When Bloodjaw falls, John grins. “You see that, greenskins? Your brutish master has fallen, slain, no doubt, by one of my brave compatriots! So flee now, flee, before I rend you in half!”
John is to the north and can’t see Bloodjaw or anything going on further south. 
The roar of the approaching Shelic is getting louder now. The goblins surrounding Dur’dan are glancing between the dwarf and to the south, their faces etched with worry. Dur’dan lifts his hatchet menacingly, “RUN NOW OR I WILL KILL YOU ALL!” He takes a half-step towards one of them and it is the last that they can take. They break into a panic and rush north, falling over one another to escape human and dwarven retribution both. Dur’dan turns and falls to Hob’s side, clamping a dirt-coated hand over the halfling’s injury. The blood just won’t stop pouring and the dwarf isn’t sure what to do.
Dur’dan used the last of his Willpower but still failed the Medicine check to stabilize Hob.
The Hadburgs and Yellow Suns can hear the din of battle from maybe fifty yards south. All around them now goblins are fleeing north, some of them even attempting to push directly through the lines of the enemy in an attempt to escape. What was only a few minutes ago a fight for survival has transformed into turkey shoot. Those surviving orcs keep fighting but the goblins that made up the bulk of the horde are in full retreat now.
It would be trivial for John and Arrow to butcher retreating goblins and their companions don’t hesitate to do so. Kittix in particular seems much less reluctant to fight a fleeing enemy and delights in cutting them down as they pass.
Yesh pumps a fist in the air. “We’re doin’ it, boss! Nobles for sure, right chief?!”
Karikhan rolls the orc to its back, and kicks the cleaver from its hand. The orc is muttering his last. Karikhan knows what the monster is trying to say. Orcs respect only might, and Bloodjaw is likely congratulating him for his victory. The shaman straddles the monster’s chest, and scoops two handfuls of earth from the burning sea.
“Silence,” Khan says, as he shoves the dirt into the orc’s open mouth, casting groundfuse as he does so.
None will ever hear Bloodjaw’s final words.
As the last of the warlord’s life bleeds from him, Karikhan will heft the orc’s cleaver with both hands and turn toward the goblin spectators. If any greenskins challenge him, he will hack them to pieces. Otherwise, he’ll let the allied army mop up the rest of the orcs and goblins who still stand, while he walks to Hob and Dur’dan.
Karikhan will do whatever he can to help the halfling, knowing that he doesn’t have much to offer. It’s likely Khan will simply stand guard over whoever has actual healing skill, while they do the real work.
“By whatever Hell may lie bellow us, yes, we’ll be treated like royalty! But no time for that now. Much as I’d love to keep butchering these bastards, we have more pressing matters to attend too.”
John will fight his way towards the where most of his men fell and will do what he can to aid them, asking if anyone in his company knows anything about medicine.
To Tusk, “You have fought bravely, my ill-fathered friend. If anyone continues giving you trouble for your heritage, just say the word and I’ll be at your side.”
This is assuming I don’t know about Hob’s injury. If I do know about it, I’d help my men clear a path to where the fallen are (Duty to one’s underlings is something John puts above anything else) and then head over to lend a hand to whoever can get Hob up. Hob is, after all, a personal friend.
Bloodjaw gurgles his last breath, mouth packed with stone, and dies. Khan struggles, exhausted as he is, to carry one of the huge weapons, but manages to lift it. The goblins are all retreating north now and Shelic men are streaming by in pursuit. About a dozen orcs remain in a circle around Karikhan. They are silent and still, eyes on the man that killed their warlord. Most don’t resist when the Shelic arrive and cut them down. Khan spots Dur’dan nearby, and surprised that the dwarf is still alive, makes his way over.
Trimere, though a Yellow Sun, responds to John. "Stitching up a man ain't too different than stitching up a jerkin. I've done a share of both." Only one of John's men besides Yesh is still alive. An old peasant man likely in his 50s, dressed in rags with a shovel at his side, is lying amid the carnage with both hands pressed over a nasty gash on his chest. "He might live," Trimere offers. Yesh speaks: "His name's Gub. Neighbor." Shelic are arriving from the south now and in moments the area is awash in a sea of the tribal warriors, all heading north in pursuit of the fleeing horde.John curses under his breath. “If only we had more warning, we could have taken a more defensible spot…” he kicks the nearest Greenskin. When he looks up, there is rage in his eyes. “Do what you can for him, friend. Yesh… we should get the bodies cleaned up.”
Dur’dan’s skill in medicine is lacking, he knows only the basics, but he will continue rendering aid as best he can until someone with more skill, maybe even one of the Shelic medicine men could help. He will do everything he can.
“Hin you aren’t allowed to die today! There is work to be done! A new home awaits in Nal Oddosk! You can be royalty!”
Dur’dan has never fought so hard to save a life since his nephew’s death, even then he had no chance of saving him, but the hin… he may be able to save.
Arrow will continue firing as long as he can at the fleeing enemies.
If Khan recognizes a healer among the Shelic, he will call to him, and direct him to help Hob. If such a healer can be found, Karikhan will say to him, “Dur’dan has lost enough friends today. This one’s death is more than he should have to bear. Voice guide your hand, brother.”
Ugh. Apologies for the continued delay. The game shall continue soon.
Hob’s response to the delay: x_x
poke. this message was only used to bring the thread back up to the top of the page so i didnt have to hunt it down. 
While unconscious, Hob dreams deliriously. His dreams jump around, making little sense. There are squirrels, and princes, and malicious faeries jumping up and down, grinning evilly. To Hob, it feels like his dreams could fill a whole separate adventure…
The party has defeated the greenskin horde serving under the warlord Bloodjaw and with their victory ended the desperate struggle of the People of the Voice.
Experience Award
All player characters are awarded fifteen experience points to spend.When purchasing statistical upgrades with experience points remember that you must purchase them one rank at a time. So if you have a Strength of 2 and want to get it to 4 you must first purchase Strength 3 separately. Experience point costs:
[ul]
[li]Attributes - New rank x 5[/li][li]Skills - New rank x 3[/li][li]Skill Specialties - 3[/li][*]Merits - New rank x 2[/ul]PM me with details or questions on how you spend experience points that you’ve accumulated (please don’t share such information publicly).
Karikhan walks through the encampment towards the council tent. Where hours earlier the women, children and elderly of the tribe had been hastily preparing for a panicked evacuation now the center of the settlement has been cleared and the injured assembled for treatment. The early night is full of the moans of the wounded and the dying and the soft conversation of Shelic women. Rows of mats are laid out across the clearing and Khan is troubled by just how few there are: There are ten dwarves, most grievously injured and unlikely to be of much use in the coming days and weeks. There are three times that many injured Shelic, but most of their injuries are less severe and the People of the Voice have suffered less outright deaths thus far than their dwarven allies. One of John’s men is here, too, bringing the total injured somewhere in the low forties.
Karikhan passes from the central camp and into its northern expanse where the scene is one of celebration. Dozens of fires have been constructed and around each is a circle of Shelic warriors engaged in dance, song and the display of trophies. Still further north a line of stakes has been erected around the edge of the camp, posts forced into holes in the ground, a miserable goblin prisoner chained or tied to each, doomed to die by shunta, return to the sea, a process which won’t take more than a few days even for the strongest among them.
Finally the shaman is at the tent of the war council, which is surrounded by the celebrating families of the men within. He pulls back its tarp and stoops to pass inside, where he sees the once-sober and somber map room transformed by its occupants in the midst of their debauch. Shackshalkhanrolahn (a name perfectly intelligible to Karikhan) is at the center of the group, his son Jelatolel at his side. The head of the war council spots the shaman’s entrance and immediately silences the others. “Karikhan!” The Shelic all shout with him. “When you told us of your contact with the City of Platinum Jojunnut (the current head of the peacetime council) thought you had sunsickness.” There is a roar of laughter and Rolahn approaches Karikhan, arms outspread. “But you have delivered us from the darkness, magi.” Khan can smell the anise liquor on the chieftan’s breath. “I have spoken with the council, come the first clean moon you will be named Voroash. You will be a Prophet of the Voice. KARIKHANOT!” The tent’s occupants all burst into loud applause and descend upon Khan in a congratulatory mob.
The shouted chants can be heard from outside. “Vo-ro-ash! Vo-ro-ash! Vo-ro-ash!”
Dur’dan is seated upon a tower of cushions in a tent on the southern side of the Shelic camp. He is stripped of his battered and bloody armor, his left arm finally in a sling. A Shelic woman is bent over him, threading string through a particularly grim gash on the back of his right shoulder. With him are two other dwarves, one the sole surviving peasant longbeard, the very same who was set to defend his honor moments after the attempted lynching of the halfbreed, and a quarreler clutching a wax writing tablet between a pair of hairy and mud-caked hands, speaking in dwarven: “Clan Hammerborn … four dead, one injured believed dying. Clan Brassfist … one dead. Clan Stonecounter … one injured believed dying. Clan Mirrorshield … three dead, one injured, one injured believed dying. Clan-”
“Watch it!” Dur’dan snaps at the woman in Arcadian, unsure if she can even understand him. “Are you stitchin’ a wound or sewin’ a dress back there?!”
“- Firestoker … one dead-”
“Just give him the damned totals, by stone!” Barris, the longbeard in Dur’dan’s service, is losing his patience as well.
“Sixteen well, eleven injured, my lord.”
Dur’dan exhales heavily and sinks against the tent’s central wooden support. He thought he was dead. Now that he sees what has become of his force he almost wishes he was.
“Dismissed.” Barris waves the third dwarf away and turns to address Dur’dan. “The men… they’re-”
“I know.”
“Things are on the edge of a knife. They’re good men, m’lord, not mutinous, but-”
“By my father’s beard, I know!”
His shout stirs movement on the far side of the tent. Hob is unconscious in a makeshift bed assembled in the back of a small cart. Shelic healers have done what they can for him. His survival depends on the Voice now, or so they’ve told him. Dur’dan turns his gaze back to Barris.
“You’ve got to do something, m’lord.”
Karikhanot looks among each of the Shelic warriors in the command tent. He leaves none of them out as he gives the speech they seem to be asking for.
“You honor me. I will bear the new name-syllable with the pride of my people. The horde is scattered by the might of The Voice, and the strength of our alliance! Behold, all that remains of Bloodjaw!” Khan lifts a tusk crudely chopped from the fallen orc. “The rest of him is rotting in the desert, feeding the carrion fowl.”
He lets the cheer die down before continuing in a voice much more subdued. “However, we must remember those who paid the price for this victory. Dur’dan’s dwarves were bloodied mercilessly. They, and not we, bore the tragic cost of this war. Their widows weep, and only the promise of a brighter future can lift their spirit. Brothers, we must now prove our true mettle, by delivering the Ironbeards to their new homeland. Our people ache with the embarrassment of debt unpaid. Tonight, drink and dance, but tomorrow you must sharpen your axes.”
Karikhanot knows his speech has soured the mood of celebration, but he can not bring himself to regret the decision to speak it. Inflicting some small pain on his own people helps him to bear the shame of the dwarves’ disparate sacrifice. He leaves the tent curtly, but not rudely. Hopefully that is enough to sharpen their wits. One war is finished, and another begins.
Karikhanot will search for Dur’dan, who is no doubt standing vigil next to Hob. He will sit in silence with the dwarf, unless Dur’dan chooses to talk.
Arrow is with Tusk and Kittix in the shadow of an immense stone formation on the shore of the lake on the western side of camp. Trimere is elsewhere for the moment, seeing to one of John’s men. It’s remarkable more Yellow Suns didn’t die. Arrow thinks back to all the times in his life that his life has been in peril. So many men have tried to kill him. So many. So many times he should have died but he’s still here. He doesn’t know how the gods choose that this man should live and that this man should die, but he wonders how many chickens will need killing in their honor when he’s back in Platinum Falls. How many chicken lives are worth the life of a man? Is a half-elf worth less? Do eggs count for anything?
His attention is pulled from one distraction to another when Tusk speaks: “This whole thing is bad business, Arrow. We’re knifemen, I ain’t suited for this line up ‘n’ fight shit.” When the untalkative Arrow doesn’t respond he continues: “And the dwarves are in pieces. I doubt they’ll have anything to pay us with when they’re done. This entire mess is looking like a bad call to me.”
“Arrow never lead Yellow Suns into trouble.” Kittix’s response is slow. The lizardfolk has been feasting on goblin entrails all afternoon and has been lethargic throughout the evening, currently lying on his back with his lower body in the water.
“Yeah, and he never lead us into a war before, either.”
“Relaaax…” Kittix hisses and rolls over.
“I’m just saying.”
John Fredrickson is standing over Gub with Yesh and Trimere at the center of camp. He had considered first visiting with Dur’dan and Hob but decided that those men of his that survived deserved it. “He’ll live.” If not for Trimere Gub would likely be dead. The Yellow Sun’s leather is stained red with blood, the yellow splat on its chest nearly completely hidden. He offers a hand slick with gore and sweat, “Trimere. I don’t think we’ve met but my father served briefly with the Hadburgs.”
Yesh takes a seat beside Gub, who is swinging in and out of consciousness.
“You see battle like this a lot?” The Yellow Sun wipes sweat from his face, leaving streaks of blood across his cheeks.