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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2493336" data-attributes="member: 1210">Goblin Gorge- pt. 2Sir Cedric does not hesitate as the slimy, beetle-like thing starts to trundle towards him and his friends; he charges. Thunderpuss, his horse, gives a loud whinny and her hooves pound the earth.  His battle axe draws back, raises up, and then smashes down, crunching into the monstrosity’s shoulder with a splash of translucent goo. The beetle-thing is silent.  It swipes a thick claw at Cedric, smashing into his leg and leaving a rapidly-evaporating trail of disgusting slime on him.  He gives a wordless cry of pain and anger as he is almost knocked from the saddle.  He swings his axe again, but misses.  He curses as the thing charges past him at sheriff Jorgen.  Jorgen has his longspear out; as the thing rushes towards him, he jabs at it, but its thick carapace turns the point away and it smashes into him, pushing him backwards towards the bed of strange flowers.  The strange sound, almost like breaking glass, occurs again and again, and Dahlia and Kyle both wheel to look at the sunflowers.  “Hey, I think the noise is coming from the sunflowers!” he exclaims.Maybe I can counter it, thinks Cara.  She begins to trill out a song, hoping to override whatever the sound is doing.  Of course, so far it has had no real effect that she can discern, but still- better safe than sorry!Sir Cedric wheels Thunderpuss about.  “Oh indeed?” he cries, and puts his heels to her flanks.  The horse lunges forward, moving next to both the sunflowers and Cara, and Cedric whirls his axe up and over his head, landing it with a terrific crunch! in the stalk of one of the flowers.  This seems to draw the beetle-thing’s ire, and it rushes back towards him.  Both Jorgen and Kyle stab it as it retreats, but it does not bleed anything other than more of the vanishing slime.“What is that thing?” wonders Kyle.Cara lunges forward, her rapier pricking the beetle-thing dead center, and she runs it through.  It collapses immediately into a liquid mass of goo, which vanishes completely in only seconds.  She stares in shock; she didn’t even think she hit it that hard.  Dahlia, meanwhile, has retreated and drawn out her sling.  She drops a stone into it and prepares to fire on the sunflowers, but suddenly a great cloud of stinking gas appears from nowhere all around her!  Gagging, she nearly drops her weapon as she staggers away.  And then Cedric gives a cry of pain and clutches at his head.  Blood starts to pour from his ears and nose.  “AAARGH!!” he screams.  “Oh my god,” gasps Kyle.Suddenly the sunflowers seem morph into an even more bizarre form, a heaving boil on the earth splattering reddish, blood-like liquid everywhere.  In this form the petals become tentacles, the seeds of the sunflowers become hundreds of tiny staring eyes, and great brain-like bulges keep forming fleetingly in the roiling flesh of the monster, a seething combination of flesh and woody material.  None of our heroes have ever seen anything even remotely like this before. Cara is the first one to recover, lunging with her blade, but she can’t seem to penetrate its thick... hide?  Trunk?  Whatever it is, she can’t seem to hurt it.  Cedric reels again as another wave of intense pain shoots through him, and he crumples, falling unconscious from the saddle to land in a heap on the ground.  Meanwhile, suddenly neither Kyle nor Cara can reason.  Roaring in anger and confusion, they both stagger around as if drunk, seemingly no longer in full possession of their faculties.  Jorgen screams and stabs at the- the thing, whatever it is.  Over and over he thrusts his spear deep into it.  Kyle shakes his head and throws a bottle of whiskey (purchased earlier at the Fat Mallard) at the thing, crying out, “Burn it, burn it!!”  Cara, too, seems to recover her wits, but she finds her rapier ineffective.  Dahlia has stumbled out of the stinking vapors (smells like a sick room, she thinks) and hurries over to the pale form of Sir Cedric.  He is sinking rapidly towards death.  She lays her hands on his head and murmurs, and the power of nature flows from her, stopping his descent into oblivion.Jorgen keeps stabbing with all his might.  He can feel washes of mental pain wash over him.  He feels something deep within him struggle to overcome his reason, to force him into a state of confusion.  He grits his teeth and resists with all his might.  The stench of sickness all around him threatens to overwhelm him.  He refuses to succumb.Dahlia glances from Cedric’s fallen form at the battle.  We can’t even tell if we’re hurting it significantly, she thinks.  It looks like raw meat as it is.  How badly damaged is it?  What are we facing?  She shakes with fear as she grunts and manhandles Cedric until he is draped over the snorting Thunderpuss.  Then she pulls herself awkwardly into the saddle and draws out her scimitar.  Fight or flee? she debates. Jorgen staggers and grits his teeth.  He shakes his head and notices blood pouring from his nose.  I can barely stand, he groans inwardly.  But I cannot fail now!  It’s weakening, it must be!He stabs again, feeling his spear sink deep, deep into the mass of bizarre flesh and wood and pulp before him, and with a shudder the thing collapses into its previous sunflower-like state.  Suddenly there is quiet.  The flowers are trampled and cut to pieces; the fleshy tendrils have been mashed into pulp.  The only sounds are the wheezing of our heroes’ breath.“Is... is it dead?” asks Kyle cautiously.“Or dormant,” replies Dahlia, sheathing her scimitar.“Either way, I think we need to get the hell out of here,” Jorgen groans.  “Agreed,” Cara nods. The party retreats, Sir Cedric still shallowly breathing but far from conscious.  They hurry away from the burnt goblin territory, electing to return to the place where they camped the previous night.  They arrive there in short order and do their best to set up a hidden camp.  “That thing was disgusting,” comments Kyle. “Well, hopefully we killed it,” Cara replies.  “Have you ever heard of anything like it?”“Never.”  Nor have any of the others.  “Maybe if Otis was here,” murmurs Dahlia.  “This seems almost more like his area of expertise.”Aching, exhausted, our heroes set up watches and rest.Next Time: Our heroes meet a living goblin in the wreckage!  Plus: what made those footprints??</blockquote>

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