Goblin Siege and Ancient Secrets

It starts in a tavern, with Trian Redleaf already several drinks in. Then the door slams open and Ashley, the town blacksmith, drops to her knees with a gash on her head. Goblins took her daughter. She begs the Gilded Hand first, and Mara asks whether she can pay. She can't. The Gilded Hand walks.

So Ashley turns to the newcomers, and Hank gives the party its name: I wouldn't say we're the Gilded Hand. More the Rusted Fist. But we might be able to help you out.

At the mouth of an old tomb, the heroes and the goblin lookouts spot each other at the same moment. A goblin twists a spear in Hank's ribs, and he laughs with blood running down his chin. Trian kills a goblin, clubs another with the body, and simply vanishes in the middle of a field. Mia blinks across the battlefield and uppercuts a goblin into its friend, then gets swarmed and dropped by a goblin caster's shadow chains and a spear. And Alecs starts bowling: he picks up a goblin with his mind and hurls it through its friends, and the survivor screams that this is cruel. Trian's Witty Banter gets Mia back on her feet, and the Rusted Fist wins its first fight.

Down the stairs is an offering room lit by a burning brazier, and nearly two dozen goblins waiting in it. The party treats it like a physics sandbox. Mia knocks a goblin into an archer so hard the archer's own arrow goes through it. Trian power-chords a goblin through the brazier, and it runs to its friends on fire. A crowned goblin leader cuts Trian down, and still bleeding, he gets back up and performs a healing limerick live. The table decides he has to write one every time now.

The frescoes on the walls show beggars drinking from an ornate silver chalice and rising as warriors who fight demons. Alecs pieces it together: the chalice is a legendary treasure, and the goblins didn't take Violet at random.

Then a red light glows from a room down the hall, the party moves up to look, and someone steps exactly one square too far. Click.