Kejak let's Axel do the talking, only adding "You should be careful being here outside. We're not sure every goblin in town has been dealt with - and that's why we're looking for the Sheriff."
Bethana smiles warmly and gives Josie a little wave in return.
"See I told ya," one of the young men mutters to the other while elbowing him in the ribs, "they ain't no heroes..."
The halfling meekly explains, "the way that lord was talkin' it sounded like you musta killed a dozen... plus two big dogs."
Despite herself Ellen smiles at Axel's misfortune. Speaking to Bethana, she says quietly "Lord Foxglove was on the ground at the time so he may have been counting goblins that weren't there in his fright." She giggles, amused at her own joke.
Axel laughs, "It's funny when I first saw Foxglove I thought he could handle himself, now I'm not so sure. Those goblins had him trussed up and ready to drag him through the streets. Anyway gotta find the Sheriff, be seeing ya!"
The two young men are already walking away by the time Josie offers any explanation. "But you did fight some of them, huh?" Bethana asks her fellow halfling, "You be careful, Miss Josie, if those dogs can drag off a full grown man imagine what they could do with you."
Axel enters Market Street and stops to look, he wasn't really expecting there to be goblins but you never know....
Not seeing anything he starts walking towards the gate, saying, "Keep your eyes peeled folks."
When Axel leaves to head for the gate, Kejak nods. "That conversation was going nowhere." He follows him and keeps an arrow in hand just in case.
Things seem quiet at the southern gate. There are half a dozen watchmen there and two goblin corpses that have been dragged off to the side of the road. Kejak recognizes most of the men and one of them, a stout man with a graying beard named Anatoli, walks over to him and his friends to say hi. After briefly exchanging pleasantries he informs them, "The sheriff's up at the north gate, last I heard. I guess they got hit harder up there... we only had these two and they were tryin' t'get out not in."
Axel nods and says laconically, "Ok better head north then, lets cut through Crab Street."
Unless anyone suggests otherwise he starts walking north along River Street, cuts through Crab Street and north up Church Street.
"Good. We're going to see Hemlock then."
Just before going, Kejak turns around one more last time. "Anatoli" he asks, "any sign of them having entered through here? They appeared in the middle of the square and no one seemed to had noticed."
"No, the four of us," Anatoli answers gesturing towards three of the other watchmen, "have been here the whole time... only way they could have come through here is if they were invisible."
Ellen silently follows along with the others to the north gate.
"Invisible? Mmmmh... a possibility to consider... Anyway, thank you, Anatoli."
After reassuring himself, he follows Axel and the others.
River Street seems quiet as the group walks up it, as does Crab Street. There's more activity in the church square as several watchmen are busy dragging away goblin corpses and some curious festival goers have returned to look around.
As the group passes by the Cathedral a handsome young acolyte of Shelyn (whom Josie recognizes as Augustino) comes running up to them. "Josie," he calls out, "I'm so glad I spotted you... Father Zantus is looking for you!"
"No, but I'd guess it has something to do with all this," the handsome acolyte answers, gesturing to the goblin corpses and charred vendor booths. "It sounded important..."
Axel smiles at Josie, maybe today really was a lucky day. Turning to the others he says, "Lets head on over to the wall and see if Sheriff Hemlock is there."
He starts walking towards the gate.
"Oh... Okay. Bye, Josie." Ellen can't hide her disappointment but follows the men to the gate regardless.
"Josie, while you talk to the Father, ask him if he or anyone has noticed anything unusual near the Cathedral, will you?" says Kejak, as a matter of farewell. "See you later at the Rusty Dragon. I'm really intrigued by how they managed to dodge our watch."
Realizing Kejak is still talking to Josie,
Axel stops and calls, "Come on Kejak! We're almost there."
Without waiting to see what Kejak does, Axel walks cautiously towards the north gate.
When within earshot he hails them, "Hello the gate! Is the Sheriff there? We'd like to talk to him."
Augustino struggles to keep up as Inc trots towards the Cathedral with Josie.
As Kejak, Axel, and Ellen approach the north gate its clear there's been more activity here. This gate much more heavily fortified with two stone towers flanking a reinforced portcullis, and a stone wall extending to the southeast. Three guards man each of the towers and another half-dozen are stationed on the ground, while two more clean some goblin blood from the cobblestones.
When Axel calls out his greeting the Sheriff steps out of the door to the northernmost tower with a bloodied longsword still in hand. He gives Kejak a slight nod and then answers, "we're a bit busy here folks, as you can see, what do you need?"
"Afternoon, Sir. We're in for reporting." Hemlock seems to inspire quite some respect on Kejak. "Been patrolling some part of the town and eliminated some goblins running errand. Checked in South Gate, all fine. Academy students, all fine. Axel and Ellen, here" he adds, pointing to them, "wanted to add their apportation. We thought to check in with you to be assigned a task."
Everyone can notice his attitude change - he seems more martial, as if trying to be up to the situation. Inside, he thinks this is the opportunity he's being waiting for all these years, and now he's not sure how to handle it...
Axel nodded and added, "The Goblins where setting some bombs and it seemed some had caught Lord Foxglove although we where able to free him. Seemed kinda organized yet disorganized. Got me wondering if somebody put em up to this..."
Ellen stays quiet, letting the boys do the talking here. She had never spoken to the sheriff before, only seeing him give lectures on the rules like he had at the festival earlier. When her name was mentioned she nodded, confirming that she was indeed there to help. It was too late to turn back anyway, even with Josie gone.
Sheriff Hemlock raises an eyebrow at their statements. "Looking for some work, eh? Alright... grab one of them mops and a couple buckets. Walk through town and clean up any goblin guts you find. If you find any corpses drag 'em to one of the gates."
While he speaks one of two men who have been cleaning jogs over with a mop and two empty buckets. "You'll have to go down to the river, or to the docks, to fill them," the young man informs them before returning to his work.
What?! Axel felt a surge of annoyance, a menial job like that was demeaning. He was about to angrily demur when suddenly it hit him, the goblin blood was messing up Sandpoint. He was always fastidious and this stain on his hometown would simply never do. His whole demeanor changed just like that to one of determination. This was a chore no doubt, but a worthy one.
Turning to Ellen and Kejak, Axel suggests,
"The river is closest, let's try there?"
Kejak looks a bit dissapointed, but has to admit that the sooner they clean everything, the sooner the people will recover their confidence.
"Okayy..." he says, head down.
Ellen's face turns goblin green at the sheriff's command. Her desire to help largely runs dry there, but she could hardly get out now... she gives Axel a weary nod and follows him to the river.
The next couple hours pass rather uneventfully as the three orphans carry buckets of water around the city to various sites in need of cleaning. When they run out of places to clean they return to the north gate. The Sheriff is no longer there but the officer on duty supplies them with a cordial thank you and 1 gold piece each for their service.
"Okay, guys, we've done this, which was necessary. But now I really want to do something big, what do you think? We should talk to Hemlock and ask him about being assigned somewhere important."
"Mm... I don't think there's anything 'big' left to do today, Kejak." Ellen talks quietly, though mostly audible. "It seems like all the goblins have been taken care of for now, otherwise they would not be handing out mops. Maybe tomorrow the guards will have a better idea of what's going on and what can be done to stop this from happening again."
Axel finds himself nodding at Ellen, it really didn't seem like there would be anything more to do today. Well except having dinner with Shayliss, now that sounded exciting!
Axel grins at Kejak, "We could ask, but I have a feeling Ellen is right. Besides don't know about you two but all that mopping up made me hungry! I was thinking of getting some food and maybe going to the Theater, assuming Cyrdak Drokkus is still going to open it tonight. Uh I was gonna invite Shayliss too, that's OK right?"
Kejak has to recognise they're telling the truth. Probably nothing else important is happening today. But still, he doesn't feel like goig out for fun.
"Sorry, guys, but I don't feel like partying. I guess I'll just rest in case we have something to do tomorrow."
He thinks deeply about what to do next and adds "Tell you what? Why don't we go see Hemlock, tell him we're off till tomorrow, then we have dinner? Let me invite you all. What do you say? Then you can go to the theatre or do whatever you like."
Not interested in the possibility of third wheeling for Axel and Shayliss, Ellen takes Kejak up on his offer. "Dinner would be nice, thank you." She hopes the day's work is over and she can collapse on her bed after food.
Axel shrugged subtly, he was happy to pay his way still if Kejak was buying... Grinning he replied, "Sure fella, Hemlock then dinner. Do you have a notion of where he might be? Back at his office perhaps?"
Axel wasn't surprised Kejak didn't want to celebrate, he suspected Kejak secretly dreamed of becoming sheriff one day and hoped to win Hemlock's respect. Ellen not being interested was a something of a relief, in his minds eye Axel imagined her giving Shayliss funny looks all evening.
"I guess he will be there or, at least, we can leave word for him there. Don't really need to talk to him personally, only let him know."
Sheriff Hemlock is in a meeting with Mayor Deverin when you arrive. Orin Telmar, one of the captains of the watch, tells you, "they're likely to be a while but I'll pass on your message. Also, we offer a ten gold bounty on goblins if you bring in their right ears... we've cleared the bodies from the city, so you won't be able to collect any now, but from the accounts I've heard it seems you must have killed half a dozen or so." He makes a note in a ledger and then hands over 60 gold to the three you.
What a day, Axel had fought goblins, won, lost then won again more money than he's seen in months and to top it all there was Shayliss!
Axel replied respectfully, "Thank you Mr Orwin Sir. Any idea where they came from sir?"
While Axel is asking, Kejak mentally does the math and whispers to Ellen. "We must remember to give Josie her part, that'll be fifteen coins."
Ellen nods to Kejak and whispers back, "I'll give it to her when I next see her." With a wary eye at Axel she adds, "Not too keen on the idea of tagging along with Axel and Shayliss's date... Maybe we could go get some food and let them have their fun on their own." She seems oddly unaware of any similarities between her spending time alone with Kejak and the situation between Axel and Shayliss.