Session 28, Doors Locked, Lights Blinding
Paldegora
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Session 28 – 2023-08-19
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Summary
They started the week searching the door that would not open. They found nothing that would allow them through. They moved to wall in the hallway which was shared by the room. As they started searching it, they were set upon by the Bozz that had been in the dining hall. They exited the hall and seeing everyone, attacked. The fight didn't take long as the Company finished them off quickly. They moved down to the southern end of the hallways, thinking that one of the doors down there might lead to a back door into the room. The first door they entered was a room with benches and tables stacked with weapons.
From the door on the western side, they could here metal hitting metal. Cassandra recognized the sound as that of a smithy. They entered and found two chained goblins working to make weapons. They stopped them, calmed them, and then questioned them. There was a door to the west of this room which housed the commander. After examining the room and the documents in it, it was determined that this was Bloodfist's room. There was a door exiting that room to the north but it was locked. Eryn picked it but it still wouldn't open. Xor tried to pull it open and broke off the handle. They moved back out to the smithy room. There was a set of double doors on it's northern wall. Like the ornate doors, there was nothing to pick and nothing to pull on. They held fast and wouldn't open.
They figured that Bloodfist's room must be nearby so they started searching the rest of the rooms down the hallway just outside the smithy. The first door was likely his room but there was no key or anything that looked like it might help. They searched the room thoroughly and found nothing but the items in a locked chest. It hadn't been opened in decades. There was a dress uniform in the chest that was old but still in good condition. The elements hadn't reached it. There was a pouch with 100gps in it. There was another pouch with miscellaneous items like dice, a comb, and other grooming and cleaning items. Eryn took the miscellaneous pouch. They searched the rest of the rooms and found nothing expect a privy at the end of the hallway. They exited that area and moved back to the stairs going up.
Eryn went first followed by the rest. At the top, she looked out onto the top of the wall and saw four Bozz patrolling the ramparts. The two closest were moving and looking away, the two furthest were looking out from the hold. Eryn snuck across the area between her and the Bozz moving south along the western side. Cal-El came out behind her headed toward the one on the north side. Eryn made noise as she approached and lost the element of surprise. They turned tio fight and the others began making their way around the wall to engage. This battle took a bit. Cal-El did lose his short sword in a Bozz that he killed. Xor, in order to reach a foe, had to run around the entire peremiter of the wall. After they died and released their held items, the group moved to a set of ornate double doors above the set that they couldn't open. This set opened without issue.
They entered a large cathedral like room with stained glass window and dimly lit candles. The room was dim and they needed time for their eyes to adjust. They started searching the columns looking for the hidden map. After the first four were searched and while they were headed to the next four, three people came out of the front eastern opening on the dais. It was Theo, a hobgoblin, and a well armored draconian. Theo noted Cassandra's presence saying something like, “I see you've joined this bunch. That's not surprising!”. He introduced the group by name as the Company Clandestine! Then he pointed out to Bloodfist, the hobgoblin, that this was the group that messed up their plans in Frosthaven and killed his brother Skullcrusher. To Lurzz, the draconian, he introduced them as the people that killed everyone of his brethren at the gatehouse.
Cassandra was ready to charge but Eryn moved in first, attacking Lurzz. Theo charged to Cassandra and attacked her. Angelique set off a pyrotechnics spell which blinded all of the company except her, Eryn and Xor. The company fiought hard with Xor and Theo killing each other at the same time. Angelique held Bloodfist which allowed Cal-El to finish him off. That was close as Cal-El probably wouldn't have survived another hit. Lurzz, seeing the writing on the wall, took off and flew out of the room.
Angelique helped Xor back up and gave him the rest of a potion of extra healing. Eryn searched the first column and found a retangular box in it. She pulled that out as Symon had moved to the door where Theo had come from. There was nothing beyond it. As he turned around, he saw Grish-ta-nak enter from the opposite side of the dais. He was much bigger than they thought he would be. He was brown and had red scales on his face.
Everything stopped there.
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Detail
They started the week off with a search of the doors. Eryn had searched either side of the door for hidden mechanisms but not the door itself. She found nothing. She moved to the hallway that shared a long wall with the room and began searching for hidden doors. Just as she began to search that wall, the door to the dining hall opened and the three Bozz that Symon had seen earlier entered the hallway. They spotted the Company and turned to engage. One of them charged Angelique and hit her. Cal-El moved forward and killed that one. Xor moved forward but his path was blocked with so many people jammed into one area. He picked up Angelique and moved her out of the way and moved forward into the space she'd occupied. Symon fired his slingshot at one of the other draconians and missed, then moved out of the way. Cassandra charged one of them and missed. Eryn and Angelique both fired arrows at them, Eryn hit. The battle continued for a couple of more rounds before finishing them off. Cal-El got his longsword stuck in one of them. After they collapsed into dust, he was able to retrieve it. At one point, Xor moved up to Cassandra and moved her out of the way which put him on her list. She growled at being moved but didn't fight it.
Everyone froze and listened for any moment. They heard nothing coming and began checking out the area. The Bozz finally collapsed and Cal-El got his sword back. Eryn closed the door to the dining hall and then checked the far corner. There was nothing down that hallway. Symon moved up the stairs to the first landing and peered around the corner. There was no door at the top of the stairs. He moved back down and told Eryn what he saw. Eryn suggested that the southern end of this hallway had doors leading back behind the room they were trying to get into. Maybe one of them led to a back entrance to the room. Symon felt they were likely barracks but agreed there might be a way in back there. Eryn moved to and listened at the external door to a room beside the hallway in the south wall. She heard muffled sounds of metal hitting metal. She cracked the door, peering in, seeing no one. The sound was a little louder now but did not come from this room. This room had tables and work benches with weapons on them. The sound came from beyond the door in the western wall. Cassandra said It definitely sounded like blacksmithing. They opened the door during a round of hammering and found two chained up goblins working on weapons at a forge.
They moved in a quickly surrounded them. Symon came in and talked to them telling them to be quiet. They coward in fear. Symon tried to get some information from them but they knew nothing about the facility. On the north wall of the room were plain double doors. There was a door to the west which they told us was the commanders room. They said he wasn't there. Eryn went in and found a small round table with some papers on it. There was writing in charcoal on them. There was a metal door in the north wall. Erin looked at the north door. Shr checked the door and found it locked. There was no writing on it. She picked the lock and felt the mechanism give, as it should if she had successfully unlocked it, but tried it again and it still wouldn't budge. Xor came in the room and attempted to pull it open but was unable to. He did rip the handle off of the door though. He looked through the hole left behind but could see nothing. Symon asked if the goblins had ever seen anyone come or go through the double doors in their room. They said no. Eryn found a note rolled up in one of the corners and read it. It was a note that was started but never finished. It said, “Grish-ta-nak say hide, watch, ” and then something that was scribbled through. They remembered a note that had a statement like that in the sewers under Frosthaven and at Elmer's home. They were notes written by the hobgoblin Bloodfist. Symon asked the goblins if the commander was Bloodfist. They said, “Yes! Very bad!”. Eryn invited others to come and see what they could see, as she left the room.
Symon asked the goblins where bloodfist slept. They didn't know. Eryn checked the double doors in the smithy. They had no locking mechanism and didn't budge. She rechecked the door in Bloodfist's office and could not determine what was holding it. She was sure she had picked it and the locking mechanism had given way. Xor ran his hands along the edge of the door looking for any sort of mechanism and found none, but was impressed at how well it was fitted. They decided to look for where bloodfists slept. Maybe there will be a key stored there. Symon gave the goblins more rations and told them we would free them but they have to wait until they finished here. He told them they must not let anyone know they are here. They agreed not to. Eryn opened the door to the first room outside there. This was the hallway where Eryn ran into the Bozz earlier. It was a bedroom that smelled bad but wasn't sure what it was. She moved in and searched the desk. It was old and unused. The bed had been used. There was a closet but the clothes in it were old and rotten. There was a chest in the southeast corner She checked it for traps and didn't find any. She had to unlick it and then opened it to find an officers dress uniform from long ago. It was still in decent shape. She also found some leather bags. One had 100 gold in it. The other bag had dice and stuff in it. There were no secret compartments that she could find. She closed it up to make it look like no one had been here. Cal-El tried to determine what had been sleeping here but was unable to as well.
They exited the room and started down the rest of the hallway. The rest of the doors along this hallway led to little bedrooms with nothing of interest in them except the room at the far end which turned out to be the privy. The group moved down the hallway to the stairway that led up. Once they were sure there was no one around down here, Eryn started up the stairs. She peaked around the corner and saw nothing but an open doorway at the top and heard nothing. She moved up carefully and peaked out. There were four guards walking the four sides of the hold. The two closest were facing and walking away. The two furthest were facing away as well. She peaked around the corner and saw there was a walkway leading to a wooden bridge that crossed to the other tower. Seeing that the battle was inevitable, she attempted to move silently up behind the closest one and tried to end him before he got a chance to respond. She failed and he turned to face her before she reached him. A battle ensued.
The soldier on the opposite side heard the noise Eryn made and turned shouting to the other guards as he grabbed up his sword. They began converging on Eryn. Cal-El ran up and attacked the one to the north. His short sword got stuck in the draconian as he killed it. The rest came out of the stairwell and attacked, moving south, except Xor who couldn't get through enough to reach the enemy so he ran the perimeter of the wall and attacked from behind. It took a couple of rounds but they were victorious and it appeared there was no one else responding. Once they finished, they waited a moment for the Bozz to turn to dust and release their weapons. They moved back north and around to the west and found another set of ornate double doors. Xor noticed the stained glass windows along the wall shared with the room. He couldn't see through them though. They gathered together and opened the doors. Eryn darted in and moved to one side as Cassandra moved in and spread out the other way. The rest moved in behind. The room was a huge dark cathedral like chamber with columns lining a center carpeted runway. There were lighted candles spread throughout dimly lit room. The large stained glass window at the north end of the room was the image of a wyvern rather than a wolf. They paused for a moment while Angelique healed several of them. Eryn and Cal-El started moving forward searching each column as they came to them. They found nothing on the first four of them and were moving to the next two columns when they heard a voice as three individuals entered the room from the front eastern wall. One of them was Theo. The others were a hobgoblin and a well armored draconian.
They moved out onto the dais. Cassandra was shadowing Eryn on the far side of the room when she caught sight of Theo. Her fury rose quickly but she pause before charging. Theo told his companions that his spies told him that they were the Company Clandestine. To Cassandra, he said, “I see you've joined this bunch. That's not surprising!”. He told Bloodfist, that this was the group that killed his brother, Skullcrusher. They were the group that disrupted their operations in Frosthaven. To Lurzz, the draconian, he identified them as the group that took out the garrison at the gatehouse. He knew they would get to the hold sooner or later.
The battle began with Eryn running up to Lurzz, the draconian, trying to hit him but missing. Angelique cast the spell pyrotechnics on a candle on the east side of the room, near the front. It causes a glowing area of fireworks that lasted one round and caused everyone except Angelique, Xor, and Eryn to be blinded. Theo was apparently not effected as he charged over to attack Cassandra. She had trained in blind-fighting techniques and managed to block his attack. Xor charged up to Theo and hit him. Bloodfist moved to attack Eryn and missed. Cal-El started moving toward the noise of the battle where he remembered Theo being. Lurzz flew up and over Eryn, landing behind her and attacking. He missed. Cassandra attacked and missed. Xor hit Theo again. Cassandra tried to hit him again and missed. Theo hit Cassandra twice but she was still standing.
Symon yelled to Angelique to bring out the wonder twins. Cal-El missed a double attack on bloodfist. Eryn shifted to attacking bloodfist and hit him. Theo shifted his attention to Xor and attacked him. He hit him with his two attacks. Xor missed his retaliation. Angelique took her staff of striking and charged Theo. She dumped two charges into the successful hit. Bloodfist shifted his attention to Cal-El and hit him. Cassandra attacked Theo and missed. Lurzz attacked Eryn and hit her. Cassandra hit Theo but Xor missed. Angelique hit Theo with the staff and directed more charges into it. Lurzz dropped his sword and attacked with his claws and tail. One of the claws hit Eryn. Eryn attacked Bloodfist and missed. Theo took a swipe at Xor and hit him. Bloodfist hit Cal-El. Xor hit Theo. Cassandra hit him as well. Theo got a parting shot on Xor and they both went down.
Angelique cast hold person on Bloodfist and succeeded. Bloodfist froze. Cassandra made her way toward the fighting, though the blindness slowed her quite a bit. Eryn tried to hit Bloodfist and missed. Cal-El hit Bloodfist. Lurzz took a lot of hits at Eryn. Both of the claws hit but the tail missed. Eryn missed Lurzz. Angelique poured one dose of an extra healing into Xor to bring him back. Cal-El hit Bloodfist and killed him. Lurzz took off flying out of the room. Eryn got a parting shot on him and hit him. Theo was worth 3,000xps and Bloodfist was worth 575xps. Theo had fine looking chainmail, an awesome looking shield, a potion of extra healing, and a sweet looking long sword. Bloodfist had a wicked looking morning star, a nice looking shield, a potion of extra healing, and some nice chainmail. Between the two of them, they found 600gps. The Bozaks were worth 175xps each.
Eryn went to the column at the northern end and found a hidden compartment. There was a rectangular chest slid back inside it. She pulled it out. Symon moved to the door were Theo and the others came from and looked through it. He didn't see anything but from the opposite door, he turned and saw Grish-ta-nak enter the room. He was a very large wyvern, much larger than they had anticipated him being. He was mostly sort of brown but around his face were red scales.
This where we left off.
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