Veskard nocked another arrow and let fly at the Goblin that slipped into the Mud.

17:06, Today: Veskard rolled 2 using 1d6.
17:06, Today: Veskard rolled 14 using 1d20.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:00, Mon 16 Oct 2017.

Glanduil grimaces with the arrow still protruding from his arm. He clutches at the shaft but a flood of pain forces his hand away from the arrow. He wanted to rush in but he was not in any shape to engage in melee combat. He was out of spells and cursed himself for not bringing in a bow. He did look down at this dagger and slid it free from the sheath and flung it at the nearest goblin.

<Orange>OOC:  18:54, Today: Glanduil Ulazana rolled 9 using 1d20.  dagger throw. +2 AB = 11
18:58, Today: Glanduil Ulazana rolled 1 using 1d4.  dagger damage
This message was last edited by the player at 22:59, Fri 13 Oct 2017.

Wounded, Carnalore grits her teeth and assesses the wound, seeking additional cover in the wagon. She draws a dagger from inside her traveling clothes and readies it.

If a goblin threatens the party and moves within less than 30 feet of Carnalore, she will throw the dagger.

Attack roll: 12:32, Today: Carnalore Hostine rolled 11 using 1d20+1.
Damage: 12:33, Today: Carnalore Hostine rolled 3 using 1d4.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:35, Mon 16 Oct 2017.

Carnalore 6
Gilly 5
Veskard 4.5
Argon 4
Leleanne 3
Wyrran 2
Glanduil 1.5
Goblins 1

Carnalore held her dagger, waiting for a goblin to make a move.

Gilly's ruse works, and as the goblin stands in the wagon bed holding his discarded boot and looking confused, the halfling strikes! Unfortunately, his weapon is blocked by the goblin's chain mail. The creature turns on him with a look of pure rage...

Veskard's arrow sticks into the goblin, who screeches in pain and rage. He struggles up from the mud.

Argon holds off the charging goblin with his shield, then answers him with his own blade. It bites, but not quite deep enough to finish the creature.

Moving Wyrran up in the initiative order for clarity...
Wyrran casts his dagger across the battlefield and it is buried to the hilt in the forehead of a goblin archer. The vile creature's eyes cross and he falls forward, his face landing in the mud. As Wyrran falls to his knees, life ebbing from him, he feels the caring touch of Leleanne and is restored nearly to his full health and vigor.

Glanduil's dagger attack isn't quite as successful. The target goblin is watching him intently to see if the demonic creature the elf spoke of will show up. He ducks under the thrown blade, then draws a dagger of his own and throws it, but it tinks harmlessly off Glanduil's shield.

The goblins see there is no "creature from the depths of hell" arriving, and begin to move forward a bit hesitantly. Two seem to be coming for Leleanne and Wyrran, but won't reach them right away. The goblin facing Argon screeches with rage and swings its sword at him, but the warrior turns the attack aside with his shield. As he pushes the creature aside, Carnalore sees and opening and throws a dagger, but it misses and sticks into a tree trunk along the road.

In the cook wagon, the enraged goblin chops down at Gilly, who nimbly dodges out of the way.

The goblin Veskard shot is advancing on him when the sounds of a horn, the shouts of men and galloping hooves ring out from the northwest, the direction you were traveling before the attack. Armed men on horses burst onto the scene, riding along the edges of the road and scattering goblins everywhere. Each is carrying a long, spear-like lance and more than one goblin is haplessly skewered. In fact, one of the warriors thunders past Veskard and skewers the goblin who was advancing on him.

As the horsemen wheel about and return to the caravan, you get a clear look at their shields and tabards for the first time. The shields are a deep blue, just a few shades lighter than navy, and they are marked with three stylized white waves.

Deep in the forest, another horn sounds, and every remaining goblin begins to run toward its call. They melt into the woods. The expression of the goblin in the wagon with Gilly turns from hate to surprise and trepidation, and he leaps from the wagon and runs toward the forest.

Veskard, you get your wish this one time! I need a player to roll party initiative. If you win, you guys can react to this fleeing goblin. If you lose, all of you but Gilly are too distracted by all the other chaos and won't get a chance to act before he runs flat out into a thicketand disappears.  No matter what the result, Gilly may make a ranged attack if he wishes.

The goblin's roll is a 2.

Next time I post, I'll give out XP for this combat.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:32, Wed 25 Oct 2017.

Gilly's sense of triumph at fooling the stupid gobbo, turns to terror as his dagger blade skitters off of the creature's armored back and it rounds on him with rage and murder in its eyes. He thrashes this way and that, miraculously avoiding the nasty beast's blade, and then to his utter surprise the goblin hears the sound of horns and changes in an instant from a thing of murderous rage to a thing of uncertainty and fear.

The halfling barely has time to register the arrival of the men at arms who have saved them, it would seem -- unless they are being tossed out of the frying pan into the fire, before he realizes he has one last chance at skewering the fleeing goblin.

His dagger flashes in his hand as he throws with all his might and skill.

But his terror has stolen his focus and the blade flies past the goblin [1d20 = 4]. He marks where it has landed so that he can retrieve it, once they know what these new arrivals herald.

True to his nature, he then ducks his head down behind the buckboard of the wagon to stay out of sight as the mounted warriors swirl into the ambush site.

Party initiative: 12:03, Today: Carnalore Hostine rolled 4 using 1d6.

Argon aims a swing at the back of the neck of the goblin bringing his sword over the top of his shield. He catches the blade or something equally as infuriating and misses.

Argon rolled 5 using 1d20+1.  Attack.

In reply to Argon (msg # 29):

OOC: Not sure I can take this action and if yes not sure if I have to make some sort of check to retrieve the dagger AND throw it

Glanduil inwardly sighs with relief as the enchanted shield certainly protected him from a ghastly death from the hurled dagger. Now that the Goblin started his retreat he looked down at the Goblin dagger and retrieved and then hurled it at the Gobli, while at the same time winching in pain from the arrow wound.




11:13, Today: Glanduil Ulazana rolled 2 using 1d4.  dagger damage.
11:12, Today: Glanduil Ulazana rolled 19 using 1d20.  dagger attack.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:41, Fri 20 Oct 2017.

Leleanne, relieved she was able to help the elf, and silently delighted help had arrived, decided against pursuing the lone goblin. Instead, she took a deep breath and smiled briefly at Wyrran, before surveying the battlefield. Others were injured, and she felt helpless she'd exhausted her goddesses' blessings for the time being.

Trying to make herself useful, she checked on anyone in the caravan who hadn't been fighting.

Carnalore draws another dagger from the folds of her clothing and, if she has a direct line of sight, throws it after the fleeing goblin.

10:51, Today: Carnalore Hostine rolled 9 using 1d20+1.

She shrugs, noting the location of her first missed throw -- planning to retrieve her weapons as soon as it is safe to do so.

Wyrran stands up and decides to follow Leleanne, surveying the mounted men trying to discern a leader among them and also the people that took a beating in the fight, spotting anyone that needs a hand or a quick bandaging. He also moves to retrieve his thrown dagger from the forehead of the golbin.

As far as the fleeing goblin is concerned, if it can dodge its way out of all the sword, clubs and knives thrown its way, it can go free.

The fleeing goblin is missed by flying daggers from Gilly and Carnalore and the swing of Argon's sword. But then his luck runs out. Glanduil's dagger opens a nasty gash in the creature's bicep as it goes past, and Veskard sends an arrow into his back, through his heart.

The knights begin dismounting and you hear orders being called out and acknowledged, and you also hear the horn that called the goblins to retreat sounding again, farther away this time. The leader is a tall man in his late thirties with reddish brown hair. He tucks his helmet under his arm. He is near Argon and seeing his arms and armor, approaches him. "Bloody goblins are getting too bold. We've had to increase patrols, but I still never thought they'd attack a caravan this big, especially one with hired guards. Sir Kellin of Morganshold, at your service. And you are?"

Leleanne and Wyrran see that there are several passengers who have been wounded; they count five. Fortunately there have only been two deaths. A man lies on the ground at the rear of the caravan where he fell to a goblin sword thrust. You recall that he was a simple merchant of some sort, planning to go on to Slateholm. He had almost certainly had no skills as a warrior but risked himself anyway.

The other dead man is Parnell, one of the brothers who run the operation. You see that two of the knights are carefully lifting him from the driver's seat on the lead wagon. Two arrows are in his chest and his head lolls back as the two men struggle with his weight. A step away is his brother Breccan. He is a taciturn man who had barely shown any emotion the entire trip, but he weeps unashamedly with deep, heaving sobs.

Everyone gets 35 XP.

Carnalore climbs down from the wagon in which she'd been riding -- then hiding -- to reclaim her dagger from where it stuck in the tree. She then looks for her second thrown dagger. Is she also able to find the second dagger she threw after the goblin, missing?

Gilly watches the men at arms for a few moments from his hiding place in the chuck wagon, just to make sure they are not searching for someone, and then he climbs down to go in search of the dagger he threw that missed its mark. He smiles cheekily at Carnalore who is also looking for her missing knife and offers to practice knife throwing with her at the evening camp site.

"Looks like we could both use the practice," he says. "I'm Gilly, by the way. Short for Gillifian if you want to be formal, but I'm not. Formal that is."

He doesn't really expect the goblins will have much on them in the way of loot, but he does take the time to make sure each one lying on the ground is really dead and then he moves their weapons away from their bodies and rummages in their pockets.

"Looking for clues," he says to anyone who looks askance at this behavior.

Anything of interest he will toss on top of one of the bodies, filching one coin (if he finds any) for every two he puts in the pile.

When he comes to the body of the one he killed personally he will look for a souvenir of some kind -- a bit of crude jewelry it might have worn or a talisman on a thong, some kind of keepsake for his first ever kill.

When this business is done he will move closer to the leader of the new arrivals.

"Good day, Sir Kelin," he greets the knight with a nod of the head. "Are we far from town? It seems very remote here. From the horns the goblins were blowing as you and your men approached, I would say they had lookouts along the road and were quite organized to avoid a face to face fight with warriors like yourselves. They'd rather murder defenseless merchants like Mr. Parnell there and that fellow headed for Slateholm.

"Will your men take care of his goods? Make sure they go to his heirs safely? I expect that your quite busy though, patrolling the roads -- with brigands like this everywhere. I suppose I could help with that if need be. I'm just a cook, but I could find out who he was going to see and who his family was."

Argon watches the goblins retreat before beginning to search the dead beasts starting with those closest to him and then fanning out. Anything he finds he keeps together to be shared out once they stop for camp that evening.

He will also be looking for intel of what the goblins were up to and why they attacked.

-

Wyrran will help as best as he can the wounded closest to him, and search roughly the closest dead goblin. He then will find Glanduil, pulling him to step together closer to the arising conversation around Sir Kellin. Wyrran will offer his full name when the opportunity presents itself, or the conversation turns that way.

Carnalore, roll a d20 and if you get below your wisdom score, you found it.
Anyone else who is searching for missing weapons can use the same approach.

Also, if anyone other than Gilly is going to loot bodies, mention it here or in OOC and I'll resolve who discovers what.

Kellin arches a brow at the interruption, but otherwise his expression doesn't change as he looks down at the halfling. "That sort of thing will depend on what agreement he had with Breccan and Parnell. It may be up to them to ensure delivery. If there's no agreement we can verify, it will be up to the Baronet to rule on it. As for how far out we are, I'd expect we'll reach Morgansfort by noon if there's no further trouble."





I'm going to let others have the opportunity to post before I continue with Sir Kellin.

After trying to find her second dagger -- and failing (16:17, Today: Carnalore Hostine rolled 16 using 1d20.) -- Carnalore returns to the wagon trail. Once there, she, too, helps tend to the wounded and see what valuables remain to be clamed by the survivors.

Leleanne was relieved the battle was over, but aghast when she saw the dead. Ignoring the injured, she knelt next to each corpse, and said a brief prayer. It was unlikely either of the deceased worshiped her Goddess, but that didn't matter. "Beautiful Aphrodite, help this poor soul find his way to whoever it is he called out to. If it is you, my graceful Goddess, please embrace him and keep him forever."

Once her urgent duties were complete, Leleanne attended to the wounded. She hoped her own beauty and kindness would give them comfort in a difficult time. While she did that, she tried to listen into the conversation with the knight.

 Veskard unstrung his bow and was about to search the dead, but saw others had beat him to it. He muttered an unpleasant word, then the shrugged, Goblins made for poor pickings in any event. He went for a drink from his wine skin.

Glanduil searches through the area and he looks furlong as he seems he could not find what he was looking for. Then, his Elven eyes catches a flash of silver and he reaches down and is able to locate his dagger.

18:49, Today: Glanduil Ulazana rolled 4 using 1d20.  dagger check.

He leans down and groans from the pain from the arrow but he smiles as he recovers his dagger. He cleaned it briefly and then shows everyone his dagger with a clear look of delight. "Hey I found it!"

He looks around then shrugs as he sheaths it the scabbard as he realized no one was particularly interested. Everyone appeared to be engaged in some other activity. He was glad that Leleanne was praying for the deceased.

Moments later he is pulled next to Wyrran. Taking the opportunity, Glanduil addresses Sir Kellin as he nods. "Thank you sir for your timely arrival. I am Glanduil Ulazana at your service."

He paused then continued. "As noted it is not common for Goblins to attack a larger caravan. Would you know if these Goblins attacked us is from a know tribe?"

He paused then further asked. "As you can see I was wounded by some archers. Are there any healers that would be able to attend to my wound?"

Veskard spat out some wine, capped the skin, then stuffed it back into one of the wagons. The Warrior then  resumed walking around the wagons in a slow patrol, just for something to do, while the others spoke with the mounted patrol.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:00, Sun 29 Oct 2017.

Those searching the goblins find something strange: Apart from a few electrum coins and the usual shiny rocks, sticky things and dead rat parts one would find on goblins, each one is carrying small gold nuggets or tiny pouches of unrefined* gold dust, amounting to a worth of one or more gold pieces apiece.

The wounded are grateful for what little Leleanne and Wyrran can do for them, which unfortunately isn't much. They are assisted by a young knight from the military detachment who catches himself gaping open-mouthed at Leleanne's beauty and blushes a deep crimson as he goes back to his work.

Gilly thinks he's getting away with his pilfery at first, but he notices a knight watching his every move with an expression of interest and disapproval. It also occurs to him that those who fought haven't had any agreement between them up to now, so he might be better off showing it all and hoping he's told to keep it than be caught holding something back. On the goblin he killed, he finds a necklace strung with bear teeth that have had their ends chopped off with a crude tool.


When Wyrran introduces himself, Kellin nods and says, "Good to meet you. Wait...Galaeth? I believe there's a message waiting for you at the Baronet's court."



"Sir Ragnan is our battle medic, and he can get the arrow out and bandage your wound. Once we reach the fortress, Father Thelbain should be able to minister to you and heal your wound. As for the goblins of this tribe, judging by the location and arrow craftwork, I'd say we're dealing with the Toothsmashers. They usually dwell in the hills well off the road, but they've been bolder of late, and showing up in greater numbers.


*When you look closely, you see that the dust has some sand and tiny rocks in it.

Gilly searches 3 goblins, finding 9ep and gold worth 10gp
Argon searches 2 goblins, finding 8ep and gold worth 6gp
Wyrran searches 1 goblin, finding 2ep and gold worth 5gp
Carnalore searches 1 goblin, finding 1ep and gold worth 7gp


Tomorrow we'll cut to the fortress, so if you have anything else you need to take care of on the road, now's the time.

Carnalore tells the others of her bounty and asks whether any feel due a share of the spoils.

Argon will add what he found to any pile being formed. "Lets split it evenly." he adds.