Well, the report isn't going to be quite so excellent, rather, short and sweet, while the session itself was indeed most excellent. At least, it was from the viewpoint of the Orc-Ripper Goblin tribe and the Castle Keeper, not so much from the view of the characters...
I've lost track of sessions at this point; this was the fourth, fifth, maybe sixth? I haven't really kept up on that much, as the sparsity of posts indicates... but at some point in the past, during their adventures in the Maul fo Mindor the Magnificent, the party contracted with the Dwarf-Stomper Goblins as bounty hunters, being offered gold for Orc-Ripper heads and, rather than delve more or less willy-nilly, they've taken up hunting goblins.
This last session found them delving deeper into the old Apprentice Annex of the Maul, which the Dwarf-Stomper King said was on the verge of Orc-Ripper territory; they did not know where, exactly, the Orc-Ripper lair was, as it was a secret even the worst torture could not draw out of captured foes.
After encountering a pack of giant rats in the Hall of the Fire Statue (so called because it shot a burning ray at anyone who approached within 5'), the party encountered and slew six bugbears (as it turned out, hired mercenaries of the Orc-Rippers, who by now knew they were being hunted). They took some good treasure in this encounter and continued on...
After checking on several empty rooms, they discovered a wizard-locked door. They stumbled upon the opening phrase right away, "Open in the name of Mindor the Magnificent," a feat even the goblins had not performed, and thus entered the trophy room that had remained inviolate since the fall of the fortress above. There they discovered numerous preserved trophies, such as an owlbear, a chimera, a wyvern, and others (taxidermied, not in statis, fortunately). They also discovered a secret corridor behind the wyvern, though unfortunately it ended in a cave-in... as they had discovered in the previous session, the annex is rather rickety, having nearly caused a complete collapse in the Hall of the Fire Statue due to over-use of the soundburst spell...
It was as the party was leaving the trophy room that they made the fortuitous discovery of a secret door on the opposite wall, as six goblins were walking out at the same time. Both parties were surprised and stared at each other for a moment, then four of the goblins burst through the door, shouting "go for reinforcements!" to their companions, as the otehr two slammed and locked the secret door from the other side. The four were quickly felled by the warriors in the front row, then the hotter-headed twin, Salantra, rushed forth to the secret door crying "we found it, we found it!" Even as the thief, Stabytha, was shouting, "No, wait!" Salantra started pressing protrusions from the wall, seeking the secret button to open the secret door...
Of course, she pressed one of the trapped buttons instead, causing an explosion of Black Lotus Powder to blow forth into the corridor. She fell, as did Keela the Half-Orc; Niena ducked back into the room in time. Salyena, her telepathic link to her sister severed, rushed into the black cloud crying out her name, and that of her patron, Solnor Thelandira, beseeching him for blessings... but she too fell.
Wufu the Monk, the half-orc brother of Nesta the half-orc Wizard, rushed into the cloud to try and recover one of the sisters... and grabbed, by accident, one of the dead goblins. The wizard then used a cantrip to blow a puff of wind at the cloud, and it cleared enough space to see Salyena's foot, which Thurn the Dwarf grabbed, dragging her back into the clear room.
"This is what happens when you forget the point of bringing along a thief," said Stabytha the Thief.
Shortly thereafter the cloud dissipated, and they recovered their fallen friends. Salyena and Salantra were both ashen-faced and very nearly dead, while Keela slept as though caught in nightmares... and none of them woke up, regardless of the methods used to try.
Then the goblins came...
(to be continued)
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