Adventure Log 18: The Cult of the Cannibal Goblins, Part 4
General Summary
When the sun began lightening the sky in the east, Elitheris woke. She was an early riser by nature; honed after decades of living in the forests and jungles of the Empire. She was still a bit tired, having been woken up in the middle of the night by Almë’s nightmare. She rubbed her eyes, and started breaking camp. Almë nodded at her, and lent a hand. Their camp was simple, and while it wouldn’t take very long for a single person to do it, having the second set of hands made breaking camp so much quicker.
The noises woke Taid, followed by Eykit, who grumbled something about a rock and some sticks that had been less than pleasurable bed companions. Whatever the escapades were, it involved a lot of foul language and bruises. Taid chuckled, “You’ll get used to it. Try sleeping in a mud-filled hole sometime. Then you will know true discomfort!”
“Yeah, no thanks,” Eykit replied. “I don’t plan on joining the military any time soon. I’ve heard the horror stories and I want no part of them! I’ll take a cold doorway on the street any day of the eightday!”
Taid’s low rumbling laugh was audible throughout the campsite. “Maybe so! A stone bed is better than a mud pit with ankle deep water for sure. But a bedroll on the jungle floor is a luxury in comparison to either.”
Elitheris, overhearing their discussion, added, “When you have that Mystic Mist of yours, sure. Otherwise, the ground can be dangerous.”
Eykit tilted his head, looking at her. “But you slept on the ground all the time before you came to Port Karn.”
“No, I didn’t. Not unless I had to. I slept in the trees. Safer up there, and less chance of being trampled by a herd of trihorn. Or eaten by something nasty.”
Their camp packed, Elitheris led the way, following the fleeing Goblin’s tracks. The summer morning had dawned clear and cloudless, although it was still relatively cool at the jungle floor. There had been mist curling up into the sky earlier in the morning, but it had burned off shortly after they broke camp. The jungle floor was also dim; not much light filtered down through the multiple layers of canopy. But with their eyes, there was plenty of light for them all to see well enough to get around. Goblins, Dwarves, and Elves all had great night vision, so dim areas weren’t usually a problem. The air below the canopies was still, although if anyone looked up they would be able to see the tops of the trees moving due to a slight breeze. Birds chattered and called in the branches, although despite the occasional flash of bright color, they were unseen. Other calls, not from birds, could be heard now and again, although it didn’t seem as if any of them were signs of immediate danger.
After a few hours, Elitheris realized that they had made a grand arc, starting eastward, curving southward, westward, and finally, northward again. Jakkora had traveled in roughly in a half circle.
“I think he has gone back to the cavern,” Elitheris told the others. “Perhaps he wanted something?”
“His sketches, maybe? Since he’s an illusionist?” Eykit suggested. And damn, they might have been worth something on the art market, too. That guy is good. Maybe I can still get them…a bit of salesmanship, and maybe I can sell them to collectors of ‘questionable goods’? The fact they were drawn by a known cannibal might bump up their prices!”
Taid asked, “So, do we cut across and make a bee line to the cavern, and try to make up some time, or follow his tracks?”
Elitheris thought about this for a moment. Cutting across and blazing their own trail would likely take longer than just following along Jakkora’s trail. As it was, they still had to widen out the trail in some spots in order to get the horse through the undergrowth. Besides, she wasn’t absolutely sure that the fleeing mage had gone back to the cavern, only that the trail implied that he had.
“No,” she finally answered. “We are actually making good time following his tracks. Navigating through untrodden jungle would likely take longer anyway.”
“Fine, let’s go then,” Eykit said, rubbing sore spot on his hip from where he had lain on his stony bed companion.
They continued on, following the trail of footprints, broken branches, and cut fronds that the Goblin mage had left behind. Elitheris noticed that the footprint spacing hadn’t changed at all, indicating that the mage likely didn’t know he was being followed. Good, she thought, that gives us a bit of surprise.
The cannibal Goblin had indeed gone back to the cavern. They figured that he likely wanted some of his stuff before making a break for wherever he planned on going to next.
Taid said, “Elitheris, Eykit, you two go around back to the bolt hole. Go in that way. Almë and I will go in the front, as we have the pole weapons. Maggie hates small spaces. And we don’t want that little bastard to escape.”
Eykit and Elitheris nodded, and the two of them, along with Mr. Wiggles, moved quickly around the hillside. Almë and Taid hid Wilbur again, making sure to go out a bit farther and do a better job of hiding him. They didn’t want anyone stealing him again.
And they got lucky, finding a rocky ravine with plenty of grasses growing out amongst the rocks, perfect for a grazing horse. There just wasn’t much a horse liked to eat growing in a dense jungle. Here, at least, he could nibble to his heart’s content, and it was hidden from view from most directions. If Jakkora or his companion escaped, it was unlikely that they would stumble upon Wilbur this time.
They went back to the entrance, which gaped in front of them. No effort had been made to camouflage it this time. By unspoken agreement, Almë and Taid both moved as stealthily as they could as they made their way down the sloping tunnel that led into the cavern complex, weapons at the ready. But there was only so much they could do to be quiet, despite all of their considerable efforts. Armor, even layered cloth armor, rubbed against itself to a certain degree, and made a bit of noise, although far less than maille or plate harness.
The lights were still glowing on the ends of the stalactites, and up ahead of them they could see the tunnel widening out into the guard room. The chairs were still there, as was the tapestry with the hidden animals.
They heard a whistle, and it seemed to be coming from the tunnel to the left. They had heard that particular whistle pattern before; it was one of the messages that the Goblins had used to coordinate their actions.
“Shit!” Taid said softly to Almë, “Well, they know we are here! Damned Goblin hearing!”
They could hear footsteps slapping on the stone up the left-hand tunnel. Almë bolted into the tunnel, chasing after them.
“Gods damn it,” Taid exclaimed under his breath, as he followed the Elf. “He’s going to get himself killed.”
Almë ran up the sloping, rough-floored tunnel. It was maybe two meters wide, and about as tall, and sloped up at about a 40° angle. Fortunately, the flowstone of the floor had formed into natural, if uneven, steps. So it was more of a staircase, rather than a sloping tunnel. After two turns and about ten meters, it reached an oval chamber maybe seven by ten meters in size.
Judging from the furniture, it was a lounge of some kind. It had a domelike ceiling some four to five meters high, and the floor showed signs of once having stalagmites. Many of those stalagmites, and their corresponding stalactites above them, had been removed. There were still a forest of them at the northern end of the room, flanking both sides of a tunnel leading further into the hill.
Lounge
Furnishing the room were several mismatched chairs, tables, a sofa, some end tables, and a few cabinets. The furniture was mostly in the southern and western portions of the room. The square table had four chairs; the circular one had six. There were a pair of dart boards hung on one wall, and several stalagmites had some colorful wooden rings on them, evidently the result of a ring toss game. On the tables were some plates with the remains of food, along with some cards, gambling chips, and a few mugs, some still with ale in them.
Almë didn’t care about any of that. He could still hear the echoing footsteps of his quarry coming from the tunnel at the northern end of the room, and once he got to the room and the floor leveled out, he was able to speed up. Climbing, and it was closer to climbing than running, up that tunnel had been a chore. He leapt over a Goblin sized chair, running past the rest of the furniture since he had a straight shot to the other tunnel. He could hear Taid following along behind him. That tunnel was similar to the last one, except longer, more twisted, and, in general, sloped downward. He could hear the Goblin up ahead of him, and he sprinted along the tunnel. There were more of those flowstone steps, going down, and he took them at a dead run.
Then his feet flew out from under him.
His feet slipped on something, and he was suddenly in the air, rotating backward. He tucked his legs in instinctively, and he somehow turned his “accident” into a backflip, landing on his feet a meter or so downslope. In the dimness, he could hear the tinkling sounds of several small glass objects skittering downslope, bouncing off of the rocky walls and floor.
He stood there for a moment, disbelieving his own senses. He had expected to be on his ass at this moment! His amazement only delayed him a moment or two, then he again took off after the Goblin. Taid had seen the backflip from upslope, realized what must have happened, and muttered, “More pit bullshit. I’m really starting to hate illusionists!”
He slowed down, testing the floor ahead of him so he didn’t end up slipping as well. On the sloping section, where two of the steps were, there was an image of the floor displaced about a centimeter or so above the floor itself. Feeling about with his hand, he could feel the marbles placed there, dislodging a few in the process. They bounced down the rough steps, making more of that musical clinking as they did. A simple trap, but effective. “Well, not as effective as they had hoped,” he added with a slight smile. He carefully made his way past the hidden marbles, then accelerated again to a run to follow Almë.
Almë came to a stop at a spot in the tunnel that was cluttered with stalactites and stalagmites, which caused the tunnel to neck down to about a meter and a half in width. He could see two figures, both Goblins, in the room several meters ahead.
It was Jakkora and his companion. And a cave hydra. At least it wasn’t another spider!
Cave hydra
The room was Jakkora’s drafting room, with the shelves, work tables, drawings, and the meeting table with the ogre-sized stool.
Jakkora’s drafting studio
The mage had a pack, stuffed full of what must have been his books and sketches. For an illusionist, they were key research materials, needed to make convincing illusions. There was no way he was going to give those up; he’d have to recreate them, taking months, or years. He glanced up as Taid joined Almë in the tunnel. He saw them in the tunnel, and his face twisted with hate. “You guys are a pain in my ass! You ruined everything!” He gestured, pointing down the tunnel at the two intruders. “Kill them!” he said to the hydra, and it slithered off. Jakkora started mumbling, his fingers flicking into different positions. He was casting a spell.
Taid had been casting as well, and he strode forward two steps, his hand held in front of him. The flash of light erupting from his palm blasted into the room, causing shadows to stand out starkly black in the bright, momentary illumination.
Jakkora Tongue-Biter, Illusionist
“Aggh!” Jakkora said, blinking, spots in his eyes.
His bodyguard winced as well as the light impacted his retinas. “Damn it all,” he muttered, as spots infested his vision as well. Fortunately for them, they had been too far away to have risked actual blindness. The spots still made things more difficult for them, however.
The cave hydra didn’t seem to notice at all; this wasn’t a surprise to Taid, once he saw what kind of hydra it was. Cave hydras were albino, and blind. Their eyes had atrophied long ago. The cave hydras “saw” using pits near their noses to detect infrared. The hydras did taste good, though, at least Dwarves thought so. Maybe he could cook it up later….
The Flash spell had been to give them an advantage, and while they did get one, it wasn’t as large as Taid had hoped it would be. But he had to work with what he had, so he and Almë charged into combat.
A second cave hydra appeared beside Jakkora. He had summoned another one. “Get the Elf,” he told it, and it sped towards Almë.
Almë cast Pollen Cloud. It had done some good work before, it would likely do well again. He filled the entire five meter by seven meter room with the pollen cloud, and the two Goblins started coughing and wheezing. There would also be watering eyes and itching to annoy them as well. Almë chuckled, looking forward to whacking them with his staff.
Their tearing eyes filled with spots, and constantly interrupted by sneezes and coughing, the two Goblins retreated out of the room.
The hydras sped towards the Taid and Almë sliding across the stony floor like the serpents they were. Taid leveled his halberd, planning a quick thrust into the body of the first hydra with the intent to keep the highly venomous creature from getting anywhere close to him. He stabbed forward, stepping into the attack, and the spike slid deep into the body of the leading multi-headed serpent. He had no intention of withdrawing his weapon; he intended to leave it in the foe, and push that thing around like a writhing mop. Besides, he was going to use it to try to block the second hydra. The stricken hydra wrapped its body around the end of the halberd, trying to wrest its body off of the spike.
Almë didn’t have the armor that Taid did, and seven poisonous heads could do some severe damage with their venom. As the second hydra approached, Taid shoved the speared one into its path, trying to at least slow it down, and at best, stop it completely. It didn’t work; the second hydra agilely squirmed over its stuck companion and continued to make its way to Almë. It hissed from various mouths, the sound of each hiss overlapping in waves of sound.
Taid and Almë stood just outside of the room and the cloud of pollen, which hung in the air like a golden haze. They couldn’t tell if the pair of hydras had been affected or not, as neither of them seemed to exhibit any symptoms that they could see.
Seeing that his tactic didn’t work as well as he had hoped, Taid shoved the hydra as far away as possible, then withdrew his polearm.
Almë really wished the tunnel was tall enough to swing his staff down onto the oncoming hydra, but it wasn’t. He was forced to use his staff almost like a sword, thrusting out with the iron shod end like a knobby sword point. He hammered it forward, striking the hydra between a pair of necks.
The two hydras, both wounded, attacked their respective targets. The one on Taid attacked his legs, trying to bite through the enchanted gambeson. None of the four heads that attacked him were able to get through the layers of enchanted cloth. The one on Almë, on the other hand, managed to get a head’s fangs through the armor on Almë’s leg. The fangs punctured his thigh, injecting venom into the Elf’s bloodstream.
Almë yelled in pain as the burning sensation started as a point, then started to spread. He jerked his leg back, pulling his leg from the hydra’s grasping mouths. He had actually been attacked by five of the heads, but only one had managed to get through his layered and quilted armored leggings. That venom would be injuring him for the next six hours or so. Muscle damage and paralysis were likely, but he didn’t have time to worry about that at the moment, had it even crossed his mind.
Dropping his halberd, Taid reached down and grabbed the hydra that had its heads latched onto his legs, trying to bite through the cloth. With little difficulty, he pulled it off of his legs as the heads reoriented and attacked his arms, now that they could be reached. Taid kept his arms outstretched; the heads were trying for his face, and he didn’t want them having any chance to bite him where he wasn’t armored. A couple of bites on his face, and he would be one dead Dwarf.
Almë attacked the hydra on him, but it slid around the attack and went for the gardener’s legs again. With a flurry of motions, Almë parried most of the heads with his staff, but a few got past his defenses and bit into his legs again. Fortunately for Almë, they were unable to get through his armor, and while he could feel their teeth on his leg, they weren’t able to break the skin to deliver their venom.
During the fighting, Almë had stepped into the room, giving him enough space to truly use his staff properly. A quick twirl of the staff brought it down on the hydra, hard, and the hydra’s heads waved spasmodically. It slithered in a rough, random circle, confused and stunned.
Taid saw the Goblins making their way out of the room, and with a heave, he threw the 18 kg writhing bundle of venomous heads at the Goblin bodyguard. It sailed across the room, hit the top of the table with the remains of the card game on it, and slid off the slick surface, hitting the back of a chair before flopping onto the seat and rolling onto the floor in a wiggling heap. Cards from the tabletop fluttered down around it. It started back towards Taid.
Eykit, Elitheris, and Mr. Wiggles made their way through the low tunnel used as a bolt hole. It was a bit larger than a meter in diameter. Goblins had no problem moving through it normally, but anyone larger would have to crouch, or crawl on all fours. The ogress who played the part of Kalshebba would have had to crawl for sure. They came to a branch, the tunnels going off to the right and left. They took the right hand tunnel; neither of them thought that the two bolt holes, one from Jakkora’s room, the other from Kalshebba’s, crossed or overlapped each other in any way, and heading in the direction of Jakkora’s room made way more sense.
Elitheris held the edge of Mr. Wiggles armor; she didn’t want him running off ahead and getting into trouble. Soon they found the end of the tunnel, with the tapestry in front of the opening. Eykit peered out. He could hear the sounds of fighting, and Almë’s and Taid’s upraised voices as they fought something. He moved out of the opening, sliding past the hanging tapestry. He tossed his Darkness strip to his left as he made his way to a cluster of stalagmites to the right.
The strip enchanted with the Darkness spell unrolled, the wall of darkness springing up as the surface of the material was exposed. The section of the room to his left was shrouded in darkness. At least, it looked that way, since from his vantage point, he was looking through the darkness. In reality, only an area 15 cm wide was dark, but it shrouded anything on the other side of it in darkness. With any luck, the enemies coming into the room would assume there were people behind it, and target it, rather than him and Elitheris. He had both of his knives out, ready to plunge them into someone, preferably from ambush, from behind.
For her part, Elitheris was staying behind the tapestry, her foot pulling the bottom of the tapestry just far enough over to the side to let her aim her bow through the space between the edge of the tapestry and the side of the tunnel.
Almë jumped over the stunned hydra; that one wasn’t much of a threat at the moment, but the one that Taid had tossed still was.
Picking up Maggie, Taid furiously attacked the stunned hydra. The blade bit deep, and the hydra stopped moving in its uneven circle. Instead, it lay there, unmoving, although Taid could see that it still seemed to be breathing. In any case, it was out of the fight.
The two cannibal Goblins scurried quickly down the sloping tunnel to Jakkora’s bedroom, intent on escape through the tunnel there.
“What the hell is that?” the warrior Goblin exclaimed, seeing the wall of darkness on the far side of the room.
“There are more of them? Shit!” Jakkora exasperatedly shouts. “Isn’t it enough that they ruined everything? Why couldn’t they have just left?”
Almë and Taid, still in the drafting room and dealing with the remaining hydra, engaged it in combat. Almë missed with a strike as it slithered back and out of the way. The pollen was causing both of them some troubles. While neither of them had much sneezing going on, the itching of their skin was…annoying, and throwing off their aim. The watering eyes didn’t help much, either.
The hydra struck back. It had been told its target was the Dwarf, but that target was out of reach. There was a closer one, however, so it struck. Five heads attacked, the other two keeping watch, tracking the nearby Dwarf and anything else in the room. Those five heads all bit at the Elf’s legs, and one managed to pierce the layers and layers of cloth, tasting blood and injecting more venom. That burning feeling started to spread up his previously undamaged leg. He could feel the burning sensation in both legs, slowing spreading as the venom did its work.
The edges of his vision were starting to contract as his body strived to keep going. His wounds were pretty bad, and his head was starting to swim. The spell he had cast to annoy the enemy was affecting him, too. That pissed him off. The pain burning up his legs were starting to really, really hurt. And the gods damned illusion master was starting to get away! And here he was, fighting a snake with a multiple personality problem! He had other things, pressing things, important things, that he had to do!
He snapped. His rage, which had built up slowly, almost imperceptibly, had risen like a leviathan from beneath the deepest sea. He went berserk, his staff slamming at the hydra over and over again until he finally connected, and the hydra stopped moving, limp.
Almë attacking the enemy in a berserk state
Eykit was crouched behind his cover, waiting for the enemy to get close. Elitheris waited, an arrow nocked and partially drawn, waiting for the two Goblins to enter the room. The warrior had moved to the front, and was leading Jakkora into the room, giving him some protection against the foes he thought were waiting for them. She finished drawing the arrow back, and loosed.
The Goblin warrior heard a sound, and turned towards it. He had the chance to register movement—he wasn’t even sure what it was—before the broadheaded arrow slammed through his eye, his brain, and impacted the back of his skull. His head, wrenched to the side by the transfer of momentum, lead his body down to the ground. He was dead before he hit. His face had a surprised look on it marred only by the more than two feet of arrow sticking out of his eye socket. Blood oozed down from the wound, slowly pooling beneath his head.
“Well, fuck,” Jakkora said, dismay in his voice. Things just got way, way more complicated. The Dwarf was chasing him, and not far behind. His bodyguard just had his brains scrambled by an archer hiding in his escape route. He spoke a few words, and waggled his fingers as he cast Create Animal again.
Almë and Taid chased after the Goblin mage. Elitheris drew a pair of arrows from her quiver. She let Mr. Wiggles go, saying “Get him!” as she pointed at the mage.
He ran into the room, barking furiously, leaping into the Goblin and clamping his jaws on the Goblin’s leg. With some effort, the Goblin did not fall over, or scream out, instead keeping up his low chanting.
Eykit put one of his rondels in his teeth, and drew one of his throwing daggers. They didn’t do a lot of damage, but the mage was only wearing cloth, and he might get a lucky shot.
Taid and Almë get to the room, barreling down the sloping tunnel. Taid tried to attack Jakkora, but the wily Goblin managed to shift out of the way, despite the twenty or more kilograms of dog on his leg. In doing so, he also managed to get out of the way of one of Elitheris’ arrows. It clattered into the stalactites, fragmenting, and wood chips flew everywhere, some bouncing off of the Goblin and the dog. He didn’t manage to dodge Eykit’s thrown knife, however, but his armor was up to the task of protecting him. He ignored the knife that fell to his feet, the point thwarted by his gambeson armor.
His spell done, another hydra appeared next to him. It was another cave hydra, and he was hoping that the multitude of poisonous heads would give people some bad days. “Attack the Dwarf! Aim for his face!” he told it, and it slithered off after Taid with a multi-throated hiss.
Almë, a look of absolute rage on his reddening face, hammered his staff at Jakkora. One of the flurry of blows landed solidly in the solar plexus, and the Goblin doubled over as he tried to breathe. Taid followed up with an attack, thrusting his halberd at the wounded mage, but something shifted the point away from his target’s body, causing him to miss.
Even in his world of pain, the desperate illusionist strove to cast a spell. He didn’t want to end like this! He had a few more tricks up his sleeves….
The room went completely black. Jakkora had cast a Blackout spell, rendering everyone in the room completely blind. Alas, despite the cave hydra not having eyes to blind, the spell also affected the infrared sensing capability of the animal, so it was blind now, too. But he could at least use the darkness, and his intimate knowledge of the room, to get away.
Almë didn’t care how damned dark it was in the room. He knew where the hydra was, and he hit it anyway. He had no idea what he did to it, but he hit something that hissed.
Taid had a good idea where that little bastard was, dropped his halberd, spread his arms wide, and leapt forward to tackle the dog-encumbered mage. He had enough of an idea of where he was to actually succeed, too. The cannibal hadn’t been expecting that kind of attack, either. Both the Dwarf and the Goblin fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs, the Dwarf on top. Jakkora was pinned down by about 140 kg of solid muscle and metal that was going to do everything he could to not let him up.
Eykit, following up from the knife throw, felt his way forward until he got to the table, hopping up onto it. He crouched there, getting his bearings in the dark, using his keen hearing as best he could.
There is some scuffling in the dark. “Not me, stupid!” they heard Jakkora yell. “Attack the Dwarf on me!” Jakkora realized that the absolute blackness was affecting the hydra, too, and it didn’t please him. But it was still his best chance of escape, if he could get out from under the huge mass of Dwarf that effectively pinned him in place.
Almë used his staff as a blind man’s stick, tapping around until he found something soft. It gave him a range to where the targets were.
Taid, clutching onto Jakkora with one hand, pulled his other back in a fist and let it fly, blindly attacking the body underneath him. It glanced off what he thought might have been a shoulder, but it didn’t connect very well, and Jakkora barely made a sound. The Dwarf figured his punch was ineffective.
Elitheris moved out of the tunnel, fumbling her way in the dark, sweeping her bow back and forth to avoid the obstacles in the room. Eykit shoulder rolled off of the table onto the floor, silently landing in a crouch.
Jakkora went for his knife, his other hand feeling around to get a sense of how Taid was oriented on him. He was going to put his knife in that damned Dwarf’s neck! Or face, he thought. That would work, too.
Knowing he had a target, and a room big enough to fully swing his staff, Almë beat the living crap out of it. Twice he struck, and twice he was rewarded with a pained canine whine. He had hit Mr. Wiggles, twice. Mr. Wiggles shifted his body, but didn’t let go of the mage’s leg.
Taid could hear Almë blindly attacking, and tried to pull Jakkora backwards. He didn’t have much luck, although he was able to pull him about half a meter.
Elitheris reached the table, and, like Eykit before her, climbed upon it. Eykit, his Goblin ears swiveling to locate noise sources, sought out the hissing of the hydra, moving towards it.
Jakkora, desperate and terrified now, slammed his knife into where he thought Taid’s neck was. But Taid had shifted when he had pulled Jakkora around, and the strike missed. The hydra, curled on Jakkora’s chest, struck at the Dwarf, but it couldn’t see, and had no idea where the Dwarf’s face was. It struck at Taid’s chest, which was encased in a steel breastplate, and the attacks, all six of them, bounced off. It did more damage to the hydra than it could ever do to Taid. Hearing the series of “bodunkadunks” as their multiple mouths struck the steel, Taid laughed heartily.
That laugh stopped abruptly when Taid felt Almë’s staff slam down on his back. “Hey! Calm the fuck down!” It hadn't done any damage to him, but it made him mad nonetheless. He reached for his knife. It was time for this fight to end.
Elitheris hopped off of the table, feeling around for where the pile of combatants were. She homed in on the growling dog, feeling his hindquarters in the dark. She unconsciously patted him as her brain made sense of the situation in front of her. “Good dog,” she said softly.
Eykit, ahead of Elitheris, struck Jakkora twice, but neither strike got through the armor. “Shit!” he said. It was almost as if something had pushed the points of his daggers to the side a bit, throwing off his attacks.
The hydra tried again, this time attacking Taid’s hand and arm. Again, none of the fangs got through Taid’s enchanted armor. They released the hand, moving up the arm. Jakkora, panicking, tried to squirm out from under Taid, the dog, and Eykit, but wasn’t able to go anywhere. He just wasn’t strong enough, or big enough. He was, after all, only the size of a human child.
Almë was still berserk, flailing wildly in the absolute darkness. All he knew was that his enemy was in front of him, and he had to stop him from escaping. This time, he actually did manage to hit the mage, who cried out in pain when Almë’s staff cracked down on his shin. But Almë also hit Taid again on the back; Taid’s armor was strong, though, and the staff wasn’t able to do any damage to the Dwarf. “You owe me fifty crowns, Elf! Stop hitting me!”
He followed that exclamation with a knife thrust to Jakkora’s chest, but Jakkora’s armor was good, too, and while he drew a drop of blood, it wasn’t enough to wound the writhing, panicked cannibal.
Elitheris moved forward, into the confused melee, feeling around until she found something that wasn’t Taid. Eykit’s roaming fingers found a Goblin face. He smiled, his pointed teeth invisible in the darkness.
The hydra attacked Taid’s arm, but like before, it was unable to get through the armor. Even Jakkora’s frenzied stab to Taid’s arm didn’t go through the armor. This wasn’t turning out anything like the illusionist had hoped.
Almë vaguely heard voices he almost recognized. Almost. But the enemy was still moving in front of him. He struck wildly again, and he hit a Goblin this time. But it was the wrong Goblin…it was Eykit. Eykit cried out as he felt something hard strike his calf. “Gods damn it! Cut that out, Almë!”
Almë also managed to hit Taid’s leg as well. “Curse you, Elf!” he yelled as his knife strike was disrupted, causing an ineffectual attack. “That’s another fifty crowns!”
Elitheris had her knife out as well. She could see it, shining in the dark, her mage-senses enabling her to see it, the Elven Tengwar spelling out “Maica Melehtë”, “Piercing Might”. Its light, however, wasn’t actual illumination; it was simply her magical sense giving her an image in her mind's eye. She attacked like she'd seen Eykit attack, stabbing furiously, and she felt it enter the mage’s body both times. He screamed in pain, but he wasn’t completely out of the fight yet.
Eykit knew where his hand was, his proprioceptive sense telling him exactly where it was. And it was on the cannibal’s face. He could feel the muscles bunching in his cheeks as the mage tried to bite, his head turning rapidly back and forth to get a chance to bite, but Eykit’s hand was too far up the mage’s face for his teeth to reach. Eykit struck like an enraged sewing machine, aiming for next to his hand, the knife blade punching down, raising, punching down, raising, and punching down. Two of the hits got Jakkora in the face: the first pierced his face by his nose, the blade sliding deeply along the cheekbone and opening a long, wide gash; the second went into the mage’s eye, destroying it and entering his brain until the rondel point clunked against the inside of the back of his skull. Jakkora stopped moving, his body going limp as the life left him.
The hydra attacked Taid again, and again bounced off of his breastplate with audible thunking noises.
Almë could still hear the enemy moving in front of him. He struck again and again. The first blow hit Eykit’s other leg in the calf. “Damn it! That hurts! Stop it, Almë! Dumbass!”
The second strike hit Elitheris in the upper arm, and she could feel the bone break as the tough, hard wood slammed into her. She hissed in pain, her other hand going to her wounded arm to assess the damage as she rolled out of Almë’s attack range. Clean fracture, from what she could tell, and not compound. That was good. At least she didn’t have to worry about bleeding out. She moved her knife to her good hand; she was only barely able to hold onto it when Almë hit her, and her right arm wasn’t any use at the moment anyway.
Taid struck the hydra with his knife, killing a head. It tried to strike back, but it only attacked Taid’s arms, and those were too armored for it to get through. It’s jaws just weren’t big or powerful enough to get through the armor. Taid chuckled, amused at how ineffectual the hydra was.
Eykit, hearing Almë swinging more than a 60s hippy couple, retreated away from the most dangerous thing in the room: his companion, Almë. For his part, Almë finally heard friendly voices in the great cacophony of his mind, and calmed down. The realization of what he had done filled him with great trepidation. The next few seconds were going to be very difficult, especially if he killed any of his friends. He lowered his raised staff, and it dropped out of nerveless fingers, clattering musically on the stone floor. He took a step back, breathing hard.
Taid stabbed the hydra, his knife sinking deeply into widest part of its chest. It tried to attack back, but Taid held it out too far away, and none of its heads were able to get any purchase on anything. The Dwarf stabbed it again, and it went limp in his hands. Then it disappeared, and Taid was left holding nothing at all.
Almë reached down and picked up his staff. “How far does this darkness extend, anyway? Guys, I’m going to see how far this goes. Hopefully I’ll find the edge of the area.” He felt his way out of the room, but didn’t get very far before succumbing to his wounds, falling unconscious just inside the entrance of the tunnel. His berserk state had kept him on his feet, but when that rush was gone, the hydra bites got to him. He slumped to the floor, his staff again clattering on the stone.
The Blackout spell, without anyone to maintain it, lifted after about a minute or so. During that time, Eykit had felt along the body, finding a purse, and a pouch. The purse held some money; the pouch held three gems.
Once there was light, they could assess the situation. The enemies were dead. Almë was unconscious. Elitheris had a broken arm. Eykit was limping on both legs, painfully. Taid, of course, wasn’t wounded at all. Armor worked.
Taid cast some healing spells, on both Almë and Elitheris. They were also able to wake him up. He sat up, groggily, looking around to make sure no one was missing or dead. He closed his eyes in thanks, breathing a sigh of relief.
Taid looked at him. “You were more dangerous than the mage was,” he stated. “Elitheris and Eykit are only wounded because of you. Oh, and you owe me a hundred crowns. You hit me, too.”
Almë put his head in his hands. “Oh, no,” he moaned. “I am so, so sorry!”
“You didn’t kill any one, though. So there’s that.”
They looted the bodies. The warrior Goblin didn’t have much, some pocket change, some off the shelf weapons, Goblin sized chainmail, a spear.
Jakkora, though, had much, much more. “He has magic on him,” Elitheris said. His armor, decorated gambeson, was enchanted with the Fortify, Deflect, and Lighten enchantments. The most cost effective ones, but it was still very good armor. And barely damaged, since most of Jakkora’s wounds were to his face. It was primarily blue and orange, with some greens in it as well.
Eykit didn’t care. It wouldn’t fit anyone else, and he wanted it, regardless of its fashionability. He tried it on. Not surprisingly, it fit, although there were some areas that could use a bit of tailoring. That shouldn’t be much of a problem, though, once he got back to town.
Eykit in his new armor, mostly hidden by his maille hauberk
Now that it was light enough to see by, Eykit pulled out the purse and pouch. He tossed the pouch to Taid, saying “There’s $1460 in there. And here,” he said, pouring the three gems into his hand, “are three gems.”
The three gems were powerstones, pretty big ones. Two were ten carat stones, a ruby and an emerald, and one was a fifteen carat stone, a topaz. Taid got the big one, as he was the main spell caster and the healer. The ten carat ones went to Elitheris and Almë. The illusionist had a staff, enchanted with both the Staff spell, and the Staff of Power spell. The bless amulet went to Almë, who didn’t yet have one. Maybe it would help him not go berserk again and almost kill the group….
A bracelet on Jakkora’s arm was enchanted with the Smoke enchantment. Elitheris took that, since she figured it would be useful to provide cover. She also got his dose of cantharides poison. His pouch of lime powder, also a poison, went to Eykit. It was more annoying than dangerous, but any distraction could be useful to a thief. The two healing potions were stashed away for emergencies. As were the five alchemical pastilles, since no one knew what they were. They would need to go to an alchemist in the city to find out what they were.
The only non-magical thing they took from his body was fifty meters of human hair rope, lightweight and strong. The rest of the mundane stuff they didn’t have room for.
Elitheris, with some assistance, rigged up a sling for her broken arm, after Taid had set it and healed her tissue damage. It would be out of action for a while. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need her bow any time soon. She hoped that the two to three hours it would take to get out of the jungle would be short enough to not meet up with anything dangerous. Later, Taid should be able to help her out with that.
They had Jakkora’s body ready to take back with them, wrapped in the cloak of his bodyguard. Wilbur would carry him back as proof, along with Kalshebba’s head.
Taid walked up the sloping hallway back into the drafting room. He wanted to check on those hydra, and maybe harvest them for their meat. They were both still there. He used his halberd to chop them in half. When he did, they disappeared, leaving no trace. “Dammit,” he said. “I had been looking forward to some traditional Dwarven food. I hate pit bullshit!”
“Yeah, no thanks,” Eykit replied. “I don’t plan on joining the military any time soon. I’ve heard the horror stories and I want no part of them! I’ll take a cold doorway on the street any day of the eightday!”
Taid’s low rumbling laugh was audible throughout the campsite. “Maybe so! A stone bed is better than a mud pit with ankle deep water for sure. But a bedroll on the jungle floor is a luxury in comparison to either.”
Elitheris, overhearing their discussion, added, “When you have that Mystic Mist of yours, sure. Otherwise, the ground can be dangerous.”
Eykit tilted his head, looking at her. “But you slept on the ground all the time before you came to Port Karn.”
“No, I didn’t. Not unless I had to. I slept in the trees. Safer up there, and less chance of being trampled by a herd of trihorn. Or eaten by something nasty.”
Their camp packed, Elitheris led the way, following the fleeing Goblin’s tracks. The summer morning had dawned clear and cloudless, although it was still relatively cool at the jungle floor. There had been mist curling up into the sky earlier in the morning, but it had burned off shortly after they broke camp. The jungle floor was also dim; not much light filtered down through the multiple layers of canopy. But with their eyes, there was plenty of light for them all to see well enough to get around. Goblins, Dwarves, and Elves all had great night vision, so dim areas weren’t usually a problem. The air below the canopies was still, although if anyone looked up they would be able to see the tops of the trees moving due to a slight breeze. Birds chattered and called in the branches, although despite the occasional flash of bright color, they were unseen. Other calls, not from birds, could be heard now and again, although it didn’t seem as if any of them were signs of immediate danger.
After a few hours, Elitheris realized that they had made a grand arc, starting eastward, curving southward, westward, and finally, northward again. Jakkora had traveled in roughly in a half circle.
“I think he has gone back to the cavern,” Elitheris told the others. “Perhaps he wanted something?”
“His sketches, maybe? Since he’s an illusionist?” Eykit suggested. And damn, they might have been worth something on the art market, too. That guy is good. Maybe I can still get them…a bit of salesmanship, and maybe I can sell them to collectors of ‘questionable goods’? The fact they were drawn by a known cannibal might bump up their prices!”
Taid asked, “So, do we cut across and make a bee line to the cavern, and try to make up some time, or follow his tracks?”
Elitheris thought about this for a moment. Cutting across and blazing their own trail would likely take longer than just following along Jakkora’s trail. As it was, they still had to widen out the trail in some spots in order to get the horse through the undergrowth. Besides, she wasn’t absolutely sure that the fleeing mage had gone back to the cavern, only that the trail implied that he had.
“No,” she finally answered. “We are actually making good time following his tracks. Navigating through untrodden jungle would likely take longer anyway.”
“Fine, let’s go then,” Eykit said, rubbing sore spot on his hip from where he had lain on his stony bed companion.
They continued on, following the trail of footprints, broken branches, and cut fronds that the Goblin mage had left behind. Elitheris noticed that the footprint spacing hadn’t changed at all, indicating that the mage likely didn’t know he was being followed. Good, she thought, that gives us a bit of surprise.
The cannibal Goblin had indeed gone back to the cavern. They figured that he likely wanted some of his stuff before making a break for wherever he planned on going to next.
Taid said, “Elitheris, Eykit, you two go around back to the bolt hole. Go in that way. Almë and I will go in the front, as we have the pole weapons. Maggie hates small spaces. And we don’t want that little bastard to escape.”
Eykit and Elitheris nodded, and the two of them, along with Mr. Wiggles, moved quickly around the hillside. Almë and Taid hid Wilbur again, making sure to go out a bit farther and do a better job of hiding him. They didn’t want anyone stealing him again.
And they got lucky, finding a rocky ravine with plenty of grasses growing out amongst the rocks, perfect for a grazing horse. There just wasn’t much a horse liked to eat growing in a dense jungle. Here, at least, he could nibble to his heart’s content, and it was hidden from view from most directions. If Jakkora or his companion escaped, it was unlikely that they would stumble upon Wilbur this time.
They went back to the entrance, which gaped in front of them. No effort had been made to camouflage it this time. By unspoken agreement, Almë and Taid both moved as stealthily as they could as they made their way down the sloping tunnel that led into the cavern complex, weapons at the ready. But there was only so much they could do to be quiet, despite all of their considerable efforts. Armor, even layered cloth armor, rubbed against itself to a certain degree, and made a bit of noise, although far less than maille or plate harness.
They heard a whistle, and it seemed to be coming from the tunnel to the left. They had heard that particular whistle pattern before; it was one of the messages that the Goblins had used to coordinate their actions.
“Shit!” Taid said softly to Almë, “Well, they know we are here! Damned Goblin hearing!”
They could hear footsteps slapping on the stone up the left-hand tunnel. Almë bolted into the tunnel, chasing after them.
“Gods damn it,” Taid exclaimed under his breath, as he followed the Elf. “He’s going to get himself killed.”
Almë ran up the sloping, rough-floored tunnel. It was maybe two meters wide, and about as tall, and sloped up at about a 40° angle. Fortunately, the flowstone of the floor had formed into natural, if uneven, steps. So it was more of a staircase, rather than a sloping tunnel. After two turns and about ten meters, it reached an oval chamber maybe seven by ten meters in size.
Furnishing the room were several mismatched chairs, tables, a sofa, some end tables, and a few cabinets. The furniture was mostly in the southern and western portions of the room. The square table had four chairs; the circular one had six. There were a pair of dart boards hung on one wall, and several stalagmites had some colorful wooden rings on them, evidently the result of a ring toss game. On the tables were some plates with the remains of food, along with some cards, gambling chips, and a few mugs, some still with ale in them.
Almë didn’t care about any of that. He could still hear the echoing footsteps of his quarry coming from the tunnel at the northern end of the room, and once he got to the room and the floor leveled out, he was able to speed up. Climbing, and it was closer to climbing than running, up that tunnel had been a chore. He leapt over a Goblin sized chair, running past the rest of the furniture since he had a straight shot to the other tunnel. He could hear Taid following along behind him. That tunnel was similar to the last one, except longer, more twisted, and, in general, sloped downward. He could hear the Goblin up ahead of him, and he sprinted along the tunnel. There were more of those flowstone steps, going down, and he took them at a dead run.
Then his feet flew out from under him.
His feet slipped on something, and he was suddenly in the air, rotating backward. He tucked his legs in instinctively, and he somehow turned his “accident” into a backflip, landing on his feet a meter or so downslope. In the dimness, he could hear the tinkling sounds of several small glass objects skittering downslope, bouncing off of the rocky walls and floor.
He stood there for a moment, disbelieving his own senses. He had expected to be on his ass at this moment! His amazement only delayed him a moment or two, then he again took off after the Goblin. Taid had seen the backflip from upslope, realized what must have happened, and muttered, “More pit bullshit. I’m really starting to hate illusionists!”
He slowed down, testing the floor ahead of him so he didn’t end up slipping as well. On the sloping section, where two of the steps were, there was an image of the floor displaced about a centimeter or so above the floor itself. Feeling about with his hand, he could feel the marbles placed there, dislodging a few in the process. They bounced down the rough steps, making more of that musical clinking as they did. A simple trap, but effective. “Well, not as effective as they had hoped,” he added with a slight smile. He carefully made his way past the hidden marbles, then accelerated again to a run to follow Almë.
Almë came to a stop at a spot in the tunnel that was cluttered with stalactites and stalagmites, which caused the tunnel to neck down to about a meter and a half in width. He could see two figures, both Goblins, in the room several meters ahead.
It was Jakkora and his companion. And a cave hydra. At least it wasn’t another spider!
The room was Jakkora’s drafting room, with the shelves, work tables, drawings, and the meeting table with the ogre-sized stool.
The mage had a pack, stuffed full of what must have been his books and sketches. For an illusionist, they were key research materials, needed to make convincing illusions. There was no way he was going to give those up; he’d have to recreate them, taking months, or years. He glanced up as Taid joined Almë in the tunnel. He saw them in the tunnel, and his face twisted with hate. “You guys are a pain in my ass! You ruined everything!” He gestured, pointing down the tunnel at the two intruders. “Kill them!” he said to the hydra, and it slithered off. Jakkora started mumbling, his fingers flicking into different positions. He was casting a spell.
Taid had been casting as well, and he strode forward two steps, his hand held in front of him. The flash of light erupting from his palm blasted into the room, causing shadows to stand out starkly black in the bright, momentary illumination.
“Aggh!” Jakkora said, blinking, spots in his eyes.
His bodyguard winced as well as the light impacted his retinas. “Damn it all,” he muttered, as spots infested his vision as well. Fortunately for them, they had been too far away to have risked actual blindness. The spots still made things more difficult for them, however.
The cave hydra didn’t seem to notice at all; this wasn’t a surprise to Taid, once he saw what kind of hydra it was. Cave hydras were albino, and blind. Their eyes had atrophied long ago. The cave hydras “saw” using pits near their noses to detect infrared. The hydras did taste good, though, at least Dwarves thought so. Maybe he could cook it up later….
The Flash spell had been to give them an advantage, and while they did get one, it wasn’t as large as Taid had hoped it would be. But he had to work with what he had, so he and Almë charged into combat.
A second cave hydra appeared beside Jakkora. He had summoned another one. “Get the Elf,” he told it, and it sped towards Almë.
Almë cast Pollen Cloud. It had done some good work before, it would likely do well again. He filled the entire five meter by seven meter room with the pollen cloud, and the two Goblins started coughing and wheezing. There would also be watering eyes and itching to annoy them as well. Almë chuckled, looking forward to whacking them with his staff.
Their tearing eyes filled with spots, and constantly interrupted by sneezes and coughing, the two Goblins retreated out of the room.
The hydras sped towards the Taid and Almë sliding across the stony floor like the serpents they were. Taid leveled his halberd, planning a quick thrust into the body of the first hydra with the intent to keep the highly venomous creature from getting anywhere close to him. He stabbed forward, stepping into the attack, and the spike slid deep into the body of the leading multi-headed serpent. He had no intention of withdrawing his weapon; he intended to leave it in the foe, and push that thing around like a writhing mop. Besides, he was going to use it to try to block the second hydra. The stricken hydra wrapped its body around the end of the halberd, trying to wrest its body off of the spike.
Almë didn’t have the armor that Taid did, and seven poisonous heads could do some severe damage with their venom. As the second hydra approached, Taid shoved the speared one into its path, trying to at least slow it down, and at best, stop it completely. It didn’t work; the second hydra agilely squirmed over its stuck companion and continued to make its way to Almë. It hissed from various mouths, the sound of each hiss overlapping in waves of sound.
Taid and Almë stood just outside of the room and the cloud of pollen, which hung in the air like a golden haze. They couldn’t tell if the pair of hydras had been affected or not, as neither of them seemed to exhibit any symptoms that they could see.
Seeing that his tactic didn’t work as well as he had hoped, Taid shoved the hydra as far away as possible, then withdrew his polearm.
Almë really wished the tunnel was tall enough to swing his staff down onto the oncoming hydra, but it wasn’t. He was forced to use his staff almost like a sword, thrusting out with the iron shod end like a knobby sword point. He hammered it forward, striking the hydra between a pair of necks.
The two hydras, both wounded, attacked their respective targets. The one on Taid attacked his legs, trying to bite through the enchanted gambeson. None of the four heads that attacked him were able to get through the layers of enchanted cloth. The one on Almë, on the other hand, managed to get a head’s fangs through the armor on Almë’s leg. The fangs punctured his thigh, injecting venom into the Elf’s bloodstream.
Almë yelled in pain as the burning sensation started as a point, then started to spread. He jerked his leg back, pulling his leg from the hydra’s grasping mouths. He had actually been attacked by five of the heads, but only one had managed to get through his layered and quilted armored leggings. That venom would be injuring him for the next six hours or so. Muscle damage and paralysis were likely, but he didn’t have time to worry about that at the moment, had it even crossed his mind.
Dropping his halberd, Taid reached down and grabbed the hydra that had its heads latched onto his legs, trying to bite through the cloth. With little difficulty, he pulled it off of his legs as the heads reoriented and attacked his arms, now that they could be reached. Taid kept his arms outstretched; the heads were trying for his face, and he didn’t want them having any chance to bite him where he wasn’t armored. A couple of bites on his face, and he would be one dead Dwarf.
Almë attacked the hydra on him, but it slid around the attack and went for the gardener’s legs again. With a flurry of motions, Almë parried most of the heads with his staff, but a few got past his defenses and bit into his legs again. Fortunately for Almë, they were unable to get through his armor, and while he could feel their teeth on his leg, they weren’t able to break the skin to deliver their venom.
During the fighting, Almë had stepped into the room, giving him enough space to truly use his staff properly. A quick twirl of the staff brought it down on the hydra, hard, and the hydra’s heads waved spasmodically. It slithered in a rough, random circle, confused and stunned.
Taid saw the Goblins making their way out of the room, and with a heave, he threw the 18 kg writhing bundle of venomous heads at the Goblin bodyguard. It sailed across the room, hit the top of the table with the remains of the card game on it, and slid off the slick surface, hitting the back of a chair before flopping onto the seat and rolling onto the floor in a wiggling heap. Cards from the tabletop fluttered down around it. It started back towards Taid.
Eykit, Elitheris, and Mr. Wiggles made their way through the low tunnel used as a bolt hole. It was a bit larger than a meter in diameter. Goblins had no problem moving through it normally, but anyone larger would have to crouch, or crawl on all fours. The ogress who played the part of Kalshebba would have had to crawl for sure. They came to a branch, the tunnels going off to the right and left. They took the right hand tunnel; neither of them thought that the two bolt holes, one from Jakkora’s room, the other from Kalshebba’s, crossed or overlapped each other in any way, and heading in the direction of Jakkora’s room made way more sense.
Elitheris held the edge of Mr. Wiggles armor; she didn’t want him running off ahead and getting into trouble. Soon they found the end of the tunnel, with the tapestry in front of the opening. Eykit peered out. He could hear the sounds of fighting, and Almë’s and Taid’s upraised voices as they fought something. He moved out of the opening, sliding past the hanging tapestry. He tossed his Darkness strip to his left as he made his way to a cluster of stalagmites to the right.
The strip enchanted with the Darkness spell unrolled, the wall of darkness springing up as the surface of the material was exposed. The section of the room to his left was shrouded in darkness. At least, it looked that way, since from his vantage point, he was looking through the darkness. In reality, only an area 15 cm wide was dark, but it shrouded anything on the other side of it in darkness. With any luck, the enemies coming into the room would assume there were people behind it, and target it, rather than him and Elitheris. He had both of his knives out, ready to plunge them into someone, preferably from ambush, from behind.
For her part, Elitheris was staying behind the tapestry, her foot pulling the bottom of the tapestry just far enough over to the side to let her aim her bow through the space between the edge of the tapestry and the side of the tunnel.
Almë jumped over the stunned hydra; that one wasn’t much of a threat at the moment, but the one that Taid had tossed still was.
Picking up Maggie, Taid furiously attacked the stunned hydra. The blade bit deep, and the hydra stopped moving in its uneven circle. Instead, it lay there, unmoving, although Taid could see that it still seemed to be breathing. In any case, it was out of the fight.
The two cannibal Goblins scurried quickly down the sloping tunnel to Jakkora’s bedroom, intent on escape through the tunnel there.
“What the hell is that?” the warrior Goblin exclaimed, seeing the wall of darkness on the far side of the room.
“There are more of them? Shit!” Jakkora exasperatedly shouts. “Isn’t it enough that they ruined everything? Why couldn’t they have just left?”
Almë and Taid, still in the drafting room and dealing with the remaining hydra, engaged it in combat. Almë missed with a strike as it slithered back and out of the way. The pollen was causing both of them some troubles. While neither of them had much sneezing going on, the itching of their skin was…annoying, and throwing off their aim. The watering eyes didn’t help much, either.
The hydra struck back. It had been told its target was the Dwarf, but that target was out of reach. There was a closer one, however, so it struck. Five heads attacked, the other two keeping watch, tracking the nearby Dwarf and anything else in the room. Those five heads all bit at the Elf’s legs, and one managed to pierce the layers and layers of cloth, tasting blood and injecting more venom. That burning feeling started to spread up his previously undamaged leg. He could feel the burning sensation in both legs, slowing spreading as the venom did its work.
The edges of his vision were starting to contract as his body strived to keep going. His wounds were pretty bad, and his head was starting to swim. The spell he had cast to annoy the enemy was affecting him, too. That pissed him off. The pain burning up his legs were starting to really, really hurt. And the gods damned illusion master was starting to get away! And here he was, fighting a snake with a multiple personality problem! He had other things, pressing things, important things, that he had to do!
He snapped. His rage, which had built up slowly, almost imperceptibly, had risen like a leviathan from beneath the deepest sea. He went berserk, his staff slamming at the hydra over and over again until he finally connected, and the hydra stopped moving, limp.
Eykit was crouched behind his cover, waiting for the enemy to get close. Elitheris waited, an arrow nocked and partially drawn, waiting for the two Goblins to enter the room. The warrior had moved to the front, and was leading Jakkora into the room, giving him some protection against the foes he thought were waiting for them. She finished drawing the arrow back, and loosed.
The Goblin warrior heard a sound, and turned towards it. He had the chance to register movement—he wasn’t even sure what it was—before the broadheaded arrow slammed through his eye, his brain, and impacted the back of his skull. His head, wrenched to the side by the transfer of momentum, lead his body down to the ground. He was dead before he hit. His face had a surprised look on it marred only by the more than two feet of arrow sticking out of his eye socket. Blood oozed down from the wound, slowly pooling beneath his head.
“Well, fuck,” Jakkora said, dismay in his voice. Things just got way, way more complicated. The Dwarf was chasing him, and not far behind. His bodyguard just had his brains scrambled by an archer hiding in his escape route. He spoke a few words, and waggled his fingers as he cast Create Animal again.
Almë and Taid chased after the Goblin mage. Elitheris drew a pair of arrows from her quiver. She let Mr. Wiggles go, saying “Get him!” as she pointed at the mage.
He ran into the room, barking furiously, leaping into the Goblin and clamping his jaws on the Goblin’s leg. With some effort, the Goblin did not fall over, or scream out, instead keeping up his low chanting.
Eykit put one of his rondels in his teeth, and drew one of his throwing daggers. They didn’t do a lot of damage, but the mage was only wearing cloth, and he might get a lucky shot.
Taid and Almë get to the room, barreling down the sloping tunnel. Taid tried to attack Jakkora, but the wily Goblin managed to shift out of the way, despite the twenty or more kilograms of dog on his leg. In doing so, he also managed to get out of the way of one of Elitheris’ arrows. It clattered into the stalactites, fragmenting, and wood chips flew everywhere, some bouncing off of the Goblin and the dog. He didn’t manage to dodge Eykit’s thrown knife, however, but his armor was up to the task of protecting him. He ignored the knife that fell to his feet, the point thwarted by his gambeson armor.
His spell done, another hydra appeared next to him. It was another cave hydra, and he was hoping that the multitude of poisonous heads would give people some bad days. “Attack the Dwarf! Aim for his face!” he told it, and it slithered off after Taid with a multi-throated hiss.
Almë, a look of absolute rage on his reddening face, hammered his staff at Jakkora. One of the flurry of blows landed solidly in the solar plexus, and the Goblin doubled over as he tried to breathe. Taid followed up with an attack, thrusting his halberd at the wounded mage, but something shifted the point away from his target’s body, causing him to miss.
Even in his world of pain, the desperate illusionist strove to cast a spell. He didn’t want to end like this! He had a few more tricks up his sleeves….
The room went completely black. Jakkora had cast a Blackout spell, rendering everyone in the room completely blind. Alas, despite the cave hydra not having eyes to blind, the spell also affected the infrared sensing capability of the animal, so it was blind now, too. But he could at least use the darkness, and his intimate knowledge of the room, to get away.
Almë didn’t care how damned dark it was in the room. He knew where the hydra was, and he hit it anyway. He had no idea what he did to it, but he hit something that hissed.
Taid had a good idea where that little bastard was, dropped his halberd, spread his arms wide, and leapt forward to tackle the dog-encumbered mage. He had enough of an idea of where he was to actually succeed, too. The cannibal hadn’t been expecting that kind of attack, either. Both the Dwarf and the Goblin fell to the ground in a tangle of limbs, the Dwarf on top. Jakkora was pinned down by about 140 kg of solid muscle and metal that was going to do everything he could to not let him up.
Eykit, following up from the knife throw, felt his way forward until he got to the table, hopping up onto it. He crouched there, getting his bearings in the dark, using his keen hearing as best he could.
There is some scuffling in the dark. “Not me, stupid!” they heard Jakkora yell. “Attack the Dwarf on me!” Jakkora realized that the absolute blackness was affecting the hydra, too, and it didn’t please him. But it was still his best chance of escape, if he could get out from under the huge mass of Dwarf that effectively pinned him in place.
Almë used his staff as a blind man’s stick, tapping around until he found something soft. It gave him a range to where the targets were.
Taid, clutching onto Jakkora with one hand, pulled his other back in a fist and let it fly, blindly attacking the body underneath him. It glanced off what he thought might have been a shoulder, but it didn’t connect very well, and Jakkora barely made a sound. The Dwarf figured his punch was ineffective.
Elitheris moved out of the tunnel, fumbling her way in the dark, sweeping her bow back and forth to avoid the obstacles in the room. Eykit shoulder rolled off of the table onto the floor, silently landing in a crouch.
Jakkora went for his knife, his other hand feeling around to get a sense of how Taid was oriented on him. He was going to put his knife in that damned Dwarf’s neck! Or face, he thought. That would work, too.
Knowing he had a target, and a room big enough to fully swing his staff, Almë beat the living crap out of it. Twice he struck, and twice he was rewarded with a pained canine whine. He had hit Mr. Wiggles, twice. Mr. Wiggles shifted his body, but didn’t let go of the mage’s leg.
Taid could hear Almë blindly attacking, and tried to pull Jakkora backwards. He didn’t have much luck, although he was able to pull him about half a meter.
Elitheris reached the table, and, like Eykit before her, climbed upon it. Eykit, his Goblin ears swiveling to locate noise sources, sought out the hissing of the hydra, moving towards it.
Jakkora, desperate and terrified now, slammed his knife into where he thought Taid’s neck was. But Taid had shifted when he had pulled Jakkora around, and the strike missed. The hydra, curled on Jakkora’s chest, struck at the Dwarf, but it couldn’t see, and had no idea where the Dwarf’s face was. It struck at Taid’s chest, which was encased in a steel breastplate, and the attacks, all six of them, bounced off. It did more damage to the hydra than it could ever do to Taid. Hearing the series of “bodunkadunks” as their multiple mouths struck the steel, Taid laughed heartily.
That laugh stopped abruptly when Taid felt Almë’s staff slam down on his back. “Hey! Calm the fuck down!” It hadn't done any damage to him, but it made him mad nonetheless. He reached for his knife. It was time for this fight to end.
Elitheris hopped off of the table, feeling around for where the pile of combatants were. She homed in on the growling dog, feeling his hindquarters in the dark. She unconsciously patted him as her brain made sense of the situation in front of her. “Good dog,” she said softly.
Eykit, ahead of Elitheris, struck Jakkora twice, but neither strike got through the armor. “Shit!” he said. It was almost as if something had pushed the points of his daggers to the side a bit, throwing off his attacks.
The hydra tried again, this time attacking Taid’s hand and arm. Again, none of the fangs got through Taid’s enchanted armor. They released the hand, moving up the arm. Jakkora, panicking, tried to squirm out from under Taid, the dog, and Eykit, but wasn’t able to go anywhere. He just wasn’t strong enough, or big enough. He was, after all, only the size of a human child.
Almë was still berserk, flailing wildly in the absolute darkness. All he knew was that his enemy was in front of him, and he had to stop him from escaping. This time, he actually did manage to hit the mage, who cried out in pain when Almë’s staff cracked down on his shin. But Almë also hit Taid again on the back; Taid’s armor was strong, though, and the staff wasn’t able to do any damage to the Dwarf. “You owe me fifty crowns, Elf! Stop hitting me!”
He followed that exclamation with a knife thrust to Jakkora’s chest, but Jakkora’s armor was good, too, and while he drew a drop of blood, it wasn’t enough to wound the writhing, panicked cannibal.
Elitheris moved forward, into the confused melee, feeling around until she found something that wasn’t Taid. Eykit’s roaming fingers found a Goblin face. He smiled, his pointed teeth invisible in the darkness.
The hydra attacked Taid’s arm, but like before, it was unable to get through the armor. Even Jakkora’s frenzied stab to Taid’s arm didn’t go through the armor. This wasn’t turning out anything like the illusionist had hoped.
Almë vaguely heard voices he almost recognized. Almost. But the enemy was still moving in front of him. He struck wildly again, and he hit a Goblin this time. But it was the wrong Goblin…it was Eykit. Eykit cried out as he felt something hard strike his calf. “Gods damn it! Cut that out, Almë!”
Almë also managed to hit Taid’s leg as well. “Curse you, Elf!” he yelled as his knife strike was disrupted, causing an ineffectual attack. “That’s another fifty crowns!”
Elitheris had her knife out as well. She could see it, shining in the dark, her mage-senses enabling her to see it, the Elven Tengwar spelling out “Maica Melehtë”, “Piercing Might”. Its light, however, wasn’t actual illumination; it was simply her magical sense giving her an image in her mind's eye. She attacked like she'd seen Eykit attack, stabbing furiously, and she felt it enter the mage’s body both times. He screamed in pain, but he wasn’t completely out of the fight yet.
Eykit knew where his hand was, his proprioceptive sense telling him exactly where it was. And it was on the cannibal’s face. He could feel the muscles bunching in his cheeks as the mage tried to bite, his head turning rapidly back and forth to get a chance to bite, but Eykit’s hand was too far up the mage’s face for his teeth to reach. Eykit struck like an enraged sewing machine, aiming for next to his hand, the knife blade punching down, raising, punching down, raising, and punching down. Two of the hits got Jakkora in the face: the first pierced his face by his nose, the blade sliding deeply along the cheekbone and opening a long, wide gash; the second went into the mage’s eye, destroying it and entering his brain until the rondel point clunked against the inside of the back of his skull. Jakkora stopped moving, his body going limp as the life left him.
The hydra attacked Taid again, and again bounced off of his breastplate with audible thunking noises.
Almë could still hear the enemy moving in front of him. He struck again and again. The first blow hit Eykit’s other leg in the calf. “Damn it! That hurts! Stop it, Almë! Dumbass!”
The second strike hit Elitheris in the upper arm, and she could feel the bone break as the tough, hard wood slammed into her. She hissed in pain, her other hand going to her wounded arm to assess the damage as she rolled out of Almë’s attack range. Clean fracture, from what she could tell, and not compound. That was good. At least she didn’t have to worry about bleeding out. She moved her knife to her good hand; she was only barely able to hold onto it when Almë hit her, and her right arm wasn’t any use at the moment anyway.
Taid struck the hydra with his knife, killing a head. It tried to strike back, but it only attacked Taid’s arms, and those were too armored for it to get through. It’s jaws just weren’t big or powerful enough to get through the armor. Taid chuckled, amused at how ineffectual the hydra was.
Eykit, hearing Almë swinging more than a 60s hippy couple, retreated away from the most dangerous thing in the room: his companion, Almë. For his part, Almë finally heard friendly voices in the great cacophony of his mind, and calmed down. The realization of what he had done filled him with great trepidation. The next few seconds were going to be very difficult, especially if he killed any of his friends. He lowered his raised staff, and it dropped out of nerveless fingers, clattering musically on the stone floor. He took a step back, breathing hard.
Taid stabbed the hydra, his knife sinking deeply into widest part of its chest. It tried to attack back, but Taid held it out too far away, and none of its heads were able to get any purchase on anything. The Dwarf stabbed it again, and it went limp in his hands. Then it disappeared, and Taid was left holding nothing at all.
Almë reached down and picked up his staff. “How far does this darkness extend, anyway? Guys, I’m going to see how far this goes. Hopefully I’ll find the edge of the area.” He felt his way out of the room, but didn’t get very far before succumbing to his wounds, falling unconscious just inside the entrance of the tunnel. His berserk state had kept him on his feet, but when that rush was gone, the hydra bites got to him. He slumped to the floor, his staff again clattering on the stone.
The Blackout spell, without anyone to maintain it, lifted after about a minute or so. During that time, Eykit had felt along the body, finding a purse, and a pouch. The purse held some money; the pouch held three gems.
Once there was light, they could assess the situation. The enemies were dead. Almë was unconscious. Elitheris had a broken arm. Eykit was limping on both legs, painfully. Taid, of course, wasn’t wounded at all. Armor worked.
Taid cast some healing spells, on both Almë and Elitheris. They were also able to wake him up. He sat up, groggily, looking around to make sure no one was missing or dead. He closed his eyes in thanks, breathing a sigh of relief.
Taid looked at him. “You were more dangerous than the mage was,” he stated. “Elitheris and Eykit are only wounded because of you. Oh, and you owe me a hundred crowns. You hit me, too.”
Almë put his head in his hands. “Oh, no,” he moaned. “I am so, so sorry!”
“You didn’t kill any one, though. So there’s that.”
They looted the bodies. The warrior Goblin didn’t have much, some pocket change, some off the shelf weapons, Goblin sized chainmail, a spear.
Jakkora, though, had much, much more. “He has magic on him,” Elitheris said. His armor, decorated gambeson, was enchanted with the Fortify, Deflect, and Lighten enchantments. The most cost effective ones, but it was still very good armor. And barely damaged, since most of Jakkora’s wounds were to his face. It was primarily blue and orange, with some greens in it as well.
Eykit didn’t care. It wouldn’t fit anyone else, and he wanted it, regardless of its fashionability. He tried it on. Not surprisingly, it fit, although there were some areas that could use a bit of tailoring. That shouldn’t be much of a problem, though, once he got back to town.
Now that it was light enough to see by, Eykit pulled out the purse and pouch. He tossed the pouch to Taid, saying “There’s $1460 in there. And here,” he said, pouring the three gems into his hand, “are three gems.”
The three gems were powerstones, pretty big ones. Two were ten carat stones, a ruby and an emerald, and one was a fifteen carat stone, a topaz. Taid got the big one, as he was the main spell caster and the healer. The ten carat ones went to Elitheris and Almë. The illusionist had a staff, enchanted with both the Staff spell, and the Staff of Power spell. The bless amulet went to Almë, who didn’t yet have one. Maybe it would help him not go berserk again and almost kill the group….
A bracelet on Jakkora’s arm was enchanted with the Smoke enchantment. Elitheris took that, since she figured it would be useful to provide cover. She also got his dose of cantharides poison. His pouch of lime powder, also a poison, went to Eykit. It was more annoying than dangerous, but any distraction could be useful to a thief. The two healing potions were stashed away for emergencies. As were the five alchemical pastilles, since no one knew what they were. They would need to go to an alchemist in the city to find out what they were.
The only non-magical thing they took from his body was fifty meters of human hair rope, lightweight and strong. The rest of the mundane stuff they didn’t have room for.
Elitheris, with some assistance, rigged up a sling for her broken arm, after Taid had set it and healed her tissue damage. It would be out of action for a while. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need her bow any time soon. She hoped that the two to three hours it would take to get out of the jungle would be short enough to not meet up with anything dangerous. Later, Taid should be able to help her out with that.
They had Jakkora’s body ready to take back with them, wrapped in the cloak of his bodyguard. Wilbur would carry him back as proof, along with Kalshebba’s head.
Taid walked up the sloping hallway back into the drafting room. He wanted to check on those hydra, and maybe harvest them for their meat. They were both still there. He used his halberd to chop them in half. When he did, they disappeared, leaving no trace. “Dammit,” he said. “I had been looking forward to some traditional Dwarven food. I hate pit bullshit!”
Rewards Granted
Jakkora's enchanted gambeson armor
Some money
15 pt powerstone
10 pt powerstone
10 pt powerstone
5 alchemical pastilles, 2 different kinds
A dose of cantharides poison
3 doses of lime powder
Jakkora's Mage Staff of Power (Staff spell, and it can hold up to IQ in mana)
Smoke bomb bracelet
50 yards of human hair rope
Jakkora's body, being carried back as proof the cult is done for, along with Kalshebba's head
Various mundane items, like bows, arrows, spears, short swords, daggers, and the like.
3 CPs
Some money
15 pt powerstone
10 pt powerstone
10 pt powerstone
5 alchemical pastilles, 2 different kinds
A dose of cantharides poison
3 doses of lime powder
Jakkora's Mage Staff of Power (Staff spell, and it can hold up to IQ in mana)
Smoke bomb bracelet
50 yards of human hair rope
Jakkora's body, being carried back as proof the cult is done for, along with Kalshebba's head
Various mundane items, like bows, arrows, spears, short swords, daggers, and the like.
3 CPs
Missions/Quests Completed
Assuming the group get back to civilization, and Almë survives the poisoning, this concludes the Cult of the Cannibal Goblins. All that is left is to go home, show Jakkit the bodies and get debriefed, and then move on with their lives. Until the next crisis, that is.
Character(s) interacted with
None that survived.
I've tried to use metric units exclusively in this report. It's good practice, and Americans should be more metric anyway and join the rest of the civilized world.
A few things didn't go exactly to plan, as Jakkora had hoped. The Blackness spell was supposed to give him an advantage, but the dogpile that ended up negated that. It also blinded the hydra, so it was pretty nerfed as well. Almë was a bit of a surprise, as he ended up doing what Jakkora couldn't: hurt the party members. He did a pretty good job at that, using the dogpile as a piñata. Elitheris has a broken arm, which will be useless for at least another few hours until Taid can manage to cast Restoration. Almë has five cycles of venom damage, at 2d+4 each time. Eykit's legs were almost crippled when Almë hit them. Mr. Wiggles, who got hit twice, had been saved by his armor and was only minimally hurt. Taid, although being whacked several times due to his position in the dogpile, took no damage because armor works.
Report Date
17 Sep 2022
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