At the end of the last session, we left the party in a middle of a desperate battle. Krorz lay shamming death in front of three hobgoblin warriors. Unfortunately two of the three spotted his sham and attacked, but incredibly at the last moment he rolled away from their blades and made it back to his comrades without suffering further injury.
Sensing their assault had failed, the party lurked in the pillared hallway, trying to draw the goblins into an ambush. Sadly, the canny hobgoblin warriors would not be drawn into such an obvious trap and a lively archery duel ensued. The narrow confines of the doorway and the pillars in the hallway served to make battle difficult and after a few minutes, the party withdrew – chased by the victorious goblinoids.
The party retreated from the citadel without further incident and rested overnight. The next morning, Kemmo ventured into Oakhurst in search of aid from Raine Eronen. The powerful wizard and crafter agreed to make the party a potion of invisibility – but it would take him a week to do so. The party rested and plotted.
A week later, they returned to the Sunless Citadel and surprised and quickly slew a small group of goblins guarding the approaches to the tribe’s lair. Moving forward to the tribe’s main common area, Krorz drank his potion and then snuck through the door. Of course, the goblin warriors saw the rest of the party and prepared for battle. Krorz meanwhile snuck round and struck a hobgoblin – almost disembowelling him. Battle raged throughout the chamber. The hobgoblins warriors sought to engage the party in melee while the goblin archers peppered their targets (particularly Adoven). As the battle raged, many of the party suffered injures. Adoven repeatedly called on Moradin’s divine magic, but strangely the effects seemed much depleted. Luckily, the party were slowly cutting through their opponents – the survivors starting to call out for Durnn they chieftain to aid them.
Fearing a counter-attack, Krorz kicked open a door from which the sounds of much goblin shouting emanated. Within a small force of goblins and hobgoblins waited. Durnn, a female goblin (who turned out to be a cleric) and several more goblins and hobgoblins all stood around a 20-foot wide pit. Flickering torchlight bathed the whole cavern and the pits walls were wreathed in a multitude of bones. Krorz held the door as arrows flickered about him. Behind him, the party had just about finished off their initial opponents and moved forward to assist him.
Kemmo leapt into the room and was immediately attacked by two warriors – warriors whose attacks he deftly dodged. Seeing a worthy foe, Durnn strode forward and demanded single combat. Kemmo accepted and as the fight swirled about them, the two mighty warriors fought. Within moments, both were badly injured. With a mighty effort, Durnn cut down Kemmo with an unparryable blow. Seeing this Belivar charged forward on his pet and slew Durnn, his lance bursting through the hobgoblin’s chest.
Now led by the cleric, the tribe fought on. Quickly, Adoven and Krorz also fell – leaving only Belivar standing. Although horribly outnumbered the brave halfling fought on. Bursting through the goblins, he struck the cleric a fatal blow and she fell. Seeing this, the surviving goblins fled and Belivar was left alone in the chamber. He quickly tended his companions’ wounds and spiked shut the two doors leading to the room. As he made plans to move his companions out of the citadel, he heard a rhythmic scraping sound from the pit. “Concerned” that something was crawling forth to feed on the slain he hurled several goblins bodies into the pit – hoping to assuage the hunger of whatever dwelled within. While this had no affect on the scrapping sound, nothing emerged to slay him.
Belivar then searched the room for healing magic and although he turned up a supply of gold and some small magic, he found no such cache. Thus he was forced (using cunning, determination, a bewildering supply of equipment and vast amounts of luck) to transport his unconscious friends from the dungeon – even Kemmo who although he hovered at death’s door yet clung to life. Back at their base camp, Klara used her magic to heal much of the group’s wounds…
