RPG Recap: Beyond the Temple of the Abyss, 2011-11-19
Wednesday, the 4th day of the Red Moon, 937
With their shift patrolling the temple dungeon nearly over, the crew was headed back topside to see whether the shift-marking timepiece had been properly calibrated, or whether they’d be coming out into the dead of night again. Before they got to the surface, though, they heard some noises coming from down the hall of the old dormitory area. Before a plan could be formulated, Gabe’s fighter (Int 4) took off down the hall, only stopping when he realized he hadn’t brought a torch.
A group of goblins had taken refuge in one of the larger rooms, and when the party closed in on them, they had nowhere to run – except straight through. One of the goblins slipped through the line and made a break for it, only to be chased by Gabe’s cleric (1 hp). It didn’t take too too long for that to end badly. The dead cleric was avenged by Ben’s magic-user, who bravely held off on casting his one magic missile, instead taking the goblin out with a lucky bowshot.
Meanwhile, the fighter and Poseidon (Ben’s Dex 6 “Thief with a Trident”) engaged the other goblins, showing no mercy. The fighter hacked one right in two, and Poseidon skewered one on his trident… but was quickly disarmed and killed in turn by the goblin’s fellow, before he was knocked down, disarmed, and skewered by the fighter, who was eager to see the death of his friends avenged. The magic-user scavenged a set of goblin clothes from one of the less-bloody goblins. You know, just in case.
With the goblin bodies dumped down the waterfall and the PC’s bodies strenuously hauled out of the dungeon, the party met their (now mostly drunk) replacements waiting for them at the shelter atop the temple. One of them made a clumsy attempt to help load the bodies, only to be knocked sprawling by the figher, who was eager to see his friends’ bodies handled only respectfully.
No rest for the wicked, though. When they got back to the barracks, Capt. Horn sent them right back out: Bellory, the good-for-nothing dogsbody from the Gladwell place had come in looking for help and reporting a goblin raid. Restocking on adventurers, the surviving magic-user and fighter headed out to the farm, with a fresh cleric and thief (with a trident, suspiciously named Neptune).
In the stable, they found two badly mauled horses, lying atop a rough hole leading into the ground. They crawled down the hole and found a large room under the stable, with a days-old horse butchered and hung up, and signs of a fight in spilled blood on the floor. Chimneys lead up and down, and a passage out to the east, where the party found a small curtained alcove with two dead man-eaters in it, killed by brutal puncture wounds to the chest.
…and that’s where we stopped.