Rosia Lightfoot's Journal - Part 19

We had a change of pace today - no traps! After resting in the safe room, we went back through the secret area to explore to the west. We found a secret room with a large black pearl on a pedestal, which radiated magic (the pearl, not the pedestal). I tried to mage hand the pearl off, but it was attached to a large piece of black velvet, which was draped over the pedestal. In the end Quercus pulled the pearl and cloth out of the room by hooking his spear into the cloth. He quickly wrapped the pearl in the cloth, without touching it, and stowed it away in his backpack. I can't help wondering what strange powers it might have...

Anyway, whilst we were busy with this, Ran heard voices coming from an adjacent room. He told me about them and I sneaked over to listen. Some of the voices were speaking in a guttural language I did not understand, but there was one voice speaking in common. He was saying that they should speak to us. I reported back to the others and we decided to attempt to parlay with the creatures behind the door. It turned out they were bugbears, and that they had been fighting a war with the goblins to the south. They were not keen on us, but they were few in numbers and were unwilling to risk a confrontation. They confirmed some of the details on the bugbear map we found earlier. The area to the north-east is apparently filled with a magical deathly cold. I think we felt something of this in the previous section.

Anyway, they agreed to leave us alone, and the leader even gave us a token to show to other bugbears, to avoid a fight. I wonder how effective it will be... We decided to explore to the south, to see what the goblins were up to, but we told the Bugbears we were going to the north. No point in telling them all our plans!

I went ahead to scout, and found an area with many corridors, all at right angles to each other. It was very quiet and there was no reaction to my presence, even when I threw a copper piece down the corridor (which I have yet to retrieve). I returned to the others, and we all went to explore, but we managed to alert a goblin sentry and he set off an alarm. We hastily retreated back to a more defensible area, a cross-roads with many avenues of escape, and waited to see what happened. A largish goblin force appeared. Oren was worried, because they seemed to be very well organised for goblins. They asked to talk to us, and things were going fine until we let Quercus get involved. He soon managed to insult the goblin leader, and then declared that Pelor's wrath would fall upon their heads...

They attacked, but instead of just charging us, as would be expected of goblins, they sent in a band of trained wolves first, from two directions. The wolves proved very troublesome, as they kept tripping up those they attacked, leaving them prone and vulnerable. Fortunately, Ran was able to summon some magical creatures to aid us, which kept them occupied long enough for us to finish most of them off. The fight continues, and the wolves are thinning in numbers (I even killed one myself, with a well-placed sword through the back of the head), but there are still the goblins to worry about, and I wonder if we are prepared for them...