SessionNine

October 11, 2008

The party discusses going to the tower. Chaedi looks around for wolf tracks around the tower and spots some in the compound, and they are fairly recent. She can't tell how many wolves there are.

Those wanting to search the tower having convinced their reluctant comrades to do so, they approach the south side that the fleeing goblin had left open. Alecsa listens but hears nothing. She steps into the tower to see the room beyond is empty, but she can see two doors on either side of a fireplace. Chaedi looks for footprints in the room but can't really see any wolf tracks.

Alecsa listens at the door to the right. She hears nothing, and Osrik goes through. It leads to a round room that is part of the tower. A rug lies in middle of the floor and a ladder is against a near wall, going up. Cinoi enters the room once he's determined no one is screaming. Osrik picks up the corner of the rug and sees an open hole. Stupid goblin trap. Osrik looks down the hole, and a javelin is thrown at him but misses. Cinoi makes sure he does not put his head over the hole! Chaedi throws swarm of daggers at hole. Two javelins come up, and one hits her. She attacks back but misses. The party backs off from the hole for a bit.

Looking down the hole a little more cautiously, they see a room and two goblins. Cinoi curses the closest one and blasts them both with dire radiance. Alecsa shoots one. One throws a javelin at Chaedi and hits her. Roger hangs back. Chaedi does a thunder wave and hits one, knocking him down. Gloriana misses with healing strike. Osrik jumps down into the pit, swings at a goblin with reaping strike, and misses. But, he still does a bit of damage.

Inside the pit, Osrik only sees two goblins. One is on the floor. Cinoi warlock curses the other goblin and misses him. Alecsa hits a goblin with a shuriken. The goblin on the floor stands up. The other goblin tries to get Osrik and misses. Chaedi casts cloud of daggers and misses. Gloriana misses with her crossbow.

Osrik does reaping strike again and misses but still does damage. Cinoi hits a goblin with eldritch blast and kills it. Since the others can't see the other goblin, Osrik backs up to the opening and taunts it. The goblin tries to run through a door. Osrik throws his axe at him but misses. He yells for the rest of the party to get down there.

The rest of the party lowers the ladder and goes down. They lay the ladder down, so they can't be followed by other goblins. Osrik bashes the door open, and they see the door the goblin ran through and a passageway leading out the other side into a tunnel. They spike the door, make a trip trap with rope above the floor across the door, and go down the passage.

The passage opens into a room with another passage leading out from its corner. The room is occupied by a bunch of boxes. The party looks at the boxes and sees that they have a two-overlapping feathers symbol, which Cinoi recognizes as the green adept's device. They open up one and find a bunch of surcoats, green with the two feathers emblem. They look like they'd fit humans. Finding no goblins hiding in the room, they go down the next tunnel.

This tunnel has two branches. The party heads south and ends up in an empty room. The other tunnel opens into a chamber with a door, and the tunnel continues as before. It looks clear. They check out the door. Alecsa doesn't hear anything, so Osrik opens it and sees a stairway going down. A little ways down the stairs, he sees water. He determines that it looks like water has come up from the water table and filled the room. They spike that door (just in case) and continue down the tunnel.

After not much farther, they see a hallway, which branches to three passages. The party goes south and comes across another chamber. They see two more goblins with javelins and spears. Alecsa shoots at one with her crossbow and misses. Gloriana shoots one and injures it. Cinoi uses warlock curse one and misses. Roger charges forward with his spear and misses. Chaedi uses icy terrain and hits them, knocking them prone. The goblins stand up slowly and start moving away from the party, toward the exit from the room into yet another tunnel. Osrik shoots at one and hits. He kills the wounded one. Cinoi says, "Good shot, for a dwarf!" Osrik grins at Cinoi. Gloriana shoots at another goblin. Cinoi warlock curses him and kills the goblin. Osrik high-fives Cinoi, who grins at Osrik, and says, "That's how it's done!" [Oh, the camaraderie.] On bodies they find a coin or two.

The party goes down the passage toward which the goblins were heading. The corridor bends, and Osrik looks around the corner. He sees a goblin at the bend. Osrik attacks him but misses with his attack. The goblin has a shortsword and hits Osrik, then he slides back five feet and turns and runs. From around the corner, the party can hear goblins running away. Osrik roars and runs after them.

The tunnel opens a bit, and then they see daylight. They discover a slope leading to the outside and four goblins running off into the woods. They look like minion-type goblins, so the party decides they aren't worth hunting down.

They return to the T-intersection and take the north passage, which ends in a door. Alecsa hears some rattling and notices the door barred on the party's side. They decide to keep that door shut and head west. However, Chaedi is worried that Dudley might be in there. Alecsa says he'll still be there later. Cinoi says it's too bad it isn't Dannic in there.

The west passage opens into a room where there are really weak goblins. (aka, goblin kids) Cinoi offers one a cracker. A tiny goblin runs forward and grabs it then runs back. Cinoi laughs. The party leaves some rations, and they go back to the barred door.

At the door, Alecsa listens and still hears rattling. The party decides to unbar it, and Osrik throws the door open. Inside is another room. Someone is chained to the wall. Cinoi yells over everyone, "Who are you?" A voice says, "Help me." Osrik gets out his water flask and cautiously gives him a drink.

The chained man says his name is Thoth Magom. He tells them he's from Vim, and goblins captured him long ago. He's in rags and looks skinny and pale. Cinoi asks him why the goblins haven't killed him, and Magom says he doesn't know. He says the goblins like to torture people sometimes. When pressed for more information, the man says he was taken a long time ago along with others, including a dwarf. He gives Osrik his brother's name, Emerik. Magom says they took Osrik's brother upstairs in the tower.

Following this conversation, Chaedi suggest the party return to Vim with the prisoner, but Osrik no longer wants to leave. Cinoi and Alecsa haven't wanted to leave the entire time because of the belief that there's most likely treasure in the tower. The idea of sending the man with Roger alone is also shot down. So, they decide to lock him back in the cell while they finish looking over the tower. They spike the door and have him wedge it with the bar from his side, after convincing him he'd be safer there than wandering around with them.

They head back to the tower and the spiked door. Alecsa removes the trip rope and removes the spikes from the door. Osrik goes through and sees a long, rough corridor. At the end, they find light and another exit, concealed with branches. Looking through the branches, they can see the north side of the compound.

They return to the tower room and set up the ladder. They go up. They pull up the ladder and put it up for the next floor. Alecsa listens but doesn't hear anything. Osrik goes up and shoves the trap door open with his battle-axe and sees a round room similar to the one they are in. He goes up in a rush and finds an injured goblin. Osrik attacks with reaping strike, doing some damage even though he misses his target. The goblin's return attack misses. Alecsa comes up behind Osrik and hits the goblin with a shuriken. Osrik hits with reaping strike. The goblin misses. Alecsa misses. Cinoi moves up the ladder and uses warlock's curse but misses. [Wow, that's a lot of misses against an injured goblin!] Finally, Osrik hits the goblin again, and it dies! "That's a proper way to kill a goblin," he says. (A comment that would have been more impressive if he hadn't whiffed several times during that fight)

Looking over the room, the party finds two cages, with a goblin in one. Cinoi curses it, just in case. Osrik walks over and asks who the goblin is. The goblin says name is Snerlop. Cinoi sneers at him. [Just because. He sneers at almost anything or anyone.] Snerlop looks kind of old and big. Snerlop says he's the king and an enemy of the Green Adept. Osrik tells him the Green Adept is dead and not to attack the party. During the following interrogation, Snerlop tells Cinoi he hates Red Axe, says bad things, evil people are upstairs. They give him trail rations and water, and ask what is upstairs. He says a friend of the Green Adept came today and took the dwarf with him, a human man, who has big sword. He says the dwarf was made the slave of the man upstairs. The party tells Snerlop they will let him out after they are finished upstairs. The party will kill him if there are more people than what he has told them. Cinoi, who has been throwing the fingers of dead goblins at him the entire time [Don't ask!], grins at the goblin. Osrik looks in the other cage and finds a rune that says "Emerik was here." [How original. Dwarves.]

Osrik wants to immediately storm up stairs, but Cinoi wants to yell up at the next floor just to see if the dwarf answers. Osrik ignores that suggestion and bashes open the door, and lunges up. They can see the north half of room is gone. There is a huge thing standing there, which looks sort of like a dragon. There is a man just in front of it. He is a big man and wears the feather symbol. Someone is tied to the dragon, which has a saddle.

Osrik yells his brother's name and lunges for the human. The man turns and leaps onto the dragon. Osrik hits the man as he leaves, but it doesn't do any damage. The man takes off on the dragon. Osrik calls out to his brother that he'll save him. Emerik tells him to find Dex in Alcon.

The party looks for treasure, gets the prisoner, and Cinoi releases Snerlop against the wishes of his companions. When asked why he did that, Cinoi says he released Snerlop because he wants to see if he'll fight Hex Bones for control of the goblins. Whatever.

Opening the boxes the party ran across while searching the tower, they find various supplies. Most of it is too old to use. Cinoi sets it on fire -- when they leave. They find several sacks in another room. Three large sacks have some junk with a little value. The small one has a brooch with a dwarven clan device on it, which just happens to be Osrik's family crest. They find a Dwarven necklace that is old, in an old style. Osrik conjectures it might be from Alcon.

Altogether, they find 300 gp. Cinoi finds something that might look like a warlock's pact blade. They pack everything up and return to town. Alecsa is so not happy not to find any real treasure! Again!

It's starting to get dark when they get back to Vim. Throughout the evening, they hear some wolves. Roger wanders off from the party and comes back in another way, so Dannic won't know he'd been out with them. They take the man (Thoth Magom) to Gardon Mor, who recognizes him. He says the guy has been missing him for two years, and they had thought he was dead. Magom tells him the goblins captured him. Gardon says it serves him right because he almost got Dex and Duley killed. Magom says they did something to him, and Gardon says the man led them into an ambush (not on purpose.) Magom says the guys made "swirly things" in front of his eyes. Gardon laughs. [Do you get the feeling saving this guy was rather useless...]

Of the healing potions they found, Osrik will carry a healing potion and Cinoi will carry the other. (Charges healing surge, giving 10 hp instead of what the characters usual surge amount is.)

150 XP!

Osrik spends the day making caltrops, while the rest of the party mends armor, etc. Alecsa keeps Cinoi from throwing rocks at Dannic's house. [Because who wants to be burned at the stake for that?!] They also a make 10 foot nail-embedded rope. Osrik drinks ale to drown his sorrows of again losing his brother, and Alecsa drinks with him because she's had a rather pissy day with no treasure to speak of for it. Chaedi tries to get Gloriana to cheer up Osrik, but she passes it off to Chaedi, whom she believes to be some sort of jester or clown. Having been told not to throw rocks at Dannic's house, Cinoi throws rocks at empty houses, which villagers would like to use and not have in even worse condition. Alecsa grabs Cinoi by the ear and tells him to stop throwing rocks and drags him off to join her and Osrik in drink. He elbows her in ribs [ow!] and spends the evening carving mysterious (aka made up) runes into the table, refusing to drink.

The party sets out to find Dex at Alcon. They check in at the Otillis lodge and tell the priest about their ordeal with the goblins. Cinoi tries to steal stuff, and Chaedi smacks his hand. Cinoi tries to look innocent, saying he was just going to borrow a book. All of this while he's insulting the priest because he suspects everyone he comes across. When the party talks about acquiring horses in the next village, Cinoi mutters something about "smelly horses." [I swear he's dainty!]

So, they head out for Lad to check with Dex's friend. It will take a day and a half to reach the place.

SessionEleven