Friday, December 31, 2010

On to Shadowfang Keep

There was plenty for us to understand and worry about before embarking.  I didn't understand much of it.

We had to stop whoever was doing something under the castle.  That was my understanding.  I believe there was more, the whole "Shadowfell" thing, but it was kind of confusing so I let the Deva worry about it and went where they said the bad guy was.

We got to the ruined castle without a kobold ambush, which was new for us.  It was very, very quiet and seemed like something was watching us while we searched the ruins and looked for the entrance into the dungeons.  I think it was Izzy who found the entrance first, and down we went.

The passage went to the north and was pretty well lit.  That meant sending out sneaky guys up to see what was happening was out as an option, so I led the group downwards into whatever was waiting for us.  I tried to walk as quietly as everyone else, but there's no hope.  My shield always clangs off my arm or my leg and it's just quite impossible to tiptoe in plate armor, but I tried.


I failed, mostly, but I tried.  I clanged as quietly as I could down the stairs while Listillin and the rogue were right behind me.  Following them were Izzy and Findel and Idria brought up the rear.


The passageway opened up into a broad room that was about 30' x 30'.  There were four pillars in the room, and 10' passages leading in all four directions.  There also was a goblin!


Just one goblin?  I paused for a second as I stepped into the room and stepped partially behind one of the pillars for cover and to see what was happening as the rest of us filed in.  As my group came in behind me, two goblins appeared in the distance down the south hall armed with crossbows.  Well, I was too far away to run at them and get into combat before I got shot down, so I waited to see if I could somehow get the advantage, since we seemed to have superior firepower to them.  Listillin, however, charged, being much more potent in melee combat.  The ground opened up underneath him as he reached midway and he plunged into darkness.


It all got confusing then.  Everyone else opened fire on the goblins, doing significant damage and taking very little.  A fourth goblin appeared from the east, but Akai-Tori was ready for him and dispatched him without too much difficulty.  However, Listillin was in significant trouble as he'd fallen into a swarm of rats that had him completely covered.  He'd landed a bit awkwardly and was on the ground, and his sword was of little use against them, so he tried to stand up and get out of the pit, but was unable.  I dove down into the pit to help.  I fortunately landed on my feet and proceeded to stomp and bash as many of the rats as I could.  It was slow going, it seemed two more swarmed over us for every one we killed.  Findel threw a rope down, but with the rats we were unable to get up until they were all dead.


Fortunately, they handled the four goblins without us quite easily.  We searched the area and found a small amount of gold and silver and moved on to the east.  We opened a closed door and descended further.  The passageway went a short way before giving us the option of turning right (to the south) and descending into an unlit area or continuing east to the light.  We stayed east.

It opened up in to another large room.  It was strange, it seemed in a total state of destruction.  There were two levels to the room, the level we were on (a small part), and then an entire second level where apparently they were excavating for something.  They, being goblins.  And two big drake-dog things, the like that almost ate me back when I was struggling with doors.

Most of the goblins were in the excavated, as were both drakes.  The little platform that we were on was about 20' x 20' with a 5' wide plank that seemed to be the only other way down into the excavated area.  There were about 4 non-excavated islands around the room, connected by flimsy looking boards for the goblins to walk across.  Well, I charged down the plank to get the dogs, since I knew how much they would hurt if they got up into my party, realized my error and stopped halfway down.  This prevented them from getting up to the group.

Once again, our firepower was superior to theirs, and other than a couple scratches, we were defeating them pretty easily.  Akai-Tori teleported down to the ground level to get to backstab the drakes, but Listillin had no such option.  He decided to brave running across the boards to get to a new 'island'.  Once again, he got halfway across and crashed down.

Listillin eventually composed himself and went after the goblins on the ground, and coupled with Idria's spells and Findel and Izzy's arrows, we took them out easily.

After searching the room, we weren't sure what they were excavating for.  We did find a holy symbol that formed into the shape of a symbol of whatever deity you worshiped, so that was very nice, but I don't remember who took it.  Findel, I think, but I am not sure.  There were no other exits, so this was a dead end.

We again briefly rested, then went back the way we came, except we took the passageway to the south, down into darkness.  It was time to get out our sunrods and put them to use.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Back to Town

We now had further proof of the cult activity with a note detailing in very explicit terms about how they were going to do bad things to Winterhaven.  We, however, didn't know where this "rift" was.  We also, I suppose, now knew there was a spy in Winterhaven, but we weren't sure who it was.

It was all beyond me.  I let Idria keep the note (she likes to read.  If I were more dishonest I'd just let her have any notes we find (weird language even better!) instead of treasure.

I was excited that I had a new suit of armor that increased my survivability.  I'd been knocked around pretty hard in a couple fights lately and the extra defense plus the chance to occasionally heal myself (even more) was great.

Getting back to town we found that Winterhaven was all kinds of weirded out.  The populace was having bad dreams, everyone was surly, it was a town on edge.  We talked again to the historian and it turns out he WASN'T a spy, he just wanted time to look things up.  Who knew?  He gave us good information about this Shadowfell Rift, the castle built on it, the crazy paladin that killed everyone in the keep, and how it was probably causing all these bad dreams and feelings, and how maybe someone was trying to re-open the thing to... umm, I'm not sure.  Be really bad and kill stuff?  Probably.

Well, we now knew what to do.  Go to the old keep, go into the deepest darkest corners of it and stop whoever was messing with whatever was down there.

Buying supplies was difficult.  We weren't sure how long we were going to be underground, so we had to plan on torches and food and stuff.  We eventually figured it out (we could be out for 10 days), and were on our way.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Irontooth

We'd rested up after killing the kobold raiding part outside of the waterfall.  We'd discovered there was a series of caverns underneath the waterfall and before soggily rushing through into who knows what, we sent Izzy in to quietly explore.

It turns out, he found a very large group of kobolds.  He said hi, they attacked.  As seemed to be a habit for me, I rushed in to save him.

The cavern was about 40 x 40.  The waterfall was the west side of the room and to the north east and the south east were big openings with a lot of space through there.  Izzy had stumbled into a fully occupied kobold war party with about 10 kobolds in the room and more milling about.  The alarm had been sent out and they were all attacking.

I charged into the north side of the room targeting as many as I could, trying to drag attention off of Izzy.  Listillin charged into the middle, sword slashing.  Izzy backed up trying to get range, Akai-Tori tried to get position on some and Idria provided some cover for us with bright flashes of light, searing and scattering our enemy.  Findel was doing damage with his bow and prepping his healing spells.

I'd gotten my back to a wall and had challenged 3 or 4 kobolds, but Listillin had moved into the middle and found himself surrounded and in trouble.  He took down one or two, but more filled the ranks, flowing in from the outer caverns.  I couldn't see what happened, but he quickly was dragged down and swarmed under the kobold horde.  I ignored my combatants, battering away any attacks and charged into the middle of the fray, sliding the unconscious Listillin away behind me towards Findel and faced the attackers.  At that point Idria threw down a glowing pillar on top of me, bolstering my strength and burning the kobolds.

Findel healed Listillin, Izzy continued to fire, Idria was blowing up kobolds left and right and we still were outnumbered as more kobolds came in from the sides, including a giant kobold in rust colored plate mail wielding a giant battle axe from the north.  He was swinging in wide strikes, knocking aside any, friend or foe in his path.  I counted on my allies to take care of the smaller ones, including a caster that had made his way into the room as I challenged the new kobold, who grunted "Irontooth smash!" as his axe was blocked by my shield.

Akai-Tori assaulted Irontooth from the back while I defended his strikes.  He seemed to get even stronger as we hurt him more.  I was out of healing spells trying to keep myself alive from his attacks, Findel had used up his resources as well and we still had kobolds all over us.

Eventually, we defeated them all, although a couple of us took serious wounds and were knocked out for at least part of the battle.  Irontooth himself was wearing magical plate mail armor which I claimed after the fight.  We also found a letter to Irontooth from someone named Kalarel talking about opening some rift and how Winterhaven would serve as food for Lord Orcus' minions.

Well, that was interesting!  We had to find this rift and this Kalarel and stop him! 

Monday, December 27, 2010

A kobold ambush? Unpossible!

And so off we went to Winterhaven in search of a death cult that was doing bad things.  There was the note, the church warnings, maybe something else.  But we were all at least partially to totally convinced there were very bad things happening in Winterhaven and we should stop them.

But first, we were ambushed by kobolds on the road.  Other than being slightly irritating by running from me and chasing poor Izzy around, we defeated them easily.

Winterhaven is a strange little town.  I don't recall the specifics, but the bartender didn't know anything about a death cult.  The patrons of the bar didn't.  The town leader denied such a possibility.  The town historian said a death cult in Winterhaven would be impossible, but suggested we come back the next day after he'd had time to do some research.

Izzy had met an acquaintance of his in the bar.  He'd gotten some clues about a kobold hideout.  He'd gotten this information from someone who had something to do with his past.  I don't know how this woman was in a bar in frozen Winterhaven, but I've learned not to look gift badgers in the eye, if you know what I mean.

However, the lack of information from anyone about the death cult was fishy;  Very, very fishy.  Especially the old historian.  How could we be getting reports from elsewhere about this cult but not in the town.  How could the historian have no information at all?

We decided he was very suspicious and I sent a couple of us back to him to investigate, even though it was late.  Izzy, Findel and Listillin were in charge of that.  They went out and attempted to interrogate him some more.  They didn't give details, but I believe he merely locked his door and went up to his tower.

We gathered back together and discovered we had all of one clue, and that was from a very drunk Izzy.  The location of a kobold lair that may or may not have anything to do with all of this.  We would venture there in the morning.

It was not a long journey to the southeast, just a few hours.  On the way, we were ambushed by kobolds.  Kobolds ambush us a lot, with very little success.  It was much like the previous ambush where I didn't do much but chase the bad kobolds chasing our kobold.  We defeated them in short order and continued on down the road and then through some light forest to where we were told there were koblds.

There were kobolds!

We almost stumbled upon them as we were moving as silently as we could through the woods.  Fortunately, we spotted them before they spotted us.  There were about fifteen of them in a wooded meadow with a stream below a moderately noisy waterfall.  They weren't on the alert, but they were armed and we could be spotted, even if just accidentally, at any moment.

We attacked!

And we defeated them handily.  Our time working together was starting to show.  With Idria firing gigantic columns of light into groups of them, with Izzy providing a steady barrage of arrows, and me and Listillin fighting in melee, we routed them pretty clearly.  One ran to the waterfall yelling he was going to warn the others, but was brought down before he could get close.

We spent a couple of minutes catching our breath, then sent Izzy into the waterfall into what looked like a cavern.

It was another kobold ambush!

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Was there treasure? All I remember are sacks of kobold heads.

The dragon didn't have much of a hoard.  As previously mentioned, I'd been hit in the head repeatedly by the dragon (which is fine with me, I am very sturdy there!), but I have a difficult time remembering what happened next.  I think there was some gold, and if I remember correctly there was a magic dagger that went to the rogue.

There was a note of some sort, but I'd have to check back with Idria about it.  If I recall, it linked these kobolds with a cult of Orcus, but I'm really uncertain how that all worked out.  I think the dragon ate a messenger from this death cult but we found the remains and pieced together that a growing death cult had been using the dragon to control the kobolds and have them attack Fallcrest.

Anyway, we had sacks full of kobold heads (since my party was eager to get paid the bounty for each head), and we spent some time getting some dragon scales (which I believe have so far proved useless) and we even brought the dragon head back with us.

The reception back in town was warm, and we were greeted fondly by the Lord Warden and paid for our success.  I bought a pony named Midnight with my share of the reward.

The church had informed Idria that there were rumors of a death cult growing in strength in the nearby village of Winterhaven.  Coupled with the note that we'd found on the dragon, we decided to head out as soon as we could prepare for the short journey.

We sold any extra loot we had, relaxed for a day or two, pulled Izzy out of the gutter and pried the surly Akai-Tori out of the delicately scented bath and rode off to Winterhaven in search of a death cult on borrowed horses.

This concluded our first adventure.  We were victorious, nobody had died, we have clues about a death cult and someone named Irontooth (I believe he was named in the note) that are menacing a nearby village.

It's cold down here, I sure hope it's the beer cellar, not a white dragon.

I used the newly found silver key to open the thick, locked, secret door and was greeted by a blast of cold air coming up from a pitch black tunnel leading down into darkness.  While it was nearing wintertime and we were in an underground dungeon, this was an unnatural cold that indicated something far more dreadful than just a typical dungeon chill.


We decided to send Izzy down alone, as he was the smallest and sneakiest of the bunch and he could let us know what we faced.  This seemed different than another hall leading to another group of kobolds, and we were going to let him sneak around to try to find out what was facing us.

We waited in the dark.  And waited.  And waited.  Eventually, the little kobold came back.  "Dragon.  Told you it was a dragon.  A sleeping white dragon.  Asleep.  Dragon."

He seemed stuck on a couple words.  Mostly dragon, sometimes sleep.  It was a sleeping dragon.  Apparently this dragon was behind the kobold attacks.  Who knows why or how.  But this was going to be our final battle to rid Winterhaven of the kobold attackers, defeating a dragon in battle.

Rats.  Dragons have a tendency to eat halflings.

Izzy gave us a general description of the layout.  The passageway turned north and opened up into a cavern.  It was a large square room with walls about 25 yards long.  In the middle was what looked like a large ice patch.  There were two large columns in the room and the dragon, not a very large one, was nestled asleep behind the western column.

We decided on what seemed like a reasonable plan.  The three of us that could sneak silently into the room would do so (Listillin, Izzy and Akai-Tori), setting up on the east side of the room behind the eastern column.  I would wait for 3 minutes to give them time to be in position, then charge and hopefully drag the dragon to the west side of the room, giving those three shots at the dragon's back and letting Findel and Idria find comfortable spots.  Our entire goal was to keep the dragon facing me and everyone else spread out so when it breathed, only a couple of us would get hit by it.  That was our big goal, not get grouped up and all of us frozen into one giant ice cube.

Our plan worked perfectly at the start.  Izzy, Akai, and Listillin crept down into silence.  I remained back with the cleric and the invoker, just out of light range of the room ready to charge in when the time was right.

The plan stopped working perfectly when we heard a draconian roar and a loud, hissing voice screech, "Intruders, die!" and the flapping of wings as the dragon roared into action, completely aware of our plan all along.

Rats!

I charged, screaming at the dragon, trying to divert his attention from my companions.  He may eat us all, but he wasn't going to eat my friends I'd recruited to come on this mission without eating me first.  I sprinted down the hall into the icy chamber and flung myself at the dragon, issuing Avandra's challenge to it, daring it to test its luck against an opponent such as me. 

Now, the dragon wasn't huge by dragon standards.  Its body was probably no bigger than a large bear, with powerfully built legs, a long tail, and a short thick neck with a thick, ugly beak shaped head.  It's mouth was lined with large, cruel teeth and it was covered in dull, white scales that gleamed with a dim and unwholesome light.  Its wings were folded tight against its body, but as I'd see later, when it unfurled them it had a  It towered over me, but was only a foot or two taller when on all fours than the deva.  I'd guess it was 15 to 20 feet long fully extended, but it was hard to tell as it was trying to eat me and I was spending more time dodging than getting a good measurement.

I battered it with my shield and tried my best to get it to turn and follow me as I ran west, willingly offering up what must have appeared to be an easy opportunity to attack in an effort to have him face away from the others.

It worked, and he lashed out at me with his claws, knocking me back hard, but I was able to gather myself and present a defense to him as he struck me again and again with his claws, trying to grab me and hold me still for his dangerous bite attacks.  I was able to fend off most of his attacks, but still was being battered by him mercilessly.  I healed myself repeatedly, as did Findel (when not firing arrows into the beast).  Idria repeatedly called down strikes upon the dragon from her god and Listillin and Akai-Tori were navigating the icy terrain to keep stabbing it from behind.  We were bloodied, chilled, and hurt, but we seemed to be gaining the advantage on it.

And then it roared, a deafening sound that nearly brought me to my knees.  Its roar echoed off the walls and shook us all, stunning us long enough and giving it enough time to briefly launch itself into the air and turn sideways, knocking the rogue back and breathing a cone of deadly ice shards and frozen air into four of us.  I believe only the kobold and Akai-Tori were spared.  He tried to back up to breathe upon us again and I tried to gather myself to lunge back into the fray, when Akai somehow slid around it and stabbed it in the side, causing it to lunge forward back into me where I could attack and his breath would only be effective on me.

We once again had positional advantage on it, but I was out of blessings and we were running out of momentum.  I saw Listillin strike it hard in the back and briefly saw Izzy get position along the wall where he could shoot more directly at its head just as its left claw pummeled me across my helm, knocking me sideways, causing me to lower my shield and stagger right into another sweeping claw, ready to grab me.  If it grabbed me, I was a goner.  I threw myself down to the ground and tried to roll, but got clobbered again in the head anyway, concussing me, but I'd avoided being grabbed and it once again missed trying to bite me.  It reared up over me as I realized I could no longer stand up or even move as the last blow had completely immobilized me.  As I lost consciousness I saw its maw descending on me to slice me in half as two more of Izzy's arrows pelted into it, one into its eye...

And then I woke up.  The dragon was dead.  My helm was dented in about 42 spots.  I think my skull was, as well.  Izzy's final arrow had slain it and they'd had to drag the beast off of me as it had landed on my unconscious body as it fell.  We'd killed the dragon.  It was a small dragon, but it was still a dragon.

We spent a good while recuperating, healing ourselves, congratulating each other on a fine effort.

We then did what every good adventuring group should do.  We searched for treasure.

Monday, December 20, 2010

More doors and Listillin almost gets crushed.

Our scouts went out and came back, reporting that the tunnel opened up into a large room with a high ceiling with a small room (sort of a guard tower) in the middle.

They didn't see any enemies, so we had no choice but to venture into the room and find out what traps or hazards were there.  As it turned out, there were many.  As we ventured into the room, we heard a crash from the north.  A giant boulder (underground?  where did this come from?)  came barreling through the north wall just as two kobolds in the middle room stood atop the wall and fired pots of glue at us and some winged drake came screeching and flying towards us from the south.

If it sounds confusing in words, it was even worse being there.  The drake was swooping past us while attacking, never giving me a shot to even hit him.  The kobold slingers were safely hidden in a room behind a stout looking door and I was really dreading trying to break through while they were dumping whatever they wanted on me.  Plus, that gigantic boulder seemed magically propelled and was spinning around the room counterclockwise.

I sprinted into the room, clearing the way for my allies behind me.  The giant stone had rolled north past the inner room and there was a stout looking double door on the south wall.  I ran to that, thinking I'd break through (quickly, this time) and take out the kobolds inside while my party provided cover and attacked the flying drake.  That's when an energy orb came flying at me from further east.  More kobolds!  There was a previously unnoticed stairway on the east side of the room where a kobold wyrmpriest and two fierce looking kobolds with heavy shields had cover and were bombarding us with spells.  I gave up on my plan on bursting through the door, and since I had time while the boulder was temporarily rolling away from me, I ran to the stairs and up them.

I'd surprised them with my speed and managed to climb the stairs and get in melee range of the caster before his guards could get between us.  From behind it sounded like our ranged attackers were struggling with the drake and the slingers.  Listillin had issues with the boulder and barely avoided being smashed and the rogue was throwing shirukens at whatever he could get line of sight on.  I took an energy bolt to the face as I was closing ground and was hoping that the cleric would be nearby as I was going to be surrounded very shortly.

I called on Avandra to keep me healed while I pummeled the wyrmpriest and dodged attacks from the shifty little kobolds.  Listillin finally made it up to my side and was attacking and the slingers were taken down by Izzy.  Findel was now with me and the drow and we got blasted by a frost blast from the kobold and it seemed like it was a breath weapon.  Kobolds breath frost?  That's new and very unfortunate.  He also put out a protective shield over his shielders and they were tough to bring down, but eventually we prevailed with no casualties, but we were forced to use up nearly all of our spells and powers.

There was good news.  Treasure!  The kobold wyrmpriest was using a magical staff, which the Deva claimed for herself.  It also was carrying a silver key as well as a small note describing the location of a secret door in the room, which the key opened.

I'd forgotten about the boulder which almost crushed Listillin.  It eventually rolled to a stop in the corner of the room and we decided to use its storage space as a place for us to rest.  We felt unprepared to face greater danger without refreshing our spells and since there seemed to be only one way into the room (unless the secret door was being used, which it didn't seem it was, it was a cozy and easy to defend corner.

After setting our watch, we rested, meditated, prayed and tried to relax, hoping our journey to determine the cause of the kobold attacks was near its end.

Eight hours later, recovered, we inspected the secret door.  It took some convincing of the group to let me open the door.  It didn't seem trapped, but if there was any great danger behind there, I preferred me to be the one opening the door, as I have the best armor and am more durable than my associates.  I think the rogue and the kobold were afraid I'd get first crack at any treasure.  They still don't trust me and think I'm in this for the gold.  They don't understand my priorities yet.  I understand theirs; the gold is important.  But that's fine, what matters is we put a stop to the kobolds, and whatever is behind this secret door is likely to reveal much.

Monday, December 13, 2010

Doors are easy to open

Our scouts came back and let us know the passage ended in an open room with more stone coffins and a lot of noise coming from the lit room.  They saw no creatures.

Our strategy of "Bart charges and we figure out what to do once we're in there," once again was decided upon.  I like this strategy except for the fact it means I'm likely to die if there's ever a dragon or something.  Of course, we're finding kobolds here.  No need to worry about dragons.

The passageway led south and opened up into the west end of a long room.  I prepared to charge with Listillin and Akai-Tori closest to me, then Findel and Idria and our own kobold, Izzy, would bring up the rear.

I charged down the stairs (did I mention the stairs going down into the room) and turned east to see what we'd face... and had a hard time completely understanding everything I saw.  The room was about 50 feet north/south and maybe 60 feet east/west.  There was another sludge pit in the middle of the room with four large stone coffins at each corner of the sludge pit.  On the far east side of the room, there was a set of double doors in the wall and above that wall was a ledge with kobolds on it.  The kobolds had a rope and boulder contraption that was attached to the ceiling above the sludge pit that they were swinging across the room as some sort of game... and when they saw me, some kind of weapon.

As we entered the room, they ceased any merriment they were displaying and the kobolds threw spears and the rock/rope pendulum.  I charged the door, the rogue disappeared into shadows, Listillin attacked from range (I'm not sure what he does, but he does something.  I should watch some time, but it's hard with kobolds hitting me in the face), Findel was also using his bow and Idria was attempting to pick them off from range as well.  However, until we got through the door, they would have a huge advantage.

I charged the door and burst through it!

Well, I charged the door and tried to burst through it.  That thing was solid!  I bruised it pretty hard, however, and proceded to try to break it down while the kobolds above rained spears and goo down on me.  The door was being stubborn and I finally whipped out my trusty sword and started hacking my way through.  I heard a growling noise from the other side and it sounded like something on the other side was starting to try to break its way out.

At that point a large lizard/dog looking thing dropped down beside me bleeding heavily.  Above on the ledge there were some dead kobolds and Akai-Tori.  I had no idea how he got up there, but I took a break from the door (I figured whatever wanted out was going to get to me soon enough) and attacked the drake beside me.  Izzy and Listillin chipped in and we took it down before it did any damage to us.

I went back to work on the door and just as I was breaking through, the drake on the other side broke through as well and latched on to my arm with sharp teeth.  Holy cow, those things bite hard!  Fortunately, my allies had finished off the kobolds and we were quickly able to dispatch the last drake.

We cleaned up the mess and searched the room.  A couple small gems and a small amount of gold were found as well as a lit ten foot wide passage way heading east.

The scouts went out again...

Sunday, December 12, 2010

The full party is together and completely organized!

Now that our group was together (we had a healer, hooray!), we were ready to set out deeper into the underground tunnels to either find out who was leading these kobolds or just kill any kobold we found.  There was only one exit from the room, a tunnel to the east that was blocked by a portcullis.  Izzy was able to slip through the narrow openings between the bars and the lever was just down the hall.  He raised it and we once again sent our scouts to find what lay ahead (with the reminder that their job was to scout, not assault).

This time they came back, reporting the passage turned south and opened up into a large, lit room.  They could see a few large stone coffins in the center of the room, but nothing seemed to be moving there, but because of the light they couldn't go any further in without too great of a risk.

We decided on our second plan.  I would run in and hopefully not get killed while everyone followed me in.

I charged.  The coffins were in the middle of the room and there was a large suit of armor standing guard on both sides of the room.  Three kobolds with spears and shileds were on the far east side of the room near a raised section of the floor with what looked to be a small altar on it.  I sprinted at the kobolds as fast as I could (fully loaded down in plate and heavy shield) with the avenger and rogue (I assumed) behind me.  Izzy was firing arrows, the cleric and invoker were readying spells.

This should be no problem, the six of us versus three small kobolds.  That's when I felt the floor slightly give way under my foot and I felt a sting in my left arm.  I looked down and somehow a small dart had found its way past my shield and through a crease in my armor and I felt my steps slowwww....... as the kobolds charged.

I was on the north side of the room, north of all four coffins.  Listillin ran down the middle of the room, between the two rows of coffins and found another pressure plate, releasing another dart.  He avoided it, but found himself surrounded by kobolds with little way to get out of danger.  Akai-Tori ran to the statue and tried to disarm the trap while Izzy continued to barrage the enemy with more arrows and Findel tried to keep Listillin alive under the assault.  Idria was unable to get a good shot off with any of her spells as we were now closely bunched and her accuracy was off.

Eventually I was able to shake off the obviously weak poison that was on the darts and move over to help poor Listillin, who is incredibly accurate with his sword and incredibly under-armored for being surrounded by little critters with spears.  I heroically dove between the kobolds and was able to sweep him out and behind, so he could attack from the back and I now was the center of attention of the little dragon/dog/rat/scaly things.  Unfortunately, my actions caused me to step on another pressure plate, firing another arrow out right as Akai-Tori was disarming it.

My bad.

We eventually defeated the kobolds as we outnumbered them two to one and no matter how many darts there were, we just were tougher than they were.  But it was sketchy for a bit and we learned (at least a little bit) about our tactics as a group.  We searched the room, disarmed all of the other traps (easily spotted once we weren't in combat) and took apart the altar to Tiamat, appropriating the 60 gold pieces left there for ourselves.

There was a passageway leading south in the far southeast corner of the room.  Our scouts were put to work once again.