Being that they were strangers, it was unsurprising that they drew as much interest as they did. In the morning, Aldentown's mayor put on his finery, and tramped down from his townhouse to the Moosefoot to see what all the hubbub was about.
Aldentown knew of the dwarves of Zagrammhar's Hold, but they hadn't seen them in generations. So, the party's Dwarf was something exotic, but known. The Elf on the other hand? Aldentown hadn't seen in elf in hundreds of years. If any still lived on the island, they avoided men, and kept their settlements secret. Even then, the party's accents and words were strange to the ears, cut off as they had been from the mainland for several generations. Of note too was the Crusader, clearly both a pious man and a soldier - a warrior from a cult which had been unable to convert the island's people to the worship of their fiery, industrious god, and away from the strange and pagan rites which they continued to practice.
So, Walaric waited at the bar so he could speak with these newcomers and sound them out. When they emerged, he introduced himself, asked them to take lunch with him at his townhouse. The party accepted, and they went.
Their talk was friendly, Walaric answering their questions about the town, the island, and even the pirates. They answered his questions about why they had come, specifically, their desire to meet with Balthazar, the wizard responsible for the island's perpetual storm. Walaric revealed that he was the great grandson of Balthazar, and that most people in Aldentown were related to the sorcerer in one way or another. It seemed that once every decade or so, for many, many generations into the past, Balthazar would come down from his tower above Lake Belro and would court, seduce, or kidnap a local woman who took his fancy. Sometimes they returned more or less unharmed. Others returned pregnant. A few never returned at all. Most could only vaguely recall what had happened to them.
Most folk in Aldentown tried to ignore how closely they might be related due to the wizard's meddling. Far too uncomfortable. However, they did use their kinship with the wizard to keep the pirates mostly honest. It was better than the alternative.
Walaric was proud that he had inherited some minor sorcerous power, and demonstrated by turning a tea cup into a mouse. It lived for only a few minutes, before once again becoming a tea cup.
It was not long after that they were interrupted by the town's miller, Remi. Remi explained that goblins had gotten into the mill once again, and had taken several bags of flour. Walaric promised to put out patrols and keep some young men on watch. It was at this point that our spies offered to deal with the goblins permanently.
Obviously, Walaric was happy for the offer. The party decided to focus on planning their expedition, and asked if there was a local hunter or guide who could help them find the goblins. Walaric recommended Ebrulf, a man who had hunted the area since childhood.
The party retired to the Moosefoot Inn to plan, and to wait for Ebrulf to arrive. Sometime around evening, the old hunter drifted into town and was sent down to the Moosefoot.
All was quickly arranged, the party agreed to meet Ebrulf at first light on the edge of town and then travel into the wooded foothills to the mine where the goblins were laired. They followed the greying man up into the hills and forests, until at late afternoon, they topped a ridge that overlooked the mine itself. They set up camp, and kept a watch on the entrance below. Around dusk, a goblin left the safety of the mine, with a bucket in hand. A small stream flowed below the entrance, and it was to the banks of this waterway that the goblin went.
Before the goblin traveled all the way however, they stopped to speak with another goblin guarding the entrance that the party had not seen until that point. Our specialist knocked an arrow, and waited for the goblin to get partway down the remains of a gravel road before he loosed. It struck, killing them instantly, the bucket clattering to the ground and rolling a few feet away.
The sentry came out from cover, calling something in their savage tongue, and the party swarmed down the ridge toward the entrance. Ebrulf stayed behind, and covered them with his hunting bow. The party managed to kill the sentry before he could retreat or take cover behind a toppled mine cart. On further examination, the initial goblin they had slain was a female.
When no further activity came from the mine entrance, Ebrulf joined the party. They began to hash out a plan among themselves, but unknown to them, a second sentry had been watching from inside, and when his fellow had died at their hands, he had raced down the tunnel to warn his chieftain of the invaders. Their plan was to smoke the goblins out, so they tipped a mine cart back upright and onto the sturdy, dwarven forged rails, and began filling it with as much dry wood as they could find, some oil from the lanterns, the goblin's bucket, the sentry's spear, and both bodies.
Once the conflagration had gotten going, they piled leaves on it for smoke, and pushed it as hard as they could down the rails. By virtue of their dwarf-made nature, the cart was carried down the rails quite far - far enough to trigger another dwarf-made feature: a pit trap. The mine cart clanged and clattered into a long pit, dug 10' deep, the floor swinging down. It wasn't the most successful plan, but all in all, it was a clever one, had the mine's interior not been designed the way it was.*
Their plan thwarted, the party ventured into the darkness of the mine with lanterns lit and weapons a ready. Past the long pit trap was the mechanism that would reset it, or make it active. They left it alone, and soon found themselves in a T passage, and chose to explore to their right, leaving the left unexplored. At the end of the right passage were two big iron bound doors, closed. Listening at the doors, they could hear the muffled orders of goblins, but as no one could understand the language, it was unknown what those mad barkings were about.
A quick reconnoiter of the left passage revealed an elevator, but it didn't look sturdy, so they decided not to risk it. Returning to the double doors, they readied their muskets and pistols, and barged in. With great thunders of smoke and fire, the combined firepower of the power killed and wounded several goblins, and the rest broke and ran, retreating deeper into the mine. Quickly looking over the room they found themselves in, the party discovered that the goblins were continuing to work the abandoned mine, using cast off implements that were likely so bad that the dwarves who had abandoned the place had left them without a second thought.
In one corner was a damaged dwarven automaton, a bipedal mining device with drills on its arms in place of hands. However, there wasn't a lot of time to take stock or do much of anything, so the party began reloading their weapons, and the Crusader advanced to the beginning of the passage that the goblins had retreated down. Our Dwarf took up position on the other side, and the Specialist went to the same side as the Crusader. Our Elf was busying himself with reloading his pistols from a safe distance away.
The goblins returned, along with the chieftain and shaman, both hobgoblins. They'd managed to draw some more of the goblins into formation, so now they numbered twenty or so, plus three hobgoblins (another hobgoblin had been slain in the initial engagement). Using shortbows from their back ranks, the goblins waited for their foes to reveal themselves. The Dwarf and the Specialist revealed themselves, the dwarf blasting them with a mighty cough of his blunderbuss, the Specialist with his pistol. Both of them were wounded by the arrows, and the Specialist was downed. Only by the efforts of the Dwarf and Crusader was he pulled to safety.
Knowing that the tide had turned grim, the Crusader rushed the goblins, hoping to break their formation and slay their shaman or chieftain, and throw them into chaos. Unfortunately, this brave act didn't have the effect he desired, and although he savagely wounded the shaman, he was brought down by the many spears of the goblins who had encircled him. The Elf, who had since reloaded and moved up, saw the Crusader collapse among the green skinned foes, made a fateful decision. The Dwarf, for his part, knowing that things were all but lost, waded in while the goblin formation was disrupted, and extracted the Crusader.
It was this moment that the Elf had waited for. He charged. And as he ran into the teeth of the goblin spears, he lit fuses, fired his
And so ends Part IV. Continued in Part V.
*The module I used for the mine was Gold in the Hills, which can be found on the Basic Fantasy RPG website. It's free! Check it out.
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