GoCorral

This session was attended by Will, Ben, Jamie, and Trajan. It was held over Google Hangouts just like normal.

Outwit the Crystal

The party puzzled over the golden door with crossed halberds carved in it and Goblin words written upon it, “The blade kills. The hand guides the blade. The mind guides the hand. The spirit guides the mind. The spirit resides in the body. The body dies by the blade. Such is the way.” Touching the door didn’t open it and shoving it appeared to do nothing. Terroc threw a disintegrate at the door. The door seemed to absorb the spell. The green ray stopped and turned into nothing at the door.

Thinking that the psicrystal they’d found in the treasure chamber might know something about the door, the party attempted to interrogate it. The psicrystal proved resistant once again. The party cooked up a plan to polymorph Aldarian into a hobgoblin to trick the psicrystal into thinking it could trust its bearer. Unfortunately, the party forgot to discuss this plan outside of the hearing of the psicrystal. After Aldarian polymorphed with Terroc’s help and picked up the psicrystal, it said, “I heard your plan. You’ll have to be smarter than that.” The psicrystal attempted to escape before refusing to communicate once again.

The party sequestered the psicrystal in Aldarian’s magic key room before discussing further plans. They decided they would trick it with magic once again. Terroc would polymorph into a fierce looking hobgoblin warrior. He would use his magically enhanced lies to trick the psicrystal into thinking he had slain the party. Torin would add a tongues spell so that Terroc could speak in the psicrystal’s native Goblin. Terroc would create an illusion to aid with the party’s “death” and the rest of the party would make death noises that the psicrystal would overhear in the key room.

The plan was enacted and Terroc successfully fooled the psicrystal. He took the psicrystal to the golden halberd door and asked it for the answer to the riddle.
“Read the words and your answer is there.”
Terroc read the words aloud and then said, “It does nothing. What does it mean?”
“Kruk-Ma-Kali gave the power of his Empire to the strongest. You must have been strong and clever to defeat those who held me captive. To get past this door you must be strong and clever as well, but perhaps you are not clever enough?”
Terroc shouted in Goblin, “NOT CLEVER ENOUGH! I’ll show you, you piece of glass!” Terroc covered the psicrystal in blankets to cut it off from the outside world (And so that the party could talk in private).
The psicrystal spoke in Terroc’s mind, “I do not approve.”

Without knowing what to do next the party took a knife to the door to see if it was really made of gold. They found that it was a layer of gold on top of oak. Aldarian got out the black longsword and used it to attack the door. His swings revealed that the longsword was cursed! However, the swings did have an effect on the door. On a particularly good swing, the door animated and began to writhe and scream in agony. Aldarian took a beating as the door writhed around him. Tagenadi pulled out the rusty dagger the party had found in the sarcophagus in the treasure chamber and stuck it into the door as well. Tagenadi took some damage from the door’s flailing.

After a few tense seconds of the door screaming and struggling under the blades, the mirrors of the room shattered, showering the party with thousands of glass shards. Everyone got cut up pretty bad. The door shriveled up into nothing.

Resting Place

Torin healed everyone up in a jiffy and the party looked beyond the door. There was a short corridor ending in a ten foot square red dragon hide tent flap, like those used on hobgoblin yurts in the modern world. Aldarian moved forward to investigate and found that there was a illusion covered spiked pit on the right half of the corridor. Finding no traps on the tent flap, the party assumed marching order.
1. Tagenadi
2. Aldarian
3. Torin
4. Terroc

Tagenadi ripped up the tent flap to reveal a thirty by thirty foot chamber. The chamber had unfinished gray stone unlike the rest of the tomb, which had smooth crimson marble covering the walls. At the opposite end of the room was a throne with a hobgoblin skeleton sitting upon it in resplendent finery. A crown sat upon the skeleton’s head and a sword as black as a sliver of midnight rested on its knees. The party had at last found the corpse of the Hobgoblin King, Kruk-Ma-Kali!

Aldarian moved forward sweeping for traps. As he reached close to the throne the sword moved up into the air and attacked! The sword danced and weaved in the air as if wielded by a seven foot tall humanoid.

Tagenadi moved in and tried to grapple the sword. Terroc summoned an earth elemental. Aldarian moved behind Tagenadi for safety. Torin animated the throne and the skeleton to assist. The sword slashed at Tagenadi a few times. The cuts it inflicted bled at an alarming rate. Torin healed the wounds. Tagenadi finally managed to grab the sword. He felt the power of the sword attempting to possess him as well as a presence within the sword trying to impose its will over him. Terroc opened his portable hole for Tagenadi to shove the sword into. Tagenadi quickly did so and Terroc closed the hole up. Kharad-khor the Bloodthirster was now in the possession of the party!

The party puzzled over the riddles upon the door more. They decided that they had to stab the blade into the old body of Kruk-Ma-Kali to have the “blade kill the body.” Tagenadi brought the blade out under a protection from evil spell. He cut off the corpse’s neck and then threw the sword back into the portable hole. The sword continued to struggle within the hole, so that didn’t free the sword of the evil influence on it. The party suspected that Kruk-Ma-Kali was possessing the sword.

Aldarian searched the room and found a small piece of paper behind the throne. The paper read in Elven,
“Dearest Kruk.
The preparations are complete. We have no Doubt you shall find them satisfactory. I have decided that the negotiated fees were insufficient, however, and have taken the remaining half of your treasure, perhaps a bit more. If you feel further discussion of the matter is warranted, you may of course seek Us at the indicated location. I must thank you and your followers for the opportunity to perfect my Skill in Construction. With the lessons We have learned here, the Other Tomb should be nigh impenetrable.
-Sahamathrian”
On the back of the paper was a map of the desert with the elven rune for treasure marking a location in the northeast.

Tagenadi recognized the name, Sahamathrian. He told the party that Sahamathrian was an elven wizard who led a rebellion against the royal elven family of the Kingdom of Valor. Sahamathrian was exiled and he fled south, vowing revenge on all elves.

Amalius’s Psicrystal piped up at this point, saying, “The rune on the map is where the undead that attack Mars’ Oasis all the time come from. Perhaps the Other Tomb is where those undead come from.”

The party was puzzled, but unsure what to do with this information. However, the note mentioned treasure, so they filed the map away for later perusal.

Sword of the Conqueror

The party then realized that the psicrystal they’d been carrying around might be the psicrystal of Kruk-Ma-Kali! They brought out the psicrystal again to negotiate with it. After a winded exchange, the psicrystal agreed that Kruk-Ma-Kali would come out if he was allowed to possess the body of Aldarian. The party chained up Aldarian and then had him reach into the portable hole and grasp the sword.

Aldarian spoke in the deep accented Common of the True Hobgoblin King, “Kruk-Ma-Kali, the King of All, lives again!” A shudder passed through the spines of Torin, Tagenadi, and Terroc.
While talking with Kruk-Ma-Kali the party came to realize that the conquering power of the sword was actually the ghost contained within it. Kruk-Ma-Kali demanded that Tagenadi and Torin leave the room while he addressed his two “generals.” Torin and Tagenadi refused. Kruk-Ma-Kali brought his sword up to Aldarian’s neck. Torin and Tagenadi called Kruk-Ma-Kali’s bluff. He brought the sword closer and cut a small nick in Aldarian’s neck that began to bleed profusely. Torin and Tagenadi decided it was best to leave the room at that point.
Terroc voluntarily brought Kruk-Ma-Kali up to speed on the current events of the world, “A nation ruled by draconic vampires has formed in the west. They march upon the free people of the east. We represent an Alliance of men and dwarves that resist the dragovinians and their dark god, Blendegad. We sought the power of Kharad-Khor to help us turn the tide against the evil from the west.”
“What of the hobgoblins? How do they fare in the modern world?”
“After your death the Hobgoblin Empire fractured. The hobgoblins live far in the east or are enslaved by humans. They are divided and squabble amongst each other.”
“They need a strong leader such as myself to unite them.”
“My companions and I had hoped you would ally with us against the evil of Blendegad.”
“Blendegad? That is not a Hobgoblin god and I do not recognize it as a Greek name. This is a new god?”
“Yes, he is a vampiric dragon. He is not fully god and still weak.”
“Killing a god is a proper challenge for my rebirth! I agree to ally with you! I shall go into the east and reunite the hobgoblins before returning to crush this upstart god!” Kruk-Ma-Kali noticed that a large puddle of elven blood had formed on the tomb floor. He called into the corridor, “Dwarf! Return and use your healing magics on this fragile elven form!”
Torin returned, but refused to approach the possessed Aldarian. He used a mass cure light wounds instead. Torin then asked, “How do you know that I am a cleric?”
“My psicrystal has been watching your group since you recovered it from the treasure chamber. What it knows, I know.”

The party commenced to bickering among themselves at this point. Kruk-Ma-Kali used this distraction to start slowly cutting away at the chain on his foot manacles with Kharad-Khor. The party noticed, but didn’t really care.

The argument was over what to do with the sword now that they knew the drawbacks of using it. Previously, the party had thought the sword instilled in its bearer a desire to conquer and the capability to do so. Their plan was to give this to Balllard, king of Aractrash, the Jungle Kingdom. Hopefully, Ballard would be suitably motivated by the sword to abandon his isolationism and join the war on the Alliance side. His undying desire to conquer would be controlled after the war by some means.

The party had thought the sword had given Kruk-Ma-Kali his great abilities in battle and the desire to conquer. Now they realized that the power of the sword was Kruk-Ma-Kali. He possesses its bearer and gives the user the knowledge and desire to conquer vast empires for the good of the hobgoblin race. They could not so easily unleash this horror upon the world.

Terroc was okay with taking Kruk-Ma-Kali out of the tomb as long as they did it under their terms. He would remain in a hobgoblin body of their own choosing. Tagenadi was against bringing him out under any circumstances. Torin felt bringing him out was a bad idea as well, but felt the danger of the dragovinians facing the dwarves warranted the risk Kruk-Ma-Kali posed. Aldarian wanted to take the sword out as well.

The party told Kruk-Ma-Kali that a hobgoblin village lay in the valley outside the tomb. They told him their plan. Kruk-Ma-Kali would leave the body of Aldarian. The sword would be left in the tomb while the party left to pick a few fine hobgoblin specimens to give Kruk-Ma-Kali a choice in which would be his vessel. They would return with the hobgoblin and Kruk-Ma-Kali would get a body. From there Kruk-Ma-Kali could meet with Alliance leaders in Bradel Fields before raising an army in the Hobgoblins Lands to assist the Alliance.

The Hobgoblin King ceased sawing at his chains before refusing, “I shall not leave this body, frail as it is, until I am granted a new one to immediately vacate into. Too long have I been without form. I will go with you to pick out a body for myself! I will be the judge of what is best for me! I will not make any contract with you until I have seen the current state of the world for myself. I will not be tricked again!”

Kruk-Ma-Kali took a defensive stance and the party decided to have another huddle. They wanted to take down Aldarian and they knew they could do it. The problem was Kruk-Ma-Kali’s previous threat of suicide. They decided to go ahead with knocking Aldarian out and then having Torin standing by to heal if Kruk turned Kharad-Khor upon himself. During the discussion Kruk-Ma-Kali sawed through a link in his foot manacles and freed himself.

The party attacked. Kruk-Ma-Kali rushed Tagenadi, but couldn’t get past his defensive chain stance. Soon, Aldarian was knocked out. They grabbed the sword and thrust it back into Terroc’s portable hole before it could reanimate. Aldarian’s wounds were healed and the party considered what they could do with the spirit of the Hobgoblin Conqueror.