After breakfast the next morning, we decided to explore up the mountain in search of more kobolds. Hopefully unmounted ones, but we wouldn’t be too picky. Chicot went ahead on point, using his tracking skills to follow the boar tracks. He moved ahead of us a ways so we wouldn’t mess him up, but almost got shot by a few arrows for his pains. We never did find out what it was that shot at him, but kobolds or goblins seem likely guesses. Eventually we found a larger trail, and after following it for a while we stopped and set up some traps for the night. The plan was to have ropes across the trail that would take the front rank of boar riding kobolds in the chest, and then nail the ones behind with a net rigged by Bernina. We’d then go at the rest with arrows, spells, and swords. Bernina hid up in a tree to try and get a better shot at the trail (and avoid charging boars). We also set up various ropes around the trap to keep the boars from being able to charge us.
{The following even is not actually known to Silk, but is recorded here for historical purposes. Ed.} During Neu Gai’s watch, he was taken by surprise with a knife at the throat. The creature, who he never saw, asked him what he was doing in the Forest of Pon. Neu Gai answered that we were hunting kobold toenails for a wizard, and the creature left.
Later that night, 10 kobolds road into the trap. The rope caught the first one and knocked him off his horse, just as I planned. Bernina dropped the net, which entangled that one and the one behind. I slept the next two in line, at which point one of others ran like the spineless little coward he was. The rest of the party let fly with a shower of arrows. Neu Gai shot one and killed it, which probably saved his bow. He was talking about breaking it if he didn’t hit something with it soon! Bernina let fly and injured her target, but it didn’t drop. Chicot decided this was the time to mention he can’t see anything in the dark, and I silently cursed him for not bringing this up sooner. Bernina then decided to dump her quiver on the ground. I’m not sure about the tactical value of this manuever. It must be from the fighter side of her background, I’ll have to ask about it sometime. I climbed up into a tree to try and avoid charges, and then jumped off onto the back of another kobold and killed it. By this time Neu Gai had switched to his sword, and was hacking with a vengeance at the ones still riding. I slipped over to the sleeping ones and finished them off, just to make sure the ruckus didn’t wake them up. Meanwhile, the boars caught in the net succeeded in crushing the kobold caught in there with them. Chicot decided it looked like fun in there, and runs blindly in to join them. I’ll never understand these rangers. We (well, mostly Neu Gai) managed to finish off the rest of them, and we harvested some toenails.
That would have been plenty for me, but 8 more decided to show up a little later. I’d blown my spell by this time, and hadn’t had enough rest to get it back, so we didn’t get to sleep any this time. It was a pretty pitched battle. Neu Gai took out four of them, I killed two. Bernina fanned completely this time. What good is being half fighter if a half mage can out fight you? Oh well, Chicot wasn’t any more useful. Fighting at night just isn’t his thing, and that seems to be about all we do. Unfortunately, Glug went down in the middle of the battle. Bad news. When the healer goes down who heals him? Chicot claimed some knowledge of these things, so we let him do his best. He didn’t seem to do much good, but he didn’t do much harm either. We carried Glug off into the woods and hid our tracks as best we could. This wasn’t looking too hot for the good guys.
Fortunately, we had a lucky encounter. Or since Glug is a priest of Fortuna it may have been arranged. In any case a small gnome-like creature appeared, and asked what we were doing in the forest. After explaining our situation, they (I assume there were several although we only heard one and saw one) offered to heal Glug for a price. We pooled our money (except for Bernina who held out on us) and bought him a healing spell. I figured it was a loan, but later on Glug said unless we wanted to start paying for healing spells he wasn’t going to pay us back. I guess that makes sense. But it’s not like I’ve been charging for magic spells, or Neu Gai for saving our skins. Things could get pretty messy if we started that kind of accounting!
We decided at that point to head out of the mountains and regroup a bit. We made camp that night down by the river, and part way through the night a group of four guys in red robes came by carrying torches. Chicot suggested maybe they were going to burn a church, probably kiddingly, but with a ranger who can tell? Neu Gai seemed to take him seriously, and I figured we should take a closer look. Bernina and I snuck up on them and watched for a few moments, then one of the fighters came lumbering up (I’m not sure which one), making plenty of noise. The red guys heard us and charged into the woods. That was enough for me, I fired off a sleep spell at once. Bernina ran off into the woods, which was pretty cowardly in my opinion. She gave us some song and dance about trying to lead them away, or make them think we were running so they’d leave us alone, but if that was the case why did she run directly away from us? She led them right into us! Between that and holding out when we were trying to rescue Glug, I’m having some serious doubts about this chick.
Unfortunately, the one I slept got awakened right away, so it didn’t help us much, and we had a major battle on our hands. These guys had scarred and mottled hands, and could cast fire bolts at us! They’d chant something like “Fire fire hear my call, fire fire burn them all”, point at one of us, and wham! We’d get slammed. Seemed a lot more powerful than a magic missile, too. We managed to kill two of them (I got one and Neu Gai got one), but the other two got away. Well, maybe I should put in a little more detail here. After a round or two of combat, I tried to get a truce going, having second thoughts about whether these guys were evil, or were mistaking us for being evil. All that got us was losing our initiative, since they turned around and attacked us again right away. The leader blasted Neu Gai with a extra power fire bolt and almost killed him. Glug healed him, just in time for him to get blasted again. By this time we’d taken two of them down, but we were hurting pretty bad ourselves. Neu Gai is still going after the leader, who raises his sword and has it ignite. Hey, if these guys are priests, how come they’re using swords? Anyway, Neu Gai says something like “Flaming sword, my butt”, which I think was actually the idea. The leader had one last spell up his sleeve though, and that pretty much undid us. He managed to blind every one in the party except me and I think Bernina. Then he called a truce and wanted to take his remaining follower and leave. I decided that much as Neu Gai wanted the flaming sword, he was blind and wasn’t going to be much help. In fact, all our fighters were blind, I was out of spells, and we were all pretty banged up. Discretion seemed the better part of valor here, so I let them go.
Fortunately the blindness wore off after a bit, and were able to heal ourselves up again. We searched the bodies of the bad guys, and found they had weird burn scars on their hands and arms. Since they seemed to be a power in the area, we stole their robes and symbols, and then burned the bodies. We heard somebody approach during this, and retreated into the woods to hide. Six more of the robed guys showed up, and stood in a circle doing chants around the burning bodies. We decided to leave them be. Day NINE:
Since we didn’t yet have enough kobold toenails to make the wizard happy, we headed up the river valley in search of more. Luck was with us again, and we happened upon a cave that was a kobold lair. Lots and lots of toenails, but how to get them? Glug decided to try something tricky, hoping to get them at little cost to us. He donned the red robes of the guys we slew and strode bolding into the cave, threatening to call down fire and brimstone on them if they didn’t cooperate. Either he’s a good actor, or kobolds are really stupid, because they went for it. For the grand sum of 10 silver pieces, less than Glug blows on beer in a day, he bought a bagful of toenails, and they even clipped them for us!
The precious bag of toenails in hand, we headed back to the river to make our way back. Of course, it’s never that easy, and the karmic scales must be balanced. Two trolls decided to jump us on the way back. Amazingly enough, Bernina really shined in this fight. She started peppering them trolls with arrows and at one point score 3 straight hits for lots of damage. Then we discovered that trolls regenerate. Ouch. Seeing the wounds you cause heal over the next round is not a pleasant surprise. We started using fire, and that made lots of difference. That they don’t seem to regenerate, and we soon had dead trolls roasting before us. Hmmm. Maybe there’s a song in that. “Dead trolls roasting on an open fire, Wood nymphs nipping at your nose, Drinking carols being sung by Glug’s choir, and folk dressed up in linen hose...” I’ll have to check with a bard about it when we get back to town.
{Some amount of time spent travelling back to town. Ed.}
We had a nasty surprise when we got back though. Glug was still wearing the red robes, and they almost got him hung. It seems some of the red guys had been trying to burn buildings in town. Being stupid, they picked Theo’s armory, which is one of the most fortified places in town. They got their necks stretched as a result, but the town guard was looking for more of them, and it took quite a bit of talking to convince them that Glug was wearing captured gear, not his own. It made me feel better about killing them off though, since it seems like Chicot was right. Surprise, surprise.
Since I wasn’t feeling too well, Neu Gai went off to talk to the wizard and collect our pay. Ouch. What a mistake. He was given the choice between 6000 GP or 3000 GP and an enchantment for his sword. Which do you think he picked? Right. He gets half the treasure, and the other four of us split the other half. And I bet he got a powerful Nystul’s Magic Aura on it too! I plan to check if I can figure out how. We lost a little on the gem sale this time, so we ended up with about 700 GP apiece. Still it was enough to fund Neu Gai, Chicot and Glug getting some training in and learning some new skills. That’ll be useful in the future. And we got some new stuff added to our laundry list. Of course one of the things on the list was the pituitary gland of a troll. If only we’d known. Of course, I’m not sure how to keep that gland from growing into a whole troll on the way back to town. We may need to do some research on that one. There’s also a caravan overdue that they’re offering a reward for information about, and we may go off in search of that before we try and get more spell components.
At this point something truly strange happened. Rumors of strange flying ships filled with bizzare creatures attacking the cities of the land began flying about the party, and everyone decided to go off and see this new spell called a “movie” that had been made about them. We all troopped off in search of this “movie”, only to find that the rabble had arrived before us and stolen all the seats.
On to Journal Five