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[Plane Sailing]

Blaming the goblins, Graculous decides that they shall pay in blood. Progressing a little further into the tunnels Miranda spots a cavern full of the little blighters. Firing an arrow at them and then running for it, the goblins rage and charge into a rocky corridor, were Graculous and Kieran stand at a junction, both with their two swords readied. It is a bloodbath. Wave after wave of goblins crashes against the two fighters and are cut down or cleaved apart until at last the rage wears off the last few remaining goblins who are cut down as they run for it. Gazing at the mountain of bodies, they decide that it is time for them to escape and lick their wounds, ready for the next day. Our heroes are far from unscathed, and without the divine aid of Asura they are in no fit state to continue the fight. Wearily the characters retrieve Blodwyns body and make their way out of the caves and back up to sunlight.

Back in Three Beeches they proceed to the tiny temple in order to make burial arrangements for Blodwyn, and meet a young Singharese man with a white band tied around his forehead named Lysander. Strangely charismatic and compelling, this man helps with the funeral service and then asks whether he can aid in avenging the blood of his church - for he is a Jazumai, one of the holy military arm of the church of Asura (think a kind of Paladin-Monk).

The next day the party ventures once more into the caverns despite the ominous groaning of the uneasy mountain above them. Disposing of an early guardpost they venture deeper and deeper into the caverns. In one room they find a strange and talkative adept who is more fearful of the mountainside than the adventurers, and asks them to slay the goblin leader so that he might escape the coming doom. As a token of his good will he gives them a potion that he has prepared. Crossing the chasm once more and Progressing yet deeper they find a guard post with three alerted goblins - much tougher ones too. Miranda bravely tumbles past the bodyguards ranks, only to be cut down by one that was previously unseen! Graculous too falls to a critical axe blow and it would have been disaster if not for fine swordsmanship by Kieran, and an illusionary flaming man conjured in a last gasp by Miranda that gives them a moment to win free. Lysander calls upon the power of Asura to keep each of the others from death and a weary and crippled band slowly make their way back to the surface, wary of the creaking rocks and the possibility of goblin ambush.

Once more they return to Three Beeches, but with heavy hearts - knowing, as they do, that the goblins are now bound to attempt a counterstrike at the village. The local cleric is able to help heal them somewhat, but it is not possible to get everyone back up to full strength. Appraising the villagers of the seriousness of the situation they decide to gather everyone together into the small temple - probably the most defensible of the buildings in the hamlet. Lysander stays inside the temple to rally the village men in defence with his indomitable personality while Graculous, Kieran and Miranda mount guard on the roof with their missile weapons. The long wait starts... shortly after midnight, Miranda’s owl familiar raises the alarm - a ring of goblins has surrounded the village and they start vandalising the outlying buildings. Finding nobody home, the goblins run towards the temple, the only place where lights are burning. With a howling roar, fully forty barbaric goblins charge hooting and howling out of the shadows and towards the temple building...