1.1
1.2 Disclaimer: Note, just in case some Japanese or TSR bigwigs read this, I don't own Goku, the Kame-Hame-Ha King, or the world of Greyhawk and anything contained therein.
Dedication: I've been meaning to do this for a while. I just hadn't gotten around to it. I owe this all to my best friend, the most important person in my life. If it hadn't been for him, I never would've even played these D&D sessions, much less written it down. Thanks, Taneka. I love you.
1.3
1.4
1.5 Chapter Eight
Three days later the party reached the edge of the forest of Phostwood. It was late, so they set up camp at the edge of the woods. The group went through their now normal routine, and set up the watch schedule before going to bed.
Ambermist was on watch when the encounter happened. She heard noise, and woke her companions. They stood and armed themselves.
Jea listened for a moment, then began giggling. Laguna asked, "What?"
She continued laughing, pausing only long enough to choke out, "Go spill some grease—that'll take care of them!"
Laguna was the only one who got the joke, and he burst out laughing. "Oh, gods, not more goblins!"
Jea nodded, unable to stop laughing.
Dumbugg looked around. "I get kill stuff?"
"Yeah you do."
As the goblins broke through the eerie, glowing trees of Phostwood, Dumbugg, Laguna, and Wolf charged. Ambermist grinned evilly and cast Faerie Fire in a humanoid shape in the midst of the goblins. Jea cast the fist spell again (Demi's Forceful Fist: 3rd level Cleric/Druid spell, Dam. 3d6+Lvl), splattering goblins all over the place.
Several dozen of the goblins, realizing things weren't going their way, panicked and ran. Then the charging trio reached them and attacked with a vengeance.
After chopping through ten or more goblins, the trio succeeded in scaring the rest of the goblins away. They came back to the fire and Laguna caught Jea's eye.
"Darn! No 'slip ups' this time. They all ran before we could find the grease," he complained sarcastically.
Jea grinned savagely. "Oh, what a shame. And I was hoping they'd fall into the fire this time."
They both laughed as they returned to their blankets, leaving Ambermist, and especially Dumbugg, clueless.
* * * * * *
The next morning they entered Phostwood. It was a forest of strange trees that, at night, would glow with a strange, pulsing phosphorescence. There were few animals living there, and those that did seemed very timid. The group traveled for several days along the barely visible path, relying on the ranger to guide them in the right direction.
Finally the path opened to a huge clearing in the center of the forest, three days later. In the clearing were the ruins of the monastery. Two cracked, ancient statues of Goku rose to line the pathway between a tangle of ruined walls, crumbled buildings, and overgrown flagstones. The air was unnaturally still and the very clearing gave off a feeling of death and emptiness.
The party explored the clearing carefully. Ambermist scuttled up one of the statues for a better vantage point, warning them away from a giant scorpion that had just finished a meal and was wandering back to the woods. The group found a stairway that descended into the earth in the remains of the main temple building.
They all looked nervously at the stairs before turning to each other. Laguna looked at the ranger. "Well, Jea? What do you think?"
"Let's go down. But let me take care of the horses, okay? Go on down while I put the horses up."
They all dismounted—except for Dumbugg; he didn't have a horse—and gave Jea the reins. Then they descended into the depths below ahead of Jea.
The stairs went down about thirty feet into the earth. They were steep and slippery, overgrown with moss. The deeper the trio went, the stronger a strange and foul odor became. Laguna was fighting the urge to vomit as the taste of evil he'd been feeling became almost overpowering.
At the base of the stairs was a short hallway with a door at the end of it. The ranger joined them a moment later, eyeing the room they were in. "Quaint," she commented.
"Shh…" Ambermist whispered. "I hear something."
They all froze and strained their ears. A strange grunting, snarling, snuffling noise was heard. Laguna loosened his sword, feeling the vicious taste increase. He looked expectantly to Jea, who merely shrugged.
"Don't know."
Laguna and Dumbugg leading, they crept towards the door. Before they could get to it, however, it burst inward and a large, hulking shape filled the hall.
The creature, an ogre, was between nine and ten feet tall, with brownish skin with black warty bumps. Its eyes were purple with white pupils, and teeth and claws were black. With its greasy unwashed hair and uncured animal skin clothing, the creature smelled reminiscently of curdled milk.
Laguna roared and swung hard, but missed the ogre. It grinned wickedly and swiped at him with its own club. The stout length of wood connected solidly with his side, and, had it not been for his armor, probably would have broken all of his ribs. As it was, Laguna's mind was fogged over in pain. But he and Dumbugg kept fighting, hacking at the monster for all they were worth.
Jea, not about to be left out of the fight, brought out her bow and began firing arrows as fast as she could. Ambermist, having no bow, and not being able to get close enough to swing her twin broadswords, looked around for something to throw. She spotted some fist sized rocks and began pelting the creature with them. It howled and snarled as it hit Dumbugg with the club at the same instant Laguna cut it down.
Unfortunately, there was a second ogre behind the first, and it charged them too.
Ten minutes later three dead ogres lay scattered about—there had been another in the room—and Jea had used a couple of spells to heal Laguna and Dumbugg. Ambermist had checked the corpses, pocketing the coins she found. Dumbugg, who was angry at the ogres for daring to hit him, decapitated the bodies for amusment.
The room had two doors. One was locked and went floor to ceiling. So that one was out. The group decided to take the door on the far wall. They inspected the hallway beyond. It went straight for a long way, but about ten feet down there was a right branching hall.
They heard more snuffling and snarling from the passage. Turning at the fork, the group found themselves staring down another impossibly long hallway. A row of doors made up one side. Most of the doors were shut, but one, three doors down, was wide open. That's where the ogre had to be.
Laguna and Dumbugg charged into the room with the ogre, taking it by surprise. Within two minutes they had killed it and all five—Wolf included—looked around the room. It had once been a monk's cell. The remains of a bed and a table all that inhabited the room. Dumbugg, uninterested in anything that didn't have to do with fighting and food, chopped the head of this dead ogre as well.
They went and systematically opened all the doors in the hall. They found and killed two more ogres, but not much else. The rooms were all pretty much the same; bare, empty cells.
On the way back to the main part of the hall, Jea stopped. She reached over and hit something on the blank wall. A secret door snapped open under her touch. The party peeked through the doorway. A room that hadn't been opened in years met their gazes. A stairway down was at the far end, but other than that and the dust, the room was empty.
Laguna looked at the others. "We'll come back. Let's go."
They trekked back to the original junction. Then, having no choice, they took the straight route. At the end, near a large, ornate door, the hallway widened.
Jea and Wolf moved up next to Laguna, weapons ready. There was a skittering noise behind the door. As Laguna pushed the door open, the noise became clear. The floor was carpeted with the bodies of squeaking, hungry giant rats.
Upon seeing the rodents, Jea went nuts. She charged through the door, roaring and swinging. Wolf followed, jaws snapping. They were killing rats in any manner they could, from hacking and biting to stomping and kicking.
Laguna and the others paused a moment in confusion before jumping into the fray.
Five minutes, eight rocks, two falls, and six swings later, all the rats were dead.
Jea stood, panting, surveying the dead rodents. Laguna looked at her. "Jea?"
She turned towards him. "Sorry, my friend. I—have a—thing against giant rats." She spat on the floor. "Disgusting, evil creatures."
He nodded. "I understand." He looked around.
They were in a chapel anteroom. In front of them, cracked open, were the large double doors leading to the main chapel. Laguna heard snarling in the room and he crept to the door. Peeking around, he lost his temper.
An ogre stood in front of a shattered alter of Goku, its back to him. The enraged paladin kicked the door open all the way and charged, roaring, at the ogre. It whirled in utter surprise as the paladin closed in.
That fight was very short and ugly. The paladin stood over the fallen ogre, breathing heavily. The rest of the group looked around the room. Large stone benches lined the center aisle. In them were the scorched bones of people, some missing pieces. The walls held a sooty scorching. The large limestone alter was shattered in two or three pieces as if something heavy had landed on it. Gouged into the rock of the floors, benches, and alter were long claw marks, like those of a great cat.
When Laguna recovered his temper and breath, they moved back to the anteroom. There was another door, this one wide open. It went into a short, ten foot hallway with a door at the end and a left turn.
They snuck to this new door. Inside was the dining hall and the kitchen off of that. Three ogres were in the dining hall. To motivate the stupid beasts, Laguna and Dumbugg stood in the doorway, yelling explicatives at them. The monsters attacked.
Jea rolled her eyes. Typical. She watched in mild amusement as her three companions chopped the ogres into little pieces, applauding when a well placed rock, courtesy of Ambermist, hit an ogre between the eyes and killed it instantly.
As her comrades fought the four ogres that had appeared form the kitchen, she heard a noise down the hallway they had not yet explored. Turning, she jerked to the side as the ogre that had snuck up on them swung a huge club. The club whooshed by her and she retaliated with her mace, proceeding to bash the monster's brains in.
Once their scuffles were finished, the party checked out the kitchen. It was like the rest of the temple—deserted and empty. Dumbugg, bored and following his pattern, decapitated all the ogres before they went down the hallway they hadn't checked out yet.
It led to another corridor of monk's rooms, which they systematically searched, and onto a twisting, turning hall. They found several storage rooms off the branching, serpentine hallway. Laguna, of course, pocketed some small, lightweight statues of his deity, Goku. Dumbugg found some mushrooms, and, upon deciding he was hungry, ate them.
Lucky for him, they weren't poisonous. The group kept going until they heard voices around the corner.
Peeking around, they saw the ogres' leader. He was talking, giving orders to two of his flunkies. Laguna motioned for Jea and Ambermist to hang back for a moment as he and Dumbugg marched around the corner to look into the room with the ogres. Laguna shouted at them.
All three turned towards him and Dumbugg. The leader ordered the attack. His two toadies lumbered into the corridor, one behind the other. Laguna prepared to swing, his muscles tense and ready, the foul taste of evil looming in his throat. Dumbugg stood next to him, grinning broadly, glad because he would get to kill something.
Jea snarled, baring her teeth like an animal, as she nocked an arrow and fired. It hit the ogre's shoulder, and seemed to be the signal to attack. Laguna swung in an upper cut, carving deep into the ogre's flesh, sending blood bursting.
Dumbugg yelled obscenities at the ogre as he slashed with his sword, managing a major hit that sliced the ogre's arm off. The beast got in one wild swing before Laguna cut it down.
The second fight went much like the first, except that the monster managed to score a hit on Laguna, drawing blood on his arm.
Dumbugg beheaded the two ogres and looked back into the room with the leader.
Laguna, after inspecting the ash on his arm, turned to look at the ogre leader. Raising his sword, he called, "Come forth, Foul Spawn of Evil, and face me! In the name of the
Kame-Hame-Ha King, Goku, I shall slay thee!!!!"
The ogre leaned back on his heels , shifting his grip on his sword, unamused. He raised one hand, flipping the paladin off, grinning maliciously.
Dumbugg made an obscene comment in ogrish. The ogre, still unruffled, casually flipped off Dumbugg with both hands.
Laguna and Dumbugg looked at each other, and then Laguna turned to Jea. She smiled and stepped forward, exchanging her bow for her mace. The three charged head on, Ambermist and Wolf close behind.
Laguna reached the monster first, striking hard and fast. Jea reached the ogre a split second later, swinging her mace fiercely. The two weapons rent open the beast's armor and scored the flesh. Drawing back his fist, the ogre punched Jea in the chest, his huge fist making a crunching thud as it slammed into her. She staggered backwards, coughing up blood. Dumbugg got in a swing as Jea groped for a healing potion in her pack.
Laguna, now enraged and worried for the ranger woman, attempted to impale the monster on his sword. It didn't quite work that way, but it did cause a lot of damage. He hit the monster a little too far to the right, carving a chink out of the creature's side.
It roared and brought it's sword around to smash him in the side. Laguna landed next to Jea, who had just pulled out a large healing potion. She eyed him briefly, then uncorked the flask. Leaning over, she pried his mouth open and poured the magic liquid down his throat.
Swallowing reflexively, Laguna felt the potion take affect. He struggled to his feet, looking angrily at the ogre. Raising his sword, he charged at the ogre, this time succeeding in impaling the beast. His broadsword skewered the ogre right through the diaphragm. The ogre's eyes bugged out as the life faded from him. He collapsed against the sword and slid limply to the ground.
Laguna wiped his sword off on the ogre's tunic—and something caught his eye on the ogre's hand. It was a ring—a simple silver band with runes inscribed on it. Pulling it off the monster's finger, he turned to check on his comrades.
Dumbugg was busying himself with preparing to decapitate the ogre, humming to himself. Ambermist was poking around the room, looking for riches. Satisfied with their activities, he turned to Jea. She was trying to get to her feet, wiping the blood from her mouth. Laguna moved to her side, helping her up.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She nodded, putting one hand to her torso and feeling for broken ribs. Wincing, she cast a medium level healing spell, sighing in relief afterwards. "Yeah, I'm okay, Laguna. What's that in your hand?"
Laguna opened his fist and looked at the ring. It seemed to hum with magic. "Don't quite know what it does. Found it on the ogre's finger."
She raised one eyebrow and then began digging through her bag again. Pulling out a scroll, she said, "Lemme see it."
Puzzled, the paladin handed it over. Holding it between thumb and forefinger, she read the scroll quickly, a burst of magic flaring up between her fingers and the scroll. She grinned and reached out to take his hand. Sliding the ring on one of his fingers, she said, "Wear it. It's a ring of regeneration. It'll help you heal up."
"Awesome!" Laguna smiled broadly.
The group searched the room fully. These had once been the head priest's rooms and were utterly empty. They did notice that the same gouge marks permeated this room too.
After scouring the room and finding nothing, they discussed their options. Dumbugg was easy—he wanted to kill stuff some more. Ambermist was bored; she hadn't seen any treasure yet.
However, Laguna, Jea, and Ambermist scanned over the rough map the ranger had kept of the building.
"Hmm…" Ambermist said. "Looks like the only place we haven't been is in that secret room. We've rummaged through everywhere else."
Jea nodded. "We should probably check there. It has to hold something important—elsewise, why a secret door?"
"Indeed," Laguna commented. "Shall we proceed?"
1.2 Disclaimer: Note, just in case some Japanese or TSR bigwigs read this, I don't own Goku, the Kame-Hame-Ha King, or the world of Greyhawk and anything contained therein.
Dedication: I've been meaning to do this for a while. I just hadn't gotten around to it. I owe this all to my best friend, the most important person in my life. If it hadn't been for him, I never would've even played these D&D sessions, much less written it down. Thanks, Taneka. I love you.
1.3
1.4
1.5 Chapter Eight
Three days later the party reached the edge of the forest of Phostwood. It was late, so they set up camp at the edge of the woods. The group went through their now normal routine, and set up the watch schedule before going to bed.
Ambermist was on watch when the encounter happened. She heard noise, and woke her companions. They stood and armed themselves.
Jea listened for a moment, then began giggling. Laguna asked, "What?"
She continued laughing, pausing only long enough to choke out, "Go spill some grease—that'll take care of them!"
Laguna was the only one who got the joke, and he burst out laughing. "Oh, gods, not more goblins!"
Jea nodded, unable to stop laughing.
Dumbugg looked around. "I get kill stuff?"
"Yeah you do."
As the goblins broke through the eerie, glowing trees of Phostwood, Dumbugg, Laguna, and Wolf charged. Ambermist grinned evilly and cast Faerie Fire in a humanoid shape in the midst of the goblins. Jea cast the fist spell again (Demi's Forceful Fist: 3rd level Cleric/Druid spell, Dam. 3d6+Lvl), splattering goblins all over the place.
Several dozen of the goblins, realizing things weren't going their way, panicked and ran. Then the charging trio reached them and attacked with a vengeance.
After chopping through ten or more goblins, the trio succeeded in scaring the rest of the goblins away. They came back to the fire and Laguna caught Jea's eye.
"Darn! No 'slip ups' this time. They all ran before we could find the grease," he complained sarcastically.
Jea grinned savagely. "Oh, what a shame. And I was hoping they'd fall into the fire this time."
They both laughed as they returned to their blankets, leaving Ambermist, and especially Dumbugg, clueless.
* * * * * *
The next morning they entered Phostwood. It was a forest of strange trees that, at night, would glow with a strange, pulsing phosphorescence. There were few animals living there, and those that did seemed very timid. The group traveled for several days along the barely visible path, relying on the ranger to guide them in the right direction.
Finally the path opened to a huge clearing in the center of the forest, three days later. In the clearing were the ruins of the monastery. Two cracked, ancient statues of Goku rose to line the pathway between a tangle of ruined walls, crumbled buildings, and overgrown flagstones. The air was unnaturally still and the very clearing gave off a feeling of death and emptiness.
The party explored the clearing carefully. Ambermist scuttled up one of the statues for a better vantage point, warning them away from a giant scorpion that had just finished a meal and was wandering back to the woods. The group found a stairway that descended into the earth in the remains of the main temple building.
They all looked nervously at the stairs before turning to each other. Laguna looked at the ranger. "Well, Jea? What do you think?"
"Let's go down. But let me take care of the horses, okay? Go on down while I put the horses up."
They all dismounted—except for Dumbugg; he didn't have a horse—and gave Jea the reins. Then they descended into the depths below ahead of Jea.
The stairs went down about thirty feet into the earth. They were steep and slippery, overgrown with moss. The deeper the trio went, the stronger a strange and foul odor became. Laguna was fighting the urge to vomit as the taste of evil he'd been feeling became almost overpowering.
At the base of the stairs was a short hallway with a door at the end of it. The ranger joined them a moment later, eyeing the room they were in. "Quaint," she commented.
"Shh…" Ambermist whispered. "I hear something."
They all froze and strained their ears. A strange grunting, snarling, snuffling noise was heard. Laguna loosened his sword, feeling the vicious taste increase. He looked expectantly to Jea, who merely shrugged.
"Don't know."
Laguna and Dumbugg leading, they crept towards the door. Before they could get to it, however, it burst inward and a large, hulking shape filled the hall.
The creature, an ogre, was between nine and ten feet tall, with brownish skin with black warty bumps. Its eyes were purple with white pupils, and teeth and claws were black. With its greasy unwashed hair and uncured animal skin clothing, the creature smelled reminiscently of curdled milk.
Laguna roared and swung hard, but missed the ogre. It grinned wickedly and swiped at him with its own club. The stout length of wood connected solidly with his side, and, had it not been for his armor, probably would have broken all of his ribs. As it was, Laguna's mind was fogged over in pain. But he and Dumbugg kept fighting, hacking at the monster for all they were worth.
Jea, not about to be left out of the fight, brought out her bow and began firing arrows as fast as she could. Ambermist, having no bow, and not being able to get close enough to swing her twin broadswords, looked around for something to throw. She spotted some fist sized rocks and began pelting the creature with them. It howled and snarled as it hit Dumbugg with the club at the same instant Laguna cut it down.
Unfortunately, there was a second ogre behind the first, and it charged them too.
Ten minutes later three dead ogres lay scattered about—there had been another in the room—and Jea had used a couple of spells to heal Laguna and Dumbugg. Ambermist had checked the corpses, pocketing the coins she found. Dumbugg, who was angry at the ogres for daring to hit him, decapitated the bodies for amusment.
The room had two doors. One was locked and went floor to ceiling. So that one was out. The group decided to take the door on the far wall. They inspected the hallway beyond. It went straight for a long way, but about ten feet down there was a right branching hall.
They heard more snuffling and snarling from the passage. Turning at the fork, the group found themselves staring down another impossibly long hallway. A row of doors made up one side. Most of the doors were shut, but one, three doors down, was wide open. That's where the ogre had to be.
Laguna and Dumbugg charged into the room with the ogre, taking it by surprise. Within two minutes they had killed it and all five—Wolf included—looked around the room. It had once been a monk's cell. The remains of a bed and a table all that inhabited the room. Dumbugg, uninterested in anything that didn't have to do with fighting and food, chopped the head of this dead ogre as well.
They went and systematically opened all the doors in the hall. They found and killed two more ogres, but not much else. The rooms were all pretty much the same; bare, empty cells.
On the way back to the main part of the hall, Jea stopped. She reached over and hit something on the blank wall. A secret door snapped open under her touch. The party peeked through the doorway. A room that hadn't been opened in years met their gazes. A stairway down was at the far end, but other than that and the dust, the room was empty.
Laguna looked at the others. "We'll come back. Let's go."
They trekked back to the original junction. Then, having no choice, they took the straight route. At the end, near a large, ornate door, the hallway widened.
Jea and Wolf moved up next to Laguna, weapons ready. There was a skittering noise behind the door. As Laguna pushed the door open, the noise became clear. The floor was carpeted with the bodies of squeaking, hungry giant rats.
Upon seeing the rodents, Jea went nuts. She charged through the door, roaring and swinging. Wolf followed, jaws snapping. They were killing rats in any manner they could, from hacking and biting to stomping and kicking.
Laguna and the others paused a moment in confusion before jumping into the fray.
Five minutes, eight rocks, two falls, and six swings later, all the rats were dead.
Jea stood, panting, surveying the dead rodents. Laguna looked at her. "Jea?"
She turned towards him. "Sorry, my friend. I—have a—thing against giant rats." She spat on the floor. "Disgusting, evil creatures."
He nodded. "I understand." He looked around.
They were in a chapel anteroom. In front of them, cracked open, were the large double doors leading to the main chapel. Laguna heard snarling in the room and he crept to the door. Peeking around, he lost his temper.
An ogre stood in front of a shattered alter of Goku, its back to him. The enraged paladin kicked the door open all the way and charged, roaring, at the ogre. It whirled in utter surprise as the paladin closed in.
That fight was very short and ugly. The paladin stood over the fallen ogre, breathing heavily. The rest of the group looked around the room. Large stone benches lined the center aisle. In them were the scorched bones of people, some missing pieces. The walls held a sooty scorching. The large limestone alter was shattered in two or three pieces as if something heavy had landed on it. Gouged into the rock of the floors, benches, and alter were long claw marks, like those of a great cat.
When Laguna recovered his temper and breath, they moved back to the anteroom. There was another door, this one wide open. It went into a short, ten foot hallway with a door at the end and a left turn.
They snuck to this new door. Inside was the dining hall and the kitchen off of that. Three ogres were in the dining hall. To motivate the stupid beasts, Laguna and Dumbugg stood in the doorway, yelling explicatives at them. The monsters attacked.
Jea rolled her eyes. Typical. She watched in mild amusement as her three companions chopped the ogres into little pieces, applauding when a well placed rock, courtesy of Ambermist, hit an ogre between the eyes and killed it instantly.
As her comrades fought the four ogres that had appeared form the kitchen, she heard a noise down the hallway they had not yet explored. Turning, she jerked to the side as the ogre that had snuck up on them swung a huge club. The club whooshed by her and she retaliated with her mace, proceeding to bash the monster's brains in.
Once their scuffles were finished, the party checked out the kitchen. It was like the rest of the temple—deserted and empty. Dumbugg, bored and following his pattern, decapitated all the ogres before they went down the hallway they hadn't checked out yet.
It led to another corridor of monk's rooms, which they systematically searched, and onto a twisting, turning hall. They found several storage rooms off the branching, serpentine hallway. Laguna, of course, pocketed some small, lightweight statues of his deity, Goku. Dumbugg found some mushrooms, and, upon deciding he was hungry, ate them.
Lucky for him, they weren't poisonous. The group kept going until they heard voices around the corner.
Peeking around, they saw the ogres' leader. He was talking, giving orders to two of his flunkies. Laguna motioned for Jea and Ambermist to hang back for a moment as he and Dumbugg marched around the corner to look into the room with the ogres. Laguna shouted at them.
All three turned towards him and Dumbugg. The leader ordered the attack. His two toadies lumbered into the corridor, one behind the other. Laguna prepared to swing, his muscles tense and ready, the foul taste of evil looming in his throat. Dumbugg stood next to him, grinning broadly, glad because he would get to kill something.
Jea snarled, baring her teeth like an animal, as she nocked an arrow and fired. It hit the ogre's shoulder, and seemed to be the signal to attack. Laguna swung in an upper cut, carving deep into the ogre's flesh, sending blood bursting.
Dumbugg yelled obscenities at the ogre as he slashed with his sword, managing a major hit that sliced the ogre's arm off. The beast got in one wild swing before Laguna cut it down.
The second fight went much like the first, except that the monster managed to score a hit on Laguna, drawing blood on his arm.
Dumbugg beheaded the two ogres and looked back into the room with the leader.
Laguna, after inspecting the ash on his arm, turned to look at the ogre leader. Raising his sword, he called, "Come forth, Foul Spawn of Evil, and face me! In the name of the
Kame-Hame-Ha King, Goku, I shall slay thee!!!!"
The ogre leaned back on his heels , shifting his grip on his sword, unamused. He raised one hand, flipping the paladin off, grinning maliciously.
Dumbugg made an obscene comment in ogrish. The ogre, still unruffled, casually flipped off Dumbugg with both hands.
Laguna and Dumbugg looked at each other, and then Laguna turned to Jea. She smiled and stepped forward, exchanging her bow for her mace. The three charged head on, Ambermist and Wolf close behind.
Laguna reached the monster first, striking hard and fast. Jea reached the ogre a split second later, swinging her mace fiercely. The two weapons rent open the beast's armor and scored the flesh. Drawing back his fist, the ogre punched Jea in the chest, his huge fist making a crunching thud as it slammed into her. She staggered backwards, coughing up blood. Dumbugg got in a swing as Jea groped for a healing potion in her pack.
Laguna, now enraged and worried for the ranger woman, attempted to impale the monster on his sword. It didn't quite work that way, but it did cause a lot of damage. He hit the monster a little too far to the right, carving a chink out of the creature's side.
It roared and brought it's sword around to smash him in the side. Laguna landed next to Jea, who had just pulled out a large healing potion. She eyed him briefly, then uncorked the flask. Leaning over, she pried his mouth open and poured the magic liquid down his throat.
Swallowing reflexively, Laguna felt the potion take affect. He struggled to his feet, looking angrily at the ogre. Raising his sword, he charged at the ogre, this time succeeding in impaling the beast. His broadsword skewered the ogre right through the diaphragm. The ogre's eyes bugged out as the life faded from him. He collapsed against the sword and slid limply to the ground.
Laguna wiped his sword off on the ogre's tunic—and something caught his eye on the ogre's hand. It was a ring—a simple silver band with runes inscribed on it. Pulling it off the monster's finger, he turned to check on his comrades.
Dumbugg was busying himself with preparing to decapitate the ogre, humming to himself. Ambermist was poking around the room, looking for riches. Satisfied with their activities, he turned to Jea. She was trying to get to her feet, wiping the blood from her mouth. Laguna moved to her side, helping her up.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
She nodded, putting one hand to her torso and feeling for broken ribs. Wincing, she cast a medium level healing spell, sighing in relief afterwards. "Yeah, I'm okay, Laguna. What's that in your hand?"
Laguna opened his fist and looked at the ring. It seemed to hum with magic. "Don't quite know what it does. Found it on the ogre's finger."
She raised one eyebrow and then began digging through her bag again. Pulling out a scroll, she said, "Lemme see it."
Puzzled, the paladin handed it over. Holding it between thumb and forefinger, she read the scroll quickly, a burst of magic flaring up between her fingers and the scroll. She grinned and reached out to take his hand. Sliding the ring on one of his fingers, she said, "Wear it. It's a ring of regeneration. It'll help you heal up."
"Awesome!" Laguna smiled broadly.
The group searched the room fully. These had once been the head priest's rooms and were utterly empty. They did notice that the same gouge marks permeated this room too.
After scouring the room and finding nothing, they discussed their options. Dumbugg was easy—he wanted to kill stuff some more. Ambermist was bored; she hadn't seen any treasure yet.
However, Laguna, Jea, and Ambermist scanned over the rough map the ranger had kept of the building.
"Hmm…" Ambermist said. "Looks like the only place we haven't been is in that secret room. We've rummaged through everywhere else."
Jea nodded. "We should probably check there. It has to hold something important—elsewise, why a secret door?"
"Indeed," Laguna commented. "Shall we proceed?"