Note: The term "Tucker's Kobolds" has become part of D&D lore. It comes from an article in Dragon Magazine #127 (1987) where, in a game run by a DM named Tucker, an ordinary tribe of kobolds used traps, ambushes and local knowledge to significantly challenge a high-level party, going against the stereotype of kobolds posing no threat. With that in mind ...
Down in the lower level of the tomb was a pool of water. Light Touch happened to be sloshing through this water and he noticed his foot didn't actually get wet. So we had a closer look and sure enough, the water was illusionary. It covered a trap door. Down below was a small room with a bier and a corpse of a gnome on it. Light Touch was lowered in on a rope. As soon as he passed into the room, the whole place turned into a palatial room, with gold trappings and beautiful furnishings. The gnome of the beir was still a corpse, but was robed in splendour. Light Touch touched the floor and ... **BANG**.
We pulled the charred smoking piece of meat back up. I emptied my curing power into him, and got him healthy again. It takes me eight hours of solid sleep to recharge my power. During this time, John Wayne risked going down himself. Luckily, there were no further traps. After the fire, there was not much left of the gnome corpse. But it did have a golden gnome g-string, totally untouched by the flames; obviously magic. John risked putting it on. He is a stout gnome fellow, with a bulging ale-gut and glutes like there is no tomorrow, but when he wore the g-string, and despite all this, and despite it vanishing into the pasty folds of his gnome butt-crevass, it actually made him look better! Ironically, the magic of the G-string increased his charisma; it only worked when he wore nothing but the G-string from the waist down.
Further on in was another secret door, followed by a long thin passage that terminated in another small door. Whizz gave it a mighty shove and it sprung open - into a cavern. A large cavern with stream and natural caves. However, there were kobolds here, ten, maybe twenty. They all started to shriek in their little raspy kobold voices and rushed at us. We managed to fire a few desultory cross-bow quarrels and battle was joined. It was about now we realized we were totally unmatched for kobold melee, so we bid a brave and hasty retreat. Two kobolds wiggled past the door before Whizz managed to jam it closed, and these two wretches dropped John Wayne and Peg Groups before we killed them. I cured them with Illana's power, but it drained me and we were forced to rest.
During my resting recharging time, the sneaky kobolds skulked around the to the front entrance of the tomb and attacked. They had magic support from their shaman ("sha-kobold"?). It was touch and go, but we managed to force them out again. The remaining kobolds took positions on top of the tomb tower and in the surrounding trees. Any attempt we made to leave, they would shoot. Light Touch found out the hard way; and was shot through the head with a magnificent shot, entering his eye socket, skewering the brain, and coming to rest lodged in his half-elven pineal gland. Again, I had to use all my power to restore him.
Running out of options, we decided to risk returning to the original cave. Sure enough, the kobolds were all gone, except that there were a bunch of kobold women and children. Whizz detected them as evil, so he and the boys waded in and slaughtered them all. I can safely say I don't have the blood of any innocents on my conscience, but it was a nasty brutal mess.
Leaving out through the cave entrance, we emerged in the woods, and found the remaining kobolds in their positions of ambush. It was our turn to be the ambushers, and a short while later, all kobolds were dead. The only notable thing from this battle was that Light Touch fumbled his bow shot and skewered me with an arrow through my liver. I still wonder how he did this considering I was behind a tree and he was pointing away from me.
After resting and healing and resting, we headed back to the Lizardman mound in the centre of the swamp and summoned the lizardman shaman. He thanked us for our good work (recall, we had identified why his braves got corrupted by that evil item in the tower), and gave us an item and his best wishes.
So we headed back to the Keep.
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