Game Report: "Your pocket's on fire"

The Team begins right where they left off, standing underground in the middle of a kobold excavation site. They readjusted, took a short breath, and then charged forward into the next room. There they discovered the creatures in their native home, standing around and being unimpressive. They easily wiped out the kobolds, not falling for the obvious combat tricks and burning the infantry down quickly.

After finding nothing of import on the kobold corpses, they went to the other side of the crater to take on the leaders...and were greeted with one of the longest and most challenging encounters I’ve probably ever run. They walked up a steep incline to find a larger-than-usual kobold growl at them and then push a button. Figuring a trap is afoot, they cautiously move forward to attack him, slinging ranged attacks and watching for danger. Danger was found when a whirling blade whisked across the fighter’s face, and an as-yet-unseen wild mage shifted him into the center of the hallway, surrounded by whirling blades. Still, there were only a couple of kobolds in the narrow hallway, and the chieftain was already bloodied. They were surely capable of handling this...until the dragonborn wizard tagging along shouted, “Um, we’ve got a problem.”

About twelve minions and the shadar-kai were outside and ready to move in, and there was a slyblade hiding in a side passage. All together, they were stuck in a tunnel completely surrounded by enemies, all non-minions at least two levels higher than them. This was going to be fun.

Their biggest concern was increasing what limited mobility they had by turning off the trap. The cleric manages, after an awkward rounds standing around waiting for an unfortunately long cloud of daggers. Soon the kobold all crowd around the fighter, stuck at a three-way intersection. The wizard and warlord doubled back down to the crater floor to quickly clear out the minions, or at least hold them back.

The fighter may have been surrounded, but the slyblade’s special ability allowed for quick dispersal of the mini-mobs, as the rogue could deflect hits on him onto his lesser allies. In addition, the fighter managed to stand in the one place the trap wouldn’t trigger, and the chieftain found himself a bloody death by his own innovations, which he would have found ironic if he wasn’t a stupid kobold.

The battle soon swung to the players’ favor, with only two enemies still standing. The shadar-kai was looking for the hilt, and stated as much, but attempts to get him to turn his back in pursuit of it failed. The wizard, having just stood up and not in the mood to be the only target, ran back to assist his friends in the tunnel, leaving the shadar-kai and the dragonborn standing alone in the crater. A hint to PCs: never take your eyes off the NPCs. Both of them were gone when the players once again looked for them.

Somewhere along the way, the slyblade fell the fighter before dying the cleric’s hand. Their resources completely tapped, they decided to clear the hallway and do a manual heal check to help the fighter. Problem? The fighter was completely out of healing surges. Thankfully, the cleric has cure light wounds, the only skill in lower-levels that gives hit points without the use of a surge. When the cleric raised him, he immediately ran in pursuit of the last opponent, the wild mage who had the obnoxious ability to teleport whenever it took damage. Using this to its advantage, it lead the entire party through every single room in the dungeon, until it ended up at the edge of a ladder leading back into the crater. The wizard fired off his ice bolt, hitting the wild mage and triggering his teleportation. The kobold teleports alright, straight out over the crater. He falls, takes lethal damage, and explodes. A sigh of relief rang out, and the fighter immediately grabbed his bedroll and took a nap.

There was a definite pause over the table, a sense that they survived an extremely difficult encounter and everyone was thankful. So, I turn to the warlock and say, “Your pocket’s on fire.” Not one to be surprised, he grabbed whatever it was in his pocket and threw it on the ground, it was the hilt, which had suddenly gained a personality, and it was pissed. It quickly inscribed the warlock on the quest to get the blade back, by any means necessary. Of course, it was willing to lend its power...

The shout went out that they were only 150 points away from leveling up to level 3. Therefore, a band of hobgoblins mysteriously appeared the next morning to provide them with some coffee and XP. A couple clever applications of ghost sound made the encounter damn easy, and they quickly mopped up and took the step to the next level, if you will, ready to take on the next challenge.