September 6, 2008.

Given the job of watching the house (since no one else can really sneak), Alecsa goes to get the party once she thinks the goblins are pretty sauced. In the meantime, Cinoi was sent to round up Gloriana, who was helping the wagon train people.

Beginning the attack, Alecsa goes around the side of the house, hoping to come in a window. Osrik charges the front door, while Chaedi casts a sleep ritual on the guards. Gloriana has her hand crossbow at the ready and is close behind Osrik.

The door goblins are stunned by the sleep spell, and Osrik kills one. Gloriana shoots at the other. Alecsa starts in her window but realizes there are two or three goblins in the side room. She throws her shiruken at one but misses. Later, she misses being hit with an arrow. Chaedi uses her swarm of daggers, ineffectively. Cinoi kills a goblin with eldritch blast that had backstabbed Osrik and Osrik had knocked it down.

(Tara, if you have notes, please add details on the combat)... [How am I supposed to be keeping notes when I have to chat?! That requires free hands to type. I'm not Shiva!]

Eventually, Osrik and Gloriana go into the house and fight a pitched battle. Osrik knocks one goblin prone, and Chaedi uses her icy terrain once more. After nearly being axed in the head, Alecsa retreats from her window (giving up on the hope that one will stick his head out so she can hack it off) with a goblin chasing her; she attempts to lead it back towards the party. The archer in the room with axe-goblin moves to the front room to take on the other characters. His shot goes wide. Chaedi hits the archer with cloud of daggers. Alecsa hits the axe goblin, which is difficult while she's trying to make a healing surge and manuvering in a fighting withdraw. Gloriana and Osrik are both injured by the two goblins, who are in the main room with the archer. Gloriana does a healing surge while Cinoi curses and blasts the goblin who hit her with eldritch blast. The axe guy misses Alecsa and is now visible to Chaedi and Cinoi. Alecsa ends up having to finish him off herself with a torturous strike. [From Nate's session transcript, he helps kill Gloriana's goblin, not Alecsa's. It's the thought that counts, though. :)]

Osrik manages to kill his goblin, but the archer hobgoblin manages to get away; we chase but ultimately cannot tell if it went outside or upstairs or even downstairs. Gloriana kills off the last goblin, while Osrik heals.

The party regroups and decides to search the rest of the floor for the goblin, seeing a door leading outside where the archer had originally been. Cinoi hangs at the back of the group with Alecsa, and they argue about whose bright idea this attack was when they'd had other plans. She's really peeved about the lack of the initial "big boom" Cinoi had promised to begin the fight. This is where they decided they'd been sucked into the thing by the others, specifically Chaedi.

In the meantime, Osrik and Gloriana are searching for goblins, with Chaedi behind them and Cinoi and Alecsa watching their backs and "discussing" the situation. [Hey, they can multitask!] Osrik finds the open door and charges out but can't see any goblin. Chaedi looks for footprints, seeing there might be at least nine goblins lurking in the woods.

We decide not to plunge recklessly into the woods and return to explore the rest of the house. Cinoi says the goblin must have gone upstairs, so Osrik takes off that way. Cinoi chooses this opportunity to tweak Osrik by declaring "Dwarves and ladies first." Osrik is not amused, but Chaedi seems to think it hilarious.

Osrik discovers that the stairs are entirely unsafe when he falls through, stunning the party. Alecsa checks the rest of the stairway for traps. Determining he fell because of old burn damage and not a trap, they go back down the stairs and end up at Osrik's find: stairs that lead to the basement. The decision is made to ignore the upper house and go into the basement. Cinoi and Alecsa make a tripwire for the upstairs to deal with any goblins that might come in later or are hiding where they haven't looked. [Yes, Cinoi's rope and Alecsa's pitons, which were successfully retrieved.]

SessionFive