Gol’den Chile bars the main doors and looks for a way to secure the others while Brother Bother dispatches the surviving enemies and casts Detect Magic. Finding, amongst other things, a pair of potions on the goblin chief’s body he discusses these with the ailing Aric and concludes that they are likely healing. Administering one to his fallen comrade they are proved right and the half-elf is soon on his feet.

It appears that any goblins in the vicinity either didn’t hear the battle or assumed it was part of the re-enactment. The party checks out a few doors around the throne room: the chief’s bedroom, an armoury and a rather vile-smelling locked larder, which is opened with one of the chief’s keys.

Deciding that escaping back across the rope bridge will be too risky the group follow Bother’s plan to climb the nearest guard tower and hide up there for the night. However after creeping up the stairs, Aric alerts some goblins on the roof when he opens the trap-door. Thinking quickly he apologises in goblin before closing it again – luckily the guards didn’t see him and assume he was a goblin.

So to plan B: back across the rope. However there are now some goblins and their dogs outside scratching their heads at the collapsed bridge. Resolving to quickly dispense with them before escaping, Aric casts Fear on one and GC – glugging the other healing potion – charges the rest. One of the dogs manages to bite GC but the two creatures and their goblin handlers are soon dead; however the fight has alerted the guards on the tower who rush to the battlement and draw their bows.

Wisely deciding that it will be too dangerous to cross the rope under fire, Aric heads off down a narrow passage in the briars. Rounding the corner of the fortress he spies more goblins and their dogs, playing a game of ‘killgull’ in which one goblin holds a captive bird at the end of a length of twine while the other throws stones at it. Aric wastes no time in shooting one dead; GC barges the other off the cliff and with the help of Bother’s lightning bolts the two dogs are also killed. GC’s hands are starting to get itchy though.

The guards from the roof – probably with more goblins in tow – are on their way, so a plan is hatched to climb onto the fort’s roof, clamber across it and hide in a corner inaccessible on foot. Hopefully it’s secure enough …

Experience: 713 each

Brother Bother applies some of his magic to Gol’den Chile who suffered badly at the paws of the shaman’s pet firepelt and feeling a little better, the two monks follow their half-elven guide further into the thistle tunnels. They discover the firepelt’s nest and are about to investigate beyond it when they hear someone – or something – moving northwards through the briars to the east.

After deciding that heading south will take them nowhere and the place they’re aiming for is north, the group decides to head the way the shaman (for it was surely he) was heading. The thistle tunnels open out to reveal a rope bridge strung 60 feet between the cliff and the roundish, flat-topped island of Thistletop, perched on which is the goblins’ wooden stockade. Aric spies the wounded shaman limping across the bridge and quickly puts a well-placed arrow in him; he slumps down onto the planks.

As the party begins to cross the bridge themselves, suddenly – just as Brother Bother galumphs onto it – the western support posts on both shores tear free and the planks drop away to dangle vertically. Quick reactions mean that Chile manages to jump back onto the cliff while Aric and Bother are able to grab the eastern rope. The unconscious shaman is not so lucky and plunges eighty feet into the crashing surf. After the dangling pair manage to get themselves back on land Chile comes up with a plan for getting everyone across to the island and eventually everyone arrives safely.

The stockade seems to be made of old boats and despite having two thirty-foot tall watch-towers, it seems that nobody is keeping an eye out at the moment – even the gates are ajar. Aric slips through into some sort of trophy room, decorated with manky preserved horse- and dog-heads and a large pair of bat-like wings tacked to the wall with daggers. With Aric leading the way the party heads west through a series of rooms (goblins seem to like doors as much as they hate horses) but turns back when they hear several goblin dogs ahead.

Turning back and heading east, they pass a room behind which several goblins can be heard snoring before they reach another door at the end of a narrow corridor. Gol’den Chile can hear what sounds like goblins fighting and laughing; itching for a fight, he throws open the door and steps right into the goblins’ throne room.

Three goblin commandos are acting out a battle against some clearly illusory humans, while a goblin war-chanter looks on. Also observing from a dais and thoroughly enjoying himself is Ripnugget, the goblin chieftain, next to whom is his faithful giant gecko mount, Stickfoot. GC wastes no time in laying into the war-chanter who immediately goes down like a kicked halfling.

The first half of the fight is quick and one-sided: Aric sticks an arrow in the chief, Bother takes down a commando and Chile punches Stickfoot, who had just taken a bite out of him, unconscious. But then Ripnugget – who had been glugging down a potion – joins the fray. Enraged by Aric’s impertinent peppering he goes straight for the elf with his evil-looking dog-slicer. Bother and Chile finish off the commandos without much trouble but the chief is a lot bigger, a lot stronger and – with his breastplate armour and now oddly barky-looking skin – harder to hurt. The two badly wounded monks are unable to stop Ripnugget striking Aric down.

Things are looking grim, but before Aric fell he wounded the chief enough to make him vulnerable to Bother’s miniature lightning bolts. Two of these see Ripnugget finally go down.

Bother tends to Aric – he is alive but unconscious. The two monks are not in much better shape. There has been a lot of noise and there are more goblins sleeping next door. Have they been woken? Maybe it’s lucky that Ripnugget was having his guards act out a battle …

Experience: 1667 each

After a tactical withdrawal to the Rusty Dragon for a night the group return to Nettlewood and approach the goblin fortifications again. Things seem as quiet as they did last time: evidently any increased alertness on the goblins’ part has had time to die down.

Entering at the same hidden gate the group take an alternate fork and find an abandoned lookout post. Goblins can be heard not far away through the hedge so the three sneak around until Brother Bother spies a couple of particularly sorry-looking specimens at rest. He rushes into the thistle cave to attack but finds he has mis-judged the situation: there are ten of them! He is quickly surrounded, but despite being heavily outnumbered and tactically disadvantaged BB and Gol’den Chile manage to defeat the creatures in short order, with sporadic fire support from Aric.

Soon only one is left and despite his miserable pleading BB stoves his head in, if only to put an end to the whining. It is clear from the filthy rags and over-gnawed bones lying about – as well as the scrawniness of the dead bodies – that the occupants of this room were low on the social ladder even for goblins.

Before any investigating can be done however, the undergrowth around the exit bursts into unnatural growth and the way out is blocked. With an angry yowl a firepelt* leaps out of the thicket and attacks Gol’den Chile, mauling him badly. Then the goblin shaman that did so much damage last time steps out too, flaming blade in hand. “Come to murder us all, have you?” he asks in garbled common. Attacked by claws, fangs and flaming blades the three adventurers are beaten back into a corner and things look grim until GC manages to kill the firepelt. Already peppered with Aric’s arrows, another wound is all it takes for the shaman to realise that he can’t win this fight and he steps back into the thicket – a trick beyond the skills of the party.

Once he is gone the entangling undergrowth melts away opening up the exit, so following some much-needed healing the group presses on. But the shaman hasn’t given up – looking significantly less battered than a few minutes ago he launches an ambush from behind, this time accompanied by a giant centipede. However the centipede is no challenge compared to the firepelt and the shaman’s attack is far less successful this time. Despite hurling fire from one hand and wielding his flaming blade in the other he is quickly badly injured and forced to retreat again.

But which way has he gone and – more importantly – who is he going to alert?

* a local animal similar to a red-and-black-striped cougar

Experience: 650 each

Leaving Ameiko to be looked after at the Rusty Dragon, BB and GC head straight to Sandpoint Garrison to alert the guard. On hearing the news, Hemlock’s deputy dispatches several men to secure the tunnel beneath the glassworks, check for survivors and make sure there are no goblins left. He is advised against alerting the town to the attack.

As they are both badly injured the next stop is Father Zantus at the cathedral. Like the guard, he is shocked by the news but is happy to provide healing and – much refreshed – BB and GC head back to the glassworks to help the guardsmen, stopping by the Dragon to pick up Aric and his new acquaintance Conrod.

After spooking the nervous guards the group decide to follow the tunnel all the way in case they can find Tsuto. However, after a mile or so the passage ends in a rock wall. Clearly there must be a secret door somewhere and after a brief search Aric identifies it.

The door opens into a cave in the cliff face, strewn with goblin bedding and the remains of their food. The cave mouth slopes down to a narrow beach where footprints can easily be seen heading off east around the coast. Aric tracks these for half a mile or so to a low point in the cliffs but no-one is able to scale them so the group make the long trek back to town to pick up the horses and extra equipment.

They ride out to the cliff-top but despite much searching nobody is able to pick up the trail. Eventually it is agreed that, based on his notebook, Tsuto’s most likely destination is Thistletop and the group takes the Lost Coast Road east. At Pauper’s Graves they leave the road and Aric leads them through the Nettlewood, hugging the coast as closely as possible.

Eventually they emerge into a small clearing close to Thistletop but the way ahead is blocked by a wall of briars and thistles nearly 20 feet high. After fruitlessly scouting for a way around they discover that a cleverly-constructed mat of thistles and nettles conceals a low tunnel through the briar wall. Aric leads the party inside; he spots some goblins down one tunnel so decides to go a different way.

This tunnel opens out into a ‘cave’ within the briars, in the centre of which is a deep sink-hole from which sloshing waves can be heard. Peering down another tunnel Aric spots some goblin dogs and decides to open fire. The flea-bitten things rush at him but he is able to hold them off in the narrow tunnel; things are going well until a strangely-clad goblin steps out of the briars behind Brother Bother wielding a flaming blade. The two trade blows while Gol’den Chile and Aric deal with the dogs, but although BB hits the goblin hard he strikes back and takes the brother down before disappearing back into the undergrowth. GC and AS manage to finish off the dogs then drag the unconscious cleric out the way they came.

A nervous few hours are spent tending BB at a makeshift camp a short way back inside the Nettlewood but eventually he regains consciousness and manages to heal himself …