Session #14 – “Skunk Cabbage Ambush” (part 3 of 3)
The goblin captive led them out of the u-shaped gorge of the King Stones, and to the west, marching along the edge of the great southern plateau, which the gorge was a great cleft in. Above them in that direction, the sparse wood gave way to tall brown jagged stones that made a natural wall that obscured what was beyond.
“I hope this is not the
Baphomet Stone Maze,” Bleys commented. “For as I was warned of that place by
Malcolm the Bronze, I will not go under any circumstances…”
“Why? What is there?” Laarus asked.
“He did not say exactly,” Bleys replied. “Only that there live there a race long thought extinct in most places in Aquerra.”
The goblin pointed out a narrow way up the rocky slope that made for some awkward scrambling for the larger or more heavily armored members of the group. At the top tall stones sunk into the earth made for winding paths through narrow ways. There was something oppressive about the place, and the way the light of the waxing moon made deep shadows at each intersection was unnerving. The goblin seemed really nervous, and frequently grabbed at the rope about its neck instinctually, pulling its hand away when Telémahkos gave it a hard yank. As they came to a place that branched off in three directions there was a wooden arch built across their path. At the center of it was carved oval frame surrounding a plaque with a stylized bullhead with silver sphere between its horns.
They stopped, and the goblin whimpered in its tongue, “No stop! No stop!” It pulled on the rope as if to goad Telémahkos to follow it.
“Anyone know what this means?” Telémahkos pointed to the symbol.
“
Hathor. Demigoddess, servant of
Isis,” Victoria replied. Laarus of Ra nodded.
“That’s a good thing, right?” Timotheus asked, puzzled. The militant shrugged.
“Who lives here?” Telémahkos hissed at the goblin jerking the rope taught and dragging it over close to his reddening face.
“Two-foot aurochs” was the best translation Telémahkos could make from the reply and he passed it on to the others.
“Minotaurs? I thought there were no more minotaurs,” Laarus said. (1)
“There are some in the
United Kingdom of Superior Families, and apparently there are some here as well that are best left unmolested,” Bleys replied. “This is the Baphomet Stone Maze, and I for one, am not going in… I suggest we all turn around and find another way.”
The palpable nervousness rose in all of them, and Falco hurried back the way they came to make sure the retreat was clear. Dunlevey drew his great sword and clutched it tightly in both hands. Tymon was licking his lips over and over and over, his eyes darting to the symbol of Hathor and then down to the ground, and then to Telémahkos.
“Why did you bring us this way? Is it not dangerous?” Telémahkos badgered the goblin and shook it, but it could hardly understand him, or him it.
“Yes. You big dumb noise,” It replied.
“Will they not come and kill us?” Telie asked, gesturing across his neck with a finger.
“Yes… Yes… Come to kill you, big dumb noise…” It nodded eagerly and then stopped suddenly, its eyes grew wide and it began to shake its head instead. “No! No! No stop!” It pulled on the rope again, but Telie just handed it over to Bleys.
“It’s useless…” He said with a sigh. The watch-mage sighed and drew his sabre quickly dragged it across the captive’s neck before it even knew what was happening. As Bleys cleaned his blade, Timotheus cut its ears off and collected them in a sack.
“We should go and kill the kobolds,” Bleys said a few minutes later as they picked their way down to the plain again leaving the stone maze behind them. “We should kill the goblins and the Ruk’Tuk… Kill anything that moves…”
“I have no problem with that,” Telémahkos nodded.
Their bloodlust not sated, the young nobles decided to make their way to the watering hole and set up an ambush there. It was hoped that the goblins came back there every night, and if not, a fight with some kobolds would have been as welcome. As they arrived, a bear was drinking within copse that surrounded it, and they waited for it clear off before entering.
They waited long after the moon set, and then took turns catching cat-naps in the bushes, but except for some wild oxen and easy scarred off jackals, nothing came to the watering hole. Frustrated they crept back to their usual grove in the pre-dawn hours, to plan their strategy for the coming day.
Teflem, the 27th of Quark - 566 H.E. (637 M.Y.)
“As I see it we have three choices: Go back now and warn about the hobgoblins, return to waiting in ambush until some goblins show up, or find and attack their lair,” Telémahkos enumerated the choices as he saw them, after a long, sometimes heated debate as to what to do next.
“Perhaps there is another choice,” Victoria said, tracing in the dirt with a spear. “Those goblins who are set up in ambush must get there from the opposite direction somewhere… Can we not go around and find a new place to set up an ambush?”
Timotheus stood, nodding eagerly. “Falco can help us find a good spot…”
They rested until a couple of hours after noon, when the sun was a little lower near the western hills, and then marched towards the shade of the woods atop the plateau, but instead of going directly to the south as they had been doing Falco led them eastward. They only cut southward slowly, marching slowly along the edge of the woods, until a plain of yellow grass greeted them. In the clear afternoon light they could see the shadow of another forest some miles distant to the southeast. Much closer however, was another wood that might be connected to the one they had just emerged from, so they followed the inner edge west by southwest, looking to see where they might find signs of goblin passage.
They walked some miles, stopping every few hundred yards for Falco to look around, and eventually spotted a watering hole in the middle of the narrowing wedge of tall yellow grass they had been circumventing. Heading out there, as the sun moved behind a cloud, they could see it was not more than a mudhole, and only during more rainy times would it actually be of much use. However, it was a good place to look for prints, and Falco found some, along with some warg droppings. It led them to hurry back across the grass to the north as he followed a track of broken grass that was so obvious in places that Victoria and Bleys pointed them out.
“Something big moves with these goblins,” Falco said.
“Ogres,” Timotheus smiled.
As the trail disappeared into the woods some very large black rocks rose from the soft earth, they decided this was a good place to set their ambush. The rocks were big enough to climb up on, and hide behind other stones piled on there, or protuberances in the stone. The stones were cracked and those places were choked with weeds stamped down by goblin feet. Several large trees and thick brush provided more cover. They spread out and took their spots.
“To avoid some of you being affected by the blinding flash of the
pyrotechnics spell, I am going to call out ‘now!’ and wait to hear each of you say you are ready before casting it. ‘Ready’ means you are closing your eyes… Or otherwise turned away…”
The other agreed.
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Dusk crept across the forest from the east, and with cramped muscles and whispered voices, the nobles began to second-guess their choice.
“Hush! Listen!” Bleys hissed, and the eeriness of the anticipatory silence following his last word chilled them as sound came to their ears. Something was moving through the grass in their direction. There was a deep meaningful grunt, and they all strained in the dying light to see the line of goblins coming from the southeast. There was some quick signaling among the young nobles; doing the best they could to ready themselves. The goblins stopped at the edge of the woods, and a bestial voice yelled at them in the goblin tongue. Now a warg and its rider came into view, and it was coaxing them into the trail in the woods. One of them complained, and was smacked for his insubordination, but all the goblins started to move as the towering figure of an ogre came into sight.
“Dookaloo!” The goblins cried out as they spotted Laarus under a tree, and three of them immediately pulled their small arrows into their bows and let them fly. The missiles bit in the tree, as the sun-worshiper called out to Ra to ignite his armor with an aura of
daylight. The goblins cried out in alarm as the light revealed the adventurers in action. Falco leapt up to a taller rock and let an arrow fly down at the approaching ogre, but it flicked it away like a gnat.
The ogre was nearly ten feet tall, and had thick arms misshapen with muscles and covered in a thick dirty jaundiced hide. It had a big head with a twisted face, with black lips and yellow eyes, and was dressed in hide armor dyed in great black splotches tied with thick stitches. It charged up onto the rock where Bleys had waited by Falco before the scout fled, and swung its great spiked club in front of it. The watch-mage let out a grunt of pain as he crumpled with the blow, falling across the rock painfully. He tasted blood and hustled to get away. He rolled off the rock and dragged himself into a crouch behind Laarus.
“Anhur! Battle is upon us! Lend my your strength to push my mighty spear through the armor of my enemies,” Victoria cried out, raising her spear over her head as she stepped out from behind the tree. She cast
bull’s strength upon herself, and drew the attention of three more goblin archers, and she winced as they bounced arrows off of her scalemail.
Meanwhile, Timotheus stepped up onto the rock, saber and shield in his hands and gritting his teeth leaned in with a wide swing at the ogre, but the monster let out an amused grunt, and lowered its club to block it. The blade bit into the club harmlessly. Tim looked up at the ogre’s broken toothed smile, and suddenly it was growing closer! Markos had cast
enlarge person on Timotheus from his spot in the shadows of a taller rock adjacent to the one the ogre was on. He went on to use
prestidigitation to ignite a torch.
The ogre howled with angry glee. “You big, hit better!”
Timotheus groaned as the ogre’s club crunched into his breastplate. He took a half-step back, and let out a bloody cough.
Dunlevey and Victoria were fighting a knot of goblins on ground level. The sellsword herded them with wide swings of his long sword towards the militant, who skewered them into the ground, jerking her spear from their corpses with satisfaction. Suddenly, Dunlevey was nearly twelve feet tall,
enlarged by Bleys. Arrows rained around them, while some other goblins took advantage of Tim’s new size, and sent some arrows his way.
“Everyone!” Markos called out. “Tim is gravely injured. Now!”
Laarus reached up and touched Timotheus from behind, calling to Ra to
cure light wounds. “Ready!” He called as stepped back against the rock and closed his eyes.
“Ready!” cried Dunlevey. He swung his sword wildly in front of him as he closed his eyes, feeling the bite of goblin arrows in the darkness. Victoria left the goblins to the swordsman, withdrawing to cast a healing spell on Timotheus, squeezing in beside Laarus. “Ready,” she called. Telémahkos cried “ready!” not having joined the battle yet. All he had done was piece the ogre’s calf with a crossbow bolt. It hardly seemed to notice. Tymon, always following his master’s lead, if not his orders, had done much the same and his pinched voice alerted Markos to his readiness as well. “Ready!” cried Falco, as another of his arrows bouncing off the ogre’s iron helmet.
“Ready!” Tim cried, the reverberations of a parried blow running down his arms, and closing his eyes blocked out the hate-filled face of ogre. Its foul breath had been stinging his eyes. His sword cut a nick in the club.
“Ready! Ready! Ready!” Bleys said, turning and withdrawing around the tall rock.
“
Incendiuris lux! Markos cast, raising his lit torch high.
The goblins cried out in alarm throughout the battlefield. Markos opened his eyes and smiled to see the smoke rising from his extinguished torch, and many goblins wandering around confused.
The ogre cried out and lowered its club, reaching for its eyes. Telémahkos leapt into the fray, rolling around it. Timotheus smiled, ”Let’s see how you like it now!” He cut deep gash in the thing’s hide armor, and blood billowed from beneath. The ogre’s bellows echoed across the dark forest beyond Laarus’ dancing
daylight, and then it bellowed again as the priest of Ra stepped up on the rock, to fill in the space Tim left him by sidestepping. Laarus’ flail crunched against the ogre’s knee, and it nearly fell, swinging its club wildly.
“Warg back here! Warg!” Tymon suddenly cried out from the edges of the light. They could see it now, dashing into the light with great bounds, to drag Falco off his feet at his perch.
Bleys the Aubergine leapt up on the large sloped rock and an arrow from his longbow made the warg yelp in its nearly human voice. But it did not flee, instead it wrapped its powerful jaws around Falco’s inner thigh and yanked the scout off his feet again, as there was an explosion of blood. Falco’s scream was cut short as he began to bleed out.
Tymon dropped his crossbow and drew his long sword, hacking at the warg. “Falco’s down!” he called.
“Take out the damn ogre!” Timotheus yelled, stepping back out of the way of the monster’s wide and wild swing. Laarus was not as quick, and got caught under the arm. He took a sharp pain-filled breath and grit his teeth. Victoria lifted her spear and looked for an opening around the ogre.
“Dunlevey! Keep those archers that aren’t blind busy!” she called back over her shoulder.
“
Materia maxima! Markos cast, and now Laarus of Ra grew to tower over the frantic blind ogre. Timotheus dropped his sword and shield and hefted his heavy flail.
“Come to papa!” he smirked, but the wild swings of the ogre kept his flail at bay. “Flank the f*cker!” he added.
“Brilliant tactics, Sergeant Pepper!” Telémahkos quipped, as he rolled in a position on the other side of the ogre, deftly bouncing up to his feet. The ogre never knew what hit it.
The Steel Whip slipped deep up through it legs and out up through their lower abdomen. Telémahkos jerked the rapier out as the great body collapsed. (2) Telie turned to the goblins below and roared with joy, ogre blood flicking off his sword.
On the ground level, Dunlevey sent a goblin head flying into the darkness, and the ones that were blinded finally decided to flee, stumbling slowly, their arms out spread in front of them. Victoria of Anhur turned away from the dying ogre to chase down the remaining goblins.
“There’s a warg up here!” Markos reminded the others, as another of Bleys’ arrows arced over it clattering at the mage’s feet. “
Sagitta aquom! he cast, and sent two arrows of glistening liquid light into the thing’s haunch. It yelped again, and took off in the direction of the deeper woods, leaping to avoid another hack from Tymon. Bleys moved to cut it off and shot an arrow that disappeared into the darkness.
“Next time leave some for me,” Timotheus complained to his cousin, as he took large loping steps towards the warg, swinging down with his enormous heavy flail. He shattered the roots of a small tree, where the wolf-thing had been the moment before, but once again it was taking off towards the darkness. Tim winced as goblin arrows bounced heavily against the armor on his back. The blinded goblins had desisted their flight, as their vision had returned. Dunlevey charged into their midst, sending one down with one sharp blow. Timotheus hurried over to join the fight; Telémahkos was close on his tail. Tymon climbed up to check on Falco, while Bleys redirected his final shot at the disappearing warg towards the first goblin that came into line of sight as he turned. The goblin stepped out of the arrow’s trajectory right into Dunlevey’s sword. There were only two goblins left.
“I’m taking this one alive!” Telémahkos called to his companions. He whipped his magical rapier across the goblin archer’s face, and dropped its bow and stepped backwards stunned. Victoria stepped over and slammed the shaft of her spear against the side of its head and it dropped unconscious.
The final goblin wordless taunted Dunlevey as it continued to dance back, flicking arrows at him at point-blank range. He was awash with the blood of goblins, but blood of his own wounds flowed as well. Suddenly, Tymon came charging in from the right and cleaved the goblin’s head open and it collapsed.
“Should we take the ogre alive?” Markos asked, squatting over the dying monster, dagger in hand.
“No!” Telémahkos replied, and Markos did not wait to hear anyone else’ opinion. He cut the ogre’s throat.
End of Session #14
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Notes:
(1) Minotaurs are considered by most to be an extinct race in Aquerra, common only to the stories of
the Time Before. The largest population of them is found in the enigmatic
United Kingdom of Superior Families.
(2) Telémahkos’ player seems to have incredible luck with rolling critical hits. Keep in mind that one of the drawbacks of his magical rapier is that it only threatens a crit on a natural 20.