Beholder Group - "The Beetle Bashers" - Fallen Fortress Session 2

Beholder Group – Fallen Fortress session 2 summary

20^th May 2019, 7:30 – 11:00pm

In-game timeline: Start of session, Midsummer’s day +3. End of session, Midsummer’s day +4.

We find our “Heroes” standing outside of a kobold den, with Drogan and Devon glowing amber from the splattered corpses of giant fire beetles that litter their armour.

Drogan shows a surprising and perhaps uncharacteristic level of refinement in producing a bar of soap, and proceeds to wash the beetle blood off in the nearby stream, allowing Devon to use his soap to do the same. Drogan expresses disbelief that the rest of the party didn’t think to bring any soap with them.

Fully refreshed after a morning bath for two of them, and stuffing the intact fire beetle thoraxes in their backpacks, the party head into the mouth of the cave that they now realise is the real entrance to the den. Full of confidence and bravado, having managed to kill 6 defenceless insects already that day, and it wasn’t even 9am, they didn’t worry about being particularly careful in their approach (although Alwaith did manage to be more stealthy than he has ever managed before, and more than he is ever likely to manage again in his life), and Devon, the dextrous, stealthy and petite Halfling rogue, managed to walk straight into what they guessed to be an early alarm system in the tunnel. However, they couldn’t hear any alarm sounds (though they were standing next to a relatively noisy stream), so they pressed on.

Reaching the source of the stream – a small waterfall – and seeing that the path headed further into the mountain, over the stream, the party first checked for passages behind the waterfall, initially ignoring the very evident path that went over the stream, into the mountain. Finding no such secret doorways, caverns or paths behind the waterfall, and trusting in Alwaith’s ability to check out the safety of bridges, Drogan and Devon marched across the bridge, to be followed by the others.

The bridge promptly gave way, but in an impressive display of acrobatics, both Devon and Drogan managed to leap onto solid ground and avoided falling onto the sharp rocks below. Much discussion and debate ensued as to the best way to cross the gap, with Drogan on one side, and the rest on the other. In the end a few different methods were tried, and the party did manage to successfully cross the trapped bridge, before then finding the mechanism to stabilise the bridge – they ensured it was set to bear their weight for future crossings. Dwarrowsteel even spent time to write full and detailed instructions on the wall next to the lever, should they forget where it was, or how to use a lever.

Finding a door in the tunnel a little further on, the party did what all good adventurers do, and “listened at the door.... open it a little and peer in.... open the door and go in” – a routine that I’m sure will become commonplace very soon. They heard nothing, but Devon did spot that the rotting and very smelly bodies (of unknown origin) that were piled on the floor of the small cave beyond seemed to be moving. Thinking that this putrefying mass of moving stuff may have something to do with his friend, Karakas, Drogan went into the room, followed by Devon (hold on.... isn’t that exactly what happened in the fire beetles' cave...?).

The movement turned out to be caused by a swarm of rats, which proceeded to swarm all over Drogan, who produced a flask of oil out of nowhere (i.e. he later found out what he didn’t actually own a flask of oil, so this translated as “Drogan reached out of the cave and took a flask of oil out of Dwarrowsteel’s backpack”) and threw it over the swarm of rats, covering them, and therefore to some degree himself, with flammable oil. The rats managed to get a few bites out of Drogan before he, Devon and Alwaith managed to kill them all, luckily without using a naked flame. Drogan hunted the bodies (which turned out to be mainly animal bodies, past their best) looking for evidence of his friend, but found only a small, ornate dagger, and a couple of nice wolf pelts. Drogan then decided to set alight the oil around the room, and close the (wooden) door, leaving the contents of the room, and later the door, to burn, and filling the tunnels with smoke and the smell of barbequed meat.

At this point Alwaith did point out that their “we come in peace” message to the kobolds may be slightly hampered by the fact that they had wiped out their store of fire beetles, set off alarms everywhere, filled their tunnels with smoke, burned a possible food store and destroyed a door. Way to make an impression.

Cautiously entering the next, large, cavern, they find an open, metal, caged off area that they later find out used to hold the kobolds ‘pet’ dragon, Calcryx, who had been stolen by the goblins. Calcryx’s keeper, a wimpy-looking kobold named Meepo, was distraught and crying in a nearby bedroll. The party took a break from killing things and talked to Meepo, finding out a little about what happened, but not letting on that they had caused Calcryx to be released.

Meepo claimed that he was a friend of Calcryx (the scars on his face MAY have been caused during playful sessions) and that he had been chastised by the clan for letting Calcryx be taken. When the party suggested that they may help to get Calcryx back, he perked up noticeably and was keen to take them to talk to the clan leader, Yussi. While Alwaith did the talking with Meepo, Drogan was seeing what he could steal, and found some nice, small, jade dragon figurines. He worked out that they all fitted together, and that one was missing, and managed to find the fourth of the set in the ashes of the fire. He then managed to pocket the set without Meepo noticing. A true Hero.

Meepo, with renewed enthusiasm, danced and leapt ahead to lead them to Yussi. Alwaith spotted a strange lack-of-disturbance in the soil and dust at a narrow part of the corridor, incorrectly deduced that he should avoid the part of the floor that had all the footprints on, and instead tread on the undisturbed area. A bad call, it turned out. The tunnel was trapped, and the floor gave way (the area containing all the footprints was the safe zone, it seems). Alwaith failed to grab hold of the edge of the pit, and fell to the bottom, taking a small amount of damage. Annoyed, but only slightly shaken, he started to climb out of the pit, aided by Drogan above, but at that point the giant centipedes, that lived in the holes around the pit, smelt food and emerged to eat. Four of them.

With Alwaith in the pit, two of the centipedes made for him, and before he was able to do anything, they both got hits on him, taking his health low with their bites, then managing to incapacitate and poison him with the poison in their bites. The other two insects climbed up the pit, one sinking its teeth into Drogan, who was luckily pretty resistant to its poison. Devon managed to kill one of the ‘pedes before it could get another bite in, and, between the three remaining party members the insects were disposed of – the last one being cleaved in two, lengthwise, by Drogan’s axe.

They recovered Alwaith’s still incapacitated body from the pit and Dwarrow healed him up, but he remained unmoving, so they had to carry him. Meepo was very apologetic that he forgot to mention the pit – it is second nature to him to jump on the safe area, and he didn’t think to tell them about it. Our mighty “Heroes” meanwhile, are getting a little fed up with insects.

Meepo leads them safely to Yussi, a female kobold and clan leader, who explains, in broken common, that they were ousted from their rightful home in the Fortress by the goblins about a year ago, and have had to settle here. She and Drogan share a common hatred of goblins. Alwaith came round after about an hour, allowing conversation with Yussi to proceed a little easier, as Alwaith spoke draconic.

The party found out from Yussi that the goblins do have magical fruit, which they seem to sell, around each solstice time. They apparently have a white fruit which can do great harm, and a red one, which can do great healing. Yussi does not know where they get the fruit from. Yussi only recently found out that a small group of her clan members, unbeknownst to her, stole a fruit from the goblins a couple of weeks ago, with a plan to sell it and make some money for the clan. It appears the goblins were annoyed at this, and so have just raided the den, and stolen their dragon, Calcryx. The party ascertain that Calcryx is likely to be a female, white dragon wyrmling.

Yussi summons Gresh, the only remaining kobold from the group who stole the fruit from the goblins, who explains that they sold the fruit, thinking it had healing powers, to a group of adventurers, but that soon after one of the adventurers, a dwarf, came and attacked them. Gresh ran back to the den in fear.

Both Gresh and Yussi are surprised and mortified to hear that the fruit was a harmful one, and that two of the adventurers are dead, as a result of their actions. Yussi gives some gold to Alwaith as some level of recompense, when he reveals that his half-brother is in a coma as a result of eating the fruit (though, to be fair, Karakas seemed to have taken a level of vengeance already, slaughtering two of the kobolds who were with Gresh). When the party agree to try to get Calcryx back for the kobolds, she gives them some more money, a couple of potions and a scroll as advance payment of the reward (with some more to follow upon Calcryx’s return). She says Meepo will accompany them to help them catch Calcryx.

At no point did the party reveal that Calcryx was loose, so the kobolds all think that she is being held captive by the goblins at the Fortress.

The party headed back to town, to find out a bit more information about the Fortress, and to level up. Meepo camped outside of the town to wait for them.

Upon entering the town Devon received a message from the Little Fingers, warning him that his debt to them was increasing (quite significantly) on a daily basis. A severed finger in the message made their point quite clear. Devon told the rest of the group a bit more detail about why he was searching for the white fruit.

The town was in a very downbeat mood, which was surprising, as the midsummer festivities had only just finished. In the morning, the party were summoned to the Mayor, Vurnor Leng, who explained that a young Halfling girl, Bella Lightheart, disappeared a couple of days ago and no one had seen or heard from her since. Also, some cattle were killed, and some disappeared, from a farm out east. Vurnor wondered if the party had seen or heard anything.

Dwarrowsteel could hold his tongue no longer, and told the Mayor about the dragon that had been released (missing out the full detail of their role in her escape), which greatly concerned Vurnor, as he thought that not only could the dragon be the cause of the cattle’s disappearance, but also maybe Bella’s. He asked the party to be on the lookout for Bella, and the dragon, if they headed out to the Fallen Fortress. Drogan immediately asked for a reward if they were to find Bella. Vurnor looked a little surprised, assumed that Drogan was a hired mercenary, and just said that he is sure the family would express their gratitude any way that they could.

Before they left, Vurnor gave the party a bit of information about the Fallen Fortress – how it used to be home to a dragon cult, later became a home to the kobolds, who were then forced out by the goblins. Vurnor expressed an academic interest in any books or similar that they may find in the Fortress.

The party sold some of their finds and spoke to a few more people around town, clarifying some information and trying to find the location of an ancient druidic stone circle supposed to be nearby, thinking that it may be the home of Belak, the “druid with the frog”, who they remain very suspicious of, for no other reason than that he had a big frog, so he must be important. Corkie had a vague idea that the circle was on the eastern edge of the wood, but couldn’t be more specific than that.

We leave our “Heroes” in the morning, deciding where to head next...