Hardcore Heroes: Episode 10

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== Synopsis ==
In a bustling tavern, Malakai revels in his vitality potion's effects while Van remains ill from a recent mishap. The party realizes a different monster, not spiders, is disrupting the road to Hillsborough. Malakai and Croak challenge a dwarf to a drinking contest, winning gold in the process, and decide to investigate the problem further before returning to Redport. They learn of recent calamities including Anvil's fall and a bounty on the Redshield family, and decide to seek out spider antivenom and mercenaries. Malakai hires three dwarves, but tensions rise when their plan to raid an ogre cave goes awry, resulting in a chaotic battle. After a failed attempt to retrieve the treasure, Van and the surviving dwarves return to Hillsborough, while Malakai and Croak stay behind to monitor the cave. Eventually, they return to town and inform the sheriff about the tax money coins, only to face a heated argument between Malakai and the dwarves, leading to the latter's departure.
==Recap==
===Tuesday, 1509-02-23*===
Everyone assembles in a tavern and Malakai expresses him glee with how good he feels having consumed the potion of vitality, in front of Van who still looks like hell after vomiting all over the church floor during his stay there. 
Party ponders on the fact that spiders would neither have the ability nor interest to carry off a carriage which means a different monster is at work disrupting the road to Hillsborough. 
At one point Malakai realizes that he can't even get drunk for 7 days since alcohol is technically a poison so he and Croak challenge a random dwarf to a drink off for 50 gold. Of course the dwarf doesn't pass out until he basically has alcohol poisoning at which point everyone cheers for Malakai who has to actually pretend to even feel something as he pockets himself 100 gold. 
Croak muses that he would need to leave tomorrow to meet up with the kids he wanted to train since he told them to meet him on 03–02. 
Everyone concludes that they need to at least investigate the cause of the problem before they head back to Redport. With one possible idea being that they manufacture antidote en masse and distribute among the travelers. 
Malakai learns Invisibility, ESP then fails to learn Alter self and begins learning Forget spell.
===Wednesday, 1509-02-24*===
Party overhears from the tavern goers that Anvil has fallen to the Bastards of Firewood and Baroness Largewise has been killed as well as that the house Treshin has been burned down. Anvil is technically in Wake County of which Fortune is the country capital so it's their problem to deal with. They also hear that Redshield family in Thornwood has been stripped of land and rank with a 100 gold bounty placed on her head. A wagon filled with tax money going from Hillsborough to Clydesdale had been sacked recently and a reward of knighthood has been offered for retrieving it.
They head to a local alchemist to try and make some spider antivenom, but are both unwilling and unable to pay for more than one or two of it since the alchemist sells them for 50 gold a dose. Malakai tries to haggle for a bit, but is quickly put down by the old man so they give him 5 gold to extract the poison and say they'll come back later.
Croak researches horses and how much they can carry. 
They decide that it would be safe to have some mercenaries to shield the party from more spider attacks so Malakai goes to seek some in local tavern, he finds a party of 3 dwarves and signals them over using the magical candle as a lure. Malakai offers them each 1 gold a day, but they demand some time to discuss this over a drink. 
Meanwhile, Croak finds himself a messenger whom he gives instructions for the kids he planned to meet in Redport rescheduling the meeting a week later and giving the man 10 gold to give to them. 
Malakai sees the dwarves come back with a deal that he hires them for at least 3 days and pays up front, he haggles it down to paying half upfront and half after. One them introduces himself as Redbeard. The dwarves are introduced to the party and they ponder what group of monsters could have an interest which mostly seem to be either Hobgoblins or Ogres. Croak suggests exploring the hills next to road. The dwarves propose that tax wasn't the goal per se, but just another victim of continued harassment. 
Either way with the sun above them the party heads out into the hills. The trek seems peaceful until as Croak crests a hill he suddenly sees armored hobgoblins standing over a few corpses. Everyone bundles up and they plot first disabling them with Entangle then raining down missiles on their goblinoid heads hopefully keeping 1 of them alive for interrogation. The party bursts over the top of the hill and with a very successful entangle trap all 6 of them while raining down hell upon their heads, unable to even get a single javelin throw off the miserable hobgoblins fall one by one until just 1 is left which they go on to question about the wagon attacks. The hobgoblin declines any knowledge about wagon attacks and suggests it was ogres that slew the men they found, there are apparently a few tribes of them and he knows their location. Having extracted the information they need the dwarves execute the hobgoblin and with reconnaissance in mind party continues onwards to the closest of the two ogre camps. 
Soon enough they start seeing warning signs of ogre activity, first some cow skulls then human corpses. Being the most fleet footed Croak is made invisible and he goes ahead into the ogre cave, scouting 5 toddler ogres and 2 well equipped adult ogres. There's some boards that might have come from carts and couple treasure chests he sees that end up containing hundreds of platinum coins. There's a tense moment when an third adult ogre comes around a corner and almost walks upon the rest of the party, but Croak does his best to distract the ogre with sounds and instead the ogre goes inside and pretends to be asleep to lure the supposed enemy out. Croak sneaks back out and they discuss their approach to this situation, hesitant about attacking even with the numerical advantage, but still highly enticed about the possible rewards they could reap. Instead the war-party rests for a bit with invisible Malakai keeping watch and turning every single party member invisible. They continue plotting for a while, unable to decide how to proceed until eventually they decide to let the dwarves play the distraction role while rest of the party sneak in and steal the chest. Plan commences and as the dwarves yell obscenities in various languages one of the ogres storms out and starts stabbing bushes, one stands guard at entrance and the last one guards the toddler ogres. Croak walks past the ogre at the entrance and begins picking up platinum coins from the chest until out of nowhere one of the dwarves apparently having hit the ogre becomes visible to the world then promptly is impaled by its spear. Of course the other two dwarves aren't having that so an all out battle begins as they attack it, Malakai not feeling like leaving his hirees to die manages to sleep the wounded beast which is then promptly killed by Van. Soon though the second ogre spears Van for most of his health and he begins falling back, which the dwarves notice and then everything turns into an all out routing, Malakai yells that he will see them in town and goes invisible only thing that seems to go as planned is Croak looting all his grubby one-index-finger-missing hands can manage until finally he sneaks out as well. 
Van together with the 2 surviving dwarves jogs back to Hillsborough. Malakai and Croak manage to meet up and decide to stay around the cave to see whether more ogres will arrive with the plan to assassinate sleeping ogres in middle of the night. In about an hour reinforcements do come so the two of them head to town as well, by time they get there it's already night time and they have find their way in through closed doors. 
Croak goes to constable and confirms that these are in fact the tax money coins so he informs the sheriff Kel Nancy of their adventure into the ogre cave . Lastly everyone assembles back in tavern only for Malakai to have a yelling match with Redbeard about dwarves and wizards, and getting his brother killed. Not being a people person this doesn't go well and the dwarves leave the party.
== Experience and changes ==
* Croak gains 6th level and rolls 6HP for a total of 18HP
* Malakai's THACO goes down by 1.
* Malakai retroactively gains 4th level and rolls 3HP for a total of 10HP. 
*Dates are extrapolated from a previous mention of an exact date.
Category:Hardcore Heroes Episodes