Combat was rejoined quickly as the creature poured from the tunnel mouth.  Arrows and bolts pierced flesh and the enemy ranks thinned just a bit.  A brand new web engulfed more of the foe and removed the from the fight for the moment.  All seemed to be going well until Soledad cried out in pain.  One of the goblins struck a blow that staggered the witch ; she could not take many such wounds.  "Soledad, step back!  Dok, Thaoran close ranks and protect her!"  Hornet dropped his crossbow and drew his rapier.  For now he would attack the goblin in front of him

 OOC I noticed I could not really get to the goblin in front of Soledad this round. 

Dok braced himself for the imminent onslaught, his silver-coated battle axe at the ready, while he breathed another prayer to Helm to enable him to unleash an effective counter-attack with his trustworthy Spiritual Weapon spell,  in hopes of stemming the tide in favor of himself and his comrades, especially Soledad who could ill afford another devestating strike from the Goblins or Gnoll.

((Dok unleashes his Second Level Spell Spiritual Weapon against any and all attackers in the vicinity of Soledad))

EDIT: If Soledad has succeeded in separating herself from any immediate harm, then Dok concentrates on any immediate danger to himself, which he hopes is the best course of action to aid all of his party members!

((Dok still unleashes his Second Level Spell Spiritual Weapon against any and all attackers in his vicinity, if Soledad is out of immediate danger / especially if Dok is now between the attackers and Soledad after she makes her move!))

Soledad was more than happy to oblige the calls for her to step back. Even with magical support, she was not built for close combat. Let the others deal with the melee, she had other responsibilities (namely maintaining that magical web). Acting quickly, the witch dislodged herself fully from the melee while maintaining her web spell.

((OOC: Full Movement and maintain web))

Her arrows fired, the bow dropped, Silver quickly drew her rapiers and moved to the attack. Her rakish audaicty in play she quickly delivered two strong attacks and a sneak attack to the first Gnoll or Goblin encountered. Then just as quickly, using her fancy footwork, darted away to avoid it's return strike.........

The battle raged and the group fought to keep from being overrun as the Vargolg disgorged its multitudes.  Soledad’s web spell seemed to give the group a quick advantage as many were caught in the sticky mess.  But Soledad took a bad wound in the fighting and the group knew that without that web they were in trouble.  The goal seemed to be to protect the witch to protect the web.  But there were still 5 right in front of them – and more working their way through the web.

               The first to act was Hornet who didn’t seem pleased at taking a blow from the creature.  But he kept his head and shouted for the others to guard the witch.  He then tossed aside the goblin’s blade that was still covered with his own blood and planted his own rapier deep into the entrails of the vile thing.  Twisting the blade he pushed the corpse off of his blade and looked around to see who needed help the most. 

               Thaoran took a less aggressive approach and attempted to use the sun (that had recently come out after the nights rains) to blind his opponent.  It was an unusual tactic and probably wouldn’t have worked except the creature was already struggling to breath because of the smoke it had enhaled.  As it choked and gasped the light flashing in its eyes seemed too much for it.  It threw its arm in front of its eyes and stepped back – right into the web. 

               Silver was as fast as the other two and quickly whipped one rapier at the goblin in front of her but missed as the creature ducked below her strike.  But again, the smoke, which seemed to have failed as originally intended, had an impact.  As he first blade passed harmlessly over the goblin’s head it started coughing and stood up to try and breathe.  It was an opening Silver would not miss and her second rapier sliced cleanly through the thing’s neck as it attempted to stand.  In classic fashion, the head rolled one way as the body toppled the other. 

               The goblins that remained didn’t just stand around and watch.  The one in front of Dok leapt at the dwarf.  Frustrated in its first attack on the dwarf it had more success the second time – striking the dwarf a glancing blow.  (-4 HP)   The one in front of Soledad was still howling its glee when the elf slipped away in front of it.  Soledad moved 20’ further into the brush and hoped the others could hold the line.  Angered that his target was gone the goblin spun and swung at Dok – catching the dwarf unprepared for the blow from his flank.  This time the blow was a bit heavier, but the sturdy dwarf was built for combat.  But these blows would add up.  (-5 hp, so -9 total to Dok.)

               In anger at the blows coming at him Dok brought his spiritual weapon to bear creating a magically glowing axe.  His first thought was to protect Soledad and he did just that – slamming the axe into the goblin’s chest and crushing the creature. Another goblin down. 

               That was all for the 10 individuals on the river side of the web, but there were plenty more in the web.  7 more started the turn in the web and were attempting to break free.   But the spell stood strong and the coughing goblins had trouble getting out.  Only one did.  The gnoll came close and was almost free when the web pulled it back in.  No others yet came pouring out of the cave mouth – they seemed deterred by the web in front of them.  But they were there and a couple of arrows came flying out of the entrance.  The shots were difficult – the web itself slightly obscured the view as did the numerous bodies struggling to break free.  But one thing was obvious – the arrows were aimed at Soledad.  The goblins knew who held the web.  But with all of those obstacles and the surrounding brush neither found its mark. 

 

Overview:

 You are now lined up across the gulley like this:  Hornet, silver, Dok, gap, Thaoran.  Soledad is now about 20’ behind the rest of you.  Right now there are TWO goblins free of the web and directly in front of you – one in front of Dok and the other in front of Silver.  There are 7 goblins currently stuck in the web.  (There had been 7, one escaped, but the one in front of Thaoran backed into it.)  Plus the gnoll is webbed.  An unknown number of others exist within the tunnel – but two arrows came out at you.

Total Killed so far:  7 goblins and 1 gnoll.

  Hornet looked around and saw the group was in pretty good shape.  Soledad was protected and only two goblins remained in combat.  The web was holding so far and those held fast in its grip would be easy targets.  Returning his rapier to its sheath he turned once more to the crossbow and sent a bolt towards the gnoll stuck in the web.    

Thäoran allowed a small triumphant smile to stretch his thin lips as the sun's rays had provided him with a satisfactory outcome-actually, better than he'd hoped because he merely hoped the goblin would be dazzled and stunned. Instead, the foul creature had staggered back into the stick mass of Soledad's web. Sheathing his rapier, the elf drew instead his yew bow from its tube and swiftly nocked an arrow, aiming for the goblin's right eye (the goblin who had stumbled into the web because of the sunlight reflecting off his sword). He drew back the bowstring in one fluid, smooth motion and released, the shaft flying toward its target...he hoped.

Dok had succeeded in protecting Soledad, but not before suffering injuries in the heat of battle!

The Hill Dwarf Cleric of Helm maintained the focus of his Spiritual Weapon spell to help eliminate any and all attackers!

((OOC: Dok continues to engage the closest threats and will attack the Gnoll with his Spiritual Weapon if it is still alive in spite of previously being ensnared in the Web spell))

There was an urgency to this fight, they were sorely outnumbered with only a magical web holding the Varlog at by. Her own wounds were a severe warning of the need to disengage. Still, the fight continued and all had a part to play. Maintaining her concentration on the magical web, the witch crouched deeper into the underbrush increasing the distance between herself and the archers. As she did this, Soledad set her sights on the closest of the two goblins that remained unbound by the web and struck out with a magical taunt. A large sphere of impenetrable darkness surrounded the vermin's head, and within that sphere a chorus of deafening screams howled. It wasn't real of course, just an illusion and a very minor one at that. Still, it should be enough to disorient the goblin enough for her allies to take it out.

 

((OOC: Maintaining concentration on the Web spell. Minor Illusion cantrip - this is not a concentration spell so she should be able to maintain the web)) 

In classic fashion, the head rolled one way as the body toppled the other............

A smile on her face as body and head became 2 instead of one Silver knew things were not over yet. Quickly moving to engage the goblin yet in front of her she slashed her rapiers, normal attacks first, then her sneak attack, while once again using fancy footwork to move away unharmed. Silver knew that she could keep this up all day, all she needed was targets…..

Thaoran was pleased and a bit surprised at how well his unorthodox tactic had worked and quickly sheathed his blade and reclaimed his bow.  His goal was to finish the now entangled goblin, but in his haste, he managed to get his bow string mixed in with a little branch.  Not realizing this, when he let loose the shot the branch caught the string and dropped the arrow at his feet.  The branch then rebounded and smacked the poor archer in the nose.  It was not his most glorious shot ever and he secretly hoped the rest of the group had been so engaged as to not notice.   (A 1 on the dice is never good.)

               Silver hoped to repeat her dramatic performance on her last attack and sliced with her rapier at the goblin in front of her hitting it hard in the neck.  But this time she caught just a bit of its armor on the way in and wasn’t able to remove the foul creature’s head – or even kill it, although the blow did come close.  (-6hp)  Her second blow failed to hit as the creature threw up a desperate parry.  It was wounded, but not out.

               With the goblins directly in front of him gone, Hornet reverted to his previous tactic and, grabbing his crossbow again, fired at what he believed to be the biggest threat – the gnoll in the web.  The gnoll was paying no attention to what might be coming at it, instead focusing on the web around it, but Hornet got its attention when his bolt slammed into the creature’s side.   It howled in pain and looked at Hornet with rage in its eyes.  The creature seemed to channel that rage effectively as it broke free from the web and charged the elven archer.  It slammed its spear at Hornet but he was quick enough to doge the powerful blow.   That pleased the elf, but he now stood toe to toe with a beastly hyena-man that stood well over 6’ tall.  And the creature’s breath stank. 

               The goblins in the web seemed to find the struggle to break free harder than the gnoll did.  Try as they might, most could not break the hold of the web – their struggles were not aided by the coughing and wheezing several of them were doing.  But two did break free and charged the party.  With the two already on the free side of the web, that made 4 goblins again standing against the group, one of them badly injured by Silver’s blow.  The injured one thrust his blade as hard as he could at Silver, but managed to only hit the surrounding brush – the elf easily dodged the blow.  Dok, Hornet and Tharoan were also all the target of goblin attacks, but this time all of the blows missed. 

               Having been attacked, Dok used his axe to finish off the goblin Silver had injured, easily landing a solid blow on the creatures side.  His spiritual weapon he moved against the gnoll glaring at Hornet.  He had hoped the beast would still be in the web, but no such luck.  In fact, there was no luck at all as the glowing axe missed the creature as it regrouped from its own missed spear thrust.

               Soledad’s role in the fight was to maintain the web that kept the larger forces of their opponent at bay.  She thus slunk further into the underbrush so that she could not be struck and lose the critical spell.  But she wasn’t entirely out of the game as she cast a minor illusion at one of the goblin’s heads.  A black sphere that screamed now encircled its head.  The goblin was bobbing and weaving with the flow of the battle so there was no chance its head would stay perfectly centered on the sphere, but perhaps it would distract him.  The next round would tell.

               And then it was time for the Vargolg to act.  The party didn’t know what was in there beyond the fact of two arrows flying out already.  It seemed those inside had managed some organization as two arrows flew out at the group, then another two and then another two.  It seemed the enemy had mastered the art of firing in shifts.  Shoot and step back.  Shoot and step back.  Shoot and step back.  Still, the web and those in it provided some degree of cover for the group.  None of these arrows were aimed at the witch.  She was simply too hard of a target.  All of the other four were targeted it seemed and the arrows flew.  A miss.  A miss.  Whack!  A shaft struck Hornet.  (-5 hp)   A miss.  Whack!  Hornet seemed to be getting the brunt of things as another arrow struck him a glancing blow as he glared at the gnoll.  (-4 hp)  And then a miss. 

               As the last two arrows flew through the air two more gnolls came charging out of the cave mouth.  They immediately became entangled in the web but were fighting to free themselves. 

Overview

As before, four of you are lined up across the gulley with Soledad hunkering down in the back about 30’ back.

On your side of the web there are three goblins.  (One from before and two that escaped the web.)  One of these has a screaming black illusion around its head, although you are unsure of its exact effect.  There is also one injured gnoll free of the web. 

In the web are 5 goblins and 2 gnolls. All working to get free.

In the Vargolg . . . ??????   6 arrows came at you in waves of two. 

*Dok’s post wasn’t completely clear.  Spiritual weapon can be used to attack using only a bonus action.  This means he still gets his normal attack as well.  I interpreted “continue to engage those closest to him” as meaning that he would also attack with his axe as that seemed the obvious thing and I wasn’t sure if Hammer knew he could do both.

Total killed so far:  8 goblins and 1 gnoll.

Hornet saw his bolt strike true, wounding the gnoll but also enraging it.  Perhaps it was a mistake as the gnoll broke the web and charged.  Once more it seemed rapier was prefered over crossbow.  To save time, Hornet dropped his crossbow rather than sling it and drew his rapier.  It was then that arrows from inside the tunnel stuck him.  Apparently whatever was in there was getting organized.  Doing his best to keep the gnoll between him and the tunnel as a shiled, Hornet attacked with his rapier.  

Thäoran muttered an elvish curse under his breath, both frustrated and embarrassed by his blunder. He made a quick decision: he returned his bow to its tube for now and switched targets from the goblin ensnared in the web to the closest goblin to him that was free from the sticky trap.

Drawing his rapier once again, the elf thrust the blade swiftly towards his target, aiming for the creature's eye, hoping to skewer the foul fiend through the socket and into its brain.

Dok was thinking that the Best Gnoll is a Dead Gnoll, so he concentrated his Spiritual Weapon to execute either one or both of the Gnolls that were caught in the web!

The Hill Dwarf Cleric of Helm also utilized his silver-coated battle axe to execute the nearest Goblin or Goblins!

The first to act was Thaoran.  Frustrated by his failure with the bow and again facing a goblin directly in front of him, the elf switched back to his rapier and in one smooth motion brought it out of its scabbard and sliced down the front of the creature in front of him.  The beast snorted a bit of smoke and toppled over.  (-7HP, dead.)

               Silver pushed the attack on the goblin in front of her.  Surrounded by enemies the goblin didn’t know if it should worry about Dok’s axe or Silvers’s blade.  It made the wrong choice.  When it attempted to duck under an expected axe blow, Silver’s blade caught it on the upswing and literally sliced the thing in half from bottom to top.  (A crit 20 on a sneak attack?  Now that ain’t fair.) Somehow surprise was written all across its face – both halves of its face.

               Hornet was now faced with a gnoll directly in front of him.  The creature already sported one of his bolts sticking out of its side and now the elf added a matching wound from his rapier on the other side.  (-5hp).  The creature was bloodied, but not out of the fight. 

               Two goblins remained directly in front of the group and they now sought to land some blows of their own.  The first struck at Dok but found the dwarf hard to hit.  It was a clean miss.  It was hard to tell if the screaming ball of darkness impacted its movements or not.  But as Silver admired the two halves of the goblin bemusedly falling to the ground another goblin slashed at her and gave her a cut on the leg.  It wasn’t deep (-3hp) but it did remind Silver that the fight was still not close to being over.  The gnoll in front of Hornet wound up and rammed his massive spear into the ground where the elf stood.  Had stood.  Hornet had swiftly stepped back after wounding the creature and avoided a blow that would have done a lot of damage had it connected. 

               Dok used his spiritual weapon to swing at the gnoll but again was frustrated as the beast dodged the attack.  But the goblin in front of him was not so lucky when facing the dwarf’s more earthly weapon.  It seemed the dwarf had gone to the Silver school of wounding as his blow took the goblin’s head clean off.  Goblins it seems aren’t all that much taller than dwarves and this one certainly wasn’t any more.  (Crit 20 for -10HP, dead) 

               Soledad hunkered down in the brush to present as small a target as possible.  When Dok’s axe hit she saw the victim of her illusion fall.  There was now just a black spot of darkness and screaming hovering in the middle of the battlefield.  But with no one in particular to be its victim she dispelled the minor illusion and threw a similar ball of darkness at the gnoll facing Hornet.  She still wasn’t sure if it had done much good, but looking at the two halves of the one previously targeted she could at least assume it hadn’t helped the beast. 

               And now those in the web fought to gain freedom.  With three dead goblins the group again faced only one but that was not to last.  Of the 5 goblins in the web 3 of them broke free and charged at the group.  There were also two gnolls still in the web – the two that had charged out of the cave mouth last turn.  One of those struggled with the web and failed to get free.  But the other was luckier and in a burst of strength broke free and stumbled out of the web directly towards Dok.

               But there were yet more enemies in this fight.  Again, arrows came at the group in waves.  Two, then two more, then two more.  Smart enemies were always an annoyance on the battlefield.  Three of those arrows flew true.  Thaoran took the hardest hit.  (-6 hp)  But both Dok and Silver found themselves feathered with shafts as well.   (-3HP each.)

               Even more disturbing, a goblin appeared to be reaching out with a torch to light the web on fire.  As they had seen before, the web would burn, but not in one quick flash.  It would take a couple of turns to burn away if they got it alight, but it would burn.   There were still two goblins and one gnoll caught in the web and such a fire would not be enjoyable for them at all, but they still had a little time to escape.  But if the web burned, the path from the Vargolg would be opened for whatever remained inside.

 

Overview

The basic situation hasn’t changed much.  Four of you are lined up across the gulley with Soledad hidden behind.  Three goblins were killed this turn, but you now face on your side of the web 4 goblins (1 survivor and 3 new ones) and 2 gnolls (One badly injured).  In the web are 2 goblins and 1 gnoll.  In the Vargolg -6 arrows came at you and one goblin holds a torch while hunkering down in the doorway.  You don’t know what else. 

Total killed so far:  11 goblins and 1 gnoll.

***Neither Silver nor Soledad posted this time.  I basically just had them repeat their actions from the turn before.