Over the next hours those who remained active tried to plan their best strategy, but they realised that they would have to wait until the next dawn for Voern痴 full healing to be available. In the meantime they had one other, wounds-transfer spell, that brought Migar to consciousness, but incapacitated Salesat for some time. They watched out from the tower, hoping that no creatures would come looking for them after the awful noise that they had caused.
Salesat, when it came time for his watch, and while Migar was meditating to change his prepared spells, spotted a goblin approaching the tower from the direction of the smithy. He fired down, missing it by a large margin. So he moved to the stairs getting another shot in at the creature before it managed to reach him. He missed this time too, so had to engage the creature in close combat. Luckily, the goblin was not very adept at fighting, as he failed to land a blow on the litorian, while Salesat eventually managed to slash it once with his scimitar, which was enough. The creature had nothing of value on its person, apart from its morning star and ragged leather armour.
Salesat was curious as to where this creature had come from; so he went down to investigate. By the well that they had seen earlier Salesat could just make out the form of another goblin. So he quickly retreated back to the tower. Shortly thereafter two goblins appeared, creeping along the base of the tower towards the door. Salesat shot down at them, managing to strike one with his crossbow bolt. The creature was sorely injured and fell. The other ran back to the shelter of the overhanging rock that covered the smithy and stables. After a while, a rope lasso began to be thrown from under the overhang, landing near the fallen goblin. Salesat attempted to split the rope with a finely aimed bolt, but he failed. As the success of the goblin痴 tactics became clearer, Salesat decided to be more pro-active. He shot the fallen goblin with his crossbow to ensure that it did not survive and then went down after the other creature under the overhang. But the goblin had given up hope for its companion and had disappeared back down the well. Salesat decided to drop the rope and grappling hook down after it. He then returned to watching the others.
When Migar had changed his spells, he cast a Transfer wounds on Ke-Herram to raise him to consciousness and shortly thereafter the whole group left the Battlehome through the main doors and returned to Gahanis. There, they rested and recuperated, preparing for another trip to find the bandits. Two days later they returned and headed straight for the base of the tower. Passing straight through they entered the double doors beyond which lead into the stony core of the mountain. They followed a westerly path, which led to a series of interconnected chambers. They found little here until they came to a room with a staircase leading downwards, that also had a well. The group believed that this well reached down to about the same level as the one they had previously encountered. It also had a rope attached to a grappling hook on the outer lip. Not wanting to risk a hazardous descent, the party headed, for the stairs.
In the stone clad room below, they encountered two dire rats with iron collars, which scuttled to attack them immediately. Now back at full strength, the party had little difficulty finishing the creatures off. While searching the room, Voern came across the tell-tale signs of a secret door which opened to the south. The room beyond was carved roughly out of the rock and a natural tunnel led off from here towards the southwest. After following this passage for a short time, Migar noticed a carved warning in the wall, which they chose to ignore. Rouhgly one hundred feet later, a side passage to the northwest was visible ahead. Following this route they came to a rough cave with three other exits. Three goblins had been preparing food here and they quickly raised their weapons to attack. Ke-Herram strode forward to attack and swept one goblin aside immediately. Migar and Salesat also wounded their opponents quickly and soon all had fallen. Moving quickly northwards, past the goblins� cooking fire they entered a fan of caves with more goblin sleeping caves. Only one contained goblins, and these seemed to be suffering from a strange disease, which had fungal growths sprouting from their bodies. They were also slow to react and easy prey for the now-confident party. In the last cave of the sequence, two more dire rats were chained up using their iron collars. The fearless group finished these creatures off by using the limitations of the rats� reach to their advantage.
To the west the passage met another long corridor running from northeast to southwest. A quick inspection to the southwest revealed an overabundance of fungal growth that blocked further passage. To the northwest they found the base of a well and the body of a dead goblin covered in the loops of a long rope. Returning to the cave with the firepit, the party went southwest through some narrow corridors of stone, which led to a chamber, that contained two saw horses, upon which rested two bird coups. Several pigeons pecked about inside. Along the next narrow passageway they encountered a snake, which bit Salesat on the ankle. He began to feel unwell. The others didn稚 particularly appreciate the appearance of a human in snake-skin armour to back up the small reptile. Ke-Harram was up to this challenge and he stepped forward to meet the new threat. Meanwhile Migar and Salesat dealt with the snake. Once the small reptile had been skewered, these three managed to bring down the snake warrior. They the bound his wounds and tied him up. Migar watched him closely as they moved on to the next opening, which led to a cave that was occupied by a human, passed out on the floor. A table was strewn with papers in the corner of the cavern. A bed stood unused on the opposite wall. Salesat subdued the human with a few blows of his club.