One goblin is pretty banged up, and Kytes and his hawk have her surrounded. With the way she's flailing her blades around, she might be in a panic.
The other goblin seems to be unleashing all sorts of alchemical hell upon Iagon. Who knows what else is in that bag.
Luckily for Iagon, the flask of liquid fire has helped to weaken the sticky goop that has glued him in place.
"Who the hell you calling longshanks? Pretty sure you're taller than me, horse-face!" Roger screams back at the goblins in their own language, knowing fully well that calling them a horse is a grievous insult. He shoots again at the goblin by Kytes.
Hells, it burns!. Iagon can't help himself and he cries out in pain and anger. He rips at the bonds holding him in place even as they, and he, burn. With no good option save to free himself, he blast upward once again, hurling off the sizzling barrier.
Once freed, he moves a step closer to Attain, hoping to get a better view of the persistent goblin above.
Attai calls on the Harrow to protect him, then shoots his loaded heavy crossbow.
Swift Action: Enact Judgment, +1 Sacred bonus to AC.
Standard Action: Fire at southern goblin.
The laughing goblins aren’t laughing any more. Roger’s arrow finds its mark in goblin shoulder, puncturing armor and flesh.
Attai’s bolt, too, finds its mark, puncturing the other goblin’s lung. She’s having trouble breathing.
With the tide turning, Eir screeches valiantly and rakes at the goblin pincushion.
Another good chunk of flesh and the goblin passes out from the pain.
Kytes turns and hustles as fast as he can over the boulder toward the other goblin.
Injured, her ambush partner fallen, and a big half-orc in shining armor coming for her, the other goblin flees, leaving her bag of tricks behind.
Iagon hisses in pain as the flames lick across his flesh. Seeing the goblin in flight, he puts his hands on his knees, panting. I...am going to be feeling that for a while. Vile little beasts! He looks around at his companions, suddenly more concerned now that he's a moment to think of more than simply cooking.
Is everyone alright?
[b]"Hcglukh. Lugkh.[b]" Attai coughs, though the smile on his face shows his crossbow shot has improved his outlook despite his wound.
Roger goes to loot the goblin who he shot. "Come on, daddy needs a new bow..."
"WHAT?!?" Liamae shouts, unable to hear the conversation. She stows her bow and puts a hand to her head. "THOSE FILTHY CRETINS DEAFENED ME! I CAN'T HEAR A THING!"
Kytes continues up the other side of the ravine for a bit, but quickly loses sight of the goblin. Even Eir, who is now circling high above the group, does not see any sign of immediate threat. Kytes picks up the sack left behind by the goblin and takes a peek inside. He frowns in disgust at the tar stuffed swamp rat carcass inside, amongst other things. After seeing the vile tactics with which the goblin used these things, he's not sure he wants them.
Checking the other unconscious goblin, Roger does indeed find a shortbow at its feet, and a quiver of 19 arrows on its back, along with two wicked looking blades.
The goblin also wears leather armor, and has a belt pouch full of mostly worthless baubles, but also 5 gold and 10 silver.
Roger finds this goblin also has signs of ritual scarring, but of a different style than the ones by the river.
Iagon nods to Liamae, then shakes his head, then shrugs. His vision was as blurry as his hearing was gone...all he heard was a faint murmuring of intelligible sounds in the distance. He sighs inwardly and looks with a fair level of trepidation at the implements of destruction from the goblins.
He gestures to the tracks, and shrugs, hoping to convey "Well?"
Attai frowns in thought, looking at the newly minted carnage, back toward the river then to where the tracks lead away.
"I would that we ascertain the total meaning of this disturbance - follow these tracks to their bitter end. Though I may requiresome healing..."
"I THINK WE SHOULD FOLLOW THE TRACKS!" Liamae shouts, not realizing Attai has just said the same thing.
Iagon looks from one to the other, and nod-shrugs to indicate a vague agreement.
2x vials of watery grey liquid
2x vials of clear liquid with blue globules
1x vial of viscous brown oil
1x vial of cloudy orange liquid with a slight glow
1x vial of colorless liquid with brown crystalline condensate
Roger ditches his old shortbow for the new one, and grabs the arrows as well.
"Couple of dogslicers over here, if anyone has any dogs that need slicing..."
He tries miming slicing a dog for the benefit of Liamae and Iagon, then nods in agreement with Attai.
Iagon takes out some of his potions and sorts through to find the right one. He downs it quickly, then offers another to Attai, regrettably wordlessly.
He then indicates for the others to follow, and continues down the road, following the goblin tracks.
With Iagon leading the way, you follow the road for about an hour longer. It's assumed the rest of the goblins went this way, and you see signs of their passage here and there, but it's hard to say how many are left.
After winding through some rolling hills, you come in sight of an abandoned farmhouse. Or, it looks to be abandoned. The roof has caved in in places and the plastered mudbrick walls are beginning to crumble. However, tied to a weathered fence post outside is a donkey, alive and well, and a small figure seems to be asleep at his post at the door. The smell of smoke is strong as you draw near, but no smoke is visible.
Behind you, clouds are gathering in the western sky. Looks like rain might be moving in, but not for a while.
By the time the farmhouse comes into view, the ringing in Liamae and Iagon's ears has subsided.
Iagon looks at the little fellow at his post with interest, trying to determine if it's a goblin or not.
"Many thanks!" breathes the sylph after downing the curative draught.
As they approach the farmhouse Attai reloads his heavy crossbow, and tries to ascertain what Iagon is looking at.
Iagon and Attai can confirm, the small figure with mottled green skin, large head, and drool hanging from its sharp-toothed maw, is indeed a goblin. He has fallen asleep next to the empty doorframe, a spear across its his lap. The door itself has fallen off its hinges and now serves as a kind of low ramp to the interior. Because of the angle of your approach, you cannot see through the door. There is a broken out window on the west side of the building, but other than some shafts of light leaking through holes in the roof, it is dark inside.
The donkey munches hungrily on the dried grass near the house. It’s tied to a fence between you and the sleeping goblin guard. Neither of them seem to have noticed your approach, or at least the donkey doesn’t seem to mind.
“Donkeys are loud if they get spooked,” warns Kytes, “We should be careful.”
Roger doesn't realize that Iagon's and Liamae's hearing is back, and decides to take it upon himself to sign out what everyone says to them. He doesn't know sign language. He then points out the sleeping goblin and draws his finger across his throat.
Attai watches Roger with bemused interest that turns to actual admiration.
A fine performer.
When audio has been re-established, the sylph murmurs low.
"I liked not being gutshot, by surprise. If we had no fear of hurting prisoners or innocents I would revisit Roger's flame welcome, though at range. Sadly, we must indeed be careful. Ambush them."
The sylph looks again at the problem.
"I can ensure one shot with a divine mark, but we need to make it count."
I can strike as well, if needed, and from qite a distance. Should we have someone at the window in case we can attack from there as well?
We're it not for the possibility of prisoners within, I'd say we burn the whole place down. What can we do about the donkey? I'm loathe to kill a simple pack beast, but if it should give away our surprise...
"I'm not sure what to do about the donkey, either," Liamae says, frowning. "I do have this potion of gaseous form. One of us could quaff it and float into the house to scout it out before we attack to better plan our assault."
Kytes asks that you not harm the donkey, "It's just an innocent animal, and besides, maybe we can keep it afterwards."
"Fair enough, but what if we just make it sleep for a really, really long time? Do we have anyone who can knock out a donkey? Or donkey tranquilizer?"
"The best I can do is try to scare if off with a blast of fire, or stick it to the ground with one of those tanglefoot bags we took from the other goblins."
"Where innocents are at stake, we must not fail them - to that end, I suggest we follow Liamae's plan - the potion of gaseous form."
Attai considers the location again, frowning.
"As for the donkey, perhaps it will be enough to scare it off and hope to find it later? I admit my animal husbandry is sorely lacking..."
Very well, seconded Attai. I'd assume our most stealthy, then? He raises and eyebrow and tracks his gaze over to Roger.
I'll be ready to attack the goblin should something go awry. If we can scare it off, perhaps that may even draw out any enemies from within as they come out to check on it.
With that Iagon readies himself to try and take out the goblin at the front, should Roger need.
Roger looks at everyone looking at him and gulps audibly. "Right. Yeah. So I just gotta do some recon, is that right? How long does that thing last, anyways? Don't want to pop back into normal form in the middle of a goblin party...although come to think of it, that wouldn't be the first time I've done something like that before."
He digs the snapleaf that he got in Cassomir out of his bag and puts it in his pocket, just in case he needs to be sneaky for even longer.
Roger drinks the potion and giggles as the transformation happens. "Oh, that feels WEIRD." He flies over to the farmhouse, vowing to get himself a way to do this more often-flying is awesome! He seeps in through the roof. He figures it's probably safer that way, as there'll be less people up in the attic. In theory.
Roger downs the potion, and before your very eyes, he seems to disintegrate from the inside out, becoming merely a vaporous form somewhat resembling a halfling.
He floats on over to the farmhouse. For a moment, the donkey looks up in his direction, sniffs the air, and returns to grazing.
What he finds when he looks into the farmhouse from above is a grisly scene. Hanging from the rafters on large metal hooks is the mutilated body of... another donkey. It's throat has been slit, much like the human bodies you found earlier, and a bucket has been placed underneath to catch the blood, which by now is a slow drip. One of hind legs has been hacked off, and a bloodied cleaver, along with other instruments of butchery, lies on a nearby wooden bench.
In a back room, under a large hole in the roof, is a barrel half full of rain water. There's a strange smoky haze throughout the house that causes Roger a strange tickling feeling as he floats through it. Other than these things, the house is empty.
Roger confirms-the house is empty. He hovers around for just a little longer, just to make sure that the donkey is the only inhabitant of the place. After all, he's pretty sure the donkey didn't do that to himself.
Roger's suspicions are well founded, but the farmhouse is indeed empty. However, maybe, just maybe, as he floats back up through the roof, he happens to peek around the east side of the building, where he notices a set of cellar doors, left unchecked.
Roger does indeed peek around the east side of the building, and he notices an unguarded set of cellar doors! He goes back to tell the others what he found.
"So...the donkey had a friend who got horribly murdered. There's smoke everywhere in the house, and a cellar with nobody around the doors. I have a feeling that's where the smoke's coming from."
"We'd better head down to the cellar and investigate, then. Let's circle around and come from the other side of the building to avoid startling the donkey or waking the goblin."
Iagon follows around to the east side of the building, trying to remain stealthy as he goes. He keeps his approach to the complete opposite side of the sentry and his donkey. Once everyone reaches the cellar doors, he tries to lift them up and open.
Liamae adjusts her spectacles, calling upon the mental focus stored within for a bit of sudden insight. She then follows Iagon to the doors as quietly as possible.
The donkey looks up just in time to see the last of you sneak around the backside of the house. He grunts a little, but he's had a stressful day, being stolen by goblins and all, and boy is this grass good. He continues his grazing without much fuss. The goblin guard snores away.
Iagon opens the cellar doors to reveal a set of steep stairs leading down into a hazefilled room. It's hard to see into because of all the smoky haze, but there seems to be a low firelight and the smell of roasting donkey haunch.
A growling voice, much lower than the goblins you've encountered so far, bellows out from the haze-filled darkness "Umrok! Get back to your post! Dinner ain't ready yet!"
There is a brief chorus of snickering before another bellow of "Shut up lousy pussbuckets!"
Before sneaking to the doors, Liamae uses her wand to ward herself with mage armor.
As the group prepares to descend, she summons the mental focus in her boots and touches Attai's and Roger's favored weapons, infusing them with memories of ancient artifacts of old. She puts a finger to her lips and gestures for the pair to lead the way into the cellar.
Iagon nods in agreement and readies his power. Then, he follows them into the cellar, making sure to stay in front of Liamae...chivalry and all that....
Attai smiles slightly as Liamae touches his morningstar, and feels the power emanating from it. He nods his head, and casts a spell of his own, bathing the group in positive energy drawn from the Harrow card Attai has drawn.
=
This is the chaotic good card of intelligence. It represents a monster that can only be defeated through trickery, or the value of humor in circumventing difficult people.
Attai's smile crinkles.
"The Harrow says we may need to use our wits, not force of arms. Roger, your Goblin tongue may need to wag lyrically..." the sylph whispers, gripping his morningstar tight.
Kytes isn’t sure what Attai means, but he volunteers to go first. A flash of light emits from Eir and washes over him, and with shield held high and sword at the ready, he carefully descends the stairs. Just as his head disappears from sight, you here a ruckus of confused shouting. Kytes calls out a warning behind him, “It’s full of goblins!” then charges forward.
Kytes closes with the unwary goblin before him.
And swiftly cuts it down.
At the bottom of the stairs is a cramped cellar. The walls are lined with crates and barrels and shelves full of pillaged goods. The back wall is lined with hay and several grungy blankets. In the center of the cellar is a low burning fire, mostly hot coals, and a spit with the rear leg of a recently butchered donkey roasting over the fire. The room is hazy with smoke. More importantly, there is a hobgoblin shouting confused orders at, now, two remaining goblins. They are caught off guard and scrambling for their weapons.