Session 05

General Summary

Haldrick wakes up the unconscious wizard after finding a notebook/diary and gives a knife to Dubak.

Dubak tries to get the wizard to talk. Seeing Mariana the wizard is finally scared. Dubak continues to interrogate him. The wizard starts ranting and raving and it becomes clear that the wizard is not all there. "No one has the strength to do what needs to be done. Its the only way to defeat the Illidians."

Beck asks Haldrick to borrow the notebook he took off the table to look through it for clues.

Haldrick shoos Dubak and Mariana away so he can use a "softer approach." This gives Dubak a higher intimidation status. Haldrick gets his face spat in as he tries to calm him down. But he tries again and succeeds in calming him down.

Asira and Beck discover, reading the notebook, that this is the journal of a man slowly losing his mind. He was distraught when the Southerners attacked and tried to join the resistence who didn't want his crazy-ass and so he became determined that the only way to beat the Southerners was to envoke some ancient magic which requires some ancient magic.

Dubak recommends hog-tying him and bringing him back to the town to let them deal with him. Haldrick and Mariana finish exploring the underground tunnels. Asira determines the he was a gifted wizard who really believed that he could do this, but can't discern anymore before that.

Beck is sent to check for traps around a chest. There are none and he opens it. There are spell books and some hallucinogenic mushrooms. Dubak takes the mushrooms and Asira takes the spellbooks.

Polan greets us back in town and looks shocked when he sees the Maj. Dubak decides to make an announcement while holding the Maj that he is the one who took the kids. Polan pulls Dubak aside and says that he is ashamed to say he thought Vormoth was gone for good. Vormoth used to be the town Maj, he left the town in disgust when we said we just wanted to live in peace when he wanted to fight the South. Polan says that they don't want him. Dubak tells a story about fighting a giant lobster to get Polan to see that his people need to take care of Vormoth who is their problem. He agrees to hold him until the Southerns come and collect him since there is a bounty on him.

Dubak takes the 5 chickens, potatos, and corn they offer. He also gives the local carpenter 20 gold to create a second set of wheels and axels to improve the pull-cart.

Asira goes to help the town to prepare dinner and Dubak comes to introduce them to making chicken soup as an alternate to boiled chicken. Then he shows them Gnocci and they like it and invite us all to eat with them.

Asira then she checks out the Wizard's spellbooks while Halrick and Beck bond over drink and pass out in the longhouse. Dubak, Mariana, and Asira are all offered lodging.

The party heads out for a day's scouting the Weathered Hills. Haldrick climbs a hill to scout out the location when the path ends. He falls and gets up and climbs the last 20ft. He sees rolling hills and no discernable paths. Asira tries and gets injured trying to climb up the hill. Mariana tries and sees some natural paths probably made by deer or large creatures and one other path probably made by humanoids.

Dubak investigates the unnatural path and determines, by hack-marks on trees, that they were likely made by goblins but the tracks look old. The party, following Mariana, heads down the Goblin path and gets lost in the hills. Haldrick takes over and finds the path we lost.

Asira calls over a small bird and talks with it. It's says that little green violent men live in the hills that attack bigger men. It doesn't want to show us where they are because they'll shoot at him. They are towards the South. The bird doesn't want to travel with us. It's also ambiguous about a wide path that a cart could go down. That sometimes the goblin paths but sometimes not. It informs us that there is an owl that might want to travel with us.

Mariana catches a mouse to be an offering to the owl and we approach his tree and stirrs. Asira casts Animal Friendship to get the owl to talk to her. He says that he doesn't need protection or food but would be interested in travelling for a while if entertainment was provided. Mariana lets go of the mouse and he catches it after 10 seconds or so. We make an arrangment for calls to communicate and he sets off to scout out the goblins. He is gone an hour and then indicates their general direction.

The party keeps walking in the direction the owl indicated. And when a trip-wire is discovered Asira casts Pass Without Trace to protect the party. Dubak looks for the extent of the trip wire and it's a noise-making trap, and Dubak cuts the wire. Dubak then finds a stick in the mud and goes to investigate it. The trip wire heads into a tree and he climbs it to investigate it. He loses the wire and after we're all clear he punches the tree and a large spikey log flies into the path.

Asira turns into a fox to take the blame and the Goblins reset the trap while everyone hides and Asira scouts out the number of Goblins, of which there are 15-20. The Goblins head back to where they hide for ambushes.

Dubak scales the cliff to try and get a better angle and he throws a rope down and we all climb up. Asira, still in fox form runs behind the group of goblins about 15 min down the path and finds a large cave where she hears the sounds of potentially many more goblins. She heads back to the group and everyone, except Mariana head to the cave to try to collapse it while still in stealth.

Asira casts Thunderwave and collapses the the mouth of the cave effectively burying the goblin colony alive. We hear the other 15-20 Goblins alerted and coming towards the cave.

A fight ensues with the ambush Goblins, of which there are 16. We kill 9 and the remaining 7 whose leader has fallen surrender. The party allows the remaining to stay and dig out their comrades as long as they promise to leave the area and head south. They set up camp to keep an eye on the goblins overnight.