It's loads of fun for us remote viewers too :)
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Dotting for observation.
Darthal continues to glare at the hobgoblins, trying to maintain his peace, but wondering how long they will take to respond to Diurn.
Feel free to keep it gong, folks....
Darthal looks closely at the statue of the dwarf warrior as he passes, trying to recall what god or hero might be shown here, and carefully noting any and all signs of damage, for which the hobgoblins will eventually pay.
He watches the hobgoblins closely for signs of treachery, ambushes, reactions, or weaknesses. You dwell in a dwarven fortress, he thinks, and you claim it as your home? Outrageous! He does his best to keep this from his face, by wrapping his scarf over nose and mouth and leaving only eyes exposed, but may not be entirely successful.
Darthal nods slowly and withdraws his hand from his pick, but he keeps a wary eye on the hobgoblins nonetheless, as well as scanning the route for any signs of ambush.
"These creatures hold to their word," Darthal opines aloud. "Be wary, but we may gain if they wish to speak rather than fight."
Darthal goes through his memory to see if hobgoblins can be trusted to abide by a call for parley.
Also, he peers carefully at the hobgoblin, trying to determine if the creature is telling the truth or if he's just spinning a tale to lead us in a giant rockfall trap or something like that.
Darthl (and Mite) watch and wait, letting the speakers speak.
Glad to hear she's improving!
Darthal wakes up the next morning and takes his usual pre-dawn walk, past the bakeries smelling of fresh cinnamon-dusted bread, up the hill toward the stone building that houses his favorite coffee shop. He and Mite are ready for another day of glorious adventuring in the depths of a legendary forgotten city. No doubt hordes of slavers will be waiting for us. It passes belief that they have not yet fortified the stairway and set guards against intrusion. Have they no sentries, no caution, no doctrine of defense? "Perhaps not," he muses aloud to Mite, sipping his coffee. "After all, they are not dwarves." He adjusts his purple scarf slightly, and makes sure his spell component pouch is secure. The yawning barista looks at him, and wonders again why dwarves talk to themselves. No one else is even up yet -- except the bakers!
On the street afterward, Darthal looks at his companions and says , "I think we should be ready to ask those half-elves some pointed questions the next time we see them, don't you? Perhaps we can put them in the midst of our party and then duck into a small room before asking?"
Still need to look at it, sorry.
"My profuse thanks," Darthal says after Adolphus straightens things out. "I do not know what I was thinking."
The coffee bar (a new one, Darthal is still making the rounds) is a small corner with a few tables outside. Sitting there in the bright afternoon sunlight, idly toying with his scarf, Darthal says to Valamont: "I'm still not sure where those half-elves came from. I think we should maybe keep an eye on them, and try to find out more. Gretchen says they claimed to be working for the Lord Mayor, but maybe we should check that out." Darthal stops by the Lord Mayor's to see if anyone knows anything about Fario and Fellian. "I'd like to thank whomever hired them for sending them at just the right time to rescue us all. Dwarves honor and respect those who do such things." Hinting that there's a reward, without actually using the phrase 'life debt', which has a very specific meaning (or four) in dwarven culture.
After that, he returns to his clan embassy for a solid night's sleep, broken only by nightmares of giant floating multi-eyed orbs slurping coffee grounds laced with rutabagas and turning into little pink flying mimmoths. Then the dream gets weird.
The loot sheet suggestion works for me.
After the above... Have some coffee. Report to my clan house and see if they have any further information on these eye tyrant things. Also talk with some people and see if they know anything of these two elves who showed up so opportunely. Do some shopping. How much do we get for the sale of loot? What do we have that we might want to keep? Anyone have a list?
"So, what's a beholder?"
Darthal nods slowly. "We should go, now. But we should tell the priestess at the orphanage of this. Someone should be aware that a being of power has taken an interest in the child. What was that thing?" He brings Mite with him, and they take rearguard onthe way up to the surface, being relatively unharmed.
Darthal frantically cudgels his brain to see if he's ever heard of any of these things before, letting Diurn do the talking.
Darthal looks up from behind Kazmojen. "We may have to come back for them. We are in no shape to fight a half-dozen more hobgoblins!"
Darthal checks Kazmojen to see if he is still regenerating; if so, he applies some steady pickwork to keep him down. Bringing him to justice sounds like a better idea than just murdering him on the spot. It will also enhance the prestige of my clan if we are seen to be part of bringing such a foul criminal to justice. He also checks for the keys to the childrens' chains, and if he finds those, unfastens the children and uses the chains to bind Kazmojen. "The devil-beard has fled, perhaps to gather allies, and we are nearly spent, with children to protect. Let us return to the surface as swiftly as we may, taking our charges with us. We do these folk and the town no good if we die beneath a horde of other slavers."
Ouch. Hope things improve soon. (On another note, I mostly hate #%#%!@$ iPad autocorrect.)
Pick to frontal lobe: for
The eagle flutters over and full attacks Kazmojen before flying back to whence it came.
Darthal uses his touch of darkness domain power to partially blind Kazmojen -- if I touch him, he has a 20% miss chance against all targets for the next lvl/2 = 1 round: touch Darthal starts filling out the requisition form for a better eagle next time, and hopes Kazmojen went down and was really clumsy to boost before he tried to touch him.
Darthal and the eagle both take advantage of Kazmojen's slack-eyed status to beat down his guard, clearing the way for Adolphus.
Darthal:
Mite, meanwhile, staggers to his feet and hides under the table.
Darthal's chant, this time, summons a fall of dust from the ceiling; it coalesces, sparkling into feathers and claws and beady eyes, and the last word of the chant is an eagle's scream; the bird appears behind and above Kazmojen, striking with beak and talons.
Darthal himself steps forward and bestrides Mite, not taking the time to encourage the dog. He has an issue to settle with this particular hobgoblin, and swings with deadly accuracy.
Mite feebly licks his wounds to try and stabilize, unsuccessfully. Bill the Pony kicks twice at the dark armor in front of him: first hoof for , second hoof for , without a flanking bonus this time. He will go away just before the start of my next turn. Looking out on the battlefield, Darthal still can't see the durzagon, but the invisible half-devil won't matter if Kazmojen kills everybody, so he starts a different summoning chant.
Darthal finishes his chanting with a crash of words that sound like rocks mating. Behind Kazmojen, the stony floor rises up into a form, a shape. Four slender columns branch out at the top; they meet and swell; the stone changes color into flesh-- and Bill the Pony stands behind the half-blood, flanking with Adolphus and wondering how he got here. There is no set form of words for challenging a half-dwarf, half-troll (they're just too rare), so Darthal contents himself with yelling "Ware behind you!", hoping to distract Kazmojen from Adolphus. Bill, not smelling pipeweed on the dark armor before him, lets fly with both hooves.
It looks like Kazmojen's armor may have been dented enough to bruise him. Darthal casts guidance on Mite, who continues to gnaw on the tasty hobgoblin calf with that assistance.
Darthal smiles to himself as the last of his wounds closes.
Darthal, busily chanting, is unable to yell, but manages to tap his toes sixteen times in the prescribed pattern for "joyous applause", marveling at the guidance of the One Rock.
We need help! Darthal thinks frantically, and whistles shrilly for Mite, his dog, who has apparently been nosing the scraps left under the table. Then he steps back and begins chanting, desperately calling on the largest ally the natural world can yet provide him.
Mite barrels out from under the table to take Darthal's place in the doorway, and not liking the spiny look of the howler, decides to sink his fangs into the hobgoblin's calf. Maybe it will taste as good as the similarly-smelling scraps under the table.
It does. Status: hp 19/21
Darthals eyes widen at the scaley patches of skin visible as Kazmojen swings his urgrosh. "Leader--troll blood!" he yells as he parries the howler's attack. "Need to all pound him together--he heals fast!"
Well, when one runs a dungeon that is not absolutely linear, there is always the chance that the PCs will run into sections in a different order than is expected. And, yes, we are trying to rescue kidnapped kids, not trying to map everything in strict linear fashion.
"What did that poison-bearded wonder do? Teleport? Turn invisible? Pop like a soap bubble?" Darthal thinks.
Not figuring it out, he steps forward cautiously, wary of the hobgoblin on the other side of the doorframe. He looks to see if he can spot any sign (say, footsteps on the dust of the floor -- it's already established that the hobgoblins don't clean up after themselves or have their slaves do so -- of where an invisible enemy might be.
If he can see where the vanished creature got to, he concentrates to cast faerie fire defensively --
-- and successfully, outlining the ashy dwarfoid and anyone near him in crackling purple light, making them trackable and hittable even if invisible. Of course, he again has to drop his pick to cast the spell...
If he can't make out a square, he swings his pick at the hobgoblin instead.
"Durzagons have poisonous beards," Darthal growls. "Don't let him get close enough to rub it on your chests.". He dredges through his memories for the formal challenge appropriate to such beings. (Yes, there is such a challenge -- being dwarf-born, they have the rights of their blood, unlike goblins or the mindless gibbering abominations of the deeps.). "Misbegotten slaver, six-fathered son of slave or slut, greetings and defiance! Tell me your name, that it may be carved upon your wooden coffin.". He brandishes his pick.
Darthal growls a curse under his breath, and casts guidance on Sir Adolphus. "May the One Rock lend weight to your will and weapon!". He stares hard at the dwarf-like creature, trying to figure out if he's ever heard any tales of this sort of thing before in all the accounts of dwarven legends.
"Listen quickly," Darthal whispers, "but let the rest of us gather quietly at this door."
Darthal nods to Fario, then examines the table. Does it look like just bad table manners, or are the scraps older (e.g., hobgoblins took the place a while back but just haven't cleaned up since, versus "they were messy for morning breakfast"). Also, what sort of food? Is this where the slaves eat, or where the hobgoblins do? Or has someone else been dining here?
"Since you two seem to be able to move very quietly around here," Darthal says blandly to Fario and Fellian, "could you please take the lead and scout out the way?" We didn't notice them at all before they showed up. And I don't trust them. Not very much, at least.
"Perhaps nobody heard the noise we made," Darthal says, "but I grow increasingly wary of these seemingly careless foes. We should not split up down here among our enemies. Let us all quickly shepherd these folk to the stairway up, and then return to try and rescue others. I suggest we try first the last door Maple refers to, where they kept the other slaves. There is at least some chance that if any noise is heard from there the others will assume it is merely the disciplining of slaves, and not an aarmed invasion."
Darthal rapidly reviews the list of missing participants. Far too many of them. At least some of their fates are now known. But who is buying slaves, and where are they taking them? Surely not to the surface somewhere, or the locals would have known... Which leaves the deep caverns, and the things that dwell there, far below the delvings of the Dwarves. Nameless, foul, abominable, they gnaw and twist in the darkness that is not darkness to them. Still -- "Are there any children here?" Darthal asks Maple. "Have you seen any recent captives? Anyone besides the hobgoblins and the gray folk? Have you seen any other slavers, heard them speak of more of their kind, or other types? Please, lady, anything you can remember will be vital!" How vast are these caverns, how many are behind the operation?
Something odd about those two Darthal thnks, but says nothing. I will keep an eye on them.. Then the halfling's words penetrate. "Sold? To whom? How...?". He splutters to a stop, starts again. "What else can you tell us, 'Maple? Who is down here besides these goblin-folk? How many other slaves are down here? Anything you can remember may be helpful."
Darthal moves over to the rescued prisoners and examines them. "Who are you? How are you doing? Do you need food or water?" He is particularly interested in the female dwarf. "What clan are you from?" He provides food and water from his rations and waterskin, if any are in immediate need. While talking with them, he also carefully sizes them up to see if any are sufferers from nightmares, as he is, or if any of them are behaving oddly or as if they had been mentally influenced. Sense Motive: for any hunches
Darthal looks keenly at the newcomers, trying to figure out if they're telling the truth, or if this is, once again, a cunning elven plan to have the dwarves be the fall guys, somehow. It's only happened 235 times in the last three millennia, after all. Sense Motive:
Darthal switches targets, taking a 5' step to I10 over the fallen body of one of the hobgoblins and swinging again, hoping to catch the goblin by surprise.. Pick to spine: for Given the uncertain footing, he probably misses.
Darthal swings again at the nearest goblin, and wonders who these newcomers are. Nobody else ought to be in the Malachite Fortress, there's only the one entrance from the top. Pick to face: for damage. Heartened, he yells again: "Rescue is here! Rise, and fall upon your tormentors!"
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