"Bagro-OCH! Nicat's bad enough, but he doesn't know what he's doing. You're doing it on purpose! How rude!" Eostre grumps.
"I'm not...Okay, maybe a little."
Evelyn opens her mouth because she wants to try to pronounce the difficult word. She think the better of it and closes her mouth again, softly humming a tune to herself.
"So, uhm..." she starts after a while. "What is it you know, Eostre...?"
"Unfortunately, I don't know squat about barghests besides having heard the name."
"Well, we didn't know anything else about anything else here, it's worked so far."
Evelyn fidgets a bit. "Ah... okay... so, uh... shall we?"
"Yep, let's get this done!" Nicat concurs with Evelyn. "Then we can head back to Sandpoint instead of sleeping in a goblin fortress."
"Onward Toragdan Soldiers!" Eostre says wearily.
"The final battle approaches."
A deep breath, and he nods.
Eostre nods back.
"Hopefully this battle will be easy. Five to one, and he's just a big goblin dog."
"Oh, that's what they're called?" Nicat asks, rolling his eyes. "Why didn't you just say so? That's a lot easier to remember than barglefest."
"Because it's not entirely accurate. Actual goblin dogs like we saw during the assault on the Festival are really a kind of rodent, since true dogs have an instinctual hatred of goblins and vice-versa. Barghests combine the features of goblins with actual canine features, in this case those of a wolf."
"And someone looked at that and decided the right name was barglefart?"
"Farce," Evelyn corrects Conner. "Barglefarce."
Evelyn makes a confused face and adds, "But... wouldn't adding canine features make Barglefarces hate goblins and vice-versay?"
The party makes their way back down to the depths of Thistletop, rested, healed and ready to finally end things here.
The doors to Malfeshnekor's prison stand shut, as they always have. The sihedron runes on the door continue to glow violet, except now the colours are pulsing. The pulsing grows faster the closer the sihedron key is carried to the doors' lock...
Eostre sighs as the discussion gets more ridiculous.
"No, because goblins admire wolves as well. They ride wolves into battle too, and actually consider dogs to be pale imitations of wolves."
When they approach the door, she takes a deep breath and casts her protective spell to prepare for the battle.
As Eostre prepares herself defensively - and continues to lecture on the complicated relationship between goblins and dogs - Nicat lays a hand on Ekan's arm and says, "Here's a little boost for the fight. Knock that bagthorpe dead!"
Ekan nods and readies to charge in as Nicat directs
Eostre looks to everyone else.
"Is everyone ready? I'll use the key on the door when we are."
Conner gets his shield ready.
A nod
"Wait a second," Evelyn says, and casts protection from evil first on herself, then on Eostre, Nicat, Ekan, and Conner.
With a nod Evelyn announces, once done casting the last spell, "Ready!"
Once everyone has prepared themselves, Eostre slides the sihedron key into the slot on the doors.
The violet energy swirling along the runes flickers and dims for a moment as the doors slowly swing open...
The room beyond is surprisingly plain, lit only by a burning 10-foot wide fire pit in the centre of the room. The walls are etched with countless arcane runes that glow with the same violet energy on the doors, though they do not shed enough light to see by.
The room appears to be empty...
...but a sudden *growl* of rage fills the room, and a massive jaw tries to sink into Ekan's shoulder. Thanks to Evelyn's protective magics, the jaw closes mere inches away from the monk's skin.
Suddenly appearing before the party is an immense, grotesque four-legged beast, its face a disgusting mix of a tiger's face and a goblin's features. A mane of stark white fur covers its hulking frame, and its sickly gold eyes burn into the party with a stare of pure malevolence. Power seems to radiate off of this... thing like an inferno.
"برای مدت زمان طولانی من در این زندان ورشکستگی، محدود و عذاب خانواده نفرت انگیز خود را. شما برای باز کردن درب قفس من دوباره، فقط به من عذاب را یک بار دیگر.?!" It roars, its rage palpable.
"گرسنه Malfeshnekor." It intones.
"Malfeshnekor hungers."
The beast starts pacing like a caged animal, glaring with sheer hatred at the party.
"حیله گری از شما برای آماده شدن برای آرواره ام، کثافت انسان است. آن را به شما سود نکرد." It growls.
Eostre draws herself up to her full height and gives the monster an intense stare, trying to look confident after the close call Ekan almost had.
«Ту аз зиндон озод шудааст, танҳо ба рӯ нобудсозии, Malfeshnekor! Ту истода, танҳо, ва мо боварӣ ҳосил хоҳад кард, ки шумо ҳеҷ гоҳ зиндагӣ ба азоб ҷаҳон берун аз ин деворҳо!»
She starts right into casting, slamming the butt of her glaive on the floor and making the chamber shake!
The rocks fall down onto Malfeshnekor's head.
It doesn't seem too bothered by them, though--it's more interested in what Eostre just said.
Namely, it tilts its head in visible confusion.
Annoyed at the beast's lack of comprehension of its captor's language, Eostre provides a rough translation in a language she suspects it will understand.
"Jsme tady, abychom tě zabít, ty přerostlá šotek-pes!"
"Whatever you're saying, you big ugly dog, you don't have Desna smiling on you like we do!" Nicat declares. In a quieter tone, he adds, "In fact, to look at you, I wonder if anyone's ever smiled on you at all. Sheesh!"
He drops a stone into his sling and says, "I doubt this'll make you any prettier, but it might shut you up."
"It doesn't even look like a dog, it looks more like a rat crossed with a monkey. But uglier. Also, is that what you normally smell like, or is that from being locked up?" Conner levels his new sword at the barghest and thrusts, stabbing it in the side.
Ekan's eyes widen as the creature takes him off guard and ...well, the Oracle's blessing saves him, "Thank you, Evelyn." He says and means it.
Seeking to return the favor on his foe, trying to lay a flurry of blows upon the creature with his Kama
Evelyn has no idea what Ekan says to her, but understand his words are directed at her and figures it has something to do with the attack that was aimed at him. She smiles at Ekan and gives him a nod.
Weaving her hands in the air Evelyn then casts infernal healing on herself, expecting she'll need the fast healing any moment now.
Evelyn also activates her new medallion, giving herself an extra buffer of health to draw from.
Neither one of Ekan's blows manage to connect.
Malfeshnekor flinches as Conner's sword strikes him, but his demeanour noticeably changes when both Ekan & Conner attack.
It grins and starts biting at Conner...
...and gets a little too excited as it finds itself with a mouthful of tower shield.
Undeterred, he claws at the monk twice...
...with only the second claw managing to land. The first one is once again warded away by Evelyn's protective magics.
Nicat isn't sure how much his magic is going to affect this big beastie, but he can see that Conner's sword is quite effective indeed. Tapping the burly fighter on the shoulder, Nicat calls out, "Kick this thing's butt! Lady Luck is smiling on you!"
Evelyn feels a chunk of her temporary health disappear when Ekan's hit. She quickly whips out the healing wand and taps Ekan's back with it.
Ekan tries another volley of strikes even as he feels wounds tear up his body only to partially heal, it occurs to him he's gotten surprisingly used to that odd situation, but reminds himself never to take it for granted.
"Those goblins upstairs were better fighters than this thing!" Conner strikes again, but just misses.
Eostre casts again, and unleashes a silent scream at Malfeshnekor that sounds to him like the howling of the Abyss.
Malfeshnekor barely flinches as Conner's sword and Ekan's fists collide against its bulk, and blinks when Eostre screams at it.
It then focuses entirely on Conner...
...managing to take a bite out of Conner's sword arm and raking him in the face with a claw. It's learning.
"Come on, gang, we've got luck on our side!" Nicat cries out again as he spins up his sling and lets a stone fly! He drops another stone into the weapon, hoping they've got what it takes to finish this thing before it tears Conner to bits!
Nicat's bullet strikes the beast square in the face. It growls in annoyance.
"Ugh." Frustrated, Conner attacks again but keeps having no luck.
Ekan tries another flurry, but admits, "Well, this has been embarrassing so far."
Eostre casts another scream at Malfeshnekor.
One of Ekan's fists collides with Malfeshnekor's jaw... and it feels like he just punched a stone wall. Malfeshnekor doesn't appear to have been hurt by it.
It also shrugs off Eostre's scream with a huff of annoyance.
While Conner heals a bit, some more of Evelyn's temporary health disappears.
"មកនេះ," Evelyn says while grabbing Ekan's arm and pulling him toward her, meanwhile pulling a scroll of magic weapon from her backpack.
Evelyn reads the scroll and a glow spreads throughout Ekan's body as Ekan himself is turned into a magic weapon.
Malfeshnekor claws and bites at Conner some more!
Its claw swats him in the face again, this time raking across his nose and leaving a nasty bleeding scar.
The last portion of Evelyn's temporary health disappears, and Evelyn feels a stab of pain in her chest when her own health is drained. Part of the damage to Evelyn's own body is instantly restores however, due to her fast healing.
Evelyn lets go of Ekan's arm and drops the now useless piece of paper that was the scroll. She places a hand on Conner's shoulder and sends healing magic into his body, curing a large portion of his wounds.
Conner shakes his head after the claw strike and tries to focus, but still has no luck.