Monday, November 12, 2012

Thistletop. 18 Rova, 4707 AR.

Sometimes, a goblin riding a frog knocks you unconscious and you forget stuff.  It happens. I'm not saying that it happens often, but it happens.

I remember fighting the goblin and the tiger, but then it gets a bit murky.  We musta made our way through the rest of bramble tunnels, because the next thing that I remember is walking down the hallway of a fort.  I don't really remember what we were doing there, but I do remember opening a door and finding a buncha goblin dogs ready to rip out my throat.  (My memory gets a lot clearer from this point.  Go figure.)  I remember Garridan and Signe springing into action here, taking down the dogs in fairly short order.  However, I really remember the new guy finding a warhorse in a small building inside the courtyard.  He has a way with animals, I guess, because he managed to calm down the horse a lot.  In fact, it really seemed to take to him, though I think that it helped that he fed it mosta his rations.  (Signe made clear that she wasn't sharing hers.  Shocking.)  Since we couldn't exactly make our way through the rest of the fort with a warhorse in tow, though, we left him there.  (We were pretty sure that he could fend for himself for the time being.  The new guy said that he actually seemed eager to meet some goblins.  Better them than me.)

Other than a few goblin guards that Garridan dispatched in that disturbingly efficient way of his, we didn't really encounter anyone else until, with typical skill, we stumbled into Ripnugget's throne room.  Ripnugget.  What a freak.  We found 'im sitting on an enormous frog surrounded by a few guards.  Needing a moment or so to collect ourselves (it was a sight, let me tell ya), the kid did his best to try to reason with Rip.  But, as it usually does when we leave it to the kid to talk to folks, things went downhill pretty quickly.

Ripnugget was a real problem, since he was able to flit around the room on toppa that frog of his while the rest of us were trying to take down the guards.  Although I wouldn't exactly admit it to him, the kid did the most damage against Rip.  He used some sorta scroll that he had tucked in one of his pouches to create a ball of fire that he apparently could control, since he kept hurling it around the room at 'im.  Brein and I managed to drop two of the guards pretty quickly, but, when one of 'em sprang to life again, we realized that it wasn't gonna be a simple fight.  Signe identified their spellcaster pretty quick, but he was apparently good, since he shook off the spell that she used to try to hold 'im.  The kid, however, used that fireball of his to nail the spell guy, so at least dead goblins stayed dead after that point.

Even as we were dropping the guards, though, Rip was getting in some hits, hitting Garridan so badly he had to use a potion.  Brein managed to take out the final guard just as the kid's fireball expired, so it was time to go big against Rip.  Of course, my attempt to do so failed miserably, and everything is hazy after that point, since Rip dropped me good.  I'm told that the new guy was responsible for healing me, making me hopeful that he'll at least balance out the damage that the kid usually does to me with his bombs.  I was also forced to burn a potion that Brein lent me, but at least now we were all able to focus on Rip.  Garridan slashed 'im good at one point and the kid went for one better, nailing 'im with a magic missile.  Rip mighta been done then, but, for safe measure, Signe and I continued our attack.  After we dropped 'im, Signe then took care of the damn frog.

Of course, now that I have a moment to think, I'm realizing that we mighta wanted to have been a bit more careful with Ripnugget, given that the whole point was to get some answers from him.  Probably need to start thinking about that a little sooner in the battle...