Erigga bolts to one of the goblins.
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With a sigh, Erigga readies her shield and checks her sheath, just in case.
Seeing how well Moon was handling the interrogation of the goblin, Erigga keeps herself away in a corner of their camp. She takes a piece of leather and begins to work with it.
ABP: +1 Deflection
The last goblin in the clearing dead, Erigga swiftly turns and runs north to catch up with Moon.
Erigga slashes the clumsy goblin and then jumps around, steps on his blade to lock it and, with a sigh, finishes him.
Erigga is slashed again as she turns to follow the spider going after Emerald. The plan wasn't working. She was supposed to hold the backline safe. That was her job and she was failing. Surrounded by goblin, she grits her teeth at another small slash. Oh, enough was enough. She wants to yell in frustration, but a dogslicer nearly missing her eyes brought her to her senses. Blocking another attack, she remembers all the times she got angry in her training and then took a beating. Anger is fire. Use it as a weapon and you'll burn yourself. Center yourself, girl, and use that fire to forge a sword. Then, you'll be unstoppable. Mister Jahdi could shove his teachings on his rusty wagonwheel. With steel pounding against her shield, the small halfling does her best to center herself.
She pushes her shield, giving her a lee room. Side slash. Duck, kick, spin. Slash on a knee, acid sizzling. Slash, duck, block. Elbow on the face, rush, a slash on the throat. Erigga dances to Emerald's voice in a slowly expanding circle of blood. When the goblins finally stop ganging up on her, with a smile, she gave chase.
Erigga winces as the huge spider comes after her and soon after is swarmed by the goblins.
Still eyeing the spider, Erigga moves away from it, but because of that she barely can fight the goblins.
At Maidie's battle cry, Erigga moves swiftly forward to engage the mass of goblins.
As Maidie introduces Zeyth-ar and Erigga hears their strange conversation, she recalls some whistled tunes she used to sing while working at her family farm. Strange thing to remember now. She shoves the though aside. One day she'll return to give her Ma and Da a big hug. She shakes her head and heads after Maidie. Fool! You start thinking about not leaving these woods and you for sure will not!
Erigga nods, checking the straps in her shield. They were fine, she was sure, but she checked them anyways. Twice.
Erigga nods to Maidie. "I'll do my best to hold one side, but if things go bad, it would be better to have one of us able to heal on each group, so Grob takes the wand and we swap Betz for Emerald?" With Emerald's suggestion, Erigga adds. "If they are having second thoughts about fighting us, then taking of the leader could hopefully demoralize the rest into scattering away... so perhaps you make Moon invisible so she can get the drop on the boss?"
Erigga gives a smile that looks both innocent and full of malice, like a kid about to do something nasty. She flips her bandolier to fish two flasks with a dark orange liquid inside. "We can do better than that... these are alchemist's fire, Betz has a flaming axe and... does Cragg-el has a flaming cousin perhaps?"
Erigga raises a hand to get Maidie's attention, before whispering to her. "Silly idea, but do can we... smoke them?"
"Go, go, go!" Erigga says shooing the others ahead.
"We follow as fast as we can." Erigga says. "Maidie already scouted ahead, so Moon is just finding a place to set an ambush. They already know we are here, so the best we can do is trying to catch them before they are ready." With that, Erigga moves ahead, shield ready in front of her.
"If we are fighting all of them no matter what, then pushing forward as deep as we can would mean less time for them to prepare." Erigga says, skirting around the area with the grasping plants.
As the goblins swarm her, Erigga raises her shield again and, in a whirling motion tries to slash as many of them as possible. When the stabs stop coming her way, the small halfling is panting. Mister Jahdi would not believe it, and her brothers would call her a liar. She shakes her head. It was not over yet. Tightening the grip of her sword, she tries to run over the grasping plants as she sees Maidie's magic assaulting one of the goblin rangers, so she leaps at him in hopes of finishing it off!
While luck has favored her, Erigga tries not to think about it. She keeps fighting the goblins, knowing that at any moment the tide might turn against them.
Erigga runs and jumps towards the goblins, slashing them mid-air with her acid blade.
Erigga's heroic charge is stopped short as the creepers creep up her feet. "You plant psychos..."
With some effort she pulls her feet free and, noticing a big chunk of the goblins she was heading towards are also being molested by the plants, she falls back to help Moon and Grobradon.
There was just too many goblins and, for a moment, Erigga lowers her shield. What was the point? A sigh, a frown, a deep breath and a deeper frown. She slips by Emerald's feet. "These folks are fighting for their home so..." She shakes her head. "Run, Emerald. Run!" And Erigga runs. Forward, raising her shield back and waiting for the enemy to swallow her as a tear runs along her cheek.
Erigga turns to Maidie. "Where do you want to go?"
Erigga finishes off the fleeing spider and then, thanks to Grob's warning, moves around to cover the new direction where enemies are supposed to be coming from. "At some point they'll run out. Right?"
Erigga glimpses back at Maidie, checking if she was safe before turning to the spider for another slash.
Breath in, breath out. She raises her shield, waiting for the perfect opportunity.
Breath in, breath out. Erigga raises her shield a smidge in anticipation.
"Thank you, Moon, for shooting the spider and not the rider." Erriga says, looking at Grob next. "New rule guys, if we have more spider riders, we shoot the spiders first." She then moves towards the southern passage readying her shield, standing in the middle of the goblin corpses. She makes a triumphant pose. If that costs them a reaction or two, the better. In combat, advantage is like a delicious tangerine... you want to squeeze it to the very last drop.
With only one enemy remaining, Erigga rushes as fast as she can towards it.
Wasting no time, Erigga rushes in for the next spider and swiftly kills it as well. There is a smile on her face, which soon disappears. Focus. Surest way of get yourself f!&+ed is to feel cocky.
The spider dead, Erigga steps over its corpse and moves around the stones, her shield high to protect herself.
As the stones begin to fall, Erigga bolts, skirting the battlefield. The rocks still pummeling their enemies, she jumps and twists, navigating the deadly rocks mid-air and then slashing the scary spider as she lands.
Being a small halfling, Erigga had no trouble sneaking.
Erigga nods, agreeing with the plan. After Moon takes point, she follows as silently as possible.
While Erigga believes Moon and Maidie will be able to finish the fleeing goblin from afar, she doesn't like to take chances. She charges the enemy again. "No running away..."
Wasting no time, Erigga charges the farthest goblin. Normally she cares more about her defense, but she had learned the power of surprise and she'd take advantage of it.
Erigga follows Betz, hoping the enemies get her instead. Despite Betz' bravado, twice she had gotten got.
Erigga nods, uncomfortable with the idea, but not having a better one.
Once Emerald is done taking care of Betzolte's wound, Erigga waves at her. "So... you think they are scary, uh? If I'm being honest, I also feel the same and to make it worse these crawlers are twice my size." Despite her words, Erigga is crouching by one of them, poking it with a piece of wood.
"Waaay too many legs." She answers, fighting a chill running along her spine. She shakes her kukri once to get the goo out of it before sheathing it. "How you doing, Betz? I've got some antivenom with me."
With the spiders now on the ground, Erigga jumps from the tree, rolls on the snow, and springs to her feet into a flanking position with Grobradon.
"Oh, crap, Maidie get down!" Erigga warns as she jumps at the tree and starts to climbing it.
Erigga is taken by surprise, opens her mouth a bit and blushes quite a lot. She never really knew how take a compliment as she was never used to them. "I... I am not smart, not like you guys. I grew up raising Horan cows... do you know how huge they are? For halflings that is not smart at all." She tries to change subjects, but she wasn't lying. Erigga wasn't as educated as any of the others. She was tough for sure. "I do not know many dwarven families, but I'm going to say that you are more like a halfling than I am... but that is how it is, no? I'm tough because I had to be I think and you are probably kind because you had be?" She seems clearly out of her element. "I mean, if you want to change who you are, then go ahead. I did it... kind of? "
"What 'what about you'?" Erigga asks, curious. "We've found you buck naked and freezing your t#!! in the snow. You clearly needed some help." The image springs back to her mind, so she shuts up and concentrates on the jerky again. But then she doesn't resist. "Also, you are still not a threat to us." Sense Motive DC 15: Erigga's tone on the word still is an attempt to provoke Emerald into growing back a spine.
"I thought halflings were supposed to be optimists," Emerald says, looking rather worried about the prospect of a powerful hag personally hunting the party. And I thought all dragons weren't supposed to be whinny little b@**#es. Chomp chomp on her jerky. She could have said that, but her tit-poke-therapy was hopefully enough to knock some sense into her head. Adding insult to injury was a tad mean. "I am optimistic," she states, as if daring anyone to contradict it, "but I also like to be objective about my odds instead of always hoping that Lady Luck or the Calamitous Turn will shine their behinds on my direction and bless me with their benevolent luck." Luck, which, she had expressed they've been abusing.
"When the strong rule, the surest way to stop doing it is to show you are not that strong." Erigga answers, stretching. "Goblins and ogres and orcs, as far as I understand, follow the strongest among them." She looks a bit shy at Maidie, worrying if she was about to say something stupid as she is clearly far less educated than the mage. "When a strong leader is perceived as weak, they are replaced. So the goblins follow their chieftains, doing what he wants, and the chieftains follow Ganny's, doing what she wants." "However, if someone supposed to be so scary and evil and powerful as her start to look at a small group of ourselves as a threat... some chieftains might start to think she doesn't bite as hard as she barks." "Also, we are in the middle of winter. You look outside and pretty much everything looks the same. We travel light and fast, with Doffery's help. Bands of goblins and orcs are at a big disadvantages." She finishes her assessment by taking a piece of jerky from a bag. "If I'm in her shoes, I'd sent a specialty strike force or look for us myself."
"To me? Why?" She asks, a bit confused. "Look, now being practical is important, but later, having a softer heart could be needed. My neighbour, who trained me when I was younger, always mentioned how war changes people. Are you ready for this change? Do you want to?" So many questions. "All I'm saying is it is one thing to swing your sword during a fight, other is at someone who surrendered. You need to..." The rest is cut when Moon arrives with the talking rabbit. Erigga remains silent during the exchange, just raising an eyebrow when she disappears with the goblin in toe, a shill running through her spine. "Yikes. That was a creepy one."
Erigga steps sideways to give way to Betzolte, but puts a hand on her arm. "I offered because I'm not from Kassen... I'm the outsider." She takes a deep breath. "I came here on a contract and when this is all done, I'll most likely continue to work for Dalen and there is a good chance we'll never see each other again." She shrugs and sighs. "Take a look at your friends. You do not need to prove anything, Betz." An attentive mind would notice this is the first time Erigga shortens the dwarf's name. "I'm small, but I can bear this weight, like I did with Zorlak for Maidie." Sense Motive: Despite putting a brave face, this is also taxing her. She is certain about sparing the others, though. |