PREVIOUSLY - CAMPAIGN DIARIES 39 - Flight From the Succubus

07 Merpenoth- Day 101 - 9PM - Julkoun

Moving in darkness, sneaking from building to building, taking out two more guard towers, the Owlbear League and Oyfanen the dryad continues their silent siege on the invaders of Julkoun. Orryn is attacked at one point by a goblin who jumps down from a high shelf inside a building. The goblin misses, but when Orryn swings, his rapier gets stuck in a work table, so the goblin gets in a backhand slap on the rogue, which sends him tumbling. Nowhere misses the dodgy goblin, Atlas swings and misses as well. Immeral uses shocking grasp and kills the goblin with a massive electrical jolt.

Some of the goblins outside turn towards the muffled noises of the fights, but none move towards the building. The League lays low and waits, not wanting to battle a score of goblins all at once, and the goblins lose attention and most wander off to rest in the various locals they bed down in. None raises the alarm.

They repeat the pattern into the next building, a smithy filled with ironworking materials. Orryn sneaking in first and finds two goblins sleeping. He signals for Nowhere and she creeps in silently and they manage to slit the throats of the goblins before they even wake. They reconnoiter and spy a pair of docks nearby, and a guard tower which gets their attention.

They notice a boat caught on a chain that blocks the river. It is half sunk, and stuck on the chain. The League considers that they could make their way back to Julkoun quickly if they grab a boat downstream.

Orryn and Atlas sneak up the tower, and they are both asleep on watch. They slit their throats silently, and then take stock. There is a smaller tower at the end of the parapet that leads from their tower. They also see another taller tower not too much further, that has some movement within, but it is too dark to see clearly.

Again, The League creeps across the parapet and finds two goblins facing outward, lit by torches down below and outside. They creep into the room and surprise the goblins. Nowhere decapitates one of the goblins sending its head flying out over the wall, and Atlas manages the same, the head landing in the small tower. They back out and go down the tower they came up. They do a quick assessment of the boats and see nothing of interest in the simple fishing boats.

They then proceed to the remaining tower and again, trying to be stealthy, and manage to find three goblins playing dice to candlelight and cackling at each other. They decide to charge up and catch the goblins unprepared.

Nowhere swings Icerazor as one reaches for a sword, but she runs him through. Atlas runs up the stairs and grabs one with her gauntlets of ogre power and grapples him while he tries to squirm out of her grasp. The goblin starts yelling. Dain charges up and on the edge of raging, and destroys the third one with his great axe. Dain dips his hand in the goblin blood, wipes it across his face like warpaint and gets in the face of the grappled goblin that Atlas was holding, his eyes opening wide in a bloodthirsty grimace.

The goblin starts to scream and Atlas throws a hand over its mouth. K'ronk uses his staff of charming and manages to charm the humanoid, even though they had been battling him moments before. "Quiet" K'ronk says, and the goblin grows immediately silent. He says "My friend will translate for me, he can be trusted." The goblin nods, although he seems a bit confused.

"I'm sorry, i forgot your name, friend. I'm Immeral, friend of your friend K'ronk"

"I'm Krugham."

"What are you doing here?" K'ronk asks through Immeral who can speak goblin.

"We took the town!" the goblin says proudly.

"How did you do that?" they ask.

"It was easy. The gates were opened for us."

"Who opened the gates for you?" Immeral asks.

"The witch lady arranged it." the goblin tells them.

Immeral probes deeper, "Did she have dark hair, pale white skin, a mean face and two different colored eyes?"

"Yes!"

"The succubus was in on this too." Immeral says

"Are all the people dead?" Immeral asks.

"No, they were sent away," the goblin reveals.

"Where?" Immeral asks.

"I don't know - upriver somewhere. They are our slaves now!" the goblin says gleefully

"Great powers, fire powers!" he seems proud, but he shudders. "And lightning too!"

"How do we get into the northern section?" asks Immeral.

"They boarded up the northern section, it is not easy" he reveals.

"I have some friends outside, can you help us go get them?" Immeral inquires.

"We would have to take down the barricades. We could take a boat I guess." the goblin considers.

Atlas asks "Is Gabulla well protected?"

"Yes" says the goblin "there is a whole squad of hobgoblins and goblins in the north, they like the buildings up there, so they kicked most of us down here, except Gabulla's personal guards. The hobgoblins think they are so tough just because they have better armor. If I had armor and swords like them I would be as tough as they are."

Immeral asks "Do the other goblins dislike the hobgoblins?"

"Yes" Krugham replies, "but we always work together, Gabulla says we must obey."

Immeral says "If all of you goblins stood up to the hobgoblins, you would defeat them."

Krugham says "I don't know."

Atlas tries to ask him about Mizar, but Immeral says "I'm not translating that."

"Who does Gabulla worship?"

"Maglubiyet" which Immeral is aware of as the goblin god of war.

Immeral switches back to common, "OK, so we axe this shaman, report back to Daggerford and maybe can then head upriver to search for the townsfolk. I think we're done."

A horn blows a short ways off, somewhere to the west.

"That's an alarm, we should report down there!"

Dain takes the queue, and from behind the goblin, swings his great axe and lops off Krugham's head, ending the info.

A big hobgoblin is in the square, forming squads of five goblins who start lightning torches, preparing for a search, and the hobgoblins above the gates of the northern section of town appear to double-up and stand on high alert.

K'ronk uses his staff of frost creating an ice storm in the midst of the forming squads of goblins about 200' away from their tower, decimating their numbers, killing 15 of the goblins outright, leaving several running around in terror with their hobgoblin captain brutally beaten. He tries to rally the few remaining goblins, but he manages to reform the squad, and they start looking from building to building.

Dain screams in rage and leads the charge across the square and into the remaining squad of goblins, striking a goblin with his great axe and cleaving it in half, guts spilling on the ground.

K'ronk flares a firebolt at the heavily armored hobgoblin, singeing him, and immediately swings his quarterstaff for a sharp hit.

Immeral follows with a ray of frost and kills the leader with an icy blast.

Atlas charges in with flurry of blows along with using her Ki to add two unarmed strikes to her attack and batters a goblin to a pulp.

Orryn uses his wand of magic missiles to obliterate one of the goblins who is now on the run, sending him face-down dead to the ground.

Nowhere swings Icerazor at one of the remaining four goblins and she slashes a goblin, but it still stands.

Seraphina casts burning hands and spreads a fan of flame over the remaining goblins, striking three of them, all falling burning to the ground.

The goblin facing Nowhere breaks to run, but Nowhere gets an opportunity attack as he turns to flee and she slashes from behind and kills him.

Dain, furious with rage, but having no more enemies to fight, smashes through the window of a nearby merchant and grabs a small keg of wine and starts guzzling it down straight from the keg.

They watch as the remaining goblins in the towers around the southern section of town, climb down, open the gates and wiggle their way out through the barricades, running for their lives. The hobgoblin upon the parapet of the northern section of town stand unwavering.

Oyfanen has managed to find some fabric and she's kind of playing with all these different pieces of cloth like laying putting him on her and making kind of cowls and such. Atlas hands her one of the severed heads of the goblins and Oyfanen says "Ewwwww, icky!"

Orryn says to Atlas "She's not a psycho you know."

Then Oyfanen gets excited "I bet they would make a great sound if we threw them in the river!"

She grabs one of the heads and runs over to the river and bloop goes the head.

"That was fun" she says, "they feed the fishes" and Atlas smirks at Orryn.

Nowhere is staring at the heavy wooden doors that bar them from the northern section of town at the top of the earthen ramp.

"We're gonna to go in." she says.

"Yeah?" says Dain who is calm now, but covered in wine, maybe not too lucid.

"Swords flashing, balls out." she says and he doesn't even laugh, just nods seriously.

The hobgoblins look for signs of in the town, but The League extinguishes the torches, and only Nowhere can see that far in the dark.

Immeral adds "The shaman can cast fireball."

K'ronk adds "We need some distance attacks."

Orryn says "I'm not fighting a frontal assault."

K'ronk creeps up just to the range where he can see the hobgoblins atop the parapet some 60 feet away and casts firebolt. They light up the night sky, revealing The League, but unfortunately miss. The hobgoblins bark some commands while Immeral creeps up and tries chill touch, but the spell fails to harm its armored hobgoblin target.

Into the darkness, aiming for the League's last position, the invaders launch a volley of arrows, one of which strikes Dain who is moving a bit slower than usual, but he snaps off the arrow and pulls it from his side. K'ronk suffers a gash from an arrow too. The hobgoblins can be heard assembling behind the gates. Nowhere and Dain want a frontal assault, but cooler heads prevail and they back away and reassess.

Orryn asks "Should we get Lady D?".

Atlas says "Maybe we can draw them out."

Seraphina casts spike growth and the earthen ramp becomes all twisted and gnarly and pitted, but not obviously to the naked eye.

More archers stand atop the parapet and they start launching flaming arrows into the street, sending The League farther back.

"Let's get Lady D." says Nowhere

08 Merpenoth- Day 102 - 12PM - Julkoun

The Owlbear League exits the abandoned southern fortifications of the town of Julkoun, pushing aside barricades intended to keep an invading force out. They gather Lady D from the woods as well as the horse Immeral borrowed from Sir Isteval, and along with Oyfanen, head into the woods north of the town to reconnoiter. The guards are on watch, and at least fifteen hobgoblins are on the move, several captains directing them in patrolling the fortified wall, so they stay out of their darkvision range, surveying the ravine and moat that serves as a buffer between the woods and the town. They are in luck, as by starlight they spy a covered bridge crossing the ravine some twenty feet below the floor of the town. The bridge once had windows, but they look to have been smashed out. The group knows they cannot take Lady D, and the owlbear seems bothered she has to wait and guard the horse again, but she agrees, and lumbers off into the woods.

There is a door on either end of the bridge, one to the north, away from the town and a door to the south, under the town. The party heads south, underneath Julkoun. Behind the door is a 50' hallway running south. Nowhere closes the door without entering.

Nowhere wonders "Do we have a message box back in Daggerford?"

Immeral considers "Atlas, Orryn, Clinker, Dain, Nowhere, Seraphina, Garaele, Tinkerchap..." Orryn looks at Atlas with disgust. "Immeral, Urchins, K'ronk, Drask."

Nowhere adds "Should we send for help from Daggerford? There were a lot of hobgoblins."

Immeral adds "Maybe, but we are a 3-4 day march away."

Nowhere, in surprising restraint says "We fulfilled the mission, we know what happened to the town. We could go back to Daggerford, check on the kids and send the authorities."

Orryn says "And let Gabulla get away in the meantime?"

Nowhere replies "It's not our job to fix this."

Immeral adds, "There is no fixing this. It's better to end it now. Who knows what else the shaman may be up to." surprising everyone.

Dain happy adds "Fuck it, let's go!"

Atlas chimes in "There are slaves taken north, an army of hobgoblins, potentially a succubus. This is too big for the seven of us."

K'ronk says "I think we have an obligation to see this through."

Nowhere points out "If we run into the boss, she can call for an entire army as reinforcements!"

Oyfanen questions "We're not going to kill more of them?"

Nowhere smiles, "We will, just not right away."

"Awww" Oyfanen replies and frowns. "But I want to kill them now."

Atlas and Dain say "Me too." and Oyfanen adds "I like you Dain!"

Oyfanen says "You promised we would kill the bad people." and stomps her feet a little.

K'ronk replies "I promise you can kill twice as many bad people if we wait."

"I want to kill them now." she pouts.

K'ronk considers "maybe we could head up to the woods and rest, I feel like we are near exhaustion."

Immeral says "We won't be able to get back into the bridge unseen. Maybe the north side of the bridge has a place we can hold up for an hour."

Dain says "We rested up on the hill."

Immeral says "Let's just rest here for a little bit and if nothing comes in, we will be in better shape to handle them." The rest agree and they find a spot on the bridge away from the bloody body of the cleric.

08 Merpenoth- Day 102 - 1AM - Julkoun

After their rest, they open the door to where the passage ends in a T. Neither passage reveals anything interesting.

"Which way?" Orryn asks.

"Left is always right." Nowhere replies, and they go with that decision and head east. The narrow passage makes a turn south and they continue up some stairs when they come to a landing with a door to the left, right, and before them, up some more stairs.

Nowhere listens to the door to the left, and hears nothing. Nowhere listens to the right door and also hears nothing, but smells something with heavy spices. Something tasty, her stomach rumbles in hunger, but she moves on swiftly to the top of the stairs, and listens again where she hears some rummaging around.

Orryn peeks into the southernmost one, trying to be as stealthy as possible. Surprisingly, it looks like a tavern, except the interior is in total disarray, and the tiled floor is covered in a layer of splinters, shards, and bloody grime. Two corners of the room contain fireplaces, and the rough stone walls and pillars show signs of recent violence and vandalism. Across the ceiling is a network of copper pipes. Most of the furniture is overturned and broken. On the eastern side of the room is a bar with a large set of shelves, all of which has been hacked and smashed. Doors to the west and east have been torn from their hinges, while a sturdy steel door to the south stands intact. There are windows showing the night sky across the room, but they are small and high on the wall, suggesting this tavern is a basement, or at least half-buried in the earth.

Orryn listens, and he hears a sound coming from the northern wall, just east of the door. There is a curtained window, its bottom 3 feet from the floor. The lower portion of the window forms a broad stone counter, behind which is likely the kitchen. He scents the air, and the earthy, moldy smell of the underground lair is mixed with the pungent scent of some sort of beast mixed with the spicy smell of cooking food. Some sort of rummaging sounds can be heard from the curtained area. Orryn signals the other members of The League, pointing to the door they are standing next to, letting them know he hears something while he closes the door to the tavern.

It's a kitchen, which smells of mushrooms and spices. The walls and the corner fireplace are lined with beige glazed tiles bearing leafy motifs. Lots of copper pots and pans hang from hooks or rest on wall shelves. The room contains two large tables and a halved section of a small tree trunk mounted on stubby pegs as a cutting surface.

Tearing into a bloody sack of what appears to be cuts of meats of some kind is a riderless worg, that looks aged and scarred, but is huge. The League and their friend Oyfanen attacks, and despite a nip or two at the heroes, they vanquish the beast - Nowhere and Atlas first slashing at it with swords, then Orryn stabs it with his rapier, drawing more blood, and Dain swings his great axe in the tight space of the kitchen felling the foul-smelling beast. There is nothing else of interest in the ransacked kitchen, and they check across the hall, where they find a prep room.

To the west, in the adjacent room, they see a southern wall with open and empty wooden lockers. Under a wooden staircase that leads upwards is a copper tank connected to a copper pipe that runs in from the common room. The tank, which has a spout sits on a large woodburning stove - clearly a still. A pile of firewood sits nearby, as well as half-a-dozen makeshift beds, but they are unoccupied.

Nowhere goes to the top of the stairs and latches the trap door that opens above. Moments later, someone rattles the trap, pulling on it from above, and someone knocks on the floor, calling out in goblinoid "what are you doing down there?" The League freezes, and moments later they hear the goblin equivalent of "idiots".

They retreat back the way they came, back to the underground tavern, checking out the room opposite the brewing room. It looks like some sort of office, with knocked over tables and chairs, and they do a quick search, but find nothing of interest.

Finally they turn to a heavy metal door to the south. Hearing nothing, they open it cautiously, and they see stars up above in the night air at the top of a wide rise of stairs. They close the door, bar it, and continue back down the long tunnels to the north, and then west, and they come to a stair that rises before them and opens into a dark room.

They creep up the stairs, and with the darkvision they all have, they see a large space containing boxes and barrels, with two stone pillars holding up the roof, about 10 feet above. The odor of ale, wine, and smoke is clear from their passage, and they see a tripod brazier lighting the room.

Near the brazier, on the far side of the room, snoring loudly, sleeps a large well-equipped hobgoblin. Seemingly a leader based on his size, with two other hobgoblins sitting on chairs, keeping watch, but they are facing half towards the stairs. The League forms a quick plan for a surprise ranged attack.

Orryn uses his shortbow, but misses.

Seraphina uses sacred flame on the sleeping captain and he is enveloped in magical flame, waking and screaming.

One of the hobgobins yells out "Shorg!" seeing his burning captain, and pulls his sword.

Atlas misses an attack on the guard, as does Oyfanen.

Immeral casts poison spray and kills the elite hobgoblin guard, leaving the charmed one and the burnt captain.

K'ronk states "Don't attack us, we're here to save you, friend! They have turned evil!" as he casts firebolt, but the captain's heavy armor keeps him from taking damage from the spell or K'ronk's quarterstaff.

Dain stabs at Shorg with javelin, but misses.

The charmed hobgoblin screams out "I don't understand, why are they evil?"

Shorg the smoldering captain swings out at Immeral, striking him and drawing a bloody wound across his arm. He swings again at Atlas, but misses the nimble monk this time. He screams with rage.

Seraphina casts sacred flame again, roasting the captain, but not killing him, sending him into a ferocious frenzy.

Nowhere swings Icerazor at the maddened captain, but he stumbles out of her reach.

Orryn drives forward with a vicious attack, slipping his rapier into gaps in the hobgoblin's plate mail and driving it deep into his abdomen, drawing blood as he pulls back his weapon.

Atlas stands tall and launches unarmed strikes and flurry of blows at the insane captain. Punches land, and the hobgoblin is sent dazed and reeling.

Immeral casts ray of sickness at the floundering leader, striking him with the magical ray, killing the captain with the poisoning attack.

The remaining hobgoblin stands over the body of his former superior. "What have you done?" he asks, looking at K'ronk.

K'ronk says "They have not told you the truth about who they are working with. The dark haired woman is a witch and going to betray Gabulla."

The hobgoblin turns dour. "How can we help Gabulla, and why did we kill our own tribemates?"

"The captain was under the witch's spell. He was using you, but you seem to be snapping out of it now."

"Who are you people? I know you..." pointing at K'ronk.

K'ronk says "They are my family." "Maybe we can save Gabulla with their help."

The guard says "What is the point of saving Gabulla if we have to kill the whole tribe?"

"We can save the tribe if you help us find Gabulla." K'ronk says.

"But how many more will fall?" the hobgoblin asks.

"Save yourself then, leave the town." K'ronk tells him.

"I can't just leave the town, we have laid siege to it and we are barricaded in. Don't you known that?" He pulls his sword, yells "Help!" in goblin, and attacks Nowhere, but misses.

Nowhere races up the stairs and secures the hatch, just as someone pulls on it and it rattles.

Orryn uses his staff of magic missiles, sending darts of magic energy riddling the elite guard, and he cries out. Atlas attacks with a flurry of blows the hobgoblin dodges her attack.

Immeral casts ray of frost and hits with a glancing blow of frosty energy.

K'ronk uses firebolt cantrip to burn the hobgoblin with magical missiles of flame.

Dain misses with his javelin.

Seraphina swings Lightbringer and hits

Oyfanen misses with her clublike shillelagh.

The captain swings at Immeral, slashing the wizard, drawing gouts of blood from his arms, sending him backpeddling, while swinging again at Orryn, but missing.

Nowhere dives off the stair, swinging Icerazor, and driving it through the guard, killing him, ending the battle.

The League assesses their situation, Nowhere casting cure wounds on Immeral and Atlas, magically closing some of the deep wounds they incurred in the battle.

They search the bodies quickly and find two potions of healing, a small chest with 60gp and a pouch with 13 semiprecious stones worth 10gp each and a box full of silverware taken from the houses in and out of town worth 100gp. There is also another unidentified potion, and there is also an iron key to something.

NEXT - CAMPAIGN JOURNAL 41 - Shaman of the Goblin Invaders