Beholder Group - "Hit and Run" - Fallen Fortress Session 5

25^th June 2019, 8:00 – 11:00pm

In-game timeline: Start of session, Midsummer’s day +6. End of session, Midsummer’s day +6.

We join our “Heroes” straight in with the action, as the week of planning (out-of-game) / 6-seconds of planning (in-game) resulted in a plot to deceive the goblins by Alwaith taking on the convincing disguise of a hobgoblin and encouraging the goblins to follow him round the corner into the empty corridor where the others would ambush them. A cunning plan, worthy of Baldric.

As with most of Baldric’s plans, it didn’t pay off. Alwaith’s lack of linguistic skills – i.e. he couldn’t speak goblin – and the fact that the goblins were a little surprised to see a hobgoblin appear from a direction that was pretty unlikely, meant that they were confused, but not deceived. After a few goblin reaction shots at Alwaith, as he appeared round the corner, Alwaith retreated back to the others up the corridor.

“Did it work?” asked Devon, as Alwaith struggled to pull the arrow from his bleeding shoulder wound.

“Not so good” came the obvious reply.

The party discussed further plans while waiting to see if goblins would appear round the corner. After a short while of ‘retreating options’ discussions, Drogan got fed up and decided he was going to rush them, raging as he went. The others, hoping he would take all the initial arrows, were happy to back him up, so they all rushed in.

This seemed a better tactic than their previous ‘duck and hide’ strategy and, after Drogan managed to withstand the initial arrow shots, all of which hit, but his half-damage rage managed to keep him alive, they managed to engage the goblins in melee and make fairly short work of them, though one escaped through the open door at the top of the room, fairly closely followed by Drogan.

Drogan missed his attack in the back of the fleeing goblin, and realised that he had run straight into another goblin ambush. This is, however, familiar territory to Drogan and his raging brushed aside the arrows, one of which managed to score a hit. The whole party ran headlong into this next ambush as the goblins retreated into the next room, hiding behind the various bits of furniture that were around.

The fight did go on for longer than most, but the party always managed to have a goblin in sight, and the goblins generally didn’t last long once seen. One goblin managed to knock out Dwarrowsteel, despite his carrying a goblin shield, which protected his elbow, and not much else, and resulted in the party’s second experience of having an unconscious member, but their first requiring death saves. Drogan and Alwaith polished off the rest of the goblins, with Alwaith’s Hexblade Curse getting him back some health as one of the last goblins was sent into the land of the un-living. Devon patched up Dwarrowsteel to stop him bleeding out, and they used a healing potion to bring him back to consciousness. A healing spell later and they were battered, bruised, but alive and in relatively ok health.

Surveying the room, they saw various trophy heads mounted on the walls. Mainly animals and beasts, but one or two kobold heads. Drogan sensitively placed a recently decapitated goblin head on top of a kobold trophy head just as Meepo arrived in the room (the party had generously given him a dagger, but no ranged weapon and he really didn’t fancy piling in to melee with goblins so he was hanging back in battle – he’s a zookeeper, not a fighter). Upon seeing the kobold head with fresh goblin blood dripping down from the severed goblin head above, he let out a loud scream and wail, shouting a name that the others didn’t recognise, and broke down in tears.

Leaving the door into the unknown for now, the party backtracked into the shooting range and asked Meepo what he knows of this area. Between sobs, Meepo responded that he didn’t often come this way, but that he thinks one of the doors leads to a storeroom, and the party decide to head that way, cautiously.

Brave and helpful Meepo was once again correct, this is a storeroom, and Dwarrowsteel immediately set about looking for herbs, for some reason. Meanwhile the others listened at the far door and decided what to do next. The debate didn’t last very long, as Drogan decided to peek through the door, and look around into the room beyond, only to be met with a hobgoblin’s longsword, waiting just the other side of the door. The sword took a chunk out of Drogan, and so the reckless dwarf piled into the room to face his opponent, soon followed by the others.

This room seemed impressive – marble pillars lining a wide hall. The group decided not to marvel at the architecture, however, and instead engaged with the 3 hobgoblins who stood nearby, and the impressively dressed hobgoblin and shamanic goblin who stood at the far end of the hall.

The nearby hobgoblins didn’t actually last long at all, and were taken out very quickly, with all the party having a good go, and Alwaith’s green-flame blade being put to good use. The shaman and another goblin who appeared and fired an arrow into the group similarly didn’t last long, but the party were taking a few hits from ranged bowshots.

All that remained in the room was the hobgoblin chief, and a sapling growing in a pot. The chief offered a parley and asked all to lay down their weapons in return for him doing the same. Some of the group considered this, while Drogan, unsurprisingly, told him in no uncertain terms where to shove his offer. The chief was intelligent enough to know where this was heading, so withdrew his offer, fired an arrow at Drogan (badly missing – he was obviously a little rattled at this point), and ducked out of a door behind him, leaving the door open.

The party could see and hear activity – quite a lot of activity – from the room beyond, and in their injured state even Drogan decided that retreat was a better option at this point. Dwarrowsteel was keen to get the sapling, thinking it may be a fruit-bearing tree, so made a run for it and started dragging it back out of the room, just as the sapling decided it didn’t want to go anywhere and took a swipe at Dwarrowsteel, but managing to miss. The party made short work of this twig blight.

Running away, being the better part of valour, “Twisted Firestarter” Drogan satisfied his violent side by setting fire to the hay bales in the firing range as they retreated. The rest of the party were not too surprised by this.

Deciding that a heavily locked and ancient door is a better option than a hobgoblin, the party decided to head back to the entrance and take on the Dragon Door, which they opened using Karakas’ key.

The room beyond had been untouched for a long, long time. Covered in dust, cobwebs, and with a stale air, they entered carefully, to see some alcoves containing crystal orbs on pedestals – most dull and grey, but one glowing with a pale, blue light. As Dwarrowsteel approached it, it emitted a light, tingling sound, and when he got closer it got louder, which resulted in Dwarrowsteel, Meepo and Drogan becoming charmed and having to run out of the door, back to the entrance of the Fortress. Unaffected by this, Alwaith and Devon remained behind, and decided to throw the orb against the wall, causing it some damage, but it continued to ring, and the noise became louder, causing Devon and Alwaith to flee too.

In the meantime Dwarrowsteel had stuffed cotton wool in his ears and came back in, passing a fleeing Devon and Alwaith as he went. He brought the orb to the entrance, and with much faffing about and plenty of saving throws later, the party decided to leave the orb, now silent, in the tower room, at the entrance to the stirges room as an alarm against intruders. An excellent plan, though they remembered after they had placed it, that Meepo was still outside. It was unsurprising that they couldn’t be bothered to get him (and set off the orb in the process), so they pressed on.

After so much orb excitement, the party got a little lapse in their trap-checking duties, and stumbled straight into a pressure plate trap in the next corridor, despite the blatant evidence of spent arrows lying on the ground. However, the arrows both missed the dwarven leaders of the group, and Dwarrowsteel was able to make out the trap workings, and tell the others how to avoid it, so no harm done. Hopefully.

The next room appeared to be a dead end – a room with no other exits, but dominated by a large marble statue of a rearing dragon on a stone platform at the top end of the room. Without hesitation, Drogan approached the statue. As soon as he stepped on the platform, the dragon’s mouth appeared to move, asking the question:

“In whose honour was this Fortress erected?”

Unfortunately (and with much consternation towards the DM at this point), the first words out of Drogan’s mouth were “Hold on a minute...”, which cause the dragon to say “Incorrect” and a large blob of grey coloured ooze fell from the ceiling.

A couple of eldritch blasts later, a punch from Drogan, and an arrow shot by Devon, which Drogan watched as it entered the ooze and saw the arrow head turn a reddish-brown colour, and the blob was quickly put out of whatever misery it may have been in – its only attack on Drogan being a miss. Drogan seemed to be more at risk from wayward eldritch blasts from Alwaith than from the ooze itself.

Danger averted, Dwarrowsteel stepped onto the platform to be asked the same question by the dragon. The first word out of Dwarrowsteel’s mouth was the correct answer, “Ashardalon”, and a secret door opened in the west wall.

We left our “Heroes” at this point, having successfully run away from the hobgoblin chief, avoided harm from singing crystal globes and flying arrow traps, despatched a grey jelly monster that liked to rust metal and with a magical door to areas unknown beckoning them in....