"Sore, would you and your companions serve as eyes from the sky? The rest of us would do the foot work." Koldur speaks to his friend while rubbing his sore butt.....
Beorn waits and once everyone is ready, he leads the way into the woods to the south.
If we get into a scrape, Beorn and Koldur are sure to be in the thick of it. They can use some shielding.
Flouncy stays right on the heels of Beorn, following him closely, and watching out.
"If all goes well, I'll be putting arrows into things not getting into the thick of it." Beorn says.
The pegasi would be willing to fly the group again but they were pushed the night before so some healing time would be nice.
Moving South... you begin to explore the area. It is a tangle of terrain. One part forest and one part swamp, the walking is very wet. After about an hour of walking and looking for goblin signs you come upon a river.
Flouncy knows about this river. This is the Murcue or Murque river. A slow moving body of water in most parts and easily traversable. Though it is easily 300 feet wide.
"Well, I think we can probably return and search in other directions now. If we find nothing east, west, or north of our meadow we could travel south of the river and scout it out again. Thoughts?"
Pulling out one of his many books, Ingvarr makes some geographical notes and sketches, saying, ”Yes, let us try a different direction next.”
So East or West along the river?
I think you're right, Beorn. We'll find them. Or, they'll find us. Trust your instincts.
Beorn opts for a box recon since their trek south was cut short. He backtracks to get out of the worst of the wetlands and then turns west with the intent of traveling about four miles before turning north.
"Take us through the path. You're much better at it then the rest of us. Our pegasi friends will need rest after all. If it comes down to a fight I'll gladly wade into it."
Backtracking, then going West and a bit North you find signs of goblins. Strange unintelligent dribble with some colorful hieroglyphics painted on rock, tree, and any other possible marker. This is mostly done with mud, berries, and clay.
Beorn circles around the area looking for tracks to get a direction.
Beorn finds tracks but looking at the dirt and vegetation when it is near the tracks, it is easily two weeks old. Still trackable though.
Following the tracks you come to a stream and it looks like the recent rain had swelled the stream. You lost the trail.
Ingvarr tries his hand at interpreting the trail signs.
”I get the feeling this path on the opposite side of the steam is a trap. See the tracks leading off to the side? They are faint, but may lead to that obvious trap/ambush site at the overhang over the decoy path,” contributes the skald.
"Goblins." the dwarf states examining the tracks very carefully.
"Many of them I think."
I guess we're on the right path, then.
[ooc]Roll again or use my 18? I assume the 18 is what got us from the initial find to the stream.[/b]
"Lets follow the path into the woods and see what that reveals." Beorn now slows down and moves cautiously looking for trouble. If it becomes evident these are old as well, he picks up the pace and moves ahead.
Flouncy will stealth along, too.
Beorn takes point into the deer trail, which does lead to overhang. You see where a fire pit was, signs of goblin living with graffiti, broken things, and some small javelins.
No goblin bodies. No alive or undead goblins. The fire pit is cold.
There is a barrel, a makeshift chest, a backpack, and 3 bedrolls to search.
Beorn moves to the bedrolls and goes through those first. Moving on from there he proceeds to look in the backpack turning its contents out on the ground. He then checks the barrel. He saves the chest until last. If Flouncy has not checked it for traps by then, he does so.
Beorn the bedrolls are filthy and as you empty the remains you find more filth. The backpack holds actual treasure, a few silver plates and cups, 28 copper pieces, 5 silver pieces, a glass bottle with a cork still in it, some hemp rope, 30 feet, and a spare traveler's outfit.
The barrel holds moldy half eaten food, mosty fruit. No traps found and opening the chest you find four potion bottles, strange colored rocks and crystals, also clothing.
"Strange. Does this campsite feels like it was abandoned to you or were the occupants in a hurry to escape." Koldur poses the question as the group unveils the hidden items.
Ingvarr will aid in the search.
As items are found, Ingvarr will use Detect Magic and start identifying anything magic with Spellcraft.
"I'm not sure. Let me fan out a little and see if I can get a better feel for how recently someone was here." Beorn checks for foot impressions, apparent age, broken vegetation, anything that could tell him the last time someone had been to this camp.
At least a week has passed since anyone has been here. nothing magical. Most of the items are sub par.
"Looks like this is a dead spot. We might as well keep going. Everyone ready?" Once everyone is ready to move out, Beorn leads the way. He finishes his leg going west and turns north.
The aged dwarf follows.
Flouncy stays right behind Beorn.
Following the trail you can see a watch tower about a 100 feet off with several small figures around it.
Beorn signals for everyone to stop and then he gets low looking for concealment from which he can observe the tower. Once he confirms they have not been seen he moves to the others and whispers, "Perhaps Flouncy and I should scout forward and see what kind of a setup they have and how many there are."
Here's an idea. Why don't you go ahead yourself and get a head count?
Flouncy explains that he can cast Invisibility and Fly on the archer, and then Beorn can take 7 minutes to get a good look at the place with a +20 to stealth.
"Works for me." Appropriately spelled, Beorn moves toward the tower to see what he can see.
Beorn comes back after 4 minutes.
The goblins around the watchtower are zombie goblins. Just standing... listening...
Flying past them and moving towards the goblin village you see they must have been hit by something as most of the tents and leantos are destroyed. Skeletal and zombie goblins and beasts are about. Though they don't seem to be doing anything but wander. 20ish zombie goblins, 10ish skeleton goblins, 10ish zombie dogs or something like it.
In the center of the village is likely a fireball blast. The area is clear of most debris and in the center is a black orb of somekind that is about your size, medium.
You can see in five more directions you see more watch towers. Checking them out they all resemble the first one, a few zombie goblins and disrepair.
Do you want to spend some time trying to track any living goblins or take care of that after?
Beorn returns and explains the situation." It is a small tribe of undead goblins complete with 20 some odd zombie goblins, 10 or so skeleton goblins, and 10 or so goblin dog zombies. The watch tower has a couple goblins around it. There are five other towers with the same. That means we could expect them all to converge on any given combat for a total of just over fifty combatants. It would obviously be better if we could fight them in waves. Also,, the whole place looks like it was laid to waste all at once. The likely suspect is this black ball thing that sits in a crater at the center. I'm assuming it was some sort of magic ball that exploded and wiped them all out. Not sure if it caused them to take on zombie status or if that is from something else. I would suggest using terrain controlling spells to slow them down after we make our initial attack. If you magic types have sufficient spells to slow their movement, we could wipe them out before they even get to us. If you don't, perhaps you can use your spells to cause them to hit us in groups so we can take care of one group before dealing with the second. Another thought is attacking the goblins at the tower. If it does not draw the others to us, we could then skirt the edges and kill all zombies out by the towers before dealing with the mass near the middle. Last but not least, if anyone needs to rest so they can get more appropriate spells, we could probably backtrack to that only ambush site and settle in for the evening. Thoughts?"
How large are the watchtowers? If we could take one quickly, we could use it as a defensible location and let our ranged combatants rain re-death from above,” suggests Ingvarr.
Flouncy tries to remember if he's heard of anything like Beorn describes.
Well, Beorn. Why don't you take advantage of 3 more minutes of flight and take out a few while we charge the tower? I think Ingvarr has a good notion, and I can cast Fly three more times today. I'm more effective from cover, myself.
Rognar and Ingvarr can do a number on these clowns, too. We can take 'em.
Koldur nods as he hears what's against them.
Checking his axe, he makes sure that the crystals that deal potent damage to the undead is in place.
"Taking a tower would also mean we face less enemies at a time."
Yes, Rognar. You will be very helpful in this. Let's get situated.
"Sounds like we got a plan. Let's do it."