The Second Age - Session 6

Lordday 25th Zeptambor, Year 599
After the last few weeks of excitement, The newly named Fallcrest Dragonslayers decided to take a couple of days relaxing and deciding whether they should go find out what was behind the treasure map, look for Mistress Adele or hunt some goblins.

In concert with the Lord Warden, they decided to go find the goblins that sporadically attacked the farms south of Fallcrest. While they waited, they were approached by River, an elven ranger, who had been sent by the Lord Warden. Maybe he could be useful in tracking down the goblins.

As they were leaving the south gate, they were stopped by a small group of children who wanted to know what the famous Dragonslayers were up to. One of them, a young boy, also had a pie from his mother to the famous adventurers. Kavaki thanked the kid for the pie and told the kids some story about dragons big as mountains, and then the Dragonslayers were on their way south, towards the farms who had been suffering from the goblin attacks.

They hadn't traveled for many miles when smoke in the horizont indicated they were heading the right way. When they arrived at the scene, they found a farm and barn which had been burnt down, with most of a family who had been killed. The fighter had died fighting, with scythe in hand, the son of the family had been locked up in the barn while it was burned down and the mother had been suspended up in a tree, and then used as a human piñata. Kavaki also found a doll amongst the destruction, which indicated that there was a little girl somewhere, and since they found no body, they decided she had probably been kidnapped. River recognized the arrows as those used by the Green Warrior Goblin tribe, one of the larger goblin tribe of the Silent Forest.

After a couples of hours in the forest, tracking the goblins who they figured had a 12 hour head start, they suddenly spotted a goblin caster hiding behind a rock, some 60 feet ahead. As River tried to circle around to get a shot, the others hovered back, waiting for the ranger to be in place. Before he got that far, the goblin called out to them, demanding to know where they were going and what they were doing here. As it turns out, he wasn't really all that interested, it was merely a ruse to lure the Dragonslayers a bit closer to him, so that his 9 friends hidden in small holes dug in the ground could spring up and surprise them. Little good did it do the goblins, since the Dragonslayers were way too big a mouthful. Soon enough, the goblins were dead, and although especially Dobukan took quite a few hits, it was not a big challenge.

With the goblins dead, the Dragonslayers tracked on, heading further west into the Silent Forest. They didn't get far though. About 2 hours later, while traversing a clearing, Dobukan suddenly found himself with a couple of crossbow bolts in the gut. 4 goblins were hiding in the bushes and trees, and had caught the Fallcrest heroes in a deadly crossfire. Luckily for the Dragonslayers, River proved that he too was very adept with a bow, and the first goblin went down to his first double-shot. Slowly but surely the tide of the battle turned, although for some, it consisted mostly of trying to hide from the arrows coming from the edge of the forest.

After a short break, the Dragonslayers of Fallcrest continued onwards. Towards evening, they spotted a wall (of a ruin) standing next to a hill. River tried to snuck over to the wall to see what was behind the wall, but no sooner had he started to move, before his foot caught a hole full of dry leaves, alerting the goblin behind the wall that something was up. He fired a quick shot at the elf, and jumped down from the wall, out of sight. Kavaki immediately took up pursuit, but when he realized that the goblin had run down some stairs to a crypt beneath the hill (which was the only thing behind the wall), he decided to not follow the goblin in. Instead he took up place over the entrance/exit, while motioning the others to come in view of the stairs and hide behind some trees.

They didn't have to wait long. A couple of minutes later, a goblin head came in sight and Kavaki made short work of it, by cleaving the poor creature with a single stroke of his longsword. No sooner had he done that, before 5 goblins rushed out to defend their lair. The battle was pretty fierce, with especially Kavaki taking a beating from the goblin crossbow archers. Down he went, and things were looking fairly bleak for a while, but the Dragonslayers managed to turn things around. Except that the goblin voodoomaster arrived as well, and really made the Dragonslayers work for their pay. Kavaki was first blinded, then downed for the third time, and since River was running around blinded as well, it definitely looked like the end of a short career there. Luckily for them all, River broke his blindness just in time to help Dobukan kill the voodoo-goblin and end the battle. Which was just in time as Kavaki was hovering on death's door.

Down in the crypt, which turned out to be several rooms, they found some treasure (gold and rituals) and the kidnapped girl, an 8-year old called Melissa. After searching the place thoroughly to see if there were any leads that would connect the goblins with Mistress Adele or to a fellow named Krusk which had been mentioned by several goblins ("Kill me all you will, Krusk will deal with you" and things like that), they decided to move outside and rest for the night.

Sonday 26th Zeptambor, Year 599
In the morning, as they prepared to leave, they were attacked by 3 dog-sized spiders, but that didn't even break a sweat for our favorite Dragonslayers. After dispatching the spiders with ease, the Dragonslayers decided to head home and deliver the news of their success to the Lord Warden and the girl to someone better suited to help her.

The trip home was fairly uneventful, as nothing hostile was encountered. The only thing approaching drama was when Melissa started to ask about her parents, and, when figuring out that her parents were dead, if Kavaki was her new dad. His hesitation made the rest of the Dragonslayers pretty loud - they apparently did not want him to say yes...

Once they got to Fallcrest and reported their news, they decided to strike out again after gathering some intelligence. They had gathered that kobolds and goblins rarely worked together, except under the leadership of some powerful figure, usually a dragon, giant or the like, and they were convinced that Krusk, whoever he was, would have the information they would need to uncover this mystery.

Mansday 27th Zeptambor, Year 599
Before heading out again, after taking a good night's sleep, Kavaki had a talk with Kama, the owner the Blue Moon Alehouse, and convinced her to take care of Melissa.