The "Our Group" Saga
Chapter 3: The Hunt Begins
The eastern sky blazed with the fires of dawn; the clouds that hung thick over the land catching the rising sun's rays and scattering them throughout the horizon. A flash of lightning burned through the clouds in the distance to the east.
"It's headed this way," Aramil said, his elven eyes peering into the distance. "That's not normal. Not that the way it looks or its direction."
"Not abnormal, though," Thorik grunted. "There's always reports of the occasional storm going the other way."
Callie shook her head, knowing that it couldn't be something that could be explained so easily. "No..." she spoke up. "Such an unusual storm system popping up the day after a holy symbol of Chauntea was stolen from this hamlet?"
Thorik thought about it for a second, and came to the same conclusion. "Talos..." he whispered, frightened to even say the evil deity's name out loud. "This is the work of a follower of Talos." Talos, The Destroyer, as he was often called in whispered tones by the residents of Faerun, was a god of devastating storms and a chief rival of Chauntea.
"The cleric of a evil god was behind this?" Jess asked, wanting to be sure that she was following the conversation as the young mage had arrived later than the others. She shifted the backpack holding her spellbook on her shoulders, wishing that she had some better spells prepared that what she had. Through the tendays following her joining the group, she had easily seen in Thorik what one devoted enough to their deity could do.
"It looks like that is the case," the dwarf answered. "Callie's right, it's too much to be just coincidence." He pulled at his beard thoughtfully, wincing somewhat as one of his pulls proved too strong, and took a black hair with it. "Well then," he said a moment later, "we'd better head out."
The group began their march out of the recovering town, the majority of the townsfolk too engrossed in the rebuilding efforts to even notice. Callie remained uncharacteristically silent as they passed the northern side of the town, where the most damage had been done. Even now, the strongest people in town were digging graves into the soil, preparing the bodies of those killed in the attack for interment.
The Cloak Wood had always been a little feared by those in the area, rumors abounded about large tribes of goblins and gnolls living in the dark depths of the large forest. The most fearsome part of it, the locals said, though, were great and powerful portals that could transport someone to the gods' know where. Jess thought that this was the thing to be wary of most, for whomever ordered the attack on the village could be--if they knew how to operate the portals and if they were even active to begin with--anywhere in Faerun by now.
They stepped into the woods, the ground in front of them turning gradually from the soft green of the fields behind them into a brown mixture of mud and decaying leaves. There was no path through the wood, and fallen branches lay littered in their way. Aramil kneeled on the ground, eyes carefully studying the ground for any sign of the raiders' passage. The forest bed in the area had been disturbed lately, but from so quick a study the elf wasn't able to tell if it had been from the goblins or animals.
Jess scanned the horizon on her own, doing her best to see through the thickly spread trees. Nothing seemed out of place to her. She turned to look at what Aramil was doing.
The elf ran his index finger along the ground, tracing the newly found track in the damp mud. "Goblin," he reported after clearing the imprint completely, gently removing small leaves and twigs from it. His eyes followed the tracks forward, the task much easier now that he had found the first track.
Callie nudged Thorik with her elbow. "Right over there," she said, the rogue making a barely discernable gesture towards an outcropping of rock sitting on a hill. "Good ambush spot."
The dwarf nodded as he gave a brief look at the rock barricade. "Anyone there?" he asked. Callie shook her head in response.
"Not that I've seen," she said, "but I wouldn't doubt it." She looked at the others and saw that they were on the lookout for where the goblins had headed. She excused herself from the party and headed off to the side.
The goblin sniper lay in wait against the rock outcropping, his back against the stone side away from the sellswords. He held his crossbow tight against his chest and began to sneak into his sniping position. He lay there for a minute, studying his targets, making his decision on who would be the best person to take the first shot at. The elven archer that had butchered so many of his fellow goblins--some of them brothers or other kinsmen--was following the tracks that the band had made while retreating. He would be such an easy target, especially in his distracted state.
He stopped, however, and considered taking out the little one as she wandered off from the rest of the party, most likely to relieve herself. She had also rained death from afar with her own crossbow during the battle. But the mage, however... And the dwarf... He debated for a few seconds, his goblin mind struggling to come up with who was the biggest threat to his master and his plans. "The elf..." The vile creature took aim at the ranger.
"Look what I found..." a female voice said from behind him. The startled goblin rolled around to face a dark-skinned female as tall as he was. She had a smile on her face, happy at finding the potential killer. The little thief! He brought his crossbow up in an attempt to elude capture or death as the rain summoned by his master's god began to slowly begin. The halfling shouted out at him to stop, but the goblin didn't listen. By the time he was able to square her in his sights, her own bolt had pierced his heart.
"Find anything?" Thorik asked as Callie rejoined the group.
The halfling gave a slight smile as she placed her crossbow back onto her backpack. "Nothing too difficult," she replied. With that said, the group began walking down the same route that the retreating goblins had made, moving deeper into the Cloak Wood.