Safety in Numbers

Vogir sits in the tavern with his three surviving comrades. Food and ale cover the table as they plan their next move.
“Iron Tooth and his Kobolds were more vicious than I’d imagined. Without Egil or Ghanash to stand behind, we were barely a match for them. I suspect it’ll be much worse if we face Kalarel’s forces in the keep without a suitable replacement for Argent.”
Daelagor and Bayern say nothing but Zahig interrupts.
“What happened to Egil? He seemed keen to help us; perhaps he will again?”
Bayern leans in, “He was a useful shield true, but we could still use a couple more.”
It’s Daelagor who finishes the conversation.
“Do they need to be warriors?”

In the Shadow of the Keep

As Daelagor heads out of the kobold lair he hands the chain mail over to Bayern. Obviously of Dwarven origin, though not limited for use by such, the cleric would be best placed to identify it. Daelagor continues on to Irontooth's body.

Bayern carefully turns the mail over through his hands. It is of outstanding quality - any fighter would be proud to wear it. The beautiful finish is more than skin deep, however. Bayern recognises that the armour would grant perpetual bonuses to AC (+1) and Endurance (+1) and would also allow the wearer to regain health once per day (spend a healing surge as a free action).

As Daelagor stoops to search Irontooth, Zahig's young voice peals out from behind him "I've already done that." In deference to this interruption, Daelagor continues anyway but finds nothing of interest. "Told you." jokes Zahig "Aside from his axe and armour all he had were this silver key and letter. Have you any idea what a goblin could possibly want to have kept locked?!" he adds, insightfully.

"Most likely the treasure chest I managed to pick - the key looks to be of appropriate shape and size. Be assured that all it contained was the armour, now in the hands of our dwarven companion. Let us rejoin the others and then you can tell us what is on this letter..."

The group reconvene near Argent's body. Bayern performs what he considers to be the appropriate rites for a fallen warrior, and a funeral pyre is lit. Vogir breaks the silence: "He had this bottle of wine in his pack. It's a good one; carefully wrapped. I guess he was saving it for something. Let us drink it in his honour."

As the bottle is emptied and the fire burns low, Daelagor turns to Zahig. "Tell us about the letter you found on Irontooth."

Zahig unfurls the curl of paper and reads "My spy in Winterhaven suggests we keep an eye out for visitors to the area. It probably does not matter; in just a few more days, I'll completely open the rift. Then Winterhaven's people will serve as food for all those Lord Orcus sends to do my bidding. It's signed 'Kalarel'."

The party decide to return to Winterhaven, now certain that this Kalarel - whoever, or whatever it is - must reside in the Keep. It seems obvious that unless they act soon Winterhaven will be overrun with unspeakable horrors from the Shadowfell.

*You are all back in Winterhaven and it is mid-evening on the same day that you attacked the kobold lair. What would you like to do?*

Death of a Racist

Vogir blinks up at Zahig. “I’m alive?”
Zahig’s blanched face reflects his own surprise regarding the situation.
Struggling to his feet, Vogir feels the tightness of the field dressing binding his stomach…
The iron-toothed leader of the Kobolds had opened him up.
His memories are jumbled but he can still see the moments when Argent and Bayern fell.
Can it be that he owes his life to the child Wizard and the Eladrin tourist?
The Kobolds lie dead or dying all around him. Bayern is saying a prayer to his God and Daelagor is heading into the undefended caves.
Of his group, only the blue-scaled Argent lies dead.
They were lucky to only lose one member of this group of adventurers…
This group of friends…
His group of friends.
Vogir stands with the cold realisation that he’d stood back to back with the Dragon born. That he’d refused to leave him undefended. When the Dwarven War priest had fallen, Vogir had stood over his prone body rather than flee and save his own life.
With a sinking feeling, Vogir realises that somehow, somewhere along the line, these ‘monsters’ have become his friends.

When Kobolds Attack

Having dispatched the last of the kobold guards - not least the tenacious Dragonshield who would not wilfully leave the magic circle - Argent walks up to the waterfall, pokes his head through, and immediately jumps back aghast! From the other side of the cascade, the kobolds, already forewarned by the Slinger, are spurred into action by the large goblin, Irontooth. "Attack them! Orcus will have much blood this day!"

Ten Minions, three Dragonshields, three Skirmishers, a Slinger, a Wyrmpriest, and Irontooth himself all lunge forward, throwing themselves through the waterfall and surrounding Argent and Zahig. Realising that discretion is the better part of valour, Zahig retreats and the kobolds swarm further to flank Argent and Vogir.

Cutting around themselves, Argent and Vogir manage to thin the crowd of Minions while Zahig and Bayern support their attempts and Daelagor begins to sneak around the back of the kobold lair. Alas, the weight of numbers tells against Argent and he is felled by overwhelming blows from Irontooth's battle axe, the Skirmisher's spears, and the Dragontooth swords.

In an effort to save Argent, Zahig and Bayern combine forces. Zahig creates a huge ball of fire which clears a path through to Argent which the Cleric takes, and he manages to stabilise and revive the fallen Barbarian. Still with the upper hand, however, the surrounding kobolds attack again and knock the prone Dragonborn unconscious once more.

In a bid to save his fallen comrade from a final death blow, Bayern stands over him - protecting him - but is himself ruthlessly brought down by the mob. Vogir too leaps to put himself between the kobolds and his dying comrades. Fighting valiantly, he and Zahig manage to kill the majority of the Kobolds; but Irontooth and a Dragonshield finally overwhelm him. Vogir crumples to the mound already comprising Argent and Bayern.

Daelagor maneouvres his way around the back of the Wyrmpriest and sneakily strikes him from behind. Clutching desperately at any opportunity to send a death sacrifice to his Demon Lord, however, the kobold ignores his attacker and instead unleashes an orb of reh hot fire at the prone Argent. Whilst an unlikely shot, he makes it. Trying to staunch their own wounds, Vogir and Bayern hear the Dragonborn sigh softly as he slips into Oblivion; "Killed by Kobolds... I shall wait by the gates of Hell itself to have my revenge... Rawr..."

Irontooth and the one remaining Dragonshield fling themselves at Zahig who defends himself effectively with his armour of blades and his blazing fireball. The Dragonshield is soon incinerated, but Irontooth shows no sign of stopping - in fact he seems to have become stronger and entered a blood-maddened state.

Dalaegor finally gains the upper hand against the Wyrmpriest - stealth and finesse eventually winning out against magic. He turns his attention to the beleaguered Zahig, and sending off a flurry of shurikens, drops Irontooth finally to the ground. Clutching a crude tattoo in the form of a ram's head on his charred and smouldering arm, Irontooth screams in defiance "KALAREL, PREPARE MY WAY THROUGH THE PORTAL! ORCUS, MY SOUL COMES TO MEET THEE!" and tumbles to the ground - fire still burning his clothing and flesh.

In anger and revenge the young magician stamps on the dead goblin's head - smashing the face into a bloody mess of bone and ligament. He wrenches the iron tooth that gave the goblin his name from his jaw and looks at it ruefully. The tooth symbolises a reward of 100gp from Lord Padraig, back in Winterhaven.

As Daelagor stalks silently off into the lair and Bayern and Vogir come round, Zahig sighs out loud.

"100gp. No consolation for the loss of a friend..."

Together again for the last time

Arrrrghgent!

Just a quick fix.

Don't let your head get in the way

He looked at the shuriken again that he had pulled out of the wall in the warehouse. He still could not believe that he had missed an unsuspecting, stationary target. He could hear the laughter of Dar'goch, his weapons teacher, in his head. He had trained Daelagor for years on all throwing weapons. Daelagor could hit running targets while jumping off trees in his training lessons, but by the beauty of Tiandra, he had missed a simple standing human. He could hear the encouragements of his brother who was never good at ranged weapons but an expert with spears and had always envied him for his talent to kill over distance. But this hadn't been training and Dar'goch was right when he said that only true masters live long enough to make it into songs that are sung at the table of kings!

Daelagor was sitting on the tree stump weighing the shuriken in his flat hand. It almost felt like a natural extension of his arm. He closed his eyes and without warning jumped up, did a somersault backwards, landed sideways, ... and along his stretched arm, watched the shuriken fly past the target he had carved into a nearby tree and hit a tree in the distance.
The surprised face of Argent, who stood frozen still with his head exactly between the hand and the target, slowly turned into the direction of Daelagor and then towards the tree with a cross on its trunk and two shuriken sticking near its center point. It slowly seemed to dawn on him that he just almost took a shuriken to his face. He looked back at Daelagor who straightened up "Apologies Argent, I should have warned you that I'm training. You should never walk in between me and my targets or you might lose your head. Fortunately your's was big enough to be spotted in time." The Dragonborn looked at him still not sure what to reply, but then started laughing, gave Daelagor a pat on the back which almost made him tumble over and went towards Ghanash. Walking into the forest to recover his weapon, Daelagor's eyes followed Argent.

He still couldn't make sense of the two Dragonborn. Both of them almost got themselves killed again on the ship by running straight into the opponents and although Daelagor respected their audacity, he also considered them improvident. But he could not disregard the speed in which they took down their opponents. There was no elegance in their movements, no stylishness in their attacks, but he could not deny their effectiveness. His own attacks were swift, well placed and, apart from the embarrassing throw, most accurate and even though Dar'goch would have been proud to watch his student, it took Daelagor too long to disable his enemies. Style and grace are skills to strive for but are not the most efficient tools in a real battle.

He might have to consider augmenting his arsenal with weapons that dealt more damage at the cost of elegance. Dar'goch had always insisted that he was especially good with a longsword and had forced him to train hours and hours sparring with his brother. He had always considered a longsword too unwieldy for his fighting style but it might be just what he needs to give him more options. He might be able to find a blacksmith of acceptable quality in Highmarsh. Unfortunately he won't be able to find quality as sold by the Eladrin masters in Senaliesse, but some of the dwarfs might know how to produce a worthy weapon!