Where We Left Off
The session opened mid-scene, not at a cave entrance. The party was already inside — this was a continuation, not a fresh start. Whatever the goblins and ogre had done last session when they fled deeper into the dark had not resolved the problem. It had relocated it.
The party took stock of where they were, what they had left in the tank, and what was still between them and the exit.
The call came quickly: retreat.
Getting Out
Retreating from a goblin-held cave is not a clean operation. The goblins still in the cave weren't all in front of the party — some of them were positioned on elevated ledges along the walls, above the party's heads, shooting down into the column as everyone moved toward the exit. High ground, moving targets, split focus. The geometry was punishing even on the way out.
Nysera's cat familiar had been scouting ahead. During the retreat, one of the goblins found it. The math was merciless: five damage, five hit points. The cat went to zero. Familiars don't die from that — they disperse back to their pocket dimension — but losing those eyes on the floor was a real tactical loss, and the hit stung in a way that felt personal. The party grabbed the cat on the way out.
They cleared the cave. Nobody dropped.
First Long Rest
The party regrouped and pushed back toward Nightstone. Barzer laid out the arithmetic: it was close to noon, the village was about a mile out, and a full long rest would put the party back at capacity with time to return under cover of midnight. Nobody argued.
The bat familiar went up as an alarm during the rest. Elves and half-elves with trance only needed four hours, which meant natural watch coverage for the second half of the night. The rest completed without incident.
Or so they thought.
The Ambush in Town
They woke up to a problem.
Theren Vale spotted them first from a second-story window — perception check, high roll. Barzer saw the same from across the room. Outside the building: goblins and ogres, assembled in the street, positioning themselves for something. The DM didn't dress it up: "It looks like they're getting ready for an assassination or an ambush."
The monsters had followed the party back to Nightstone.
The party oriented fast: map pulled up, a window here, a window there, the door on the ground floor, enemies outside and getting organized. Barzer identified the ogre through one of the second-story windows and did something the rest of the table would remember: he taunted it.
He then immediately fired through the same window — a natural 20, full critical, 16 damage. The ogre went bloodied.
A beat later, Elaris Moonveil confirmed the goblins inside the building were dead with a nat-20 of her own. Barzer turned back to the window and rolled a second nat-20 straight onto the bloodied ogre. Back-to-back natural 20s from two different casters in the span of a breath. The table erupted.
The Die That Went to Time-Out
The goblins outside had not been informed that this was a moment for the party to celebrate.
One goblin — one, a single enemy — attacked the same party member twice in the same turn and rolled a natural 20 on both attacks. Twenty-five total damage from a single goblin in a single round. The table did not take this well.
The die was formally removed from play. "You're not allowed to use that die anymore." Reece confirmed the ruling: "It's in time out." Ross chimed in with his own revenge plan: "From now on, I'm just going to piss on things."
The tally around the table was grim. "I got one." "I got four." Multiple party members were a single hit from going down, and the ogre that Barzer had taunted and bloodied was still standing — and now it was coming inside.
The Ogre Comes Through the Wall
It didn't use the door.
The bloodied ogre, pissed off from the taunt and carrying 16 damage from Barzer's critical shot through the window, located the nearest wall between itself and the party and went directly through it. The table's collective response to "He mashes his way through the wall" — delivered while multiple characters were sitting on one and four hit points — had the particular quality of chaos that only happens when the situation is simultaneously dire and absurd.
The fight continued in close quarters, the ogre now in the room, goblins still in play, the party burning through what little they had left.
Nysera Drops the Ogre
The last ogre was still standing. Nysera stepped up.
The DM walked her through the mechanics: roll to hit, check the AC, confirm the attack connects. The roll came out at 11. That beat it. The kill was hers to describe.
Then he handed it back: "All right — describe it."
What came out was not the tentative narration of someone finding their footing. The spell crossed the room and hit the ogre directly in the neck. The head didn't come off — it almost came off, left dangling by a piece of skin, the ogre spewing blood, eyes twitching, its last breath rattling out through a destroyed throat. Then it toppled forward. The whole building shook when it hit the floor.
Reece: "Oh God."
The ogre had three hit points remaining. The damage total — 12, after using Bardic Inspiration to push a zero-roll to a ten and adding two — cleared it easily. But the table wasn't reacting to the numbers. It was reacting to the description. Nysera's kill wasn't a timid cantrip. It was a statement.
Second Long Rest
The town ambush was over. The party was in no condition to do anything else.
The call came from across the table: "I think we should rest again." Almost unanimous. By the DM's count it was around 10 PM — late enough for a second long rest to put the party at full capacity before dawn. A proper watch was organized this time, with actual debate about rotation. The rest went clean.
"Good times," Barzer assessed afterward. "I'm glad we retreated. We would not have survived having not retreated."
Two sessions of attrition, two long rests, and the party was finally at full strength with something to show for it.
Back to the Cave
With everyone at full HP and full spell slots, the party started the walk back. On the way, the question of horses came up.
Elaris guessed they were tied up somewhere, eating grass. Barzer corrected her: they were in the stable in town. Then, mid-sentence, he remembered.
"No. You burnt the stable down. They had to save the horses."
A beat.
"I forgot I burnt the stable down."
Elaris, unflappable: "Yeah. You're just, you know, living out your best part of life."
Barzer did not disagree. He noted, for the record, that he doesn't even have fire yet. Whatever comes next is going to be worse.
The Plan
At the cave entrance, the party stopped and Barzer laid out what he'd been working through.
The bat familiar: position it ten feet off the ground, exactly at ledge height where the goblins are perched. Cast Fog Cloud centered on the bat at that elevation. The cloud engulfs the ledge. Everything above it is blind. The party, fighting at ground level below the cloud, can see normally. The elevated archers are shooting into a white-out — and if they fire at all, they do it with disadvantage against targets they can't see.
"An hour for fog cloud?" the table asked, disbelieving.
An hour.
Nysera worked through her half of the problem. Spike Growth first — action, concentration active. Then Wild Shape — bonus action, beast form. Concentration transfers with the transformation. She fights in beast form while the spike field continues punishing anything that tries to cross it. The sequence has to be in the right order: spell first, then shift. Miss the window and you waste one or both.
Selena cast Aid before anyone crossed the threshold — five additional maximum and current HP on three targets for eight hours. Elaris handed Bardic Inspiration dice out before initiative was rolled, not after. The distinction matters: once combat starts, a bonus action on a buff is a bonus action not spent on Healing Word.
Barzer cast Mage Armor. "I get up and I'm like — Mage Armor, bitch."
The bat went forward to scout. Stealth rolls: 18, 22. It moved in clean, positioned itself at ten feet off the cave floor, and held there. Barzer cast Fog Cloud on it. The cloud went up.
Marching order settled. The party lined up at the entrance. The session ended.
What's Next
The cave is scouted. The ledge is blind. The party is at full capacity with specific assignments, pre-combat buffs applied, and a tactical plan already in motion.
Kaltor is still recovering — James was out this session for surgery — but everyone else is buffed, positioned, and ready. Whatever is waiting in the next chamber doesn't know what's coming.
The session ended before a single die was rolled inside the cave. That was the point.