Session 8:

 

starts in initiative facing two goblins

Artemis hunkers down, conserve resources and channels her might against desperate situation

Brinden has longsword drawn, holding with both hands, readying himself and bracing for attack. holds his ground, making himself a target. waits to see what the goblins do, hoping they’d come into the room. trying to lure the goblins into an ambush (Artemis and William to the side)

Silas shield up, uses thaumaturgy to create the sound of multiple wolves in the walkway behind the goblins (at Illi’s suggestion).

the wolf noises work well, goblins are intimidated and turn to look back the hallway.

G(red): *in goblinoid* Bainx? Bainx? are you okay, are you okay back there??

 

William identifies the spell that Silas uses and realizes that it’s actually coming from him.

 

Silas hunkers down and readies a javelin to throw in case any of the goblins gather their courage to attack Brinden or Artemis.

 

William creeps around the back of the rock (not very stealthily - he’s got problems with that) and shoots G(red) with an arrow, doing severe damage. Pings G(r) in the same spot that Illi had wounded him before. G(r) glares at W hatefully and swears in golbin at him.

 

Illi shoots G(r), splits W’s arrow in two and drives her own arrow deep into his heart, tearing his flesh apart into a gaping wound.

G(r) spins as he dies, splashing G(blue) with blood before falling to the floor

 

Illi, in anger, tries to Assassin’s Creed the wall over the pit, but slips on some moss, loses her balance and falls into the pit. She manages to grab the edge of the pit and not fall completely into it, but she’s hanging precariously from the edge of it at an inconvenient spot for grabbing her.

 

G(b) is terrified and debates whether to brave the wolves behind him or the party in front of him. decides the wolves are preferable to us, and books it out of the room and out of sight.

 

Brinden runs after G(b), slapping Artemis on the arm in camaraderie as he passes as if to say “let’s go!”  in his haste, he forgets about the traps that Illi set and feels sharp jabs on the bottom of his feet and he growls “Aahh, god, who put them there?!” as he stumbles forward.

 

Artemis pulls out her scimitar and shield. She moves carefully to Brinden (who is hopping in place, his left foot pained), avoiding the trap.

 

Silas debates leaving Illi to her own devices, but decides to give her a tongue lashing instead as he holds his javelin (blunt end) out towards her. “What the hell is wrong with you? What were you thinking?”

Illi: “That was the fastest way to the goblins”

Silas: “what did they do to you to make you so angry?”

Illi: “they… they killed my best friend.”

 

William ignores everything and slips up right behind Artemis and grips her tail as he looks up at her in wonder.

“Hey little one.” she says with a smile in her voice.

 

Silas expertly pulls Illi up as she grips the end of the javelin and deposits her next to him. As she regains her balance, he pats her on the head and she dashes off to the back up created by the gingerly walking Brinden. (I’m going to assume she gathers them up at this point since Aaron said she could grab them)

 

Brinden creeps forward, keeping himself ready for anything that might attack, as he puts himself in place (left-flank, i believe he called it) and leans against the wall, being careful. As he moves farther down the hall, he hears the sound of rushing water become louder (and keeps that info to himself).

 

Artemis doesn’t see any signs of the G(b), so she forges ahead, past Brinden trying to see what she can see. She sees the hallway continues and bends to the right, but it looks like an opening. She hears the rushing water sound becoming louder, and she hears a small voice stammering in a language she doesn’t understand. The voice sounds worried, concerned and she’s pretty sure it’s a goblin. A solitary voice. She creeps forward farther forward and she sees a moving stream fed by a cascade of water that leads to a basin through the opening at the end of the tunnel. she still hears that small voice and it sounds like it’s swearing now, but she doesn’t see any sign of the goblin making the noise.

 

Silas carefully makes his way along the ledge between the wall and pit, scooting across the wall throwing a jab at Illi “See what happens when you aren’t so angry?” and he makes it to the edge of the pit and then ends up next to Brinden who nods an acknowledgement at him in a friendly way.

 

William, debating between the scary Illi and the scary Silas, pokes at the body of G(r) as he debates what to do, and views the wonderful handiwork that he and Illi did giving the goblin a new hole. Quickly deciding, he scoots by Silas as carefully as he can and runs to see a focused Artemis at the end of the tunnel.

 

Illi tries to move past Silas, but he taps her on the shoulder stopping her.

Silas: “how long has it been since they killed your friend?”

Illi: “uhh… 20? 25? 35 years?” counts on her fingers  “it’s been a long time”

Silas: “ok. well, maybe you should start trying to think instead of being so angry -” and Illi walks away with a sob, ignoring his words.

 

Brinden shrugs and shakes his head, not entirely sure what’s happening in that whole mess as Illi goes up to hang out by Artemis and William. She sees into the room and sees into the room and realizes they’re on a ledge. she sees the water falls off the edge of the ledge they’re on and the room is completely dark and she’s entirely reliant on her darkvision to see.

 

Everyone except Artemis can hear a frantic ringing of a bell in the distance and Brinden makes a noise like he’s heard this particular sound before.

 

Brinden almost walks away, but he stops then grabs the body of G(r) and drags it along behind him, garnering a skeptical look from Silas as they walk by, G(r) leaving a red streak in his wake as they make their way up towards everyone else.

 

The bell ringing has grown louder and Artemis wonders aloud “what the heck is that?”

 

Silas mutters something from far behind everyone else that no one understands.

 

Artemis peers through the doorway, peeking her head in to see there’s a natural stairway down from their ledge (about 15’ up), and sees the water is flowing down towards another pool at the lower level. she sees several stacked barrels, and a large cart over in the corner, but she doesn’t see a goblin. Ever cautious, she uses thaumaturgy (how is this word in autocorrect??) to create a sound of wolf loudly growling in the middle of the room to see if it sparks anything’s interest. The sound elicits a whimper from farther in the room, but her attention is distracted from the sound by movement on the ceiling that reacts to the noises she made. She sees the flapping of wings and hears a buzzing and dull hum as the stalactites seem to come to life. She sees three (sturges?) hairy mosquitos start to buzz around the room where the noise was made, desperately searching for something.

 

Silas makes his way up next to Illi, and he sees Artemis’ eyes darting around the room and hears a buzzing. He looks into the room and sees what Artemis sees - buzzing bugs the size of cats searching through the air. In preparation, he readies his javelin in case anything comes at them.

 

William once more sneaks past Illi and Silas to get to Artemis and he sees the same thing that Silas did. Artemis reaches out her arms protectively towards William as he shakes.

 

Illi moves forward and taps Silas on the shoulder. “What’s going on? do you see the goblin anywhere?”

Silas: “It looks like there’s a bunch of bugs, birds, something, flying around. they don’t look happy.”

Illi: “are they attacking?”

Silas: “no they seem to be searching.”

 

Illi decides to creep up to the edge, and as she focuses on the insects in the air, she accidentally kicks a small pile of stones that go crashing over the edge and fall to the ground making a noise. She readies her bow just in case they come at her.

 

Suddenly the ringing stops and we see the goblin peeks his head around a corner, and lets out a loud “Shit!” in goblins as he loses an arrow and shoots one of the bugs completely from the air, seeming a little happy about it, but not terribly happy about everything. he’s kind of all over the place, looking over his shoulder then to the room, then back and again.

 

Brinden still has his goblin corpse buddy (longsword in one hand, goblin in the other) and as he moves towards the group he can see the bugs darting around but not the goblin.

 

(Silas still isn’t terribly sure about Brinden and his goblin, but ignores that in favor of what’s going on in front of them.)

 

Artemis has her weapons at the ready, and carefully makes her way down the stairs to try and look at what’s going on with the barrel. She sees a brand on the side of the barrel (the same one Illi found on the goblin in the ambush way back when) and she doesn’t see anything promising so she readies herself for an attack.

 

The sturges hear Illi’s mistimed kick of stones and fly at high velocity at Illi. One buries its nose into her. As it attaches to her, it starts to drain her of blood, filling up its body with her blood, and it settles in for the long haul, wings clamping to its side and clawed arms coming out trying to find purchase on her. In response, another comes after her, but Silas spears it from the sky with a javelin as it and the bug clatter down to the pool below.

 

The other bugs find the goblin and completely take him out. Artemis watches as one of the sturges just buries itself into the goblin’s eye, almost trying to burrow into the goblin. Because of the fresh blood arriving, two more sturges come from the ceiling.

 

William is completely shellshocked at the happenings and, in fear, runs past Illi (who is struggling with the sturge) and streaks to Artemis who he then clings to, impeding her movement even as she tries to move out of his way.

 

Illi does her best to remove the beast from herself. She whips one knee up even as she shoves it hard with her arms, managing to detach it from herself. it falls a few feet before its wings redeploy and it can fly again. Illi sidesteps the beast trying to catch her again.

 

Brinden drops his goblin buddy and charges past Silas, brings both hands to his sword and swipes down at the sturge, and he misses as the bug dodges and his sword clangs against the ground and he growls in frustration.

 

Artemis tries to move, but William’s terrified hold is like a rusty steel trap and she can’t go anywhere. Realizing she can’t move, Artemis tries again and manages to shakes herself out of his grip, and she moves forward, trying to stab at one of the bugs before realizing that they were too far up in the air for her to reach it.

 

Unfortunately, her movement attracts the attention of the bug. As it turns away from Illi and Brinden, Illi shoots it with an arrow, popping it and pouring all the blood that it had drunk from her all over Artemis below. This new coating of blood attracts the attention of the three that had been busy with the now dead G(b) and the rush over to her. Two of them hit her hard, knocking her unconscious as they remained attached, doing their valiant best to suck her dry as the third buzzed around.

 

Seeing this, Silas grabs Brinden’s abandoned goblin friend and rushes down the stairs to toss the goblin corpse to land behind Artemis, hoping to distract the remaining sturge from attaching to her.

 

William stares in horror as Artemis goes down, bugs attached to her, and starts as the goblin goes flying by, and kind of cringes away.  Seeing this, Silas snaps at him, “Get your bow out and shoot one of them!” Terrified, William lets out an enormous blast of power (an eldrich blast that delights our DM to no end) that decimates one of the bugs. He stands there a moment before taking a breath and just dropping cross-legged to the floor.

 

Illi readies her bow and shoots once more at the one still attached to Artemis, slaughtering it and removing it from her.

 

Brinden does a double take when Silas runs by with his goblin, but shrugs and decides to ignore it in favor of moving down to the lower level and takes aim at the last bug flying in the air. He’s trying to regain some of his composure from that last miss. He swings horizontally, misses the bug, but instead smashes through the barrel, nearly taking William’s nose with it, who is just staring at Brinden, eyes wide.

 

Brinden’s swing slaughters the barrel, shipping it into a million splinters and water flies everywhere, washing over William and splashing the remaining bug who isn’t terribly thrilled with that. The bug decides to back away from the water, and Brinden takes another swing with his sword at the retreating sturge. Unfortunately, the barrel hampers his movement and he misses the bug as the remains of the barrel are tossed everywhere.

 

The bug ignores everything and settles on the G(r) corpse and attaches itself to it.

 

Silas slides up next to Artemis and (grudgingly) uses the remaining potion on her. Artemis wakes up and realizes she smells a bit like spices from being coated in Illi’s blood.

 

William, drenched with water, starts mumbling to himself as he pulls himself back to his feet. He eyes the last bug and, whimpering, releases an arrow at it that somehow manages to make its mark even as he’s sobbing to himself.

 

Seeing all the bugs are dead, Silas helps Artemis to her feet as Brinden walks over to the goblin. He’s upset and red-faced, and he brings his sword down on the goblin with a grunt, sadly he’s too upset and misses with a great clanging sound. In frustration, he tosses his sword aside and stalks away.

 

Silas cautiously makes his way towards the cart in the corner, checking for more potential rat traps. He hears nothing except the sound of water and Brinden’s sword. Not much is in the large mining cart except some rubble, and he sees a barrel in the corner.

 

Illi, bloodied, sits next to the pool of water and tries to clean her wounds a little.
 

William creeps towards Artemis, crying, happy to see that she’s not dead. Artemis notices he’s very upset and shaking. he’s appears shaken as well and she isn’t sure, but assumes that it’s because she went down and he’s relieved she’s okay. Still a little out of it and covered in blood, Artemis nonetheless takes Mystery out and wraps William in it, which makes him feel like everything is okay again.

 

Brinden abandons his sword, muttering curses to himself about his perceived lack of abilities. He’s unhappy and boiling in his own skin at him lacking in battle. He meanders towards the remains of G(b).

 

Silas inspects the barrel and finds it is full of ale and also has the same sigil from before (pentagram with an eye in the middle).  noticing, he says “There’s ale over here,” directed towards Brinden. Brinden takes note but is still too lost in his unhappiness to react.

 

Artemis makes her way over towards Illi to also wash up. She sees that the pool is relatively fresh water, and sees that there’s an opening in the base of the pool where the water is draining to. She fills her waterskin.

 

William, wrapped in Mystery seems to be apologizing to himself. Illi and Artemis notice, but don’t question him. Seeing that Artemis has wandered away from him, William sidles up to Brinden who makes approving noises at him.

 

Brinden walks over to G(b) with William in tow, and places his foot on the goblin and presses down on the corpse. Pressing down, he crushes the goblin’s head under his foot. Feeling some better, he turn to William and tousels his hair, asking “Did someone say there was beer?”

 

Feeling emboldened, William overenthusiastically mimics Brinden’s movements, stepping on the goblin, snapping it’s neck and letting the crushed head roll away from the body. Seeing this, Brinden grins and slaps him on the back in victory. The two see an opening and peer in to see an opening in the ground that is more or less square shaped. They dont’ see Bainx at all.

 

Illi takes her hair tie out to wash her hair and Artemis sees that there’s a lock of silver hair that runs through the rest of her hair that you can’t necessarily see when her hair is back up.

 

Silas comes back over and asks if Illi is ok. Her reply is “no, not really. not at all.”  

 

Silas decides to toss G(r) into the pool to see if it will fit through the crevice. it ends up going head first down the hole and the body disappears.

 

Illi retrieves his javelin from the body of the sturge by her. She hands him his javelin saying “I think this is yours. i know this is yours. thank you for that.”

 

Brinden is obviously feeling better. he checks on William, and slaps him lightly on the shoulder telling him “You looked like you were a little stressed back there. follow me” and leads the boy back to the cart. He sees that there’s some rubble inside it, and then he inspects teh barrel, sees there is indeed ale inside it. He takes a few cupped handfuls of the drink and feels quite refreshed.

 

Silas goes over to Illi.  “i’m going to make you a deal. i’ll heal you a little bit, as long as you promise not to go rushing after the goblins.”

Illi: “that seems fair.”

Silas: “you promise? you not going to go rushing after them. you stay behind me and Brinden and you’ll shoot arrows at them. unless the run up to you and you can fight them. but you’re not going to go after them.”

Illi: “that’s.. a hard decision. “

Silas: “deal?”

Illi: “i guess because our previous deal worked out, i’m going to go with it. you seem like a sound person to follow (ha!), i trust you.”

 

Silas uses lay on hands, gently taking Illi’s chin in his right hand while he pulls a small figurine tucked under his clothes on a long cord out and holds it wrapped in his left hand. She feels the cool sea breeze flow thru her and she feels slightly better as Silas tucks the figurine back under his clothes.

 

Brinden goes back over to where G(r) was and picks back up his sword. the ale rejuvenated him some and he feels better. he looks at his sword a moment before bending to pick it up and sheathe it with a few muttered curses.

 

William waits until Brinden leaves to pick up his sword before sneaking a gulp of ale and making a horrible sound at the taste. the ale hits him hard and he becomes a bit tipsy, staggering around by the barrel and kind of wanders his way back to what he thinks might be the group but is instead towards the pit.

 

Brinden sees and heartily tells him “William! The more you drink, the better it gets!”

Silas: “what the hell is he doing with the kid?”

Brinden: “Aaah, he’s just growing hairs on his chest!” (i adore how happy Brinden is)

Silas: “...sounds great.”

 

Artemis dries off with some moss from the walls, and she sees William ahving some trouble so she goes to him and ends up seeing hte pit.

 

Silas takes some rubble from the cart and takes them towards the pit with William in tow. Silas tosses the rocks down into the pit, and he and William hear the rocks fall and intuit that it’s about 70’-80’ down. Silas sees that the walls  are smooth except here where it looks like a recent excavation. they both noticed there’s a rope in the middle of the hole, coming up and dropping down after wrapping around the ceiling.

 

William noticed there’s a small pull string attached to a bell on one side of the wall and decides he’s going to ring it! As he rings the bell about 5 times, we all realize it’s the same bell sound heard earlier. nothing happens.

 

Illi picks herself up and comes back around “What’s going on?” and sees the pit too.

 

Silas: “Hey, Brinden. You said you heard the bell ring earlier?”

Brinden: “It was about 3 times, i think.”

Silas: “How about we ring it 3 times?”

Brinden: “Sure! Oh, before we do, let me check my foot. I’ve got a hole in it.”

 

Brinden checks out his foot, it looks okay. not bleeding, not poisoned. He thinks maybe some goblin goo would help it and tries to rub it on his foot. Illi slaps the goo from his hand and pour water on it. “What are you doing?”

 

Brinden’s foot looks okay, and he makes his way over to William and Silas. “Want to try the rings?” and William suddenly gets possessive of the bell.  “My bell!”

Silas: “You want to ring the bell? ring it 3 times.”

William: :D *rings it 3 times*

 

About 10 seconds after, the rope comes to life and starts whirring. the platform is on its way up when Brinden gets an idea (as he drags William away from the edge)! Illi can lure the goblin(s) into the next room by speaking goblin. but ultimately we decided to dress Wiliam up as a goblin and have Illi throw her voice while the rest of us hid around the corner.

 

with teh instructions to William of “Just look busy!” Brinden made sure everyone was in their correct place.

 

Brinden: “All right. If William stood there as a goblin, we have Illi who is small can do a goblin voice hiding behind him, peeking over the shoulder a little bit then Silas if you want to sidestep out of the way around the corner and i’ll be close with Artemis and we can just kind of lure them in and gain the element of surprise or something. with William dancing a goblin shanty!”

 

as we all get into place the platform raises and see a goblin come up on it. when the platform gets all the way up, he pulls a lever mechanism to lock it in place. the goblins sees William

 

Goblin: ”is it done? Bainx wants to know if they’re dead.”

Illi: “yes. we got them. dead. where’s Bainx? master Bainx?

Goblin: “where do you think bainx is? where we cracked the temple. he’s in there now trying to finalize the preparations. which is where you should be with me down there as opposed to up here. where’s.. where’s Grongle? Bainx said you were with Grongle. where’s he at?

Illi: “he’s behind. he captured one of them. the elf will only talk to Bainx.

Goblin: “elf? elf? there’s an elf? i heard tieflings but there’s elves too?

Illi: “there was an elf that attacked Grungle”

 

there’s a long pause.

Goblin: “i’m... sorry. what was that?” *starts inching towards William as he draws a sword*

 

Goblin focuses on William. “Grungle, you say? interesting. why don’t you come, let’s go down and tell Bainx all about it? come now.”

 

Silas apparently doesn’t like the look of the single goblin and throws a javelin which just whizzes by the goblin’s head, barely missing him. Illi comes back right behind that, sliding under William and between his legs, firing off an arrow that slices into the goblin’s heart.

 

the group decides to take some kind of rest and William seems to have an idea of what he wants to do during the break and takes a look back towards the barrel of ale.

 

Illi: “don’t get drunk during our rest time!”

 

William instead heads towards the bell “I want to ring the bell again! :D “, but he gets grabbed by Illi and Brinden and pull him away.