We are still puttering about this ancient Minotaur stronghold, for the most part killing its current inhabitants. There’s a great deal of history that has gone on here. Once a minotaur fortress, currently a Duergar slaver fort, next month who knows. To make us appreciate the obligingly dispatchable nature of our current foes, we found some delightful stuffed corpses – one a humanoid creature with a sort of octopus for a head, and the other a great stuffed lizard-man-thing. They looked so fearsome that Carn proposed using them as the centerpiece of an elaborate ruse. But wiser heads prevailed. Or at least more observant heads noted we were missing several key ingredients of the plan. But I get ahead of things. So that I may teleport back and then dash past them. Ready? There is much to tell.

Hobgoblins and/or goblins, presently dead. Some duergar in a great blacksmith forge, as well as a great giant duergar blacksmith. we also made them dead. Apparently unburnable. The fire which I cannot speak its name was sadly wasted. As is becoming customary, we remembered as the last one uttered his dying scream, that we had intended to take a captive. Surely there will be more, and indeed there were. Which we also killed. Including one nasty fellow who swelled to an incredible size and with whom several party members did some lively dancing upon great stout minotaur dining tables. Or maybe that was a dream. No I think that happened. I recall the shattering of the tables required some splinter removal later, because a needlessly large amount of my wine was used for some reason.
Oh and we did take a Duergar prisoner! Dinner conversation was not his thing although of course it was preferable to the screaming in my head. Scaring him was more fun than productive, and eventually Carn got him talking by pointing out that were we to return to the seven pillar hall with an unhelpful duergar slaver as captive, his grisly death at the hands of the mob would be somewhat more likely than if he had been a *helpful* duergar captive. So he talked. Turns out captives are quite useful. We must remember to collect the whole set.
But I’m getting bogged down which means I’m not drunk enough.

Let me see. Kalystra was unanimously elected Master-Duergar-Plucker, an office she will hold for a lifetime I suspect.
We made excellent use of the great oaken tables from the dining room, cowering behind them bravely as we crossed the bridge and the bolts from the arbalesters tried to them into matchsticks . Again, insane frontal assault worked perfectly well and we bashed down the door eventually, killed the arbalesters, killed the non-arbalesters. Killed some kind of Duergar warcaster called a Thiurge. I went briefly insane trying to whack enemies in the back of the head with my quarterstaff (which… was… EXCELLENT). There was a lot of screaming. Both actual screaming and screaming in my head.

I was sad for a while because if the captive had not cooperated we could certainly have justified tying him to the table as we crossed the bridge. Next time.
I vividly recall Klajdu becoming excited by a great quantity of grease, exhorting us all to strip and engage in contests of strength. Those of us still able to speak in the face of this terrifying image, begged off.

Some quotes:
B: “Klajdu, watch out for the arbalester”
K “what? Klajdu not want arm molested!”

Beulah: “Get drunk, then there’s three of them, then use Great Cleave!”

me, after whacking the Thiurge in the back of the head with my quarterstaff, and after Thiurge turned around and goggled at me: “That’s how we roll”

Then many more things happened. There were murmurings from the next room. And a loud denunciation of the fortress’s state of uncleanliness. Guessing wildly that these were not more Duergar, we sauntered in and discovered two sorry looking prisoners shackled to the wall. Shockingly, one was Splug and he seemed oddly overjoyed to see us. The other was a gentleman who named himself Dr Cabin. I struggle to think of a way they could be more different. Once freed Dr Cabin cast a fastidiousness ritual, which Splug immediately tested with an impromptu ritual we shall call “the flinging of the goblin poo”. They told a long and thirsty story. In between some drinking and tuning out the screaming, I gather they had both been members of a cult of the Raven Queen, but as no doubt their aunties had told them it would, the Raven Queen Cult thing had gone quite wrong for both of them. Dr Cabin was challenged to overcome his intolerance for filthy things and presumably poo-flingery, and Splug was challenged to overcome his tendency to cheat at cards with the head priest, if I may read between the lines a bit. I gather both failed their respective challenges after which the unlikely pair somehow escaped and no doubt had many adventures, with long stretches of shockingly clean parts punctuated no doubt by flying poo.
(Noting that they are shackled out of the way in their own room rather than being used to serve food and sweep floors, I assume the Duergar did not find their repartie quite as amusing as we do. ) <scribbled note>actually no, it’s because against all appearances they’re both quite impressive in a fight!

After nursing our wounds and/or bottles as necessary, and with our freshly de-shackled, er, friends? we went on with the killing. Upstairs into a much colder section of the fortress. A section that the Duergar have apparently never taken over. There was an old chapel with a statue of a fierce demonic Minotaur (a bit less fierce given that one of his arms was off). Like the inebriated low-towner that I am, I blundered in fit to wake the dead, and woke some dead. Which we had to kill, again, with great difficulty. Never a dull moment when you’re underground.
These were particularly pretty undead. No dry dusty skeletons these. Rotting flesh and claws and a delightful smell. Dr Cabin, who we learned was a pacifist, nonetheless does not scruple to kill the undead, which he did with many a blaze of clear and clean light. Splug seems to have picked up some surprising tricks since we saw him last, and he did some rather dramatic attacks with divine magic.

Again, i have slackened my pace. I shall drink heavily and speed it up. We moved on. We found a sanctuary of minotaur sarcophagi, and we opened them all. Dr Cabin retreated to the other room just in time before Splug peed in the corner and ate some of a minotaur corpse. I looted the bodies, just a bit, for our friend who’d been interested in minotaur artifacts. It would be rude not to. We called out to Dr Cabin “Definitely not peeing and eating dusty corpses and looting dead bodies in here!!”

At the next door we heard nefarious voices. Evildoers. Proper ones. They turned out to be a pair of spiny devils, a 3 duergar, and another Thiurge. And in some pits there were a number of slaves. It shall be left as an exercise for the reader to determine the fate of the evildoers. We did not play canasta.

more quotes:

Dr Cabin, after a fastidiousness ritual : “Ah. 24 hour clean. That’s what I call it <flourish>”

unknown, but presumably Splug: “you know what I love on this toast? Mummy powder”.

Klajdu: “must collect finger from slave to show slave rescue!”

Klajdu: “Sorry Kalystra. Klajdu munch of Kalystra biscuit. Klajdu sorry”

In the end, we failed to accidentally kill or remove fingers from any of the human captives, and even freed them. There are 14. 10 of them are from Riverdown and it stands to reason that these are ten of the twelve Riverdowners we came here specifically to rescue. (carn noted many details on official bits of paper).
12 other captives are not here anymore, having been sold recently to the Blackfang Gnolls and taken to the Well of Demons. Presumably this is not an ironically-named tavern, but one may always hope.
3 or 4 others are prospectors, who were caught by the Grimmerzools
and 1 of them is actually a goblin. A blood reaver who was to his surprise sold by his own kind to the Duergar.

And that’s where we are. If you must inquire we are currently taking a bit of a break and having a drink.