Session #30 (part IV)
Beorth, Jana and Martin began to march deeper into the wood, along the narrow path out of the opposite end of the camp. Despite the bright morning sun, the tall trees cast deep shadows across their path, giving everything a gray pallor.
They walked for nearly two miles, going up and down gentle slopes, and blazing a trail in virgin snow, and walking where no human had ever set foot before. The tops of the trees sparkled in the gloom, as the light of Ra’s Glory shone through the melting icicles.
Suddenly, Martin sensed his familiar within the range of their telepathic communication.
“Thomas! Where are you?” Martin called, mentally.
“I am not far,” the familiar replied, casually. “I am ahead of you. I can smell you on the wind.”
“Are you okay?” the Watch-mage asked nervously.
“Oh, just fine,” Thomas replied, as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
“We’re on our way,” Martin said, and then turned to his two companions. “Thomas is close by. He said he is fine and we should be coming upon him soon.”
“Does he have the amulet?” Beorth asked.
“Thomas, do you have something that belongs to Beorth?” Martin asked, sending his thoughts out to his familiar once again.
“Why would I have something of his?” Thomas replied.
The three companions walked on, following the narrow trail through the tall trees. As they came up a hill, they could see the tall wall of thorns in the distance up ahead and to left. They came down that hill and began to climb another, when Thomas dropped out of a tree and onto Martin’s shoulder.
“Excuse me for a minute while I converse with Thomas,” Martin said to Jana and Beorth awkwardly.
“Where did you go?” Martin asked.
“Somewhere,” Thomas replied, cryptically.
“Where?”
“I had to go do something,” the squirrel chittered.
“What did you have to do?”
“I can’t tell you,” Thomas said, curling into a ball in the hood of Martin’s cloak.
“This isn’t any of that familiar’s guild stuff, is it?” Martin asked, annoyed.
“Familiar’s Guild?” Thomas sat up and sniffed confusedly. “Oh… No, not at all.”
“Then what is it?” Martin asked, becoming exasperated.
“`e said I can’t say,” Thomas meeped.
“He?” Martin asked, growing curiouser.
“What?” replied the squirrel.
“He who?”
“He who who?”
“You said ‘he’,” Martin insisted.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did!”
“No, I didn’t!”
“Well, why did you leave me behind?” Martin asked, changing tack.
“I had to,” Thomas replied, sounding sad suddenly.
“I take you everywhere with me,” Martin said, whining slightly for effect.
“If you had to leave me behind because of Academy business, you would,” Thomas replied matter-of-factly.
“So, this is more important then me?” Martin asked.
“Well… yes, kind of…”
“What is he saying?’ Beorth asked, trying not to lose his patience. A cold wind blew through the narrow corridor of trees. In the distance they heard the clatter of icicles tumbling from the tops of trees. Jana shivered.
“He is being difficult,” Martin responded through chattering teeth. “He mentioned a “he”, which makes me think someone put him up to this.”
“It was the golden ram,” Beorth replied.
Martin turned to the paladin of Anubis. “How do you know?”
“Look!” Beorth pointed to the bottom of the hill to their right. Martin saw a large golden from striding confidently through a narrow path in the thick wall of thorns and out to a rocky forest that stretched beyond their sight.
“What are you looking at?” Jana asked.
“You don’t see it?” Beorth asked, his breath taken away by the sight of the thing under the light of the day.
“It’s beautiful,” Martin said, in an awe-filled voice.
“No,” Jana replied.
“I am sure it has the necklace,” Beorth said. “Or is leading us to who has it. We must follow.”
“I haven’t finished questioning Thomas,” Martin said.
“Talk as we walk,” Beorth said, beginning to do that as he said it. “I do not want to risk losing sight of it.”
As if Beorth’s voice was filled with some new authority, Martin and Jana fell in step behind him and began to march along the narrow path piercing the thorn wall.
“Yep, this is the right way,” Thomas said. “You know these woods would be a lot better without all those thorns and those creepy gnolls and stuff.”
“Thomas, did you take the necklace from Beorth’s pocket?” Martin asked his familiar.
“Of course not!” Thomas said, sounding insulted. “That would be stealing! And plus I’m too heavy. He’d have noticed me on his chest. The lizard was the one that actually took it from him. I just took it from there to…”
Thomas buried his mouth under his little paw.
“The lizard?” Martin raised an eyebrow.
Thomas was silent.
“Jana?” Martin said. “Thomas is saying your familiar took it from Beorth.”
Jana’s eyes narrowed, and she focused her attention to her own familiar, the rarely seen lizard tucked tightly under the young witch’s armpit for maximum warmth.
“What’s that about your stealing an amulet from Beorth, Ess’skells?”
“It’s cold,” Ess’skells replied, in her long and languid hiss of a voice.
“Yes, it’s cold,” Jana replied. “Now why did you take the amulet?”
“I don’t like mammals,” the lizard replied. “Present company excluded.”
“It’s okay to admit if you were controlled,” Jana began.
“No one controls me!” her familiar hissed angrily.
“Maybe they were controlled,” Jana suggested to Martin, ignoring Ess’skells.
“Thomas didn’t sound controlled,” Martin said. “He sounded like he agreed to it.”
“Well, both familiars were in on it,” Jana said.
“Maybe there is a beast god of squirrels out there,” Martin mused, half-smiling.
“Why did you take the amulet?” Jana asked her familiar, returning her thoughts to the lizard.
“I was asked to,” was the reply.
“Someone asks you to steal something from the group and you just do it?”
“I was bored!” Ess’skells replied. “Maybe if you gave me something to do every once in a while.”
“You complain that’s cold, so I keep you where you are warm, and then you complain about that too!” Jana snapped. “But if there is anything you can ever think of doing just let me know and I’ll let yo udo it.”
“I’m cold. Tired. Want to sleep,” Ess’skells replied, lazily.
Jana sighed.
They walked around a smaller hill, the thorns winding through a thick patch of trees. Soon, they’d be outside of the confines of the druid’s forest.
“Are you mad at me?” Thomas asked Martin, carefully.
“No,: Martin replied. “I trust you, so I am not mad. I was just worried about you. I thought you might be eaten or something. That is part of why I want you to learn to read, that way you can leave me messages.”
“I’m sorry,” Thomas said, sadly.
“It’s okay,” Martin said, scratching the squirrel under the chin. “Tonight I’ll teach you how to read the word for ‘nut’”
“No, not nut,” Thomas replied. “I don’t want to think about nuts. I tried eating one even though I wasn’t hungry, and it was terrible!”
Martin pet him some more.
Finally, they came out the other end of the wall of thorns, near to where it turned left and extended outward fro quite some ways.
The area beyond was less heavily forested, with deep snow banks built up around lone trees. Beorth stepped forward, and Jana and Martin followed together.
There was another gust of wind, and the frosted thorn crackled up and down the wall. Martin leapt back, as Beorth stopped. Before them, hanging from a low tree branch was the partially burned naked corpse of a man. It swung back and forth in the wind.
“How did…” Martin never finished his question.
Three large humanoid forms leapt from behind the trees at them, coming around their right sides towards Beorth and Martin. They were over six feet tall, and had long coarse brown hair all over their bodies, large black eyes and bear-like ears, but their faces bore the pug-like qualities of a goblin. They were wielding javelins, and had crude spiked clubs at their sides.
They were bugbears. They growled and hooted in their guttural goblin tongue.
Martin got over his surprise immediately and blowing a handful of sand outward, said, “Somnare!”
One of the bugbears collapsed in a snoring heap, while another cast his javelin into Beorth’s side. The paladin’s splint mail rung out brightly, echoed by his grunt. Martin flinched back, being able to slap the javelin thrown at him away, receiving a minor scratch on his forearm.
Beorth drew his long sword, and silently charged the bugbear that had assaulted him. The hairy goblin ducked under the blow and came back up, stepping back and shoving his hands out to try to throw the paladin off balance. Beorth swung around to make a second attempt, but the bugbear already had his morning star out and parried the blow with a snarl.
“Kikanass!” Jana cried, and the bugbear that had tossed a javelin at Martin, stumbled backward, bringing his hands to his eyes. He was blind. He stepped backward, placing his back to a tree and pulled his own spiked club.
“Imago distortus,” Martin mumbled, and his visage became blurred.
Beorth blocked a blow from his bugbear opponent and riposted, cutting it deep in right thigh.
“Farazan kar tarna-ke!” the bugbear cursed.
“Kikanass!” Jana cried again approaching Beorth, and this time the bugbear fighting Beorth cried out in surprise as his world darkened.
Martin drew and loaded his crossbow, while Beorth’s opponent stepped away from combat However, the paladin did not get a moment’s rest as two more bugbears emerged from the trees charging at him and the young witch with their morning stars. Beorth grunted as her felt another blow clang against his armor, and Jana nearly fell and a spike from one of the clubs impaled itself in her shoulder and tore back out again. The bugbear attacking Jana wore a chain shirt, and a hardened leather cap. The top half of his body was dyed black.
Beorth swung his blade at the new opponent, but it deftly avoided the blow. Beorth backed off.
Jan pulled her own club from the leather thong at her belt and rammed it into the bugbear’s ribs. The chain shirt absorbed most of the blow.
Martin hung back, pulling a handful of multi-colored sad from his satchel of components and waiting for an opportunity to use it (after letting his loaded crossbow hang from his side). However, the blackened bugbear adjusted himself to stand between the two spellcasters and struck Martin with the end of his club. Martin stumbled backward. Jana tried to take advantage of the bugbear looking away from her, but his martial skill was too great to be easily distracted. He blocked the blow with his own club on the backswing.
One of the blinded bugbears stumbled into the wall of thorns as he tried to get away from the melee. He cried out, as the thorns squirmed and moved to impale him as much as possible. The bugbear slumped to the ground, bleeding to death.
Martin spoke and arcane word and cast his colored sand forth and a blast of swirling colors enveloped the two bugbears. The one closer to Beorth was stunned, but the one in army shook off the effects with a snarl. He swung at Martin again, but this time the watch-mage was ready and turned away from the blow.
Beorth charged the stunned bugbear, but it stumbled randomly to one side and the paladin missed.
Jana’s club, however, found its target and smacked the bugbear leader (the one in armor) in the back of the head.
Martin pulled his staff of his back and swung it at the armored bugbear, striking it. It stumbled, overwhelmed by the constant attacks. It swung around to strike Jana, but she side-stepped.
Beorth checked his momentum from his charge and swung around, cleaving open the skull of the bugbear just as it shook off the stunning effect of Martin’s spell. It fell dead.
“Imago creare!” Martin called out, pulling a bit of wool from his cloak. On the other side of the wall of thorns appeared the image of Jeremy.
“Hey ugly!” the illusory Jeremy cried. “ Over here! I’m gonna kick your ass!”
The bugbear leader hustled away from the two spellcasters and deeper into the trees away from the wall of thorns.
Beorth and Jana moved to follow him. And Martin came up from behind. Beorth took the lead, and two more bugbears appeared from the overgrowth, blocking the way to the leader.
“Kikanass!” Jana cried, but the leader was unaffected. She came up behind Beorth, who engaged one of the two new bugbears.
“Somnare!” Martin entoned, casting his sand forward, and one of the bugbears fell to sleep.
The other bugbear waited for Beorth’s approach.
“Anubis! Please grant me your favor. I need your aid in battle!” Beorth cried out to his god, and felt the divine favor of the jackal-god fill him.
Jana tried to blind the waiting bugbear, but again the spell failed.
Martin lifted his crossbow and fired at the creature and struck it in the shoulder. It howled in pain, but continued to hold its ground to let its leader escape. But the leader was not bolting just yet, instead he fetched a javelin from the quiver on his back and hurled it at Jana. She screamed as it finished its arc in her hip. She felt it strike her pelvic bone, and blood-bathed her right leg.
Beorth charged, filled with his god’s power and with one hit ripped the entrails out of the bugbear body. It feebly swung its morning star when the paladin approached, but missing, it simply collapsed, slowly and painfully dying.
Jana attempted to daze the leader, but he was too willful to be affected.
“Imago creare!” Martin cried, and the form of a huge golden ram stepped out from the trees. “Oh great one who has guided us here, protect us now!” The ram stepped forward, its great hooves crunching in the deep snow.
The bugbear leader’s eyes opened widely in fear, and he turned tail and fled.
“I say we run for it!” Beorth said, pointing his sword towards the where the bugbear ran with his bloody long sword.
“This way?” Martin pointed back to the passage through the thorn wall.
“This way!” he cried, and charged deeper into the trees.
“Wait,” Jana cried. “Let’s tie up the sleeping ones so they don’t end up coming up behind us.”
“Good idea,” Martin said nervously.
“Okay, but hurry,” Beorth said.
“You know, I don’t think we can survive another encounter like that one,” Jana said, as she pulled out some rope from her pack. “Not that I think we should turn back or anything, but just so you know.”
“I know, but I am going on regardless,” Beorth said.
Martin slowly nodded.
They tied up the two sleeping bugbears and then jogged off to the east.
End of Session #30
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