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Tuesday Rise of the Runelords: Farther into the Thicket

Here's the latest update from Ranier:

After last week's massacre of goblins, it was time to take a look around.  It turned out the goblins weren't heavily armed -- they had just camping gear.  The paladin was torn up a bit about it, but Jericho reminded him that these were goblins.  I wish I could feel bad about it -- it just doesn't bother me anymore.  Goblin aren't innocent.  Nobody over the age of 10 is innocent anymore.  We pretty much all deserve to bite the dust.  The cruel joke is that once you get to that age, you're probably going to live long enough to regret it.

We continued on through the thicket, this time losing Pajar to the old Thassilonian hummingbird (his player was out).  We found a deep hole that reached down to the ocean level with some terrible roaring creature in it.  We went around it.  Maybe we'll check it out on the way back.

Axle and I were working together nicely this week, backing each other up on looking for traps and keeping mostly to the shadows.  There were skeletons around -- humanoid.  Good thing we killed all the goblins -- eating people just isn't right.  We found some potions, a nice scroll that seems to generate a great explosion of fire, and a small magical pearl.  The pearl seems to help restore my memory after casting a spell so I can still remember it.  That will be handy.  I'n hanging on to that scroll so I can copy it.  I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be able to keep up this charade -- though some days I think I really am a ranger.

Farther into the thicket we found a small room with goblin dogs.  Sol, my dog, joined Dante in charging the goblin dogs.  We all fought hard and they fell quick.

We got attacked by a goblin and some sort of feline creature that attacked and then would disappear back into the thorns.  We fought hard against them, but took a lot of bad hits.  Some sort of insect appeared and it got blown away by Jericho.

We started to get back moving again, but Jericho jumped the gun and shot Axle.  I warned him that it better not happen again.  Gun, blade, club or spear -- a person's weapon needs to be only brought to bear on enemies.  I don't trust Jericho now.

We kept moving and the paladin followed his "aura" back down a path into a lair of some sort -- probably of that cat-like thing.  The goblin that was attacking seemed to take off.  I don't see how that Paladin can see anything through the shine of his armor.

We followed the path until we came to a bridge to the island.  Pajar had mentioned Thistletop was an island.  The bridge was rickety and we were going to have to go one at a time.  On the other side of the 60 foot bridge was a large wooden structure and it, with the island, looked like a skull staring out.

Axle went first, running across.  The doors to the structure were barred, so he climbed over the wall and unbarred them.  Once doors were open, Sol, the gunslinger, and I went across.  Dante got hung up with the goblin reappearing and attacking, but finally made a run for it.  Bad for us, the goblin cut the bridge behind us.  We need to track him down when we get done on this island.

Everyone was heading to get in the room and bar the door when goblin dog riders starting appearing.  Sol charged one and sent it flying, but not enough to send it over the cliff into the ocean.  The others fought them off, avoiding arrows from the towers until Axle went down.  I manned the gate while the paladin and Sol engaged the attackers in melee.  Jericho backed them up by firing off shots.  Finally we finished them off and got the door closed and barred.

The room was gruesome -- horse heads, dog heads, and, pinned to the wall, a set of harpy wings.  Odd.  Harpy wings?  Axle found a nice dagger stabbed into the wall.

Where to go next -- between this room and the attached corridor, we have 6 other doors that we could try?

I am a bit worried as we venture further into the structure.  The paladin has healed about as much as he can for the day.  My spells are half depleted.  I am hurt pretty badly.  Axle nearly bit the dust in that last battle.  I guess luck of the gods is with us, even Sol.

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