Session 8 - Sunless to Greenest
22 Thaumont 1010 - 23 Thaumont 1010
General Summary
With the Gulthias Tree now fully engulfed in flames, the party returns to Belak's office for a short rest. Having had some time to study the magic items they found in the battle, two things became clear:
1) The magic longsword unfortunately was too heavy for Stavos to comfortably use, and the reach was shorter than Belfur prefers. Belfur acquired the sword, but likely will only use it in special situations.
2) The staff Belak was wielding had a taint of evil (probably not surprising really). This made Elincia want to be rid of it and, with greater study, the party decided that it would be better to destroy the weapon, rather than sell it; as anyone that would want this staff would be up to no good. It also appeared that the staff could actually cause madness, which even further pushed the party to destroy the weapon rather than sell it. Using a combination of fire and spells the staff was destroyed
Once this task was finished, the party went on to explore the areas they had not fully covered on the way down. Still puzzled by the metal dragon statue with the tray in its mouth, the party tried putting various trinkets on the tray, but nothing seemed to do anything. Detect Magic also revealed nothing. After giving up on this fruitless puzzle, the party went back to deal with what they suspected was another Fire Snake in the room off the cracked hallway. They relatively quickly dealt with the Fire Snake, and did a much more skillful job of skinning this one.
Retracing their steps back up to Durn's room they found that apparently the goblins they sent back helped themselves to several of the weapons the party left behind for the descent into the grove. Working their way around to the front door to the Goblin Village area they speak once more with Grenl. Grenl confirms that she has no intention of harming the citizens of Greenest, and did not have any items of interest for sale for the party. They part ways peacefully, and she shows them the way back through the shorter path to the Kobolds area.
This route naturally is trapped, and Tork finds himself at the bottom of a pit, a bit bruised from the fall. They find the door to the Kobold hall to be locked, but with a bit of draconic shouting and banging on the door, the guards open the door, and let the party in. They speak once more with Yusdrayl, and explain that the dragon seemed very upset to see Meepo, and that Meepo is now dead. The party also explains that while they were able to free the dragon from the Goblins, they were unable to capture the dragon. It is now free somewhere in the passages between the goblin area and the Kobold area. While not totally pleased with this result, she is glad to hear many goblins were killed amd still gives the party a partial reward for freeing the dragon. The party requests the magic key, and also expresses interest in buying the magic feather. She drives a hard bargain, but the party offers the Jade dragon statue in exchange for the feather, and she brings the price down to 30g, which the party accepts. It appears that the Kobolds also have no plans for leaving the Citadel, so the party moves on, and the Kobolds don't seem to mind them leaving peacefully.
The party then moves back to the entrance area, where they found two locked doors they were unable to open earlier (one of which they were fairly certain the magic key went to). The first door they simply pick the lock, and find what appears to be some sort of ancient boiler or something in a fairly tiny room. Upon opening the top, two Mephits leaped out and attacked the party, one icy, the other steaming. The party deals with them efficiently, and then speculates that they Mephits may have been some ancient magical heating and cooling system. In the vat they find 5 tiny sapphires.
Not finding anything else, the party moves on to the magically locked door they found before down the hall. Belfur uses Mage Hand to put the key into the lock, and it fits perfectly, and clicks unlocked! The party opens the door and comes into a room with what untold years of dust, and no sign of footprints or other disturbances indicating foot traffic. In the room are four pedestals, each with some sort of glowing globe/orb. Three of the orbs are darkened and cracked, and upon using detect magic, they don't appear to have any power, but the fourth orb, the one still emanating light and sound, is unsurprisingly magical. When Belfur moves closer to investigate the orb, it changes its tone from peaceful to quite ominous, and causes some members of the party to lose control of themselves. Thankfully, this effect only appears to drive them out of the citadel. Once outside, they regain control of themselves, and are able to return. Erky, Belfur, and Elincia are all unaffected, and they attack the orb, and after a few hits, it cracks, and becomes cloudy grey like the other three. Nothing else appears magical in the area, so they move on to the doorway on the other side of the room. They luckily find a pressure plate trap (before triggering it on themselves), and Belfur jams the blade of his dagger in a crack to prevent the pressure plate from activating.
They are then able to move down the hallway to the next room, which has more alcoves around the north and south sides of the room with ancient elf like warriors depicted. The party finds nothing unusual about any of these statues, but they do several small humanoid footprints leading from the southwestern statue down into the pit on the western edge of the room and on to the room beyond. They see no trace of where the footprints actually came from. The party decides to move on, and lowers ropes on either side of the pit, allowing them to safely navigate to the next room.
As the party is working their way across, they are attacked by a small demon-like creature. They are able to deal with it pretty quickly, maybe even one hit, but for some reason, the creature seemed delighted to be freed from watch duty. This puzzled the party a bit, but they explore the room carefully.
In the room is a very large sarcophagus with dragon symbolism all around it, and the head of the sarcophagus is that of a dragon. The scale of this makes several of the party nervous, but in the end they agree to open it up to see what is inside. There are six heavy metal clasps holding the top on. They take turns working at the latches with Stavos' crowbar, and in the end get them all open. Belfur and Tork slide the top open, and a Troll leaps out, attacking the party. It has fairly powerful strikes, but with six attackers, they are able to take it down in just one round of combat. As they are examining the "corpse" it rises again and hits Tork quite hard. This shocks the party, but thinking a bit harder about the situation, the party finds a way to hit the troll with fire after knocking it unconscious again. This seems to do the trick, and the party sees what items the troll has in its possession. The find a scroll of cure wounds (level 2), guiding bolt, an ornate ceremonial dagger, two silver rings and an amulet, as well as gold and silver. Sadly, the only magical item in the room appears to be the torch on the wall, which gives off a greenish light, but no heat.
Now satisfied that they have thoroughly explored the parts of the citadel they can access (there are some more rooms in the area of the Kobolds that they were unable to examine), the party returns to the hillside campsite to rest through the night. The night passes uneventfully. They walk back out to the main road, and Erky mentions that it appears that they are headed in different directions. Erky is headed to Shireton in the Five Shires, while the party is headed back to Greenest. They say their goodbyes, thanks, and the party gives Erky a full share of the treasure found while he was with them. They all wish each other well in their journeys and hope to catch up again some day.
The trip to Greenest is uneventful until they crest a hill near Greenest. From there they can see smoke rising from some roofs, a DRAGON swooping around the town, sowing chaos, and figures running around the streets. Seeing the town in danger, the party leaves some of the heavier items they are carrying from the Citadel (armor and weapons), and make quickly for the town.
Upon entering the area, they see a man and three children run across the road, a woman with a shield and broken spear covering their retreat, as they are pursued by two wolves and six goblins. The party intervenes and engages the invaders, who were not expecting to find such an armed party. They quickly cut down most of the invaders, the last one tries to escape, but underestimates Tork's astounding speed; he is able to track it down and kill it with a single blow. The party then asks the woman what is happening with the attack? The woman, Linan Swift, explains that just an hour or so ago the goblin raid began, and the dragon started sweeping through. The guard appears unable to deal with the goblin raiders with the dragon attacking. The party asks the refugees to stick with them for safety, and they begin working their way toward Greenest Keep.
As they head south, they see some additional goblins trying to break into some buildings at the next intersection. They ask the family to stay back as the party deals with this group of raiders as well. There are two Hobgoblins and six more goblins here. The party gets the drop on them, but the Hobgoblins definitely slow the party down, and seem to be forcing the goblins to stay engaged instead of harrying the party as they did earlier. After a while, the party is able to grind down the invaders. They head east down the road toward the keep, past the metalworks, and the inn. They are unable to check in on Eeyore as they need to get the refugees to safety. They hustle on to the keep, and are let in by the guards who quickly shut the door behind them.
Everyone is happy to have escaped, but things seem hectic here, as the dragon swoops past the keep roughly every 20 minutes, which seems to be locking the guards down. Governor Nighthill greets the party, grateful for their arrival, and relieved that the party wants to help in whatever way they can. He explains that raiders have been spotted moving on the mill on the southwest of town, and he is concerned that if the mill is destroyed, the town will be without grain or flour for months. The governor has sent a rider south to Luln asking for help, but he doesn't expect it to arrive in time. Leofingol gives the governor the party's last Paper Bird as this should be able to get to Luln much faster. It seems that the attackers are coming from the south, but they have not seen such raids before.
The party agrees to deal with the invaders attacking the Mill, and the castellan, Escobert, gives them two more healing potions. Just before the party is ready to leave, the Dragon sweeps past the keep once more and everyone runs for cover. It is large and its black scales shine and glisten like oil, and it spews forth foul black acid; killing outright three guards trying to find cover.
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