(TFT) Greffs Journal, 4th evening.

[Pasha and or Rick Smith <pnrsmith@istar.ca>]

	Well a lot has happend.  Around noon that Druid came
back with his demon familliar in tow.  He had not found Chroe
so I won my bet with Merrick.  If this keeps up I'll be rich and the
'thon will be dead. The demon is bouncing around full of energy 
which gives lie to that druid's statements of it being knocked 
unconscious.  Pak explained that he 'got lost' and that is why he 
missed the complete morning's work.  Apperently while he 
'was lost' he managed to cross a ridge line and ended up in the 
next valley.  How you can do that (even in the dark) beggers the 
imagination, and the fact that he is an expert woodsman trained in 
moving about in forests proves he is lying.

	The druid looked over the ferrit droppings we found 
near the spies' blind that I found. Guess what, he claims that they
are not ferrit droppings after all!!! What a surprise!!! I NEVER 
would have guessed that is what he would say.  Oh no, they are
VOLE droppings.  For some reason Ben belived him.

	Anyway after the druid finished stringing out his story
we got back to work.  What a day!  It was a blast furnace. The
first group that was here had chopped down the trees for the 
palisade surrounding the fort, and for the fort itself.  We had 
pretty much finished getting them put into place, but there were
tons of branches and leaves that were piled up everywhere.  I 
kept the peasents working hard hauling the stuff into piles and 
burning it.  The Padrone ordered that paths between these piles
be left so archers on the steps inside the walls could should 
down proper fire lanes if an enemy attacked.
	The Padrone ordered other peasents to finish up 
work on the fort and palisade (building steps for archers and
a ramp so that the padrone would be able to trot up to the step
on the south west corner of the wall).  Some were chinking holes
and cutting arrow slits for the second floor of the fort.

	The sheep were endlessly complaining about the
heat, the smoke, the dust and the work.  Peasants!  I just hope
that I can get the druid under my whip some day.  I kept them
working hard but gave them a break each hour to walk over to
the river to refill their canteens and jump in the water.  By the
time they dragged themselves back to our work site they were
dry again.  It paid off, I got more work done than the other 
work parties.

	Based on my finding the spy blind yesterday we
changed our patrol patterns and caught a goblin spy!  They
questioned it and Galendaar managed to trick quite a bit of
information out of it.  Then it suicided.  The driud was there
but I don't know exactly what happened.  I did notice that 
some of the sheep seemed less happy to be around that druid
after that.

	The druid was teamed with the w' Tallom brothers,
the youngster, lm' Sions and my buddy nem' Korram.  I told
nem' to keep an eye on that druid but he didn't seem too 
worried about working with him.

	Three times during the afternoon, I saw that rat
demon up in the north watching me.  It made my skin crawl!
I threw some rocks at it but it dodged them and hissed at me.
Then it ran into the woods to the north.  I told Merrick and
Galendaar to keep an eye to the north. (They are on regular
patrol, with the Padrone and Lance moving around more
irregularilly.  At least Lance did, the Padrone had to spend
more than half the time doing Rarrempt's job organizing the
peasents.  I figured that by tonight we would have the fort
finished.

	Once I thought I saw a flash of light on that ridge
to the north that overlooks the area.  I kept a careful eye on
the hills after that but I did not see anything like that happen
again.  If I was sure I saw something, I would have told the 
Padrone, but I wasn't sure.  It was just some movement or
light out of the corner of my eye.

	Then it was late afternoon.  A tiny breeze had 
started to blow and the smoke was finally beginning to stir.
The sheep wanted to call it a day but I smashed one's face
and kept them to working.  Suddenly Merrick bursts out
of the woods to the north, about 60 meters away from 
where I last saw the demon rat.  He is screaming "Goblins",
and we all start running back to the fort.  I make sure that
the peasents are bringing their tools and that they are all
accounted for.

	I send the sheep on to the south wall of the pallisade
(where the gate is) and pull out my weapons. Just then 
Galendaar bursts out of the woods. By the gods he can run
fast!!!  He comes tearing down the slope towards us with his
wizard's hat in one hand and his staff in the other.  Rather
than running at a reasonable battle trot, these guys are 
sprinting full out and I'm woundering what has got them so
worried?  I mean, they will be exhausted by the time they
get here.

	Then I see a company of maybe 70 goblins and
a half dozen trolls burst out of the woods to the north. You
got to remember that their are only a dozen of us (counting
the Padrone but not counting that useless druid). So I was
pretty worried.  I thought this might be the battle where I
bite it. 

	All the goblins are sprinting too, and they come
charging down the slope heading right at me.  Galendaar 
races by me, and Merrick is almost here.  I figure we have
got enough time for all of us to pull back inside the 
pallisade where we should be able to put up a pretty good
fight.  Then I look around.

	Disaster.  The druid had ordered the w' Tallom
brothers to help the peasents, and they put down their 
weapons 20 meters down slope!!! (I found this out later.)
Instead of running to the fort they had to run further away
to arm themselves and then run up the slope but they were
exhausted from working.  They were going to be cut off.
The druid was bright and fresh and would have no trouble
getting to safety.  Everyone is screaming at them to hurry
but they are just too tired.

	A handful of the goblins were really fast and they
were on us.  I figure chop them up and withdraw into the
pallisade.  We will lose the w' Tallom brothers but that's 
the cost of entrusting lives to the druid.  We had a brief fight
and pretty much trashed the goblin's skirmishers except 
Drimkror the dwarf had a goblin dive at his legs and fell into
HTH.  Then he got hit by a charging spear a couple of
times and went down hard.  Then the Padrone was there,
set off his Dazzle sword (I'm immune to that spell.) and
killed a goblin under his hooves.  Merrick pegged a goblin
thru the throat with a dagger at better than 7 meter range!
It was his magic dagger because it flew back to his hand.

	Then the survivors of the goblin lights were
running but the main group of them were almost on top
of us.  They were still sprinting and I thought, "What is
the matter with them?  They will be exahusted when they
hit our lines!"

	The Padrone threw the dwarf on his back and 
ran for the gate.  He ordered us to pull back and we 
formed up even with the south west corner of the 
pallisade just as lm' Sions and nem' arrived.  The Padrone
dropped off the dwarf inside and charged up his ramp on
to the step at the south east corner.  He told us to buy 
time for the 'w Tallom brothers to reach us.  That druid
had been running REAL SLOW and was close to the
brothers despite the fact that he started out with lm' and
nem'.  The Padrone is usually pretty tactical, but I thought
he was making a big mistake.  You don't fight at 60 to 8
odds with out some walls between you and them.

	Then they hit us!  Three tried diving at my legs
to trip me, but I know that trick. Boot them in the face,
side step, back up.  And then chop them while they are
laying there.  Goblins died left and right under the swords
of the Thorsz!  lm' Sions was in real trouble but he fought
like a veteran, and kept his feet dispite a bunch of serious
wounds.  The Padrone was on top of the wall of the 
Pallisade and blasting away with his compound bow. 
Every time he shot a goblin died.  Generally the leaders and
ones with magic first.

	And then from somewhere a goblin wraps itself
around my legs!  I fall down, twist and roll on top of it, but
more pile on.  I had been kind of fighting in front of Merrick
to let his get his breath, and it was a good thing because he
cut into them lying on me in front of him.

	I killed a goblin with my dagger, Merrick is 
chopping away at them, goblins are getting thru our line
because I'm not there to keep them from squeezing along
the wall of the pallisade.  They are slicing me up as best
they can, but my armor stops most of it.   I drag my 
self to my feet but I lost my sword.

	As I'm getting up, I look around.  The trolls
are no where to be seen, our line as pulled back a bit.
40 or so goblins have run around us and are going to
kill the druid and the brothers. However the goblins that
are fighting the real fighters are on the edge of breaking.
They have given it their best shot but the Thorsz's troop
took it and killed them.  What with the heat and their long
run some of them were pretty punch drunk and I had took 
fewer hits than I expected.

	Suddenly every goblin eye blazed with a bright
green light.  Every goblin froze stiff for maybe half a second
(some running ones tripped) and then they ALL 
BERSERKED!!!   They just threw themselves at us with out the
least regard for their own lives!  I was chopping and slicing
with my knife getting in good blows practically by the second
as they threw them selves on us.  Galendaar had come thru
the gate to hold up the goblins that had slipped by me and 
it is pretty sorry when your line depends on an exhausted 
wizards fighting ability with a staff.

	I don't know how,  I've never, ever, been in such
a close fight but our little group held.  The Padrone set off
his Dazzle again (he must be getting pretty tired) and that 
helped since our troop is immune to the spell pretty much.
Anyway a quarter of a minute later the green glow faded and
the goblins broke.  A number of them fainted when what
ever magic was controlling them stopped.

	The druid had somehow managed to avoid the
whole fight and I saw him jump into the river rather than
following the Padrone's orders to get back to the gate. 
Merrick said later that the druid could have made it to the
gate if he really tried.

	Any way the druid jumps in for a nice refreshing
swim, while I'm literally caked with dust and sweat. About
then we found out where the trolls were.  They had climbed 
over the north wall of the pallisade with a handful of goblins
and were inside the walls.  We slammed the gate shut and
charged for the fort.  The Padrone galloped down the ramp
(which collapsed) but we all got inside before they reached 
us.

	That battle was pretty anti-climatic.  There were 
three swamp trolls (they don't regenerate fire damage) and
two bigger ones that we could not identify.  If we had the
druid there he might have been able to tell us what they 
couldn't regenerate from (and maybe tell the truth) but he
was having a bath so we fought with out him.  We managed
to kill off one troll (we killed it and pulled it in where we 
could burn it). When they opened the gate to the pallisade
they found the rest of the goblins had been killed and 
drive back so they ran off.

	All of us are exhausted and wounded.  Rarrempt
has used a magic healing potion and managed to save 
Drimkror's life (dwarves are tough). lm' Sions, Drimkror
my self and Lance are all seriously wounded.

	Well we stripped the bodies, cleaned up the 
battle field, killed off the wounded goblins, burnt the troll,
and had just about finished throwing the bodies in the 
river when the druid walks up.  Sorry he missed the 
fight and all the work, etc.  He HAD to stay with his
people even if it means disobeying a direct order from the
Padrone.  He claimed that the two fools were drunk and
that is why he was acting so incompetent.  When they
jumped into the river he HAD to, and so on and on. When
the Padrone points out that he should have kept them from
drinking he says "They are not MY people!  We are all
responsible for ourselves, and THEY are the ones that
are drunk."

	The brothers didn't look drunk to me...

	And then the Padrone has a 'talk' with the w'
Tallom brothers about their drinking!!!!!  I can't belive
it!

	I can't belive it.  I don't belive it.  Sure as hell
some thing told them when to attack, and it just had to 
be that little rat, and the Padrone is still bespelled by that
demon worshipping coward so that he belives every lie he
has ever told.

	The ONLY hope for our survival is that druid
dying soon.  It is really late and I should try to get some
sleep before my watch but I am so mad that I can't rest.
I tried to talk to Ben but he obviously does not want to 
hear it.

	Oh well.  Maybe the druid will die tomorrow.
Or maybe tonight on my watch.
	


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