ADVENTURE 53: HOBNOBBIN' WITH HOBGOBLINS
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NPC Roster:
Game Session Date: 17 June 2023
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The five dreamwalkers were each given their own guest quarters at Castle Devlin, five adjacent rooms in the same hallway, with a guard at either end. "Guest quarters" or not, it was fairly obvious the heroes were not to be leaving the castle until King Eovard made his decision the following morning.
There was a knock upon Thurloe's door. He got up, crossed the room, and opened the door, to find nobody there. Sticking his head out into the hallway, he was accosted by the gnome Knobgobble, still in his full jester gear, jumping out at him from one side of the door and yelling "Boo!" as he struck the spellsword in the chest with his little stick, upon which was a smaller version of his own grinning face.
"What do you want, Knobgobble?" asked Thurloe wearily. "I'm not after your job."
The gnome's face fell, as that was the joke he had been planning on using against the foolish human with the wagging tongue. "Well, that's a relief," he said, his mind immediately switching gears. "The king already has one Royal Fool - he doesn't need another. By the way, did you have any official training in a Fool School, or are you just a natural-born idiot?"
"Look, I get that I wasn't as diplomatic as I maybe should have been, but what I said was true."
"True, yes. Stupid to have pointed it out to the most powerful man on the continent: also true."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. So what do you want?"
"Two things. First, I thought this might come in handy." The gnome passed over a book entitled Rules of Etiquette. Flipping through it, Thurloe noted each and every page had the same message on it, printed in large letters: "Don't be a doofus." He tossed it aside onto a nearby table. Not having gotten the reaction he'd been hoping for, Knobgobble pressed on. "Secondly, I wanted to give you some good news to cheer you up. The king is a kind-hearted man; I can almost guarantee that your four friends will all go to bed tomorrow with their heads still attached to their necks." He waited a moment to get a reaction, and when none came, he prompted, "You, however...."
"Noted," replied Thurloe, shutting the door in the jester's face. He heard the jingle bells in the gnome's three-pointed hat recede down the hallway as he returned to his brooding in the stuffed chair in the sitting room he'd been furnished.
A few minutes later, there was another knock upon the door. Fuming, Thurloe stormed across the room and swung the door back open, snarling, "Look here, Knobgobble, I--" But then he choked back his words, for it wasn't the gnome standing in the doorway, it was two fierce-looking, gray-haired hobgoblins, each wearing ceremonial robes and a sort of armored vest over them with the Devlin crest up high over the left side of the chest. A long, curved sword hung from their belts, with a smaller one alongside it. Instinctively, Thurloe grabbed for his own bastard sword but it had been taken from him when he first entered the castle to see the king, and had yet to be returned. However, neither hobgoblin made a move for his own weapon, instead bowing in unison and asking if they could step inside for a private conversation. "Uh, sure," Thurloe said, stepping back to allow them to enter, part of him wondering if these two had been sent to kill him for his poorly thought-out observation to the king.
"My name is Rugodal," said one of the hobgoblins. "And I am Kagorak," replied the other. "We are in service to King Eovard Devlin, and we wish to discuss a possible threat to him with you."
"With me?" asked Thurloe. "Do you want to talk about this with the rest of my team?"
"If that is your desire," replied Kagorak, having assumed that as the biggest and strongest human male in the group of five dreamwalkers, Thurloe must obviously be in charge. The spellsword took a moment to knock on the other doors and gather everyone together in his sitting room. However, he did nothing to dissuade the hobgoblin samurai from their notion that he was in charge - he rather liked the assumption.
Rugodal took a moment to explain the situation among the hobgoblins. "It was several thousand years ago that humans first arrived on Armaturia," he said. "Back in those days, hobgoblins were one of the prominent races, equal in numbers with elves, dwarves, orcs, and goblins. But the humans spread out in great numbers, conquering all before them. The orcs were driven back into the desert at the center of the continent, where they remain to this day. The dwarves mostly retreated to their underground cities, and the elves to the Sylvanholme Forest. The goblins were all but wiped out, those allowed to remain working as servants or at menial jobs in the larger human cities. And the hobgoblins would have been wiped out as well, slain to the last member, had it not been for the Devlin family. They have allowed a small number of us to live, the males to be trained in the arts of war if they are deemed worthy, or sent to work in the mines if they are not."
"What about the females?" interjected Alewyth.
"They live in their own compound," Kagorak answered. "There they grow crops and fruits, and raise the next generation of hobgoblins. Soldiers who have served the king are assigned a mate and allowed to spend time with her between duty rotations."
"Lovely," scoffed the dwarf.
"It is a just system," argued Rugodal. "We hobgoblins are allowed to live, when we could easily have been wiped out millennia ago. In return, we willingly serve the Devlin lineage loyally."
"But not willingly," pointed out Zander. "Not if your women are forced to live in a compound."
"Things are as they are for a reason, even if that reason is not known," replied Kagorak. It sounded very much like he was reciting a hobgoblin creed.
But Thurloe was getting tired of ancient history. "So what's this about a threat to the king?"
"There have been rumors of an attack upon the king, and possibly of an uprising among the miners. We do not know any of the details, but the mood seems as if it's soon to occur."
"And you would like us to...?" prompted Xandro.
"We understand you have mighty magics," Kagorak replied. "We would like to give you a tour of the mines, and see if you can discover the threat to the king."
"We don't have our weapons," pointed out Thurloe. "And I don't think the guards in the hallway are going to let us leave this area."
"They will if we accompany you. We are the two highest-ranking hobgoblins in the king's service; that is why we wield the ancestral katana." Kagorak gripped the hilt of his curved sword, as the heroes seemed unfamiliar with the foreign term.
"Then sure," replied Thurloe, wanting them to carry on their belief that he was in charge. "Bring us our weapons and we'll be happy to give the mine a check-out."
The two samurai left, promising to return soon with the heroes' confiscated weapons. "What do you think?" asked Thurloe after they had left.
"I'm not sure I approve of the hobgoblin encampments," replied Alewyth. "It sounds like they're little more than slaves."
"They seem okay with it, though," pointed out Xandro. "They seem to have an 'it is what it is' mentality about their conditions - fatalism."
"But if there are rumors of a hobgoblin uprising or an assassination of the king," Wakuren pointed out, "it would seem like not all of the hobgoblins share that fatalistic attitude."
Once the samurai returned with the weapons, they led the way to the mines, explaining to the human guards that the five guests would be under samurai escort the entire time, which seemed to placate them enough to let everyone pass. They headed to the far end of the castle and entered a long, straight passageway lit every 50 feet or so by an everburning torch attached to the wall. Kagorak explained they were inside one of the walls flanking the castle, but that it extended past the castle walls into the ground beneath, for there was an almost imperceptible drop in elevation as they continued down the passageway.
Eventually, the monotony of the seemingly endless corridor was broken up by a wooden door to the right, but Kagorak and Rugodal continued right past it. "What's this?" asked Alewyth, indicating the door.
"The women's encampment," Kagorak replied, walking past it. "The mines are further ahead." Alewyth shrugged and continued on in their wake, the others following. But then Thurloe cocked his head to the side. "What was that?" he asked.
"What was what?" returned Zander. "You hear something?"
"Sounded like a scream," Thurloe replied, opening the door and stepping into a guard room. A flustered human guard stood up from his seat behind a table big enough for two people. "Who are you?" he stammered. "You're not supposed to be here!" There was a closed door behind him and two more along the left wall, behind which could be heard the sounds of a slap upon naked flesh and an angry growl demanding obedience. There was another scream - and this time, everyone could clearly hear it.
"Just a disciplinary action, nothing to be concerned about," offered up the guard. "You should all leave." But then his face blanched when the two hobgoblin samurai stepped into the room. "Uh..." the guard began, but Thurloe crossed the room and opened the door from where the screams were coming, exposing a short flight of stairs leading up and a short corridor which held two other wooden doors. The screams were coming from behind the closest door, so the spellsword pushed it open, revealing another human guard with his pants around his ankles, bending over a young hobgoblin girl seemingly in her mid-teens trying to fight him off while pinned on the bed by his body. "Quit struggling," the guard chided, not having noticed Thurloe behind him. "The sooner you accept that this is gonna happen, the better off you'll--WHOOF!" His admonitions to his prey came to an abrupt stop when Thurloe sent a closed fist ramming into his lower belly. He staggered back a step or two - managing not to trip over his lowered pants - and the hobgoblin took the opportunity to cover her naked body with the bedding.
Alewyth was in the room next in a flash, interposing herself between the human guard and his hobgoblin victim, Sjondra in hand in case it was needed - and the dwarven priestess rather hoped it was needed. But Thurloe had the situation well in hand, bringing the guard down with a few well-placed punches rather than cut him up with his bastard sword, as he really would have preferred. But then the samurai were in the room, ensuring no human guard was killed by anyone for which they had taken responsibility. Fortunately, the guard in the conjugal visit room was in no shape to fight back and the other guard, seeing the odds, handed over his sword to Kagorak without a struggle. "Our tour will have to be delayed," apologized Rugodal. "These two must be turned over to the castle guard."
"By all means," Alewyth agreed on behalf of the group, helping the hobgoblin girl back into her torn clothes.
A new set of guards was sent to take the place of the two who had apparently decided taking liberty with their charges was a perk of the job. These two new ones seemed disgusted by the actions of the previous pair, and the two samurai deemed them safe to remain on duty guarding the entry point to the female hobgoblin encampment. "Come," decided Kagorak. "Let us continue on to the mines."
"If this kind of thing goes on regularly," pointed out Xandro, "it's no wonder you have a potential hobgoblin uprising on your hands."
"This has not happened before, to my knowledge," replied Rugodal. "And the rumors have started among the miners, not the women. There is very little contact between the two camps, so it's unlikely the miners would have known about any...transgressions made by the human guards."
"Plus, you can bet those two probably threatened their victims with death if they told anyone else what had been going on," suggested Zander. Kagorak promised the other hobgoblin women would be interviewed to see if the two offenders had interfered with anyone else.
Right before the entrance to the mines, Thurloe halted the group for a quick discussion. The samurai waited patiently as the five heroes made their plans and preparations. It was decided Wakuren's ring of invisibility would be put into play, but rather than having the half-orc use it, he passed it over to Xandro. The bard cast a tongues spell upon himself so he'd be able to speak - but more importantly, understand - the hobgoblin language so he could hear what the miners said among themselves when they thought there were no others present. Zander passed over his scout's headband and instructed Xandro on its use, so the bard could activate its darkvision abilities - the hobgoblin miners all could see perfectly well in pitch blackness, as could Alewyth and Wakuren, but this way Xandro could follow if the miners entered an area without the moveable everburning torches in the mines that allowed the human guards to see.
After that, the standard wave of spellcasting began. Alewyth cast a prayer spell upon the group, to include Kagorak and Rugodal. Thurloe used his wand to grant himself the effects of a shield spell, and Wakuren cast an air walk spell upon Xandro. As for the bard, he further imbued himself with a heroism spell, accepted a potion of haste from Alewyth to be consumed if needed, and also wore the gem that Wakuren normally wore upon his brow, through which Alewyth could see once she activated the magic amulet linked to it. Usually, the set was used while the others were inside Hesperna's lamp and the half-orc carried it around, but this way Alewyth could keep visual tabs on Xandro, since the plan was for him to split off from the rest of the group. Zander cast a detect magic spell so he could see if any of the miners had somehow managed to get hold of a magic item. And then Thurloe nodded their readiness to the samurai.
They continued on, opening a door and stepping through to stand before a human guard. The samurai explained they were giving a tour of the mines to four of the king's visitors (for by this time Xandro was invisible and lagging at the back of the group) and their standing in the hobgoblin community and as the king's two top hobgoblin warriors allowed them passage into the mines. "What do you mine here?" asked Thurloe, already playing the part of an interested visitor. "Iron ore," was the guard's reply as Kagorak and Rugodal ushered them inside. Wakuren was concentrating on detecting evil in the auras of those in the area, fully expecting the hobgoblins to project evil auras - even the samurai - but wanting to know if there were any additional sources of evil unaccounted for, like perhaps that of an invisible ally to the miners, one prompting them to try to overthrow their human masters.
There were six bunkrooms for the miners, each holding 11 cots; two of the rooms were occupied by sleeping miners, the other 44 hobgoblins were either on shift in the mines or enjoying their off time. The group talked to a few of these off-duty miners, some of which had gathered to roll dice in a corner of their room. Zander asked them how the conditions were in the mine and got noncommittal answers, but then realized the mines were all these hobgoblins ever knew, after having been deemed unworthy to be trained in the fighting arts to serve as a part of King Eovard's forces. Alewyth came to the unnerving realization that the miners were all staring at her, sneaking glances her way when they thought she wasn't looking, and then figured they didn't get a whole lot of opportunities to see a woman down here in the mines - of any race.
Xandro hung about after the others had moved on, eager to hear what the hobgoblins might have to say; maybe he'd get lucky and they'd talk about their plans for an uprising. But their discussion was mostly about Alewyth, predominantly an appreciation for her curves and an argument about what race she was. "She's an elf!" insisted one miner, who had never seen an elf before. "She's a dwarf!" argued another, who was similarly hampered by never having seen a dwarf before, either. That brought up questions about what race Zander had been, because he obviously wasn't the same race as the "hot chick," what with the pointed ears and all; the general consensus was that pointed ears definitely went with either dwarves or elves, only the miners couldn't remember which race applied. As for Wakuren, he looked different enough not to have been a human, but what race he was had the miners all confused - they'd never seen an orc before, let alone a half-orc. In the end, they decided it didn't matter if the "hot chick" was an elf or a dwarf, she was still hot. Smirking quietly to himself (and eager to repeat their suppositions to Alewyth when he got the chance), Xandro moved on. He caught up with the rest of the group right as they were about to enter the mines proper, and snuck through the opened doors to the guard station, where the samurai once again explained about the king's four important visitors being given a tour. That was enough to gain them entry, and Xandro snuck through the double doors to the main mine before the two human guards closed them up again.
Inside, the mine was a beehive of activity. There was a central chamber, from which two wide tunnels extended, one leading to the various mine shafts where the hobgoblins dug for iron ore, and another that led to where the wheelbarrows of ore were parked before being brought into the inspection area. The group split up and talked to a few of the miners - who were more than happy to talk to strangers as long as the samurai were there saying it was okay to do so; it just meant an unscheduled break from digging at the stone walls with picks and shovels or gathering up the unearthed ore and placing them in wheelbarrows. There seemed to be three iron wheelbarrows at each shaft, each with wooden handles and holding one of three materials: iron ore, worthless stone, or a strange crystal of a whitish color. Alewyth, having been raised in a dwarven city in the Underdark where mining was a big part of everyday life, identified the crystal as "drunge," virtually worthless due to its weak composition - dwarves often crushed drunge crystals in their bare hands just to show that they could.
As they got farther away from the main cavern - which, like the tunnels and shafts, was only about eight feet tall, the bare minimum height needed for a hobgoblin to swing a pick overhead - Thurloe began to get nervous, not from a claustrophobic sense but rather from his general mistrust of people he didn't know well. This was even worse, for he well knew - and Wakuren confirmed it - that the miners and the two samurai were all inherently of an evil nature; was this some sort of trap, to lure the heroes into a place where they could be slain and their bodies disposed of? It would be easy enough to do, for there was an orange glow coming from the end of a sloping shaft that apparently led to a pool of magma; the miners claimed that was where they tossed their unearthed rock and drunge crystals, and while that might very well be true it would also be a good place to dispose of unwanted bodies. But then Thurloe took a moment and thought it over: the current decision was whether to make the dreamwalkers stay at the castle permanently in case they were ever needed again or allow them to return to their dream-waking duties elsewhere on the continent. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to kill off the only five people proven to be able to awaken dream victims when nobody else could, did it? The spellsword tried to relax, but his logic had a difficult time persuading his fears.
Zander thought he might have picked up on some subterfuge when he overheard one miner mention excitedly "Tomorrow's the day!" to another, but when asked to explain, it turned out the next day was simply "produce day" - the one day of the week when the miners' simple fare was enhanced by fruits and vegetables grown in the gardens tended by the hobgoblin females. All of the miners, it turned out, looked forward to "produce day."
Wakuren, following a hunch, tread cautiously down the tunnel leading to the magma pool. It got hotter and hotter the closer he approached, to the point his metal armor began to get uncomfortably warm where it touched his skin. But he saw a thin miner standing alone upon a strip of stone overlooking the pool of magma. He leaned over the iron wheelbarrow before him and picked up a drunge crystal, holding it up above his head like a dolphin tamer about to throw a fish to a dolphin. "Who's hungry for some drunge?" called out the miner, and before long a massive head popped up from the magma pool, liquid lava spilling down the sides of its head without harming it in the least. "There you are!" cried the miner, flinging the crystal in the worm's direction and watching as it snatched it up in midair.
The miner, Burkin, reached down and picked up another drunge crystal. A second head popped up from the magma pool, mouth open wide in anticipation of a treat. The hobgoblin complied, tossing it over. "I hope this doesn't spoil your appetites too much, because you're going to want to be plenty hungry tomorrow - that's the big day!" Wakuren, eavesdropping from around the corner, was fairly certain the lanky miner wasn't referring to produce day. He was also glad the miner's comments were expressed in the Common tongue, for the half-orc knew none of the Hobgoblin language and as far as he knew Xandro wasn't nearby to provide translation.
Wakuren crept silently back up the sloping passageway, for he'd heard enough and his armor was getting unbearably hot. He told Thurloe and the two samurai what he'd overheard, and the samurai went to go drag a protesting Burkin back away from his duties. Surprisingly, the two magma worms remained where they were in the pool, waiting to be fed even though there was a wheelbarrow full of drunge crystals right there before them.
Kagorak and Rugodal led the interrogation, demanding to know what Burkin was up to, but he professed ignorance. "What do you mean?" he asked. "I'm just doing my job - getting rid of the drunge crystals, like I'm supposed to!" When pressed about the magma worms, he said they'd just suddenly appeared a few months ago, but they didn't seem to want to do anyone any harm. "They're my friends," Burkin insisted. A quick poll among the other miners showed none of them were aware of the worms' presence in the mines, not surprising since Burkin, who was slightly lame in his left foot and walked with a limp, was routinely handed the "drudge jobs' to be done around the mine, like dumping the rocks and drunge in the magma pool and fetching fresh water from the pump at the women's quarters.
"I don't like it," insisted Wakuren. "It seems like they're being trained to eat drunge crystals - it would be easy enough to place a drunge crystal by the king and have a magma worm devour him to get to the crystal."
"I didn't have to train them," argued Burkin. "They just like drunge! And they've never tried to eat me, and I bring them drunge crystals all the time!"
"And yet they don't even seem to realize the drunge crystals are there until you take it out of the wheelbarrow," observed Wakuren. Then it struck him. "They can't detect drunge when it's close to iron! And the wheelbarrows are made of iron!"
"That don't prove nuthin'," muttered Burkin, but Wakuren was certain he'd hit upon the main point of the plot: get the magma worms to devour the king by placing drunge around him. But it wasn't like Burkin, a half-lame hobgoblin miner, had any access to King Eovard. "We need to question him inside a zone of truth spell," the half-orc announced. When the other heroes admitted none of them had access to the spell, Rugodal asserted the king had access to clerics who could cast the spell. "I'm not saying anything more," Burkin said, crossing his arms and remaining stubbornly silent. The samurai dragged him back to the guard station, where he was placed in shackles and sat in the corner where the two human guards could keep an eye on him while the heroes decided what to do next.
"Well," pointed out Xandro's voice from nearby, indicating he'd heard the discussion thus far, "it seems like if we kill the magma worms, there'll be no living weapons to use against the king."
That was quickly decided as the way to go, but Wakuren advised against fighting them there in the magma pool, where those in metal armor would quickly feel the effects of proximity to that much heat. Instead, they opted to lure the magma worms out into the mines' tunnels. Fortunately, the main tunnel leading to the magma pool chamber was east-to-west, allowing separate tunnels to branch off from it either to the north or south. Clear out the miners, place a hero or samurai in the side tunnels, and let the magma worms pass by before attacking them from the sides, and they should be able to make quick work of them. And as luck would have it, they had plenty of bait at hand by which to lure the magma worms out of their pool....
Zander cast a haste spell upon the seven would-be worm-slayers, while Alewyth grabbed up the three potions of resist fire they'd been given by Hadrian Pascobelli after they'd rid his home of devils. It was eventually decided the potions would go to Wakuren, Thurloe, and Xandro, who gladly drank them down. Zander provided stoneskin spells to Alewyth and Wakuren, and the half-orc cast a freedom of movement spell upon himself to prevent the worms from being able to swallow him down whole. Finally, they all took their positions in one of the side tunnels, Zander opting to remain in the thicker tunnel that led to the wide cavern to the north. And Wakuren decided he would be the bait, stuffing drunge crystals in his belt and pouches before heading down the passageway leading to the magma pool.
He didn't make it all of the way down the sloping passageway before the magma worms were heading his way. He backed up quickly, dropping a drunge crystal onto the stone floor before him. Pouncing upon it, the lead worm bit down and swallowed the delicious drunge, taking out a part of the floor with it. Wakuren backed up even further, dropping another crystal at his feet, and the second worm got this one by burrowing beneath the tunnel and popping up beneath the drunge, flaming mouth engulfing it in one bite. The two worms jockeyed back and forth for position, for their bodies nearly completely filled the carved corridors down which they traversed, and the second worm often had to burrow its own path through the solid stone.
But eventually the worm in the corridor passed by the side tunnels in which the heroes had been preparing to attack. Xandro had been playing his song of inspirational courage on his Dardolian Lute for the group while waiting for the worms to make their appearance, and his song enhanced their strikes when the time came. The hobgoblin samurai sent their flashing katanas cutting deep into flaming worm-flesh, and Thurloe followed suit with Spellslicer. Xandro stashed his lute and brought Deathwhisper to bear once the worm blocked the passage from the tunnel in which he stood to the main corridor. Alewyth brought Sjondra crashing into the lead worm's side as soon as she could no longer see the creature's head, for she didn't want it able to swing by and try to bite her, something the cramped quarters of the tunnel prevented. But it was Zander's cone of cold spell which really caused damage to the magma worm, for its fiery body was not well suited to deal with the frigid cold of the sorcerer's spell.
Wakuren had, by this time, made it to the end of the main tunnel and had a worm bearing down on him. Zander slew it with another cone of cold spell and it stopped where it lay, now a slowly-cooling corpse that blocked most of the heroes, trapping them in their side tunnels. The samurai continued on with their attacks, well aware of the worm's demise but now trying to cut their way to freedom. Xandro, with no other way to contribute, picked his Dardolian Lute back up and pressed on with his song.
But the second worm popped its head up out of the floor just in front of the head of its slain counterpart, snapping at Wakuren, who still had some drunge on his person. Thurloe jumped up as high as he could, allowing him to see over the top of the dead worm's body and into the wide tunnel leading north, where Zander had stationed himself. Activating his anklet of translocation, he dimension doored himself to the sorcerer's side.
The worm bit at Wakuren but couldn't seem to get the slippery half-orc to slide down its maw into its gullet. Furthermore, the cleric/paladin seemed unfazed by the heat the magma worm was generating. Zander was just barely able to catch a glimpse of this second worm past the head of the slain one, but that was all he needed to be able to target a magic missile spell its way. Alewyth climbed past the dead worm's jagged, protruding teeth (burning herself in the process, for while the slain worm's body was cooling, it was still plenty hot at the moment), and stood just behind the second worm's head where it projected out of the corridor floor. She brought Sjondra down hard upon the back of the worm's head, wishing it had a skull she could crush.
Wakuren channeled all of his strength into a series of blows with his shield of Cal, slamming the worm's head again and again. While the two hobgoblin samurai continued carving their way into the body of the slain worm, Thurloe followed Zander's strategy and sent a magic missile spell slamming into the part of the living worm he could see past the body of the dead one. The worm ignored all of these attacks, mindlessly still trying to gobble down Wakuren, but his potion of fire resistance and his freedom of movement spell were preventing him from being swallowed. Zander cast another magic missile spell at it, Alewyth kept up the attacks with Sjondra, and eventually Wakuren brought it down with repeated slams of his shield. Then they had two dead worms with which to contend, and digging everyone out to freedom took well over an hour - and that only with the assistance of the hobgoblin miners. They were more than happy to help, for worm flesh was a bit easier to dig through than solid stone and iron ore, and the worm flesh would put something even more exciting than fresh fruits and vegetables on the menu for "produce day."
"We'll eat what we can while the eating's good, and toss the rest of the worms back into the magma pool before they start to decompose," suggested the lead miner on shift. "Don't want them stinking the place up."
Burkin was disconsolate when told they'd slain his worm "friends," but he resolutely refused to answer any questions about his plot against the king. A pair of guards hauled him away.
But Wakuren had another idea. "He may not answer questions here in the Waking World," the half-orc reasoned, "but he might let his guard down in the Dreamlands." That night, the five dreamwalkers entered Burkin's dreams. This was much easier than dealing with the dreams of someone in one of the Nightmare King's dream comas; they'd interacted with random dreamers on many occasions during their dreamwalker training with Mogo.
Wakuren approached Burkin in his dreams, having changed his appearance to be one of the two magma worms they had slain. "So," he said to the disgruntled hobgoblin miner, "tomorrow's the big day, huh?"
If Burkin was surprised to hear the magma worm talk aloud, it didn't register - this was dream logic, after all. "Yeah," agreed Burkin. "The king won't ever see it coming." He laughed in anticipation, imagining the look upon the human usurper's face when the magma worms closed in him.
"So, where is it going to take place?" asked Wakuren-as-magma-worm.
"In the gardens," smirked Burkin. "My accomplices will lay the crystals at his feet, and then you and your brother will do your thing. And with the king dead and the royal family all in an uproar, it will be the perfect time to strike! We'll be free once more, like we were thousands of years ago before the accursed humans took our place as the rulers of Armaturia!"
"Just me and my brother?" asked Wakuren.
"Why? Are there more of you?"
"Nope." But Wakuren had confirmed there weren't any other magma worms unaccounted for - that could have upset any plans they had for how to deal with this situation!
After determining that was about all they were going to get out of the sleeping Burkin, the dreamwalkers awakened from their dreamstalking and informed Rugodal and Kagorak of what they'd learned. "Very well," asserted Rugodal. "It's time we brought this to the king."
"And the behavior of his two guards," added Alewyth. She didn't want that getting overlooked.
And so it was the five dreamwalkers were invited to the king's inspection of the female hobgoblins' gardens the following morning. He'd been scheduled to look over the progress of their growing season, and he normally gave a little speech praising their efforts and reaffirming the importance of their work here in their compound. And all of that happened, at the end of which a few of the females said they had a special tribute for their king. King Eovard expressed surprise at the gesture, but lent his approval for them to continue. Four of the female hobgoblins went over to a corner of the garden, where a heavy iron chest had been hidden behind a berry bush. Struggling under its weight, they brought it before the king and opened it up. Then, upon a nod from their leader, the four hobgoblin women tipped the contents of the chest over, spilling drunge crystals at the king's feet. They then leapt back in unison, taking defensive stances that showed they'd had some training in the ancient martial arts of the hobgoblin race.
"Interesting," observed the king, picking up a drunge crystal and looking at it intently. "I assume Burkin has been delivering these, a few at a time, when he wheels his iron wheelbarrow up here to refill the water barrels for the mines from your pump." He tossed the drunge over at the feet of one of the monks, causing her to flinch and step away. "Oh, there's no need to fear," the king advised the leader of the plot against the king among the women's quarter. "The magma worms have been slain and Burkin has been taken into custody. You will be joining him shortly." And then King Eovard nodded to his human guards, who stepped forward to take the four monks into custody. On the platform above them, ringing the gardens, more human guards aimed their crossbows down at the monks. The monks' faces registered first shock, then acceptance, and they allowed themselves to be led away by the guards without resistance.
"And now, I have a special presentation to make," King Eovard announced. He nodded at his advisor, who opened a door leading into the gardens. In through this opened door strode a line of the king's soldiers, carrying several burdens between them. "I have some contributions to make to your compost pile," the king said, waving a hand to indicate where the soldiers should drop their burdens. They were the decapitated bodies of the two guards who had been making full use of the conjugal visit rooms, along with their severed heads. Each was dumped upon the compost pile, to the horrified expressions of the other hobgoblins in attendance. "What these two have done here is unforgivable, and they have paid for their crimes with their lives," the king continued. "I want you to know I will not tolerate such behavior, now or ever." His speech seemed to be aimed at the guards as well as the hobgoblin women. "Anyone who tries to duplicate the crimes of these two will be dealt an equally harsh sentence. And if anyone here wishes to come forth to report any prior attacks by any of my guards, you will be heard and the offending parties will be dealt with severely." King Eovard was glad to see nobody came forward; apparently the rot had only spread as far as the two guards who had already been dealt with.
"Very well then," he concluded. "Thank you for this visit to your lovely gardens." And with that, he led his procession - including the five dreamwalkers - back to the castle proper. Once there, he led them to the room in which they had first been brought before him, where their weapons (which had been returned after the conclusion of their visit to the mines) sat, along with five wooden chests. "I have decided to allow you to leave the castle and return to your duties," he proclaimed. "In addition, for having awakened my sister, the Princess Caroline, from her dreams when no other could, I hereby award you with 2,000 pieces of gold apiece from the royal treasury. However," he added, looking over specifically at Thurloe, "I would remind you that although you may bear fealty to this 'Queen of Dreams' while you dream, when awake you are my subjects, the same as any other in Armaturia."
"Yes, Your Majesty," replied Thurloe - he knew this was not the time for flippancy.
"In addition," declared Chaspertaine, the king's royal wizard, "here is an orb of mental renewal from my own laboratory, inscribed with the royal seal. It might be of use to you in your adventures." Alewyth took the proffered crystal orb from the royal wizard with polite thanks and stashed it away in her extradimensional chest of holding. Then, judging it to be prudent to do so, they waited until the king and his procession departed the room before gathering up their weapons. They were then led by a pair of castle guards back outside the castle, where they met back up with Scarlie and Robin, sitting in the wagon with the mules and riding mounts saddled up and ready to go.
"I missed you," Xandro told his protege.
"I missed you, too," replied Robin. "Anything exciting happen during your time with the king?"
Xandro just laughed. "I'll fill you in when we get back on the road," he promised.
- - -
This session stood out in one way: Joe returned to gaming with us, as he's now finished with his first year of college and is back home with his parents for the summer. So he's back to running Zander Quilson until school starts back up again in the fall.
- - -
T-shirt worn: My "Jade Warrior" T-shirt, featuring a sword-wielding woman in what might be best described as "samurai bikini armor." Not very practical, but it fit the samurai theme I've given to my hobgoblins in this campaign, and it gave me an excuse to wear the shirt (which is not, I should add, one of my wife's favorites among my T-shirt collection).
PC Roster:
Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 11
Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 5
Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 5/paladin 6
Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 6/rogue 5
Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 11
NPC Roster:
Kagorak, hobgoblin samurai 10
Rugodal, hobgoblin samurai 10
Game Session Date: 17 June 2023
- - -
The five dreamwalkers were each given their own guest quarters at Castle Devlin, five adjacent rooms in the same hallway, with a guard at either end. "Guest quarters" or not, it was fairly obvious the heroes were not to be leaving the castle until King Eovard made his decision the following morning.
There was a knock upon Thurloe's door. He got up, crossed the room, and opened the door, to find nobody there. Sticking his head out into the hallway, he was accosted by the gnome Knobgobble, still in his full jester gear, jumping out at him from one side of the door and yelling "Boo!" as he struck the spellsword in the chest with his little stick, upon which was a smaller version of his own grinning face.
"What do you want, Knobgobble?" asked Thurloe wearily. "I'm not after your job."
The gnome's face fell, as that was the joke he had been planning on using against the foolish human with the wagging tongue. "Well, that's a relief," he said, his mind immediately switching gears. "The king already has one Royal Fool - he doesn't need another. By the way, did you have any official training in a Fool School, or are you just a natural-born idiot?"
"Look, I get that I wasn't as diplomatic as I maybe should have been, but what I said was true."
"True, yes. Stupid to have pointed it out to the most powerful man on the continent: also true."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. So what do you want?"
"Two things. First, I thought this might come in handy." The gnome passed over a book entitled Rules of Etiquette. Flipping through it, Thurloe noted each and every page had the same message on it, printed in large letters: "Don't be a doofus." He tossed it aside onto a nearby table. Not having gotten the reaction he'd been hoping for, Knobgobble pressed on. "Secondly, I wanted to give you some good news to cheer you up. The king is a kind-hearted man; I can almost guarantee that your four friends will all go to bed tomorrow with their heads still attached to their necks." He waited a moment to get a reaction, and when none came, he prompted, "You, however...."
"Noted," replied Thurloe, shutting the door in the jester's face. He heard the jingle bells in the gnome's three-pointed hat recede down the hallway as he returned to his brooding in the stuffed chair in the sitting room he'd been furnished.
A few minutes later, there was another knock upon the door. Fuming, Thurloe stormed across the room and swung the door back open, snarling, "Look here, Knobgobble, I--" But then he choked back his words, for it wasn't the gnome standing in the doorway, it was two fierce-looking, gray-haired hobgoblins, each wearing ceremonial robes and a sort of armored vest over them with the Devlin crest up high over the left side of the chest. A long, curved sword hung from their belts, with a smaller one alongside it. Instinctively, Thurloe grabbed for his own bastard sword but it had been taken from him when he first entered the castle to see the king, and had yet to be returned. However, neither hobgoblin made a move for his own weapon, instead bowing in unison and asking if they could step inside for a private conversation. "Uh, sure," Thurloe said, stepping back to allow them to enter, part of him wondering if these two had been sent to kill him for his poorly thought-out observation to the king.
"My name is Rugodal," said one of the hobgoblins. "And I am Kagorak," replied the other. "We are in service to King Eovard Devlin, and we wish to discuss a possible threat to him with you."
"With me?" asked Thurloe. "Do you want to talk about this with the rest of my team?"
"If that is your desire," replied Kagorak, having assumed that as the biggest and strongest human male in the group of five dreamwalkers, Thurloe must obviously be in charge. The spellsword took a moment to knock on the other doors and gather everyone together in his sitting room. However, he did nothing to dissuade the hobgoblin samurai from their notion that he was in charge - he rather liked the assumption.
Rugodal took a moment to explain the situation among the hobgoblins. "It was several thousand years ago that humans first arrived on Armaturia," he said. "Back in those days, hobgoblins were one of the prominent races, equal in numbers with elves, dwarves, orcs, and goblins. But the humans spread out in great numbers, conquering all before them. The orcs were driven back into the desert at the center of the continent, where they remain to this day. The dwarves mostly retreated to their underground cities, and the elves to the Sylvanholme Forest. The goblins were all but wiped out, those allowed to remain working as servants or at menial jobs in the larger human cities. And the hobgoblins would have been wiped out as well, slain to the last member, had it not been for the Devlin family. They have allowed a small number of us to live, the males to be trained in the arts of war if they are deemed worthy, or sent to work in the mines if they are not."
"What about the females?" interjected Alewyth.
"They live in their own compound," Kagorak answered. "There they grow crops and fruits, and raise the next generation of hobgoblins. Soldiers who have served the king are assigned a mate and allowed to spend time with her between duty rotations."
"Lovely," scoffed the dwarf.
"It is a just system," argued Rugodal. "We hobgoblins are allowed to live, when we could easily have been wiped out millennia ago. In return, we willingly serve the Devlin lineage loyally."
"But not willingly," pointed out Zander. "Not if your women are forced to live in a compound."
"Things are as they are for a reason, even if that reason is not known," replied Kagorak. It sounded very much like he was reciting a hobgoblin creed.
But Thurloe was getting tired of ancient history. "So what's this about a threat to the king?"
"There have been rumors of an attack upon the king, and possibly of an uprising among the miners. We do not know any of the details, but the mood seems as if it's soon to occur."
"And you would like us to...?" prompted Xandro.
"We understand you have mighty magics," Kagorak replied. "We would like to give you a tour of the mines, and see if you can discover the threat to the king."
"We don't have our weapons," pointed out Thurloe. "And I don't think the guards in the hallway are going to let us leave this area."
"They will if we accompany you. We are the two highest-ranking hobgoblins in the king's service; that is why we wield the ancestral katana." Kagorak gripped the hilt of his curved sword, as the heroes seemed unfamiliar with the foreign term.
"Then sure," replied Thurloe, wanting them to carry on their belief that he was in charge. "Bring us our weapons and we'll be happy to give the mine a check-out."
The two samurai left, promising to return soon with the heroes' confiscated weapons. "What do you think?" asked Thurloe after they had left.
"I'm not sure I approve of the hobgoblin encampments," replied Alewyth. "It sounds like they're little more than slaves."
"They seem okay with it, though," pointed out Xandro. "They seem to have an 'it is what it is' mentality about their conditions - fatalism."
"But if there are rumors of a hobgoblin uprising or an assassination of the king," Wakuren pointed out, "it would seem like not all of the hobgoblins share that fatalistic attitude."
Once the samurai returned with the weapons, they led the way to the mines, explaining to the human guards that the five guests would be under samurai escort the entire time, which seemed to placate them enough to let everyone pass. They headed to the far end of the castle and entered a long, straight passageway lit every 50 feet or so by an everburning torch attached to the wall. Kagorak explained they were inside one of the walls flanking the castle, but that it extended past the castle walls into the ground beneath, for there was an almost imperceptible drop in elevation as they continued down the passageway.
Eventually, the monotony of the seemingly endless corridor was broken up by a wooden door to the right, but Kagorak and Rugodal continued right past it. "What's this?" asked Alewyth, indicating the door.
"The women's encampment," Kagorak replied, walking past it. "The mines are further ahead." Alewyth shrugged and continued on in their wake, the others following. But then Thurloe cocked his head to the side. "What was that?" he asked.
"What was what?" returned Zander. "You hear something?"
"Sounded like a scream," Thurloe replied, opening the door and stepping into a guard room. A flustered human guard stood up from his seat behind a table big enough for two people. "Who are you?" he stammered. "You're not supposed to be here!" There was a closed door behind him and two more along the left wall, behind which could be heard the sounds of a slap upon naked flesh and an angry growl demanding obedience. There was another scream - and this time, everyone could clearly hear it.
"Just a disciplinary action, nothing to be concerned about," offered up the guard. "You should all leave." But then his face blanched when the two hobgoblin samurai stepped into the room. "Uh..." the guard began, but Thurloe crossed the room and opened the door from where the screams were coming, exposing a short flight of stairs leading up and a short corridor which held two other wooden doors. The screams were coming from behind the closest door, so the spellsword pushed it open, revealing another human guard with his pants around his ankles, bending over a young hobgoblin girl seemingly in her mid-teens trying to fight him off while pinned on the bed by his body. "Quit struggling," the guard chided, not having noticed Thurloe behind him. "The sooner you accept that this is gonna happen, the better off you'll--WHOOF!" His admonitions to his prey came to an abrupt stop when Thurloe sent a closed fist ramming into his lower belly. He staggered back a step or two - managing not to trip over his lowered pants - and the hobgoblin took the opportunity to cover her naked body with the bedding.
Alewyth was in the room next in a flash, interposing herself between the human guard and his hobgoblin victim, Sjondra in hand in case it was needed - and the dwarven priestess rather hoped it was needed. But Thurloe had the situation well in hand, bringing the guard down with a few well-placed punches rather than cut him up with his bastard sword, as he really would have preferred. But then the samurai were in the room, ensuring no human guard was killed by anyone for which they had taken responsibility. Fortunately, the guard in the conjugal visit room was in no shape to fight back and the other guard, seeing the odds, handed over his sword to Kagorak without a struggle. "Our tour will have to be delayed," apologized Rugodal. "These two must be turned over to the castle guard."
"By all means," Alewyth agreed on behalf of the group, helping the hobgoblin girl back into her torn clothes.
A new set of guards was sent to take the place of the two who had apparently decided taking liberty with their charges was a perk of the job. These two new ones seemed disgusted by the actions of the previous pair, and the two samurai deemed them safe to remain on duty guarding the entry point to the female hobgoblin encampment. "Come," decided Kagorak. "Let us continue on to the mines."
"If this kind of thing goes on regularly," pointed out Xandro, "it's no wonder you have a potential hobgoblin uprising on your hands."
"This has not happened before, to my knowledge," replied Rugodal. "And the rumors have started among the miners, not the women. There is very little contact between the two camps, so it's unlikely the miners would have known about any...transgressions made by the human guards."
"Plus, you can bet those two probably threatened their victims with death if they told anyone else what had been going on," suggested Zander. Kagorak promised the other hobgoblin women would be interviewed to see if the two offenders had interfered with anyone else.
Right before the entrance to the mines, Thurloe halted the group for a quick discussion. The samurai waited patiently as the five heroes made their plans and preparations. It was decided Wakuren's ring of invisibility would be put into play, but rather than having the half-orc use it, he passed it over to Xandro. The bard cast a tongues spell upon himself so he'd be able to speak - but more importantly, understand - the hobgoblin language so he could hear what the miners said among themselves when they thought there were no others present. Zander passed over his scout's headband and instructed Xandro on its use, so the bard could activate its darkvision abilities - the hobgoblin miners all could see perfectly well in pitch blackness, as could Alewyth and Wakuren, but this way Xandro could follow if the miners entered an area without the moveable everburning torches in the mines that allowed the human guards to see.
After that, the standard wave of spellcasting began. Alewyth cast a prayer spell upon the group, to include Kagorak and Rugodal. Thurloe used his wand to grant himself the effects of a shield spell, and Wakuren cast an air walk spell upon Xandro. As for the bard, he further imbued himself with a heroism spell, accepted a potion of haste from Alewyth to be consumed if needed, and also wore the gem that Wakuren normally wore upon his brow, through which Alewyth could see once she activated the magic amulet linked to it. Usually, the set was used while the others were inside Hesperna's lamp and the half-orc carried it around, but this way Alewyth could keep visual tabs on Xandro, since the plan was for him to split off from the rest of the group. Zander cast a detect magic spell so he could see if any of the miners had somehow managed to get hold of a magic item. And then Thurloe nodded their readiness to the samurai.
They continued on, opening a door and stepping through to stand before a human guard. The samurai explained they were giving a tour of the mines to four of the king's visitors (for by this time Xandro was invisible and lagging at the back of the group) and their standing in the hobgoblin community and as the king's two top hobgoblin warriors allowed them passage into the mines. "What do you mine here?" asked Thurloe, already playing the part of an interested visitor. "Iron ore," was the guard's reply as Kagorak and Rugodal ushered them inside. Wakuren was concentrating on detecting evil in the auras of those in the area, fully expecting the hobgoblins to project evil auras - even the samurai - but wanting to know if there were any additional sources of evil unaccounted for, like perhaps that of an invisible ally to the miners, one prompting them to try to overthrow their human masters.
There were six bunkrooms for the miners, each holding 11 cots; two of the rooms were occupied by sleeping miners, the other 44 hobgoblins were either on shift in the mines or enjoying their off time. The group talked to a few of these off-duty miners, some of which had gathered to roll dice in a corner of their room. Zander asked them how the conditions were in the mine and got noncommittal answers, but then realized the mines were all these hobgoblins ever knew, after having been deemed unworthy to be trained in the fighting arts to serve as a part of King Eovard's forces. Alewyth came to the unnerving realization that the miners were all staring at her, sneaking glances her way when they thought she wasn't looking, and then figured they didn't get a whole lot of opportunities to see a woman down here in the mines - of any race.
Xandro hung about after the others had moved on, eager to hear what the hobgoblins might have to say; maybe he'd get lucky and they'd talk about their plans for an uprising. But their discussion was mostly about Alewyth, predominantly an appreciation for her curves and an argument about what race she was. "She's an elf!" insisted one miner, who had never seen an elf before. "She's a dwarf!" argued another, who was similarly hampered by never having seen a dwarf before, either. That brought up questions about what race Zander had been, because he obviously wasn't the same race as the "hot chick," what with the pointed ears and all; the general consensus was that pointed ears definitely went with either dwarves or elves, only the miners couldn't remember which race applied. As for Wakuren, he looked different enough not to have been a human, but what race he was had the miners all confused - they'd never seen an orc before, let alone a half-orc. In the end, they decided it didn't matter if the "hot chick" was an elf or a dwarf, she was still hot. Smirking quietly to himself (and eager to repeat their suppositions to Alewyth when he got the chance), Xandro moved on. He caught up with the rest of the group right as they were about to enter the mines proper, and snuck through the opened doors to the guard station, where the samurai once again explained about the king's four important visitors being given a tour. That was enough to gain them entry, and Xandro snuck through the double doors to the main mine before the two human guards closed them up again.
Inside, the mine was a beehive of activity. There was a central chamber, from which two wide tunnels extended, one leading to the various mine shafts where the hobgoblins dug for iron ore, and another that led to where the wheelbarrows of ore were parked before being brought into the inspection area. The group split up and talked to a few of the miners - who were more than happy to talk to strangers as long as the samurai were there saying it was okay to do so; it just meant an unscheduled break from digging at the stone walls with picks and shovels or gathering up the unearthed ore and placing them in wheelbarrows. There seemed to be three iron wheelbarrows at each shaft, each with wooden handles and holding one of three materials: iron ore, worthless stone, or a strange crystal of a whitish color. Alewyth, having been raised in a dwarven city in the Underdark where mining was a big part of everyday life, identified the crystal as "drunge," virtually worthless due to its weak composition - dwarves often crushed drunge crystals in their bare hands just to show that they could.
As they got farther away from the main cavern - which, like the tunnels and shafts, was only about eight feet tall, the bare minimum height needed for a hobgoblin to swing a pick overhead - Thurloe began to get nervous, not from a claustrophobic sense but rather from his general mistrust of people he didn't know well. This was even worse, for he well knew - and Wakuren confirmed it - that the miners and the two samurai were all inherently of an evil nature; was this some sort of trap, to lure the heroes into a place where they could be slain and their bodies disposed of? It would be easy enough to do, for there was an orange glow coming from the end of a sloping shaft that apparently led to a pool of magma; the miners claimed that was where they tossed their unearthed rock and drunge crystals, and while that might very well be true it would also be a good place to dispose of unwanted bodies. But then Thurloe took a moment and thought it over: the current decision was whether to make the dreamwalkers stay at the castle permanently in case they were ever needed again or allow them to return to their dream-waking duties elsewhere on the continent. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to kill off the only five people proven to be able to awaken dream victims when nobody else could, did it? The spellsword tried to relax, but his logic had a difficult time persuading his fears.
Zander thought he might have picked up on some subterfuge when he overheard one miner mention excitedly "Tomorrow's the day!" to another, but when asked to explain, it turned out the next day was simply "produce day" - the one day of the week when the miners' simple fare was enhanced by fruits and vegetables grown in the gardens tended by the hobgoblin females. All of the miners, it turned out, looked forward to "produce day."
Wakuren, following a hunch, tread cautiously down the tunnel leading to the magma pool. It got hotter and hotter the closer he approached, to the point his metal armor began to get uncomfortably warm where it touched his skin. But he saw a thin miner standing alone upon a strip of stone overlooking the pool of magma. He leaned over the iron wheelbarrow before him and picked up a drunge crystal, holding it up above his head like a dolphin tamer about to throw a fish to a dolphin. "Who's hungry for some drunge?" called out the miner, and before long a massive head popped up from the magma pool, liquid lava spilling down the sides of its head without harming it in the least. "There you are!" cried the miner, flinging the crystal in the worm's direction and watching as it snatched it up in midair.
The miner, Burkin, reached down and picked up another drunge crystal. A second head popped up from the magma pool, mouth open wide in anticipation of a treat. The hobgoblin complied, tossing it over. "I hope this doesn't spoil your appetites too much, because you're going to want to be plenty hungry tomorrow - that's the big day!" Wakuren, eavesdropping from around the corner, was fairly certain the lanky miner wasn't referring to produce day. He was also glad the miner's comments were expressed in the Common tongue, for the half-orc knew none of the Hobgoblin language and as far as he knew Xandro wasn't nearby to provide translation.
Wakuren crept silently back up the sloping passageway, for he'd heard enough and his armor was getting unbearably hot. He told Thurloe and the two samurai what he'd overheard, and the samurai went to go drag a protesting Burkin back away from his duties. Surprisingly, the two magma worms remained where they were in the pool, waiting to be fed even though there was a wheelbarrow full of drunge crystals right there before them.
Kagorak and Rugodal led the interrogation, demanding to know what Burkin was up to, but he professed ignorance. "What do you mean?" he asked. "I'm just doing my job - getting rid of the drunge crystals, like I'm supposed to!" When pressed about the magma worms, he said they'd just suddenly appeared a few months ago, but they didn't seem to want to do anyone any harm. "They're my friends," Burkin insisted. A quick poll among the other miners showed none of them were aware of the worms' presence in the mines, not surprising since Burkin, who was slightly lame in his left foot and walked with a limp, was routinely handed the "drudge jobs' to be done around the mine, like dumping the rocks and drunge in the magma pool and fetching fresh water from the pump at the women's quarters.
"I don't like it," insisted Wakuren. "It seems like they're being trained to eat drunge crystals - it would be easy enough to place a drunge crystal by the king and have a magma worm devour him to get to the crystal."
"I didn't have to train them," argued Burkin. "They just like drunge! And they've never tried to eat me, and I bring them drunge crystals all the time!"
"And yet they don't even seem to realize the drunge crystals are there until you take it out of the wheelbarrow," observed Wakuren. Then it struck him. "They can't detect drunge when it's close to iron! And the wheelbarrows are made of iron!"
"That don't prove nuthin'," muttered Burkin, but Wakuren was certain he'd hit upon the main point of the plot: get the magma worms to devour the king by placing drunge around him. But it wasn't like Burkin, a half-lame hobgoblin miner, had any access to King Eovard. "We need to question him inside a zone of truth spell," the half-orc announced. When the other heroes admitted none of them had access to the spell, Rugodal asserted the king had access to clerics who could cast the spell. "I'm not saying anything more," Burkin said, crossing his arms and remaining stubbornly silent. The samurai dragged him back to the guard station, where he was placed in shackles and sat in the corner where the two human guards could keep an eye on him while the heroes decided what to do next.
"Well," pointed out Xandro's voice from nearby, indicating he'd heard the discussion thus far, "it seems like if we kill the magma worms, there'll be no living weapons to use against the king."
That was quickly decided as the way to go, but Wakuren advised against fighting them there in the magma pool, where those in metal armor would quickly feel the effects of proximity to that much heat. Instead, they opted to lure the magma worms out into the mines' tunnels. Fortunately, the main tunnel leading to the magma pool chamber was east-to-west, allowing separate tunnels to branch off from it either to the north or south. Clear out the miners, place a hero or samurai in the side tunnels, and let the magma worms pass by before attacking them from the sides, and they should be able to make quick work of them. And as luck would have it, they had plenty of bait at hand by which to lure the magma worms out of their pool....
Zander cast a haste spell upon the seven would-be worm-slayers, while Alewyth grabbed up the three potions of resist fire they'd been given by Hadrian Pascobelli after they'd rid his home of devils. It was eventually decided the potions would go to Wakuren, Thurloe, and Xandro, who gladly drank them down. Zander provided stoneskin spells to Alewyth and Wakuren, and the half-orc cast a freedom of movement spell upon himself to prevent the worms from being able to swallow him down whole. Finally, they all took their positions in one of the side tunnels, Zander opting to remain in the thicker tunnel that led to the wide cavern to the north. And Wakuren decided he would be the bait, stuffing drunge crystals in his belt and pouches before heading down the passageway leading to the magma pool.
He didn't make it all of the way down the sloping passageway before the magma worms were heading his way. He backed up quickly, dropping a drunge crystal onto the stone floor before him. Pouncing upon it, the lead worm bit down and swallowed the delicious drunge, taking out a part of the floor with it. Wakuren backed up even further, dropping another crystal at his feet, and the second worm got this one by burrowing beneath the tunnel and popping up beneath the drunge, flaming mouth engulfing it in one bite. The two worms jockeyed back and forth for position, for their bodies nearly completely filled the carved corridors down which they traversed, and the second worm often had to burrow its own path through the solid stone.
But eventually the worm in the corridor passed by the side tunnels in which the heroes had been preparing to attack. Xandro had been playing his song of inspirational courage on his Dardolian Lute for the group while waiting for the worms to make their appearance, and his song enhanced their strikes when the time came. The hobgoblin samurai sent their flashing katanas cutting deep into flaming worm-flesh, and Thurloe followed suit with Spellslicer. Xandro stashed his lute and brought Deathwhisper to bear once the worm blocked the passage from the tunnel in which he stood to the main corridor. Alewyth brought Sjondra crashing into the lead worm's side as soon as she could no longer see the creature's head, for she didn't want it able to swing by and try to bite her, something the cramped quarters of the tunnel prevented. But it was Zander's cone of cold spell which really caused damage to the magma worm, for its fiery body was not well suited to deal with the frigid cold of the sorcerer's spell.
Wakuren had, by this time, made it to the end of the main tunnel and had a worm bearing down on him. Zander slew it with another cone of cold spell and it stopped where it lay, now a slowly-cooling corpse that blocked most of the heroes, trapping them in their side tunnels. The samurai continued on with their attacks, well aware of the worm's demise but now trying to cut their way to freedom. Xandro, with no other way to contribute, picked his Dardolian Lute back up and pressed on with his song.
But the second worm popped its head up out of the floor just in front of the head of its slain counterpart, snapping at Wakuren, who still had some drunge on his person. Thurloe jumped up as high as he could, allowing him to see over the top of the dead worm's body and into the wide tunnel leading north, where Zander had stationed himself. Activating his anklet of translocation, he dimension doored himself to the sorcerer's side.
The worm bit at Wakuren but couldn't seem to get the slippery half-orc to slide down its maw into its gullet. Furthermore, the cleric/paladin seemed unfazed by the heat the magma worm was generating. Zander was just barely able to catch a glimpse of this second worm past the head of the slain one, but that was all he needed to be able to target a magic missile spell its way. Alewyth climbed past the dead worm's jagged, protruding teeth (burning herself in the process, for while the slain worm's body was cooling, it was still plenty hot at the moment), and stood just behind the second worm's head where it projected out of the corridor floor. She brought Sjondra down hard upon the back of the worm's head, wishing it had a skull she could crush.
Wakuren channeled all of his strength into a series of blows with his shield of Cal, slamming the worm's head again and again. While the two hobgoblin samurai continued carving their way into the body of the slain worm, Thurloe followed Zander's strategy and sent a magic missile spell slamming into the part of the living worm he could see past the body of the dead one. The worm ignored all of these attacks, mindlessly still trying to gobble down Wakuren, but his potion of fire resistance and his freedom of movement spell were preventing him from being swallowed. Zander cast another magic missile spell at it, Alewyth kept up the attacks with Sjondra, and eventually Wakuren brought it down with repeated slams of his shield. Then they had two dead worms with which to contend, and digging everyone out to freedom took well over an hour - and that only with the assistance of the hobgoblin miners. They were more than happy to help, for worm flesh was a bit easier to dig through than solid stone and iron ore, and the worm flesh would put something even more exciting than fresh fruits and vegetables on the menu for "produce day."
"We'll eat what we can while the eating's good, and toss the rest of the worms back into the magma pool before they start to decompose," suggested the lead miner on shift. "Don't want them stinking the place up."
Burkin was disconsolate when told they'd slain his worm "friends," but he resolutely refused to answer any questions about his plot against the king. A pair of guards hauled him away.
But Wakuren had another idea. "He may not answer questions here in the Waking World," the half-orc reasoned, "but he might let his guard down in the Dreamlands." That night, the five dreamwalkers entered Burkin's dreams. This was much easier than dealing with the dreams of someone in one of the Nightmare King's dream comas; they'd interacted with random dreamers on many occasions during their dreamwalker training with Mogo.
Wakuren approached Burkin in his dreams, having changed his appearance to be one of the two magma worms they had slain. "So," he said to the disgruntled hobgoblin miner, "tomorrow's the big day, huh?"
If Burkin was surprised to hear the magma worm talk aloud, it didn't register - this was dream logic, after all. "Yeah," agreed Burkin. "The king won't ever see it coming." He laughed in anticipation, imagining the look upon the human usurper's face when the magma worms closed in him.
"So, where is it going to take place?" asked Wakuren-as-magma-worm.
"In the gardens," smirked Burkin. "My accomplices will lay the crystals at his feet, and then you and your brother will do your thing. And with the king dead and the royal family all in an uproar, it will be the perfect time to strike! We'll be free once more, like we were thousands of years ago before the accursed humans took our place as the rulers of Armaturia!"
"Just me and my brother?" asked Wakuren.
"Why? Are there more of you?"
"Nope." But Wakuren had confirmed there weren't any other magma worms unaccounted for - that could have upset any plans they had for how to deal with this situation!
After determining that was about all they were going to get out of the sleeping Burkin, the dreamwalkers awakened from their dreamstalking and informed Rugodal and Kagorak of what they'd learned. "Very well," asserted Rugodal. "It's time we brought this to the king."
"And the behavior of his two guards," added Alewyth. She didn't want that getting overlooked.
And so it was the five dreamwalkers were invited to the king's inspection of the female hobgoblins' gardens the following morning. He'd been scheduled to look over the progress of their growing season, and he normally gave a little speech praising their efforts and reaffirming the importance of their work here in their compound. And all of that happened, at the end of which a few of the females said they had a special tribute for their king. King Eovard expressed surprise at the gesture, but lent his approval for them to continue. Four of the female hobgoblins went over to a corner of the garden, where a heavy iron chest had been hidden behind a berry bush. Struggling under its weight, they brought it before the king and opened it up. Then, upon a nod from their leader, the four hobgoblin women tipped the contents of the chest over, spilling drunge crystals at the king's feet. They then leapt back in unison, taking defensive stances that showed they'd had some training in the ancient martial arts of the hobgoblin race.
"Interesting," observed the king, picking up a drunge crystal and looking at it intently. "I assume Burkin has been delivering these, a few at a time, when he wheels his iron wheelbarrow up here to refill the water barrels for the mines from your pump." He tossed the drunge over at the feet of one of the monks, causing her to flinch and step away. "Oh, there's no need to fear," the king advised the leader of the plot against the king among the women's quarter. "The magma worms have been slain and Burkin has been taken into custody. You will be joining him shortly." And then King Eovard nodded to his human guards, who stepped forward to take the four monks into custody. On the platform above them, ringing the gardens, more human guards aimed their crossbows down at the monks. The monks' faces registered first shock, then acceptance, and they allowed themselves to be led away by the guards without resistance.
"And now, I have a special presentation to make," King Eovard announced. He nodded at his advisor, who opened a door leading into the gardens. In through this opened door strode a line of the king's soldiers, carrying several burdens between them. "I have some contributions to make to your compost pile," the king said, waving a hand to indicate where the soldiers should drop their burdens. They were the decapitated bodies of the two guards who had been making full use of the conjugal visit rooms, along with their severed heads. Each was dumped upon the compost pile, to the horrified expressions of the other hobgoblins in attendance. "What these two have done here is unforgivable, and they have paid for their crimes with their lives," the king continued. "I want you to know I will not tolerate such behavior, now or ever." His speech seemed to be aimed at the guards as well as the hobgoblin women. "Anyone who tries to duplicate the crimes of these two will be dealt an equally harsh sentence. And if anyone here wishes to come forth to report any prior attacks by any of my guards, you will be heard and the offending parties will be dealt with severely." King Eovard was glad to see nobody came forward; apparently the rot had only spread as far as the two guards who had already been dealt with.
"Very well then," he concluded. "Thank you for this visit to your lovely gardens." And with that, he led his procession - including the five dreamwalkers - back to the castle proper. Once there, he led them to the room in which they had first been brought before him, where their weapons (which had been returned after the conclusion of their visit to the mines) sat, along with five wooden chests. "I have decided to allow you to leave the castle and return to your duties," he proclaimed. "In addition, for having awakened my sister, the Princess Caroline, from her dreams when no other could, I hereby award you with 2,000 pieces of gold apiece from the royal treasury. However," he added, looking over specifically at Thurloe, "I would remind you that although you may bear fealty to this 'Queen of Dreams' while you dream, when awake you are my subjects, the same as any other in Armaturia."
"Yes, Your Majesty," replied Thurloe - he knew this was not the time for flippancy.
"In addition," declared Chaspertaine, the king's royal wizard, "here is an orb of mental renewal from my own laboratory, inscribed with the royal seal. It might be of use to you in your adventures." Alewyth took the proffered crystal orb from the royal wizard with polite thanks and stashed it away in her extradimensional chest of holding. Then, judging it to be prudent to do so, they waited until the king and his procession departed the room before gathering up their weapons. They were then led by a pair of castle guards back outside the castle, where they met back up with Scarlie and Robin, sitting in the wagon with the mules and riding mounts saddled up and ready to go.
"I missed you," Xandro told his protege.
"I missed you, too," replied Robin. "Anything exciting happen during your time with the king?"
Xandro just laughed. "I'll fill you in when we get back on the road," he promised.
- - -
This session stood out in one way: Joe returned to gaming with us, as he's now finished with his first year of college and is back home with his parents for the summer. So he's back to running Zander Quilson until school starts back up again in the fall.
- - -
T-shirt worn: My "Jade Warrior" T-shirt, featuring a sword-wielding woman in what might be best described as "samurai bikini armor." Not very practical, but it fit the samurai theme I've given to my hobgoblins in this campaign, and it gave me an excuse to wear the shirt (which is not, I should add, one of my wife's favorites among my T-shirt collection).
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