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◆) Step
◆) Put Out Fire
◆) Interact to Draw
↺) Intercept Attack
~) Guardian's Armor
Beezhul moves to protect the cart. Then eyeing the kobolds she draws a wickedly spiked flail, and snarls.
Maxis didn't start the fire, and it's hard to tell if he tries to fight it.
Bork has an equally difficult time in smothering the flame.
Beezhul is able to put it out and interposes herself between the kobolds and the wagon, ready to sacrifice the body to prevent another fiery assault on it.
The red kobold then feels the void from Goldbloom, and Ulvard's first swing is enough to bring down the red kobold, which is beneficial for said kobold as the second swing would not have left much of him. He's only dead and not disintegrated.
Kosh puts the fear of him into the kobold then puts a bolt into him, too.
He takes to his heels, fleeing into the desert.
Investigating the statue, you find a rocky lair where the kobolds have stored a hidden treasure trove taken from other victims. This includes a weapons cache with bolas, a khopesh, and a fighting fan.
After the ambush, nothing remains to be done but to take the wagons and complete the journey to the bridge camp.
When you arrive at the camp, you find it bustling with activity. Goblin engineers do their best to guide goblin workers as they build the decking and assemble the piers; the bridge appears simple, but sturdy, and is approximately half complete by this point.
As the wagons are unloaded, Muckmuck begrudgingly shows you to Zig, leader of the bridge camp
While many of the goblins at the work camp are covered in dirt and sweat, Zig stands tall and straight among them. He pours over maps of the surrounding area before speaking.
“It is good to see you. They call me Zig. I’m glad my father asked you to come here to help.
“We have been building a very important bridge. But every night, the big cats attack our camp. We leave out meat for them and they saunter right past it. Instead, they seem bent on filling their bellies with goblin flesh. If we move camp across the river; they cross over it overnight. If we light fires around the camp to scare them away, the goblins workers burn themselves in the flames. It’s a lose-lose situation.
“Every few nights, the cats come back to hunt us. Everyone is terrified and that’s bad for business. With all this talk of some saber-toothed whatever coming for us in the night, we’re all too scared to finish our work. If someone doesn’t take these furballs out, I suspect the bridge isn’t ever gonna get built.
“These kitties aren’t natural. Whatever you need, you got it. I can give you workers to build fences. But fences alone aren’t going to be enough. Either the cats go, or this bridge is history. The only other answer is death."
The camp is mostly filled with goblin workers, most of whom do not speak Common and are too busy to talk to you. The areas of note in the camp are the supply depot (where tools and materials are kept for building
the bridge), the mess hall (where Zig works and food is stored), the infirmary (where sick or injured goblins are cared for), and the tents where each goblin sleeps. Aside from Zig and Muckmuck, the only other person of note in the camp is Pearlybones, a trained doctor who tends the sick and injured.
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Bork lingers near the smoldering wagon a longer than strictly necessary, turning over a scorched wheel spoke in his hands with something like reverence. “A little more kindling… a less important cargo… and this could’ve been beautiful.”
By the time they reach the camp, he’s restless again and resorts to poking around the supply depot, sniffing suspiciously at the mess hall, and occasionally hurling goblin turn of phrases at passing workers who don’t even look up.
Giving up, he finally settles down near the edge of camp with a dramatic sigh. “Nobody wants to talk. Nobody wants to blow something up. There’s nothing on fire. What kind of job is this?”
When Zig mentions the cats, Bork perks up. He squints at the map, then glances toward the river. “So let me get this straight. Big, dangerous cats ignore perfectly good meat and go straight for sweaty goblin workers? That’s either sorcery… or those cats have very poor taste.”
He scratches his chin, then adds thoughtfully: “I mean, goblin’s all sinew. You’d think they’d prefer something a little fattier. Like camel or Orc.”
"Can I see those plans? I promise I wont make too many changes"
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Ulvard looks at the bridge, tilts his head, and then.... tries to see if he can jump across the span that is yet to be built. But Ulvard needs an Audience.
"It cat can jump river, then so can Ulvard!" he cries out. Once he has a lot of goblin attention he starts his run-up, getting faster as he starts across the built section of bridge. Then... as he gets to the end he launches himself into the air!
Seeing the far side of the river a distressingly long way away, Ulvard lets out a huge warcry and spreads his arms and legs out, preparing to make the Biggest Splash. Anyone who knows him well might think that perhaps, just perhaps, he preferred the jump to end this way.
Eventually Ulvard returns to the camp site, dripping wet (whether or not he made the initial jump). "Ulvard will have Beauty Sleep." he declares. "Will look like he just came from Salon." he adds, before clarifying "Not Poetry Salon. Ulvard has standards."
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Maxis takes some time to consider what the goblin foreman has said.
"Yeah, it doesn't sound like the behavior of normal desert lions, I agree. Someone is targeting your workers, as Vigrig guessed."
"I think building a perimeter fence of some kind is a great idea. It'll slow down any attackers and possibly funnel them toward the gates. At least they're not also targeting the bridge with these attacks. If we enclose your workers we keep all the threatened assets in one easily guarded place and hopefully give them some peace of mind."
"Bork, you're the engineer, you should supervise this. We've got bridge building material lying around that we can use for a sturdy palisade, we've got lots of workers, we're got the fixing to set up lots of fire braziers along the wall so we can see enemies coming. Maybe we can even scatter some traps of some kind about 50 feet out from the walls to slow the kitties down -- caltrops or bear traps or something."
"Let's you and I work on that with Sir Goodshanks and the goblins while the others get some kip for the night watch. Zig can help us direct the workers once we have a plan. We should be able to get something decent built before nightfall."
"And when the cats come tonight, we're waiting for 'em. And if they run off, we track them back to their lair."
"Whaddaya think?"
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Zig shrugs and holds his hands up helplessly as Bork very concisely states the status of things in the camp. "We've done all that we can think of to stop the attacks, but they're just not behaving like normal animals. All that's left is to fight them and none of us here are warriors. For that matter, most of the workers are on the verge of deserting. If I tried to force them to attack the beasts, they'd just leave that much faster. If you can't do something, I'm afraid this project is over."
Pearlybones doesn't have much to add. "It's the derndest thing I ever did see," he says, looking and speaking to Goldbloom while sewing up a wound in a goblin's thigh. Needless to say, the stitches are not particularly straight.
"Them cats are fearless. Come right into camp, grab anyone who's out and drag them off. It's gotten to the point where I been peeing in a bottle rather than risk going out to the latrine. Got it right here," he says, swishing around some rank smelling fluid in a green glass jar.
"Or is that the antiseptic? Can't quite remember, honestly," he picks up an identical bottle and pores some of the contents on the stitch job.
"Well, if you need patching up, just come on back," he says, over the howling of his patient.
Even with the low morale of the camp (which is noticeably improved by the successful arrival of a new supply caravan without a single casualty) several of the goblins go out to watch Ulvard's show. They cheer as he makes the leap on his first try but laugh and cheer even further when he eventually falls in.
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Bork squats in the dirt with a stick, scratching quick, uneven lines until they start to look like a map of the camp. He stabs at one side of it.
“We got eighty feet of fence. Eighty. That’s enough to keep out… maybe one cat with a sense of personal boundaries. So... ” he drags the stick around to the jagged line that marks the river, “—we use the river bank for the rest. Let the river do the work while we make the goblins feel clever for building half a wall.”
He flips the stick over in his hand and taps it against his palm, grinning. “And fires! Not because they scare these cats (they don’t) but because fires are good! They’re warm, they’re bright, and they make people think you’re in control. Plus, I like them.”
He looks around at the others, tilting his head.
“So. Fence, wall, fires… and when the cats come, we hit them. Any objections?”
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"Sounds good to me. Cats don't swim, right? At least not normal cats."
Maxis briefly considers how swimming cats might very well augur the onset of the apocalypse.
"If we didn't have to protect goblins, I'd say that we needed a few very big dogs to chase the cats. But I suppose in these circumstances that wouldn't work."
Maxis pitches in once the actual work starts, but takes a lot of breaks, and makes sure he's busy with something else when some really back-breaking task is called for. He never seems to get tired of watching the robot accomplishing feats of strength. He commits numerous acts of banter with the laboring goblins, coaxing them to work and impressing upon them that they no longer have anything to fear, now that the pathfinders had arrived to protect them.
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Ulvard emerges, shaking his head and spraying water everywhere. He looks much refreshed and modestly rates his bomb as a "6 out of 10. Must Try Harder."
"Build fence today, or Get Beauty Sleep and Play With Kitty toight?" he asks, obviously in a better frame of mind from his aquatic endeavours.
"Ulvard Big and Strong. Can Carry and Hammer. You just say Where."
Sir GoodShanks moves with a steady, mechanical purpose. His armored legs carrying loads of fence posts from the supply cart to a pile by the ravine. Bork, naturally, had decided this was best directed from a commanding position on the construct’s back, a bundle of stakes balanced across his lap like a war trophy.
On the first trip, Sir GoodShanks carried only the wood.
Efficient. Simple. As it should be.
On the second trip, Bork added himself to the cargo.
My stride is apparently “majestic.” This is debatable.
By the third, Sir GoodShanks was hauling wood, goblin, and bombarded by shouted directives regarding “proper goblin angles” for the posts. The angles, while enthusiastic, seemed entirely unrelated to stability.
Each time a post went into the ground, the goblins cheered. They cheered louder when Bork claimed credit.
I do not require credit. I do require more nails.
When the last section of fence was in place, Sir GoodShanks gave a curt nod.
“It was acceptable work.”
And, perhaps, not entirely unpleasant.
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Bork hops off SGS’s back with a thud and immediately starts pacing and mumbling to himself. A moment goes by, then another. "Ah ha! Must think like cat to beat kitty catty-ie. Listen up! We only got eighty feet of fence—barely enough to keep sharp cat teeth away from soft skin. So… we make it mean.” He jabs the stick toward the bridge. “First, block here. No easy run-in from the river. Cats gotta slow down, dodge, and think... which makes them dumber.”
He stomps to the nearest cluster of tents and draws an angle across them. “Then here and here. Zig-zag fences protect the goblins. Cats hate zig-zags. Makes their paws sad. They trip. They get confused. Gives us time to shoot them or stab them or light them on fire... ” he pauses, grinning, “purely for defensive reasons, obviously.”
He drops the stick, dusts his hands off, and points at SGS. “You, armor-pants. Start hauling wood. We’re gonna make these cats wish they stayed in whatever weird magic litter box they came from.”
The Pathfinders spend the day building fences to route and, hopefully, rout the cats.
Night falls and the goblins watch the darkness fearfully, many of them simply hiding in their tents.
Well after night has fallen, a lone leopard prowls up to the gate.
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Maxis had been leaning against a post looking out the southern gate, fighting off the urge to doze. Periodically he has taken a short walk around the compound, ostensibly to make sure his Pathfinder comrades were all awake, more mostly to keep himself alert. He had recently settled back into his spot after one of these jaunts when he'd spotted movement outside the gate down by the river. Pulling out his weapon and shield, he'd whistled sharply once, then run heavily toward the invader, and taken a quick slice at it.
"Bad kitty!"
*Draw Weapon
*Stride
*Attack
(S)
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Bork ducks behind the palisade, glancing through a gap in the wood. He flicks a brass toggle on Sir GoodShanks back, and the construct’s joints give a low, rising whine as steam hisses from its vents.
“Overdrive engaged! Let’s make this count, Sir GoodShanks!”
He props his crossbow against the wall, squints down the sights, and lets a bolt fly toward the cat.
“Now—forward! Show that cat why the best longshanks wear pants armor!”
◆ Enter Overdrive (1 min):
◆ Command: Goodshanks
◆ Strike:
The hydraulics in Sir GoodShanks’ legs hum with extra force as the overdrive kicks in, propelling him forward in a quick, heavy stride. Target acquired. Quadruped. Large. Claws meet acceptable threat parameters.
He closes the gap in three pounding steps, gauntleted fist already drawing back.
“Engaging hostile in melee.”
The punch slams forward, aiming to rattle bone and send a very clear mechanical message: the goblin’s longshanks is not to be trifled with.
Honor defended. Proceeding with suppression.
◆ Stride
◆
The Pathfinders pile onto the obvious threat to very mixed results, with only Maxis scoring a hit.
The leopard retaliates.
She has only slightly more success, biting him once and latching on.
But she proves to be a clever girl as three more leopards leap the palisade from different directions, having approached Undetected by the Pathfinders.
One pounces on Goldbloom.
plus
But misses.
One pounces on Kosh.
plus
And scores a telling blow.
And the final one prowls toward some of the tents, looking for easy goblin prey.
Sir GoodShanks breaks contact with the wounded leopard and pivots toward the tents. Intercepting hostile near non-combatants.
He charges around the angled palisade and the tents come into view, where he quickly identifies the predator, low and ready to pounce.
“Reposition complete. Threat engagement imminent.”
◆ Stride
◆ Stride
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◆/◆/◆) Taunt w/ Long-Distance Taunt x3 vs Yellow, Green, Blue
↺) Intercept Strike
Beezhul hisses menacingly, and beats the ground with her lash, and drawing the attention of all three in-camp cats, calling in a voice most noisome and irritating to the frequency of hearing!
[concentrate]
With an attention-grabbing gesture, noise, cutting remark, or threatening shout, you attempt to draw an enemy to you instead of your allies. Taunt gains the auditory trait, visual trait, or both, depending on how you draw the target’s attention. Even mindless creatures are drawn to your taunts. Choose an enemy within 30 feet to be your taunted enemy. If your taunted enemy takes a hostile action that includes at least one of your allies but doesn’t include you, they take a –1 circumstance penalty to their attack rolls and DCs for that action, and they also become off-guard until the start of their next turn.
Your enemy remains taunted until the start of your next turn, and you can have only one Taunt in effect at a time. Taunting a new enemy ends this effect on any current target.
You can draw the wrath of your foes even at a great distance. When you use Taunt, you can choose a target within 120 feet.
Trigger: An ally within 10 feet of you takes physical damage.
You fling yourself in the way of oncoming harm to protect an ally. You can Step, but you must end your movement adjacent to the triggering ally. You take the damage instead of the triggering ally. Apply your own immunities, weaknesses, and resistances to the damage, not the ally’s.
Special: You can extend this ability to an ally within 15 feet of you if the damage comes from your taunted enemy. If this ally is farther than you can Step to reach, you can Stride instead of Stepping; you still must end the movement adjacent to your ally.
Bork repositions Sir GoodShanks then sends a warning shot at the leopard threatening the tents.
Ulvard swings wildly but inaccurately at the leopard at the gate.
Kosh encourages his companions, lands a hit on his opponent and puts some magical defense between him and it.
Goldbloom causes some mental trauma to his attacker then retreats before it can retaliate with physical trauma.
Maxis attempts to shake it off, but it isn't until he applies some firm, direct application of force that the cat releases its grip...both on him and life.
Beezhul challenges the felines to face only her.
One of them obliges, stepping closer to take a bite.
But it can't latch on to her.
The one who attacked Kosh, continues to do so.
And would score a hit except that Beezhul throws herself in the path of that danger.
It tries to bite down on her.
It latches on tight then mauls her with its claws.
The last leopard turns its attention to GoodShanks.
But the metal man proves a nut it cannot crack (though a nut does come loose in the process...)
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As the leopard goes down, Maxis turns to Ulvard and suddenly grins with glee.
”C’mon, let’s go find some more!” he says excitedly. ”For demon cats they don’t seem too tough!”
He turns and runs back through the gate, slightly favoring his wounded left leg. Spotting another leopard not too far away, he closes with it and attacks.
*(last round) Stride
*Stride
*Attack Yellow
*Raise shield
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Bork grits his teeth and yells out commands to Sir Good Longshanks Armor Pants. "Activate the left coil. No the Let!"
“You have that one? Good! I’m going to stay over here and deal with this guy.” He swings his bow around on the nearby yellow one, and looses an arrow into its side.
◆ Reattempt Overdrive Crit: +4 damage for Bork + Goodshanks. Success: +2. Fail: +1.
◆ Command: Goodshanks
◆ Strike
Sir GoodShanks pivots on his heel joints, hydraulics hissing, and engages the deft cat.
Target locked. Engage.
His gauntleted fists drive forward in two heavy strikes, each blow aimed to stagger the big cat back from the goblin tents.
◆◆ Strike, Strike
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As people shout to one another in the heat of battle, Maxis glances around, noticing the little red eyes of the goblins peeking out of their tents. The only thing better than a rousing fight, was a rousing fight with an audience.
"I killed one back by the gate!" he announces clearly, and gives a twirling flourish of his blade as he prepares to wield it again.