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We had a good long sleep following the intense battle with the goblins. After we were rested, we decided to do a couple of things the next day. We needed to return and check on the goblin we'd promised to release, check out the mystery house, and then jump a few different orc patrols to get a feel for how tough the fight at the orc stronghold might be.

We set out, and made our way to where we'd left the goblin, only to find that he'd already escaped. Fair enough.

From there, we headed to the mystery house to speak with Ohlo.

Ohlo turned out to be kind of an eccentric old wizard. And he had some tasks he needed performed in exchange for magic items.

1. His apprentice needed rescuing. She was sent to investigate and old wizard's house and didn't return, and all his attempts to scry her had failed. She was a youngish gnome named Ambiwella Ambrosia Blastenheimer.

2. A special dwarven steel box of his with his seal on it had been stolen from a shipment by a pack of orcs. It was probably in the orc stronghold. Thus, raiding the orc stronghold would take care of this item.

3. The wizard provided a long list of special spell components he'd be willing to pay for if we managed to acquire them. They were mostly parts of rare and dangerous beasts that'd have to be slain.

Obviously the rescue of his missing apprentice was by far the most pressing item on our plate, so we set out for the old wizard's house in the goblin area. We arrived there and found the house had collapsed on itself, and that a light was shining from the basement. However it was caved in. As we attempted to enter into the basement, some of us tripped and slid down, causing a ruckus.

A suit-of-armor golem activated as we hit the bottom and we were immediately involved in a fight. I ran to hide behind some rocks while our two melee headed forward. It was resistant to a lot of mundane things, but us two casters were able to dish out enough damage, plus the reduced damage of the melee folks, able to get it down.

Once the golem was dispatched, Ambiwella came out of hiding, and we escorted her back to Ohlo's mansion. From there we'd set out to attempt to find some orc patrols we could dispatch to gauge how tough the fight at the orc stronghold would be. However every time we came across something promising, someone else had beaten us to it.

We were foiled at every turn, so instead we decided to do an initial scouting pass of the orc stronghold. We discovered the orcs to be doing some ritualized combat tournament thing as described by Logru. We would never get a better chance than this to take down the stronghold.

We cobbled together a quick plan. Logru would bluff at the door and we'd take out the few door guards they had and improvise from there.

Fortunately, our ploy worked. Logru gained entrance and we barged in from there. They had a handful of orcs guarding the door and after some effort we took them down. We inspected all doors heading off the entryway, and, while not touching the doors heading into the room where the tournament thing was taking place, we decided to head up into the tower to see if maybe the orc boss was there by himself.

Up we went, and as we arrived at the top, we heard some voices. Two voices.

The male spoke, saying that if they turned in the stone to the lord of ruins, all would be forgiven, because it's what he wants more than anything else. A female voice replied, saying that their lives were still forfeit, that nothing they could do would ever be enough to receive forgiveness. And, that no matter how much power they give to the pool, it would never be enough to balance the scales.

The door was open, so as our stealthers peaked around the corner, they were spotted. The big guy charged. And big he was. Half orc, half ogre. He took up the entire double-door of the doorway.

Two orcs we fought, and the battle was rough. We dished out lots of damage. He shrugged off lots of damage. He had a 3-pronged attack that did enough damage to drop both Logru and Daer'ys at least once. Turns out the female was absorbing half the damage and healing herself in the back corner.

After an extremely long time and some intense healing from both sides, we were finally able to drop her than him. We looted the rooms in the tower and the bodies. I saw a gold bowl upon an altar in the next room. It was filled with water and as I stared into it, something overtook me.

A few moments, or maybe an eternity later, Kethys knocked the bowl over and I was released from the enchantment. We rolled the bowl up into the loot pile and prepared to take a short rest while the tournament raged on as we spun up to take out the rest of the stronghold.