I carefully peek through the door to see if I can, ummm, see anything. Assuming nothing goes wrong, I then start creeping back to the group to report what I have seen. Otherwise I’ll be standing by this door forever. Obviously if I am spotted, I hightail it back to the group screaming bloody murder.
A short time later Autolycus is hightailing it back to the group screaming bloody murder. He had a brief glance into a largish chamber with at least one other exit, some scattered furniture and fittings, and half a dozen or more goblins hurriedly grabbing weapons off some kind of a rack. Mercifully he had five yards start on them, and if anything he manages to extend the lead a little in his flight. Your plans?
“Auto is as good a sneak as I am a warrior.”
ACM braces himself against the corner of the hallway, letting Auto pass and preparing to swing at anything pursuing him.
Meat shield it is. I’m going to use my shield and ax to try and hold the corner agaist as many of them as possible so the magely ones can do their damage over my head.
“Damn it Auto, your about as sneaky as my uncle’s one man band I’ve met drunk deaf people who were stealthier then you intact when this is all over I’m going to buy you a big bush and nail it to your ass becuse it’s the only way you’re ever going to hide from a deaf, drunk, blind man.”
“Hey, I made it to the door without incident. Halfway’s gotta count for something…”
I run past the corner, and, if I have enough of a lead, attempt a sneak attack at one of the goblins running past the corner blind. If this fails, I run through the party past the warriors and clerics.
SOP. I’ll Wait for a goblin to get close, blind him with Light, the apply staff directly to the forehead…
I’ll also cast light, but I will do it in the middle of the pack. Frodo should blind the front row (or 1), while I’ll reach more of the back. Afterwards, I’ll pull out my mace and start making goblin mincemeat.
I’ll scan the goblins looking for any that seem to be hanging back/different/having ranged weapons. That’s the guy I’ll try to pick off from a distance with my own darts and I’ll be saving my magic missile for anyone who looks like a big boss, or off chanting or casting something of their own. Else, it’ll be darts of opportunity from behind a few meat shields vs. the rangier of opponents.
“Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!”
Autolycus tries to duck into a patch of shadow just after rounding the corner. A goblin scimitar comes swishing at him, notifying him of failure, but the gobbo misses by miles. Then it’s a free-for-all, but with the heroes set and ready. Oredigger’s mighty blow skates off a goblin shield, but Appleciders connects and sends a goblin to kingdom come. Melon brains a goblin with a spectacular blow that almost made it worth the wait! And a couple of light spells add to the confusion. Ishtar sees no obvious leader types worth a spell, so contents himself with a flurry of darts, one of which almost lands on his own foot as it rebounds off the rim of Oredigger’s shield; another one lightly wounds one of the bad guys.Hoopy Frood contributes a couple of daggers to be going on with and skewers a luckless goblin through each eyeball. Autolycus fails to trouble the scorer.
Two partially blinded, the remaining goblins achieve nothing but to yell and panic. Auto seizes an opportunity and unseams one of them with a sneaky blow, Oredigger beheads another with a skilful blow of his axe, and Wolverine mercifully renders the last one lifeless before it can even run for it. Good heavens, that was almost competent.
You have, among other things, the severed head of a goblin cheerfully giving off bright lamplight like the most realistic Halloween lantern you ever saw…
I’ll grab that glowing head and use it as a torch.
I’ll search the bodies.
“You know Auto you can’t hide very well and that run down the passageway felt like it took forever. You really might want want to think of changing professions. Chess might be more your style.”
Did any successfully get away? If not:
“Who wants the duty of hauling the bodies out? I’m sure the townspeople will be thrilled to find rotting corpses in the hallway when they next visit this crypt. I’ll help out *after *we place the urn in its final resting place.”
I’ll gather up my daggers and darts and see if I can’t pick up anything of interest amongst the bodies and chaos.
“Erm… remind me again fellows- since when do Goblin heads glow? Or did someone choose to really cast light on that poor bastard? At least you got him in the face and not some other random body part we’d have to lug around…”
“I think it’s taking the word ‘headlamp’ a bit too literally.”
Pulls daggers out of the eye sockets and wipes the blood off on the goblins clothes.
“Anyway, the bodies aren’t going anywhere, so I think we should finish our urn task first before we remove the dead. Besides, it’s not like decaying goblins smell any worse than the live ones.”
“I second the whole, let’s leave the cleanup for the people who are paying us to do this job… let’s just make sure we have a clear path to run through though in case we need to make a hasty retreat.”
Your instructions concerning the urn are to find a burial chamber with an icon matching the seal on the urn. Apparently this will put someone’s unquiet spirit to rest, or some such godbothery. There’s no sign of any burial chambers so far and this place appears to be out of business, although perhaps the unquiet spirit in question doesn’t mind that. You’re at a corner in a passageway, near the foot of the steps you came down. If we take your direction as you entered to be “north”, then “west” takes you to where Auto found the late goblins and “north” carries on into darkness, while “south” would be back out again.
Anything on the bodies? weapons, armor, diamonds the size of my head?
“Well, I guess we’ve cleared out Auto’s friends why don’t you head down there again auto and see if there is anything worth investigating. We already know you can out run them over that distance. If he doesn’t come back I say we keep heading North.”
“My great, delicious Lord, thank You for delivering us from the clutches of evil. May your noodles bask in the glorious steam of eternity. Amen.”
Melon piously loots the corpses for whatever he can.
“rAmen”