Rokan gives a second concerned look at his own arm, then shrugs. "I will ... uh ... watch for trouble until you're ready."
The hunter then stalks the perimeter of their area, watching the wilds around them as well as the ground for tracks.
The heroes quickly scan the undergrowth for goblins, but there seems no sign of the commanders of this ragtag pack. Perhaps they were a wild group...? It'd be difficult to tell the difference between kept and tended goblin dogs and their wild kin, as goblins impose no level of hygiene or grooming on their verminous mounts.
E, you're pretty sure that you're afflicted with goblin rash, a skin disease more irritating than it is deadly. Fortunately, it's also easily cured-- any manner of magical healing will actually get rid of it.
With the dogs dispatched and no signs of lurking goblins, the heroes eventually resume their tracking through the woods...
At first the trail of goblin feet is easy to pick up again, but after another hour passes, the group of four find the brush getting closer and closer-- fewer trees, and more man-high masses of thorn bushes that bunch and crowd ever thicker...
"Feathers knows what he's doing when it comes to stuff like this."
Knowing she does not have Rokan's instincts for these matters, she stays back, using what she knows of tracking to double check his work.
When going into the wilds, it's a good idea to bring someone from the wilds. Rokan's keen eye for tracks, as well as for the hazards of nature, serves everyone in good stead-- he manages to find a path through the seemingly-identical-in-all-directions thorns, and several times stops his colleagues from plunging directly into what looks like the 'easy' path to point out the 'easy' way is full of stinging nettles.
Finally-- after about another hour-- our heroes stumble into a slight clearing... except where the patch ahead seems more wall than mere patch.
The briars and thistles that grow so rampantly in Nettlewood are even more dense and tangled here, close to the shore. Although not quite dense enough to block the sound of waves crashing on the unseen shores to the west, the undergrowth is certainly thick enough to block sight of the nearby coast. Few trees grow this close to the edge of the sea, but the briars themselves often reach heights to rival them;
here, the patch is nearly twenty feet high.
Rokan's eyes, however, are used to tracking on the stony plateau; he is easily able to pick out a small 'door' amid the nettle wall, made of woven vines and blending in well with the patch of thorns. It's goblin-sized; the heroes may well have to live their horses here to have any chance of getting through it.
Rokan's also able to detect a number of goblin and goblin dog footprints before the little door-- it seems this is definitely an entrance they use often.
”No,” Rokan finally whispers after over an hour of tracking, ”we are not lost.”
He stalks forward, scanning the thistle-wall as he approaches the strange little ‘door’. He kneels down, studying it. ”I wonder,” he whispers, ”if this is natural growth simply cultivated in this shape? Or something made from supernatural power?”
He steps back, considering their situation. ”Do you think this is their front entrance? Would it be worth scouting for another way in? Though if we have the element of surprise now, we may lose it as we seek other options.” He looks at the group, ”Thoughts?”
”I like giving surprises.”
Seraka cracks her neck and wrists as she often does right before starting something.
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"I don't know if the little buggers are organized enough to have a main entrance. It seems likely they scurry towards whatever their target in the straightest line possible."
"Surprise seems the best approach, though if we're crawling through a tunnel perhaps someone encased in a metal can would be a better choice to lead..."
Rokan nods, "Good call. This entrance, it is, then."
He nods to the door, "You want to check for traps, E? Then one of you two ... 'metal cans' can take point. Not knowing what is within, we should stay together."
"Well, if I'm leading we won't be a surprise for long, but I'm ready when you all are."
After tethering your mounts loosely to the last thing that resembles a proper tree, you ready to squeeze through the small hatch.
Rokan detects no actual magic upon or through the wall, but if a druid or similar shaped the growing of the hedge, the magic wouldn't persist past the initial shaping. He does think it's certainly a possible theory, though-- these plants are obviously growing much taller and denser than the patches of thorns you've encountered so far, and clearly someone skilled in nature-craft hid the little camouflage vine door at the very least.
E finds no traps on the door, and Sonya gingerly pushes on the vine hatch, revealing a passageway on the other side that is going to be tight indeed for you tallfolk. Especially Seraka. A tunnel seems to twist through the dense nettle wall beyond, like a winding earthworm's trail through soil. At its highest it's about four feet tall-- clearly never designed for humans to traverse. The earth itself has been packed hard and flat by the passage of numerous goblin feet-- it doesn't take a Shoanti tracker to tell that this passageway has seen regular use by goblins, and lots of them.
Seeing no other way through but, well, through, the heroes start to worm their way into the claustrophobia-inducing tunnel...
Most in the group have to bend near double to make progress; E can get by with a light crouch. The thorns prick and tear at clothing and exposed skin, leaving tiny welts and conjuring painful imaginings of what it would feel like to get pell-mell shoved into the wall of thorns that presses in from both sides and above your heads.
Despite the nearness of the ocean, it's hot, sweaty work to inch along inside the prickly organic maze. Sonya pushes through, wincing here and there at scratches, and after two dozen feet or so she finds that the tunnel branches in three different directions: to the left, forward, and right. The right-most path is the one most hard-packed with repeated traffic.
The sound of the waves can be heard, crashing somewhere on the rocks below this thorn-topped cliff, and the muffled call of seagulls. ...Also, an odd sort of rising and falling ululation, that fades out into nothingness and doesn't repeat.
"Shh! Shh! It heard us!"
"YOU shh! When Gogmurt comes, I'll say YOU woke it up!"
"You so stupid. SO stupid. When Gogmurt comes I'll push you IN."
"What was that noise??!"
"You idiot that was the howler!"
"No, not that, you DOUBLE idiot! I heard something coming through the tunnels!"
"Probably Gogmurt."
"Don't be so stupid, stupidhead! Gogmurt NEVER makes noise!"
As the group struggles through the tight, brambley corridor, details emerge to Rokan’s sharp eyes. He points out a booted footprint bigger than the goblin prints surrounding it, ”The half-elf? Or the bugbear?” Moments later, he points out a series of drag marks and recent blood drips in the passage. And finally, a few quite large feline footprints.
As the group pauses at the intersection, Rokan’s eyes snap forward at the strange ululation. He nods towards the central path, whispering. ”That sound came from there. Ahead. And there were goblin whisperings, though I do not understand their goblin tongue.”
He pauses, momentarily considering the heavily-trafficked right path, then points towards teh central path. ”I would like to see what is that way.”
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E's hunched form nods, but the motion carries his noggin into a spikey-bit of bramble. He bends forward in reaction, lamenting the decision to wander through the area.
"I've picked up their tongue a bit. Sounds like they're expecting a Gogmurt and know something is in the tunnels that probably isn't a Gogmurt." His neck bends to turn his ear closer to the sound "Also, they're afraid they woke something up and I think there's a pit trap somewhere up there."
"Then let us convince them to tell us of this Gogmurt," Rokan says, beginning his search for the aforementioned pit trap.
Seraka rotates her shoulders to limber them up, grinning.
"Heh, couldn't have said it better, Feathers."
Seraka pushes into the lead while Rokan's keen eyes keep probing for any treacherous ground. The heroes inch forward, still pushing through the tight, low tunnels of thorns...
...only to see startled green faces peeking their way at a meeting of tunnels, as goblins were trying to approach our heroes just as well.
There's a moment of silence, then a shrill, "AAAIEIEEEEE!" from the goblins.
Screaming, the clump of goblins on the left-hand junction pour forward through the tunnels towards you all!
"Menk apats uts elu yenk! Nrants spanel! Guts e menk karogh yenk ners mtnel!"
Five of the little blighters rush towards Seraka, taking advantage of her surprise to close and surround her, desperately shrieking and chopping at her with rusty knives and even clawing at her.
Only one knife finds its mark, though.
Suddenly feeling the tightness of these brambly tunnels, Rokan backs off to clear room for Sonya to get into the mix. He plants his feet and draws his arrow string back, an arrow of pure storm energy manifests, and he sights down the crackling shaft. Then he looses, trying to take a goblin of Seraka's back.
The second wave of goblins follows the same desperation tactics as the first, although they have trouble actually reaching Seraka given their colleagues in the way. One twists past the half-orc to try a swipe at E, but the others pull crude shortbows from their backs and take potshots at Seraka.
The brave, if foolish, goblin who wormed between Seraka and the others manages to land a strike!
None of the arrows reach Seraka.
"I've got your back!" Sonya calls out as she stabs at goblin who surrounded Seraka.
Sonya hews down a goblin and takes its place.
Seraka glances around at the anklebiters at her feet and growls.
”G@%@$!n I hate it when they cluster up.”
Drawing upon the spirits of battle, she calls upon memories of her orc ancestors in similar situations, surrounded by goblins and kobolds and other small pests. She watches them barrel through the little creatures, and knows what she needs to do.
She calls back to her companions.
”Just gimme a moment and I’ll clear some room.”
Seraka readies to clear a path...
The goblins mob her her in answer, attacking desperately.
None of the attacks manage to connect with Seraka. New armor, well worth it!
Unable to get a clean shot, Rokan holds his position and bides his time until he can make a difference.
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E and Rokan wait for the close quarters to open up some...
Unable to get in past the Magnimaran Cyclops, the little goblins are reduced to trying to fire their bows at the two women, into the fray that resembles nothing so much as a pack of feral toddlers trying to down the Jolly Green Giant.
None of the arrows manage to be lucky enough to connect with either Seraka or Sonya.
Seraka rears back before barreling through the one of the goblins next to her.
The goblin tries to stand his ground before the force of nature that is Seraka; it's not particularly effective. Sonya smiles grimly. "I can capitalize on that."
Stepping forward, she brings her blade down on the prone goblin.
With stern efficiency, Sonya dispatches the enemy's horde by one, at least. "We've got to thin their numbers, make room to fight."