Lazybones's Keep on the Shadowfell/Thunderspire Labyrinth

[Lazybones]

Chapter 18


Jaron heard the whoosh a moment before the dragonshield staggered back, clutching its head. Mara’s handaxe fell to the ground, a slick of blood trailing on the edge of the blade.

As the kobolds turned, the head of one erupted with the now-familiar white tongues of witchfire. Jaron was quick to take advantage of the respite, staggering to his feet and slipping out past the circle of distracted kobolds. The last of the three thrust its sword at him before he could get fully free, but the halfling had caught his second wind, and the attack merely glanced off his side, biting into his armor without cutting fully through. The kobold shrieked and went after him; the other two turned to face Mara and Elevaren, who were rushing down the slope toward the melee.

Jaron stumbled to the edge of the fallen log. He kicked a rock into the dark mouth of the opening under the log, and then rolled over its top, grimacing as the movement sent another stab of pain through his battered torso. The kobold lunged at him, and might have been able to stab him again if the badger hadn’t surged out of its den, lashing out in a furious lather with its long, curving claws. The kobold let out a yell and dodged back, only its armor keeping it from suffering worse wounds as the claws dug into its spindly legs.

Mara had both of her swords out as she clashed with the first of the two kobolds. Their initial exchange was inconclusive, as neither pierced the guard of the other. Similarly, Elevaren found himself more successful than he’d hoped in distracting the other kobold from Jaron. The creature, still suffering from the aftereffects of Elevaren’s witchfire, failed to connect with its initial thrust against the warlock, but likewise the eladrin failed in his first attempt to hex the creature; the blinding effects of the witchfire helped shield it from his eyebite.

The battle was quick, furious, and decisive. The badger was furious, but no match for the veteran kobold warrior. But by the time it had dispatched the creature, Jaron had circled back around the battle, and had recovered his bow. Mara and the second dragonshield continued to fight to a stalemate, until she came in with a low swing that took the kobold’s legs out from under it. Elevaren took a wound as his foe recovered from his initial attack, a shallow gash that ran long his left ribs, but in turn he met its gaze, dazing it with the power of a fey curse. The kobold ran forward, swinging its sword blindly, but Elevaren had drawn back, joining the others to form a wedge with Jaron opposite him, and Mara as the point. A tree guarded their back, protecting them from flanking attacks.

The kobolds likewise regrouped and surged forward, fighting with an almost unnatural ferocity for creatures of their race. Mara met their rush and deflected their attacks with precise sweeps of her two swords. One tried to shift to face Elevaren, but Mara struck it with an extended thrust of her long blade, forcing it to keep its attention on her. Another tried to come around at Jaron, but the ranger fired a precisely-aimed shot into its left hip, staggering it. Already seriously injured, the kobold tried to fall back, only to collapse as blood loss sapped its consciousness.

From there, the collapse was swift. Elevaren cursed the nearby kobold again, opening it to an attack from Mara that opened a deep gash in its throat. The other dragonshield disengaged and fell back, obviously now only interested in flight, but it didn’t make it farther than the log before an arrow from Jaron’s bow brought it down. Mara went to make certain of them; she was too experienced to leave a fallen foe that might be shamming behind them.

Jaron started past her, back the way he’d come, but Mara stopped him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“There were others; they escaped with Beetle. I have to go after them.”

“Gods above, Jaron, you can barely walk. In your current shape, a blind kobold with a blunted spear could take you down. You need to rest.”

Jaron started to protest, but Mara guided him firmly over to the log, where she sat him down and took a look at his wound. He grimaced as she pulled his cap off, revealing the nasty gash in his forehead caused by the kobold sword. Elevaren—and Douven Staul, who’d remained back at a safe distance during the fray—came forward to help. Mara used her waterskin and a clean rag to wash the wound and clear away the sticky blood trailing down his face.

“This is going to leave a scar,” Mara said, as she tore a strip from the cloth and used it to fashion a bandage around his temple. “I would tell you to take it easy for a few days, except I know that you’re not going to listen.”

“If they do have a lair nearby, that’s where they took Beetle,” Jaron said. “We have to get him out of there.”

“They’re going to be expecting us,” Mara said.

“Then we shall have to be clever in our approach,” Elevaren said. “Agreed?”

Jaron nodded, taking his cap back from Mara. His head still hurt, but the bleeding had stopped, and at least his vision had returned to normal. “Agreed,” he said.

 

[jonnytheshirt]

Looking good LB, liked Beetle from the start. He seems to have a spiritual aspect (yet low wis) so will be interesting where he's developing.

 

[Lazybones]

Looking good LB, liked Beetle from the start. He seems to have a spiritual aspect (yet low wis) so will be interesting where he's developing.

I thought it would make for an interesting challenge to write a character that is in some ways mentally ill (or at least sees things through a completely different lens than most people). I honestly have no idea where he'll end up but I'm sure it will be an interesting journey there.

* * * * *

Chapter 19


“He’s coming back,” Elevaren said.

“About time,” Mara replied. “I don’t know about this. Leaving Douven...”

“He’s safer on his own than with us right now. We’re only a short distance from Winterhaven, and he is not entirely without skill, when it comes to navigating the wilderness.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the fighter said. “But I still have a bad feeling.” She broke off as Jaron appeared out of the trees up ahead. She had to admit, the halfling knew how to move quietly when he wanted to. She suspected that if he hadn’t deliberately revealed himself to them, he could have crept up close enough to touch them without being seen or heard. Of course, neither she nor Elevaren were possessed of especially sharp senses, which explained the ambush where they’d first met Jaron and his cousin.

“What did you find?” Mara asked, once Jaron had gotten close enough for them to speak without raising their voices. The halfling’s bleak expression, however, revealed his sentiments before he spoke.

“It’s damned near impossible, as far as I can tell,” Jaron said.

“Tell us everything,” Elevaren said.

As Jaron laid it out, sketching the details in the dirt using a long stick, the others began to share his initial assessment. The kobold lair was inside a cave next to a waterfall a few hundred yards to the east. There were at least a dozen kobolds outside, scattered around the area, but not so widely that there was any chance of picking off a few without the entire group knowing. There was at least one dragonshield, and another of the slingers like the one that had destroyed Callen’s cart.

“I was able to get pretty close to the entrance of the cave,” Jaron explained, once he’d sketched out the approximate position of the outside guards. “Not close enough to look in, but enough to see that it’s pretty big, and lit inside. And there’s more kobolds inside; I could hear them talking and moving around.”

“Do you think we could get inside without being detected by the outside guards?” Elevaren asked.

Jaron shook his head. “I might be able to, but you two... no offense, but they’d hear you coming a league off. At best, we’d get inside, only to be caught trapped between those inside the lair and those outside.”

“Then we have to get creative,” Mara said.

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 20


Meepo liked the feeling of the water rushing past his ankles; it felt soothing. Some of the other kobolds liked hunting, or raiding, but for him, a quiet day in the shade, with cool water running over his feet, was ideal.

He was supposed to be keeping watch, and he was, scanning the surrounding area with his spear in one hand and a squat throwing javelin in the other. Two more javelins were stuck through the leather straps slung across his back. Keeping watch was easy, as long as there wasn’t anything to see. Today that wasn’t likely to be the case. From the way that Kurgus came rushing past—and Jakko, all but bent double with a huge burden slung over his shoulder—there was trouble, and one thing that Meepo knew was that trouble tended to come in groups.

So he watched, but the splashing a few feet away was getting real distracting.

“You need to watch, Deekin, not catch fish,” Meepo said, annoyance in his voice.

“Almost got it,” the other kobold said. He was thrusting his spear into a crevice in the rocks of the stream bed, in a way that Meepo knew was almost impossibly unlikely to result in a catch. The fish in the stream were tiny, anyway, and tasted nasty. All the good ones had been caught and eaten by the kobolds long ago.

“Kurgus see you, he’s going to be pissed off,” Meepo said, trying another tack.

“Nah, he go in to talk with Irontooth,” Deekin said, not looking up from his intense concentration on his task. “Hear if he come back. Besides, you keep watch good.”

Meepo shook his head, and turned for another scan of the area, as already had done a hundred times today. This time, however, he froze when he saw the halfling. The halfling was standing on a rock right at the edge of water, maybe sixty or seventy feet downstream. He had a bow, and had already lifted it to his cheek.

“Umm... Deekin,” Meepo hissed.

“I said I almost got—,” the other kobold started to say, but the end of its statement was cut off by the soft thunk as the halfling’s arrow buried itself to the feathers in Deekin’s chest. The kobold toppled over backwards into the stream, making a small splash.

Meepo felt a sudden chill as the halfling calmly reached for another arrow.

The kobold lifted its javelin, and hurled it. The halfling was pretty far away, and the hasty shot fell well short, but it hit a rock and skipped up, glancing off of the halfling’s shin. The halfling bit off a curse, but as he loaded his bow and raised it again, he said, quite clearly, “Not good enough, kobold.”

Meepo let out a bloodcurdling yell, and turned to run. The arrow caught him in the side, and then he was in the stream, the water that had seemed so refreshing just a few moments ago suddenly like a cloak of ice that folded over him, carrying him away.

Jaron fired a few more arrows, drawing, aiming, and releasing so fast that his hands barely seemed to feel the touch of the arrows. Another kobold, coming forward to investigate from the trees on the far side of the stream, went down with an arrow in its gut, but another shot went well wide, vanishing in the brush near the cave entrance.

Javelins were starting to fall around him, most well short, and none even remotely as effective as the lucky hit from the kobold guard. Jaron grimaced as he turned and darted back through the trees, moving parallel to the course of the stream. He’d chosen his path of retreat quickly, and didn’t encounter any obstacles that would slow him.

The kobolds came on quickly behind him, shouting out to each other as they formed a half-circle that slowly began to close as they pursued the halfling. A sling bullet whistled through the trees above him, but it was well off its target, and Jaron didn’t break his stride.

It took less than half a minute before he came to his destination. The stream bent back through the woods here, forming a shallow gully choked with brambles. The far bank rose up into a low, muddy embankment, woven through with the exposed roots of the trees closest to the water. Jaron leapt over the bushes on his side, splashed through the stream in three strides, and leapt up toward the far bank. He was well short of the crest, but a hand shot out and grasped him, pulling him over in a single heave.

“They’re right behind me,” he said to Mara, as she dropped him into the sheltered nook behind the embankment. Elevaren was beyond her, crouched down behind a tall arching root that made a viewing slit of sorts. Jaron saw that she’d gathered a small pile of disc-shaped rocks the size of his fist, likely gathered from the stream, in front of her.

“Go,” she said. “We’ll hold them here.”

Jaron looked doubtful. “There’s still almost a dozen of them. Maybe I’d better...”

Mara thrust him behind her, down the reverse slope behind the embankment. “No changing the plan. Now, go!”

He opened his mouth to respond, but she’d already turned back toward the stream and the woods on the far side. He did as she bid, rushing off deeper into the woods. As he left their position behind him, he could hear Elevaren saying, “There. They’re coming.”

Thinking of Beetle, and a promise made in Fairhollow, he didn’t look back.

 

[Richard Rawen]

Excellent development... classic Meepo and Deekin lol, looking forward to the battle and the rescue!

 

[Cerulean_Wings]

Teehee, not one, but two famous kobolds! Can't decide which one I like better, maybe Deekin, since I've had him during the Hordes of the Underdark campaign

Can't wait for Irontooth to make an entrance

 

[Lazybones]

Wait no longer!

* * * * *

Chapter 21


Beetle stirred. He felt bad. It wasn’t pleasant, not at all. He blinked once. He was in a dark place, but there were torches not far away, and he recognized the smells.

He was lying on the floor. It was cold. He was tied up, with his hands bound behind him; he couldn’t move. A gag that tasted nasty, like old fish left out in the sun, was thrust between his teeth.

Something poked him in the back once, then again. Something sharp, stabbing him. Not to hurt, although it did. He felt like the way he’d had that time that Farmer Jamberson’s cattle had trampled him. Beat up all over.

He heard a laugh, behind him. He didn’t move, not again, and the poking eventually stopped. He lay there, quiet in the dark, and took a deep breath, slowly. His muscles tingled, but he ignored the urge to try to move again. He could feel them watching him. The voices, again, low, just a few steps away. He didn’t understand what they were saying. He was a mouse. A mouse caught in a trap, maybe. He felt a moment’s remorse for the creatures he’d caught in like fashion. Maybe they’d felt as bad as he did now.

A few minutes passed. Beetle did not spend them idle. When he heard the others approaching, he cracked an eyelid, just enough to see the bottom of a hide tunic that he recognized. His abused skin burned a little just at the memory of it. At least he could see, his eyes hadn’t been burned out by its terrible spit. He wanted a drink of water, real bad.

The creatures were talking again. He thought there were two behind him, and two others that had come in with the one that had spit in his face. Those two were the nasty kind with the shields made of dragon skin.

Someone else had come in; he hadn’t noticed it, but there he was. Booted feet, not the scaly bare feet of the kobolds. This one was bigger, too. Bulging with muscles. Not a kobold, he had green skin and a squat head, with a huge tooth bulging from one side of his mouth. He stank; Beetle could smell him from here.

“Get him up. Take off gag, hold him,” the spitting kobold said. Beetle realized he understood what the kobold had said, this time, it was in his own language. He almost flinched as the kobolds behind him picked him up. He kept his head lolling forward as the kobold yanked off his gag. His tongue felt big and awkward in his mouth; he really wanted that drink of water.

“Wake him up,” the kobold spitter said. “Lord Irontooth wants to speak to the prisoner.”

The big green guy came forward. Beetle decided that he didn’t want to be here any more, and he certainly didn’t want to talk to Lord Irontooth. He shifted, and the ropes holding him fell away.

The kobolds looked at him in surprise. The one holding him grabbed at his belt for a knife, the same knife he’d taken from Beetle, but found only an empty scabbard.

The big goblin reacted faster. He lunged at Beetle, not even going for the big axe slung across his back, but his hand forming a fist that no doubt would have hurt quite a lot, had it connected. But Beetle dodged back, and felt the wind of the punch as it swished through the air right in front of him. Even the kobolds holding him fell back a bit in the face of that attack. The goblin was a skilled fighter, and he recovered real fast, not even lunging off-balance the way that a stupid brawler might have done.

But Beetle was pretty fast as well.

The natural reactions of the kobolds behind him had given him just enough space to move. He grabbed the strap holding the goblin’s axe in place and leapt up as he drew back. The goblin grabbed at him but he was already up and moving past, kicking off the goblin’s shoulder. As he sprang he reached down and caught the tip of his knife on the goblin’s ear, slicing a deep notch in it. Blood spurted out and the goblin staggered back, clutching at the nasty wound.

That had to hurt.

Beetle landed just outside the reach of the nearest kobold, which looked down at him with its jaw dropped. It reached for its sword, but Beetle was already running, darting through an opening into another room beyond. Something splashed against the wall behind him, and he felt droplets of something splatter onto his collar and sleeve. Fortunately, none of the acid touched his skin.

“KILL THAT HALFLING!” came a truly echoing cry from behind him. Ahead of him, kobolds shifted, blocking two passages that exited the room. There were kobolds all over the place. Luckily, they were as surprised to see him as he was to see them. Directly ahead of him, a wall of water glowed bright with the light of the sun. More kobolds were coming into the room behind him. A javelin sliced past his ear, almost doing to him what he’d done to the goblin. The ones in the room he’d just entered unlimbered spears and javelins, and Beetle realized that in a second or two he’d be a pincushion, like the one his Aunt Wanda kept on the table near the fireplace.

There was only one thing to do. Charging forward, he sprang into the wall of water. Something hard struck him in the side, and then he hit the waterfall, and everything vanished in a chaos of water and noise and motion.

 

[Cerulean_Wings]

Bad pull, bad pull, too much aggro!!!

Wahoo, go Beetle, you show that goblin who's boss!

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 22


Mara ran, favoring her left side. A few paces ahead of her, Elevaren moved with considerably more grace, although a long trail of blood ran down his cheek as he glanced back at her. Well, he’s not wearing forty pounds of blasted metal, she thought.

She didn’t need to look back to know that the kobolds were right behind them. They’d held back for a while back at the stream, taking cover behind the trees on the far bank, sniping at them with thrown javelins. That strategy hadn’t worked so well for them, as Mara and Elevaren’s position had given them excellent cover, and they’d killed several of the kobolds. Most had fallen to Elevaren’s magic, although Mara had caught two with javelins that she’d recovered and returned to their owners, point-first.

But the kobolds had eventually run out of javelins, or maybe they’d just been waiting for the reinforcements that came surging out of the forest. A dragonshield had joined them, leading the charge that had split around the embankment and crossed the stream to either side of their position, obviously intent on closing their flanks and swarming them from behind. They must have found out that there were only two of them defending, as the kobolds pressed their attack even when Elevaren blasted one with his eyebite power, and Mara threw a javelin through another, sending it down in a bloody heap. But the kobolds responded, Mara taking a hard hit to her side from the slinger still on the far bank, while Elevaren took the gash to his face from a javelin that would have taken his eye had it been a few inches higher.

Now they were falling back, the kobold horde raging behind them. They’d identified a second position on their approach, a holdout they could get to quickly, and Mara urged Elevaren on ahead as she saw it through the trees. The kobolds continued to close the distance behind them. There was no way the pair could hope to outrun them, not with Mara weighed down by her armor.

The holdout was a huge, majestic tree, its bole split down the middle by some ancient tragedy, likely a bolt of lightning. The split had turned the upper part of the tree into a giant forking “V”, but its lower half remained solid and hale, its roots protruding out to form deep earthen niches that ran into the depths of the tree’s base. The side that faced them was deep, inviting, the flanking root-ramparts like arms ready to enfold them. They could stand there, one good defender able to hold off superior numbers without getting overwhelmed.

At least that was the theory.

Another lead bullet caught Mara hard on the calf as she ran, and she staggered and nearly fell as she cried out, her face tight with pain. Elevaren started to turn back toward her, but she yelled for him to get into position, into the protected niche in the hollow. It was a one-way trip, or at least it would have been for anyone other than the eladrin.

Mara made it to the niche as Elevaren hexed a kobold skirmisher that had gotten ahead of the others, and tried to catch the fleeing fighter from behind. The kobold, affected by the eyebite, wisely drew back to clear its head and wait for help. Mara, settling into the position in the tree’s base, spun and took up a defensive stance.

“If I go down, teleport to the far side of the tree, and keep on running,” Mara said, her jaw clenched as she fought through the pain that she was obviously in.

“I won’t abandon you,” Elevaren began, but Mara cut him off. “If I go down, then you’ll only join me if you stay!” she growled.

The kobolds arrived. Once they saw that they had their prey run to ground, their approach became almost casual. They formed a broad half-circle behind the dragonshield. Mara tensed and readied her sword, but they stopped a good twenty paces off.

“If they decide to hang back, this could get ugly for us,” Mara whispered. The kobolds had a lot of javelins left, and the slinger had already proven his accuracy.

Elevaren raised his voice, and spoke to them in Draconic. “Bastard hatchlings of the dragon!” he cried. “I would challenge you to die in glorious battle, but I know to whom I speak! Lower your tails and creep back into your dens where you belong, and you may yet live this day! For all know that ‘kobold’ is the name of the coward, not even worthy of being called ‘slave’, bits of mere dung that cling to the claws of the mighty lords of the dragon race!”

A roar went through the kobolds, building into a wash of fury.

“What did you say to them?” Mara asked him.

“Just tried to provoke them a bit,” the warlock said.

“I’d say it worked!” Mara said, as the dragonshield lifted his sword and shouted something, and the kobolds came forward in a wave.

 

[Lazybones]

Chapter 23


Irontooth was in a foul mood.

Blood continued to ooze from the gash in his ruined ear, but he did not deign to so much as notice it. He held his huge axe, now, and his expression suggested that he would bury it in the flesh of an ally if any enemy was not forthcoming.

Wisely, the kobolds kept their distance.

“I want that halfling found,” the goblin said, its voice like a deep rumbling in its barrel chest.

“It likely fled to the others that are attacking to the west,” Kurgus said. The wyrmpriest was the only kobold who did not seem to be intimidated by the goblin warrior, but even he knew better than to provoke him.

Irontooth looked distracted; the goblin had turned and was looking back toward the cliff.

“My lord?” the kobold prodded, after a moment.

“Order your skirmishers to cut off any possible route of retreat,” Irontooth said. “Send the rest of the tribe to engage the attackers. I want them killed, all of them. If any escape to warn the human town, I will hold you responsible, dragonpriest.”

“As you say, lord,” the kobold said, inclining its head slightly. It turned to the nearest scout, issuing the necessary orders. But as the skirmisher bounded off, and the priest turned to follow, Irontooth forestalled it.

“Hold. I have something else for you to do...”

The darkness enfolded Jaron as he slipped through the mouth of the cave, into the dank mustiness beyond. The darkness wasn’t total; there were torches in cracks in the walls further in, and once his eyes adjusted to the change he could see fairly well. But the whole sense of being underground was more than a bit unnerving, especially with the stink of kobold thick in the air around him.

But Beetle, if he was still alive, was somewhere inside, and so he had to go in.

He was careful, his booted feet making not even a whisper on the bare stone as he moved ahead. The passage opened onto a larger interior space ahead. Jaron peered around carefully, but there were no signs of any kobolds. Thus far, their plan seemed to be paying off. Maybe too well; he felt another twinge of guilt at having left Mara and Elevaren, but then quashed the feeling. He had to get Beetle out of here and quick, and then they could return to help the others. He wasn’t going to leave them behind, any more then he could abandon his cousin.

He knew better than to call Beetle’s name. Even if most of the kobolds had abandoned the lair, he expected them to have left at least one guard watching their prisoner.

If he was even still alive.

That thought added some speed to his steps. But it took him only a few moments to scan the interior of the lair. As he moved into what looked like the deepest room in the place, he saw a wooden chest banded in iron, a small mound of discarded bones, and some scattered trash. Nothing big enough to have concealed Beetle.

“Damn,” he said, and turned to leave.

He never even saw the goblin until it appeared in the entrance of the room, silhouetted in the light of a torch burning on the wall behind it. Jaron had fought goblins before, and even hobgoblins, but this thing almost dripped menace. It wasn’t its size, although it was big for a goblin. Rather, it was something in its beady eyes, that gleamed in the reflected torchlight as it fixed them on Jaron. It was holding a nasty-looking two-handed war axe, and wore a shirt of chainmail links that looked stretched over its muscled frame.

“Looking for your little friend? He squealed like a pig when I gutted him. But my axe is still thirsty.”

He was trying to provoke Jaron, but the halfling was experienced enough to know that rushing the goblin would only result in a messy and quick death. The goblin saw that he knew that, and laughed.

“So. You’re not stupid. Good for you, even if this can end only one way, halfling.”

The goblin came forward, but only enough so that was fully in the room, still blocking the exit. Jaron could see that the goblin was wounded, blood trailing from a deep notch in its ear, but it might as well have been a splinter for all it seemed to take from the goblin’s vitality.

He thought about reaching for an arrow. He would only get one shot, he knew.

As if reading his mind, the goblin laughed again. “Even as you cower, halfling, your friends are being torn to pieces by my kobolds. You may very well be the last to die.”

“Did you kill those other adventurers? The ones led by that wizard out of Fallcrest?”

A look of confusion crossed the goblin’s face, but only for a moment. “Ah, them. So, you knew them, eh? Or maybe one of them in particular. I’d heard that a runt halfling was in that group. Your daddy, maybe?”

“Brother,” Jaron said.

“Ah, more’s the pity for you, then.” He lifted his axe.

“So it was Kalarel, then?”

The name brought the goblin up short. “You know that name, eh? Well, it won’t do you no good, halfling. Whatever you know, it dies here, right now.”

He stepped forward again, and this time Jaron knew that nothing would stop him until he had buried his axe in the ranger’s skull.