Our party of enthusiastic adventurers found themselves on a caravan headed to Phandalin drivcen by a cheery yet unkempt man named Jurgen, hired by the dwarven miner Gundren Rockseeker and his close associate Sildar Hallwinter. They were to escort the cart to Phandalin and protect it from anything that might be willing to take the goods, as the Triboar Trail is not the safest place in the Sword Coast. The southern regions of Neverwinter Wood crawl with beasts and monsters (and goblins).
After travelling for half a day, the party rounded a bend and saw a pair of dead horses a hundred feet in front of them. While no one could pick exactly what had killed them from this distance, they did indeed recognise the two as the horses Gundren and Sildar had been riding when they had rode ahead of the party. The party's suspicions were rewarded when Mytar spotted a small humanoid shape waiting in the underbrush. After a brief presdigitation of a banshee's wail, the creature dashed out of the vegetation, crying for its life. A goblin. It was shortly followed by another 5, their cover obviously blown. Four of them drew their bows back, arrows notched, whilst another drew his shortsword and the last continued to panic. Mytar was first to react, dancing forth and attempting to stick one of the goblins with his rapier. Thespus was next, charging forward, swinging his greataxe, hacking into one of the bowmen (bowgoblins?) and slicing open a decent gash across its chest, dropping it to the ground. Ragnar also charged forth, warhammer raised, while Galion threw motes of fire unto the goblins and Vanar rained arrows upon them. The goblins managed to sneak a couple of slices into Mytar, forcing his swift retreat, while Ragnar and Thespus fended off the remaining goblins. Few goblins remained, stuck with arrows, crushed bones and one sliced in half by a greataxe, when Thespus barely deflected a swing from one of the final goblin blades. He saw the opening in his defences, and expected a blade to cut into his side. Much to his surprise, the goblin stood still, upright, with a blade protruding from his chest. As it collapsed, he saw the small shape of Slagathor look up at him. He looked at his blade in minor disgust, 'Goblins.'
It was at this stage, the party turned to notice that Jurgen was in the process of being dragged away by a big, hairy goblinoid. Vanar and Thespus reacted swiftly and delivered a couple of cuts to the creature, forcing the release of Jurgen, sending it dashing into the forest. Part-way in, he held his head, damaged by a few uttered words by Mytar, but continued to flee. As he was almost out of view, Vanar fired an arrow his way, which struck true, and the creature collapsed out of sight. Mytar, Vanar and Thespus acted to find the body of this creature, while the others stayed to comfort Jurgen after his near-abduction.
The pursuit group moved toward where the large enemy fell, and found his body in the bottom of a spike-pit, 10 ft deep. After some knots around a tree with a rope, Vanar made his way into the pit. However, the knot was not quite as good as expected, and he fell the last five feet, barely missing some of the sharpened sticks that protruded from the bottom of the pit. He examined the body of the creature, finding little but a few pieces of copper, and a morning star. However, the morning star was not of goblinoid make, but as if it had been made by a blacksmith, a shop-worthy weapon. Not only this, there was a small tunnel carved into one of the sides of the pit, however was dark upon closer examination. With this in mind, Vanar climbed out of the pit and explained his suspicions to the others with him. As they looked back the way they came, the noticed the semblance of a path back toward the road. There was a slight track where they were. Thespus wished to scout ahead, while Mytar wished to inspect this tunnel. Vanar stayed with Mytar before they were to go grab the rest of the group. The gnome climbed down into the pit, and deactivated it's danger by removing the spikes from the ground. He crawled slightly into the hole and threw a lit torch down to see if there was anything that would react to it in the small cavern that opened up. As the torch rolled in, there was a tremendous hiss, and a thick, serpentine shape slithered over to the torch and put it out. Mytar stayed in that pit for exactly another three seconds.
Thespus's scouting proved worthwhile, though with the amount of clanging and clinking from his chainmail, stealth proved ineffective. He saw a small cave ahead of him, with a stream leading out of it, and heavy vegetation over the far side of the stream. From which he barely spotted two goblins as they fired arrows, which Thespus laughed at as they deflected off of his armour. He meandered over to the two, now nervous goblins and hacked into them as easy as one possibly can. The rest of the party arrived, to see Thespus standing in a pool of goblin blood, with the bodies of two goblins at his feet.
As they were about to question it, the party turned to see a heavily armoured goblin with three wolves on chains in one hand, and a spear in the other. The party realised this was not going to be easy, so Thespus and Ragnar strode to take the enemies head on, while Vanar and Slagathor were to stick them with arrows, and Galion use his magics in support. The wolves were released and immediately began to attack Ragnar, one he fended off with his shield, while the other tore into his side and the goblin plunged his spear into the dwarf's chest. The dwarf dropped to the ground almost immediately. Arrows rained on the enemies, as did magic, dropping two of the wolves, while Thespus was taking heavy damage, resulting in his lack of conciousness also. The magic and arrows however defeated and damaged the final enemies, and the goblin retreated back into the cave, while the party tried to stabilise their comrades. Thespus survived, but it was unclear whether Ragnar was to survive. He had lost a lot of blood, and he was going pale. His breathing was non-existent, and he did not stir. The group feared the worst.
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