Day 13 - Hobgoblin Guard Room

After an extended rest and regrouping in Winterhaven, the group of adventurers sold off some of their lesser needed items, and purchased themselves some new supplies and weapons before setting out back to The Keep. Kaede decided that she would remain in Winterhaven, just to make sure that the threat to it was over for now.

Arriving back at The Keep, they ventured down through the first level and found a staircase leading down into the second, and lower level. They saw standing just beyond the bottom of the stairs, two small statured figures.

Approaching,  one of the figures cries out at them "Shadow seeks shadow!"

The group after a quick deliberation decide they're seeking the password that they recovered from Ninaran outside Winterhaven. They reply "And life fails in the dark!". After which one of the hobgoblin ventures off and finds their superior. Returning, a larger hobgoblin asks the group what business that they have in The Keep.

While the hobgoblins are distracted discussing what to do with these possible intruders, Yotisot decides to try and rope them. He pulls a rope from his pack and throws it to Jokun and in turn to Song-fey. The roped hobgoblins cry out, and the adventurers attempt to pull them all into the open pit well behind the hobgoblins, but to no avail.

Two of the hobgoblins manage to break free and attack the group, but the adventurers fight back with such force that two of them are knocked into the well and killed, with the final enemy dispatched and then thrown in as well.

Just in time for another hobgoblin to enter the room, now void of other hobgoblins, and puzzling to him, he asks what this strange group is doing in their guard room.

The adventurers bluff the hobgoblin to believe that they have just dispatched a number of other hobgoblins who were working against the wishes of Kalariel, and that they have thrown them into the well for their crime. The hobgoblin wanders over to inspect the well, and as he approaches the group push him over into the well and he falls to his death.

Just as they thought their battle was over, another dumbfounded looking but larger hobgoblin approaches them from a darkened hallway. Again, they bluff the hobgoblin and he walks over to the group. They greet this new hobgoblin in different ways, each puzzling to him. He reveals that he has no name, and is simply a menial guard in the ranks of the other goblins of The Keep.

The group decide to quicken his fate, and push him into the well also. But he is not killed as he falls, landing on the bodies of his comrades. Two of the group feeling sorry for this unnamed creature wish to help him, while Jokun does not, and decides to drop his pants and defecate into the well, narrowly missing the hobgoblin, who thinks this is another form of strange greeting.

After a lengthy discussion, the group decide to let the hobgoblin go, but only if he provides them with information on what is beyond this room in the second level of The Keep. Naming this new friend 'Buddy', he provides them with knowledge that they face the rest of this goblin comrades in their barracks, and also his hobgoblin master. But that he does not know what lies further in the depths of The Keep.

Let loose, Buddy retreats upwards to the exit of The Keep, looking to live a simple life in the outside air and sunshine, he has become weary of the darkness he has lived in all his life. Yotisot and Song-fey are happy for their new friend, while Jokun is quite dismayed that they let a hobgoblin leave.