Most of Session #20 here...but no ending! Not yet, my precious!
Session #20: "The Bloody Skull"
RL evening of Oct 29, 2003
Down the adventurers went, down the narrow twisting stair, deep into the bowels of Alderslook. This was the second time within an hour that they were running down the stairs...but this time, they weren't chasing a few miserable goblins. They were chasing something that seemed to have come from the demonic abyss itself. A bloody, flayed creature, the leader of the goblin tribe, a monster named Calebbleed. It taunted them as they ran after it, sniping at them with its bow when they stopped to catch their breath. Riva had several new, poison-laced wounds from the bloody thing's black arrows to show for it.
Near the bottom of the stair, the group stopped again, just around a corner. They could hear below them the taunting of the demon-thing, as well as the muted whispers of his goblin horde. They paused and prepared. More healing potions were passed around. Rowan cast
Bull's Strength on Riva, Tieran magically
enlarged Kytum-up, and Riva tried out an heretofore unknown potion, and found that it, too, was of
enlargement magic. They were all still wounded from the previous battle, less than an hour before, but they were as ready as they could be.
Magically girded for battle, the party charged down the remainder of the stairs, out into the large room at it's base.
The goblins were ready for them, too. While many of the greasy little things clustered around the doorway, confining the party behind Riva, rows of goblin archers let loose their first volley of arrows. They flew thickly, but most failed to penetrate the towering dwarf's armor. He strode forward, his greataxe making great sweeps through the packed goblins. With a few more strokes, Riva cleared a path into the room, and Garret and Kytum-up charged out from behind him.
As Riva gave a feral grin to the goblins quaking in front of him, he heard a familiar arcane voice stab at him from across the room, from a source high up on the ceiling.
"Die!"
Riva, greataxe raised, looked up for a moment.....then slumped to the ground, unconscious, within easy reach of 6 goblins and their morning stars. It was their turn to grin.
Each of them struck at the prone dwarf. Crunch - Slash - Stab - Bam! Each of them hit solidly, inflicting savage wounds on Riva. And yet they could not kill him, even helpless as he was. In a moment, Riva shook off the magic, got to his feet amidst a new flurry of goblin swings, and went back to work: "Time to kill some more goblins!"
Garret nodded agreement, and charged again into the pack of them. Kytum-up held Riva's flank, his
enlarged sword and physique making short work of those goblins that tried to oppose him. Indeed, neither Garret nor Kytum-up had been wounded more than a little. Still, there were too many goblins.....
Rowan was doing her best to help. She had summoned a dire wolf, and added a regular-sized wolf for good measure. She loosed her snake companion, Asmathias, hoping it would be able to find that bloody demon-thing, Calebbleed. Then she turned herself into a bear, and lumbered into combat. (
Her first wildshape, ever!)
Behind the druid was Lissia and Thaile. They had set up the small ballista, and Lissia was shooting it as fast as they could load it. Thaile used what spare time she could find to dart in behind Riva to heal him.
He needed it.
On the far side of the room, opposite the adventurers, was a ledge, high up on the wall. Several goblin archers knelt there, goblin captains, with powerful bows and poisoned arrows. Calebbleed too, walking along the ceiling, used his bow. They shot arrow after arrow at the largest target, Riva. It was taking a toll.
Riva teetered on the edge of consciousness. Goblins barred his path to the archers. There were too many....
Then again there were arcane mutterings, but this time, from a side passage. And this time, instead of affecting Riva (who else but Riva?), the magic affected the goblins in melee with him; in an instant, four of them lay asleep in front of him. Riva glanced around for a moment before dispatching the goblins, but couldn't see the source of the helpful magic.
Thaile darted out again, and Riva felt a new wave of healing energy pass through him. Meanwhile Garret, Kytum-up, and Rowan carved their way forward. None of them had been able to get to Calebbleed,
spider climbing on the ceiling as he was, so they concentrated on those goblin captains on the ledge. Tieran, Lissia, and Thaile had been peppering them with cross-bow bolts, but they were hard to hit.
But the battle had turned. The few remaining goblins broke and fled, whichever way they could. The captains took their chances, and tried to climb down and run around the advancing heroes: one fell to his death, one was captured by Garret ("I surrender!"), and the third was able to escape back up the stairs. Yelling in frustration, Calebbleed dropped from his perch on the ceiling......and unfurled his wings!! He quickly flew out of the room, down a side passage the party had not yet explored.
The party to stock of their surroundings.
Below the abandoned goblin ledge, the adventurers could see three poles, each with a flayed, naked elf hung by the feet from it. The taste of bile filled the hero's mouths. While the rest of the party secured the room and bound their goblin captive, Thaile hurried over. Only one of the elves was still alive (and unconscious); a young elven woman, scalped, and the skin on her back freshly flayed. Blood pooled on the ground around the base of the post.
Thaile cut the elf down and tended to her. She had little healing magic to offer. As she bound the woman's back, she saw huge, fresh scars all along the woman's body. Their meaning was clear; this wretched elf had been flayed alive, magically healed, then flayed again. How long this had gone on.....Thaile shuddered. She was having difficulty concentrating on her healing tasks. She took a moment to seek solace in prayer to her god, Darmon the Wayfarer, traveler of roads both glorious and dark.
Garret had a grim look on his face.
"Riva, Tieran, Lissia; keep that passage covered that Calebbleed passed down. Thaile, you and Kytum-up keep that other passage covered; that's where most of the other goblins went. Rowan and I will take this third passage, and see if we can't root out the goblin that went that way. We're not leaving any goblins at our back when we go to get Calebbleed. Come on, prisoner, you're coming with me, to tell me what lies that way."
"My name is Glebesh," said the goblin captive, in well accented common. "That way is bad magic. You'll not be able to go that way, halfling."
Everyone looked at the tied up goblin, surprised.
"We'll see." Garret pushed Glebesh along.
Rowan said:
From the journals of Rowan, Druid of Eaglesford
We went down the corridor opposite from the one the Calebbleed had fled. There was some sort of magic here; it was some sort of magical fear, but I was able to shake it off, and Garret seemed unaffected. That "Holy Warrior of Morwyn" -thing, I bet.
Anyway, at the end of the passage we found ourselves in a circular chamber about 25 feet across. The back of the room had been gone over with stone-cutting tools, or something .... we shall have to have Riva take a look at that later. Two corridors led off of this large room, one to the right, the other to the left. I moved down the left corridor first, finding a large rectangular room with a stone bench around the edge. No goblin there, so I tried the room to the right. The room was the same except for the goblin cowering in the corner. Our captive Glebesh called out for him to surrender, but the greasy bugger chose to try to run past me. I killed him. Oh, I was still a bear and really enjoying it, I must say.
Back in the main room, Calebbleed kept popping around the end of the corridor and shooting at Riva. The bloody bastard had some sort of invisibility he could use, so he surprised Riva and Lissia a few times. Good thing Kytum-up was nearby to heal him.
As Garret, the captive, and I moved back to the main room, Glebesh told us that beyond the main room, in the direction the mass of goblins had fled were the "orcish bedrooms". He said there wasn't much to them. The other corridor led to the "orcish baths" (he snickered when he said this) and the throne room.
Calebbleed continued to shoot at them from the end of the other corridor, so all but Lissia and Thaile charged down the corridor after him. (Riva felt sure the magic of his
enlargement would end soon.)
Lissia and Thaile were told to keep an eye on
- the goblin captive Glebesh,
- the other corridor with all of the escaped but still healthy and armed goblins, and
- tend to the horribly wounded elven woman.
"No sweat," said Thaile.
The last of Session #20 to come!
