Underhall, or what Greeba Did

An accounting from Greeba.

Greeba had already lost one javelin to the rust-making ooze, but she hefted another one to her shoulder cheerfully, as it was destined to pierce the two-headed death dog coming out of the left passage.  Underhall was a dark and smelly place, neither of which bothered her, really, as long as there was some treasure to be found, and foes to be felled.  The snarling beasts emerging ahead were much more alive, and therefore easier to kill, than the slime that had oozed out of the murky underground pool.

The new guy Trystan, the bard that bonded with Gorlock, spelled the beasts with a piercing sound that made one bleed from the ears.  The warlock quickly hexed it with another spell, and Wisteria followed the curse with necromancy, probably, and killed one of the dogs.  Greeba didn’t really understand spells, except that it was better to have them cast by your side than by the enemy.  Thibault, the paladin, rushed in to attack the second death dog with a glowing sword, and young Arian made a skilful crossbow shot that seriously wounded the beast.  Greeba’s javelin flew wide off the mark, as she was still too far away - anyway, she always preferred to get up close and personal to the enemy and smash them with her warhammer.  Maybe she should have just dashed closer to the dog, like Eamon and the youthful wild magician Xarius.

Sirondar approached the death dog and attacked with a rusty sword and again with handaxe, earning himself a bite wound in return.  Elia, Trystan and Gorlock attacked with enchantments again and finished off the snarly two-headed animal.  Greeba picked up her javelin and followed the others into the corridor.  It opened into another passageway with a bigger room off of it, containing a glowy pool of water and dead bodies of two mastiffs and a human, seemingly mauled by the death dogs.  There was a coin pouch, a glass trinket that Wisteria liked, and two short swords that Greeba picked up to reforge back at the fort.  Arian was checking out the pool and Greeba continued up the corridor, where another passage crossed and she came face to face with a couple of goblins.  A few.  And there seemed to be more coming.

Greeba smiled, adjusted  the grip on her warhammer and bellowed out: “GOBLINNZ”.  As if shaken by her echoing voice, five giant wolf spiders dropped from the ceiling, surrounding her.  An unseemly shriek escaped her - ever since being bitten by a poisonous giant centipede she hated bugs.  The spiders swarmed over her, luckily only one found an inch of exposed green skin to bite - her scale armour was too thick for even giant mandibles.

“Get off me, eight-legged freaks!” she shouted, just as one of the goblins fumbled his javelin and rushed her with a scimitar.  In the distance, she could hear the others calling in response, but also the rough double-bark of a death dog.  Not all were slain, then.

She did a hip twist move to dodge the little guy’s attack, then another goblin shot her in the thigh with a crossbow. Greeba’s blood began to boil as she pulled out the bolt tip. She felt her friends’ presence behind her as Gorlock tried to hex a spider and Thibault slashed another with his mighty sword.  Shouts and beastly howls were coming from somewhere beyond the other side of the corridor.  She felt possessed by the same anger she’d first felt at seeing her village raised to the ground a long time ago, and smashed the wounded spider to pulp with her trusty warhammer.  Another couple of goblins, lined up along the corridor, tried to shoot her with their crossbows, but most of them missed and she only felt a little scratch.

Both elven maidens approached too, Arian first murmuring a mystical word that knit some of Greeba’s ripped skin back together, then hitting a spider with a well-aimed crossbow bolt.  Wisteria, the dark cleric, offered more healing to Greeba, which helped her reflexes when another couple of goblins tried their luck with crossbows.  She could see more goblins streaming down the other corridor, followed by shouts, cheers and the smell of burning.  Whatever was going on down there sounded almost as much fun as they was having here!

Gorlock hexed another spider, smashing it to pieces, and the other giant longlegs went on the attack again, a couple of them trying their luck with Thibault too.  Both Greeba and the charismatic warlock suffered a poisonous bite each, but the paladin’s chainmail was too tough.  The arachnid poison only fanned Greeba’s rage to a veritable frenzy, and she rapidly slammed her warhammer into a spider and then a goblin, cracking carapace and bones.  “A mighty blow”, muttered Arian.

The goblin leader slashed Greeba’s side with his scimitar, then legged it as far away as possible, following the few other rag-tag survivors who were running for their lives.  The two wings of adventurers met again around a Moonbeam held in place by the druid, checking each other’s wounds while still managing to cut off all escape routes for the goblin boss. Several goblin corpses and a two-headed dog carcass were littering the ground.  Lots of magical healing took place - Greeba was grateful that a good few of her comrades dabbled in the healing arts.  As she was gulping big breaths trying to come down from her rage high, the humble monk Eamon offered mercy to the goblins if they would surrender their weapons and any treasure.  The small humanoid was eager to accept, dropping his scimitar and handing a key to Wisteria.  Greeba didn’t mind.  She was not one to hold grudges; if they are not attacking or even weaponless, they are no longer the enemy.  Wisteria, however, was not happy with Eamon’s clemency, and the two of them had a heated discussion behind the goblin, whose hands Greeba had secured with rope just in case.

On the way to the lair, Greeba and Arian found a chest which only contained dried humanoid ears, one of them still decorated with a silver stud earring.  Arian recognised it as the one worn by Debbie the Sorcerer, the fallen adventurer from Braltak’s group.

“Maybe I should return it to Braltak”, mused Greeba.

“Er, do you really think he'd want it, Greeba?" said Arian. "How many ears are in there??"

"Not the ear, Arian, just the earring!", Greeba was removing the silver stud and putting it in her pocket, closing the chest.

“Oh, thank goodness!”

Thibault rejoined them, having examined another room where a fleeing goblin had met his end. “Be careful, everyone!  There are still death dogs about!”  The captured goblin leader, Roxx, banged on a locked door, and shouted what Eamon translated as “Open up, it’s friends”.  They did open up, and the adventurers found four goblins ready to drop their weapons to Eamon’s bidding.  There was also a chest, and a fire pit on which, Greeba realised, the corpse of Sister Laura, another of Braltak’s fallen comrades, was roasting.  Wisteria’s key fit into the locked chest, and revealed a treasure of coins and gems, as well as 3 healing potions, which were all very welcome to the adventurers.

Greeba then approached the fire pit and removed the body from the spit, laying it reverently on the pyre in a hero’s funeral.  She was going to get the chest of ears and shake it onto the fire as well.   At the same time, Arian was checking another glowing pool they had passed, and discovered an artefact that Eamon immediately recognised.  It looked like a simple metal tube to Greeba, but the monk claimed that its value to the church would be more than money.  The others wanted to think more about it before deciding what to do with the Chime of Opening, as well as the fate of the goblins - leave them, deliver them to a local ruler, or kill them were some of the ideas flying around.  Politics, like religion, was of little interest to Greeba; she knew the worth of metal and gems, smithing and fighting.  She had a feeling that before they left Underhall there would be more fighting, and she was looking forward to it.