The group moves quickly up the trail to the ruined keep, a collection of shadows dwarfed by the tall trees and stacked wall of stone rising before them.
Draggert grips his axe and spits on the blade.
Corrigan nods towards the main doors where they lie in a decaying heap on the ground.
The party steps gingerly across the ruined doors and slips into the courtyard.
The collapsed doors creak loudly as Throrin’s heavy boots trod over them.
Draggert raises a fist to tell the others to stop. His pointed, green ears twitch in the direction of the low wooden stable building.
Draggert (whisper): I hear voices. Laughing. Inside.
Keith (whisper): What should we do?
Throrin strides up to the door and his voice booms.
Throrin: Never leave an enemy stronghold intact, that’s what!
Keith cringes and flexes his palms. Six images of the young wizard suddenly spring into being around him.
Throrin’s steel boot kicks the door in.
The door flies open with the shriek of ancient metal. The interior of the wooden building has a thin layer of filthy straw strewn across the floor. To the east, an open area contains a decrepit forge and a large mound of moldy hay. A battered table with four chairs sits in the middle of the room. Upon the table crawl a handful of large beetles. A stick with a caltrop tied to the end lies skewered through one of the insects. A strong animal smell pervades the air here. Throrin is just in time to see two well-armed goblins mount two large, snarling wargs.
Valandil looses an arrow reflexively at the first sight of the monsters. It strikes one of the wargs in the shoulder, and it yelps.
The goblins spur their mounts, and the wargs burst from the stable, snarling. The goblins whoop and holler as they draw shortbows and ride the creatures around the courtyard.
Draggert charges at one of the wargs. He swings his axe down in a hard chop, but the goblin rider drags hard on the reins and the monster barely avoids the blow.
Corrigan leaps into the fray, sliding past the wolf-thing’s snapping jaws as he draws both flashing blades and comes up behind it.
Keith fires two scorching rays of flame from his hands, but both go wide of the warg he is aiming at and strike the walls of the tower, leaving long, black scorch marks on the stone.
Jorr fires a couple of bad arrows and tries to get away from the attackers.
Throrin charges the other warg and completely misses with a wild hammer swing.
Valandil snaps off two quick shots at the goblin riding the warg nearest him. The creature screams as the arrows pierce his armor.
“For the Scaled Lady!” shrieks the goblin in front of Draggert. It casts its bow aside and draws a scimitar into a slash that Draggert blocks with the haft of his axe.
The warg twists its head around and bites at Corrigan, but the ranger’s new mithral armor protects him.
The other goblin fires an arrow at Keith. It strikes one of his images and causes it to slump dead to the ground where it fades away.
Draggert and Corrigan coordinate an attack on the warg. Draggert’s axe narrowly misses once again, but Corrigan’s blades slash the creature’s speckled hide.
Keith looks visibly terrified at the death of his image. He ducks behind a giant boulder and reads a scroll from his pack. A hazy disc of force appears in front of him to protect him from further attack.
There is a sudden, leathery flap of wings over the battle. A horrible beast with a body like an orange lion, batlike wings, and spines protruding from its tail and strangely human face flaps up onto the roof of the southeastern building.
Keith: Gods, they have a manticore?!
Jorr and Valandil loose more wild arrows, all far from their marks.
Throrin stows his hammer and draws a javelin. He takes a running start and flings the weapon up at the manticore. It sails over its head, but the dwarf has the beast’s attention.
Throrin: C’mon down and get a piece!
Even over the considerable din of the battle, the sounds of grunts, shouts, and scraping metal can be heard from the southwest.
Corrigan: I think we’re about to have company!
Draggert wedges his boot in the warg’s mouth as it bites at him. He swipes his heavy axe at the goblin rider, but the creature ducks. Draggert screams in frustration.
Corrigan follows up, darting in and out, blades flashing. The goblin rider tries to outmaneuver him, but Corrigan is too fast and his rhythm is too hard to follow. His longsword plunges into the warg’s body, striking its heart. The beast yelps and collapses, showering the packed earth beneath it in blood as it dies. The goblin falls from its saddle and lands hard on the ground.
Keith runs into the middle of the melee. He raises his hands and reality seems to bend around him. His allies are moving much faster now.
Valandil is a blur as he fires three arrows. The first two strike the remaining mounted goblin, slaying it. The last arrow hits the shoulder of the warg as the dead goblin’s body slides from its saddle.
The manticore flicks its tail and flings a volley of deadly spines down at Thorin. They clatter from the dwarf’s armor and shield and fall harmlessly to the ground.
The prone goblin tries to roll to his feet, but Draggert’s heavy axe is already slashing down. The goblin is cleaved entirely in half, showering Draggert’s boots with gore.
Suddenly, the southern doors swing open. Armed and armored hobgoblins begin filing out, longbows readied. They raise their weapons like a firing squad, unleashing a volley of whistling shafts at Draggert, but the magical field that Keith placed around him diverts the arrows harmlessly upward where they veer off into the trees.
Draggert, feeling extra spry, lurches forward, ducks low, and comes back up into the hobgoblins with an uppercut slash from his greataxe. The blow catches a hobgoblin on the brow, knocking his helmet off his head and sending it clattering across the courtyard. The monster stumbles, dazed.
Corrigan throws himself forward into a tumble, coming up on the other side of the hobgoblins near Draggert, his blades cutting intricate swaths through the air.
The final warg charges at Valandil, biting savagely into his leg and thrashing him back and forth like an elven ragdoll. He hammers at the monster’s head with his bow, and just barely manages to free his bleeding leg.
Valandil: Ah!! Blasted beast! You’ll pay for that!
Keith's heart hammers in his chest as he steps up to the group of hobgoblins. He opens his palm and blasts a cone of screaming color into their faces. Half of the creatures howl in pain and clutch their eyes. The others manage to avert their gaze at the last moment and continue to fight.
Corrigan shuts his eyes tightest of all, though he is out of the area of the spell.
An animal bellow rings out over the battlefield as another enemy emerges from the collapsed wall to the south. A minotaur, its large body covered in shaggy, black hair, hefts a greataxe to match Draggert’s own. A large gold ring hangs from its flaring nostrils. It stalks forward, eagerly swinging its greataxe in great arcs around its body. It fixes its eyes on Keith.
Throrin raises his shield higher, gesturing with his other hand and murmuring a blessing. A soft light suffuses his allies’ weapons.
The manticore flings another volley of spines down at the dwarf, but they, too, bounce from his armor. The monster roars in frustration.
Valandil backpedals, firing more arrows at the warg. The monster finally drops to the ground and moves no longer.
The remaining goblin skitters past Keith, startling him.
The two sighted hobgoblins are spurred on by the appearance of the minotaur. They cast aside their bows, draw longswords, and press the attack on Draggert.
The half-orc parries both blades with the haft of his axe, screaming orcish profanity as he brings the blade down and through one of the hobgoblins, the momentum of the killing stroke carrying straight through and into the other hobgoblin’s shoulder.
Keith raises his hands, invoking mystery power as the opportunistic goblin behind him stabs one of his images dead. He fires a crackling, black ray at the minotaur that saps the beast’s great strength, causing its axe swings to become sluggish.
Corrigan strikes one of the hobgoblins in the flank with one blade. The other finds the goblin assailing Keith, slaying it.
The minotaur roars, charging into the wizard and goring him with one of its long horns.
Jorr fires two expert shots that sink into the minotaur’s leg.
Valandil turns toward the minotaur, pulling a hunk of pork fat out of one of his pouches. He chants and flings it at the creature as it transmutes into a torrent of grease that showers the bovine humanoid. It roars in rage as it slips and falls down, covered in the stinking mess.
The manticore finally leaps from its perch, coming down to face Throrin one-on-one. It uses the momentum of its pounce to knock his shield aside, its other claw slicing into a weak point in his armor.
Throrin grunts and counters with a spell, healing his wound fully. He draws his heavy warhammer once more.
The hobgoblins turn on Corrigan, but he is too fast to hit.
Draggert roars, every bit as guttural a sound as the minotaur’s. He abandons all pretense of defense, raising his axe high overhead.
The prone minotaur twists its body and swings its powerful arms wide, pulling its greataxe out of the mud and into a surprise strike that smashes into Draggert’s belly armor, but it does not stop the half-orc.
Draggert slams his axe down on the minotaur’s shoulder, severing its arm and leaving the beast dying in the muck. He spins with the blow, the backswing slamming into one of the hobgoblins and flinging it to the ground like a broken toy.
Corrigan’s sword takes the life of another hobgoblin, leaving only one of the creatures left standing.
Keith limps behind Draggert, uncorking a flask and drinking from it as he moves.
Jorr feathers the remaining hobgoblin with arrows, but it survives. It falls back behind a boulder, drinking from a flask of its own.
Valandil turns towards the manticore and begins launching more arrows at it, checking his quiver as it begins to grow low.
Throrin and the manticore continue to battle one another at the rear of the courtyard. Throrin’s armor holds up as he smashes his hammer into the monster’s shoulder.
A final figure appears through the open tower door to the south. It is a lanky, 6-foot humanoid with shaggy brown hair- a bugbear. Its wide, flat ears stick up from behind an ornate headband, and it wears a sweeping red cape. It wears no armor, but hefts a spiked morningstar and wears a belt covered in flasks and rolled parchment. It raises its furry hands and a fork of white-hot lightning streaks out.
Draggert tries to block the lightning with his axe, but is jolted as the energy cascades over the blade and into him. The rest of the party behind him cries out in pain and anguish as they are scorched by the electricity.
Corrigan leaps aside, avoiding the worst of it.
Draggert steps up to the bugbear and swings his axe, but it glances from a field of magic force around him.
Corrigan tries to gain the enemy’s flank, but the bugbear is quick with its morningstar, and it strikes the ranger in the back as he maneuvers behind it.
Bugbear: You think to come here and kill my men? You stinking humans think you can stand up to the Red Hand?! We are LEGION! I, Wyrmlord Koth, will destroy you!
Keith coughs blood and limps away from the melee, hiding behind a crumbled section of wall.
Draggert and Corrigan converge on Wyrmlord Koth. The bugbear focuses on dodging Draggert’s heavy axe, Corrigan’s sword cutting a small wound as he leaps back.
Jorr has an arrow for both the manticore and the Wyrmlord. He hits the large, winged target, but the other arrow goes wide.
Valandil tries to reposition, but he slips in a puddle of his own grease and falls down into the mud. His arrows, aimed at the manticore, sail away harmlessly.
The manticore turns away from Throrin and launches a volley of tail spines at the prone elf, where they thunk ominously into the mud.
Throrin roars and takes advantage of the manticore’s lapse of attention, delivering two heavy blows to its body with his hammer.
The surviving hobgoblin drinks yet another potion from behind the boulder.
Wyrmlord Koth twists his fingers again, unleashing another bolt of crackling lightning. Draggert and Corrigan drive into him, avoiding the worst of the magic as it blasts around them. Jorr is not so lucky, and the errant bolt singes into his old, gnarled body.
Keith shudders as he hears the familiar spell crackle on the stone wall nearby.
Draggert reaches to his side, grabbing a flask embossed with a carving of a yak. He bites the cork out of it and chugs the healing draught within.
Corrigan’s blades begin to find their mark. He slashes two great cuts into the bugbear.
Keith gulps and musters his bravery. He reads a scroll.
Jorr fires two arrows at the bugbear.
Valandil sits up in the mud, but does not get up as he continues firing arrows at the spined, winged monster. He strikes it in the neck.
The manticore charges in a rage, ignoring Throrin’s hammer as it leaps upon the prone elf. It savages him, leaving him unconscious in the stinking mud as the magical grease dissipates.
Throrin: No one ignores me, you ugly freak!
Throrin bounds back up to the manticore, missing with his hammer but regaining the beast’s attention as he frowns at the collapsed elf in the muck.
The hobgoblin emerges from its hiding place, charging at Draggert, but the half-orc sidesteps the thrust.
Wyrmlord Koth turns to Corrigan and incants a spell.
Wyrmlord Koth: May your eyes be ever veiled!
Corrigan blinks as his vision goes momentarily black, but he shakes off the dark magic.
Draggert heaves his axe into the distracted bugbear, wounding him further.
Wyrmlord Koth is bloody and staggering, breathing heavily.
Jorr fires at the hobgoblin.
The manticore wheels back on Throrin, slashing and battering him with its claws.
Throrin raises his shield against the onslaught, once again healing the wound he sustained with his holy magic.
The manticore snarls.
Draggert, Corrigan, the hobgoblin, and Wyrmlord Koth are a whirl of footwork and heaving weapons.
Keith suddenly appears from invisibility in the midst of the fray, perfectly positioned, eyes ablaze as he channels the maximum amount of power he can into his spell. He twists his hands suddenly and a blossom of flame appears in the shimmering air, exploding outward with a deafening roar. The manticore is flung against the castle wall, burned and dying. Wyrmlord Koth screams as the flames blast the flesh from his bones. His charred corpse collapses to the ground.
Jorr’s mouth is agape as he sinks a final arrow into the last hobgoblin, killing it almost as an afterthought.
Jorr: Gods, son…
Corrigan chuckles in amazement.
Throrin eyes the mage for a moment, then he stows his weapon and crouches down to heal the elf.
Throrin: You’ll not die today, ye wee little pansy.
The group stands amidst the carnage, breathing heavily and checking weapons, watching for any more signs of movement.
Keith wills his hands to stop shaking and he composes himself once more.
Keith: Is everyone alright?
Draggert’s chest heaves up and down as his rage slowly subsides. His eyes roll back into his head, he spits a mouthful of blood, and he passes out.
Out in the forest, the cicadas sing their shrill, buzzing tune.
