Commando Raid on the Goblin Tower!!!
Session #17: Safe within the tower?
(Session of RL Sept 17th, 2003)
"Wow. .....Look at the stonework," Riva mumbled.
The others crowded in behind him, safe within the entrance hall of the second tower. The hall cut 15 feet through the thick walls of the tower, then opened up into a circular room. Stairs swept both up and down along opposite edges of the room. Outside the passage, in the courtyard of Alderslook, a few stray goblin arrows plunged into the dirt. There were a few goblin yells and curses, then silence.
"Come on, Riva," said Garret as he and his canine mount brushed past the dwarven barbarian, "we'd better go up these stairs quickly, and take care of the rest of the goblins above us."
Riva shook his musings on the stone work from his head. "Up? No, no. Down. We should go down. We'll find the kobold's secret passage into their former home! We'll be away from the goblins there, and be able to rest up and get our bearings. ...And explore..." Riva turned his gaze down the stairs eagerly.
"Down? Are you serious?" Garret looked quizzically at the dwarf. "There are goblins above us, and I'll bet the stairs here lead up to the walls and perhaps to that first tower! We can't leave goblins
behind us!"
Thaile piped up, "I think we should head down. We came here to bring the idol back, not fight some greasy goblins." Her face wrinkled in disgust. "I can already smell them in here.....uggggg." Lissia nodded in agreement.
"We shouldn't leave known enemies at our backs," interjected Tieran. Kytum-up barked assent.
"..And once we find the goblins, they'll be fairly easy to take care of," continued Garret. "Their advantage was being protected in that tower! Without that, we should be able to rout them easily. Let's go up." Garret urged Bavic up the first few steps.
"I don't think that's a good idea," rumbled Riva, planting his feet solidly on the first stone step leading down.
The halfling and the dwarf stared at each other intently.
Still looking at Riva, Garret said, "Rowan? You're the tie-breaker. Three want to go up, three want to go down. You're the seventh. What do you think?"
All were quiet, as Rowan stirred uncomfortably in her robes. Her eyes squinted thoughtfully for a moment, then opened. "We'll go up. I know we need the rest, and we did come here to deliver the idol, just like Riva said. But I don't feel comfortable leaving those sneaky little buggers behind us as we go down. Can we go up, Riva?"
The dwarf clenched his jaw, then nodded curtly.
Rowan's face brightened even more. "Right. And I'll lead the way!" Rowan strode to the front of the party, lighting a torch as she did so.
*************
After a brief discussion, it was decided that Rowan, Thaile, and Tieran would do a quick reconisance upward, and then come back to tell what they had seen. The rest would stay below, to guard the ground floor entrance of the tower.
The stairs led up into a room much like the first floor: circular, with more stairs leading up. Scattered about were bits of rubble and junk. Like the floor below, there was a thick layer of dirt and mud on the floor....and there was also the "leavings" of goblins. Rowan accidently put her boot square in the middle of a small mound of the stuff. The place stank, and with no windows to allow air in.....the three adventurers quickly moved on up the stairs.
The next floor was much like the second, so the party hurried along. Rowan quickly noted in her journal: "The third floor same, circular room; empty except for debris and stinky goblin things best left untouched."
The fourth floor, however, was different. Two halls left this room, each openning out onto the top of the walls of Alderslook. There were 8 window openings as well, each stretching nearly 15 feet deep to pierce the tower's thick walls. They saw no goblins on either of the walkways outside, so they pushed on, up the stairs.
The next floor was the tower's last; the rest of the tower, that must have stretched far above them, had been knocked down long ago. (That anything could knock down a tower with a 15 foot thick wall continued to amaze them.) This floor had no roof, and the three could easily climb up upon the jagged remains of the tower's wall.
Thaile climbed onto the wall closest to the first tower. The first tower, the one the goblins were in, had more of it destroyed; the top of it was lower than she was. On the first tower's wall, above the door from off the rampart, Thaile saw three goblins crouched, holding between them a large barrel. It took her but a moment to figure out that this barrel was positioned to drop on any that came to the first tower's door from the wall's causeway.
Carefully picking her way back down, Thaile motioned the others to rejoin her within the second tower. The three adventurers talked over Thaile's discovery as they walked down the four flights of stairs to rejoin the others. They talked at length about their options, then desided to climb the tower.....
From the journals of Rowan, Druid of Eaglesford
Riva led up the stairs with Garrett close behind. As they moved up, Riva heard some noises, scuffling sounds from above. Tieran cast Mirror Image on himself and bravely strode up ahead of the dwarf and paladin to face the goblins on the fourth level. There were three of them and Tieran killed one right off with his burning hands spell. He injured the others. The two survivors threw vials of alchemist’s fire at the floor at Tieran's feet, injuring him a bit. But now there was a big fire between the rest of us and Tieran!
I ran up to bash one of the goblins. I jumped over the flaming area of the floor and missed the goblin with my quarterstaff. Riva jumped over the flames behind me and whacked at the goblin too, but missed. The goblin, now facing me and Riva tried to escape by jumping into the stairwell. He found himself face to face with Bavic, who killed him with a quick bite. That left only one more little goblin who I managed to finish off with my staff, since he had been injured by Tieran’s spell.
We moved upward to the fifth floor. Thaile moved to the walls to peek over and see what was happening on the other tower. She was less well hidden this time and found herself the target of several arrows as she got to the top of the wall. So, Thaile, Tieran, Lissia, and I started working to pick them off. Unfortunately, they were under cover, so there was a lot of shooting and not much hitting. Lissia did pick one off though. Thaile shot the barrel of stuff. (Tieran thought that it was probably oil in the barrel.)
After a bit, the goblins retreated down into their tower, so we moved back to the fourth floor where the others were. After a short discussion, we decided that our best course of action would be to charge the other tower and get the goblins that way.
So, across the ramparts to the other tower we went, Riva leading the charge! The oil was no longer a problem since the goblins were inside and not manning it. Our charge was ended abruptly when Riva fell into a big pit inside the tower. I was right behind him and managed to stop before tumbling in myself.
This first tower was the one from which the goblins had first attacked the adventurers as they crossed the courtyard below. The only entrance into it was from this wall, some 40 feet above the courtyard.
This tower was in much worse shape than the second tower. The inside had mostly collapsed and had filled with rubble. Since then, some one had removed much of the rubble from the inside closest to the entrance -- making a pit, inot which Riva has just fallen. On the other side of the pit was a low wall made of rubble. Goblin archers were hiding behind it, and now shooting at the party members in front: Rowan and Thaile, strangely enough. Garret and Tieran stood helpfully in back, almost completely out of the fight.
continued from the journals of Rowan, Druid of Eaglesford.
I wanted to get out of the doorway and tried to move across the narrow ledge to the window adjacent to the door. I froze on the ledge, making myself a wonderful target for goblin arrows. (I'm glad most of them missed!) Thaile and Lissia took shots at the goblins, but missed.
Riva tried to climb back up and would have made it if there hadn’t been a goblin spell caster (probably a cleric) about who dazed him (I think) causing him to fall back down with a resounding crash. Thaile and Lissia missed the goblins again, Riva climbed out of the pit and was shot with an arrow and, once again, dazed. He didn't fall in a third time, thankfully.
I managed to gain the relative safety of the window opening and loosed my snake Asmathias to help deal with the goblins. Then I summoned a dire rat to help with the goblins.
Riva came out of the daze and went after the nearest goblin, who had decided that it was time to get out of there. He did not make it, Riva managed to turn him into a slimy, smelly paste. The rat ran after one of the goblins, killing him as he tried to escape the tower via a rope spiked into one of the windows. The third one escaped down a similar rope from another window. Up on top of the tower, Asmathias found and killed a goblin, then headed for the goblin cleric. The rat also climbed up to go after him.
Another goblin snuck up on Garret and Tieran, who were outside the tower. He apparently drank some sort of potion, and then threw up all over Garret, his war dog Bavic, and Tieran. Then this stuff vaporized into some sort of fog. The fog dazed Garrett; Bavic however, was able to move out of the cloud with Garrett still mounted. The goblin ran off, with first Lissia and then Garret (recovered) chasing after him. They told me later that they got him.
Meanwhile, up on the top of the tower. Asmathias and the rat reached the clerical goblin -- who cast a fog spell of some kind. I couldn't see what was going on, so I grabbed a ladder and started to climb up where my snake and this goblin were fighting. I knew my summoned rat would be gone pretty quickly.
The goblin cleric tried to flee, using a rope ladder near the edge of the tower. He couldn’t go down though without opening himself up for a really good bite from Asmathias. I came over to help as they came out of the fog, but really was not much help..... I think the uneven footing must have thrown me off.
Anyway, to make a long story short, the goblin cleric knocked me out before succumbing himself to the multiple bites from my trusty serpent. He managed to hurt Asmathias quite a bit too.
When I became conscious again, Tieran was there, holding an empty vial and asking how I felt. I was a bit cross and said that if that cleric had anything of value on him I wanted it. I felt bad as soon as I said it, but the darned goblin had almost killed me!
I helped Tieran loot his stinky corpse and we found a lot of stuff, some scrolls, two rings, some infusions, a holy symbol with a twisted silver dagger on it, a really pretty red crystal hawk figurine, a morning star with the same twisted dagger symbol, and a masterwork breastplate and heavy shield, both "Empire made".
Thaile, Tieran, and Garrett all agreed that the goblin's holu symbol was of Canarak the god of destruction, violence and rage. Seemed like a likely god to be worshipped by the foul little creatures.
We decided that we needed to find a defensible place to rest for the night, and after some discussion, settled on the tower where the goblins had so effectively defended against us. I received some healing and Kytum-up kindly healed Asmathias, saying it was an honor for him to do so. He’s such a sweet little Kobold really, I am becoming quite fond of him.
Oh, in the tower, we found rope of Elven manufacture. Strange. We took it with us, no use letting it go to waste. (Why would the goblins have such high-quality rope? Where did they get it from?)
We set up watches and settled in for the night. On her watch, Thaile saw two figures in cloaks exiting the tower that we had explored earlier. She listened to their conversation and reported the following to us:
Medium sized man: "I don’t think they’re going to move."
Small sized man: "They'd better move. If the legionaries come we’ll lose our supply line. ...And then who will we sell to?"
Thaile later told us she thought she recognized the voices, or at least they were familiar in some way. After thinking for a while, she said she thinks that the voice of the smaller man might have been Ray Timbers, the former warden of Eaglesford! But why would he be involved? And the other man....could have been anyone, really...but it could have been Kenneth Brannen, the current Warden of Eaglesford. Garret kept nodding as we said this. (He never did like the Warden's crew, did he?)
And who's the "they" the men were refering to? Us? Garret didn't think so. He thinks the men meant the goblins, and that they are trading or dealing with them somehow.
In the end, as so often happens, none of us had any answers, only more questions.
More of session #17 to come!
