Session 9, Door, Flasks, Tommy no more
Paldegora
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Session 9 – 2023-02-04
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Well, it's been a calm week. The family was a little under the weather but everyone seems to be doing better now. Chicken Soup will do wonders for you, if you can find chicken that is. Well, our friends had determined what was happening to the chickens and a lot more. Let’s pick up where I left off.
The Company had just finished fighting 5 kobolds. The fire had taken it's tole on Cal-El. Angelique had healed some of that damage. They looked around the edge of the northern tunnel. Before they could do anything else, they heard a ruckus coming from the tunnel we had just come down from. From around the southeast corner of this room came 5 goblin elites. They barely had time to react but they did managed to get turned around and ready for the attack. The goblins attacked the Company and the Company cut them down one after the other. Xor did fall but Angelique managed to reach him and heal him in time to get him back up and into the fight. Once the goblins were all down, Eryn moved down to the hallway they came from and listened for any more coming. That’s when more goblins came down from the tunnel to the north and attacked them. It was another tight battle where once again, the Company cut them down. Cal-El worked to tie up the two goblins that Symon caused to collapse from the Color Spray spell he'd cast. They were all searched and gold was found. Everyone paused and listened for any more activity but they didn't hear anything.
Cal-El made his way north, Eryn followed closely, the rest of the party followed at a distance. Cal stopped at one point and he and Eryn listened carefully. Eryn picked up on the sound of some movement and some quiet yaps ahead, like kobolds. She grabbed Cal-El's shoulder and whispered to him, telling him what she heard. Cal-El mouthed to her to check for traps which she did but didn't find any. Cal-El then grabbed Eryn's shoulder and pulled her back to the rest of the group so we could talk. A discussion was had as to how to proceed knowing that they surely know we are here and coming. Symon said that he could turn himself into a goblin or a kobold and walk up that way. The problem was that he couldn't avoid the traps the kobolds probably set. They talked about taking a cloak and some clothes and stuffing it with straw from the beds back down the hall but decided that if the kobold’s vision is like the elves, they might see that there is no body heat and know that they aren't real. Eryn suggested that they could take one of the dead goblins and put a cloak on it, It would at least be a warm body. They decided to do that and tied it off to Xor's sword so he can walk with the corpse in front of him. The corpse would still be warm enough to fool their vision. That's what they did.
Xor moved in front of the party, with Eryn close behind. He had a dead goblin, with Eryn's cloak on him, tied to the end of his sword. At every turn, the first creature the kobolds would see would be the corpse wearing Eryn's cloak. They made their way up the tunnel. It was quite a ways up the tunnel before they started seeing light up ahead. They went a few more feet and then ran into the kobolds. They knew they found the kobolds because two vials smashed near the dead goblin decoy that Xor carried. An arrow struck near by creating a spark that ignited the decoy. Three of the kobolds move down to engage in melee while the others stayed back. Xor took one out immediately. Symon stepped out to use his slingshot and it came undone again. Angelique fired and killed one. Xor cut down another one with his second attack. Eryn cut down another one with her second attack. The two remaining kobolds moved forward into melee range and attacked but both miss. Xor cut down another one. Cal-El cut down the last one. We searched them and found 10 copper pieces on each and a couple of more vials of the oil along with 4 more flint arrows. Cal-El took the 4 flint arrows. Symon worked to repair his slingshot again. Cal went back to check on the goblins they had tied up and they were still secure. He knocked them out again and then headed back to the group. Eryn moved forward again and came to an area where the kobolds had started a fresh excavation on the eastern wall as there was debris laying about. She made her way further up and was finally able to make out the kobold camp. She saw no sign of anyone else up there and motioned for everyone else to come up.
As they started looking around, they found where there had been some major construction going on. There were buckets, some full of debris and some empty. There were tools, this time in better shape. There were some casks, a table, some stools, lots of debris on the floor around a door in the western wall. The wall was man made. Eryn checked the area for traps and didn’t find any. As she looked for traps, she spied a little metal chest near a torch on the eastern wall. It looked to be in very good shape, with a padlock on it. It looked out of place though. She checked the chest very carefully for traps. She attempted to pick the lock. She failed the first attempt. She remarked that it was a good lock. She tried and failed a second time. She examined the lock carefully, making sure she understood it and then took a third try at it and finally succeed. She stepped to the side and used a dagger to hook the lip of he chest and gently pulled the lid open. Inside, it was lined in velvet with compartments with bottles in them. She, very gently, lifted one out to get a look at it. It’s obvious, as she does this, that the velvet padding was designed to protect the bottles from breakage. The bottles are clear glass filled with a yellow/green fluid that actually glowed. She had never seen anything like it. She put it back and checked another bottle. It contained the same liquid. She called Angelique over to look at it. Angelique hadn’t seen anything like this before either. She guessed that it was some kind of poison. She was not aware of any kind of poison that glowed so she had no idea what kind it might be. Symon looked at the bottles. The iridescent quality of the fluid meant it was magical. He thought it was something very volatile of coarse. It might release some gas, it might explode, or something else very nasty might happen if they break. Eryn speculated that maybe it’s a poison gas.
Meanwhile Cal-El checked the door. It was made here and was very newly constructed. It’s very well done. Eryn closed the box back up. In an attempt to keep someone else from using it, she began looking for a place to hide it. In looking at the man made wall and the newly constructed door, Symon tried to determine if this matched up to the map he found with the circled secret door on it. It didn’t match up to that. Eryn determined that the door was of kobold construction. Eryn continued looking for a place to hide the chest. Symon wondered about hiding it in a deep spot of water but the only place we could think of that was deep enough was quite a ways away. Eryn finally decided to hide it in a bucket. She carefully turned it on it’s side and inserted it into a bucket. She then covered over the top of the bucket with debris and rocks from the dig area. It looked like just another full bucket.
Symon wondered about where the door went. Eryn checked the door for traps and finding none, checked for a locked. It didn’t appear to have one. There was a little lever on the south side of the door. Cal-El suggested that she listen at the door first. She listened carefully and didn’t hear anything. She tried to open it without using her hand but the Dungeon Master wouldn’t allow that so she grasped it with her hand and manipulated the handle until she heard a click and felt it release. She very carefully cracked the door and looked for light. There was a little light coming from the west and just in front of her was a wine barrel. She opened the door further and could see that the room led to a larger, somewhat lit, room with a rack of wine bottles. It appeared she was looking into a wine cellar. The back of the door matched the wall it was part of so it was a hidden door to the house with no apparent way to open from that side. Access was only available from the tunnels. She listened and could hear kitchen pots and pans being moved about. There may be a kitchen, nearby, above maybe. She tried to determine if the voices she heard were speaking in common but she couldn’t hear them clearly enough to make that out. She closed the door and told everyone what she saw and heard. After some discussion, they decided that it was likely not the prison as it had a wine cellar. It was a freshly dug out area and a newly built door instead of being an old secret door to a prison. That meant that they were probably looking into Sir Charles home. They decided to close it off and as she did, it clicked and latched closed.
They decided to go back to the area where the levers were pulled and go south from there. Cal-El checked on the tied up goblins again and we continued on to the lever room. They checked the rooms on the way back to see if any of those had changed. There was no indications that the goblins came from any of those rooms. We got back to the lever room. Eryn began making her way down the hallway, south, and found a passage going off to the east. Xor, following Eryn, noticed that the eastern passage stunk extra bad. It was a sewage smell. She went south for a little distance to make sure there wasn’t anything down there to be concerned about. She found another domed room with a hallway continuing on. She moved back to the eastern tunnel and they began making their way down it. After some distance, they found another domed room, larger than the others, with little pipes in the ceiling with something awful dripping from them. Eryn searched the walls for secret doors and didn’t find anything. Eryn and Cal-El searched the hallway leading back out to the main hallway again and found no secret doors. They began making their way south, to the next domed area. They continued searching for secret doors still finding nothing.
While everyone else stayed down here, Eryn went back north and manipulated the levers that seemed to activate things from this direction. The rest listened for where the sounds came form, to see what changed. She pushed up the southern lever. She heard a clanking sound coming from the south. Cal-El and Xor noticed a clanking sound coming from the south of them. Cal-El made his way southward and found another eastern tunnel and a portcullis blocking the southern tunnel a little past that. Cal-El moved down to the portcullis and looked through it. There wasn’t much light but what he could see was a ladder to the west and beneath it, a body. It looked too big to be that of a goblin. He went back up to Eryn to have her pull the lever back down which she did. She flipped the other lever above it to see what it did. From the southern tunnel. Cal-El heard a loud click come from above the portcullis that had gone up. He was not sure what that did. Cal-El went to the body to check it out. It was a large and rather stinky cavern with a ladder going up to a rusty hatch. He checked the body to find that it was Tommy, the missing boy from the inn. There were two bolts sticking out of his body, that look very much like the ones that hit Eryn earlier from those traps in the beginning of this place.
Cal-El got Eryn to come back down there and look around. She started out by looking at the ladder. It was made of iron and was very rusty. The hatch at the top was very rusty as well. The bolts are in Tommy’s front. They tried to determine if the ladder was trapped. She began checking the ladder for traps and couldn’t find any. Cal-El looked further around the eastern side of the room where he ran into two kobolds. They came at him and he was missed by one and hit by the other. From the southern end of the room, out from another side tunnel leading west, came another kobold who threw a vial at Eryn and missed. Cal-El hit one and killed it. Angelique stepped into the room and fired at the one in the south, hitting it, and killing it. Xor shot at the last one on Cal-El and hit it. Eryn fired on that one as well and missed. Symon missed. Angelique took that one out.
Everyone held their actions and waited for the rest of the kobolds they assumed were there but hadn’t seen yet. Eryn backed up to use the ladder for a little cover. Three more kobolds came out of the western tunnel with vials lit and ready. Cal-El ran toward the two remaining kobolds. He crossed the water and as he did, he stepped on a trap in the water that clamped around his foot and caused him to take damage. That sudden stop caused him to fall. He was caught in something resembling a bear trap. Xor fired at one and dropped him. The bottle he was carrying didn’t break. Angelique fired and missed. Symon fired at one and hit him, killing him. He drops his bottle and his bottle breaks. The resulting explosion caught the one behind him and his went off as well. The third one dropped in flames as well. Eryn moved close enough to look at the trap on Cal-El’s feet. She motioned Xor over to pull open the trap. He did and Cal-El got out of the water. Eryn helped clean up the wound with alcohol. They could see the western passage better now, with all of the light. Angelique used her healing proficiency and healed Cal-El for a couple of hit points. They searched the kobolds for the normal coinage. Symon speculated that there may be more kobolds down the western tunnel. They did a quick search of Tommy finding chicken feathers in his pocket.
Well, I’m ready for a break, Still not one hundred percent yet. Let’s get back to this again next week.
Start the recorder.