Ready action to attack the hobgoblin
As the rider passes your spot on the road, Karv takes a mighty swing and almost sweeps the hobgoblin from his horse. Kaelmourne had stopped a few paces earlier and throws a knife, but misses. Dravvorn, standing a few steps further down the road, cackles with arcane energy and releases a blast around him that engulfs both the rider and the horse. Exactly this moment, Aeron's arrow hits the hobgoblin right in the chest, causing him to fall down to the earth with a harsh thump. Adotlin didn't see the whole gesture, but he is pretty sure it was some kind of evocation, and definitely not meant well.
Frightened by the eldritch blast of Dravvorn, the wounded horse continues to gallop down the road, and the group of pursuing guards arrives only moments after that. The cloud of dust engulfs the whole scene and makes it hard to see, but the guards stopped ina line in front of you. "Hey there, strangers! Thanks for the help!" says a muffled voice, and one of the pursuers jumps down from his horse and steps up to you. He is covered in red dust, but when he revelas his face, you recognize the seargeant who had acted so strangely earlier. "That damn 'gob surprised us with some dark magic, even though his hands where bound and his mouth stitched." His eyes wander to Karv, who still wields his greataxe. "Oh, it's you..." He takes a step back.
Dravvorn sees what is about to occur and decides that since he must live with constantly being called hellspawn and so forth that he has the right to use his reputation to his advantage...
Dravvorn steps forward with the energies of the Abyss shrouding his form in a red haze of utter chaos and evil, he speaks in a voice that sounds as graceful as that of a great elf noble of old...yet anyone can detect the demonic menace that lurks deep within.
You would do well to bow before your superiors... Those of fey'ri lineage are given strength by the Abyss itself, before us you and everything you stand for are nothing but dust on the winds of history...
intimidate
Unsettled by the display of eldritch power, the seargeant takes another step back and curses something incomprehensible. His men, who have a better look at the scene now that the cloud has dissipated, grip their spears tight and lower them an inch or two, but do nothing else.
"You may be older than me, fey'ri, but not my superior - unless you claim to be equal to our Overking, Shaliim Wyrmslayer? Anyway, we have no quarrel with you." You all hear the word 'yet', even though not spoken out loud. "We're just here to apprehend this convict. Thanks to your help, we didn't have to follow him all the way back to his lair or wherever he came from, but this is official business of Sheirtalar and we'd appreciate you not interfering." He puts a few steps distance between himself and Dravvorn, and orders two of his men to pick up the wounded hobgoblin, who might even be dead by now.
One of the riders who still stand in a line on the road waits until his seargeant turns his back on him and then makes a small, inviting gesture towards Aeron and Adotlin, as if he wants to tell them something.
Aeron takes in the exchange between Dravvorn and the sergeant, making a mental note to talk to his companion about toning down the displays of hellfire while we are in the smaller towns of the region so they don't end up being strung up in the night.
Noting the gesture of the rider after the sergeant has turned his back, Aeron calmly makes his way over to the rider. Well met friend, it would seem the gobo's are getting an upgrade in power in these lands. he says in hushed tones.
"Hey there," the guard answers with a similar hushed voice. "Please tone it down with our sergeant, he is a new transfer and still green... we just want to get back to Sheirtalar without trouble." He hesitates for a moment. "And yes, the 'gobs have become a tough bunch, especially with weird spellcasters like that one over there. There might even be a reward for your assistance, depending on what the judges make of this whole affair, but you didn't get that from me."
The sergeant looks back to you, and the rider immediatley straightens up on his horse again, putting on a stoic demeanor.
Aeron, noticing the sergeant's gaze, approaches him. I apologize for my friend here, we are weary from a day on the road and on edge. We are glad we could help in the apprehension of this vile gobo. with that he spits at the ground as though saying gobo left a bad taste in his mouth. We are just glad he didn't get away to cause trouble for the folk in this region.
The sergeant looks at Aeron suspiciously, but seem to relax a bit. "True, there has ben enough trouble lately, but the year is still young and I'm sure we will see more tufted ears before the end of summer."
His two men bring the fallen hobgoblin forward, and you all can see that his mouth really is stiched shut with some rough twine. Bruised, burned, and shot as he is, it's a curious thing he is still alive at all. Now, up close, you can also see some tattoos or ritual scarrings on the hobgoblin's chest. The sergeant removes the arrow and hands it to Aeron without looking, then he lays his hands on the hobgoblin's chest and casts a small spell, before his men carry the unconscious body away.
"Keep yourself away from trouble," he mumbles to Aeron, nods in the general direction of your group, and walks back to his horse. Moments later, the group vanishes within a new cloud of reddish dust and into the setting sun. You are alone again.
Turning to his companions Aeron says,"This is disturbing, I have known this region to contain warrens of goblins, but the hobgoblins are something I've not seen much before. Did you notice the tattoos and scarring, and the fact that he was able to conjure up some sort of magic with his mouth stitched shut is troublesome."
Heading back to the camp he cleans the arrow of gore and stashes it back in his quiver. "We will need to be extra vigilante tonight."
Adotlin nods in passing at the exchange between Aeron and the guardsmen, paying particular attention to the disfigured hobgoblin. Having never seen one so up close before, he wrecks his memory for any information about the creature or the scarification and significance of it.
The scarring however you recognize. There are forms of magic where practitioners are able to substitute commonly known material components or spell foci with their own blood and life force.
Well now we can get back to camp time. Me say Holy Man take last watch. You no see in dark
Karv motions to the rest of the group as if trying to Imply the fact.
Me finish dinner and take watch.
He starts cooking meat again, passes out portions of it to the group. It's not glamorous but it's fresh meat.
I will take the first watch...
As the group settle down for the night, Adotlin's mind races over the details he can bring up regarding the scarred hobgoblin. "I agree that vigilance would be the most prudent course of action. I will happily take last watch if someone would wake me when the sun begins to light the eastern skies again."
Removing the suit of chainmail again and setting it onto the side of the cart, Adotlin settles back onto his bedroll. His eyes are already beginning to droop as Karv finishes cooking the fresh meat.
"I did indeed notice those tattoo's on that hobgoblin. Without access to the archives back at home, I could not discern the meaning of the tattoo or the cunieform surrounding it. Whatever the meaning, it did appear to be quite sinister in nature.
"But, the magic that hobgoblin was using allowed him to substitute his own blood and life energy for common material components and foci for his spells, hence the significant amount of scarification. If there are others out there, the presence or absence of scars may indicate whether they are spellcasters or not."
Smash messed up ones first? Not to hard. Too bad gobo' s are all messed up and aren't pretty like Karv.
He may be some form of warlock, some demons and devils teach their warlocks how to channel power from their respective dominions of the Abyss and the Hells via the drawing of blood... Either from themselves or from others.
The cleric grins tiredly at the pair of fey'ri, slowly becoming accustomed to their fiendish appearance and thinking little of it. "I do not believe that all of their spellcasters will practice scarification, but I think it would be reasonable to assume that should we find any who are lightly armoured and covered in scars that they should be neutralized first. I for one certainly do not relish the thought of dark energy powered by blood sacrifice flying in my direction."
"I will make sure to turn them into fleshy pincushions every chance I get." Aeron quips as he settles in for some needed rest.
"Wake me when it is time for my watch. We have another hard day of riding ahead tomorrow, so sleep well."
The night goes by without any alarming incident. An hour or so after the fire burned down, Dravvon sees an approaching chain of lights on the main road and identifies it as a marching group of dwarves, throatsinging their way through the night. Later, Aeron watches a group of winged creatures circling high above them in the sky and then vanishing south - it might have been sphinxes, or just huge birds of prey, but it was too dark to identify them properly.
As the sun rises above the horizon, a small breeze stirs up dust and dried twigs on the ground. The air is still warm from the last day's heat, but right now it feels pretty comfortable to you.
Karv snores loudly through the night...
As his companions begin to rouse themselves from their sleep, Adotlin stands and moves over to his bag to prepare a small altar. He hangs the holy symbol onto a low-lying branch before kneeling just underneath it and holding his palms outstretched underneath the holy symbol, the blades of his hands touching so as to form the appearance of an open book.
Anyone who is close enough to the cleric as he does this for the next hour can hear a very softly spoken recitation of the holy texts of Azuth, referencing the many facets of spiritual guidance as they pertain to arcane magic and magic users.
Dravvorn wakes up and spends an hour calmly studying his blade and cleaning it...
Aeron rises, prepares his pack and makes some breakfast. He goes to the cart and gets some of the Shaarian hay for Iago. He grooms the horse and talks to him about the days ride.
Striking camp, he loads Karv's cart and dons his armor. He is ready for another day in the saddle.
Karv rolls out of his bed, eats, dons armor, and brushes his teeth in that order. For the next hour or so he will clean his ax and do a few drills, humming a tune the entire time.
Consulting the map and checking the surrounding lands, you are pretty sure that you should reach the crossing where the main road forks south towards the river Talar at the end of this day, maybe even earlier than that.
Hours pass by, and despite the increasing heat your group makes good speed. A huge caravan with dozens of animals and riders passes you before noon, leaving a scent of spices behind that seems to linger quite a while. At noon, Aeron gets a little pale and needs some rest, and you find a little murky stream at the side of the road to sit down for a while.
Shortly therafter, you catch up with the group of dwarves Dravvorn saw the night before. The majority wears simple blue robes stitched with white dwarven runes, and a few heavily armored guards with gleaming hammers and axes walk on both sides of the group. They seem relatively unaffected by the weather and march on as if they had just started their trip.
The the west you notice that the sky gets increasingly dark, it seems a weather front is approaching fast.
Aeron is flagging again from the heat. As they pass a dwarven caravan he notices the darkening sky approaching from the west.
Maybe it is the heat fogging his senses, but he cannot read the winds and the storms distance seems to elude him.
Should we, um, get out of way of big nasty storm?[
We would do well to find shelter...
Adotlin nods in agreement. "I think you're right, Master Dravvorn. I'm no outdoorsman, but a storm like that will be upon us sooner rather than later I fear."
As Dravvorn speaks of shelter you take a look around, but your current locations is exposed. The main crossing shouldn't be far away, and before you, in the blurry distance, you can see something that might be a village, or at least a few houses, but it's far away. South of you is a huge field of reed, dotted with a few bushes, but it doesn't look like much of a shelter.
perception
Dravvorn focuses his gaze upon the buildings in the distance...
Karv will also look towards the village.
Adotlin frowns slightly, his eyes cast worriedly at the sky. "Friends, we must find shelter and soon - I fear that the storm will hit us hard with rain and hail, and very soon as well if my experience with similar storms back home is anything to go by."
The cleric then turns his gaze to the surrounds, looking for somewhere that may suffice for shelter against the storm.
Shaking off some of the malaise that has overcome him, Aeron spots the buildings on the horizon. "we need to make for that shelter, and fast". Aeron urges Iago on ahead of the group, hoping to scout it out before the main body gets to it. He does not enter the village but gets close enough to get a sense of the place.