Editor's Note: Hiatus

Hi everyone.

It's me, Another_Poet, admitting at long last (after months of thinking "maybe I'll do a post in a week or two...") that the Coerced Adventures are on indefinite hiatus. Yep, I've officially jumped the fence from fan who gets angry at web authors who stop producing to web author who begs fans not be be angry for not producing :)

I would like to finish the story arc of Roger, but at least for now I am way too busy and my main artistic interests are elsewhere. On the other hand, last year it was the long boring winter nights that got me writing RogerDS in the first place, so there's still hope.

Sound waffly? It is. I have no idea if or when I'll be continuing the story, only that I do hope to. Many thanks to those of you who have been regular readers, and apologies especially to those of you who won the contest and haven't yet seen your NPCs show up in the story.

Until then....

AP

Day 30 Continued: Exeunt

Bad day, bad day, bad day. These were my thoughts as I raced back toward the constable's place. Gunther was next to me and between us we held Junior. Junior sort of ran on his own, but we had him by the arm bones (creepy) and whisked him along. Grens, about ten paces behind us, claimed to have him back under control but we weren't taking any chances.

A frightening wail pierced the otherwise dull mining village. There was a lot of yammering when that woman fainted and all the townspeople realised what was going on. Apparently it was her husband. He was her husband - Junior used to be. Fulmond, they said. I wish I hadn't heard his name.

When she woke up again it got worse. She grabbed on to Junior with all the anger, relief, grief, and terror that one could expect of a destitute widow seeing her husband up and walking. I don't think Junior knows her. I dont think he remembers being alive at all - at least, he didn't show any kind of human emotion. He didn't react to his old house, not really, his bones just sort of fell into their old habit of sitting outside and shaving in the morning. That's what I keep telling myself.

Whatever the reason, the reunion got us even deeper into the midden heap we'd been wallowing in since arriving at Tine Gorge. Of course Grens wanted the woman's hands off of his servant, the woman wanted Grens' magic off of her husband, and the townspeople just wanted to see some blood so they could feel like they accomplished something.

Hence the running.

Not everyone from the hostel followed us, though some were hard behind us. I think the rest were gathering together a lynch mob. I cursed with each heavy breath as I ran to our little base of operations.

The hobgoblins were all gathered in front of the contables' house. It looked like they had assembled on purpose - some less fully dressed than normal and quite a few looking sleepy, slouchy or bored. But I suspect the sudden outburst of screaming from across town had sent them the clear message that they needed to be ready. They even had their dire wolves (still hobbled) in their midst, which seemed to make some of them uneasy.

"Get those bones in the house!" I yelled to Gunther as I let go of my side of Junior. He didn't even break his pace. I set about cutting the ropes on the dire wolves' legs, paying no mind the the risks of being so close to their teeth. My gaze swung back and forth over the beast men. "Gods damn you all! Doesn't any of you speak Common?"

A hand slowly went up. The beast it belonged to didn't stand out in my memory; he wasn't one I had paid any attention to before. But he looked resolute and spoke with confident, if heavily accented Common. "I do."

"Get everyone inside now. Now! Go, go, go!" He started yelling orders. One of the veteran hobgoblins seemed to talk back to him and reached for a weapon; I suppose he wasn't used to taking orders from anyone but the chief. I was faster, though, and the DarkeSworde was at his throat before he could make good on his threats. The other veterans began to shuffle inside obediently, and after a moment I let the rebellious one go inside too.

The villagers who had chased after us stood at a slight distance from the crowd of hobgoblins, fearful but still angry. I could see more humans appearing from buildings along the main street and knew it wouldn't be long before we had the whole town crying for blood. I flashed the DarkeSworde at a couple of beast men who were bickering about the wolves. They decided teeth were safer then swords and began to lead, coax and shove the dire wolves through the open door of the constable's house. I was the last one through the door and slammed it behind me.

"Is Tallow here?" I asked.

The little guy seemed to have no problem getting through the crowd of beasts. He reached the door and nodded.

"You want to go talk to them?"

"We're gonna have to give up somebody."

"Just stall."

He nodded and opened the door enough to slip out. He was right though, they'd either want the law man's blood or all of ours. I forced the thought back while I got hobgoblins lined up at the front windows with weapons. Junior was sent to the back by the constable while I conferred with the others.

By this time the constable seemed delirious. "See that? One day without me and the place falls apart!"

"Shut up!" I barked at him. "You got a back door?"

"It look like I do?"

I darted to the cell and shoved my sword between the bars. The half-beast barely backed up in time. "Do you have a back door? A secret one? Anything?"

A little more sober, he shook his head. "No."

I looked around the room in desparation. There was an axe, but no way they'd miss the sound of us breaking out the back. We needed...

"A saw. You got a saw?" Gunther was ahead of me, apparently.

The constable pointed one out, hung from a peg near the ceiling. While I got it down I heard our new translator shouting to the hobgoblins. One by one they started to bang their weapons together - swords on shields, spears on the wood floor, even fists beating proudly against chests. And they started up some kind of war-chant I'd never heard before.

I nodded thanks to the bright beast-man as I went to work on the rear wall. Outside I imagine there was a lot of shouting by the townspeople and a lot of lofty speech from Tallow. Meanwhile, I had plenty of plaster to smash off before I could hope to start sawing through the planks of the outer wall. It was still a little country house, though, built by committee with whatever materials could be found close by. I made good progress.

Tallow stumbled back in the door under a hail of thrown stones and garbage. He bolted the door behind him and shouted over the beast men.

"They want the law man."

"Ha!" the constable barked, a look of pride on his face.

I grimaced and stepped away from the wall. "No, Tallow, that would be wrong. He must stand before a full court."

My fellows PC's stared at me, each with their own unique mixture of confusion, amusement, and outrage. I found that my demon wouldn't let me say anything else, so I just shook my head slightly and mouthed the words "not me".

They relaxed a little. "Alright," said Gunther, moving to unlock the gaol. "Tell 'em we'll send him out. Stall some more, will ya?"

Tallow grimaced. "I'll try."

So I went back to sawing furiously, the constable went back to gloating, and Tallow went back out into the rain of trash. Once I got a good start in the first plank it only took a minute to saw a long vertical line through the rest. We had one half of the outline of a doorway.

The front door, meanwhile, opened yet again. A very battered Tallow dove in. "Give 'em their man!" he moaned as he slunk to the floor. The translator hobgoblin quickly shoved the door shut so the villagers couldn't see what we were planning.

Out went the prisoner, and the shouting from outside momentarily drowned out the beast song. I stared at the would-be doorway in dismay. Not half done and we had nothing left to bargain with. I really didn't want to fight these villagers.

Gunther tapped me on the shoulder. "May I?" he asked.

I stepped aside with a slight bow as if offering him my dance partner. Setting his jaw, he bullrushed the sawed planks and, in one great crack, broke through to the outside. He stumbled along the uneven ground behind the house and quickly looked around to see if anyone had thought to watch the back. I followed him out. It was clear.

So out we went. One by one, first humans, then skeleton, then wolves, then beast men left behind our erstwhile refuge. I don't know if anyone in town heard the hobgoblin warsong peter out, or if anyone looked and saw less and less figures in the front windows. But all we heard as we left were the horrified shouts of a man who thought he'd been rescued, but found himself sentenced. And the gleeful cheers of the villagers at his expense.

For our part, we were out one prisoner, one chief, and quite a few horses. I don't think any of us cared. We crept along behind the row of houses and moved as fast as we could toward the open road.

Editor's Note: The Coerced Adventures will continue to be updated, but I can no longer commit to an every-Thursday schedule. Expect a bit more randomness throughout the summer, but one entry every 1-2 weeks. I'll announce updates in my signature at the GiantITP.com forums, or of course you can just check here.

Another_Poet Editor, The Coerced Adventures

Service to resume shortly...

Hi everyone. Sorry that the Coerced Adventures have not been updating. A new chapter should be ready by Thursday, July 24. In the meantime feel free to reply to this post with general conversation or speculation about what's going to happen next - what will Junior's fate be? The Constable? The Chief? And why does Count Yank de Frank want these hobgoblins so badly anyway?

Okay, so maybe random plot questions are no substitute for a real chapter, but they do lead to unsupported arguments about completely hypothetical ideas, and that's what the internet is all about!

:)

another_poet

Day 30, Early Morning: Everyone Deserves a Break

Last night as the hobgoblins celebrated Tallow went and hobbled their worgs. They really don't plan very far ahead; as soon as they had their chance at booze and rest they lost all thought of putting anyone on watch.

It was tempting to do the same, with a warm house and straw beds at our disposal, but we spent most of the night keeping our eyes on the town. I get the sense the townspeople don't know what to expect, but they definitely see us as the bad guys. Fair enough. It does make our stay here a lot more difficult, so we took a few precautions.

One of us stayed on watch the whole night, in addition to Junior. Junior kept vigil in the constable's house. That's where Grens was, and that's where we needed a watchful eye socket in case the law man had a secret way out. He didn't try anything, although it took half the night before he stopped bellyaching.

So that meant either me, the sneak or Gunther had to be on patrol at all times. Other than the fire and occasional catnaps it was a lot of standing around. We made sure the hobgoblins stayed all in one place. We even tried to secure them a stable to sleep in, but they were determined to stay out of doors. Some of them roamed the village but whenever we spotted them we (rather forcibly) herded them back to their bonfire.

The big worry in town is that the goblins will start looting or raping. So far all the townspeople have either holed themselves up in houses with weapons or taken off with carts and horses in the night. I don't know the town well but if I had to guess I'd say about a third of the people were gone by sunrise today. The rest are mostly concentrated in just a few buildings, staying together for safety. The hostel is one of the buildings and the people there are probably the most militant. Lucky for us, the townspeople know that if they start a fight we can let the hobgoblins loose on them. And the hobgoblins know (I think) that we can let the humans loose on them, if they misbehave. So we've had a sort of general standoff but no violence yet.

If we stay long enough to affect the food supply, I imagine that'll change. So we want to bug out as soon as we can and get these hobgoblins moving toward Frankton. The problem is, the chief's disappeared.

Suppose if we'd been smart we would've locked him up too, but hauling one dung-covered menace into the gaol was trouble enough. Besides, he'd played his part just like he said he would and we had no reason to think he was going to run off. I figured he'd be happy to be back in charge of his war band and our problem would be forcing him to come with us, not finding him. I didn't want to go wandering around town on my own with the looks the villagers were giving us, so once it was light out we decided we'd go look for him together.

Most of the hobgoblins were asleep, but it didn't mean they were off our backs. Some of them had found the hobbled worgs and were drunkenly trying to unfetter them when Tallow and I came upon them. With a lot of yelling and a tight grip on my sword hilt we got them to help push, lead, and drag the dogs into an empty stable. We barred them in there (the dogs, not the beast men) and then told the hobgoblins to get lost. I'm getting good at talking with the beasts - I just point where I want them to go, and when they start throwing a fit I find the nearest one with fresh wounds, point at his stitches and make an exploding gesture with my hands. I think they only half-believe my threat, but they shut up.

Anyway, once the worgs were squared away we got Grens and Tallow to agree to watch the gaol. Well, Grens kind of makes up his own mind on things. He was staying there whether we wanted him or not. He offered to send Junior with us, though. Sweet of him.

"Can that thing, uh, will it behave without you around?" Gunther asked nervously.

The wizard shrugged. "Can you behave without me around?"

Gunther snorted. "I ain't no skeleton."

"For now. But under the meat..." Grens trailed off as he looked back and forth between us. "He'll guard you. Just don't expect him to understand any other orders."

I sighed and headed out. Gunther and the corpse followed. Better three than two, I figured.

Well that was a mistake. We started combing the streets looking for the chief. Weren't too surprised when he didn't respond to our hollers. Tine Gorge isn't exactly a big place, not as far as towns go, but when we started going house to house I knew we were in for a long day. Every building we went into had a dozen hiding places and two or three outbuildings. Most were empty, but the fourth or fifth one was near the hostel and we found three humans inside.

"You can't come in here!" warned the mother of the family. She brandished a shortsword at us in a way that made me wonder if her family was part of the local militia. She had two boys with her, presumably her sons. One of them held a nasty looking cudgel and the other was too young to fight.

I motioned for Gunther to hang back. Junior was behind him and I was the only one looking through the door. "Seen any beast men in here, Ma'am?"

"What do you think this is, a gods-forsook taxendermer's? If a gobble walks in here you'll see it roastin' on the fire! Now get your ass on out!"

I turned back to Gunther as I closed the door. He grinned at me. "We could take her."

I stared at him. He looked dead serious. Took me a minute, and then I burst out laughing. So did Gunther.

We started toward the next house when a voice called out from across the street.

"When you takin' your beast men and leavin'?" It was a young man - old enough to be married, maybe, but just barely. He stood in the door of the hostel, leaning casually against the frame. "We don't need nothing else from that fuckin' count of yours."

Not the first time I regretted putting up that banner, and probably won't be the last. I sighed. "They're not our beast men. We're taking them in to that fucking count."

"Looks to me like you're lootin' everything you can get."

Gunther started to talk. "Hey kid, how about you shut your spell-catcher before I--"

"Whoa, whoa." I cut him off and turned to the youth. "Listen, we're just trying to find the beast chief and then we'll be leaving. We won't take anything that isn't ours."

"Yeah, like the constable's house? You look real fuckin' cozy in there, Mister." As he spoke we saw more faces appear behind him. Two men with tools came out of a second door farther down the hostel.

"That constable's a rat fucking bastard of a half-beast sellout traitor."

That sure riled up the other townspeople. One of the men, a thick guy holding a flat-bottomed shovel, piped up before I could say any more. "Constable's a good man! You shut your gob, for'gner!"

I did my best to keep my cool and counted how many there were. Two against six. Not great odds if they decided to come on all at once. Figuring I'd take a gamble, I laughed my loudest, most sarcastic laugh at the big guy.

"You think that, huh? He really had you fooled, didn't he?"

"Shut it!"

"You're telling me none of you knew? Shit, I thought he had you all in on it."

"Don't listen to 'em," a woman admonished her fellow townspeople.

Gunther knew what I was doing. "Guess he didn't want to cut you in. Fucking rat bastard."

"What're you gettin' at?" asked Shovel Man.

I shrugged. "Constable had a pretty rich little slave trade going on up north. Old abandoned mine, metal pens, hobgoblin traders... the works."

Shovel's friend Billhook shook his head and stepped toward us. "That's lies! They's liars!"

"Yeah!"

I scoffed, still trying to act incredulous. "You have to be kidding me. If we're lying, where did the walking bones come from, huh? You all saw we didn't have 'em when we came through here before. And the constable didn't want anybody to know there were beast men around."

I heard a lot of muttering. There were other ways we could've got a skeleton, but my words had a ring of truth to them. Probably because they were true.

"You got that from a slave pen?" one of them asked.

I nodded. No need to tell them it wasn't walking around when we found it. "Lucky for us our wizard can control it. Now we're taking it in as proof."

The woman objected. "That doesn't prove nothin'!"

"Aww, come on. Take a look here..." I turned to point at Junior.

He wasn't there.

After a baffled double take I looked back the way we came. Junior hadn't gone far. He was still in front of the house we'd been shooed out of. Must have been two hundred feet back.

"What's it doing?" asked Shovel.

Junior stood over a small wooden bench outside the door of the house. On the bench was a rusted metal pail and not much else. He wasn't doing anything to it, just standing there with his head tilted up as if gazing at the sky.

Nervous, I glanced up. Nothing but normal grey clouds. I started to walk toward Junior, and instinctively pulled the DarkeSworde out of its sheath. "Hey!" I shouted. The skeleton didn't turn its head or acknowledge me at all. But as I got close it dropped its spear on the ground, turned, and sat on the bench.

"Awwww shit," Gunther groaned.

"Gunther, go and get the wizard."

"But--"

"Now!" That was an order. Gunther took off running.

As I stared at him, and with the townsfolk murmuring to each other behind me, Junior reached his left hand into the pail. His hand, or finger bones or whatever, started jittering. Drops of whatever sloshed out of the bucket and he swirled his hand around in the water.

Just then, the door flew open and the woman with the shortsword burst out. She kept herself half hidden behind the door, shook her sword at me and screamed. "I told you to get lost, pig fucker! Fuck a pig if you're bored! Leave me the fuck alone!" I could hear Tallow's voice in my head as if he was right next to me: Fuck a pig? I thought you wanted me to leave! I suppressed a smile and pointed to the skeleton.

"My friend here seems to like your bench."

She peered farther around the wooden door and her eyes bulged at the sight of the visitor. "Get yer..." her mouth stayed open but the words stopped. Junior just kept swishing the water around.

Something occurred to me.

"Ma'am..." She didn't respond so I waved my hand at her and repeated myself. "Ma'am?" She looked over at me. "I don't suppose..." Shit, how do I ask this? Ah fuck it. "Have you lost anyone lately? I mean... has anyone in the house died in the last couple of years? But no body?"

She looked back at Junior.

She fainted.

We have a Winner!

Hurrah! Now that the Midsummer celebration is over I just took a look at the replies to my last post and I see that Brian_Link has successfully guessed the answer to the RogerDS contest! (The question was: What are the races, classes and levels of the four PCs in RogerDS?)

Brian offered us his reasoning:

I don't like Roger just getting combat style(the reason why I gave him fighter levels), but I also don't like Gren having access to Animate Dead only with a scroll.

But if Gren were high enough level to have Animate Dead Roger most likely would have Ranger Spells(He probably has a Wisdom 12 or above), and an animal companion. Unless they gained more than one level (conveniently placed at a time Roger considers to go 2 weapon fighting) I'm going to have to go...

Roger Human Ranger/2 Gunther Human Fighter/2 Tallow Halfling Rogue/2 Gren Human Cleric/2

Mind you that has Gren almost maxxing his CLW with the Hob's but it will have to do, even if 675GP is a lot out of a level 2's 900GP.

Well-reasoned indeed! And yes, Grens did use quite a few spell slots to nurse those hobgoblins, but remember this obscure rule: when a character is in negative hit points and dying, even 1 hp of healing - such as a Cure Minor Wounds (zero level spell) is enough to stabilise them. From there they can heal slowly by resting or wait for more cure spells. Grens likes to keep Cure Minor Wounds prepared because it's enough to save a dying ally without taking up valuable 1st level spell slots.

I should also point out that Brian's answer wouldn't have been possible without the almost-right answer from Filurmanden, who was the first to get everyone's classes correct. Therefore, in addition to Brian appearing as an NPC in a future episode, Filurmanden will also get to make a brief appearance!

Brian_Link and Filurmanden, please send me an email at DarkeSworde at gmail dot com and let me know if you have any ideas on how you'd like to appear. Traveling merchant? Hobgoblin? Working for the Count? Whatever you want! Allow about a week for me to get back to you - I'll need to put together a little outline of what's coming up so we can fit you in properly, and I have to decide how much to reveal to you in the process...

Congratulations! And thanks to everyone for reading often enough to be able to guess! :)

Happy Holidays!

Hi everyone!

I'm sorry to say I won't be able to put up a new chapter today. I'm far too busy getting ready for Midsummer (summer solstice), so it's kind of like the polytheist version of taking a week off for Christmas. I would have let you guys know sooner, but I was still optimistic about having writing time up until the very last minute today.

I'm hoping to put up at least a small entry sometime over the next week, so that my regular readers won't be too disappointed. At the vary latest I'll have something up next Thursday as usual. In the meantime I strongly encourage you to make a guess at the contest - it's been a few weeks now and it seems like people have stopped guessing. Too hard for you, or just out enjoying the summer weather? Either way I look forward to hearing more guesses!

Hope you all enjoy a beautiful June day and I'll have more for you soon!

-Another_Poet

Day 29: A Grand Entrance

So where was I? Right, I told the chief we're PC's.

Within a minute we humans were backing up, weapons out, skeleton beside us and hobgoblins surrounding us. Tallow and I both yelled at the chief, trying to get him to listen to reason. It didn't seem likely.

"Why did you not tell me this sooner, human?" he asked from atop his worg.

"Never came up!" yelled Tallow.

"And it seems like it wasn't the best thing to bring up," I added.

"You told him, Rog?" It was Gunther.

"Maybe we can talk about that later."

"Listen up," said the chief. "We agreed to travel with humans, not PC's. Our agreement is terminated."

"You don't want to do that," warned Tallow.

"Shut up," snapped the Chief.

"I'm telling you, you turn on us now and the healer will reopen all your wounds!"

"He can't do that," said the chief. But Grens broke in:

"I can do it."

The chief looked over at one of his relatives and said something in their language. The relative answered, but was interrupted by a third beast. Soon, opinions were being called out by all the veterans.

The chief raised his hand to quiet them. No sooner did their voices die out than another voice picked up. Grens began singing in an sharp, warbling voice. At first I thought he was just a terrible singer; soon I realised it was intentional. Whatever he was singing, apparently some kind of hymn, it was meant to sound ominous and haunting. Came off more like plain old creepy. But we all got the point: he was invoking his deities against these hobgoblins.

Before the hobgoblins could decide what to do about the chanting, Grens pointed his open hand at one of his former patients and clenched his fist shut. The beast spun and ran at top speed in the opposite direction. He screamed a curdling, painful scream as he disappeared into the scrubby trees. From where I was I couldn't see if his wounds really were opening up, but the hobgoblins seemed convinced. I could see spears shaking with fear in the hands of other beast men who had been wounded and healed by Grens.

"Enough!" yelled the chief. Grens simply flexed his hand as if carefully choosing his next victim.

"Maybe you should back off," I called. "Give us some breathing room and our friend here will consider leaving your men standing."

With a look of pure rage on his face, the chief ordered his troops to back off. For his own part he held his ground until everyone else had moved before urging his big wolf to edge away. Even then he didn't go far.

"What do you care if we're PCs?" I called.

The chief snorted. "How could I not care? More of my ancestors have been killed by your kind than by all the other humans put together. We have lost whole kingdoms to your filthy kind!"

I chewed my lip. I suppose it was true. I couldn't think of any heroic story that didn't involve slaughtering all manner of monsters, and PC's are supposed to be the most bloodthirsty of all heroes. Of course, they're also supposed to be the richest, and so far that hadn't come to pass either.

"Chief," Tallow said, in his most innocent voice, "I'm not going to lie to you. If we slaughtered all of you today, we could have our pick of women in any town in the County. Everyone would buy us drinks. But it wouldn't last long. You--"

The chief wasn't listening. He barked orders at his war band, who started to plod away from us. The team carrying the rex started the difficult process of turning the carcass around to head off the way we came. They were leaving.

Tallow clapped his hands together twice, loudly. "Hey! Chief! You hear me? I said it'd be good but it wouldn't last long. Because the count wants you! And if we kill you for no reason, he'll kill us! Do you hear me? We have every reason in the world to work with you!"

The chief wheeled his dog away from us. "I have no reason to work with you." He started away from us.

Tallow didn't give up. "There's only one way the count would let us live if we killed you. That's if we had a good reason - like if you refused to come see him."

Seeing that the chief wasn't coming back, Tallow chose to add one more point to his argument. He spat on the ground, drew an arrow, and loosed it. We were still pretty close range and I think he chose his shot carefully. It plunged deep and bloody into the flank of the worg.

The giant wolf's yip of pain and the chief's indignant yell were simultaneous, and overwhelming. Before we knew it he had turned the wounded-but-ready animal to bear on us and charged the distance between us.

His warriors were much farther away, and although they ran to help we had a brief moment to deal with the chief alone. I took a glancing wound from the chief's sword and Gunther lost a heavy strip of flesh to he wolf's teeth. We fought, though. I turned the flats of my blades against the chief's body as he rode into us. The new sword did nothing but the Darkesworde knocked the wind out of him. Junior didn't pull any punches, driving his spear into the chief's side while the flat of Gunther's two-hander landed across his face like a slap from an ogre. With a yell the chief was unhorsed, or undogged, and landed on his back on the trail between us. I don't know if beast men are taught how to take a fall properly, but the chief didn't. He must have been pretty dazed as we surrounded him and pressed the points of our weapons against his face.

The hobgoblins stopped their charge, and with a slurred command from the chief even his wounded worg hung back. Soon we had complete silence except for our heavy breathing, the chief's whimpering, and the birds in the distance.

"Just kill me," croaked the chief.

"Tie him up, Tallow," said Gunther.

"Just kill me now. That's what you do, right? Add to your name and glory? Do you need me alive for something? Maybe you have to display me."

"Yeah, maybe I'll gag him too," muttered Tallow as he lowered his bow and reached for the rope on the back of the burro.

"You can just show my corpse. Put me up on a pole and let people throw eggs at me. Or whatever you humans eat." He tried to spit at us, but it fell short and Gunther pushed his sword a little tighter against the beast's throat.

"You'll live," I said. "And you would've lived if you had just trusted us to start with, too."

The chief writhed and kicked as we got the ropes on him, and held him up for his tribe to see.

"Keep marching," Tallow ordered. The chief finally remained silent. I'm still unclear how many of his troops speak Common, but they got the message: follow us or we kill the chief. Surprisingly, they cared enough to follow.

At last we had a hostage again, and this time one who mattered. With him on the burro and two of us pointing weapons at him at any given minute, it looked pretty unlikely he would escape or be rescued. Some other beast took his worg and we continued on our way. Sometimes if we told him to pass on orders to the war band he refused; other times he did so obediently. No telling why.

As it got on toward evening, we approached Tine Gorge. The bridge over the gorge was abandoned - no one watching it, and no one traveling the road but us. At the edge we had a little meeting with the chief. He relayed some of our orders to his people, and then we got him gagged up so he couldn't cause any trouble for us in town. And then - this time with the count's standard flying high from Junior's spear - we made for town. The hobgoblins split into two groups, each waiting out of sight behind houses to either side of the road.

I don't know who saw us first, exactly. I know a skinny man went running like a madman the second he saw us. He'd been in the middle of sawing wood and just left his tools there on the ground. I know windows were shut, doors bolted, and children ushered inside on our approach. I know some of the tougher-looking adults of the town started to line up outside of the main buildings. We drew up opposite them, roped hobgoblin on the ass in front of us, and we waited.

I had a hard time looking at the people across from us. I didn't really recognise any of them, even though I'm sure some of them were in the pub when we were seized by the constable. I saw a lot of anger, sure, but there was also a lot of fear. We weren't just suspicious outsiders now. We were there with weapons drawn and a live hobgoblin for our trouble. They might have heard there were more on the road outside of town, if word traveled that quick and if anyone believed it. Either way, the townspeople were scared.

I was scared too, but not of them. I couldn't see the hobgoblins behind me, and I knew they weren't there voluntarily. They would gladly butcher us for taking their chief, and they would just as gladly destroy the whole town in the process. I didn't know if we could stop that. Not that we had a lot of options.

It didn't take long to get the reaction we wanted. The townspeople parted one by one and made a space for the constable to come through. He was just as ugly and mean looking as before, with a crossbow in his hands and a dirk at his side. As soon as I saw him I realised for the first time that the chief was right: this man was no human, he was maybe part-human and part-something-else. Didn't look like a goblin or hobgoblin, but something bad. The thought of it made me sick.

The constable looked back and forth over us, not a drop of fear in him. He stopped some hundred feet from us, lowered his crossbow a little, regarded our prisoner in front of us and spoke.

"Thought I told you boys to go and stay gone."

I nodded. "You also told us there were no hobgoblins."

The man shrugged. "There weren't."

"Well we got one now. You know him?"

The chief stayed perfectly quiet through this. He was gagged, and he didn't even try to speak or yell. He just sat there calmly and stared at the constable.

"Know him? I don't know beast men."

"Your mom did," Tallow muttered.

The man's jaw tightened.

"Well if you don't know him," I said, "Then I guess you might as well put him to death. Half-bottom."

His eyes snapped at me even though his head stayed still. I grinned.

"Send him over."

I lightly smacked the burro's flank and it lurched forward, carrying the awkward rider at a slow pace toward the constable.

As it approached, he took the reins and glared at us. "Now get on out."

"One more thing, Half-Bottom."

He stared at me.

"There's a place up north from here - a mine, or more of a prison, really. You ever heard of that place?"

"I said get out."

I smiled at him and gave just the slightest of bows. "Well, you heard the man," I told my companions. "Let's head on out."

I got a pair of grunts and a "Sure thing, Captain." We started walking, slowly and on guard, toward the nearest side street. This took us closer to the constable, but not much closer. It also moved us off to the side of the road.

The constable kept his eyes on us at first, and when he was sure we were just walking away he looked at the hobgoblin on the burro.

"Filthy beast," he growled, and shoved the chief off. The beast landed hard in the dirt, and the half-beast stood over him, grinding one foot into his chest. "Might as well get this over with," he said.

With that he drew his dirk. Before he could deliver the death-blow an arrow scudded in out of nowhere. It missed the chief and the half-bottom by a good yard, sticking into the ground at an angle. The constable's head snapped up.

They say beast men can see in the dark, and it looked like the law man had inherited that trait with his good looks. The twilight made it hard for us to see more than a block, but the look on the constable's face was clear. He could see the hobgoblins pouring out from behind houses at the edge of town.

He looked back and forth between us, the chief, and the war band. He lifted his crossbow almost absentmindedly and loosed a bolt at the warband, then gave a shout to the townspeople. In the second he had his eye off of us Junior went charging toward him.

At the same time Grens muttered a word and waived his had dismissively.

Suddenly, the burro's calm demeanour vanished. Sensing the approaching skeleton he went into his usual fit of bucking, kicking, pissing and projectile shitting. And I mean projectile. The constable was covered head to toe and blind. The chief got some too.

At that point it didn't take long. We closed on the constable just as the villagers saw the rush of monsters charging down the road. Humans ran every which way, none of them (wisely) toward the invaders. We pummeled all but the last living breath out of the constable, and cut the chief free.

The chief stuck to the plan we'd made on the bridge earlier, and stood up to show he was alive. With his loud war voice he reined in his warband. He had to, because we would've killed him if they started pillaging.

Soon it was the sodden constable who was tied up, and Tallow and the chief kept the hobgoblins in line while Gunther and I secured the slaver in his own gaol.

Relaxing in the constable's chair, I had some of his brandy and watched the beast men through the window. They were drunk on as much free liquor as the townspeople could be forced to surrender, which is to say all of it.

That was when I first started writing yesterday's entry. I didn't get far because my mind is all over the place. I feel good, because I fucking hate the constable and no one got killed. But I just keep thinking about everything that could've gone wrong - all the worries a military man is supposed to run through in his mind before making an attack. I keep picturing the town in ruins, smoldering, with the women raped and everyone else dead. It makes me shudder.

It's true we didn't have a lot of time to plan, but we just aren't running a straightforward operation here. We're bickering amongst ourselves, putting our trust in treacherous monsters, and relying on guile and trickery to carry the day. So far we've been lucky, but that kind of luck can't hold out forever.

Maybe good luck is the blessing that comes with being a PC, the reward for putting up with the demons. I don't think it's worth it, and I don't trust it.

. . .

Looking back at that thought now that I've taken a break to help put out a small fire, I guess I'll take the luck. Ugh.

Third Contest Hint!

Okay, okay, first off the contest summary in case anyone is new here:

The Question: What are the races, classes, and levels of the four main characters of RogerDS? (That's Roger, Grens, Tallow, and Gunther.)

The prize: YOU get to appear as an NPC in a future episode of RogerDS.

Hint #1: Everything in the party follows the core 3.5 edition D&D rules, except for a single "house rule".

Hint #2: The above-mentioned house rule has to do with how much wealth/gear the characters have.

Brand New Hint: Here are the EL (encounter levels) of the various encounters Roger & co. have been through to date.

1. Bear with surprise round: CR 2 or 3 (would've been CR 4 without the surprise round)

2. Bar brawl against commoners: EL 1

3. Shrieker Fungus/Violet Fungus nest: EL 4

4. Pit Trap with water: CR 1

5. Malnourished Gnoll: CR 1/2 (would have been CR 1 if healthy)

6: Falling Ceiling Trap: CR 1

7: Rat Swarm: CR 2

8: Tyrannosaurus Rex: CR 8 (not counting the help from the hobgoblins)

I'm guessing that should make a big difference in how hard this contest is. I figured since some of you mentioned not having access to the D&D books this might be good info to give out. Good luck, and stay tuned for the next episode later today...

-Another_Poet, editor of the Coerced Adventures

Day 28: Chin Up, Roger

I haven't felt much like writing these past couple of days. Something about being tortured by your own wizard leaves a bad taste in your mouth. He did bring me back from an early grave... but still.

Gunther hasn't said much, and neither has Tallow. Grens travels on his own, practically. Him, the skeleton and the burro - which has been strangely quiet around Junior lately. I worry Grens even did something to the poor ass.

Meanwhile the chief has been trying to chat me up. He seems to like me. I don't know why. I guess it's because I'm the only one who can keep a civil tongue. The other day he tried to ask us what the count is like.

"I don't really know him," I responded, keeping my eyes on the trail in front of me. "He just gave us this quest and sent us out."

"How does he rule? Is he a strong man?"

"I haven't even seen him--"

"Aw, shut it, Roger," Tallow interrupted.

"You are brash, human," the chief responded.

"He's just--"

"He's trying to get intel. Intel he doesn't need to have."

"Whats he going to do? You think his little gang here can overthrow the count?"

"Fuck if I know. Just don't talk to him."

"He's right, Rog," said Gunther. "We were just hired to come get the little fucker. We don't have to like him none."

I sighed. "He seems a lot more likable than that conjurer over there."

"What's with you two, anyway?" asked Gunther.

"Well..."

"Seems like you don't even speak to each other."

"He doesn't speak much to anyone."

"Yep."

Long pause. I didn't want to talk about it with the chief right there. He got the hint and pulled his worg away, guiding it over to take a piss on a big jack pine and letting us walk on ahead.

"He fucking attacked me, Gunth."

"What?"

"No shit," answered Tallow. "That guy is no good."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, you know how that rex tried to wear me for a shoe? And magic fingers over there had to bring be back?"

"Yeah."

"So he brings me back, heals me up, and then right away he curses me. Damn near killed me a second time."

"You weren't dead, Cap."

"Well whatever, he healed me and then cursed me. And then healed me again.

"Doesn't sound like much of a curse."

"Yeah, sounds like you got a twofer."

"Are you not hearing me? He ripped me apart. He ripped my fucking insides apart."

"Yeah, but he put it back."

I scowled at Tallow. "Yeah, let's try it on you."

"Whoa Cap. Leave me out of this."

"I don't know if I can. He's pissed because of our little stunt with Junior."

"What?" Gunther seemed truly surprised.

"Yeah, me and Tallow busted up Junior a while back. Put him down when you-know-who wasn't watching. You seemed pretty happy about it, while it lasted."

"Yeah, I--" Gunther stopped midsentence. He stayed silent for a long time until I spoke again.

"You remember it?"

"Pssh." Another minute of quiet. "Couldn't forget that. I hate that little fucker."

This was the first time Gunther directly talked about the problems with being a PC. The compulsion, the weird "glitches" in reality, the nearly unlimited power of the demons controlling us. I perked up and looked over at him. But I wasn't prepared for what he said next.

"Maybe we should just kill Grens instead."

I almost tripped. "What?" asked Tallow.

"What?" I echoed.

Gunth shrugged. "Just a thought."

We wrapped up that conversation pretty quick. Later on, the chief started asking questions again.

"It seems like you have two minds, human."

"Why would you say that?"

"You speak with sense. But in battle you are like blind ox raging with shitworms."

Hmm. Fair enough. "Yeah and you're too nosy. But I have some questions for you now. For starters, how do you know Constable Argon?"

"Who?"

"Sariss Argon."

"O. Ha! I call him Half-Bottom Argon. Because half his father's seed must have missed his proper wife and dribbled onto a human girl."

I had absolutely nothing to say to that.

The chief continued. "I think you will see for yourself. I would hate to tell you, huh, any 'intel', right?"

"Whatever. You got any problem with hurting him?"

"No, I'll kill him. If it will get us on to your city my oath can be done sooner."

"Yeah, well we don't need to kill him. We just need to get him tied up and take him back to Frankton. To 'our city'."

"Why not just kill him?

Must be a big sale on murderous intent somewhere. "Because he has to face the Count's justice for what he did."

"What will your count do?"

"Hang him or quarter him, I hope."

"Then just kill him now. It's faster."

"We don't have the right."

"But he could escape on the way to your city."

I looked over my shoulder at the chief's war band, straggling out over half a mile of trail. "Your boys gonna let him go?"

"If he annoys us."

"Or maybe just eat him?"

The chief gave me a serious look. "We're not orcs."

I laughed. "You gonna keep your word?"

"For now." Ah, honesty.

"Alright. So we need to go to Tine Gorge and get the fucker. You been there?"

Now the chief laughed, a papery, scathing laughter. "You have bent over in front of a wild boar?"

"Ummm... no?"

"No."

"Alright. So it's laid out on the east side of..."

"I've seen it, human. I just haven't been there."

He sure knew how to break down an otherwise useful conversation. "Alright, and it seems like half the town is friends with the constable. The other half is scared of him."

"With the what?"

"The half-bottom."

"Ah. Sure."

He seemed to think we had finished our planning session. It took me a minute to figure out why.

"We can't kill them all!"

"Just the ones that fight."

"No! No killing. We scare them all."

Chief shrugged. "Sure, same thing."

I spun to face the hobgoblin and glowered at him. "Look, no one dies. No one!"

He stared at me.

"If we go in and kill, we are the outlaws. You just got into the law, it's too early to get out. If we break the law we'll be hunted down. We'll be killed within a year. You get me?"

"I'm not your foot-soldier, human."

"Yeah, you don't even deserve to hold a spear in human lands. You're a fucking baby. You need to learn how we handle this shit, you got me?"

The chief regarded me with fiery eyes and a snaggled, fanged sneer. "I will do my best to leave them alive."

His best. Well, it was a start.

"I hate human lands," he added.

"Then next time stay in your own fucking lands."

"You have a plan or just going to motivate me all morning?"

"Here's the plan. Constable--Half-Bottom--probably expects us to come back sometime. I mean us humans. And he'll plan on running us out of town, or jailing us or something. He sure won't take kindly to us."

"Understandable."

"So we're going to park it on the hill above the gorge. Let him see us. Let him come out and say hello. Your beasts will be hiding behind the hill. When he starts up, we'll give you a signal. You circle around him and we take him prisoner. Alive."

"Alive."

"Right."

"What about when he won't come up the hill?"

"Why wouldn't he come up the hill?"

"Because he is smarter than baby possum."

I nodded, trying to keep myself under control. "So then we go in the town."

The chief didn't answer. He didn't have to. I saw the problem with my own plan half a moment later.

"But he'd see you all coming... and you can't cross without using the bridge."

The chief grunted in agreement.

"Shit."

"How bad can you see at night?"

"Yeah, we could do it." I knew what he was getting at. "Hide out in the hills until nightfall, then just walk in. He has to come out and challenge us, it's his job. Then we tackle him."

"He will be hard to catch."

"Do you have any nets?"

"We could make one."

"Yeah, we should do that."

"Seems hard being human."

I sighed. "No," I answered. "It's just hard being a PC."

Chief stopped walking. I turned to look at him for the second time. This time he was the one with the serious look.

"You are PC?"

O fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Why did I say it? I didn't answer out loud, but that was enough to tell him the answer.

"Harr-Gobelsh!" he spun and bellowed out over the valley trail behind us. All his troops stopped in place except the ones carrying the tyrannosaurus corpse. They had their momentum up and weren't about to stop.

"Harr-Gobelsh!" he repeated. "Tar in echu-teblain, in sharr do gelth! Aktu!"

Heavy beastmen feet began jogging, trotting then running toward their chief and us few humans. Weapons appeared in hands. Shields rose. Double-time, triple-time the beasts ran toward us.

"Shit." As usual, that was the mantra of the day.

Contest - New Hint!

Alright everybody, I promised a new hint would come out today. For those of you just here for the story, scroll down a wee bit and you'll see the newest entry (a long one, in my opinion). For those of you just now tuning in, we have a contest on here at RogerDS. It goes a little something like this:

The Question: What are the races, classes, and levels of the four main characters of RogerDS? (That's Roger, Grens, Tallow, and Gunther.)

The prize: YOU get to appear as an NPC in a future episode of RogerDS. Yes, you can pick which side you're on if any.

Hint #1 (the one you already have): Everything in the party follows the core 3.5 edition D&D rules, except for a single "house rule".

Hint #2 (the new one!): The above-mentioned house rule has to do with how much wealth/gear the characters have.

I hope this helps those of you who have been struggling with the question. A reading of the last few entries may help as well...

Good luck!

Another_Poet, editor of the Coerced Adventures

Day 25: The Hunt for the T-Rex Eunuch

I spent the morning sharpening the darkesworde, getting rid of as much rust from my new sword as I could, and convincing the only surviving hostage from the night before (now a free man, as we hadn't bothered demanding securities again after the attack) to stand guard as I checked for a blood trail in the woods. There was one.

It was a heavy, clear trail, and it seemed to continue as such well after it left the camp and went into the pines and spruce. Satisfied that we had a chance at tracking this thing, I waited at the edge of camp for everybody else.

The chief mounted his wolf, or worg I guess, a big impressive wild dog that seemed hard to control at best. It had a sort of a mane like a horse that crested between its big shoulders, and its eyes kept moving around from one of us to the other like it expected us to try to hurt it. I don't know where the chief's worg had been last night, but the only other two worgs left in camp had been out patrolling for the tyrannosaurus all night. Obviously they had failed to alert us, and the scouts took a serious thrashing from the chief when they came back in the morning. Not only that, the worgs were confiscated from them and given to a pair of much more heavily armoured hobgoblins. Apparently the scouts lost the privelege.

My sense of the hobgoblin band is that it's a mixed bag. The chief, whatever his other vices, is obviously a skilled leader, strong and not worried at all about the superior tactics and resources of the human county. About a dozen of the warriors in the camp fit the same description, obvious veterans of whatever kind of warfare the beastmen fill their time with. Many are related to the chief and each looks more intimidating than the one next to him.

The rest of the hobgoblins in the camp, including most of those I've seen die since we arrived, are a different story. They're pitiful little conscripts, strong but unsteady and undisciplined. Lazy at best, pathetic more often. Hardly the stuff of the nightmare tales I was told when I was little. The chief didn't seem to care much what they did, as long as they raised spears when he gave the order. But he always had to keep well aware of them, because if he blinked for half a second they'd drop his orders and run off. Near as I can tell he's not concerned with whether they live or die, and rather expects the latter. He rules them with as much violence as is needed, and if some of them stay alive and harden up to be like his veterans, that's just a bonus.

What wasn't so clear about the hobgoblin war band is what they were doing in the Snakebacks. When I mentioned the constable the chief sort of shut up. He agreed he'd help us deal with the man after we bag the rex, but he wouldn't answer any questions about how he knew him. Of course, we didn't get a chance to ask many. The guy does have a half-incompetent war band to lead after all. But I figure the bodies in that mine had been slaves, and the hobgoblins must have been involved somehow in procuring them. I'm not sure whether the slaves were brought to that place specifically as mine labour, or if the mine was just a convenient holding place for the slave trade, but either way it made my stomach sour. I understand making a man pay off his debts, but out-and-out slavery is a different thing. It's not like bonded serfdom. Those mines were a death sentence.

So despite my Demon being so cordial in dealing with the beastmen, I'm not one bit happy with the situation. Near as I can tell we're going on a fool mission against a near-unbeatable monster to avenge the honour of some other monsters in exchange for dealing with a monster of a human. It

[Editor's note: there is a gap in the text here, and the rest of the entry seems to have been filled in later in the day. The next sentence is scrawled in large sloppy letters. A small skull and crossbones with a sword through it is scrawled in the margin.]

Gooooods damn it!

Holy shit.

We got underway today with the chief and his worg pals acting as outriders, me and a hobgoblin doing the tracking, and everybody else staying just behind us. The chief alternated between mocking us for having no horses and mocking horses for being no good in dense forest. I'll let you guess how long it took for that to get old.

Anyway, the blood trail got unsurprisingly spotty after a quarter mile, and eventually we stopped seeing more than a drop or two of blood every three hundred yards. Luckily, something the size of a watch tower leaves other signs of its passage. Me and the hobgoblin, although unable to actually talk to each other, had little problem keeping everyone on course.

I like the way the guy tracked. He had this stick with a little piece of string tied loosely to it. He used it to measure prints and then look for other marks of the same size. I had always just tracked with my bare eyes, and I was good at it but even when I was at a loss he could pick up the trail. He would just start measuring every dent and divet in the land until one was the right size, then use that as the next print. At first I thought he was imagining things but sure enough, we'd see more signs in a hundred feet. Little bastard put me to shame.

It took me back. My uncle Horace was a good tracker, and I remember one time he wounded a boar that had wandered onto our lands and then ran right back into the baron's woods. He got me and the two of us tracked the thing, right through the damned royal forest (without telling my dad, of course). When we found it and finished it off we had to haul it on a spruce pole between us and cover our tracks the whole way back. After we dropped off the boar at home Uncle Horace even when back and set up a fake trail to the back door of the Temple of Heironeous. That's just the kind of guy he is, or was. I don't think the warden would've missed the signs of the kill, but no one ever said anything. I'm guessing the Baron kept it quiet so as not to embarrass himself.

Anyway, being out there tracking this big wounded critter, well, it reminded me of that. I don't want to say I was having fun out there, not with those damned creatures for company, but it did take me back. It's not often you get to kill something for food bigger than a hare, unless it's your own sheep or cattle.

So on we went for two hours or so. Fucker could run. Its trail wove around a lot too, like it was trying to throw us off. But it always stayed on about the same bearing. Always until around noon, when we got up from a water rest (that the hobgoblins declined), walked thirty paces and lost the trail. It took us ten minutes to realise it turned a sharp seventy degrees, the biggest change in course so far.

As time bore out, it maintained the new bearing. That meant it had stopped its panicked run, figured it was safe, and turned toward home. It also meant it thought of us as dangerous enough not to run toward home right from the start. That gave me heart, and it seemed to give the beast tracker heart as well. When he explained it to the chief in their language, the veterans' faces didn't change but they sat up a bit straighter.

So that brings me to the den. Gods, the den. Five hours after we set out one of the outriders gave the sign for everyone to halt. The humans didn't waste time in spreading out, with Grens and Junior in the back. The veterans stayed grim and silent while the weak hobgoblins just stood there looking miserable.

We heard a roar.

The one hobgoblin who's a competent archer fell back and got behind a tree. The veterans drew their swords and stared at the weaklings until a shield wall was formed. Spears were pointed forward and the veterans formed two little bunches on the flanks. Me and the tracker didn't interfere with any of this, but we knew the roar was still a ways off. We waited until the outriders confirmed this, and then everyone advanced at a crawl.

Well, half an hour of pissing in our trousers later, we were actually close to the thing. As near as I can tell it was just stomping and roaring and moaning up a hell of a symphony, with the occasional creaking crescendo as it knocked over a tree. The chief trotted past me on his worg and muttered in Common, "He is angry with you, human." I didn't answer.

The land we stood on was near the bottom of the valley, but still had some height. Ahead of us was a low bluff line that dropped sharply into the marshes of the valley floor. It seemed the tyrannosaurus had eked out a sort of a nest in a break in the bluff. It had a partial rock overhang to keep the rain off its head, and a huge heap of downed trees and branches to rest on. It was just above the water line so it could drink but keep dry at night. A good setup for a predator that doesn't mind visitors.

What I didn't expect was its erratic behaviour. It looked like the thing had been ripping down whole trees all morning in rage. Their splintered trunks littered the area beneath the bluff. No other animals could be spotted or heard in the area. I kept my head down and strung my hobgoblin bow as the others got into place.

Grens shuffled up to me, keeping low and looking uncharacteristically friendly. "Good luck," he said. As he spoke he reached out and grabbed the hilt of the sword I found in the mine. "This will help you in battle."

I know he must have loved the look on my face. "No," I whispered sharply. "Get my bow!" But it was too late. I looked to where his hand met my hilt and I could see the sword start to glow ever so slightly.

"I'm not going down there with that!" I chided him. "I'm arching--"

The look on his face was just too gleeful.

"No," I said.

He shrugged.

"No! Tell me we're not--"

"I'm not. Good luck down there."

I gritted my teeth as he walked away. If he was that talkative, he wasn't the one doing the talking. And if his demon thought I was going down, then maybe my demon thought I was going down. If my demon thought that... then it would happen. There's no way around it.

Think, I thought. I pulled my sword out of its sheath, then my other sword, and tossed them in the brush behind me. I nocked an arrow and drew my bow, aiming directly at the dinosaur's heart as it stomped around. I knew I couldn't force the player's hand, but maybe, maybe, if I had a good shot with my own plan it would listen to reason. It had to be reasonable. Right?

I soon got my answer. I don't think all the infantry were in place but I don't think the chief cared. His horn blew loud and clear over the bluff and the tyrannosaurus' head snapped in our direction. His nostrils flared as he looked about the brush. He let out a bellow that actually shook my arrow against my bow. I had no chance to straight the arrow.

Because it disappeared.

I wouldn't say my swords jumped into my hand. But the way time moved in that instant it seemed like it. I scrambled to them, brushed them clean, returned to my position on the bluff and let out a war cry in only a fraction of a second. No sooner did the war cry finish then I started yelling to the gods: "No, no, no, no, no, no, no!"

I must have yelled "no" once each step as I ran-fell-and-leapt down a rocky slope and into the rex's den. Around me I saw only a smattering of hobgoblins doing the same. Gunther at least was there, and the two of us charged from the left flank toward the monster in front of us.

It waited for us. It opened its mouth and hunkered down like we would run right in on our own. But then its big ugly eye caught sight of something else, three somethings else, charging from the right. The worgs. The chief and two of his finest came hollering in, one with a lance, one with an axe and one with a big cavalry sword. Scarves and ladies' dresses billowed from a makeshift standard pole behind one of their saddles. A stream of beast infantry followed behind, running but nowhere near as fast as the giant wolves. Our left side looked significantly undermanned compared to their right flank.

All three worgs slashed past the rex, but the first one didn't make it. The rex lifted it up in his jaws as it hit him, not breaking it in half but almost, and sent the rider flying. It just stood there and took it as the other two rained blows on their ride-by. I would've given my own testicles for a horse just about then. Or a gods-damned ounce of free will.

But me and Gunth, and two of the weaker hobgoblins, continued our charge. The chief shouted something over the fray and the hobgoblin to my left let out a shakey yell. He was dressed all in bright red and had a number of spiked leather collars, belts and bracelets on. I hadn't understood till just now that he looked stupid for a reason. He drew his knife--his knife--with one hand and a polished bronze mirror with the other, and set about attracting attention.

I almost jumped in front of him. Maybe if it was just me I would have. But the reins on me urged me to only one course: hacking and hewing as much dinosaur meat as I could before my inevitable demise. And I did hack and hew, unharassed for the moment as the rex took the bait and snapped up the distraction goblin. He paused mid-swallow as he felt the iron spikes. I locked eyes with him. He swallowed anyway.

The two worgs came back for another run. This time the rex was so bogged down with infantry that he didn't get them. He did, however, pull out a new move.

With no warning his tail whipped around, not just the agile balancing rod it had been the night before but now a whip with the force of a carriage behind it. It bowled over hobgoblins and cleared an area round the rex as he snapped up another victim. An arrow hit him in the next and he just kept going.

That was when our cavalry showed up. I didn't know we had any. But in the empty space cleared out beside me, a glimmer of light took shape as a new monster appeared.

I didn't know what sorcery had set upon us. I didn't recognise it at first: an insect, to be sure, but bigger than a horse. Its hundred legs found purchase on the branches and rock of the den and it reared up, clicking vicious mandibles. Smoke poured from its mouth and all along its underside. The thing surged into motion and I recognised it at last: a centipede, or a vile caricature of one. I thought I was going to have to fight that thing too until it clamped those sideways jaws onto the leg of the dinosaur.

Now, I've talked about more than one fight in this journal so far, and I'm not bad with a sword, but if my kids ever read this--if I live to have kids--I want you to know I don't think my blade did a damn thing against that monster. There were so many of us there, and the arrows and the worgs and the magic bug horror, that I think I was extraneous. But like an enslaved idiot I just kept on swinging, and I knew I was unlikely to be missed by those jaws a second time.

It wasn't the jaws I had to worry about. As the battle raged on, it became clear we were going to take the monster down. It was just a question of how long and who would live. But as the rex took more and more wounds it got more and more desperate. Spears found flesh and swords found blood, but helmets met great crushing feet and ribs met fast-sweeping tail. As I hacked harder into its leg and belly I saw it raising its tail for another sweep, but with the centipede between us I thought I was okay.

The centipede disappeared.

And the tail came at me hard, very hard, knocking one sword out of my hand and sending me easily thirty feet to a hard meeting with the ground. I wasn't sure I could stand up, but before I could even try I felt the ground rumble under me. It seemed so slow, with each rock digging harder into my injured back as the footsteps came closer. I couldn't raise my head, but I could tilt it enough to see: a foot, sky; a foot, sky; sky... blackness.

I lost my sight before my breath, but my breath went quick. It was pounded out of me as the tyrannosaurus twisted its heel into my guts. That was where I ended.

I woke up to a new sort of pain. I stared straight up at the sky and felt something twisting around in my innards. Grens' face appeared over me.

"You'll live."

I tried to speak, sputtered and coughed blood, and took a breath to speak again. "I... tho you din hab ay more those."

The wizard shrugged. "I thought maybe I should prepare a few extra today. Call it a hunch." I felt his hand pull out of my stomach and he wrinkled his brow. "That feel better?"

I coughed again. "Yeah, sort of."

"Then try this." Pain wracked me as my stomach burst open again and entrails bubbled out of me. "You like that? You like fucking little skeleton heads? You like fucking the dead, huh? I'm gonna fuck you up the ass, Roger. From the front, through your liver."

"Ahhhh!" The pain was so bad that I would've paid to have my eye gouged out just to experience a lesser pain.

"Aww, here." A calm peace exuded from his hand through my whole body and I felt my wounds close up a second time. I actually felt the skin seal. It was, well, uncomfortable.

He smiled a truly sincere smile at my pain. "Don't fuck with my Junior, Roger. Don't ever bother him again. You got me?"

I steeled my face but nodded slightly.

"Life and death, Rog. That's what I do."

He left.

Contest Update!

For anyone just tuning in to read the Thursday update (below), be apprised that the first-ever RogerDS contest is in full swing. For those of you who didn't see the original contest post, here is the skinny:

The question: What are the races, classes, and levels of the four main characters in RogerDS?

The hint: Everything in the RogerDS party is Core 3.5 D&D, with the exception of a single house rule.

The prize: The winner will be featured as an NPC in an upcoming RogerDS episode!

So far there have been a couple of guesses on a couple of characters: there's general agreement that Tallow is a halfling rogue, that Gunther is a human fighter or barbarian, and that Grens is a necromancer of some kind (sorcerer, wizard, or cleric). It's also been suggested that Roger is a human fighter. No one has hazarded a guess at their character levels yet, though Mark has tried to crack them by looking at the levels of the spells Grens has been casting.

What is the house rule? Well, I can't tell you that, but I can tell you I'm pretty tempted to start giving you guys more hints if you don't get this soon. I mean seriously, I would have expected a little more nerdiness from my beloved readers! :)

Good luck and may the best man/woman/orc win!

Day 25: Allies?

After the tyrannosaurus left last night we went to sleep. What else could we do? It didn't seem likely that it would come back the same night, if it was full. So as the newly wounded were set up with a new sick tent (far from the site of the remains of the old one), man and goblin alike stretched out under the stars and got some much-needed rest.

This morning was chaos. Grens fought with the chief over healing any more beast men, and the rest of us gathered just past the edge of camp to talk strategy.

"Most important question first," I said. "Tallow, did you know we were here to recruit these things?"

"How would I have delivered a message if I didn't know the message?"

"I can think of a few ways."

Tallow snorted. "Yeah Captain, I knew."

"You need to share that kind of info," Gunther chimed in.

Tallow shrugged. "Didn't seem relevant."

"It's fucking relevant, Tallow." That was me.

"Yeah well, I guess the Count didn't think so, right?"

"Or maybe somebody else didn't think so."

"Cap, you are one paranoid dirt farmer. You gotta drop this!"

Gunth looked confused. "What does he mean, Roger?"

Now it was my turn to shrug. "It's not--"

Tallow broke in. "Not relevant, right?"

"Fuck you."

"No, no, I think you need to get your head straight about this one, Captain DarkeSworde. The Count told me what he told me. Obviously he didn't tell you. I don't know why you were left out, and I don't care. Because when the most important guy in 200 miles tells me to keep secrets, I don't go around gabbing it. I don't hate life that much."

We all kind of sat in silence for a moment after that. Tallow had a point. Like always. Whenever he does something sneaky he's got some seamless logical explanation for it--but I still don't trust the guy.

Gunther broke the silence. "Seriously, what was he talking about, Roger?"

I sighed and struggled for a way to say it. "Don't you... Don't you ever find yourself acting strange?"

Blank stare.

"Like, doing things you didn't want to do? Like someone is forcing your hand?"

Still no response.

I kept going. "Ever since we got PC'd it's like there's some evil gods-damned force controlling me!"

Tallow whistled. "Cra-zy."

That got Gunther to speak up. "No. No, he ain't crazy." All eyes turned to the big man with the big sword. "I know what he means."

I almost laughed with relief. "You do!"

"Yeah, but it's not evil. I mean--is yours evil?"

That stopped my elation pretty quickly. "Yes. I mean, I don't know. Isn't taking away my free will evil? And--"

"Whoa, Roger, you're looking at this wrong. Haven't you ever heard the stories? We're fuckin' PC's! We're going to get rich and become famous and everyone will love us!"

Tallow broke in. "Yeah, or get killed."

Gunther shrugged. "Maybe, but I knew that risk the first time I picked up a sword. At least now we get something to look forward to."

I couldn't believe it. "Are you really saying you don't mind this? What about that bear? We slaughtered that thing for no reason!"

"Nah, it would've tried to eat us."

"No! No it wouldn't!"

"What're you, some kind of witch? You talk to bears now?"

I sighed another deep, sad sigh. I didn't bother to bring up the verbal abuse we dished out when we were acting as "PC's". Instead I looked at him right in the eye.

"So Gunther, you like it, huh?"

"Sure."

"You really like being a PC?"

He seemed nervous. "Yeah. I mean, if somebody's gonna get it, might as well be me, right?"

"Then how come in all this time you never once mentioned that thing controlling you?"

Gunther sputtered and looked away.

Before I could press my point, the very ill omen we'd been speaking of descended around us again. As that you're-being-truly-watched feeling settled over me, I saw Tallow and Gunther sort of sit up a little bit. We all knew something was up, and looked back toward camp.

Coming toward us was Grens, the chief, and the tall hostage from the night before. O yeah, turns out that guy is the chief's brother. They greeted us with stoney silence and we returned the welcome.

"Your man here has been kind to our wounded," explained the chief. "And the two-sworded one showed great bravery. I suppose, in human culture, I would owe you something."

We just continued staring at him.

"I don't care much for your ways," he said after a pause. "But I am willing to contract further with you."

"Such a sweetheart," muttered Tallow.

"My men and I are going after the beast from last night. There's a clear trail of blood leading into the woods. So I offer you a deal: help us slay the beast and we'll come fight for your king."

"Count," Gunther corrected.

The chief flashed us a fanged smile. "And I'm no chief, hole-of-butt."

We all looked at each other. Where in the gods' beloved world did this guy learn his Common?

"Look Chief, or whatever," said Tallow. "That thing is gone for now, and too deadly to go after. Let's just leave it and head to Frankton."

"No. You heard my offer."

"You have some kind of honour-thing about this? Some kind of vendetta?"

The chief rolled his eyes. "If we leave him be he'll only keep following us. We won't live all the way to your city."

"You don't know that," I objected.

"Yeah? So what, you wanna take the risk?"

"What risk? It's your men he keeps preying on. We shouldn't have come last night."

"But you did, and now he has your scent. And a very particular wound. I don't have a vendetta. He might."

We were all quiet. It was true. As if to narrate our thoughts, the chief continued speaking. "Think about it. Right now he's hurt and there are many of us. We track him, maybe catch him while he is sleeping. We can kill him. If we go our different ways each of our groups is weaker. He can lick his wounds, rest up, and follow our trails."

"Chief," I said. "We're gonna need a minute."

"A what?"

I shook my head. "Let us alone for a while, okay? We have to talk."

He said something in goatspeak and left us.

Before he could turn away, I continued speaking. But now in my loud, puffed-up, assholey voice. "Chief, we will help you vanquish this monster. But you must not only join the honourable Count Yank's army, you must also help us in a small matter on the way."

The others looked at me, surprised but not surprised. The chief seemed quite amused. "You feeling okay, human?"

He looked at me and I looked at him. "Do you accept?"

"What's this 'small matter'?"

"The matter of a Master Argon."

The hobgoblin almost looked pale, I mean, for a monster. "Pushwa!" he cursed softly. I grinned.

Day 24: Negotiations (So to Speak)

Everyone held their breath as we listened for the tyrannosaurus. Nothing. After a minute Tallow broke the silence.

"Well Chief, maybe you ought to get that thing covered," he said, pointing toward the exposed light. "But this doesn't change things much. See uh, we were sent out here as a sort of welcoming committee for you."

It made me nervous to hear Tallow lay it all out on the table like that, but it seemed like for the time being we had the upper hand. They wanted more of their people tended in the morning, and killing us or pissing us off wasn't going to help them. Still, I kept my hand on my sword hilt and my eye on our hostages.

"So what, to threaten us? Kick us off the mighty lord's land?" The chief seemed more amused than anything.

Tallow waited a moment, like he was sizing up the guy. Then he went on. "Nah, sort of the opposite. Count Yank de Frank, gods bless his ancient line, is always looking for talented warriors to grace his army."

"What?" I looked around the group in confusion. Grens was emotionless as always. Gunther looked surprised, but said nothing. The chief seemed pretty thrown off too.

"Esh-akgar, or im tehr-dash!" His orders sent hobgoblins scurrying about the camp. I didn't like this turn of events.

"What would a human chief want with us?" The hobgoblin leader asked. "And why would we want to join him anyway?"

Tallow snorted. "Fuck if I know, Chief. He's got an offer for you and whatever it is it's better than your head on a spike. Which is what happened to the last band of beast men to wander into the County, if you'll recall. And I am reaching," he added, "for the message." He produced an ivory scroll-tube from within his jacket and tossed it nonchalantly to the hobgoblin. "Can you read?"

The chief caught the tube but didn't open it. Instead he glowered at Tallow.

One of the hobgoblin hostages growled a low, rumbling growl. I tightened my hand on his shoulder and he quieted.

"Can you read?" Repeated Tallow.

"I can read," he confirmed. "I can also hear and see. What I hear are words of war. What I see before me are frightened, hairless babies. Maybe your count can catch us, maybe not. Maybe he can even defeat us. It will not save your lives tonight if he kills me two, three, six months from now. You will respect our hospitality and you will talk with deference or you--"

"Yeah, or we'll wh--?" Tallow's words were drowned out in the thundering destruction of trees that suddenly surrounded the camp. Even the roar the hobgoblins let out was muted. I saw an entire fifty-foot tree sheared off of its trunk and flung over the camp like so much bad produce. Two angular eyes gleamed in the darkness of the edge of camp as the tyrannosaurus plunged into view.

The brush barricades were immediately destroyed where it came through. It must have bolted through the trees at a dead run, itself tree-sized, and came at us full force. As soon as it entered the open clearing of the camp it snapped up a hobgoblin in its jaws and tilted its head back, chomping. Writhing legs fell to the ground as the man's screams stopped short.

The hobgoblin chief began barking orders in his native language, not bothering to conceal himself. I suppose he wanted his men to rally around him. I had no such delusions and dove behind the nearest stack of crates, not realising until after I hit the ground that I had dragged the growling hostage along with me. Shoving him rudely against a barrel I drew my sword, ignored his wide eyes, and cut the poor thing free. We would need all the arms we could get to survive this thing.

Tallow dove in next to me. "Grens!" he yelled. The death magician had run past both of us, darting toward the tree line at the edge of camp. "Grens, get back here!"

Gunther went after him. I saw the big man chase after the little man in robes and for a second I thought he was going to tackle him. But instead he grabbed him by one shoulder, shoved him behind a tree and spun to protect him. Then his eyes went wide.

It had only been a few seconds since the monster charged into camp, and it had come from the far side. But it moved quick. I could hear its big footsteps thudding toward me and the ground actually trembled under me with each one. Gunther was treated to seeing it face-to-face as it charged in our direction.

I tried to jump up but Tallow used all of his weight to hold me down. "Wait... for it!" he moaned through clenched teeth.

The footsteps stopped. A moment of quiet, with the distant yells of hobgoblins trying to get organised for an attack. A rustling sound like bird wings, and I saw a large sheaf of tent flung to our left. Then the screaming started.

The sick tent must have been like a feasting hall for the dinosaur, and Tallow had figured it out before I did. That's why he wanted us to stay down, because he knew we wouldn't be the first targets. Recently mended wounds burst open again as broadsword-teeth tore sloppy, crunching bites from the infirm. I struggled to think rationally and figure out what to do.

Beside me the freed hostage found a hatchet and took off running toward the sick tent. Tallow pushed me to the side and darted past me. For a second I thought he was going after the hostage, but he went the other way, toward the closest section of brush barricade. I wasn't stupid, so I followed him.

As I stood up I got my first look at the grisly events in the camp. The torch was exposed again and lit up the whole scene: the tyrannosaurus had a mouthful of gore and gangrene, biting indiscriminately through anything that couldn't run away from it. The freed hostage ran toward it with his hatchet, harrying its legs and delivering a few good chops before being knocked flat by a flick of the great predator's jaws. Armed hobgoblins advanced from the other side, a couple firing arrows but most pressing in with lowered spears in a small and shakey infantry formation. The chief was with them, in the second row brandishing a bloody sword and ordering them on with what I can only imagine were threats.

I dove behind the brush barricade right after Tallow. Gunth and the wizard bolted over when they saw us. "We're gonna have to run a long ways," Tallow explained between heavy breaths. Gunther nodded.

"No." Aww shit. What am I doing? That was my first thought. My second thought was, Wait, what am I doing? It was me--I was the one making my choices, and in the middle of a battle at that. It's not that I couldn't feel that thing with me. It's just that it didn't seem to want to change anything I was doing. Either it and I were in complete agreement--crappy thought, that--or it was giving me a moment of freedom. I relished it and dove all the more boldly into the plan that formed in my mind.

"Roger, you crazy?" Gunth almost seemed sympathetic, except for the murderous anger in his eye. "We gotta go!"

"No!" I jumped back over the barricade before anyone could stop me. Step after step, I brought myself closer to the scene of carnage unfolding before us. And closer to the pathetic sight I had seen, that no one else wanted to notice: the other hostages.

We had tied them up good, even hobbled them at the ankles. Now they were left scattered around where we'd had our discussion with the chief. Struggle as they might they could not get free of their ropes, or even crawl away effectively. The tyrannosaurus was finishing up his infirmary snacks and would surely move on to the other easy targets next. Beast men or not, no one deserved to die that way.

So with the voices of my companions fading behind me, the roar of the monster shaking all the camp, and the clamour of the frightened phalanx opposite me I dove over the row of crates that had been my refuge before and rushed to cut all the ropes off one of the hostages. As I chopped at his bonds he yelled something at me in goatspeak. I looked at him blankly and quickly went back to my work. When he was free he stood up and darted away. I moved to the second hostage.

It wasn't long before the first one was back, however. It seemed he had grabbed several spears. I cut rope, he handed out spears, and soon we had a little group of fighting men ready. I was both spooked and relieved to see Junior run up beside us and shore up the line.

Why I didn't flee after they were free, I don't know. Maybe it was because they seemed so confident that I was there to fight beside them. Maybe it was sheer stupidity. But I think it was the sight of the big, beautiful target that suddenly presented itself to us.

The tyrannosaur was not pleased with the infantry formation pressing it from the other side, and had turned to fight them. It was doing well--gruesomely well--but it left its huge, leathery, unprotected ass pointing right toward me and the hostages. I couldn't resist. Pulling out my second sword and forgetting the language barrier for a moment, I bellowed in my old field-commander voice: "Chaaaarge!"

The beast men understood. We trampled forward, jumping tent canvass and occasional body parts to meet our prize. We converged on the giant reptile with a loud if garbled cheer and I felt a piss-warm spray of blood on my face. Spearheads and swords tore into the thing. It shrieked like a dying cougar.

But dying it was not. It was simply enraged. It snapped up one more hobgoblin from just beside the chief and flung half his body across the camp as it spun to face us. I kept hacking away at it, but I lost my stride as one of my companions disappeared into its mouth. This thing could take us each out in a single bite. There were no wounds or near-misses. If it chose you, you would die.

The chief's men kept pressing it on the far side. Their ranks were long since broken, but the remains of the spear wall began to circle around and join with our ranks. We had the thing surrounded, however long that would last, and it had a hard time warding off our attacks. Even so, it seemed merely angered by each wound--not actually in danger.

The chief was the only person using a sword besides me. Everyone else had spears. Soon he was directly opposite me and we caught each other's eyes between the stomping legs of the beast.

"Human!" he yelled. "The father treasures! The father treasures!" His Common really was terrible. I didn't know what he was talking about.

But then I did. As the dinosaur spun again to face my side I was almost hit in the face with its swinging testicles. I don't know why they were down. Most animals don't dangle those things around just any old time. Maybe the beast enjoyed this rampage too much. But I saw my chance and I took it.

A high guard with my left hand. A stabbing stroke with my right hand. A whirling underhand strike from the left. Like sheep shears, my swords came together. The explosion of blood, blood vessels and shrieking were like nothing I've ever heard. I stumbled back a step and tried to keep my guard up as gonad poured down my face. I risked a glance upwards, and really wish I hadn't.

He looked me in the eyes as he drew back his shoulders to strike. His mouth opened and I knew I had delivered my last attack.

Or I thought so. I didn't see anything further as murmuring rose up behind me and fog rushed over the battlefield. Soon no one could see anything at all. A pair of jaws as big as a pony clapped shut just a foot from my head, the first clean miss the tyrannosaurus had delivered all night. Shaking, I fell back. Others did too.

I think it was some kind of unspoken command that we all fled while the fleeing was good. I headed back the same way I had come in, as near as I could figure toward my companions at the edge of the clearing. I was pretty sure the man in front of me was Grens. Seemed like the hobgoblins chose the same route, for the most part, because there were a lot of us moving altogether. At least a few straggled out of the fog, because I heard their dying screams behind me. The tyrannosaurus itself must have seen the magical fog as a golden opportunity, because its massive footsteps took off in the opposite direction. Maybe the magic spooked him, but I think he was sick of the fight. He must have had his fill of food by now and at this point was simply fighting to stay alive. Like most predators, he backed off as soon as he got the chance, especially with his testes in a thresher.

I barely made it over the remains of the brush barricade before I collapsed to the ground shaking and exhausted. My face, hair and swords were soaked in blood. I felt sticky and smelly and afraid for my life. I tried to struggle to my feet again to keep running but Tallow pushed me down. "He's gone now, Captain." I couldn't see him very well in the mist but he seemed to look me up and down. "And may I be the first to say, holy shit."

The hobgoblin chief sat next to me and clapped me on the shoulder. "A brave one here," he said. He didn't seem tired at all from the run. "Brave and stupid like a hobgoblin hero."

Gosh, I thought. So kind.

Where has Roger Gone?

Hi everyone. I'm still around! As you can tell, this early-in-the-week posting schedule has not been working so, as I promised, it's time to set a new schedule and stick to it. Expect a post tomorrow (Thursday) evening at the latest, and every Thursday from now on. For real.

In the meantime, we haven't had any guesses yet on the first RogerDS Contest, so get crackin'!

The question: What are the races, classes, and levels of the four main characters in RogerDS?

The hint: Everything in the RogerDS party is Core 3.5 D&D, with the exception of a single house rule.

The prize: The winner will be featured as an NPC in an upcoming RogerDS episode!

Contest! (sort of...)

Well, as far as I can tell I might actually have four or five regular visitors to the site, which makes this the most popular thing I've ever written! Four (or five) might not seem like a lot, but it's fun to write for you guys and especially to get comments. So here is a little contest for all four (or five) of you, and the 60+ individuals who have visited in the past month, and anyone & everyone else who happens to stop by.

What are the races, classes, and levels of the four main characters in RogerDS?

That's right, we'll leave Junior out of this one. Roger, Gunth, Tallow and Grens - do you have the D&D nerdery to guess the crunch behind the fluff? Post your guesses in the comments and feel free to debate and/or mock each other. The contest will run until the next regular entry (hopefully Monday!) or until one or more people guess the correct answer, whichever takes longer.

All the clues necessary can be gleaned from previous journal entries, and I am completely susceptible to bribery. I couldn't think of a bona fide prize (I mean, it's not like we have merchandise or anything) so the winner will be featured as an NPC in an upcoming RogerDS episode! You can even choose which side you are on! Good luck everyone, and here is your one and only hint: everything in the RogerDS party is Core 3.5 D&D, with the exception of a single house rule. Figure it out, I dare you!

Day 24: Good Deeds

We made it into the hobgoblin camp without incident. We were all nervous though, since we really had no way to avoid walking into a trap if there was one. Maybe the other guys believed the hobgoblin messenger’s pitiful story, but I was simply counting on their lack of intelligence.

The beast men were camped in a large clearing in the trees about halfway down the slope of the mountain. It was nighttime, but even in the darkness I could see the rag-tag character of their camp. They had a few tents, all mended with bright patches apparently cut from old clothing. They seemed fond of fabric, and had a number of banners bearing no heraldry of any sort, apparently just there to billow in the wind. Most of them just slept on the ground, though, and barrels and sacks and casks of supplies were simply strewn about the camp in no particular order. Spears and shields were the only things that seemed to be organized.

There was a huge fire pit in the middle of camp, as if the hobgoblins were using it for ceremony or for cooking something really big. Nothing was lit when we came in, though. There were just a lot of old coals and ashes in it from the night before. The beasts seemed to be getting around okay without fire.

One thing that was obvious was there had been a fight there recently. An effort had been made to surround the camp with barriers, just makeshift barricades of logs and branches, but they were broken through in a couple places. Debris was strewn about with a lot of the supply crates broken. One of the tents was rent in half, just blowing from its stakes like so many more banners. The trampled ground was not unusual for a military camp, but the occasional dark patches and smears told of combat, and recent combat at that. I started to think the bastards were sincere in their plight.

We walked in spread out over a couple hundred feet, not wanting to be caught all at once in an ambush. Junior stayed by Grens, and the more hobgoblins that joined our little party the more it became apparent that they were almost as nervous about the skeleton as the burro was. It made them restless, and that made me restless. I guess Tallow felt the same way.

”Hold up,” he said as we entered the camp. “This is too much. There’s too many of you.”

”Bar we come ar peash!” cried the messenger.

”Yeah, yeah, but on our terms remember?”

”Peash!”

”Look, we’re going to need to even things out before we go into your little fort here. Give us a hostage.”

The hobgoblin just stared at him, and started to shake his head in bewilderment.

Tallow sighed and spoke slower. “Not fair. Too many beast men! One you come with us!”

”I don’t think so,” called a voice from deeper in the camp. We all looked over, but I at least couldn’t make anyone out in the darkness. The voice spoke clear Common, but he had the same throaty accent as the messenger. “You’re already here,” he went on. “And already surrounded. The time to make deals is past.”

”We already made a deal,” Tallow responded. “And the deal was we come on our own terms. These are our terms. Do it or we leave.”

The voice laughed, which sounded more like a snarl. “You humans joke about how stupid we are, and listen to you. You leave, we kill you.”

”Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you’re so smart. Let me make it easy for you. I got two requests—one, you come out where we can see you; two, you get us some hostages over here. You do those two things, you get our healer. If you don’t you can let us leave or kill us—your choice—but either way the healer’s gone in less than a minute. You do what we say or you lose, you got that?”

There was a moment of silence. To their credit, none of the hobgoblins drew their weapons. After a bit we saw a figure within the camp shuffling toward us. He was even taller than the other hobgoblins and wore a very fancy helmet with a mane running down the back. Other than that I couldn’t make out much in the limited light.

“Alright, here I am. And as for hostages, I’ll give you—“

”No, we’ll pick our own.”

”So pick.”

”The guy behind you, for starters.” Another hobgoblin emerged from the shadows, this one just as tall as their leader. He put his weapons on the ground and walked toward us. I stepped forward to tie his hands and check him for any hidden knives.

”And… One of your boys with the bows over there.” This one took a little longer, but sure enough, an unarmed hobgoblin came out from around a tent and I gave him the same treatment. “Thanks for being so fair-minded, Chief,” Tallow said.

”I’m not a chief. We don’t even have chiefs. And what makes you think we won’t just kill you anyway, if we want to? Why should we care about the lives of those two?”

Tallow just shrugged. “Maybe you don’t. But it seems prudent.”

At that point, another hobgoblin spoke to the leader. Not in Common, in their goatspeak. The leader listened and turned back to us.

”I am reminded that the longer we quibble over hostages, the harder your healer’s job becomes. Will you come in now?”

Tallow looked at me. I looked back at the others. Gunther shrugged. Grens scowled at me with a glare that would kill a cockatrice. With that, I knew we were doing the right thing. I nodded back to Tallow.

”We’re all yours, Chief. Just have your men keep their hands where we can see them.”

The chief barked some orders in their language and soon we were following him on a winding course between piles of debris and supplies. A number of hobgoblins hung loosely around us, seeming curious or bored but not aggressive. It didn’t take us long to come to a tent with its flaps pulled wide open. The stench of gangrene poured out and I could see there was at least a little light inside. We had reached their sick tent.

Eight hobgoblins with wounds of varying severity lined the place. They were sprawled on bloody cloaks and blankets, no real bedrolls to speak of. A young hobgoblin sat at the far end with an urn of water and a wet cloth, and a stick was staked into the floor. The top of the stick glowed softly, wrapped in some strips of cloth—it seemed like the cloth was in place to mute the light emanating from underneath. I knew right away it must be magical, but I had a hard time believing my eyes. It was like a torch without fire. How does that work?

Tallow immediately set about disturbing their shit, which is what he does best. Within a matter of moments he had half the tent torn down. The patients were exposed to the open air, but the weather was mild enough for this time of year; more importantly, we couldn’t be surrounded without knowing it.

Grens left the skeleton about thirty feet from the tent and set about walking from beast man to beast man, checking their bandages and feeling their heads and pulses. As I watched him go from one to the next I felt like something was wrong, or out of place—but I couldn’t figure out what it was. No point in saying anything to the others, I figured, since really, what wasn’t wrong with the situation? So I just watched the hostages and kept my hand on my sword.

Grens tried speaking to all of them, but none of them seemed to understand Common. The young hobgoblin eyed the newcomer, eyed the skeleton, and got up and left without being asked. The chief, or whatever he was, stayed nearby. After a while Grens addressed him.

”These guys are pretty bad off. Tonight I can only treat three of them. I can handle more in the morning, but there are more than three that won’t live that long. So do you want to choose, or should I?”

“I’ll choose.” I was surprised how the chief sort of snapped back. This was a guy who was used to being in command. He took a moment to stare at his wounded troops, then pointed out several of them. “The one on the end there… the one next to him… and the one with the missing eye.”

”The one on the end can hold out till morning.”

Grunt. “Alright, the one with the open belly there.”

Grens nodded. “And you know the eye won’t grow back, right?”

”I know.”

“Alright, let’s do this quick so I can start apologising to my god.” Grens went to each of the three chosen men in turn, laying his hands on them and mumbling. One after another their wounds healed up, just vanishing before my eyes. The one with the open stomach didn’t completely heal, but his guts went back into place and he only had a big gash of a wound where he was once split like an exploded soufflé. The three also regained consciousness, and seemed surprisingly unhappy to see their saviour standing over them.

”Can you do anything to make the others comfortable?” Asked the chief.

Grens scowled. “I’m no nurse. Get your boy back in here for that.”

The chief seemed as amused as he was put off. “Truly, you have all the makings to be a fine hobgoblin priest.”

”Your Common is wrong,” Grens retorted. “It’s ‘all the makings of’. The other way sounds funny.”

Tallow cut in quickly. “Let’s not talk about that. We have a message for you, Chief. A message from the count of this fine land.”

The chief rolled his eyes. “A count with thousands of strong warriors, no doubt, each bigger and braver than the one before him, all true of heart accomplished in war. Right?”

”Something like that.”

Suddenly I realized what was wrong. They had a battle big enough to wound eight of their warriors and ruin half the camp. There were no fresh graves around and if the fire had been a funeral pyre it was one of the shortest-lived I’d ever heard of. I decided it was worth it to interrupt Tallow’s peculiar strain of diplomacy.

”Excuse me, Chief, but I couldn’t help noticing… I don’t see your dead anywhere. Did you bury them already?”

The chief looked back and forth at us humans as if he hadn’t expected the question. It was the first time he looked off-balance. He recovered quickly, though, and responded with what must pass for wit among his kind: “No, our enemy took care of that for us. Assuming it is the sort to bury its droppings.”

We stared at him.

”O, you didn’t know. It was a tyrannosaurus that attacked our camp. Ate or carried off six of my finest. This lot barely dragged themselves away. It was attracted by our fire, near as we can tell.”

It took a moment for us to all digest just exactly what we had stumbled into. I was the one to speak first.

”So… it’s attracted by light?”

The chief smiled. “That’s why we had the torch hidden inside the tent.”

The tent that Tallow tore down. I tensed up and cupped my ear, hoping not to hear anything big stalking around in the darkness beyond the brush barricade...