Finally, a real fight!

Picking up immediately from where we left off last time, Uhtred is running away from the three goblins, Birel sneaking up from behind. Birel shifts back into her bear form, and continues her pursuit. Suddenly, they stumble across the path of an adventuring party that just so happens to be traveling through that particular part of the forest. The adventuring party consists of four members: a male Hengeyokai fox Warden named Katsumi, a female Dragonborn Assassin named Black Core, a genderless Shardmind Preservation Invoker named Nuraiya, and a male Eladrin Control Wizard named Erevan. These four see Uhtred bursting out of a cave with three goblins and a bear chasing after him, and so they decide to help. Erevan casts Cloud of Daggers on one of the goblins. Birel continuously swipes at the goblins with her bear claws, but can't seem to hit any of them. Everyone else uses various abilities, and within a minute or two, all three goblins are lying dead near the cave entrance. Uhtred feels some remorse, as he hadn't initially wanted to kill the goblins, but Black Core quickly reassures him that goblins are not worth crying over.

Birel (who is still in bear form) decides to go back to explore the cave the goblins came from, and Black Core follows her. Inside the cave, Birel shifts back into her Elf form and introduces herself to Black Core, who is mildly surprised, but not much. The rest of the party (including Uhtred) follow behind, and after being introduced to Birel, they begin exploring the cave. On the dingy table the goblins were sitting around, the party finds some food, playing cards, copper coins and a crudely drawn map of Albridge. The mayor's house and þe Alde Bone Tavern are circled on the map. Huraiya notices a pouch hanging from one of the chairs, and upon opening it, discovers 40 gold pieces inside.

Black Core then stealthily scouts ahead down a tunnel in the back of the cave, and discovers another room around the corner. The room is dimly lit, debris litter the floor, and there are three goblin cutters and one goblin hexer standing near a crackling fire in a brazier, while a fourth goblin cutter guards a set of double doors which undoubtedly open up to a passage leading deeper into the cave. The goblins in this room all fail to notice Black Core due to a successful stealth check, and the rest of the party slowly creeps up behind Black Core. Then they all suddenly burst into the room, taking the goblins by surprise and slaughtering most of the cutters before they can even react. The goblin hexer is tougher though, and takes longer to fell, though he does eventually succumb, but not before getting a few spells off with the magical rod he's carrying.

But just as the party had thought they won, four giant rats and two fire beetles burst out from the piles of rubble strewn across the floor and proceed to attack the party.  Black Core throws a javelin at one of the fire beetles, but she gets a critical miss, and her javelin hits the wall instead and breaks in half. The other party members then proceed to attack the rats and beetles in turn. As the battle is raging, Black Core loots the body of the goblin hexer, finding some leather robes and a hexer rod inscribed with strange runes. Three of the rats are quickly slain, but the fire beetles use Fire Spray, knocking out first Erevan and then Uhtred. The party manages to slay one of the beetles, but the other is still going, though obviously very weakened.

Due to Blakfyre Games closing for the night, the game session had to be cut short before the combat encounter could be concluded. One giant rat and one fire beetle still remain, and two party members (Erevan and Uhtred) have been rendered unconscious. The following pictures depict the final state of the game for this session: