The Travels we suffer

The Shackled City Campaign
 
Naldon Amakiir – Eladrin Elf Wizard - Me
 
Ragnarock – Human Barbarian
 
Skullgrin Bonesnapper – Half-Orc Fighter
 
Eolas – Human Cleric of St Cuthbert
 
Lysikor Aeghtsyx – Half-Elf Rogue
 
Lars Dino – Wood Elf Ranger
 
Graye Damyrus – Tiefling
 
 
4-4-2023 First Night
 
Finished finding spell and magic supplies in Sasserine, and headed toward Cauldron.
 
Found the odd party of characters from Sasserine in the woods fighting Gnolls and hyenas -
Skullgrin Bonesnapper - Half-Orc Fighter,
Lysikor Aeghtsyx - Half-Elf rogue,
Eolas of St. Cuthbert - Human Cleric,
Ragnarock - Human Barbarian
 
Joined up again as a party traveling toward Cauldron.
They caused a ruckus in a Road Inn “Lucky Monkey”, and they split the gold that Lysikor swiped.
 
 
4-11-2023 Second Gathering
We finished the trip to Cauldron & waiting at the gate we met Lars Dino, Ranger, at the West gate of Cauldron, he was hired as Eolas's Guard and Guide. I am heading across the city to the Blue Crater Academy.
I enter the Academy and find the assistance desk. I pull out my letter from a friend, Jasper, my teacher, which the Assistant borrows and asks me wait on the plush entrance seats. The helper Jacob come back shortly and takes me to a small, well appointed office and I meet the Head Lady. She reads the letter also.
She welcomes me to the academy, and informs me that Jasper works here, but is missing, and his house was ransacked. Her name is Samantha and she asks what I am I am looking for. I ask her about Planar travel to see if it is possible, easy, or if special conditions are required to return to my home Plane. In honoring Jasper’s recommendation I will be allowed access and assistance in my research, but might need to pay a fee as I continue my search to help support the Academy.
 
Samantha also tells me that Jasper is Not the only missing person from Cauldron. I will find a way to see if there is a pattern or a reason to some of the disappearances. Jacob leads me to the Main entrance and I head down to the lake side park to meditate.
 
At dusk I head toward the Slippery Eel Tavern where the other guys were going to be around today. I find them all outside looking at an alleyway, and moving toward it getting their weapons ready for a fight. Five men are beating up 1 man on the ground. We fight them, kill 1 enemy, nearly end 1, 3 escape, 1 Woman on over-watch at another alley from the roof of that building.
The man we saved says Children are missing from an orphanage, and the attackers told him to stop looking for those children. He is a cleric of Eolas's same Creed/church. Eolas & Lars escort him back to the church.
The surviving attacker tells us he is a moonlighting guard, and was hired to beat up the cleric that we saved. Skullgrin, Ragnarock, Lysikor, and I interrogate this corrupt guard, and then we find an active City Guard patrol and give our captive to them.
I go back to the Slippery Eel with the other 3 and we have food and drink. I bunk in the empty bed in Ragnarock’s room. I put a silver piece in each of Ragnarock's boots for my half of the room’s rent.
 
 
4-25-2023 Third Searching
We wake up and go down for breakfast, I knock on Skullgrin's room, Flash is gone, at least Skullgrin's coins are still here. 2 Guards come tell us Lysikor is in custody during our breakfast, and then 2 St. Cuthbert acolytes come request we join Eolas and Lars at the Church on Obsidian Ave.
After breakfast we go check on the captive from the fight last night, and to see what Lysikor is caught for. The man we captured confessed and 2 more were caught so the party earned 30 gold. The jail is around the back and Lysikor is in for "Robbery and Assault" He and 2 other men got fighting and they are all in jail until a trial in a few days time.
Skullgrin, Ragnarock, and Naldon walk over to the Church. We find a purple Tiefling in the entrance who is also here to see someone. We 3 and the Tiefling are brought to the back of the Church, in a small altar room. Acting Head Priest Jenya tells us that Eolas volunteered our Skills and Time to finding 4 abducted children, MANY Adults from the city, and the Person(s) responsible. She tells us the reward will be 2500 gold for the party. She also gave each of us 1 cure medium (Potion of Greater Healing). Jenya did a meditation/prophesy and got this answer:
"The locks are key to finding them. Look beyond the curtain, below the cauldron. Beware the doors with teeth. Descend into the malachite' hold, where precious life is bought with gold. Half a dwarf binds them, but not for long."
The Tiefling joins us in our endeavor and his name is Graye Damyrus. We now decided to travel over to the orphanage and see what evidence was left by the abductor/s.
Getting the Gretchen the halfling, orphanage mother to let us in was complicated by Skullgrin trying to joke with her. The Tiefling and Ragnarock persuaded her to let us in to to look for hidden passages or secret ways to get into or out of the orphanage. Searching the orphanage we find almost nothing - nothing in the cellar or the first floor, and a young boy says he saw an "evil gnome" the other night that took his friends - “has bad breath, and crooked teeth.” And the only lead we have is to talk to the lock-maker.
We next traveled over to the city hall, to check on the 2 Half-Elves that claimed to be from the Mayor's staff- Fario Ellegoth, and Fellian Shard; and the city employee's don't know of either of them. We then go to the barracks again and see if the 2 half-elves are guards, which they are not.
We decided to next go to the locksmith's, and Keygan Ghelve is a gnome working alone in a small shop, no other workers, and uses stilts to have access to more storage shelves. He is not unwelcoming, but seems to be a bit shifty. Skullgrin intimidates Ghelve, and it works. His sister was taken, and he gave the abductors 3 master keys. The place from which the abductors are from is an old and quarantined gnome mages city – Jzadirune – Right under Cauldron?! We go into and check out the workshop, and we get Attacked!
A creature was upstairs, and slid-jumped right next to me and Ragnarock, then attacked Ragnarock and injured him. I use Misty Step and move to the Workshop curtain, pulling out my bow and attacking the creature near Ragnarock, and hit for 7 damage. Ragnarock kills it, and another creature fires a crossbow from upstairs. I move to attack the upstairs enemies from the bottom of the stairs and cast chill touch, and succeed, but the creature above attacks me at the same time, and I get immediately knocked down unconsious. I hear the combat continue until Graye feeds me some berries and revives me from near death. Ragnarock checks the upstairs for anything that might help us, as I rest and we decide our next steps. Graye is able to get a copy of Jzadirune City map. Skullgrin tries again to get anything else, we have the map, and we get 2 lockpicks, and 120 gold pieces.
5-9-2023 Forth Travel
 
We left Ghelve's Locks after the fight, and we went to the church to rest and recover.
Graye was already up and out in the city, so we decided to look for him later. All of us that had been Defending ourselves, finding trouble following us, were able to learn new skills.
We walked to the Guard Grounds/Jail to see if Lysikor is going to be dead, or get off with a warning. Eolas of St. Cuthbert tried his command spell to get Lysikor out, but the guard still wanted a little gold - 10 gp. Skullgrin was impatient and just paid it saying Lysikor gets to work it off and pay it back. Lysikor got his gear back, except all of his gold is gone. Skullgrin kept a hand on Lysikor's shoulder as we walked over to Ghelve's Locks to start down through the trap door.
We walked into the Lock shop, and we found the gnome dead at the bottom of his stairs in the workshop. It looked like he had been stabbed many times by smaller, thin blades. There were travel bags packed and ready at the bottom of his stairs, and he had some of his Locksmith tools gathered with the bags. We do a quick search of the shop and Keygan’s body, and only find 50 gold pieces which we split, but Ragnarock does grab a couple good quality locks and key sets for later.
Two long fights with darkling stupid immolating creatures and a few victories for us, and an empty, spooky gnome city with extra tunnels -
The first dungeon fight was in the room with 12 Copper Masks at the bottom of the first group of stairs, against 2 creatures. Then Lysikor went through the gear door to the south, found a tunnel through the wall, and then through that tunnel found a huge room – a reception room or Ballroom Hall. Where we got attacked by 4 more of the dark creatures again.
 
 
5-23-2023 Fifth Skip

After the draining fights in Jzadirune we went back up to Cauldron, notify the guards about Ghelve’s demise, and the threat from the covered over passage. We rest that night as the guards watch over the Locksmith shop.
We 7 are all together now, and we decide to go back down to explore and try to figure out where the children are. In the first room, we light torches and magic light to examine everything possible. The Masks say their welcome/warning message, and we search the corridors and extra tunnels we found yesterday. Lysikor, Lars, and Eolas go through the open bunk room into the added tunnels and turn East, the way we did not go before. The tunnels are 5 FT in diameter, so all of us need to duck down to use them. It is a short tunnel, and ends at a hole in the top, into another room. All 7 companions climb up and explore this new area. We only find a single chest, and Eolas kicks it. The Chest wakes up and cries out in pain, an almost familiar ‘ouch’!! But not quite in Common, or any other Language any of us know. It is a Mimic! And it starts moving around this medium sized room. It hops between 2 spots, as if it is trying to act something out. Skullgrin takes a leap of faith and feeds a ration to the Mimic! And the hungry creature is happy to get some food, and asks for another portion. Skullgrin begrudgingly feeds it another ration, after which the mimic tosses out a Key!
Eolas and Lysikor examine the key and recognize the symbol as the door next to the bunk room through the tunnel. The Symbol seems to be the Gnomish “J”. Naldon reminds everyone about Jenya’s Vision, about the Doors with teeth, then we wave at the mimic and go back through the tunnel to our main landing room.
We open and search that locked room, but found only a Tabard and 1 old blanket, which amazingly is dry. The Fellowship grabs the key and heads into the hallway through the west wall. Some of the guys head south, and then we hear a distant click and a yell from Graye, because he found a trap the fast way.
Saving The Tiefling
Graye fell to the bottom of a pit, got hurt, and then as Eolas & Lars tried to get a rope down in there the whole bottom rotated 90 degrees, throwing Graye at the former side of the pit, And onto the Spikes, which stick out from the SIDES of this pit!
A leap southward by Skullgrin
Opening door closest to the trap, with another trap, and a miraculous dex save by Lars & Lysikor.
A giant Leap by Skullgrin, a bunch of leaps, acrobatics, exploration, a light rest for 2; a talking, coin stealing mask & a throne; more jumps and a misty step, 77 gold and 2 more keys, “N” and “E”
South, “N” locked door, into old museum / display room and then East, a small room with a Magic wall that is the map of Jzadirune. I turned around and looked North, as I checked our map, and notices that wall was once a hallway, and fell right through an illusionary wall, thankfully avoiding the trap Graye fell into.
Back to the Display room, and down South through a door with the gnomish “J”, and walked down the left turning stairway. These lead us to an auditorium/ theatre, and Skullgrin wandered out into the room we fought the darklings yesterday, AND he got Ambushed AGAIN!
4 more darkling creatures battled us, were all defeated, and all 4 disappeared into bright lights and immolating flames. Skullgrin amazingly avoided the heat and flames from the creature he killed.
6-13-2023 Sixth Step
 
After the 2nd big-room fight, we decided to take a short rest, inside the locked bunk room. Ragnarock and Eolas went back up to Cauldron. We discussed, then decided to go back through the large room to search the eastern rooms of this level.
Lysikor leads us, with Skullgrin, Lars, Graye, and Naldon following distantly. Lysikor sneakily crept around and found more hallways, and medium-sized room. He found a large pool of water, with a Humanoid body wrapped inside Spider Webs above the pool. He came back through the Dancing lights room, then went to the south-most stairs and hallway, then came back to the group to tell us the state of the rooms around us. Lysikor convinced us to examine the poolroom, and our torches ran out as we approached the doorway. We prepared and entered the room and could not find a trace of the spider that created all of these webs, until Skullgrin got to the south side of the pool. AND a Giant Wolf Spider Attacked! But surprise was not on its side as Skullgrin saw it climb out of the water and dodged the fangs. Skullgrin was off balance on his riposte, and missed both of his own attacks. Lars got a good shot into it with his bow, and then both Graye and Lysikor finished it off with their shortbows.
But that is not all Folks! Two Swarms of smaller spider started climbing down the webs over the pool, passed the body in the web climbing down on to the floor with us.
The swarm being so spread out, causes Skullgrin to miss all of the nearest ones to him. Lars is able to shoot and skewer a handful of these smaller spiders. Graye tries to help Skullgrin, and attacks swarm #1, and kills a few, then retreats to the north hallway. Spiders crawl over Skullgrin and bit him for 7 hit points. Swarm #2 horded to Lars but did not bite him. Lysikor pulled out a flask of oil, asked me to prepare a fire spell, and poured it on the floor.
We all ran out to the hallway, jumping over the oil, and after Graye, being the last out, ran past me I sent a fire bolt into the oil on the floor. It Worked and kept the spiders in the bathing room and stopped them from following us.
Regrouping in the Dancing Lights room, we try to make a plan to examine the corpse. Some of us go grab flammable objects from the other rooms by the stairs, while Skullgrin lights a torch and used it to go back into the bathing room. Waving the torch near the floor and walls keeps the smaller spiders away from him. He is able to carefully, slowly go back in and get a closer look at the body, which we suspect is important. We reconvene outside the spider room, and discuss how to get the body, that seems to be a hobgoblin. We come up with the plan of Skullgrin leap jumping to get the body out of the webs, and the Team convinced Me to weaken the web above the body. I hit the web perfectly, and Skullgrin’s leap was amazing! The landing scuffed him, and a spider or two jabbed him, but he was up and out through the south arch right away.
The rest of us went back Out and Around, back to the dancing lights. The hobgoblin has a pouch which held 2 Tourmaline gems, and 1 Clear crystal marble. Lysikor wanted to be greedy, but us other 4 decided Skullgrin should keep them for now. I felt a resonance, and examined the Crystal marble with Graye, and we were able to determine it is an Ioun Stone, but we aren’t sure what effect it will have. It will be a beneficial aura.
We look around and see a tunnel in to south wall of the Dancing Lights room, that we hadn’t had time to notice before. Lysikor & Lars volunteer to scout ahead for danger.
They crawl through the tunnel and find a very old battle in a very damp room.
A large, DEAD creature with tentacles fought gnomes, and it was a mutual destruction battle – everything is very dead. Lars & Lysikor search the bodies, and they Get VERY sick from one of the bodies which was protecting or fell on 2 small casks. Purging their stomachs, they crawl back to the Dancing Lights room, and purge again. They use the nearby pool to clean up and feel better; then we open the casks:
 
Cask/small chest #1: Coins: 178 gold, 225 silver, 140 copper
Cask/small chest #2 Small mirror, healers kit, Silver Dragon Pendant, plugged up Copper scroll tube – Mirror Image AND Mage Armour- Naldon can read them, but the others Can’t
 
3 Jzadirune doors along the walls of the Dancing Lights room, only 1 we have a key for- a storage room. Covered in very Dusty spiderwebs, the boxes, Barrels, Cabinets, and a chest on a loft. The chest holds: 12 candles, 1 sq yard canvas, 2x 50 foot ropes, 9 torches, an empty Map case, a Flint & Steel set.
A cabinet has a kettle, some kitchen goods, and some Old crumbling bars of soap that we grab.
Back down to the Southeast stairs & hallway, we go around the corner, turn east AWAY from the spider room, and find a locked door we don’t have the key for. Lysikor tries and Fails to pick the mechanism, and these all seem to be un-pickable; we will have to gather All of the keys to get through all doors directly.
Lysikor gets crazy, or daring, and goes BACK into the Spider/pool room, and somehow examines the Gear door in the East wall, WITHOUT getting the aggression or attention of the spiders. It has the Gnome script “J”, and he unlocks the door, and waves us to Quietly follow him. We have found a dining hall! It has 3 chandeliers, but the south 1 is smashed, and nothing is here in the room to use or loot.
Just to the north we look through the archway and see 4x 20-ft Trees growing down here.
 
 
 
6-27-2023 Seventh Soaring
 
We are in this forest room, but we suspect the plants and trees might merely be illusions. Lysikor Starts scouting again, finds a tunnel to the West, and then goes through the hallway in the North wall of this Forest Room. Only a 60 ft hallway, and then there is another room that spreads East and West the same size as the Forest room. Lysikor steps into the room and finds and illusionary floor, and a new friend. There is a Construct standing next to the West corner. Lysikor tries hitting it with an arrow and misses, then runs back South past all other teammates in front of me telling us what he saw.
The Clockwork Automation moves into the hallway following Lysikor, and attacks both Ragnarock and Lars, and does a little damage to both of them. Eolas tries to Command the Automation to shutdown, but it doesn’t seem to understand Common Tongue. Lars Tries to hit it with an arrow, but the Clockwork only being 5 FT away, he completely misses. And the Clockwork swipes at Lars again as he tries to back away, but Lars is too agile. Lysikor fires his shortbow again, and gets a critical hit, doing 23 damage by getting his arrow into the internal gears. Naldon the Great moves forward and throws a Fire Bolt at the construct, but the spell goes wide and helps Ragnarock with stray hairs on his forehead. The Clockwork also has ranged attacks, and fires Lightning Jolt at Skullgrin and Eolos, but it misses with both Spells. Skullgrin is pissed and runs up next the construct, and smashes it with his maul, hitting 16 damage, and totally messing up the internal workings. Ragnarock gets his chance at revenge, strikes with his great axe, but the metal skin turns his attack. Graye moves left to get a clear shot, and gets a critical hit with his arrow from his shortbow. The arrow jams the rest of the gears and workings and the Automation collapses to the flagstone floor.
We move up and examine the Clockwork Automation, and find nothing we can use. But we do see that this creation might have been using or even created the tunnels we have been finding. We then spread out in this odd middle room and find 2 areas that have an Invisibility Sphere effect to the East and West, with tunnels through the east and west walls. There was some confusion in the Invisibility areas, were Lysikor and Eolos find each other, but no loot here.
We continue north with Lysikor back to scouting. The next room is a kitchen area with a lot of broken glass, and Lysikor checks it out, comes back to us and asks us to move closer as he saw hints of some creatures, and then goes back north through the west tunnel into the kitchen area to try to flank whatever is there.
Ragnarock, Lars, and Skullgrin move to the door as Lysikor enters the kitchen again, and as Lysikor moves, there is a creature that appears in the East section, and a Darkness spell is cast into the room, blocking us at the South door from seeing anything inside the kitchen. Lysikor is confronted by what looks like a very pale, larger, smarter version of the darklings. It is pointing a hand crossbow at Lysikor, but not attacking. SO Lysikor takes a complete gamble and Talks to it in Elvish.
His name is Yuthub – a grey, elf-like creature. He and Lysikor chat, and Ragnarock moves into the darkness sphere, Completely failing to be stealthy, AND he farted. Yuthub tells the rest of us to stop moving, and he offers barter – Kill a creature and they don’t kill us. Lysikor counters with asking about the children that were taken, and He does know, he helped grab them and likely some of the others. He drops the name of the creature that hired them to take the surface people – Kazmojen! Yuthub is protected by 3 or 4 other darklings, so we agree that parley is the better part of valor.
In return for killing this creature that is their nemesis, Yuthub will guide us to where they took the children. We ask for details of the creature, and he says “a floating ball with tentacles hanging down.”
We agree, after discussing the options, and we go down the next north hallway to the west. We find out the darklings strongly barricaded the door into the room that has this creature, Skullgrin and Ragnarock work together to pull it down so we can get access to the danger room. Lysikor and Naldon Find a side room and talk to another darkling, and find out there is not any other way around the barricade.
We get through the barricade and door, and then start searching this huge work area for this floating ball. We enter underneath a balcony, and there are a lot of work benches and crates around this level. Lars finds a spiral staircase and tries to sneak up it. The Creature, a Grell, sees him and starts attacking us. Skullgrin, Ragnarock, and Eolas all get up there to try getting nearer to this creature to save the ranger.
 
Lars finds a few things on one of the desks:
Dagger – Very Fine, 80 Copper, 32 Silver, 2 potion vials
 
Skullgrin: “Yo bub, Did you order sushi?” And he holds up the 2 tentacles he pulled off from the Grell. Eolas translates it to Elvish.
Yuthub agrees that we succeeded in ending the threat of the Grell, and he guides us all the way back to the entrance, turns a torch holder counter-clockwise 90 degrees, and a very secret door opened up on that entrance stairway.
 
We then went back up to the church and rested completely.
 
The 2 Tourmalines are 100 Gold each. And Skullgrin wants the Ioun Stone identified to understand what it will do when activated. Lars pulls out the 2 vials he found.
 
Jenya was able to identify the 2 vials, 1 Invisibility, 1 weak cure wounds
The Ioun Stone might be the Sustenance version, which stops the user from feeling hunger or thirst.
 
We headed back up to the surface to heal and rest.
7-11-2023 Eighth Dance
 
We had a full nights rest, and we found some of the party is separated, so I ask Lars, & Skullgrin to help me to check out Jasper’s house. As we head over, Skullgrin hears a loud boom that seems to be coming from near the potions shop. Jasper Drundlesput is a gnome, and his home is just west of the Bluecrater Academy. We walk over and search it. It was tossed for fun as Skullgrin discovered, and Lars was able to tell that only Jasper lived here, and only he was taken. We were able to find 1 more Jzadirune Key, “Z”.
We decide to check out what the loud noises are, and head over toward the Potions shop, which we find out is the reason for the loud commotion. Vortimax is testing out new mixes. We see him working on smoke signals, and talk to him. He confirms the identified potions are correct, and spazzes when we tell him we found them in Jzadirune. He give us a Bit better History Lesson of Jzadirune than we have gotten yet. We double check Weer’s prices and decide not to buy anything as the prices are too high.
We head back to the church and meet up with Lysikor, who is awake now. All of us have leveled up and learned new things as Lvl 3 Adventurers. Lars has gained an animal follower, and I can call a familiar now.
Skullgrin, Lars, Lysikor, and Me (Naldon) decide we need to keep searching Jzadirune for the children. We go through Ghleve’s and down to the secret door. We look in and find just a small chamber, that we start searching for where we get through it. Lars finds the switch on the East wall of this cubby, and we find 2 hobgoblins on a wooden octagonal platform. They attack after seeing us, and they hit Lars with 1 javelin. Lars returns fire with his longbow, and hits 1 doing 10 damage, skullgrin runs over, and misses with his maul. As that hobgoblin is avoiding Skullgrin, Lysikor flanks and attacks with his shortbow, getting a sneak attack! He gets a critical hit, the arrow gets around the armor and strikes the hobgoblins neck and does 11 damage – that hobgoblin is Dead! I move up and cast Chill Touch, I get a critical success, and finish off the 2nd hobgoblin. We search the 2 hobgoblins, and find 75 silver, 40 copper, 2 Long swords, banded mail, we did not take the armor.
 
The whole octagonal floor seems to be an elevator, and there is a lever at the NW corner, and nothing else we can see. We pull the lever and it takes about 1-2 minutes to bring us down to the bottom of the elevator tunnel. There is only 1 door out, Lars checks the door and that wall, and finds no traps, triggers, or switches. Lysikor gets stealthy, and starts searching the area out past the door. He walks down a hall type area. He looks but doesn’t find anything except a couple cages and a statue — And it wakes up or is triggered as an animated suit of armor!

Lysikor backs off, fires an arrow but misses the animated armor, and runs back to us in the octagonal room, telling us he got in trouble again. Lars moves to the door and get a lead on the Armor, and hits it for 7 damage, and moves back out of the way for me. Skullgrin moves out through the door and throws 1 handaxe at Armor but it flies past into the dark.
I attacked with my Chill Touch cantrip as the Statue moves toward Skullgrin. The Statue attacks with its fists, misses with the left hand and hits Skullgrin with the right, hurting Skullgrin 12 damage. Lars & Lysikor take shots, but miss, and Skullgrin winds up and attacks twice, hits the first strike then misses the back swing. We hear a door open down the hallway and very deep voice talk about more meat coming to it. An OGRE comes up the hall toward Skullgrin. The Statue is stone that is resistant to my Firebolt, so it moves between Skullgrin and me attacking us both! I cast Shield and block some of the damage. Because the Statue moved next to the door, Lysikor is able to slam an arrow into the damage Skullgrin did and defeat the spell that animates this Armor Statue, making it turn into a pile of stone. Lars heals Skullgrin, and Skullgrin uses Second Wind, then Skullgrin runs and attacks the Ogre. Smashing its chest with his maul for 16 damage. The ogre attacks back and misses as Skullgrin dodges. I cast Scorching Ray and successfully hit with 2 rays doing 9 damage. Lysikor shoots another arrow, hits high on the ogre’s chest for 13 damage, and Lars is right behind him hitting the other shoulder with 8 damage. Skullgrin readies his maul again, roars in challenge and hits again with his maul doing 16 damage and caving in the ogres’s ribs and killing it.
 
We move down the room and see the ogre’s doorway, and Lysikor tries to enter but gets violently sick and backs away, Lars and I try next, we are grossed out by the absolute filth and stench, but are able to visually check the room, and only find a single chest in the SE corner. Skullgrin thinks we are weak, walks in and drags the steel banded chest to the hall. We clean off the surface of the filth; tossing all that back in the ogres lair and start trying to open the chest.
Lysikor and Lars both fail unlocking the mechanism, and Skullgrin just starts smashing the lock because we are impatient. Out of the hole we smash we can see a LOT of coins – using our insight we are able to count -
2248 silver, 6000 copper, A few Green gems, and a moldy potion vial
562 silver coins each, 1500 copper coins each, and Skullgrin holds onto the gems, with Lysikor getting the moldy potion
 
As we headed to the octagonal room just down the hallway from, Lysikor starts complaining he somehow lost 6 Gold Coins, and starts asking if we need to shake down the Temple, because he thinks they would need his donation. Skullgrin, having been the one that profited from Lysikor’s pocket, starts teasing Lysikor about having lost money being our rogue, using 6 words, and then tossed the 6 gold coins back to Lysikor. Being a bit amazed, Lysikor asks Skullgrin to show him how he, a Fighter Half-Orc, was able to steal from a Rogue Half-Elf. And Skullgrin was able to swipe 3 of the gold coins from Lysikor Again. Which he returned to Lysikor right away this time.
9/10/2024 Ninth Leap
 
We get to adventure again!!! As I, Naldon was studying my spell book for the day, Lars, Skullgrin, Eolas, and Ragnarock found a secret doorway next to the Ogre's lair, and surprise! (not) we found some more hobgoblins. Lars reacts amazingly fast, marks 1 hobgoblin with his Hunter’s Mark ability, and then completely misses that hobgoblin with his longbow. I target the same one and also MISS with the spell Scorching Ray, it has 3 beams and I completely missed! Ragnarock starts Yelling at Skullgrin “You Call That Diplomacy? I Will show you Diplomacy” and Screaming “Diplomacy” as runs and attacks with his greataxe, but he fails to hit and then Skullgrin swings with his Maul, and doesn’t do any damage to his target that is standing in front of him.
Eolas is able to cast Bless on Skullgrin, Ragnarock, and Lars. The hobgoblins get a chance to retaliate and have a 50% success rate 2 hits from 2 hobgoblins, and Ragnarock takes 9 damage. Thankfully Eolas is wearing good armor and it blocks the longsword attack against him. Lars has his pseudodragon companion move to attack which is successful, though not very damaging, but right after his Longbow sings and Slams an arrow into the hobgoblin next to Ragnarock, doing 9 damage. I target the far hobgoblin that has moved toward Ragnarock, and damage it with Magic Missile for 4 points.
Eolas casts Spiritual Weapon and the form it takes today is a Large, Leather-bound Tome. This Spiritual Weapon attacks the hobgoblin next to him doing 7 damage, and disabusing its notion of an easy to hurt cleric, Eolas has a few spikes of protection. Ragnarock is in trouble because he is facing 2 hobgoblins, and both succeed to hit him, and one those 2 is better trained as it is able to strike a weak spot on Ragnarock’s armor and hit with 12 damage, dropping him to very few Life points remaining.
Lars and his pseudodragon Alencia, (yes Lars has a pseudodragon animal companion, the lucky, pointy eared, crazy ranger, where was I?) Oh yes, Lars and Alencia have Ragnarock’s back and together remove both hobgoblin attackers, Alencia with another great bite, and Lars with a Very Well shot arrow. This removal of opponents allows Ragnarock to throw a dagger into Skullgrin’s dance partner causing 4 damage, and then drink his healing potion. Skullgrin attacks his target twice more but misses with both strikes, and Eolas still has a problem that another casting of Spiritual Weapon solves nicely.
 
The last hobgoblin drops his weapon and stops fighting us by stepping back. Ragnarock tries to intimidate the last guard but it is already scared, but Lars succeeds to persuade it to talk to us. We ask it where the children and missing people from above to which he responds “I don’t know, I am just a guard. Go through the doors over there to see Kazmojen.” Ragnarock and Skullgrin didn’t like that option, stripped the hobgoblin out of his chain mail and tied its arms behind his back. We will march the hobgoblin guard with us so it can’t sound an alarm or ambush ahead of us. The NW doors behind the hobgoblin have a Very large and heavy bar blocking them from opening, so we can only go through the SW gate doors.
Very quickly we see more 2 Hobgoblins, and they hammer on the door they are guarding, yelling something I don’t hear clearly, but Eolas understands and tells us these guards are yelling “Intruders”. The hobgoblins turn and try shooting at us with longbows, and they both miss, 1 trying to hit Skullgrin and the prisoner but failing, and the other sending his arrow straight between Skullgrin and Ragnarock, missing Eolas and Lars and hitting the stone wall near me. Yay, more enemies.
 
Lars attacks the door guards with his longbow, but misses, and Ragnarock fires his longbow also and hits the left guard doing 10 damage. Our prisoner tries to get away from Skullgrin and doesn’t succeed, as Skullgrin throws a hand axe down the hallway, but the axe hits the wall behind the west door guard. The guards attack again with their longbows, and fail to hit us. And Skullgrin smacks the prisoner’s head against the wall to stun it which stops him from causing us problems for a bit. I target the guard Ragnarock hit, and damage it with a Fire Bolt for 7 damage, which kills that guard. 4 MORE Hobgoblin guards enter this hallway from an East-side cross hallway, and join the fray, and they have kite shields. Eolas moves toward a West hallway branch, and cast Sacred Flame, but the new guard from the east branch is able to resist the spell. One of the new guards runs down the hall toward the longbow guards, and one moved to attack Lar’s pseudodragon Alencia hitting it for 8 damage. Lars retaliates and the arrow glances off because the new guards’ armor is stronger than the flunkies we have picked on already. The pseudodragon Alencia also attacks and bites its attacker for 5 damage.
Ragnarock runs to the East side of the corridor to engage the new guards there, attacks with his greataxe, and is not able to hit as these hobgoblins are better armored AND trained. The guard counters Ragnarock and hits doing 7 damage. Skullgrin releases his grip on the tied-up hobgoblin, and runs over to help Ragnarock, but his maul doesn’t connect at all. The guard counters attacks, And completely misses Skullgrin. I draw my longbow string back to my cheek and let my arrow fly at the longbow guard, and hit him with 3 damage. Eolas runs over to Ragnarock also, cast Shield of Faith to give Ragnarock some AC bonus, and attempts to slap that guard but fails. The prisoner takes his chance and Flees the hallway, sprinting all the way out through the secret door we found earlier.
The Longbow guard moves to the west wall and pulls a lever or handle, and a Pit with spikes opens in the floor right next to Skullgrin. The farthest back of the new guards throws his javelin at Eolas and strikes him for 2 damage, and then picks up the dead guards’ longbow and arrows. The middle guard attacks the pseudodragon Alencia and completely misses the swiftly flying companion. Lars and his Alencia both counter attack but do not succeed either. Ragnarock attacks his opponent but doesn’t hit, then Skullgrin attacks again with his large maul, and Smashes his target hobgoblin on the left side of its armor visibly crushing 4 or 5 ribs. The hobgoblin sways on its feet, and then tries to push/drag Skullgrin to the pit beside them, but Skullgrin Easily takes his maul and shoves the guard back into the side hallway away from himself.
Eolas casts Guiding Bolt using a 2nd Level Spell slot, and Vaporizes the longbow guard at the back wall, causing 22 damage. The spell appears as a Large Tome opening up and rays of light Stab into and through the hobgoblin, picking it up and slamming him into the far wall. As that body slowly slides down the wall when the spell ends, there is an outline of the guard left behind on the wall. The guard that picked up the longbow saw the damage that Eolas did, and fired at him doing 4 damage, causing Eolas to stop concentrating on Shield of Faith. Ragnarock attacks the 4th guard to his left, misses with his first swipe, but is able bring his greataxe back around and do 11 damage to the guard, hitting its neck and killing that one. Skullgrin attacks his enemy, crushing its skull and finishing the threat from him. Skullgrin then runs back from the pit and leaps across to get in range to engage the last two guards.
The shield guard that picked up the bow decides to bull rush Skullgrin and successfully shoves him into the pit even with Skullgrin’s last second try to dodge, causing 10 damage to Skullgrin from the drop and the spikes at the bottom of the pit. The hobgoblin that has been attacking Alencia has the same Idea about the pseudodragon, BUT he has Already forgotten just how agile pseudodraagons are, and he fails completely as Alencia bites the back of its neck apart, destroying the spine of this poor, less than brilliant hobgoblin. Its last moments are on the cold stone floor trying to stay alive, but without his neck it is not to be. Ragnarock throws one hand axe across the pit at the last living guard and hits the left shoulder causing 4 damage.
Naldon fires his Longbow at the last guard, gets a critical hit at the base of the hobgoblin’s skull and as it looks at the arrow, a drop of blood drips out, and then it slowly tips forward into the pit, On TOP of Skullgrin. All we hear is more swearing from Skullgrin as the dead hobgoblin bleeds out upon him.
Eolas is able to pull out his rope and drop it down to Skullgrin to get him out of the pit quickly before he takes any more damage down there. We now regroup and take stock and account of the fighting.
The 5 of us today have defeated 10 hobgoblins, 1 of whom ran very quickly away, we have gathered multiple sets of armor (mostly chain mail), some shields, longswords (1 of which I claim), 2 longbows across the pit by the far doors, arrows over there also, and a few javelins.