(HotDQ-5) False Bravado?

"This time it is ME who is pleased to see YOU!"

Visit the enemy camp, he said, destroy any eggs you find, he said, then find out whatever you can about the dragon cultists, he said. Is that all?

Starring, in order they sit around the table:
Nyvan, (played by Jason) a elven knight who has a penchant for the dramatic..
Venmir, (played by Brett) an elven clergyman, who might be epileptic, judging by the shaking head syndrome. 
Sigurd, (played by Iain) a travelling swordsman, who still hates kobolds more than anything else.
Rodin, (played by Lorne) the battered and sullen dwarven axeman, who is perhaps the clumsiest dwarf that ever was.
Nandrim, (played by Hilton), the ridiculously brave elf magic-user fancies himself a scout.
and The DM, (played by Alex), who loves to comment in blue. And writes this blog. He's also a bit of a git and likes to make life difficult for his players.

The heroes have left Greenest once more and found themselves outside the raider camp which is now abandoned. Their plan? Not even they know - but you can bet it's going to be completely out of the blue and keep me on my toes. I wouldn't have it any other way.

The camp was deserted. 

After several hours of going through any number of precautions, the party walked into the abandoned camp - some of the huts and tents were still on fire. It was now pitch black away from the fires and they made their way carefully through the wreckage.

Once more, they stopped to consider their plans. After much discussion, they came up with a plan. Nandrin, the bravest mage on Faerun, would make himself invisible, sneak into the cave, find the eggs, then map out the inside and return to the others, enabling them to enter the cave and finish their job with a minimum of fuss. Sigurd and Venmir believed there would only be a handful of guards and most agreed that the cave complex was likely to be fairly small and easy to explore.

Nandrin invis'd himself and snuck forward. The front of the cave was guarded by two men in armour. He snuck past (his invis gave him advantage) and he headed further into the cave, which turned out to be larger than he thought. About a hundred feet intot he cave, there was a short ledge, with a ten foot drop. To the right was a set of steps, and at the bottom was a sea of fungus. Little ones, big ones, all the sizes in-between and every colour under the rainbow. It was so beautiful he almost broke out his crayons to make a picture.

He made his way down the stairs. Halfway down, they suddenly turned into a ramp, sending him downwards like a slide, and he tumbled down into the fungus. Unluckily, he landed amidst a previously hidden err, batch, herd, family of tall, purple-coloured walking mushrooms, which lashed out around them with a changeable number of disgusting fleshy arms.

Despite his invisibility, it seemed as if they could detect him, and so Nandrin ran, dodging a number of attacks - back up the ramp and into the larger cave. He tried a variety of Top Gun manoeuvres to throw the remaining beast off his tail, but he Goosed out and before long the sounds of his struggles alerted the guards and they ran back into the cave. What followed was a kind of bizarre Benny Hill, with the party running in one direction, an invisible mage running in the other, and a large man-sized mushroom and two guards milling about in confusion. After a quick melee, the party continued into the cave, having given up on what was now clearly a far too dangerous scouting ploy. 

They walked down the stairs, with no warning from their scout, and suddenly found themselves sliding down the trapped stairs, straight into the remaining waiting mushroom men. With some curses in Nandrin's direction (out of character!) the party leapt into action. Sigurd and Nyvan ran at the enemy, while Rodin went for the dramatic option, sliding down the ramp to build up some momentum, but sadly his boots caught on a crack and he found himself standing stock-still, momentum lost, ten feet away from the action. He hurled some curses at the enemy, which was really his only option.

The battle was short and violent, leaving the massive mushroom beasties lying in pools of their own spores. The party continued on their way. 

They found themselves in a large cavern, with exits to the left and right, and a drop in front of them, which they ignored. They went right, and stopped only momentarily to wonder why someone would hide an old, rusted spear behind a rock at the top of the stairs (leading to the right). They walked down the stairs and found themselves confronted by a hanging curtain made of thick leather strips. After taking all possible precautions (and then some more), they turned back, after the curtian had attached itself to Nyvan and left his gauntlet dripping a green viscous fluid.

They went back to the last room and went the opposite direction from before. As they walked, Nyvan noticed something funny about the floor, but decided it must have been a trick of the light and kept it to himself. Suddenly, Rodin's foot slipped through the floor and a spike several inches long went through his boot into his foot (there were audible gasps from the table IRL). Poisoned, his legendary constitution failed him - and a glazed look covered his face (more than usual) and he turned to run away. Instantly, Nyvan, Nandrin and Venmir tried to grab him, but only Nyvan could maintain a hold on him. He swiftly laid his hands on the stricken dwarf and used his holy powers to remove the poison from his system,

The heroes stepped carefully over the trap (which was quite small) and continued, straight into another batch of spike traps. Once more, Rodin was spiked, but he managed to fight off the poison. The party took a moment to berate themselves (while the DM laughed at two traps working twice, in the space of an hour). 

They moved further into the dungeon, finding a strange room which had a ledge over a large dark area, with a covered set of stairs leading down into it. The group took the key from the wall, just in case.

They moved down some more stairs, which opened out into a huge chamber, half cave and half carved rock. The walls were covered in painting and reliefs, showing dragons, hundreds and hundreds of dragons. 

A voice boomed out. "You survived! I don't know whether to be disappointed or pleased. A little of both, I think." and the party stared in horror at Cyanwrath the Mighty & Victorious, standing between two huge human berserkers. 

Nyvan, never one to back down, looked directly at the half dragon and blurted, "No! This time it is me who is glad to see you!" (cue lots of LOL'ing).

Battle was joined, with Nyvan facing off with Cyanwrath, while the berserkers launched themselves at the others. 

Nyvan and Cyanwrath swapped massive blows (fnarr), with thundering smites and lightning breath slamming both of them backwards, before Nyvan launched a huge strike, knocking the half dragon back half a dozen paces, and knocking him to the floor. The others were struggling to known down the berserkers, who were proving to be tougher than they looked - and one of them was determined to slaughter Nandrin. Sigurd and Venmir were whaling on him without dropping him. The other was squaring off with Rodin and they were keeping each other busy (Lorne had to suddenly leave).

Nyvan, seeing his friends struggle, decided to focus their attempts and ran at the berserker to strike him down. Cyanwrath roared in anger, his battle of honour ruined by the actions of the elven knight. The creature made no bones about his displeasure, cursing the paladin as both cowardly and lacking in honour. Nyvan ignored him and struck the evil human, and the group's combined efforts finally slew him - just as Cyanwrath slammed into Nyvan.

The party turned their efforts to Cyanwrath who unleashed two mighty blows on Nyvan (two crits - although I snake-eyes'd the damage roll!) and simultaneously, Nyvan hit back and Nandrim hit Cyanwrath with a fire bolt (they all had identical initiative!). Both Nyvan and Cyanwrath hit the deck at the same time, Cyanwrath toppling forward onto Nyvan, taking the opportunity to curse the knight's dishonour one last time. 

"That's it! I'm dead!" announced Nyvan's player, loudly, throwing his hands up into the air in despair (this is a normal reaction when he hits zero hit points or less). 

"No, you're just unconscious." chorused the rest of the table (this is a normal reaction when Nyvan hits zero hit points or less).

Rodin was asleep again, having beaten off the mercenary and fallen unconscious from the heavy beating he took in return. Nyvan was nearby, lying comatose.

Venmir suggested he perform a healing ritual which would take about ten minutes.The party agreed (those that were awake) and shortly after he began, the party was startled by a maniacal screaming which announced the arrival of a small band of kobolds. Sigurd charged at them, Nandrin threw acid and Venmir continued his spell while the other two slept off their owies.

Nandrin hit two with acid, and one of them died, but the other charged him and stabbed him with his little poker. Sigurd slew another and the other one ran off. Sigurd watched him run down the passageway and turned just in time to see Nandrin take another in the gut from the remaining kobold, before he dropped to the floor, sorely wounded. 

The kobold laughed with glee, dancing from one foot to another. The mage was near dead, the cleric was singing his silly song and doing nothing to stop him. He towered over the prone elf and positioned his dagger over his face barely even noticing the travelling swordsman running up behind him before Sigurd's blade caught him across the back of the head, showering Nandrin in brains. The kobold fell on top of Nandrin, like Romeo and Juliet, together forever in death. 

Except Sigurd applied some basic first aid and stabilised the elf. Venmir's spell went off (and healed them all a tiny bit - much to Sigurd's disgust!).

And then we stopped for the night...