Here There Been Goblins Again — And They've Got Prisoners!
A little rewind.
While AC, Ubys, and Moist were below the road fighting Marrow-Gnaw, you three — Lessie, KeYs, Dhuxtyn — were at camp on the cliffs with Mud and Falkor, eating quietly and not asking each other if our friends were going to come back up.
That's when you heard the goblin in the dark.
"If you wanna keep your innards on the insides, you'll keep your yap shut."
Eight of them. Three prisoners. Walking through moonlight.
Lessie crawled forward. The prisoners were a small woman with feminine features under a hood, a smaller humanoid — a gnome, by his height — and a tall man limping behind. Lessie called the buzzards into the wind. She asked them, "candy goblins?" — and somehow eight buzzards agreed and dove for the goblin escort's heads.
Lessie threw a small stone at the gnome, gentle, signaling flee. He turned to flee — kicked his fellow prisoners — and tumbled directly into the nearest goblin.
Combat opened.
Lessie cracked the ground green with Entangle. Dhuxtyn blasted. KeYs charged in with Falkor. Ubys heard us from below ground and emerged from the trapdoor mid-fight, dragging Moist and AC up behind him. AC crit a goblin out of the air for fifteen. The other prisoners broke their bonds and ran to Lessie. By round three the goblin underboss took stock and fled.
You bandaged each other up.
The hooded woman lifted her hood and Lessie went pale. "Lessie!" They knew each other from before.
The tall man was Ben, a merchant, and he was hurt badly — his leg. Ubys stabilized him and gave him his own blanket and Ben fell asleep against a rock.
The gnome was Teppo. He was furious about his backpack. Something had been taken — he kept patting the pack and saying gone, gone, gone. When he caught his breath, he told us:
The papers in his pack were the Writs of Establishment, carrying authority from Candlekeep to the Lord of Neverwinter. They were a land-grant — for a college. For the Candlekeep of the North.
They were missing. "Scouts on Wargs took them ahead."
He asked Ubys if Ubys had any tobacco. Ubys had tobacco. Teppo took several enormous pulls and passed out cold.
Ubys took the journal off the unconscious gnome, sat by the fire, and started reading.
Long Rest, finally.
Next session: what's in Teppo's journal — and who Bree actually is.