Day 2
After the return from rescuing the merchant's, the party was ready to go after some big treasure. And, fortunately for our party, the merchant mentioned to us about an island about 20 some miles away from Rugtia filled with treasure. This is the first problem that we are faced with, however, getting to the island itself. As our group approached the docks, we were able to make out a merchant ship, two dingies, a mercenary ship, and a vacationing ship.
The party decides that the best choice is the vacationer vessel, claiming that they knew of a great place to visit and that they would be the best at helping the boat against any attacks. Kemlar's initial diplomacy with the captain of the ship swayed him to most o the party, except for Gro-Nolob, who's exceptional size was quite unsettling to the captain, crew, and passengers.
That's when the Succubas turned up the heat with the captain. We were allowed on board, the captain took her to his quarters, and the first mate set off at our command. As we made our way to the island, Laurentius and Yonan were busy searching through the ship for anything of interest. The most important being the deed to Mr. Regenald Fancypants' large estate back in Rugtia. Mr. Fancypants, being known for his scamming and conning to make money off of the innocent people of Rugtia, it wasn't overly stealing to take his house.
Discussion of sacrificing Celestia's newly summoned octopus ally to our Bag of Devouring was tossed around for some odd reason, but was violently interrupted by Gro-Nolob's decision to jump off the boat and be the first on ashore. The boat rocked violently and Kemlar was unfortunately on the edge, admiring the ocean. The only one to fail at catching himself before being tossed into the air, causing him to hit his head on a mast, knocking him unconscious, and ultimately launching him into the ocean, nowhere near his wife's octopus ally. As a side note, it was in fact, during this commotion that Laurentius did get his hands on Mr. Fancypants' house's deed.
Lucky for Kemlar, his son was able to command the octopus to grab him and pull him onto the deck before he could drown. There were no other injuries amongst the party, but the captain came out with the Succubus bewildered and confused, wondering if he even wanted to give us a ride back to Rugtia. Luckily, the Succubus was able to convince him to wait for us, and that's when we realized that we had never even gotten his name. He made a slight moaning-grumbling sound, so we appropriately began to refer to him Captain Groggles.
Before making it onto the shore, Arnold was able to make out the top of a ruined temple of some kind, and that it was made of marble. We did decide upon "giving" Celestia's octopus to the Bag of Devouring, before adventuring to the center of the island. When we did get to the entrance, Gro-Nolob had the need to cut down a tree for no reason whatsoever be for we actually examined the entrance to the temple. The entrance was a large arcing doorway with no physical door strait into a spiraling staircase leading down into the darkness. Arnold got out some of his rope and we all began to lower Alex down through the center of the staircase, until we realized that he was the only one in out entire group that needed good light in order to see well. Kemlar lit a torch and tossed it down to where Gro-Nolob stood. Luckily for him, even though he has the mental strength of a five year old, he was able to hold himself together in the dark until the rest of the group made their ways down the stairs to him. Once down the stairs, Laurentius decided that he would began to attempt to sneak up ahead of the party.
As the group entered in to a much larger room, they were able to distinguish five creatures in the darkness. Unable to tell whether they had seen the group or not, they approached with caution. When the party finally got close enough, and Laurentius had snuck around behind them if things went awry, they were able to realize that we were in the presence of five goblins. Kemlar, unable to speak goblin himself, began to communicate to the through Celestia's translations. He asked her to speak "Friend" to them, which was quite impossible, since there was no such word in the goblin vocabulary. The goblins stared back blankly at Celestia. He told her to ask them "Ally?". One of the goblins pointed to the others, repeating the same word that Celestia had just used, but said a different one as it pointed to the rest of the group. It began uttering a horse laugh as they drew their half-spears.
The group was officially in combat and were going to be able to bash in their fist heads. And, that's exactly what Laurentius, Yonan, and Octavius all did. Laurentius, took one out from behind, as Yonan took one out with his bow. Finally, after his father Kemlar was somewhat humiliated in his attempt to slay one of the goblins, Octavius brought down his morningstar down on the one his dad had missed. Arnold used Kemlar's rope and one of his spells to bind the last two goblins together. After some intense questioning, the group was able to figure that there were many more goblins, and that they had gathered all the "shinnies" of the temple as their own and that they were to the right. After they somehow got loose from their bonds, Laurentius made quick work of them, giving Kemlar's silk rope a nice red color in the process.
From there, the group continued deeper into the room to find two other paths. One was a tunnel, with the entrance in the far right corner, it looked as if it continued on as a network that the goblins were calling home. The other was an archway leading into what seemed to be a congregation hall. Yonan, Gro-Nolob, and Redderick began to poke around the very shallowest parts of the tunnels, as everyone else slowly filed into the congregation hall. Much of the hall was broken or overturned, while the only fully intacted ghing was a symbol inlaid into the far wall. This symbol was obviously for the god Thor himself, and it was to be assumed that this temple had been built in his honor. The altar that stood before the symbol had been cracked and dismembered, clearly not in a good state.
The only visible exit was a door on the left wall that lead into a much smaller room, doubling back into the direction in which they had just dismembered, clearly not in a good state. While the only visible exit was a door on the left wall that lead into a much smaller room, which doubled back into the direction in which they had just come. As they looked around the room, they could see a few tapestries hanging from the wall, a chest in the center of the room, and piles of dirty, ruined robes scattered along the sides of the room. The tapestries, four to be exact, were a deep purple one, a soft yellow one, and a fancy one with the depiction to a unicorn on it. The fourth, after Kemlar used Detect Evil, was found to be very not-good, with the animated image of male genitalia on it. Arnold took the fourth one, not as offended by it as everyone else was, while Kemlar took the rest of the tapestries.
All the while, Laurentius had been able to pick the lock on the chest. Arnold opened the chest wide and a burst of flame shot out into his face. The chest was fully opened to reveal a large number of Hymnal Books , most likely for a service here to Thor. Laurentius took one and gave it to his shoulder riding Kobold, who began to leaf through it intently, while Kemlar also pocketed one for his personal collection that he just had started. The rest of the Hymnals were put into one of the group bags carried by the Succubus.
At closer inspection, the floor around the chest seemed to be heavily scraped, as if the chest itself was constantly being moved across the floor. With little effort, since the chest was now empty, it was pushed aside and a hole and ladder leading down into the darkness was revealed. Calling over to Yonan, Redderick, and Gro-Nolob to continue on their path, the rest of the group began to make their ways down the dark ladder. The majority of the group ended up in a smaller room dug out of the dirt and stone, while the others reached a fork in the tunnel. Going by the goblin's description that the shinnies we're to the right, they moved down the right path until they reached a door. The solid wood door was barred into the walls, with supports throughout the tunnel they were in.
Arnold tried to figure out whether breaking down the door would cause the entire tunnel to fall down upon them, as Gro-Nolob desperately wanted to barrel right through the door. After long minutes of contemplating what they should do, Yonan finally tried to lock pick his way into the room just of find out that the door wasn't even attached to the walls. He door fell forward and revealed a very small room that had been filled with what little goodies the temple had had. There were a couple more similar Hymnal Books and the like, along with one large chest sitting awkwardly in the off center if he room. The chest was found to be unlocked, and opened wide without incident. Bags of gold, record books of offerings to the temple, Pendants with the symbol of Thor upon them, and other miscellaneous papers filled the chest. After moving the money and other things out, and Yonan grabbing all the pendants, they found at the bottom, a Warhammer.
No matter how hard Yonan or Redderick tried, they could not lift it from the bottom of the chest. Gro-Nolob, with a great strain, was able to just lift it up out of the chest, but felt he could not hold it for long. The voice of Thor spoke around them, he said, "Before you lies a mere vessel of my worship, Mew-Mew. Mew-Mew may only be wielded by one who is of true heart. Elves, I'm sorry, this weapon is not for you. Orc, you will not be able to wield Mew-Mew effectively either. However, there are others in your party, are there not? One of them may very well be able to wield Mew-Mew in my name. That is all I have for you at this moment, I bid you farewell."
On the other end of the tunnels, the rest of the group was creeping forward from the small ladder room until they reached an intersection. To their right, the tunnels had seemed to have collapsed and were impassible. In front of them, the tunnel reached only fifteen feet or so before ending abruptly. And finally, to there left, they were able to make out a massive room. There was no light, but they could just about estimated the vastness of this particular room.
Celestia pulled out one of her jars of dirt, silently cast Light on the dirt itself, and cast it throughout the room in one arcing sweep. The light was low, but everyone could now see each other. Twenty or so goblins, ten on each side, could now make us out as much as we could them. Arnold, bravely, and stupidly, rushed to the left group of goblins, thrashing his dual chain knifes about. In another few seconds, he had slew only one goblin and was now completely surrounded. He defied any though of helping him as the rest of us cut through the other ten or so goblins. Our Lupin Psion teleported one of them away to an unknown location, while Laurentius put caltrops in Alchemist's Fire and threw them about, and then the rest of the group finally showed up on the other side of the room.
Octavius was near Gro-Nolob when he entered the room, straining to keep Mew-Mew off of the ground. Kemlar told Gro-Nolob to give the hammer to his son, who surely could wield a weapon such as it. Octavius took the Warhammer from Gro-Nolob as it began to crackle with electricity. Turning to the other side of the room where Arnold was still surrounded by goblins, Octavius hurled Mew-Mew. Taking out most of the goblins around Arnold, it flew around him an returned to Octavius' hands.
Even with the aid of Octavius, the goblins surrounding Arnold were getting to be too much for him, though he continued to fight. Luckily for him, Octavius was able to rush over while we were slaying goblins on the other side and channel the divine powers of Bahamut to restore Arnold's life force. Water was generated about one of the goblins near Arnold and Celestia tossed her Bag of Devouring into it. The bag opened wide as it entered the water bubble and enveloped the goblin into itself.
The last of the goblins were finally slew, with no casualties amongst the party. Yonan distributed the many Pendants that he had found in the same chest the Mew-Mew had been in. These Pendants of Thor, in fact, allowed direct commune with Thor himself. Laurentius piled a couple around his neck and preceded to commune with Thor, atoning for his transgressions. Luckily, with some diplomatic input from Kemlar, Thor decided to spare Laurentius' life. All the while, Arnold was trying to convince Thor that Laurentius was a lying back stabber and needed to be eliminated.
Kemlar asked Thor to allow him to solve their differences himself, as to not waste any of Thor's time. In addition, he offered his allegiance to Thor along with his reasons for doing so. Thor, who could see great honor in such a warrior, accepted and granted Kemlar his blessing.
With the chat with Thor all done, the group made their way back to the ship, content with their first performance together. As they neared the ship, they could make out a series of shrieks and screams coming from on board. Hurrying onto the ship, they were shocked at what they saw.
A dead and bloodied goblin lay in the middle of the deck. A Halfling, with a bleeding stump where his arm should have been, stood proudly above the goblin, one of his feet resting on it's head. The Halfling now had no arms, for one had clearly been previously lost and had healed quite a bit, while the other had clearly just been lost. The newly lost arm was nowhere to be found as Octavius began to tend to the Halfing.
After returning to Rugtia, the group convinced Capt. Groggles to sell his ship back to the vacation company and join them as their own personal captain. Not wanting to be without the Succubus, he gladly accepted. Stumpy, what we began to call the Halfling, also joined, with the group's hope that he could become their overseeing butler and live the Halfling life, smoking expensive cigars and such all day around the guild. That brought up the creation of the guild itself. A vote was cast, Kemlar was elected Guild Master and the guild was to be The Legion of Dungeon Misfits, after the overall unruly physique of the group.
They arranged for their own ship, Thor's Oddessy, to be built, as the prepared to enter the residence of Reginald Fancypants. Before they even made it to the door, they could feel the weighty presence of evil emanating from within. But that was for another day. The group was up one Godly ally, a semi-organized guild, a ship on the way, and a to-be new base of operations, with eighteen Kobolds following behind.
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