A0 - Danger at Darkshelf Quarry part 3

Where we left off in part 2 of A0 - Danger at Darkshelf Quarry, the Mürmaids had just approached the guardhouse, and Glythriel the elven paymaster of the mine had failed to decieve them, choosing instead to launch an attack against the party. Guido & Horace stood in front, directly before the only door to the guardhouse, with Oliver standing just behind. Our two dwarven warriors from the Foulbriar Clan, Clyde and Igrom "The Bad Cheese" Morgaine stood a few dozen yards back, since they had both been involved in a battle with members of the guardhouse once before. Clyde was already severely wounded, having refused to drink the herbal healing potions the party kept, calling it "witchcraft."

Charging Into the Hall

Horace left no time for delay and charged into the hall, shouldering in before Glythriel could slam the door shut. As he leapt by, the half-elf heard stones fall behind him. The rest of the party noticed as well, there was a murder-hole above the entry door, and someone was above raining head-sized stones down from above. Oliver, ducking behind Guido, screamed for the dwarves to come running the moment it became apparent that their negotiations with Glythriel weren't going anywhere. He also side-stepped the range of the murder-hole, and scrambled up the wall of the compound to peer over the edge and see the two men with their pile of stones, tossing them down the shaft at his friends. The halfling took a quick swipe at one of them with his dagger, but missed, and started back down the wall.

As the dwarves began their run towards the guardhouse, Horace took his shots at the elf woman who was just around the corner of the door frame. Guido also stepped into the door, but before he could act, the woman threw sand in the air at her two opponents, and mumbled something in an arcane language. As Horace started to draw back his bowstring and Guido drew back his spear for a solid strike, a yawn overtook both of them, and their weapons skittered to the ground. As Oliver was making it back down to the ground, one of the guards from the balcony above dropped down a rope and slid down to give chase. And just as Clyde and Igrom were crossing the rickety wooden bridge across the same chasm they had thrown the elf down, Glythriel stepped over the sleeping bodies of Horace and Guido and trained two shots at Clyde from her longbow. In a moment, the party had gone from well prepared to all but completely defeated.

Oliver saw the writing on the wall, and turned to his pursuer, and tried to talk his way out of the situation. After a convincing plea that he didn't understand why fighting was taking place at all, that they were all on the same side, the guard stopped before him, leveled his sword at the halfling's chest and demanded his surrender.

The True Danger at Darkshelf Quarry

While Oliver was trying to talk his way out of the situation, Junior tried to run up to give cover to the limp form of Clyde. All seemed lost as the party was outmatched, but these things don't matter to a dwarven battlerager. In the first round of combat, Igrom failed his wisdom check to keep his cool, and he raced forward, barreling into the opening hallway of the Darkshelf Guardhouse. He shoulder-checked Glythriel to the ground, and with a swift strike from his maul, the elf was defeated. He saw two goblins coming down the hall towards him, and all hell broke loose. From this point on, the screaming form of Igrom was the main focus of the combat. He thrashed about, slaying goblins, hobgoblins and humans alike. The shouting, yelling and splattering bones and skulls woke up Horace, finally, from his pleasant dreams. He took note that things apparently hadn't gone well to begin with in the short 2 rounds he had been under, but surmised that Igrom probably had control over this hallway. He ducked outside to see how his other companions were doing.

Oliver tried to quick-draw on his would-be captor, and succeeded, but missed a strike with his dagger. The guard struck back, injuring him, but failing to knock the halfling into the chasm. luckily, Horace leaned out the door and spotted his plight, and drew back two arrows to his cheek that would both erupt out of the man's chest. The halfing stumbled a bit as the man fell forward towards him, but succeeded at keeping his balance and didn't follow the man's corpse into the chasm that surrounded the keep. Guido woke up the next round, and immediately rushed out to help Junior and Oliver drag Clyde's body into the hall, away from the attacks of stones being thrown over the wall of the guardhouse at him. Horace tried to get up on top of the wall for a vantage point, but in the time since Oliver was last up there, the one human guard had been reinforced by 5 goblins. He took a shot with his shortbow, and then decided to drop back down to the ground and escape into the relative safety of the guardhouse entry hall. Thinking quickly, Junior dragged their dwarven companion into an adjacent room, and used an old coat-tree to bar the door to the guardhouse from the inside, ensuring that their opponents could come at them from inside the keep.

The Sergeant at Arms Arrives

Igrom was a mess of blood, gore and practically stood atop a pile of corpses, thrashing and screaming, foaming from the mouth as more opponents, goblins, hobgoblins, men at arms and more, came down the hall at him. Unfortunately, though, one opponent, some sort of officer of the human guards, was not falling as quickly or easily as others had. This man was well armored, and carried a shield and sword that he used with ability and deliberate precision. He deflected the heavy-handed blows from Igrom's hammer, and like a surgeon threaded quick strikes at the dwarf with his sword, slowly wearing the enraged fighter down. Horace attempted to give support from the back of the hall, firing off shots from a distance. Guido and Oliver went through another chamber, what appeared to be a meeting room of sorts, and grabbed discarded shields from bodies left in the Cheese's wake. They opened the second door, and began helping wear down the captain of the guard. Eventually, the party won out, and the leader of the guards at Darkshelf Quarry fell. As the fight ended, Igrom panted, his eyes darting back and forth looking for the next opponent, until his blood pressure dropped and his eyes turned a shade less red. As he calmed, he took a ragged breath in, and those eyes rolled back into his head. Luckily his companions were there to assist, and wrapped him up in bandages, and dragged him to the same bed Clyde was on until he was able to revive.

The party scrambled through the remainder of the first floor, and found some stashes of weapons and armor. Guido suited himself in chainmail, kept Glythriel's longbow handy, and grabbed the sergeant at arms' shield. They raided every room, found everything they thought might be valuable, and kept a watchful eye on the two spiral staircases headed up to the second floor. After several hours, Horace had identified that both of the staircases had some sort of trap, but couldn't identify the trigger, so they all agreed to wait until their dwarven companions awakened, and they could find a safer path upstairs.

Headed Upstairs

After several hours, the party looted the downstairs, and their unconscious friends awoke. Still not able to find a safe path up the stairs, around any traps laid in the way, they decided to scale the ropes hanging over the front door (one dropped by Oliver's would-be captor, the other at the end of Horace's grappling hook). After some poking around, they spotted two rooms that were still apparently occupied. One held a pair of some monsters speaking to each other in goblin. Horace walked right up to the door and attempted to converse with them, answering their question that Brubrock was dead (unbeknownst to them, Brubrock is Bazili Erak's real name). He assumed that it was two lowly goblins inside, but Igrom was growing impatient. He charged forward screaming "screw this waiting around," and kicked the door in to reveal two bugbears. Horace stayed outside the door, plunking arrows over the head of his dwarf allies, and Clyde slipped in as well, and together the two dwarves handled them.

Meeting Bazili Erak

With Guido and Oliver still outside of the shelter on the top-floor, they rushed around to the closest door while Horace turned in shock to see nothing between himself and the hulking figure of Bazili Erak. The man was not a dwarf after all, as they had all suspected, but rather a hunch-backed half-orc, with a snarling face and the smell to match. He had in his hand a horn shortbow and fired off a shot as soon as the door to his chamber opened. Horace took the arrow in stride, firing back as quickly as he could. The two dwarves Igrom and Clyde charged out of the room once the bugbears had fallen, and tried to cover for Horace. Unfortunately, Igrom was almost down already, and fell quickly to the half-orc warrior. Facing Clyde and Igrom with the support of Horace was a little much for the half-orc, though, and as he saw Oliver coming in through the opposite door, and the tall Guido training a shot with his longbow, he turned, and fled out the side door.

Horace was the quickest to follow, with Oliver covering one of the other exits. Guido, thinking quickly, saw that Bazili was headed for the ropes over the front balcony, left there from the earlier battle, and headed to the stairs, willing to brave the traps that they never could find in order to beat him down to the first floor. When Bazili sheathed his broadsword and reached for one of the ropes, Horace rushed ahead with a scream, trying to barrel him over the edge. Bazili was the more competent warrior, though, and planted his stout foot against the wall, grabbed the running Horace and used his own momentum to hurl him over the wall.

Guido saw the stairs before him and took a deep breath. Bounding down the stairs as quickly as he could manage, he heard the crank and snap of a trap fire off harmlessly behind him. Shakily, with the breath knocked out of him, Horace, gripped the edge of the chasm next to the guardhouse and pushed himself off the ground. Wounded as he was, with at least one broken rib and unable to catch his breath, he knew that he wouldn't be able to stand up to Bazili alone. So he pulled his shortbow out, and looked up at the half-orc's rear end starting to come over the edge of the balcony as the half-orc prepared to repel down. With a called shot, he plunked a finger-thick arrow-shaft right in Bazili's shapeless rear.

Clyde and Oliver stepped forward with Bazili giving up on getting over the balcony. Unable to move his legs properly with the arrow in his ass, and with the many wounds he received from Oliver's thrown stones and Clyde's swordplay, bazili unbuckled the strap of his sword and let it clang to the ground as he raised his arms in the air to surrender. Clyde wasn't having any of it, though. He walked up to the half-orc with his sword drawn, holding it at the orc's neck, and then with a flurry of activity, he sheathed his own blade, lifted his shield from underneath the man's belt and shoved him right over the ledge. Horace watched the man fall, hard, and lay in a heap at his feet. He grabbed the man's neck to stabilize it, and made sure he was still breathing. Guido rushed out, panting, to see the battle over. In retrospect, Guido arriving outside, had Horace taken one more hit point of damage from his fall, would have pitted the half-orc against the fighter-thief. As the DM, I would have loved to see that go down.

Learning what's been going on at Darkshelf

Some ret-con happened next, while we allowed two party members (Guido and Oliver) to question their captive while the remainder of the group fortified the guardhouse. Horace used his change self spell to head down to the quarry in the disguise of a guardsman or a goblin, and delivered the message that everything was okay, and the party had been defeated. Oliver used his disguise ability to make Clyde pass as Bazili from a distance, and he waved from atop the wall of the Guardhouse to signal his approval. Meanwhile, Oliver and Guido took Bazili back to town, along with the seven slaves they found chained up in the guardhouse while rummaging through for more loot. In Snake's basement, they questioned him, and when he wouldn't provide answers, the good-cop/bad-cop routine of the charismatic Oliver and the intimidating Guido along with Igrom standing behind them, thumping his hammer on his hand to get the following information out of him:

There are goblins down in the mine led by a bugbear named Stinky Pete. Doesnt know how many, Glythriel would (he didn't know the party had killed her).
Yes, he does know what mutilates people, but he is too afraid to say what it is. Go on down to the river to find out, though.
He held up and captured the other group of slavers so he could get the townsfolk off his back, and remove a slaver who was generally a troublemaker in the organization.
Yes, he is a member of the "guild" of slavers. Yes, he takes place in a significant amount of slave trading here in the mine. Slavers come up the river in the night, and swap supplies or gold for slaves, or drop off their own captives for gold, slaves and the like.
No, there is no gold. but there are slaves, many of the villagers are still there.
Yes, there are powers at work here that are outside of his control. He works for the pirates, the slavers (named one of them, Theg Narlot, who is a high ranking slaver from the slavers' guild)
He would rather die slowly and painfully than face the horrors of what would happen if he told you what else was down below the mineshafts. Again, though, going down by the river might get the players to resolve this issue more quickly, if they are confident that they can handle the evils the slavers have aligned themselves with.
The slavers and their mysterious allies in Darkshelf set up in this location for reasons Bazili doesn't quite understand. However, it works well for the slavers, with easy access to the river, the large underground complex, and the ability to hide their slave trade.
He had the humans dig until they flooded the chambers on purpose
He was never digging for gold
He won't say what he was digging for
There is something down there, he won't mention what it is, even after removing his fingernails
He makes up for his lost income with income from slaving and assisting the slavers
When it is safe for a slaver's ship to come up the river, he raises a yellow flag at the guardhouse, and the slavers trade slaves for cash or supplies or cash for slaves at a cave that is along the river. Yes, you can identify the slavers' ships using the same yellow flag, or a yellow sail.
About 40 miners used to work there
He doesn't seem scared of snake, but does know who he is, and seems to be aware of his penchant for torture.

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Thursday, November 12, 2015