The Shackled City, Day 9 (2006-11-03, 6:30 PM) Chapter 2: Drakthar's Way

Players (Characters)
Jeremy (Grokk)
Catherine (Amber)
Tony (Roland and Horkina)
DM: Tom (Garlen)

By morning, Grokk's hangover had subsided, so he was up and ready to go. Unfortunately, Rain drank enough for himself and Grokk combined, and passed out on the floor of the Tipped Tankard. Horkina dragged him to the guild hall and left him on the floor. The rest of the party headed back to Orak's bathhouse and cleared out a few small groups of goblins that had moved into the previously cleared areas.

The group returned to where they'd previously fought Drakthar. Garlen noticed a ladder in the back of the alcove, leading up to a small ledge and a door. In a room down the next hallway, two mercenaries sat idly by. Rain quietly opened the door leading into their room, and the party got the drop on them. Both were reduced to near-death before they had a chance to react. The male, Chorlyndyr, surrendered immediately, while the female, Kallev, had to be threatened extensively despite the damage already done to her. When asked if they were allied with the goblins, Chorlyndyr admitted they had been hired by an Ogre Mage called the "Blue Duke" to oversee smuggling of half-orc mercenaries into Cauldron. He had no particular attachment to the goblins or their leader. The party tied the two up and dragged them back to Cauldron, leaving them in the custody of the Town Guard.

The party returned to the ledge and climbed up. A short hallway led to a fragile rope bridge, which the party reinforced with their own length of rope before crossing one-by-one. Garlen spotted three goblins around the next corner, crouched down on a ledge overlooking a vast cavern to the west. He charged right up to the goblins, killing one with a blow to the head. As Amber stepped around the corner, she noticed a room Garlen had completely ignored in his moment of bloodlust -- Drakthar's throne room! The Vampire had seen Garlen pass and was preparing to attack. Amber cast a magic circle against evil and stepped under cover, and then Roland cast a spell of Hold Undead. Drakthar and his bizarre undead throne were unable to move due to the powerful magic. A stake to the heart incapacitated Drakthar further, and Grokk and Horkina smashed his throne into pieces. The vampire was simply no match for the Rubble Rousers now that they were prepared.

Behind Drakthar's throne room was a small cavern where a dire bat had taken up residence. The bat put up a decent fight before it was subdued by Horkina's famous axe. A ladder on the far side of the cavern led to a room with secret chamber in the floor. The chamber was filled with earth, with an indentation the right size and shape to serve as a bugbear coffin. The party defiled the coffin with holy water and then hefted Drakthar's corpse into it. To finish off Drakthar, the party used Orak's decanter to run water over Drakthar's corpse, disintegrating it entirely.

The group determined that the goblin menace had been defeated, but decided it would be prudent to finish clearing out this area. Just south of Drakthar's throne room, they fought a pair of shocker lizards and a goblin spellcaster. In the main cavern beyond, Garlen noticed a drawing on the wall -- a goblin symbol warning of the presence of a vampire. This warning came a bit late to be useful, but was appreciated nonetheless. As Garlen led the way further through the cave, he stepped underneath some green slime and was quickly covered by it. Orak's decanter, used on maximum setting, cleared most of the slime away.

Up ahead, Garlen noticed a goblin on a high-up ledge. The goblin was looking off the opposite side of the ledge. Garlen threw a shortsword at the goblin, which missed badly, but Horkina and Grokk took it out with their bows before it could raise the alarm. Still, the sound of the goblin falling off the ledge drew the attention of a group of half-orcs and a dwarf who had been conversing near the end of the tunnel. They began chattering with one another, but were interrupted by a fireball from Roland and a burst of sound from Amber. Horkina, Grokk, and Garlen ran to join the fray, and the half-orcs were all dead in a matter of seconds. Xoden, the Dwarven mercenary, surrendered and submitted to interrogation. He was a part of the Blue Duke's smuggling team, and confirmed Chorlyndyr's earlier statements.

The party returned to Cauldron and reported their findings to captain Skellerang.

Grokk reached level 5.