Date unknown, Location: Abandoned Farmstead, Time since Awakening: 1.5 hrs
The voices came from a small group of people, discussing the large vertical mouthed, multi-armed thing they just fed a "bad hoofed person" to. After a rather tense stare down we started recognizing one another, as from the waking world rather than our dream forms. Tobias I could tell from his constant depression and whining of dead parents. He calls himself Serabin in this world, and clutches his longbow as though his life depends on it. Timmy has taken the form of an extremely large man with gray skin and strange markings on himself. He is covered nearly head to toe in armor and wields a large sword and shield. He goes by Aukan. Calum is as short now as he is in the waking world, with strange hair and an incredibly squeaky voice. He has a long list of names, but all I remember is Nanfoodle. Last is Dirk, who I learned is threatening to throw people in the boiler?! I'm not sure what that is about, but I'll have to keep an eye on him in the waking world. He wears boxing gloves, shorts, and little else. He goes by the name Chicago here. All of them have retained their personalities through these personae, though Dirk and Timmy have adjusted to these dream selves with much vigor.
Once we all met recognized ourselves we got down to business setting up a watch to rest in this area, they having already taken care of the occupant. It was at this point that Timmy pulled out a medallion, spoils of the fight, and put it on. He transformed into a large lumbering beast, covered in shaggy hair, curling rams horns, and arms that reached the floor, all drenched in blood. Seeing that made my head ache something fierce, and my brain felt like it was on fire, but I managed to hold my calm and tell him to take it off. He seemed disappointed pulling the medallion off, but that wasn't my concern at the moment. After situating the witches and discussing a bit more with Brenda and Socks we all decided to continue exploring. Tobias had drawn a map of all the places they explored and was adding to it from local charts found in the house.
We decided, mostly at my prodding, to take the witches back to their Circle in Brettonia, seeing what we would discover along the way. Socks was incredibly helpful and very verbose on the journey. He called us "Dreamers" and said he'd seen our kind before. Then he started giving us history about the goblins, and their various tribes in the region. All of them are birthed from rituals, called the thousand young rituals. The way they look determines which tribe they go to. There are some that are man sized, some larger, some smaller, some with crystals, and many more. Socks seems to hate those he calls "Mutie freaks". He spat on the ground more than once talking about them.
Apparently his tribe had their totems stolen from them by the "cat people" in the west. I told him we'd do what we could to retrieve his totems for him, especially, after moving within a certain distance of one, he was able to show off some magical abilities. He told us all goblins could do that around their totems, which sounds quite promising to me. He also informed us of Timmy's new form, a servant of Ithaqua the windwalker. That particular god governs the southern and northern winds, but Socks couldn't provide much more than that.
After travelling a full day we set up a camp and kept the witches closest to the fires we set up. We set a watch so Calum could get a full nights rest, having used a lot of magic earlier in the day. I was informed after my watch that Tobias had seen some red eyes watching us from the shadows in the night, though neither he nor Dirk felt it necessary to inform the group until daybreak. It got us our rest, but I'd have preferred to be wary all the same. Searching around in the morning showed weird signs of undead in the area, and we figured that was what had been watching us.
We continued on, discussing more of what had happened to us when we caught sight of some Satyrs. Calum informed me they looked like the bad hoofed man who tried to feed them to something. Each one had three goblins on chains. The goblins had elongated noses, no eyes, and giant mushrooms sprouting from the backs of their heads. They didn't even call out as they rushed our position. Timmy immediately put on his amulet and became that…thing, that avatar or monster of Ithaqua. I got to see what the rest of the group could do combat wise because of this fight, and even a bit more about Brenda and Socks.
Socks was incredibly useful, helping me surround and defeat one enemy at a time, beating them into submission with little wounds received on our side. Dirk was an incredibly mobile fighter, rushing around the battlefield, getting a few hits in, then removing himself from the fight. Calum was very adept at casting magic, though it seemed most of it revolved around feelings of death and despair. Similarly Brenda showed herself incredibly capable when she took out an entire group of goblins with a single spell. Tobias was using his longbow to decent effect, though that didn't explain his large blades crossed at his hips. And Timmy was a monster on the field, nearly unable to be touched and destroying the enemy with his frosty fists.
In the end we triumphed, though one of the satyrs got away after we killed its brother. Surely that won't come back to haunt us. We examined the surviving goblins, namely those Brenda had put to sleep with her spell. We tried removing the mushrooms from their head to see what would happen. We very quickly found out they die. The fungus grew into their brains and started populating throughout their bodies and once this rooted were impossible to remove without killing the host. Before any of us could think of what else to do the mushrooms were harvested by Calum. I was a touch speechless, but at his tender age of four I wasn't sure we could really explain what he just did.
Continuing on we eventually hit a goblin village, filled to the brim with ramshackle huts, strange glowing crystals, large metal plates, and nearly every type of goblin Socks had described to us. They all stopped and looked at us as we began passing through, making sure to keep the witches in sight at all times. The hush was noticed by what appeared to be the leader of this village, an enormous goblin, the size of an Ogre with a large red beard, an entire tree as a weapon, and what appeared to be a lion's tail. He introduced himself as Magog, the leader of this village, though Socks later informed us he had taken it and several others nearby by force.
Magog was willing to let us pass peacefully so long as we left the witches with him so they could partake in the spawning ritual where a thousand goblins would be born. I declined, nearly violently, after having my questions as to the health of the witches afterward were evaded. Dirk was doing his level best to sell off the witches, I'll have to keep an eye on him, and the rest were busy stuffing their hands in the pockets. Until Timmy stepped up. At the time I was incredibly worried that I would have to kill Magog in order to get through the village but Timmy showed some inscrutable depth and told Magog that the witches were all "like this." Then he put on his amulet.
Magog was disgusted by Ithaqua's monster and told us to take our "diseased witch scum" out of his fair town. We beat a hasty retreat, but not before Calum wanted to see what the mushrooms would do to Magog. I was busy getting the rest of the witches through the town and making sure Dirk didn't sell any of them off to interested passerby so I didn't notice Calum and Socks cavorting. Socks showed more magic and turned invisible, then went to put the mushroom on Magog. The enormous goblin kicked behind him like a nervous horse and we heard Socks flying and screaming off into the distance. We got one good look back and saw some mushrooms growing from the hairy tuft of Magog's tail, and I wasn't going to go back and tell him about it.
We beat a hasty retreat, gathered Socks once more, and continued on our journey.
[zombify_post]
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