Making Good Choices --

We began at the outskirts of the GoblinKing camp, where we, luckily, found a deer impaled on poison spikes in a clever ground trap. Not exactly an auspicious beginning, but a warning we took to heart nevertheless. Barton cast invisibility and carefully snuck through the surrounding areas -- which, as it turns out, were groomed for goblin-hiding positions, full of traps, and had wandering sneaky guards. Barton scouted as much of the fortification as he could, and returned to the party with his assessment. This process took a while -- and lucky that it did because during this time, horns blasted, and there was something of a changing of the guard, with a set of troops and manticores coming in to the fortification, while a like group set off. Had we rushed headlong into battle, they would have gotten reinforcements right from the get-go.
 
In all, the sense we got from Barton was that we would be outnumbered, up against well-trained forces, in a fortified camp that was groomed to create kill zones and full of traps. The party (wisely, I think) decided to set off after the raid/patrol/whatever party that left the camp, and with the help once again of the Ranger, followed them for the better part of the day, as they made their way south and a little east along a well-beaten track.
 
They set camp near nightfall, and the party quickly made plans to attack them.
 
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No, just kidding. We argued strategy until almost dark before settling on what amounted to a plan. Which nominally was: attack the high HP manticores and ignore the easy to kill targets that would pepper us with multiple attacks for most of the battle. Which is a dumb strategy but I guess I shouldn't expect more from a bunch of farmers. That said, the remainder of the plans were the same, which was: web the manticores, take the surprise initiative, kill things.
 
Barton cast his first web spell, ensnaring one of the manticores. Griswald cast Shatter, doing light damage to the manticores, but killing two goblins caught in the sphere in one shot! I decided to cast Thorns as something of a delay tactic, to force a long-range battle with the 4 bugbears and 6 remaining goblins as the party concentrated on the manticores. (Because Thorns is a concentration spell, I had to hold it for most of the battle and was unable to cast any high-damage spells until near the end of battle.) While the trapped goblins could continue to attack at range, it kept them at disadvantage for most of their shots, and prevented a zergling rush. That said, they were still damn effective at range even with disadvantage. They were, after all, GodKing goblins.
 
Griswold and Dagos were dealing the most damage to the manticores, though the party was getting a fairly constant barrage of arrows from the goblins, (and by "the party" I mean "Dagos") and as the manticores eventually broke free, they proved as dangerous as last time. (Kudos to Barton, btw, who managed to web one of the manticores in air, which came crashing down and taking fall damage Totally the best moment of the battle.) Meanwhile, the bugbears had managed to escape the thorns, and were now rushing the hill. Barton went down relatively quickly, twice; Dagos more or less had to hide in the trees after taking sustained damage, and Verx ended up in trouble as well, fighting off bugbears, goblin arrows, and manticores all at once. I sent my wolf to his side to slow the bugbear attack.
 
Eventually I let go the Thorns spell to cast Moonbeam to finish off the Manticores, then cast entangle to trap the remaining goblins, insisting that we capture one alive. Dagos ran to flank the last remaining Goblin (an excitable little fellow named Brix, as we later learned) and, incredulously, got shot (again, still at disadvantage.) With a look of surprise and disappointment, Dagos went down in a heap before we were able to finally subdue the last goblin. (Totally the second best moment of the battle.)
 
We licked our wounds, cast whatever remaining healing spells we had left, took a short rest, and woke up Brix, who was both supercilious and garrulous. (Really, he's quite the fucking riot.) One has to respect anyone who, tied and bound and laying in the blood of his erstwhile party, is that cocky. I like him.
 
He's been a font of information -- noting that he's not terribly bright and one has to filter for that fact. But while he is full of delusion, I don't sense that he is full of deception. He's shared information that is already immediately important -- including the position of a second attack point along the road, the overall disposition of the GodKing Goblin Camp (including numbers of the camp and overall layout), the basic system of communicating with the horns, and, perhaps most importantly, information about an old woman who rides into camp every so often on a Griffon and who carries with her the symbol of the rose. This is the first solid clue we've run across tying the attacks on commerce to the letter with the rose signet seal. Brix clearly thinks she is dangerous, and refers to her with more deference than anyone else he has spoken of.
 
Our plan is now to return back to the camp, and two strategies seem viable -- either use the horn to signal "under attack" and let a sortie come out from the fortified area where we can attack them on neutral ground, or to use an element of surprise in a direct assault on the camp. I may shape shift and come in at night to scout over the wall and get a firmer understanding of what exactly lies before us, which would inform our overall strategy.
 
Meanwhile, Brix continues to entertain us with stories along the road. I really want to buy that guy a beer.