WEEK 2 (Disclaimer: It was tough remembering some events, since there were eleven battles, so there is more than a fair bit of embellishment and non-descript fighting. The fights aren’t nearly as interesting as the character interactions and the corpses, and parentheses abound):
The second level of the armory proves to be an unexpected challenge for Sir Clinton and Egreauss. They find a mere three goblins there, but Sir Clinton finds himself losing his magic touch. While killing goblins, he is hit thrice by angry morningstars and finds himself having to gulp down the potion he was given by Duke Woodworth. Egreauss comes out of this battle none the worse for wear, but the next battle . . . Not so much.
The final floor of the armory reveals a bugbear. He and Sir Clinton exchange words of hatred, and Sir Clinton charges, only to find his invigoration rewarded with a morningstar to the face. As he falls to the cold ground, face bleeding in numerous spots, Egreauss summons a wolf to battle. It successfully chomps down on the bugbear, but its stay is short-lived, and as Egreauss’s hawk, Thoroar, flies in, it scratches the bugbear’s face. Still unfazed, he brutally bats the hawk out of the air. Wolf gone, knight down, and hawk crumpled, Egreauss is forced to fight the bugbear one-on-one. The longspear that Egreauss wields does little good once she is trapped between the furry beast and the weapons rack, so she improvises, pulling a scimitar from behind and slashing the bugbear. Unfortunately for us, his next attack strikes true, and she falls.
Seeing an opportunity, the bugbear sets to work tending to the wounds of those who fell before him. The big lug treats their wounds successfully, and he sees potential in the two; Sir Clinton as a warrior for his cause, and Egreauss as a hostage if things take a turn for the worse. And that is when Leoril and Pestilence, worried about their comrades, make a break for the armory, arriving to find their allies beaten at the bugbear’s feet.
Pestilence, suddenly overcome with a will to be in the action, moves to the bugbear and thrusts with his katar. Missing, the bugbear’s weapon misses Pestilence, in turn, by a hair or two. Leoril then steps in and decapitates the bugbear. With two allies down, Leoril fights the urge to leave them with Pestilence and move on by himself, but in the end the entire group (including the hawk) takes a nine-day breather, knowing that the goblin situation is affecting precious few people in the town.
Once they return to fight, the mayor’s office is still held by the goblins that Leoril ran away from, but with their power combined, Leoril, Pestilence, Egreauss, and Sir Clinton make an easy time of the lot. One runs away and is cornered at the top of the stairs that diverge, and it jumps from the edge, landing poorly. Leoril, not one to think things through and take advantage of the hostage situation, jumps on top of the goblin, crushing its head. Sir Clinton does not approve.
The mayor’s bedroom smells atrocious. His corpse is blue, and his bed is stained with a crusty black goo. His stomach has a smiley face carved into it, his belt is wrapped much too tightly around his neck, his arms are bound to the bedposts with chafing rope, and his pants are on his head. Not stopping to feel revulsion towards the goblins’ sick sense of humor, the crew fights the two goblins and the two rats that have taken refuge. Anticlimactically, the fight goes smoothly, and the crew brings the bad news to the town.
The pastry shop and old man Bugger’s house remain to be cleared out. The group unanimously agrees that the pastry shop is the top priority. The counter hides two young adults, a man and a woman. Both of them are still alive, still wearing their aprons (the group deduces that they are still alive because they have baked cake for the goblins during their captivity). The three goblins that have captured these poor souls are quickly cornered by Pestilence and Leoril, who expertly stab a forehead and cleave a body in half, respectively. The third goblin makes use of his hostage, who, against all expectations, fights back. The goblin’s Morningstar batters his shoulder, but his right drive-through breaks the goblin’s nose, leaving it vulnerable enough to a kill by Leoril.
Awed at the young man’s bravery, Sir Clinton recommends that he join the local army. “I-I just wanted to bake cakes,” says the heroic baker before he begins to bawl. As a reward, his wife offers to the heroes the freshest cakes available from the shop. Salutations given, the heroes move on to a much more dire situation.
Their discovery is that the mayor‘s wounds and desecrations were nothing compared to those of old man Bugger. His arms and legs have been cut off at the joints; his arms have been jammed onto stakes in his ribs, and his legs have been staked into his head, hanging like antennae; the man’s tongue dangles from the gaping cut in his belly; his eyes have been cut in half; and his throat has been torn out. Two hobgoblins were apparently behind the mutilation, and they apparently know much more about ridiculous bodily rearrangement than their smaller brethren.
Enraged, Leoril fails to land a hit on the hobgoblin next to old man Bugger’s chair. Sir Clinton fails to hit in much the same manner while fighting the other. Pestilence takes the high ground, on top of old man Bugger’s corpse. He stabs the hobgoblin, and Leoril finds an opportunity to kill it. Egreauss teams up with Sir Clinton to fight the second, and a well-placed spear thrust leaves it open for the kill at the hands of the knight.
All of the buildings that the team were informed of have been cleared. Gathering no new information from the townspeople, other than the fact that goblins still lurk about, they rest, waking to find themselves feeling considerably stronger. They learn that, overnight, the estate of Ms. Veralda, a rich young noblewoman, has been overrun by a suitable large group of goblinoids.
The first room of the estate is even more massive than the mayor’s party hall. Three goblins and two hobgoblins await. Pestilence, now accustomed to fighting up-close (he took a level in swashbuckler), kills a goblin before it knows what hit it. Egreauss moves in soon after, thrusting forward at a hobgoblin with less success. The hobgoblins retaliate, and Egreauss only barely avoids a harsh blade to the skull. Leoril and Sir Clinton follow, making quick work of a the hobgoblins that were threatening their buddies. The two goblins are tenacious, and Sir Clinton is struck in the stomach by one, but they die. A man lies in the corner of this room, bound and with slit wrists (it appears that the goblins know a thing or two about cutting). He says that the door to the courtyard from this room is barricaded, and that avoiding undue property damage would be appreciated (an improvised excuse not to split the party again). After clearing two goblins, two dire rats, and two bugbears out of the following two rooms (at this point, I‘m skipping non-interesting battles), Ms. Veralda is found almost completely unharmed. She immediately offers her companionship to Leoril, and he agrees to a date with her, unaware of how crazy she really is (it’s jokingly speculated out-of-character that she’s really the one who went dominatrix on the mayor). As they move to the courtyard through a secret entrance, a goblin finds his blood tingeing the fountain in the center with red. Six enemies go down like flies at the feet of these newly-empowered heroes.
After Leoril takes time away from his adventuring duties to take the Miss out to supper, he and the other stumble upon a commotion involving three dead men and some fucked goblins. The only casualties suffered from this battle are Egreauss’s broken longspear. Most surprisingly, Ms. Veralda pilfers Leoril's wakizashi and enters the fray, only to stumble and fall upon a morningstar. She survives and is healed. Sir Clinton takes a few more hits (leaving him with 11/25 HP), and the party, having quelled this rampage, take a breather at a nearby inn, leaving Ms. Veralda in the kitchen, according to Leoril to rest.
That concludes this week’s session.
