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Message: <blockquote data-quote="el-remmen" data-source="post: 3801965" data-attributes="member: 11">Session #13  – “Massacre at the King Stones” (part 1 of 2) (1)“I heard something,” Victoria said, suddenly raising her hand to silence everyone.  Well, not everyone.  The signers of the Charter of Schiereiland had set up an ambush along the goblin trail, just north of the fork they had taken to the left and to the plateau lookout just a couple of hours before. (2)  It was just that they took a long time deciding exactly where everyone should be positioned, and what the signal would be for action, and what constituted too many goblins and a quiet retreat rather than an attack.  To further complicate matters Markos wanted to be sure everyone understood how the flash of his pyrotechnics spell would blind everyone if a signal was not created specifically for the casting of that spell, but no one paid much attention to him.He walked back towards his spot at the rear of the line with Falco, mumbling.  “You know…” He called back. “I have a perfectly good tactical resource to use against multiple foes and no one gives a sh*t!”“Well, maybe if you didn’t bark insults at people all the time, people would be more apt to listen to you,” Telémahkos snapped back, and then caught himself, wincing at helping to provoke an argument.  Markos came walking back, and soon Laarus and Victoria had walked over to Telémahkos’ hiding spot in the wedge of trees and thicket and the four them were discussing the details of the ambush plan once again.Bleys was standing about twenty paces away up the trail behind a large tree, with Tymon crouched before it.  Dunlevey was across the trail from where the others had gathered to continue their debate, and he heard the crunch of leaves and a snuffling sort of sound.  Victoria heard it, too.“I heard it, too!” Telémahkos replied to the militant with a shrill whisper.  He shooed them away.  Everyone hurried back to their spots, and Markos found Falco waiting in his.  He crouched behind the tree the scout hid at.“What is happening?” Falco asked, breaking his usual silent demeanor.“We heard something… Like a dog, or a wolf… I think the goblins are coming…” the piratical mage replied.“Ra, let us smite these evil creatures and show them your bright justice,” Laarus of Ra murmured in preparation for coming battle.Dunlevey and Victoria spotted a bobbing head approaching through a wide brush strewn area of the trail.  It wore an iron helm, and moved with an odd gait.  The sellsword looked to the militant, pointed to his eyes and then held up one finger.  She nodded her acknowledgement and turned to apprise Laarus of the approaching humanoid in a similar way.  The priest of Ra turned to look at Tymon, on the other side of the trail, on the north side of the fork, but the servant was crouched way down with his head ducked, shaking with anticipation of battle.As the goblin came into full view around the bushes, it became clear why it seemed to move so strangely.  It rode a crouching wolf that pulled itself along on its belly as it sniffed the ground. There was a small saddle made of hide, but no reins. The goblin rode with its knees pinched tightly, a small bow on its lap. The wolf stopped on the trail not too far past Dunlevey, and nearly up to the point where Victoria would be clear into view.  It had left Telémahkos’ hiding spot behind, and while he craned his head to keep it view, it turned around. He froze, noting that it was a strange looking wolf, squatter and broader, with pug snout and charred black fur.  Suddenly it began it emit low yowls and grunts, and Telémahkos froze.  The wolf was not a wolf at all, but a warg like those he had often heard stories of as a child.  It was speaking its crude form of the goblin tongue to its rider.It turned back around; seemingly satisfied that there was nothing behind it, but Telémahkos was not so sure he had not been noticed on the wind that was blowing up from the south.  Dunlevey must have thought the same thing, because he suddenly burst out of his hiding spot and ran at it.  Victoria of Anhur, happy to begin the battle, charged out as well, and the warg deftly crouched back, drawing its mount out of the way of the militant’s long spear.  And then she was on the ground, the warg pulling her ankle out from under her and worrying her calf.  She struggled to get up, and saw the mounted goblin smile as pulled an arrow back, taking aim to fire point-blank at her prone form.  She narrowed her eyes in determination, happy to meet her god, if this were it… But it was not her time; the arrow was loosed and buried itself into the dirt inches from her face.  The warg’s sudden movement to avoid an arrow from Bleys’ bow had sent the shot awry.  The watch-mage hurried up the trail, and Falco ran behind him, letting loose his own arrow, which flew over the combat harmlessly.  Telémahkos crept out to the middle of the widened portion of the path to look and see if any more goblins were coming.  The warg and rider sidestepped as Dunlevey tried to pen the monster in, and then it dashed through the thick brush towards the other trail past the fork, avoiding a desperate thrust from Victoria as she stood.  It began to howl.“Tymon! Kill it!” Bleys commanded as he hurried towards the other trail and let another arrow fly.  The servant, who was now the closest to it, ducked out of the tree and fired his crossbow.  The bolt was lost in the dry foliage.Markos pulled back the handle on his gnomish repeating crossbow as he moved over to the other fork, but as he fired, Victoria came bursting through the brush after the warg, spear held out before her as she ran.  The small bolt lodged itself deeply in the skirt of her mail, bruising her thigh. (3) However, it did not stop her, and the warg yelped as her spear scraped its hindquarters, drawing blood.The warg turned quickly back to the original trail, hurrying through the area Telémahkos had once stood as the goblin cursed at it in their tongue.  Laarus moved to block its path, while Victoria and Dunlevey gave chase with Tymon right behind them, hopping awkwardly as he tried to reload his crossbow. “You can’t kill even one of these?” Telémahkos complained hurrying from where he had been keeping an eye out for more approaching goblins to stab the warg with the Steel Whip, now that the melee was close to him once again.  The warg yowled and sped back towards the fork, the goblin astride it ducking Dunlevey’s sword.“It’s over here, Master Bleys!” Tymon cried out, sending another bolt into the dirt as the warg sped past his view.  The watch-mage paused and stepped back, but there was no clear shot until Dunlevey and Laarus crowded it back in his direction.  Again the warg cried out with its wolfish voice in gobbledeegook as Bleys’ arrow punctured its front leg, and then fell out with violent rush of blood.  It spun around again, and the goblin shrieked in fear as it noticed Falco step up.  The goblin fell off the warg, the arrow through its chest.Relieved of its rider, the warg yelped and made a dash down the trail to the north, in the direction the party had first come from.“May Ra stop this dark beast from informing the other vermin of this wood of our presence!” Laarus chanted, and a golden beam of light flashed out of the sky, burning into the fur of the warg.  It screamed a disturbingly human scream, and its sudden stumbled betrayed the fact that the holy light of Ra’s Glory had also blinded it.Falco turned as the warg bumbled past him, and let loose an arrow that buried itself in the scraggly knot of fur at the nape of its neck.  The warg continued to flee as fast as it dared, desperately moving from left to right, and painfully scraping the side of a tall rock as it went past it.  Telémahkos and Bleys hustled after it.  It turned still confused and blind and then yowled again, as Telémahkos thrust his magical rapier deeply into its side.  Again it took off towards the north, but by this time Bleys the Aubergine has scrambled to the top of the tall rock for a better vantage, and just when it seemed the warg would get away, the watch-mage’s arrow pierced its skull and it tumbled in the dirt, splattering the brown leaves with its blackish blood.Meanwhile, Victoria of Anhur was up at the left fork, where the trail widened, on the look out for more goblins.  She took the time to call to her god and close some of her wounds as she waited.“One god forsaken scout,” Telémahkos complained, as Tymon wandered about the area of the battle collecting what bolts and arrows he could, and Laarus marched up to join Victoria.  She pointed ahead as he reached her, and stepped to the right to stand behind a tree.  The priest of Ra noticed the top of two goblin heads creeping from bush to bush from the same direction the warg-rider had come, and he turned and signaled the others, holding up two fingers.  Markos and Bleys were the first to noticed and passed the news back, as the latter crept forward.“Tymon, stick with Falco and fire when he does,” Telémahkos told his servant, and Tymon obeyed, theough Falco glared at him as if to say, ‘you are too close.’  Dunlevey moved up towards the front of the line, his armor ringing with every step, causing everyone to cringe instinctually. “Materia maxima! Markos cast and suddenly Dunlevey began to grow, his head sand shoulders stretching high above the brush line. “Dookaloo!” The goblins cried, and now the sellsword could see that there were many more than two goblins in that area, as they raised their bows to aim for the new large target.  He took a giant step to his right and crouched behind a tall rock the best he could, so the goblins all trained their bows on Victoria instead.  She leapt back and forth to avoid them, but one caught her in the forearm.  She winced with pain and withdrew deeper into the brush to prepare for the second part of the battle.“Anhur! Battle is upon us!  Prepare my companions and bless their efforts!”  All those around her, felt the reassurance of divine energy guiding them to victory.Markos moved forward near Falco and Tymon, as the latter ducked out from behind a tree to take a shot at the only goblin visible from their position. He missed.  Markos pulled a torch and with a magic word it was lit up. (4)  Falco turned and hissed, “Remember what I said about the dry state of the forest!”“It is only one torch,” Markos replied with disdain, rolling his eyes.  Falco sneered.The goblin archers advanced.  They wore small wooden helmets, and leather armor studded with polished knucklebones.“We’ll circle around,” Bleys whispered to Telémahkos, as the two of them were hidden along the southwestern fork, and he began to cut around the brush to get behind the goblins.  Telémahkos, however, did not quite obey, spying his heavy crossbow and bolts not far from where he had been originally hidden, and from where Victoria now stood, he crept over there and picked them up, hoping he remained unseen, but his hope did not come to fruition. As a group of five goblins armed with spears came up from behind the archers swarmed around Victoria, ducking out of the way of her longspear, one of them bumped into the hidden noble. With a cry of alarm it spun around and thrust its spear.  Luckily, the suddenness of the attack, caused it to go offline, and Victoria was able to knock the curtain of spears around her out of the way with her own, keeping the goblins at bay.  She was able to withdraw enough to call upon Anhur once again, this time to grant her bull’s strength.Laarus hurried forward, ducking arrows from the line of goblin archers.  The priest of Ra was doing a quick count of how many he could see.  Five archers before him, five spearmen around Victoria, and at least another five moving in from further down the trail.  He heard Falco cry out behind him as a goblin arrow clipped him as he advanced, Tymon running behind him.  The portly servant complaining, “I’m supposed to stay with you!”Dunlevey’s loping steps took him over to the militant of Anhur to aid her.“Materia maxima! Markos cast again, and this time Laarus grew to nearly thirteen feet tall, drawing another cry of fear and wonder from the goblins.  The diminutive mage then ducked behind the rock, calling to the group. “When next I call upon magic, eyes forward!”The priest of Ra’s pale grim countenance, grew all the grimmer as he stepped up to smash a goblin archer with the increased reach of his flail, now larger than the goblin target itself, but the archer hopped back, and it and its companions sent a flurry of small arrows to pierce the priest’s armor, drawing many tiny lines of blood.Bleys moved into the clearing behind the battle, firing arrows into the fray as Telémahkos finally joined him.  The blond noble tapped the watch-mage on the shoulder and pointed to the south, there, just behind one of the branches obscuring the rest of the goblin trail, was another rider upon a warg.“It took six to take one down before, and now there are only two of us,” Telémahkos sighed, trying to hide the fear in his voice with exasperation.  The battle raged on the trail and in the brush.  Dunlevey cleaved one of the goblins in two, but again and again tiny arrows rained on the warriors and priests, ringing against their armor, drawing bruises and blood.  Laarus managed to smash another into a pulp with one heavy blow, taking advantage of their moving back bit by bit in order to fire on him without leaving themselves open.  They could not move fast or carefully enough.“Now! Everybody!” Markos warned.  “He leapt atop the rock so that all the goblins might see him clearly, holding his lit torch over his head and called out, “Pyroclasticus lux!” (5)The torch flashed brightly, even as it went out and suddenly there was a great cry from many of the goblins. They were blinded.  Unfortunately, Falco, Dunlevey, Tymon and Telémahkos were blinded as well.“Master! Master! I can’t see!” Tymon cried out.“What’s going on? What happened?” Falco said, an uncharacteristic note of fear in his rarely heard voice.Dunlevey swung his great sword around wildly.Telémahkos spun his blade around defensively, the Steel Whip humming.  “Just stay down,” Bleys said, wary of Telie’s weapon.  He let an arrow loose and a nearby goblin dropped.Victoria of Anhur skewered a goblin near her, who while not blind, was startled by the flash and left itself open to the attack.  She flicked the little crumpled body off the end of her spear towards a blind goblin that was spinning around and shrieking.  Others were trying to withdraw more calmly, but ended up tangled in the brush, complaining to each other in their guttural tongue.“Stay calm! It’ll last less than a minute,” Markos called to his blind companions as he made his way through the chaos.  He squeezed an adder’s stomach in his right hand and then clapped it against the powdered rhubarb leaf in the left.  An arrow made of pure acid flew from his hands and struck the goblin atop the warg.  It screamed, and the scream was echoed by the line of withdrawing goblin as the enlarged Laarus stepped into their line, cleaving through their midst with his flail, crushing bone and sending sprays of goblin blood in high arcs.  Victoria was making her way through the line of goblins near her as well, stabbing one, and knocking it into another.The warg took off down the trail, dropping its rider, who lay quiet for a moment, but then exploded into a sudden writhing pain that made it stop moving for good, as the conjured acid finished its sizzling.“Right in front of you, Telémahkos!” Bleys warned his friend, as he dropped his bow and drew his saber, slicing the face open of the approaching goblin.  It was blind as well, and it shrieked, not knowing what hit it.Telémahkos thrust his rapier in that general direction, missing terribly.“Dunlevey! Move towards my voice!” Markos called to the hireling to get him away from danger, and behind some brush.  “I still can’t see!” Dunlevey said, as he stumbled in that direction.As their vision came back, Falco found himself crowded behind the rock with Tymon.  “Out of my way, fat boy,” he sneered, as he headed back into the fray, putting an arrow to his longbow.“That’s not nice!” Tymon whined, giving chase now that he could see.“Ah-ha!” Markos cried out, thrusting his dagger at an injured goblin, just as its sight came back.  He cut it, but it did not fall.“Damn it, Markos!” Telémahkos cried, and thrust his rapier through the goblin’s neck. As it fell, he turned to the mage. “Can’t even deal with a blind goblin…”Eager to get back to fighting, Dunlevey rushed at the remaining goblin spearman.  It thrust at him in a panic.“Let it live!” Markos called to Dunlevey. “Telémahkos!  Tell it we’ll spare it!”“Yes!” Bleys joined in.  “Tell him to put down his weapon…”Telémahkos barked at the goblin in the hobgoblin tongue, comparing it female genitalia and threatening to cook it on a spit.  It dropped it spear and crawled over to Telémahkos, kissing the noble’s feet.…to be continued…--------------------------------------------------Notes:(1)    Session #13 was played on Sunday, July 29th, 2007.(2)    See Session #12.(3)    Markos fumbled. The result was Reflex save (DC 15) or hit friend, half damage.(4)    Pretidigitation can be used to light a torch as a standard action.(5)    This spell is pyrotechnics.</blockquote>

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