Goblin Mine

Goblin Mine

‘I can remember a time before the devastation, when we still had a chance against the greenskins. There were five of us, passing through some village in the back of beyond and it we were hired to deal with raiding goblins who’d moved into an old mine complex. We had a cleric, Virat the Pious, Telestia, she was a feisty half elf fighter cleric, a slightly shifty dwarf thief, Mogron Valagard, a ranger, Trorn Trueeye and me. The villagers were frightened and pretty useless. I’m fairly sure that our thief didn’t even find one worth pick pocketing. We saw some of the bodies from the attacks. Something nasty was slicing them up good. Something beyond gobbos.

A local ranger guided us to the mine and we went in, despite the fact that tracks suggested the goblins were numbered in scores. We were inexperienced and not afraid of anything. The ranger was pretty scornful of us, especially as our ranger seemed pretty incapable of tracking himself. The first room we found was some sort of magical place, grassy, sunlight, magical. We distrusted it at once and went back another way. We followed corridors passing cave ins and only the dwarf felt at home.

Reaching a door at last, we could hear snoring and we smashed our way into the room beyond to find it packed with goblins. I slept them all, just like that, and we cut their throats without them lifting a finger against us. Our only problem was avoiding drowning in their blood. Those were the days.

The dwarf discovered a trap protecting one exit from the room, but we avoided it using a key from one of the bodies. In the storage area beyond we were rewarded with a cache of money and food, and a robe of protection. The dwarf found some pretty natty lock picks that he was happy with too. Managed to drop the stone trap as he left the rom, but could have been worse.

Heading deeper into the mine we were attacked by giant rats that came out of nowhere. Although we beat them off the ranger picked up a nasty bite – probably what gave him the disease that cost him a pretty penny to get cured later. Then we came upon a room with a fountain. Oh and loads more sleeping goblins. Having rested up, I slept nearly all of this bunch too and we dealt with the few still standing relatively easily. The fountain water proved to have healing qualities, but occasionally with side effects. Fortunately only the dwarf suffered from these.

Resting up here we were rudely interrupted by a goblin patrol, but eventually made our way in the direction they had come from, avoiding the impressive exit with a strange mechanism on it that seemed to possibly lack a key. I was called upon to sleep another bunch of greenskins in the corridors after this. Orcs this time. Then through a secret door and another bunch of goblins. No sleep spell left, I wasn’t the mage I am today I’m afraid.

Hard fighting this time a bit of a slog but by the time we were through in their our running total must have been fifty or sixty, minimum. Leaving this room we found the magical illusory chamber again and realised we had circled right back toward the entrance. We back tracked and in doing so located the key to the fountain room doors, hidden on the inside of the secret door protected by a snake that we burned away.

Using the key brought us to a great cavern, packed with goblins and giant crabs they had tamed. Mystery of the sliced bodies solved any way. We fell back exchanging arrows with them as we did so, luring them into a pool of flaming oil which toasted a lot of our problem nicely. Some of the crabs were maddened by the fire and drove them to attack their masters. At last we attacked for the oil had wreaked terrible havoc, but a second wave of goblins came from the far side of the river in the cavern, and though we had slain a score of goblins and crabs we were driven back to the fountain room by superior numbers and fled down the corridor to the very first guardroom where we found the exit magically barred.

We made our final stand, there were so many goblins we had long since resorted to stripping their bodies for arrows and by the end only two of us were still conscious to finish the leader with his magic hammer and bracers. One nearly escaped but was killed by a wounded crab as he ran. Finally, we used the waters of the fountain to revive our injured. Miraculously we had all survived against around a hundred foes or more.

Our clerics desecrated the unholy temple that lay deep in the great cavern and we found riches beyond the meagre fee paid us by the frightened villagers and a couple of magic items too. That was how it was against the greenskins in the old days. They had no answer to our magic. Of course that was nearly three hundred years ago, before the rise of the great orc wizards…’