Party:
Arc Sol - Human Cleric of Pelor, the god of the sun (313 points)
Aurum Red-Brand - Human Wizard (303 points)
Mor'ath Enanqua - Elven Swashbuckler/Thief (298 points)
Zaxod - Half-Orc Knight (299 points)
Day 27 (Cont.)
Weather: Perfect
Mor'ath waded into the growing pile of corpses, but dropped his sword mid-swing, while Zaxod moved in to attack the cleric and took a flail to the groin for his efforts. Arc missed a Sunbolt, and Aurum finally got Farric on the levitating disc, and started charging a Fireball.
Zaxod finally landed a killing blow on the cleric, and with only 6 spearmen left, the hobgoblins surrendered, with one of their shamans taking over as leader. Arc healed their wounds, and the party asked them a few questions. They found out that the prisoner was in a nearby chamber, that the hobgoblins had been kicked out of their old home by orcs, and that their old home was somewhere to the southwest, several days from a human city (though the shaman did not know the name).
Arc and Zaxod went and freed the hunter, Herral, who was quite grateful, and then the hobgoblins gathered up their women (though the hobgoblin may have meant "wounded") and children, and left.
Mor'ath Searched through the piles of hobgoblins, and found a couple hundred dollars worth of coins, while Aurum took a knife and started cutting off ears for the bounty. Arc took the priest's magic flail and the leader's electric spear and put them in the quarantine sack to be "purified" by his church in Adusia, so Mor'ath pocketed the bronze chain the leader had, rather than risking Arc taking it.
Mor'ath and Arc then scouted out the rest of the caves and found dead, partially eaten gnolls and a bolt of fine cloth, but no other treasure. They also came across an unlit area of the caves, and wished that they could have asked the hobgoblins about it. After some debate, they ended up voting against exploring further, though it came down to Zaxod's veto power.
Mor'ath and Zaxod moved all the hobgoblin corpses further into the cave, and then Aurum cast Shape Earth to close the entrance to the unlit area, and then again at the bottleneck. Aurum suggested calling their party "The Sack-Boyz", and Zaxod was on-board, but Mor'ath vetoed that. Zaxod then suggested "The Tigers", but Aurum vetoed that because he Hates Animals. Arc cast Major Healing a couple times to get everybody back up to full, and then the party rested in the cave mouth overnight.
Day 28
Weather: Good
Aurum elected to ride the disc, but Farric was poorly suited for long-range travel and slowed them down. Luckily, Herral was an expert in the local environment and made up for some lost time. He was also quite capable at picking campsites and setting up blinds, so the party was uninterrupted overnight.
Day 29
Weather: Rainy and Windy
The party made worse time due to the weather. Around noon, Mor'ath spotted some large vulture-like creatures with large, bull-like horns flying overhead, and asked Arc and Aurum what they were. Arc looked up, figured that they were demons, though he didn't know what kind, and then yelled "DEMONS! COME DOWN HERE AND DIE YOU COWARDS!", thereby negating all possibility of stealth.
While the vulture demons soared down, the party readied their weapons and Arc cast Shield on himself. One of the demons gored Farric for light damage, while the other flew by and bounced off of Arc's holy defences. The party was slow to react to the demons' superior speed, and struggled to position themselves properly while Farric passed out from a failed HT check, and Aurum fell off of his disc thanks to failed DX.
Zaxod tried slamming the demon that had gored Farric, but failed and moved past it, exposing his back, while Mor'ath and Arc focused on dodging the other one, Aurum stood up and figured out where their brains and vitals were thanks to Physiology, and Herral ran off into the underbrush to hide. The demon near Zaxod switched to hovering and clawed his skull from behind, but his helmet negated the blow, while the other continued flying around and attempting to gore Arc, who continued to shout taunts.
Zaxod made an All-Out Attack and ended up doing light damage to his demon, but it responded by goring him in the eye, for 56 damage, which knocked him past two death checks, blinded him in one eye, and used up his Bless, which negated the -10 knockdown check. Meanwhile, the other demon went into hover mode and gouged a hole in Arc, while Mor'ath moved in to help.
Zaxod then dropped his greataxe behind him mid-swing and moved to grapple his demon, but was clawed in the arm instead, while Mor'ath stabbed the other one in the eye, and Aurum launched a 9d Fireball for just shy of 30 damage, which killed the demon. Arc healed Farric back into the positives while Mor'ath ran over to assist Zaxod, who had just readied his dual axes. The other demon was stabbed and chopped to death, though it took far longer than the other one.
Notes:
The hobgoblin battle is finally over. The total hobgoblin death toll is 23.
Arc has Intolerance (Evil Religions) and Hates Demons, so he really loves burning (un)holy relics and yelling at demons to fight him like a man.
Aurum tried to argue that Physiology should let him know whether the demons were planning on flying back up and strafing the whole time. No, that's Strategy (or maybe Psychology if I'm feeling generous).
Zaxod's dice are cursed. Two critical failures in a row during the vulture demon fight.
The gore to the eye was actually also a crit, and the Bless negated the special effect (which was double damage, so that was lucky). I forgot the -10 for knockdown during the gore to the eye completely, so I just wrote that off as being the Bless too.
Zaxod will probably never All-Out Attack ever again. He also bought-up Axe/Mace mid-fight to increase his 2h Axe/Mace default by 1.
Mor'ath used his Luck to reroll on the critical table on an eye-stab on the second vulture demon. Not sure if it's allowed RAW, but it wasn't a big deal.
Aurum spent the last 4-5 turns of the vulture demon fight slow-clapping.
A bunch of FP got spent on Mighty Blows, Giant Step, and Flurry of Blows, which is cool.
The party is pretty sure that the vulture demons were weak to fire, because the second one took way more damage to kill.
Nobody has spent XP in a while, though Arc wants to learn Survival and Navigation from Herral once they get back to Cosium.
XP:
1 for general progress
1 for roleplaying
3 for the hobgoblin fight (Worthy, Outnumbered 4:1)
0 for loot
0 for quests
MVP went to Zaxod for "taking that damage like a champ"
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