With Throncir charging in, Bitur will follow but try to approach from the side so as to be out of the path of the ballista. He’ll inform the rest of the party to try to stay out of its line of fire as well. The good thing about going up against ballistas is that they take a bit of time to aim.
Mulligan waits, hiding in shadows near the rearmost goblin. Ghân begins his quiet chanting and Sandy is crouched very low just in front of Ghân.
The goblin with the awl is suddenly swarmed by roaches and he begins flailing and screaming in pain. He does cut Elfstan’s right cheek but misses the eye. As the closest goblin stands up, Mulligan’s dagger punctures his back and into his lung. He dies quickly. Sandy shouts duck, stands and fires in one smooth motion. An arrow pierces the last goblin and he drops but not before he has stabbed Elfstan in the left thigh deeply. A second arrow puts down the screaming goblin with the awl. Sandy runs past the alcove to guard the passage and make room for Ghân to get to Elfstan. Elfstan is tied and hurting badly. He is down 32 or 37 hit points.
Ghân does an immediate Cure Light to stabilize Elfstan.
What do Ghân and Mulligan do next?
At the door Thoroncir rushes the goblins followed by Bitur and Gwaelur and then Hraedsig. Hraedsig is probably a bit sad he is not up front.
The ballista bolt goes through Thoroncir at point blank range. It damages his armor and more importantly his gut. He fails a system shock roll vs. the incredible pain as he takes 28 points of damage. The crossbow bolts bounce off of the Dwarven shields and they are on the goblins swinging and smashing. Bitur has killed the ballista leader and a goblin that had a heavy crossbow. Gwaelur has dropped two more goblins. Hraedsig pulls Thoroncir out of the way as Gilraen shouts, “Hraedsig push the ballista bolt through swiftly and cut the barb, I will begin to heal him. Miron help me.” There is blood everywhere. Thoroncir hears, “dear brave fool” from Gilraen’s lips.
Brin fires a long shaft into a goblin the Dwarves failed to reach, only three remain.
“Oh you fool Elfstan” whispers Mulligan.
Mulligan checks out Elfstan to see if he is still carrying Sting, Kkhosal’s Bane and the Mithril shirt.
“Ghan, if he is safe enough to move, please move him to the base of the stairs. But I was expecting more dead goblins around than this.”
They did not have time to remove the chain mail but Sting, his sling and Kkhosal’s Bane are all in the corner. His pouches appear to be untouched at this point.
Examining him quickly Ghân determines he has a head wound as would be expected from a blow from behind. The type that would at least stun for a few minutes if not far worse.
Mulligan gathers up Elfstan’s belongings’ and pulls Sting out to see if it glows.
Hopefully, he will recover in a couple of minutes, if not we carry him back.
Sandy, let’s keep a good watch out. I hope the others are doing ok.
Ouch! Poor Elfstan and Thoroncir. Not a good day for Gil-Gandel’s Band.
The knight-errant grits his teeth and strives to keep from passing out as Gilraen and Miron tend to him. He’s never felt such agony. He valiantly tries to clamber to his feet to resume the fight against the remaining goblins, but his vision goes white, Gilraen and Miron push him back down, and he quickly realizes that it would be better to remain on the nice cool floor for the moment. “Fight on, my friends!” he calls. “Fight on and finish them!”
Oh, hell. I was afraid of that.
Deor steps carefully through the door, glancing at all corners of the room for more nasty surprises before he walks quickly to Thoroncir, kneeling and ready to help Gilraen and Miron if they need it.
Gwaelur is in what might be called a blind rage. He will go after the Goblin at the Balista next, and then will destroy said balista when all the fighting is finished.
Gwaelur is in such a blind rage, he hasn’t seen that Bitur took the Balista operator out already.
Bitur will mop up the rest of the goblins with Gwaelur.
Hraedsig immediately complies with the Lady’s instructions. As soon as he is sure that Thoroncir is in her capable hands, he will go after any remaining goblins, shouting (somewhat obliquely) “Justice!!!”
(Sorry I was gone for a while).
He doesn’t know who the actual balista operator is, he is just going after the one closest to the balista and taking his rage out on that guy. Gwaelur is still a bit rocked from having his soul ripped appart not more than a little bit ago (in game time. Our time it was like a month ago I think. Gwaelur is tough, but he is still a bit shaken and will probably continue to act a bit strangely for the rest of the day.)
Gwaelur erupts into the rarely seen Khazad berserk or death-fight state. He starts flailing about with an amazing precision and speed but spittle is flying from his mouth. Bitur recognizes it instantly and gives Gwaelur room. Gwaelur chops down all 3 of the goblins and begins to destroy the ballista. Bitur got past him in case of other surprises.
Thoroncir thankfully passes out as Miron and Deor withdraw the spear shaft. Gilraen heals him for 19 with a cure light and 6 with herbs. He is now down only** 3** but out cold. She leaves him to rest this way for a bit and she double checks the bandages.
Hraedsig is not sure what is wrong with Gwaelur, but he knows enough to stay back. Brin is laughing a bit having seen this once before back near Erebor.
Mulligan finds that Sting is glowing. Ghân will carry Elfstan back as Sandy takes rear guard and lets Mulligan lead. They get back safely.
When they get back, Mulligan is going to look from Elfstan to Thoroncir, back to Elfstan and then to Gilraen. And then shake her head
*"How is he, Gilraen? Please tell he didn’t try to charge the ballista that Gwaelur is currently demolishing to protect you?
Elfstan should recover from a nasty crack on the head. But until then, I will be waving Sting around to see if there are more goblins present.
Also, I would suggest moving the pair of them back to the open area with the barricade to rest and recover.*
Well, not to protect her, exactly…
Recognising the ancient Khazad war-cry “It is a good day for someone else to die!” I shall give the kill-crazed Gwaelur plenty of elbow-room. He’s been desperate for something like this ever since that unpleasantness with the wights, this ought to get it out of his system.
I will need a status report from our Healers. With two badly wounded party members we should consider a withdrawal while the getting is good - we have disposed of some powerful undead and trolls today, which will be a great help to our faction, and we don’t want to jeopardise a good day’s work by taking unnecessary risks.
I’m low on spells too, so I endorse this idea. Let’s make an ordered retreat before we accidentally make a disordered one.
Gilraen wishes to make a quick check of Elfstan’s head wound. Then she thinks it would be an excellent idea to withdraw.
Ditto on the withdrawal. As we head back, I will try and lock anything and everything behind us. I will be keeping hold of Sting for the moment, the glow will stop me being surprised from other attacks.
Ghân will use 8 Goodberries on Elfstan and 3 on Thoroncir (provided Gilraen approves).
He reports to Gil-Gandel that he still has Goodberries (bearing in mind the limit of only 8 per person daily) and Herbal Cures, but am nearly out of spells.
Given the near-casualties, Ghân is content to retreat. (He mutters something about not splitting the party again, looking a bit sheepish…)
Gilraen reports after checking Elfstan, “This looks bad. Hold this chamber, I need to use more than magic. Ghân do you have a Cure Light left? Miron can you assist? Hraedsig, we’ll need you to provide a cure disease when we’re done.”
She pulls out a folding razor and a small very sharp mithril knife that she refers to as a scalpel and asks the calmer looking Bitur to hone it both. She carefully shave the hair around the wound, takes out a small roll of pure white cloth storing a variety of shiny implements and to Deor’s surprises a small metal flask of wood alcohol. She cleans around the wound and requests of Deor, “Could you cast a clean cantrip on his head and then on these tools please.”
Meanwhile she had Miron get some water boiling and she carefully sprinkles in her freshest Athelas while chant. She finally explains, “Elfstan’s skull has been broken, it will knit but lose shard can cause major damage and surgery is required. I can clean and set the wound. Under most conditions though, no matter how careful I am there is a high risk of infection. This is far from good conditions. I will be cutting back a flap of his scalp and probing the wound. It is at this point he will need a cure light from Ghân and at some point another clean cantrip. This should take about 30-45 minutes. When I am done I will give him one more cure light, ask Deor for a final Clean cantrip and ask Hraedsig to cure disease on him.
I don’t want to move him again. I also need Thoroncir to rest for a bit. Do you need help holding this area? You can ask the Dwarves to help. ”