When the goblins arrived, only the Christians and a few others were ready. Other players quickly scrambled to arm themselves and to find their friends, but the defense of Traville was pitiful at best.
The goblin at the head of the column stopped, and his troops stumbled to a stop behind him. He glared back at them before speaking, "The lady of chaotic darkness, Her Majesty Borgakh, the priestess of Dajixian, sends her greetings." He leered at the few handfuls of defenders. "This is gonna be enjoyable." He turned to his army, "Have fun!"
The goblin army flowed around their leader into the town.
"We defend the Bird and Baby," Casian stated bluntly.
Grog nodded.
The party lined up in front of the inn, with Grog and Caisin to either side of the large front door and Polly and Sparky behind them.
Grog tapped his mace against his shield, but Caisin reached out a calming hand, "No need to draw attention to ourselves."
At the same time, Sparky doubled in size.
Many of the goblins rushing in their direction paused or turned away, not wanting to face the giant mage.
"Whatever works," Caisin smiled.
But there was still a large group of goblins that charged the inn. More than Grog and Caisin could possibly stop.
Lightning leaped from Sparky's wand, stunning about half and killing many in the mob headed their way.
Polly briefly glowed, and a magical barrier sprung up about ten feet long, stretching out from the right side of the inn's door, limiting the ways the goblins could approach the small band. Moments later, a green cloud began to roil over the party, prepared to heal them as needed.
The remaining six goblins crashed into Grog and Caisin.
Grog's shield became round with a wicked spike, and he dropped one with a bash. Another fell with a mace to the head. Caisin took out two more with a mighty and glowing blow from his axe that left an afterimage in the players' eyes. But two slipped through, gouging the door of the inn deeply with their two axes. The next instant, those goblins were struck down with a lightning bolt to their backs, but the damage was done.
The party backed up to the inn's door, further limiting the angles of attack. As the next wave approached, they were more prepared and stood their ground: lightning bolts, healing rain, axe, and mace defending the inn.
After a while, the goblins just avoided the inn as they pillaged the rest of the town. The other players in town were mostly lower level and had all been wiped during the battle, leaving only Caisin's party.
The town was destroyed yet again. Attempts at rebuilding were now a smoldering mass of rubble, the market a mass of tangled wood and canvas as the remaining goblins carted away the merchant's goods.
The distant temple of Jearian, the neutral good god, stood in the distance, defaced, arcane symbols carved into its otherwise beautiful stone edifice.
As the remaining goblins moved past the Bird and Baby, the leader
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As Lance and Lucinda emerged from the cave the following day, the valley stretched out below them, the deeper green of pine trees offset with the lighter oak and areas of grass. Two rivers flowed through the valley, sparkling and bright. They could see the river they had followed out of the Goblin Valley emptying into a large alpine lake at the edge of the starter area. Leaving the cave, they followed a trail that led back to more familiar ground.
They made their way across the valley toward Traville, staying on trails to speed their time and to avoid any creatures that made the woods their home. When they arrived in town, they were not surprised to see the burnt buildings and the NPCs who were beginning the rebuilding work. Again, the only building that stood was the Bird and Baby with two gouges in its door. Entering, they found their friends seated around their usual table.
Lance groaned as he sat down, "This is ugly." He waved his hand in the direction of the center of town.
Caisin nodded. "What next?"
"I wonder what happened to the witch's place." Lucinda offered.
"I am guessing it will not be pretty, but we can go check," Lance said.
The party got up and headed out of the Bird and Baby.
As they came around the copse of trees separating the town from their destination, Sparky whistled.
They all stopped walking and just looked. What was left of the A-frame building smoldered.
"We still need to finish the dragon's quest, and the wraiths' home is next. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone by finishing that quest and doing some scouting." Caisin offered.
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"I think that sounds like a great idea," Lance said.
The party returned the way that Lance and Lucinda had just come. Skirting the lake to the mountains' side, they found a wide and easy ford in the river. As they continued south, the bright, clear sky gave way to darker, mist-filled heavens that seemed to block out the warmth and light of the sun. They turned up the valley following the paths the dragon had indicated on their map. Grog's wolves slipped in and out of view beside them in the trees.
As they ascended, they caught a distant view of the temple of Dajixian. It was maybe half an hour's walk south and east of the Orc Village, and the only easy path to the temple was through the village. Surrounding the temple on every side was a dark forest, and even closer to the temple sat a terrifying-looking swamp.
As they examined the view, Lance thought out loud. "The road would be absolute suicide with all of the orcs and other Dajixian worshippers passing back and forth. I think we will need to go directly through the forest and swamp."
The party seemed to deflate, "Do you think we can even make it through?" Polly asked.
Lance looked over the swamp below him. There was a large round building in the middle, and there seemed to be a bunch of pathways that led into and out of that building. Lance pulled a piece of paper and coal out of his inventory and worked to sketch a crude map of the swamp.
When he was done, the party ascended the hill toward the Wraths' Home and began a long, slow climb. The way twisted and turned as it wound its way under every hill and through every valley, seeking out shadow and avoiding light. Eventually, the path moved down into a deep valley and ended at a large stone door covered in runes and occult-looking symbols. Lance removed the shaman's staff from his inventory and waved it about, but nothing happened.
"Try touching the door with it," Sparky said.
Lance did, but again, nothing happened.
The party began examining the door for any clues, but the symbols were ones that Lance did not know how to read. After a while, they sat in the gloomy valley, tired of their fruitless search.
"The dragon said we could open this door with the shaman's staff, right?"
Everyone nodded, but Cletus shook his head.
Lance looked at the raccoon-shaped AI and said, "The dragon did not say that?"
"Not exactly", Cletus said.
"So what exactly did the Dragon say?"
Cletus flipped out his every present book and then said in a good imitation of the dragon's voice, "You will not be able to defeat all of the Τελώνιο, but the one that keeps getting involved with the Φάντασμα is their shaman. If you kill that vile being and take his staff, you will be able to gain entrance with it to the home of the Φάντασμα."
"So the dragon did not say we could open this door, but it did say we could gain entrance, and the dragon's map pointed us to this area," Lance said thoughtfully. "Maybe there is another way in, a servant's entrance?"
The party began to fan out and search for another way in; a few minutes later, Grog shouted that he had found something, and the party gathered to where he was, an alcove a few yards to the left of the main door. Grog's wolves stood in front of a door the right size for a goblin, maybe five feet tall and two feet wide. As Lance approached, the staff began to glow, and when he touched it to the door, the stone seemed to melt away, revealing a tunnel that ran back into the hillside.
"That is going to be tight," Caisin said.
"Hopefully, it widens out sooner rather than later. I'll go first.", Lucinda replied as she ducked her head and slid into the tunnel's darkness, the walls ahead of her glowing slightly as she entered.
Lance guessed that illusionary light was just as good as natural light. "Agreed, no real choice here." He said as he followed.
The rest of the party entered slowly behind. Caisin and Grog's shoulder pauldrons occasionally scraping the walls.
A short way in, the passage turned hard to the right and ended at a blank wall, but the staff that Lance held again began to glow, and touching the wall with the staff caused it to melt away. Grog was taking up the rear and whispered that the outside door had closed up when the inside one had been opened.
The need for quiet had begun to press on the party as they passed into the wraiths' home. And they started using party chat to communicate silently.
Lance and Lucinda turned on their sneak modes and moved deeper into the cavernous area. The side gate had been exactly that and had emptied out just beyond the stone door they had first found. The hall beyond the stone door was a strange cross between a cavern and an engineered hall. Crafted pillars held up a ceiling covered in stalactites as if the pillars had been carved from massive stalagmites. The floor had been worn smooth by countless passing feet and met the wall with a curve instead of a square corner. About a foot up from the floor, the walls were again smooth as glass except for the dense carvings that covered most of the surface up to about ten feet, where the wall reverted to looking like a natural cavern stretching up another ten to twenty feet to the ceiling. The walls seemed to follow the natural curve of the cavern they had been carved from without any hard angles. The floor sloped gently downwards as they moved further in.
Lance indicated that the rest of the party should wait as he and Lucinda slipped down the hall. After a tense minute, the pair of thieves returned.
"The way ahead looks clear for about two hundred yards, but then there is a room we must pass through lined on both sides with stone caskets."
"It feels way creepy," Lucinda added.
The party wound their way down the curving passage as its width varied from thirty to one hundred feet. Finally, it closed in to be a wide passageway of an increasingly consistent ten-foot width. At the end, an archway displayed the way forward. As the party moved on, a sense of dread increased with every step. This must be the wraiths' home.
Lance paused as he looked down the hall lined with the wraiths' caskets; there was such a feeling of malevolence emanating from that room it was hard even to take a step forward. To the left of the doorway into the hall, there was a large ancient wood and iron door firmly locked. Lance communicated the plan he and Lucinda had devised to the rest of the party in chat as they slipped back into sneak to move silently through the room. As they did, some of the coffins seemed to stir a little, but they slipped silently past each. By the time they had gotten to the other side of the hall, all the caskets were calm and settled. Lance stayed where he was as Lucinda silently slipped to the left.
After a minute, there was a muffled thud, and the ancient door swung inward, allowing the party to use the bypass tunnel that circumvented the wraiths' lair. After the party was through the passage, they quietly continued down the tunnel that led deeper under the mountains. The weight of the rock above them and the creatures behind them weighed on the party.
A couple hundred yards later, the tunnel opened again to reveal another large cavern. At the back of the cavern sat what was clearly the Wraiths' temple. It was a tall and narrow building with spires set in what seemed to be a random pattern. Something was etched over the entire structure, but Lance could not make it out at this distance. As the party crossed the cavern, the carvings began to resolve in Lance's eyes into an awful and debauched set of carvings showing all sorts of humanoids doing terrible and appalling acts. Lance blushed and heard the other party members mumbling under their breath. This was certainly a stronghold of the enemy.
"Quiet now," Lance sent through chat, and the party slowed down and began to move more quietly, which, in the case of Grog and Casian, was none too silent. As they approached, they noticed two giant statues at the front of the temple, one on either side of the door, each at least 20 feet tall. They did not move, but Lance noticed the nameplates over their heads, "Stone Golem - Level 11 elite". Others in the party noticed as well, and the group suddenly stopped walking.