Just a Goblin 2

A trickle of anticipatory drool dribbles from the goblin-thing's wide mouth, even as the sound of fast-approaching footsteps echo through the small cavern. It slurps in expectation, tenses, and charges forward as soon as Mara's galloping warhorse appears in the entranceway to the cave. Galthia is ready for it, though; he leaps out of hiding and intercepts the goblin, smacking it in the bulbous nose in an attempt to slow its charge.

"Groogul! Thiblish!" it spits at him. The monster's forehead ripples, and the orange skin on its scalp gradually begins to tear from internal pressure. The creature grins, showing sharpened teeth.

"Not good," says Galthia over the mindlink as he uses both of his iron-hard fists to unleash a flurry of powerful blows. Only one punch actually does any damage; the others just bounce off of rubbery muscles or are evaded by the creature's darting torso. "Really not good. It's sensing my blows before I even throw them." He dodges backwards as Mara charges in on Luminor.

The paladin's holy mace smacks soundly into the back of the monster's lumpy head. Where Lightbinder connects, the tip of a squirming tentacle tentatively pokes out from underneath the taut skin, almost as if tasting the air.

"Ploobish! Sclap!" The creature shudders in a delighted bloodfrenzy, and Mara recoils as the skin on its head finally bursts. Tentacles erupt outwards. Smaller pseudopods push down the skin from its goblin-like body, almost in the same way that a young boy might peel a banana, and within seconds what was once a goblin is now a writhing mass of tentacles, mouths, and knobbly green skin.

"Spluggut!" it screams in joy from a half-dozen mouths, and its ridged tentacles whirl around its body. One bounces off of Mara's holy shield even as she yanks Luminor backwards out of another tentacle's strike, but a third crunches into her back and snakes around her torso like an anaconda as it yanks her off of her horse. Near her, Galthia leaps into the air, twisting his body almost sideways in order to avoid a powerful blow.

"I can't believe I'm going to do this," laments Priggle to himself, and the deep gnome runs forward with his weapon out. An errant tentacle smacks him before he gets anywhere near the creature, and the deep gnome sails backwards into the side of the dead landshark. "Ooof!" He staggers to his feet.

The rest of the group appears at the lip of the cavern's entrance. Nolin narrows his eyes. "Don't worry; we're here. Velendo, what did that divination say?"

"Ready oil and open flame light your way to wealth."

"Good." Nolin casts a mass haste and immediately follows it up with a phoenix-inspired flame strike. A pillar of heavenly fire smashes down onto the creature, barely missing Mara and Galthia. "Let's follow directions."

Malachite charges forward, his blade erupting into fiery sunlight. Parrying an instinctive tentacle strike as he closes on the monster, he slashes Karthos up into the appendage grappling Mara. Several powerful blows almost sever the thick pseudopod, and Mara drops roughly to the ground. Tao and Stone Bear rush forward to surround the monster, even as the dwarven troops take up positions to pepper it with crossbow fire. "Flaming bolts!" commands Splinder, and the dwarves quickly break out oil and flint.

Agar pauses as he slips into the room. "That's.. that's beautiful!" he breathes as he sees the monster. "It's some sort of pseudonatural troll. My goodness, look at those tentacles!" The tentacles in question are currently wrapped around a wriggling Galthia, even as one fire spell after another hammers the beast. "You'll never see that sort of beauty in nature!" Proty gurgles, but it's somewhat drowned out by the creature's burbling roar. "No, I don't know if it wants to be friends with you. It looks fairly hungry. See what it did to the landshark?" Proty chortles as alchemical oil explodes. "Yes, I agree. Maybe you could be that powerful, too, if you eat regularly and keep practicing the spells I loan you." Agar scratches his familiar fondly.

The monster screams as it is caught in the edge of another flame strike, setting more oil ablaze. The heroes surrounding it have to be careful not to set themselves on fire as they dance in and out with weapons or fists, chopping through questing tentacles and pounding into rubbery, regenerating flesh. Within half a minute, several of the Defenders of Daybreak are soaked with bloody slime and sporting many ragged wounds, but their tactics are sound; the monster never manages to get more than one tentacle wrapped around any one hero at a time, and thus is unable to properly shred and rend them.

For several minutes after it's apparently dead, the creature's corpse continues to twitch and gibber. After the lesson of the trillith no one is willing to take any chances, and the group pours on oil and fans the flames until it's clear the the creature is completely, utterly destroyed. Once the flames and greasy smoke die down, Galthia fishes a fine golden chain out of the smoldering pile of flesh. "Magical," he comments dryly. "Well, at least the divination was correct."

"Good point. Hey! Thanks, up there!" Velendo stares at the ceiling for a few seconds before glancing back at the corpse. "Why the heck was that thing in goblin form?" He pokes Agar to bring him out of his thoughtful reverie.

"Hmm? Oh, I don't know," answers the halfling. "He may have been polymorphed. Or he may have had an alternate form, although it looked more like an altered troll than a goblin. Or it might be another reason entirely." He shrugs. "He was really something."

Mara shoots him a look as she scrapes slime off of her armor. "Something. Right." Then her head snaps up as someone strolls around the far side of the dead bulette. It's an elderly halfling woman, and at first glance she seems somewhat peeved.

"Pit fiend!" snaps Malachite. "Form up!" Agar shrieks like a boiling kettle and dives for the back of the group.

"Already?" groans Nolin.

"Apparently so," mutters Tao grimly. "Mental conversation through the mindlink, and try not to get in fireball formation."

"You mean meteor swarm formation."

"Whatever."