Bjorn has been poking around the bodies too.   "Aye yer right there - this lot'll be back again.   Right organized these goblin folk have got ever since that bitch Fjonya's time.  Even after we slew here, Jarl Helder took Thorkell's death hard.  Never recovered.

"Time was, many of the common folk would even trade with the tricksy folk - buying pretties and whatnots for their ladies and poultices for their babies when they got sick.  Not that they'd ever admit it, but it happened.

"Now its got so that no traveller is safe unless he moves in numbers.  I'd been a-thinking that what wi' all o' us, armed and strong as we are, they'd have let well alone.  Just a week ago some o' the big farmers sent a delegation to the Jarl..."  he pauses to spit on the ground "...well, he that calls himself Jarl.  They went to ask special like, for summat to be done about this road."

"I guess Siegfried doesn't care 'bout his good tax-paying folks being waylaid when they move too far from their toils, and I bet his collectors have sufficient escort..." Beren mused. He sheathed his sword and sighed. He longed for a good night's sleep.

Brejgun looked once more at the creature.

"I would support getting to the Inn. I too believe that the fellowes of this critter will return, and I am not sure that we are up for that. Let's end him and move along. We will do well to leave this patch of road behind."

"I agree, those goblins can buy us a meal tonight" says Brakkus hungrily "and I need to purchase some more arrows in any event"

 Adonis harrumph's in apparent disapproval when it's mentioned that folk have been trading with such boggins as these in the past, but since he himself has been known at times to leave milk out overnight for the fairies, he goes no further than to cast a slightly guilty glance about before briefly making the sign of the cross like a good, pious knight before his chest and rising, "Then 'twould be naught but a needless cruelty to carry this fellow to question. Let his own collect him in due course." he declares, "I too am for the road, if all our friends are well enough to travel? - Though while there's light I could do with someone to glance over the scratch I got, to be sure it's no worse than it seems."

Bjorn has picked up his stuff and is shifting restlessly from foot to foot.

"Lads, we're all agreed then - lets be off - this isn't a sight to be hanging around.  Sir Metal a big lunk like you can surely manage to the inn with only a scratch - when we get there might be as we can buy a candle off the innkeeper".

Brejgun makes ready, although his leg still seems to be causing him discomfort, and the cut on his brow is developing brownish blueness around it, now he has wiped away most of the bleeding.

"Mayhap I do need a spot of healing before moving on, if power is still available ... ?". That comment does not seem to do his pride any good.

Beren looked at Brejgun, seemed to weigh his decision, and gestured at the most grievous of his wounds.

"That was the last magic I had for today... I can't do anymore for the moment," he said. "I'd be of a mind to get to the inn and bolt ourselves in for a couple of days. I can greatly speed our healing once we are safe, but I would prefer to face any further encounter with all of my arcane power at my disposal."

Eldor comes back out of the woods to the group relieved that the goblin threat has passed.

" We are about half hour hard walk from the inn if we set off now we should be there long before dark."

He looked with concern at the wounded and older members of the group " A little longer and we should be able to rest up in some safety." With that he waited for the rest to get ready then sets a fast pace off down the road keeping an eye out for further ambushes as he went.

[Assuming everyone puts their feet where their mouths are ;-) and gets a move on]

You gather your belongings and weapons and tread on through the gloaming.  Eldor, who knows the road and can see better than you in the faint light, sets a punishing pace.  After the ambush site the road rises rather steeply than before for about a mile.  All of you are feeling a burning in your legs when Eldor holds up his hand just before you crest a rise.

Just a few hundred yards on, the road winds down over a stream and passes an old two-storey building with a faint light flickering from its windows and some smoke trickling up from a rudimentary chimney.

[Please each give me a d20 roll].

[OOC:23:55, Today: Beren Sigilchyr rolled 13 using 1d20.]

OOC: Brejgun Kregnason rolled 9 using 1d20.

 "Don't speak to your betters that way old fool, even a small wound may turn pustulant if not tended." snaps Adonis firmly when Bjorn presumes rather too much and questions the knight with foolish mockery - and then offers up the contents of his waterskin to rinse out the scratch over his eye before sacrificing a 'kerchief and some leather thonging from his belt pouch to bind up the niggling injury and prevent it bleeding further (scalp wounds being known for their tendency to piss blood at the least excuse), doing so rather more awkwardly than another might do it for him, but with a stoic lack of complaint.

 And then it's off on the road, following Eldor and doing his best to keep up with the punishing pace being set, leaving the bandaged goblin behind to survive or die at the discretion of his companions.

 ---

 00:43, Today: Sir Adonis Campbell rolled 11 using 1d20.

OOC: 09:53, Today: Brakkus the Hermit rolled 16 using 1d20.

Bjorn sighs and looks down at the old building "that be the inn, b'aint it young Eldor? And not afore time, this damned curse takes all the wind out of the man.  Time was I'd walk all day and night and still be ready to fight i' the mornin'."

"Well, shall we tarry here all night?  I don't believe as the goblins would attack us here, too open".

He gestures to the road and indeed you see that that for this last stretch heading down to the inn, the road has been cleared of foliage for about a hundred yards on either side.  You cannot see any living creatures.

"Let us proceed. I cannot wait to get my feet up around a fire.", Brejgun grumbles.

"It's quiet..." mutters Brakkus. "Too quiet? Let's keep our wits about us comrades" he says, his third eye alive for any vibrations in the mystic force.

At Brakkus words, Brejgun stops dead in his tracks. He takes in the image of the inn very thoroughy, looking for signs that something is amiss.

OOC: Brejgun will looks for lack of lights, no smoke from the chimney, lack of yard animals etc. - or the opposite, of course, to set him at ease.

As you move down the road slowly, eyes and ears peeled, you do not notice anything amiss.  The light from the windows of the inn is faint but nothing out of the ordinary as rural Thuland is far from rich and candles are rare - most villages use primitive lamps and torches - or perhaps only the hearth-fire itself - for light.

There are some wooden outbuildings behind the inn and from one of them you hear the occasional whinny of a horse, carried over the night air.

As you are walking, Brakkus suddenly twists his foot on a rock in the dark and bites back a curse.  The road really is not the best highway every constructed by man.

17:36, Today: Eldor Leaf-fall rolled 15 using 1d20. d20 roll.

"Nothing seems immediately amiss ... we'll see when we get there ...", Brejgun comments to Brakkus.

You walk cautiously down the rest of the road and some minutes later are at the door of the inn.  It really does look rather run-down, but the walls and the front-door seem solid enough.  You can faintly hear someone moving about inside.

 Like the others, Adonis spends a few moments studying the settlment with warriors eyes, but unlike them he seems perfectly willing to take his chances and heads on down a little way in the lead of the group - only to fall back when Brakkus twists his ankle in order to offer the old man an arm to steady himself, declaring "Have a care there fellow, the road is treacherous in this half-light." before heading on at a slower pace, which gives people time to decide what to do about making their presence known.

 Well, assuming that the good knights stentorian bellow of "Well open the damn' door then!" doesn't stir people all by itself that is - though there's enough windpower behind it to do a good job of shaking said door on its leather hinges.

Brakkus limps painfully onward, thinking of hubris and all its may forms...

Eldor carried on the pace for a while then looking back quickly to make sure the others were keeping up he noticed Barkkus limping and realized perhaps he was pushing them a little too hard.

Allowing the others to pass him Eldor waited for the older man to pull level " Please accept my apologies for setting such a blistering pace I sometimes forget you humans get old quicker than us elves. Please take my arm to lean on till we enter the town proper." in so say he offered the older man his arm to lean on.