SITUATION
In our Last Episode the heroes came upon an old man, dying in the bush. He pleaded to them to recover the Idol of Kojuku from his village and beged them to retrieve it and take it to the Temple of Wah. The heroes find their way to the village and discover the scene of a massacre. Some set themselves to burning the bodies of the dead while others search for the Idol. They found a locked and sealed strongbox they presumed contained the idol, but had to stay the night in the village. During the night they were attacked by a small band of ninja.
It is morning decisions must be made as to what is to be done with this Idol…
THE GAME
In the morning there was much discussion as to how to get the Idol to the Temple. Daichi, it turns out as familiar with the temple, having visited it a couple of times, and familiar enough with the region to lay out two options.
Option #1 was to head straight up into the jungle and through the mountain passes. This would take about 2-3 days. They could live off the land on the march and be done with it quickly. Any more ninjas would have to track them.
Opion #2 was to take the long way around the mountains – around the northern end of the island. This option would take about two WEEKS!? The had pitiful little money between them to be staying in inns and buying food along the way… if there had been any other ninjas around the previous night they would surely be watching out for them and there would be no one they could trust on the road….
Eventually they decided to head into the jungle, covering their tracks as best they could.
Later in the afernoon on that first day they stumbled across a Goblin hunting party….
Strangely it was Isamu, who was taking up the rear, that spotted the Goblin drawing his bow in a tree up ahead and shouted a warning just in time for Daichi to duck!
Then the whole group loosed their arrows – Hayato was struck twice and wounded. He dove for cover in the bush as quickly as he could!
(Remember: click on the pictures for a bigger version)
The other three stormed across the river and hunted down the Goblin hunters. The action was fast and furious – four were slain and the rest disappeared into the jungle…
The Heroes would be more wary in their march.
Their next encounter wasn’t until late at night… A larger group had tracked our heroes down and tried to ambush them while they were resting.
Once again their ambush was spotted and they failed to get the drop on our adventurers! Daichi spotted the marauding goblins sneaking up to their camp site and gave a shout and whacked all the others with his staff to wake them!
As the goblins charged in he summoned a blinding light. The goblin archers firing into the light ended up hitting more of their own than their intended targes and the attackers were quickly overcome and the rest faded into the darkness to summon a greater war party.
The adventurers were up and off as soon as it was light enough, expecting there would be more attacks…
It wasn’t until nearly noon that they goblins caught up to them and charged up from behind giving fearful warcries!
Meanwhile another band of archers had stole around in from of them and tried to sneak up as they turned their backs to fight the warriors.
Hayato took down one of the warrior goblins with a spear he had taken from the previous group, but then took an arrow in the back from the goblin archers. Akira wounded the sheiftan and Isamu charged in and took down one of the warriors!
DAichi was also struck with an arrow! Akira took down antoehr warrior and finished off the Chieftain.
The archers closed so more could get a shot. Wounded though he was Daichi charged into the bush and engaged one of them! Hayato was still trying to deal with the arrow stuck in his leg.
Akira charged across the open and sliced the head off of one of the goblin archer but was met with a hail of arrows from the others. She was hit by three and was down!! Hayato managed to crawl to cover in the bushes
Isamu also charged the archers and was mobbed by them and taken down. Hayato had finally regained his composure and summoned a swirling vortex of wind and leaves and branches which stunned the goblins.
Daichi and Hayato seized the initiative and charged the goblins beating them relentlessly with their staves and spear. Two were taken down and the rest set to flight….
They would be troubled no more by that particular tribe of goblins!
With the two Bushi wounded their plan to get the idol quickly to the Temple was quashed.
