While discussing breaching the walls, Pickles brings up that when they’d last spoken with the kobolds they spoke of a back entrance tunnel. This is kept in mind as a backup plan should entering through the gatehouse is not feasible.
Pickles sneaks up the rubble pile wall and finds that the courtyard is empty and that the doors to the gatehouse is closed. Pickles clumsily sneaks onto the tower. Surveying from the roof, Pickles sees beyond the wall and through the trees two squat, damaged towers. He can hear the sounds of orc-speech. Listening closer, he hears one of the orcs lecturing the others, the gist being: “the boss is upset that the big one is dead, we’ll stay here until we figure out what to do next.” Some other orcs (3-4) are angry about being taken off guard duty and put on patrol now that the ogre is gone – they enjoyed watching goblins excavate. Having heard all that, Pickles returns.
We have a few options: attack the orcs in the diamond room, ambush the patrolling orcs, sneak past the wall. Pickles suggests setting the rafters of the gatehouse on fire to serve as a distraction and to learn the numbers. Pickles admits that as a littleling his prone-ness to making chaos for others and Obroam and I admonish him and suggest he learn the wisdoms of either Tangodorin or Tyr.
Pickles sneaks into the gatehouse again. He peers into the diamond room and sees two orcish figures watching the hallways. Pickles reports that the orcs are watching both hallways but in positions where they cannot see into the courtyard. The front doors are locked and they are watching the entrances from the wings.
While Pickles is away getting into position for the attack on the gatehouse, kobolds encircle us. They ask us what we’re doing and Rem and I translate for Obroam and the kobolds. Obroam bribes the kobolds with food so they’ll leave us alone. He gives them all of his rations. The kobolds fight over the food and we get back to work making the battering ram. My dagger breaks while using it to trim the tree to make into a battering ram. The kobolds describe humans with black robes and green, scary masks beyond the wall.
We finally bash down the door and charge into the room for the attack. Once the one orc is left standing, he shouts that his “soul will be taken by Moloch.” So Moloch is, indeed, their dark god. Rem strikes down the last orc. [Weapon Speed!] Pickles finds 49 gp 133 sp, a small bluish gem and a blood-colored gem on the dead orcs. The orc who’d had a gem carried a whistle and a set of keys. Mort had been badly injured in the fight, so I cast cure light wounds on him and Obroam lays his hands on him, glowing with the light off Tangodorin.