Alas, I got distracted the last few days and forgot to put together this post. Not that it seems people particularly care about them, I like rambling a bit. Back to the tale of Myrleena, the part-demon mage-rogue, and her band of plucky adventurers!

After being resurrected in the events of The Fey-Ri and the Dragon, Myrleena and her compatriots had good luck once again. Despite the army attacking the city, they managed to foil an assassination attempt on the city lord, kill the last army commander, kill the dragon who’d fried Myrleena, and beaten off the last-ditch assault of the enemy army. With the hobgoblin army in tatters, they decided to take the fight to the enemy, tracking them down to their source in the Western Mountains, where the hobgoblin fortress was waiting.

The fortress was built into a mountainside, and their approach was quickly interrupted by an angry blue dragon, which promptly attempted to throw the group cleric off the mountainside and to electrocute the party. As the details are fuzzy, obviously the dragon didn’t last long. (Why is it that the horrible moments are the ones that stick in my memory?)

With the dragon out of the way, we delved into the fortress, thankfully mostly devoid of defenders due to them having joined the army. Other than a rather horrifying experience in the kitchen, where we found a devil was the cook and preferred cooking halflings, elves, and humans, the fight went well, right up until Myrleena and company found the last elite force before the commander of the hobgoblins.

A hobgoblin mage mind-controlled the group’s self-professed dragonslayer, who hit like a dump truck, and commanded her to kill the cleric. If Myrleena had been in the cleric’s place, she would have been cut in two, but despite taking 10 times the damage from their own group in the fight, they managed to kill the defenders, at which point they found a circular shaft that ascended 100 feet above their heads, from which they could hear chanting! They decided that they really didn’t want whatever spell was being cast to finish, so abandoned the last few rooms to head upward via flight, which is where disaster nearly struck again.

The leader of the hobgoblin tribe was the half-dragon son of the blue dragon outside, and a dedicated servant of the evil dragon-goddess Tiamat. Worse, the chamber contained an enchantment that tried to dispel Myrleena’s flight spells as they entered the room, which would have led to very messy splatter marks on the floor below. All of the others resisted, and Myrleena very narrowly managed to grab a hold of the edge of the shaft, dragging herself up while the enemy cleric waded into the group with a flail! After taking some damage from the cleric, he fell with a final gasped prayer to Tiamat, leaving us battered and victorious… as the ceiling ripped open and the avatar of Tiamat herself lunged into the room.

Tiamat is a 5-headed dragon with a nasty temper, and we were not ready for a fight with her, even if this was a mere shadow of the goddess’ might. Due to the shaft being narrow enough she wouldn’t fit, we ran for our lives, and fortunately enough the enchantment that brought her into the room didn’t allow her to leave. After recollecting our sanity and cleaning up, we decided to investigate the last few rooms of the complex, reasoning they couldn’t be that bad. Oh, how wrong we were.

The rooms were the private chambers of the cleric we’d just slain, and one of them contained the hobgoblin’s consorts, a pair of fallen angels known as erinyes. Worse, there were three rooms and we split up. The first person into the room was our mage, who they magically charmed into adoring every word they spoke. Then the dragonslayer followed and fell prey to their magic as well. By the time Myrleena poked her head into the room, every other person was subject to their magic, and she alone managed to resist. In all honesty, at this point they should have murdered the group and ended our campaign against the hobgoblin horde with our success, followed by our deaths to the minions who found us.

As it stands, with some quick pleading, groveling, and offering to be their guide around the region, Myrleena managed to convince the two women that her group was worth more alive. Besides, if they mishandled things we might’ve broken free and killed them. Thus, my fey-ri ended up the guide of a pair of fallen angels. Considering the events with the spy, it should be no surprise she was also trying to figure out how to seduce them.

Thus ended our campaign of Red Hand of Doom. I suspect Myrleena died shortly thereafter.