Einar manages to strike down the fleeing wolf as well.
Einar tears apart both the goblin, and the wolf threatening Ziva.
Only one of Geist's claws manage to rake the agile little goblin.
Mr. Whiskers finishes his spell.
He then hurries over to Nadya, drawing a potion of CLW as he moves.
The remaining goblin attempts to put some distance between himself and the party. Geist snaps at his heels as he attempts to flee.
Geist's bite does not penetrate through the armor the goblin is wearing.
Nadya's breathing grows more laboured and her face more pale as the combat rages on.
Mr. Whiskers carefully feeds the potion to Nadya.
With a sigh of frustration, Crummock hustles over to Nadya.
Nadya's face gains some colour, but she does not wake up.
Orm and Morjoli stare horrfied at Nadya's unconscious form as they try to wake her up. "Mummy! Are you all right? There's so much blood..." They turn to Mr Whiskers with tear-stained faces. "What's wrong with Mummy? She's not answering us!"
The goblin, seeing an angry tiger at its heels, decides that random banditry isn't really worth his while and flees into the woods.
On the remaining bodies the party finds the following:
2 (small) animal bane arrows, 4 potions of Cure Light Wounds, 1 (small) masterwork composite longbow (Str+1), 10 (small) arrows, 2 dogslicers, 2 (Small) Masterwork chainshirts, 64 gp.
Crummock hustles forward, and causes a blast of sound to envelop the goblin and his wolf.
Geist then charges after the goblin.
The party continues travelling on the woods, and see a rough wooden cabin standing just inside a small wood. There is no sign of activity around the cabin, but smoke rises from the chimney. The dogs and wolves catch the scent of something and start barking. A beautiful, red-haired woman (perhaps disturbed by the barking) in a hooded coat comes out of the cabin and greets the party.
"Oh adventurers! Could I ask you for a little favour? My husband has been taken by a moss troll to a nearby cave. I would reward you with a safe place to stay for the night and a magic item belonging to my husband if you can bring him safely back to me!" She pleads with the party.
Crummock nods.
"Aye, that seems like a right pickle o' a problem. I think we can look into that - there's nae reason to let a blasted troll disturb a happy family..."
Einar's arrow falls far short of the goblin as he strains, in his fatigued state to pull the longbow.
The beautiful red-haired woman introduces herself as Sylgja and gives directions to the party to a cave half a mile away from here, where her husband, Fingrath was taken. The party follows her directions and finds a large cave lit by torches, with a humanoid figure wielding a battle axe with moss growing all over him shambling around. The figure looks up, upon seeing the party. There are no traces of any other inhabitants in the cave.
Both Mr Whiskers and Ziva have no clue what the heck it is. The mossy humanoid shambles towards the party, its battle axe upraised and tries to cut Ziva down. Its actions are stilted and mechanical.
His backswing clangs harmlessly off Einar's breastplate.
Crummock and Mr Whiskers both think that the mossy humanoid is not acting of its own free will. As if its a puppet being controlled by something else.
Crummock heals Nadya.
Crummock frowns, then hits the creature with a Sound Burst.
He then gestures at the creature's axe, and makes a pulling motion.
Nadya gasps weakly as she wakes up. "I'm still alive? What happened?" As Crummock drops a few more charges on her, she gets to her feet and hastens to reassure Orm and Morjoli she's all right now. And that next time a fight breaks out, they should hide in the sled, and not come out until the fighting is over. Orm and Morjoli hug Crummock gratefully after he's healed Nadya. Orm promises that when he grows up he will shoot goblins on sight so they won't hurt anyone again.
The creature does not appear to be affected by the burst.
"Your mother is still alive. She will be alright, but we will need Crummock to heal her." Mr. Whiskers tells the two boys. "Be brave, for she certainly is."
Seeing that she will survive, he then goes to check that Ziva is also alright.
At the creature's stilted movements, Mr. Whiskers yells "Something isn't right, I think it is being controlled! Try not to kill it!" The last he shouts just as Einar is rending the creature.
He then attempts to blind it with his Glitterdust spell.
As Einar strikes the moss covered creature, he feels some brown powder puff out and coat him.
Einar feels that he's losing his sense of self. Nothing really matters very much...
The mouldy figure turns glittery as it falls to the ground, after being torn up by Einar.
K healed
A glittery moss creeps out from the downed creature, looking confused.
The humanoid, now not covered by the moss, appears to be a human, clad in woodcutters garb, bleeding profusely from the bite and wounds inflicted by Einar.
The mould somehow manages to dodge the bite and the last claw and remains quivering on the ground. Not before Einar is coated with even more brown powder, though. This time Einar doesn't feel any ill effects from the brown powder.
Not quite sure what is happening, Mr. Whiskers targets the moss that came off the man. He then backs up a little bit to give others room to maneuver.
The missiles streak towards the mould, waver for a moment then strike it unerringly. The mould is still quivering.
Crummock casts Stabilize on the unfortunate man, whilst Geist rips into the mold.
Geist claws the mould, to be coated in brown powder. The mould stops moving.
Crummock calmly coup-de-graces the mold.
There's nothing to lewt in the cave! On the man the party finds studded leather, a battle axe and a longbow with 20 arrows.
Einar doesn't remember the these woods being here the last time. It was, you know, all snow?
These woods are not natural. Probably druid work, trying to fight against winter's eternal grip on the landscape. These zones do not last long, as White Witches stamp them out when they are inevitably located, or they become subsumed by the surrounding magical winter when the druid's power eventually fails. It would probably take 1-2 days of travel to get out of these pockets of summer.
Crummock taps the man with the wand, hoping to wake him up.
He wakes up with a groan."Who are you? How did I end up here? Why do I hurt so much?" He mumbles as he gives Crummock a vague look.
"What salad? You like salad? Oh you know Sylgja? Yeah she's my wife and she's the most aweome wife ever. Her meat pies are to die for and her ale is even better." He gives Einar an absent-minded smile as he rambles on. "Guess I should be getting back hmm?" He levers himself up to his feet and totters off like a man drunk off his @ss."Do I really look like a moss troll to you?" He asks Einar questioningly.
Crummock looks at the man thoughtfully.
"Well, actually, ye look like a man in the middle of an all-night bender..."
He then shrugs.
"Come on - let's get ye home."
"Ohh yeah home! Whoopie!" He jumps up into the air just to fall flat on his face. After the party helps him up, he starts singing off key and swaying from side to side as the party supports him back home.
Sylgja hears his off key singing as the party approaches the house and comes out of the house. "Fingrath! What happened to you?" She runs up to him to catch him.
"Oh. I just laid down on a bush, then there was this big and brown furry two legger that brought me flying on rainbow waterfalls. He called me son!" He tells his wife happily with a vacant look on his face.
Sylgja sniffs his breath suspiciously and finding no trace of alcohol, puts her hand on her hips then drags him into the house by the ears.
She reappears at the door a while later, with an aggrieved look on her face. "Why don't you tell me what exactly happened?"
"Yeah, the Goltievas water what they call alcohol and overcharge everyone. If I had the permit, I'd sell the beer from my Kellid friends."Nadya grumbles.
Yeah, Fingrath is fine...in the sense of what happens after a really wild party. Well ok...4 points of wis damage does that to you. And when you dumped wis to begin with...;)
Sylgja looks at the brown powder and sniffs at it suspiciously.
"That was a Mindslaver mold! It must have had Fingrath in its thrall!" Sylgja exclaims."Its spores,"she points at the brown powder, "sap a person's will, making them absent minded and sometimes causing hallucinations, so it can take control of its victim."She gasps, horrified, then starts dusting the spores off Einar with a featherduster. "How can I thank you enough for freeing my husband and returning him back to me!"She gives Einar a grateful hug.
"Here, as I promised."She hands to Einar a insidious bear trap."It can turn invisible, function as an alarm..." She describes the item's properties to the party. "And a bonus for a job well done." She gives Einar a scroll of remove curse. Then she brushes her lips gently over Einar's, giving him a kiss. "For all your help."