Quest to the Kobold Caves Part One

QUEST TO THE KOBOLD CAVES

A Dungeon Adventure

Part One

Six brave souls trekked through the woods, searching for the caves that housed dangerous monsters.  Four of them were human:  a wizened, old graybeard in robes; two men in metal helms and chainmail shirts—one wore the Holy Sign of the Sun God on his tabard; and a dark-haired woman in bronze armor and a plumed helmet.  The final two members were not human:  one was a female Halfling, a child-sized humanlike creature in a plain tunic and breeches beneath her travelling cloak; and a golden-haired male Elf, who wore the green leathers that were typical of his forest-dwelling people.

The thick forest smelt of pine, and the chill air warned of the coming winter.  The leaves and needles rustled around the wanderers as animals went about their chores, oblivious to them.  Squirrels and chipmunks securing nuts for the winter stores, birds paused on their journey to the warmer climes of the south. 

Sunthorn the Elf led them through the woods, his keen eyes ever watchful for foes, hiding and ready to pounce upon his distracted travelling group.  He did his best to ignore the clumsy humans and the annoying Halfling in his wake, but failed.

The Wizard, a scrawny old man in sun-bleached blue robes and a wispy gray beard, was griping the loudest.  "We should be on the other side of the kingdom," he whined, "that's where things are really happening!  Ozbaddin the Hobgoblin Warlord is becoming a serious threat over there!"

"I agree with Gray Dan," the woman warrior in the shiny bronze armor announced.  "His raiders are giving the King's men a terrible time.  That means there are adventures to be had, and rewards as well!"

"Come now, Pamblyn," the Holy Man said as he pulled on his long mustache.  "You heard the words of the aging ranger.  This mission we're on will be of great benefit to the King's forces!"

"How big a problem can they be?" Padrelle the Halfling asked.  "After all, they're only kobolds!"

The Holy Man, Mediphon, replied:  "You know perfectly well how great a nuisance kobolds can become.  As the ranger said, if the King was forced to send some of his soldiers to deal with them, it would weaken his stance against the hobgoblins."

"It's true!  These kobolds don't stand a chance!" exclaimed the male warrior as he drew his sword and held it aloft.  "Especially because our team is led by me:  Haldraginor Hardhelm, the hero of Haven Hills!"

The Elf rolled his eyes.  Mediphon, the Cleric, slapped one hand over his eyes and slowly dragged it down his face. 

"Would you shut up about Haven Hills?" Padrelle insisted.

"It was not a dragon!" Gray Dan flatly stated.  "The villagers were ignorant farmers!  They thought it was a dragon, but they were wrong!"

Haldraginor lowered his sword.  "What's your point?"

"The point is that we should be doing something more important than wasting our time on kobolds!" Padrelle remarked.  She turned to the Holy Man and pointed an accusing digit.  "The only reason we're stuck doing this is because you agreed to the job so quickly!"

Mediphon shrugged in meager defense.  "It will be good experience…and he did promise us a chest full of treasure.  Surely you cannot be displeased with that?"

His companions grumbled in reluctant agreement as they trudged through the undergrowth.

"Besides, they're only kobolds!" Haldraginor pointed out.  "We'll kill them all in no time at all, or my name isn't Haldraginor Hardhelm, the hero of Haven Hills!"

"We don't have to kill them," the Cleric stated.

"That's true," Pamblyn said as she adjusted the helm on her head.  "The ranger merely said that we must drive them from the caves.  So the King's soldiers need not be divided to deal with them."

The male warrior's chainmail rippled as he shrugged in response.  "Very well, we shall evict them in no time at all, or my name isn't Haldraginor Hardhelm, the hero…"

"Oh shut up!" the Halfling barked.

The Elf came to a stop and turned to his companions.  "If you're all finished squabbling, I think I've found the cave the ranger told us about."  He narrowed his eyes and dryly added, "If you're not finished, I can wait."

The green, tree-covered hillock sported a wide rugged hole like a gaping wound.  The gray rocks and dark brown dirt seemed incongruous against the verdant tranquility of the forest.  The six heroes approached with caution and peered within.  The dark tunnel was wide enough that four of them could walk abreast and it descended into the depths of the earth at a gentle angle.

"So this is it," Pamblyn said as she peered into the tunnel.

"According to the directions the ranger gave us," the Elf explained, "this is it."

Padrelle looked into the dark tunnel, unimpressed.  She looked at the faces of her fellows, and saw trepidation.  She rubbed her hands together and jumped into the mouth of the cavern.  "Well!" she cried, "Let's go see what there is to see!"  As though her words awoke him from a trance, Haldraginor followed her in. 

The Halfling stepped into the throat of the hill, her hairy bare feet slapping against the packed earth, as her companions busied themselves with drawing their weapons and lighting torches.  Padrelle looked around with wide-eyed awe at the rough walls and the exposed tree roots.  Suddenly she felt a thin string-like root snap beneath her foot, and with a rush of air, something soared over her head and the warrior behind her cried out in pain.

"What was that?" Padrelle asked, dumbfounded.  She turned and saw an arrow lodged in Haldraginor's chest. 

The warrior was suddenly the center of attention.  "What's happened?"  "He's been shot!"  "What, how?"  They surrounded him, examined the wooden shaft that protruded through his chainmail shirt.  "An arrow!"  "Probably a kobold-trap!"  "Are you all right?"

"Of course I'm all right," he replied, "It's only a scratch to Haldraginor Hardhelm, the hero of Ha…"  His words trailed off into a scream of agony as Sunthorn pulled the arrow from his chest. 

Pamblyn winced at her companion's piercing scream.  "Would you please die quietly?  We're trying to sneak up on them."

Mediphon snapped his fingers, started searching for his holy sign of the Sun God.  "I can cast a spell…heal him up good as new!"

"No, not yet!" the Wizard argued.  "We're not even in the caves yet.  You should wait until he sustains more damage, or you'll just be wasting the spell!"

Haldraginor glared at the wizard crossly.  "Thanks, Dan, you're a pal!"

"Hey, don't blame me!" Gray Dan cried in defense, "Blame Padrelle!  She's the one who set off the trap!"

The Halfling placed her fists on her hips.  "Oh, so now this is my fault?  Hey, don’t blame me because I'm unkillable!"

"You're not unkillable," Sunthorn flatly stated as he pulled some bandages out of his pack.  "You're kobold-sized.  They obviously set the trap for intruders whom they expected would be taller than they are."   Pamblyn and Mediphon helped the wounded warrior remove his pack and his armored shirt.

Padrelle harrumphed indignantly, drew her cloak about her.  "I'll scout ahead," she said as she pulled the hood up over her dark hair and turned to march deeper into the tunnel.

Moments later, the warrior was bandaged and clothed.  His companions, weapons at the ready and torches lit, started into the cavern.  The tunnel went straight for two dozen yards then turned left into darkness.  They trudged halfway to the curve before the Elf's hand shot up commanding them to stop.

"I…think I hear something coming," Sunthorn said, straining his ears.  "Hard to tell…very quiet…not too fast."

Their sword-arms tensed, ready for the inevitable onslaught of the kobold horde.  Pamblyn and Sunthorn raised their shields as Mediphon and Haldraginor took up positions behind them.  Gray Dan stood behind them all, two fingers pressed against his temple as he considered the usefulness of the spells he'd memorized today.

The Halfling padded around the curve and her companions groaned with disappointment.  Nonplussed, Padrelle beckoned them to follow, "Hey, you'll never guess what I found!  Come see!" Then she turned and bounded around the curve.

The others followed her to a side-branch tunnel.  There, where the wall to the outside tunnel met the side-branch, stood a black pillar.  It was smooth black stone that stood the entire height of the cavern, easily nine feet.  It bulged wider at its halfway point, nearly a foot in diameter, than it did at its top or bottom.  Her companions gasped in befuddlement.

Sunthorn cocked one eyebrow.  "Well that certainly doesn't belong in a cave."

"I don't understand," Pamblyn said, reaching out to run one gloved hand down the smooth stone pillar.  "What is this?  What's it doing here?"

"How should I know?" the Halfling remarked.

"It must be a sign!" Mediphon stated in breathless reverence.

"A sign of what?" Haldraginor asked, with a confused frown.

"Good question!  Let's see if we can find out!" Gray Dan exclaimed.  He placed two fingers on his temple and recited the Magical Words, his other hand stretched out toward the ebon column.  His weird recital finished, he gawked at the pillar with an expectant grin.  After a moment, the grin left him.  "Well, it's not magical in any way."

"You want to see another sign?  One that's easier to interpret?" Padrelle asked.  Her companions turned to her with expectant faces and she pointed up at a torch sticking out of the earthen wall across from the mouth of the side tunnel.  "How's that?"

It took a moment to sink in.  Then, one by one, their faces lit with understanding.  They had initially failed to notice the torch, as its light was augmented by the torches they carried.  But soon, new questions occurred to them.

"Why would there be torches lighting the kobold caves?" Gray Dan asked.

"So the kobolds can see?" Haldraginor lamely suggested.

"No," the Elf shook his head, "Kobolds can see in the dark, like we Elves."

Pamblyn narrowed her eyes.  "They must be working with some…creature that cannot see without light."  She looked around at her companions, her expression grave.  "There may very well be more than just kobolds here."

Haldraginor nodded.  "That's all right, whatever is in here, we can defeat it.  Because we have something they do not have!"  He punctuated his statement with a short jab at the air.

"And what is that?" the Elf asked.

Haldraginor punched the air again.  "The hero of Haven Hills!"  His companions groaned in reply.

To Be Continued...

a word about Dungeon Adventures

Howdy, all you Truly Adventurous Souls!

So we've finished up the last exciting episode of our Phantom Sleuth serial, which means we're going to have something new start up this week!  And aren't you anxious to find out what it is?  Of COURSE you are!  And you've come to right place, because that's what we're going to talk about today!

Well, in order to tell you about this, I have to recap the evolution of Mutant World, just in case ya missed it!

Anyway, Mutant World was a direct result of the art.  I discovered the characters created by Luigi Castellani over at Artikid Arts and was entranced by them. I wanted to write a story about these characters, and so I did.  Then I was inspired to write a few more, and have more bubbling on the back-burner even now.

While writing these stories, something occurred to me:

I also run Fantanomicon Press, which sells downloads of paper miniatures for D&D and other role-playing games.  I have several characters designed for different genres with no concept of who they are or what they're about.  So my epiphany was that I should be writing stories about them!


Seemed like a brilliant cross-promotional idea, so I set to work writing a story about some characters inspired by the figures.  The whole thing was a silly idea, and so I tried to write a silly story.  My thought was that the story was supposed to be the story being played out in a D&D-type RPG game.  Sorta like in "The Gamers" (a series of movies about a group playing D&D), except it's only the in-game stuff.

There are inherent differences between playing an RPG and writing a story, but I tried to get certain things across.  Like...having your character die-off mid-game and needing a replacement character.  There are a few other things, too; which I hope are humorous to folks that have played the game.  This is the start of...

This is...well, basically a catch-all series for miscellaneous stories inspired by D&D-type games.  This will allow me to try out different Tones And Styles, and you folks can tell me which ones you like.  

And it all starts THIS Saturday when we start our BRAND NEW serial:  Quest to the Kobold Caves!  It's the first serial to appear on the blog that has NEVER BEEN PUBLISHED BEFORE!  So don't forget to tune in this Saturday!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

The Case of the Accursed Amulet Part Four

THE CASE OF THE ACCURSED AMULET

A Phantom Sleuth Adventure

First published in Apeshit!, 2013

Part Four

Despite the rising water, the Sleuth smiled.  For Byron Twain was an ardent student of escapology, and had studied the secrets of such men as Harry Houdini, John Nevil Maskelyne, and Major Zamora.  Having his limbs lashed to a chair by mere ropes was no challenge to him.  His nimble fingers worked the knots free long before the water had risen to his knees.

The Sleuth ascended the stairs, found himself in a subterranean storeroom.  A rickety wooden staircase rose to the building above.  Crates and barrels were pushed up against one brick-lined wall across the room from a tangle of pipes with a dripping valve-wheel.  The chamber was lit by a single lantern that sat on a crate beside an arched tunnel.

Having heard no creaking complaints from the wooden stair, the Sleuth guessed that the villains had escaped through the shadowy tunnel.  With nary a hesitation, he charged down the dark corridor as quietly as his squishing shoes would allow.  

After twenty yards of bricks reinforced with wooden support beams, the tunnel widened into a vast chamber.  The Sleuth gawked in astonishment at the wide, lantern-lit dock beside the subterranean canal.  Lao Shiang waited on the pier, the monkey at his side, as two of his underlings prepared a small boat for castoff. 

The Sleuth reached for his gun but found it missing.  With a sneer curling his lip he charged across the short distance between him and the Chinese ringleader.  The golden-haired monkey turned at the sound of squishing footsteps and screeched.  The Sleuth brought his fist around and knocked the Dragon’s Claw to the boardwalk as the monkey scurried away, screaming. 

The two Chinese henchmen scrambled to the dock as the Sleuth scooped up the ornate box from Lao Shiang’s hand.  The Sleuth stood, threw a haymaker that knocked one goon into the canal.  He ran back for the tunnel, pursued by the second Chinaman who was spurred on by Lao Shiang’s wrathful command:  “Kill him!  And retrieve the pendant!”

The Sleuth was nearly to the tunnel when arms wrapped about his waist.  The tackle threw him and his attacker off their feet.  The Sleuth rolled onto his back, saw the Chinese thug springing up from the boards and diving at him again.  The masked hero lashed out with both feet, struck the villain in the chest. 

The henchman slammed into the wall beside the tunnel, dislodging a lantern.  The oil splattered as the light clattered on the floorboards, setting fire to the dock, and the Chinaman’s changshan.  The Sleuth and the thug both jumped to their feet, pulled back their fists to continue the fight.  Then the Chinese brute paused, eyes widened.  With a shriek of pain he slapped at the flames on his shoulders in futility.  Screaming, he ran across the dock and jumped into the canal, even as the other thug pulled himself out of the water.

Seizing the opportunity, the Sleuth darted into the tunnel as the fire climbed up the heavy support beams at the mouth.  He ran for the sub-basement beneath the laundry.  Halfway there, a sharp pain erupted on the back of his head.  He recoiled in pain, crashed against the left wall.  He paused for one deep breath, then urged himself to continue.  He looked back to check on his stalker and a fist struck him between his masked eyes.  The Sleuth hit the hard bricks again and fell to the tunnel floor, the box tumbling from his feeble hand.

Groggy, the Sleuth lifted himself up and reached out in a lame attempt to stop the Chinaman from plucking the box from the floor.  The thug then uttered some pithy remark in his native tongue, and dripped his way back to the canal. 

Powered by sheer stubbornness and determination, the Sleuth pulled himself to his feet and stumbled down the tunnel in pursuit.  The pounding in his head was like a dozen drummers, each beating a different tune on his head.  Ahead of him there was a thunderous crash.  He looked up, tried to blink away the stars and saw the flaming support beams had fallen along with a heavy rain of brick and dirt. 

As the cloud of concrete dust dissipated, the Sleuth saw one of Lao Shiang’s dripping henchmen, an iron crowbar in hand.   Behind him, the Dragon’s Claw stood in the boat with the ornate box in his bony grasp.  The Chinese mastermind barked out a curt order and the henchman, scowling at the Sleuth, dropped the crowbar in favor of another lantern.  Without pause, the thug threw the new lantern at the debris, adding fuel to the fire then turned and rushed to the getaway boat.

Lao Shiang raised the box as though offering a toast.  “I should have guessed that hasty deathtrap would be insufficient for the likes of you.”  His underlings scrambled about the boat, preparing for launch.  “But in the end, your escape was for naught.   In a way, I am disappointed, for I expected better.  However, I suppose even the Sleuth must lose once in a while.”  Then he slid the lid off the box and gasped in surprise.

“Looking for this, Lao?”

The Dragon’s Claw looked at the Sleuth, trapped in the tunnel behind the flaming debris, the pendant of Mo Tzu dangling from his fingers.  Growling with lethal wrath, the crime lord looked about the underground dock with beady eyes.  In a loud, clear voice Lao Shiang issued a statement in the language of his homeland.

The Sleuth could only wonder at his words for a fraction of a second.  Then a ball of golden brown fury burst through the flames and landed on his chest.  The impact threw him to the tunnel floor once more, this time with the sinister skull-faced monkey snarling down at him.  The ancient pendant, too, hit the floor and with a pop shattered in two equal halves.  Both the Sleuth and the killer monkey looked with curiosity and saw the folded scrap of paper that had been concealed within.

The monkey recovered first, screeched into the Sleuth’s masked face, then snatched the antique note in its paw.  It jumped up to a supporting timber, the Sleuth scrambling after it.  The monkey leapt up and grabbed one of the beams on the ceiling.  The Sleuth, still dazed, tried to wrap his arms around the furry thief, but failed.

The monkey jumped through the fiery blockage once more, scampered across the dock, and jumped aboard Lao Shiang’s boat as it was paddled toward the nighttime harbor.  The Sleuth watched with disappointed eyes as the Chinese crime lord took the historic note from his pet.

With a gloatful grin, Lao Shiang held up the note for the Sleuth to see, then eagerly unfolded it.  The grin melted from his face and he crumpled the brittle note in one talon-like hand.  Fuming, he glanced hither and yon about the subterranean canal as he thought, until his eyes fell upon the Sleuth, still watching intently from the tunnel.

“For the sake of closure, I shall tell you that I have been thwarted today, though not by you,” said Lao Shiang at last.  “Sometime in the long history of the pendant, some other found its secret before me, and in its place he left…”  The mastermind cast a hateful glance down at the hand with the crumpled paper.  “…a rather surly note.  So, alas, my efforts here have born me no fruit.  However, if you have truly come for the pendant, then I bid you take it and go.”  By now, his unlit boat slipped beyond the light of the lantern-lit dock, vanishing in the darkness of the subterranean canal.  “I bear you no ill will, and apologize for your inconveniences.  It was interesting to finally meet you, O Sleuth!  Who knows?  Perhaps we shall meet again in the future, under better circumstances!  Farewell!”

The Sleuth squinted into the shadowy waterway but could no longer see the escaping boat, nor Lao Shiang’s golden robes.  With a sigh, he frowned down and snatched the two halves of the pendant from the floor.  A cursory examination showed him that the pendant was undamaged.  He deduced it was cleverly designed to be hollow, and was meant to open thus.  With careful fingers he snapped the two halves together, marveled at the trinket for a moment, then slipped it into a pocket.

He frowned once more at the waters beyond the fiery dock, and nodded grimly to himself.  For he expected to cross paths with the Dragon’s Claw again, he was already planning it, and he did not expect the circumstances to be any better.  A gut feeling told him that next time, it would be much worse.

The End

Tune in next time for a NEW adventure!

more Dungeons and Dragons

What up to all you Thieves And Swordsmen!

So, here's what's been going on with me in recent months...

As you may or may not know, I currently reside in beautiful, scenic Las Vegas, Nevada where it doesn't rain enough.  I do have some family here, among them is my young nephew, who just finished high school.  A friend of his from the east coast moved out here a few month ago, and they wanted to play some D&D.  So we have been.

Apparently his friend has never played before, so I cobbled together a quick adventure that I thought would give him a good taste of the game.  Of course, whenever I have a new player, I feel a certain responsibility to play up the different aspects of the game, and all during play I tried to stress that different groups play in different ways.  Some favor role-playing, while others favor simple game mechanics.  Some focus on just fighting monsters and bad-guys, while others take copious notes to solve the long-term mysteries in the game and storyline.

I try to keep a healthy balance of all these things.  There's enough story to keep them following it, but no so much that it's overwhelming.  Some more notes would probably help them out, but we usually just sit and talk over things for a moment and they remember.  There is a good deal of fighting, but that first adventure threw me off because they decided to try and talk to the goblins in the cave instead of simply fighting them...which led to an unexpected but epic conclusion.

We're using the Labyrinth Lord rules, because they're quick and easy without a lot of the extra (optional) rules.  I thought that would be easier to explain to the new player.  We can import other rules if and when we feel they are needed.

My nephew decided to play a fighter, which is what he usually is.  His friend is playing a thief.  Thanks to one of those shows on YouTube, he wanted to have a gun, so I imported the wheellock pistols and rifles from the Red Steel campaign world.  It takes three rounds to load the gun, then you only get one shot, but if you're lucky, that shot can do a lot of damage!

I was hitting all the classic cliche's because it was quick and easy!  They started off in the little village where they had lived all their lives.  They worked for a pig-farmer until they were 20, finally had enough of that and decided to become adventurers!  So one day, in the tavern of course, they are approached by an out-of-towner who wants to hire a group to play bodyguard for him and take him to a nearby set of caves with a dangerous reputation.

Why does he want to go?  He's been researching a great kingdom that fell apart about a thousand years ago, and he believes there is some sort of marker, or sign that will give him a clue about to find some prominent and important ruins from that kingdom.  He has a purely archaeological purpose, of course!  

They hired a couple of npc's who were right there in the bar at the time and set out for adventure, excitement, and really wild things!

Then there was an ancient stone religious site, pesky sprites, a rickety bridge over a long chasm, betrayal, murder!  And that was just the first half of the adventure!  There was a mysterious invisible thing trapped in a chest, which burned runes onto the characters foreheads when it was freed.  A group of goblins that would have let them move on if only they had shut up, but instead they kept talking until the goblins became suspicious.

The goblins had a magical device and used it, but the players' stalwart hired-help destroyed the magic item and all hell broke loose, allowing the players and their companions to escape in the chaos.  They found some surface-people imprisoned by the goblins and freed them, killed an ogre way too-easily, took his treasure, found a way out of the caves and called it a day and headed back to the village.

There were minor problems and unanswered questions when then returned to the village.  Most of their treasure was in the form of gems and pieces of jewelry which they had to sell before they could pay off their hired help.  But no one in their little farming village could afford to pay what they were worth.  They would have to move on to the large dwarf-city to the north, or on to a larger human town to the south.

It turns out that one of the goblins' prisoners was looking for the same sign as their benefactor.  Both of these characters said they learned of marker in the caves from a certain Temple, which is located in a human city to the south-west and they were fervently convinced that it was a dark and evil place that needed prompt investigation.

But more importantly, what were these mysterious runes on their foreheads?  There was no wizard in their little farming village to consult.  The nearest wizard lived in the human town to the south.  (In all honesty, I didn't know what they were for when I put them in the adventure.  It was simply a device to worry the players, and be a good reason to continue adventuring.)

But apparently the mysteries were enticing, and there was a sense of a "Bigger World" out there, and they decided they wanted to explore more of it.  So, I've been developing the world, named it Leauvalar, and drew up a map depicting part of the Kingdom of Griffonwyr, wherein lies their hometown. 

They have had four or five more adventures since then.  During their travels they have lost a lot of NPC companions (but not all of them), they've been aged by ghosts, temporarily polymorphed, poisoned, paralyzed, received weird adjustments to various ability scores, carried cursed weapons, followed two treasure maps to buried treasure, had experience levels drained and restored, encountered rival (NPC) adventuring groups, and found their hometown leveled in retaliation by the remainder of that goblin tribe from their first adventure.

All this, and they're only fifth level!  I guess it's been about two, maybe three months in game time.  We've been playing for about five months, I guess.  

It has been years since I ran an ongoing game like this, and I have admit it feels pretty good to do it again.  On the other hand, I'm beginning to define many of the vague mysteries I've been hinting at, plus I'm re-learning how much work goes into running the game.  I'm starting to get kinda bored with it.  

On top of that, my nephew's friend is going to have to move back to the east coast.  Some sort of family matter, I think.  Of course, with all the restrictions from the Covid lockdowns, I must admit that Las Vegas isn't as much fun, or offer quite as much opportunity as it did...say, a year ago.  

Both my nephew and his friend have suggested that we continue the game by playing online via Skype, or one of those online table top sites.  Apparently I'm getting old, because that sounds pretty weird to me, as I've never tried to play D&D online like that before.  So I don't quite know what we're going to do about that yet.

If we do continue, we probably won't play as often.  I seem to be designing adventures instead of getting stories written.  It's not their fault, I'm just terrible at managing my time.  On the other hand, I am thinking of using these adventures as the template for a story, or at least writing up the adventures as modules to sell on DriveThru.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see how the adventure unfolds.  Well, I have at least three different things I need to work on, so I guess I'll bring this to a close.  

Don't forget to tune in on Saturday for the conclusion of the Phantom Sleuth adventure, "The Case of the Accursed Amulet"!  And I'll be back in two weeks with another exciting post!

Until then, I wish you all...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell