1 Arodus 4719, late afternoon

Citadel Altaerein, Hellknight Hill

I am sure Natre would disagree, but there is such a thing as being too eager!

We found a large gap in the southern wall of the old fortress and carefully climbed up the slope of rubble into a training room. Straw stuffed dummies were mounted on posts with which trainees could practice combat. Snooping around yielded a few coins and I found a secret door in the southwest corner.

I carefully checked this door for traps and opened it. I then eagerly stepped inside without checking for traps and found one the hard way… or the pointy painful way to be precise. A spear launched out and struck me right in the side, which was a painful lesson that eagerness needed to balance with caution.

Fortunately Aemi was able to cast a healing spell that closed the wound and greatly eased the pain. The embarrassment will take longer to fade.

I found a handful of interesting items in the small space beyond the secret door and we gathered them up. A silver longsword was resting against a wall and I put it in my pack, not realizing its usefulness at the time.

The space led westward a short way to a closed door, but we decided to return to the training room and pick one of the many doors that led from there.

I listened at the western door and heard the sound of someone shouting. I motioned to the others and used some of the basic hand signals we had agreed upon before setting out to indicate trouble. After the party positioned itself to handle the threat I opened the door.

Beyond was a large room with a knight fighting a handful of imps. He called out for us to lend us a hand, and given that imps were a common foe we did just that and filed into the room. Tarsius and Kyira rushed in to join in melee while the others stood back to offer support or attack at a distance. Both Aemi and Qantrip were able to use magic to good effect.

I had planned on using my bow — I am not opposed to being on the front line of combat, but I am better skilled with a bow — when Liberte called out that the silver sword should prove particularly effective against imps. I took a moment to pull out the longsword and waded into the combat, and Liberte was right and the imps were none too happy.

Once the battle was over we saw that the room’s floor was black with a blood red arena painted into it, and a pentagram painted within that. Hmm.

The knight introduced himself as Alak, and we each (rather awkwardly) introduced ourselves. He was a hell-knight initiate (and so not actually a knight yet) and had returned to the citadel (what I am calling the fort) for personal reasons and had encountered a number of wild animals and monsters and so he had moved on (ie, fled — nothing wrong with that!) to this chamber when the imps appeared.

When asked about the goblins who lived here he said he wasn’t aware of them, and had not seen them, which was likely given that Iskaryn saw them hiding on the battlements above. Alak was quite happy to accompany us outside and up to see the goblins and so we worked our way out to a large courtyard.

Before entering the courtyard I heard voices speaking goblin — someone was angry and threatening to throw someone else off the top of the wall. I passed this on to the rest of the team as we entered the square.

There, from a shallow pool of stagnant water against the west wall an enormous lizard creature rose up. Someone asked, “Do we kill it or go by it?” to which I replied “It seems unlikely we’ll be able to get by it.” “Okay, so kill it.” “Yup.”

It was a nasty beast and powerful, gouging out chunks of flesh from anyone within striking distance. Tarsius and Kyira joined Alak in melee assault and the rest of us began our ranged attacks and Aemi began to sing. I know, sing, right? But the sound of her voice definitely made me feel like I was doing better than I normally would. And she has a nice voice.

The lizard puffed out a blast of sickly vapors at Alak and Kyira, and then dropped Tarsius with a single blow — holy shit! Fortunately Qantrip rushed in to stabilize him and Kyira managed to heal him.

With a determined effort we managed to slay the beast and its body splashed back down into the foul water of the pond.

From the wall tops we heard a chorus of goblin voices cheering, but then one different, unpleasant, whiny, nasal voice cut through them. “Who are you? You better stay away or I’ll kill her!”

We looked up to see a group of goblins huddled together, but apart from them, to the left, stood a halfling holding onto a goblin woman with a knife pressed to her throat.

Obviously we had found Calmont, and it seems his evil behavior extended beyond trying to burn people alive. Aemi began to talk to him, which caused him to froth at the mouth and gesticulate wildly with his free hand about how nobody was going to take what was his. The rest of us stood still, trying to figure out what to do, but I saw Qantrip blend into the shadows along the wall and begin to climb the steps. Aemi must have seen it too because she continued to engage with Calmont.

Alak had seen enough and began to climb the stairs, apparently not having seen Qantrip moving stealthily ahead of him, but we couldn’t call him back without the risk of exposing her. Fortunately she made it within range of Calmont and he dropped like a sack of flour onto the battlements. That’s never going to get old.

Some of us ran up and bound Calmont with the halfling sized manacles we had picked up from the town guard earlier.

I spoke with the goblin leader, Helba, whom Calmont had held hostage. She was relieved to hear that her friend Warbal had sent us and she explained that Calmont had only arrived that day and was not the cause of their distress smoke signal.

“Cultists appeared some weeks ago and kicked us out from our home in the vaults beneath the citadel,” she said. “Then the monsters arrived and the lizard beast collapsed the main stairs leading down from the courtyard. But the goblins have a secret way we can show you.”

I thanked her and we decided we would return to Breachill right away with Calmont and then return to continue our exploration of the fortress in the morning. Once we were done with the main level the goblins would show us the way to the vaults below.

1 Arodus 4719, evening

Cayden’s Keg, Breachill

We spoke with Calmont on the walk back into town. Aemi was good at making him feel at ease and getting him to talk about his purpose at the fort. He was looking for a very valuable magical ring, but not the type of ring you were on your finger, but rather a teleportation portal. “It would be valuable, and we would control it and the access to it. Yes, I would operate the ring and you could guard it, and I would share the wealth from the fees I charged to use it. Just think of the riches!”

Right. Whatever. We dropped him off at the town guard and after Liberte did some more research at the town archives we updated Greta Gardania, our contact on the town council. She paid us our reward and then expressed concern about the presence of cultists at the fort so close to Breachill. I offered the city our services if they wanted to hire us, and she agreed to consult the rest of the council about the matter.

The extra coin has allowed me to have a nice meal at Cayden’s Keg and a room for the night.

2 Arodus 4719, morning

Citadel Altaerein, Hellknight Hill

We set off for the fort this morning along with our new ally, Alak, as well as Warbal, who wanted to check in with her friend Helba. The fort is only a mile away and so the walk was a pleasant half an hour stroll up into the hills.

We thought we’d go through the main gate this time, but we discovered a small pack of goblin dogs living in the entry way. Maybe they belonged to the resident goblins and so we let them be and entered through the training room.

We escorted Warbal through the safe route we established yesterday up to the goblins and then returned to the training room. Qantrip wanted to approach the goblin dogs from the opposite direction and so we took an eastern door into a kitchen. We snooped around a bit and found some old food.

And then swarms of spiders came out from the cupboards and engulfed us. Swarms! I remember encountering swarms of stinging bugs with Natre, but she was able to blast them away with spells. I don’t know any spells, and swatting at them with the flat of a sword is no more effective than shooting at them with arrows.

“Run away!” I don’t know who yelled it — hell it could have been me — but it was a damned fine idea. We scrambled out from the kitchen and Alak slammed the door shut.

“So not that way,” I offered rather lamely.

“How about we go through the door in the secret passage,” Liberte suggested.

I checked for traps like our lives depended on it. Door. Check for traps. Listen for noise from the other side. Clear. Hallway. Check. Listen. Clear. Bend in the hallway. Check. Listen. Clear. Another door, another hallway, repeat and rinse. I need to improve my skills here so it doesn’t take so long.

Liberte was so bored by the process that he went outside into the courtyard to see if he could predict where our passage would take us before we got there.

Eventually we found ourselves at the base of one of the towers with a pair of closed doors. I checked the door to the east and opened it to reveal a hallway with a wall that collapsed into the courtyard. Liberte was there and waved.

At the same time Qantrip opened the other door and squealed, but not in a good way. There was a room with half a dozen dire rats and one of them sprang forward and bit her. She scampered away while the rest of us sprang into action. Once again we proved to be an effective team and were able to dispatch all of the rats.

Yes, I follow a deity who’s avatar is a giant water rat, and I do have a fondness for our rodent friends. But aggressive, disease ridden dire rats are altogether different.

Oh, and that part about being disease ridden isn’t just hyperbole. Iskaryn maintained a lengthy dialogue with Aemi throughout our fight describing how Qantrip was most likely infected and would need healing, and well, let’s just say that bird really doesn’t know how to be brief. And she appears to lack tact, but then I think that’s not something Aemi would disagree with.

We searched the room and found a few items of interest and then went through a door leading east (after searching and listening, of course). Another hallway and another door. But this time while listening I heard a soft yipping noise, like puppies. We opened the door and found an untidy chamber.

The yipping came from the north. It was from a pair of wolf pups — no, warg pups! We all thought they were cute, but we were all concerned about running into the parents. And sure enough, a large and angry warg sprang into the room. A few of us tried to reason with it, but it wasn’t in the mood for talking and attacked. We had to kill it.

Qantrip locked the puppies in another room with some food (imp and dire rat body parts she had thoughtfully harvested). While the rest of us explored.

There was a large room like a lecture hall and through an opening we saw daylight and a pool of water. Laying in the pool was a humanoid corpse in armor. Not suspicious at all.

Liberte and I went into the room from whence the dire wolf had come and that’s when we heard shouting from our team mates, but by the time we got to them the threat was over. There was the corpse of a giant turtle-like thing with spiny spikes across its back, onto which the body was impaled. Apparently the thing used the body as a lure for… well, for people like us. Someone had killed it with a spell, I think, but it just happened a few moments ago and so I’m not sure what really went down.