05.2 Elemental

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Carlton Blacks Mercenaries
Company members:-
Taran – Half Elf Fighter/Priest of Mannanan Mac Lir, cousin to Carinne and Galvish
Carinne Rhianne Talynnart – Half Elf Ranger/Mage, Cousin to Taran and Galvish
Galvish – Half Elf Fighter/Thief, Cousin to Taran and Carinne
Barrigan Stonebeak – Dwarf Fighter/Priest, Company Engineer.
Lanneus Tuard – Paladin of Manannan Mac Lir
Derek Summers – Squire to Taran

Where is that Gnome?

We finally retrieve Kalan Ghents body, it has been about two weeks since he perished but his corpse is well preserved.  We cast a Speak with Dead spell to find out a little more.  The first question asks if he wants to be bought back to life – when the answer comes back he can’t then this is a little disturbing – apparently someone had cast a spell on him so he cannot be raised or resurrected.  OK, it’s a sea burial for you then Cousin.
We still don’t have our passage on the ships yet so have more time to kick our heels, also the gnome has disappeared somewhere – nothing untoward otherwise Taran would have felt an alarm from his spell.  
The rebels ask us if we would want to deal with some humanoids who have been spotted in the foothills a couple of days from Skullport, they sport the white face mark of the evil god Quar, so we will definitely pursue this, even though Krachtig is nowhere to be found.  On the journey there we are attacked by Wyverns, we dispatch them one by one but Carinne has been stuck by the poisonous tail of one of them and collapses, Taran rushes over to her and through quick use of some herbs helps her to overcome the poison.
We reach our destination and see goblins on guard outside a cave mouth, we decide to fire arrows at them with the Gnomes words ringing in our heads from a previous attempt “we can’t all miss – can we”.  Arrows and bolts are loosed and hits are scored but no creature falls down even though we had done enough damage to fell a troop of ogres.  The squire peers at the situation and realizes that these were illusions.  Galvish is then pushed forward to go and assess the situation inside the cave.  He sneaks up and peers inside, just before he moves further in, we are beckoned forward.  The heavily armored types clank forward as we hear sounds of combat.  Galvish has encountered goblins and wolves, we rush forward and slay these creatures with abandon.  A spellcaster retreats and part of the ceiling gives way partially falling on Lanneus who backs away just in time.  Several earth elementals remain and the dwarf and Carinne both warn the party not to interfere with the one they are fighting, Carinne needs to trap one in her staff whilst Barrigan needs to slay one to activate his ring, they both succeed.   One exit is now blocked so we move to another tunnel leading deeper into the hills, rounding a corner we encounter a horde of goblins who fire at us, several of the party are momentarily surprised and miss out on the slaughter, although those at the rear of the party are set upon by earth elementals – these prove to be a lot tougher than the goblins, but through Barrigans axes and Lanneus attacking them with his trident with some spear prodding by others over the heads of our front line the creatures are taken down.
We cure some wounds before venturing deeper into the caves.  At a wider opening we have a fireball land amongst us, we rush down the passageway opposite where it seems to have come from and quickly Taran and Lanneus are in a pit with the others stopping just short, more goblins are spotted in the gloom at the edge of our light.  Two creatures rush forward carrying a heavy vessel between them, clearly intent on dumping it into the pit.  Galvish calls up an artillery strike on them and Carinne throws a fireball at the lead goblin, we are all engulfed in the flames and Barrigan and the squire quickly leap on top of their comrades in the pit as the Greek Fire the goblins carrying erupts and obliterates everything in its path.
Several scorched members climb out of the pit and again heal their wounds.  Taran then casts a protection from fire spell on himself after all this burning damage he has received. The options of routes to take has diminished to one and we move through the tunnel to enter a very large cave.  We see many goblins, elementals, a huge humanoid figure and a black dragon, Carinne mentions we might need a Haste spell and we all agree.  The party charge at the larger beasts and are quickly intercepted by goblins and the elementals (except for Barrigan who they actively avoid), spells are cast by the enemies and Carinne is soon hit with a lightning bolt, then doused in acid from the dragon and hidden behind a stone wall cast by the Dao (huge humanoid figure).  The squire is held immobile and Taran is having difficulty removing his sword from the mass of dead goblins in front of him.  The goblins are quickly dealt with and Galvish takes on the black dragon while Barrigan rushes around removing the paralysis from the squire so he can assist Galvish, then healing Lanneus who was beaten down by four of the elementals, rushing back to help cure Galvish and doing everything except swinging his axes.  Carinne manages to overcome the wall of stone and has cured herself enough to aim a disintegrate ray at the Dao who doesn’t see it coming and disappears in a puff of dust. With most of the party back in the thick of the fighting the odds are soon in our favor although Taran continues to have difficulty with landing his weapons on the right target (apologies to Carinne for an earlier incident with a wayward blow from the sunblade), this appeared to be catching as Galvish and Lanneus were also in difficulty with their accuracy, maybe there was some latent curse from the Dao.  The fight finishes up with Barrigan stunning himself with one of his own blows but ultimately a hard won victory.

Aftermath
We find a Djinn (air Genie) named Shai'kira-larre trapped by the Dao.  She offers us three wishes or three favors (basically she will help us three times) in exchange for freedom.  She can also show us the Dao's portal to an Earth Demi-plane should we like to go in and disrupt his work.  He was also using many slaves in some sort of mining operation there and we could free them.  She also tells us that from her prison, she saw a bald Human with totally black eyes talking with the Dao but she could not hear what they were saying.