There’s only a little time to write. We’ve made a lot of progress in rescuing people or at least figuring out where they might be, and we even think we may know where to find most of the artifacts, but this all means that we have only a few hours to stop an evil ritual with a defenseless child, and I’m running out of pizzazz.
Once we were up and about again, Skein ran upstairs to check something and the rest of us went past the pit traps and found some hobgoblins. For the first time we were able to get into the room although That Bitch fell down the second pit, which he says was full of glowing mushrooms and something big moving around so he didn’t stick around. I’m tempted to give the play-by-play but that would take too long. Instead, here’s a summary of the high points: We faced three waves of combatants (hobs, gobs, and one guard drake). We were finally able to make it into a room and later Aviella and I bottled up the waves of enemies coming down the spiral stairs. The archer was able to get a solid hit on me before Irjan put an arrow through its throat, right in front of my face. I had a pretty mean gash at one point though and for the first time I was actually worried about passing out and dare I say falling before their blades. However, That Bitch triumphantly returned from the abyss and healed one of my deeper wounds. We were almost clear of the reinforcements when a drake came down the stairs and bit Grymm hard on the thigh. That boy’s young but has he got a temper! He immediately shouted in rage and the blood came up in his eyes; I don’t think he’d be any good at holding defensive positions in that rage but I’m sure his weapon bites all the harder. Things got very hairy for a while there as we all had trouble hitting our enemies and That Bitch and Aviella tried to keep our wounds at bay. Irjan does seem to be better today, he’s barely hit anyone, and when he did hit Grymm he didn’t seem to feel it. I finished off the last enemy and set it on fire for good measure. I think Irjan took it a little hard though.

No more reinforcements came so we thought we would have time to take a breather but no, there was a lady screaming nearby. We rushed into a dimly lit room with statues of displacer beasts and the hostage Mirtala being nibbled on by dire rats and screaming her head off. We managed to make the rats scurry away from her. Two sneaky goblins were in the room too, one of whom almost knocked me out. I switched tactics from heroics and tried to get Mirtala to calm down and head back toward Sertanian, but she was worse off than I thought. The others managed to take out all the hostiles, including all of the goblins (easier when we block the only exit), and I finished off the last rat and set it on fire for good measure, again. I think Aviella contracted a disease from one of the rat bites, though, and Mirtala probably also has the same disease. It took a bit to calm her down, but she thinks she knows where the dwarf Adronsius is. Aviella looked like she was going to head that way right away, but we all decided to head up the stairs and make sure there were no more reinforcements. I took a well-deserved breather.

Skein showed up then and we spent some time looking at all the altars and sarcophagi. He tried to convince us that we shouldn’t do any looting (I was just looking, honestly), but we determined that they were worshippers of Vecna, not the Raven Queen afterall, so I feel no qualms taking anything useful. Diony’s tools were a little damaged by a trap on one of the sarcophagi, but no harm done, and I got a healing potion out of that.

Upstairs was empty but it was clearly where the hobgoblins had been sleeping. It connected to the room where the cold zombies were, but we were careful not to rush in since we heard voices (in Common no less). We surprised the hobs and gobs lounging about in the room and playing cards even. Aviella kept Sertanian and Mirtala out of the way while a bunch of us rushed in. I was hit several times in a row, perhaps rushing in isn’t always wise; I may have unleashed my infernal wrath, however, because one erupted in flames and died instantly. Aviella and Diony each hit their targets really hard, Aviella hobbling a goblin by the doorway and Diony killing what may have been the squad leader. That Bitch managed to take one of the goblins alive by hissing at it. Forgot to mention that Kartanix was gone and magical residue from a powerful ritual lingered in the icy puddle that remained. The goblin let us know that Kartanix is probably an undead thing (I was wrong about him never walking around again, it seems). That’s also how we found a little bit more about Adronsius and a priestess and the evil ritual of evil; also the artifacts and the General. Sertanian wanted to kill the goblin from the get-go (I think it’s how he’s dealing with his abduction) but Diony saved him the trouble.

Up some more stairs, although I don’t think I can’t take too much more fighting before I’m run into the ground. Some hobgoblins and spitting drakes were waiting for us. I cast jets of fire from my hands (there goes that spell…) and took out three of the fairly weak hobgoblins. The drakes were tough and their acid dulls weapons. Despite this, Diony was able to nearly chop the head off of one of the drakes that had barely been scratched (and he made it look easy!). At this point, the other one easily fell to one of my magic bolts (thanks guys for making that easy for me, I never had to leave the doorway). However, some mage goblins and another drake come out of a side room and cause us some problems, so I just relied on my magic bolts while we worked together to bring them down. (It’s great to be a team!) That Bitch felled the last goblin. Grymm rushed into the room they had come out of, hoping the priestess was his sister. Instead it was Jalissa (check her off the list), and now all she does is cling to him. Seriously, it’s bizarre that each of the hostages has reacted to their captivity so differently (they will all need therapy, believe me). More sarcophagi to an evil god, so no qualms looting and it would be a shame to leave things behind. I tried to wipe off some of this purple goop around one of them but a tiny amount got on me, freezing me in place. Skein took great joy in saying he told me so… Luckily the mage goblins had some antivenom and that my party was nice enough to use it on me. Otherwise I would have been stuck in that room until just before the ritual that we have to stop.

I’m still not sure how we’ll make it there and not be totally tapped out. Jalissa knows some rituals, though, so maybe she can help us get a quick nap in to recharge and prep for what will probably be a pretty tough fight.

I’ve kept a tally today: I killed 9 hobgoblins (8 were pretty weak), 1 dire rat, and 2 spitting drakes.