A Quiet Night At The Sign Of The Battered Shield

Thatch towered at least half a head over anyone else in the taproom of the Battered Shield, but as fear and violence erupted it was still like wading through a swamp of living people. They jostled him with every purposeful step he took, and Ryegold Hailcorn and his family emerged from the confusion to tug at the half-orc's leggings in desperation. "Master Thatch! Oh, help us! Save us from these ruffians!"

Shaking off the little hand, Thatch slung his warhammer and hefted a throwing axe instead. Here at the edges of the room the crowd was thin enough for a safe throw, and what a beauty it was – the axe spun about itself and buried blade halfway deep in the clavicle of one of the attacking goblins. He dropped like a stone, as the other hissed and darted towards Thatch with vengeful intent.

Milo weaved through the tangle of people as easily as if it was a briar patch, barely snagging his cloak. Murmuring an old hunting charm under his breath, his gaze focused murderously on the nearest goblin. The goblin seemed to sense this and saw the deadly aim in the halfling's eye, raising her shield just in time to deflect the axe that whipped towards her, sending it scattering towards the bar.

Fighting through the press of bodies into the middle of the room, Glanduk's battle standard-staff rapped the wooden floor like a teacher getting the attention of an unruly class – and then the lesson began. Indicating the flanks with a guttural chant, three bolts of sizzling, violet-white light coiled about each other then blasted out to the edges of the room, whisking by the flinching faces and past the ears of the citizens of Quainbluff without harming a hair on their heads. Two goblins were blasted off their feet with a sound like a forge-hot hammer striking a ripe melon, both tumbling against the opposite walls in broken heaps.

Tagging along with the war-wizard, Trees Glūm followed up this display by peering through the forest of legs racing to and fro and uttering a joke so transcendently bad and laced with mystical mirth that the goblin wending her way towards Thatch stumbled over her own feet. Collapsing in a barrage of giggles, she rolled around on the floor at the half-orc's feet helplessly.

The two goblins in the top of the taproom darted behind the bar (one of them shaking a shield arm that was numb from the force of Milo's axe-throw) with savage cackles, and there was a hiss as Iminyel tried to fight them off with her sparking wand. "Servers! Get these rude folk something to eat!" the elven woman called sharply. A ladle hanging next to the soup pot suddenly hoisted into the air, spattering one of the goblins behind the bar with sticky burned gloop that stuck his boots to the floor for a few moments. Meanwhile, Kyrtsor moved through the crowd, his sword drawn but shielded with his cloak to avoid accidentally gashing any of the panicked crowd.

Another goblin barged through the front door, pausing to glance down at the one sporting Thatch's axe in his chest. At that moment, the dead goblin stirred – and rose to his feet. The impact of the throwing axe had knocked his hood back, and they could now see the goblin bore some kind of brand or tattoo on his forehead – a purple triple-spiral pattern of some sort. That mark was now glowing above a pair of vacant but furious, famished eyes, and the goblin's jaw hung slack with a trickle of blood and saliva running down his chin as he discarded his weapons and shield and lunged through the crowd towards Thatch with hands raised, fingers hooked into claws. On the far sides of the room the two Glanduk had vanquished with his magic likewise hoisted themselves up and staggered forwards, ignoring the patrons and apparently making straight for those that had killed them.

The crowd's roaring alarm was now outright screams of horror.

Round 2img removed

Stepping back to avoid a jab from one of the goblins behind the bar, Iminyel nodded at Thatch's bellow over the screams of the crowd. "Yes. Everyone! Stay away from the doors, the windows! There are more outside. Keep out of the way of the fine folk with hammers and axes and spells, and avoid even the fallen goblins – they seem determined not to stay down!" To Thatch and the others she called: "Warriors! There is a hatch to the cellars under that table there. If you have the muscle to move it clear, we may find shelter there!" Andis Kyrtsor was somewhere amidst the crowd, helping shepherd the people out of the line of battle.

The suggestion was punctuated by a krunch as Thatch brought his hammer down on the cackling goblin's head, painting the floor dark with her blood. Despite its stoved-in skull, however, within a few moments it began to stir again to a hideous mockery of life.

The tattered banner hanging from Glanduk's staff fluttered in a hot wind from the aether, and the terrified civilians scattered in time to avoid the sizzling fist-sized ball of flame that hurtled forth at the shambling goblin corpse. It snarled in hateful hunger – and the bolt plunged straight into its gaping maw with a hiss. For a second, the undead goblin's head was lit from within like a jack o'lantern, flames licking out of eye sockets and mouth, then it dropped, smoking and motionless.

Milo Greenbottle focused his disdain and fury and it lashed out in a fluid motion, exploding from his arm in the form of a hurtling axe. Guided with lethal precision by his skill and the mystic mark, it sliced neatly through the soft tissue of the goblin's throat between armoured vest and chin-strap. A black geyser erupted, and the goblin staggered back, slumping against the doorframe. But before the blood had even finished pumping it was starting to clamber back to its feet as the slayer darted into a tactical position to the side. Cobalt Reiver burned like a blue flame at his belt, almost begging to taste the enemy.

"Ohhh Sephyra, lemme stick 'em to the ground sos like seedlings!" Trees Glūm cried. He shook out his bindle, the kerchief-on-a-stick that vagrants often carried, revealing that under the bundle of items tied to the end was a pointed steel prong. Leaping forward through the scattering crowd he drove the spear down into the chest of the undead goblin at Thatch's feet – but he must have failed to hit whatever passed for vital organs in the recently deceased, as the zombie simply grabbed the spear haft and hauled itself upright.

Of the two living goblins, one darted to the left from the front door, cackling as it looked for stragglers from the crowd to menace with slashes from its knife and cudgel-blows, while behind the bar the other could be heard scuttling along to the tune of mugs and cutlery being dislodged. Those that had died and risen with glowing violet brands on their brows, meanwhile, lunged forward as best they could through the mass of people. Around the corner of the storeroom wall, Milo heard shuffling feet... then saw stiff fingers clutch the corner the lifeless face of the goblin he had just slain leering at him, drenched in its own blood. The two facing Thatch and Trees were upright now and lashed out with broken fingernails and leaden strength in their limbs. Both managed to score a few bruises and scratches, despite the shields and armour of their foes.

On either side of the room, glass tinkled from gaping frames as more goblins clambered in. There were screams as the raiders managed to subdue a couple of helpless bystanders, beating them into submission and swiftly pulling bags over their heads and snared ropes around their wrists and ankles, and the limp bodies were rapidly pulled hand over hand out the windows towards whatever grim fate these ruffians had in mind!

Round 3

The crowd began to swirl hither and yon as panic spread again. The two bound patrons were quickly snaffled out through the windows to cackling goblins outside. "Bring them to Sharaktol!" one jeered, poking at the helpless figure with his knife. "Take them into the dark and let them say goodbye to their blinding Moon!"

Glanduk was jostled where he stood in commanding position in the centre of the room, but managed to find gaps in the crowd as he chanted searing words. Whirling, three white-hot lashes of flame struck out at the goblins alive and dead. The living one scuttling along the front edge of the inn perished with barely a scream, but the two dead ones merely staggered despite the hellish heat that licked them. Their skins were blackened and glowed with cinders, but they pressed on.

Thatch's hammer hurtled into the chest of the undead creature in front of him, cracking ribs and crushing useless lungs. The backswing was gloriously brutal, however, driving the hook on the back of the weapon from crown to jaw, and the zombie's glowing red eyes flared before going dim. The half orc wrenched it free, feeling a powerful wave of hope and vigour wash over him as the odd little gnome incanted.

Behind the bar, Milo's axe whisked past his target, burying itself in the wood of a shelf as the goblin nimbly leaped up onto the top. Iminyel gave him a frown and murmured a spell. A ghostly pale elven hand appeared, yanking the axe free from where it was buried and carrying it back to the halfling. "A little more care, good sir!" she scolded, though a flash of a smile told him she understood the chaos of combat better than most inkeepers. With a screech of consolation Andis Kyrtsor's black raven swooped out of the rafters and dived across the taprom, scratching and pecking at the eyes of one of the goblins that had just finished shoving a captive outside. The goblin screamed, dark blood running down into its eyes from a brow marked with a purple spiral sigil.

With a gleeful whoop, the elusive bastard Milo had aimed at hopped off the bar on the other side, onto one of the stools and lunged at the heaving crowd. As he prepared to circle back Milo realised that the charred creature Glanduk had lanced with flame was not put down when it clumsily pawed at his cloak from behind. With Trees Glūm so intent on his spell-singing he was unable to step back in time to avoid a lunge from the one in front of him, his efforts to aid the other warriors replayed with a shallow series of scratches across his arm. A few paces away, the goblin that had been scorched to death staggered forwards, wheezing.

Unencumbered, three of the remaining goblins terrorised the citizens with jabs from their knives and brutal club-blows. Two more unfortunates were brought down, hastily bound and shoved out the doors and windows to the unkind arms of the raiders.

Round 4

With increasing desperation, the four bold defenders threw themselves at the goblins living and dead. Milo's axe moved like a predator's jaws snapping closed, and the undead goblin's head tumbled form its shoulders to roll against the side of the bar. Cobalt Reiver's blue-flame blade momentarily dimmed as it was covered in dark blood. Glanduk fought his way through the heaving crowd until he was close enough to glimpse the small and ravenous form scrabbling towards him. A fist-sized ball of smouldering fire lashed out, singeing a few of the patrons who were not quick enough to leap out of the way and smashed into the creature's chest, burning ribs and searing a hole though its spine. It dropped like a marionette with its strings cut. Thatch's hammer rose and fell like a judge passing final sentence, knocking another goblin into the floorboards with a crunch of broken bones. As it went limp and immediately started to climb back up with a sickly gleam in its eyes mimicking the rune on its brow, Trees Glum blew a piercing note on his flute and pointed fiercely at it. "No youse don't! Stay down like a good dead body!" The zombie shuddered and fell back with a death rattle that sounded almost like a sigh of relief. While that one failed to rise, however, another lurched out of the chaos and managed to clobber Thatch in the side while his shield was out of alignment.

The goblin raiders continued to run amuck, but heeding Milo's call Kyrtsor seemed to be everywhere at once. With a blend of flamboyance and deadly efficiency he interposed himself between cudgel-blows and their targets, parried the wicked daggers of the goblins and slashes at ropes meant to bind the patrons. His efforts meant that only one person was snatched up and rudely shoved out the window for a span of heartbeats. Two more goblins scuttled into the room, one through a western window and one hopping down the stairs from the attic, but the texture of the sounds outside the Battered Shield changed – there were no more clamouring to get in, and the cries of fear and clashing of weapons in the town were moving further off. This seemed to be the last of this wave of foes!

Round 5

[ +- ] Status effects

PC	HP	Insp.	Conditions
Thatch	24/33	No	Bardic Inspiration 1d6, Bless 1d4
Trees Glum	20/28	Yes	(Conc: Bless) Bless 1d4
Glanduk	20/20	Yes	Bless 1d4
Milo	27/27	Yes	(Conc: Hunter's Mark)
Bystanders	60/80	n/a	15 remaining