A deadly picnic part 2 :: Hunt for the yellow goblin Cross-dressing, orc tennis, limping and a real girl; this one's got it all folks! By Albertus Strong - August 28, 2001 Featuring: James Arhy Obaild Jenny and introducing Dorken Rotsmell as the yellow goblin

What has gone before…

Our orc tennis practice paid off as we swarmed around the goblin and shot it from all sides, confusing it as it tried to figure out who to attack.

In the first part of this thrilling narrative, we discovered that a yellow goblin was hiding somewhere in the grass plains just north of Lighthaven. Even if he had almost killed me and toasted my short-tempered archer friend James Arhy to a crisp, I was still eager to go back and kick his yellow bottom!!! So, as soon as I got back from this adventure, I stocked up in potions and rejoined James to gather a yellow goblin hunting party.

A real girl

We finally managed to convince mighty Oblaid to come with us and off we went. As we hacked our way through the usual Goblin bottleneck at the goblin bridge, we also met the fair Jenny. She generously agreed to come with us in our quest to slap the yellow goblin around.

You should know that my character, Albertus Strong, is a woodsman who was once transformed into a frail girl by an evil mage. So although my character is very woman-looking, he's actually a (very) virile guy and one day I'll have the huge axe to prove it! So having an actual girl (or so she says) in our group made for a refreshing change. To top it all, she was a 4th Coming veteran of many years and actually knew that darn yellow goblin's name, although she had never managed to see him. So we learned that Dorken Rotsmell was the name of our prey.

Orc Tennis

As we made our way to the place we thought we had last seen Dorken Rotsmell, we managed to kill many orcs, goblins warriors and stuff. In doing so we discovered a new T4P sport: orc tennis! Here's how it goes:

When you hit a wandering orc, he'll try to attack you. The funny thing is that if someone else hits him, he'll forget about you and attack him instead. So, If you are two archers or spell casters, you can actually keep the orc between you two and bounce him back and forth until he dies. All that without even getting a scratch! Of course, this works equally well with goblins of all sorts (with the possible exception of fire shooting yellow ones) and most other monsters in T4P.

Limping in T4P

We walked on, searching for that elusive yellow goblin and practicing orc tennis. We wandered to and fro, fro and to and all the places in between. We even heard fire darts being shot in a distance once, but we just couldn't find Dorken Rotsmell!

Looking at the grassy plains around us, we thought again of how nice it would be to have a picnic there. We'd eat sandwiches and kick goblin scouts under this bright sunny sky. But it was not to be…

Jenny finally had to go as family matters drew her away. So we continued on, girl-less and more and more convinced we'd never get that yellow goblin. On top of that, Oblaid was complaining of lag caused by his antique PC. This had the unfortunate effect of slowing him down and making it next to impossible for him to outrun monsters. It also made it look like as if he was limping, which added a twisted kind of roleplay flavour to the game, as if he was limping. So James and I made sure we never strayed from our valiant, yet unfortunate, friend as we felled goblin warriors after goblin warriors.

Enough of this!

We were thinking of getting back to the city and admitting defeat as the sound of fire darts being tickled our ears. Dorken, at last! This is our chance to get our honour back!

As we drew towards the telltale sounds, I wondered aloud what our strategy as a group should be, so we could minimise the chances of being burned to the ground like last time. "Hit it" and "Attack it like crazy" were the insightful suggestions of my battle-seasoned comrades.

There was little time to ponder these words of wisdom as the ugly yellow face of Dorken Rotsmell showed itself, shooting it's deadly fire at us. But this time we came prepared! Our orc tennis practice paid off because we swarmed around the goblin and shot it from all sides, confusing it as it tried to figure out who to attack. "AARGH!" yelled the cursed goblin as he fell under our relentless blows.

Conclusion

The battle was so efficient and well orchestrated despite our blind panic that it was over almost as soon as it started. We had accomplished what we had come for and were glad, but we had expected more of a fight from that goblin. I guess that our previous battle with it a few hours earlier had softened him up, making it a much easier kill than we expected.
Still, we were very proud of ourselves and I know that I'll be going back there soon enough, looking for a fight with that yellow goblin! I also hope you found this tale to your liking and that you found inspiration for your own adventures herein!

Albertus Strong, a.k.a Thierry Gagnon, webmaster for Vircom Interactive

What a party!