Journal of the Wayfarers 3

14th Pretor, Year of the Wolf
Following the Ogre Hunt, the Wayfarers spent some time in Kularni, buying stuff and waiting for Smily and Shadow to heal fully. Fluff hired a warehouse from Orrando the Merchant for 15 weeks, John bought a mule and saddlebags to transport stuff. During a talk over drinks one evening, Shadow and Whisper mentioned the goblin lair, after some discussion they decided to pay it a visit.. They set off on the 10th Pretor, reaching the ruined house by midday. There was a brief encounter with a wild-eyed fighter called Sturm who was seeking the wizard Karalyon; Sturm claimed Karalyon had ripped him off and that he was going to put such a cleft in his pointy hat when he caught him. No-one knew who or what he was referring to, so Sturm headed towards Axbridge.
Descending the steps, they ignored the old guard room (where Lorn and Dorn had died) and headed into the ‘L’ shaped room. Major lesson to be learned – do not assume the room will still be empty.. A brief battle with the goblins left the goblins all dead. Exploring south, the passage led to a large hall, lit by a central fire pit, it’s flickering light revealing a hall full of leaping, cavorting goblins. Fluff and Shadow shot arrows at the nearest two, Fluff’s shot failed to take out the goblin, who screamed for help. The rest charged in and attacked. The hobgoblin Skluff, who was sitting on a throne at the far end, recognised Shadow and Whistler, he opened a compartment in the arm of the throne, took out a pottery sphere of some kind and threw it at the party. A cloud of grey dust enveloped Fluff, John and Shadow. Skluff then ran to the corner of the room but a Sleep spell from John took him out. Eventually all of the goblins were killed. A search turned up some loose change, Skluff was carrying an iron key, a map (“to some big blokes wiv lotsa cash”) and some gold (actually what he took off Whistler and Shadow earlier). Smily experimented with the throne and found that pulling up the left arm opened a secret door in the wall. Heading through into a narrow 5’ wide passage, Shadow had to leap backwards as a pit opened under his feet. This was crossed by climbing down it and up the other side, as it was judges too dangerous to try and jump it. On the other side a lever in the wall opened a secret panel into a bedroom. Searching this they found two potions (of Healing) that Fluff took possession of. The door out led back into the ‘L’ shaped room, although at first they didn’t recognise it and decided that something else was going around the dungeon. Heading back to the Goblin Hall, at the T –Junction, a huge spider dropped from the ceiling onto Whisper. He was bitten and poisoned before the creature was killed but fortunately the poison had little effect. However, they had to use one of the healing potions to cure him. Moving through the hall of dead goblins they went down a short flight of steps to a strange temple – an altar block and a round plinth with a demon-like statue ( which John recognised as being Demon-Lord Firakh, Servitor of Gorthan, Lord of Evil). This knowledge, perhaps, should have warned them not to mess. The statue eyes were gems, looked like fire opals, Whisper and Shadow set about prising these out. Smily investigated the altar, he tried to open it, the top would not move but he did find a series of small holes just under the rim. As the last eye came out a horrible gurgling noise came from the altar and a grey gunge began to flow from out of the holes. This formed into an amoeba-like creature. Fluff hit it with his axe, only to see in horror that the axe-head dissolved. The thing spat out an impossibly long tendril and hit Shadow, causing some nasty acid burns. They ran out of the temple, looking back Shadow saw and heard the thing pursuing them, albeit somewhat slowly. Back at the corridor junction, another spider landed on and poisoned John, he nearly died but the last of the healing potions was used to cure him. The grey ooze was nearly upon them so they ran out of the dungeon, found that John’s mule was still where he’d tied it up (and hadn’t been eaten!) and returned to Kularni.