Cabal had glimpsed the distant smoke pillar rising into the sky more than an hour before. Quickening his casual pace and putting away his books, he rode quickly to the harbinger of trouble that likely was the result of or would attract his friends. As he had expected, he came upon the group exploring a village. One of the dragonborn, the paladin, was wearing some incredible new armor...it was made of crystal, of all things. Cabal would have to study that later.

Before he had done much more than greeted the group and dismounted to help explore the village, a sickly yellow fog crept out of the ground. "Goblins!" Cabal yelled just before the stench of sulphur clogged his throat and set him coughing. He quickly darted outside the cloud, only to find himself face-to-face with something like 7 or 8 goblins. Cabal quelled the sudden panic that rose in his gut at not having those huge scaley monsters between him and something that probably wanted to eat him. Cabal quickly realized the study on horseback would indeed pay off. A spell he'd had in his spellbook sprang to mind and he raised his hand, palm down and fingers splayed out.

Brilliant, multicolored beams burst from his hands at the goblins. The light should burn their eyes like staring at the sun, searing their eyes and leaving strong afterimages. Sure enough, most of the goblins were left with tears welling in their eyes, scrubbing their hands and blinking furiously.

To Cabal's incredible relief, the rest of the party was quick to act and the battle was joined; he was no longer on the front lines. The dwarf and the eladrin cut through the enemies viciously, but they all remained standing. The lumbering brute, Kernosh, arrived, shouting and making such a ruckus it distracted all the rest of the goblins enough that Cabal felt safer, for the moment. One of the goblins, probably the douchebag behind the horrid cloud, lashed out at the huge dragonborn with a wicked magical attack. Cabal could see the necrotic energy lashing Kernosh in place and called to the dragonborn to remain still lest he tear the anchors from himself, furthering the magic's effects.

Cabal called forth his favorite attack, The Pit. Illusion spun from his fingertips once again as the ground under several goblins - including that magicky one - suddenly fell away into an endless pit lined with spikes and jagged rocks. Two goblins merely stumbled, realizing after a moment the hole was not real. The third, however, screamed and dropped his weapon, flopping to the ground as if falling thousands of feet. So real was the pit to his brain that his head snapped down as he fell, muscles twisting and breaking his neck with the aid of the unyielding actual ground. It did not move again. Acting quickly, Cabal raised his hand again, this time whipping out with thunderous force. Two of the goblins were caught in the wave of sonic, booming energy, pushing them off-balance and backwards ten feet. Suddenly Cabal realized he hadn't thought his cunning plan all the way through as two goblins jumped forward and slashed at him.

Duncan, howling, put his axes to excellent use, catching a goblin's weapon up high with one and cleaving right through his knee with the other one. The goblin fell screaming, but not for long as Duncan silenced him with a boot to the neck.

Looking every inch the holy warrior, Sereck flashed and sparkled as he joined the battle. Lightning lashed from deep in his throat, causing convulsions and seizures in the goblins as it tore through them, leaving jagged burn marks and twitching muscles in its wake. Not finished, his huge axe whistled through the air at the nearest goblin.

As Sereck dodged a returned attack from a goblin, Orrin sidestepped a threat aimed at him as his dagger found the slightest of openings and bit home.

Kernosh, roaring in fury, ignored the weapons at his back to step up to carve his sword through the neck of a stumbling goblin, then his own lightning flashed in mirror of Sereck's moments before. Surging with sudden speed, Kernosh lashed out and barked a quick command at Orrin, "NOW!" Twin blades bit into either side of a goblin who suddenly found himself with nowhere to go.

The sickly cloud rolled at the party even as the bastard goblin shaman or whatever the hell it was lashed out at Kernosh again. Dark energy cut into Kernosh, then lashed at Cabal and Duncan. Though Cabal was able to thrust his staff in front of him and deflect the magic, the attack bit deeply into the dragonborn, leaving him visibly worn and near the point of collapse. Cabal lashed out again, this time with dark shadows reaching in from the Plane of Shadow, grasping handfuls of flesh and tearing at them, pulling them back into shadow. The goblin mage screamed under this assault and fell, his life essence torn from his body.

One of the few bleeding goblins left turned to Kernosh and lashed out. Kernosh took the blow, and his armor flashed as it bit back into the goblin. Against the next attack, however, Kernosh did not fare so well. A slight twist of a spear turned a miss so that it bit deeply into Kernosh, pushing him back and to the ground, unconscious and unmoving.

Orrin struck at one of the larger goblins near the back, but, infuriated by a challenge from Sereck, the goblin ignored the eladrin and rushed forward to answer the dragonborn, but the swift blade of Orrin bit into his back as Duncan clotheslined him with the business end of his battleaxe. Finding himself without a head, the goblin decided it was a good time to stop fighting.

Sereck stepped back from immediate danger, then bent over and laid a hand on the fallen Kernosh. White energy briefly glowed around the scaly claw, restoring energy to the fallen warlord.

Cursing his bloody wounds and aiming idle kicks at Sereck, Duncan jumped forward again and cut into the goblin, casting blood off the edges of his axes as they swished through the air.

Sereck howled in fury, summoning the power of his deity, and stepped forward. His axe, gleaming in the sunlight and glinting with reflections from his armor, cleaved downward in an overhand strike, trailing radiant energy behind it. The name of his god burst from his mouth with physical force as the axe swung, bringing with it the power of the heavens. The goblin only had time to glance up and start to wet himself as the axe met his forehead. The flashing metal did not slow until it was buried six inches deep in the ground between the goblin's feet.

Cabal took the opportunity to study a little goblin internal anatomy as the perfectly-halved body fell away from the axe strike.

From the Journal of Orrin Derrikkross

The Fey that stepped out from the side of a building surprised me more than I would like to admit.  Although I could appreciate the beauty of his voice, he made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.   The way we handled the Goblin's impressed him and he felt we were too much of a threat to be left alone.  So he produced 3 Orgres seemingly out of thin air and they moved in on us.

The spear and the charge of the first ogre was a thing of beauty, that neerly took Cabal's life in an instant.  I knew that for us to survive, I had to make my blades dance more gracefully than ever before.  The five of us moved as one and set upon the Orgres.  Each of us reached down deep to whatever power we had at our command and in the end we were victorious.

Again the Fey stepped out to speak with us.  We had impressed him even more after dispatching his Ogres.  He attempted to bargain with us and have us convince the people of this area to leave so the Fey could retake it.  There were some discussions between us, but in the end we wouldn't do it.  The Fey smiled and touched the closest building as we walked away.  With a minimum of effort he turned the building to dust and was gone.

DM Notes

• Not my idea of a title.  I would have gone with "Overconfidence isn't always a weakness" or something like that. 
• I did forget a few descriptions that I could have done better but it wasn't bad. 
• Some very tough fights that were fun.  Again, the 4E system did a pretty good job of gauging for me how tough the fights woudl be. 
• I should have had some minions in the fight to make it seem like there was even more goblins but this worked out well.  The goblins didn't seem to have many hit points!  The group is really able to dish out damage. 
• I NPCed Duncan as the player was out.  I liked being able to make comments as him, even though the player wouldn't have.  Must have been the ale. 
• I liked the empty village although I don't know if I got the right flavor of "creepy" out of it.  I forgot to ask the players if it worked to set the mood.