WanderingHelplessly does not wait beside the cabin. He picks his ground carefully, strings a shock trap across the goblins’ likely approach, then settles into concealment farther back with his bow already drawn. Before long, voices drift through the trees.
Five goblins.
They come toward the cabin without caution, apparently comfortable enough with this place that they do not bother checking the surrounding woods. Four of them step directly into the trap.
Shock Trap: 2d6 lightning = 8 damage. DC 14 Dexterity saves. The goblins roll 10, 9, 19, and 10. Three fail and take the full 8 damage, leaving them barely standing at 2 HP each. One succeeds and takes 4, leaving it at 6 HP.
The electrical crack tears through the clearing. Goblins shriek, weapons clatter, and the fifth spins toward the trees.
That is when WanderingHelplessly releases the arrow.
Hidden attack with advantage: 10 and 5 + 6 = 16, just enough to beat AC 15. Damage: 5. The arrow punches into the untouched goblin before it even understands where the attack came from, cutting it to half its strength. Then initiative is rolled. WanderingHelplessly gets advantage from his hidden position and rolls 15 and 17 + 4 = 21. The surprised goblins roll with disadvantage; their initiatives come out 17, 11, 10, 10, and 8.
He is faster.
WanderingHelplessly immediately identifies the goblin that handled the shock better than the others. His second arrow flies.
Attack: 9 + 6 = 15. Hit. Damage: 10.
The goblin with 6 HP drops before it gets its bearings.
Then the survivors fire back.
Four shortbows snap toward the trees. Their attack totals are 24, 15, 17, and 15 against WanderingHelplessly's AC 16. Two hit. Worse, the first is a natural 20. The arrows deal 7 and 7 damage. One arrow tears across his side while another punches hard into his armor. WanderingHelplessly loses 14 of his 28 HP.
That settles any temptation to stand there trading arrows.
He disappears.
Instead of firing again, the Pathfinder breaks line of sight, circles behind heavier cover, and melts back into the forest. Stealth roll: 17 + 6 = 23. The goblins scramble after the place they last saw him, but they have lost him completely.
For several moments there is only angry Goblin chatter and the sound of frightened feet shifting through the leaves.
Then something whistles out of the darkness.
An enchanted arrow strikes the earth between them.
The remaining goblins have just enough time to look down.
BOOM.
The explosive arrow rolls 11 damage in its area. Their Dexterity saves are 20, 13, 5, and 7. One manages to partially avoid the blast and takes 5 damage. The others take all 11. It does not matter.
All four were already wounded.
When the smoke rolls away, the clearing is silent again.
WanderingHelplessly remains behind cover for several moments before moving. He has taken a nasty pair of hits and sits at roughly 14/28 HP, but all five goblins are dead. He used one shock trap and one explosive arrow, while preserving his acid arrows, ice arrows, and his ability to summon the dire wolf. More importantly, this little group has confirmed something.
Goblins are using the abandoned cabin.
The five goblins were dangerous enough to wound him, but not enough to force him to abandon the investigation.
he has a first aide skill roll how much it helps heal him Since he has an actual First Aid skill, I’d let it restore HP in Similar Worlds rather than using strict D&D Medicine rules.
He takes cover after the fight, checks the arrow wounds, removes what needs removing, cleans them, and binds them tightly.
First Aid roll: 6 + 4 skill bonus = 10 — Success, but barely. Healing roll: 1d6 + 2 = 6 HP restored.
So WanderingHelplessly goes from 14/28 HP to 20/28 HP.
He has stopped the bleeding and treated the worst of the damage, but he is still noticeably wounded. The injuries will not interfere much with normal movement or shooting yet, though another rough fight could become a problem.
WanderingHelplessly waits until the woods are quiet again before approaching the bodies. He searches each goblin carefully rather than simply stripping everything useful. Loot rolls: 10, 4, 7, 8, and 20. Most carry exactly what he would expect: crude blades, shortbows, battered leather, a handful of coins, and several usable arrows. The last goblin is more interesting. Tucked beneath its armor is a small oilskin packet containing a rough charcoal sketch of the cabin and several branching tunnels beneath it.
The writing is crude, but the meaning is clear enough: bring the living below. Another mark indicates the cabin itself as an entrance point. There are no names and no explanation of who gave the order, but it is the first solid evidence that the disappearances are connected to this place.
Before doing anything else, WanderingHelplessly removes every useful arrow, coin, and small piece of equipment worth carrying. He then drags the bodies well away from the cabin, covers the blood and disturbed earth as best he can, scatters leaves back across the clearing, and removes obvious signs that an ambush happened here. The electrical burns and damaged ground cannot be made completely invisible, but someone casually returning to the cabin would not immediately see five dead goblins lying outside.
He takes shelter inside the abandoned house and prepares for anyone coming back. Near the entrance he sets another trap, this one designed to release a choking poison cloud across the doorway if triggered. It gives him protection while he searches and, if things go badly underground, something unpleasant waiting for anything pursuing him back through the house.
Now that he knows what he is looking for, the cabin gives up its secret quickly. Dust has been disturbed repeatedly near an old bookshelf, and shallow grooves scar the floor beneath it. WanderingHelplessly pulls it aside and reveals a concealed opening leading downward into complete darkness.
Below is not a simple cellar.
It opens into a sprawling natural cave system, tunnels splitting and twisting beyond the reach of the faint light from the cabin. Even here he can make out the difference between heavily traveled passages and quieter ones. Some paths are churned with goblin footprints; others have barely been touched. The busy tunnels probably lead toward whatever the goblins consider important. The quieter ones offer something far more valuable to a Pathfinder: concealment.
Darkness is an advantage.
WanderingHelplessly whispers the familiar words of his summoning spell. Shadow gathers beside him, thickens, and takes shape until a young dire wolf stands silently at his side. Its nose immediately lowers toward the stone, ears turning toward sounds deeper in the cave. Now there are two hunters in the dark.
WanderingHelplessly is still wounded at 20/28 HP, but he has his bow, enchanted arrows, traps, recovered supplies, and his familiar. Ahead of him is an entire goblin cave system, and somewhere inside may be the people he was hired to find.
looking at the map WanderingHelplessly has to decide how he wants to proceeded
@DeadOrbit I'll proceed cautiously. Setting any traps that will help me to detect an ambush. I take my time tracking, looking for a place to set up a safe spot. I feel I may need help, but I will try to get an idea of what I can accomplish alone.
Cupcake’s tiny bloody footprints led Oogie through a side passage and straight into what had once been the goblins’ armory and supply room. Weapon racks leaned crookedly against the walls, battered shields were stacked in piles, and crates of mismatched supplies had been shoved into every available corner. Oogie immediately began digging through everything while Cupcake supervised from her shoulder with the authority of a seasoned quartermaster. Oogie search roll: 19 + 0 = 19. Excellent search.
She was thorough enough to find nearly everything in the room that was worth noticing. Unfortunately, the actual armory was mostly garbage. Goblin-sized swords, chipped axes, bent spearheads, cracked shields, and armor that would barely cover one of Oogie’s thighs were about as useful to her as decorative spoons.
Armory quality roll: 9/100. Poor. No weapon or armor upgrade.
Oogie held up a tiny goblin breastplate and stared at it. “Cupcake... I think this is a hat.” She tried putting it on her head.
It was not a hat.
The supply crates were considerably better. Beneath some old rope and moldy blankets, Oogie uncovered a small leather pouch containing a sealed red potion and a mostly intact medical kit.
Supply quality roll: 81/100. Very good. Potion roll: 1 Potion of Healing found. Restores 2d4 + 2 HP when used. Additional supply roll: Healer’s Kit found with 6 uses remaining.
Oogie lifted the potion toward the torchlight. “Ooooh. Strawberry.” It was probably not strawberry.
She also found a small pouch of coins tucked beneath the supplies.
Coin roll: 6 + 3 = 9 gold pieces.
Cupcake wandered across one last overturned crate while Oogie carefully searched behind it, but there was no secret magical weapon, hidden vault, or forgotten treasure tucked away.
So Oogie leaves the armory with 1 Potion of Healing, a Healer’s Kit with 6 uses, and 9 gold, while her armor and massive enchanted poleaxe remain far better than anything the goblins possessed.
Naturally, Oogie is convinced Cupcake personally selected every item
Cupcake’s route eventually led OogieBoogie into the mushroom cavern, where the dark stone suddenly exploded with color. Blue caps glowed softly beside clusters of pink, violet, orange, and brilliant green mushrooms, some as small as coins and others nearly as large as dinner plates. Oogie stopped dead in her tracks.
Her stomach growled.
“Ohhhhhh, Cupcake... lookit the SNACKS. 😍”
She crouched beside a cluster of particularly bright mushrooms and gave one an experimental sniff. They smelled strangely sweet. Delicious, even. What Oogie did not know was that every goblin in these caves knew one very important rule: never eat the colorful mushrooms. They were infamous for causing intense, unpredictable delusions.
Several tunnels behind her, the foul-smelling green vial she had casually knocked over had already eaten through part of a cask. The liquid inside was oil. It had begun spreading slowly across the armory floor toward several barrels the goblins had very deliberately kept away from open flame. For now, Oogie knew none of that.
She plucked one of the colorful mushrooms and held it between two armored fingers. “Cupcake... you think these are yummy?”
Cupcake offered no useful medical advice whatsoever.
@OogieBoogie OogieBoogie did not eat one mushroom. She ate dozens.
They were pretty, they tasted interesting, and somewhere around the point where the cave walls started breathing in rainbow colors, Oogie had decided this was clearly the best snack she had ever found. Every mushroom made her feel stronger, dumber, happier, and increasingly disconnected from anything resembling reality. Any normal person would probably have passed out long ago. Oogie was not a normal person.
Then, somewhere back down the tunnel, the acid finally finished eating through the cask. Oil poured across the floor. Fire reached it. Then the barrels beside it joined in.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
The armory erupted. Flame ripped through the tunnels, smoke rolled across the ceiling, and goblins came pouring out in every direction. Ten of them were running around on fire, screaming and crashing into things. Five more were frantically trying to contain the blaze. In the middle of it all stood Gorrexus, a heavily armed goblin war boss in decent armor, roaring orders and desperately trying to get the situation under control. Oogie slowly wandered into view, swaying and twirling her poleaxe as the mushrooms turned the entire scene into something wonderful.
She did not see burning goblins.
She saw a carnival.
The flames became colorful lights. The screaming became excited cheering. Goblins racing around the cavern became moving game targets. Gorrexus looked suspiciously like the angry booth attendant guarding the grand prize.
And there it was.
A gigantic stuffed dragon, nearly the size of a horse.
Oogie stared at it with absolute wonder.
Apparently, all she had to do was get the high score.
Cupcake sat quietly on her shoulder while Oogie grinned at the enormous carnival unfolding around them.
Job Class: Wildcaller – Proficient in nature magic, shapeshifting, animal handling, tracking, and wilderness survival. Capable in both melee and ranged combat and can use healing and offensive magic. Weakness: Can only wear light armor, has limited weapon choices, and their spells are not as powerful as an Arcanist’s. Intelligence: Average to high. Speed: Average to high.
V00doo quietly starts reaching through the bars for whatever the goblins were foolish enough to leave nearby. Surprisingly, she gets all of it. Her staff. Her scimitars. The rest of her gear. Apparently, whoever searched her decided that tossing a Wildcaller’s weapons a few feet away from her prison counted as “secure.”
V00doo grips her staff and looks at the crude cage.
Goblins sure are stupid, she murmur's.
With her weapons back, getting out is hardly a challenge. A few heavy strikes against the weakest part of the cage are enough. Wood cracks, old iron twists loose, and soon V00doo is standing outside her prison with her gear returned to its proper owner. Before she moves, the argument farther down the passage catches her attention. There are three voices now.
Goblin 1: “We roast her! Put her on stick! Dragon lady probably tastes good!”
WHACK!
Goblin 2 smacks Goblin 1 across the head before he can keep talking. Goblin 2: “Idiot! Boss says hands off!” Goblin 1: “Ow!” Goblin 2: “You eat prisoner, you get roasted on stick!”
For a moment, the third goblin says nothing.
Goblin 3: “I seen things…”
The other two go quiet.
Goblin 3: “I seen the Master.” Goblin 1: “So?” Goblin 3: “Many of our brothers. Dead. Dead as dead gets. Master wiped ’em all out in a flash.” Goblin 2: “Then how come I seen some of ’em walking around?”
A long silence follows.
Goblin 3: “That’s what I’m telling ya.” Goblin 3: “They got back up.” Goblin 1: “Then they weren’t dead.” Goblin 3: “They was dead.”
Another uncomfortable silence.
Goblin 3: “There weren’t no life in ’em anymore.” Goblin 3: “Just… empty.”
V00doo takes a moment to think. A few goblins are one thing; she could handle that. But undead? A necromancer? The Master? Something about this place feels deeply wrong. Whatever darkness has settled into the mountain may already be spreading, and the thought of it reaching the forest, or even her grove, is hard to ignore.
She could leave while she still has the chance, but there may be more prisoners hidden somewhere in these caves. There are secrets here too. The goblins are afraid of their own Master, dead creatures are walking again, and every passage seems to promise something worse around the next corner.
V00doo is far from helpless. Her Wildcaller magic gives her options, and at night beneath the moon she is at her strongest. She is capable with her staff and scimitars, can shapeshift into something small enough to travel unseen, or something large enough to throw goblins around like toys. She also has minor healing magic and a few potions, but none of those resources are endless. Magic drains her stamina, shapeshifting is limited, and every fight could leave her weaker for whatever waits deeper inside. There is danger here, but also questions that may not answer themselves.
@greensnacks I am glad you like it. save anything.
A sharp “CAWWW!” tears through the quiet.
Greensnacks whirls toward the sound just as a raven disappears between the branches. A twig snaps behind her. She spins again, startled enough that instinct moves before thought, and drives a fist straight into the figure standing behind her.
Her knuckles meet something that might as well be iron.
The man does not move.
He stands wrapped in black cloth and polished silver plate, his face almost entirely lost beneath a deep hood. Only the faintest suggestion of features and strange eyes can be made out beneath the shadow. The raven settles onto his shoulder as though nothing unusual has happened.
“Clumsy fool,” he mutters.
Greensnacks flexes her aching fingers and stares at him. Something about him feels familiar, though she cannot immediately place why. “Wait a moment. I know you. What are you—”
“You were really planning to enter the Underdark alone?” the stranger interrupts. “You are a novice, and you have no idea how much it has changed.”
Greensnacks narrows her eyes. “Wait. How do you know—”
“I know why you are here, and I know what you are doing. Your mentor asked me a favor: find you and make sure you survive long enough to learn something.” His eyes briefly move toward the caves. “Apparently he expected you to bring companions. I knew better. Of course I would find you alone.”
“That really isn't any of your business,” Greensnacks says. She glances toward the entrance before looking back at him. “But I will admit, maybe having you watch my back wouldn't be the worst thing. Even if you are the world's biggest grump.”
DeadOrbit says nothing.
Greensnacks waits.
Still nothing.
Then something he said catches up with her. “Wait. You said it has changed. What changes?”
“You'll see.”
That answer earns him a particularly irritated stare.
DeadOrbit finally turns toward the caves. “You aren't the first to feel it. Something is wrong beneath this land. Magic is spreading through it like poison through a wound. Others have gone looking for the source.” He pauses.
“None have come back.”
For once, even Greensnacks has nothing immediate to say.
“I am going below whether you come with me or not,” DeadOrbit continues. “I have a camp nearby. Supplies. We can speak there before entering, or you can continue alone and see how long confidence keeps you alive.”
He turns and begins walking away. The raven gives Greensnacks one last look before riding comfortably on his shoulder.
DeadOrbit raises one armored hand without looking back.
“If you're lucky, perhaps I'll see you again.”
What does Greensnacks do?
1. Follow DeadOrbit to his camp — If her mentor trusted him enough to send him after her, Greensnacks may as well hear what he knows, see what supplies he has, and learn exactly what has changed beneath the mountain.
2. Go to the Underdark alone — DeadOrbit can keep his warnings and miserable personality. Greensnacks came here to investigate the disturbance, and she does not need a stranger deciding she cannot handle herself.
3. Follow him, but demand answers — Greensnacks knows DeadOrbit, at least enough to recognize him, but that does not mean she trusts him. She follows him toward the camp while pressing him about her mentor, what has changed in the Underdark, and who else has already gone looking for the source.
Abandoned as a child, Jessmari eventually fell in with a rough underground family made up of thieves, smugglers, fences, hired blades, and people who survived by staying useful and asking very few questions. It was not an easy childhood, but they had food, shelter, and people willing to teach them how the world really worked. For someone who had started with nothing, that was enough.
Jessmari proved particularly good at the less respectable lessons. They learned how to move without drawing attention, pick locks, recognize traps, read people, and understand the tangled networks beneath ordinary society. They know who sells information, who buys secrets, which gang controls which streets, which merchant is secretly a fence, and which supposedly respectable person has connections they would rather keep hidden.
Eventually, those skills turned naturally into mercenary work. Everyone knows that when someone hires a Mercenary, the job is usually something they do not want their own hands touching. If a merchant hires one, the work is probably shady. If a noble hires one, it is probably dirty. If a kingdom needs a Mercenary badly enough to admit it, then someone is almost certainly about to have a very unpleasant week.
Jessmari has never forgotten the people who took them in, and in their own way they are grateful. Unfortunately, gratitude and debt are not the same thing. Food, shelter, protection, training, contacts, and years of trade secrets were never truly free. The family expects repayment, and Jessmari has spent years doing jobs on their behalf while wondering whether the debt was ever actually meant to end.
Then a rumor began making its way through the underground.
Somewhere in the hills was a treasure valuable enough to change a person's life. No reliable description, no convenient map, just enough whispered details to make it sound real. More importantly, it sounded valuable enough that Jessmari might finally be able to buy their way out of every favor, obligation, and unfinished debt hanging over them.
So Jessmari went looking.
The trail eventually led to a cave. Nothing especially unusual about that. Treasure had a bad habit of ending up in places with poor lighting and questionable structural integrity, so Jessmari slipped inside and began working deeper through the passages.
Then came the voices.
Then the crude weapons.
Then the smell.
Jessmari slowed and listened.
Goblin voices echoed from one tunnel. Then another answered from somewhere behind them. A third group shuffled through a passage farther ahead.
That was unfortunate.
Jessmari took another careful look around and arrived at the rather unpleasant conclusion that, while looking for a treasure, they had somehow wandered directly into the middle of an occupied goblin cave.
Still no treasure.
Excellent.
What does Jessmari do?
1. Keep searching — Stay quiet, avoid the goblins, and continue deeper into the cave. Coming this far just to leave empty-handed would be irritating.
2. Find a way out — The treasure can wait. Retrace the route, scout the tunnels, and get outside before the goblins realize they have an unexpected guest.
3. Make them regret it — If the goblins have already ruined the treasure hunt, Jessmari can at least collect something for the trouble. Start picking them off and search whatever they leave behind.
1. Time to repay a debt and go my own way. That isn't gonna happen with empty pockets. Perhaps it's further in and I can get get to it without stirring this nasty nest up.
@JessmariJessmari moves carefully through the enormous cave system, quietly building a rough understanding of its layout. Avoiding the goblins is almost effortless. The caves are dark, Jessmari knows how to disappear into places like this, and the goblins make enough noise for half the mountain. Their voices, footsteps, arguments, and careless movements usually announce them long before they could notice someone slipping through the shadows.
The deeper Jessmari goes, the clearer it becomes that this is far more than a simple goblin den. The tunnels seem to stretch through much of the mountain, branching into guard stations, storage areas, treasure rooms, prisoner chambers, and dangerous passages where one wrong step could mean a very long fall. There are signs that people have been captured here, but also evidence that some prisoners have escaped and fought their way deeper into the caves. A few goblins lie dead without the entire nest having been alerted. Whoever did that knew what they were doing.
More troubling are the passages leading farther below. Something about them feels wrong. Goblins are one thing, but there are signs of something else moving behind all of this, something connected to dark magic. One route in particular seems to descend far beyond the normal caves, toward the places Jessmari has only heard about in whispered stories: the Underdark. None of those stories ended pleasantly. Of course, most of them also involved enormous amounts of treasure.
For now, Jessmari remains unnoticed, watching the cave breathe around them. There are riches somewhere inside this mountain, but there are also other capable people moving through it. People clever enough to escape captivity, kill goblins, and avoid bringing the entire cave down on themselves. That presents an interesting problem.
Jessmari came here to fill empty pockets and finally repay a debt. Whether those strangers become useful allies, convenient distractions, or simply people worth watching remains to be seen.
It doesn't look as if I will find anything of value unless I go further in, and that means dealing with something other than goblins...
You hit the ground hard, shift into a Giant Badger, and barely have time to orient yourself before the goblins begin to stir.
There are four of them.
None have their weapons in hand yet.
You move first.
Your jaws clamp down on the nearest sleeping goblin before it can even understand what is happening. Critical hit.
The goblin goes limp immediately.
You twist and rake your claws across the second.
Critical hit.
It never manages to get to its feet.
Two goblins are already down.
The remaining pair wake to absolute chaos, scrambling across the den for their weapons while you stand between them in badger form.
They manage to arm themselves.
You charge.
Your bite tears into the third goblin, badly wounding it, and your claws finish the job a moment later.
Three down.
The last goblin swings wildly at you and misses.
You bite into it, but it stays standing.
Your claws miss.
Then its next attack lands perfectly.
The blade crashes into your badger form with enough force to break the transformation completely.
For an instant the shape around you collapses.
You are a gnome again.
Still conscious.
Still uninjured beneath the transformation.
And the goblin is staring at you like it has just made a terrible mistake.
You shapeshift again.
The Giant Badger returns.
The goblin swings and misses.
You lunge.
Your bite misses.
Your claws miss.
It manages to strike you once more, cutting into the new form, but this time you stay standing.
You attack again.
Your teeth sink in.
The goblin staggers.
It has almost nothing left.
Then your claws come down.
The final goblin falls.
Silence returns to the den.
Four goblins lie scattered around you.
Your second badger form is wounded, but still standing.
Badger HP: 7/13
Beneath the transformation, Chern0bylplaygr0unds is still at full health: 21/21 HP.
She lets the badger form fall away. Fur retreats, claws shorten, and a few seconds later Chern0bylplaygr0unds is standing among four dead goblins in her own body again. She still has one Wild Shape remaining. The den smells awful, but curiosity wins. She begins searching.
search check: 15 + 2 = 17. That is a solid success.
Under filthy bedding she finds a small leather pouch containing 14 silver pieces and 7 copper pieces. One goblin has a stoppered red vial tucked into its belt: one Potion of Healing. Near the ashes of the fire she discovers a folded scrap of hide covered in crude tunnel markings. It is not a proper map, but she can make out several connected passages, a larger chamber farther below, and a section deliberately marked with a dark symbol.
There is also a short written instruction in rough Common: Living ones below. Dead ones marked. Do not disturb what belongs to the Master.
That is considerably more interesting than the money.
She searches for hidden passages as well, but that roll is poor, so if this room contains anything more carefully concealed, she doesn't find it.
And somewhere between surviving the goblins, controlling two transformations in succession, and realizing just how much stranger this cave is than she expected, something clicks.
Chern0bylplaygr0unds reaches Level 4.
Chern0bylplaygr0unds sits on the cold stone floor with the crude map spread across her knees, studying the branching tunnels.
The storage area could hold useful supplies. The guard post might reveal how organized the goblins really are. Farther down, the old shrine and the strange mark beside it keep pulling at her attention, especially with the Nether already feeling so wrong.
Several passages simply fade into question marks, and that might bother her most of all. Her own lost gear is still somewhere back along the chute where she fell.
She traces the routes with one finger, glances toward the tunnels around her, and ponders what to do next. Someone is bound to notice these dead goblins maybe I should make it look like a fight broke out among them or get rid of the bodies?
@Chern0bylplaygr0unds You are welcome! Also you have the freedom to pick what you want to do. just write in your wishes and I will provide you with the scenario and outcome of those decisions. I will also roll dice to see how the scenario plays out.
