Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 635196" data-attributes="member: 143">Readers: for those who still play Neverwinter Nights, I will be starting up a new mid-to-high level campaign around the beginning of February, called "Drums of War."  Visit <a href="http://www.neverwinterconnections.com" target="_blank">www.neverwinterconnections.com</a> for more information--I should have the game postings up in a few days, but for now, check out the Realm Announcements topic in the forums there for details.  I'm Lazybones there also.  I will be running two groups through this module, on Tuesday nights and Sunday mornings (Pacific Standard Time), and at the moment there are a few slots still available in both games. And now for your regularly scheduled update...* * * * * Book VII, Part 39The crack of a whip broke the tired monotony of the day, the sound punctuated an instant later by a sharp cry of pain that hung in the wind before fading.  The hobgoblin archer shifted from his position at the head of the line, and turned to look back over the column that stretched out behind him.  He instantly spotted the altercation, the line of prisoners halted with one of their number lying prone along the side of the trail, holding his arms up in a desperate effort to hold off the hobgoblin warrior that was hurling shouted invective upon him, his whip raised threateningly in his hand.  Wearily the archer turned and trotted back down the line.  They had set a grueling pace, and if he was tired, the slaves had to be near the point of breaking.  But Pak’norak would not let up, even when it meant that slaves had to be cut from the line and dumped into a ditch to twitch out the last moments of their lives.  A scan of the prisoners as he made his way down the line confirmed his suspicions.  They had taken advantage of the pause to slump to the ground, too weary even to beg for food or water.  Getting them back up would likely take the whip.  Or perhaps not, he thought, as he saw Pak’norak approaching from the opposite direction.  The archer held the command he’d been about to issue as the apprentice adept fixed him, the guard with the whip, and the slave with the same desultory stare.  The archer was familiar enough with the ways of the priests to know that the sinister tightening of his mouth meant death for the hapless slave, but before the command came, his gaze happened to travel upward, to a flicker of motion in the sky back downslope in the direction from which they’d come.  A pair of birds, flying closer...No, not birds.“Alarm!” he shouted, stringing his bow with a reflexive motion and drawing a long arrow from the quiver at his belt.  “Enemies from above!”The hobgoblins stirred into action even as the prisoners cowered in the muddy dirt, covering themselves with their arms and the tattered remains of their clothing as if that could hide them from notice.    Two winged horses, bearing multiple humanoid creatures on their backs, knifed down from the gray skies to the attack.  The shamans had given the archer the power to choose his companions for this mission, and while none of the warriors he’d selected could be considered his friends, they were all competent and all well-armed.  Arrows sped upward into the sky to greet the intruders, including his own, but at this range most flew harmlessly past their targets.  The archer thought he’d scored a hit on the first one, but he was already loading a second arrow to his bow, and looking around to see that his forces were properly positioned to repel the attack.  There was good cover here, along the trail, but the fact that their foes were flying meant that they could attack wherever they chose.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the adept was casting a spell, and a moment later he vanished from sight.  The archer snorted.  The shaman might be using his invisibility to gain position on the enemy, but he doubted it.  The first flying horse jerked suddenly as an arrow struck it in the breast.  One of its riders—a human woman, the archer’s sharp eyes noted—slipped and tumbled from its back, falling like a stone toward the ground several hundred feet below.  The archer smiled grimly, while a few of the warriors shouted in triumph—one fewer foe to deal with—when suddenly she twisted in the air and arced around into a controlled dive, a longspear held in her hands like a lance.  “Spellcaster!” the archer shouted, just in case any of his troops had missed the obvious.  A few arrows were already headed her way, but she managed to avoid them all easily.  The winged horse that had dropped the woman flew overhead, and the archer could see another rider, a gnome or halfling by his size, on its back.  Suddenly a thick net of magical webs sprung up along a goodly length of the trail, anchored by the massive stones to either side, trapping warrior and slave alike in their confines.  Cursing, even though he had not been caught in the spell, the archer darted clear of the trail and fired an arrow in the direction of the second spellcaster.  His shot appeared to be true, but at the last minute it glanced aside as if it struck some sort of invisible armor.  Spellcasters.  Having traveled more than many of his kin, the archer knew all too well that despite the apparently favorable odds, the situation was looking increasingly grim for his company.  Still the hobgoblins fought back, or at least most of them did.  One fool near the head of the column actually started killing prisoners, hacking down two slaves that were only trying to get away, their halters keeping them from escaping.  The second flying horse dove like a dart in that direction, a stout, heavily armored figure riding on its back.  The horse caromed into the warrior, its momentum driving its hoof into the hobgoblin’s back with a audible crack.  The warrior fell into a twitching heap, while the armored fighter fell free and landed hard in a clatter of metal.  Two warriors were there in an instant with flashing swords, but the enemy was up with a speed that surprised the archer, and met their charge with a powerful swing of his axe.  The hobgoblins not trapped either moved toward the head of the column to join the battle there, or continued their fire at the woman or the still-flying horse and its wizardly rider.  The archer scored another hit on said mount, an easier target than its protected passenger.  The beast’s cry of pain was rewarding, but his next shot, only a few moments later, bounced off of the creature’s hide.  Apparently the magic-user had belatedly decided to protect his mount as well.  The woman flew down into the ranks of the column’s rearguard, where half a dozen warriors gathered to meet her.  She seemed to shine with an inner light that filled her with an aura of power, and drove her spear with great force into the first defender.  The hobgoblin cried out and collapsed, electrical energy dancing around the wound in its chest.  The other warriors could not reach her, hovering above them at the full length of her weapon, but they fired their bows at her point blank, snarling challenges.  Somehow she was able to dodge even those shots despite the short distance, although two dug angry red gashes along her sides as they narrowly edged past.  She was already stabbing again as they reached for more arrows, and wounded a second warrior with a thrust that glanced off its helmet, opening a bloody gash along the side of its head.   The archer leapt back as the orbiting mage pointed a wand in his direction and fired a glob that splattered onto the stones where he’d been standing.  He didn’t need to hear the sizzling hiss as it struck to know that he didn’t want to get hit by one of those missiles.  He fired another arrow, barely waiting to see that the shot was, like the one before, ineffective, before turning again and dashing deeper into the rocks.  He already knew that the battle was lost.  The armored dwarf had already slain the first two warriors to face him, and now met a charge from another three without hesitation, crushing the breastplate of the first and cleaving deep into his chest with a powerful overhead strike.  The flying horse, too, had joined in the action, dropping another warrior with a pair of crushing slams from its hooves.  The archer was not a coward, but he was not going to seek out his death when there was a more important mission at hand.  The main column needed to be alerted of the fate of this group, and the presence of these dangerous enemies in the mountains.  If they even yet lived.  The archer nimbly leapt down into a narrow defile, darting in and around a screen of heavy boulders as he left the sounds of battle behind him.  Finally he emerged from cover at the base of an uneven slope, his boots finding sure purchase on the damp and rocky ground as he ran quickly to the north.  He sensed the shadow that fell over him a moment before the attack came.  Instinct saved him as he threw himself aside, just in time to avoid the assault of the flying horse as it slammed into the ground where he’d been running a moment before.  The magic-user—a gnome, he now saw—was still mounted on its back, and its wand came up toward his face as the mount turned to face him.  “Surrender,” the gnome said in the common tongue.  The archer knew that speech, but even if he had not, there was no mistaking the grim intent in his features.  The horse, too, stamped angrily, looking eager to attack.  The archer nodded, and tossed down his bow.</blockquote>

Verification