3.8
Goblins n’ Vomit

After the goblin ambush is over, Torus moves among the stinky greenskin bodies, slicing off ears and performing various other atrocities so any other goblins finding them will know that their attackers meant business.

Then the adventurers return to the Ackerland farm. Immolatus, especially, is in a greatly weakened and wounded state, and recovers all the day and much of the following night. All have their wounds bandaged by Meg and her daughter. In the evening, Yuri aids the farmer and his men keeping watch, but there is no raid on the farm that night.

Before dawn, the somewhat refreshed adventurers return to the Baumer farm, noting that the goblin corpses have remained undisturbed during the night—which hopefully means that the farm has not been alerted. At dawn, the farm is quiet and the goblins have retreated out of the gray light that passes for day. The only sounds are the horrible snoring noises from the outhouse. After a final reiteration of their plan of attack, they carefully and quickly move down to the palisade near the farmhouse wall. Grudge shimmies up the rain-slick stakes with a knotted rope—they clatter as he does so and he pauses at the top to see if any creature has heard—but all is well and he fixes the rope and the others follow him up and over. The farmyard is quiet and still, save for the endless rain; then the adventurers see a window shutter move in the opposite outbuilding. Immolatus begins channelling the energy for his spells.

Taking the movement as caused by the young human figure they saw the day before last, they ignore it and continue with their plan. They wedge shut the large barn doors, open the small door in one of the them, and Torus throws in several of the goblin puffballs. Immolatus then unleashes a flameblast spell into the barn and they hurriedly shut the door and wedge goblin spears against it. There are crashes and goblin screaming from within!

Without a moment’s pause, they all run back into the yard, and Grudge runs full tilt at the farmhouse door, reducing it to splinters and continuing into the kitchen beyond. Apart from smashed plates and scattered cutlery and jars, they see an empty cupboard (presumably blocking entry to a room beyond where the large creature lairs), a trap door in a corner of the floor, and another door opposite. Grudge hardly pauses to charges through this—thankfully unlocked—door and into a main hallway beyond, the other adventurers following.

On a staircase landing above them stand three goblins armed with swords and scimitars. Grudge charges up the stairs and into them, leaping into the air to smash his axe through a hastily-raised shield and cleaving a goblin’s skull. Yuri follows, but his newly-learned skill of duellist’s strike avails him nought, and his blade bends as it hits the other goblin’s shield. Which causes Grudge to cry out in irritated frustration: “Yoo fuckin’ idiot!”

Behind them, Torus checks another door and finds a living room with an old sword hanging above a fireplace. Immolatus, in the kitchen, opens the trapdoor and hears the sounds of drunken goblin mumbling below—he shuts the trapdoor and drags an upturned table over it.

Meanwhile, one of the goblins has bolted through an oak door, and the sounds of a hasty barricade being constructed, along with the high-pitched screaming of another goblin barking orders and shouting gobbledigook, can be heard within. The last goblin on the landing is finished, then Yuri opens a last door to be confronted with two more goblin guards, and he and Grudge set to work dispatching them.

Downstairs, Torus and Immolatus bolt through the front door, out into the farmyard and up the ladder of the outhouse to look through the roof and see what is within. They are horrified to see a mighty troll, roaring in confusion, adding to the cacophony of goblin cries all around them from the barn, watchtower and gatehouse as the goblins wake up to the fact that intruders are among them. In fact, the sight and stink of the troll’s charnel-house lair is enough to make them both begin throwing up violently and simultaneously.

They decide to return into the farmhouse and as goblins—both charred and aflame—burst from the broken-down barn door and pour into the farmyard, they jump from the roof. Torus executes a perfect roll, but Immolatus twists his ankle—they both manage to make it back into the house and slam the door as goblins slam into the outer side of it.

While this is happening, Grudge and Torus have killed the last two goblins and smashed down the oak door. Within, two more goblin guards meet their attack, and behind them, balanced on an upturned chamber pot on a pile of broken furniture in the centre of the room, the black-robed goblin shaman rants and raves and screeches incantations, the chunk of stone strapped to his head spluttering with blue energy.

As Yuri fights one goblin, Grudge quickly kills the other and charges at the shaman, narrowly avoiding beams of destructive green light that shoot from the shaman’s eyes. Grudge gets in one blow with his axe, then with a screech of “GERROFF ME!”, the shaman explodes with a burst of power, knocking Grudge back. The shaman scampers for the room’s fireplace and begins wriggling up it, Grudge close on his heels.

At this point the Torus and Immolatus have run up the stairs, pursued by goblins—but some goblins detour into the kitchen and soon is heard the sound of a pantry being shifted, closely followed by roars, screams and unpleasant chomping and chewing noises. The troll lumbers into the hallway, cheered on by the surviving goblins, like a fat wrestling celebrity surrounded by his long-term fans. Only far more dangerous.

Up above them, Grudge wriggles out of the chimney stack to find the goblin shaman ranting and raving and throwing insults and hopping about the peaked roof of the farmhouse, while rain pelts down and the occasional thunderbolt strikes near him. He has no time to loose another spell before Grudge lops his head off; but unfortunately the eager dwarf also loses his balance and falls back off the roof, down onto the outhouse and through the hole in its roof, to land—fortunately—on a squishy cow carcass that breaks his fall. It takes him a moment to recover before he heads through the kitchen to join his companions.

Torus and Immolatus throw a bed down the stairs and set alight to it, but it’s a temporary respite from the horror trudging up towards them. There is no possible escape save through a tiny window through which they cannot fit. At this point Immolatus casts a Shimmering Winds of Aqshy spell and he is wreathed in flickering orange flames that increase his resistance to blows. Torus turns to him and says “I see you’re sorted then.”

The vile troll smashes through the remains of the bed and then belches a sizzling stream of potent stomach acid at a surprised Torus, wounding him and almost inflicting him with a temporary insanity. Torus fires arrows and Immolatus flameblasts, but when they realise the troll’s fleshy hide is absorbing much of the damage, they switch to more effective attacks—Immolatus to a Magic Dart spell and Torus to a more precise ranged attack. Yuri’s first attack is to lob a discarded goblin scimitar at the monster, which scratches it slightly; he then rushes up to the troll, but has little success with his duellist’s strike—which seems to be the order of the day, unfortunately.

Smelling smoke, the adventurers realise at this point that the farmhouse has been set on fire by the lightning strikes.

The troll lashes out with a devastating swing, damaging Yuri and sending a few goblins to splat against the hallway walls, but finally the creature is taken down with darts, arrows and sword blows, and topples back down the stairs, crushing yet more goblins with its death throes. The adventurers run down the stairs after it and, joined by Grudge, administer the coup-de-grace to as many greenskins as possible.

Once the way is clear they all run back out the kitchen door and are about to scale the palisade and escape when they hear the screams of a young girl from the outbuildings on the other side of the farmyard. Torus raises his eyes to the heavens, but they turn back and battle their way through several groups of goblins before rushing into a smithy and dispatching a lone goblin who is threatening a young girl—no doubt the only survivor of the Baumer family. In the farmyard, Yuri actually uses his duellist’s strike effectively against some goblins, to everyone’s surprise.

Meanwhile Immolatus searches outside the palisade and finds the head of the goblin shaman with the glowing stone tied to it.

Torus bundles the girl’s struggling form under his arm and the adventurers run back to their rope, scale it, and the group runs off northwards into the night. Behind them, the farmhouse and barn collapse, and screaming goblins scatter in all directions into the hills.

The adventurers return to the Ackerland farmhouse, where the girl—her name is ‘Flea’—is tended to by the family. After a night’s rest, they return to the blackened remains of the Baumer farmstead, and search among the house ruins until they find the other large piece of the marble stone, which they put on a cart and take back to the Ackerland house. Exhausted, wounded, bleeding, wet, tired, and in two cases spattered with vomit, the adventurers finally take a well-earned rest.