Gone for gold

After 3 months went by the town has expanded its borders to better suit the inflection of citizens. The expansion includes new houses, walls, and stables. Although the adventuring party is quite wealthy they hatch a plan to pay for the expansion of the town elsewhere. The mines of Prosperitas were left untapped and unexplored for years now. The plan is to take 4 of the old miners (now guards) to Prosperitas and see what they can gather up from the gold mines.    Early in the morning later in the year, they set off with some horses and a carriage on a half days ride to Prosperitas. They arrive with no issue at the canyon-like pass that marks the entrance to the town. While riding through the pass Trenric and Yara upfront on their horses see something and halt the caravan. A small barrel pops out of some bushes and runs out in the middle of the road. On closer inspection, they see arms and legs sticking out of the barrel and the head of a goblin poking out the top. Holding a torch the goblin begins to charge the caravan, crossbows at the ready Trenric and Yara fire. Trenricks bolt hits but doesn't pierce the barrel, Yara's does and stops the goblin in its tracks, sprawled out dead. Trenrick wild shapes into an armadillo and walks up to inspect their attacker. He finds the barrel is full of gunpowder and quickly stamps out the remainder of the torch. He then wild shapes back and the caravan continues on into the town.   Once inside the town everyone can hear what sounds like faint mining sounds, the guards will say that it sounds exactly like the town used to sound when active. Most of the noise coming from the closest mine to the north they head up that way first. They halt as they see 3 goblins at the mouth of the cave, the goblins do not notice the group. Trenric thinks and asks the miners if more gunpowder and blasting equipment would have been used in the mines and they say of course. Trenric steps up and casts a wall of flame that creates a cylinder of intense fire that shoots inside the mine's mouth. The 3 goblins at the entrance were incinerated and the fire engulfs the main corridor in the mine. The fire hitting all of the gunpowder ignites and vaporizes around 7 goblins and the goblin leader. Another 7 goblin miners come running out wielding pickaxes. They get mowed down by a barrage of arrows and javelins. The noise from the explosion rocks the town causing another 5 goblins to come running from the half-collapsed inn. These goblins wear leather armor and wield shortswords. Trenric wild shapes into a rhino and runs 3 of the goblins down trampling them, and goring 1. The last goblin attempts to flee, however, Jacoby lets loose an arrow and kills it halfway up the hill. The group then empties the mine of all the gold the goblins were mining, leaving 3 of the guards at the mouth to stand watch. The other guard claims the goblins did all of the work and that there wasn't really anything left to mine now. When exiting the 3 standing watch tell the others they saw a group of goblins peak out from the warehouse and rush back inside. While on the way over there 3 more of the goblin powder charges exit the warehouse sprinting at the group. Another blast of the wall of flame made short work of igniting the gunpowder liquifying the goblins. Trenric and Rond enter the warehouse finding 14 more miner goblins with pickaxes, shovels, and pitchforks. Trenrick wild shapes into a mammoth, collapsing the rest of the building on 4 of the goblins, tramples 5 more and Rond hacks 5 in half as well. The party found as many gold nuggets as they could from the ruins.   The party then turns their heads towards the 2nd mine near the warehouse. The entrance has sharpened sticks lined up and aimed at the mouth of the mine. At this point its getting dark and they clear the rest of the town not finding any more goblins. The party migrated back towards the entrance of the town to make camp. Food was made, the night watch was set and everyone slept quite well. The next morning the entire group went to stand at the entrance of the 2nd mine just before the stick defenses. Trinrick tells everyone about the 2 trolls he convinced to go away and stay in a cave for eternity. Everyone thinking of this readied their weapons and Trenrick separated the Twin Amulet Necklace causing everyone except for himself to freeze. Entering the mine Tenric sees the left corridor had collapsed some time ago and to the right, there was a large room. Inside the room, there was a giant hand statue holding a pedestal. looking around the crates there was no gold at all however, in the corner there was a clump of gold that didn't look quite right. Investigating further revealed it to be the tail of a Giant Horned Spider Tail Viper, barely visible as its scales blended to the rocks. Surely if time wasn't frozen Trenric would have fallen prey to the viper. He quickly runs out of the mine as his minute dwindled and once he gets outside everyone comes back to life. Trenric explains what he saw in there but doesn't know what it is, Jacoby and Rond both know exactly what it is and tells the party all about it. Between Trenric and Ulysses, they devise a plan where they use the gunpowder from the first goblin powder charge to cave in the entrance of the mine. All goes on without a hitch and the mine collapses. Undoubtedly in due time, the viper could manage to escape but not anytime soon.   The party satisfied with quite a lot of gold and security of the town they head off back to Archimima. No problems arise en route back and they manage to get everyone back unharmed. The group gives all of the gold to the city of Archimima in order to pay for the expansions. More than enough gold was given to cover the homes, stables, and walls already built. Future projects for the cities will be planned and it's all already paid for.