The Daimyo's Gambit - Game Thread

Urki and Kidrak target the same unfortunate hobgoblin stuck in the vines and the bolt combined with the eldritch blast tears a chunk out of his midsection. Ai Shan rips his sword from neck to navel of the hobgolbin that advanced on him. Cassandra hit the newly freed hobgoblin with a dart straight to the neck and the hobgoblin drops his shield to hold the wound closed while shock registers on his ugly face. Feng swipes at the captain who deftly avoids the worst of the hits only to dodge strait into an unexpected talon. Even so, he shakes off the stun and returns attack on the aarakocra. He yells a command at the hobgoblin holding his neck who is able to shake out of the the shock and advance on Feng, sword in hand. The two work together to punish the bird the best they can. The hobgoblin seige soldier does his best to harry the monk while the Captain delivers two punishing strikes. After he slices into Feng he reaches down to his side and unclips a small horn from his belt.

Feng takes 28 damage from two attacks. The Captain and a single hobgoblin still stand.

As a team you converge on the epicenter of the battler. Cassandra shoots verdant energies from her hands and summoms a thirsty sea vine that smells of kelp. It grasps the horn with a squelching noise as it rips it from the captains hands. Urki, thinking back to his time in Dragonwick and his team then, refused to let this companion fall. Ai Shan steps forward along with Kildrak and Feng to deal a punishing blow while the other two harry him, opening him up to the attack. The great sword of the southern peoples cuts through the captain, splashing even the bamboo in the vile black blood of the hobgoblins.

The final hobgoblin holding his neck closed with his hand looks at the five of you, each with the captain's blood on you, and drops his sword and falls to his knees.

Fēng drags the captain's body to cover and throws the sword over to the barbarian. The other bodies continue to roast in the late morning sun. He finds what he is looking for in a side pouch of the captain's: an eight inch collapsible telescope made of brass and embellished with semi-precious stones.

Cassandra looks from the edge of the cliff and surveys the land. She sees in her head stellar eagles at the perch. But here, now, she was the perched bird. She could see the vista of paddies down below. A farmer and his family finish pushing the cart up from the muck, having cut ties with the dead ox. Small poorly thatched buildings and pensive goblin faces looking up towards the cliff face make up the village down below. The cliff on which Cassandra sits stretches and spirals up and in towards the center of the mountain. It completes at least another loop from where you are now on the spiral and you can see the cliff face that sits behind your perch and looks down at you. For the time being she doesn't see any more active firing siege weapons along the cliffs but can see more than a few batteries set up for defense along the cliff wall. She can't see over the cliffs edge behind and above her but can sense that a battery over head would make sense.

The hobgoblin captive shakes to see the froth at Kidlrak's mouth directed toward him as he is shuffled to within the tree line. Urki comes over and heals him with a touch of malice in his voice. Fēng reiterates his question looking with unfliching eyes at the captive. He spits out a few choice words with fear of the superior force arrayed against him, "Nib larg Ocm'nom. No speak! No speak Common!"

As Ai Shan holds the ōdachi in his hands, he notices a familiar symbol on the scabbard of the blade. It is that of two entwined droplets of blood around a sword. It is the makers' mark of the Blood Brothers.

The hobgoblin looks down at Kildrak's drawing and then back at the warlock. He takes the stick fearfully and begins to draw Xs where you can only assume are more batteries. He draws them all the way around the spiral, one every sixty degrees or so. He draws the rest of the spiral as well. He draws a square at the center and one about halfway up.