Kern watches as another goblin moves in to replace the one he took down. "Gluttons for punishment," he mutters with a smirk, and swings at it.
Victor reaches back, knowing that it's just a matter of time before he buries an arrow within Eponine's backside because of such conditions, and fires another arrow.
Victor smiles as he breathes a sigh of relief.
Sophy takes a moment and wrestles the healing wand out of her pack while Wren moves back by Victor and blasts the goblin with her arcane arrow. Kern takes another mighty swing, but the thorny ceiling gets in the way and causes his blow to be missed timed. The goblin ducks aside of the sure deadly attack. Eponine slashes her curved blade, but the druid is took quick this time and just barley avoids loosing some more blood. Belril hoped to move over, but Kern failed to hit his target. Staying put he easily smashes his own foe in the face, breaking the goblin's nose and killing it. Victor's luck holds and his arrow finds it's mark, forcing the goblin druid to scream in pain. It withdraws, vanishing into the thicket wall behind it. The two goblins not blinded by Wren's magic attack Kern and Belril. Belril avoids his attacker, but Kern is not as lucky this time.
The wand finally firmly in her hand, Sophy steps over the dead cat to where she can see both groups of her companions.
"Dammit, the coward ran away again. We need to get through these thickets and finish it off once and for all!" the feisty mage announces to the group. She watches the spot he anished from closely, hoping he would reappear quickly so she could strike him again with a magical bolt.
Kern adjusts his stance slightly, hoping not to hit the ceiling again, and tries for the same goblin as before. He decides not to put as much strength behind the attack this time and just try to hit the beast.
So lost in his worry of hitting Eponine, "Do not worry, Miss Wren, I did not hit Eponine's behind." Victor answers as he nocks an arrow, waiting for the creature to reappear. "I was looking at it so as to be sure," he says, not realizing how embarassing that just sounded.
Eponine's head whips her head back and forth, scanning for the druid, adjusting her grip on her blade. She waits for any sign of her foe, ready to pounce.
Ready action to attack the druid if he shows.
To hit
Damage
Sophy bravely steps into the forming pool of blood left by the firepelt ready for action while Wren keeps searching the thicket wall for any signs of the fire druid. Kern takes a deep breath to center himself, then with a well timed blow knocks the closest goblin into the next life with a single blow. He steps onto the corpse to as an added insult. Eponine prepares to strike if the goblin returns close to her while Belril whacks the last sword wielding goblin in the leg. Victor pulls back on the string of his bow, proud to have not shot his companions again and ready to shoot any goblin he sees. The goblin bursts through the thicket wall right in Sophy's face. Wren's bolt of force blasts him, nearly at the same time one of Victor's arrows plunges into its side. The goblin hits the ground before his flame blade can harm Sophy. In the cloud of sparkles one of the goblins wipes his eyes clear and is able to back out of the cloud. Faced with certain death in the form of Kern and Belril, the last sword carrying goblin drops back and then scurries north down the thicket tunnel disappearing into the darkness and out of the glow provided by Sophy's illuminated crossbow lodge in the thicket wall.
"Eep! Sophy's cry of terror is cut short as she is first startled by the apperance of the flame-bearing goblin and then sees it struck down right in front of her the very next second. She turns her eyes toward Wren and Victor, staring a little glassily in her surprise.
As the goblin druid crumples in a heap, "Very good. Now let us see if Belril and Kern need help," he tells them as he makes his way towards the warriors.
Kern moves up to the edge of the glittering sparkles and strikes at one of the blinded goblins.
Wren holds her ground, not trusting that another goblin sneak attack might not be coming from behind the group.
Eponine will double move to AX41.
Sophy waits for an opportunity to do something useful as Kern advances and eliminates another goblin life from this worlds existence. Eponine hustles as best she can in the tight tunnel moving up next to Sophy to stand over the dead druids body. Belril move up and pelts the other blinded goblin in the head, leaving a nasty gash. Wren holds her ground while Victor joins Eponine to the north. The last blinded goblin stumbles around, bleeding from the gash in his head, while the one who regained his sight tries to fire an arrow. Obviously panicked he lets one fly, but despite it's trembling arms the arrow streaks through the glittering cloud and plows deep into Kern's chest. Wrens magical glitter cloud vanishes restoring the other goblin's sight.
"Take one of them alive. It might be able to lead us to Ameiko!" Wren shouts to the group, hoping at least a few of them might hear her before they do away with all of the little buggers.
"Not this one," Sophy mutters, glaring at the crumpled body of the druid who had burned her. Trusting that Kern and Belril have the conscious goblins under control, she moves forward, stooping under the thorny canopy to see if any of the already downed goblins is still breathing.
Victor moves in as close as he can and sees one a bit further away. Taking aim as best he can in such conditions, he fires.
Kern grits his teeth from the arrow. Seeing that the archer is still a bit too far away for him to reach, he moves up to the next closest goblin and strikes.
Eponine will double move up to AS39.
Sophy moves and checks the two goblins piled on top of each other, both sticky with blood.
Kern stuggle forward, cramped as he is, but still lands a killing blow on another goblin. Eponine moves up to join the rest of the group, while Belril beans the archer in the head, knocking the last visible opponent unconscious. Wren stays put as she yells out to take a captive and Victor nearly trips over Sophy as he stomps on the dead goblins making his shot go wide. Luckily, Belril's attack was enough to bring the last goblin down.
"One of these is still alive," Sophy calls out urgently. "Do we need it?"
Seeing the last one go down in a heap, "Good work everyone. Now let us see if any of them are still alive." As he bends to check the pulse of the ones he's stepping on, he hears Sophy's proclamation. "Well that was easy." He shrugs and proceeds to check their belongings.
Sophy hesitates but lets the fallen goblin continue to bleed until its shallow breaths stop. Approaching the one with the large knot on its head, she looks down at it in distaste. "No," she says firmly. "I'm not wasting Father Zantus' wand to heal a goblin." And although she doesn't even raise the possibility, the thought of touching the filthy creature and willing some of her life-sustaining power into it makes her stomach turn.
Eponine will keep a watch, pacing back and forth as she watches and listens for more goblins to descend on them.
Kern puts his flail away and does his best to stretch in the cramped confines. When that doesn't work too well, he groans and looks over at the unconscious archer goblin. "I suppose we better tie this one up," he says. "Don't want it running off as soon as it wakes up."
He pulls out some rope from his backpack and sets about tying the goblin up. Once that's done, he joins Eponine on watch. "This isn't going too badly," he says to her. "Only a few scrapes."
"I want to question that little freak when it comes to. It is our best chance of finding Ameiko, I'm afraid. Anyone have any suggestions as to what else they want to know from the guy?"
As Victor continues to loot the goblins, "Find out how to get out of this confined area, so we can walk normally." He mentions without even bothering to look up from what he's doing.
To Kern as they keep watch Not too bad at all. I'm concerned about what may yet be waiting for us. Unless that druid was the leader of this clan, the worst is probably yet to come.
To Wren when she asks for suggestions Who is in charge here. What kind of resistance we might expect.
The goblin at Sophy's feet expires while Kern secures the other one's unconscious body. Victor searches the dead gathering up an assortment of things. The thicket remains fairly quiet, except for the crash of the surf and incessant chirping of night crickets.
From the goblins: short bow, arrows (16), dogslicers (6), 21 gp
From the druid: a wand, spear, sling, stones (24), a fine cloak, nice leather armor (much better quality than a goblin would typically have), two vials with a green bubbly liquid in them, two vials with a thick pulpy brown mixture inside, two vials with an clear rose hued liquid in them. 18 gp, 6 pp
"Do we want to move back to a more comfortable area where we can stand, wait for him to wake up, and then question him thoroughly? I think I'd rather do that than plod ahead to walk blindly into a trap. I can also see if any of the items Victor found were magical or not."
Wren casts Detect Magic, as she finishes her question to see what appears as magical in the collected gear.
Spellcraft Wand
Spellcraft Cloak
Spellcraft Armor
Spellcraft Green Vials
Spellcraft Brown Vials
Spellcraft Rose Vials
Victor makes his way, slowly, toward the others. "I agree, let us go back to the area where we do not have to crouch." As they all make their way over there, he places the items on the ground and then stretches his back out. "Man, that feels good. Okay, these are all the items I have found. Along with some gold coin and platinum as well," he says as he proceeds to count the small pile of coin. "Looks like 18 of the gold coin and 6 of the platinum. Not bad. The rest of that stuff does not look very useful, though."
"Belril is right. Let us gather out of this whatever we want to keep--what little of that may be--and continue on."
Sophy huddles nervously against the night chill in the air and waits for the others to make a decision.
"How about if we get Sophy to heal the damn goblin, so we can ask him questions then press ahead? If we aren't going to question it, then someone should just run it through. "
"We've been on her damn trail for days now, while you were out doing who knows what. Taking five minutes to get a lead as to her direction, in this cavern which continually doubles back on itself, is worth it. If you just can't wait, run ahead. We'll follow your screams in just a bit,"Wren says coldly.
"I'm not healing it," Sophy insists. "If I heal it now, that's one of you I can't heal later. There's nowhere safe to fall back to here like there was under the Glassworks and no Father Zantus to carry someone to if they're hurt. I'm all we have." She looks a little shaken by the realization.
"Okay, Sophy. So you don't attack the goblins and you won't heal one to help us plan. Okay," Wren shakes her head in disbelief. There was clearly more she wanted to add, but did not for the time being.
"Well, fine then...victor dispatch of the goblin and then let's wander aimlessly around this damned maze. Great plan. Let's do it!". The sarcasm is dripping from the exasperated Mage.