Session 27: Goblins... Why Did It Have to Be Goblins?

A sullen dawn bled over Kemperbad’s stone quays as the Dandy-Fraulein slipped her moorings and nosed upriver. The companions—seasoned now by debt, deceit, and one too many tavern brawls—carried more gold in their lockbox than they had ever held, yet unease weighed heavier than coin. Qavitrae’s keen elven eyes lingered on the receding town, remembering the purple-kerchiefed thugs who had spat threats the night before and the gunshot Felrick fired to scatter them. Behind her, Viscount Thindruk Steelbone polished bruised knuckles and wondered how a dwarf could be mistaken for a man named “Lackerson” and why that false name drew trouble like flies to a corpse.

Two days’ escorting the pompous Count Bormann through rain-soaked battlefields proved mercifully dull—save for the laughter when the indolent noble finally stumbled from the riverboat clutching a chamber pot rather than history books. A merchant’s promise of cheap timber and a banker’s iron-bound chest of crowns sweetened departure, yet the company’s talk turned quickly to rumor: of plague-struck Wittgendorf with its leaning, hungry castle; of drowned fish waving at Wanda from the river’s black depths; of river wardens recruiting warm bodies to fight bandits and “mutants”—a word now whispered, now denied.

They saw the cursed hamlet soon enough. Shrouded in grey drizzle, Wittgendorf’s crooked towers perched on an eroding cliff like rotten teeth. No boats met them at the sodden jetty, only gaunt villagers who watched in silence. A lone castle window reflected dull light, as though some sleepless eye observed the passing craft. Qavitrae felt the Winds of Magic coil and writhe about the place and spat an oath older than the Empire; Wanda muttered a prayer to the God-Emperor and kept one hand on her mace until the village slipped from view.

Three days’ travel carried the Fraulein to Grissenwald, where palisade walls and honest smoke promised respite. Eusapia—brown-robed, wolf-shadowed—took her leave at the forest’s edge, seeking a hidden shrine to wrestle the beast within her soul. Nora Abendroth watched the strigoi hunter vanish among the pines and whispered that she would not be the one sent to track a friend turned monster.

Grissenwald’s riverside inn, The Drowned Otter, offered shepherd’s pie, nut-brown ale, and gossip fermented stronger than any spirit. The talk was all dwarves of Clan Great-Hammer—once miners, now drunkards—who swilled away newfound coin while nearby farms burned and their folk vanished. Matilda the landlady spoke of three farms left charred and silent; dockhands warned of wolves and four-toed raiders seen at night. Felrick raised an eyebrow at that—goblins, perhaps—but the others scoffed until the sight of his bounty hunter’s badge quelled any laughter.

When four Great-Hammer dwarves lurched in demanding Matilda’s rare ale, Thindruk hailed them as kin. His warm greeting soured the moment he dared ask whether hard work or begging lined their purses. Pride flared hotter than spirits: fists flew, chairs splintered, and mugs shattered. Felrick sat at the bar with his pistol laid across his lap, sliding a gold crown toward Matilda with an apology for the mess. In minutes the brawlers lay groaning amid spilled foam; Thindruk’s courteous bow as they staggered out earned a bemused snort from Qavitrae.

Yet the clash set tongues wagging. Town watchmen arrived, harried and hollow-eyed, blaming the dwarves for arson and murder yet admitting no proof. Farm folk spoke of torchlit raids, livestock driven off, entire households hacked down. Though fear painted Great-Hammer as villains, Felrick doubted drunkards could slip unseen through forest and field. “Robbing farmers won’t buy a year’s ale,” he rasped. “Something else feeds those coffers.”

Dawn saw the companions provisioned: Wanda buckled brigandine over broad shoulders; Thindruk secured the loan of a sleek chestnut gelding named Bracken (at six crowns’ princely fee); Felrick joked that a gnome atop a warhorse made a proper western picture, pistol and all. They hired guards for the Fraulein, left word for Eusapia, and struck south along muddy cart-ruts toward the nearest steading.

The Grunbauer farm still breathed—barely. Behind crude palisades a weary patriarch spoke of smoke on distant horizons and the knowledge that death crept ever closer. He had heard of gold-flush dwarves, aye, but seen none; only rumors and fear tilled the soil. With pleasantries spent, the travellers pressed on to the next homestead, guided by a stale scent of ash on the wind.

What they found silenced even Felrick’s gallows humor.

Charred timbers jutted from a still-smoldering shell; the gate hung ajar, its bar flung aside. No voices answered Thindruk’s call. They searched, boots crunching over blackened straw, until Nora gagged at the first blood-slick threshold. Inside, slaughter. A family of eight—three generations—lay where they had slept or stood, butchered by crude blades. Qavitrae’s woodland grace faltered as she knelt among spilled pickles and broken crockery, withdrawing a jagged, square-tipped sword crusted with drying gore. Four toes. Narrow prints. And the gnawed crescents at a matron’s shoulder told the rest: goblins, and their wolf-mounts.

Outside, Wanda traced hoof-scars and wolf pads in the rain-soft yard. Livestock tracks—sheep, goats, a lone cow—led east, away from the road, toward the brooding treeline beneath Black Peak. Toward the abandoned mine purchased years ago by Etelka Herzen, the elusive Nuln noblewoman whose letter had lured a demon-summoning cult to ruin in far-off Bögenhafen.

The companions gathered beside Bracken’s restless flanks, shock hardening into grim resolve. Qavitrae’s emerald gaze swept the forest’s edge; she pictured black tunnels swallowing children, goblin war-packs driving stolen herds beneath a wizard’s tower. Thindruk tightened his grip on the gelding’s reins, shame at dwarf-kind’s slander burning in his chest. Wanda murmured a bailiff’s oath to see justice done; Nora flexed calloused fingers, recalling blitzball fields where victory meant bruises, not butchered kin. Felrick checked powder and primer, whispered to the horse to be calm, and grinned his wolfish grin.

Without another word they followed the blood-streaked trail east, into a Reichwald whispering of iron and old grudges, where goblins chittered in the dark and a mysterious sorceress watched from a lonely tower. The river lay far behind them now; only smoke, hunger, and the promise of steel lay ahead.

And somewhere beneath Black Peak, the Enemy Within smiled.