With a quick word and motion of her arm, Zayla makes a small ball of fire appear in her hand. She then hurls it at one of the goblins.
Unfortunately, she hurls it with a little too much strength and it flies right over the goblin's head. She scowls.
The laughing goblin attempts to stop laughing, but just can't shake the fox's dry wit.
The other goblins continue their assault, though all their attacks miss.
Party is up again.
Felix continues to pester the goblin.
Rapier: flank
Everard catches the Goblin's swing on his shield and shoves it weapon arm aside, opening his enemy up for a punishing counterattack!
Zayla grits her teeth and tries a different spell.
While Felix misses his target again, Everard's sword makes a deep gash in a goblin's side. The goblin squeals in pain, but keeps fighting.
The uninjured goblin on Everard stares off into space.
Party again.
"Why won't you fall down?" a frustrated and increasingly worried Felix asks as he stabs out again.
Rapier: flank
"Just keep bashing! Or stabbing, whatever!" Everard advises while he swings at his opponent once again.
The uninjured goblin on Everard stares off into space.
Zayla smiles and tries to do the same thing again.
This time the goblin shakes off the spell.
Everard's sword curves a graceful arc past and inside the goblin's shield, slicing the creature open. The goblin gurgles and falls over. Felix's sword also gets past the goblin's shield and buries itself in its armpit. The goblin keeps fighting.
"Good show, chaos!" the fox calls out, "Way to show 'em!"
"Watch out for-" the fox warns.
Everard's helm prevents what would have been a skull crushing injury from the goblin's lucky strike.
"Never mind!"
Party is up.
Everard shakes his head at the ringing in his ears -- and swings his blade, lips pressed tightly together in determination!
Felix follows Everard's advice and keeps swinging.
Rapier
Confirm Crit.
Felix stabs his goblin in the other armpit, and the goblin goes down.
Everard knocks some wind out of his goblin. The fourth goblin continues to laugh.
Zayla still to go.
As the goblins begin to fall, Zayla both grins and almost retches from all the blood. Somehow, she manages to gasp the words of the spell again.
The goblin resists the spell, then swings at Everard.
Clank off his armour.
As the goblin’s mace clanks off Everard’s armour, the fighter runs him through the belly just as Felix pierces his back. The goblin’s body slides off your blades.
As you move on towards the laughing goblin, the spell it was under finally wears off. It slowly stops chuckling and stared up at you, back to its mace lying a few feet away, and back to you, clearly planning to go for it.
”It’s defenceless!” the fox cries out. ”Kill it now!”
Zayla suddenly rushes forward and grabs the mace before the goblin can.
"Yield," Everard growls at the Goblin. "Or die."
The goblin is 30 feet away from her, as is the mace, which is five feet from the goblin, but the goblin is prone, and crawling 5 feet is a move action. Since it’s move actions for both to get there, we can do an initiative roll.
Zayla darts forward and snatches up the mace. The goblin snarls in anger and fear and attempts to bite Zayla’s ankle!
Zayla nimbly steps aside of the goblin’s maw and the creature gets a mouthful of dead leaves and pine needles.
Zayla raises the mace and says to the goblin, "You heard him. Yield. Or your own mace might be involved in your death."
With the bloodlust taking over, the goblin becomes quite insensate and unable to be reasoned with.
"They said to stop!" Felix strikes out to emphasize his point.
Rapier: flank
Confirm Crit: flank
Felix impales the goblin through the heart. It bloodied it’s hands for s moment tearing at the blade, before lying still.
”I must say, I’m mighty glad you folks showed up when you did,” the fox says.
"I'd imagine so," Everard says as he cleans and sheathes his sword, then walks over to the fox. "Are there many talking foxes in this valley?" he asks as he kneels to pry open the trap. "Or are you something other than a fox?"
"Sorry. Let me try that again."
”From your perspective, something else. My people have many forms, though I can use none of them with this cursed cold iron clamped on my leg. I was foolish and thought I was too far from the iron mines to be in danger from goblins. Goblins are unnatural creatures, and they are not one with the forest, yet still you were willing to show it mercy.”
”My people have been at war with the goblins ever since they arrived in force. If you wish to undo some of the damage done to this valley, you should seek out Queen Nerissal. You’ll find her oak in the Southwest corner of the valley. She will help you if you can prove that you are friends of the forest.”
Everard finally gets the fox free from the trap. The fox sniffs at its wound, then breathes in his leg. Warm light suffuses his breath and the wound is gone. It also breathes on Felix and Everard.
”As thanks for saving me, I’ll tive you two pieces of advise. One, you are being watched now, as you adventure in this valley, by agents on both sides. Two, always be polite, even with those whom you judge not to deserve it.”
Before you can ask the fox any questions, it turns sideways and vanishes!
While Everard is seeing to the fox, Felix is rolling the goblins. "Let's see if they have anything of interest on them."
"Hey! Where'd he go?"
The goblins have a combined haul of: gold coins.
They also carry cold iron maces, though of crude quality.
Divide the gold evenly with Zayla getting the extra one.
"Remind me to start practicing with you in the mornings." He says to Everard. "Shall we continue on?" Keep going straight.
You push onwards along the road. It’s just past midday when you reach the foot of the pass and the edge of the avalanche Everard and Felix created.
You begin to search for bodies but it doesn’t take you long to realize that this search could take days.
However it doesn’t take much searching before you discover a large furrow in the snow, coming from further up the mountain, like the footsteps of a very large man wading through the snow. Following them up hill, you find the spot where the very large man must have dug himself out from under the snow. You also finds a second trail, normal-sized, and speckled with drops of dried blood.
"Looks like we there were survivors. I bet the minotaur was one of them."
Do the two trails go in the same direction?
"You think they could lead us to the bandit hideout?"
The two trails do go together, but once they enter the forest, they become too difficult to track.
Everard stows one of the cold iron clubs - just in case. Even if they're not useful to the group, there might be a market for the metal, right?
At the avalanche, the warrior frowns thoughtfully when he sees the tracks.
"Unless a giant mole-man decided to come up for a stroll, I'd say you were right, Felix. Trail's pretty muddled, though...."
"Hrm. So, whereto next? Shall we try to find this 'Queen Nerissal'? It could be to our advantage."
The tracks of the larger man do look like they’d belong to a heavily-booted creature like the Minotaur.
The other tracks belong to a normal human. Everard can track them far enough to confirm they headed west into the valley along the road before they disappear.
"Yes. Now we go seek a fairy queen." Felix can't help but chuckle to himself. "We are a long way from home."
So how would you like to handle this? Southwest corner of the valley includes a lot of area and there are no roads that way. As it is, it’ll be evening by the time you get back to Spielburg. Spend the night there and head out southwest in the morning?
No. Go back to town for the night. Get some dinner and rest before setting out tomorrow.
You head back along the road towards town. While elsewhere the afternoon sun might have brought warmth, the forest road is too shady to feel much of it.
You make it back to where you fought the goblins and freed the fox, only to find two of the bodies gone, with bloody drag marks leading towards some bushes which rustle and thrash about.
"Looks like Goblins aren't so far outside nature that nothing's willing to eat them," Everard says, quietly. "Let's see if I can identify what took them...."
Everard finds reptilian footprints. From the size, he guesses it must be one of those Saurus creatures, not the really scary Saurus Rex the Guildmaster told you about.
"Saurus, is my best guess," Everard says.
The warrior bounces his sword on his shoulder a couple of times, then shakes his head. "Let's not press our luck. Scaly can enjoy his dinner; we need to get back to town before they lock the gates and we have to sleep out here."
You press on, the Saurus too concerned with its meal to even notice you pass by. You have to hoof it a bit near the end, but you make it safely back to Spielburg with about twenty minutes to spare. Going into your inn, you are greeted warmly, and delicious hot food and drink is presented.
Does everybody just wish to go to bed and sleep the night away?
Felix will use the window to embark upon a late night excursion. He makes his way directly to the magic shop.
Stealth
Making your way to the counter, Zara appears as before. ”I assume your compatriots are unaware that you are here?”
She doesn’t wait before continuing, ”I have a small task which is beyond my expertise, but I believe you have the necessary skills for, if you are interested.”
”In my shop, I sell healing potions. My price is the norm for similar concoctions throughout the land. But I’m sure an intelligent person such as yourself has also been outside town to visit the Healer, and have noticed that she also sells healing potions, and for considerably less. I need to know her secret: how she can afford to sell her healing potions for so much less? What is her special recipe or ingredient that lets her make them so much more cheaply? I have need of a clever young man to do a bit of snooping to find out, and I will pay you handsomely if you do.” She holds out her hand, chants a word, and a slightly ratty hat appears out of nowhere. ”Once per day, if you pull this hat low over your brow, it will allow you vanish from sight for a very short time, up to thirty seconds if you don’t otherwise make your presence known.”
The hat casts vanish once per day, CL 5.