🥔25. jared, 19
session 25 • 04/16/2022 • 1,074 words
『 📜 』 adventure log
🌞 DAY 7 • 📅 ELEINT 28
📌Cragmaw Castle
Finding Grol
The group has a brief disagreement over what to do with Yegg when Hugh drags him out by the foot. Soren, frustrated, goes into the kitchen alone to investigate for any clues regarding Grol. The others join him eventually, and the group hears snoring coming from the nearby tower.
Deciding that it best to take care of the lackeys before facing off with Grol so they don't surprise from behind (spoiler alert: they do anyway!!). Soren slams both doors open, surprising the guard goblins. He continues his act of being an envoy from the Black Spider, fooling the goblins and scaring them into staying in place regardless of what combat noises they hear coming from inside the castle.
The group decides to head to Grol's quarters. Lera stashes Yegg's body in some rubble to decide what to do with later. We approach a door, but notice a tripwire trap in front of it and narrowly avoid triggering the trap. We hear rough goblinoid noises and decide to leave what we assume to be hobgoblin guards alone.
We eventually come into what seems like a storage room full of crates. Soren dancing lights for Sildar. Sildar rolls a nat 1 on stealth anyway for a total of 0, kicking over a pile of rubble and alerting the bugbears. We love you Sildar.
Fighting Grol
The goblinoid voices we heard before turn out to be two bugbears, who come out of the room to investigate and attack us -- one from the front, while another sneaks in from behind to ambush Lera.
Hugh makes use of the long hallway to deal hefty amounts of damage with his charger feat, and Soren incapacitates one with an absolutely terrible joke :D Shortly after we gain the upper hand, Grol enters the fight and extinguishes all lights in the room with a lair action,
In the darkness, Soren gets "boinked on the head" -DM. Lera casts Shield of Faith on him to raise his AC, which he is grateful for. Sildar also expends his Bait and Switch maneuver to switch Soren into a safer position, giving him a total of +5 AC for 18AC LMAO this is the highest AC this bitch will ever have. Thank you for "failure of a whore" protection squad.
Lera sets to healing the injured during the fight, using 1st and 2nd level Cure Wounds to keep everyone healthy. Thank you for our lives literally. Soren forces Grol back into the room with Dissonant Whispers and deserves many headpats for this thank you. Hugh and Sildar take advantage of this and form a wall to protect the backline.
Grol continualy uses his skull / focus / item(?) to create pools of darkness that blinds the party, as well as using it to cause fear on occasion. Several hobgoblin guards also join the fray from behind.
Hugh enters his strange rage, with his eyes turning purple. He summons a small Flumph through the haze of magic, which continually explodes to deal damage. Soren casts webs on the incoming hobgoblins and incapacitates several of them.
After a tough battle, we manage to whittle Grol down. As Hugh begins to tire, Soren enlarges him to twice his size and sends him after Grol, where the enlarged Hugh knocks him out. Outside, Sildar and Lera dispatch of the entangled hobgoblins, and end the fight.
Finding Gundren
We tie up Grol and set him against the wall to interrogate later, as we search his room. We find Gundren, unconscious, in a corner, then open a filthy bathroom door to find ... a wood elf, sitting in a bathtub of questionable liquids.
Lera uses Prayer of Healing to heal the whole party, Gundren, and the wood elf, who introduces himself as Jharym and seems intensely concerned about Gundren. Lera mishears as "Jared" and so begins a new meme.
Jharym explains that he's a wood elf who was captured shortly after Gundren was, and was meant to be given as a gift to "Klarg". When Lera pushes more, Jharym explains that he was hunting and adventuring in the area when he was captured by goblins.
Much to Lera's horror, Soren gives Gundren dwarven whiskey at his request ("it's like water to dwarves"). We find a map on Grol that Gundren confirms to be the map of Wave Echo Cave. Soren also finds a ton of gold on the table, as well as Sildar's items, the latter of which Soren hides in the Bag of Holding secretly.
We find out where Wave Echo Cave is, and that it's heavily caved in, and will take Nezznar -- with a team of skilled excavators and knowledge on exactly where to go -- at least a tenday to get to the Forge, which is currently deactivated regardless and will require very specific individuals to reactivate.
Soren marvels at the good news, and exclaims that we no longer have to hurry. Remembering that Sildar feels guilty about the kidnapping, Soren also reminds Gundren that Sildar has been tirelessly searching for him, causing Sildar to "reflate"? :)
Lera speaks to Jharym about Esta, a fellow wood elf, but he doesn't seem familiar with her wood elf tribe.
Killing Grol
Sildar and Soren have a brief back and forth on how best to deal with Grol, with Soren maintaining that he deserves to suffer more than a quick death before kicking Grol to wake him. He takes out the ritual dagger and attempts to intimidate Grol into talking about the mystery female elf and the Black Spider.
Grol is unreceptive, mocking him and calling Soren on his bluff of torture. Soren looks torn, and Sildar and Lera both attempt to stop him from "doing something he'll regret". Sildar grips Soren's shoulder, while Lera tries to get between Soren and Grol while saying "no" repeatedly.
Soren gets defensive about this treatment / physical restraint, demanding to know if he's an animal to them. Sildar acknowledges that Soren is their friend and his loved one, causing Soren to relent and swiftly kill Grol with a rapier to the throat.
Lera leaves to go kill the unconscious Yegg, only to find a group of new hobgoblins in the crate room, studying the corpses of the bugbears and dead hobgoblins. She shuts the door on them and lets the group know we have company.
Level 4!
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