Vidar continues to hang back, not completely sure of what to do.
Instead he turns around and watches so that nothing creeps up on them from behind.
Garrick follows Nia up into the room, swinging his axe at the goblin nearest the trapdoor as he rises, making space for himself and the others.
for
Ilryan rushes up the stairs as well and takes a swing at one of the goblins.
for
for
Round 2 (ongoing):
Initiative order
Garrick-acted
Ilryan-acted
Vidar-delaying
Goblin-acted
Nia
Both of the goblins miss Garrick as he rushes up, and he drops the unwounded goblin. The remaining goblin continues to shout panicked warnings. It steps back, draws a potion, and drinks it, its wounds closing.
Nia lunges forward toward the shouting goblin, attempting to skewer it before it calls up any reinforcements.
The goblin dodges out of the way, neatly avoiding Nia's rapier thrust.
Then Ilryan reaches the fight, slips past the goblin's horsechopper, and stabs it with his starknife. Its armor saves it from what would surely have been a lethal blow, but it's still badly wounded.
Vidar hears no signs of movement outside the room...yet.
Garrick crosses the room, swinging his axe as he does, almost charging the remaining goblin.
for
That's enough to finish the remaining goblin.
Ilryan wipes his starknife on one of the dead goblins.
"Do you think there's many more of them?"
He looks around the room to see if there's anything of interest.
There is a deck of mismatched cards scattered on the floor of the platform, but other than that it is empty.
"Hmm, goblins gather in numbers, we may well see further confrontation.
And, this is important, we have not yet encountered the masterminds behind this whole operation."
"Let's get down to the bottom and secure the doors before we do anything else. I don't want to get swarmed while we're looking at stuff." Nia heads back down the steep stairs to see if there's a way to block or lock the doors from the inside.
The doors do not appear to be securable without something to block them.
Vidar shakes his head ruefully.
No, it would not be so easy...
Sighing, he looks at the observation post,considering going out and having a look around, but deciding against it.
Garrick suggest, "Let's take a good look from the vantage -- we might we where the goblins are and aren't.... and it might also suggest ways to distract them."
There's another observation point across the fort from where the party is, and at this point another pair of goblins has reached it, coming up from below. They spot you and chatter at each other excitedly.
You can hear answering shouts from outside the stockade wall.
"Well, this is...not ideal.
I have a feeling we are about to feel the full force of this hornets nest.
Wonderful..."
"Let's slip back in and see if we can't make sure that there's no one else to command these goblins. Hopefully they'll run off when they see the chief is dead."
Ilryan will rush back down the steps.
Garrick laughs and then shouts across the courtyard, "Aye, little beasties, there's a real warrior here, come to cut you down like we did your chief. And his lizard. Flee! FLEE! Any one of you standing when I come down these stairs will taste the steel of my axe!"
Over the next few minutes, the party remains unmolested as the goblins panic. Their terror reaches new heights when someone discovers that their mighty warchief is dead, along with his best guards and his warchanter. At some point one of the goblins runs off to fetch the goblin druid from the thorn maze. With his arrival, everyone seems to calm down at least a little; whenever someone starts shouting again, they're cut off by the yowl of the druid's wildcat. Eventually, though, the spirited discussion stops and the goblins' sounds die away. From the watchtower, Garrick can see the remaining dozen or so goblins, along with a pack of goblin dogs, retreat from the stockade over the rope bridge and into the thorn maze. Finally, the only one left on the bridge is the druid. He cups his hands and shouts up at Garrick, "HOY! Longshanks! Fort is yours now! We go away, leave you alone! Watch out for downstairs neighbors!" Then he and his cat follow the rest of the goblins.
Nia finds herself in the entry hall to the stockade, which has been set up as a trophy room. The floor of the room is hard-packed soil. A number of poorly-preserved horse and dog heads are mounted along the eastern wall, while along the southern wall hangs a pair of large black-feathered wings tacked to the wall with daggers.
Ilryan has found a small room where a horse is imprisoned. The door has been nailed shut, with additional boards nailed over the door frame. The door itself is cracked and splintered in places. The horse whinnies in panic when the oracle approaches. It's somewhat emaciated.
Vidar is in a meeting room, with a round table and some crude chairs.
Garrick's path took him to the barracks. It holds six poorly-constructed bunk beds--little more than hammocks hung from rickety frames. Each is heaped with a blanket on which the dwarf's eyes pick out the movement of small arthropods, along with a heap of straw that serves as a frustrating pillow.
Ilryan will at least conjure some water for the horse, and look around to see if there is any grain around to feed the animal.
Garrick pauses at the sight, and mutters in disgust, "Ugh. The filthy little vermin had vermin of their own. Should probably burn the bloody place." He calls back down the hall, "Nothing valuable here, just bugs."
The horse drinks thirstily. There's nothing usable as fodder in the area, though.
Garrick moves on to a small room whose door has been nailed shut. It takes a while, but he's able to get it open. It's a storeroom, half-filled with crates, barrels, and large sacks of grain. The room reeks of vinegar, and the source is obvious: a small hole has been chopped into the side of one barrel, allowing pickles and brine to drain out.
Ilryan manages to free the horse, who pushes past him out into the yard and starts eating the thin grass left there. The horse keeps its distance from the oracle, still extremely skittish. While keeping an eye on it, Ilryan checks out one of the doors off of the yard, finding a storage shed of sorts. Shelves holding crude tools, nets, and tack for goblin dogs line the walls. On one corner is a cage holding dozens of rabbits.
Garrick shakes his head, "Trust bloody goblins to spill brine everywhere. It's probably spoiling the grain." He eyes the other barrels, trying to determine if they're also likely to hold pickles, or something else.
"It seems a shame to leave this place unoccupied...
Perhaps we should claim it as our own once we have cleared it out..."
Vidar leaves the meeting room and notices an unpleasant smell in the air. He follows it to a small 5' x 5' cubby with a hole in the floor, clearly used as a privy by the goblins. (Their aim is somewhat questionable, let us say.)
Ugh, why on earth did I decide to look in here?
Well, no golbin is hiding in here, so I can leave here now, quickly!
Holding his nose, Vidar returns to the others.
The horse and dog heads are no mystery to Nia- goblins hate horses, after all- but the huge black feathered wings make no sense. Could they have slaughtered an unfortunate baby roc? A hippogriff? She looks around to see if she can find any indication of the animal they'd once belonged to.
Nia figures that the wings are from a harpy. They're known in the area, if not terribly common, and they'd probably treat goblins as easy meat. Searching the room, the only other thing of interest is that one of the daggers pinning the wings up is pearl-handled. It's probably worth much more than a regular dagger.
The only other rooms are hallways, along with two stairways down.
Garrick shrugs, looking at the stone to see if there's anything interesting, then shrugs, I'm sure my cousins who didn't start out in the forests would be better at this, but never hurts to look...
Nia pulls out the pearl-handled knife and heads back to the group to talk about their next move.
Garrick approaches the horse with a hand extended, trying to exude a sense of calm while saying, "Goblins hate horses. He's probably been tortured this whole time, poor thing."
With some help from a couple of handfuls of grain, Garrick is able to get the horse calmed down. It doesn't seem to have been tortured, just starved. (The goblin bodies outside of where the horse was imprisoned suggest that attempts at active torture did not end well for the torturers.)
Vidar nods approvingly at the horse.
"This one has the spirit of a warrior.
It fought back better than many of the people in the town did.
I hope the owner is appreciative of it's fine spirit."
Massaging his temples slowly, Vidar releases a held breath.
"I feel...like I've achieved a new level of magical insight.
Of course, I require a completely fresh mind to commit more magic to memory."
Garrick nods, "Aye... I've... a strange feeling myself, like something's trying to wake within me."
"Well, it is no different than exercising a muscle really...
Perhaps we could think of it as a...metaphysical muscle?
Either way, it is quite a...pleasant feeling."
"I'm glad something's pleasant. All I've gotten so far is a bunch of bruises and a surprise- looks like these goblins killed a harpy at some point." Nia twirls the pearl handled dagger in one hand and points in the direction of the trophy room. "This was holding up one of a pair of big black wings." She shakes her head. "I can't imagine how these little monsters killed a harpy."