My new armour is a bit stiff at the moment but looks the part. It's so impressive it's given Bob the encouragement to go looking for some new stuff for himself. We helped him at the armourers, and we even offered to chip in a few coins, but it was all a bit too much. He eventually gave up, he needs to save a bit more cash first.
While we were enjoying our time in the keep (while we were in the pub, in fact) we heard rumours that kobolds had been attacking settlements upstream from the north bank of the river. Kobold attract a bounty, and it's good money compared to orc heads. Kobolds are quite easy to kill by comparison, so we decide this could be such a well paying mission that we should get onto it straight away.
The area was up on the bluffs, so the locals told us, perhaps eight to ten miles from the keep. Stopping off only to grab some rations and to restock our arrows, and set off.
The Kobolds, it would seem, had been organised enough to chase off any trappers that have gone to investigate them, we had to be on our guard. We were tipped off that we should head off up the hells throat trail. We did.
We continued our march until mid afternoon, when we finally pick up the unmistakable trail of a few kobolds, which we followed. As we went further along, it became clear that these routes have been used more than once, this could be a well-used track, but we also concluded that they had tried to conceal their trail. We follow on until dusk, and we were weary. We cast around for a place to camp where we could keep an eye on their trail where it headed up towards the headland across a valley.
We found a lightly wooded area where the rock face overhangs, giving us almost a shallow cave. This was a great spot to find. During the night we could hear, hanging in the wind, the bark of kobolds. But other than that it was a peaceful night.
As early as possible we hit the trail again, and followed it to a clearing surrounded by thick brambles. We approached with caution, this would make a great place for defence and concealment, so we knew the kobolds would be using it. We carefully scouted the place out, the bramble hedges had several tracks leading through, and a small stream that ran right through the middle of the clearing. In the midsts of the clearing were several trees with large wooden platforms built onto them, and with ropes suspended between. We could even make out figures on the platforms. They still hadn't seen us when we completed our reconnoitre.
We had found several ways through the brambles, too. There were several tunnels leading in, and the two that show the most used were the two at the south.
We decided to assault through tunnels to the the north-east. Here there were two tunnels together, and a good chance that our approach would not be seen. We made our way in, only to find that there are dead ends here and the tunnels join up. Still, we got to see a bit more of the clearing, and had the chance to better understand the layout before we emerged and attacked.
The platforms, it appeared, were just open dwellings in the trees and are linked up by rope bridges. We could now clearly see a kobold on watch and some larger creatures, possibly orcs, on some of the further platforms.
Our plan of attack was to send Bob and Willy's avatar with the Bernie's spring spell on them to surprise the enemy while Red followed up. The rest of us would hang back and use missile weapons, while closing up more slowly.
As soon as the first set of spells were done, Bob ran from the tunnel and jumped with surprise onto the platform closest to him as the rest of us filtered out of the bramble tunnel. Bob was also surprised when the 'orc' turned out to be only a dummy made of wood and wicker. This first platform was tidied up quickly, Bob breezed through it, and we were now looking around for more targets. Ex and I shot the kobold on the next platform, killing it, just as Willy reached the first platform.
Red charged over and attacked a kobold that that fell off the platform above. He missed and his momentum carried him past it, and ît swung an attack on reply, also missing. Now the fight was in full swing, and we'd caught them on the hop.