Quiet 32nd day,HayDay, 38 degrees, 18″ of snow on the ground, feel wind on skin, leaves rustle, weathervanes begin to move
“Trollscar,” Joan suggests at breakfast, “we should go back to the delve, and see if anything of value was left behind. Perhaps we’ll find my grandfather’s blade amongst the abandoned equipment, or a lost cache of plunder the goblins and orces left behind. After all, the trolls and goblins were slain and the orcs fled. Surely something must have been left behind!” I light up my father’s pipe and take a few puffs as i consider her words. Then I point out that the men who policed the bodies took anything they thought might be valuable with them, and any abandoned weapons have been sitting under water for the last two weeks. “Yeah, but there will never bee a better time to check it out! If we wait too long, something else is bound to move back in! And what about that temple? Surely, some new cult will grow and try to reconsecrate it!” Joan is relentless, and eventually, I agree with her. Her eagerness is hard to resist!
We replace our travelling provisions, and I give Essie twenty crowns in thanks for her hospitality, and we set off towards the Crystallian Delve.
As evening draws near, and we are, I’m guessing, about a mile from the delve, I spot a lone hobgoblin stalking game through the woods some fifty feet from us. He hasn’t noticed us, so I signal Joan to wait with the horses while I deal with the goblin. She shakes her head, and also drops fom the saddle, moving to catch the villain from another angle as we both draw our bows.
We loose our arrows, but niether of us finds our mark. The hobgoblin sends an arrow back at Joan, grazing her arm, and begins rushing towards her. Another goblin arrow slams into the tree next to me as I see a second hunter now moving my way. We each close on our foes, trading shots, until I am cloose enough to rush one of them. My dagger slashes open his hand as he reaches for his blade. His fellow then joins the fight, and I narrowly dodge a lethal blow from his longblade, but lose my breath for a moment as I slam into a tree while dodging out of the way. Tehn Joan is with me in the scrum, as we try to work together to creat an opening past their longer blades. The hobgoblisn are savvy warriors though, using their greater reach against us. One lunges as me, his blade thrust grazing my chest beneath my armpit as I lift my arm out of the way, but as his momentum carries him foward, I bring my right hand blade up into his neck. His companion than brings down a solid blow towards my head, but I lift the first hobgoblin up to catch the strike! As I toss the corpse into its companion, Joan tries to slip behind him. As he turns to face her, I lunge foward with both blades slashing air as he rolls to the side, his blade weaving a circle of death to keep the two of us at bay. But he cannot face both of us at once, as we reposition on either side of him. He decides to rush my way, so Joan leaps at him…as he anticipated! She has to dive to the ground to avoid the backswing of his blade, but before he can bring his guard back up again, I plunge my blade into his kidney, and he crumples to the ground.
Winded and bloodied, I let Joan dress my wound, and then tend to hers. But then as we look at the hobgoblin corpses, my blood runs cold! They bear the mark of the Deathbringer. The same figure is tatooed upon their arms as was marked on the walls!
“What’s wrong?” Joan asks as I point out the symbol. I tell her what it means and she asks, “Do you think the cult has already been reborn, among this tribe?” I nod and tell her that it is just a matter of time before their numbers have regrown.
We move away from the fight, covering our tracks in the snow, and then set up a dummy camp like before, with prayers of vigilance and agreeing to keep careful watch through the night.
About halfway through the night, I sense intruders near the dummy camp. Waking Joan, I can see four hobgoblins closing in on the campfire and horses, warily regarding the tent and seemingly puzzled by the lack of a visible guard.
From our tree perch, we have good line of sight and carefully draw arrows once more. My arrow goes wide, while Joan’s arrow strikes the goblin through the eye, and punches halfway out the back of it’s skull! My second shot then falls short, while her’s wounds the next hobgoblin in line. But one of them yells, “Look!” and sends an arrow our way.
We exchange fire. They are visible in dim glow of the campfire and pale moonlight, and they see us with their goblin eyes. Several arrows strike close to me, pinning my cloak to the tree, and one nicks my calf! But Joan and I slowly pick them off until the last one breaks for it out of fear. My arrow stops his flight.
After unpinning my cloak from the tree, I join Joan in checking the dead. More of the same mark on these hunters. I mutter a prayer for protection and also that my scratches heal quickly. We then shelter at the campsite the rest of the night, enjoying the warmth of the fire until morning.
Quiet 33rd day,DamesDay, 27 degrees, 16″ of snow on the ground, no wind. 2.5″ of sleet and hail fall, beeting down the snow and coating the earth in crunchy ice pellets!
–Something of Ambiguous significance occurs, involving the Abandonment of Advice–
We strike our camp and set off towards the cave entrance, wary of what we might find but reluctant to return to Tellog seeking help if there were only a few members of the new cult.
–Something Positive happens to Benton the Unlucky, involving a Trick regarding Nature–
But as we reach the cave entrance, I spot a pack of wolves sniffing around in the snow and ice. They look up at us, and hungrily, and I notice a strange glow to their eyes. “Joan, up a tree! Now!” The wolves tear towards us, and I fire an arrow, killing the lead animal. Joan’s arrow overshoots, but we both clamber up trees before they reach us, and then run past as they chase our poor horses who are now fleeing through the snow.
Joan looks at me, “We should have just mounted back up and ridden away! Horses are expensive, you know! I paid good money for them!” I shrug mmy shoulders and suggest that we could follow the wolves then. She says, “You’d better! Can’t have demon possessed wolves eating my horses and gods only knows what else!”
We drop down from our perces and begin our pursuit. We come upon the pack a short time later as tney are tracking down some new game. They had given up the pursuit of the horses, whose tracks had disappeared at a streambed. We almost went after our mounts, but I was concerned about the wolves causing damage to nearby farms.
Unfortunately, as I catch sight of the animals, one of their ears perks up, having heart our footsteps on the ice. One falls to an arrow as the pack rushes at us, but we didn’t have a chance to get back into the trees. A wolf slams into me, knocking me to the ground, while its packmates surround me, nipping here an there, tearing at my flesh. Joan dodges teh first wolf, but then she too gets knocked down. We are both fighting for our lives! There is the yipping and growls of the beasts, and my daggers find their marks against two of the foe, when Joan’s screaming stops! I finish the last wolf that was on me, and look over to see the last two of the back with their muzzles deep in Joan’s gut!
I pick up my bow, and shoot one clean through the skull. The other then leaps at me, knocking me back to the ground. A knife though the heart finishes him!
I look down at Joan’s savaged corpse. We hadn’t known each other long, but the last two weeks with her had been a joy. I stuff her entrails back inside her body and wrap her remains into her cloak. Then I start dragging her with me to find her horses.
When I find them, I throw her body across a saddle, and lead both animals pack to town. There is no fortune in the delve. Only death!
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