Act 1 / Episode 4 - The Blood Vow Lair, Part 2 (May 4, 2014)

After confirming that her prehistoric companion, Hak, had not been harmed while held in captivity, Nighttail led the party along a winding, narrow passage that ended in a cave upon the floor of which was a thick layer of straw. As Nighttail had informed her liberators that Chief Roaghaz’s chamber was “two more down,” she elected to leave Hak behind as the beast would not be able to negotiate the descent shafts. 

Nighttail halted Akiro before he could round a bend in the north end of the cave, hissing that a trap had been set at the narrow bend. The kobold helped Jiri spot and disarm a tripwire connected to a series of spring-loaded darts concealed under the straw. Beyond the trap and around the bend, the group found a 5-foot diameter hole, in which a thick, knotted rope descended into darkness.

Unsure what awaited them below, Akiro dropped his magically luminescent hat down the shaft. It hit the ground approximately 20’ down; some of the companions heard something yip and skitter away. Nighttail was unimpressed. She refused Jiri and Iacobus’s urgings that she lead the way down, countering that she was not as strong as the bigfoots and beard, and that she must ensure her survival if she was to take control of the tribe and ensure that peaceful co-existence with the bigfoot town is restored. Chief Roaghaz’s servants would undoubtedly have orders to put her to death if they saw her free and aiding the bigfoots. She could serve the heroes best by advising them from behind.  

In the end, Akiro clambered down the rope and reached the bottom of the shaft safely. The ovoid chamber into which he had stepped was devoid of features, save for a pair of murky pools and a single exit tunnel cluttered with rubble. Once everyone had made it down the rope, Nighttail explained that the pools were “snacking pools” in which the Blood Vow bred frogs for food. She added that in the next chamber, they would find a much larger pool in which lurked “big cranky biting turtles”... the bigfoots, beard, and ears and arrows should avoid stepping or falling into the water. 

Jiri took the lead here, trusting that his sharper dark vision would reveal threats before any of his companions might spot them. As he cautiously made his way through the rubble to the end of the curving tunnel, he just barely heard something shift ever so quietly beyond his sight and the end of the passage. He could see a large pool of dark water in the middle of a large, but low-ceilinged cavern. A kobold on the far side slung a bullet at the dwarf, while two others stepped forward and attempted to trip him into the pool using their miniature guisarmes. Jiri attempted to strike back at one of his assailants with his glaive, but missed. He took a step back into the passage to avoid being flanked or tripped into the pool.

When the whole party emerged from the tunnel a few moments later, they saw two kobolds (one with glaive, the other with sling), fleeing down a passage almost directly opposite the companions, across the pool, while a third guisarme-wielder ran west into another side passage. The heroes also noticed a third passage across the pool heading south east; Nighttail explained that that was the armoury. The party chose to inspect the armoury before going down one of the other passages, just in case more kobolds might be hiding therein, or that they might find some items of use. A quick inspection of the armoury revealed a dozen spears, more than a hundred sling bullets, four slings, three suits of leather armour, three wooden shields, two bows, all sized for kobolds, as well a human-sized iron longsword. The chamber also contained dozens of small picks, spades, iron spikes, hammers and other tools, and some coils of rope, chains, and manacles with keys. The companions determined that there was little of use to them among the assorted items and took nothing.

As Jiri peered into the tunnel down which the slinger and one of the guisarme wielders had fled, he noticed a single small pallet heaped with fur sitting along the south wall of the cave. As he and the others approached, they found an aged kobold, his green scales dull and his eyes shut tight, lying on the palette. “This be Jakkol, him be great priest of our tribe before Churgri come,” murmured Nighttail.

The aged kobold’s eyes fluttered open to reveal milky, blind orbs. In a raspy voice, he declared the following, in the Common tongue:

“I can tell by your scent that you are strangers here. If my nose tells the truth, you bring the destruction I foretold. Good... good. I had hoped to see our ruin before journeying to the afterworld, but I will settle for listening to it. Beware of the great scaly beast, strangers. He seems to speak reason, but his words are poison. And his bats, the ones he calls from the darkness... they are harbingers of lunacy and chaos... Dread Lord Aeteperax will surely be your doom as he has been ours.”

As if the act of speaking was too much, after delivering that cryptic and ominous message, the aged kobold died. After a moment’s hesitation, Jiri began to search Jakkol and the pallet. He found only a small and fragile phylactery carved from petrified bone and inscribed with a band of runes clutched by the dead kobold’s claws. Jiri and Iacobus both confirmed that the item was magical, but neither were able to identify its properties at the moment. Nighttail argued that Jakkol was a holy priest of the Blood Vow, and as the tribe’s imminent new leader, the phylactery should be hers... but Jiri disagreed and held on to the item, leaving Nighttail feeling even more sour toward the stupid beard.

Jakkol's phylactery

Nighttail informed the companions that both this tunnel, as well as the one down which the lone guisarme-wielder had fled, ultimately led to the same place: a big chamber that would lead to the “third down” and Chief Roaghaz’s hall. The current passage, however, would first lead them past a “cruel rat nest,” where rats even more vicious than those kept higher up in the complex. The group decided to follow the passage that the lone guisarme-wielder had taken. 

After marching for what seemed like a long distance down that passage, the heroes came to a wide bend. Three dire rats charged them from out of the darkness ahead, but the wider space granted Akiro, Jiri and Iacobus more space to maneuver effectively for defence and counter-attack purposes, while Shalora provided them with spiritual guidance. At the edge of the circle of light cast by Akiro’s illumined hat, the heroes saw a pair of kobolds run into yet another tunnel. Once the dire rats had been slaughtered, the party prepared to follow the sneaky kobolds down this latest corridor. Nighttail warned them that it was likely that a larger defensive force had been gathered here to ambush them along a narrow walkway 10‘ above the ground... but this was the only way to gain access to the lower level of the complex.

Led by Akiro, who vaulted under sling fire over the two guisarme-wielding kobolds that had taken defensive positions at the half-way point of the walkway as their brethren lobbed their bullets from behind the cover of a low curtain of rock, the heroes rapidly defeated their opponents. Nine kobolds initially defended the chamber, but once the first five had been slain and Nighttail stepped forward and declared in Draconic that the remainder would be spared if they surrendered, those still standing dropped their weapons, allowed themselves to be bound, and were lowered into the pits that yawned beneath the walkway. Another circular hole opened in the ground of this chamber, again with a knotted rope tied to a spike descending into darkness. The way to the “third down.”

Adopting the same strategy as before, Akiro dropped his luminescent hat into the hole. This time, the companions heard no reaction from below. Nighttail did not know if anything awaited the companions in the chamber below; the Blood Vow shrine and Chief Roaghaz’s hall were still further in the complex. Iacobus tried to convince Nighttail to descend first, so that she could show her courage as new leader, to no avail. Akiro ended up going first, and as he emerged from the shaft, he found himself completely unable to move and flanked by two silent skeletons. The undead slashed at him with dull scimitars, and from above, Jiri saw the Tian warrior fall beneath the blades, his blood spilling onto the ground.

Jiri heroically leaped down the shaft, landing with his legs spread apart in a defensive position directly overtop the prone Akiro. As the dwarf fended off the attacks of the skeletons, Shalora channelled healing energy to her beleaguered friends below, and Akiro’s mind gradually overcame the spell that had been cast on him, a red-scaled kobold wearing a rusty-brown cloak over chainmail and wielding a wooden staff carved with runes and capped with a crimson sphere etched with symbols conjured a glowing dagger that flew at Jiri. The spiritual weapon failed to harm the dwarf, shielded as he was by the power of love, but the infuriated red-scale closed in for melee.

Churgri the red-scale

As Akiro got up, he demolished one of the skeletons with his glaive, while Jiri stepped away from the bottom of the shaft. The red-scale unleashed a wave of dark energy that burned Akiro and Jiri. Then Nighttail emerged from the shaft, followed by Iacobus. The red-scale suffered a wound and stepped out of the melee while the companions fought the second skeleton. Shalora took the opportunity to channel Shelyn’s healing energies, which washed over her companions below. As the second skeleton crumbled, Nighttail charged Churgri the red-scale and drove her spear through her foe’s gut, slaying the priestess.

Jiri and Iacobus cast spells to detect magical energies in the area, and found four items radiating magic on Churgri: three stone flasks wrapped with a twisted cord and stoppered with a simple wood cork hung from a leather thong wrapped around her waist, the contents of which smelled and tasted slightly pepperminty, as well as the now blood-stained, scaled crimson cloak the cleric had worn over her hooded black robe and armour. Additionally, the heroes also found a spell component pouch and gold symbol of some unfamiliar horned entity among the cleric’s possessions. Churgri’s ornate quarterstaff did not radiate magic. An argument broke out once again between Nighttail and the companions regarding the distribution of the slain kobold’s valuables. In the end, three of the companions each claimed a potion, which Iacobus deemed were healing potions (cure light wounds); Nighttail retained Churgri’s enchanted cloak, which, according to the Taldan’s assessment, would enhance in very limited fashion the wearer’s resistance against enemy spells and harm caused by poison, environmental effects, and other such things (cloak of resistance +1). After some hesitation, Nighttail also decided to don Churgri’s chainmail. 

Potion of healing (cure light wounds) x3 

taken by the heroes from Churgri

 the red-scale's corpse

The party then advanced into a chamber so large that Akiro’s hat barely illuminated its total area. The ceiling was higher here, about 12 feet high, and aside from a passage leading out of the opposite, north end of the chamber, its only prominent feature was a malevolent-looking horned idol carved from stone and positioned in the centre of the cave. Curiosity got the better of Jiri and Iacobus, who searched for secret compartments both within and beneath the idol. They found none, and their spells revealed neither any magic or evil radiating from anywhere in the chamber, aside from what the party and Nighttail herself carried (including the twin “lucky sticks” tucked in her belt). Nighttail was clearly irritated by the party’s investigation of the idol, which she claimed represented an entity named “Duke Vapula.” Churgri reportedly spent most of her time in this chamber, and soon, the party would face Chief Roaghaz and his guards in the grand hall.

But first, as the companions advanced into the north passage, they came upon a wooden barrier blocking the entrance to another cave branching off from the main tunnel, beyond which stood a green-scale. The sentry did not behave in a threatening manner, but stood with spear in hand and without fear, rasping something in Draconic as the party approached. Nighttail informed the party that the sentry and the others in the chamber beyond guarded the “Cave of the Future”--where eggs and hatchlings were   watched--and would not interfere with the party’s assault on Chief Roaghaz. These guardians would only fight if the party attempted to harm their young and unborn. 

The next and final chamber would be Chief Roaghaz’s hall, but at the last bend in the tunnel before the hall, Nighttail identified the most devastating trap in the entire kobold lair--a thin layer of oil coated the walls, floor and ceiling of this passage, and anyone who walked in risked tripping over a number of well-hidden trip lines that would cause a dozen vials hidden in the ceiling to smash on the floor, ignite the oil and turn the entire passage into a fiery tube. With their guide’s help, Jiri and Iacobus carefully deactivated the trap; Iacobus even collected some of the vials from their niches in the ceiling. Based on Nighttail’s description of the effects, the magus believed the dangerous substance in the vials was alchemist’s fire.

Beyond another bend in the tunnel, the party came to a short flight of rough-hewn steps that opened into a large but low-ceilinged cave, the floor strewn with fresh straw. The bones of many different creatures, animal and humanoid both, hung from the walls. Two boulders bisected the cave. At last, they had reached Chief Roaghaz’s hall.  

A green-scaled kobold clad in a purple cloak with elongated sleeves and trimmed with crimson tooth-like patterns stood before the boulders and puffed out his chest. A dagger and a pair of scroll tubes hung from his bandoleer. The belligerent kobold addressed the party imperiously in the Common tongue:

“You think you can trespass in the lair of the Blood Vow Tribe with impunity? I am Roaghaz, and I serve the great Lord Aeteperax! He rewards his supplicants for ferocity and faithfulness. We shall add your bones to those hanging on these walls, and our great lord shall sup on your flesh!”

Before the party members could advance, Roaghaz pointed a wooden wand at them and uttered an arcane incantation. A huge web shot out of the wand, coating half the hall and reaching far into the entrance passage, trapping all of the companions and Nighttail, who stood at the edge of the web near Akiro. 

Chief Roaghaz

Roaghaz was furious that Nighttail the Glib, as he called her, had led the invaders against the Blood Vow and had now led them to his hall, and ordered his guards--who emerged from cover behind the boulders--to slay the traitorous rat. As the companions struggled to free themselves of the webs, Nighttail successfully blocked most of the guards‘ spear thrusts, while Roaghaz croaked another incantation that unleashed three bolts of magical energy that struck Akiro full in the chest before retreating behind the boulders. Iacobus was tempted to throw alchemist’s fire at the kobold chieftain, but feared that it would ignite the web and burn all those trapped within. 

Akiro was the first to free himself from the web. By the time he had done so, Roaghaz had conjured a double of himself. Given the close quarters, Akiro attacked the sorcerer with his katana instead of his glaive, and his swing promptly dispelled the illusory double. Roaghaz retaliated by blasting Akiro once again with another three magical bolts that nearly killed the mute warrior. The four guards remained focused on slaying Nighttail, but she and Jiri brought their opponents down one by one. Shalora and Iacobus emerged from the web, the elf rushing to Akiro’s aid, pulling his head back to empty a healing potion down his throat. Roaghaz now found himself with nowhere to run and no one left to fight at his side, and casting spells was now just too risky. As the pair of humans tried to flank him, the kobold’s fangs suddenly grew longer and he attempted to bite Akiro, unsuccessfully. As the last guard fell, Nighttail, who had sustained only a few light wounds, joined the fray against the chieftain who continued to rage about her treachery. Although he clearly could not defeat his foes, Chief Roaghaz fought to the death and cursed Nighttail as he perished.

Nighttail was elated by the victory, and the heroes praised her for her bravery in battle... and were secretly surprised by her skill and endurance, and glad they did not have to face her as an enemy. In the western section of the cave beyond the boulders, the companions found a large, soft pallet and two locked chests. They found a pair of keys on Roaghaz, and Jiri and Iacobus determined that in addition to the two scrolls and  the wand in the sorcerer’s possession, his cloak was also enchanted. A quick assessment by Iacobus revealed that a spell named glitterdust was inscribed on both scrolls. As he touched the sorcerer’s cloak, made of coarse animal-hair and dyed purple, and concentrated for a moment, he determined that the cloak’s magic had enabled Roaghaz’s fangs to grow (cloak of fangs). 

2 scrolls, each with the spell Glitterdust,

 claimed by Iacobus

One of the keys opened both chests, within which they found 1,895 gold coins in one chest, and six large green scales and an even larger black one in the second chest. “Dragon scales,” confirmed Nighttail.

Despite Nighttail’s protests that she should keep most of the treasure and magic items as they had belonged to the Blood Vow tribe, the companions insisted that they be shared evenly five ways, as “friends” would do... especially since they argued that most of the kobold treasure had likely been obtained by stealing from humans and other folk. Given the circumstances, Nighttail knew she had no choice but to agree to the terms. Iacobus claimed the two scrolls. Nighttail wanted to keep both Churgri and Roaghaz’s cloaks, but Jiri forced her to choose one or the other. After much thought, she gave Churgri’s cloak to Jiri and wrapped Roaghaz’s cloak around her shoulders. Churgri’s cloak smelled of kobold and blood, and was comically short and narrow when worn by the broad-shouldered dwarf... whether or not the red-scaled cloak enhanced or detracted from the dwarf’s beauty and style is a matter that remains open for debate. 

Churgri the red-scale's cloak of resistance (+1), 

passed down reluctantly by Nighttail to Jiri… 

would the small, scaled cloak enhance or detract

 from the dwarf's "beauty and style"?

The heroes reminded Nighttail once again that she had promised that the Blood Vow must be good neighbours, and they also suggested that a contract should be drafted setting out the terms of the peace. Nighttail agreed, but insisted that the heroes accompany her through the complex on their way out, so that they could announce to all survivors that she had been proclaimed the new chief of the Blood Vow and that they better listen to her or else there would be consequences. The companions did as she requested.

At last, the heroes regained the surface, glad to smell the fresh air and to see the light of the evening sun reflecting on the waters of the flooded quarry. Sparkles was still tethered, unharmed, where Shalora had left her, but Bophre Malak and the other liberated prisoners were nowhere to be seen...