Highball and Dragons #4
2022-06-27

Highball and Dragons #4

Exploring the tunnel behind Fred and Bubbles

We had just met Fred and Bubbles and their pet mouse or rat Squeak. Bubbles promised to reveal a secret to us in exchange for 10 toenails, for more toenails he proposed his help in combat.

The tunnel that brought us to this place was now blocked, the bridge in the previous room having crashed in its pit. We obsessed about finding toenails, being certain that it was a condition for us going through the door behind Fred and Bubbles.

On the right of the room, behind some kind of tarp, there was the reserve. We peeked a the content and noticed there was a foot in there. We did our best to distract our host with Bernie doing a cheap magic trick, with Tertius and Aby trying to get into the reserve and take the foot out.

We first neutralized the rat Squeak by throwing a big fat piece of biscuit. The animal jumped happily at it and devoured it carefully, ignoring the rest of the world for a while.

Bernie's having failed his darkness magic, our second caster, Torleif, did some light magic and succeeded at drawing the attention of the two butcher fiends. Tertius and Aby quickly stole the foot in the reserve. We were really disappointed when, hidden in the next room, the fallen bridge room, we cut away the toe nails of the foot and there were only three of them.

We started discussing Torleif using his light magic to duplicate the toenails and trick Fred and Bubbles. Gary, the referee, hinted at using a mirror or something reflective to help in the trick. At that point, we learned that we could pass the door behind our hosts, they were happy to let us pass as we had traded boar meat with them.

Plain Chessex dice and bone dice from Lykos Leather

Tertius went ahead to scout the tunnel, he found a room behind a two meters wide pit. It seemed there were glittering things in there. The rest of the team joined Tertius. He had decided to jump past the pit. He landed safely there and started exploring. There were chests open containing cutlery and tin pots.

We were still focusing on collecting toenails and Tertius quickly located a metal plate that could double as a mirror and threw it over the pit into the passageway. Tertius then jumped back.

The corridor ended in a door with its grate down, and that's through this grate that an arrow flew at us. Rurik lifted his shield and intercepted the projectile. We carefully proceeded back to Fred and Bubbles room with the fighter and their shields behind us and the door. Two more arrows came at us, but none hit.

Once everybody was back to the relative safety of the butchers' place, Torleif did his reflection trick in front of Bubbles and Fred, and persuaded them we were offering them up to ten toenails.

"Thank you very much! I will now tell you the secret! There is a secret door!"

"Where?"

He pointed to his left, at the reserve and said: "In there!"

We facepalmed hard, we had focused on stealing the foot in there, but did not explore the place, fearing to offend Fred and Bubbles. We quickly located the door, opened it and darkness greeted us. So far all the rooms and passages had been illuminated, but this tunnel was not.

Fight in the refectory

Bernie gave some of his magical energy to Torleif who used it to weave long-lasting threads of light on top of Aby's quarterstaff. Rurik went in first, followed by Aby in his role of torchbearer. The tunnel lead to a musty room, with five bunks and a weapon rack. There was nothing special in the room, apart from a lever. We decided to breath for a while in there. When the magical light went off, we lit the lanterns in the corners of the room.

At that point, Gary, our referee, let our team level up (from 1 to 2). We acquired HPs, CPs, skills, spell colours and spell forms.

Once our "night" was over, we got ready, and opened the door. Four goblins were having their meal in what looked like a refectory. Our two fighters assaulted the closest enemies. The two goblins farthest from us drew their bows and aimed at us.

The fight went well for us. We could despatch the four of the enemies. Bernie and Beowyn each scored a kill (and Aby survived).

The session ended here. The tunnels seem to lead further into the hill, our morale is high, we should win in the end.

 

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