Darkness Under Cold Stones

[Land Outcast]

Standing over his defeated foes Thoma lifts his sword high and throws back his head in a great inarticulate victory howl, one fist smacking his breastplate.

Shoon jumps from the wagon onto the Commander's back, stopping him from rising up, and follows with a well-placed kick to his ribcage, but the yellowskin is regaining it's breath and is reaching for the pommel of his sheathed sword.

The white-haired man emerges from the trees hurriedly, taking a fistful of snow before getting over the wagon, where it applies the snow to Thoma's wound, melting it and part of the damage gone with the water.

Seeing no more foes at hand, Kragor examines the contents of the wagon and, surprisingly, the wagon is mostly empty, only one third of the crates -he assumes- there were here.

Ivan gets the humanoid's bow and throws it into the wagon, far out of the creature's reach.

The leader of the defeated marauders manages to bring his sword to his hands, rolling to evade a kick of retailiation aimed at his head by Shoon. He crawls on his back to put some distance him and the grudging martial artist, and -probably realizing his situation- says "whatever you want!" in common... somehow surprisingly, there is little fear present on his voice and on his -somehow a bit feral- factions.

OOC:
Combat:
Commander: Stunned
Shoon: Descends, Flurry vs. Commander; 3 and 7 subdual damage
Thoma: Procalims his victory!
Balund: Approach, CLW for 7 on Thoma
Kragor: Examines Wagon
Ivan: Gets bow, stores bow
Commander: Unsheathes bastard sword, crawls 5ft back.

 

[Voadam]

Thoma's head snaps around upon hearing the commander. His lips pull back in a feral snarl. His eyes lock onto the hobgoblin's sword and seeing him armed he grins as he walks up to the commander. "You no surrender?" he asks in common as he gestures at the hobgoblin's sword then raises his own for a great overhand strke held in readiness. His grin looks like he is hoping for the hobgoblin to not immediately throw down his sword. A drop of blood drips from the orc onto the commander.

 

[Land Outcast]

The droplet of blood falls between the commander's eyes... he does not wipe it out, instead, he nervously throws the sword as away from himself as he can and crawls some more feet back...
The security and defiance he showed are now gone to be displaced by fearful eyes locked on the great orcish blade and a jaw dropped open that he has forgotten to close.

OOC: Thoma Intimidate (6+5+8) vs. Commander (6+3)

 

[Scotley]

Kragor

"Thoma, since you have his attention, see if you can find out where the rest of the stuff is. This wagon is mostly empty. If this is all the food we take back to the village, I fear it will not be enough."

 

[Land Outcast]

The drop of blood runs down the humanoid's face...

His voice quivers as he tries to find the words to answer, first in a broken language, then, realizing his fault, in common
"Took it away!... My men didn't have enough stored food!"

OOC: Kragor and Shoon recognize the humanoids as hobgoblins, usual mercenaries down the south. Balund, Thoma, and Ivan hadn't heard about them and are at a loss before the tellowskins.

 

[Dire Lemming]

Seeing that the fight seems to be over, Shoon decides to investigate the scene for any signs of the wagon's driver or the two sent out to find it.

PS: Also picks up his Kama

 

[Land Outcast]

While Thoma and Kragor are looking down at the yellowskin with the sign of the black dog, Shoon starts examining the corpses, all of them already cold and pale thanks to the Winter Wood's icing breeze.

Four of them obviously pertain to normal guards, still with their leather armor, their weapons where they fell. There are three more bodies, the body of a half elf wearing a thick leather and wool coat, and those of two young peasants, these last two died from black arrows -such as those received by Thoma- at quite a distance from the wagon.

The half elf and one of the horses were obviously the first ones to die, the half elf -obviusly driver of the wagon, for where the corpse lay- received a pair of arrows on his chest, and the horse received likewise on it's neck. The corpses of the guards rest with sword wounds, all of them.

Then the corpses of the fallen hobgoblins, they have on them both bolts -from the guards' crossbows, probably- and white wood arrows -there are no bows among the guards' weapons-. Most of the blood tainting the pure white snow came from the guards... the hobgoblins only received missile wounds.

 

[Rhun]

Balund surveys the area carefully, looking for anything that the others may have missed. That done, he turns back to his companions. "Perhaps we should load these bodies in the wagon, and take them and what supplies are here back to the village. We can then interrogate this creature," the shaman points at the hobgoblin, "and find out where the rest of the supplies have been taken. On that same note, we should be sure to bind him, if someone has rope."


OOC: In addition to examining the area for clues, Balund will try to recover as many arrows as possible, or take some of the hobgoblin's arrows if they have some left.

 

[hafrogman]

Ivan looks sadly over the fallen guards and driver. A horrible waste of life. He leaves the interrogation of the yellowskin to the others, having no stomache for such things. He nods silently at Balund's suggestion and tries to retrieve some of the bodies, trying to avoid any undue further damage to them because of the cold.

 

[Land Outcast]

For certain, the remaining horse won't be able to pull the wagon alone... the snow beneath his hooves show it tried to run away, probably frightened by the combat, but the soft snow and the lack of a pulling partner made running away impossible.

Ivan carefully loads the wagon with the bodies of the dead while Balund looks around for any signs... Before starting, he removes from the wagon the stringless bow... noticing it to be of great quality...

What Balund finds are five black arrows pertaining to hobgoblin bows and two white arrows, made of specially hard wood, all of them lodged on the snow.

[sblock=Balund]While picking up the arrows... you hear a bark... it repeats itself...
A few seconds later you see a big black dog running over the snow northwards... until it disappears, fading into the air...
Upon examination of that precise area, you find tracks obviously pertaining to the hobgoblins, coming from the north.

OOC: Natural 20 on search check[/sblock]

OOC: What do you do about hobgoblin bodies? weapons?