The hobgoblin answers one last question. No, you will have actually a few hours to find the demon, once it finds its small group, and it will take the demon time to get back to its group
As the group heads out, it takes them no more than 15 minutes to find the group of Demons. You are at the top of a hill, and you can see a crash site 100 feet out, 30 feet down. If you take a path to get to the site, it is about 300 feet to the site, otherwise you can drop 30 feet straight down and walk 100 feet. But first there is the flying demon to deal with. Obviously with other tracks around the site going in other directions and the way it is waiting, you can tell it is waiting for its buddies.
The Demon is slowly turning in your direction. You can attack now and you will get off surprise, or you can hide in the hills and mountains and watch what happens. Whatever you do, act fast, and if you are going to kill it, kill it fast, as you've seen the demons and other fiends die, and when they die, they go to the lowest depths of hell, so there will be no body evidence that you just killed it, if its friends don't arrive in time.
Heroes see the creature turning towards them, instead of using a ranged weapon or hiding in time, the head down the mountain. As they aren't traveling in a direct line, but in a c shape to get there, you end up behind the mountains, thus it can't see you now, but you can't see it, and it takes a few minutes to get there . Finally you reach the end of the c shape. Its other buddies that split up hasn't reached back to meeting point. However, you are all now 40 feet from it, as it definitely sees you.
bannock
Marcus
aelar
flying demon
traveling in snow is difficult terrain.
Marcus quickly fires two arrows at the flying demon from his longbow.
Aelar attempts to down the demon before backup arrives.
As the Demon was pretty weak from the fight before, it dies. As you were able to observe what the Demon did, you know you can fool the 2nd group into thinking you are one of them by investigating the crash site, while ignoring everything else, acting like you are in a trance. Or you can hide behind parts of the crash and wait for the 2nd group to come to fight them. The 2nd group did not see the toy store, and will move on. Leaving them alive will mean they will report the location of the crash site, but not the toy store to their underworld boss. What would you all like to do?
You can see the 3 others off in the distance from here. An imp, A Lemure, and a Hell Hound. A fairly easy fight to medium fight if you choose to go that route.
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Bannock, who had been sprinting at a dead run to close to melee, pulls up. "Oh, nuts, lads. Ya gone an' spoilt a good bash-up. Well, let's high-tail it outa here. There's no loot t' be had in killin' demons. Unless y'all wanted to secure this here crash site so we could see if we can loot it. I'd rather skedaddle and get back to your rat maze, but I could be persuaded otherwise, especially since y'all could probably slay that Lemure at range anyhow."
Also, Aelar has been awake long enough that he may have now noticed something about himself that does not apply to his teammates.
Aelar shivering at the thought of being outside any longer. "Well I enjoy having use of my fingers so I say we head back, The site is probably ransacked by now.
hmmm what's this
The heroes head back.
The Goblin Hands each of you a flying potion. Where they at the crash site, or some other place? And were they there when you left? the goblin asks curiously.
He then continues It is okay if you didn't take care of the problem, that's okay, you have little work left to do here, but the crash site might be of importance to me, so I may send these 4 quadrones out to take care of the problem
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Bannock brings his palm to his face. "Ach, lad, why didn't ya send those out with us the firs' time? Ach...nevermind. Look, Howsabout we go out -now- and act as fire-support for the 'drones, what say? Then we can take care of the demons and secure the site. Otherwise there's a chance you're drones will just get killed for no gain at all."
Aelar trying to warm up from the venture outside. "Would you mind explaining why we are fighting demons."
The goblin explains Okay, first of all, the crash site has information, that may tell us what is going on. A crash site of what, I don't know, I haven't been able to identify. I'm thinking the crash site, might be a failed mission of my fellow goblins. Don't worry about what you find there, it was either destroyed in the crash, or looted by now. Demons and other fiends want to kill off the goblin race, and the giants who we work with, and enslave all other races. Enslaving other races is what the goblins and giants use to do, which I don't agree with. But then the fiends started killing us off when half of us went on long missions in order to take over our business. We did not even know that a portal existed for fiends to come over here, but obviously there is one. The fiends just started showing up in the past few years, especially since these missions took years, it was the perfect time for them to strike, thus strike us down when our forces are low. We do not know the details of the missions, only that they took years, as I waved goodbye to my friends. As the details of those missions were kept confidential. The fact that you all don't know this makes me think you all came from either deep underground, the other side of the world, or another plane of existence, or some place far away. Giants and goblins are the dominate races in terms of numbers and have been for centuries. In terms of power though, I agree that we are all equals.
As you all go back out there, the fiends were just about to leave, then they come across quadrones and you as you all round the corner, getting within 20 feet of the fiends.
quadrone
bannock
Aelar
Marcus
Lemure Devil
imp
Hell Hound
As the quadrones go first, they fire at the hell hound
it is shot 6 times with 2 of them as crits
The hell hound, knowing it is almost dead can tell which quadrone was injure from before and goes to the left to go after it. its firebreath will get 3 of them as there are 3 in its direction. The hellhound is now 25 feet away from the party. thus it finishes off 1 quadrone and the other 2 get hurt pretty badly.
Aelar and Marcus are up the hellhound is off the left and forward a little and 25 feet away, the other two monsters are straight ahead and are 20 feet away. There are 2 quadrones in melee with the hellhound, the 3rd one is clear to the right of you all.
Marcus, seeing that the drones appear to have the hellhound occupied, moves quickly to one of the two demons 20 feet away.
Just barely making there through the rough terrain, Marcus travels 15 feet, with the imp and lemure 5 feet in front of him. He hits the imp and kills it, then jabs again at the lemure and destroys it as well.
Aelar is up All that is left is the hell hound
Aelar let's out a quick shot before any more damage can be done to the quadrones.
As you all finish off the enemies, you now have time to investigate the crash site. Everything is in bits and pieces. Nearby is a useable shovel in good condition, and pieces of the crash site are halfway buried in the snow, that might give info. You see dead goblins, dead humans and other dead races in the snow.
DC 15 Arcana or investigation check to tell what the crash site is.
Another DC 15 investigation check shows how it crashed.
Aelar heads to the half buried pieces of the crash site. Let's see what we have here
Aelar can tell everyone that this is a spaceship and knows exactly what a spaceship does. He does not know how it crashed, but maybe someone else would like to try. If you choose to dig up pieces with the shovel, it will take a half hour. Will you dig for that long?
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"Ach lads, if'n yer just gonna kill 'em all that quick, I'll not bother with th' Bless next time, HA!" Bannock jokes, again failing to wet his weapon with the blood of the fallen.
"Well, let's see what we've got 'ere, eh?"
"I don't see any great need t' get back right soon. Why not see this through all the way?"
With that Bannock grabs a shovel and, unless someone stops him, begins digging in earnest.
Bannock realizes that the rocket ship did not crash but was shot down. The Demons and other fiends knew this, but it had traveled a couple of miles before it hit the ground, as it was shot down way high up, so they did not know its exact location, only an approximate, but they had to search miles and miles of land to find it.
Digging up the stuff, heroes find a Red door, but it expands and retracts magically, it can be 1 inch by 1 inch, by 1 inch, or it can be 10 feet tall, etc. The other part of the door's magic is empty and will take time to recharge.
You also find Craig's Diary as you find it on his cold dead body. The thing is still readable and still intact. Best you not read it in the snow though, as it is snowing and may ruin the pages, also you might not want to spend 10 minutes or however long it would take reading it in the cold.
You also find multiple glass coffins, some have dead bodies in them, others seem to have walked out of the coffins. But they are not really coffins. DC 15 arcana or investigation to understand the function of these things.
Aelar chuckles"You can always learn the ways of a bow."
After the investigation Aelar says while looking towards the coffins. "You keep at it Bannock I'll just take a look at these glass contraptions."
That is precisely how we do it! Let me give you a hand, Bannock.
Marcus grabs a shovel, and gets to digging as well.
It is a sleep chamber. It has a permanent level 9 sleep spell imbued in it, that casts it every minute. It also has a feeding tube, with a create food spell as well so you can keep someone asleep in her, for weeks, or even years to come and they'd still be living. As you all notice there are no elves in these chambers, as maybe they have a something else for them.
Aelar checks to see if anybody is alive and if there is would like to try and open up the chambers if so.
If not Aelar would like to keep watch for demons while the others dig.
all chambers are opened, and all are dead, any alive ones appear to have walked out a day ago or two. Oh, and when you come out of these chambers, you are distorted for about 30 minutes, so any creature that was unknowingly in one of these, would not know they were in these things if they traveled a good distance.
You all see a path leading to the bottom of the mountain and out of the snow, about a 1000 foot path to the bottom. You also see a nearby cave 300 feet from the crash site. There is nothing more up to dig, you figure you can all go back to the toy store as well, as the quadrones all head back and are expecting no more fiends. They will report what they found to the hobgoblin.
"It's far too cold to stay out here." Aelar says to his teammates. "How about we go back and read the book?"
Aye, let's head back.
You head back into the toy store, all warming up. With it, you are able to read Craigs Diary.
The first entry is 26 years ago.
"We have invented space ships, with it, we can explore the beyond. It is said there are species of goblins on other planets as well, as well as copies of other races, but with a slight variance. We shall see by going into planets in our solar system."
The 2nd entry is 25.1 years ago.
"We've explore 3 other planets in our solar system, and so far, all we found is a very small populated world. All species are dumb enough to be in the cave man era. I try to communicate with other goblins, yet all they understand is sign language and a few written words, and most aren't even educated of that. At least we get to capture more humans and make them our slaves. They can't even talk. Neither can the humans that live on our planet, but these ones are dumber than apes, that makes them easier to enslave as they are unable to plot. The bad news is that we can't make them good slaves, like they don't understand how to pick crops and stuff for us."
The 3rd entry is 23 years ago.
"Finally all 6 planets in our solar system have been explored, but all we found on the sixth planet were beasts, and boy did we get ripped apart on that mission. luckily they are beasts, and they can't travel here, at least not unless someone summons them. I'd hate to fight the sorcerer that summons 3 displacer beasts in a row before he runs out of magic.
The 4th entry is 20.6 years ago.
"We are setting take off to explore a few exoplanets, so we can be the superior race and enslave more humans. Humans with round ears, humans with pointy ears, black humans, 3 foot tall humans with big feat, we don't care we will enslave them all. And we managed to find Time's Door so we can enslave the humans with the really pointed ears, as they are immune to our sleeping chambers for some reason."
The 5th entry is 10.3 years ago.
"We've landed and managed. What is this topsy turvy world. The humans are the dominate race. And goblins can speak, but they are as dumb as can be. I say we leave them. There are some good adventures humans we can stealthily poison and then take them hostage in the sleeping chamber. The ones with the pointy ears we sent through time's door. We set the timer, and they come out of that door, that many years later. But for them, only a minute passes, because nobody ages when they come out of there and we even tested it ourselves. It even shows what life we would have lived in that time. Sometimes it messes up, because it showed what I would have done in 30 minutes, and it showed me nowhere on the ship, which is where I was. We have to be careful though, because whoever is inside can override the time set from the outside though, that is if whoever is inside understands the nature of the artifact they are going through. Even those of us who knew about this artifact did not know you can override from the inside, but a few of us figured it out, after those of us from the outside were wondering why the machine was off by a couple of minutes, because a few of us from the inside reset the time. We don't want to send more prisoners in this machine than we have to at a time, because each one we send is another one that can figure it out, and this artifact can travel forward and backwards in time. The conditions have to be just right for the time to be set backward, but it can be done and then wipe us all out. When the subject comes out of the door, the subject comes out of the door wherever the door is at the time. If the door is at location X and then gets moved to location y in five minutes the subject comes out of the door in location y, not location x where the door use to be when set for five minutes. My friend Fredrick decided not to take prisoners back to the planet, instead he took DNA samples of the subjects and decided to stay here. I asked him why, and he told me "this is a secret operation from Creation Corporation. He admitted he took my DNA one day too when I was asleep, not sure why he would need that. Or what he is doing with out subjects. We left that day with about a dozen of prisoners, with only 3 pointy ears humans.'
The 6th entry is yesterday
"What is this, we get back to our planet, we haven't landed yet, and there seems to be some conflict. We've been gone 20.6 years. 10.3 years to get to the planet to kidnap and enslave a smart group of humans, and another 10.3 years to return to out planet. We are under attack. I hope we make it. May day, May day, we are going down. Oh, no we are all doomed. They are shooting at us, but who are they I can't identify them from this distance. I wonder if the other ships that traveled to and from other planets get shot down as well, after all, we were exploring the universe. The ship is now damage and on fire, and all my friends are dead, the ones in the sleep chamber are still alive, and the pointy ears humans have not come out of time's door yet, which is good because we did not set it to go off a days too soon, but we have less than a day before they come out. I get my parachute, and I jump out of the rocket ship. miles or so above the ground, and I'm still not being shot at as I'm planning to land. What is this my leg. It got scratched by a Chimera. I'm being ripped to pieces. I try to fight back, but not as well as it fights me. Finally it just puts tears in my parachute. Yep, I'm going to die from the fall, after being clawed at, this is the end. Awww... Someday..." and then it ends.
So, we were brought here from our home planet to serve as slaves? And, goblinoids rule this world?
Seems like there may be others like us here that are resisting, no?
"I'm surprised everybody is so calm about this not everyday we get kidnapped and taken to a foreign world."
Oh you must be mistaking my questions for calm compliance. That is not the case. I am just trying to understand what we are up against.
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"Aye. The horror and impotence of our situation simply defies all angst. We surely have even less power than we thought we had, and the path before us is even more restrictive.
Thusly, it seeems even more important that we continue to assist the toy-master. Now 'tis obvious that this is actually a war-forged factory, and we are assisting their war effort in putting either their warmachines, or their enemies, through their paces. Surely they are collecting the combat data to fight the demons better. So let us aid them! Though we seem to be not overly paid for our efforts, we seem to be compensated somehow. And 'tis now beseems folly to strike out on our own, since there be an intra-planar war on.
With that said, let us attend to the next door, and give our employer more data. 'Tis hardly any other option left to us."
The hobgoblin overhears you. So, you were on a space ship. NESA organization said they were on secret missions, but they didn't say what. Anyway, I've never introduced myself. My name is Zera. I knew there was something different about you all when I dragged you in.
Anyway, you probably wonder who Araca is. He is not only the owner of this toy store, but the leader of the goblinoid races. He wants slavery/death for other races. But Ceasar, former leader of the goblinoids wants peace. Goblinoids voted Araca over Ceasar in the last election. Not to mention Araca also won the votes of the giants, the second most species of this country, maybe the planet as I haven't traveled the seas. And by giants that does include stuff like Ogres.
You all still have 3 doors on floor 1 to explore and floor 2 to explore
Zera then presses a button that opens up a door on the right wall. A puzzle room if you want, solve this and contructs will bow to you as enter the rooms. You can command them if you want, but they are programmed not to leave the toy store yet.
" So I've been kidnapped, taken to a foreign world, and now in a middle of a war. What has the worl.... errr univers come to." Aelar pinches himself to make sure he isn't dreaming.
Aelar then sighs at his current situation "Well I thank you Zera for being truthful with us and if you wouldn't mind It seems I must be off."
Aelar heads towards the next door.
Marcus scratches his head and follow Aelar to the puzzle room.
I am no one's slave.
You all go to the puzzle room. There is a mirror, a closet, and a sign that read "Watch yourself become one of us, and you will stand a good chance against the clay golem as a path will point you to him."
Bannock sees himself in the mirror. He also sees 3 Clay Golem costumes in the closet.