DAY10. rainy day when party paddled down the river they encountered a river overlook stationed with a squad of Warden's Fist members made up of a veteran an acolyte, a scout, and 4 guards (accompanied by 1 deinonychuses).
A bush on the side of the river parts as only Lindal notices a telltale wiggle before it parts and a shocked human face looks at the group opens his mouth and yells.
"Sarge sarge I found some of folks. Strange folks, a duegar, a drow, a lizardman a scholar and a midgit. And they got our canoes"
"What is it this time Nibbet? -- It's just adventurers Nibbit and they don't have our canoes. Ours have the fist emblazoned while these are clearly marked with the symbol of Port Nyanzaru" The Sergeant waves you over. You see a patrol of several guards drenched in sweat behind a well crafted blind of leaves. The Sergeant an older grizzled man in scalemail despite the heat asks if you have a writ of exploration before being interrupted by his private again.
"No Sarge my pappy told me about this. Red hair is prized by dwarves as they are drawn to the beauty of the flame but despite all dwarves being attracted to it only Duegar have the blood for it. And drow can shapechange so they could look like anybody but who else would travel with a duegar and a lizard man? And they hav emagic to make themselves uncannily handsome and you can't tell me that you don't feel a stirring when you look at him."
Sergeant makes a pained face, "I believe that is doppelgänger and incubi and succabi you are mixing up and do I even dare to ask about the midgit?"
"No doppelgängers are just drow bred as spies and assassins. Don't you know anything? And my pappy told me about midgets that happens when a man gets interrupted during coitus and pulls..."
"That is enough private, go clean the latrine"
"aw but I spotted dem don't that count for something?"
Sergeant sighs but then his look softens, "Good point Nibbet. Take Mkala, Epson and Feathers to look for some supper. Sorry about that folks I don't know where he gets some of his ideas. You haven't happened to see any canoes floating up the river?"
The group then traded information with the patrol and found that another group of explorers were ahead of them on the river and the far side of the river was swarming with Goblins. But they tend to ambush and play tricks rather than show up during daytime but they could be a threat on the river. The Sergeant asks about why the writ is a few months old and looks almost new and hears the story of the shadow gates and of the Hags defeated at the river shrine. The Sergeant then tells teh group that they should pay 10% of all goods collected as the Writ requires and this is when Celadon opens his mouth and says, "Oh yeah and what will you do? Extort it from the Prince of Nyanzaru?" But at that the wardens all pull out loaded bows and all pepper Eddie with Arrows. Freya runs up and gives him a chance to flee to the boats where Undril heals him bu the Sergeant follows him there and attacks twice bringing him to the verge of death. Nibbet sikes the dino "Feathers" on Freya and it tears into her as he moves to block reinforcements from coming form the boats. Lindal lunges forward to defend Eddie and skewers the Sergeant and then Celadon uses a whispered word of magic to send the Sergeant into panicked flight letting Lindal knock him unconscious. Eddie takes heart and summons a flaming ball between the party and more guards and incinerates a guard covered with coconut oil.
Kylorin sighs and steps from the boat. Walks over to heal Eddie who is still on death's door and looks Nibbet's in the eye and says. I think you folk smade a mistake. How about we each go our own way and tend our wounded and call it even rather than us fight needlessly when the real threat is the undead. Meanwhile behind her Lindal was dipping his hand into the commanders pockets and pulled out a haul of 3 platinum and 30 gold leaving him his cheaper metals considering it a tax on the wardens. Nibbet nods and calls off feathers and the two groups detangle themselves. Musharib casts a spell to cloak the group in shadows and they disappear onto the river and out of the patrol's sight.
The party travels a ways and considering the boatless wardens a lesser threat than the Goblin on the far side of the river the group choses to camp on the non goblin side. Musharib find them a pretty good camp but in the morning before the day is fully light a war party of goblins in stolen Warden's fist boats slips into the camp and surrounds all the tents and start stabbing everyone in their sleep. One again Eddie gets the worst of it completely surrounded and hit several times. Kylorin and Celadon both on watch completely missed the stealth Batiri goblins as they crawled right up to the tents until the leapt up and started attacking. There was evidence that the Goblins had followed the party all the way from the shrine. Saw party enter and exit soon afterwards and wanted treasure from shine. "Give us treasure from shrine, for metal god. It demands tribute! Crocodile guards it but we saw you enter you came out and must have looted treasure. The god sent me a vision to bring it the thing *looks nervous* you know that you found"
A fierce battle is fought. Eddie manages to blast away all the goblins on one side of his tent but is almost laid low. Lindal rolls to his friend;s defense and takes several blows that would have killed Eddie for sure. When Lindal tries to skewer the goblin warleader the leader Yakka shoves another goblin onto Lindal's blade and shrieks, "Look they killed Kenny! Get revenge for our brother in arms!"
Freya rises a spinning whirlwind of steel dropping the goblins around her tent and then moving to lock down some of the goblins threatening Eddie. Celadon smiles evily and whispers a spell causing the goblin leader's armor to start smoldering cooking him alive. Kylorin steps forward and uses her breath to torch several goblins in a line and then casually blocks a blow that would have killed Eddie. Celadon whisper's words of feat to the goblin leader sending him fleeing and triggering attacks from several folks and Lindal skewers him instantly and the party manage to lock down and remove the rest of the goblin war party. Undril and Musharib took some serious damage as did Eddie and Freya but the party recovers and rests the rest of the morning recovering spells. The party finds the boats used y the goblins and add them to the party's current boats.
DAY11. Heavy Rain turning into a TROPICAL STORM The weather the next morning turns nasty so the group spends the day in the current camp since it was well protected and researches the sending stone getting two messages out of it learning the the party of the Verpertine flame needed 9 cubes and were invading the lair of the Yuan-Ti disguised as Ras Nsi. While sitting around the camp a Vegepygmie rides into the camp on a spikey wooden dog like creature. Eddie casts an illusion of a vegepygmie companion and uses it to get some information from the scout via pantomime and learns that the Vegepygmie do not get along with the goblins and this scout was tracking the goblin war band. He then has the image cast a spell and melt into the earth spooking the vegepygmie scout.
Inspiration
Eddie - overcomplicating both the encounter with the fist and the vegepygmie
Kylorin - saving Eddie's life - twice and stopping needless slaughter between party and the Wardens.
Experience (enemy xp method) 2050 / 7 = 289
Warden outpost - 700 (sergeant) + 200 (feathers)+ 100 (scout) + 50 (acolyte)+ 4* 25 (guard) = 1150 / 7 = 168
Goblin warband - 18 * 25 (goblin) + 200 (warleder)= 650 / 7 = 93
Vegepygmie scout - 200 (thorny) + 50 (vegepygmie) = 250 / 7 = 38
Experience (challenge based) 510 Individual * (5/7ths) = 364
Warden outpost - (medium) 250
Goblin warband - (medium) 250
Vegepygmie (gained useful information) - 10
The party earned 2050 xp with 3 allies [Seraph, Musharib, Undril] (364 each => 4214 cumulative)
Treasure
3 platinum 30 gold from warden commander
50 gold, 30 electrum, 42 silver, and 104 copper form goblin warband