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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 2088852" data-attributes="member: 1210">Enter Dogtooth!4/14/369 O.L.G., 11:45 a.m.Our heroes, at something of a loss as to what to do, have moved away from the island’s heights.  The beauteous woman who turned to mist seems like a decidedly unhappy sort of thing to deal with.  What if she comes back?  What if she succeeds at charming or controlling someone?  No- without a doubt, it’s time to head down slope.The party is traveling along a gully, with Jawbreaker stopping to check for traps periodically.  He does so now, actually dropping down and sniffing at the ground in one place, and frowning.  Motioning for the others to follow him, he creeps off the gully and finds a small area enclosed by brush- within which is a ragged human wearing only a torn and threadbare pair of breeches.  “Human!” cries Jawbreaker, and the man scrambles up, picking up a stick as if he could ward off a barbarian halfling with it.“Arr, who are ye?” the man scowls at them.Jawbreaker laughs.  “Who you be?”“I be Dogtooth, arr!  And I be here because of a shipwreck.”“Us too,” says Timothy mournfully.“This place is dangerous,” Dogtooth opines.  “Arr, the center of the isles here eats ships like you all eat food.  No good, no good at all.  Arr!  And how long have ye been trapped here?”“Oh...” Beau furrows his brow.  “Just a few days.  You?”“Arr,” says Dogtooth, “a little longer indeed.”***The group hits it off with Dogtooth, and besides, a salty dog like him might well be very helpful in making their way from these damned isles.  The group gladly offers to allow him to join them.  He tells them, in turn, that there are goblins galore on the island.  “They aren’t too bad, arr, but ya never know, so’s I try to stay out of sight, ya know,” he declares.  “Maybe they have boats,” suggests Timothy.“You trust goblin boat?” Jawbreaker guffaws.“It can’t hurt to check.”  Beau smiles.  “Maybe they have a boat they took from someone else, and we can take it from them in turn.”Our heroes set out for the coast, and then along it, looking for a village likely to hold whatever craft in boat making the goblins might have.  Soon they spot a group of the ruddy-skinned humanoids in the distance, casting nets for fish.  The party tries to stay somewhat out of their field of view for the time being, moving amongst the trees of the jungle.  Then a baying sound reaches our heroes as they advance.  “Wolves,” Jawbreaker snaps, pulling his axe free.  In seconds the noise of a woman screaming and crashing through the brush comes through to our heroes.  “Arr,” says Dogtooth, and shimmies up a tree.  He is, after all, unarmed except for a stick.The party readies themselves.  Then a female goblin bursts out of the woods, shrieking in fear.  Her eyes grow even bigger and more frightened as she takes in the view of our heroes standing before her with weapons ready.  But there are wolves on her heels, so she doesn’t hesitate, she just rushes past them and starts trying to clamber up a tree of her own.The wolf pack bursts into view, a half-dozen strong.  They rush forward, howling and barking, but Jawbreaker crouches behind a tree.  As the first wolf lunges past following the she-goblin, he strikes out and hacks it nearly in two!  Suddenly arrows are whizzing out from Beau, and Timothy has created a flaming sphere.  Even Dogtooth, in his tree, throws unripe fruits at the canine heads of the party’s adversaries.  The howling and harrowing barks are replaced by startled yelps and growls of fear and pain.  The halflings tear into the wolves, and though they are outnumbered on the front rank, they strongly overpower the pack.  Near the end of the battle, a small band of goblin warriors, pursuing the wolf pack, rushes into view, but they’re too late to do much work.  Only one of the wolves so much as escapes.The goblin woman shakily descends, crying out in goblin in a grateful tone.  “She says thanks,” Timothy translates unnecessarily, but he’s interrupted by one of the male goblins. He seems very angry and he’s shouting in Jawbreaker’s face.“What he say?”  Jawbreaker is clearly annoyed.”He says you’re trying to steal his wife,” Timothy translates.  Jawbreaker bursts out laughing.  His voice dripping disdain, he says, “Jawbreaker no want goblin wife!  Stupid goblins.  They lucky Jawbreaker not kill them all!”The goblin rants back at the halflings after Timothy translates this message to him.  “He says he wants to fight you,” the sorcerer tells Jawbreaker.”Bah!”  In a single clean sweep of his axe, Jawbreaker decapitates the goblin.  “There!  Jawbreaker win fight.  Stupid goblins.”The she-goblin grabs Jawbreaker’s arm and looks down, biting her lip.  She murmurs, in tongue of her people, “You are my husband now,” but only Timothy understands her. Still, the message becomes clear soon enough.  When it does, Jawbreaker can only repeat, “Stupid, stupid goblins.”***When the party goes to the goblin village they are feted, with Jawbreaker treated as their chief.  Somehow this sticks, and from this point on, as often as not, he is referred to as Chief Jawbreaker.  Timothy rapidly installs himself as the chief’s advisor- a brilliant move, given his incredible wisdom.*The goblins were long afraid of a terrible vampire that lived in the volcano, but in recent times a stranger came and slew it.  Still, the stranger missed some of the master vampire’s spawn.  These deadly things still haunt the mountain, or at least one of them does.  Timothy presses the group to check it out, but no one else really wants to aid the goblins.  While the goblins set to building them a boat, the party explores some more of the island, fighting off another, larger wolf pack as they do.  They head into the north half of the island, into a gravely land covered with sparse scrubs, where they discover that ankhegs are rather common.  Our heroes easily fend off the pair of insect-monsters that come out to abuse them at various points as they explore, and in the middle somewhere they meet another goblin.  This one is a little weird- he lives in a rude hut alone on this side of the island, he has bluish-purple skin and Grulka (that’s Chief Jawbreaker’s wife’s name) recognizes him instantly.  “He is named Red,” she whispers to Timothy, the only one who can understand her.  “He has strange powers!”  She makes a sign to ward off the evil eye.Red, on the other hand, finds the party to be a little strange themselves; he’s never seen halflings, humans or anything quite like them.  He is very curious about them; and when asked about his ‘strange powers’ he gladly demonstrates, forming a blade of psychic energy from his hand.  This impresses the halflings, so our heroes, wanting all the help they can get, ask him to join them.  He shrugs; at least briefly, he will do so. ***4/23/369 O.L.G., 2 p.m.The slope of the volcano rises before them.Whisperclick, Martini and Timothy survey it gravely.  “We’re taking an awful risk for some goblins,” Whisperclick points out.“They are building us a boat.  It’s not like they aren’t helping us.”  Martini spreads his hands.“Yeah- and besides,” Timothy says, “it’s the right thing to do.”Jawbreaker shakes his head.  “Chief Jawbreaker listen to advisor for now, but if advice turns out to be bad, may need new advisor.”“No, it’s okay, Chief Jawbreaker,” Timothy reassures him.  “Remember how easily you beat her before?  It’ll be fine.”Jawbreaker scowls.  Our heroes begin their ascent.Next Time: Into the vampire’s lair!*Of 4, that is.</blockquote>

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