>>14452600
After stepping foot into the final chamber the party came face to tear-stained face with their goal. Laying curled in a ball and shivering with fear in the center of the room in a magic warded circle was a little elven girl wearing nothing more than scraps of clothing and a leg shackle that bound her by chain to the cold stone floor. Flanking her were two elementals -one air and one water- also within warded circles.

As the party approched her with weapons drawn and spells at the ready she began to speak in elven, her words broken from dehydration and exposure. The party could not understand her words but could understand the direness of her situation and took it upon themselves to act. Wary for traps and attacks they made their move.

The sorceror disenchanted the girl's ward which in turn dropped the ones around the elementals. Anticipating this the pair of fighters and bard fell upon them with axe and blades while the cleric and rogue rushed to the girl's side. All the while the adventurers did their part, the girl, now wide-eyed, shreiked in elven "TAMP! Ndengin-n'uma mellon en amins!"

Almost as quickly as it began the killing blows were struck and the elementals shuddered and collapsed into their material components before phasing back to their home dimension. It was then that the elven girl spasmed briefly before collapsing in the cleric's arms mumbling "...mellon en amins", tears trickling down her face. While the rest of the party took stock of the situation the rogue heaved a sigh of relief and began to examine the locking mechanism of the shackle with little distraction from the now melancholy girl, who until now had been interfering by slapping at his hands each time he reached for it.

>>14452608
It was strange, though; such a simple "lock" restraining the girl. The wards might have been enough alone but something wasn't right. The cuff was locked, yes, but the chain was attached to a pin that could all but easilly be pulled out with a good yank. After relaying to his companions to be ready for anything he grasped the girl's leg in one hand and the chain in the other and firmly severed her tether resulting in several things happening at once: two pillars of stone crashed down where the elementals once stood, the audible sound of stone shutters grinding into place echoed from the halls behind them, and the elven girl wailing in dispair as she stared at the withdrawn chain.

The adventurers knew what this meant, and as countless others had done before them they followed suit and made a daring escape with their precious cargo in tow. Sliding under the final vault door and ascending the stone staircase the heroes emerged triumphantly with their young ward and began their journey back to the elven village, leaving the eternally sealed vault behind them.

The travel was as tiresome as it had been the first time but the air was much more tense. The little girl seemed lost in her own world and when she was spoken to she only uttered "Ndengin-lle Shae" or elven variations of the phrase. The days passed slowly but eventually the party brought the girl home as promised. But they did not recieve the welcome they thought they deserved.

The elven crowd gathered around but their faces were mixed with both concern and confusion. And when the little elven girl collapsed into the seer's arms weeping and relaying her account of her ordeal and rescue the faces of the crowd turned to shock and outrage. Such were their combined clamor that it drew the attention of several of the human guardsmen from their encampment near the settlement entrance.

>>14452617
The party was quite dumbstruck by the whole affair. But, perhaps it would have been better for them to have simply gathered their belongings and rode away, leaving the angry mob and sullen girl behind them instead of stalling for the guardsmen to investigate to plead their case. They never would have learned the heartbreaking truth of what they had done or about their own shortcomings; that they were not sent to rescue a little elven girl named Shaeni Maer, but rather a pair of sisters: Shae AND Maer.

As Maer told her side of the story one of the guardsmen translated it to her awestruck saviors. She trembled as she explained how her goblinoid captors had taken her and her sister and the other elves as sacrifices during their raid. She said that even though she and her sister had summoned their bonded elemental allies to attack their enemies, they were forced into compliance under the threat of their tiny masters being executed. Continuing her story she revealed how she and the two elementals where placed in the wards and how she had been warned that while she could leave at any time her allies would be crushed and her sister would disappear forever. It was by her own force of will alone through hunger and thirst and exhaustion that she remained the lynchpin that kept her family safe.

>>14452624
Had the sorceror taken the time to study the wards perhaps he would have seen it was not meant to keep victims inside, but others out. The fighters were quick and sure with their blades, yet never noticed their enemy was not fighting back. For as much time as the cleric had fawned over her patient's injuries while the battle raged she took little interest in what the girl was trying to relay with her emotions and gestures. The bard was too prideful to admit he only half understood the quest in the first place let alone who he and his companions were supposed to be rescuing. But the rogue would feel the most remorse for his actions for knowingly activating a trap for which he spent so little time tinkering.

And three days travel to the south in a fully sealed tomb of hewn stone and earth, in a lightless, soundproof dungeon cell hidden deep under the stone masonry of a lost shrine's meeting hall, lay a shivering elven girl named Shae whos only thought was of her sister Maer. And why had she chosen to leave her circle when she, herself, had not.

(bad end)

>>14452633

"So do we get half XP for half a rescue?"

>>14452633
fuck you op. now i'm sad.

>>14452654

HE'S GOT A POINT. I THINK I MAY LEVEL FROM THIS.

The tl;dr: version of the adventure is basically 6 players failing their skill checks and dooming a little girl to a lonely death. It turned out she and her sister (Ocean and Wind in elven) were bonded summoners. That's why when the elementals were killed she went limp from the feedback. Also we thought she was saying "my name is Shae" over and over when we were bringing her home, but she was really saying "you killed Shae". Our DM says we can visit the same adventure again someday but for now he wants us to "think about our decisions."

>>14452714

Wait a tick, if you failed the skill tests, how is it the players' fault? You were working with the intelligence you had. It can't be your fault if you did not know.

I'm much more interested into what is pulling the goblins' strings, because as it is, what they did makes no sense. I doubt they went through all the effort of making this "elaborate trap" just to grief an eventual good-aligned party.

Also, holy shit, "shock and outrage", "angry mob". The imbeciles couldn't keep their kids safe, then didn't have enough brains to explain what needs to be done, then they have the audacity to get angry when a party in which no one speaks elvish fumbles in execution. Some people just deserve to suffer.

>>14452727
Each of the players failed their check but either ignored the result (cleric, rogue, fighters) or didn't mention the failure to the party (sorceror, bard).

>>14452760
A: Hey, we have no idea what the magic runes do, let's leave the little girl to lie there for six months while we trek back to the nearest big town and consult the mages guild.
B: Yeah, great idea. We wouldn't want to risk making an uninformed decision. Hang in there kiddo, we'll be back in December.

...So no one's going to try a modified locate city spell or similar ritual? Jeeze. What lazy PCs.

Also: silly elves. They should know that no self-respecting goblin that went to that much trouble would ever bother to keep his side of that sort of bargain. They probably buried Shae after the first day.

>>14452760
But they didn't go "I FAILED MY SKILL CHECK GUYS, LET'S GO OVER THIS AGAIN."

Playing the role of your character is more than just rolling dice and winning forever. Failure happens too, and you need to accept that.

>>14452804

Some things are time dependent. There is no time to double-check.

The only way I would blame the players is if they purposefully held misinformation. Then the problem lies with them. It's similar to what happened in my game Friday. One player misheld a key piece of information, and then he died, telling no one.

In this case, however, it seemed the party was just out and out screwed over. It was nobody's fault.

I think this was just "WHY DID YOU DO THAT AND NOT WHAT I KNEW YOU SHOULD AS THE DM?" and not really so much your fault.

Yeah, I GUESS it could be played to take the piss out of a gang of murder-hobos, but it doesn't seem like your group was that. Kinda just a slap in the face, as far as I can tell.

i dont get it. if the girls were bonded summoners why didnt they just dismiss the summons? and isnt that like a level 10 character? why didnt they use magic to fight back?