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Bastard Son of the great-grandchild of the sister's gibbon's friend of the nephew of the Campaign that Would Not Die, now in 3.75e
Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster
Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster
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Bastard Son of the great-grandchild of the sister's gibbon's friend of the nephew of the Campaign that Would Not Die, now in 3.75e Møøse Trained By: Hugh Foster |
 DM Note: Sadly, the DM managed to forget the ringbinder with the adventure, NPC stats, battlemaps of the rooms and all in it. The game was run from a PDF on a mobile and a couple of files sent through to Aimo's laptop. Bugger. |
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39. Refreshed after a rest, the party explored carefully to find where the next routes went. The door at the west end emitted a loud sound of many goblin voices, in conversation rather than martial preparation. Calvis claimed he had heard an argument over a rat. Ruby hammered on the door. "Help, help! Let me in! They're coming!" she squeaked in a fair imitation of a goblin voice. Everything went abruptly silent on the other side, with only an occasional faint sound of movement to be heard. The door did not open.
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40. With a smack, Ruby bashed the door open, and they looked through into a complete mess. What might once have been a cathedral was now a goblin lair, thick with the filth of years of goblin life. Scores of wall and floor-mounted sconces filled with violet-glowing fungi provided illumination. In the sickening light, dozens of goblins had been going about their daily business, which seemed to have been to be sleeping, preparing food, arguing, eating, sleeping, fighting, sharpening weapons, sneaking, sleeping, shouting, fighting, sewing, and sleeping. The southern wall was home to a heaped pile of assorted items, including wagon wheels, broken armour and rusted arms, chests, small statues, antique furniture, and artwork. Unfortunately, the stash didn't seem to be particularly well cared for. Around three dozen goblins were huddled in the far corner, looking fairly terrified, while four goblins and two hobgoblins were standing in a row facing the door, weapons readied.
Borax glared at them, and snapped "Face down on the floor!" One of the goblins clearly thought this was anything but terrifying [Nat 1 Intimidate], because he yelled "Fuck off!" back. The hobgoblin next to him backhanded him across the room, muttering "They have obviously killed everyone else to get here," he growled, "there's nothing we can do here." Weapons dropped and the guards followed to them; a couple of pitiful appeals for mercy for the families rose up from them.
The intelligent hobgoblin was interrogated, and confirmed that the surviving three Hurcrele party members had been captured and brought through to Chief Durnn. Apparently, one of them had said something to their bad-tempered chief that had enraged him, resulting in a quick death and a good meal for the goblins. Descriptions established that this had probably been the fighter Talgen Hucrele, leaving his sister Sharwyn and the paladin Sir Brafford. The north-west door, he said, led to Durnn's throne room.
Meepo had explored the west door, finding an empty guard room, and all the goblins bar the co-operative one were crammed in there and the door pinned shut. Then Ruby and Borax placed themselves either side of the NW door and ordered their prisoner to call the chief out with some kind of emergency. Put on the spot, the hob stuck his head through the door and babbled something about the target range being overrun by giant snails. Then he slammed the door.
Heavy boots approached, and the door banged open as two goblins and two hobgoblins came charging through, eyes fixed on Erky, Meepo and Calvis who were in the SE corner. As they ran past, Ruby and Borax struck simultaneously, decapitating one hob, while the others charged onward to attack the three in the corner. Those put up a good fight, Calvis finally getting in a good shot with his rapier, which seemed to glitter slightly as it pierced the second hob and dropped him coughing blood. The goblins were sandwiched as Ruby and Borax charged back, and went down easily.
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Leaving the three to hammer on the pinned door and shout insults (Meepo waxed creative about some invincible army of kobolds here to exterminate the goblins), Borax and Ruby hastened out the north door, turned right, and reached the second door that opened into the throne room, planning to flank the occupants. Sadly, those had had precisely the same idea, and with impressive timing, Durnn and Ruby kicked the door at the same moment. Bits of door flew in all directions, but Durnn had been better braced, and Ruby ended up flat on her back.
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41. Borax smartly stepped over her, hammer ready, and engaged the hob chief as Ruby scrambled to get up. The strike whiffed over her head, missing her entirely, and Borax struck with his hammer, staving the chief's ribs in and dropping him to the floor. Behind him was a goblin in robes, presumably the priestess their informant had mentioned. She laid a hand on Durnn and started casting, probably a curing spell, and Borax took advantage of her distraction to smash her head in.
Advancing into the circuclar room beyond, Ruby shouted out, "He's dead, one of you is king now," but hopes of gratitude were dashed as the remaining throne room guards snarled and charged. "Whoever kills that dwarf is king!" bellowed a hobgoblin and they leaped into the fray. A very short fight left the goblins without a chief at all.
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With the battle over for the moment, they searched the throne room, able now to get a better look at it. A circular shaft pierced the floor of this 40-foot-diameter domed chamber. Dim violet light shone out of the shaft, revealing the sickly white and gray vines coating the shaft's walls. The light from the shaft was supplemented by four lit wall torches set equidistant around the periphery of the chamber. A crudely fashioned throne of stone sat against the curve of the northwestern wall, and a large iron chest served as the throne's footstool. A sapling growing in a wide stone pot next to the throne looked rather like a dormant twig blight.
Durnn had a sword and a short bow, both of excellent make, and not goblin-wrought. Meepo bagged the bow, much better than the one he'd salvaged from Karakas' body, and added to his stock of arrows. On the chief's finger was a golden ring, with the signet of the Hucrele carved into it. Confirmation that Talgren had met his fate here.
Borax lay flat and peered down the central shaft. The vines under his hands seemed to shift slightly, disquietingly. Ruby dropped one of the torches down. It fluttered past the vines, and hit the ground about eighty feet below, illuminating an earthen floor and the edge of a slow-moving humanoid figure. Borax dropped a flask of oil down on top of it, along with the rest of the torches, revealing a larger area and a few more figures moving just out of clear sight. They seemed uninterested in the fire falling from above, and no more so when the pair pushed the bodies of Durnn's guards down after them.
Their minds turned to the unexplored corridor leading off the dragon haze room, and leaving the shaft for later they retraced their steps. The empty guard room had a dusty, locked door in the SE corner, and it turned out to have been pinned shut. Unlocking it revealed a passage, thick with dust, clearly not travelled for years. At the end was another door, which was locked and, it emerged, pinned from both sides. Through that was another stretch of corridor, with a similar door at the end. Calvis had become a little careless, because walking towards that he managed to fall into a simple pit trap.
24. Muttering, he clambered out and checked the far door. Declared safe and unpinned, Borax opened it - to a faceful of spear points. He was just preparing to attack when Meepo began calling out names from behind and the kobold nearest to him lowered its spear. "Oh, it's them," he commented. They'd broken through the barrier separating Goblin Country and Kobold Country.
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The kobolds immediately concluded that the party was there to return Calcryx to their queen, and started urging them to return with them. Meepo added his voice to theirs, eager to return to his treasured role as Master of Dragons. The bag writhed, and faint Yorkshire snarls could be heard, suggesting that the wyrmling at least disagreed with this plan. Ruby and Borax also were not interested in this; "Maybe later," they commented as they turned back. As they left Kobold Country, they re-pinned the door.
Their co-operative hobgoblin confirmed Sharwyn and Brafford had been taken down the shaft; he noted they'd fought hard and said Naughty Words; much restraint had been needed. "Well, I guess you're king now," commented Borax.
Back at the throne hall, much care was taken testing the vines before Ruby braced a rope as a backup and Borax clambered down the shaft.
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Session Date: 16th Feb 2026 |
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