RocEter wrote:ewancummins wrote:GOBLIN FIGHTING IN THE STABLES
Most of the smaller monsters fall on Foerde while the big one lashes at the priest with its long whip. Foerde is nicked, driven back, strikes down to drop a goblin.
The mule brays and shrieks as if in pain or just very scared. Neither man can see what happening in that stall just now…
Adam wrote:"Enough o' this!" Cormac shouts, loosing his handaxe and vaulting in through the window to join into the fray.
Cormac tumbles in, swings at a goblin and misses. A goblin drops on him from the hayloft, but the druid shakes the vile little brigand off without getting cut or bitten.
The mule, crazy with pain and fear as a little goblin tears at its back, charges towards Foerde, but the battle-priest steps away in time to avoid being bowled over.
A wee goblin rolls between Foerde's legs and
stabs him in the groin with an oversized poignard!
The big master-goblin cackles, cracking its bull whip at Foerde."You gonna be our slave, beast-man! We make you
gelding if you don't give up now!"
After the robe wearing goblin jumps back and kicks door close, Foerde hastily searches the area for anything to block that entrance that might slow down any goblins coming that way. He notices some loose floor boards that could be a hatch, he makes note of it and moves back towards Cormac's position by the window.
"Still got them two Gobs in hayloft and there some loose floorboards that could be a hatch." He says. "Don't know how many more are going to come through that door but just in case be ready to jump out that window, so we can lure them out into the open."
After he finishes speaking Foerde begins to chant in Andu..
Cormac is able to hold the goblin reinforcements back at the window by swatting and hacking at the extended spears with his axe, standing so that the wall gives him partial cover from any attempts to stab him.
The goblins outside fall back a few steps in the face of Cormac's stout resistance, but now and then jab their spears at the open window to prevent the men from using that exit.
The loud thumping that the two men had heard earlier renews, grows louder. It seems to be coming from under those loose floorboards.
When Foerde goes to attack through the window, he finds the goblins, at least ten of them of them (mostly small, but a few big ones in the mix) formed up in a semicircular spear hedge, just out of sword's reach. If he leans out or climbs through the window, he's liable to be stabbed multiple times.
A noise above him, inside the building, draws his attention. Sounds like rain drops hitting the floor of the hayloft.
Something huge, black fur and red jaws leaps at Foerde, springing down from the loft!
Foerde battles the warg while Cormac tries desperately to hold back the emboldened goblins at the window. The beast bites Foerde but quickly falls under his ferocious sword blows.
Cormac barely has no time to catch his breath or confer with Foerde, but must concentrate all his efforts to hold back the swarming goblins at the window.
And now the outer stables door, set behind the left side stalls, shakes as goblins or something worse beats at it, shaking the wood panels and rattling the bar.
The inner door, where Foerde had piled whatever heavy junk was handy-- an old barrel, a broken pack saddle, splinters and crashes open. Three small goblins rush through, swinging clubs.
Cormac is forced to fall back for a moment, and a little goblin vaults through the window. It darts at him, jumping sideways to avoid his axe and driving him back with quick spear thrusts. More goblins crawl into the window, pushing and shoving each other in their haste to enter the room.
Foerde stands in the middle of the stables, sword raised and chanting aloud, staring through the window..
The goblins have the two men completely surrounded, cut off from all escape routes in sight, when a great bolt of lightning flashes down just outside the window, coming down right on top of the goblins pushing into the room.
The goblin fighting Cormac drops dead as lightning arcs from outside to strike the creature’s raised spear and iron helmet.
The three goblins at the inner door take just a quick look at the carnage in the stables at turns to flee as the sound of thunder rocks the walls.
The frightened mule bursts after the three fleeing goblins, kicking at them and driving them further down the inner hallway, out of sight.
A quick peek through the smoking window shows a heap of dead goblins piled against the blackened wall under the window sill, crackling with sparks.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
