Should the PCs get stronger and become capable of more consecutive battles, the GM may include multiple mid-campaign clashes for balance purposes so that the eventual boss battle doesn’t drag out. One drawback of this approach is that the time spent at the table increases. After all, TRPG battles can last a long time.
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On the verge of death, your body moves into action even if your brain knows that things are pointless.
The group in the west end of Mottenheim knew too well that the arrival of one adventurer meant nothing when a stampeding cavalry unit was hot on their heels. Even if the adventurer in question was lauded in songs and distinguished enough to have their own epithet, the math just did not add up in their favor. There was no escape from the spears that nipped at their heels. All the same, their bodies carried them forward even though they knew it was a fruitless endeavor. No matter how much energy they expended, how much sweat they shed, their two legs could never compare to the mighty four of a trained warhorse.
Even if the goblin adventurer at their rear turned around to fight back, how many seconds would this gain them? If the audhumbla adventurer at their head dropped the civilians he carried, he would only be able to stop one or two of the incoming horde. The men and the elderly in the group held fast to the faint hope that they would join the adventurer and act as a shield to let the women and children run free when the time called for it.
However, their panicked thoughts were interrupted by a shout that cut through the air.
“Keep running! Don’t turn around! Head straight to the plaza!”
The voice was strangely clear. It was if Goldilocks’s very words were spoken straight into their ears, silencing even their panting breaths. He was still so far away and sprinting at such speed that he shouldn’t even be able to shout so clearly. In another strange turn, none of them felt like ignoring him. Their self-sacrificial resolves came loose and their legs kept pounding the dirt. They didn’t know why, but suddenly the hope that perhaps they may be saved started to well up within them.
This hope came to them after seeing Goldilocks’s face as he slowly came closer into view. His face was obscured by his helmet, the nose guard, and the chain mail that framed his head, but despite that, even from this distance they could tell that he was smiling. His grin stretched to its outermost limits; the ecstasy of battle was written all over his face.
Most of his witnesses in that moment were adults. They knew that heroes in reality were a far cry from what you got in the stories. A solo adventurer could never win against a platoon of cavalry. If such a thing were possible, then how had the concept of cavalry even developed since bygone times? And yet, they ran. An unreasonable expectation propelled them forward; they began to cling to the belief that they might actually survive.
The three cavalrymen in the vanguard grew closer; the pounding hooves and sneering laughter grew louder. Just as their spears were about to come into range, chaos erupted from behind the villagers. They heard whinnying and a heavy thud. Goldilocks had said not to look behind, but no one could help it.
What they saw was a group of horses bucking, out of control. Their riders had all been thrown from their horses.
“I’ve got this handled! Keep running!”
The villagers didn’t know what had happened, but they knew that Goldilocks, who dashed past them as he drew his sword, had done something. Why else would he have looked so certain he could save them?
This was the truth of the affair. Although they didn’t know it, Goldilocks had whipped out a spell that he had loved since his years in Berylin—a game changer that came in a tiny package. Its name was Flashbang. He had wrapped a catalyst in oiled paper, put it into an Unseen Hand, then sent that hand hurtling through the air at blinding speed. Once the Hand had cleared the fleeing villagers, he had unleashed it, setting off an explosion that lit up the night with the blinding brilliance of the sun.
Horses were cowardly creatures by nature. Even warhorses that had been inured to the din of the battlefield could not bear the roar that had just scraped their eardrums. The three horses at the fore of the column, as well as many of the horses following behind, flinched at the bright light and brutal report, stopping in their tracks or rocking backward.
The riders were helpless. Erich’s spell could permanently damage one’s vision and hearing if they were too close. It was a vicious assault on their retinas and semicircular canals; many would have been unhorsed even if their steeds hadn’t succumbed to the same assault.
Goldilocks smile set more firmly on his face, reinforced by the pleasure of a plan seen through to its ideal end. He’d made a gamble. If the enemies had been zombies, then simply assaulting their senses would have done nothing. Whether you burned out a zombie’s eyes or destroyed their ear canals, they wouldn’t flinch in the slightest. A zombie, after all, hunted by no earthly sense, but by the scent of their prey’s soul. If these soldiers had been a necromancer’s creations, there would have been no one left to save by now.
Goldilocks had read between the lines and assumed that there was a high chance that these were living, breathing people. If the enemy had chosen to use zombies, they could only have made the horses zombies. No home-cooked undead minion had the mental faculties to succumb to any sort of sadistic impulse, as the soldiers clearly had. A unit of zombies would have trampled the villagers without a care. They wouldn’t have teased their prey with their spears. They wouldn’t have sent out just three ahead.
His gambit having paid off, Goldilocks gripped his beloved sword as he passed by the villagers and went alone to take down the soldiers still dazed by the flash. Unfortunately, fortune would shortly turn in his foes’ favor. Some had been too far from the burst to suffer its full effects; some had been shielded from it by their allies.
Others still went entirely unscathed—great juggernauts in heavy plate, and though they were artifacts of an increasingly obsolete war doctrine, they were no less a menace in the moment. Despite standing well within the blast, they’d shrugged it off like a passing breeze. They marched at a swift and steady clip, human and horse alike, and barked commands to restore their formation. Their armor had, at eye-watering cost, been enchanted head to toe against the perennial bugbears of their martial role: hostile spells and the dreaded crossbow bolt.
The leader of these ironclad and war-fattened jackals raised his voice, calling his dazed underlings back into formation. Each member of the unit bore a transmission device on their warhorse that allowed them to receive commands via Voice Transfer despite the clamor of battle. They knew from experience that a cavalry unit without cohesion and mobility was a brittle thing indeed.
All the same, the leader of the group chuckled. What did it matter when their opponent was one measly foot soldier?
One or two of the vanguard had been knocked out of commission, but it would only take a few troops who still had their sight and their wits about them to rub him out. Their lances meant their reach far exceeded that of this knave and his pittance of a blade. Adventurers were mobile, agile, fundamentally irregular fighters, and rarely keen on long weapons—easy prey for a proper mercenary company or squad of infantry. This, surely, would prove a prime example.
“Raaah!”
One of the cavalrymen guffawed at the scene due to unfold. The fool was in a corner.