by Robert Bevan
“We’ve got to bring those heads back with us, you know,” said Dave.
“Oh shit,” said Julian. “I forgot about that.”
“Is it still recognizable as a hobgoblin head?” asked Tim.
Julian shrugged. “I guess.”
Tim started rolling another cigarette.
“Dude, take it easy,” said Dave. “You’re not even finished with the one you’re smoking.”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Tim. “Remember that campaign we played last year when we stormed the bandit camp? I think Cooper was the Cavern Master.”
“Vaguely,” said Dave. “Was that the game where we were supposed to rescue the gnome princess from the high tower?”
“I remember,” said Cooper. “I spent like four hours mapping out that goddamn tower, and you dickheads never went in there. You just took the prince’s giant cigars and fucked off into the forest.”
“That’s right,” said Tim. “And you were so butt-hurt about it that you had some bandits show up and steal all our money and our giant cigars. Do you remember how we defeated the bandits?”
“Not really,” said Cooper. “I was pretty wasted at that point.”
“I remember,” said Dave. “I think I like where you’re going with this.”
“What did you do?” asked Julian.
“We found their campsite,” said Tim. “And we stayed hidden until nightfall. We waited for all the bandits to go to sleep, except for the two on watch duty.”
“Okay,” said Julian. “What then?”
“It was dark. Nobody could see shit. But then Cooper did exactly what I was counting on. He had the two poor fuckers light up the cigars they stole from us, just to rub it in our faces.”
“So what?” said Julian.
“So we didn’t need to see them in order to shoot them. We just aimed at the cigar embers. We took out the two guards on watch duty, and then went and slit everyone else’s throats while they slept.”
“I may have been a bit generous with what I let you get away with,” said Cooper. “I was probably just drunk and tired, and wanted to go home and go to bed.”
“So what about the princess?” asked Julian.
“What princess?” said Tim.
“The gnome princess you were supposed to rescue from the tower,” said Julian. “Did you go back for her?”
“No,” said Dave. “The week after that Cooper got tired of running the game and had a dragon fly down and eat our characters.”
Tim finished rolling a particularly fat cigarette – closer to a cigar really – and set to work on another one.
“It was a good plan then,” said Dave. “But here and now it hinges on the contingency that any hobgoblins we run into are just going to steal our shit rather than flat-out try to murder us, which didn’t work out so well for Julian.”
“Yeah,” said Julian. “What was up with that? Those guys were perfectly chill, and then they went all apeshit as soon as I opened my mouth. Did I fail a Diplomacy Check?”
“No,” said Tim. “Even if you rolled a 1, you would have inadvertently said something offensive, or farted or something.”
“Maybe the words ‘Excuse me, gentlemen’ sound like ‘Your mother’s a whore’ in the hob-knobbin’ language.”
“It’s hobgoblin, and no. I don’t think so. That’s not how language works here. It must have been something else.”
“I think it was your race,” said Cooper.
“They hate Jews?”
“No, fucktard. They hate elves.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before you sent me out to talk to them?”
“I thought it was bugbears who hated elves,” said Cooper. “I always get the two confused.”
“What the fuck is a bugbear?”
“Would you guys shut up?” said Dave. “I’d still like to know who’s planning to walk around flaunting a couple of fat doobies in the hopes that a group of hobgoblins is just going to confiscate them and send us on our way.”
“Nobody’s going to flaunt anything,” said Tim, finishing up the second cigarette. “We’re going to make it look like the hobgoblins caught us by surprise while we were camping, and we were forced to flee in a hurry, leaving some of our shit behind.”
Dave gathered some sticks, built a small campfire, and doused it with water once the wood was sufficiently blackened.
Cooper chopped off one of the hobgoblin’s arms. It took a few tries because he couldn’t see what he was doing, but he managed to get in a good enough chop above the elbow so that he could just rip it the rest of the way off. He held it by the hand and swung it around over his head, spraying the whole area in blood.
Julian spread a few non-essential items around the site. A spare dagger here. A tinderbox there. An empty waterskin. Whatever they would be able to do without for the upcoming battle. He even talked Tim into leaving his flask of stonepiss.
“If they’re wasted,” he argued, “they’ll be even easier to kill.”
“Fine,” Tim said, handing over the flask.
For Tim’s part, he took off his clothes, soaked them in the stream, and laid them out to dry on the fallen tree trunk.
“You’re getting pretty comfortable with being naked around us these days,” said Julian, looking slightly to the left of Tim.
“I’m trying to make it look like we were caught off guard,” said Tim. “I can’t afford the luxuries of dignity and shame.”
“Oh, I wasn’t suggesting you should be ashamed of your body. I just –”
“This isn’t my body,” snapped Tim. “My body is more than three feet tall, and my dick is more than an inch long. Take off your serape.”
“What?” said Julian. “I’ve got to strip down too?”
“You can keep your shirt and pants on, Mr. Modest. “But at least take off the serape. Details sell the story.”
Julian pulled his serape over his head. “What’s the genre? Gay erotica?”
Tim snatched the garment out of Julian’s hand and turned toward the river. He was barely able to stop himself from running straight into Cooper’s disgusting half-orc dick. “Jesus, Cooper! What the fuck?”
Cooper held up his loincloth. “I was just trying to help.”
“Sorry,” said Tim. “Would you please put that back on.”
“My clothes aren’t good enough for your story?”
“No,” said Tim. “That doesn’t even look like clothes. It looks like a giant sewer rat died of AIDS. Now put it back on.” He dunked Julian’s blood-spattered serape into the stream and then spread it out on the fallen tree. He surveyed the fake campsite. A CSI team might spend a day wondering what the fuck had happened here, but it looked good enough to fool a couple of hobgoblins. “That should just about do it. Cooper, toss that arm in the stream.”
“What for?”
“With any luck, the other hobgoblins will spot it and come to investigate.”
“Good thinking,” said Cooper. He tossed the arm. It hit Dave in the face.
“Dammit, Cooper!” said Dave. He kicked the arm into the stream.
“Sorry, dude. I can’t see.”
Tim placed his two giant snotgrass cigars on his empty tobacco pouch and set it gently on the ground next to the dead hobgoblin, where it stood a better chance of being noticed. “Let’s go get that other hobgoblin head.”
They followed Julian, who zigged and zagged through the forest, trying to remember where the fight had taken place, until he finally conceded that he had no idea where he was going. In flight, Ravenus was able to find the spot almost right away.
It was a grizzly sight indeed. Julian had been nothing if not thorough. The hobgoblin lay dead in a pool of its own congealing blood. Of course, its eyes were missing. The top of its head was completely caved in, as was the left side of its face. Its bearded jaw was still intact, pointy lower-canines jutting up from its underbite. The poor bastard might not be recognizable as Grimblart, but he should at least be identifiable as a hobgobli
n.
“You really went to town on this guy,” Tim said to Julian. He pointed to a scorched hole in the leather covering the dead hobgoblin’s groin area. “Did you Magic Missile him in the nuts?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you even do that?”
“It was close combat at that point. He’d already broken my arm, so I grabbed his crotch while I said the incantation.”
Dave winced. “Lucky for us the nymph didn’t ask us to bring back seven hobgoblin dicks.”
“This is disgusting,” said Tim. “Cooper, chop its head off. And for fuck’s sake be careful. We don’t need it anymore damaged than it already is.”
Cooper knelt next to the body, feeling it with his hands. “Okay. I think I’ve got it.” He stood up, raised his axe in the air, and brought it down hard on the hobgoblin’s chest. “How close was I?”
“Not very,” said Dave.
After seven more tries, Cooper had chopped the torso of the creature into hamburger, severed an arm at the shoulder, and finished off the work Julian had started on its dick.
“Stand back,” said Dave. “Let me try.” He picked up the dead hobgoblin’s battleaxe, and removed the creature’s head with one blow.
“We really need to start remembering to utilize all of the resources available to us,” said Tim. “Julian, ask Ravenus to go find the cave, would you? If this cigar thing works, I’d like to scout out the terrain while there’s still some daylight left.”
Julian sent Ravenus on his way, and Cooper stuffed the battered hobgoblin head into his bag.
Ravenus returned a few minutes later.
“Bury this body,” said Tim. He let Ravenous lead him toward the hobgoblin cave. As an extra precaution, he used his Move Silently rogue ability, making him even slower than usual. But there were still a few hours of daylight left, and being alone in a forest with a bunch of angry hobgoblins with only a crossbow and a bird for protection was not a time for impatience.
He snuck silently from tree to tree until, about thirty minutes later, he ran out of trees. Peeking out from behind the last one, he saw the cave. The site looked to be the result of a fault shift or something. One chunk of the ground jutted up sharply against the ground next to it, leaving a fifteen foot wall of sedimentary rock exposed. It was in the face of this rock that the entrance of the cave had been carved. Just a rough hole in the rock about eight feet tall at its highest point, just slightly above the head of the lone hobgoblin standing guard outside it. A grey and white wolf sat beside him, tethered to an iron stake in the ground. Shit. The wolf would be a problem.
The purpose of the cave was not readily apparent. Maybe someone had been mining for gold or gems. Maybe it was a tunnel leading somewhere else. Maybe it had served a military purpose some time ago, or been a temporary home to a group of bandits on the run from the law. It was as defensible a location as one was likely to find in this forest. The rock wall would prevent any attacks from directly behind, and the stream cut sharply to the left, ballooning out in front of the cave, before turning northward again, like a giant Omega symbol. Anyone attempting a direct assault on the cave would have, at best, wet feet and twenty yards of open ground to cross.
Tim would have to cross the stream in order to get close enough to use his Sneak Attack bonus, but that shouldn’t be a problem. The water ran slowly, and it probably wasn’t deep enough for him to drown in anyway. The Difficulty Class for an Untrained Swim Check should be pretty low.
The wolf barked sharply and stood up. Another hobgoblin was approaching quickly from the right..
“Elfgina,” said the hobgoblin on duty. “What’s that in your hand?”
“It’s an arm,” said the other hobgoblin. “And I wish you’d stop calling me that. My family name is Bloodfang.”
“You will earn your name once you’ve proved yourself in battle. Until then, you’ll be known as Elfgina. Now give that here.”
Elfgina handed over the severed arm.
“Hell’s fury!” said the hobgoblin standing guard. “Where did you find this?”
“I was having a piss in the stream, and it just floated by.”
“This belongs to Rothgar. It still bears his father’s ring.”
Fuck. It was wearing a ring? Tim made a mental note to check the other body more thoroughly when he returned to the others.
“What’s going on out here?” said one of two hobgoblins emerging from the cave. That accounted for six of the total seven.
“Bonecrusher,” said the hobgoblin who had been standing guard. “You and Elfgina go upstream and see if you can find out what happened. Take Pepper with you.”
The hobgoblin called Bonecrusher untied the wolf from the stake. He crouched down, whispered something in its ear as he stroked its fur, and held the severed arm out for it to sniff. The wolf sprang forward toward the stream, dragging Bonecrusher behind with its leash. Elfgina followed after them.
That left two hobgoblins alone in front of the cave. If he’d brought just one more person, it might have been worth risking a direct assault. Tim briefly toyed with trying to pick them off one by one from where he was, but quickly dismissed it.
He wasn’t sure how good a nose a wolf had, but if it had any sense of smell at all, it would be able to pick up Cooper’s stench, not to mention the trail of destruction he left while stumbling blindly through the forest.
“Ravenus,” Tim whispered in a British accent. “We’ve got to get back to the others. Let’s go.”
Tim Moved Silently for about the first fifty yards, and then broke into a run. They made it back to the group in what seemed like no time at all.
Cooper’s entire body was covered in sweat and freshly turned earth. He stood over what Tim assumed to be the grave of a headless hobgoblin. “Hey guys,” he said. “Look. I soiled myself. Get it? ‘Cause I’m covered in soil.”
“Fucking hilarious,” said Dave.
Cooper let out a fart that sounded too wet to just be a fart.
“Jesus, Cooper!” said Julian.
“Shit,” said Cooper. “I soiled myself for real this time.” He stumbled around, waving his arms until he found a tree.
“You’re so disgusting,” said Dave.
Cooper lifted the back of his loincloth and rubbed his ass against the tree trunk. “Screw you, man! It’s not me. It’s my Charisma score. You know I can’t help it.”
“Ahem,” said Tim.
Julian and Dave quickly turned their heads toward him. Cooper raised his head toward somewhere to the left of him.
“Did you find the cave?” asked Julian.
“Yeah,” said Tim. “And they found the arm.”
“That’s great,” said Dave. “Everything’s going according to plan then.”
“Not quite,” said Tim. “They’ve got a wolf with them, and it looks like one of them has at least a few ranks in the Tracking skill. They’ll probably hunt us down.”
“Shit,” said Julian. He thought for a moment. “Couldn’t we just move?”
“We’re too slow as a party,” said Dave. “We’d just put off the inevitable by a few minutes.”
“So what do we do?”
“We get ready for a fight,” said Tim. He’d been looking forward to seeing how his cigar trick would play out, but they’d just have to adapt. “We’ll be up against two hobgoblins and a wolf, so we still outnumber them. Since they’re coming toward us, we can have the home field advantage as well.”
“Is there really such a thing?” asked Julian.
“As what?” asked Tim..
“A home field advantage. I mean, is it a game term? Do we get bonuses to our Attack Rolls or something?”
“No,” said Tim. “It’s not a game term. It is what it is. We can prepare for them. Set a trap. That sort of thing.”
“Awesome!” said Julian. “We could dig a big pit, and put spikes on the bottom, and then cover it with branches. Then when they come, I’ll stand on one side of it and say ‘Hey fellas! Were you looking for
some hot elf love?’”
Tim shook his head. “That’s –”
“Hold on!” said Julian. “I’ve got a better one. I’ll hold my hands up and say ‘I’m unarmed… and so is your friend!’”.
“Yes,” said Tim. “That’s very funny, but –”
“Ooh! Or how about this one. I’ll point at my balls and say –”
“Would you shut the fuck up?” said Cooper, returning from defiling yet another tree. “Do you know how long it would take to make a trap like that?”
“A couple of hours?”
“More like a week,” said Tim. “And I reckon we’ve only got maybe thirty minutes to come up with something that’s not incredibly stupid.”
“Ambush,” said Dave.
“Keep talking,” said Tim.
“They don’t know how many we are, or in what condition we’re in. You and Julian take positions up in the trees.” He pointed up at two trees he thought would make good candidates. “I’ll hide behind one of the trees, and Cooper will stand out in the open as bait.”
Cooper raised his head. “Wait, what?”
“I like it,” said Tim. “We should be able to take down at least one of them before they even know they’ve been ambushed.”
“You like it because you get to be up in a tree,” said Cooper. “Let’s use the blind guy as bait.”
“You’ve got a ton of Hit Points,” said Tim. “You’ll be all right. And let’s face it. This is really the only opportunity you have to be useful in your present condition.”
“Thanks.”
Julian sent Ravenus to keep an eye on the hobgoblins. Then he took Grimblart’s bow and quiver which, thankfully, they’d had the presence of mind not to bury him with, and climbed up one of the trees that Dave had pointed out. He nestled himself into the fork of a large branch and tested his line of sight. Tim did likewise in the tree Cooper was standing next to. With Dave’s help on the ground, they mapped out an ideal area for Cooper to lure the hobgoblins into which both Julian and Tim could see from their positions.
Dave hid behind the thick trunk of Tim’s tree, and Cooper stood out in the open like a vulnerable jackass who was waiting to get murdered.
“That’s perfect,” said Tim. “Just act natural and… I don’t know. Try not to let on that you’re blind.”
