The Undying Dragons - Campaign Thread

Marrin, looking distinctly more muscular,

"Thank you Avaria, that summed it up nicely. Festan, and the rest, are dead. You have two options, join them or us."

She looks at the four remaining and says,

"You have ten seconds to decide or we will decide for you."

Intimidation: 25

Jan starts raising lowering fingers one after the other as she lets a grin show through.

The hobgoblins start to rise and puff their chests out as Avaria begins to speak. But Marrin's words bring the duo to a halt. Both furrow their brows when the five goblins line up behind the party.

One of the hobgoblins turns to call the bugbears over and closes his mouth without letting out a sound.

Haguur, holding a bloodied knife stands over the body of one of the bugbears, its neck slit. The other bugbear stands restrained by two of the orcs.

The hobgoblin turns back to Marrin and nods.

"What do you want?"

Avaria looks over at Haguur and sees his decision on the floor in front of him.  She nods at him knowingly and then looks around the room.  

Uninterested in the conversation, she heads for the pool located in the center.  Taking a deep breath, she dives in.

Perception check from Avaria if she's looking around down there.

Perception  11

Avaria dives deep into the pool letting the others deal with the hobgoblins and the remaining bugbear. As she swims deeper, she quickly feels the movement of the water and finds a tunnel opening similar to the one she had found in the pool in the orc cavern.

She estimates the opening at about 10' across with rough rock making up most of the surface. Finding handholds will be similar to the other tunnel. From where she looks in she can't estimate the length as it twists quickly out of sight.

Marrin looks over at the dead bugbear and raises and eyebrow at Haguur but focuses back on the hobs after the question,

"To get the hells out of this place. Welcome to the team. Now is where you show you are all good team players by sharing everything you know about getting out of here."

She looks over as Ava hops in the pool then around the place,

"Oh, and everything."

She waves her crew in to help the hobgoblin not answering Marrin's questions recover anything useful that is hidden here.

"Haguur, do you have any you'd like to add?"

"We know Festan thought the only path to freedom was to be a good little boy and do as the Hargroves told," Ethel adds.

"If any of you share those feelings, or if we have reason to think you may betray our goals to the masters of this island or their guards..." she lets her eyes dip down to the throat cut Bugbear, linger there for a moment, then return to the hobgoblins.

"On the other hand, do your part and help us and we will make sure you get out of here and back to whatever you called life before being stuck in this hole."

Marrin nods in agreement with Ethel.

The hobgoblins visibly deflate, and the remaining bugbear looks shaken up by the death of the other bugbear.

Haguur just shakes his head but looks like what he'd most like to do is just finish off the bugbear and two hobs.

The one hobgoblin doesn't move for a moment when Marrin asks to be shown everything. Then his brow furrows, not in defiance but in confusion.

"There's nothing hidden here," the hobgoblin says. "There's no honour in that."

When he says the last he casts a glance at Haguur and his knife.

Haguur starts towards the hobgoblin.

"I'll show you where I'll hide this next."

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Avaria - start with 4 athletics checks please.

Marrin chuckles and waves Haguur off,

"Haguur, a moment please."

She looks back to the hob,

"What's your name?"

She waits for his name,

"<Insert name>, do you know what honor got Festan? Your former leader gets the honor of becoming a zombie for the Hargreaves' amusement. There is no honor to be expected from them."

She lets that sink in a bit before continuing,

"Now I think that Haguur would agree that you've just volunteered to help squash some spiders."

She looks to see if Haguur is amenable or still wants to just stab the hob.

Avaria's Athletic Checks:

24

14

7

22

Avaria scrambles and swims through the tunnel, making good progress despite the tight turns and jagged edges. At one point she looks like she is about to get stuck but manages to pull herself through quickly without losing momentum.

After about 45 seconds of swimming, she estimates she's gone about 80' but there's no sign of the end of the tunnel yet.

Two more athletics rolls please.

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The one hobgoblin that spoke before eyes Haguur closely. The orc slows his step as Marrin speaks but the cold murderous gaze he gives the hobgoblin doesn't change.

The hobgoblin finally turns to Marrin.

"Shozurg," he says, indicating himself then he nods at the other one, "She's Zeck. And that one is Thonk."

The last is the bugbear.

"Festan is really dead?" Shozurg asks. "How did he die?"

The two hobgoblins and the bugbear appear willing to come with you to the spider cave. However, the five goblins, at the mention of the spiders quickly vanish back into their home cavern.

Marrin nods to Haguur again before addressing the trio,

"A pleasure. Yes, Festan is dead. So were the rest, we dragged them down to Baby Hargreaves' laboratory."

She makes eye contact with Shozurg as she explains,

"Festan died in a stupid game to make the Hargreaves money. If you want specifics, I cut him down. Is that going to be a problem?"

"He died fighting," Shozurg says and nods. "Good."

He continues with you towards the orc cavern and the spiders beyond.

"But he cannot be allowed to become a zombie." Shozurg adds, Zeck nodding in agreement. "We will help you as much as we can if it speeds up an escape."

Thonk, the bugbear seems to be struggling to keep up with the conversation, but he's taking his cue from the hobgoblins and coming along peacefully.

Haguur grunts and he and the orcs lead the way.

No sign of bubbles or waves appear in the pool of water during the conversation.

Avaria holds her breath as she almost gets stuck and after so long, she is starting to get a bit worried that she isn't going to find anything... but she keeps going

Two more athletic rolls:

23

7

Marrin glances over her shoulder at the pool where Ava disappeared and silently wishes her luck, not much she can do to help.

She'll also widen her eyes as subtly as she can to make sure Jan and Ula are following.

Avaria makes her way along the underwater tunnel, but gets hung up around a particularly tricky bit before continuing along smoothly. It took her twice as long to make any headway compared to her earlier progress. She's been underwater for a minute and has made it about 90' in her best estimate.

Two more athletics rolls.

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Haguur, says something in orcish to two of the other orcs. They bend down and pick up the dead bugbear and being to carry the body. Haguur then leads the way past the orc cavern, which is empty, with no sign of the other two orcs who had been in the water, and continues through to the next chamber over. For any who weren't there before, the ceiling gets lower, down to 5' in spots. Narrow niches line the walls.

The two orcs literally toss the dead bugbear into one of the niches. The darkness swallows the body up but feet can still be seen sticking out. 

Haguur moves towards the back of the cavern, and where there appears to be just solid wall, quickly finds a niche that leads to another small tunnel that opens up into another irregular cavern. 

From this cavern, there's the small opening, at ground level, that is too small for any present to make their way through, and then there's the entrance to the cave that Avaria said was filled with webs.

Of note, while there was a last bit of twilight in the orc cave, these caves are dark with no light.

Haguur looks at Marrin and waits.

Ethel casts light on a small rock and holds it aloft so she can see.

She looks to Jan.  "I missed the plan here.  What exactly are we doing?  And where was Avaria going?"