Journal of the Traveling Gnome

[JesterPoet]

Not necessarily the approach I would have taken not knowing what was on the other side, but it proved effective.

As soon as Gigantor entered the room I heard strained chatter in Goblin, as well as some broken common saying, “Big human, you save us. Much silver. Chief give big reward.”

Needless to say I did not feel this was something Banf could handle on his own.

Because I figured I would gain more information by speaking to these foul creatures in their own language I began speaking Goblin to the talkative one.

“The kobolds captured us. Locked us up in here. You can set us free and lead us to the chief. He’ll give you great rewards” the goblin promised”

“How long have you been in here” I asked.

“A couple days, a couple weeks. I don’t know” he replied.

I queried, “Why should I let you go? What purpose would that serve?”

“You will get much treasure in reward” he promised again.

I asked my companions to leave the room for a moment, and they surprisingly did. I pushed what was left of the door back into place and then pulled out my dagger and my bottle of ink. I dipped the dagger in the ink and showed it to the Goblin.

“One drop of this poison and you’ll be dead within hours,” I said to him. “I’m going to set you free from this room, but you will remain chained and I will stay with you. If you try anything, I will stab you and poison you. I promise you that, and my promise is more reliable than that of your kind” I warned.

He nodded and I went back outside and told the others I thought we should let him go, but keep him chained up with us. Gigantor went into the room and tried to pull the chain out of the wall, but couldn’t. Then the cleric and the elf told me they didn’t think we should let him go just yet.

“What the hell is your name?” I asked the cleric.

She looked at me quizzically and replied “Ellywick” to which I nodded and went on talking. “What do you two propose we do then?”

Ellywick and Ian suggested that we search some more before letting this guy go. “What do you think” I asked Banf. “I dunno” he replied. No surprise there I guess.

I went back in to the prison and told the goblins to be quiet and that we’d be back for them. They seemed to listen as they hushed up when I shut the door.

 

[JesterPoet]

I went back in to the prison and told the goblins to be quiet and that we’d be back for them. They seemed to listen as they hushed up when I shut the door.

We went over to the other room where we heard sound and before I could stop him, Gigantor tried opening the door. At least he didn’t start with his foot this time.

That didn’t keep him from trying his foot, however, when the door wouldn’t open. After he kicked the door (to no avail) we heard some gibberish that sounded like kobold coming from inside the room. I repeated it back as best as I could, but it didn’t seem to have any effect.

We decided to try to find another way into that room and made a long trek along the back side of it. We eventually came to a room with a door that felt cold to the touch, and had something about channeling written on it. Again, Lumpy felt uncomfortable, so I backed away from the door. I think I’ll let someone else figure that out. I doubt Banf will be able to kick it in.

Banf kicked in another door at the end of the hallway and a bell started going off. When I looked in the room I saw it was filled with caltrops, and there were three goblins with crossbows behind a barricade on the far side of the room.

“Was there a sale on crossbows up in town?” I asked them.

“Intruders!” They yelled back at me in Goblin, “You will not pass!”

It would appear that these goblins did not have much of a sense of humor. “Hold on, hold on” I shouted. “We found some of your friends held captive. If you kill us, we won’t be able to bring them safely to you.”

“You haven’t seen any of our companions. You lie. Prepare to die!” They shouted back. “Why should we believe you anyway?”

“If you believe us, we won’t have to kill you.” I told them matter-of-factly.

“You can’t kill us. You won’t even come close”

“This is useless” I shouted to Gigantor. “Shut the door.” He pulled the door shut and we went back to the captive goblins. They were still there when we got to their prison. “We’re going to set you free” I said. “Don’t try anything funny.”

I asked Ian to see if he could pick the lock with the fishhook Ellywick gave him. He wandered over and gave it a try. Unfortunately the lock wouldn’t open.

“Wonderful. Just wonderful!” I said to him. “Can’t even pick a lock.”

“I’d like to see you do it.” He said. “It’s not like I’ve done this before.”

I couldn’t believe this. “You haven’t done this before? What the hell kind of thief are you? You have no lockpicks, and you’ve never even tried to pick a lock?”

“I’m not a thief,” he said. “I’m a rogue.”

“What is the difference?” I shouted. “So you’re a rogue who can’t pick a lock! What use is a rogue who can’t pick a lock? You certainly aren’t battle-ready, look at you! If we ever get back to town, which we won’t if we encounter a door we desperately need to open that Gigantor can’t kick down, you had better start spending some serious time learning the intricate art of locksmithing!”

This conversation seemed to cause a bit of tension between Ian and me. I decided it might be a good time to leave him alone at this point. The human managed to lighten the tension a bit by smashing his way through the goblin’s chain with a rusty sword. With the goblin (who told us his name was Racko) in tow, we headed toward the “Goblin Chief.”

Racko pointed us to a door that Banf promptly kicked down. “There’s a pit in the middle of this room” Racko warned us. “There’s a catwalk in the middle that you can walk across.”

Ian carefully made his way up to the pit and knocked away everything but the catwalk, and we walked across it, Racko leading the way. Gigantor kicked down two more doors and Racko told us there were goblin sentries in the next room.

I told him to open the door and tell them what was going on. Racko opened the door and said, “I have been freed by adventurers. I am taking them to see the chief”

“Nobody will see the chief.” said one of the sentries. “Tell them to let you go!”

At this point I stepped up next to Racko and spoke to the sentries myself, “We have rescued this prisoner. If you let us through we will talk to the chief and take you to the rest of them.”

They didn’t seem too interested in talking, as they promptly opened fire on me.

As I took a crossbow bolt to the chest and fell to my knees I remember thinking, “I hope they hit that little bastard Racko.” I must have passed out after that because the next thing I remember is being dragged into the room I am in presently, whereupon I passed out again. We are now resting, and I wanted to get this all down before I forget anything. Now I will rest.

 

[Urbanmech]

Go gnomes! There need to be more stories from gnomes. We have lots of dwarves, elves, humans and halflings but not enough gnomes. Keep up the good work.

 

[JesterPoet]

06/10
After some much needed rest, a little patching up of my wounds using honey and the healing salves and bandages I keep in my pack, and some serious discussion, we decided to continue on. It was clear, at this point, that Racko had very little pull among the goblins, and would not be much help to us. This being the case, we decided to try the Kobolds.

It was a long shot... but it just might work.

We dragged Racko back to the prison we found him in. He was not keen on going back in, so we decided to keep him with us a little bit longer.

Then, an idea struck me. I knew how we could get to the kobolds. The only hitch was the language barrier. Nobody in our party knew any of the kobold language, but it seemed certain that one of them would at least know Common or Goblin.

And so we banged on the door of what we assumed to be the prison guards...

The first thing that came out was a stream of an unintelligible language that I can only assume was kobold. I shouted back in goblin (as I thought that would be our best chance), "We have come to turn over goblin prisoners and discuss an agreement to rid you of your goblin problem!"

The reply that came was a shorter stream of kobold gibberish. This disheartened me, as it appeared they did not speak the language. Yet, as I readied myself to try again in Common, I heard another voice respond in broken Goblin, "What you want?"

"We are adventurers," I replied, "We have goblin prisoners we wish to trade in exchange for your help to clear the goblin filth from this, your citadel."

"We know you. You come from city and kill our friends."

"Yes," I replied, "Unfortunately we have killed some of your friends because they attacked us. We had no desire to kill you, we only wanted to kill goblins."

"We no have numbers. You kill everyone. We not help you. You go."

My disappointment became obvious at this point, which did not help our case, "We can help you. We need the same thing. By tomorrow you will not have to worry about goblins again."

But it appears my attempt was not successful. No more voices came from behind the barricaded door.

 

[JesterPoet]

6/11
After another day's rest to try to heighten both our strength and our spirits, we decided to take one more shot at the goblins. We dragged Racko back to the barricade where the goblins held us off last time.

This time we pulled no punches with the goblins behind the barricade. Banf pulled the door open and I dropped them with a quick sleep incantation. There were no problems there.

We cleared out the caltrops and tied up the two sleeping goblins. We dragged Racko around the corner where there was another group of goblins guarding the tunnel.

At this point I was fed up. I turned to Racko. I reached into my pack and pulled out the needle and ink that I had previously told him was poison. I dipped the needle into the ink, and pricked his arm with it.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" he screamed loudly. I should have anticipated this, but I didn't. His screaming clearly unnerved the goblins around the corner, as they were starting to stir. I knew we didn't have a lot of time.

"Cover his mouth, NOW!" I shouted at Banf. Gigantor did as I said, though the whole party looked quite perplexed at the whole situation. "Look, Racko," I said, "Here's the situation. That poison will kill you within 24 hours. I have the antidote, and without it you will surely die. You say you are friendly with the goblin chief. I hope you're telling the truth. Right now that is the only thing that can save your life. Go to your chief. Get him to grant our clearance to see him. If you come back to me within the 24 hours, I will go get your antidote..." Racko's eyes widened. "Oh, don't worry. Your antidote is in the citadel, but I have hidden it. So don't try any tricks. I'm the only one who knows where it is. If I don't live, you most definitely don't. You may find it, but not before 24 hours are up. Better go... you're running out of time. Let him go Gigantor!"

As soon as Banf released Racko he ran down the hallway.

"Now all we have to do is wait." I said to the party as I settled down against the wall...

 

[JesterPoet]

06/12

...and wait we did. 24 hours went by and Racko never returned. What seemed like a great plan was crumbling before my very eyes. Not only did we not get past the guards (who long ago had settled back down) but we had lost our prisoner. And while it was true that we had other goblin prisoners, Racko was at least as trustworthy as a goblin could be. And at least he could speak common if the others needed something from him while I wasn't around.

I, however, was not about to let the party see that I was disheartened.

"Well, that's that." I said. "He's obviously not coming back. There's only one thing left to do-"

"Yes," Banf growled, "Storm in there and kill what is left of the goblins. We'll start with these!" he shouted as he began to run around the corner.

Ellywick, however, grabbed his shirt and shouted, "Wait!" Banf stopped. "There is a lot of the citadel left to explore," she said. "Why don't we go back and check the other hallway off the entry to the citadel. There's bound to be something important back there!"

After a brief discussion, we were off. We headed to the rotunda and entered the far hallway...

 

[JesterPoet]

After travelling a little bit down the hallway off the rotunda, we passed into a room with a large dragon carved into it. It seemed obvious at this point that we needed to use the key that we found after killing the Kobold Queen. I pulled the key out of my pack and unlocked the door.

We entered into a large room. The room had alcoves on either side in which there were pedestals. On these pedestals we found glass orbs. All but one of the orbs were cracked and covered in dust, but one orb was whole and still glowing.

The elf, who, like a weasel, seems attracted to anything shiny, immediately moved to pick up the glowing orb.

As soon as he touched it, however, it began emitting eerie music. Our two goblin captives were the first to be unnerved by the sound. They began pulling at the ropes on Banf's belt to get away. Luckily for them, Banf wasn't too keen on staying either. He immediately bolted from the room.

Ian and I were not far behind. The music just seemed to get to me. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't keep my legs from carrying me out of the room.

Luckily, Ellywick showed true gnomish strength by striding purposefully up to the orb and snagging it in a bag.

Amazingly, the orb stopped when she brought it outside of the room. Thank goodness for that. I didn't think I could take it anymore. We stuffed the orb (bag and all) in the bottom of my pack. And headed back through the room and out the door on the other side.

 

[JesterPoet]

Banf, in all his glory, charged ahead. He pushed open the door at the end of the room with the orbs, and ran into the hallway. Immediately thereafter we heard him grunt loudly and ran to see what the ruckus was all about.

On charging into the hallway, Gigantor had apparently stepped on a spot on the floor that caused an arrow to be fired at him. As he was pulling out the arrow, Ian found the plate on the floor and tried to disarm it. Unfortunately, the trap was too much for him, and there was little he could do.

"Forget that," Banf said to Ian, "I'll handle this." He grabbed Ellywick Orbsnatcher's shield and ran down the hall holding it over his head. One arrow fired at him and he took it without slowing his pace in the slightest. He then moved to the spot where the arrows were being fired from and held the shield over the opening. "Come across now!" he said.

Even though Banf apparently had the trap covered, we all jumped the pressure plate just in case.

On the other side of the hallway was a door. Ian heard no noise coming from it, so, even thought it was clearly guarded, we opened the door. It opened to a room filled with statues of elves in armor, and one dragon statue. Ian immediately went to look at the elven statues, during which he noticed a secret door in the wall. He began trying to open it.

As Ian worked away at the secret door, Gigantor wandered over to the dragon statue. As he got close to it, I heard it say something to him that I couldn't make out. He responded to it, and as he did the secret door swung open and Ian shouted, "I did it! Ha ha! Got it open!"

We shouted to Banf to come with us, and he did so, grumbling about something I couldn't make out. We passed cautiously through the hidden door and into the hallway on the other side...

 

[JesterPoet]

The hallway on the other side of the secret passage was short. It ended abruptly in a pit, which Ian immediately hung his head over the edge of.

"It isn't that deep," he said, "but there are spikes at the bottom."

"I think we need to consider that deep is a very relative term for some of us Ian," I quickly replied.

"Well, what are we going to do?" Ellywick Orbsnatcher asked.

"I'll jump across." Banf said matter-of-factly.

"And if you miss, you'll probably die." I replied.

"I won't die" he said.

I could see this wasn't an argument that was worth having, so I brought it to an abrupt end. "Look," I said, "I can climb across --don't worry how, just understand that I can-- so I will go across and take a quick look and let you all know if it is even worth coming over. I think I can be sneaky enough to get a quick look after all!"

They all begrudgingly agreed, and I began to cast Spider Climb upon myself. I crawled up along the side wall (much to the shock of my companions... if only I could put into words the looks on their faces) and as stealthily as I could, crawled along the wall into the room on the other side of the pit.

As soon as I entered I knew I was spotted. I could see the little beast's eyes as it shot across the room toward me. I realized too late that it had wings and was coming right at me. All I managed was a muffled shout as it knocked me to the floor.

I tried to shake off the haze from hitting my head on the floor, but it wouldn't go away. The little beast was flying down to bite me again. There was a thin glaze over my eyes and I couldn't see him very well. I took a weakened shot at him with my crossbow, but couldn't see him well enough to hit. I dropped my crossbow to the ground as he swooped down again and bit me in the arm...

 

[JesterPoet]

I tried to get up but lost my footing. That's when I knew. It wasn't the fall that was making me unstable. There was a burning in my arm where I was bitten. The nasty little critter was poisonus... and I was so weak there was no way to keep him from killing me.

Then it happened. I heard a roar as Banf jumped across the pit and stood between me and the creature. Ian, not far behind, climbed out of the pit and readied his bow.

I dragged myself back into a corner as Banf and Ian tried to dispatch the foul little creature. Clearly the lack of exertion was helping me recover.

Then all of the sudden I heard the creature shout, "Ha ha! You've broken the enchantment that has been holding me here to guard the Dragon Priest! I am free!" and I watched as he flew out of the room.

I finally got a chance to look around the room as Banf and Ian went to help the Orbsnatcher across the pit. The room was mostly taken up by a giant tomb with a dragon carved into it.

We discussed what to do. We decided to rest and open the tomb in the morning. So sorry, Dragon Priest, I guess your tomb guard didn't do you much good. See you in the morning.