The Dirty Dozen’t

Landing, a little clumsily, beside Cookie’s wagon in his intimidating eagle form, Liga Bur morphs back to his natural and more comfortable Halfling shape. He’d spent a year under Brother Thornberg’s patient guidance, learning to transform into a variety of animals but he realises, even now, that he’ll probably never become fully comfortable with the dramatic shift of his physical capabilities or senses.

After briefly talking with Fortu, he watches the soldiers; Ringo and Chape attempt to scoop up the shredded remains of the Halfling bandit leader; Marvin. He can’t remotely justify it but Liga Bur feels an odd pang of kinship. This middle-aged, grey-haired Halfling, whoever he was, had hated Lord Urdurel with a passion and, from what Fortu had heard, blamed him entirely for the destruction of his borderlands village.

Who was this angry man and why did he run with a dozen Human bandits? Why had he rejected… or perhaps been rejected by his… their own people?

Picking up the steel pole that Fortu had pulled out of the wagon wheel spokes, Liga Bur turns it around in his stubby but strong fingers. It’s more than just a crude rod of metal, it has a hook like shape on one end and a stirrup shaped triangle at the other. Considering the reasoning of its construction, Liga Bur mentally puts himself in the position Marvin would have found himself in.

He must have been hiding in a concealed ditch between the ruts in the cambered road when Cookie’s wagon had slowed for Banaal to examine the felled tree, then using the hooked end of the steel pole, caught the underside of the wagon and then used the stirrup end to brace his foot to help him clamber up as he was dragged along. Then the sneaky stowaway must have just waited until they’d reached the prearranged ambush point before thrusting the main shaft of the pole through the spokes of the front, right wagon wheel.

Whoever this Marvin was, he’d obviously been clever, tough and charismatic enough to command his twelve Human underlings, but his anger (and recklessness) was patently symptomatic of a dark past. 

As for his, so called; ‘Dirty Dozen’, they mostly went down without much of a fight. Liga Bur himself, while in eagle form, had ensnared over half the horses (and therefore the men riding them) with his ‘enchanted grass’, leaving the remaining five bandits to ride on towards the wagon. 

Once there, despite their original number advantage, they were easily overpowered by the armoured Dwarf; Banaal and his own massive (and also) armoured hound; Mir Hundur.

Even now, despite spending every single day with him, since he was a pup, plus the mystical Druidic bond they now share, Liga Bur was still surprised how his faithful hound; Mir Hundur was able to slaughter a large horse in just two big bites!

Finally, Fortu’s performative skewering of their Halfling leader crushed any residual bravado they had left and all eleven of the surviving bandits surrendered instantly.

The Party gain two (Halfling sized/non-glowing) +2 daggers.