Micheo feels his tongue tying, with flashes of how a battle against the kobold overseer and his unseen allies might go.
The clank of armor and crunch of gravel underfoot can be heard over the clanging of mining picks. The kobold overseer pivots on his chicken legs and howls angrily at the party's arrival. He raises up his heavy pick and begins spurring his workers to fight.
Wielding the adamantine hammer taken from the unholy abomination of the lord of toil, Ulark charged in. Wielding the unfamiliar weapon he swung it at the overseer, seeking to end it’s tyranny once and for all.
Stricken by clashing visions, Micheo staggers into combat next to Dugan, covering his flank if nothing else.
Dugan races forward alongside Ulark as the Overseer spins in place. He brings his axe down towards the kobold's head.
Inconnu tries to dive above the overseer to flank it and stab it in the back.
Joanne runs right in to deck the overseer
Ulark strikes a telling blow upon the overseer, and Dugan's approach provides a key distraction that allows Inconnu to also deal a bloody wound to the over-muscled kobold.
Joanne vaults over intervening boulders, avoiding opportunistic swings, and lands a punch that nearly puts out the overseer's lights.
Far more used to dealing with underlings who can't fight back, the overseer staggers backward, trying to escape from the pink-skin infiltrators. He finds himself hemmed in by his mine slaves. After a pause, one of the slaves raises its mining pick and - with the last of its strength not sapped by hard labor - brains the cruel overseer.
The miners look to the party for a tense moment before dropping their picks and scattering in fright, fleeing down the other two passages leading off from this cavern.
Micheo's rapier moves - and the fight is already over.
"That commotion will surely draw attention. Let us move soon."
"Let's head west!" Inconnu calls out clearly, better to have clear direction and speed that debate this overly.
"Aye!"
As the party creeps along the westward passage, you hear a great commotion erupt ahead. The passage opens onto a masonry room where two of the walls - including this one - have been breached and connected with the rough-cut tunnels.
Many shrill, shouting voices echo across the stone - kobolds, from the sound of it - and you can also hear the groaning croak of one or two large beasts. It would seem that the sudden escape of the mine slaves has thrown the warriors, lurking in the room ahead, into disorder.
Micheo feels the visions of conflict start to well, but not quite solidifying yet.
"We need to get closer. Conflict is coming."
"I'm with you!"
Dugan nods, and with a soft bang of Glintaxe on his shield, he begins pressing towards the sounds of kobold commotion.
Joanne keeps her wits about.
As you move forward, Joanne observes that the carefully prepared ambush the kobolds had waiting for you, had you descended from the well, has been foiled by the chaos caused by the fleeing slaves.
Three of the mine slaves scurry around, evading wild weapon swings from the eight kobold warriors present - including two mounted on more of those grotesque, albino cave frogs.
Dugan's shield banging only adds to the clamor dominating the room, heightening the panicked shrieks from both warrior and slave kobold alike.
As for this broad cellar chamber itself, it was likely once a deep storage chamber - but now it seems filled with mounds of refuse. The most noticeable feature - aside from the frantic melee unfolding within - is the slapdash elevator the kobold tribe has rigged up to traverse the well shaft leading above.
Upon seeing the kobold mounted atop the fanged frog, Dugan rushes is with one last hefty clap of axe on shield. He brings Glintaxe in an arcing overhand slash at the mount.
Inconnu moves forward with Duggan to help drive back the kobolds and sow panic within their ranks.
Micheo yells in a foul tongue, as he advances alongside Dugan and Inconnu.
Despite their surge of bravado as they enter the fray, Dugan and Inconnu find their weapons merely glancing off the cave frog's slimy flanks, failing to pierce its thick, pliant hide.
While slow on the uptake, Ulark was more than willing to charge in. With a cry of ”Hey, Glintaxe! Wait for me!” He ran in, hammer swinging.
"We got another one in the shadows beyond the doorway."
Joanne moves up and attack the beast.
Joanne lands a strong kick upon the giant frog, but the coating of slime that coats her boot leaves her ruing the attack.
Ulark rushes in and scores a mighty blow.
The mining slaves, unarmed and panicked, mostly run around the room in search of an escape - getting in the way and distracting the enemies.
Inconnu circles around the kobold to flank with Joanne.
"This thing is nasty...."
And has a hard time attacking due to her stuck foot.
As Inconnu and Joanne's latest strikes fail to connect, the cellar room truly devolves into a chaotic swirl of sound and motion as the kobold tribe's assembled, screeching soldiers set upon the party with spear and stone.
The mounted warrior the party ganged up on, as well as its long-fanged frog steed, attack Ulark with a spear thrust and slimy gnashing bite, but the logger turns aside the attacks with a swing of his new hammer.
The other mounted kobold leaps into the fray atop his slurk, but his spear thrust goes wide as his steed bites down upon Dugan. Although the creature seizes the dwarf in its slimy maw, even its tusk-like teeth cannot pierce his new suit of armor, and Dugan shakes loose its grasp in short order.
Two warriors rush at Joanne with spears readied, but their ill-trained attacks are easily evaded.
A pair of sling stones bounce off of Inconnu's chain shirt, and a javelin from the shadows of the next room whizzes past his shoulder.
Ulark swung an unbreakable hammer at the kobold’s chest, with predictable results.
Dugan takes another, more careful swing at the frog-creature's face.
Ulark's hammer blow nearly knocks the warrior from his mount, although it does not quite finish him.
Meanwhile, Dugan buries Glintaxe in the frog-creature's broad head, leaving a slimy corpse beneath the kobold warrior.
"Little buggers...."
Joanne continues on the slurk
And has a hard time attacking due to her stuck foot.
While the kobold is distracted Inconnu does his best to put it down before the combat can become too embroiled.
Micheo steps up to a kobold and stabs.
I can keep this off their backs at least.
Micheo's rapier thrust quickly slays the frantic kobold miner.
Joanne's kick is thrown off as she frees her foot from the dead slurk's slime, and with the loss of momentum her kick only bounces off the kobold's piecemeal leather armor. Inconnu's blade skewers the kobold from behind, though, leaving him to flop lifelessly atop his dead mount.
Another volley of javelins and sling stones whistle and clatter harmlessly past the party, while Ulark and Joanne evade more spear thrusts. The surviving slurk again tries to bite Dugan, only for the dwarf to grab and snap off one of the beast's tusks before turning aside its lunge.
The kobold warriors on the room's periphery shuck aside their slings and take up spears, preparing to rush the party.
Dugan tosses aside the snapped off horn and he turns his attention fully to the large toad. He aims an axe blow at the creature.
Turning, Ulark grabbed the spear of a kobold thrusting at him, raised his hammer and brought it down in a violent motion. He fully intended to brain the diminutive warrior.
Inconnu circles around another one of the kobolds... never afraid to strike an enemy while they were more concerned with one of his larger allies.
Micheo advances towards a pair of kobold warriors, bypassing barricades. Not charging in, in order to face a pair of enemies.
Dugan's swing is off-balance, and Glintaxe swishes above the oversized toad's broad, flat head.
Ulark, however, crushes the skull of the warrior riding atop the slimy beast, while Inconnu and Micheo each quickly slay another kobold spearman.
"Anyone got some acid of fire for this thing.."
Joanne continues on the slurk
Joanne's latest kick strikes the slurk square in the side of its broad head, and thankfully she does not get stuck this time - although its no less messy.
The remaining mine slaves find the openings - and the presence of mind - to escape down the tunnels broken open from this room's walls and flee for their lives, even more frantically than before.
Micheo deftly parries a trio of spear thrusts as he finds himself surrounded by warriors.
The fourth surviving warrior's spear skitters across Inconnu's mail shirt, and the performer turns just in time to deflect a thrown chain weapon from the dark talon hunter behind him.
Unfortunately, the slurk lunges for Joanne and clamps down upon her with a painful one-tusked bite.
Dugan chops again at the slurk.
Inconnu kept his shield up as he approached the dark talon hunter before thrusting his blade at the kobold.
Micheo shouts to the kobolds rallied against him:
"You shall all fall!"
He strikes at the west-most kobold spearman, aiming to bring them all down swiftly, one by one with quick strikes.
Ulark took a step over to the nearest Kobold warrior and took a swing. Unused to swinging anything but his axe, the blow went wide.
"I think I pissed it off"
Joanne continues on the slurk
Joanne's injury hinders her in hitting her target