Once inside Simon's little base, they saw a decently sized table completely covered with a roughly drawn map of the nearby area with several dots, circles, X's and other symbols drawn all over it. The center part of the map was labeled as the village with the various circles being logging and hunting camps.
A few of the circles had X's through them, indicating that the camp had been attacked and/or abandoned.
"Before we get started, I should let you know Rena. Thomas is no longer here. He left the party a little while ago, deciding that he was not meant for this adventuring life. So you have no need to worry if you heard rumors about brothers running my party." Simon advised.
"Where is he now? It is probably for the best if we avoid him. Lucius might actually kill him next time he sees him."
"I am not so sure about that, Thomas has gotten rather strong..."
"So has Lucius."
"Of course..." Simon mumbled before getting to business with a clap of his hands. "Alright, so the incursions started about nineteen days ago. It was originally thought to have only been a little over a week ago, but we found a small, solo cabin with signs of attack dated about nineteen days ago or so."
"How could you tell?"
"A rough guess based on the decomposition of the bodies. Zira is good at that sort of thing."
"Right..."
Simon nodded solemnly. Rena could guess that it was not a positive experience. "Since then, we have either lost contact with or abandoned at lest four additional camps. We made an attempt to fight back, since we assumed they were just goblins, but there are quite the number of them and they appear to be led by some mutant variants of their ilk."
"The last camp was taken by the goblins about five days ago. The one before that was about eleven or twelve days ago."
"Any signs of scouts?"
"Yea, there were a few sightings over here and here just yesterday. Zira took some of them out, but the others fled." Simon answered while pointing at a few of the circles to indicate which camps were being scouted.
Rena took that information into account and collected a little more history regarding the rate of capture, force strength, movement patterns. Using a charcoal stick she roughly sketched out a timeline of the events on the map.
After several minutes of marking the map up and eyeing it from a few different angles, she came to a determination and pointed at one of the camps on the map.
"This one will be the next target. Currently, the shaman is capturing one camp at a time, however, I believe that after they take the next camp, they will make a larger push for multiple.
They seem to be escalating and given what I have read regarding goblin incursions in the past, I believe this will be the most likely outcome." Rena provided her reasoning and work on the map to the two party leaders.
Jen was rather impressed having not really given Rena a chance to show her excellent strategic mind. Simon simply gave a knowing smile because everyone in the family knew how clever of a girl she was.
Together, the three of them came up with a plan to ambush the next wave of attackers. They would likely be able to take out a few hobgoblins and a number of low-level goblins. If they were lucky one of the Witch Doctors would show up and they could take them out as well. The only thing they don't want is the Goblin Shaman. If he did show, they would have to take out what they can and then retreat.
Killing the Shaman would make the other goblins disperse since only the Shaman was capable of leading.
If they truly wanted to complete the quest to satisfaction, they would need to eliminate the entire force, which would mean taking the Shaman out as one of the last enemies they kill.
Once Lucius and Zira returned from their scouting mission, they would add the information they provided with what they have and ensure that their data is correct. Once that was done, they would move out and begin setting up the first trap.