BellaOnline Forums Hobbies and Crafts Role Playing Games RPG: The Goblin King (Scene 3)

One of the robed figures approaches Derissa's cage and peers in at her. She sees that the face beneath the hood is human, although the expression in his eyes seems more like a snake evaluating prey than anything she's seen before. After a moment of looking, he moves back to the Goblin King.

"She will do. With her addition, we need not wait for the full moon, but may proceed with the sacrifices now."

The Goblin King waves a hand, and the first of the caged humans, a woman, is dragged from the cage to the altar. She puts up a fight, but cannot overcome the goblins holding her.

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Derissa quirked a brow at the man who came to stare at her. She hated prying eyes. She wondered if he knew her--recognized her. She'd left her great cloak back with Dorian so the poor man could sleep.

Sleep! That was it! She smiled slightly and looked at their goblin friend (if ever an oxymoron existed). "Templa en' tessa," she whispered.

Nothing happened.

Derissa blinked. This was new. She whispered again with a little more force behind it, "Templa en' tessa!"

The goblin quirked a brow and looked back at her. "What doing?"

"Pfft, nothin'," Derissa stated. It was true...she had done nothing. The spell wasn't working. She looked up to the edge and closed her eyes. It was the one time she wished Randol was telepathic.

The cries of Kalira alerted her that the proceedings seemed to have been moved up. Derissa cursed under her breath. Whose idea was this any--oh, yeah. At least no one though to disarm her. Which was good. It would have been like disarming Germany.

Wriggling out of the vines, she popped open one of her pouches and pulled out a small bottle of chloroform and a cloth. She smiled and tapped the goblin on the shoulder, "Hey...does this smell like chloroform to you?" And with that, she wrapped her hand around him and forced the scent into his nostrils. He crumpled asleep on the ground. Derissa easily picked the lock. Hiding in the shadows of the prison area, she moved the goblin into the cage. Moving silent, she went to the next cage and sneaked around to the other goblin. "Psst," she whispered from the shadows. Then, with the little Goblin she knew, "Come here. Have something." The goblin guard peered into the shadows and walked over to where he thought he heard the voice.

A soft thud came from the rear of the cage and Derissa's golden eyes looked out. She smiled and looked in at the man in the cage. "Who are you?" she whispered to him.

"...what's it matter?" he replied.

Derissa growled. So difficult. "Maybe because I want to know the names of the people we're about to rescue?"

"Start with the woman and maybe I'll put more faith in you."

Derissa sighed. "See, the problem is...she's down there and I'm up here. I happen to like not being skinned alive, so I'm working my way down there. If I can make a small army, I'll have a better chance. You'd be recruit number one."

"That's your plan?"

"..." Derissa paused. "Well...I don't see you sneaking out of your cage. I know it's possible because--oh, yeah! I just did it. And so did two others. Are you going to keep giving me lip or--"

She was cut off by a crash. She closed her eyes and winced. Her time was up and the goblins weren't going to be happy...and those men were going to be less happy...

...and Kam was going to be ticked...

"Hmmm...some kind of shield against magic." Randol said a bit worried. "Alright, Kam, you and Benedict guard the stairs. When they start coming up, toss them off and down into the fire. I will go down and help Derissa get the prisoners out of harms way...somehow."

"Finally, I get to kick some butt." Kam said gleefully. "Come on Benedict, grab a stick or something and get over to the other staircase."

Randol worked his way down to Derissa and helped her free the last prisoner. "I wanted to warn you about the magic shield or whatever it was but I couldn't."

"It's okay. Now how do we get these people out of here?" Randol replied, looking around for a place to escape to.

"You act like I have a plan..."

"Oh yeah. Duh, What was I thinking. Alright, let me think here for a sec."

Benedict moved over to one set of stairs. Goblins, alerted by the sudden appearance of the humans, started to move up the stairs. The stairs were narrow enough that only one or two goblins could move up it at a time.

Kam had no trouble keeping her stairs cleared. In fact, she thought that it might end up being slightly boring, knocking goblins off by ones and twos, although there were an awful lot of them to knock off by ones and twos.

Benedict pushed, shoved, hit, and managed to keep his stairs cleared by sheer determination. It was obvious though, that if he or Kam let up for a second, the ledge would be filled with goblin soldiers.

On the ledge, the man just freed looks gratefully at Randol and Derissa.

"I'm Borst. Not that I'm ungrateful, but we're not exactly safe here. What's the plan?"

In the final cage holding a human, a young man seeming to be in his late teens is ignoring everything else to gaze in horror at the altar, where Kalira is being strapped down at that moment. The goblin King stands next to the altar, surrounded by half a dozen goblin guards. The robed humans stand behind them, off by themselves.

While the Goblin King doesn't seem to have noticed anything amiss yet, the robed humans have, and at a gesture from one of them, two of the others head toward Kam and Benedict.

Meanwhile, the Goblin King unsheathes a ceremonial knife, and eyes Kalira appraisingly.

[So much to do, so little time!]

Thinking quickly, Derissa grabbed her dagger and threw it down at the goblin king. BINGO! She nailed his hand with the knife in it, causing him to drop it over the ledge.

He looked up and saw what the commotion was all about. He saw Derissa's dagger lying on the ground. Quickly, he picked it up to use it in order to finish the sacrifice. He raised it in the air and then let out a blood curdling scream. His hand began to smoke and he dropped the knife. The knife burned his hand and caused him a great deal of pain.

Wondering what they were going to do, Derissa nudged Randol and pointed out a vine that led to the ground below them.

Derissa blinked. Her dagger was magical?! She'd have to remember to find that Paladin she lifted it from...

"Well, you're pretty useless here, Randol...why don't you grab the boys and get them to safety," she looked over at the young man. That was Caleb. By process of elimination, that was Caleb. "Especially that one," she murmured. "I'll get Kalira."

"How are you--"

"Randol, just do--nuts!" She saw two humans moving off toward Kam and Benedict. Grabbing her crossbow, she quickly loaded a bolt and pushed Randol aside, taking keen aim at the one heading for Benedict. She let the bolt fly, knowing that it wasn't going to kill the man... Then she wondered if she had any poison on her. She'd have to check later. She looked to Kam, hoping she'd be okay. She probably would. Kam was good like that.

"Nuts! Nuts! Nuts! Randol! Go now! Please! Take Borst and Caleb and go. Don't look back! Get to safety and wait for Kalira, Kam, and Benedict. Don't wait for me." Like that is ever going to work... "...and don't argue! Just do it!"

While barking out her directive, she was feeling around in one of her many pouches. Then she found it. A small vile of poison. She didn't know what kind it was or how potent, but the skull and crossbones told her it was, indeed, poisonous. There were benefits of being pretty and charming...especially around apothecaries...

Disappearing into the shadows of the prison-ledge, she sought out an isolated location and began calculating. That vine would be very useful...very, very useful...

Without arguing, Randol got everybody down the vine and ushered them to safety, fighting off goblins all the way. He got them outside of the caverns and back over to the spot where they had made camp earlier and told them to wait by the man they met the night before.

"Don't move from here. I will cloak you all so you are invisible and you will not be found. Wait for us to come back out. If you see goblins or those humans wearing the monk-like outfits, just be quiet. They will go by you without even seeing you. If for some reason we do not return, just go east of here, take the last cavern and you will be out by the river to Artesia."

Randol cast the spell and ran back to the cavern. There were goblins running out looking for him so he had to fight them all. Then he saw the pained Goblin King running out, probably heading for some sort of medical attention. Randol tackled him and snatched the blood diamond necklace from his neck. The king got away from him and headed back into the caverns.

Then he saw Kalira coming but she was being stopped by goblins. He cast a spell and quickly made her invisible and this confused the goblins. She made it outside and the goblins stopped coming. He looked around at the goblin bodies strewn about on the ground and took advantage of this break in the action to get Kalira back to the group he had hidden.

He then stayed there with them and hoped for the rest of them to get out okay. "Derissa will get them out. She has to. She has to be okay." Randol thought to himself.

Then he waited...and waited...and waited.

[Randol's time frame for his actions will effectively keep him out of the rest of the action on the ledge]

The Goblin King roared in frustration as Randol led Borst and Caleb over the ledge and into the mix of goblins below. Then he looked with an evil glance toward Benedict and Kam, clearly counting as high as he knew how to ensure an even replacement of sacrifices.

The robed human heading for Kam reached into his robe and tossed a glass sphere at her back. Alerted by her keen combat senses, Kam whirled, caught the sphere in mid-air, whirled again and tossed it down into the press of goblins below. Flames billowed out, engulfing a dozen goblins.

The robed human heading for Benedict grunted with pain as a crossbow bolt winged his shoulder. He turned, catching sight of Derissa as she pulled the crank on her crossbow to reload it. His hand reached into his robes.

From his perspective, Benedict, alerted by the main's cry, could see a veritable arsenal of bottles, glass spheres, and other odd objects in the man's robe. Straps and pockets on the inside of the robe held any number of strange devices.

Seeing that Derissa wouldn't be quick enough, Benedict tackled the robed man, leaving the stairway undefended. Goblins poured up it as he knocked the robed man out and ripped off his robe.

"Get the girl and get off this ledge!" Benedict yelled to Derissa as he ran toward the rest of the robed humans.