…and the sky full of dust.

Further adventures of Porthus Waddle.

Day Eleven

During the night Sister Jag finally catches up, after being busy with ‘church business’ back in town. Ratty is sent to look after the boat, while the rest of us head off to investigate the ruined monastery (after a hearty breakfast, of course).

Map of the Ruins

Dharma and Asbo go scouting, and hear voices in the main building. We check out the partially ruined building in the corner [A on the map], and find it empty. We file in, keeping watch outside as we figure out what to do next. I’m all for heading over to the door, keeping with our plan, and the others agree. We dress up as best we can and walk out,  just in time to see a patrol of hobgoblins exit the main building [B on the map]; after some quick talking from Asbo, we convince them we are here as translators and escort, and the hobgoblins point us to the entrance and tell us that the secret door is opened by mucking around with the last statue. They go back on patrol, and we head into the building, to find a room empty save for five hideous squat humanoid statues.

As we are trying to figure out how the secret door opens, two more hobgoblins walk in, animal carcasses over their backs. Asbo tries to convince them we are slavers, but they don’t quite believe him and one goes out to check; the other than hears me talking about using a charm person spell on him, and decides we’re intruders. He yells for help, then attacks!

A quick fight, few of our blows initially landing, my sleep spell utterly failing, before Dharma knocks him down. But it’s too late, the other hobgoblins have heard the noise, and head our way. Sister Jag slams the doors shut, holding them in place as best she can, while I ready my ladle to cast another sleep spell and Asbo looks for the trigger for the secret door, which we know is there somewhere. Dharma takes up position by the doors, and then outside we hear goblins approaching and soon they are trying to force the doors open!

The doors are forced open and six goblins charge in, then four fall down as my sleep spell fells them. Dharma backs off, still injured from the last fight, and suddenly Asbo succeeds and opens the secret door, racing through and waving for us all to follow. I let loose a magic missile at a goblin, who swings at me with his sword, but thankfully misses. Dharma ducks a blow, as does Asbo, who then fires his crossbow point blank and shoots the goblin through the chest; he falls dead, but the other is a surprisingly brave (or foolish goblin) and carries on fighting. In fact, he stabs Dharma, and the monk collapses. I pour a healing potion down his throat, waking him, and he is further healed by Jag as she summons her divine power. Renewed, the monk finishes the goblin off. We kill the rest, then arrange their bodies so it looks like they all killed one another.

We head through the secret door and explore. We find a couple of ogres, who Asbo bluffs and sends back to look at the goblin corpses, shutting the secret door behind them. We also find four captive cavemen, who we free. While the ogres are busy, we loot their room and find a chest, which we take. Then we set up an ambush for the ogres, and as they come back through the secret door, we attack!

The first ogre falls quickly after being held by my new rolling pin of hold person, and the combined might of Sister Jag, Asbo and a shot from my bow. The other ogre proves tougher, taking out all the cavemen one at a time, and knocking Dharma unconscious yet again. We lead it back into a cross-fire, and Asbo gets the kill with a bolt between its eyes.

In the aftermath Jag heals Dharma, we find an armoury that is looted, and we find treasure in the chest we found: coins, and a magical Bag of Holding, that now has our loot inside. At this point, hungry and tired, grumpy little goes on a sulk after complaining that Dharma is always running off in midst of combat to open more doors, and when no one listens to me, I stomp off down the corridor, loudly whining; the others tell me to be quiet, but I point out that after the noise we made during that fight, anything else in the area would surely have come out and looked: I try to prove my point by knocking at a door, only for it to open and reveal a hobgoblin looking down at me.

“I’m your new cook” I bluffed, and to everyone’s amazement, it worked. He lets us through a guard room, to the stairs going down to the dungeon, where we are to find the boss. Happy that our cover is actually working, we cast light and I light my lantern, and we head down into the dungeon below.

We explore, finding a room where two bored goblins are talking, and another with a forge and what we think is a captive dwarf. We deal with the forge first, finding a couple of hobgoblins and a bugbear: we attack! A scroll of sleep puts one hobgoblin into a slumber, the others pile into the enemy, but their luck is all kinds of bad. Before you know it Asbo is down and out, the other hobgoblin wakes up his mate, and it looks bad. Then I manage to hold one, then kill it with a well-aimed crossbow bolt in its back; and the other falls to Dharma’s fists and Jag’s spear helps take out the bugbear.

We revive Asbo, free the dwarf (who is called Gareth Ironhand) and get he to work on making weapons. Then we head to where the two goblins were, and quickly kill one; the other surrenders and after we interrogate him (learning little), we stick him in a cell and sit down to catch our breath and decide what to do next.

End of Session

Print PDF