Starter Set, Further Desecrating Grol, and the Owlbear Doll, Session 6 Part 3

[Fun note: Droop, the female goblin NPC in our game, was played today by a friend's 14 year old daughter, trying out D&D for the first time...]

The party prepared to continue to clear out the remaining enemies, and stealthily peered through the Temple room door into the front entry hall.  The could hear two hobgoblins talking in a room across the hall; two guard-post rooms could be seen further down the hall near the main entrance to the castle.

Hefting the head of the deceased King Grol in her hand, Droop readied herself for action.

Bursting into the hobgoblin barracks, the party took the resting soldiers by surprise.  The noise drew out a few goblins from further down the hall; Droop was able to down the first goblin guard she saw using her once-captor's skull as a fast-ball special (Natural 20!).

They made short work of their enemies, with Droop leading the charge and downing several of her former captors personally.

Th party found that only one room remained occupied in the castle: the kitchen.  Still in giant spider form, Eva the druid skittered through the door, frightening the half-dozen goblins inside.  The lead goblin in a tall chef hat was ready for them, and commanded the goblins to attack with kitchen knives while he threw vials of acid at the spider.

The party filled him and several goblins with arrows and magic missiles, then commanded the remaining 3 goblins to stand down.  They decided to take mercy on the pitiful kitchen slaves, allowing them to flee into the night.

Among the materials left in the kitchen, they found what appeared to be the shell of a dragon egg.

Taking a moment to rest, it was only a few minutes before they could hear the approach of a returning hobgoblin scouting party.  Confident, if a bit war weary, the adventurers charged to battle once more, this time with Eva still in giant spider form taking the scouting party by surprise from behind.

A dire wolf pet of the hobgoblins took Eva down for a moment, reverting her to human once more; in response, the druid met like-with-like, and faced off with the dire wolf as a dire wolf herself.  The rest of the group demolished the hobgoblins, and the dire wolf quickly saw it was on the losing side; Eva allowed the beast to flee into the night.

When the dust settled, Droop went into a side hallway, where tucked into a small corner of a broken tower room was her old bed-mat of straw and fabric scraps, and her stuffed owlbear toy doll that her mother made for her when Droop was an infant.