Tales of Tolvenia, Chapter Eleven, Part One

Dates: 1 December 2011 to 19 January 2012. Present: Eric (Goblina), Matthew (Jaren) and Zach (Haley).

In the fight between the party and the mysterious elf and his own companions, the elf himself managed to escape when Goblina struck him and he vanished in an area of total darkness. The party killed off the orc and the human and captured the dwarf, Brugor.

During the fight, everyone heard a trumpeting roar coming from the direction of the cavern with the gorge of lava.

Brugor had nothing but praise for the elf, whom he called Prilasqué Vonsu. The party retraced their step back to the cavern of the balruga and found the elf trying to cast magic on the balruga. The balruga had evidently climbed up the gorge wall near the deep cave goblin altar. It was a humanoid creature about fourteen feet tall, barrel-chested like a gorilla and made of lumpy, rock-like flesh.

The party closed on the elf. The elf appealed to Jaren to help him overcome the balruga by magical means. Jaren was open to this, but any such efforts were stymied by Goblina’s hatred for the elf and her desire to avenge the crimes he had committed against the deep cave goblins of Thanthrang Caves. Grushblig was sent to a safe distance to observe and report back to his fellows if necessary.

In the ensuing fight, the balruga attacked those around it, literally throwing its foot-wide, rocky fists around and projectile vomiting lava-like puke to devastating effect. Friar rishtuk and Randak took severe injuries from the beast, Randak, nearly dying. Haley systematically stole various pouches from the elf. Goblina attacked him for all she was worth, although the elf magically commanded her dog to flee.

At a triggering word from the elf, the captive dwarf was mutated into a Vilstrithiani monstrosity and attacked Haley to retrieve the elf’s possessions.

Jaren did what the elf had failed to do and used his nature magic to command the balruga. With the balruga temporarily on their side, the party defeated the mutated Brugor and forced the elf to flee.

The final confrontation was more a battle of wills between Haley and Jaren on the one hand and Goblina on the other. The former wanted to capture the elf and interrogate him, while the latter simply wanted to kill him straight away. As the elf tried to flee across the gorge over the fallen stalactite, the party caught up to him and he surrendered. Seeing Goblina’s murderousness, he began to flee again, but the goblin caught him with her grappling hook. The elf nearly fell to his death into the lava, but was pulled up by Haley and Jaren – only for Goblina to slit his throat. He died.

In a fit of pique, Jaren cast two of the stolen deep cave goblin artefacts into the lava. The party then returned with the elf’s body to Thanthrang Caves.