Having defeated the goblins in the first three chambers, our group of heroes rested a bit, returning a couple of fatigue points to the magic users. The others explored the room, finding some magic books, poisons, magical implements that made Runt's eyes alight. Finally, ready for the next room, they moved on down the cavern to the next room, which was empty but for a suit of armor apparently standing guard against a heavy door. Of course the dwarf charges while Threndir moves to line up a shot, and our brave rogue moves around to attack from the side.
The battle commenced, with Cheeli getting a solid hit in. Unfortunately, the armor is using a great sword and also manages to get a hit in, doing some severe damage to the Dwarf fighter despite his heavy armor and toughness. The Crut realizes that his knife can do no damage to the magical armor and backs off to give Cheeli more space for the battle. Threndir shoots arrows when the line is clear and manages to do a bit of damage but not a significant amount. Next round Cheeli again manages a hit and the armor I think missed this round. Eventually the armor is defeated - had it not missed that one round it would have been a TPK (total party kill) unless the rest ran away from the dungeon. And often running away to loot another day is the best response. The great sword is too large and cumbersome for our fierce fighter (plus it requires more strength than he currently has to use it). The room is bereft of anything else, although Cheeli keeps the sword (which is actually a +2 sword when used by beings other than magical armor! not sure how I am going to distribute that +2, but probably split it for +1 DX & +1 damage. So one someone can use it - look out!)
The door is there, mocking them with its stubbornness at this point. Crut attempts to pick the lock to no avail, so Cheeli starts whacking at it with his hammer. A few rounds of constant pummeling and the door splinters apart. Rushing in to attack whatever is in the next room, Cheeli fails his save roll against the slippery floor our Dwarven mage had cast on the floor. In the back corner, our adventurers see Vakkekara Mountainsunder, a wand in one hand and a glowing power stone in the other. Behind her is the outline of a door painted with eyes looking out into the room. Cheeli is crawling on the floor to find the edge of the slippery floor, and Runt gets ready to cast staff to snake while Crut is readying his poison for his arrows. Unfortunately, he drops his bow: Vakkekara has eyes everywhere and can see what he is trying to do so casts drop weapon. He failed his save roll so it will be another round for him to get it ready again. Crut was moving around but after over a week, I honestly cannot recall where he was going! Obviously I need to do the writeups much sooner, but vacation called :)
In the end, the mage is angry that the group had killed her friends the goblins (there were some nice goblin-sized furnishings throughout the dungeon) but when the tide of battle started turning against her, she walked through the painted outlines of the door. It was a Gate she had created. When Cheeli tried to follow, he only managed to find the stone walls of the cavern - the gate was either closed or attuned to certain people.
At this point, they find several magical scrolls, some silvers and coppers, and we wrapped up the session. At this point we've several options open in terms of what we want to do. They did each get 150 experience points as this was a much harder dungeon than the 1st dog retrieval adventure.
They could repurpose the abandoned watch tower and its dungeon underneath to be their own base of operations. They would have to do something about the gate in the back room as who knows where Vakkekara went or when or if she will return. They have a supply of magical things that could be the base of operations for Runt - he is mostly a roaming wizard but needs time and ingredients to make magical things (we glossed over how he enchanted Cheeli's hammer).
The little town of Hamor does not have a place to sell off anything they have found other than perhaps furniture and stuff: the magical scrolls, if they want to sell them for money, they will have to go to Edge City. And Threndir the Elf archer was headed there anyway, and Crut's temporary banishment from the Thieve's Guild could be over so he could visit with his mother, a serving woman at the Happy Otter, a rough pub down on the docks in the city. Who may or may not be Threndir's ex, possibly making Threndir Crut's father. The goblin merchant of Hamor has a cousin who runs a shop in Edge City and would give them a fair price (I've decided to make all the Goblin merchants be related, so not quite a Guild but all part of an extended family. Seems like a fun idea). Finally, Cheeli wants to learn the armorer skill, which does require a higher IQ than he currently has, as well as training (i.e., 500 XP).
At this point, the players are more interested in dungeon dives, so we may want to just gloss over a bunch of the things and have a result. What we really need is another player or two to get some additional dialog and role playing. And I need to get better at it as well.
All in all, I think it went well and they both had a good time.
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