December 6, 2008 - The party tracks down the leader of the goblin vandals - a vampire!
We start right when Alahind was giving the party the reward rings. Changed the rings - now wearer can detect location of the other rings (minor), and also once per day recharge an encounter power used already that day (minor action, consumes healing surge).
Changed to 4E.
They leave, then go back in to ask Alahind about housing / lodging. He asks them how cheap, they say CHEAP. He advises them to go to the Tipped Tankard, which they are familiar with. They head there.
The owner Pilok is once again passed out on the counter, but Artem greets them and sits them down. Huron asks how much a month's lodging would be, Artem tells them 10 silver. Huron pays for all four party members, and buys the meals.
While eating, Snake Eyes specifically watches the rest of the bar. There are only two other only patrons, a pair of adventurers eating across the room. One with a morningstar, one with a longsword and scale armor. Snake Eyes notices one glancing in their direction now and then, so he walks over and says hello. The morningstar one says hello, the longsword one ignores him. Huron also walks over. No conversation really takes place, and Huron buys everyone in the bar a round and they go and sit down.
Snake Eyes continues to eavesdrop on them from across the room and hears "Report to...could be....Maavu." He walks up again, with Bonesaw this time (who had been in the washroom), and Snake Eyes says "Maavu sent me." Morningstar looks surprised and says "What?? Really? But I thought we were supposed to--" but then Longsword cuts him off. Longsword looks up at them and starts denying any knowledge of Maavu, eventually telling Bonesaw that he is wrong and he thinks Bonesaw has had too much to drink.
Bonesaw: OH REALLY?? (grabs Longsword by the throat) I WAS DUMPING!!
He then CHOKE SLAMS HIM THROUGH THE TABLE. (While Bonesaw is doing this, Snake Eyes plants his orphan ring inside Morningstar's pack.) Wood splinters, broken dishes flies everywhere, and Longsword sputters angrily, but then Morningstar grabs his shoulder and gives him a look. They leave.
Pilok is awoken by the noise, and sputtering drunkly about the broken table, and not really finding out anything, passes out again. Artem sighs and comes over and starts cleaning up the mess, and says to Huron "it's a good thing you overpaid for the lodgings."
The party decides to follow Longsword & Morningstar after they finish their meal. They follow them to the northern part of town, the mercantile district. Incidentally where the vandalism and break-ins were happening before. The ring they are tracking has stopped moving. They are almost at it when they hear the tinkle of glass breaking a block away. Snake Eyes sneaks down an alley to investigate, and spots small figures in darkness hopping on a crate and sneaking through a broken warehouse window. Before he can do anything else, a small figure - a goblin - next to the alley entrance lunges out at him and wounds him with a rusty blade. Snake Eyes turns and claws his face off. He then turns and shoots his hand crossbow at one of the two figures still standing by the window, but misses. They yelp and leap through, but he reloads and gets another shot at the last one, who yips in pain as it enters the window. Snake Eyes then gives the signal for the rest of the party - an owl hooting.
They run up, Bonesaw takes a look at the situation, and leaps up on the crate and smashes through the rest of the window frame. He lands with a crunch, on the corpse of the goblin Snake Eyes shot. He sees numerous small shapes scattering about in front of him and breathes fire, incinerating five goblins and illuminating the dark warehouse. He watches, but sees no more movement. Huron and Snake Eyes enter, Tyson remains outside. The goblins have nothing but tattered rags and rusty shortswords, but the one unburned corpse's clothing is actually a little damp and smells faintly of rose fragrances.
They check out what are in some of the crates. First crate contains bundles of broomsticks (groups of 10 roped together in a bunch) and another contains bolts of cloth. Meanwhile, Tyson hears booted footsteps of a group of people coming, so he runs to the alley and hides. Huron and Bonesaw and Snake Eyes decide to shove the bundle of broomsticks up the unburned goblin's ass and try to wave it around in front of the broken window at whoever is coming. Or to dangle it like a puppet so its sitting on the window sill, legs dangling. In any case they LITERALLY DESTROY the goblin corpse, and Bonesaw is showered in blood and goblin insides.
Meanwhile, the footsteps belong to a guard patrol, and as they draw near Huron hurls one of the burned goblin corpses out the window near them. They are startled and draw near to investigate. Bonesaw leaps out and greets them, startling them and making them draw their swords. He explains the story, and after a bit of wary examination they believe him and head inside to verify. They talk with Huron and Snake Eyes, are baffled by the internally exploded goblin, then they ask the party - since they are good at killing goblins - to talk to the guard captain in the morning, as maybe he will hire them to eliminate the problem. During the conversation, when the guards are staring in horror at the exploded goblin, Bonesaw leans his head in the broken window and screams:
Bonesaw: ARE WE HEROES YET??
They leave, and follow the ring again, but find it discarded in a pile of trash in an alley next to more warehouses. Dejected, they think about the damp goblin clothes that smelled like roses, and realize there is a bathhouse in town that they have walked past before, but it has always been closed for business. They decide to investigate.
Sure enough, it's locked, with a wooden board on the door that says CLOSED FOR BUSINESS. Snake Eyes crowbars it off, and tries but fails to pick the lock. They decide to climb to the roof, where there is a large open skylight above the bath area. Just inside the skylight is some kind of metal stand or brace meant to hold something, but it is currently empty. Huron and Bonesaw brace a rope, and lower Snake Eyes and Tyson (tied together, back to back) into the bathhouse. There is an office room adjacent to the baths where they can hear someone. Tyson goes behind the office door, while Snake Eyes picks the lock on the front door to let Huron and Bonesaw in. Snake Eyes peeks in and spots Orak, the bathhouse owner, a dwarf with an eyepatch, sitting at a desk going over papers. He doesn't notice them. Snake Eyes climbs above the doorframe, while Tyson waits behind the door.
Huron and Snake Eyes hide behind the front desk counter. Snake Eyes almost slips and falls, but braces himself on the door, which wobbles. Orak notices something and comes to investigate, and Tyson kicks the door shut in his face. Bonesaw runs up so when Orak angrily opens the door, he is staring at Bonesaw's chest. He's mad, and asks them why they are intruding, etc. They ask him why he's closed, and he says because "they stole my water!". He denies any knowledge of goblins. It is revealed that he lives in a back room in the bathhouse, because "times are tough." Eventually Snake Eyes tackles him from his wall perch and, after threatening him with a crossbow to the back of the head, SHOOTS HIM IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD. Orak is bloodied but does not die.
Orak gets up enraged, and does a Brute Strike (Fighter level 1 Daily ability) and crits. Snake Eyes almost dies. They subdue him shortly and he is still mad but helpless now. They even take his eyepatch (which has a ruby set in the middle), taunting his defense of "Times are tough!"
While the others are questioning/tormenting Orak, Huron investigates the baths and finds out that they have shutters on the bottom that can be closed or opened to drain water. He lifts it off and finds a shoddy ladder leaned up against the chute, leading down into darkness. As soon as he discovers this, Orak's face and eyes go blank and he stops reacting to anything they do. They leave him in his room and descend down the ladder, which is leads down to a tunnel smashed through the chute wall. Farther down the chute is the sound of rushing water - the river feeding into the lake, most likely.
They enter the tunnel, find some scratching and graffiti on the wall that mentions Drakthar again, and then fight and kill six goblin minions who were preparing to go topside. They avoid a simple rope & bell trap, Snake Eyes pockets the bell. They emerge into what used to be a temple to Moradin, but has been desecrated and ruined. A large statue of a dwarf in the center of the room has had its head severed. They continue on.
They find a room with six empty human-sized cots, and a storage room. Snake Eyes starts searching the storage room but is ambushed by two goblin rogues. They dispatch one and manage (unfortunately) to reduce the other to exactly zero hp. Snake Eyes slings the helpless goblin over his shoulder and keeps demanding where Drakthar is, the goblin responds by feebly lifting a trembling finger and pointing. In the storage room they find some greatswords, some disguise kits, a couple kegs of ale, and 3 barrels (each equivalent to 50 flasks) of oil.
At some point, they hear the distant noise of wolves howling.
Another door leads to a room where the floor has shattered and sunken down into rubble. The goblins have been filling it with trash and refuse, and it stinks horribly. Bonesaw however plunges into the garbage and starts searching. He finds the severed head of the dwarf statue, and runs back to the temple room with it. Unfortunately there are bits of stone missing and he can't place it back - it needs some actual masonry work to re-attach it. He dejectedly leaves it in the room.
Snake Eyes stealthily peeks into another room and sees a goblin stirring a bubbling cauldron. A few tables are also in the room and are covered with empty flasks and jars. Snake Eyes sneaks up on the goblin and shoves him into the pot. It shrieks and surfaces screaming, but Snake Eyes then shoots it in the face (sneak attack) and kills it. They pour out the liquid and realize the cauldron - which weighs about 250 lbs - was boiling without fire. They experiment a little and discover that when liquid is placed inside, it starts heating itself as if it were on a roaring fire. (Metal grows hot too.) Bonesaw picks up and starts lugging around the cauldron.
The hallways open up into a large, unworked cavern with stalactites on the ceiling and a few large stalagmite mounds on the ground. They split into a triangle formation and move through the room, and are attacked by a pair of goblins, each riding a wolf and throwing javelins at the party. The party starts fighting the goblins, but are ambushed not once but twice - first by a pair of Darkmantles which flutter down from the ceiling to try to suffocate them, and then moments later by some goblins that have snuck up on them and ambush Tyson, who was shooting arrows from the rear. Snake Eyes has to drop the helpless goblin to the ground, but it doesn't take any damage and remains helpless and at zero hp. The party takes some injuries but defeat them all except one darkmantle, who flies up to the ceiling again and successfully hides. One goblin, mortally wounded, starts fleeing out of the cavern, and the party decides to let it go and follow it.
They find it dead on the ground a few feet away from a heavy wooden door. Behind the door is a hallway leading straight, which the party can hear orcish voices emanating from, and a large spiked pit to the left about 10 feet across, with another door on the other side. They throw the dead goblin in the pit and then leap across. They notice that this door has a small opening underneath it, and that the floor slopes slightly in the direction of the door...so they heat up a barrel of oil in the cauldron so it's warm, and pour it under the door. They then light it on fire. After a few minutes the flames go out, and they open the door. (After putting down their goblin "guide".)
The walls of the room they enter are painted and caked with dried blood. A lower level rises up a few stairs to an elevated platform, upon which sits a horrible throne made of humanoid bones and skins. A crumbling tunnel leads out of the room behind it. A few rotting corpses of large animals are in the corners. Everyone starts searching the room except for Snake Eyes, who leaps from the entrance up onto the throne to see if he can do it. Much to everyone's surprise, the throne comes alive when Snake Eyes flies through the air at it, and starts clubbing him with its bone chair-arms. The party starts fighting it. During the fight the various faces and empty holes in the skins moan and groan. Eventually Huron hefts another barrel of oil and smashes it down on the throne, covering it in oil which Bonesaw then breathes fire on. The throne withers and dies.
Everyone uses a healing surge or two, and then Snake Eyes rushes out of the room to get his helpless goblin. To everyone's surprise, Tyson shoots him with an arrow as he gets near. Tyson's face is blank and emotionless. A pale bugbear (Drakthar) with long fangs materializes out of thin air and yells at them for wrecking his chair.
Tyson shrugs off Drakthar's domination effect as soon as the fight starts, and the fight doesn't last long. Everyone uses their daily powers, and Drakthar only lasts a few rounds before turning into mist and floating out of the room. They watch him float in the direction of the orc voices. Thinking quickly, they run into the tunnel to investigate and find a poorly boarded wooden floor in a vertical shaft. They spot a coffin about 30 feet underneath the boards. Huron grabs their last barrel of oil, ties himself to a rope which the party holds, and leaps upon the boards as hard as he can, shattering them. He smashes the barrel of oil on the coffin and, once Huron is back up, the party drops a torch down and ignites the coffin.
Drakthar, who had re-entered the room, curious as to why the party was not following, sees this and shrieks. He re-forms and starts fighting again, drawing a mist of blood from Tyson's wounds once, but quickly gets chopped into bits and is killed.
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