The goblins kill one of the horses and celebrate with ghoulish glee. Meanwhile, the ones on Illes stab at him with their polearms.
The badly injured wizard spends a moment to center himself hiding in the woods, reaching into his pack to withdraw a potion which he quaffs hungrily.
Drink a potion of cure moderate wounds.
The dragon turns again, and charges across the uneven ground at Alwyn.
Illes rolls to the side to avoid a goblin blade and reverses the roll to impale the same goblin on his blade.
With a surprisingly smooth move, Alwyn ducks underneath the dragon's attack. His counter-attack is equally graceful, relying on deft skill rather than raw power to penetrate the scaly foe's defences. "Time to die, devil!"
Alwyn's warcry is a drawn-out, low-frequency growl as the blade angles in slowly. It hits the dragon's skin, dints it, then bores in the cut penetrating muscle as the swing continues. Blood spurts out, dark red droplets suspended in in the air, falling slowly, slowly...
The dragon shrieks in pain as Alwyn's attack hits home, a ragged tear now flapping open along its flank, acidic blood sizzling the grass.
Perhaps less dramatically, Illes takes his vengeance and kills another goblin.
From her hidden position behind the tent, Elisile begins intoning a spell.
The guards converge and another goblin bites the dust.
Camlo's deadly darts fell another green-skinned menace.
Taking to the sky once again, Vethran arcs high through the air above the treetops, his blazing dragon tattoo visible even from the ground as he summons up another devastating spell. From his outstretched fingertips spring a trio of white-hot beams that ripple the air and carve blistering wounds into the dragon's flank.
drink another cure mod wounds;
The dragon backs off and with a surging crack of its wings it takes to the air, disappearing into the darkness.
+3 dex, +4 bab, +4 inspire
The dragon backs off and with a surging crack of its wings it takes to the air, disappearing into the darkness.
As the dragon takes flight away from the group, the mage nervously smirks that his gambit appears to have worked. "Coward," he mutters, as if trying to instill confidence in himself while still shaking from the experience.
With the dragon taking flight,Illes stands slowly giving the last goblin a grin and skewers the little toad before it can get away.
As the dragon disappears into the gloom, Alwyn spots another, smaller enemy... "Hudak! Get over here! I'll patch you up while we kill the little buggers."
“Wait!” calls Elisile weakly, unseen in the darkness (and thanks to her invisibility spell). “Don’t kill all the goblins! If they are the dragon’s slaves they may know where it’s lair is.”
"Good idea....I was pumping up for another go at that dragon."
Elisile changes the cadence of her casting to a steady, almost military beat before concluding the spell. Immediately glowing spheres of light appear in the air about fifty feet south-west of her position .
The elf winces as the inherently lawful creatures appear, while the lantern archons bob and wobble in agitation.
“An evil black dragon has just flown away in that direction,” Elisile shouts at her summoned archons, pointing to where she can see the dragon’s bulk dimly illuminated in the wan starlight and the last glow of the setting sun on the western horizon. “Glow as brightly as you can and follow it.”
The archons bob again, flare into bright light and zoom through the air after the dragon.
The two archon shoot into the night sky, pursuing the dragon.
The guards charge the remaining goblins, cutting one down.
I really think we should try to take some alive.
Camlo shoots down one of the last two goblins. The other takes the hint and flees for the woods.
The badly injured mage floats down to rejoin the others, rolling his corroded sleeves down and sighing heavily. He looks first to Alwyn and nods, then to Hudak and Camlo.
"Well... good seeing you all again, heh," he chuckles. "We ah... ran into some difficulties in Magnimar. Shopping was cut a bit short when the Hellknights thought to arrest us for questioning concerning the whereabouts of Camlo. Needless to say, they were unsuccessful in apprehending us."
"That sucks. What the hell do they want with him?"
Camlo hears Vethran's words and starts careful examining his crossbow. "Ah, I haddn't thought that would be a problem in Magnimar. Especially when I wasn't with you." Speaking a little louder this time, and turning to the newcomers, he says, "I am sorry. It seems my trail of woe, is longer than I thought. I will explain. But please, let us check the guards are ok first, and get somewhere with a campfire, before that tail comes out."
One of the caravan's defenders walks up to Vethran. He's about forty, Varisian, with a handlebar moustache. "Young Tallomane, if I'm not much mistaken! It seems your penchant for pyrotechnics have paid off, and well-timed too." He nods amiably to Illes and the other adventurers.
"Ahhh, Sandru! Yes, it would seem my companions and I arrived at precisely the right time to pull your whiskers out of the proverbial fire, eh?" he gives a friendly smirk at the caravan leader.
"It is a shame our meeting could not come under more... auspicious circumstances, but at least we are alive and not nourishing a black dragon at the moment. I see you've met the other half of our group," he gestured towards Alwyn and the others. "Seems we'll be traveling together from here. Magnimar is a bit too hostile for us at the moment."
"Good seeing you lot. How the hell did you get here so fast?"
“Vethran’s teleportation magic afforded us our timely escape from Magnimar,” Elisile replies, limping into the conversation, blood oozing from the dragon bite on her torso. “We arrived in Sandpoint seconds later, and soon learnt that you had left along the north road but this morning. We purchased horses and rode hard to meet you, wanting to warn you that the Hellknights are likely on your trail ... helping you fight a dragon was simply ... an unexpected bonus.”
She sits with a wince. “It is a pity we could not capture any of the goblins, they may have been able to lead us to their master’s lair. I miscalculated the dragon’s speed, the lantern archons I summoned will not be able to follow it back to its lair unless it is very close by.” She gazes across the sky at the twinkling lights of the two tiny archons and sighs. “Had my eyes not deceived me on how far away the dragon already was I should have summoned a faster moving air elemental, cast a spell of light upon it, and Vethran might have had a target for a fireball spell.”
Vhiski squats down over a goblin corpse and points at the creature's face. "Nose-Slitters. They're one of the local tribes. Not normally as aggressive as this."
He stands up and looks sadly at the corpse of the guard killed by the dragon's acid breath. "We'll have to head back to Sandpoint and report this. Hostile goblins allied with a dragon - something will have to be done about this, or the town could be in serious trouble. Still, it can wait until the morning.
"Someone get a blanket," he calls to his men. "We can bury Vitaly tomorrow." He turns to Elisile. "Hellknights, you say?"
Elisile nods. “Yes. They are looking for our three companions,” she indicates Alwyn, Hudak and Camlo, “and us no doubt as well. They know that the three were headed north, but not their exact route or destination.”
"Anyone hurt? All injured parties, get over here for healing," Alwyn barks, walking around the camp.
"The hellknights had better be out in force, or they'll all end up as food for the ravens. I will not tolerate a bunch of diabolists, no matter how official they may be."
"We managed to get out of Magnimar without permanently harming any of the Hellknights. I figured that a non-violent solution would give them less fervor in their inevitable pursuit than if we'd slain them. Still, I'm sure the Hellknight commander did not appreciate 10 minutes in an indestructible fishbowl," the mage smirks.
Vethran thanks Alwyn for the offer of healing and joins the other wounded, helping Elisile limp over as well.
"Sounds good. Because I really want to see this black dragon again.
Hellknights sound good too. I could use a suit of full plate, next time we dance with the dragon.
I don't know what they want lil Bilbrodo for, but he don't exactly look like a stone cold killer to me and, from what I've heard of them Hellknights, they sound like they all have sticks up their ass and need a lesson in manners."
To Alwyn; "I'm bleeding out of all sorts of holes, man. I think that dragon cracked my ribs all to f##*. I......I think I have damage to my back as well. I got a sharp, shooting pain in my lower back, and I think he broke my hip bones." he holds up a busted up finger; keeps on talking through teeth painted red by a gob of blood. "That dragon messed me up bad. I don't think I'm bleeding inside, though. Not anymore, anyway's. The stuff I'm coughing up is old blood, and I'm not bleeding there anymore's.
Oh; and thanks for saving my life. I'm in a bad mood right now, but I really do appreciate it more than I'm letting on right now."
Alwyn grins while listening to Hudak's ranting. "All true. And thanks to the magic of, well, magic, you'll feel as good as new in less than a minute! Now, do we want to go back to Sandpoint with the caravan? I'd like to just push on northwards myself - but, just maybe, someone in town will know something about the dragon or, more likely, the goblins. Maybe the best dwells alongside its goblin slaves?"