The bugbear is one of the largest of goblinoid and is the least inteligent. Large hunched-over brutes they have massive strength making them a favorite for their more inteligent cousins to train as shock troops. At least they are slow and easily tricked, though subtle actions will often not be noticed. - Common Monsters

Adrian

When I wake up, I am being held by something. When I open my eyes the room seems more than twice as large as when I went to sleep. No, I am now smaller.

I squirm out of the arms of K, tearing a shirt on my claws. I look back at the bed, I can tell that her shirt is ripped but infravision doesn’t seem to work well at seeing details. Is there is a better form of Infravision I can get?

I turn to look at myself, from the pieces I can see I am now as the small dragon I saw split off of me in the astral. I seem to be about twice the size of a house cat. This form is not large enough to be of use, I need my human form.

As I was thinking a crash of stone and splintering wood can be heard in the distance. There is another attack. K bolts up and looks around; as I was not hiding she is now looking directly at me.

She grabs one of the two swords near the bed and points it at me. She does not recognize me, I need to be human again. As I focus on this need my skin, or is it scales, ripples and the room shrinks as I return to being me.

It takes a few seconds for me to return to being human. K is looking at me, I am not sure how much she can see in the dark though.

“Since when were you a little dragon?”

“Today? I just figured it out myself.”

K looks at me for a moment, I move to grab my pants. Screams begin to echo in from the distance.

“Sounds like an attack, we can talk about it later.”

She nods, and leaves to wake the others as I wake up Lysan. By the time that everyone is up and in a position to defend the bank several fires have started. The sound of the battles is quieter than the last one, though many of the nobles that fought last time are now dead. Or could it be there are less enemies?

As Abagail does not have a weapon she is inside the bank ready to treat injuries. Bryan is guarding the wall K broke. The sisters have moved to the roof to use their bows. K and me are in the street waiting for the enemy to reach us.

As we wait for whoever is attacking the camp I can see lightning strikes being called down from the overcast. Several minutes pass before a group of goblins can be seen running down the street; but it is not they that I notice. There is a bulky something half again as tall as me, four times broader and hunched over.

I cannot see its features well, but it is large and has a club of some sort. I hear the twang of bows from the roof, the sisters are already attacking. The large bulky creature moves slower than the goblins as they rush at us.

I manage to skewer one of the goblins as it charged me, the others I blocked with the now dying creature at the end of my blade. There are too many for just K and me to hold back, but I can hear Bryan say something. No time to pay attention to that.

I sidestep a lunge and sunder the limb holding the weapon of a goblin. It falls to the ground screaming, it will bleed out soon. I must be faster than these creatures now, they do not give me the sense of danger that they did before. The large bulky creature I think will still be a danger.

The larger creature is charging at K; she isn’t looking at it. I elbow the goblin in front of me, and take a club to my back as I rush to intercept. I won’t let it hit her.

I cut into the left arm of the creature, my blade does not cut as easily into this thing as it does against the goblins. It turns and swings at me, I duck below the blow. I don’t think I can take a hit from this thing.

I see a stream of fire come from K’s hand, setting several goblins on fire. The light shifts my vision out of Infravision, though I return to it soon after. The wiz of a passing arrow is followed by a scream from a goblin behind me. The creature before me is covered in coarse hair, almost as if it were patchy fur.

I need to do more damage when I hit it. I start to create fire to run along the blade of my sword but feel a tearing within me. No flame was made, the pain that I went to sleep with is back. I grunt in the pain and while thus distracted take a blow from the large creature.

I go flying back a few feet to the walls of the bank, my weapon dropping along the way. The healing of the Grey Dream was a lie. It healed nothing, only blocked the pain. An attempt to kill me? No, time to think about this now, I need to fight.

I get to my feet and wince as I breathe, I have at least a cracked rib. Bryan is now in front of me, blocking two goblins. One of them is cut down before I steady myself. A flare of unnatural cold is wafting off K’s sword as she cuts into the large creature.

She is moving faster than I can, the creature has not landed a hit. A small swarm of lights fly from the roof at the large creature. I ignore the pain in my side to run to my fallen sword, dodging a few spears from the goblins.

Sword in hand there are three goblins around me, four behind me near Bryan, and the one that was near K just got smashed by its oversized ally. A glancing hit from a spear brings me to focus on those near me, I am no match for that oversized goblinoid without my magic. Kill the smaller stuff, look for an opening.

By the time I take down the three goblins near me the larger creature fell, covered in arrows and burns from K’s blade. The sounds of battle are growing louder, something is coming closer. Bryan is chanting something, I can tell he is saying something in English yet cannot understand the meaning.

Runes flash into existence on the ground around him, faint and gentle blue light radiating out of them. I look at him and he answers the question yet to be spoken.

“Healing Circle, I have a patron now.”

I nod, then move to stand within it. This time the healing I’m receiving is real and while it does not seem to do much to my internal spiritual pain my breathing becomes easy and the bruises fade.

K likewise moves into the circle, while the others stay in place to watch for approaching enemies. But a few minutes pass before we can see a group approaching, dozens of gaunt figures that I can barely see through Infravision. Corpses cold but the still cooling blood splattered upon them I can see. A feeling of something wrong permeates the air.

An arrow strikes one of these walking dead, it staggers but does not stop moving. Some have come close enough to one of the fires of burning goblins to be seen. It is a dead orc, the flesh overly pale and dried out. It is the corpse of some foe already slain, the enemy has at least one necromancer of great skill on the field today.

The corpses continue to move slowly towards us, I see a grin on Bryan’s face. He must have a counter to this, K has a look of disgust. A few of the corpses suddenly move faster and charge, their pointed teeth revealed by firelight. Zombies and ghouls, why are these here.

I move my blade between myself and one of the charging ghouls, who does not seem to care about impaling itself. At least the ghoul was not able to bite me as my blade let me turn its attack. I hear chanting from Lysan and Talia, the ghoul that met Bryan’s blade seems to have been burned by it.

This is not a good night to be me, there is not much I can do against this thing. The ghoul bites at me again but I kick it back shoving it off of my blade. The ghoul’s third attempted attack was a feint that I fell for, my right arm is not bleeding from its claws. I know that I can beat this creature if enough damage is done to the body, the problem being doing enough damage.

I strike the ghoul with my sword again, two gashes from me have joined the other injuries upon this dead thing. The ghoul falls back, my right arm beginning to turn slightly numb. My guess to this creature’s nature is right, carnivorous undead with a paralytic touch. An arrow covered with a silvery glow strikes the creature and it falls.

The sisters are working, I wonder what spells they are using. Unfortunately there is not time for such thoughts, the slower moving undead have arrived to the few of us at the front of the bank. I sway out of the way of a punch and sever the arm from its body.

The arm falls to the ground and ceases to move. These are not undead that can separate their parts then. They move slowly, and attack clumsily. The zombies are not too dangerous, but the ghouls are. I sever the head of the corpse, it doesn’t stop moving.

They are true undead then, not a diseased but living creature. It is now attacking blindly, but this matches with the lack of blood and body heat. Bryan is butchering the undead near him, no more than two strikes to take out one of the zombies. I think two of the now inert corpses near him were ghouls before.

Two more of the shambling corpses engage me before the damage is too much for the first to attack me. I can see someone else approaching from the same directions as the undead. The one who animated them?

An arrow takes out one of the corpses as I sever an arm of the other. Whatever the sisters are doing to these things isn’t showing up in Infravision. Should I refocus to regular? The others are fighting as if they are not having problems with it being night.

I sever a leg and the corpse before me falls, still animate but unable to move. I shift my vision back to the regular spectrum to see silvery fire burning many of the corpses. Bryan has a golden glow over his sword while Kythia has blood red fire over her’s.

The area is now surprisingly well lit, and we can see another group of undead moving this way. There should be the one who had a heat signature there as well. These corpses stop however, and just wait as we finish off the last wave. Something is not right.

The undead split ranks and a single creature walks out before them, an orc in robes ornamented with bones and a staff topped with a skull. His skin pale but this creature is still alive unlike his followers.