Aw, I just realised last weeks game post got eaten by the forum.
RECAP: Party assembles itself through mild violence and the gnome lady climbing on top of the dragon, pointing at the dwarf and human, and saying in a clear, crisp, aristocratic tone, "Look, Balthazar! Drunkards!". A punchup ensued. Then some zealot soldiers from a vaguely-hostile land showed up, and the dwarf started a fistfight with their leader. A few drunken swings in, the dragonborn paladin came downstairs and we found out that they were speciest zealot holy soldiers, and a really nasty fight ensued, their leader being mobbed by angry peasants after failing a will-save against Command: Belittle from the death gnome. Another got mutilated by the dragonborn's axes, and the dwarf smashed one into the floor while he was distracted.
Final one was rapiered into submission, and then the dragonborn cut his throat when he surrendered, making Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata very cross about the loss of her prisoner and also cleanliness. Also the murder, but her god's in favor of that even if she personally isn't.
Then some fukken demonic orc showed up and menaced the barkeeper with his shadowy undead bodyguard/guard dogs by giving her demon cash and stealing the bodies. We all sensed "BBEG hazard do not touch" and hid behind the bar, Minerva Amelia Herionymous Imperiata very angry because her primary belief is that the dead should be undisturbed and therefore hates necromancy.
then we went to bed because we were tired and in the morning found out that a quest hook the blacksmith's daughter had been abducted by gobbos in the night.
TODAY: We set off to the tomb where gobs were, being led by a very unreliable prisoner (Bastard made us take two days instead of one), and arrived at the tomb to see a load of guards on duty. Realising that the Barbarian, as the only one not in chainmail, was the sneakiest, we sent him to have a peek in, but they saw him. We all yelled "Alright lets do this" and charged gloriously across the field, and smashed them pretty handily. The barbarian took some serious beating, but he was fine in the end.
Then we took a nap(short rest) and went tomb-diving. (Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata had to stop body mutilation by Balthasar)
There were several traps set by the goblins, but the tomb was a human one and much much older. We found a weird stone door with a swordlike slot in it, and marked it "Interesting". A little later, we found a secret door and another trap, and while the others were arguing about traps and detection, Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata crowbarred the damn thing open and marched straight in. It turned out that there was some sort of wizard study, with mystery vials and a dust-covered Bag of Holding, both of which she claimed on the basis of "Finders Keepers, Especially If The Finder Is Also Me".
There was another door in the study which led to a balcony, and we peeked through, to find more goblins and some spooky priest about to ritually sacrifice the blacksmith's daughter. Also, another one of those stoney doors.
Battle plans were drawn out, two of us would stay on the balcony and use ranged attacks, while the others would charge in from ground level (The passage the secret door was in came to there). Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata charged in, but couldnt quite reach the goblins, so readied her attack action, while the dragonborn flamed two of them and they all threw axes and daggers and stuff. The skirmishey goblin charged in and wailed on the other Paladin, who had jumped down, but landed no real hits while the priest screeched and charged straight into Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata's readied rapier action, where she Smote him most Divinely, rapier dancing mockingly around him until he collapsed in pain.
We mopped up the last goblin and patted down the corpses for cash, while the Dragonborn decided he didnt want to be a puppykicking evildoer and went to befriend the little girl, telling her she was safe, giving her his rations, etcetera.
Examining the big damn door, there was a riddle written on it, to which the answer was the inscription at the base of the statue in the entrance, and when the dwarf said the words the whole thing juddered open, leading into a big tomb chamber.
And then the sarcophagi self-desecrated, the occupants crawling out as a trio of armored undead, two shambling zombies and an alert-looking skeleton in full plate.
Battle was joined, and the barbarian immediately got wailed on after charging in and missing everything, with no Rages left. The others all attacked a zombie on the basis that they were probbably weaker, but it got back up from a brutal hit, as zombies do. We remembered that Radiant damage fucks up undead and also so does Smite... but Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata was out of spells. But Balthasar the dragondude wasn't, and rolled 2d6+2+3d8 damage, exploding a zombie in a burst of green magic (This causes friction with the non-paladins after the fight, as Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata's magic is not bright green, and they're supposed to be worshippin' the same god). The scary skeleton eats rapier-work from Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata, and goes down to a collossal bludgeoning strike from the fighter.
Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata promptly confiscates the skeleton's sword, on the basis that its made of White Steel, apparently the settings own Valyrian Steel, and that it is not disturbing the dead if the dead leap out of the coffins and charge at you. Balthasar shakes the bones out of a full set of plate armor and claims it himself, causing a spat with the fighter who is upset about this artefact of local history being nabbed by the alien foreigne- ahahah, no he wanted it himself, for a sweet sweet 21 AC. We pick up the daughter on the way out, and remember the door with a sword-shaped slot. Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata sticks the sword in the slot, andit rumbles open...
...revealing a room of hidden artefacts, none of which seem remotely of human origin.
These are:
1)A masterwork reaping scythe, which does 4xdice on the crit instead of 2x, <-Human fighter
2)An ornate filigree potions box, suspiciously similar to that offered by a local priest recently <-Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata
3)A padlocked book of the secret history of the order buried in the tomb. <- Dragonborn paladin
4)An arrow, javelin-sized, made wholly of mysterious white substance on which no shadows form.
5)Two masterly-made daggers, on a plinth as a pair but very different, one sleek and spiked and apparently made of white steel like Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata's sword, which has a name I can't remember. The other a horrible black spiked thing, which we later find out causes massive bleeding on a 19/20. <-Dragonborn Paladin
6)An amulet which apparently somehow shields things <-Dwarf Barbarian
With this in tow, we go to set off back to town, remember we left the goblin priest/cult leader bleeding on the floor, and go drag him with us.
On the first night of the way back, the Dragonborn forgets he's being nice now and tortures the cult leader for information, extracts that they were conducting a ritual of immortality and the name of the figure who recruited them, and terrifies the poor girl by slicing the goblins fingers off while he screams and cauterising the stumps. Like, right in the camp, too. Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata is not very pleased, but shrugs it off as a necessity.
The next day we get back into town, have a heartwarming reunion between the blacksmith and his daughter, and the slightly less heartwarming leg-smashing of the goblin by said blacksmith once she's gone inside. We talk a bit, he's immensely thankful, but we turn down his money (Because the filthy heathens amongst the party smashed the funerary urns in the tomb and extracted the monetary offerings within). Then, we become bounty hunters and turn him in to the constabulary. We also find out that the name of the man the goblin claims recruited him is that of the last knight of the order, whose reanimated corpse we probbably re-killed/exploded with divine fire.
After this, we go our seperate ways, Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata uses her nobility to blag her way into the local count's castle and smashes some training dummies (Discovering that the sword is disconcertingly effectve at slicing armored dummies in half), the dwarf starts putting huge spikes all over his armor so he can take a prestige class which runs at enemies with spiked armor, and the others... resupply, I think. We also levelled up to 3, and Minerva Amelia Heironymous Imperiata found out while hobnobbing with the Count that her sword is the legendary sword of the last king of the nation (which is more like a federation of likeminded counts and barons since the kingdom was toppled a century ago) and that if she can master its trials, she has a pretty solid claim on the throne of a human nation.
Oh dear.