could move.
Sneaking inside, they found a guard room and a corridor leading deeper into the hill. After waiting a bit to make sure the whole lair wasn't on the way towards them, they went down the corridor. No sooner had they moved 20-30 feet, before two portcullis' smashed down, blocking the way forward and backward. No sooner had the portcullis' gone down, before small holes opened up in the ceiling of the corridor, and black smelly liquid started to pour down on top of them. Oil. What would come next was pretty obvious, so Paavu stormed to the nearest portcullis and tried to pull it up, with the help of Garel-kai and Kavaki, but no luck. Kudes started looking for a mechanism to open up the gates, but none was to be seen. Meanwhile the oil kept pouring down on their heads, soaking them to the bone, and they could hear goblins cackling above their head.
Finally they got the gate a bit up, and Kudes rolled out of the oily corridor. That prompted the goblins to move down from their secret hiding place and attack those trying to get out. Garel-kai and Kavaki got out as well, while Paavu was holding it up. Before Paavu could get out, another two goblins arrived down at the gate where the Dragonslayers had entered. One had a crossbow, the other a torch. Swuush, and an inferno erupted in the corridor, barbecuing Paavu, and also setting Garel-kai and Kavaki on fire, since they were standing next to the corridor, soaked in the oil. Paavu, who was still alive, tried to get out, but Garel-kai and Kavaki couldn't keep it (the portcullis) up, and Paavu found himself pinned to the burning floor by the portcullis. All the meantime, one of the goblins had cornered Kudes, and to avoid the goblin, he sidestepped, but got too close to the corridor and caught on fire, since his clothes were also soaked. Paavu, by a heroic surge, got the portcullis pushed up just a bit, so that he could squeeze out. Of course, he wasn't out of the woods yet, as he lay on the ground, burning, almost dead, with two goblins standing next to him. But this is where the battle turned. It was a bit rough, but the Dragonslayers managed to kill the goblins without getting anyone (from the party) killed.
After a short break, they continued further in. Most doors they found were made of stone and locked, but at the end of the next corridor, they found a set of doors that were open. Behind the doors was the kitchen, with room enough for about 30 goblins to eat. As they moved through the room, Kudes decided to stop and cast a ritual of Comprehend Languages, and while the others walked a bit further, Kudes was jumped by a goblin with a cleaver, who had been hiding in the cupboards. The goblin proved to be a hard-hitting and rather tough nut, but alone against the 4 Dragonslayers, his life expectancy suddenly became very short. As soon as it was dead, the Dragonslayers hurried on, heading into the next corridor, finding the next set of doors. This pair of doors were slightly open, and in the room behind, the Dragonslayers could see a goblin with a crown sitting on the throne, with a couple of guards.
While it was fairly obvious that something was off, they still decided to burst open the doors and storm in, swords and spells blazing. The 4 goblins went down faster than a hooker from Bangkok As the last goblin went down, an imp appeared of out nowhere, attacking Paavu. For a bit, the Dragonslayers were playing a game of find-the-invisible-imp, when suddenly a couple of goblins with crossbows appeared up on two balconies, firing away on the Dragonslayers. Kavaki jumped up to deal with one of the Xbow goblins, while the rest of the were focus on the imp.
As the battle moved towards the left side of the room, small kegs with explosive powder were rolling down on our heroes. The imp was killed, but the battle spread out in different rooms and corridors with everyone running back and forth. Paavu goes unconscious from the imp's poison, but the Dragonslayers manage to turn things around, and get Paavu back on his feet. Eventually, there is only one goblin left (one of the crossbow-goblins), severely wounded, and things are looking up, when the doors to the west burst up, and the Dragonslayers find themselves facing Krusk, the hobgoblin who has been running things and 10 more goblins. Krusk proved to be a hard-hitting fellow, and Garel-kai soon went down, and both Paavu and Kavaki were very wounded as well, by the time the last hob/goblin went down. A hard fight, but yet again one where the Dragonslayers came out victorious.
After catching their breath and searching the compound, the Dragonslayers found some gold, a longsword and a hide armor, as well as a lot of scared goblin females and children huddled up in the furthest corner of the dungeon.
