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Writer's pictureAaron Conaway

The Fade Giveth, The Fade Taketh: Ep. 2 The Goblins Strike Back!

(I don’t own any of what you’re about to read, but if you’d like to read the saga from the party’s first adventure, click here.)

The party awoke the next morning back at the ambush site, well-rested from their first nearly ill-fated exchange with the goblins of the Cragmaw Tribe. (Well, with their wolves anyway.)

Ki’thiri had the last watch. She was testy, our gnome ranger, but had mostly decided that this party she’d found herself in weren’t out to get her. Well, maybe that damned halfling warlock Vigo was, but not the others. Stupid half-assed mage and his sleep spell . . .

Lost in her thoughts, at first, Ki’thiri didn’t see the half-orc walking up the road toward her and her sleeping party. Unbeknownst to them, the half-orc monk had noticed them looking worse for wear when he was wandering by earlier. He’d gone to scrounge up some berries he knew of in the area to make up some healing poultices.

As the monk walked closer, Ki’thiri finally noticed him. Ki’thiri, for reasons of her own, hated orcs. She drew her bow while nudging the rest of her party awake.

Vigo, the self-described brooder but outwardly chipper halfling, eased the tension of the meeting with a hyper meet-and-greet. The half-orc, whose monastery had their monks run nameless, opting instead to have descriptive titles, was on a mission to prove to his monastery that those with orc blood in their veins could still master the ways of ki, joined the party. Ben shortened the monk’s lengthy descriptor to Steward, which everyone in the party started to use.

Working their way slowly back to the Cragmaw hideout, the party continued in their quest to save Sildar from the goblin tribe.

Two goblins were overhead at the cave’s entrance complaining about the state of things: that the prisoner inside had tried to escape while his cohorts battled the tribe’s guard wolves.

Dispatching of the inattentive guards, our party reentered the hideout.

Inside, while crossing a flimsy ledge in a dilapidated tunnel, Steward’s massive form caused a collapse, leaving him prone at the bottom of a steep incline. Ben worked to pull him up as the party heard a squad of goblins approach.

“Who there?” a goblin screeched from a separate tunnel.

“That you, Meery?” a second goblin yelled.

“Uh, yeah,” Vigo put on a goblinesque voice.

“Why you not at guard spot?” a third, more authoritative voice boomed.

“I had to pee,” Vigo shrugged to his compatriots.

This exchange went back and forth a few more times until the goblins seemed satisfied. The party went further out of the tunnel toward the goblins.

Ben launched from his hiding place and led his party into a melee with a half-dozen goblins. The goblins fell one by one, until their leader, Yeemik, stopped the fighting by dangling a bloody and beaten Sildar at the edge of a cliff above the battle.

Yeemik convinced the party that he would hand over Sildar if they killed his bugbear leader, Klarg.

Making their way back through the dark cave system, those with no/low light vision guiding their fellow party members in the pitch black, the party stumbled upon another squad of goblins, and an uneven battle took place.

Unable to participate due to his inability to see, Vigo could hear the melee and was struck by an idea:

“Trust me!” he shouted, and used his prestidigitation to cause a flurry of colored sparks into the midst of a fight, any fight, so he might see. The brightly colored lights gleamed in a pop of brightness.

Right in Ki’thiri’s face.

Already disadvantaged for bringing a bow to a sword fight, Ki’thiri’s dazed eyesight caused her to become enraged, firing an arrow upward into the stomach of an attacking goblin.

Winning the battle cost Steward, who was forced to use a healing poultice, but then the party climbed natural stairs in the cavern floor toward a large chamber filled with supplies pilfered by the Cragmaw tribe.

As they looked at the goods, Klarg attacked with his pet wolf and two more goblins!

Vigo wounded the wolf, causing it to rush the party and into one of Ben’s waiting axes. As the wolf’s head rolled toward a dying fire pit, Klarg bellowed, utterly enraged, pitching a javelin at Ben and sticking him deeply in the shoulder.

Y’inyahin sang a song of inspiration as the party closed in on their enemy. Ki’thiri took down one of the goblins with a deft arrow shot through the eye. Vigo landed a sleep spell well! The other goblin fell to the ground, snoring, but Klarg was able to shake it off as Ben and Steward moved in.

Ben chopped his ax into the fire pit of hot coals in an attempt to pitch some of the burning embers into Klarg’s face, but they fell short and bounced off of his chest. Using the distraction, Steward landed two devastating blows into the bugbear’s face and chest! Klarg’s eyes rolled back as his body fell lifeless to the ground.

Y’inyahin finished off the sleeping goblin as Vigo removed Klarg’s head as proof to Yeemik that they’d done as he asked, and the party searched through Klarg’s stash, finding some much-needed healing potions.

Returning to Yeemik’s hall, the party attempted to retrieve Sildar, only to have the goblin welch on their deal! In a fleeting bout of consciousness, Sildar was able to knock himself away from Yeemik’s purchase long enough for Ki’thiri to fire an arrow into the goblin’s neck, dropping his body over the ledge and sending it crashing to the ground.

Ben retrieved Sildar’s unconscious body, and the party returned to the ambush site to rest by their wagon bound for Phandalin with the day won!

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