Here is the write-up from our seventh session with our Beginner Box Hack (from RJ).
Spoiler Alert: Even though the party has largely finished the module, they are still wrapping up some loose threads from Fangs from the Past published by 0one Games. My GM comments, as always, are in [italics and brackets] as usual.
[When we last left the party, they had been woken by some attacking goblins. After dispatching all but one of the raiding goblins, they were able to learn a bit more about why the goblins had been more active in the area. The prisoner, however, seemed pretty fixated on getting his next meal…be it a bite out of Lemer, Dent, or even the body of one if its fallen companions…and they killed the vermin.]
The morning after the midnight raid by the goblins, we packed up and continued traveling. The day was pretty uneventful day. As we approached the ruined village; Shadow went ahead to scout around the village to scout. She came back and said she had seen nothing out of the ordinary. We skirted around the village and found a spot not too far away to camp for the night.
In the morning, we continued traveling towards the quarry and the gorge beyond with Shadow leading the way. During our hike, Shadow spotted some gnoll tracks. When we reached the quarry, Shadow noticed that there were kobold tracks mixed in with the gnoll tracks; this raised questions about whether or not the two might be working together.
Since the horses wouldn’t be able to travel up the gorge, Benliam [the town guard that accompanied the group for this purpose] took the horses and headed to the nearby woods to set up a camp. He planned on waiting for us to return from our travels to the sage’s abode. We had a couple of hours of daylight left so we pushed on into the gorge before camping for the night.
About midday the next day, we reached the area of the palisade and kobold encampment. Shadow clambered up the wall of the gorge to take the high ground to get a look at the palisade and beyond it. [When Shadow traveled this way before to determine what had happened to the party, she did exactly this to bypass the palisade.]
About an hour later, she came back…a bit out of breath…to report that there was a camp of gnolls just beyond the palisade and one on guard in the watchtower. As she was watching the gnolls, a black dragon flew in from deeper in the mountains and landed in the middle of the gnoll camp. The gnolls showed deference to the dragon and it started to speak to them. Wanting to get a better look and listen, she crawled forward to the edge of the gorge. She couldn’t get close enough to hear and almost got caught but got lucky when a crow flew away and distracted the dragon’s attention from her location. The dragon flew off but she had to wait a bit, hiding, to make sure it wouldn’t see or hear her when she came back. The gnolls also seemed to be a bit more on alert.
[Unfortunately, the Stealth check for Shadow as she moved forward came up a natural 1. Uh oh!!! Shadow dislodged a rock and set it clattering down the gorge wall. The dragon’s head immediately focused in on the sound and then started scanning the top of the gorge…the gnolls did the same. Shadow froze and tried to will herself into the dirt. Just as the dragon seemed to be focusing directly on her position, a nearby crow took off from the bushes and the dragon seemed to think that was the responsible party for the noise.]
I don’t know why she bothered. Shadow should have just led the dragon right back to me! Now I have to go find it instead. We decided to bypass the palisade and gnolls for now and climbed up to the top of the gorge and traveled through the mountains. No one wanted to just try and find the dragon and kill it right away. No, instead, we have some mission. Sigh.
Since I’m the only dwarf in the group, our travel through the mountains is pretty slow and is going to take a lot longer than if we traveled in the ravine. As darkness falls, we found a place to camp. During my watch, I noticed a blue light floating a short ways off. I woke up Aaron but he didn’t see the light. I kept looking but couldn’t see it anymore either.
At the end of my watch, I woke up Aaron for his watch. As he got up, he told me not to move. The light was back and a short distance behind me. When I turned around, the light flew off with great speed.
In the morning, I realized that my beard was shorter and that’s when I realized what that damn light had been…a beard bug!!! The others discussed it and the elf wizard called it a mountain wisp and said it was harmless. Harmless?!? The damn thing ATE some of my beard while I slept. How is that harmless? The damn things hide under rocks during the day so I started looking under the rocks around the campsite but couldn’t find it. We dwarves try to kill these vermin when we find them but no one else showed any concern.
They even wanted to keep to the mountains and spend another couple of nights camping before we made it to the sage’s home again. I almost shouted NO! but refrained. Fortunately, they listened to wisdom and we decided to take the quick route through the ravine. Shadow checked the gorge and found it empty so we climbed back down…and away from the damn beard bug!
Shadow looked around but couldn’t find any gnoll tracks, only kobold tracks heading toward the peaks and none heading back down the gorge. We quickly made it to the entrance to the sage’s home. The stones that had been part of the landslide had been organized into a low, three-foot wall around the entrance. Shadow went forward and scouted but found no guards or sign of anyone at the entrance so we all moved forward.
We headed into the entrance tunnel and reached the garden where I originally met this group. The glass spheres on the lampposts had all bee destroyed. The dragon skull we found in the sage’s tomb was stuck a top on of the posts. The skull was covered in evil looking runes and thoroughly defiled. Aurora was angered and dismayed at what had been done.
As we moved into the garden and towards the door leading deeper in the sage’s home, Shadow heard a faint sound coming from the stone wall where, as we remembered from before, there was a small peephole. I think we’ve been noticed.
We headed into the room with the pool and the glowing blue globe but there was not light. The globe had been shattered. I headed towards the ramp leading to the library. As I passed the globe pedestal, there was a click and the pedestal feel over and knocked me over, making quite a bit of noise. The damn kobolds had laid traps.
As we pushed onward, we heard a deep voice coming from the library. “Who dares defile the lair of Syphilaxisisss?” Aurora shouted back and asked who had dared to defile the home of the sage and his tomb and claimed any such creature was not worthy. The response was laughter and an offer to spare the lives of the rest of us if we would bring Aurora forward as a sacrifice.
We didn’t, of course, accept the offer and headed to the library. We heard the sound of flapping wings so I hurried forward before the dragon could get away. As we got to the top of the ramp, Syphilaxisisss was heading out the opposite ramp from the library. The immense table that had been in the center of the room had been cut into numerous large pieces and set up like barricades. Kobolds could easily be hiding behind them.
I moved into the library and heard another damn click. Bones, boards, crud, and other crap fell upon me from above and knocks me over. The ceiling has numerous nets filled with similar debris hanging all across the library. Ropes lead from the nets into the entrance to the sage’s tomb.
Four kobolds pop up from behind the barricades and attacked with slings. Shadow returned fire and got one of them. I got back up and started slowly moving towards them. Lemer used his magics to double Aaron’s size. The tall warrior started cutting at the nets to disable the obvious traps.
More kobolds came into the library and we had a fight on our hands. It was quite the same as attacking the dragon but it still felt good to smack the little reptiles with my ax. We started to get separated: Aurora and I to one side; Aaron on his own on the other side; and Lemer and Shadow still near the entrance. Aaron was starting to get surrounded by kobolds.
Suddenly, there was laughter behind. The dragon had flown out and come back in the entrance to flank us! It hissed, “I hope you enjoyed my minions.” Finally! A worthy fight! Another kobold, obviously the leader, entered the fray as well. Our focus, though, was the dragon.
The beast spit acid at us and didn’t seem to care that it was catching its minions in the stream as well. While the dragon seemed to have the initial advantage, we turned the tide and started to land some significant blows on it. The dragon took to the air and retreated behind his kobold minions, spitting acid again and catching them in the stream again…including the leader…before flying all the way across the library.
[Not that Dent saw the dragon fly across the library or most of what happened next. He was dropped by the second stream of acid…Aaron was as well I believe.
Lemer, Shadow, and Aurora were still up and preparing to fight the kobold leader (the only one still standing I believe) while Syphilaxisisss made good its retreat.
The kobold leader, however, hissed out, “Kill the dragon.” Before anyone could stop him, the kobold ran into the sage’s tomb and, apparently, pulled one of the ropes as one of the net traps on the ceiling fell to crush…not the party…but the dragon! Aurora took that opportunity to heal Aaron and Dent and restore them to consciousness.
The kobold leader came back out and flexed his muscles (so to speak) and let out a loud hiss. The players weren’t sure if the display was just to celebrate his victory over the dragon or a sign of aggression towards the party.
That, of course, is where we ended.
I gotta ask though, why did the kobold kill the dragon?!? Everything that the party had learned from Kilt about kobolds suggested that they worship dragons like gods and serve them. One of these things that–I hope–make the players go hmmmm…]
