Kyrra send a throwing axe tumbling end over end towards the goblins. As it sails over their heads, she curses to herself, dropping the other throwing as as she draws her sword and sickle.
"Bang, you little bastards." Mal mutters to himself as he aims and fires.
Kyrra 13
Calon 13
Malcom 12
Gaurm 1
The party rounds the corner and with swift aggression immediately comes on the offensive. Kyrra hurls a throwing axe but it sails over the goblins' heads. Calon snaps off a shot with his short bow, but the arrow skips off a rock face and misses its target. Malcom's fired pistol sounds out loudly and a puff of smoke issues forth, a bullet shattering some stone directly above one goblin's ear, but the goblins remain unharmed.
Two of the goblins retaliate, firing well-aimed shots at the party, while the third goblin steps forward and yells something to its allies and draws its rusty, jagged shortsword with a swish. One arrow pierces Calon's shoulder and the other thuds dully into Kyrra's upper thigh.
Gaurm moves forward, his massive hammer coming through in a blurring arc to strike at one of the goblins.
Stepping in front of his wounded allies, Mal reloaded and fired again.
Round 1
Kyrra hisses and advances on the goblins, slashing out with her short sword at the one standing in front of the others with its sword at the ready.
Attack
Her sword swishes viciously but the short goblin stoops lower and sneers, dodging the blow.
Calon retaliates against one of the goblins, blasting it carefully and precisely with a telekinetic blow that leaves it nearly senseless, though it still stands.
The other goblin with a short bow is not so lucky, and as it is drawing another arrow for its second shot, Malcom's shot rings out and a bullet blows the goblin's forehead through the back of its skull, and it's flung back and down onto the ground dead.
Gaurm moves ahead after Kyrra, coming up alongside the same lucky goblin, who turns just in time to see the giant man's hammer hit the ground next to it.
Round 2
The badly wounded goblin drops its bow, draws its sword, and steps in to Gaurm to attack, but its sword blow glances smoothly off the half-giant's shield. However, the other goblin's attack, which comes from the side as he is distracted by the first one's sword, sticks painfully through some links in his armor into his side.
Kyrra attacks the goblin furiously, her sword blade going wide in the chaos. Twisting her flexible frame she brings the sickle up in a wicked arc.
Sword
Sickle
Confirmation
Kyrra's sickle soars wide, but her short sword snaps up in a deadly stroke, hewing brutally into the goblin's chin and continuing up from there, killing it instantly in a crimson spray of gore. Almost at exactly the same time, Calon's sword dance is so intricate that the goblin freezes at the sight, utterly confused, and in a second it is skewered directly through its little heart, and it slumps to the ground, dead.
A silence settles, broken only by your collective heavy breathing. The passageway that enters the rock waits ominously before you.
Gaurm shakes his head slightly, "My friends, pause for a moment, let me relieve our hurts."
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Calon flexes his shoulder after the wound closes up. "Thank you. Your god must favor you highly, with such powerful healing!"
He scoops up the coins and hands them to Gaurm with a small smile. "I think we can make better use of these than they can. Would you mind carrying these until we get back to town?"
He then peers into the cave to see if there is any light coming from inside. If it is dark, he will unlimber his pack, get a torch and flint and light it.
"Ready to go?"
"Torag gives many gifts to his faithful." Gaurm accepts the small purse with a nod, tucking it inside his pack.
There is no light in the cave, but from Calon's torchlight a curious scene unfolds. The tunnel into the cave stretches for some distance, but after about a hundred and fifty feet, it widens into a large, rectangular chamber approximately 30 feet wide by 50 feet long. The stone around the walls of the cavern was obviously worked many, many years ago from its natural form. Several empty torch bearers scatter the wall, but they are covered in cob webs and obviously haven't been used in a long time. There are several weather-worn, beaten-down pieces of furniture stuffed up against the wall on the right: a bookshelf, a table, some chairs, and a locked, rotting chest.
The most curious feature of the cavern, however, is that the far wall's entire length is hugged by an oversized trough-like feature, ten feet wide and raised off the ground a good three feet high. Incredibly black water fills the long, wide trough: a motionless pool, the water laps at the very edge of the trough, as it is filled to its maximum.
As you take all of this in through the flickering torchlight, you also notice a few alarming features as well. The ground here is slick with dark water and, at closer inspection, what appears to be a grotesque amount of blood. There is a crumpled humanoid body next to the trough on the left-hand side.
Gaurm enters beside Calon, shield up and hammer ready, eyes alert for any sign of danger.
As Calon and Gaurm advance towards the crumpled body, they begin to see that it is heavily armored. A beautiful large sword lies on the ground next to it: you recognize it by size and shape to be a bastard sword. Blood seeps slowly from several vicious wounds in its sides, meaning that the wounds are fresh.
When you get close enough to identify the creature, you recoil briefly when seeing a rough, grotesquely greenish brown skin. The creature is a hobgoblin, a species of larger brethren of the goblins outside.
Before you can truly react to the situation, however, there is an explosion of water from the pool nearby! Something huge, what looks like an eight-legged lizard the size of a horse, has launched itself from the water and now lunges directly for Calon, an ugly row of serrated teeth lining its gaping, round mouth. The elf, despite being taken completely by surprise, cowers back and is saved from the massive lizard's gaping maw by the magical force of his Mage Armor spell cast earlier. The lizard stands before Calon and Gaurm, its long tail swishing back and forth angrily at being denied its meal -- though his eyes immediately narrow in an almost intellectual way, and begins to snap its jaws menacingly at Gaurm instead of the elf.
initiative
charge
These eight-legged amphibious lizards have the ability to change their color at will. This chameleon-like ability, combined with their superior intelligence, has made them often coveted as exotic pets or guard animals for generations. Water Wraiths tend to rely on their ability to change color by hiding in water and waiting to set up ambushes; when these fearless hunters strike, their webbed claws propel them quickly forward either on land or in water. Once their toothy, eel-like mouths attach to victims, water wraiths quickly begin to bleed them dry, rapidly draining the blood from their victims in a painful, messy way. The hobgoblin on the ground has likely suffered this fate.
Usually in captivity, these creatures are deliberately kept underfed and rarely grow beyond 2 feet in length. Water Wraiths encountered wild, or kept on an unrestricted diet, can grow to even more massive sizes than the one before you, however. You were curious to note that the Water Wraiths' color-changing powers are not just an automatic defensive response, but can be a matter of self-expression, or even strategy and tactics on the part of the creature. Water wraiths often express likes and dislikes with an outward display of color: bright red is frequently associated with hunger, and dull green represents dislike or lack of interest. Black, on the other hand, represents anger -- often caused by a territorial dispute. When hunting, however, Water Wraiths will turn to any color that might better suit them for an ambush.
Interestingly enough, Water Wraiths find full-blooded elves to be unpalatable, but show no aversion to their half-elven cousins: this would explain the giant lizard's sudden focus on Gaurm. However, remember that just because a Water Wraith won't eat. Unfortunately, you don't know of any particular weaknesses the creature might have, but you know that it's defenses aren't particularly impressive and it can be slain as easily as any other creature of its size.
The lizard turns suddenly away from Calon while he struggles to recall information about this creature. The deadly maw snaps out instead at Gaurm, who raise his shield against its teeth but not quite fast enough. Brutal pain shoots through the half-giants side when the giant hunter crunches down, and you immediately feel a warm sensation in your very blood flow -- you're being drained. Distracted by this sudden, vicious attack, Calon does not see one of the lizard's front claws slash across his front, which deals a painful but not devastating blow.
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Despite the pain, Calon thinks quickly, knowing that they have to get the creature off of Gaurm before it drains him of blood like the unfortunate hobgoblin.
Raising his rapier, he chants મારા મોટા મિત્ર સાચી વિશાળ બનાવો. As the blade begins to glow, he reaches out and touches Gaurm, who swells to an even huger size!
As the lizard creature lunges at Guarm, Kyrra is already in motion, streaking across the room to bring her short short sword slicing towards the vicious beast.
"Holy!" Mal curses, jumping back in surprise and snapping off a shot and the creature.
"What the hell is that doing here?" Mal says, reloading and stepping back a pace.
Gaurm snarls at the beast that has its massive jaws locked onto him, slides his grip on his suddenly preposterously massive warhammer and uses its haft to try to lever the beasts jaws open.
Gaurm puts up a valiant struggle, but the Water Wraith clings on. Its clamped teeth produce an ugly ripping noise at the effort, which draws forth a pained gasp and makes Gaurm's vision dim white for just a moment.
Kyrra tore into the creature in a fury, hoping to draw it's attention away from Gaurm
Sword
Sickle
Confirmation
24, Water Wraith
21, Calon
6, Mal
2, Gaurm
Kyrra's speedy reaction wounds the Water Wraith as it turns its anger on Gaurm, and shortly after Mal scores a direct hit on the side of the lizard's massive face. Soon after, Kyrra's sickle slices deeply across the lizard's exposed throat: a nearly-fatal blow.
Though it is suffering heavy wounds, the creature thrashes about, still attached to Gaurm and clawing desperately with its front four claws. The enlarged half-giant takes two telling blows and the Water Wraith's jaw remains latched onto Gaurm's shoulder.
As Gaurm falls unconscious, he is thankful to see -- just before the blackness closes in -- Calon plunge his rapier up to its hilt in between the Wraith's ribcage. The lizard relaxes its grip on Gaurm and slumps to the ground, unmoving.
"Yeah. It ain't much though. Hope it will do."
Gaurm's eyes slide open and he looks up at his gathered allies, "Ow. That thing bites hard."
"That was one vicious creature." Kyrra responds shaking her head. "Blood drinke like that may lease you a little weak for a few days "
The group suddenly freezes at a new sound. The hobgoblin has moaned and shifted slightly, a bit of fresh blood seeping from his many wounds. He is still alive, just barely, and based on how he's begun to crawl away, he has regained consciousness.
Gaurm sits up slowly and nods to Kyrra, "Yes, I can feel it."
His head snaps around at the motion and sound from the hobgoblin, and he reaches for his hammer, "Deal with that, I will be fine for now."
Pulling his hammer close, he speaks a brief prayer asking Torag to mend his wounds.
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Calon turns his attention to the hobgoblin and strides over in front of him, kicking the bastard sword further away from the creature along the way. He places the point of his sword right between the hob's eyes, only an inch away.
"You are going to tell us everything you know, starting with who you are working with, where they are, and what you did with the items you stole from Mrs. Riel." he says firmly.
The hobgoblin feebly reaches for its sword as Calon kicks it away. His eyes dart up at you, and you can see that he's sickened with pain, but there is something fierce about him. "I'm not a thief," he manages out. "I'm hunting someone: one of my kind -- a goblin. Tracked him here." The hobgoblin collapses onto the ground again; the sound of his bloodied breastplate clanks loudly through the cave.
"I have... a potion. Please, I can explain more... I just," he's reaching slowly toward his waist concealed by the folds of a torn robe.
The sound of the hammer of Mal's pistol being locked back hung in the air. He was aiming it right at the Hobgoblin's face.
"Your hand moves and so does mine." he says ominously.
"Calon, search 'im. If he's being straight with us, I'll heal 'im myself."
The hobgoblin radiates strongly of an extremely lawful alignment. Mal also detects an evilness to its essence.
The hobgoblin freezes, sighs, and slumps back to allow himself to be searched. You find two potions on his belt, most likely healing potions based on the color and the hobgoblin's statement earlier. You also find several masterwork javelins, a dagger, and a coin purse that clinks heavily.
"I swear, I'm not working with those fools. I tracked one of my own kind, a deserter and a thief, to this area and found that the little swine was working with some locals out of this cave. I came to claim its life and take back what it stole, but ran into that... thing."
True to his word, Mal puts a hand on the hobgoblin and staunches the wounds.
"He's tellin' the truth and he'll keep his word. On the other hand, he ain't exactly a good samaritan." Mal said to the others, still keeping his gun trained.