161: Globnak Mansplatta

So we made our way towards Globnak Mansplatta’s cavern remembering his ten hench-goblins. Blume prepared her blunderbuss and I channelled my magic. When we got to the cavern they moved towards us, and Blume fired her gun into the cave, and amazingly, didn’t hit a single thing.

I summoned the fires of Rhuin, and ignited my staff and Fred’s and Greta’s swords. And Fred advanced into the cavern cautiously, assessing our options, and taking up a position protecting Blume. But almost before we could set ourselves, Mansplatta came charging in against Fred and struck him a mighty blow with his great blade, and following up with another blow, Fred was already rocking.

Greta charged in to back Fred up and got a good hit back on Mansplatta with her flaming sword. And then the other goblins rushed in behind their leader. Two of them reached Greta both getting hits on her, and making her glad she was wearing her new helmet. And two reached Fred, both hitting him and I could see he was in a bad way. Two of them went for Blume and they get hits on her, too. The other four were ran towards Willow and me.

Willow pulled some sort of concoction out of her bag and drank it down, and then, helped by the potion, she said it was called Moot Milk, deftly made her way through the crowd of goblins towards Fred. And when she reached him she gave him something for his wounds, but I don’t think she had a lot of useful stuff left in her bag. Blume drew her pistol and fired at one of her assailants, but missed.

I could see things were already going badly, and I decided to cast a firewall to close off one side of the fight. But with four goblins coming towards me, I didn’t have time to channel any magic. Fortunately I managed to cast the wall without any preparation. I cast it over Blume, hoping the short term pain it would cause her, would ultimately protect her, and managed to cover six goblins, as well.

But Blume was left on fire, and close to death. I could see that if she didn’t put the fire out immediately she would die. She dragged herself away from the fire but wasn’t able to put the flames out. But while she was thrashing about on the ground, covered in fire, her eyes full of tears, I think she called out for help from Harry’s uncle Isaac, and the flames around her dissipated.

And then Fred, despite also being close to death, got in a huge hit on Mansplatta with his flaming sword and killed the great goblin. I thought that might mean the fight was over, with the cowardly goblin minions retreating now their leader was dead, but they all stayed for the fight. Two of them piled onto Fred and cut his leg.

Greta was up against two of the them, too, and was not having much luck. She missed her blows and was hit in return.

Of the goblins left behind the fire wall, four flailed about trying, and succeeding, in putting their flames out. One ran and attacked Willow, but the Moot Milk had left her too agile for him. And another went for Greta and hit her. But both of them, too stupid, or too preoccupied with the fight, to try to put their flames out, soon burned to death.

But Fred was bleeding and his wounds made him fall unconscious. I could see things were going badly, and having killed Mansplatta, we had done our job, so I shouted at everyone to retreat. I wasn’t sure how that would be achieved, but it seemed like our only option. And if we had to leave some of us behind, I hoped we might convince Cacklespit to retrieve them later.

Willow bandaged Fred’s wounds and managed to stop the bleeding. And surrounded by the dying goblins wondered whether her vision had been of a goblin heaven, and that made her feel better, knowing that if there was a heaven for goblins there must be a heaven for most people, even halflings.

Four goblins approached Blume and me, around the flaming wall. Blume shot one of them dead, I killed another with a magic bolt. But Greta was surrounded and the wrong side of the firewall. The goblins all piled in and she took so many wounds, she fell to the ground, lifeless.

And so there were only me and Blume left fighting. The goblins on the other side of the wall all tried to get at Willow but she managed to dodge them all. And the final two reached me and Blume. I managed to fend one of them off with my flaming staff, but the other one got a good hit on me.

Another of the goblins burned to death, but there were still three around Willow and Fred and two on Blume and me. I called for retreat again, and Blume backed away engaging one of the goblins in an interesting chat about this season’s colours, which just confused it enough to stop his attack. But the second one followed us, and I hit him with my flaming staff and he fell.

Meanwhile Willow managed to heal Fred, and he came round and struggled to his feet. And they both tried to make their way out of the cavern. Willow was quick enough, on the Moot Milk, but Fred withdrew more carefully, defending himself.

One of the goblins picked up Mansplatta’a great cleaver and declared himself boss of the cavern, but there weren’t many goblins left for him to be boss of. And the others attacked Fred as he retreated. They got a hit on him, but not enough to bring him down.

And we all backed out of the cavern leaving Fred to the final two goblins, and as the magical flames around his sword began to gutter he got a furious combination on them killing them both.

And so we returned to Cacklespit, minus Greta, to report that we had killed Mansplatta. Willow healed us all, but she was looking a bit shattered as she was coming down off the Moot Milk. Cacklespit sent some goblins in to retrieve Greta’s body, and we discovered that the final killing blow on Greta had actually hit her ‘Life of Sigmar’ book and that had miraculously saved her life.

And then Willow asked Cacklespit for another taste of the purple cap potion as she had seen goblin heaven and now wanted to see halfling heaven so she could see Dreamy again. Blume said that she wouldn’t see him, as Blume hadn’t seen Harry, and they were much closer.

And so Willow had another taste and this time she found herself back in Boegenhafen, in the warehouse, at the summoning. But this time, instead of hiding amongst the crates and throwing water at the magic ring, she was chanting a prayer to Sigmar and she killed Teugen with Sigmar’s power.

And so she did see Dreamy one last time. She told us about that and said she thought the cult of Sigmar was perhaps too wrapped up in the nefarious. And she said that my vision had shown a trail leading back to the cathedral of Sigmar and so perhaps that was where the heart of corruption lay. Perhaps the greatest enemy is not the enemy without, perhaps the greatest enemy is the enemy within.

But Greta said that although there may be the odd rotten apple in the cult of Sigmar, she was sure it did not reach too highly in the organisation, and it certainty did not include the Grand Theogonist or the High Capitular. In any case, she discounted Willow’s theory because she was still on the mind altering drugs.

And so Cacklespit granted us safe passage and we could continue our journey. We left the caves and back out into the gorge, and now we could see the defences that the goblins had set up above the gorge, and it was clear that had we not had Cacklespit’s blessing then we would be easy targets for the goblins manning them.

Blume talked about her vision, of us emerging from a cave, by a waterfall, and although we were now following the stream that had cut the gorge, there was no waterfall.