Adventurers
- Alfredward (Dwarf 4)
- Knuckles (Thief 1)
- Rarder (Fighter 5)
Liaising with their ratfolk contacts in their newly established lair, the party got themselves a guide to the suspected lair of the King Under The Mountain - a derelict monastery formerly dedicated to Ferona, Iron Goddess. Wary of setting foot in the monastery grounds, the adventurers continued ascending the mountain to get a good vantage point from above. There they staked out the place for a couple of days, noting the comings and goings of the inhabitants.
First returned a pair of the great obese monsters of the kind they'd crossed paths with several times before, each carrying a wriggling sack under their arms. Then a gaggle of hairy ones emerged from a long-abandoned patch of allotments, paying little heed to their damp, matted hair of the plughole variety catching in the brambles - they departed in one direction and returned several hours later from another.
At this point Knuckles approached the complex and scouted the walls, finding a crumbling hole which might fit an unarmoured adventurer in the future. He also scrambled up the wall to examine a courtyard the party had spied from a distance - here he found a remarkably pristine garden complete with tranquil fountain and shallow pool.
The party decided to get a bit more intel from a current inhabitant, so they set up an ambush on the route the hairy ones had taken. Before long a unit of hairier-but-more-kempt ones rounded the bend, better armed and armoured, and marching in unison. Regardless of the better presentation, the adventurers barrelled into their flank in a flurry of flashing blades and whizzing arrows.
In no time at all the trio of adventurers and their five retainers had whittled the patrol down from double figures to a lone survivor, who they quickly bound and dragged down the mountain. Interrogating their fugitive back at their fort, they had to endure constant boasting of an army of hundreds beneath the mountain readying themselves to descend upon Yeoldelands in a wave of destructive raiding.
Pondering this info, the party considered their options for convenient responses. The baron seemed receptive to their report, but if they wished to use Redwood Keep as a base of operations at the foot of the mountains, they'd need to see about placating his daughter who now resided there.