Friday 6 July 1280, Three Hours After Midnight (Two Dead Goblins)

"Cover me Duran," whispers Varros. Varros moves quietly forward to search the bodies for any valuables and try to determine if the goblins were injured and why they were behind the rest.

Duran motions to Varros that he has his back. As Varros moves forward Duran follows quietly with his bow at the ready. Gaven and the rest of the party continue to guard the rear and flanks.

Examining the two goblin bodies, Varros quickly sees that these two were both already wounded. One has five thin, circular puncture wounds in his abdomen, in a straight line about ten inches long from the first to the last. The other has a severe gash across his leg, definitely made by some sort of blade, but perhaps duller than a weapons-grade blade – the wound is somehow less "clean" than a wound made by a sharp blade. Undoubtedly, given the severity of their wounds, these two were unable to keep up with their companions.

Varros finds a short sword on each of the bodies, along with a skin of some foul-smelling liquor, and a few weevil-infested biscuits. He also finds a few coins – between the two goblins, Varros picks up 27 sp.

Still nothing else moves in the dark scrub. It seems fairly clear that these two were alone, and that the host continued on its way – the path they trampled continues leading forward to the west.

Varros calls to Karnak and feed him, and ask him to scout ahead. The raven comes down, takes a bit of food appreciatively from Varros, and flutters off again just a bit further down the path from the party. He lands on a branch, waiting for the party to follow.

Another half-hour of marching brings you to the far edge of the stunted woods without incident, though the tracks have bent slightly back to toward the southwest, curving back over the flat open ground toward where the road – and Belloc's men – should be.

Now that you are out of the vegetation, the moon provides you with plenty of visibility once more. The trampled ground is quite easy to follow. As you continue along the path, you notice off to your left the shadowy form of a hill that stands out above the plain. Though it is difficult to tell at this distance, its top appears to bear a jagged crown, either of natural rock, or perhaps the remnants of some man-made structure.

Suddenly Karnak, who has been circling just ahead of you, appears agitated, as if he perceives something further on in your line of march that you cannot yet see. He seems to call down to you with a note of urgency in his tone, and he flies off hurriedly straight ahead, to the southwest.

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OOC: Actions?  In addition to the coins, I assumed that you guys would keep the swords and have Ollie carry them. Let me know if I should alter that (or if you want to carry the bad liquor and weevil-infested biscuits).

Time Update: It is now about 3 a.m.

Regarding fatigue, penalties (basic -1 to initiative, -1 to hit, that kind of stuff) will kick in once you've been active for 24 full hours -- so about 5 a.m. Of course, if you run into any goblins, they are likely to have about the same level of fatigue as you, considering their extended activity.

Also, just FYI, I have now added two new reference tools to the blog.

First, a new page entitled "Quests, Rumors, and Information." This is a running list of all such items you guys come across in your adventures. I thought it might be a nice reference page as you encounter more and more NPCs, who give you more info and potential things to do. You can see what was said, by whom, when and where.

Second, I added tags to every post, and an index. Each post is tagged according to the particular quest your characters are/were on at the time (so far only two: "Lovers' Grove" or "Goblin Horde"), according to whether a quest, rumor(s) or information were given in the post, any major locations or NPCs, etc. Hopefully this will make the location of past details easier should any of us need access.

I'll try to keep these up to date.