[DnD] Welcome to the Dungeon of Doom!

Gabriel presses his holy symbol to Argumentus' grievous wounds, but nothing happens. It seems that Kord's supply of lifesaving miracles is depleted for today. Undeterred, Gabriel sprints over to the Hexer, lingering around and invading the goblin's personal space.

Finding it awkward to do the hoodoo that he can do under such cramped conditions, the hexer resorts to the embarrassing act of bonking Gabe on the head with his skull-on-a-stick. This is, to say the least, ineffective.

In a burst of bravado, the remaining sharpshooter draws his sword and leaps off the ledge in pursuit of Argumentus. The drop is too far for the little guy and he lands on his face with an unpleasant crunch.

8 falling damage, prone

Argumentus, Bob, Brigid, Motsognir, Gabriel, Goblin Hexer, Goblin Sharpshooter

I was speaking idiomatically.

Bob hurls frost onto the crumpled sharpshooter, and a lovely snowdrift forms. Until the goblin ruins it with all his coughing and writhing, the fucking jerk.

9 damage

As the goblin tries to stagger back to his feet, Brigid trots over and (after a reassuring thumbs-up) introduces his skull to the haft of her sickle. He finds a new appreciation for remaining immobile.

5 damage, sharpshooter bloodied and dazed. Argumentus 19/7

Motsognir, Gabriel, Goblin Hexer, Goblin Sharpshooter, Argumentus, Bob, Brigid

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Gabe's personal war against fashion crimes knows no rest, and he hurries to smite those who would foolishly wear leather after Labour's Day. Do they not know that such foolhardy wardrobe decisions are offensive to his lord?!

29 damage, Hexer bloodied

Gabriel's HP 30 (+2)/6

Healing surge granted to Argumentus, since you didn't specify. Argumentus 27/7

The hexer makes another bumbling attempt to bonk Gabriel in the head. When this fails, he makes the seemingly rational decision to run for his life. Unfortunately, he gets a spine full of axe the moment he turns his back.

Opportunity attack. 12 damage, hexer killed

The sharpshooter is too dizzy to do anything but hesitantly stagger to his feet.

Argumentus, Bob, Brigid, Motsognir, Gabriel, Goblin Hexer, Goblin Sharpshooter

How ya doing, buddy?

well you killed that guy I guess

victory probably

825 XP, that's like 165 XP each or something that like

geez

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

lewts:

leather armor: 4
chainmail: 2
shortswords: 3
hand crossbows: 3
bolts: 40
battleaxes: 2
skull-on-a-stick (with bees in its mouth and when it barks it shoots bees at you)(1)

Gabe doesn't find anything particularly secretive on his searching attempt.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Gabe secures the skull-on-a-stick to his broad back. It bounces around gently as Gabe examines the quite-ordinary goblin weapons and retrieves his hammer. Then, as he secures his hammer back in its belt loop, the skull creaks forward ever so slightly. Its jaw creaks open (disgorging several dozen dead bees) and whispers, in a voice only Gabriel can hear:

"Feed me carrots."

There's nowhere I can't reach.

After several abortive and painful attempts, Bob manages at last to scramble atop the high ledge. Following the ledge over the east where the sharpshooter had run to sound the alarm, Bob discovers the ledge continues a good 10 feet beyond the room's eastern wall. The ledge terminates in the room from which the reinforcements had entered, replete with a still-crackling fire, piled furs, and... a large, sturdy ladder leading from the ledge to the floor.

The ledge also seems to continue beyond the west wall, but the gap on that end is clotted with a clumsily-assembled barrier of stones and fresh mortar.

Leading southward from atop the ledge is a broad staircase leading down toward heavy iron doors.

How ya doing, buddy?

You are now Well Rested!

Day 4

Gabe's current sunrod burns out, everyone eats a ration, everyone regenerates all power uses and reverts to possession of one action point. Hurray!

And, just for clarification's sake, an action point gives you a free action, not an entire free turn. You know who you are.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The hallway (also known informally as a stairwell) descends from the ledge down to floor level, terminating in a pair of iron doors. Further information about the doors is not known. Additional reports as they surface.

The shoddy masonry seems likely to collapse under any pressure heavier than an open-handed slap. The barrier is ridden with gaps, but nothing is visible beyond but a floor of the same grey stone from which the ledge is composed.

Occasionally a heavy splashing sound emerges from the direction of the barricaded room, like that of an ogre in a wading pool.

I was speaking idiomatically.

There is nothing of particular note hidden in the east chamber other than the big honking obvious ladder that nobody found until after the fight was over. It is an extremely basic room of no unique details or any reason to closely examine it whatsoever.

Motsognir grows impatient with the detailed inspection of a bunch of fuckin' rocks and flicks a hammer past Bob. The barrier crumbles abruptly, throwing up dust and revealing... well, pretty much exactly what you'd expect.

Most amazing jew boots

The short passageway opens onto a cramped chamber populated by an assortment of bizarre elements. Against the north wall, a simple stone altar bears a small velvet sack. On either side of the altar stand great glass boxes, swirling with a mysterious grey vapor. On the west side of the room, a broad black scorch-mark surrounds a massive hole in the floor.

FELIPE NO

Gabriel walks across the floor next to the giant hole, and there is a resounding thump as the pressure triggers in the floor activate. The east wall of the room surges forward, bashing Gabriel and sending him flying toward the hole. Miraculously, he manages to grab the lip of the hole before plummeting downward.

Getting hit by a wall still hurts, though. 12 damage.

Brigid peers down the hole, though the view is somewhat blocked by a struggling dwarf. It leads down about 30 feet, and water is visible at the bottom. Great splashing sounds arise from below, and something huge and black occasionally blocks the view of the water.

Bob racks his brains, but nothing in the chamber seems related to any gods he knows of.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Bob & Argumentus heave the paladin out of his predicament.

Bob searches for a way to disable it, and finds a concealed control panel in the wall just north of the entrance. Pulling a lever back up causes the protruding wall to recede, and jamming a chunk of masonry in the workings guarantees the lever will stay up.

Having neutralized the room's dangers, Bob proceeds to examine the glass cases as planned. Though the mists within the glass seem to swirl about at random, they coalesce at times into shapes almost vaguely humanoid. Bob taps on the glass, and the amorphous thing inside the case presses a horrid face to the wall of its prison and emits a soundless scream. The cases are full of g-g-g-ghosts!

Oh, and 300 XP for the trap, why not

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Gabriel 33/11

The spirits seem largely indifferent to the fate of the parcel, and removing it from the altar results in no unusual consequences.

Inside the pouch is a roughly-carved onyx figurine of a mastiff.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Glass boxes filled with an incorporate undead horror shouldn't be too hard to move around.

Fragile, though.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Argumentus hurls the Ghost Containment Units into the pit, and they sparkle prettily as they tumble end over end because before smashing into bits just as the dark shape passes under the opening below. There is a massive roar of pain, and an unbearably loud voice thunders up the hole; it seems to shake the very walls.

"OW! WHAT IN THE TEN UNSPEAKABLE NAMES OF — OH, LOOK AT THIS. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW EXPENSIVE THESE ARE? WHOEVER YOU ARE, I AM SO EATING YOU.

I JUST CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS, I GUESS!"

The ghosts flit back and forth past the opening, giggling in glee. They seem quite pleased with their new freedom.

"OH, HELLS. THESE THINGS ARE LIKE GNATS. I AM EATING YOU TWICE."

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

"WHAT THE — OH, IS THIS A TREND NOW? THROW SHIT DOWN THE HOLE? ARE YOU THAT BORED? I CAN EAT BOTH OF YOU, YOU KNOW. IT'S NOT A PROBLEM. I'M HUGE. THAT MEANS I HAVE HUGE GUTS."

Most amazing jew boots

Brigid finds that the doors are indeed opened very easily since they were never locked, not even once in the whole of history have the doors been locked. So she opens them, revealing...

an elderly hobgoblin eating breakfast.

He looks up from his platter of roast beast and gazes blearily at Brigid and the motley crew assembled in the doorway with her, before addressing her in the Goblin language:

"Well, damn! There you are, Ulvig. I send you out to take care of a few orcs, and it takes you a day and a half? Well, as long as the problem's been dealt with. Go ahead and take your prisoners downstairs and then get some rest. You look like crap.

Let me know if you see my spectacles laying around anywhere, will you?"

Most amazing jew boots

The group meanders into the hobgoblin breakfast nook and are about to pass through a curtain when one of the two armored guards flanking the elderly leader speak up.

"Wait a damn minute. That's not Ulvig at all! Draw steel, men! We're under attack!"

"Wait, wait" says the other guard. "We did this same thing last month, remember? You were convinced it was an 'impostor' because Ulvig was wearing a party hat. And because of that poor Ulvig spent his birthday with a broken arm!"

"All the same", says the first guard, "it can't hurt to be cautious. Ulvig, tell us something that only Ulvig would know."

FELIPE NO

"I knew it", said the guard. "I was saving those prawns for a special occasion, Ulvig. Ah, it's just as well. I always get this rash. What is it about the foul, briny taste of raw prawns that's so irresistible, I wonder?"

He waves "Ulvig" and her "prisoners" on their way, and they pass through the curtain into the hobgoblin barracks before descending the stairs.

The stairs wind gradually down into blackness, and as the party steps back onto a solid floor they find themselves knee-deep in tepid and slimy water. Gabriel's sunrod cuts through the gloom, and as their eyes adjust the group finds them in a massive flooded cavern. Far across the murky waters squats a hulking black reptile, trying in vain to reach a large shard of glass stuck in its left wing. His rocky perch is strewn intermittently with bones and little heaps of ill-gotten loot.

Looking up from his task, the dragon turns and peers in the direction of the stairs and sees the itsy-bitsy humanoids clustered together.

"Ah, Ulvig! Great timing. Come help me with this, will you? Bunch of hooligans up in the temple again today, and... well, me and my lack of opposable thumbs. You know how it is. Bring the snacks with you, hmm?

Oh, and don't mind the skeletons. Their soul cages somehow got smashed open on my head, so they've been wandering around the room giggling and waving their hands in front of their faces. I tell you, Ulvig, this day could not get any worse."

Four human skeletons are indeed skipping back and forth in obvious glee just in front of the dragon's rock. One of them looks at Argumentus, and waves. Two of the others are playing leapfrog.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

4/5ths of the party flee right the hell back upstairs, encountering 2 more alert hobgoblins there than they had seen on the way down. The wizened leader glowers at the group assembled atop the stairwell, and addresses Brigid again:

"Gulrab here just went out for his shift on guard duty. He found Ulvig's body. Now, I don't know who you are or what foul magic you used to so expertly steal poor Ulvig's appearance, but you'll pay for your... your... Gulrab, how were we planning to make them pay?"

"We were going to feed them to the dragon, sir."

"But they were already about to do that to themselves."

The leader ponders for a moment.

"So... return to what you were already doing, or else we'll... look, just go back down. It's early, I'm in no mood."

----

Argumentus creeps toward the dragon, intent on removing the thorn glass shard from its paw wing and thereby becoming fast friends. His plan fails to take into account his role in putting the glass there in the first place.

"Ulvig? Ulvig, where are you... some kind of emergency upstairs, I guess. At least he left some breakfast behind. Come along, little morsel! Come to—"

The dragon's eyes suddenly narrow into slivers, and he hisses. "You."

The beast rises to his full height with a roar, and lunges forward. Argumentus suddenly has a face full of massive claws.

5 damage

"You go through the meat tenderizer first."

The skeletons seem largely indifferent to this display of violence, and gather on the water's edge for an impromptu game of pat-a-cake.

----

Hearing the ear-splitting roar from below, the hobgoblin leader shrugs. "Time's up. Push 'em down the stairs, boys."

BOSS BATTLE

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Initiative: Hobgoblin Soldiers 26, Motsognir 23, Hobgoblin Warcaster 22, Brigid 20, Scary Bob 19, Hobgoblin Archers 18, Black Dragon 14, Gabriel 9, Argumentus 2

The armored hobgoblins advance on the party, shields high.

Motsognir, Hobgoblin Warcaster, Brigid, Scary Bob, Hobgoblin Archers, Black Dragon, Gabriel, Argumentus

Both the stones around the hobgoblin ladder and the water in the dragon's lair are Difficult Terrain.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Soggy immediately moves to flank the advancing soldiers, and provides an opportunity for Gabriel to exploit.

14 damage to south soldier. Gabriel gains +4 to attack against same enemy.

Disgusted to see his defensive line already breached, the warcaster strikes his staff against the floor. A ripple goes through the stones beneath Motsognir's feet and flings him backward. Thanks to his stout dwarven frame he manages to resist some of the push, but the landing's still hell on the knees.

10 damage

Brigid, Scary Bob, Hobgoblin Archers, Black Dragon, Gabriel, Argumentus, Hobgoblin Soldiers, Motsognir, Hobgoblin Warcaster

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Brigid darts around to fill the position Motsognir had so recently vacated, but her sickle swing bounces harmlessly off the soldier's shield.

Bob singes the eyebrows off of the hobgoblin archers, leaving them with a permanent expression of mild surprise.

8 damage to each archer

Unwilling to leave their perch to wreak revenge on Bob for their tragic depilation, they focus fire on Brigid for no other good reason but that she is visible and not apparently injured. Despite their careful aim, her eyebrows remain intact.

14 damage

The dragon continues battering poor abandoned Argumentus, scratching him up with his sharp claws.

5 damage

Gabriel, Argumentus, Hobgoblin Soldiers, Motsognir, Hobgoblin Warcaster, Brigid, Scary Bob, Hobgoblin Archers, Black Dragon

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Gabriel hacks away at the much-abused soldier, more or less out of a sense of obligation.

13 damage, soldier bloodied

Argumentus flees as quickly as he can in the deep and murky water. It's not especially quick. The dragon takes another swipe at him as he waddles away.

7 damage

Having completely failed to form any kind of effective barrier, the soldiers shift northward to attempt pressure from another direction. They flail their flails at their foes, but their flail flailing is a failure.

Motsognir, Hobgoblin Warcaster, Brigid, Scary Bob, Hobgoblin Archers, Black Dragon, Gabriel, Argumentus, Hobgoblin Soldiers

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Motsognir strolls away from the Soldiers, seemingly indifferent to the brutal flailing he incurs thereby.

16 damage, Motsognir bloodied (4 HP)

Having (barely) survived the gauntlet, he proceeds to help the Warcaster lose a few pounds via crude surgery.

11 damage

A crackle of electricity flows from the warcaster's hand and crackles up and down his quarterstaff. He swings the electrified bludgeon at Motsognir's head, but the dwarf ducks at the last second.

Brigid, Scary Bob, Hobgoblin Archers, Black Dragon, Gabriel, Argumentus, Hobgoblin Soldiers, Motsognir, Hobgoblin Warcaster

I was speaking idiomatically.