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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Damon Griffin" data-source="post: 2645688" data-attributes="member: 3568">Paladin's Journal - entry 2We finally stirred ourselves, locked the fancy dragon door behind us and went back to the kobolds just past midnight, or so Wulfgrim said it was.  This would be the start of our third day down here.  We'd arrived about noon on the first day.  The kobolds weren't eager to give us any help with the goblins at that point, so their boss lady just took her half of the treasure we brought back and they opened up the passage we'd used before.  While we were there, Meepo mentioned something about eating goblins.  That had come up before when we brought in the goblin prisoners, but I figured it was a joke, like when people at Gerik's uncle's inn say they're hungry enough to eat a horse, but don't.  This time I asked Meepo about it and he was serious!  I tried to explain to him how it was okay to eat animals but not other people, or anyways creatures that are somewhat like people, but I couldn't make him understand why I had a problem with it.  He said he wouldn't eat them and would wait until they could be traded for kobold prisoners, but I don't expect his promise necessarily binds the other kobolds.   Headed back down the hall toward the goblins, we looked for another secret door, hoping to find a way around some of the goblins, but if there was one, we didn't see it.  The goblins heard us banging around searching, and said so.  Lance and Jack tried a couple of times to break down the door we'd busted in the first time, but it held pretty well and we had to pull back.  I got a big wooden beam from the kobolds and Jack and Lance used it as a battering ram about an hour later, and this time they punched through.What happened after that is hard to remember very clear, and some of it I had to ask Garik and Winter about later.  Seemed like the fighting went on for an hour or more, but it couldn't really have been more than a couple of minutes.  We killed some hobgoblins and a bunch of goblins, close to a dozen in all, but there was just too many of them.  Lance fell, and Wulfgrim put himself at risk to do a healing.  Wulfgrim and I also fell, none of us dead because the goblins were mostly trying to knock us out for prisoners, although Wulfgrim had been cut up bad because the goblin leader used a longsword against him and me, and the goblins dragged us away out of the room.  Winter was near out of spells again, so him and Gerik had to fall back toward the kobold area and leave us to our fate.  Winter told me later that before they did, Gerik had tried to challenge the goblin leader to single combat, but the leader wouldn't have none of it.  Just as well, I say.  Gerik is my good friend and I love him like a brother, but that boy has more guts than good sense.One hobgoblin and a couple of goblins chased after Winter and Gerik, but they were ready for that and Gerik killed the hobgoblin as he came through the door.  Stabbing someone in the back ain't something I'd approve of normally, but in the spot they were in I guess you'd have to excuse it.  I think maybe Heironeous approved, because something like a miracle happened, and as near as I can piece together, it happened just about the time Gerik did that last hobgoblin in.  Back at the monastery they liked to say "Heironeous favors the bold" and maybe what with Gerik's challenge to the goblin chief and also hanging back to kill another hobgoblin when he could have just run, and Wulfgrim healing Lance in the middle of the fight and such, maybe between us all we'd been bold enough to get the god's attention.  And of course Wulfgrim's god Moradin could have been looking out for him, he being a priest and all.  Anyways, what happened was Lance and me woke up in a store room.  Wulfgrim was there too, but still knocked out.  We should have been out for hours while we slept off the beating the goblins had given us, but it seemed it had only been a minute or two since we'd been dumped there, because we hadn't even been tied up or searched yet.   I was a mite groggy but I think the kobolds that drug us in there heard a ruckus down the hall, and just dumped us to run check on it.  Our wounds weren't healed but somehow they seemed to matter less than they had before, and we set to freeing four other prisoners we found in the room, a gnome and three kobolds.  The gnome, called Creaky Timbers or some such name, was a priest as well, and the goblins kept him caged up here to fix them up when they got wounded fighting kobolds and such.  He healed me and Lance and Wulfgrim up some, which finally woke Wulfgrim up.  The goblins might have tried keeping Wulfgrim down here too, to heal them when they needed it.  He would've said no (well, what he likely would have said I won't repeat here) but I'd guess Creaky probably said no at first, too, and he's been down here as a prisoner for a year anyway.Meantime, Winter and Gerik had met up with the kobolds again.  They were also feeling better somehow, and this time they managed to convince the kobold's boss woman Yusdrayl that it was a good time for the kobolds to come attack the goblins that were left.  So she brought a bunch of her soldiers and they made short work of the goblin chief, and their shaman, and some more goblins that come in to join the fight.  This was the noise heard by the goblins who dumped us here.We started off in the direction of all the noise but didn't get far.  Another half dozen goblins had also heard the noise, and were coming toward us, so we got ready to fight them.  The last goblin from the fight with Winter, Gerik and the kobolds came running our way too, with Winter and Gerik close behind, so we were reunited in time to kill off these last six.  I just felt great, like I was never going to be afraid of anything again, and I was ready to smite me some evil, but that was all taken care of for the moment.  The goblin chief had Talgen Hucrele's masterwork crossbow, and was wearing one of the Hucrele signet rings, so I guess Lance was right, Talgen was the one that got mouthy and got killed for his trouble.About this time Yusdrayl mentioned that we hadn't seen any goblin women (other than that shaman) or children, so they must be in hiding somewhere, and probably with some guards.  I had been thinking about that already and was worried about how we might bargain for their safe passage out of here, and for those two goblin prisoners from before, if all their other men have been killed, since now I know the kobolds will kill and eat them otherwise.  If it comes down to it, I can't see just turning on the kobolds and attacking them, because that'd be dishonest behavior and so far they have done as they said they'd do where we were concerned.  Even if it might be excused, in order to save the women and kids, or if they betray us first, they outnumber us and control the exit, so we'd probably not enjoy the result if we tried it.  But I can't just abandon living women and children of any sort to be used as food.  I will pray about this some, and hope I get inspired with an idea.  The priests and senior paladins at the monastery all said the gods hear our prayers and they speak to us, and I guess that's true.  But you know, I used to speak to my dog back home, too, and mostly he didn't have any idea what I was trying to say to him.  I think maybe we're like dogs to the gods - they might love us and take care of us, but most times we just can't understand them when they talk.We decided to leave the kobolds to recovering their pet dragon -- seems it wasn't all that anxious to be rescued -- and go on exploring through the door next to where the dragon was found.  Yusdrayl warned us about a big horned bugbear before we left.  Just a little ways down a hall and around a corner we came to a large round room where we saw a purple light coming up from the middle of the floor, and on the north wall a throne, a chest and sapling tree in a big pot.  I check for evil presences and found that there was one, but then thought maybe I'd done it wrong because it looked like the sapling was the source of the evil, and who ever heard of an evil tree?  But we surrounded it and got ready to burn it, and it jumped right up out of its pot and came for us!  Surprised me almost out of my boots, but it didn't make any difference to the fire -- evil, walking, intelligent or not it was still just wood and burned up right quick.  I'm not the sharpest tack in the drawer, but even I knew now that those trees had never been stolen from the monastery or anywhere else, they'd just got up and walked away.  And it was these trees been coming after daddy's cattle, you could tell from how their claws looked.  Gerik checked the chest over and found a poison needle trap; I said maybe I should open it because I'm better suited to dealing with things like diseases and poisons than Gerik.  That's no credit to me, nor any shame to him, it's just we got different strengths.  Anyways, I opened the chest and though I am not 'specially nimble, I avoided that poisoned needle thanks to Gerik warning me.  We took what we found there but none of it seemed useful right away.  Meanwhile Lance was having a look at the purple light, and saw a vine covered shaft leading down.  We knew we needed to go down somehow, because that's where Yusdrayl had said Belak was to be found, but decided to backtrack to the last point where we'd killed goblins and see if there was a stairway or something down from there.  But then we talked to Yusdrayl again, and she said that area was kind of a no man's land between the goblins and kobolds, so we reckoned there wasn't likely to be such a thing in that direction.  She also talked about chopping up the dead goblins for meat, which bothered me and Lance a lot, but after thinking about it I told Lance that the goblins were already dead, we couldn't do nothing for 'em and we needed to go on and find our friends if we could.  So we went back to the vine covered shaft and climbed down.At the bottom of the shaft in a large square room we killed two more of them evil trees and a couple of walking skeletons.  That was easy enough but we soon had reason to wish we'd waited and come down here better prepared with spells and such.  Lance heard a crowd of voices from nearby and when we went to check, this big bugbear with a horned helmet come out with two of those really big rats and wanted to know our business.  Well, I figured our business right then was to get through him, if he was working for Belak, so I let my sword answer for me.  I hit him a good solid blow, but he done me right back with this wicked looking morningstar, and between him and his rats I dropped pretty quick.  Lance did too, I found out later.  Somehow or other it all got sorted out, and the bugbear and one of his rats got killed, and the other rat run off.  Gerik and Jack looted the bugbear and took his morningstar and scale mail.  Them among us that wasn't unconscious looked into the big cave he was guarding and found the goblin women and children, who right off panicked and started running into these narrow tunnels in the back wall.  Lance and me was dragged into the cave and we all spent the night there, recovering.Must have been about dawn outside when I woke, and found Creaky Timbers praying for his spell power for the day.  He used all his spells for healing as soon as he had them, and also spent the whole day tending our wounds.  About noon Winter woke up and studied his spell book, and come midnight Wulfgrim prayed for his spells too, and used most of them to heal us some more.  Lance put on the bugbear's scale mail.Metagaming info: * The "winged devil or imp" Tib refers to was a quasit, but Tib is insufficiently experienced to make that distinction.  Garik's stiff muscles were the result of the quasit's poison, which temporarily reduced his DEX by -1.* The miracle Tib refers to following his capture, waking up only a minute or two after being knocked unconscious, is his perception of the party's bump to 2nd level upon earning 1000xp, which occurred when Gerik felled that last hobgoblin.  * Tib's statement that he was "never going to be afraid of anything again" and being "ready to smite me some evil" note that a 2nd level paladin gains Aura of Courage and Smite Evil as class abilities.  His wounds mattered less than they had before, because he'd suddenly gained 11 h.p., making his previous injuries smaller in proportion to his total h.p., even though none of the damage had been healed.  Lance rolled badly for new h.p. (he only gained 3 h.p. even with his CON bonus) and gained just barely enough to rise above 0 h.p. when he was bumped to 2nd level; Wulfgrim had taken only "real" damage, no subdual damage, which is why he didn't wake up until the gnome cleric did a Cure Light Wounds.</blockquote>

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