as told by the cavalier Olmas Lurecia, himself.

Oathday, 28 Pharast

While the water elementals may have thwarted our idea of traipsing across the water without using the drawbridge, the image of Munasukaru was actually accomplishing its purpose.  We entered with the image, who imperiously started ordering hobgoblins around like a child might command a pet.

“Which of you idiots are in charge?” asked the image.  The hobgoblins shuffled and looked at each other nervously.  “Get inside and line up for inspection!” it croaked.

The hobgoblins hustled to do so, and Qatana (to their surprise and discomfort) performed the inspection, taking each morningstar and frowning as they were found subpar and handed to an assistant. She looked at the image and shook her head.  The image then yelled, “Get your idiot commander!” and one hobgoblin (happily?) ran off to do just that.

By this time all 8 of the MW morningstars [550] were lying in a pile on the floor.

Zos and Dasi started checking out other doors in the room.  One led to a foul smelling (and looking) room that had all the ambience you might expect from a latrine.  The door that the errand hobgoblin had left through led to some stairs.  Another one led to a largish storeroom with food and other mundane stores in it. (Hobgoblin food, it should be noted.)

The image ordered all the hobgoblins into the storeroom.  They seemed a bit more surly and suspicious by now, but there was little they could do about it, having given up their melee weapons.

It has been over 20 minutes since the messenger hobgoblin had departed, but now it seemed he had returned, because from outside the north door we heard a commanding voice say in hobgoblin “To arms!  Intruders!”  The commander, looking every bit the samurai, had returned, with the messenger and four others. The battle wasn’t too challenging, having disarmed two thirds of the combatants already.  Well, that wasn’t entirely true – they did have bows yet, and several decided to take shots at us with those.  But those in the other room were somewhat limited in what they could do, trying to hit us through the open door.  The samurai was also a magic user of some sort (we discovered as he shot a cone of cold at most of us and even some of his own). Meanwhile, Kali summoned a dinosaur to deal with the new arrivals.

That seemed like overkill, but it turns out to have been a great idea, because there was an inactive clay golem out near the stairs which sprang to action when the dinosaur started its work.  Although the dinosaur gave as good as it got, the golem laid it down surprisingly quickly – not a good sign.  Radella, Qatana, and I were working through the hobgoblins pretty hard, but they were proving a little more difficult to put down than we’d hoped.

Ivan had done his usual volley of arrows, but I think all of us were surprised when a circle of fire appeared around the samurai. At almost the same time, Qatana brought down a flame strike on the same target, and while the circle of fire hid the samurai from view, we could certainly hear his distress.  A distribution of holy smite by Ivan took the fight out of most of the enemy.  Zos’s giant reanimated constructs were, one by one, de-stressing the hobgoblins in the storage room.

It was about this time, with most hobgoblins down, that we realized the clay golem was still an issue.  When I’d hit it, I’d get the sense that I was not delivering full damage.  The clay seemed to absorb some of the blow, or something, which kind of makes sense if you think about it. And when it hit ME … that was not pleasant.  Then, with a single arrow that must have been dipped in golem poison or something – I mean, after all, I’m beating on it with Suishen which is no slouch (don’t get a big hilt over that Suishen) – and with a single arrow there’s an explosion of clay and the figure topples.

We discovered that wounds from golem resisted magic healing, unfortunately.   But between what was on the hobgoblins and the offerings surrounding the golem, we had

[551] MW Katana
[552] MW silver wakashazi
[553] MW composite long bow [+7 ST]
[554] MW tatami-do armor (large)
]555] lacquer box set with pearls (contains two doses opium)
[556] 12 potions of CMW
[557] 5 alchemical fire
[558] 12 flasks of oil
[559] potion of invisibility
[560] magical feather (forms a flapping fan to increase or decrease wind at sea)
[561] brooch of shielding [13pts]
[562] scroll of spike growth
[563] MW artisan tools
[564] pair of good locks, w/keys
[565] gold plated merchant scale
[566] 11 obsidians
97+91 gp
203 sp

We headed up the stairs, only to find four more hobgoblins manning some arrow slits.  They aren’t, anymore.

From there we went through a doorway and down a corridor only to find .. what appeared to be hobgoblin lepers.  Disgusting.  Zos’s hill giant constructs are immune to leprosy, so several of us flew over them while the giants struck them down.  Eventually a Kali-issued fireball helped secure (and sterilize) the area, with the giants mopping up details.

Beyond this room was an odd looking room.  The “floor” was a series of pipes or narrow supports in a regular pattern, but they were several feet apart and beneath them was a pit with noxious gas and the occasional sound of grunting or bellowing.  Something was alive down there.  Somebody suggested a morgan, or a gorgon, or something.  I’d rather not find out for sure.  We took this opportunity to renew our dark vision and fly, for those who need them, but then 3 figures emerged from a north aperture and decided to taunt us, not knowing most of us could fly or air walk.  They were highly acrobatic and demonstrative, but swords, arrows, some magical chain of Qatana’s, and a little grease on the ground proved their undoing. One fell into the mists below, but from the others, we retrieved from their lifeless bodies:

[567] MW nunchaku
[568] potion of blur
[569] amulet of natural armor +1
[570] bracers of armor +2
[571] jeweled studs in their ears

Their skin seemed heavily tattooed.

We’ve paused to catch our breath and assess our next move. There are sounds of  .. pleasure? … coming from the south aperture which probably will be our first point of business.