As you round the bend in the thicket, you notice three goblins lazing about. As they notice you, they spring into action, drawing their weapons.

In this encounter, Kiki and Bar will be the only ones from the group to act in the first round. The rest are surprised. The water is difficult terrain.

The first goblin draws his bow as the duo approach, sending a shot directly between them and missing both widely. It paused for a moment, muttered something like "I meant to do that" beneath his breath, then backed away a couple paces.

Hoping Kiki would be in a good mood, Bar was about to suggest something fun when he noticed something was awry. A goblin, a green, sneaky, stinking creature stood and stared at him from within the cave. "Watermelons!" He would exclaim. The goblins drew their weapons. As Bar did his.

The brute decided that it would be better to gloriously kill goblins than to get any other type of action. He charges in headfirst, just thinking about collecting that pretty skulls. He raised his axe and would have killed the goblin, but sadly, his tight new attire got in the way of his performance. He hacked into a fancy piece of dirt that, in Bar's defense, also looked very green.
His misstep has left him angry. He was about to rage when he noticed two more pairs of eyes staring at him. With an excited smile on his face, the barbarian lifted his axe from the dirt and aimed it in the goblins general direction.

"I'll get all of you greenies!"

She screamed as the arrow flew past her, stumbling backwards. There were goblins and a fight and... Ardiane looked around for a place to hide, not finding anywhere. Her breath started coming faster as panic begun to overtake her. Ardiane pressed her hands against her head closed her eyes, as if hiding would make the goblins go away. What was she supposed to do? She didn't have her instruments, and there was nowhere to go, and they were far away from the rest of the caravan and...

"Useless girl," Cas dropped the blond half-elf and brought out Hymn. He growled when he noticed his belt was bare of even a knife. That pathetic little girl who couldn't even handle a bar fight across the room had probably decided to leave everything in the caravan. Stupid. Stupid, stupid girl. The tiefling moved back to the human's side, grinning at her flirtatiously in apology. Wasn't her fault the half-orc had gotten interested, the lout. Speaking of... "Hey, greenie! When you kill one, toss me a bow!" He bared his teeth at the three foes. "Or you three can just drop your weapons and run like good little cowards," Hymn growled in Infernal.

As Bar rounded the corner of the dense thicket, he could see two other goblins waiting for him with their bows drawn. The first releases his arrow, hitting with a roll of 16 for 5 damage!

---

"Here, I've got a bow." Kiki shrugged off her shortbow and quiver, leaving them for Cas, then darted to the corner of the bushes just as an arrow passed in front of her nose. "Oh no, you don't," she called out as she whipped her rapiers towards the goblin.

---

The last goblin, noting that he has more company, turns his bow on Kiki. He rolls an 18, hitting for 5 damage!

Pebbles races across the river, seeing the situation before him. Without a word- er, rather, without a sound, he equipped his longbow and prepared an arrow, hoping it would fly true at his target. He let the bow's string go and watched the arrow sail through the sky... only to miss his intended target. Anger flared in his beady eyes for a split second, as he briefly threw one of his arms back and seemed to prepare to throw the bow, only to sigh and stop. One arrow, wasted in a futile shot.

A Koan

Something am I though you do not know me,
Unspoken I would be if you know me,
Riddles without answers,
Problems without solutions,
Reasons without logic,
In clear view you cannot see me,
Sight blinded by my truth,
Eyes too late to see.

Was it truly so hard to follow a fool into the forest? The barbarian had to have his way then? Nearly getting them killed one encounter was bad enough but to have nearly fallen for a trap that the psion would have surely noticed? Rather rude of the green orc giant to always demand he do everything. A meathead merely deserved to be a meat shield for all it was worth. To which the mute watched in total repulsion as the most uncouth act of jamming a goblin skull over one's privates be done. In all honesty it was now the knowledge of having to wade across the stream that was polluted by that foul orc's stench that was a horrid task for the silent one to do now as it seemed they had unwitting found themselves shortly within another bout of battle at the mouth of the cave.

With a mental sigh the psion drew his traveller's cloak around his lanky body and ventured forth into the cool stream. The flowing waters running over surely upstream from where the filth-covered ruffian had washed, as each step forward soaked the patches of his brown linen trousers and ate at the worn boots which tread across the aqueous path. To think this venture would only pay ten golds, a pitiful sum for one's life cut short here, and to go beyond the measure of their pay. Retrieving the dwarf in no means guaranteed, and certainly the risk of dying to goblin arrows was not high on the man's list of thing to do. No, he had many things yet to be done, a world to make a better place for those born without anything to their name. At one time in his life he was a man with nothing to lose, but now he had a family of his own. A ragtag bunch of orphans under his care, the orphanage was his charge along with every urchin in it. Thus despite the current's follow, and the knowledge of more goblins being detected by the unmanagable orc and the more agreeable warrior woman, the psion pressed on to the other side of the bank preparing his mind for the skirmish to come.

The veil was crossed, but what of the threshold? What did the others thing of the nameless psion? One who failed to introduce himself to this misfit group of adventurers. Then again none of them had bothered to stop and truly sit down for a conversation with the mute. Did they think him illiterate? Or had they simply assumed he was as aloof as his silence made him? Where does the mercenary work end, and the adventuring party begin? After this uncertain rescue, would they not go their separate paths? Laura could only do so much without more money for basic goods. They were his responsibility upon his sense of good, but so too where these fools who ventured in so far and put the goblins on alert. Thus to too would he have to be vigilant and scan the area with his eyes for the goblins had taken the advantage not only in action but territory.

So was it so easy to follow a fool?
Yes, for someone had to save their ass.
Surprise, Surprise.

"Thanks, luv!" Hymn slung the quiver onto his back, unintentionally showing off his chiseled chest and abs. Tightening the strap and pickin up the bow itself, he headed forward to get a view of the battlefield. Three goblins. One attacking Mr Tall, Green and Osteosexual, the other attacking that Halruaan beauty clad in tight leather. He revised as the third goblin loosed its shot. That was two goblins attacking the Halruaan beauty wearing a black pair of trousers that highlighted the curves around her exquisite rear end. It was his chivalrous streak that made the decision for him, not the trousers.

He drew the bow back and aimed at the goblin attacking the roguishly cute Halruaan. Not wanting to hit her unintentionally, he aimed a little wide of her shoulder. As he loosed, however, he saw he had overcompensated. The arrow flew past them both, though it definitely announced Hymn's entry into the fray. He stepped back a bit, hoping the tree would make the shot a little more difficult for the goblin with a bow while he nocked another arrow. "Perhaps I should just stick with insulting people," He mused, then started composing a jibe involving the uncanny resemblance of the bow-goblin with the barbarian's skull-hook.

Goblin A drops his bow and attempts to attack Bar and misses horribly, evidently a tad intimidated by the barbarian's... codpiece.

@Samdragonx is up next!

The barbarian, having swung his greataxe at the goblin, exclaimed:

"Kiki, what are you doing?! Would you let me do this?"

Bar's charming personality had returned to the way the brute typically posed in public.
The arrow still stook out the tip of his elbow when his yelling commensed.

"I'll get all of you greenmeats, just like this!"

The more heads he'd have, the better. If only all of his minions could see his "great" plan. He stepped to a new position right north of the goblin he would swing at. Looking at the creature the way a lion eyes his prey in mortal combat. His axe clutched again, he inhaled. The short burst of enegry would fiercely be directed at the small creature. Confident in his victory, the barbarian did not grow angry. Rather, he enjoyed the moment of certainty that no matter where he swung, he would land a hit on something green.

One swing later, Bar seeked to see if he could find the slightly harder parts in the green, looking for a skull to collect.
*tap tap, pad pad, tap*

The goblin next to Kiki slashes at her, barely giving Kiki enough time to duck under a blow meant for her head.

---

Kiki was perfectly fine with letting the barbarian get all the glory for this fight, but she was already entangled with this goblin and she could see an opening. She took her shot, praying to whatever deity was listening that it would land true. Out of some spur of luck (or was it divine intervention?), Kiki's blade found its mark, separating goblin head from goblin body. Kiki scooped up the skull and backed away, tossing it towards Bar before hiding behind Cas.

---

The final goblin fires an arrow towards Kiki's newfound cover, but the sight of his headless buddy crumpling to the ground caused the arrow to fly well away from its target. The goblin then tosses the bow to the ground, holding his arms up as if to surrender.

For two months, the fugitive, Twice-Orphaned, named decades ago by his clan, endured absent mindedness, now suddenly staring into the Heraclitean river, alongside a rag tag group of similarly assumed rejects, to which he now haphazardly belonged. Brim encountered and conquered this suffered social meningitis, a vexed flux for the majority of his lanky life, effervescing as an outcast through the ranks of villages and towns, denominated by the fervor and fever of civilization’s conformity. His demeanor could have nursed etiquette as an only child, devoted and tended by mimicking the behaviors of others, blending into the wall of obscurity. However, his towering height, capacious constitution, and offensive bodily odors prevented such a facile camouflage, especially with those kindred not sheered from the same Goliath cloth. He enjoyed the forceful stench of skunk pelts and intentional soiling of redundant prestidigitation, which provided a worsening schism, a reek he himself doted, as his aroma broke most, if not all social mores of camaraderie. The stink, though, was also somewhat of a fragrant façade, easily rectified by the very same cantrip, to force others off his anticipated scent, when being hunted.

The day stood, alongside the stone sorcerer, upon the banks of a quiet tributary. If he committed a crossing, such a valuable defense of smells would likely be washed away, baptized in the Rubicon of combat.

Dawn and dusk, he had watched, patiently enduring all the annoyances that irritable nerves and a shaken reason could inflict. Though, rumors remarked, what had saved him from the grave would only recompense his attention to dirt and disgusting pongs by forming the source of constant future anxiety. In fact, his health was being sacrificed to preserve a mere ruin of humanity. He obviously observed no limits in sarcastic gratitude and joy when his nose was fumigated with said redolence, declaring danger to those who smelt such a familiarity before. Tracing the gradual return to reality, flattering his sanguine hopes with the illusion that his mind with the aging aid of potential wisdom, would eventually settle him away from this nomadic life style, the Herculean man judged the neighboring, young wizard’s reflection, gingerly, as others marched ahead into battle.

The barbarian, bard, and rogue had chosen to wade into treacherous territory, addressing an enemy, which was lost upon Brim. This would be the first time, he could prove the commencement of his worthy companionship. He had been gifted with the morning of magic at a young age, hewn to now only a handful of golden nuggets. His eye, long stranger to any gleam of pleasure, caught someone beyond the foliage to which Kiki and Bar had ventured to. Witnessing bodies fall with bloodied screams clued that their foes remained, as a silhouette had cemented its stance against Cas and Pebbles.

Delighted, he dashed into the waters, hopeful for the woody fray beyond. His tongue gathered, in a very high-pitch, his accustomed shrill Tysonesque lisp to rally his flowering comrade.

“Theethe, leth go!”

The Genasi flipped through his small, gem-inlaid spellbook. It had the symbol of the Allianced embroidered on its cover, being a gift from the faction. Not even bothering to look up, Seethe read and waited as his alies waded into combat, with the smelly, strange-sounding Goliath rushing in last and calling him over. As a matter of fact, the Goliath sounded so strange, Seethe had looked up from his book for a second to make sure this was the same Goliath he had been traveling with.

"I'll provide some ranged support from here. Don't worry about me." Seethe had said, nonchalantly as he continued reading his tome. It didn't sound like too much goblins were over where the entire party had been, so it didn't matter too much to the Wizard that he had to be there immediately. He decides to take this brief respite as a breather away from that rotten smell he had to bear with for the past few days.

"Horrendous.." the Genasi said, under his breath.

Taking a deep breath, Pebbles decided that the last shot was simply a fluke. Besides, nobody saw that, right? He hoped nobody noticed it, anyways. Once he had quietly regained his composure, he raced across the battlefield, pushing through the brush while his longbow with both hands. Once he was out, he stepped behind the half-orc barbarian before him, reaching for an arrow and taking aim as he watched his target. With a silent breath, he let the arrow fly loose as it sailed through the air and struck the small green creature. Even though it wasn't visible on his face, the kenku held himself with a faint air of pride at his success. He preferred to get closer to his targets, but it was nice to know that he was still handy with a bow and arrow.

((OOC: Post written by @The Grey Dust))

A Whisper.

Hissed into the mind.
Pain... Felt.
No, not felt, wool.
Wool from lambs.

Lambs ripped apart.
Heads torn off.
Guttural Spray.
Bleeding stumps.

Beating Blood.
Bleating, the bleating.
Screams.
Brains.

Death.

The river traversed now, wet and soaked from the waist down. It made it difficult to run as the waters clung to the cloth. And yet land was far more forgiving than stream. Finding a footing and rushing towards the thicket where the action was. There would be no surrender, not while the green orc had his way, slaying goblins left and right today. At least Kiki had restraint, but she looked far too injured to continue as the psion looked at the morphed tiefling changeling and the dual-wielding warrior. A nod given to acknowledge their efforts, and a single hand motion made towards Kiki. Hopefully the tief-changeling who was busy being a rather bit of a distraction for the female eye can assist with. In whatever manner was possible as the rest of the boys hunted down the last remaining bugger. Yes, even for the foppish nature of the wizard, he was one of the boys. Frankly the Goliath and Orc added more testosterone than this group needed, and it seemed all the women vanished from their group. Maybe it was the smell? The psion would have to wash himself well after they reach Plan- actually wherever this little job took them now.

Thoughts of hygiene aside, the psion turned his gaze at the last goblin. Arms surrendered with arms in surrender. Unacceptable, they had just nearly killed one of their group members.

One he liked for her less abrasive personality and less malodorous nature, although he had no stroog feelinsg about the crow. But to fire an arrow at Kiki? That particular goblin was punished as the mute tore into its feeble mind with terrors to render it truly horrified. For a moment the goblins eyes would widen, insights unrolled as a terrible headache filled its empty head. Screaming in agony as its psyche began to meltdown to the psychic assault. Senses fired from the nerves like deadly popcorn, thousands of neurons firing in tandem to experience glimpses of what death felt like to be beheaded like the other two goblins. Breaking the will and shattering the grasp of knowledge. And then nothing.

The grip relaxed, and the whisper receded, but the memory of the experience was still imprinted upon the Goblin's poor mind.


((OOC: Post by @Regitnui))
Hymn put a protective arm around Kiki's waist, taking the opportunity to steal a kiss on the cheek. "Tough and gorgeous," he complimented her as the silent party member did... something to the last goblin. He switched to Infernal, lacing the words with magic as he shouted to the goblin, "And you're only going to die here!"

((Vicious Mockery, Wis save 13, 3 psychic damage. No movement. The goblin passes its Save for no effect!))

Despite the great joy and relief Bar felt when Kiki granted him the skull of her kill, trying to juggle 2 skulls while running to collect a third can be quite the physical and mental challenge.
Bar found out the latter, the hard way. With his axe still mostly covered in goblinblood and grass, the decision to swing it at a small green target was another uncalculated one.
Having aimed for the neck of the goblin, rather than the feet he usually aimed for, Bar swung his axe over the goblin.

"Thanks!"

The energy pumping through his body while he did not rage was taxing for the brutes mind.

"No, wait.."

With his concentration being so widely dispersed, he had thanked the goblin instead of killing it.

"I mean.. eh...Roahr?!"

The confusion that ensued caused Bar to lose confidence, to stop and stare at the small green goblin. It took him a few to reboot what little grey matter he had and remind himself to kill the goblin.

---

With the likelihood of allowing this goblin a chance to surrender quickly fading, Kiki summoned up her courage and rushed towards the final goblin. The poor little green thing was holding its head, wracked with mental anguish as Bar had rushed it, and now it also cowered in the shadow of the barbarian's hulking might, its small mind unable to comprehend the totality of what had just happened, nor why this half-orc had just thanked him. Kiki's blow came swiftly as the goblin had no time to react, the rapier darting out and skewering the goblin through the eye socket as the shortsword whipped around and severed the head from the body. Kiki staggered back from the blood spurting, her own wounds quite evident as she held the goblin's head out towards Bar, still stuck on the end of her rapier like a small green kebab.

"Is... is this what you wanted?" she asked, panting heavily from exertion. All of the goblins were dead, two by her own hand. Kiki dropped her shortsword on the ground, and her knees buckled under her soon after, even as she still struggled to hold the rapier up towards Bar. "I'm... sorry you didn't get to show me... whatever it was," she said softly before turning her head towards Cas. "I think I require healing."

Hymn caught Kiki as she crumpled, helpng her into a more comfortable resting position. "Sure, healing," he replied. "I'll get you a healer as soon as I can. Rest for now, alright?" He kissed her forehead fondly. Would be nice if he actually knew any healing spells. Few enough people liked having him around when they were awake, healthy and armed. He'd never had a ton of people queueing up for any service other than the bedroom type.

Though I do know someone who can help. Cas looked around, debating the possibility of changing personae so visibly. The big brute was still over there, with the silent one and a new kenku nearby as well. Was it worth outing herself as a changeling in front of all these people to save one person? Even if the person was as unconsciously attractive as... Cas put Hymn's had against Kiki's suddenly pale skin. Sbe was going cold. Fuck it.

Hymn's limbs and body thinned and paled from red to a pale brown. The proportions of his torso changed, the front of the shirt pressing outwards even though it began to hang a little more loosely on her. She raised a hand to do up the jacket, suddenly self-conscious of all the male gaze, then brushed her long hair from her face. "Kiki! Stay awake, OK?" Ardiane settled the other woman in her lap, reaching for the wound and running her hand across it.

Gently murmuring a Moonshae song her mother had taught her, about how the love of a faerie had saved a knight, she kept her eyes on Kiki's as the wound healed under her fingers. "You scared me," she said, rubbing a tear off her cheek and leaving a faint stripe of Kiki's blood across her face. "Don't just run off and leave us behind. You never know what'll happen." She brushed the other woman's hair from her face, gently kissing her forehead, then blushing at her own boldness.

Pebbles gripped his bow tightly for a brief moment, before cocking his head as the last goblin falls. He began to replace his bow to where it had rested prior, but stopped as he watched the shapeshifter change form. He was rather interested in this occurrence, and halted as it took place, letting his bow rest idly a few inches from his back as he observed the transformation. After a few seconds of watching, however, the Kenku grew bored, and returned the bow to its place where it had rested prior. He hated using the thing, but it was a good idea to make sure he knew how to use it so that he could avoid confrontation... even though it usually made battles less exciting. Disregarding the ongoings of the other members of the party, Pebbles walked over towards where his arrows should have hit, searching the battlefield to gather any remaining usable arrows.

The battle ended on softer notes, as the eyes of a Gehenna broached through the foliage, a devilish transformation.

His lack of thrill, of prurience, of astonishment, of any sort of distinct interest, began to arouse a more severe distrust of Hymn, as the shapeshifter’s felicitous pretense of maculate origins spawned Ardiane. A Potemkin bard bred of crocodile tears, standing as an Archimago, full of mawworms and newspeak over the panting rogue. Was she both a Goneril and Regan, falsely professing love in efforts to inherit a king’s trust, leering over an eventual inheritance? Or, better yet, a vicar of Bray, hiding as a sanctimonious hypocrite? A pharisaical step-son disguising animosity as philanthropy, in order to seduce her, or was it, his next victim. The sorcerer felt utterly incapable of playing the part of ignorance properly, any longer.

He was afraid to try.

Certainty accompanied ready-made suspicions now, viewing her previous politeness as a deviant and aberrant phenomenon. And yet how else could he now receive him? Or was it her? Not heartily! Impossible due to the psychological betrayal. His only objective, to stave his mind from further inquiries, was to watch a little longer.

Brim knew Hymn. Didn’t he?

Another provoked, point-blank question. From its novelty and its surreptitious nature, punctilious courtesy prompted the manner best calculated to restrain the lanky, smelly man. There stood the apathetic taciturnity of a beautiful Cleopatra, now empathic to a mortal betwixt her. The danger of his confidence in the Tiefling, now turned half-elf, infringed through his facial defenses, fetching a flattering reality, bluntly. His frown, audible to only pregnant nerves, alarmed to contract unnaturally, to such a writhing avidya.

A direct lie. For moral reasons.

The struggle of identity savored a similar occupation with the composer of stone’s history. The burly, wet mage hurriedly brushed past the safety of the leaves, conjuring slowly, meticulous graves for the goblins, crypts of gravels suitable to bury those without names, and now, futures. After sealing the earth once more over their collective corpus, strangely enough, the giantkin no longer was disconcerted by the mysterious similitude of the young musician’s oblique approach.

She evidently cared for Kiki. And that was enough for the goliath.

"I leckon we thould move befo’ mo angly gobwinth thow up.”

Terribly amused by the idea of befriending a creature and then enacting betrayal upon it, Bar spend next no time worrying about the feminity in the party, even if the increase thereof was seemingly present.

After seeing how kiki collapsed under 'a few hits', Bar shook his head. Mumbling to himself as he was making his way back to the stream he had used as a bath, he thought to himself:
"Change in boobies happened. Wonder what would happen if change in leadership..." Bar had a cold shiver run up his spine.
"Change is..." He paused as his breath became deeper "...gooood." His warm breath nearly sounded like a waterfall as the memory of thanking a goblin, the skull of whom he would yet add to his collection, left Bar with a burning passion for betrayal.
"Hehehe..."
He rubbed the blood of his hands, walked over to the one 'uncertain' of their gender, put down his axe, tried grabbing their arm, shaking it once if successful and then thanking 'it'. As he collected the crude weapon once more, he left the other members untouched.
Though all that happened in one quick succession of events, Bar felt not the passion he had once felt. The flames thereof were not hot enough. There was no thrill, no power, no strength.. nothing.

Though it took him most of his mental capacity to hold in his wretched reaction of laughter and the puny feelings of joy or even compassion, he believed he managed to walk away from the rest without, at least relatively, losing face.
He returned to the river yet a second time. Wandering in his confusion, he wondered. Should he strike now, maybe later? The idea did not sit well with Bar. Yelling loudly at Seethe: "And you too!!"

Bar looked at his reflection in the mirror.
"Perhaps watermelons think their green makes them friendly." It had finally hit him. "They missed me for that, I bet!" Bar felt a sensational disrespect. "I'm not weak. I will win... I must..."

The near naked barbarian searched his pile of loot for something more suitable. His green skin would reveal his true motives of change and dominion too soon. "Clothes? Too hot!... Boots? To small!... A cape?.. hmm, maybe... " The barbarian digged on as he talked to himself.