{"id":5448,"date":"2026-03-21T11:32:49","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T18:32:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/?p=5448"},"modified":"2026-04-04T08:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T15:48:20","slug":"tarsiuss-journal-2-arodus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/tarsiuss-journal-2-arodus\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarsius’s Journal, 2 Arodus"},"content":{"rendered":"

2 Arodus<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having made a number of areas in the Keep safer, and having killed at least one animal that we thought might serve as food,\u00a0 we decided to bring in the Bumblebrashers.\u00a0 They went to town on the turtle creature.\u00a0 Helba asked if this meant they had their home back, and we replied no, not yet, but they would eventually.\u00a0 They all seemed pleased with that answer.<\/p>\n

The goblin dogs were not theirs, but they were intrigued by the idea of having mounts.\u00a0 They said they’d take them under their Bumblebrasher wings.\u00a0 We mentioned they might have use for the worg puppies and the conversation turned somber.\u00a0 “Big Bumble” said Helba sadly and the other goblins turned their eyes to the ground. “That did not go as planned.”<\/p>\n

Apparently they’d had the same idea in the past, and lured an animal to raise as their pet\/mascot.\u00a0 Unfortunayely, they selected a grizzly bear and, well … it is now kept in one of the rooms downstairs until they can figure out what to do with it.\u00a0 They feel responsible for it, even though it sounds like it now considers them just food.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure we can fix that but we can keep it in mind.<\/p>\n

One of our group asked if the secret way in she’d spoke of earlier was goblin sized or human sized.\u00a0 “Oh, it’s suitable for you big people. We\u00a0discovered<\/i>\u00a0it but we didn’t\u00a0create<\/i>\u00a0it.”\u00a0 Helba then drew us a crude map of the area beneath the Keep, with some areas clearly marked as dangerous.\u00a0 (Of course, what’s dangerous for a goblin may not be dangerous to larger people like ourselves.)<\/p>\n

Wait, did I just call them people?\u00a0 All I knew of goblins before were some uncivilized animals with sharp weapons, spilling out of the Chitterwood and trying to lay waste to my home town.\u00a0\u00a0These<\/i>\u00a0goblins, well, they speak Common, and they wear normal .. ish .. clothes and at times are actually polite and deferential.\u00a0 This is so weird.<\/p>\n

We asked about the cultists and Helba said they were both big and small.\u00a0 Some were small ape-like creatures that apparently were intelligent.\u00a0 Trip later remembered something like “charuka”.\u00a0 And yes, these big and small people did use weapons, not just claw and bite.<\/p>\n

Bored, Trip opened a door. (This could get old fast) It was a library, I think; it definitely had books .. a law library maybe?\u00a0 It was a hot mess though.\u00a0 To the north was another library room, but much less disheveled.<\/p>\n

Nearby was what seemed to be a prisoner intake, or maybe holding cells before a trial?\u00a0 Several still had decomposed bodies in them.\u00a0 A storage cabinet nearby was radiating magic, but as Gath went to inspect the bodies, they unexpectedly rose up and attacked.\u00a0 I quickly came up with a plan to make them walk thru a kill box, but one hit from the longsword one of the skeletons picked up convinced me that staying to fight would kill me; maybe kill all of us except maybe Alak.\u00a0 We hastily withdrew from the room and I swallowed a healing potion.<\/p>\n

We explored a bit more of the first floor and found what appeared to be a barracks.\u00a0 Unfortunately, what was nesting there was a bugbear, not any soldiers.\u00a0 Unlike the skeletons, it thoughtfully died when we returned its attack, and quickly too.\u00a0 We found some things in the room that might have a minor resale value, and moved on.<\/p>\n

At this point we heard a call from outside, and there we found a messenger from the Council.\u00a0 They brought the good news that the Council will indeed pay us to further cleanse the Keep of illegally residing creatures.<\/p>\n

At this point, Helba took us to the secret entrance and showed us how to operate it.\u00a0 She thern hastily beat a retreat to the now-cleared ground floor.\u00a0 As we were entering it, Alak was telling us of a legend that the deed for the Keep still resided within, and anyone brave enough and strong enough to gain access to it became the new owner of the Keep.\u00a0 That is a fun story, but it also sounds like a story children would tell each other before daring them to enter.\u00a0 If it’s real, I’ll be very surprised.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we entered a wide corridor that was easily identifiable on Herba’s map.\u00a0 But much to our surprise, there were two iridescent birds waiting in the darkness.\u00a0 \u00a0They started squawking most unpleasantly. And when our light shone upon them, one of them apparently dazzled both Gath and Alak with their irridescent feathers, and they became confused and disoriented.\u00a0 Gath tried to shoot me but missed (lucky for him).\u00a0 Their confusion was fairly brief, and we proceeded.<\/p>\n

At the end of the hall lie 3 doors, and Gath quickly listened at each one to hastily triage which we might want to enter first.\u00a0 One we gently peeked into and there was a doll insisting whoever its current companion was should TAKE IT WITH THEM.\u00a0 We found this a bit creepy and observed for maybe five minutes before concluding that the last thing we wanted was for this doll to join us.\u00a0 Gath quietly closed the door.<\/p>\n

We quietly checked as many passages and doors as we could. One, we found, was a tomb and the dead rose, again as skeletons, so we voted to leave.\u00a0 We did learn that by wearing certain Order of the Nail patches,\u00a0 the skeletons ignored us, so we conjectured that they may simply be protecting the tomb against robbers.\u00a0 However, even in bones and no flesh, they appeared stronger than us and besides, there was over a dozen, which made staying particularly dangerous.\u00a0 Something is wrong in that room, but I’m not sure it is anything we can fix (yet).<\/p>\n

Behind another door we found two highly annoying kobolds, who insisted they were dragons.\u00a0 I was ready to slay the “dragons”, but others in the group thought it better to throw them a dead bird as “tribute” and keep them alive.<\/p>\n

In another northern room we found two boggards, and although one croaked loud enough to startle Gath, we managed to kill them both without too much difficulty.<\/p>\n

The boggards had a “cinder claw” marking on their clothes, but it wasn’t clear if they’d stolen clothing or they belonged to the cult.\u00a0 Either way, this was the first sign we were getting closer to the cultists.\u00a0 Perhaps we can make these guys leave now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2 Arodus Having made a number of areas in the Keep safer, and having killed at least one animal that we thought might serve as food,\u00a0 we decided to bring in the Bumblebrashers.\u00a0 They went to town on the turtle creature.\u00a0 Helba asked if this meant they had their home back, and we replied no, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[94],"class_list":["post-5448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aoa-journal","tag-tarsius"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5448"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5450,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5448\/revisions\/5450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}