Session 53: Breaking and Entering the Temple Report

General Summary

A forward guard of ogres burst into the corridor between two rooms and began their vicious attack. The party showed no interest in parlaying with the brutes and slew them within a minute. The party found nothing of interest in the ogre quarters save form some mugs, a tattered dire rat doll and ancient paintings on the floor.   They proceeded down the corridor and up a short stair to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Poking their heads up they spied a stone giant and a huge elder earth elemental. Popping into the half destroyed room when they could they were able to kill the stone giant and Orlac used banish to send the earth elmental back to his rocky plane.   From this room the heroes moved south down a long corridor, ending in a turn to the west and door to the east. Behind the door lay a Y-shaped room and ogre barracks. No less than 9 of the brutes poured out of the rooms to attack. An adjoining room held 10 or more hobgoblin slaves. The heroes smashed through the ogres, these creatures not in the black platemail of their colleagues. One ogre ran down a corridor from the barracks and a few moments later an enraged stone giant burst into the room. Surpise crossed his stony face as he took in the heroes, and took their blows to his death.
  As the ogre fell, the hobgoblins in the adjoining room investigated. The goblinoids had been reduced to slaves, serving in the Temple to clear away rubble and reconstitute the temple structures. Beaufort parlayed with the hobgoblins, speaking to their de facto leader Volgus (not an acronym for Volo's Guide to Monsters, just saying). Some of the hobgoblins recognized the wizard as part of the party that routed them months back in the old temple's upper level.   The hobgoblins were wary of the heroes, knowing they could do them no harm and knowing as well that they would be slain by the party if they moved against them. Beaufort offered a choice: leave or join us and rise up against those who have enslaved you. His rousing speech led five, including Volgus, to join the party, while another five fled. Through Volgus, the party learned that Kex, a beholder leads the excavations in the temple, while a troupe of stone giants are the engineers. Ogres are simply the brute enforcers while hobgoblins are slave labour.   But Volgus warned that now was not the time to talk. More giants will come.

Rewards Granted

Monsters:
Ogres x 17: 11,900
Ogre captain x 1: 1800
Stone giant x 2: 5800
Huge Earth Elemental: 6000   Total XP per PC: 5,100