On the cavernous lair under the manor, the party resumes their crawl.
They move westward, to the closest corridor on the left of the cave’s entrance.
The corridor leads them down a flight of stairs, and to two doors.
One to the north (their right).
Another to the south (their left).
Sigmar heads to the door on the right and opens it gingerly.
It leads to a large common room filled with tables, chairs, beer kegs, and walls lined with brown and red draperies.
Within in, and around one of the tables, four humans clad in red cloaks are busy drinking and playing some sort of game of chance. They are noisy and miss the party at first.
One of the ruffians notices Sigmar and loudly slurs a demand for him to identify himself.
Sigmar tries to bluff his way into convincing him that they belong.
But despite his drunkenness, this does not work.
The ruffian asks again.
Sigmar responds with an offensive spell.
A battle ensues:
Brannus uses a thaumaturgy trick to bang a door on the opposite side of the large room, startling one of the four ruffians.
The party remains by the frame of the door Sigmar opened.
The foes drunkenly charge the group.
Despite the intoxicated state of the ruffians, they hold their own and prove to be quite a challenge.
Dwolf navigates from the corridor into the room, is almost overwhelmed, but holds his own.
Sigmar gets hit quite severely.
Meanwhile, due to the narrow corridors, Brannus is by the unopened south door trying to help with his crossbow.
He starts hearing some noises from beyond that closed door.
After quite a bit of effort, the party manages to defeat the drunk gamblers.
The overall area falls to silence, but sounds from the other room are still faintly heard occasionally.
Regardless of what they are, they seem unrelated and unaware of the ruckus caused by the fight.
A bit spent, the party rests for an hour.
The short rest goes by uneventfully and the party heals a bit from it.
Eager to progress, Kiara moves to the door the party ignored earlier.
A light peek reveals voices yelled in Goblinoid and one bugbear with his back to the door.
Dwolf moves closer to try and understand what is being said.
Demeaning cries like “Roll like a dog!", “Lick the floor!" can be heard.
The are usually followed by a rude laughter.
Dwolf opens the door fully and has a better look of the whole scene.
Three bugbears are pestering a small creature.
Brannus seeing a bugbear, shoots a bolt but misses – hitting the door frame.
The larger of the three finally turns to the door, also allowing the party to see who their victim is:
It’s the goblin the party captured in the goblin cave, a few days ago, that managed to escape.
The goblin, recognizing the party simply… faints.
The larger bugbear, a dirty and smelly creature with a fancy eyepatch demands to know who the party is.
Dwolf panics and closes the door on him.
It’s of no use, a fight breaks between them.
Kicking the unconscious goblin out of the way, the bugbears open the door and attack.
Dwolf takes the brunt of the blows from the larger bugbear that calls himself Mosk.
The other two bugbears, unable to move to the corridor, try to attack the party with a javelin each.
Rattled, Kiara is unlucky with her aim.
Likewise Brannus keeps missing the bugbears, progressively turning the door into a bolt pincushion.
Sigmar, out of melee reach, tries to call on sacred fire but Mosk shrugs it off.
Dwolf resists the onslaught as much as he can – even defeating Mosk – but eventually collapses from his injuries.
He is on the floor bleeding to death.
Taking advantage of the opening, the remaining bugbears finally advance to the corridor.
It’s a harrowing fight, with Sigmar now taking the brunt of the assault.
His shield proves critical to his defense, deflecting most of the attacks from the bugbears.
The second bugbear is killed, but the third one – yet unharmed – takes his place.
Kiara and Sigmar focus, which leads to more attacks connecting.
Meanwhile, Dwolf’s resilience allows his body to stabilize and he is no longer bleeding.
And after a few more seconds of trading blows, the party emerges victorious.
Brannus applies his healing magic to Sigmar and Dwolf.
The ranger pulls himself up from unconsciousness.
Kiara rushes to check on the goblin, that is still knocked-out.
Breathing a sigh of relief, everyone is very much aware that this was a very close call.
The Draconus Dictum