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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2596952" data-attributes="member: 1210">Goblin Gorge: the CystIt is disgusting, whatever it is.  It is also huge.  It looks- and smells- like someone with badly-polluted lungs had coughed up a ball of phlegm as big as a meadow and spat it upon the ground.  A whiff of that dizzying, sick smell makes out heroes’ heads swim.  “Those weird tracks seem thicker towards it,” Dahlia gestures, making a face full of distaste.  She can’t stop staring at the weird... growth?  Cyst? The closer they get, the worse the stink becomes.  The party circles around the cyst through the ruins of the goblin village, and they spy a number of nostril-like openings in the thing, big enough to easily accommodate them.  “Do thingth live in there?” Sir Cedric says, aghast.  The cyst itself is irregular in shape but well over a thousand feet across.  It is not too high off the ground; this must be the strange smear the group saw as they first entered the ruined village.  When they nervously approach the cyst, they find themselves entering a layer of stomach-turning foul air once they are within about a dozen feet of it.  Moreover, a strange, unearthly sound seems to emanate from it, a weird low warbling screech that sets the party’s hair on end.  “I don’t know about this,” Dahlia mutters, barely able to keep her gorge from rising.The party retreats for the moment.  “Perhapth we thould watch it from up the hill, from a pothithion of conthealment,” suggests Sir Cedric.  “We can thee if thomething emergeth.  And if not, we can alwayth go invethtigate it tomorrow.”The others agree that this seems a wise course, and so they retreat up the slope of the hill closest to the alien blemish on the ground.  Is that the source of the goblins’ troubles? wonders Cara.  What is it?  I’ve never heard of anything like it...  She shakes her head.  I wonder if Mom ever saw anything like this.***Meanwhile, on the road to the Goblin Gorge, Goer continues his journey, whistling happily.  He gnaws on a piece of jerky as he walks.  He kicks a stone along for a time, then leaves it behind as it bounces off the side of his path and into some manzanita.  The air is chilly, but not cold; the day is pleasant for walking.  I wish I had a horse, thinks Goer, not for the first time.That evening, as he is setting up camp and debating whether to slow his journey in order to hunt for game on the morrow, he hears a loud ribbit coming from the direction of the river.  He glances off into the gloom, seeking the source, and catches a glimpse of movement- large movement.  A frog almost as big as Goer himself is hopping towards him.  It croaks again, its throat ballooning out.  Goer drops the firewood he is carrying and grabs up his longspear.  “There’s dinner right there!” he sings to himself, and he charges forward, skewering the giant frog!  It makes a different, agonized noise, and shoots its sticky tongue at Goer.  The squire dodges aside, jerking his spear free, and jabs it again, this time directly in the head!  The giant frog spasms, trying to jump away, but one more stab and the thing is done.“All right!” exclaims Goer gleefully.  “Frog legs!”Why, there’s got to be four days’ worth of food on that thing!***Night is creeping in, with the sun already behind the mountains.  Otis, Cur and the two goblins guiding them are already in deep shadow.  We’re well out of sight of the goblin fort, Otis thinks craftily.  He sidles up next to Cur and murmurs, “It’s time.”  He glances towards the goblins.  “Let’s kill them.  Their friends will never know, and they’re goblins.”  The wizard’s disdain for the humanoids is plain, but fortunately neither of the guides speak Kamendan.  Savages, Cur reiterates mentally.“Do ya have a plan?” Cur mutters back.  “They took all my weapons.”  He gestures vaguely with the pointed stick the goblins allowed him to take.  “Yes,” Otis replies.  “I will put one of them to sleep and you can take his weapon.”“They’re smaller than me, but I suppose it’s better than a stick,” Cur allows.And the two put their plan into action.  Their two goblin guards scarcely know what hits them; one drops to Otis’ sleep spell, and Cur snatches up his little axe and proceeds immediately to bury it in the other goblin’s neck.  Then they easily dispatch the sleeping one.“We’ll see if we can find this ‘Sooth’ person in the morning,” declares Otis.  Cur is busy cleaning off the axe.  “We can find somewhere to camp in the meantime.”Soon, leaving the bloody bodies of their goblin guides behind, the two have settled into the meager concealment of the brush.  Both of them are tired from the long day’s journey, and it is not long before both of them are fast asleep.When the goblins (who were looking for their friends but are now looking for their friends’ murderers) find Otis and Cur, they are still asleep.***Several hours earlier, as the sun is just dropping behind the mountains, Cara points down at the cyst.  “Look!” she cries.  “Something is coming out of it!”  Indeed, there are three ‘somethings’ emerging from within the mucus-like... structure?  Boil?  They appear more or less humanoid in form, but they are wearing strange armor of brownish resin.  “Perhapth thothe creatureth have the anthers we theek!” declares Sir Cedric.“They moight be very dangerous,” remarks Kyle.“Thurely we can overcome any foeth,” Sir Cedric retorts, and he mounts his horse.  “Come, I will interthept them on Thunderputh, and you follow along.”  With that, the knight is galloping downslope towards the three strange figures.Sheriff Jorgen calls, “Wait for me, my lord!”  Then he, Cara, Dahlia and Kyle are following down the slope of the hill, as fast as their unmounted legs can carry them.  Cara quickly takes the lead, outdistancing her armored and encumbered friends.“You there!” Sir Cedric calls.  “Ekthplain yourthelveth!”The figures turn, and something about the way they move strikes Cedric as profoundly wrong.  Then one gestures, and a crackling violet bolt shoots forth, striking Sir Cedric soundly in the chest!  There is no pain, but the knight can feel weakness spreading out through his limbs.  He groans in surprise.  His friends on the hillside, trying to catch up with him, are shocked to see both Thuderpuss and Sir Cedric suddenly collapse in a spray of weird fuchsia and umber motes that comes from another of the figures.  “Cedric!” screams Cara.  She pulls out her shortbow.“Oh no!” Kyle groans.  “Stay away from him!” cries Jorgen.  They are closing in, but the figures are still too far away to reach as they shuffle forward and pick Sir Cedric’s limp form up.  Then they start heading towards the cyst with him.Dahlia casts faerie fire and the fallen knight, as well as his sudden captors, start to glow with an eldritch green light.  But they are not discouraged.  Cara’s bow shot, on the other hand, flies true.  Suddenly one of the pair that are carrying Cedric’s body staggers a bit.  Then the creatures sprout foul, membranous wings.  They unfold from the monsters’ backs- for clearly, now, these are no earthly creature- in a shower of grey and yellow fluid.“Let him go!” Cara screams again, and shoots another arrow.  She is still advancing, and the others keep running towards the foul, now winged trio.  The one that is not carrying Sir Cedric moves to meet the advancing heroes.  It reaches into its armor and pulls out a strange thing that is surely a weapon.  It has a black, resinous handle like a dagger; but instead of a blade, a broad, flat whip-like thing extends from it.  It is flexible and as long as a shortsword, and the creature begins carving the air with it as it advances towards Cara, its movements oddly wrong.  She attempts to tumble away from it, but it slashes her with the edge of the whip dagger.  She hisses in pain, then snaps off another arrow at the retreating villains holding her fiancé.  Sir Cedric, meanwhile, is finally starting to come around.  He begins struggling weakly just as the others finally arrive, nearly out of breath.  He shakes his head to clear it- What’s that smell? he wonders for an instant- and then gasps as he sees a purple cloud take Cara down.  She falls, senseless to the ground, just as he had.But then the sheriff arrives with a great bellow!  Jorgen charges one of the two beings holding his lord and runs him through in a single blow!  The figure collapses instantly, leaving Sir Cedric half-free, and then the other creature holding him releases him as well.  It takes a single step away and then blasts the group with another flash of umber, magenta and yellow motes and vapor.  The one with the strange weapon out begins dueling with Kyle.  It whips the broad film at the lapidary, drawing a bloody line in his arm.  Kyle yelps, but he doesn’t want to back down.  Instead, he springs forward- but trips over his own feet and goes sprawling!**  “This is so embarrassing,” he groans from the ground.Sir Cedric wrests his bastard sword free of its baldric, and with a wordless cry of triumph he decapitates one of the strange things in a single blow!  Grinning, he turns to the last one- which is advancing on Kyle’s prone form- just in time to see Jorgen take it in the side with a thrust from his blade.  The monster jerks and collapses to the ground, destroyed.Our heroes take a few minutes to regain their breath, to allow their hearts to stop pounding.  “That was close,” opines Kyle.“Nonthenthe!” Cedric snorts.  “They were no match for uth!  In fact, perhapth we thould enter the nothtril.”  He gestures at the entrance from which the creatures had come.  “It’s a big place,” Cara responds.  “There are probably more of them.”“Plus we haven’t seen the fire creature yet,” Kyle points out.“Well, we certainly can’t just leave them here,” Sheriff Jorgen says.  “They have to be connected to whatever the creature that drove the goblins out was.  But didn’t Brart say it was fiery?  These guys don’t seem fiery.”“Maybe there’s something else in there.”  Kyle gestures at the cyst again.“We should try to lure them out a few at a time,” suggests Jorgen.  “There could be a lot of them in there.”“Let’s take the bodies and head back up the hill,” Kyle says.  “We can examine them at our leisure.”The others agree, and the plan is executed.***A day later, when Cur finally opens his eyes, he can feel blood matting his hair.  He groans and shifts, but he is bound at both the ankles and the wrists; his hands are secured behind his back.  His head throbs.  His vision doubles momentarily before clearing.  “Finally,” a voice grates in Goblin.  Cur shifts his eyes to the goblins looming above him.  He is in a very uncomfortable position, and he seems to have been tossed into a small boat on top of Otis, whose limp form is below him, also tied up.“Murderers!” spits one of the goblins.  Glourkin snarls, “We were going to help you, but you killed our friends for no reason!  Well, you’ll get some justice now!”  He spits as well.Cur can hear the sounds of water rushing just off to his side.  Did they put us in a boat? he wonders.  He is dizzy and does not feel so well.  They hit us on the head while we slept, he realizes.  “Wait,” he croaks to Glourkin.  “There must be a misunderstanding...”“Push them in,” Glourkin commands.  Ignoring Cur’s protests, the goblins push, and suddenly Cur can feel the current take them.  Yes- clearly, he and Otis are in a boat.  But why?  There are no goblins piloting us... Spat!  Suddenly a long rope of weird, mucus-like stuff hits the stern of the boat, dropping down from above.  What the hell is that? Cur wonders.  He can feel Otis shift beneath him and he hears a groan come from the wizard.  Spat!  The aft of the boat is hit by a rope of mucus too.  There is a peculiar, sick-person smell that comes from the lengths of phlegmy substance.  Then, suddenly, the ropes go taut and the boat starts to ascend jerkily.  It does not remain too even, but both Cur and Otis manage to prevent themselves from falling into the water.  Instead, they are reeled in to the tender clutches of the masters of the south side of Goblin Gorge.Really, drowning might have been more merciful. Next Time: The party successfully lures out a larger group of the enemy!  Plus, Cur and Otis explore the cyst, if by ‘explore’ you mean ‘are taken helplessly into!’ *Obviously, the term ‘earthly’ is a misnomer on Cydra, but it seemed the best word to get my point across.   **Fumble.</blockquote>

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