"Ooooh, I've got an idea." Adu has a new trick up her sleeve that she's been dying to try out. "Let me go talk to them! I can see what they're up to, where they're hiding, and maybe lure them into an ambush!"
She concentrates for a moment, and suddenly a rather short bugbear stands in front of you. The voice is still recognizably Adu's. "Isn't this cool? I'm a bit short, but maybe they'll just think I'm young. And I speak goblin, so that's not a problem."
Nah, lets just sneak up and blast them. Ah hate goblins.
"Adu, most of us are not nearly as stealthy or as deft with illusions as you and Toulbe. You would be putting yourself in grave danger with backup farther away than it needs to be. Those abilities should come in useful another time though."
Goggeck can see the value of trickery even if he personally isn't keen on it. But he honestly thinks here it's too much risk for too little gain.
Adu pouts, but concedes to her companion's wisdom. As much fun as it would have been, perhaps that kind of trickery would be best suited to another day. "Fine, fine." She dismisses the spell and once again resumes her normal appearance. "I guess I'll go with Toulbe up onto the hill. We can set up a good crossfire from there."
She stealthily makes her way up the hill and waits for the inevitable carnage to start.
Most everyone goes to scramble over the rocks to get the advantage of elevation and surprise. Toulbe and Brunhild struggle to climb the srata of rock face, while Glor, Adu, and Goggeck climb into position. Goggeck finds the highest perch, using his knowledge of stone surfaces to guide his hands into the right holds.
The bugbear camp comes into view. Two primitive huts are tucked into the corners of the cleft. A number of cages, mostly containing live wild game, including a few coyotes, a turkey, and some jackrabbits, are stacked alongside the huts.
Surprisingly, four bugbears are awake and alert during this daylight hour, milling about the campsite. One stands on a rocky ledge overlooking the camp, and is alert enough to notice the dwarven heroes scrambling over the rocks. He sounds the alarm:
That's when a bugbear archer appears from behind a rock, also on an elevated ledge. He's bigger than the others, and quickly takes command. Goggeck is the most apparent, so the bugbear archer fires at him.
Goggeck takes an arrow to the gut. The carnage begins.
Struck, Goggeck steps back, seeking cover.
He aims his sizable crossbow at the nearest bugbear and shouts in Dwarven as he fires:
"A SWIFT DEATH TO ALL GOBLINS!"
Swift for +1 enchantment (Arcane Pool) And Standard for Legacy Weapon (Bane goblinoids) before Combat
Hearing Goggeck's shout of pain, it momentarily occurs to Adu that climbing up on the rocks alone might not have been a particularly intelligent idea. Now she's stuck up here, too far from her allies to bless them, too far from Goggeck to heal him, too far from the bugbears to cast any spells on them, and generally being rather useless.
Her idealized notion of sneaking behind the camp to catch the bugbears in a crossfire now seems utterly unrealistic. The dwarves have already been spotted, and now it would take too long to pick her way through the rocks to a good spot.
She settles for circling around the ledge she's on, crouching down as low as she can in the hopes of remaining undetected. The best she can do right now is get a little bit closer to her allies and let the bugbears come to her.
Cursing herself for being a fool, Brunhild activated the runes on her bow as she ran into position. Her attempt at stealth had been ill-advised...
Toulbe peered around the corner as the sounds of angry dwarves going to war started. He eeped and realized he couldn't be really sneaky anymore. He began nervously spouting out culinary differences between goblin ale and dwarven ale and how to make them as he tried to climb up the side.
He fell flat on his butt and hunkered down.
Hezekh steps into the open, levels his crossbow, and takes a shot.
Glor shuffles forward and fires at red.
Toulbe falls on his rump, but encourages his allies to fight on. What sort of despicable creatures brew beer out of newt tails and frog guts? These goblinoids must go!
Goggeck agrees, but his pierced abdominal muscles spasm just as he fires off his crossbow, and his bolt strikes the earth with a pfft.
Hezekh fires true, his bolt tears a gash in a bugbear's exposed upper arm.
Adu clings to a rock wall and creeps along a ledge, hoping no one will notice her.
Brunhild steps around a jutting rock and into the fore, bow brimming with arcane power.
Glor has plenty of earthy material to work with, and he unleashes his full power, blasting a bugbear with dirt and rock, ripping its arm clear off at the shoulder. The bugbear falls from its ledge and lands on a stack of small cages. Two jackrabbits scatter away, suddenly freed.
Now, one of the bugbears moves forward and hurls a javelin at Hezekh.
It sails well over the steel-fisted brawler's head.
Another charges straight ahead and swings a wicked morningstar at Brunhild.
As Brunhild readies her bow, she takes a mighty swing to her side, breaking a rib. The snapping sound of bone and sinew breaking is a painfully familiar one to Hezekh, who stands just next to her.
Another bugbear moves across the camp to get a good sight of Glor and hurls a javelin his way.
Glor now has a pointy stick sticking out of his thigh.
The bugbear archer too changes his sight from Goggeck to Glor, obviously the most dangerous foe.
Glor is starting to look like a pincushion.
Adu looks over the battlefield. She's almost, but not quite, within range to bless everyone. She's almost, but not quite, able to reach Glor to heal him, given that he's ten feet below her. No matter what she wants to do, she has to hop down to do it.
Unfortunately she is a rather bookish gnome and not well-suited to jumping off cliffs. Even very, very small ones. She lands flat on her face.
"Owww...."
On the bright side, she landed right next to Glor's foot. She shakily reaches out and touches it, sending curative energy his way. "Hope it helps..."
Seeing the danger to Glor, Goggeck decides to take some risks of his own.
He aims to do a charge against the bugbear that he had shot at.
He cares little if this involves him running down - or flying down! - if he can occupy the attentions of the goblinoids!
His roar echoes:
"CAN YOUR MOTHER DO STITCHES!!?!?"
Toulbe teeters a bit, unsure what to do before he summons up a bit of courage and comes screeching out from his hiding spot.
He takes a deep breath upon reaching the spot while continuing to talk about the lovely smokey taste of a dwarven ale and suddenly the air in front of him shatters and goes flying as he belts out a loud syllable.
Hezekh steps up and swings at the bugbear that wounded Brunhild.
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Brunhild staggered back in pain, her teeth gritted. Still, she did not fall. Instead she fitted an arrow to string and let it fly, at near point blank range. Such a shot would either do immense damage or would miss completely. She couldn’t take too many attacks like the last one...she managed to call out the words of the protective runes she had prepared, to shield herself from the bugbear’s wrath.
Glor earth toughened skin lessens the damage from both javelin and arrow, but only slightly.
Ad Adu sacrifices herself to heal him he says Bless ya little Adu. He gathers earth again and lets fly at the archer, but the wounds are too painful to aim well. Afer his shot the steps back for some cover.
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Toulbe's discordant shout rips through the bugbear's oversized eardrums and it roars in agony. Goggeck then leaps from his high perch and brings his longhammer down on the bugbear's ringing head from the ledge above. He sticks the hit, but not the landing. Goggeck falls prone, and the bugbear falls dead.
Hezekh comes to Brunhild's defense and punches the bugbear in its big belly. The bugbear doubles over just as Brunhild steps back and fires an arrow directly into its forehead. The big lug falls to the sand with a thud.
Adu basically reverses the hurt Glor took from the arrow. Glor tries to take out the commanding archer, but the studded leather armor it wears protects it from the hit.
Two bugbears are left. The one down below looks around, finding itself cornered. It hurls another javelin at Hezekh, then moves to the back ledge to get ready to climb up and out of here.
Hezekh takes one for the team.
The archer shuffles over along the ledge to provide covering fire for the other retreating bugbear. He targets Brunhild, the rival archer.
Brunhild deflects the arrow with her buckler, just in time.
Still reeling from the blow, Brunhild fitted another arrow. She readied herself to shoot, but had to rush the shot as an arrow flew at her. She barely let loose her own when she had to raise her buckler, which luckily deflected the shot.
Goggeck rises and sees bugbears still living, so he jogs towards them, picking up speed!
Adu eyes the remaining goblins, trying to ignore the twinge of pain from her ankle. It looks like they're planning to run, which she would be fine with, except that the archer clearly plans to continue peppering them all with arrows.
She gets really, really irritated whenever someone immediately undoes the hard work she put into healing. Or makes more work for her later by filling her allies full of holes.
Taking advantage of the fact that none of the bugbears have thought to target her yet, (not that she's given them a reason to), she makes her way around the cliff until she's just that little bit closer to the archer.
Hezekh looks around. Seein that there is only one bugbear still on the ground floor, he charges at him, trusting the others to deal with the javelin thrower.
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Goggeck jumps down again from the next ledge.
He twists his ankle and limps forward after the fleeing bugbears.
Hezekh too runs after the bugbears and throws his momentum into his punch. But, the bugbear's exorbitantly thick skin helps take the blow.
Seeing Hezekh's peril, Brunhild fires into the fracas. Nimble for its size, the bugbear twists just enough for the arrow to glance off its armor.
Adu grunts and barks at the bugbear archer, and for a confused moment, it drops its longbow to the ground.
Glor moves back into full view shouting dwarven obscenities demanding biologically impossible acts at the remaining bugbears as he fires off another kinetic blast at the one threatening his brother.
Toulbe moved up as he looked around trying to figure out how he could help in any way. But he squeaked as rocks went flying and people yelled.
He hunkered down and continued to recite differences in smoking barrels as he let out a wave of energy.
Glor rains down pain and death in the form of dirt and rock from above, knocking the bugbear out of commission.
Toulbe continues to support the group, channeling healing energy for the benefit of EVERYONE (except Adu who's out of reach), including the bugbear Glor just knocked down, stabilizing it.
The archer sees no point in sticking around. It turns and tries to scramble up the ledge behind it.
It tries and tries again, but fails to mount the steep ledge. Instead it turns and roars at the dwarves.
Brunhild raised an arrow to shoot, aiming for where the bugbear was climbing to. She let the arrow loose just as it slid down. The arrow bounced harmlessly off of the stones.
Goggeck sees the scrabbling bugbear and charges, determined to see it dead!
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The earth itself is agins't ya. Glor bellows when he sees the bugbear fail to climb. You walk on me element and it shall surly take you down. There is no escapin.
Toulbe lifts his head and sees that the tide has turned. He lets out a silent scream at the bowman.
Adu very nearly dances in place when she sees the archer drop his bow. Hah! It actually worked! Her grin only widens as she lines up a shot with her own bow.
Everyone targets the final bugbear as he fails to make his villainous escape!
From below, Goggeck swings his longhammer and gives the archer the ol' Nancy Kerrigan, blowing out his kneecap in one swift strike.
Glor tells him why, by blowing out his brains with a bullet of rocky mass to the head.
Toulbe can save his spell, and Adu and Brunhild can save their ammo, for the fight is won.
The aftermath:
One bugbear is unconscious and stable . The rest are very dead.
Searching the bugbears nets you 4xMorningstars, 12xJavelins, 4xLeather Armors, 4xLight Wooden Shields, 1xStudded Leather Armor, 1xHeavy Flail, 1xMW Composite Longbow (+4Str), 1xPotion Cure Moderate Wounds.
Around the campsite are stacks of caged animals. The animals are yipping and clucking and hopping around frantically after all the commotion. There's also two large primitive huts where the bugbears slept.
If nobody stops her, Brunhild unceremoniously puts an arrow into the head of the unconscious bugbear, and then goes back to looting the camp. As far as she was concerned this was a detour to kill some of their ancient foes. That, and she remembered Torag’s dogma quite well.
Against my people’s enemies, I will show no mercy. I will not allow their surrender, except when strategy warrants. I will defeat them, yet even in the direst struggle, I will act in a way that brings honor to Torag.
Hezekh pulls back his fist to finish the downed bugbear, then relaxes as Brunhild's arrow pierces its skull. He turns and nods to her, then searches the creature for any valuables.
Glor nods approval the the archer as he helps loot. I'll be guessin that you'll be wanting ta free the beasts Toulbe. Glor says with a happy glint in his eye. Might be that some would be better of with us than freed. he adds as he heads for a hut, hoping there are no bugbear young that will need putting down.
Toulbe moves back to the cart and gathers up the pup before coming to face all the creatures. He casts his innate magics and soon he addresses his animal audience. "We are friends, we have come to rescue you from the bugbears and reunite you with your child!" he says happily.
He looks at all the cages and animals present. He felt bad but debated what to do with the non wolves. He hoped that he could have a pack of friends to ride in his wagon and guard them at night.
"I'm going to come over and unlock all the cages now, please dont be alarmed or bite me. If you are hurt, please come sit by the pup and I will tend to your wounds. We are travelers and are headed to take back a fort from the Orcs but we would welcome you to become part of our pack. I dont expect you to fight for us, just help protect us at night and help hunt and we will make sure you stay fed and healthy!" he said happily.
Goggeck hooks the brainless bugbear corpse with his lengthy hammer, and drags it unceremoniously to the ground. He then turns to advance upon the fallen bugbear but gets to nod approvingly as Brunhild does her duty.
"Excellent. Let us take what we can use, free these unfortunate beasts, and smash the rest. I would not have other goblinoids thinking that they have safe accommodation in our lands, and no decent creature would sleep in such hovels."
He will begin to search the huts, hammer still in hand and unafraid to smash doors and walls first if necessary.
Adu pumps her fist in the air triumphantly. "We did it! Goblins slain, family rescued, it's been a good day. Well, for everyone but the bugbears that is." She makes sure to pick up the archer's bow before jumping down to rejoin the rest of the group. It had seemed to be of good quality.
"Does anyone need healing? It looked like Toulbe took care of most of it. When did you learn how to do that? It was awesome!"
If any of the trapped animals are injured, (and her party members don't request healing for themselves), Adu happily spends the rest of her spells healing the puppy's family. Wise? Likely not. But no one's ever claimed Adu was wise.
Within the huts, Glor discovers some sleeping pallets made of furs and such, and the half eaten remains of a couple of coyotes. Within one hut, obviously the leader's, is a simple chest. Feels pretty hefty. It's locked, but a key is discovered on the dead archer.
While everyone else is looking around, Toulbe addresses the caged animals. Adu sees that two or three of the animals are injured, but not life threateningly so.
As Toulbe opens the cages, the remaining jackrabbits and turkeys hop or fly off into the surrounding rocks and brush. Obviously, there are apex predators abound.However, the biggest of the coyotes approaches Toulbe and the pup. The pup whimpers out "Momma!"
After the alpha female sniffs out and inspects her pup, she speaks to Toulbe. "I remember you. You said you were friends. I didn't believe you then, but I believe you now. For saving us, we can be as guides for you in this land. But this land is our home, it is all we know. We will not be leaving it for lands beyond."
"But momma! I want to go on adventures with them!"
"Do as you wish, child. But be careful. People will tame you, and you will lose your wild spirit. Never forget your people and your home."
"Don't worry! I won't!" the pup happily returns to Toulbe's side.
"Adu, I could use healing.", replies Goggeck.
Goggeck hauls the chest outside, unwilling to leave it within the goblin hut.
As Glor furnishes the key, Goggeck examines the chest in daylight for traps or notations.
If he finds none, or no one else seeks to check the chest, he will open the chest with the key.
Goggeck notices something odd with the lock on the chest. It appears to be trapped.