Having regained their lives and reunited, the party plans their next move. Magnar recruits a Priestess of the Shade who uses the alias Nightengale as their new healer.
“Let us go to Lastfall, and reclaim that hallowed bastion of order!” Magnar states what is clearly their main objective.
“I always wanted a mine. What if we went to Morian’s Mine?” Torque counters with a side-project he didn’t get around to during the three-month break.
“Morian’s Mine is awful far away. What if we went to this one- The Old Mine?”
Garret says, after Killian translates it from squawks.
“Sounds good!” Everyone agrees it’d be good to do a small, easy dungeon as prepwork before the main slog. Except Magnar, but sometimes the group gets away from him. Magnar is also still sore about most of the party dying, and about losing the +3 shield he found in the baby dragon’s lair. (When they had the Bishop of Riverfall clear out the mummy’s tomb, they pointed out all the loot in the room that belonged to Magnar, but since Magnar had only just gotten the shield on a solo adventure, nobody realized it was his, and it went to a local baron.)
In the old mine, the party encounters kobolds. Loads of them. First a dozen in the main room, who alert their friends, and they proceed down some curiously empty tunnels, only to be ambushed from all sides by roughly twenty. Garret, who is leading the rearguard, is nearly slain, but not quite. Toni distinguishes himself by rolling enough ones that Killian begins to contemplate firing him.
Having emerged from that trial by fire, the party proceeds to the kobold warren, which is situated over a deep, deep mining shaft, such that the party has to proceed along a treacherous route while suffering javelins from the far side. Dom and Tyr cast Summon Hero and Barbarian to provide cannon fodder while Tyr’s henches drop sleep spells on the spear-throwers. Killian and Torque use their bows to pick off the remaining distant enemies while Magnar, Ulfrick, and Toni charge along the bridge slaughtering as they go. The summoned berserkers all perish before attacking, but nearly fulfill their purpose of soaking up hits. The summoned hero triggers a pit trap and tumbles into the chasm after rolling very poorly on his save.
Garret flies around and is knocked to 6 hp during a prolonged battle with a gang of kobolds, but manages to retreat and be healed before taking enough spears to tumble into the abyss and never be seen again. (Ever since his transformation, the party has been making jokes like “Careful that Garret doesn’t go to the dark side- If the Roc Falls, everyone dies!” so while I remain an impartial judge, I would take pleasure in his destruction.)
Eventually they manage to clear the lair, collecting roughly 1k in trinkets and also finding a Philtre of Love, for a total of 2k worth of loot, which is peanuts to the now-level 6 Magnar and Killian, but not shabby for Torque, who is still only 3, and utterly meaningless to Garret, because monsters take preposterous amounts of XP to level.
Now they’re deciding whether they want to go back in and fully clear the cave, or if they should just press on to Lastfall.