Darc was sitting on a bench, sandwiched between a guard and Eileen who had insisted on coming with him. Before him, Lina was kneeling, still stuck within her soul as they waited. After explaining to Lina about the room, they had returned to the others with the good news that she would be joining them. She couldn't read the contract but Darc had given her the general gist of what he could recall and she'd signed on. The three of them had left together, Eileen coming along to show Lina the necessary movements to activate the shrine since Darc could barely manage it himself. They had been waiting for over an hour and it was now well past noon. Darc had even grabbed some food for them as they waited.
Eileen glanced at him as she chewed on the hard bread, "So... you and Lina huh?"
Darc merely shrugged, "...Yeah, we go way back."
She smirked, "I could see that."
Trying to appear nonchalant, he leaned back, concentrating on chewing his food. She leaned slightly towards him with her head tilted up to look into his eyes, "Kind of makes one wonder what you were like as a kid. You weren't banging her back then too, were you?"
He choked on his bread, banging his chest a few times while coughing. Wrong hole! A few moments later he recovered, "We haven't done anything, don't know what you mean."
Eileen still had on her self-entitled smirk on as she responded, "Sure, sure. That's why you spend nearly an hour alone coming back fresh from a bath." The guard looked like he didn't want to be in the same room, as he was turned towards the door, pretending to be a potted plant.
Darc just rolled his eyes as he defended himself, "Hey, I'm not gonna lie. We hadn't seen each other in a long time so maybe we're a little close now. Still, we haven't done anything yet."
"You eyeing my man?" came a voice from the center of the room. Lina stood, turning towards them, hands on her hips.
Darc immediately stood up and smiled, "It's nothing. Eileen's just curious is all."
Eileen stood up as well, yawning as she stretched and asked, "Everything good?" Lina nodded as she accepted some bread from Darc and started nibbling it down. Eileen finished with a smile, "Great! It's about time we got going. We've already burned about half the day away."
They met back up with the others and headed west out of town. Along the way Thormak, Zanis and Eileen were talking up ahead while Darc and Lina took the rear. The road was empty as they went onwards and they eventually made their way to the edge of the forest. The log the wolves had set up as a roadblock had been moved to the side and there was no trace of their corpses that Darc could see. It had been close to two hours and there was still plenty of sunlight left in the sky, judging from the sun. They rested a few minutes before heading into the forest, Thormak leading the way.
It wasn't long before trouble found them. Darc narrowed his eyes as he saw the slinking figures darting between the trees amongst the brush 40 feet away. More wolves... The wolves were barking loudly and growling at each other with some intermittant snarls thrown inbetween. His party had drawn up to a halt, however it wasn't long before the wolves left, one of them in the back staring at Darc with a steady glare before heading off with the rest.
Thormak glanced around the party, running a hand through his beard, as Eileen stated, "Well that was strange... Guess we scared them off. Strength in numbers?" Her voice was confident however she seemed a little worried or uncertain.
They continued on, looking for what Thormak had described as "disturbances in the earth." Although these disturbances wouldn't be hard to find, it's not like they could climb a tree to find them. They spent another 3 hours trekking forth before Thormak claimed, "This should be close to where the lord's man told us he felt the disturbance. We should keep our eyes open." They moved around in an ever widening circle in order to comb the forest for the next 2 hours, however they found nothing.
It was growing well past dark so they decided that they should camp for the night and set about building a basic shelter from thin wooden branches laying about. Taking 2 hour shifts to keep watch, they slept uneventfully, though there were the sounds of roars coming from something large in the far distance that interrupted the hoots of owls that blanketed the night.
The following morning they broke camp and resumed their search. Around another 3 hours later they could hear shouts off in the distance. The party glanced at each other, Lina's hand tightening upon Darc's arm before they headed off at a steady pace at Thormak's urging. The next 10 minutes were spent in silence as they neared the origin of the shouting they had heard earlier. Then they heard it. Cracking twigs or branches. Something running through the brush up ahead, maybe 100 or so feet away. They took up positions close to the path that the sounds were heading towards and waited a few seconds before seeing the man and woman pair of adventurers from the inn sprinting away.
"Hold!" Thormak called out, his eyes scanning the trees behind the running pair. The two spotted the dwarf and headed their way, breathing heavily as the man spoke upon his approach, "Thormak. Good. Might have a chance now." The brush was wavering in the distance around 40 feet up ahead, the man and woman adventurers approaching the rest of the party. They were mostly behind trees with only Thormak standing out at the front, not entirely hidden. Eileen was 10 feet off behind and to the right of the dwarf while Darc was on the other side with Lina. Zanis had taken position around 15 feet to the rear. The two new additions stood near the dwarf, still breathing heavily as 7 green skinned humanoids, the height of the dwarf came bursting out of the brush.
One of them bellowed in a raspy voice towards his rear, his head turned behind him, "Found them! Has dwarf friend!" Three of the gobs, as Darc would later learn they were called, held short bows in their hands and the other four came charging wielding an assortment of iron clubs and daggers. The three gobs with bows held them at the ready as the woman adventurer loosed an arrow before ducking behind her tree. Her arrow landed with a thwip as it pierced one of the gob bowmen and then they returned fire at the man who hadn't made it behind a tree in time. Two of their arrows pierced him, both to his midriff as the last arrow flew wide, thunking harmlessly far behind Zanis.
The man let out a scream as he managed to stumble behind the cover of a tree, the other goblins charging towards him. Thormak ran towards the closest one, striking hard and fast with his fists. An audible snapping noise rippled through the air as his first blow bent the gob's leg into an unnatural angle and as the gob fell to one knee he quickly blocked an oncoming blow from another gob before he slammed his other fist into the kneeling gob's head, another crack sounding out. The gob wildly swung its iron club blindly towards the dwarf in panic as it screamed, whiffing the air as the dwarf hopped backwards. The other two gobs stepped in past their two allies and Thormak ducked underneath a mace as he used a palm to deflect the dagger to the side.
Darc had darted out to help Thormak who was currently outnumbered, wielding his trusty dagger as he sunk it into the side of the gob to the left. Meanwhile, Zanis let loose a bolt of lightning towards the recently stabbed gob and Darc smelt the sickening scent of burnt flesh as the gob keeled over, clutching its heart.
At the same time, Eileen had not been idle. She had sprinted towards the archers in a charge, slashing at the nearest one, leaving the gob with an arm cut off at the wrist and a deep gash along its stomach. Lina stepped in to help as well as she finished casting her spell. A bolt of lightning erupted from her pointed finger, careening into the gob archer with an arrow sticking out of it. It's eyes rolled into the back of its head as it fell.
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The remaining untouched gob archer's eyes bulged at the sight of his friends falling left and right. Mustering himself, he barked out a call as loudly as he could, "Run! Must run!" It promptly received an arrow through its stomach before it turned, staggering as it fled. The other gobs, having heard the cry, ran in all directions away from the party. Thormak knocked down one of the fleeing gobs and a sprinting Eileen cut down the archer that had sent out the order for retreat. Darc and Lina managed to catch the last fleeing gob, Darc having tackled it, allowing Lina to freely finish it with her knife. The last archer, the one with the bloody stump for a hand, fainted as it bled out.
There was one gob still there, fear etched into its eyes, pleading with them as the rest approached, "No! Leave alone! No die! Please..." There was blood running down its face from where Thormak had cracked its skull and its right leg was still bent at an odd angle. Thormak made a motion towards the adventurer man and Eileen headed off to tend to him as he sat on his haunches before the gibbering gob. "How many? How many of you are there?"
The gob was trembling as it begged, "Yes! I tell! No kill! Yes?"
Thormak nodded and it answered in a hurry, "No gobs! Only us gobs! Others! Many others! Umm... 8! Yes! Eight! Ok! I tell dwarf! Let live? You go now?"
The dwarf was caressing his beard again as he answered with another question, "What are the others? Are they tunnelers? And where is your base?"
The gob seemed confused at the questions, "Others are others! Not like gobs! Umm... Smell like dirt! Long ... claws? Yes! Claws long!" It let out a pained yelp as it tried to straighten its leg.
"And your base? Where do others live?" Darc stepped in, kneeling next to the dwarf.
The gob had tears in its eyes from the pain as it asked, "Where live?" it thought long and hard before it answered in a tone that said it was guessing, "That way? Yes! That way!" It pointed towards where the gobs had come from. "You go now? Yes?"
Thormak stood and turned from the gob, looking askance of Eileen. She was kneeling next to the man, the arrows now lying broken next to him as she poured her light into his side. She shook her head, "He got hit pretty bad, give me 5 minutes."
Thormak grunted, arms now crossed before him as he spoke, "Hmm. Zanis, help the others set up a perimeter. The gobs were not alone. Don't go too far." He stood over the gob and closed his eyes.
The gob's pleading smile slowly faded as a look of understanding crossed its face. It screamed. "No! Let live! Dwarf lie! Dirty st-" Its voice cut off as Thormak slammed his fist straight into its head. Its body slid down and blood oozed out from the fist-sized hole now formed on the front of its skull.
With a sigh, the dwarf cleaned his hand with some leaves before moving towards the man being healed. "Joren."
The man winced before responding, a small smile formed upon his lips, "Ah, if it isn't my savior. Pity about the last time."
Thormak stood in stony silence, arms behind his back before he spoke, "You will leave. Once this.." he gestured towards Eileen's light-enfused hands, "is done. Now tell me. Where are they? And what do they have?"
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Darc was standing watch with Lina around a hundred feet away from where they'd left Thormak. The forest around them had fallen into silence, the normal sounds of birds and rustling of small critters vanished since their fight. Lina had her dagger out as they scanned the scant few dozen feet they could see through the underbrush. Keeping watch was dangerous. He should probably have his pistol out, but he still didn't want to give himself away just yet. Lina dug into his arm sharply, motioning with her dagger towards the right. There. A faint cracking of wood could be heard in the distance.
He gestured back towards where they'd left their friends as he crept forwards. Lina looked furious yet she held her tongue and slunk off through the underbrush. Taking deep, slow breaths to steady himself he kept inching towards the noise. More sounds. Many of them. He hid behind a tree, trying to make out what was moving perpendicular to him by peeking low out of the tree. A short man around 4 and a half feet tall sidled into view over the underbrush of the forest. Followed by... Damn, that was a lot of them. He counted 10. And then there were ... two? Three. Three of those rat bastards.
The ten he had initially spotted were bald with pitch-black, wrinkly skin and their ... noses... had fleshy tendrils shooting out from their exposed, pinkish nostrils. If they had eyes, he couldn't see them. They stood hunch-backed and their arms were a tad short, though they ended in large hands, almost twice as large as his own. Four long, slightly curved claws shot out from those hands, almost a full foot in length each. Darc's hand twitched towards his backpack, thinking that maybe he should use his pistol. As he unzipped his bag as silently as possible, there came a loud, challenging roar. He peeked out from behind his cover and saw Thormak standing in their path, his stance like some kind of martial artist. He looked to be alone. Where are the others? Darc crouched low as he could go and moved closer as the small band rushed towards the dwarf.
The molemen fanned out as they moved to surround Thormak, he stepped forward to meet the closest one before they could finish their maneuver as a bolt of lightning flew over the dwarf's head from behind. It blasted into the creature as Thormak sent a blow to its abdomen through its defenses. It tried retaliating however the dwarf had already leapt backwards out of reach.
And then shit hit the fan. The molemen had the dwarf on the defensive, fighting 3 vs 1 as Eileen swept in from the right, engaging others who were moving to get around from the side. Lina was on the left, attempting to hold a few off that way as well while Darc moved in to help her. The dwarf continued to try attacking however it was too much for him and he quickly found himself overwhelmed, the moles sending piercing strikes through his gambeson for every 3 blows he dodged or parried. Meanwhile Zanis continued firing off spell support from the rear sending one of the moles to meet its maker as Eileen and Darc worked swiftly from the sides, striking down one foe each. As she darted about the leftside flank, Lina managed to pierce through an artery of one of them and its lifeblood began spurting out in gushes.
Thormak was taking on five of them on his own now, spending all of his focus and energy on defending himself from the oncoming flurry of stabbing claws of the furious moles that were gritting their teeth in disbelief at the dwarf that would just not go down. Darc and Eileen had been empowering their strikes with every blow they could manage and they quickly finished off the last foes near them on the left and right, as they moved to help the dwarf.
However, just as he had turned away, Darc saw out of the corner of his eye a sneaking rat that he hadn't spotted earlier strike Lina in the back with a leaping stab of its empowered claws. The other rats had shown up as well, attempting to ambush Eileen, however she nimbly dodged out of the way, sidestepping them entirely. Zanis stunned one of the moles on Thormak with a bolt of electricity, its body spasming on the ground as the dwarf continued to make the best of his situation. Off on the left flank, Darc ran in a streak towards Lina, promptly braining the rat that was still attacking her while Eileen on her side swung an empowered swing of her sword at another rat, slicing it clean in half.
The pressure somewhat lifting off of him, Thormak moved to attack with a seething fury. His gambeson was now in shreds, blood oozing out from over a dozen holes. The dwarf focused his energy and dove around one of the moles, striking it in the back. A sharp crack rang out into the air as the mole flopped uselessly down upon the forest floor. Eileen finished with her second rat and moved towards Thormak as Zanis sent another bolt out, frying the brains out of one of the moles on the dwarf. Darc likewise moved to help, attacking and killing the mole closest to him, however as soon as he struck he felt an all-too-familiar wave of pain spread over his back and through his right lung. Another fucking rat! He dove to the side and readied himself.
Thormak was now only facing a single opponent but it was the toughest bastard out of the lot. Over half of the stabs he had taken were from the mole before him. He barely dodged another stab and continued to roll past it before striking out with all his strength. A look of surprise fell over the both of them when a loud crack rang out. The mole slid unceremoniously onto the ground, its spine snapped in half just like his friend's.
Lina was close to Zanis, having retreated after nearly getting her lung tore out and she yelled out as she saw Darc getting stabbed. She sent a bolt at the beast with her last remaining mana and struck true, though it didn't go down. Darc stabbed towards the rat as Lina's bolt swept through it, hoping that the distraction would earn him another kill, however it spun on his heels, twisting and turning as it avoided his attack and struck out with its claws in return. Darc prompty swept the claws aside with his dagger as Thormak came barreling in, sending an empowered blow into its side. Flying some distance away from the blow, it got a good look at the outcome of the battle and with a narrowing of its eyes, it spun onto its feet and scampered away before the party could react.