What You Know
The goblin boss — the small goblin the rats kept describing as carrying a strange, squiggly metal thing, which turned out to be a scimitar rather than the staff everyone assumed — is dead, killed by a single arrow through the eye. Its warriors are dead with it. The immediate threat in the throne room is cleared, but the session ended with more open threads than closed ones:
- The party promised the captives it would come back, and hasn't. A good perception check found them huddled against the wall of a drop that steps down roughly thirty feet in six-foot tiers. They saw the party and signalled for silence rather than help — they knew better than to be heard. The party kept quiet, signalled back that it would return once it had gathered everyone, and withdrew. That promise is still outstanding, and they have no way of knowing the fight upstairs is over.
- The rat pack is gone, and it was the party's only source on this dungeon. All six died in the tunnel. Before they did, they gave up that their master was starving them, that the last thing they were fed was a hairless child, and that their own kin were being held hostage against their obedience. Elaris rolled a 26 to recruit them and it still failed, because their price was a live human. Everything else they knew died with them.
- A Deck of Many Things is sitting in Elaris's pack, unopened. Reece read the rules out at the table: you declare how many cards you intend to draw before you draw any, effects land immediately, and if you declare more than you actually draw the rest fly out and take effect at once. Elaris asked whether the clock started when she found it — it doesn't, it starts when she decides — and then said she'd save her pulls for another time.
- Nobody has used the mushrooms, the acid, or the rag. Nineteen poisonous mushrooms harvested clean, a four-ounce vial of black pudding acid, and a Goblin Rag that rolls a d4 of chaos once per short rest. Three consumables the party earned and has never once brought to a fight.
- Theren has no ranged weapon. The same roll that killed the goblin boss snapped his bow in half. He took the boss's Scimitar of Warning and is fighting in melee with it and a pair of shortswords, but a battlefield full of dead goblins still has a bow on it somewhere.
- An unidentified ring came off the pile of bones. Selena found it, rubbed it, and nothing happened. That's not the same as confirming it's mundane.
Current Party Toolkit
- Theren Vale — Hunter Ranger, Archery style, now without a bow. Carrying the Scimitar of Warning off the goblin boss — finesse and light, so it pairs with a shortsword for two-weapon fighting, and it gives him advantage on initiative and the whole party immunity to surprise within 30 feet. Hunter's Mark is still available, but until he loots a bow his Archery style is doing nothing for him.
- Barzer — War Magic Wizard, and the party's closer. Magic Missile ended the rat that opened the fight and both surviving warriors that ended it, the last one on a second-level cast split ten and seven. Several slots down from full. Fire Bolt at will, Identify as a ritual, Find Familiar in the book.
- Nysera — Forest Druid. Fire Bolt and Wild Shape both unspent. Skrillex has scouted for the party twice now and is the cheapest way to look at anything nobody wants to walk up to.
- Elaris Moonveil — Lore Bard, CHA 20. Spent Speak with Animals on the rats and landed a 26 on the persuasion that still wasn't enough. Bardic Inspiration and Healing Word both in reserve, and she is carrying the Deck of Many Things.
- Selena — Life Cleric, and the party's only healer. She's the one who went through the bone pile and came up with the unidentified ring. Sixteen maximum hit points; the single most important thing this party can do for its survivability is stop letting her get hit.
What Gets You Killed
- Leaving the captives until it's too late. The rats were being fed people, one at a time, as the food ran out. That arrangement ended when the party killed the rats and the master — but nobody has checked what it ended for the people at the bottom of that drop, and the party is the only one who knows the goblins are dead.
- Climbing thirty feet down into a hole with no way back up. The drop is tiered rather than sheer, which makes going down easy and coming back up with frightened, weakened civilians a different problem. Solve the exit before anyone descends, not after.
- Opening anything else with your own hands. The chest turned out to be clean and the cauldron turned out to be people. Elaris opened both with Mage Hand, which is the only reason nobody had to find out the hard way which was which. Stay in that habit.
- Drawing from the Deck of Many Things out of curiosity. Its cards go from "instant wealth" to "imprisoned indefinitely with a permanent penalty to every saving throw you'll ever make." There is no safe idle moment to try it "just to see."