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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 4709670" data-attributes="member: 143">Chapter 11Vhael had broken the hobgoblin line before it could form, but he surviving three soldiers were quick to lay into him with everything they had.  The one to his right was wounded, favoring the side where Jaron had shot him, but he let out a vicious cry as he lifted his flail and slammed it down toward the dragonborn’s head.  Vhael met the blow with his sword, deflecting the heavy swinging end of the flail.  The spiked bar slid down and gashed Vhael’s fingers on the hilt, but the only sign that the warlord felt the pain was a slight shifting of his bloody hands on the hilt of the weapon as he spun to face the next attack. The second parry came too late, as a second hobgoblin brought his flail up under his guard and smashed the head into his side.  This time Vhael could not disguise the effect of the hit, and he grunted as the air was knocked from his body.  The third hobgoblin came in behind his fellow and tried to put a finishing blow to the foe, but somehow Vhael was able to duck under the swung, which whistled through the air scant inches above his head. With the initial advantage of surprise fading, the warlord was seriously outnumbered, but his companions were quick to come to his aid.  As the first hobgoblin sought to follow up his initial attack another arrow slammed into his left leg just above the knee.  Jaron had moved into the room, and had taken up a shooting position to the right of the doors that gave him a clear shot without risking hitting Vhael.  But that also blocked his view of what was happening on the far side of the room, where chaotic noises suggested that Beetle was right in the middle of whatever the warcaster was up to. “Hooo!” Beetle cried, as the warcaster’s staff thrust through air his head had occupied a fraction of a second earlier.  The halfling had pulled himself into a crouch, but he was forced to bend backwards to avoid the attack, the back of his head almost touching the ground as his body formed an arch.  The hobgoblin drew back his staff and lifted it to slam it down like a club, but the halfling shifted his balance like a taut bowstring suddenly released, shooting forward under the warcaster’s guard, and snapping out with a leg as he tumbled between his legs.  The hobgoblin fell forward, landing face-first onto the ground where his magic had planted the halfling just a few moments before. Vhael took another hit as the hobgoblin soldiers continued to harry him; the dragonborn was yielding ground now, moving back as the hobgoblins coordinated their attacks to bypass his guard without compromising their own defenses.  The third soldier had disengaged from the melee, but only to turn toward the archers near the doorway.  But before he could attack, Carzen Zelos came to him, his shield now in place on his left arm, drawing his sword with his right as he rushed forward.  The hobgoblin was ready for him, but Carzen deflected the head of the flail with his shield and drove his sword into the soldier’s gut with a perfect thrust that sent him bleeding to the floor.  “Take one of them alive!” Vhael said, even as he parried another strike from a hobgoblin flail.Beetle let out a yell as he sprang up and leapt at the fallen warcaster’s back, a knife appearing in his hand from one of the several sheaths he kept secreted about his person.  But the hobgoblin proved to be faster than he looked.  As Beetle reached the apogee of his jump and started down, the warcaster rolled and thrust his staff up with one hand.  The head collided with Beetle, not hard enough to cause real damage, but there was a flash, a sizzling discharge of energy, and the halfling went flying, bouncing off the nearby wall and landing dazed just a short step from where he’d been standing.  The hobgoblin took advantage of the delay to pull himself to his feet, thrusting the staff under him.  He glanced back at the battle taking place just a few paces away in the middle of the room, and so it was that he spotted Gral as the dwarf wizard slipped around the melee and approached, stepping over the ruins of the broken cask.  “You will regret coming here,” the creature hissed, the words thickly accented but decipherable.  “The Bloodreavers will collect their due from your flesh.”“We shall see,” was the dwarf’s only response.  He stood there, the bottom of his staff tapping slightly against the floor.  The warcaster snarled and raised his own staff, summoning a pulse of force energy that he hurled at the wizard.  But Gral was ready, and he responded with his own magic, invoking a glowing white shield that deflected the force pulse around him.  One of the casks exploded, blasting a storm of splinters out into the room, but the dwarf was unharmed. “Insufficient,” he said, and he lowered his staff slightly, unleashing a chill strike that drove a hard wedge of magical cold into the hobgoblin’s body.  The warcaster raised his arms, crossing them in front of his body, drawing upon every reserve of strength to resist the potency of Gral’s assault.  He managed to fight off the worst of it, although his lips chattered slightly as he started forward, obviously intent on engaging the dwarf directly in melee.  Once again, Gral merely held his ground and waited, unperturbed despite the disparity in size between the two combatants. As Carzen joined the melee raging around Vhael, the battle started to turn decisively against the hobgoblins.  Jaron had kept up his barrage, placing arrows with precision that shot through the melee to pound into armored bodies, finding the smallest gaps in armor to pierce hobgoblin flesh.  The hobgoblins could do nothing to counter, pressed as they were by Vhael.  The dragonborn had seemed content to fight defensively, but as Carzen moved adjacent, forcing the nearer hobgoblin to shift to deal with him, Vhael struck.  The sword that had been parrying attacks suddenly surged out and down, biting deep into the hobgoblin’s arm.  The hobgoblin nearly dropped his weapon, and the attack left and opening that Carzen could not help but exploit, sweeping his blade up in an arc that sliced up through the hobgoblin’s armor and ended by clipping his jaw under the lip of his helmet.  The hobgoblin, mortally wounded, staggered back a step and fell.  Vhael turned to demand the surrender of the other, but before he could speak he got a reply in the form of a powerful swipe of his flail.  The heavy end of the weapon cracked hard against the side of the dragonborn’s head, and he fell to his knees, dazed by the blow.  The soldier didn’t get a chance to finish him, however, as Carzen lowered his shield and surged forward, driving the hobgoblin back a full step, and forcing him to put his efforts into dealing with the fighter.  The warcaster closed to close quarters with Gral, who still had not reacted, even as the hobgoblin lifted his staff to strike.  Unfortunately for him, he’d forgotten about Beetle.  Even as the staff started down the halfling leapt at him from behind, his knife slicing across one hamstring with lethal efficiency.  The warcaster’s attack was spoiled, and only a desperate planting of his staff kept him from falling as the damaged leg gave out under his weight.  Unable to turn to deal with Beetle, he fixed a baleful stare at Gral.  “To the hells with you,” he hissed.  The wizard said nothing, and watched with a cold expression as Beetle first kicked the hobgoblin’s staff away, then followed him to the ground as he fell, hooting wildly as his dagger thrust repeatedly into the caster’s body until it gleamed bright red down its entire length. The last hobgoblin found himself outnumbered and outmatched, but to Carzen’s surprise he tossed his shield aside and surged forward with his flail in both hands, sweeping his weapon around in a powerful arc that battered through the fighter’s guard and caromed off his helmet hard enough to strike sparks.  Somewhat dazed by the impact, the fighter barely got his sword up in time to meet the soldier’s brazen charge.  The two collided and it was Carzen who gave way, stumbling back until the pair hit the solidity of the chamber wall.  The hobgoblin snarled at the human, but before Carzen could react he could see the light dying in his foe’s eyes.  Through some fluke of luck the creature in his charge had impaled himself on Carzen’s sword, the bright steel sliding up through a gap in his armor.  Carzen shook his head to clear it as the hobgoblin slid off the fighter’s bloody blade to land in a clatter of metal upon the stone floor. Vhael was already on his feet, with Gaz steadying him slightly.  The dragonborn glanced around the room, confirming that the threat was over, before turning toward Carzen.  “You fought well.  But my orders were to take one alive.”“Maybe the hobgoblin didn’t hear you,” the fighter snapped, his own legs still a bit unsteady as he took out a rag and wiped his blade clean before sliding it back into its scabbard.  Vhael’s eyes were like icicles, but he did not respond, and if he was still hurting from the beating he’d taken, he didn’t show it as he walked over to where Gral was kneeling beside the unconscious halfling who’d been held prisoner by the hobgoblins.  “How is he?” Vhael asked.  Gral had taken out a small crystal vial, and gently trailed a stream of clear liquid between the halfling’s lips.  Jaron and Gez had started to follow, but Vhael gestured for them to take up a warding position at the door, and both headed off in that direction.  Beetle stood quietly a few paces away, his face spotted with tiny splatters of bright red blood from the hobgoblin he’d killed.“He took a savage beating, but he will live,” the wizard replied.  “The Small Folk are a durable race,” he said, glancing up briefly at Beetle. “You did not share that you had healing draughts,” Carzen muttered to Vhael as he came up to where he could watch what was happening.  “That information might have been useful.”Vhael ignored him.  He grimaced slightly as he lowered himself to one knee next to Gral and the halfling, but with his back to the others only Beetle could have seen that sign of the pain the warlord was feeling.  The unconscious halfling started to stir, groaning as he tentatively reached up and touched his head.  “Ow,” he said.  He blinked once, twice, and then his eyes widened as he took in those crouched over him. “Rest easy, lad,” Gral said, while Vhael added, “We mean you no harm.”The halfling’s expression grew even more surprised as he looked over at Beetle, who smiled and waved.  His eyes lingered for a moment on the corpse of the warcaster, from which an arc of red continued to spread across the floor.  “Who… who are you people?” he asked.  “We come from Fallcrest,” Vhael said.  “We are here seeking prisoners, captured from the surface by slavers.”  “Hmm.  Well, I thank you for the help.  Name’s Rendil.  Rendil Halfmoon.  My family runs an inn in the Seven-Pillared Hall.” Vhael nodded, as if this information was not unexpected.  “Are you well enough to travel, master Halfmoon?  This does not seem a safe place in which to linger.”Gral extended a hand, which the halfling accepted gratefully.  “No, no it’s not,” Rendil said.  “Come on, I can show you the fastest way to the Hall from here.”Vhael introduced each of them in turn.  When he came to Jaron, the scout asked, “Have you seen a column of halfling prisoners, brought from the surface?  They would have come through here not long ago, a few days, maybe.”Rendil shook his head, and grimaced at the sudden pain that followed the movement.  “No, but if there’s slaves involved, the Bloodreavers are likely up to their eyeballs in it.”“The Bloodreavers are the ones we’re after,” Carzen said.  “Oh.  Well, they probably took them to the Chamber of Eyes.  It’s the main base of the Reavers in the Labyrinth.”“Can you tell us how to get there?” Vhael asked. “Sure.  I mean, I haven’t been there personally, you know, but I know the Labyrinith pretty good, better than most.”“Not good enough to keep from getting caught,” Carzen noted.Rendil rubbed his sore head.  “Yeah, I got a bit overconfident, I admit.  I saw these Reavers slinking about near the Hall, and I thought they looked pretty suspicious, so I followed them.  Looks like they were a bit more alert than I thought.  Bad luck for me, but I guess it was a lucky bit that you were coming by, so it all balances out, I suppose.”“Let’s get moving,” Vhael said.  “We’ll need to rest and resupply before we set out again, in any case.  In the meantime, you can tell us more about these Bloodreavers.”</blockquote>

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