Bugbear Battle and Redemption

The trap springs on Trian: a blade-scythe out of the wall, a shredded sleeve and a cut arm. Mia can't disarm it, so everyone jumps it, including a spear-wielding fury named Khanarch, who has been quietly standing in the corner all along and decides to pole vault.

Beyond it: a painted red skull glowing on the floor, a dozen stone coffins, and a statue of a warrior with a spear. Trian notices the spear is loose. Khanarch hauls on it, the whole statue slides aside, and the chanting behind the wall turns into screaming.

In the ritual chamber a white energy field crackles over a staircase leading down, under a carving that warns that Iulius's cup must stay out of unworthy hands. A robed bugbear, over seven feet tall, leads a band of goblins in a chant, and at every refrain it cuts Violet, tied to a statue, and smears her blood on the stone. Her blood is the key to the stairs.

The goblins go full goblin mode. The minions spot the new guy in the corner and surround him, howling for fresh blood. Alecs bowls goblins into goblins, the bugbear drags him across the room with a shadowy hand, and a goblin that everybody thought was dead leaps out of hiding to stab Hank in the kidney.

Then Khanarch drops below zero. In Draw Steel, dying isn't dead, and he has one more turn. He spends every point of ferocity on To the Uttermost End and hits one goblin for twenty. The minions share a single pool of health. All four of them die at once. Khanarch collapses at the edge of death, and everyone agrees he hit that goblin so hard the whole race felt it.

Mia heals him, then punches a goblin straight through the tomb wall. Hank lands the killing blow on the bugbear. The tutorial is over and the heroes are full first level.

Alecs cuts Violet free and earns the title Violet's Savior, which he says out loud about six times before the night is over. On the bugbear they find two Bloodbound Bands, two volcanic-glass lenses and a recipe for faux-sense lenses. On the way out they jam the scythe trap with goblin corpses while Alecs, blindfolded with his own moustache, guides Hank's hands.

Outside, Ashley smothers her daughter in hugs, and Violet complains that they spent forever killing goblins before untying her. Ashley pledges her forge to the party. The stairs are right there, but Hank is out of recoveries, so the Rusted Fist goes home to rest.