2 Arodus 4719, morning

Citadel Altaerein, Hellknight Hill

Qantrip suggested inviting the goblins down to feast on the dead turtle creature, and so they joined us in the court room cum dining room where they feasted on turtle meat and seemed quite delighted with their change of fortune. One of them croaked out a strange little song that sounded vaguely familiar.

Gamera is really neat,
He is full of turtle meat,
We are eating Gamera!

From the court room we moved west, exploring various libraries, where we found some mundane legal books (as expected considering the chamber with the turtle was a court room) and in the first and more interesting history books in the second. Books are heavy and so we will need to return with a cart to haul away what we found.

We then found the jail with a desk at the near end and cage like cells at the far end. A closer look showed the skeletal remains of former prisoners — or so we assumed, which begged the question of what sort of sick bastards leave people to die like this?

Of course that’s when the bones stood up and we found ourselves facing four formidable skeleton warriors. We shifted into our usual combat positions and roles, but it quickly became obvious that we could not stand against all of them at once. We fled the room and closed the door behind. We heard the scratching of bony fingers against the door for a few moments and then silence.

Some might have called it running away, and for others it was a strategic retreat. I really didn’t care: we would gain nothing by standing toe to toe with these monsters and would have lost precious health and resources. We can return later if we feel the need to clear out the fort and set up a kill box where the skeletons can only come at us one at a time.

We continued to explore, passing by the ante chamber before the grand entry hall where we left a pack of goblin dogs earlier. In the next room we stumbled upon a lone bugbear, which insanely tried to attack us. I think Liberte killed it with just a look.

No, seriously, our half orc scholar in addition to being quite learned and steeped in lore has also nurtured an imposing stare that often causes our foes to piss themselves. He glared at the hapless bugbear and it kind of filled its pants before we dropped it.

At about this time one of the town guards called to us from out front. He brought a message from the council expressing their concerns about a band of cultists and monsters taking up residence less than a mile away from Breachill, and yes, of course they would pay us for dealing with the potential threat.

“It never hurts to ask,” was one of Natre’s favorite expressions whenever I was forced to go into town and negotiate for the goblin tribe in the Chitterwood, and so I am in the habit of asking

We decided now was a good time to deal with the spider swarms we had left in the kitchen earlier, and so we dragged the bugbear’s corpse outside to act as bait. I opened the kitchen door and scampered back into another room while Tarsius slammed the door behind me. Qantrip kept a stealthy watch and called out that the swarms had left the fort and dissipated into the surrounding countryside.

With the main floor of the fortress cleared and explored we returned to Helba and Warble who pried themselves away from the heaping herptile flesh long enough to take us outside and around back where they pointed out the secret entrance into the vaults below. Helba gave us an annotated map of the vaults, including the location of where they had trapped a bear some time before.

Their idea was that it would make a great mascot, but mostly it just wanted out and mauled numerous goblins as they tried to tame it. Helba seemed quite fond of it and expressed concern for how the cultists might be treating it. Hmm, yes. They also marked where there were old graves and other hallways and rooms.

The problem with underground spaces is that they tend to be dark. Dark can be your friend and it can conceal you, but in the absolute blackness of the underground vault most of us were blind. Being a half orc and a goblin Liberte and Qantrip could see easily enough, but most of us would need a light source. Aemi had a dancing light spell she used to keep a glowing ball of light moving about and lighting our way. Tarsius also put a light spell on his sword, and I could bring out a hooded lantern to supplement the magical light as needed.

We climbed down and moved down a long corridor that eventually opened into a wide hall with many passages and doors leading off in all directions. Waiting for us were a pair of enormous birds that began to squawk and make a horrific racket. They were quite beautiful to behold and their rustling feathers glinted with exotic colors. In fact at some point I was so transfixed by the shimmering colors that I lost track of time for a moment.

But of course the birds were hostile and attacked. Qantrip used sleep spells and Liberte used his fierce “don’t fuck with us” look, and Aemi sang, and the rest of us hit the exotic birds until they dropped.

The noise from the birds and combat made us extra nervous because there were three doors ahead of us that were open. I crept up and peered through the doors. To the north and south were mostly empty rooms that led further back, but the center room had a desk with the bodies of a couple of boggards behind it, and a creepy little doll standing on the desk.

And the doll was talking. I couldn’t understand it, but Liberte could and said it was pleading for us to help it and take it with us. Uh huh. Keep in mind that it was saying this in Infernal. And when we showed no signs of coming closer the freakish thing began to scream and lept of the table and ran towards the door. Liberte slammed it shut and we heard a distinct thud as the doll must have run into it.

Okay. We’ll return to deal with the devil doll later. Strategic retreat. Running away. Staying alive.

We decided to explore the corridors leading south, which the goblins had helpfully identified as being burial areas. We opened two regular doors and found various crypts. Alak said that this was indeed where the Hellknights buried their dead, and there was clearly a class system in effect even after death. We saw no reason to go into the room until I noticed that some of the cap stones had been damaged and that there were fairly recent tracks in the room.

Alak and I entered to investigate when a large number of skeletons sprang to life and shuffled towards me. Interestingly they ignored Alak, and so we retreated to the main hallway, where I fished the badges we had collected previously and handed them out to everyone. 

Tarsius bravely volunteered to test this hypothetical ward and it worked! He was able to walk about the crypt rooms unmolested by the skeletons. We returned to the main hall where we heard new voices speaking another language I didn’t know.

There were two kobolds living in the chamber to the north of the devil doll room. They had lived at peace with the goblins to the north and were chased out by the cultists and were clearly living hard by.

Fun fact: everyone is a servant to kobolds, even if they are not aware of it.

They were delighted with the fresh bird meat we offered them, and agreed that they should leave the vault and join the goblins upstairs.

I checked out one additional southern passageway that terminated in a dead end, but with some searching I found a secret door. Beyond that were more sarcophagi and three wights.

Nope. I closed the door and returned to the others.

Looking at the goblin map we decided to avoid the eastern most northern corridor because that’s where most of the rooms were and we assumed that is where the cultists would be. We also dismissed the central corridor because that’s where their bear lived.

And so we went west and introduced ourselves to a pair of boggards. They were not friendly and so we were not friendly back and again combined our various skills to remove the threat to the party.