The Swine Shogun

The party was embroiled in a battle royale with a horde of hobgoblins and hill giants, deep beneath the House of Withered Blossoms. They were nearing the limits of their endurance, and were almost out of spells, but a fresh wave of Withered Blossom Warriors came charging out to challenge them. They were Hasted, and slammed into Sandoval and Zhustin’s summoned air elementals with ferocious battle cries.

And that wasn’t all. A war horn sounded from behind the keep, and an imposing figuring came charging out from behind Sandoval’s smoke screen. It was an enormous hobgoblin, clad in samurai armor and mounted on a slavering dire boar. He was accompanied by a trio of snow leopards, and he released their leashes and sent them charging towards the party. He rode up to the edge of the chasm that divided the cave, and reined his porcine mount to a halt. “Oh glorious Munasukaru! Your loyal servant Buto rides forth to smite your enemies. Behold as I chop them into bits and feed them to my swine, to preserve the sanctity of your sacred domain!” He seemed to be speaking to some unseen entity, but as he shouted his challenge he waved his battle-axe in such an intimidating manner that everyone within earshot was Shaken by the display.

This could only be the hobgoblin leader they’d heard about, the one who called himself The Swine Shogun. Marie immediately cast a Prayer, knowing that the party needed all the help they could get (and that there was little else in the way of magic that she had left to offer them). Bella sent a volley of arrows winging at the Swine Shogun, and Nicki fired off a round of Magic Missiles.

Zhustin was also worried about this new threat, but he was even more worried about the last surviving hobgoblin warcaster. He knew first-hand just how devastating the Empowered Fireballs these guys liked to throw around could be, and he could see last warcaster peeking out from around the corner of the keep, preparing to launch another spell at the party. Deciding the party’s fighters could deal with mundane threats, he ordered his air elementals to disengage from the hill giants they had been battling, and charge the warcaster. All three elementals took wicked blows from the giants’ clubs as they blew past, and one evaporated in a puff of vapor, but the other two raced to the warcaster and battered him with their winds. He backed up a step and tried to redirect his Fireball at the elementals, but the intricate spellcasting motions gave the elementals, with their extended reach, an opportunity to hit him again, disrupting his spell. The warcaster panicked, trying to decide whether there was some spell he could use to save himself or somewhere he could flee to safety, and his hesitation gave the elementals the opening they needed; their winds tossed him about the cavern and slammed his lifeless body against the cave wall.

While his elementals were finishing off the warcaster, Zhustin shifted his focus to the hobgoblin leader. He unleashed a Fireball of his own at the cluster of foes around the Swine Shogun. When the smoke cleared, a warrior and one of the leopards were dead, and the Shogun was on foot; all his boar needed was an apple in its mouth.

And Zhustin still wasn’t done. His earth elemental, all but forgotten, rose up out of the floor of the cave, having passed underneath the chasm to ambush the enemy from behind. It slammed its stony fist into the nearest hill giant, who turned and hit it back. Buto also charged the earth elemental. An ear-splitting thunderclap echoed through the cave as his battle-axe rang against the elemental, and it shattered into a rain of pebbles.

The party’s fighters weren’t just standing around watching the Zhustin Show. Sandoval was trading blows with one of the Withered Blossom Warriors, and one of Buto’s pet leopards leaped across the chasm and slashed at him as well. Sawyer lunged at the hill giant guarding the western bridge and spilled his guts on the already-greasy bridge, then spun and took out the warrior standing beside him, but another Hasted warrior stepped into the giant’s place, blocking Sawyer from crossing. Two more warriors were blocking Bella’s advance, and the other leopard jumped across to join them. Despite the rogue’s best efforts, they just would not go down. Meanwhile, far to the north, Shinjiro finally managed to finish off the warrior who’d been harrying him since they both shook off the effects of Sandoval’s Rainbow Pattern, and the monk began the long sprint down to the new battlefront.

Nicki was a little annoyed that Zhustin’s spells were overshadowing his. “Burn in the fires of Hell!” he shrieked, and called forth a churning column of Hellfire around Buto, searing him and one of his warrior allies, and killing another. He turned to smirk at Zhustin, only to see the young wizard fire off a Lightning Bolt that killed both of the warriors blocking Bella. Furious, he decided to go for broke. Marshalling all of his hell-born rage, he elevated his go-to spell to new heights, and sent a trio of Maximized Scorching Rays screaming at the Swine Shogun. The hobgoblin leader had just finished gulping down a healing potion, but he needn’t have bothered; Nicki’s rays blasted through him like a blow torch through butter, leaving only a fine rain of ash in their wake. Even Nicki’s friends took a wary step back from the glowering sorcerer.

From that point, it was all over but the screaming. Sandoval killed the warrior and leopard facing him in short order, and Marie flew in to finish off the leopard harassing Bella, leaving her free to charge across the eastern bridge and engage the final warriors there. Shinjiro joined Sawyer at the western bridge, and the warriors still guarding it didn’t stand a chance. Zhustin hit the last warrior standing with a volley of Magic Missiles (Nicki wasn’t impressed), and the battle was done. The air elementals cleared away the smoke from Sandoval’s Pyrotechnics before they winked out of existence.

Marie had almost no healing to offer, although she did muster a Mass Cure Light Wounds that helped a little. Limping and bloody, the party cautiously climbed towards the crude stone keep at the southern end of the cavern. They could see narrow arched bridge leading from the roof of the keep high above them to a small opening in the eastern wall of the cavern. The keep itself had no windows, but a large set of iron-bound doors were set in the southern wall, slightly ajar. Hoping everyone inside had already come out, they pulled them open.

They gagged at the reek that washed out from inside. The ground floor of the keep was a single open room, little more than a sty for the Swine Shogun’s precious pigs. The floor was three feet deep in filth, and more ordure seeped down through the rafters above, creating a rain of foul smelling rot. There were a trio of rusted cages along the far wall and a half-rotted stall, presumably for Buto’s dire boar mount and pet snow leopards. A spiral stair in one corner led up, and as they listened quietly, they could hear sounds of movement from the floor above them.

It seemed there might be some threat left to face, but most of the party seemed more concerned about not wanting to wade through the cesspool that was the keep’s floor than about whatever they might have to fight. Ignoring pleas to carry them through the filth, Sawyer made for the stairs, and the others reluctantly followed.

As he emerged at the top of the stairs, Sawyer found himself facing the Swine Shogun’s harem, a gaggle of female hobgoblins who showed no sign of backing down. But they were hopelessly overmatched, and within seconds the party had hacked them all down.

Looking around, they found themselves in the midst of a scene of disgusting gluttony. A crooked table ran the length of the room, set with fine silver dinnerware, but holding the putrid remains of a huge feast. The centerpiece was a half-devoured pig’s head with a human hand thrust into its mouth. All the meat was long-since spoiled, and the table swarmed with cockroaches and rats, while more pigs wallowed in the slurry of feces that covered the floor.

The party couldn’t get out of the disgusting keep fast enough. They knew they needed to rest before venturing any deeper into Munasukaru’s Pennance, but they knew the keep wasn’t an option. As they trudged back towards the waterfall (to wash the filth off themselves), they discussed their options. “We could camp in that side cave,” Shinjiro offered. “It’s some kind of kitchen for the hobgoblins. It looked like they were boiling some kind of stew from this fungus that grows here, and roasting some pigs.”

“I think I’m off pork for the rest of my life,” Marie shuddered, trying not to remember the revolting feast in the keep.

Sawyer suddenly stopped. A strange look passed across his face. “Oh man, I’m starving!” he suddenly exclaimed, his eyes wild. “I feel like I haven’t eaten in a week. Some of those pigs sound delicious!” He began to drool. “In fact, you guys go on ahead. I’m going to go back and finish off that feast in the keep.” He turned and began to retrace his steps, and the rest of the group exchanged worried glances.

“Um … you’re not really going to eat that, are you?” Bella asked.

“Are you kidding? I can’t wait!” Sawyer replied. “All that pork, just starting to go green. And those nice crunchy cockroaches – yum! Some moldy bread, and a little gravy from the floor - oh man, I hope there’s enough!” The front of his armor was glistening from the saliva that was running from his mouth.

That was enough for Marie. This was definitely not the Sawyer they knew, and she suspected he had been possessed by another of the spirits that had been dogging them ever since they'd entered the Forest of Spirits. She cast Break Enchantment on the fighter, and he fell to the floor in convulsions. The fit passed in seconds, and when he sat up, the wild look in his eyes was gone. “What … was I … oh shit” He turned green as he realized what he had been about to do, and began retching.

When he was able to walk again, the party helped him to his feet. After washing themselves and everything they owned in the pool at the foot of the waterfall, they spent the night in the hobgoblin’s kitchen (although no one ate anything), and awoke feeling much better. They returned to the keep, and quickly hurried up the stairs, trying to get as little filth on them as possible.

On the roof of the keep, a narrow catwalk skirted the eaves, leading to a narrow bridge that arched gracefully from the roof of the keep to a small stone balcony on the far wall of the cave. At its peak, the bridge rose to within a few feet of the ceiling, and they had to cross on hands and knees. Once across, they found themselves in a narrow tunnel that quickly opened up into a broader corridor. Crude stone steps had been worn into the floor, and they began another seemingly endless descent.

As they climbed down, Zhustin thought about what little they knew about what might lie ahead. This whole complex had served for centuries as a prison for the oni of the Five Storms, but according to the kami outside, most of the Five Storms had somehow escaped over 150 years ago. Because they were still unable to enter the pagoda, the kami knew that at least some of the oni had remained behind, but had no idea how many or what types. Zhustin knew the ogre mage they’d killed upstairs had been a type of low-level oni, but he doubted very much it had been the last one left (especially because he suspected this area would be flooded with kami just as soon as they were physically able to enter). He’d studied the book they’d found back in Kalsgard, The Ecology of the Oni, and he knew there were many different breeds of oni, everything from the brutish Ja Noi and Ogre Magi, birdlike Yamabushi Tengu, and two-headed Atamahuta, to the powerful Yai: Wind Yai, Fire Yai, Ice Yai, Water Yai, and Void Yai. He knew that the only oni they’d faced so far had been the weaker varieties, and he shuddered to think about a confrontation with their more powerful cousins.

“Light up ahead!” Bella suddenly hissed. The whispered warning brought Zhustin out of his reverie. They’d descended nearly 200 feet, and a dim light illuminated the corridor ahead, accompanied by a constant, muffled roaring sound. It was another waterfall, and as they edged around the last corner of the passage, they could see that it tumbled from a subterranean river some ninety feet above, plunging into a cold, deep lake that split the chamber before them. The cavern was illuminated by the sickly green glow of some unknown fungus growing on the ceiling high above, and on the far shore of the lake stood a crooked pagoda, carved with the forms of twisted, deformed animals, as if in mockery of the pagoda in the daylight high above them. A raised drawbridge hung from the front of the pagoda, blocking the only visible means of entry, and dim light could be seen through arrow slits cut into the walls high above.

The PCs earned 11,829 XP for the Battle of Hobgoblin Cavern, putting them at 189,034 XP, with 220,000 required for Level 12. We’ll be at Leo’s next Sunday.