The Tien diety(?) slowly blinks awake as healing magic washes over her. She takes a few minutes to take in the spectacle before speaking in fluent, but accented, Goblin. "Thank you for rescuing me, friends. Please untie me and return me to my friends. If you do this, I will be very grateful and bestow you with more gifts."
Sticky is now on the fence about Tienshanks, but he figures there's no harm in seeing for sure. He motions to his only ally in belief and begins to untie her bonds.
Laz nods carefully, "We will get you to elf-friend. Stay with us - there may be more Birdcrunchers."
At that moment Auntie and Belle come barging in. She is shocked to see everyone in one piece and a save Tien woman next to them. She speaks to them in her perfect common, "Good, you're save." Remembering how unsettled the fellow goblins were upon seeing Belle for the first time she adds, "Don't worry about the zombo, she's mine. I found her and now she's mine. She is a safe one."
As if trying to confirm Belle grins and vigorously nods her head. For a moment Auntie is afraid it'll actually come loose.
"Yes tianshanks, come this way! We escort you out so elfshanks stops killing gobbos. By the way, what happened?" the goblin says, glancing at the body of the flippyshanks.
Yes yes, who is elfshank here? He friend of Birdies, so he no more now.
Says the squishy goblin, pointing the dead half-elf on the floor.
The Tienshanks looks at the body on the floor and freezes. You see a few tears trickle down her cheeks before she pulls herself together. "Tsuto Kaijitsu - my father. I came here to see if there was anything worth salvaging and found him here with a bunch of Goblins. They knocked me out and locked me in here. I overheard something about a sacrifice. What could have happened to him? We haven't been close for some time, but I still loved him! Why was he doing this?"
Oh, Tianshanks father? oh, oh Says the squishy goblin, surprised at the discovery.
Me sorry for your loss, Tianshanks
Sure he vas cursed, we where cursed too, but we achieved to beat it together. He was alone. Birdcrunchers does not help, they are effortless.
Sticky starts poking around for valuables. Talking was boring.
Tochack stays silent as the Tienshanks speaks. "Me sorry, we not know that. Me asked him before attacking if he was your friend, but said nothing." he looks at the body of the flippyshanks and the birdcrunchers. "Strange things happening here, yes. First zombos (no, other zombos, Auntie's zombo's a good zombo), then birdcrunchers, then hole in the wall there. We escort you to archery elfshanks and then our gobbos solve mystery, yes?" he adds with what is supposed to be a kind smile.
As they're leaving, the wannabe-cleric asks "How do they catch you, Tianshanks? Are other longshanks okay?"
Yes yes, let us get you to your elfy friend with the gobling killing arrows.
He said in common nodding. A shame what happened to her sibling like that, but well... things like this seemed to happy around goblin tribes he found. Now that he had his glassmaking facility, he would have to figure out how all the things worked... how to make the glass...
The cheiftain too would have to ... be coerced into things. Certainly they needed to repay those stupid birdcrunchers for messing up the town and his shop. A full scale raid on thier lands and their things might teach them to fear the licktoads!
Laz offers in goblin since he doesn't speak common, "We can bring your brood-mate with us, for your death rituals. We will be careful with him."
I'll help, me not strong, but I'll help carry Tianshanks' father.
But tell Elfshanks we did to help.
Oh, lucky lucky, I did not take the ears and kidneys still.
As you escort the Tienshanks back to her home, she explains how she'd entered the glassworks on a scouting mission. She'd been hoping to jury-rig some of the equipment and improvise something to make your tribe think the place was haunted. Ideally, the Licktoads would have been spooked and left Sandypoints. To her surprise, her father was there with a group of Birdcrunchers. When she asked what they were doing, he knocked her out.
She leads you to the western portion of Sandypoints - an area heavily warded with Goblin pictograms of danger and death. The Elfshanks meets you before you enter, and the more perceptive among you can see other longshanks peering at you from behind cover. In Common, the Elfshanks asks what happened, and the Tienshanks explains how she was captured by Birdcrunchers (led by her father) but rescued by the six of you. Although the Elfshanks doesn't say anything to you , you get the sense that she's grateful. The Tienshanks bids you to wait outside as she enters, but returns a few minutes later with your promised reward - a large bundle of fireworks!
Loot
Flame Fountain x5
Star Candle x10
Excited from the gift from the Tianshan deity, Pus jumps and tumbles in happiness, speaking in quick and with deep goblin accent.
oh, we get firey relics, you see, Brother,
Now elfshanks be nice, she no kill gobbos, we great chief reward.
Sticky dances about when the reward is revealed. He sings a poorly improvised song as he prances, Tienshanks give us explody color fires! All hail Tienshanks!
Plays was mostly quiet watching teh interactions... the explodey wire werks interested him but he did his best to not... look to excited or interested... The dangerous elfshanks however He couldnt help but smile at.
You can feels free rooftop bounce by anytime you need anything from me Elf. I will be taking over the uh glassworks to make goblin glass and other grand things.
He said managing to not chuckle too much.
@Plays: The elfshanks doesn't respond, but you could almost swear that she winks at you before slipping away into the shadows.
Tochack's eyes waters as the Tianshanks offer them the relics "Me...me doesn't know what to say. We honored to have this, and me honored to help you." he takes a deep breath, trying to hold the tears back. "We said before, but strange things were happening. Zombos and birdcrunchers sounds like bad news. Was anything else strange happening here in Sandypoint some time ago?".
After they are done talking to the assortment of longshanks, Tochack turns to his two-gobbo "flock". "See Pus, Sticky? We did good, and we got reward. Fire hair says so: you be good, people be good with you. You be bad, people stab you in the gut with scimitars. Trough the Tianshanks, she even gave us Glowy Hands and Firey Relics. Me can teach you more about the Fire Hair to you, if you want?" he says with a smile.
Yay! More people following Fire Hair!
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Yes, we do good deeds now. We must slaughter all Birdcrunchers and male longshanks, then bring to elfshanks all the females, yes, we do good, a loot of good.
Then we get relics, and fire hairs, and relics with gobling hands urgh glowink ants naaaah.
Says Puseater, clearly dazzed with the frenzy swirling dance he was doing all along, making him unable to make any sense with the last words.
The brother blinks a couple of times, then sighs. "No Pus, we killed Birdcrunchers and male longshanks because they were evil, not because they were birdcrunchers and male longshanks. Doing good is rescuing good people like the Tianshanks, making that both gobbos and longshanks can live peacefully, catching the potion thief, and other stuff. When we be exploring the Glassworks, we be doing something good because we discover what dangerous thing may happen in the tunnels under there: we make gobbos and longshanks safe, and we make it safe for Plays to use it as his laboratory." the grey goblin finishes, winking at Plays.
If Plays help all will be much easier: he may take time for him to see Fire Hair's path, but me's here for that.
Aaaaaand it's better if I teach about Redemption to Pus later: me may confuse him even more...
@Tochack: "Well, there was the Chopper, but he died years ago. Other than that, there was the fire that burned down the old Cathedral. Such a tragedy..."
"Yes, and when you's all nice and cosy Great Mother come and eat you all. This great idea." Belle nodded vigorously, once more almost losing her head in the process, "Me needs to stitch you up, you can't lose loose head." Auntie grumbled.
She then turned towards the tien woman, "Such a waste to burn down a cathedral. The fire must have been beautiful though." Aunty sighed, lost in thought for a moment.
He blinked at the elven maiden actually shocked at her reaction, so much so he pretty much tuned out Brother Tochaks attempts to have him... help with the explanations. He was quiet even up to the point of the meeting with the chief... He did however see an opportunity.
Oh mighty Cheif Gutwad, Indeed we discoverd the source of the dead gobs. An evil tianshanks err.. longshanks was working with birdcrunchers trying to infiltrate that big glass shops. There were uh... surviving tianshanks and elfshanks about and we speaked with them... They saw firsthand the might of the Licktoad tribe.
He said making a grandiouse display of things... lots of arm motions really
We have to make those stupid birdcrunchers pay! This is licktoad gobbo town now, and they tried to steals from it and us! He added slamming his little green fist into the palm of his hands.
But there is more going on than that too Chief! The firehair lady Brother Tochack sees in his head appears to have given Stickymitts more than just sticky fingers but glowy healy hands too! Double blessed are the Licktoad tribe!
He paused doing his best to look well grovely.
So uh... any rewards for the heros who stopped the gobkilling? He added purposely having left out a few details that were ... well not 'that' important to teh story.
Sticky falls into a happily oblivious state over the rewards the group had garnered so far. Reporting their success would bring even more treasure, he hoped, and his bag was almost full of shinies! It was a good day.
He is mostly oblivious to the report to the chief until his name is mentioned. He snaps out of it just in time to understand that Plas was asking for more loot, prompting an enthusiastic Ya! that inadvertently aid the whole of the speech instead of just the loot part he was paying attention to.
Tochack beams when Plays mention the Fire Hair in his speech.
Wait, what is Play meaning by "in his head"?
"Yeah, Chief, evil longshanks was telling Birdcrunchers to mess with us, but we stopped them! We be keep investigating in how longshanks convinced them by cleaning up Glassworks: we asked questions to evil longshanks, but he kept jumping around trying to kill us, he said nothing."
Tochack stops for a second, remembering the tianshanks's reaction when she saw the corpse of her relative.
We have to discover what's going on...
"Let's go get the Birdcrunchers."
Puseater quietly observes and listens the conversation, about to speak several times, but the Chief presence intimidates him too much.
He jumps and claps in his mind when the words reward and killing are named, but as before, he remains still and quiet.
yes, we go, go get Birdyes. Finally whispers the little goblin.
"So, say, we rest and go to tunnels under Glassplace tomorrow?" Tochack asks to the other gobs.
Either way, Tochack then goes with the party to the tunnel in the Glassworks, leading the way in the tunnel.
Sure, I can take a rest. And a meal. Or two.
Sticky nods in support of a rest. I need to count my stuff!
After a good night's sleep, you awaken, regroup, and return to the glassy-work place. Once you're sure that nobody infiltrated it while you were away, you head back to the tunnel in the basement.
You follow the long tunnel for about 600ft before coming across a cave on the right. From out of the darkness, a hairless humanoid charges toward you on backward-bending dog-like legs.
"Eeep! What's that?!". Startled by the bentshanks, Tochack starts spinning, charging his scimitar with magic and slashing the creature.Strafing to the side, he makes room for his allies to attack.
Puseater moves intinctively towards the creature flank, using Tochack's spinning attack as distraction, then draws his dogslicer and strikes the bentshanks.
Eeeeek, its like those tales to scare gobbo pups, they are made by mages from their sins, Sin-pawns they call!
Watchout, if it touch you with his pawns, you will get a sin!
Says an altered Puseater.
Sticky squeaks in fright! A sin-pawn! Its just like his cage mattress used to say! He starts screaming Kill it! Kill! Kill! Everyone finds his screaming oddly encouraging.
Laz jumps at the sight of the crazed creature running towards them "What hell?!" He looses two arrows at the creature.
MODS: STR+1, FOB, PBS, Bless
Perfect Strike (2):
Ki (0):
Arrows: xxxxxxxx
Blunts: xxxxx
Spell Effects:
Bless - +1
Whazzat?
He said tilting his head and looking at the oddity. He was about to say try not to break it too badly so he could study it when he heard Pus's cries...
A mage made monster? He thought to himself as he moved out of the way. He wasnt sure if it had some sort of anti magical defense so he deftly slid behind everyone else. No sense in hitting it with magic to have it like... explode or attack him or something.
Reacting quickly, Tochack and Laz take down the monster.
Loot
M Ranseur x1
Stopping his spin, Tochack eyes the creature warily. "Created by mages? Where are we now, then?" the Goblin asks, looking around. "Wasn't so though at least, but me now really don't know what to expect to be here." he says, as he walks to the nearby cave intersection.
Zombos, curses and now sin-pawns from scare tales... I must be dreaming... Sure it was since the wack-a-goblin game.
Says Puseater while pinching himself.
As They walk, Sticky smacks Pus upside the head and stares at him for a moment. Nope. Me not dreamin' neither.
The next intersection leads to a rectangular chamber. Its purpose is unclear, but large mounds of rubble lie strewn on the floor. The wall to the west has been torn down to reveal another tunnel.
Plays carefully drags the corpse to the side poking at it slightly. If it was some sort of mage monster he was going to eventually study it, he just wanted to make sure it wasnt in trampling paths if they had to run.
He followed along and studied the strewn rubble and torn down wall his ears wriggling as he hopped about looking at everything. After several long moments studying he looked to the others...
This uh is not be goblin werk... so shoots first and stabs fast and talky talk laters with the things on the other side okay?
He said trying to slowly and subtly 'take' charge of his less studied brethren.
"Yes yes, these monster not looks like talky types. Do you think it was them that dig the tunnels?" Tochack asks to Plays, reaching him trough the rubble.
While Plays plays with the fallen sin-pawns and does his talky talk, Puseater tries the weapon the creature was holding, swinging the unnapropiate size ranseur in odd ways, until the skinny goblin finally garners a precise hit... to his own crotch.
aaaaaaah
Argh, weapon cursed with sin-pawns hexy hex, it must, it must. Those words hangs around Puseater mind, while he tries to disimulate his clumsiness.
Uh? Talk with them? no no. Me like to stab, you talk.