The Danger Gang Does A Covert Op In Shushmashush
Feeling well rested, the Danger Gang hops aboard some giant beetles Martialis whipped up. They fly over the majestic Kachelmik army, adorned in their fighting colors of red and black.
They fly into the box canyon described by the eagles, fortunately without any random encounters (much to someone's chagrin). They land behind the western lip or the canyon. There are nine individual caves. Smoke comes out of the ground in front of one of them; they decide against going for that one.
Instead they head over to one on the north side, just east of a landslide. Karl is sent ahead to sneak around. Unfortunately, those were not his strengths in thieving skills. He successfully sneaks past two rooms of goblins singing a call and response song. Then he gets up to a room with a dog baying in it. Karl thinks he's on to him, so he tries to head back. Unfortunately, he's not as lucky heading back and a Goblin spots him. His room chases him out, and then the response side of the call and response singing chase him down too. Luckily, the Danger Gang is able to take these dudes out before they are able to raise the alarm. They stalk on.
They take on the Warg room. There is but one Warg in there, as well as a Goblin, and some kind of fancy Goblin in a headdress. He has a pretty fancy looking ivory bracelet and a sack with both a snake and some platinum in it.
Back out in the main hall of this cave, they find a secret door. Behind the door is a some old shields and arrows and the like. There's another secret door out of there. Karl hears some shuffling behind the door; they carefully slide the door open. It reveals the backside of a tapestry. Karly pokes a small hole in the tapestry and sees a group of huddling Goblin ladies holding knives. There's another tapestry in the ladies' room.
Now, how to deal with these ladies? Gershom casts Tongues to try to talk to them, but then they try to run off. Can casts Web before they can get too far. The ladies explain that they were about to try to lead us into an ambush, and that a Goblin leader named Broketooth had come in to warn them of their coming. Barry Ceasefire cuts ladies goblins out of the webs and ties them up to prevent further meddling. They then proceed to march towards the ambush. They find this Broketooth character with four archers (which Gershom promptly Holds). Marty then Charms the guy and has Gershom tell him that he'll mak him the number one Goblin in town, hands down. He just wants to know where Korrigan is. He says he's probably in the cave they've identified as cave #5. They go to check it out.
As they sneak into said cave, who should they encounter but their old associate HZ. What a coincidence! Turns out HZ was in the area looking for some honey for his pair of trained, giant bees. Everyone strongly advises him to stay away from Karl's gemstones. However, they are glad to have someone slightly more sneaky around, and send him off to scout ahead. He finds a room full of corpses hanging from the ceiling. That's when the skeletons come out. The rest of the party joins poor little HZ (imagine if they did not stumble upon him previously). Gershom manages to turn a few old bonies, but some sort of Goblin cleric gets in the mix and they need to take him out. A Lightning Bolt, Can-style, does a good chunk of damage. Then comes a loud gong noise. A wave of goblins arrives. They are defeated, but not without putting a little hurt on our boys.
There are more Goblins en-route.
Said Goblins charge in, men in the front, followed by some women and children armed with knives. This round of Goblins gets taken out with out too much trouble; and the women and children begin to run, but get cut off before they can get too far. Strangely, one of the Goblins seems immune to their weapons. No matter how hard they try to beat him up, it is of no avail. So they tie him up and drag him around. They'll figure out something to do with him sooner or later. They head down a flight of stairs, prisoner in tow. Suitably, they find a jail cell. Inside, they find a man nude, chained to the wall, and covered in filth. They go inside to free him. It turns out that he's Akhrem the last heir of the Star & Crescent Clan. He was on the run, since the other clan with a legitimate claim to the throne of Albania is trying to kill him. On his way east, he was captured by the Goblins, who have since been throwing feces at him. He also explains that the Kukuth are the surviving members of the Mertalian bloodline. They're vampires or something and descendants of Alexander The Great.
Karl buries the invincible Goblin alive in the floor of the jail.
They agree that they can't just leave Akhrem behind, but they can't leave without the Shadow, and so he must join the party. They feed him a couple of Goodberries to get him back into good health. Then they continue on their journey.
Down the hall from the jail cell, they hear some uproarious laughter. In broken Albanian, they're talking about the Beautiful Fork Tailed Ones they've heard so much about. They decide to not go down there, but instead, check out one of the nearby rooms, despite the fact that these fork tailed ones are so great. Instead they find a room with several sleeping Goblin women. They leave them, unmolested. On the way out, they see a pair of weasels with forked tails. Karl instantly starts fawning over them in the language of burrowing mammals. It seems that they enjoy munching on people's armor and fighting them in they get disrespected. They give them some actual food and tell them how great they are. They tell them about the invincible goblin and how he was disrespecting them, so they ask to check this out. They explain that he's actually not a Goblin, but a Nilbog, the biggest joke amongst monsters.
They bury him alive again.
The Beautiful Fork Tailed Ones move on and the Gang continues their exploration. They head down the stairs to find a trio of Goblins, their armor chewed up by the little weasels. They explain that they're guiding the Caves Of Chaos where the goddess Zana lives. They decide to not check that out. Instead, they get directions to Korrigan's room.
They go in with a knock and find Korrigan with a drunken prostitute named Artiana. He seems to be living large; getting all the money and bloodwine he can drink. It seems he stole the shadow as part of a quest to create chaos in this part of the world as revenge for a werewolf that led an army of wolves into Brittany that subsequently ate all his friends. Now he's just here to watch shit get fucked up. He also says his name is Alan.
Marty asks him how much it would cost them to buy the shadow off of him. He says 70,000 gold, to which the boys counter offer 40,000 gold. He laughs off their offer (a laugh so loud it stuns several of them) and then ties them up in his carpet which they now realize is made out of his hair. The fighting commences. Marty changes into a snake, people are hacking and chopping their way through hair. After a little fighting, Alan whips up some Animated Rocks and the Stone Doors out of there. They try to give chase, Marty in Lion form tries to track his scent, and finds him running off away from the caves.
The Gang, however, believes that he did not take the Shadow with him. So they go track down Broketooth and ask him if he knows where the Shadow might be. He thinks it's in the Caves of Chaos. So they go back that way. The caves are really confusing. They find a room full of poisonous newts that they decide to not wade through. Then they find a pond with the Zana who turns out to be some sort of cave spring nyad or something, and a third level druid. She's actually quite nice, though. It seems the black dog cut off the outflow of the spring that led out to a pond outside. Marty agrees to try to help, but he's a step behind old Karl who has already started swinging his pick axe to dig a way out. Marty then decides to try the showy solution, and he Rock to Muds a small passage out. She's quite grateful and heals them up a bit by way of thanks. She also goes to that room full of newts, and they part to let the boys through. On the other side they find a door, behind which they hear a couple of goblins.
