Paul staggers onto the scene late and haggard. He indicates that once again, he only managed to get a couple of hours of sleep last night. He informs the rest of the group that Billy (Mebble) got even less sleep, and won't be showing up at all. Tim (Anpago Yost) becomes very fascinated with the little plastic terrain features Paul brought with him. Bruce (Longfellow Yost) suggests that the group could spend the next eight hours playing Munchkin instead of playing the game. Chris (Tonk Sangaree) indicates that he would rather die than play card games for eight hours. Chuck (Darg Sangaree) just sulks because Bruce hasn't yet made up a custom spark for his character.
Anpago Yost decides that the characters should get some more information about the situation. He casts Charm Person on the goblin captive Mawgrot and hands him over to Tonk Sangaree to actually ask the questions.
At this point, Sister Chiron points out that the orcs have been involved in a religiously motivated civil war for many years. On the one side stand the traditionalists, who follow the orc god Gruumsh. On the other side are the followers of the new god Hextor, lord of conflict. The major disagreement is that the Hextor followers feel that the Gruumsh worshippers' practice of sticking rats up their asses headfirst is degenerate. In contrast, the Gruumsh faction is disgusted by the things the Hextor worshippers do with industrial milking machines. She suggests that keeping the orcish civil war going is the only thing that has kept the civilized lands intact, and that anything the characters can do to upset the negotiations between orcs and the Voice of the Spider would be helpful. With this additional information, the interrogation continues.
Anpago Yost persuades Sister Chiron to lend him the amulet she uses to trace the location of her dead boyfriend, the paladin. He takes off and flies around the city triangulating. He very quickly learns that the amulet points him right at the single well-maintained stone building in the center of the city.
Lord Rosh's compound is pretty impressive, with 15 foot mortared stone walls around a substantial central house. Guards, mostly bugbears, are visible walking patrol around the walls. And leopards stalk the open areas between the house and the outer walls.
The characters hatch a mad plan to whack the orc guards at the boat, then steal their gear and use that to make it look like orcs killed the goblin guards at the secret entrance. There are several things the characters can do to enhance this plan, including using various Charm spells to create instant orc allies, using disguise and illusion spells to generate phalanxes of imaginary goblin archers, and so on. The characters prepare these options and head out to attack the orcs.
Mebble gets sent off to watch the cave entrance. He has no idea that the other characters are off doing other interesting things that have nothing to do with him.
Sister Chiron helps the warriors' approach by casting Silence over Tonk and Darg Sangaree. Anpago and Longfellow Yost are careful to stay out of the spell's effect. There isn't much cover available between the edge of the beach and the orcish camp, so the front rank of characters sneaks as best they can and then simply charges. Tonk carefully figures out his ability to hide, commenting, "Christ! A tower shield carries a penalty of -10! That means I got a 6..." Longfellow and Anpago approach from the flanks in the air and don't worry too much about concealing themselves.
It doesn't take much foresight to realize that the orcs see the characters coming from a mile away. And then Anpago unleashes his Confusion powers on them. Longfellow further muddies the waters by casting Charm Person or Animal on a particularly stroppy-looking specimen. Unfortunately, the orc Longfellow charms is also one of the orcs hit by Confusion. Fortunately, the brute does exactly what Longfellow would have wanted him to do: he goes berserk and murders the orc standing next to him.
Against a background of screaming, raging orcs and strangely silent characters, an orcish shaman steps out of the tent. Anpago immediately intercepts him with Tasha's Hideous Laughter, keeping him out of the scene for a while.
Longfellow thinks about casting Entangle on the orcs until he realizes that there is no nearby vegetation, except perhaps a bit of beach grass and some dead seaweed. He decides that this isn't that good of an idea. Flaming Sphere seems like such a better plan. He asks the others, "Who needs to be set on fire?" Anpago howls out, "Shaman! Shaman! Spellcasters die first!" Foom! The shaman barely avoids getting set on fire. Darg (silently) comments, "Hey look! We have air support, and they have napalm."
Tonk is not interested in making shrewd rejoinders, as he has found himself engaged by two orc ragers in full battle frenzy. He manages to disarm one, but the other slashes him something nasty. Darg shouts out, "I'll save you, Tonk! Just as soon as I finish off this one..." Darg proceeds to finish the orc off rather handily with his two-handed sword.
Anpago suddenly remembers that the characters are supposed to make it look like the orcs are being attacked by goblins. He creates a Permanent Illusion of a spider-mounted goblin in front of the orc shaman. The orc shaman is so impressed by this that he savagely attacks it and realizes that it is an illusion. Of course, nobody else realizes this. But then, almost nobody else is even paying attention to it. Darg very helpfully points out, "It fooled me!"
Meanwhile, Sister Chiron does her best to help out Tonk by bashing away at one of the orc ragers with her suspiciously dainty morningstar. The other characters realize that even though Sister Chiron is quite the spirited chickadee, she doesn't have a particularly well-developed physique. Tonk rolls his eyes, then handily trips and guts the orc rager in front of him.
Darg cuts down his second orc in as many strikes. Thick orky blood comes bubbling up out of the creature's hoglike nostrils. Tonk complains, "I want an orc like that! I want one that doesn't get up after I trip him!" Darg responds, "You realize that it isn't that tough to pick out the feeble orcs from the badasses. The ones that are real trouble are so heavily scarred you can barely tell that they're orcs!"
Anpago notices that the orc shaman has been having tremendous luck at avoiding Longfellow's Flaming Sphere. He decides to help the situation by tossing some greek fire at the fellow.
Just as the characters feel that they have a comfortable level of control over the situation, a tremendous horn-call sounds from the boat. More orcs run down the gangplank from the ship. Darg mourns, "Oh no! They're blowing the Horn of Gondor!"
Longfellow notices that he can control two Flaming Spheres if he's on the ground, so he lands and uses his wand of Flaming Sphere to incinerate the lead orc on the gangplank. Unfortunately, the orc shaman grunts out, "Gugh. Kill talking bird!" and runs over to inflict quite a chopping hit upon him. Longfellow reels and thinks, "How... how could he run so fast?" Darg proceeds to rush to his feathered ally's aid by charging straight into the shaman.
Anpago notices that there are quite a lot of orcs making it past the Flaming Sphere on the gangplank. He moves his spider-rider illusion over to block the gangplank, casts Sleep to fell down four orcs, then modifies the illusion to make it look like the spider-rider actually killed all four orcs in a series of whirlwind attacks.
Longfellow rather desperately moves back from the orc that he has started to suspect might not actually be a shaman, while Darg stands in the guy's way. The so-called shaman proceeds to go berserk on Darg, slashing him mercilessly. Darg sways from blood loss, asking the others, "Who was the idiot who decided this guy was a spellcaster?" Anpago announces very proudly, "I am going to Reduce him! He just needs to make a Fortitude save." Once again, Tonk is forced to point out, "Dude! You realize these guys are all barbarians, and have really excellent Fortitude saves!" The orc leader shakes the spell off without a second thought. Anpago tells the others, "I would do something else, but I'm running out of spells."
Fortunately, the orc barbarians are starting to wheeze and gasp just as badly as the gamemaster is. Darg has great hopes that some of them might lose enough hit points when their rages end that they might fall over and die all on their own. Tonk decides to help one of them out with a quick sword-strike.
Darg sees that the orc leader in front of him is tiring. He feints right, watches with glee as the orc clumsily moves to the right, then cuts left and takes out several of the fellow's internal organs. The orc staggers. Darg calls out, "Take him out, Longfellow! Claw his eyes out!" Anpago proceeds to cast Levitation on Longfellow, who then presents the rather odd picture of an eagle standing on nothing with wings folded. Longfellow takes advantage of this new situation to first land one Flaming Sphere on the staggering orc leader, dropping him, and then to maneuver another Flaming Sphere to fry one of the orcs facing the illusionary goblin spider rider.
Tonk steps back and cuts down the orc barbarian facing him. For his trouble, three more common orcs rush up and attack him. One of them gets in quite the lucky strike and cuts Tonk on the arm. Tonk looks at the injury with surprise, commenting, "Ouch!" He warns the others, "Don't worry! These look like common orcs! I can take them all out with one whirlwind attack!" Whereupon Darg and Anpago "help him out" by taking out two of them. Some distance away, another orc gets a strike in on the charmed goblin Mawgrot, killing him.
The orc rager Longfellow charmed in the beginning instants of the fight finally comes out of Anpago's Confusion spell. He looks up at Longfellow and enthuses, "Birdie!" in orcish. Tonk asks Longfellow, "Do you understand anything he's saying? Not a word, huh. What is it you magicians like so much about charming races you can't talk to?"
As he strikes the death blow on the last orc, Tonk very loudly calls out, "Die! Die in Lord Rosh's name!" The characters look around for various valuable objects among the orcs they killed and the tent. Darg speeds up the process by casting Detect Magic. He learns that the leader has the bulk of the interesting items:
Darg picks up a couple of orcish great axes as props to drop when the characters eventually attack the goblin sentries.
The orc leader's women and children are in the tent. There is some debate on what to do with them. Hoping to avoid doing anything that might later be construed as an "atrocity", the characters consult with Sister Chiron. She says that from what she's heard, orcish women are the slaves of the orc males and as such are not a threat. Anpago very helpfully offers, "It would be more of a property crime to kill them, then."
Tonk speaks with the orc women. He only speaks goblin, so the conversation goes poorly. He demands of one of them, "What is your name, woman!" The orc woman responds, "Wak-wak-paddy-wak!" Then Tonk tries talking to the children. Darg asks him, "You think they might speak goblin because they're small?" Longfellow tries next. He tells them in broken orcish, "Run! Run for your lives!" All of them run like the dickens. He concludes that they are tired of following the orcish males as Gruumsh ordained.
About this time, the characters hear the sounds of magical combat from the city. They see a pattern of eight meteors fall from the sky into the city. A lightning bolt crackles down after it. Tonk offers, "Gee, looks like someone is fighting a high-level magician." Anpago comments, "Those look like druid spells." He flies off to see what is going on. Longfellow follows him.
Anpago and Longfellow see a crowd of disorganized orcs pouring back through the caves, back towards the boat. Longfellow flies back to the other characters to warn them that they're going to up to their elbows in orcs in a few minutes. Tonk asks Longfellow, "What is it, Lassie?" Longfellow croaks back, "Aaawk! Orcs from the cave! Orcs from the cave!"
Anpago continues up to the city proper, where he sees a huge, seething carpet of spiders, biting wasps, flies and scorpions protecting the Spider Temple from the orc army. The front ranks of the orc army do not seem that interested in attempting to cross the ocean of angry insects. They have their own troubles, in the shape of a company of several dozen massive bugbears. The bugbears seem to be doing pretty well against the common orcs. The exception is the one-eyed orcish general, who is holding out from behind a screen of strong orc berserkers.
In the midst of all the chaos and destruction Lord Rosh is standing out on the parapets of his encampment, surrounded by a dark miasma of evil. The characters' old friend Tomas Silverleaf is standing on another of the towers. Gangs of savage inhuman creatures are swarming out of the main gates to attack the orcs. They attack the orcs with their bare hands, but the orcs scream and die when they are hit. A man wearing the same kind of armor that Sister Chiron is wearing leads them. Anpago is able to verify that yep, it's him!
Anpago is able to see that small groups of orcs have broken and are running back to the cave entrance. Goblins in the trees snipe at them with bows.
Fearing that someone (particularly Lord Rosh) might be able to see invisible things, Anpago makes a point of hiding before he turns his attention to the progress of the battle. He watches as Lord Rosh commences throwing Fireballs down into the orcs one after another. As the orcs burn and die Lord Rosh bellows with malicious laughter. Some orcs try firing arrows back at him. Anpago notices that the arrows don't even seem to have any impact upon Lord Rosh: he just ignores them.
By the end of the battle, the orcs have managed to savage a fairly large percentage of the bugbear company. The insect barrier goes away after ten minutes, but by that time it is far too late for the surviving orcs to mount any sort of attack on the Spider Temple. A good portion of Lord Rosh's undead army also lies chopped to pieces on the battlefield, though the undead paladin does make it back to the fortifications. The goblins themselves seemed to weather the violence pretty well, as they never really engaged.
A little more than a hundred orcs make it back to the ship. Most of their leaders are dead. The only surviving leader seems to be the captain who was assigned to the rear guard. They wait for a while, then when it is obvious that nobody else is coming back they push off the beach and row away very, very slowly.
Anpago returns to the other characters to report what he has seen. Darg mourns, "Guys, I suck so bad at turning undead." Tonk offers, "Break this news to Sister Chiron gently, and not gently like a player character would." Darg tells Sister Chiron, "So, what if we told you that your boyfriend wasn't exactly dead, but wasn't exactly alive either..." It turns out that Sister Chiron was actually expecting something like this, and is completely committed to putting his remains down.
Anpago lists out the dangerous opposition the characters might have to face. This includes:
Sister Chiron listens to this list and explains that the power of Pelor is very effective against the undead. In fact, she has fought the undead many times before. Darg breathes a sigh of relief.
The characters have a brief debate over whether or not they should attack Lord Rosh's compound tonight, or wait until tomorrow morning when Anpago and Longfellow's spells will recover (but when Lord Rosh will be back to strength as well). The decision is made to attack now, attempting to enlist the aid of the mongrel men along the way.
Tonk asks Sister Chiron to cast an Augury to find out the answer to the question, "If we go to Lord Rosh's compound tonight, will we all die?" She explains that she can cast Divination, which is a more powerful spell. Tonk asks his question. She answers in a beautiful, calm male voice, "You may live and do well if you avoid the master of the keep." Everyone agrees that this sounds like good advice.
Having determined that it will take Anpago several hours to analyze the eighteen potions the characters took from the three orc ragers and the orc leader, the characters turn to their Charmed orc rager for an explanation. He says that each rager carried four potions:
He says that the orc leader carried
Darg Sangaree takes the orc leader's magical breastplate and tries it on. He is disappointed to realize that he does not now feel like killing all his companions. He does feel rather better protected (it is a +1 Breastplate).
Longfellow sends the charmed orc rager off into the wilderness to rejoin his friends. After he gives the characters all his potions.
The characters decide that attacking Lord Rosh's compound becomes much more realistic if Lord Rosh is not actually at home. They decide to forge a letter to him from the lead bounty hunter Zelanea saying that she has the large gem sought by the Dostavar family, and that it is waiting for him in Highthrone. Tonk Sangaree writes the note, and includes a quick illustration of the gem. The plan is to cast Light on it, then have Anpago Yost drop it in the compound courtyard, where Lord Rosh or one of his minions is sure to see it.
Anpago Yost drops the note off, then retreats to watch what happens. He sees the druid Tomas Silverleaf come out and putter around the grounds. Silverleaf sees the note, looks at it rather curiously, and then brings it back into the main building. Later on, Anpago sees him doing various chores, including feeding the leopards. Anpago notices that the leopards seem to love him, and that he seems to be feeding them chopped up bits of orc. After leopard feeding time, Silverleaf goes into one of the garden enclosures where Anpago cannot see what he is doing.
After nightfall, the city becomes much more active. Patrols of goblins and bullywugs march through the streets as local residents follow their various trades. Darg comments, "Aha! So we had best attack under cover of broad daylight!" Sometimes goblin spider-riders come by, occasionally leading continents of regular goblins. Sometimes the undead things in the sheds around the back of Lord Rosh's encampment go out into the city to hunt. The screams of goblins hang over the city while they are out. He sees that the goblin sentries have a rather dull routine. The sentries sit around until a goblin crew shows up at nightfall to deliver food, and then fights break out. "Pizza! Who ordered a pizza!" "Hey! You got cave scrapings and wasp stingers on this one! Don't you know I hate wasp stingers! I wanted elf ears!"
What Anpago doesn't see is Lord Rosh turning into a dragon and flying away.
Longfellow flies over to spy on the goblin guards at the secret entrance. The only part of the secret entrance that is visible from the outside is a broad cave mouth concealed by creepers and lianas. The remains of a road snake out from it and down the mountainside. The area is covered with a wide variety of tracks, most of them humanoid. Longfellow can hear the faint splash of water from down in the cavern. But he doesn't see any sign of guards outside the cave.
After two days of waiting, the characters rather desperately turn to Sister Chiron and her Divination to find out if Lord Rosh is home. The answer? "He has gone to examine your rumor, but he will not wait long." Apparently, he travels around with Teleport Without Error spells. Tonk complains, "I was expecting him to fly off into the sky in a flaming chariot! Doh!"
Anpago scouts the cavern ahead of the characters. Tonk says, "Longfellow, bring the bear." Anpago heads down two hundred feet of tunnel. The tunnel eventually widens out into a chamber. The chamber walls are covered with bas-reliefs of spiders and goblins in pastoral scenes. The edge of the chamber descends down into an underwater pond. On the other side of the pond, three braziers burning foul-smelling charcoal flank a strange statue-altar of the spider goddess. There are three canoes beached on the near side of the pond.
Anpago reports back to the others, "I don't see any traps, but the local geography looks pretty weird."
The characters set out in two canoes: one with the people and one with (oddly enough) Watches-Birds-at-Dawn and Longfellow Yost. Moments after setting out, Longfellow's boat is bumped into by a crocodile intent upon tipping the boat over. Longfellow casts Flame Blade, then watches as Watches-Birds lays the creature open and Tonk puts an arrow into its eye. Anpago comments, "See, it has a weakness." Tonk boasts, "When I was a lad, my dad taught me to fight crocodiles for ten years. Sure, I'm no good against orcs, but I can kick ass against crocodiles."
Then four more crocodiles surface and attack. Anpago swiftly creates a Permanent Illusion of a juicy, wounded manatee struggling some distance away from the boats. Two crocodiles swim off to investigate, leaving one to be carved apart by Watches-Birds and another to be skewered by Tonk. The characters paddle the rest of the way across the sacrificial pool as quickly as they can.
The other end of the pool is a sandy beach. There is only one passageway leading forward, ending in a door. Longfellow comments, "Of course! They'd need this to keep the crocodiles out!" Anpago asks the others, "So, is there anyone here who knows how to open locks?" Darg clarifies, "Is there anyone here with thumbs who can pick locks?" before Longfellow can offer some kind of pathetic comment. Longfellow rather resignedly listens at the door. He hears something talking in a language he doesn't understand, and a crackling fire.
Longfellow tells Watches-Birds, "Open the door!" Watches-Birds shatters the latch, completely surprising the four bugbears inside. Darg howls out, "Let's roll over them, boys!" Darg cuts down one bugbear and wounds another. Watches-Birds proceeds to claw the wounded bugbear into bloody fragments. One of the surviving bugbears howls out, "Holy shit! It's a bear and a guy with a sword the size of a bloody log! Aaaiiee!" The two survivors throw axes very inaccurately and run to the next room.
The next room is slightly larger, with four more bugbears inside. Anpago puts a Flaming Sphere across the exit from the second room to ensure that nobody escapes. Tonk muses, "You know, this must be what life is like for most humanoids. Ninety-nine days of a hundred, nothing happens. Then one day someone kicks down the door and everyone dies." Tonk marches in and slaughters a bugbear in the sort of matter-of-fact style only achieved after killing dozens and dozens of creatures. Watches-Birds lands on another bugbear and crushes it utterly. Longfellow flaps in and pecks away at a bugbear, seriously annoying the creature.
Tonk takes a pretty merciless hit from one bugbear's glaive. The other three bugbears clamber away and overturn furniture to provide a barrier. Anpago is not concerned about this, as he has a Flaming Sphere right behind two of them. He cooks them up old school.
Darg asks, "Are they distracted?" Tonk slaps him upside the head in irritation. His pride injured, Darg responds by chopping a wounded bugbear in half. The creature's entrails spill out across the ground. Darg then takes advantage of his incredible Cleave feat to chop down a second bugbear, robbing Tonk of his target. Tonk steps up to one of the defending bugbears and takes a hit for his trouble.
The two cooking bugbears leap out from their burning defenses and attack Darg and Watches-Birds with glaives. The bugbear facing Tonk swings wildly with a hand axe and misses. Darg deals with the problem rather nicely by cutting down his attacker. Tonk does likewise to his. There isn't enough left of the bugbear in front of Watches-Birds to fit into a baggie.
Longfellow settles down onto one of the dead bugbears and starts pecking away at eyes while the other characters loot the dead. They come up with 41 platinum coins. And one of them is carrying a large sack of raw meat, apparently for the crocodiles. Longfellow claws it open and calls over Watches-Birds to have lunch. Tonk scoffs, "Now he's going to be sleepy."
The characters continue ahead with Anpago in the lead. He finds a side passage that goes about fifty feet ending in a door. The main passage goes on for a ways, then ends with a cave-in. He tells the others to go left. To pass the time until they arrive, he listens at the door and hears nothing.
Tonk decides the door is unlocked and pushes it open. The room is large and vaulted, forty by fifty feet. Arches rise from the corners. The floor is of hard stone, partially covered with reed mats. There is a door on the facing wall. There is a chest hanging from the ceiling. Rungs are set into the walls and the ceiling, extending up to within five feet of the chest.
Anpago comments, "I think this room is a puzzle originally designed for adventuring groups with no flying members." The characters collect some glaives from the bugbear guard station and use them to sweep the mats aside. They find nothing any more interesting than more stone floor.
Anpago flies up towards the chest. As he gets closer, gravity suddenly reverses and he crashes to the ceiling. He hits the chest pretty heavily. He suppresses his Invisibility and tells the others, "It's pretty weird up here, but I'm okay." Darg scoffs, "I think this is just another pixie trick." Anpago tries to open the chest. He concludes that it is locked. He pushes the chest until it reaches the edge of the anti-gravity field. It plummets to the floor and breaks open, releasing a gas trap. Thanks to Tonk's perceptive precautions, none of the other characters are anywhere nearby.
Darg sighs and asks the others, "Is this another of those cases when Darg needs to walk out into the gas to make sure everything is clear?" Tonk nods. Darg walks out. He inhales enough Fear Gas to make him jumpy, but not enough to force him to make a save. The chest also contained 1000 silver coins, 60 gold coins, and a jade key. The characters gather all the coins up and go on their way.
Anpago verifies that the jade key opens the far door in the room. The characters very politely lock the door behind them. They pass into a worked stone corridor that branches off into a natural stone cavern. Anpago scouts ahead. Along the way, Tonk spots a moldy silk pouch in the mud. He picks it up and finds a crystal key with a red tassel.
The characters follow the tunnel for another two hundred feet. It ends in a room outfitted as a blacksmith's workshop. Various pieces of ironmongery are scattered around the walls. A huge forge dominates the center of the room. Two listless and exhausted young men are chained to the bellows. The ceiling is open to the sky, but shrouded by vines. Anpago flies up to take a look at the vines. He notices that the vines aren't strangler vines, but there are about ten goblins hanging there, watching down below. He also spots a cave entrance about a third of the way up the shaft, among the vines. He slips inside and sees a goblin spider-rider and six more goblins, clearly waiting to inflict terrible things upon the characters. It is clear that the goblins have been alerted that someone is coming. Someone serious.
Longfellow takes a look at the situation. He notices that the shaft is only about thirty feet in diameter. He can cast Entangle at a range of 560 feet, and affect a radius of 40 feet. As Tonk and Darg walk into the chamber with bows ready, they examine the struggling goblins up above. Darg comments, "Well, they weren't strangler vines before." Tonk adds, "I've always said that druids are useless unless they're running away from something, or casting Entangle." They commence picking goblins off as quickly as they can nock arrows. Tonk crows, "When I'm shooting creatures completely incapable of hurting me, I'm magnificent! It's only in those so-called 'fair fights' that I wet myself."
Then the goblins in the side tunnel emerge and start firing blowpipes down at the characters. Except for the one whose blowpipe was sliced in two by Anpago and his magic knife. Both Longfellow and Tonk get hit. Longfellow staggers on the wing as he loses 5 STR to the toxin on the darts. Tonk laughs because he took a dose of antitoxin and is pretty much immune to poison for the moment. The spider-rider hits Darg, who has specialized in Fortitude saves and doesn't notice poisons even when he isn't stoked up on antitoxin.
Longfellow decides that now would be a good time to put a Flaming Sphere into the mouth of the tunnel. He fries two goblins.
By this time, four goblins have managed to free themselves from the vines and reach the ground. Darg draws his greatsword and lays about, killing two of them instantly. Tonk watches this performance and comments, "That's kind of a waste of killing power, don't you think?" He then proceeds to skewer another goblin up in the vines. The last two goblins actually run up to Darg, just to make it easier for him to slaughter them. Darg obliges them, but not before they manage to kneecap him.
Things get a bit bleaker when Darg takes another blowpipe dart and suffers 6 STR damage. And Longfellow gets hit again and loses 4 more STR points, putting him down to 3 STR. Tonk comments, "Things are going to look ugly when the secondary effects kick in." Anpago rather innocently offers, "There are secondary effects?" Tonk responds, "Oh yeah. Any minute now Longfellow's going to start singing John Denver songs. Just like when he went to war with Iraq."
Longfellow decides that things have gone far enough and moves his Flaming Sphere over to fry the spider-rider. And his spider. Anpago comments, "You know, it really stinks in this cave. Even though you'd think that burning goblin would be an improvement over non-burning goblin." He casts Sleep on the remaining goblins, but only puts one of three goblins to sleep. And that goblin only went to sleep because he'd already been drinking sour cream all morning. Out of frustration, Anpago takes out his magic knife and guts one of the survivors. Then watches Tonk send an arrow through the other.
The goblin spider-rider finds himself as the only remaining combatant, facing an apparently indestructible array of player characters dishing out an unending array of damage. The goblin sends his spider running out of the cavern, leaping down onto Darg. His spider manages to sink his fangs into Darg's side, tearing a rather substantial gash into his side and sending him spinning down with another 4 STR loss to poison.
Anpago flutters out of the cave and throws his magic knife into the spider-rider's back. Tonk charges forward to flank the spider-rider, eviscerating him in a blow. Darg comments, "You realize that he only had three hit points left?" Tonk responds, "What's a hit point? Oh, by the way, that giant spider is still going." Longfellow responds by casting Flare at it. The spider discovers that having eight eyes is not good for avoiding flare attacks. And then Darg and Tonk chop all its limbs off, one by one.
Longfellow rather unsteadily comments, "Once I would have been able to prepare a really nice giant spider leg fricassee, but now I prefer it raw. Could one of you hand me some of that?"
Both Longfellow and Darg suck down antitoxin to avoid the secondary effects of the poison. It doesn't work perfectly for Longfellow: he turns green and falls over, completely paralyzed. Darg shudders a bit, but pulls through. The two of them drink down the one Lesser Restoration potion the group had before, and all four Lesser Restoration potions acquired from the orc barbarians. This treatment brings Longfellow back to mobility (albeit with 10 points of STR damage remaining to heal) and Darg back to full strength.
The characters cart down the one goblin Anpago managed to put to sleep. They decide to have Anpago cast Charm Person on him to make the interrogation process go more smoothly. While Anpago waits for the others to bring the goblin down, he flits about gathering up unused poison darts and picking out the nicest blowgun.
Anpago announces that he is invisible and has a blowgun he wants to try out. The others agree that he can try this. Anpago flies out and poisons a goblin. He ends up shooting three darts at the goblin, killing him before the poison is able to paralyze him. The other goblins are armed with spears. They seem very concerned about the fact that their companion just died at the hands of an invisible blowgun shooter. They bunch up, which allows Anpago to throw a bottle of acid at them. This is enough to cause the five goblins to run off towards the city. Anpago slaps his head in frustration and puts them all to Sleep. He slits their throats and loots their corpses, then tosses the bodies off the cliff.
It turns out that the two lizards are chained in place near the end of the rope bridge. The chains are only about six feet long. Tonk and Darg don't take long to drop both lizards with arrows. Each of them used up six arrows per lizard.
The characters pause before pressing on.
Each character gains 1620 experience points from the fight against the orcs. This is enough to push Anpago Yost up to 5th level. He gains seven hit points, which once again makes him tougher than Longfellow. The remaining encounters are worth 2200 experience points. The total experience gain for all characters is 3820 points.