October 4, 2008 - The party dispatches Kazmojen but then encounter a surprising adversary.
At pretty much the same time, Eastwood showed up, having caught up to the party. On the way down, he had met another adventurer who was trying to save the children, an archer named Barthalemue.
ALSO at the same time, two MINOTAUR ADVENTURERS arrived on the scene, cutting down a hobgoblin guard as they appeared. They introduced themselves as Sir Steven (a favoured soul of Kord) and Moeesha (a female minotaur fighter). They briefly introduced themselves and said they too were here to find the children. This statement was followed by Moeesha pondering aloud if they could eat the dead hobgoblin.
Huron & Eastwood crept up to the big stone doors and tried to listen, but then Ramon and Heinz ran up and kicked in the door.
Inside they saw a large, hulking half bugbear, half troll which they knew was Kazmojen. There was a large, fanged dog-like beast at his heels. He was talking to a human-sized figure in dark red robes. Also in the room were two hobgoblin archers and two hobgoblins armed with swords. When the party kicked the door in, Kazmojen and the robed figure were arguing over the price for one of the children from town, who was manacled and being held by Kazmojen. The robed figure was offering 100 gp for the boy, and had a bone box with coins in his hands.
Kazmojen interrupted his bargaining and whirled on the party, asking what they were doing here. Threats were exchanged, confusing non-threats were shouted that no one understood, and the fighting started shortly afterwards. Kazmojen tossed the child, unconscious, behind him when the fighting began.
Some highlights from the fight, which lasted 4 or 5 rounds.
- Steven summoned a giant fire beetle that gnawed on Kazmojen's ankles fairly ineffectively the entire fight.
- Huron cast heat metal on Kazmojen, which heated his armor red hot, and then white hot, but didn't affect his axe. Kazmojen eventually got enraged about the hot metal of his full plate burning him and he tossed his axe aside and shredded it off.
- Huron also summoned a black bear which bit Kazmojen on the arm (and got burned by the hot metal). It was killed quickly.
- Heinz immediately charged at one of the archers, raging as he went, and pretty much cut him down in a single blow. He then looked at Kazmojen, who responded by raging, charging over and injuring Heinz horribly, and then looking down at him. They fought most of the battle.
- The howler was completely ignored the entire fight until the end, despite it howling twice and giving out a bunch of -3 penalties to hit.
- Moeesha, Huron, Steven and Ramon were all fighting the same hobgoblin. Moeesha critically fumbled and missed the hobgoblin, butchering Huron and dealing 19 damage...probably the most dealt the entire fight. The hobgoblin burst out laughing when this happened. Moeesha then DESTROYED the hobgoblin in a later round, cutting it in half and then facekicking its head off.
- At one point Ramon ran up to the robed figure, who had put away the bone box and was standing there, watching. Ramon slashed him, and the robed figure responded with a flurry of claw and bite attacks, as well as a POISON BEARD STING.
- Ramon threw a bag of 5 acid flasks in the robed figure's face, who was horribly burned. Two Face jokes were made. It turned invisible and ran out of the room. Huron and Ramon chased it, but found only enlarged footprints and burst-out-of robes...and the bone box nearby. Huron took the box, Ramon took the coins (100 gp).
- Eastwood knocked one of the hobgoblin swordmen out with a headbutt, then crushed its throat with a foot stomp as he ran off.
- When near death, Kazmojen tried to attack Huron for causing him so much pain with the heat metal spell. Heinz dealt him a mortal wound as Kazmojen rushed away, but he still attacked with a called bite shot to the face (needed a critical hit roll to hit) but missed.
- One of the archers lost his nerve and activated something on a pillar in the room, opening a secret door. It ran off through the secret door.
After the battle, Moeesha and Steven started hacking and chopping away at Kazmojen's body, noticing that it was still moving and regenerating. Eventually they realized that the burn wounds from the hot armor were not regenerating, so they used the torches on the wall to light it on fire. Steven shoved a lit torch up Kazmojen's ass...which astonishingly (natural 20) clenched together and snuffed the fire out. Steven turned his greataxe sideways and started hammering the burned-out torch farther up Kazmojen's ass. The others lit the body on fire with more torches, while Eastwood grabbed the severed head.
Also:
- Steven gathered up the broken remains of Kazmojen's armor.
- Huron took the half-burned hands of Kazmojen and nailed them to his shield.
- Eastwood grabbed Kazmojen's greataxe (which he later traded to Steven for 100g.)
Barthalemue went to check out the room where the hobgoblin archer ran off to - he found a room of prison cells with 3 other children, who were panicked and hysterical. There was also a swinging door at the other end of the room. Eastwood joined him, and amazingly had a list of the missing children, which he used to call them by name and calm them down.
In contrast, the rest of the party woke up the manacled child, Terrem, who was similarly panicked. The party "calmed him down" by Steven picking him up and cradling him in his arms while rocking him and mooing in a slow, low comforting manner. Also, Huron suggested summoning a ferocious attack eagle so Terrem could pet it. The party looked at him, and told him he could summon non-fighting animals with his summoning spells too. He then suggested summoning a hawk. Finally they told him to summon a penguin, and it worked - Terrem calmed down.
The party joined Eastwood and Barthalemue in the prison and used the black iron key Ramon had taken off a dead hobgoblin guard. They also looked out the door to see if the hobgoblin archer was still around, but the tunnel was blocked from the fleeing hobgoblin activating a cave-in.
They set off back to Cauldron but were stopped short by a whirling black vortex forming in the middle of the landing. Everyone noticed except Steve, who was inspecting a piece of Kazmojen's broken armor. He looked up when he was about to walk into it, and tossed an arrow through. Nothing happened...and then a hideous spherical monster with a large central eye and numerous writhing tentacles with eyes on the end appeared. (A beholder.) It surveyed them all, until it noticed Terrem at the back. It demanded that they turn over Terrem. The party refused, though were nervous and didn't know if it was real or what. Steven attacked, and the beholder hit him with an eye beam that tossed him across the room. The party still hesitated. After some more threats, Huron took out some manacles and went and put them on Terrem, who was motionless/speechless with fear/shock/etc, saying he was going to hand them over. Instead he dashed across the room for the exit "Two-Face" had taken, but was hit with an eyebeam that made him move in slow motion. The beholder then said it would give them 200 gp for Terrem, but Moeesha, Ramon and Barthalemue attacked. A slew of eyebeams - Moeesha was burned and tossed across the room, Ramon was put to sleep, and Barthalemue lowered his bow and backed off. The beholder disintegrated the manacles with an eyebeam and turned back to the dais as the boy levitated up and was brought along. They vanished.
Brushing himself off from where he was thrown against the wall, Steven realized that while the eyebeams seemed authentic beholder, he had never heard of a beholder being able to magically levitate things without shooting an eyebeam at it, nor being able to teleport.
The party gathered themselves up and went to see Yothob. They showed him Kazmojen's head, and he gave them Stargloom back, as promised. They told him about the beholder but he didn't seem to believe them.
They returned to the Church of St. Cuthbert where they were welcomed by Jenya. It was late, so she put the children to bed and asked the party to return them to the orphanage in the morning. She also gave them a reward of 3500gp, not the full amount of 4000gp because Terrem was not rescued.
While commenting on how stupid building a city in a volcano is because of flooding, Steven got into a brief conversation with a priest who told the party about the Flood Festival and how it was coming up in a few months.
The next day they took the kids back to the orphanage, where Gretchen thanked them for rescuing the other three children. Brief pause. They asked her "the OTHER children??" and she told them that late last night, a veiled woman had brought Terrem back to the orphanage. They rushed in and confronted him, but the last thing he remembered was getting ready to leave the prison with the other children, and then being escorted down the street by the veiled woman. When asked about her appearance, he couldn't tell them much other that she was wearing red robes and a red veil (like Ramon's ninja mask, he pointed out). He didn't remember anything about a beholder. The party hmm'd but couldn't figure anything out. They went back to Jenya to get the rest of their reward, which Jenya happily gave them. She also told them the mayor wanted to thank them personally.
Huron: ...that sounds sort of kinky.
After putting on their "nice clothes" (except Huron and Eastwood), they headed to the town hall and found themselves in a little waiting area with an oldish man (around 50 years old) who introduced himself as Alahind, the mayor's advisor. They waited a few moments, and then door opened and five adventurers came out and Alahind went in. The five adventurers were led by a beautiful half-elf female, the others were all human - a scarred and muscled female, a weaselly looking man, a handsome man with shining blonde hair (Lancelot-esque), and a man with short cropped hair who seemed not as comfortable in his fancy clothes as the others.
They were very well dressed, with shining cloaks etc. The half-elf looked down her nose at the party and asked if they were here to clean out the gutters. Steven responded by sniffing the air and saying "Smells like SODOMY!" to which everyone laughed. Four of the five were deeply offended and stomped out of the room, except for the scarred female, who laughed loudly before following. Steven said to her "You're making me into a Max-otaur." She replied with "Are you half cow or half bull?" and gave him an inquiring look before the others came back and pulled her out. Steven grabbed her ass as she left and Lancelot angrily told him not to do that again. There was a bit of a scuffle (not really much of one) and he left in a huff...but not before Ramon pickpocketed a platinum holy symbol of Kord from him.
Alahind came out and kind of rolled his eyes about the group, the Stormblades. He said that they mean well but think they're more important than other people. The party went in to see the mayor, who introduced himself as simply The Lord Mayor. They noticed a strong family resemblance between the mayor and the uncomfortable Stormblade member, but didn't say anything. The Mayor was a bit bumbling and clueless, and after some small talk about what they wanted for a reward.
Mayor: So, what would you like for rescuing those poor children Jennifer: Rimjobs?
Alahind brought in an ivory box. Huron's eyes lit up and he had to sit down to contain his excitement. Inside were 7 silver rings, each one with a silver circle with a small red flame inscribed on it. Alahind told them that while wearing one, one would be able to detect the location of anyone else also wearing one of the rings. In addition, each ring could heal up to 12 hp per day, but only to the wearer. If the wearer falls unconscious or starts dying, it auto-activates.
The party ended the session by planning for the future and buying stuff. Steven found a blacksmith and got him to repair Kazmojen's armor into +1 full plate for 300 gp. He also bought enough raw material for his one-horned helmet, which he crafted.
Experience points awarded: 1000 to level 2 chars, 850 to level 3 chars
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