Lair Of The Orc Lord - Deep 2 (Part 4)

The PCs face off with a large Lugroki (Orc) who is blocking their way across the bridge to the gold. As soon as they had entered the room the trap was sprung and the party was surrounded by goblins.

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The first combat round saw the Lugroki throw his spear (javelin) at Cavell. It made little impact to the situation but Hanu thought it might be useful to throw back at the Lugroki as a diversion before she and Asmodeus rush forward to push the brute out of the way of the bridge so others can come through.

Before she could do anything, the Lugroki released a shout the likes of which none in the party had heard. With such ferocity behind the shout all the PCs felt the tingle of fear run down their spines. Most of the PCs were unaffected except for Hanu and Asmodeus who now suffer -50 to all their rolls. A round later and Hanu rallies herself sufficiently to break the effects of the shout just as she sees a hidden door to the right of the statue open and four goblin archers with short bows enter and take up firing positions.

Charging the orc seemed like a good idea at the time but the fearful Asmodeus failed to follow behind her to lend her his weight. Putting all her strength into moving the orc, Hanu was stopped dead in her tracks by an unmovable foe. Now she was toe to toe with the foul smelling creature, alone – not to mention she was also on the bridge above the fire chasm. She spots the sparkle of a sky blue diamond on a decorative chain hanging around the large orc's neck.

It took a few rounds to dispatch three of the goblins and in the process Kodos was injured, falling over as he was unsteady on his feet. The brave Cavell stands over Kodos to protect him and downs the third goblin.

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With no support Hanu was at a loss. Shouting out to Cavell, hopefully in a language the orc didn’t know, she managed to convince him to charge over the bridge and run into her and the orc. Surprising the orc right before he had the opportunity to attack, Cavell charged across the bridge and sandwiched Hanu who was prepared to push forward. The tactics were sound. The problem was Cavell failing to negotiate the rope bridge successfully (Cavell’s player failed an Agility Check roll) and tripped and fell into the back of Hanu at full speed. The combined strength roll of the two managed to push the orc back who landed on his back at the base of the statue. Cavell was now facedown on the bridge looking at the flames rising up from the chasm floor towards him.

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Xera moves to the edge of the fire chasm to throw her Chakram at the goblin archers.

Asmodeus tries to use a bit of positive self talk to break free of the grip of fear that still has hold of him. Not being good with words other than “that’s mine” or “I’ll take that”, he fails miserably and cannot try again for another seven rounds. He decides to move to the other side of the room to lend Xera his support with the attack on the goblin archers.

With Kodos back on his feet, Rikku suggests that they teleport over to the archers and attack them directly, so Rikku hops onto Kodos back ready for the ride of his life. Without much ado, Kodos is successful (1% chance of failure) in getting the two of them next to the goblin archers. There is only one small problem and that is that they are now both disoriented from the teleport (both Situational Awareness skill checks failed).

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Next round Cavell rises and supports Hanu. As she prepares to manoeuvre around to the left of the large orc she fumbles her weapon. To Cavell this looks like a weapon flourish (some players use the Swashbuckling skill to do fancy sword moves) and so he tells her to stop messing around and get on with the job of attacking the orc. Hanu moves to the left and the orc ignores her, concentrating instead on the shining armoured paladin.

The fight against the orc takes several rounds with Cavell fumbling his weapon early in the piece and having to parry the orc’s attacks for another two rounds after. Meanwhile Hanu, who is attacking from the orc’s right flank, gets a critical hit and her foe’s attention. With the orc facing Hanu, Cavell takes the opportunity to attack the orc from its left flank and also delivers a critical. Neither critical is severe enough to slay the creature, but he is bleeding badly.

Kodos and Rikku recover from their teleportation and fight and slay a goblin. Xera and Asmodeus continue to throw their weapons at the goblins on top of the statue.

Without touching it the orc keels over and dies as his life’s blood drains from his body. Hanu and Cavell pause for a photo opportunity.

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Hanu now turns to fight the remaining goblin archers. She tells Cavell to search the orc. Checking out the Lugroki, Cavell finds the large sky blue diamond around its neck. He promptly retrieves it.

Kodos gets "ganked" (as Cavell's player calls it) by the goblins and goes down, but not before another goblin has the opportunity to increase the severity of Kodos’ situation. A couple of rounds later and poor Kodos was bleeding at 5 hits per round and had only 1 hit point of health left. The next couple of rounds saw Kodos health move on down to -12 hits. Rikku kills another goblin in revenge as does Hanu beside him.

Only one goblin is left up on the statue and Asmodeus throws his Chegain from 25 feet away with Rikku acting as “soft cover”. It’s tense as Asmodeous’ player rolls spectacularly (well over 150) and his Chegain flies, curving over Rikku’s right shoulder, spinning in perfect timing and slaying the evil creature. I am pretty sure Rikku’s right ear is still intact!

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Xera crosses the bridge to access the dying Kodos. She applies some of her magical blue healing paste on him (her player makes a successful Use Prepared Herb skill check) and restores him to full health. Good on you girl!

With the Lugroki and goblins dead the party now tend to the wounded and search the room. Ignoring the gold, almost all the players are interested in the weapons rack near the hidden door. Rikku pulls on a shiny longsword and the hidden door closes shut. The weapons are found to be attached to the rack and of no use.

Asmodeus is first to put his hand into the pile of gold at the base of the statue. His hand passes through the treasure and he gets savagely bitten by a poisonous snake, that made its home under the statue, making him fall unconscious. Asmodeus' player fails the poison RR and so now Asmodeus' arms and legs are weakened and suffer a -25 modifier to their use. A healing check finds that it will take Asmodeus 4 days to recover. Xera and Cavell cast healing spells on Asmodeus to bring him to consciousness.

This is where the night ends and XP is distributed. Three characters' XP total rise above 30000 and so look forward to developing next session.