Enola Yarn – blogpost 42

We decide to head down to the next level: Arcturia Doom, as the inhabitants of this metallic level, call it. We walk down through the tunnel the Bore Worm uses to finish off his round.

The large, metal doors greet us when we get there. When I inspect the doors more carefully, I see it is embellished with skulls and worms. Smoke walks up to the doors and says: “Hello? Who is there?!” 

Immediately, Calyx obeys Smoke to be silent: he heard noises coming from the other side of the door, that fell silent when Smoke was so STUPID to shout. “You fool of a Smokey!” he says. In her turn, Valentine gathers her magical powers and looks on the other side of the door – she can look through solid walls if she wants – and informs us about two fire giants and a couple of hobgoblins that are waiting for us, ready to attack. “Umm… Should we attack?” I ask. 

“Aren’t they friends of ‘Beat on metal’? Smoke asks. 

“No. Smokey, I don’t think so,” Valentine says. 

“We should come up with a plan,” Farryn adds. “they’re waiting anyways.” 

“I don’t think we should go there… I think they call in for reïnforcements if we do.” Valentine argues. Apparently, they were searching in piles of scrap metal to find anything valuable. 

“I can set an alarm on the door…” proposes Valentine tentatively. 

Farryn suggests an extradimensional space from his rope trick. 

“Shhttt,” says Calyx. “I can hear them walk behind the door…”

“HELLO?!” shouts Smoke again.

Then, a hobgoblin opens the door and exits his space – sword first.

Valentine shouts something at the newcomers, but they attack anyway. Calyx avoids every single attack from the hobgoblins, but then, we hear heavy footsteps: the fire giants are coming… Valentine is standing near the door and gets attacked first by one of the giants. Suddenly, they spot me too, and I get a big chunk of metal thrown at my head. It hits my forehead and I get pushed back. I feel immense pain in my head – probably a concussion or something else – and it’s bleeding uncontrollably. I feel lightheaded, but am still for some reason capable to stay up and witness Valentine save us all.

She steps forward with her Rod of the Pactkeeper and uses her magic to keep our enemies from attacking us: “Leave us ALONE!” she suggests. Then, she shouts: “These two,” pointing at two of the hobgoblins, “I don’t have under my control. Attack them, but leave the rest.” 

Smoke rushes forward, kills the hobgoblin that’s a bit further away, and I shoot a chromatic lightning orb towards the hobgoblin close to Calyx. Calyx heals me, so I feel somewhat better and can run again without vomiting. The enemies under Valentines’ control just turn around and continue what they were doing before we got to the door and Smoke conveniently gave away our position.

We walk further, Calyx and Smoke in the lead. We walk into a space that looks like a prison. When we walk in, Valentines’ disguise (me) drops, and she looks like her true self. She is totally shocked and steps back – reinstating her Enola-like appearance. Grond is petrified and cannot move anymore. I think it is something due to anti-magic in this room. Valentine tries to pull Grond out of the space, but she isn’t strong enough.

When we all get out of the anti-magic prison, we turn a corner – Smoke said it was safe – and see Smoke run off. However, he suddenly stops dead in his tracks in mid-air. He starts to transform: he is turning round and increasing in size… He grows a BEAK and FEATHERS. What the heck is going on?! Smoke is turning into an OWLBEAR!

Valentine reacts in a split second: she dispells the magic. Immediately, Smoke transforms back. “Wow. That was trippy.” 

“Yeah, there was a glyph on the ground,” says Calyx. 

I know that glyphs need to be reactivated again after they’re triggered, so we can continue our exploration; Smoke really wants to do that. Farryn is mumbling and kicking some rock: apparently, he is just frustrated he cannot find any loot. We walk further, but Calyx is staying behind to take to a spider on the floor.

Smoke is again in the lead, but on his leash again. However, that doesn’t fix ANYTHING, because he activates a glyph AGAIN and now turns into a Chimera. “Great. Just great.” 

Valentine tries to prevent the full transformation again but fails: Smoke is a firebreathing Chimera now – completely not recognizing us. She turns around – lets go of the leash and runs away in our direction.

The Smokeymera attacks the party ruthlessly. “Lead him to the prison!” We all dash towards it, but I can also hear a door in front of us and a lot of metal. F*ck! The hobgoblins! In a couple of seconds of PURE confusion, feeling trapped, and fear, I cannot find Valentine and need to find shelter. Then, I hear: “Come! Come!” and see Farryns foot disappear into thin air and a rope dangling in front of me. I climb up, still looking for Valentine. Then, I find myself in a cozy sort of living room, filled with shelves with potions and spell scrolls, and two benches on each side. I close the rope trick Farryn conjured, and the rope disappears. We can watch what happens in the hallway, and I see all hobgoblins draw their arrows and shoot the Smokeymera.

The Smokeymera is super angry, I can see the pain in his eyes, and his lungs fill with air to use his fire breath. Then, he exhales. The fire fills the hallway and about 20 hobgoblins get incinerated. Suddenly, Farryn sees Valentine and dangles the rope out of the rope trick to rescue her.

As Valentine climbs up, the hobgoblins attack Smoke, who transforms back into his normal Tabaxi-self. However, he is unconscious and gets picked up by the hobgoblins. Valentine and I shout that we have to do something, and Farryn obliges by shooting a firebolt at the hobgoblins. Unlucky for him, the spell backfires and he falls out of the rope trick, onto the floor. Calyx descends and helps Farryn up before the hobgoblins notice.

We look at each other. Are we going to go after them? After a short while of chasing the herd of hobgoblins, we see them enter a room – we know that is also an anti-magic room. Valentine starts to talk: “We know you guys hear us, and you’re waiting until we enter the room, but why don’t you guys just give us our friend – we’ll leave you alone then.”

“No F*CKING chance.” 

“If you don’t give us our friend back, you’ll DIE!” says Valentine. 

“We’ll just stay here. Embrosa will kill you for us. You’ll die out there.”

I hear loud footsteps at the end of the hall. I think it is a fire giant. We’ll have to be careful. 

Valentine enters the room and shouts: “There are two here, plus, Smokey is here in the corner!” 

Farryn enters, and me too. I’m wondering where Calyx is… But I see Farryn and Valentine kill one of the hobgoblins, and I walk to Smoke – giving him a goodberry Calyx gave me earlier. Smoke jumps up and runs towards the last standing hobgoblin. He punches him three times. I see the hobgoblin fall to the ground. Valentine walks over to him and spits on his body: “I warned you…” she says.

Farryn starts to loot the hobgoblins and beds. Then, Calyx walks into the room, telling his story: apparently, he hid in a tube in a scrap metal pile, and one of the fire giants picked him up! Luckily, he could escape without the fire giant noticing and came straight to us. In the meantime, Valentine grabs a book and starts writing. I look over her shoulder and read things that I’m shocked by.

I cannot repeat the words she wrote down, but I’m utterly bewildered by them. During our long rest at Zoxs’ place, I confront Valentine with it. 

“Oh… I didn’t know you were reading along…” she says.

“Why are you feeling this way?” I ask. 

“I don’t trust it… But you trust me, right?”

“Of course. But please keep me in the loop of what you’re planning. We cannot have outbursts that endanger us all.” 

“Yeah, we’ll stay together right?” 

“Always.”