Although people may want to avoid the small yellow droplets scattered across the bridge by a shaking Camlo....
Whispers;
"camlo,....you see anything?"
gives the group the okay signal if camlo doesn't; I'm ready to rumble......
Elisile moves quickly but carefully across the bridge, pausing in the middle to shake the bridge to test its stability for the heavier folk yet to cross. (Assuming it holds) she completes her crossing, then looks about .
“The spell will last for five minutes,” she tells Hudak. “I suggest that you and Camlo move ahead quickly to see if the same trick will be required for the next bridge.”
We'll do that.
"Let's go little.......wet dude......"
The adventurers reach the furthest, and largest stack, which is more of an island than a thin column of rock. They are now surrounded by the sea and well out from shore. There is a worn trail in the grass, leading to a ledge which edges down the side of the cliff face facing the shore.
"That, ah, doesn't look good! The dragon's cave is at sea level. That will be quite the climb down."
"Do your tribe and the dragon live in that cave?" Elisile asks (or has Illes ask) the enchanted goblin. "How do you normally get down? Is there a way apart from the ledge?"
"We don't live down there," says the goblin, a look of scorn on its face at goblin-Elisile's foolish ignorance. "We live in the Cleft, where it's nice and dry - mostly," he adds, pointing at the path on the ledge. "Uh, my little nook is warm and dry. You maybe want to have a look when we get inside?"
"So....the cleft or the sea cave? My flying won't last too long here."
“Less than three minutes remaining on the spell,” agrees Elisile. “It is possible that the dragon lives in the cave – it is my understanding that black dragons are semi-aquatic.”
She turns to the goblin. “Goblin, I would like to see your snug dry nook,” she says in its language, throwing up a little in her mouth. “We need to deliver the tribute to the dragon though, does your cleft connect to its lair?”
Okay, let's go. I'll hover about as suggested.
Perception if needed
While looking over the edge of the cliff, Camlo hands a wand to Elisile, "Ah, you may be able to activate this better than I can, it only works half the time when I try it. It contains a spell that makes it hurt less when you fall off the cliff...."
“Ah!” A quick detect magic cantrip reveals the properties of the wand to Elisile. “Yes, thankyou Camlo, I’ve been meaning to learn this spell ... if you will allow me to borrow this wand for a short time, I should be able to prevent any tragedies while we traverse the ledge.”
"ALRIGHT, BABY!" cries the goblin, before composing itself. "Yes, the Cleft is down the path. At the bottom of the Cleft is a tunnel to Dragon's cave.
The party head down the path, try not to look down, with Hudak hovering nearby over the abyss. About a quarter turn around the island as it descends, the path enters a long crack in the cliff, about five feet wide at the top and getting steadily wider as it descends, running vertically from the path all the way down to sea-level. The path enters the near-side of the crack and disappears into the dark.
Hudak makes a muscleman signal by holding his flexed arms up;
then he holds up one finger, and makes a walking motion with his fingers.
"What on earth is he... Whoa! That's one big-ass goblin."
heh heh......Shoanti love charades!!!
Elisile automatically makes the perception and knowledge checks.
"An armored bugbear lurks just within the crevice," she whispers to those nearby.
"Not for long...."
Illes nods to the goblin when Elisile begins making people fly. "See that? Magic goblin. How many goblins in your tribe can make people fly?"
The bard sticks close to the goblin keeping an eye on him and snickering at his invitation for Elisile to check out his "nook." He hugs his jacket tight against the brisk wind across the bridges and on the narrow path. At first when Hudak starts flexing midair Illes nearly bursts out laughing thinking the warrior was putting on a show, but when he points the bard squints and looks for what he might be pointing out, "Ahh your guard I see. Hey goblin buddy. Let's go have a talk with him."
In Elven the bard tells Elisile, "Give me a chance to see if I can persuade him of our good intentions. A goblin that big could be a handy ally. Tell the others." That said he moves out ahead with goblin buddy to meet the guard quietly singing a traveling song as he goes.
"See that? Magic goblin. How many goblins in your tribe can make people fly?"
"Wow - talented and beautiful." The goblin looks wistful.
Illes walks down the path with the goblin. Just before reaching the crevice where the bugbear lurks, he takes out his flute and begins to play. Leaning on the cliff, he creates a martial shanty, foot-tapping and insistent. Some of the seabirds begin to perch on the cliff to listen, until he has quite a feathered fanbase gathering, but Illes is out to impress an altogether larger music-lover. After a minute or so the bugbear sticks its head out of the crevice and peers up the path at Illes, its bat ears twitching.
"Nice tune," it says in Goblin.
"How we playin' this?" Hudak asks.
Vethran continues to follow along silently, his particular flavor of expertise not required for reconnaissance or diplomacy.
"It appears that Illes has a captive audience," goblin Elisile murmurs, willing to follow the bard's lead on this one.
Illes nods a greeting and offers a grin, "Been known to help pass the time on a long road when cold ale and full bosoms are few and far between."
"We've come to offer tribute so that the dragon might not raze Sandpoint to the ground. We don't have any quarrel with your tribe here and would just as soon pass them by. Too fine a day for spilled blood," he offers joking in the face of the chill wind and salt spray in the air.
"Oh, you bring tribute. Lucky you said, I was going to throw you down the cliff. You better see the chief, he's got really angry with you coming through, but since you are bringing tribute I'm sure he'll be happy to see you. Here, I'll show you the way." The bugbear gestures for the group to follow and then ducks inside the crevice.
Elisile follows along. Once she steps inside the crevice, she takes a brief moment to cast Flame Arrow on the ammunition in her quiver.
I'll follow.
Elisile's goblin form melts away and she turns back into her normal shape. The goblin nods appreciatively. "Cool spell, magic goblin girl - you look like an elf."
The bugbear leads the group down into the crevice, the path sloping down at a steep angle and the ceiling low and cramped. The crack drops down to the left into the dark, getting wider and wider. The sound of the surf gurgling is all around, distorted by the rocky walls, and the light from the entrance begins to diminish rapidly as they head on. Suddenly the path makes an abrupt right turn, and the crack suddenly opens out into a much larger space. The chamber is roughly pyramidical in shape, with a narrow apex and a wide base. The path emerges on a ledge at the top. A hundred feet below the sea churns through the crack, a narrow shaft of light providing the light. The only solid land at the bottom is a narrow shingle strand against the furthest wall leading to a low cave mouth.
And clustering on every ledge, their camp fires filling the air with blue woodsmoke, are a horde of goblins - males, females and pups. Connecting these ledges are a rickety mass of ladders, stairways, swinging ropes and bridges, up and down and between the chamber walls, seemingly made from bits and pieces of flotsam washed up on the shore. The goblins clamber across these with feral agility, sit and chomp on the carcasses of captured seabirds that are still covered with burnt feathers, or play and fight, all the time yammering in their grating tongue.
A small group of goblins dangling their legs off the top path, probably guards despite lackadaisical attitude, start as the bugbear comes through, and then goggle at the strangers in their midst. They jump up and grab for their weapons, but the bugbear cuffs the nearest. "They're here to give tribute, stupid - sound the horn!" Clearly unconvinced, but unwilling to defy the bugbear, the goblin takes out a conch shell and, eying the newcomers warily, blows into it. A low note suddenly booms inside the chamber, and the goblins fall silent. The bugbear yells, "Strangers! To give tribute to the Chief!"
On a particularly large and well-appointed shelf on the far side of the chamber, perhaps forty feet below, a group of goblins peer up. One of them, dressed in a filthy robe, gapes and then shrieks furiously, "What the hells got into you? What did you bring them here for? Idiot - they've hit you with a friendly spell! Can't anyone do what they're told around here?"
"No offense, but your chief is kind of a paranoid jerk isn't he? If he is going to have a problem with us seeing the dragon, then we are going to have a problem with him. No reason anyone else has to get hurt. Maybe a new chief would see things differently."
"Yeah. New chief."
“Like a bugbear chief,” Elisile suggests to the charmed bugbear in Goblin. “You must be sick of that goblin ordering you about.”
"Now that I think about it, they have a point. They know enough not to cross you already don't they? I saw them snap to it when you told them to blow that horn. And our friend here already mentioned the dragon has eaten your last several goblin chiefs. Maybe a bugbear chief with some new ideas is just what this tribe needs rather than a scrawny third string paranoid shaman yelling insults at everyone."
"Yeah, you're right. He's always yelling and moaning and he's, like,,so short and scrawny. I'm fed up with it - let's get him!"
The bugbear yells back. "Hey! Screw your tribute! I'm coming to kill you and take over!"
The goblin yells back, "You're dragon food, fatty! Get 'em, boys!" The nearest goblins go for their weapons.
Camlo looks about confused, "Who's side are we on?"