RED OAK: Beyond the Mirror

[Longman]

Fido and Anna are now in the mirror room on the safe side. lets keep it easy.

Is that called "foreshadowing?"
Yeah and for some reason the festival is called the Festival of Impending Doom.

The creepiness feels like something is tying to make her fade away into darkness.

The metal clanging noise sounded like someone dropping a small metal object on a stone floor. Not a golem. Came from 2/5.

Freya can have a go at making traps, but she does not actually have trap making as a skill so the target number is going to be 16. Can you describe the snares to me, and what they are made from?

No noises from 7/8, correct. Ana relishes the job of taking the lead and sweeping the previously explored area for traps. She doesn't find any in room 7.

Now what? Do you want to give me a route, rather than going room by room?

[Woe]

Long-term goal: 7, 8, 11, 12, "13 to 3A", head to the secret tunnel to the surface. It may be more than a day.

5 may have goblins now. Freya can peek out of the opening before Anna and Talin's blue lights give away the party's presence. Assuming nothing is in 5-anything, fast forward to 13 and Freya can sneak in alone, with the periscope, to figure out what is going on in that room. Hopefully nothing moving or hostile in that room. I want to see what outside looks like!

[Longman]

7 - Anna says no traps here. Forward to 8 - ditto.

5 may have goblins now. Freya can peek out of the opening before Anna and Talin's blue lights give away the party's presence.

You mean the small spyholes in area 8? Freya moves forward alone to these, so as not to spill light into area 5. She sees no goblins in area 5. She can see all the way down to the junction of tunnel 5a, and to room 11. No sign of anything. No rats and not many creep crawlies, this time.

Now what? Freya alone with no light and a -20, or Anna, with light but with a much better chance of seeing traps?

[Woe]

No rats and not many creep crawlies, this time.

Where did the creepie crawlies go? Did they run away because something lurks in the darkness? Impending dooooooooo...

That'd resonate really nicely in the caverns or long passageways like 5.

Freya will peer around corners (with the periscope) and ensure that 5 areas are clear; then Anna can safely come out and sweep for traps inside the rooms themselves. After that, Anna will look for traps heading toward 11, but at some point she'll stop and Freya will take over, eventually periscope-peeping into 11 checking for monsters. It'll be slow going, with one peeping and one searching. When Freya is going ahead, she'll search for traps too but that's just to stay extra paranoid.

Kilian suggests a bowling ball and shooting the goblins as they come out of the passages. Hmpf.

[Longman]

This was all great planning, kudos and exp - but sometime the dice just suck.

There was a trap laid - at the entrance to area 5 from corridor 9a.

Freya missed it. Anna missed it. As you are walking through in file, Kilian treads on the tripwire, which has been painted over with some kind of sandy cement paste that looks like stone. Same deal as last time. It's an alarm.

A metal object - maybe an old bit of armor - starts to fall from the side of the wall, from about 5' up. Kilian tries to catch it and misses. Anna also leaps for it and misses. Even Bruce has a try, and misses.

Everything is coming up misses.

It clatters down onto the floor with a clanging sound.

You are just at the start of room 5, opposite from room 11. Do you press on, or retreat, or lay an ambush, or what?

[Woe]

Sigh. At least there won't be a lot of running.

The party glares at Kilian, who does a very good job of glaring back at everyone at the same time. A bit creepy how his eyes seem to fixate on everyone at once.

I was going to leave the secret doors open because I don't want Tiana's contributions to only be knocking doors open, which means there are two secret doors behind the party right now. Time to retreat, at least a bit.

Quickly, to the batcave!

The party will close the 7 secret door behind them, but I do intend an ambush. There are two doors into 7 and 8, but the goblins only know of one. Hopefully. We'll need to play forward a bit before doing this (I don't want to sneak attack 50 goblins!). If there are only a few noises in 7, then most of the party will attack from 8 (trapping the goblins in the room) followed by Anna and Freya sneak-attacking after the hopeful surprise round from the rear. Anna backstab damage x bajillions, and a quick surrender.

Sounds great on paper, just like the "Anna and Freya both check for traps" plan.

Dang, I wish I had gone through 8 originally).

[Longman]

I can't quite work out what all of that means.

What will very likely happen is that a bunch of hobgoblins et. all. will come down area 5 from the east, looking for the source of the noise. They will enter the tunnel leading to 9a. From 9a, they could go into 8, 9, or 7. They would probably take a look into all those rooms from 9a.

I also do not know what 'from the rear' means.

So far, you have retreated and gone back into the secret tunnel, closing the door into 7. The only problem with ambushing from the secret tunnel is that if any of the enemies get away, they will know where it is. (DM Computer does not recommend this course of action.)

If I was going to do an ambush here I'd want a better plan - something that would ensure they'd run into one of the rooms so you'd know where they were going to be.

Do you just want to wait it out in the secret tunnel and see what happens or do you want to change that plan?

[Woe]

Yes, we should definitely play this out carefully.

See how there are two secret doors, one into 7 and one into 8? If the goblins get into 7, some of the party can attack from the door in 7 while part of the party can attack from the rear via the secret door in 8. (Reverse for 8/7). And yes, if some get away then that's bad, but ideally that's why the party attacks from both sides.

In a world where the dice were on my side, all the goblins would mingle in 8 (for example). Open the door to 7, Freya and the dwarves sneak out and attack from 9a. Goblins engage, and then goblin-hating Talin and the backstabbing Anna attack from the secret passage. Goblins don't have anywhere to run.

In a perfect world. I don't know if the goblins would all be mingling in 8, but at least those who weren't wouldn't see the doors open.

But for now, holding in the secret space and waiting to see what happens next is the right next move.

PS I appreciate the DM computer. Sometimes it's hard to play having only my own ideas. Nobody around to tell me when they're bad ones.

[Longman]

The DM computer is your friend.



Sooo...what actually happens is...nothing. So far as you can tell. There is no rush of goblins or anything down into the area.

But, Freya is pretty sure she can hear some more of that rumbling noise she has heard a few times since you came in here. This time, she thinks it is slower, and is pretty certain it is something being moved around. It comes about a minute after the metal object hits the ground.

You are all inside the secret tunnel and nothing seems to be coming. That you can hear. The door into 7 is closed.

[Woe]

Which room was the rumbling coming from?

And, the party will probably retreat back to 1, close that door, listen to the door at 2, then carefully open 2, and see if there are any goblins awaiting them there.