Chapter Two Part Four
Fordvill, Goblins and Bandits
Another day another road, this one leads to Fordvill the forest has reached up to the edge of the road here, it will need cutting back before the road is endangered. When we get to the village we need to get the local villagers to do it. We reach the village, a while later, it is a tidy small place with crops in the fields and animals on the pasture; we ask where the lord is. We are told that their lord and lady are away and we will need to talk with the reeve. We find him at the manor and he turns out to be very stubborn, saying he can’t do that till the lord comes back. I wave my Kings Writ at him but he remains stubborn so I go into full out Herald using all my influence and reputation to change his mind, helped by Leatony casting his Thick Skinned spell on me. It takes a while but eventually, with me constantly looking at Yogi and Sir Leatony, he gives in and says he will send out groups next day to cut and burn.
The reeve now very humble and contrite asks us to stay overnight, which we do, and informs us that the road to the next village of Flameval is often blocked by bandits from the forest, this looks like a good chance to get some glory and impress my betters. The evening meal is plan simple fare, not what Sir Leatony would have expected or got if the lord was here, however he holds his tongue and accepts the plan food he is given.
That Night – A very small goblin comes and wakes Yogi and says to him ‘entering the forest will bring danger and victory; not entering the forest will bring danger and loss’. Then he walks away whistling as he goes, Yogi gets up to follow him but by the time he gets outside all is chaos. The goblin has joined other goblins overturning things, opening gates to animal pens and causing mischief waking the whole village. Yogi goes back to wake the rest of us and the reeve, we all grab our weapons and armour. However we can’t, it all seems to be stuck to the ground even swords stuck in their scabbards. I think that the goblin has been up to mischief and used magic to bind them together. I say that I can use my Folk spell to disperse the effect one item at a time. However Yogi says he can do the whole building in one go, which he does. We go back to sleep leaving the villagers to sort their mess out.
We decide in the morning that Yogi’s warning means that we should find the bandits by entering the forest rather than taking the risk of being ambushed. We leave Leatony’s page behind with one sumpter horse and any things we do not need. I ride the other sumpter horse beside Leatony. Yogi casts Behold onto the goblin that left the message, lucky for him his spells finds him and there is the bandit camp being watched by the goblin. The camp appears to have a guard with 3 guard dogs and is large enough for up to twenty or so people. With the direction in his mind Yogi navigates us into the forest and towards the camp. As he does so I cast Pathway on horses and people so that we will not be slowed down by the forest and its trickery.
The second hour of our trip brings a near miss as we notice a wasps nest on the path which we could have easily hit and been troubled by. Then the forest manages to get us lost and turned around and we need to rest to recover from fatigue. After 5 hours or so we reach the area of the camp and can hear and smell it ahead. We seem to have ended coming at it from the opposite direction to that we were traveling, the forest again we suppose. Yogi casts Band of Brothers on us all along with Berserk on himself and Ture Weapon on Leantony’s lance. I cast Pathway and Mobility on us all as well as Leatony’s horse and Leatony casts Protection on his horse and all of us. We move up to the edge of the trees; Yogi runs into the camp looking for a target while snarling waving his arms with spears in his paws trying to intimate the camp, which he seems to do quite effectively. I walk in and look around ready to let lose arrows. Leatony gallops his horse in to the camp aiming at the leader he makes out. He sees that this man has a massive bulge on the left side of his head. Leatony suddenly feels that he should be attacking the bear but with that luck that rides with heroes he manages to throw that thought off.
A Christian Warrior 