Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Lazybones's Keep on the Shadowfell/Thunderspire Labyrinth
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4582221" data-attributes="member: 143"><p>Heh, you guys know me well. Maybe a bit <em>too</em> well... <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" /></p><p></p><p>* * * * * </p><p></p><p>Chapter 55</p><p></p><p></p><p>For a moment, it looked like Elevaren was a dead man. The lead hobgoblins had even lifted their swords to strike, barely easing the pace of their rush as it looked like they would walk right over him, leaving him bleeding out his life behind them. </p><p></p><p>But before the killing thrusts came, the warlock reached out to Faerie, and the power that bound him to the Feywild. He used that power to transport himself through that alternative realm, to return for just an instant to that place he’d been trying to reach ever since that night so long ago, when he’d been lured into the material realm for a purpose that he still hadn’t quite uncovered. As always, he felt a moment of ecstasy at that transition, only to have it yanked away as he completed his <em>fey step</em> and rematerialized behind Jaron above the upper lip of the staircase. </p><p></p><p>Devrem was ready. “Now!” he cried, pushing hard on his end of the fallen pillar. After the slightest hesitation Mara echoed his effort, and the two rolled the heavy stone down the stairs. The broken cylinder had to weigh at least a few hundred pounds, and it picked up speed as it bounded down the rough slope. </p><p></p><p>The hobgoblins saw it coming, but there was little they could do to evade; the pillar stretched across almost two-thirds of the entire width of the stair. The hobgoblin warchief fell into a crouch and vaulted it, narrowly clearing the tumbling pillar and landing in a slightly awkward stance in its wake. The hobgoblins on the edges of the formation pressed up against the walls and narrowly avoided being struck, but the three in the center were hit hard as the pillar struck a stair and bounded up into their shields. Two of the soldiers were bowled over, falling onto their shields and sliding down after the descending pillar down the steps. The third screamed as he was knocked down, landing solidly on his backside only to have the pillar roll up over him, driving the upper edge of his shield roughly into his jaw. The pillar’s fall became more erratic after that, as one end caromed off the side of the stairway, and it spun into a jolting, uneven trajectory that finally ended with it sliding onto the floor of the chamber below, where it finally came to a stop. The warcaster and archer, following along behind the phalanx, had stopped to extract the soldier that had fallen into the rat pit, and avoided the threat entirely. </p><p></p><p>The attack had thrown the hobgoblins into disarray, but the warchief recovered quickly, thrusting the end of his spear down to recover his balance before flipping the point back down to an attack position. A shower of divine sparks flared around him, but Devrem’s attack had no effect. The hobgoblin rushed up the stairs to engage the cleric before he could ready another barrage, but Mara stepped forward to block him, her swords hissing as slid drew them from their scabbards. Her long blade intercepted the war leader’s spearhead and knocked it aside, but the hobgoblin recovered quickly, darting back and recentering the weapon before she could get inside his reach. For a moment each of them took the other’s measure, and then the hobgoblin snarled and lunged forward again to attack. Again Mara pivoted and parried, but the hobgoblin drew back the spearhead and shifted his thrust in a blur. Mara twisted her torso with the the hit, which struck her hard in the right shoulder, but by the grimace that twisted her features, the blow had hurt. She launched a quick counter intended to foul her enemy’s legs and unbalance his footing on the stairs, but the hobgoblin was a veteran combatant, and he merely shifted, letting the solid metal greaves that covered his legs turn the blow without effect. The hobgoblin’s heavy armor and shield protected him exceptionally well, even without his soldiers present to protect his flanks.</p><p></p><p>The odds were starting to turn quickly, as the other hobgoblins rushed to their commander’s aid. The two that had avoided the rolling pillar surged ahead, their shields raised to protect them from further attacks. Unfortunately for them, they had foes to either side as well as ahead, and they had the advantage of position, on the stone faring that surrounded the stairwell at its summit. From that position Jaron fired an arrow that thudded deep into the thigh of one of the hobgoblins, turning his charge into a painful limp. Beetle, meanwhile, had found a piece of ruined masonry twice the size of his head, which he’d managed to lift and carry over to a position overlooking the stairs. As soon as the hobgoblin turned his shield toward the archer, the halfling dropped it down squarely onto the foe’s head. The hobgoblin was wearing a helmet, but twenty pounds of rock carried a considerable force regardless, and the creature staggered against the wall, stunned by the impact. </p><p></p><p>The soldier on the other side of the stairs surged forward to join his warchief and further turn the odds against Mara at the top of the steps. But even as he surged ahead, Devrem stepped forward, his staff extended before him. “Know the certainty of your death,” the priest intoned, pointing the iron-shod head of the staff directly at the charging hobgoblin. </p><p></p><p>The hobgoblin was a sturdy veteran, but he saw the cleric’s staff twist and distort in the man’s hands, becoming a silver bird with glowing red eyes that flew directly at his face, claws extended to pluck out his eyes. The soldier screamed and fell back, overcome with fear, and fled back down the stairs. </p><p></p><p>Jaron and Beetle had finished off the wounded soldier. Beetle continued to hurl rocks down onto his neck and back even as he collapsed on the steps, arrows jutting from his armored body. But the three that had been knocked down by the pillar had gotten back up to their feet, and despite the beating that they’d taken, they reformed their line, linking shields before starting back up the steps. At the head of the stairs, Mara and the warchief continued their violent exchange. Mara had finally gotten inside the hobgoblin’s reach, only to take a colossal wallop from the warchief’s shield that had knocked her back several steps. She narrowly avoided a thrust that would have pierced her gorget, had it not slid off of the magical <em>shield of faith</em> that Devrem had invoked around all of them at the start of the encounter. She leapt back in, turning the hobgoblin’s spear with her short blade, and then spun as she drove down her longsword into the haft. A loud crack announced her success at breaking the warchief’s weapon, followed by a tinkle of metal on stone as the head landed in the rubble a few feet away. </p><p></p><p>Sparkles of fey magic flared around the chief as Elevaren hit him with an <em>eldritch blast</em>. But again the warchief’s incredible durability protected him from the attack, and before the warlock could muster his magic again an arrow streaked up from below and impaled his right arm just above the elbow. The eladrin was flung back, and he sagged against a nearby pile of rubble, pale and weak from loss of blood. </p><p></p><p>The hobgoblin soldiers cried out loudly as they reached the top of the steps, reforming their line around their commander. Devrem stepped forward to join Mara, but the pair were now considerably outnumbered, and their advantageous position was becoming increasingly precarious. The hobgoblin chieftain drew a shortsword with a steel blade that seemed to glisten in the weak morning light, and thrust it at Mara. The sword crunched into her hip, denting the metal scales protecting her and drawing blood. The fighter, now bloodied, cried out in pain but kept fighting, barely bringing her shortsword up in time to parry a downward swipe from a hobgoblin’s flail. </p><p></p><p>The phalanx pressed forward, and the defenders were forced slowly back. A grim smile began to spread across the face of the warchief, as the eventual outcome of this battle seemed to take form. “Take the woman alive,” he said to his companions, laughing as he turned another of Mara’s thrusts with an almost casual sweep of his shield. The attack opened Mara to a counterattack from the hobgoblin soldier to the warchief’s right, and the spiked end of his flail clanged hard off her helmet, staggering her with a stunning blow. On the far side of the melee Devrem tried to come to her aid, but the other two soldiers pressed him hard, and he nearly dropped his staff as the ball of a flail clipped his hand, hard enough to crack bones. “Any others you take are profit for yourselves, lads!” the chief roared, but his eyes were focused on Mara, who now could barely stand, let alone hold off the pair of foes that were seeking her doom.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lazybones, post: 4582221, member: 143"] Heh, you guys know me well. Maybe a bit [i]too[/i] well... :heh: * * * * * Chapter 55 For a moment, it looked like Elevaren was a dead man. The lead hobgoblins had even lifted their swords to strike, barely easing the pace of their rush as it looked like they would walk right over him, leaving him bleeding out his life behind them. But before the killing thrusts came, the warlock reached out to Faerie, and the power that bound him to the Feywild. He used that power to transport himself through that alternative realm, to return for just an instant to that place he’d been trying to reach ever since that night so long ago, when he’d been lured into the material realm for a purpose that he still hadn’t quite uncovered. As always, he felt a moment of ecstasy at that transition, only to have it yanked away as he completed his [i]fey step[/i] and rematerialized behind Jaron above the upper lip of the staircase. Devrem was ready. “Now!” he cried, pushing hard on his end of the fallen pillar. After the slightest hesitation Mara echoed his effort, and the two rolled the heavy stone down the stairs. The broken cylinder had to weigh at least a few hundred pounds, and it picked up speed as it bounded down the rough slope. The hobgoblins saw it coming, but there was little they could do to evade; the pillar stretched across almost two-thirds of the entire width of the stair. The hobgoblin warchief fell into a crouch and vaulted it, narrowly clearing the tumbling pillar and landing in a slightly awkward stance in its wake. The hobgoblins on the edges of the formation pressed up against the walls and narrowly avoided being struck, but the three in the center were hit hard as the pillar struck a stair and bounded up into their shields. Two of the soldiers were bowled over, falling onto their shields and sliding down after the descending pillar down the steps. The third screamed as he was knocked down, landing solidly on his backside only to have the pillar roll up over him, driving the upper edge of his shield roughly into his jaw. The pillar’s fall became more erratic after that, as one end caromed off the side of the stairway, and it spun into a jolting, uneven trajectory that finally ended with it sliding onto the floor of the chamber below, where it finally came to a stop. The warcaster and archer, following along behind the phalanx, had stopped to extract the soldier that had fallen into the rat pit, and avoided the threat entirely. The attack had thrown the hobgoblins into disarray, but the warchief recovered quickly, thrusting the end of his spear down to recover his balance before flipping the point back down to an attack position. A shower of divine sparks flared around him, but Devrem’s attack had no effect. The hobgoblin rushed up the stairs to engage the cleric before he could ready another barrage, but Mara stepped forward to block him, her swords hissing as slid drew them from their scabbards. Her long blade intercepted the war leader’s spearhead and knocked it aside, but the hobgoblin recovered quickly, darting back and recentering the weapon before she could get inside his reach. For a moment each of them took the other’s measure, and then the hobgoblin snarled and lunged forward again to attack. Again Mara pivoted and parried, but the hobgoblin drew back the spearhead and shifted his thrust in a blur. Mara twisted her torso with the the hit, which struck her hard in the right shoulder, but by the grimace that twisted her features, the blow had hurt. She launched a quick counter intended to foul her enemy’s legs and unbalance his footing on the stairs, but the hobgoblin was a veteran combatant, and he merely shifted, letting the solid metal greaves that covered his legs turn the blow without effect. The hobgoblin’s heavy armor and shield protected him exceptionally well, even without his soldiers present to protect his flanks. The odds were starting to turn quickly, as the other hobgoblins rushed to their commander’s aid. The two that had avoided the rolling pillar surged ahead, their shields raised to protect them from further attacks. Unfortunately for them, they had foes to either side as well as ahead, and they had the advantage of position, on the stone faring that surrounded the stairwell at its summit. From that position Jaron fired an arrow that thudded deep into the thigh of one of the hobgoblins, turning his charge into a painful limp. Beetle, meanwhile, had found a piece of ruined masonry twice the size of his head, which he’d managed to lift and carry over to a position overlooking the stairs. As soon as the hobgoblin turned his shield toward the archer, the halfling dropped it down squarely onto the foe’s head. The hobgoblin was wearing a helmet, but twenty pounds of rock carried a considerable force regardless, and the creature staggered against the wall, stunned by the impact. The soldier on the other side of the stairs surged forward to join his warchief and further turn the odds against Mara at the top of the steps. But even as he surged ahead, Devrem stepped forward, his staff extended before him. “Know the certainty of your death,” the priest intoned, pointing the iron-shod head of the staff directly at the charging hobgoblin. The hobgoblin was a sturdy veteran, but he saw the cleric’s staff twist and distort in the man’s hands, becoming a silver bird with glowing red eyes that flew directly at his face, claws extended to pluck out his eyes. The soldier screamed and fell back, overcome with fear, and fled back down the stairs. Jaron and Beetle had finished off the wounded soldier. Beetle continued to hurl rocks down onto his neck and back even as he collapsed on the steps, arrows jutting from his armored body. But the three that had been knocked down by the pillar had gotten back up to their feet, and despite the beating that they’d taken, they reformed their line, linking shields before starting back up the steps. At the head of the stairs, Mara and the warchief continued their violent exchange. Mara had finally gotten inside the hobgoblin’s reach, only to take a colossal wallop from the warchief’s shield that had knocked her back several steps. She narrowly avoided a thrust that would have pierced her gorget, had it not slid off of the magical [i]shield of faith[/i] that Devrem had invoked around all of them at the start of the encounter. She leapt back in, turning the hobgoblin’s spear with her short blade, and then spun as she drove down her longsword into the haft. A loud crack announced her success at breaking the warchief’s weapon, followed by a tinkle of metal on stone as the head landed in the rubble a few feet away. Sparkles of fey magic flared around the chief as Elevaren hit him with an [i]eldritch blast[/i]. But again the warchief’s incredible durability protected him from the attack, and before the warlock could muster his magic again an arrow streaked up from below and impaled his right arm just above the elbow. The eladrin was flung back, and he sagged against a nearby pile of rubble, pale and weak from loss of blood. The hobgoblin soldiers cried out loudly as they reached the top of the steps, reforming their line around their commander. Devrem stepped forward to join Mara, but the pair were now considerably outnumbered, and their advantageous position was becoming increasingly precarious. The hobgoblin chieftain drew a shortsword with a steel blade that seemed to glisten in the weak morning light, and thrust it at Mara. The sword crunched into her hip, denting the metal scales protecting her and drawing blood. The fighter, now bloodied, cried out in pain but kept fighting, barely bringing her shortsword up in time to parry a downward swipe from a hobgoblin’s flail. The phalanx pressed forward, and the defenders were forced slowly back. A grim smile began to spread across the face of the warchief, as the eventual outcome of this battle seemed to take form. “Take the woman alive,” he said to his companions, laughing as he turned another of Mara’s thrusts with an almost casual sweep of his shield. The attack opened Mara to a counterattack from the hobgoblin soldier to the warchief’s right, and the spiked end of his flail clanged hard off her helmet, staggering her with a stunning blow. On the far side of the melee Devrem tried to come to her aid, but the other two soldiers pressed him hard, and he nearly dropped his staff as the ball of a flail clipped his hand, hard enough to crack bones. “Any others you take are profit for yourselves, lads!” the chief roared, but his eyes were focused on Mara, who now could barely stand, let alone hold off the pair of foes that were seeking her doom. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
Lazybones's Keep on the Shadowfell/Thunderspire Labyrinth
Top