…There was a Fight…

Warned of the approaching ‘goblins,’ the Company scramble back into position where they ready themselves for the ambush. As they do so, Lëodan re-positions himself so he can get a better view of the approaching force. He is already suspicious of them – according to his understanding, goblins don’t have glowing red eyes … in fact, glowing eyes simply defeats the natural advantage derived by predators to see in the dark – and nothing he’s seen thus far has changed that opinion. The closer these ‘goblins’ get, the more convinced Lëodan becomes that this is all a shell-game: yes, they appear to have upswept, pointed ears but their ‘eyes’ are actually glowing (and colored) rocks secured to their helmets.

Once the hostiles are in the kill pocket and move to take the ‘tribute,’ Brother Maykew empties a small bucket of simmering coals upon a great pile of oiled faggots dipped in pitch. They ignite suddenly and brilliantly, flaring up with an unexpected intensity, and it is this action that the rest of the Company takes as their signal. Most simply step out of their places of concealment, readying their weapons and cutting off lines of retreat, but Ser Kenrick spurs Ser Magnus forward to a second pile of identically-prepared wood; the knight throws his own bucket of coals down, which also provides light. Even Aidin the Heal-Sick steps into view, casting a spell that results in his blade catching fire.

‘Throw down your arms and surrender now!’ Kenrick orders loudly, which many of the Company repeat, but the false goblins – this close, it is clear that these are simply men, their skins blackened with paint – immediately try to retreat. The faux-goblins are orderly and disciplined, with a clear leader who issues orders via a whistle, but they have been caught wrong-footed and the Company does not let them recover. Lëodan drops the leader of the enemy with a carefully placed arrow while his allies engage as well. Rayna drops a foe with a lightning fast thrust of her rapier even as Murdok looses at bolt from his crossbow. From where he stands, Dustan casts a spell that begins creating a fierce windstorm around him; he intends to use this against the enemy but the fight is over before he can do so. Seeing that the Enemy are trying to escape via a specific route, Maykew steps into that path and brandishes his weapon. Ser Magnus throws himself forward, which provides Kenrick an opportunity to strike one foe with his warhammer; this man reels and, as he does, the war horse twists to body slam the poor bastard and knock him prone while putting his rider in a position to engage with another man. Throughout this entire engagement, both Kenrick and Maykew continue to shout out orders for the enemy to surrender.

By this point, the orderly repositioning by the faux-goblins has turned into an all-out rout as they scramble to get out of the kill pocket. Unfortunately for them, the Company is having none of this and only two of the hostile manage to get clear; this pair reaches the river … but so does Lëodan. The elf looses several arrows at the swimmers – one of the faux-goblins goes limp and is swiftly carried down the river by the stream; the other makes it to the opposite beach, but no further.

As Lëodan drops his last foe, he can see the ‘goblin’ reinforcements on the other side of the river; more than a dozen of them that he can see, they loose fire arrows into Gentleham before withdrawing. The elf momentarily considers emptying his quiver into the retreating figures, but decides against it and returns to the rest of the Company who are now either gathering their prisoners together or aiding the locals scurrying to put out various fires. After retrieving what arrows he can, Lëodan informs Ser Kenrick that he means to pursue the other ‘goblins’ so they know their numbers and the location of their camp; the knight wishes him good hunting.

Rayna, curious as to the identity of the enemy, does some investigating, confirming that these are simply men wearing paint and false ears. From the snatches of words they can hear from them, the Company deduces that these are Antagonese mercenaries, a fact that causes no small amount of embarrassment amongst the Gentleham citizens who were so eager to yield to the ‘goblins.’

After securing the wounded Antagonese survivors in a barn, Kenrick asks Murdok to keep an eye on them while he attends an emergency, late-night town meeting; Rayna, equally disinterested in the town politics, volunteers to join the dwarf in this. With Dustan and Maykew backing him up, Ser Kenrick joins the meeting already ongoing in the church.

Here, the Company discovers a tense disagreement ongoing. The faction led by the town’s priest is strenuously urging surrender as they have heard terrible stories about the fates of other villages who resisted, while the more militant of the citizens are cheered by the victory of the Company. Ser Kenrick and Maykew interject – the latter is far more effective at this sort of thing than the knight – but neither sway either side. In the end, the reeve of the village looks at the bickering villagers and the victorious adventurers before making his decision: ‘We shall fight,’ he declares.

Player Notes:

• In terms of fighting, this was mostly definitely a complete victory on the part of the PCs. None of us took any damage and none of the bad guys got away, whether this meant they were captured or shot by Lëodan while trying to swim the river. Sure, there are a bunch of them on the other side of the river we have to chase down, but still, phase one is a Win.
• We’re debating how to reward our repeat viewers by allowing them to have some sort of influence in the game, but nothing has been firmly decided as of yet.
• We livestream our games every Saturdays at 6:00PM Eastern; the live stream can be found at Ronnke’s Twitch channel. He’s also setup a YouTube Channel.

See the Daniverse Blog for the GM’s post-game debrief.