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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Morrow" data-source="post: 601158" data-attributes="member: 301">Against the Elves – PrologueOnce more Thar and Rhuun heard voices ahead. The unmistakable tones of bugbears- from the noise Rhuun could tell that there were ten, maybe twelve of them. "Damn," muttered Thar. He was out of invisibility spells and the tunnel had been straight and unbranching for some time now. There was nowhere to go."No place to hide," remarked Rhuun.Thar and Rhuun scampered back down the tunnel ahead of the bugbears. When they were far enough ahead, Thar began casting spells, endurance for himself and several spells for Rhuun: bull’s strength, endurance, magic vestment on her chain shirt, greater magic weapon on her axe. If the bugbears wanted a fight, they would get one. Thar passed a pouch of fifty gold coins to Rhuun. Without much conviction he said, "Here, maybe we can convince them that’s all we have and avoid a fight."Rhuun looked at him disbelieving, but accepted the pouch without a word.By the time Thar was finished, the bugbears were nearly on top of them. Thar and Rhuun put their backs to the cavern wall. "Hello," called Thar."What’s this?" responded the largest bugbear as they came into sight. "What are goblins doing way out here?" The large bugbear didn’t say ‘goblins’ of course, he used the particular bugbear term for smaller humanoids. It could be translated as either food or slaves.Thar bowed his head. "We’re refugees, from the… Ugh tribe. We’re going to Gulg." The bugbears surrounded the two goblins, pressing in close to see the ‘food’ that came into bugbear territory all alone. The largest bugbear, clearly the leader, stood in front of Rhuun, eyeing her, but continued to talk to Thar. "It costs gold to get into Gulg. Can you pay?" and after a brief pause he ran his finger along the shoulder of Rhuun’s fine chain shirt. "You are well equipped for refugees."Inwardly Thar groaned. Refugees? What was I thinking? I’ve gotten soft in the head living with the tribe. The largest bugbear reached down for Rhuun’s axe. Rhuun slapped his hand away. With Thar’s magic in effect Rhuun was very strong, perhaps stronger than the bugbear. He stepped back, surprised. His companions began reaching for their weapons. The began to grumble to one another, remarking that, "The food was getting uppity."The bugbear locked eyes with Rhuun. "I’ll take that."In an eye blink Rhuun’s weapons were in her hands. Her dagger darted forward, coming up below the bugbears chain shirt and burying itself deep into his gut. The bugbear’s eyes went wide and he doubled over with pain. That brought his head within Rhuun’s reach. She swung her axe in smooth arc. His head separated from his shoulders and fell to the ground, immediately followed by his body. The other bugbears gasped in unison. Rhuun gazed coldly at them. "You’re right. We’re not refugees."The bugbears began slipping past the goblins and sidling down the tunnel. One, than another, than the whole group broke into a run. Rhuun gave Thar a toothy grin.Thar blinked, swallowed, and took a deep breath. "Right. Let’s see to the body, shall we?"A quick spell later and Thar discovered that the ring and chain shirt the bugbear wore were enchanted. Wordlessly he passed the ring to Rhuun, who placed it proudly on her thumb. They stripped the body and bundled the armor into Thar’s enchanted Haversack. A large sack, holding around 500 gold coins hung from the bugbear’s belt. "Here Rhuun, take this. We’ll use it to pay our way through the next checkpoint."[Game note: Foleful’s player ran Rhuun for this session. When he rolled to hit with the axe he rolled not one, not two, but three 20s in succession. Immediately after that he rolled an 18 on Rhuun’s intimidate check, making her result a 24 before circumstance bonuses for the decapitation trick. That pretty much answered the question what a former goblin slave was going to do with a bunch of ranks in intimidate.]</blockquote>

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