Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="PHDungeon" data-source="post: 5449652" data-attributes="member: 86320">DMs Note: My player’s journal missed one key event that I will fill in here. After being attacked by moon-frenzied werewolves in the valley, they continued on to the far side of the valley. They made their way up a steep mountain trail, and at the end of the trail, half way up the mountainside, they discovered the entrance to a stone fortress, which was carved into the mountainside. A pair of giant stone doors stood open. Beyond the doors was a large entry room guarded by hulking, armored Cyclops and a pair of fey dire wolves. On the opposite side of the room was another set of stone doors that provided the only visible means of entrance to whatever was deeper in the mountain.The heroes quickly assessed the situation and decided to approach with violence. Without any attempts at diplomacy, they attacked the Cyclops. I believe this was done primarily because the Lady of the Moon had said to them, “Kill my enemies and find what you seek.” Clearly they had taken these words to heart. They fared well against the Cyclops, but were also fired upon by hobgoblin archers who had taken up positions behind arrow slits that were carved into the walls of the entry room. The hobgoblins fired into the room with the benefit of full cover, which made them difficult to remove and a dangerous threat to the heroes. As usual the heroes prevailed, but they had sustained a beating and retreated back out to the ledge for a short rest. By the end of the session, they had not yet made it into the fortress.Melek’s journal:After killing the immediate door guards and failing to win entry into the rest of the fortress, we decided to retreat a little to regroup, bringing one of the cyclops’ bodies with us for further interrogation using a Speak with Dead ritual.After resting a little, we discussed what questions we should ask of the dead Cyclops. We eventually decided that we should ask only questions that would affect our actions. The first (and by far the most important) question was "Where is an alternative entrance?" It revealed to us that there is another, smaller, hidden and less guarded door a few dozen feet above out heads. Perhaps we should have looked further before asking the question? No, not really. It is night and we're in terra incognita. Better to use a little magic than to needlessly risk scouting.The second question was "What are the defences that we face?" The answer was that 50 hobgoblin archers and 20 Cyclops are stationed in the gatehouse- gatehouse to what? We don't know. Nor do we know how far it is to the next set of defenders.At any rate, somewhat restored we decided to foray into the smaller passage. We got up to the passage with no difficulty at all. Turak seems to have decided to take on the role of clown, racing a rope of climbing up the cliff side for no apparent reason. I'm starting to think that he has become quite unbalanced- still, he more than admirably fulfills his part in combat. If he is touched in the head that is probably of little import right now.Bella scouted ahead. The passageway led into the area above the entrance chamber, the area from which archers could fire down on us through murder holes or drop rocks and the like on our heads. There were a handful of hobgoblins up here but between Bella, Arden and myself we managed to quickly and quietly slay them. We then peered down through the murder holes, and we were able to get a feel for where we were. The entire place is essentially a gatehouse, guarding a portcullis to a passageway leading deeper into the mountain. There is a side portcullis as well. The devices are worked from the second floor (the floor where we currently are).How far it is from here to the next location is very unclear- hopefully far enough that we can deal with the remaining guards in the gatehouse before reinforcements arrive.We decided to continue our assault and headed down a flight of stairs to a series of hallways that were located behind the arrow slits that accessed the entry gauntlet. We were within their fortress! We almost managed to take out another handful of hobgoblins quietly before raising the alarm. Suddenly horns were blowing and more hobgoblins and cyclops warriors were pouring into the halls to confront us. Luckily, the halls were fairly narrow.At that point, a fairly long drawn out and chaotic battle ensued. We put down another squad of hobgoblin archers with little difficulty but quickly ran into some cyclops. A battle between Arden and Turak on the one side and some cyclops on the other side started at one end of the corridor while we heard reinforcements coming at us from behind. No sooner had we dealt with the Hobgoblin reinforcements coming at our rear than the door in the middle of the corridor burst open and a couple of Cyclops attempted to split our party in twain.Turak once again showed his mettle in this combat, essentially single handedly taking on two Cyclops. Admittedly, only one at a time was able to get at him but it was still an impressive accomplishment. His actions definitely make me question his sanity, though. He seems convinced that Arden is his imaginary friend. I suppose it makes sense from one point of view. Arden is very abnormal in size and stature for an elf. Unlike the normal frail and willowy sort he is a big hulking elf. Exactly as a Minotaur WOULD imagine an elf to be. At one point in the fight Arden was in quite significant danger, bellowing that nobody was allowed to hurt his imaginary friend, Turak charged in to save him.The fight was hard but all of us pulled our weight. I managed to slay most of the hobgoblins in short order, their puny minds no match for the fiery little pixies I summoned to assault them. I was of some use against the cyclops as well, although the lion’s share of killing them was performed by Arden, Bella and Turak. Corvin meanwhile wielded the divine power of Odin with grace and efficiency, managing to keep us all on our feet despite the best efforts of the Cyclops. He is also a valiant and worthy fighter, holding the line against the Cyclops as a true warrior. All of us except, of course, Bella took significant damage from the Cyclops and their Hobgoblin allies but it was nothing that we could not handle.Eventually, we managed to clear the area of our enemies and threw up a makeshift barrier to keep out the Cyclops reinforcements who were advancing on our position. If my count is accurate we have now slain 11 Cyclops and well over 40 Hobgoblins. If we make the quite questionable assumptions that the Cyclops was speaking the truth AND that no reinforcements have yet arrived from another location that means that we still face about 9 Cyclops and perhaps a dozen or so hobgoblins to deal with.We have retreated back upstairs for the moment. At the very least we need a short rest to recover some of our abilities. Ideally we'll have sufficient time to take a much longer rest. But whether or not we seek that luxury and whether or not we are granted it are matters to be discussed soon.We're all (well, except for Bella) coming fairly near to the end of our rope. Certainly both Arden and I are quite wounded right now , although we're still in fighting fettle. Some of our powers have been expended but we still retain many more of them. I'm sure that we can still succeed IF all that we face are the original inhabitants of this guardhouse. The alternative of trying to rest for long carries the huge risk that reinforcements will arrive. But it might still be the wiser plan.</blockquote>

Verification