Day 2: more meandering paths...our map not making sense. A grotesque statue (fat, squatting humanoid) guards a large clearing. More trails before we stumble upon the rumored cemetery. And ghouls. Two waves and a third before we retreat, back to the statue clearing, taking an easterly path.
Ruins hidden by heavy overgrowth. Could this be the rumored monastery? We’ve made our presence known with pistol fire, and a smoking fire as we deal with goblins and more hobgoblins attracted to the noise and smoldering fire. Barely mid-day and we already seek sanctuary to allow our cleric to rest and recover the few spells he knows…Cure Wounds our top priority.
Sunrise to
explore the area. Poisonous centipedes to slow us and drain us, before we break
into the building decorated with carvings that match the grotesque statue found
yesterday. A more detailed statue inside. Red gems embedded in the eye sockets
attract our rogue Veocyn who scales the tall statue to pluck the gems. Trapped!
A dozen doors swing open. Crap!
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Kukla...so much for mapping as we've wandered in circles to the backside of the hobgoblin encampment. We backtrack to a new trail and stumble upon the rumored graveyard. Signs some have been dugout. Which would explain the ghouls attacking! Two waves we fight off at the cost of Oleg dropping. And as Angus feeds him berries to revive our cleric, Veocyn reports more undead drawn to our smell. Exit stage left to fight another day.
ReplyDeleteTaking a new easterly path, we stumble upon ruins. Could this be the rumored monastery? Large layout inside the walls. The closest wall seems crumbled in places while the other three walls are intact. Huge building to the northeast with an equal size plot to the northeast now overgrown. two rows of pillars that lead to another smaller building in the middle-east sector. A fetid pool before collapsed ruins in the southeast corner. Another smaller building to the southwest.
Angus wants to explore the overgrown plot first; burn away the growth to reveal what’s hidden. A goblin lair, as 9 of the toothy creatures scramble out to defend their smoldering home. Angus spells two of them asleep before he’s down from deadly arrows. And Geno falls from his wounds. When the remaining goblins scramble back into their lair, Oleg heals our magus and rogue as I suggest interrogating the sleeping prisoner. No-one is interested; in fact, Angus kills the helpless foe. And Veocyn wants to fight with me over arrows I need to create my bolts. Distractions that allow hobgoblins to approach as they’ve come to investigate the fight noises. While we dispatch them too, our cleric has spent all his healing. Barely noon and we’re already looking for a place to hole-up.
So it’s off to investigate the smaller building to the southwest. What appears to be a garrison. Most rest as Veocyn takes watch from the outer room with me replacing him near midnight after I’ve crafted my bolts and bullets. Movement outside…slow humanoid forms randomly shuffle about. Till a pair of glowing red-eyes fix on me staring from a window slit. I’m berated by the elf when I report my findings. Fine, I can sleep too.
Morning draws us outside to explore. First the southeast ruins that appear to be an old bathhouse. As we turn to leave, HUGE centipedes attack. Veocyn goes thru half his quiver before he finally hits one. No wonder he wants all the arrows; he goes thru a lot. By the time we splatter the bugs, a few of us are slowed from their poison (DEX loss) that eventually wears off. Now exploring the building fronted by pillars. Door carvings that match the grotesqueness of the statue in the clearing. Veocyn displays his rogue skill unlocking the door that opens into a room with a more ornate statue of the fat/squatting creature. A dozen doors surround this single room. But this statue has glowing red-gems in its eye sockets. Throw caution to the wind, as Veocyn climbs for those gems! Whatever he stepped on, everyone heard the “click” as we turn to see ALL the doors opening. Crap!
Geno - More wondering around this damn hill with this motley crue. I have complained about not having a fighter to protect us so we can fire at the enemy but no I think we could have done with a tracker as we went left and somehow ended up to the right of those hobgoblins that tore us a new one. After climbing down a waterfall and walking endlessly we finally came to a wide open area with the hope that this could be important. After skirting around to the right we discover a path but before trying it we decide to check out the rest of the area. We spot a graveyard on far side of the opening, maybe the one we heard rumors of. We moved to check it out and a quickly attacked by 3 undead beings. Oleg gets excited and lets us know to stay away from them. We drop the first 3 and then 3 more came. After dropping those and suffering some we see more coming. Oleg lets us know to move back into the light so they will stay at bay.
ReplyDeleteWe move back to the trail we found and head down it and soon discover a large area in ruins. A ruined wall surrounds 3 building in different states of decay, a pool, a dry field and a crevasse. We decide to burn the dry field and are attacked by goblins and then hobgoblins that come to check out the fire. We decide we have had enough and seek refuge in the smaller building to the far right of the area. We honker down for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. Kukla spots what he described to Oleg as undead roaming around but nothing attacked us. Well enough too as we were not in a good way.
In the morning after some rations, a good healthy poop and some stretching (killing time while the healer prays) we set out to explore the rest of this area. We move around to the right and while moving near a heavily ruined area we are attacked by giant centipedes. No worries! We move to a big building and open the door to discover a large room with many doors and a statue in the middle. Veocyn decides to climb the statue to pry gems out of the eyes. All of a sudden doors open!
Oleg - I really am enjoying this new experience. It really beats standing around an elven community where nothing happens. It is an odd group we have and I do hope in time that I am not the once in combat and instead I am able to aid everyone.
ReplyDeleteOoh, ooh! Undead finally! I get to rid the world of these foul creatures and I am now on cloud nine.
Spoke to soon, back to fighting goblinoids. BOO!
Veocyn...Veocyn...HA! Arrow right thru its carapace. One centipede that's met its match. If you'll ignore the first 5 arrows...3 missed and two that cleaved legs, making it a ninety-pede.
ReplyDeleteThat aughta shut that damn gnome up. Yeah, I'm the real archer of this group, needing all the arrows we find.
Statue. Oops, missed that trap. At least I'm high enough to be out of melee range. Stand back boys and gnome, I've got this. Quiver of 15 arrows, 12 doors, yeah, I can take them all.