Watchfires & Thrones Session #28

This session recap is abbreviated due to a largely exploratory expedition and the need to attend to other business this week.

The party encountered and avoided a pair of giant toads after the ferret fight, losing one of their dogs in the process, but eventually made it back to the sub-level inhabited by Klydessia. There, they discovered that the mysterious woman knew nothing of the hobgoblin, but was able to provide rough directions to both the stairs to the second level and the possible location of a replacement monster if they decided to make amends with the kobold chief, Trustee Sniv. Thanking the witch, the party exited the sub-level.
Some time was next spent exploring behind some bypassed doors and down untraveled corridors, allowing the adventurers to fill in some parts of their map. Their explorations finally led them back to the kobold-controlled section of the level, where they we stopped and questioned by some of the scaly dog-men. Krunk got it into his head that the kobolds must be slain and started a melee with the guards, only to discover that the little buggers can put up a good fight from time to time. Baragkus almost perished in the battle before a well-timed sleep spell put the guards down. They were immediately slain and efforts were undertaken to blame the massacre on the hobgoblins of Stonehell. However, the party’s presence in the area of the slaughter was noticed by a group of orcs on their way to the Kobold Market. Whether the party’s efforts to shift the blame are successful remains to be seen.
The party discovered the stairs leading below immediately adjacent to the kobold massacre and ventured down to the second level of the megadungeon. Upon arrival there, they not only discovered another set of stairs leading deeper into the dungeon, but two hobgoblin sentries who engaged them in battle. With the sentries woefully outnumbered, it was a quick fight which ended with one slain hobgoblin and the other captured. The party immediately decided to retreat to interrogate their prisoner before trying to infiltrate or attack the redoubt. They adjourned up the stairs, taking the slain hobgoblin to leave at the site of the kobold murders to further obscure the party’s role in that event.

Heading towards the exit, the party ran afoul of a pair of Stonehell’s degenerated berserkers. These cannibals were found to be carrying the body of a slain Ghost Beggar bandit, indicating that at least one of those outlaws escaped the party’s raid on their den, possibly by sneaking down the natural chimney and seeking sanctuary in the dungeons below. The long journey back to the dungeon entrance attracted a skeleton patrol, who were easily dispatched by the party’s clerics and fighting men. At the “H Room,” the party had to run a gauntlet of stirges who had taken occupancy in the chamber, but the fluttering mosquito bats were dispatched after a somewhat prolonged battle. The adventurers headed towards daylight with the intent to extract the desired intelligence from their captive one way or the other.