The party went into the lair of the goblins that had stopped the river from flowing, but were kinda silly about it, and so the goblins were quite alarmed, prepared, and belligerent by the time they got to them.The party approached the front entrance to the goblins' cavern. Outside there was a willow tree with a rope swing stretching out over the river, which Barg decided to swing on. Barg broke it and fell into the not-so-soft riverbed. The party entered the cave entrance and discovered a sleeping goblin ("Fishbelly") behind a secret door. Despite a loud kicked rock, the party didn't wake him. Rather than grab him, they prepared themselves, brought up the beer, and knocked. Yes, knocked. The goblin took one look at the half-orc head peering through the cave entrance and split into the caves. The party waited, deciding to be diplomatic with their barrel-of-beer offering, and even rang Fishbelly's warning bell to let the goblins know they meant no harm. Heh. Eventually Fishbelly returned, Ceder hypnotized him, and Fishbelly led the party back into the caves. Unfortunately, the goblins were quite alarmed, had heard the warning bell, and had a Very Large Rock chained to the cave ceiling in preparation for the party's arrival... and Fishbelly, being a somewhat dim goblin, forgot to warn the characters. The boulder immediately took out Ceder and nearly killed his raven; several other members lay about wounded; only Barg escaped the rock.
The scene was set and charged. The party began to try to negotiate, but a trigger-happy goblin daughter perched on a ledge in the cavern shot a crossbow bolt at Barg, who immediately began attacking. The party was quickly pulled into a battle with the goblins. Jason healed Ceder, who immediately upon waking stretched out a hand and levitated his bird to himself, croaking out "save my bird" before collapsing again. Battle ensued, and began to look hopeless when reinforcements arrived for the five initial goblins in the form of another goblin with two dire (big frickin') wolves, another riding a giant bat, and a goblin cleric, who healed the one goblin they'd downed at that point.
The goblins would've mopped the party up but for some quick thinking by Amy and Josh's characters, who eventually decided to dash for the nixie, their goal, who was imprisoned in a cage in the middle of the large cavern. Amy had to leave just as Cor raised Lucan to free the nixie from her cage. The combat wrapped up in 1-2 more rounds once she left: Lucan had the nixie, jumped down, and started tearing back across the cavern for the door, yelling for everyone to follow. Cor picked up Ceder as she dashed across the room. A goblin ripped the hell out of Lucan as he ran past, but Lucan made it and took off down the corridor. Barg picked up Jason, but collapsed himself as his barbarian's rage ran out. The goblins, meanwhile, were at a standstill-- Fishbelly, the one who Ceder charmed and hypnotized, downed the goblin priest. While the other goblins were finally coming out of their hypnotism, they were faced with the choice between patching themselves up or chasing after the big people.
The goblins took the two people left behind, Barg and Jason, and bandaged them. Though the party didn't know it, the goblins bandaged them, realizing that if they started killing folks right and left they'd have a torch-and-pitchfork mob after them in no time. Everyone else followed Lucan's lead up to the top of the valley, where they returned Unda to her spring. She entreated everyone to stay for a day, so that she could use her returning health and magic to help thank and heal the party. The party, shaken and bleeding, is inclined to do just that.
So this adventure goes on into yet another session. We chatted for some time afterward about what happened. The conclusion was that, in general, it went well. Everyone had role-played much more thoroughly, and indeed, what happened to the party was part "stupendous defiance of statistical norms" and part "accurate role-playing of inexperienced characters". The party went into a very very difficult battle with nearly no prepared strategy, and so got trounced by a tightly-knit force that was using (rudimentary) tactics: stay back and pelt with ranged weapons as much as possible until the reinforcements (BIG frickin' dire wolves and the bat) could come into play. Pull the party out into the open so that the goblins could use their superior numbers to flank. In fact, all things considered, the party did really well. In the published adventure, pre-tweaking, the text read "an out-and-out battle between the characters and the goblins should be nasty, brutish, and short, and should end with most of the party dead or captured." The fact that most characters escaped, and with the nixie (which the adventure arguably didn't 'intend' for you to be able to get without negotiation) was impressive. Nevertheless, when folks are back together, some discussion of tactics is in order. Which is actually in character-- what happens to people out on their first adventure, set in an increasingly hostile situation against intelligent foes? Well, they get trounced, and if they survive, they start discovering tactics and strategy. : )