Mia continues gathering everything that's useful wherever it is found. Once she's stripped the hobgoblins of their gear, she tosses their corpses near the wolf.
"Enjoy," she says to the wolf as she returns to the others.
"As much as I'd hate to leave anyone in goblin hands, I don't think we can ask the others to take that risk. Let's finish getting everyone to safety, then we can worry about rescuing the others," she says.
The wolf abandons its previous meal to start tearing at the bodies of the hobgoblins. Mia can see that the dead villager it was devouring is an older man wearing homespun robes. The bloodstained holy symbol of Erastil around his neck confirms the worst--sadly, her earlier words prove to have been prophetic. This is Father Noelan.
"The bridge is on the complete opposite side of town, if we're going that way we might as well keep to our plane and save as many as we can." Surma counters as she goes about reorienting her new supplies and gear.
"Right, and we need to keep moving," she says to the others as she leads the way to the next most likely place to find survivors, Phaendar Trading Company.
The sounds of battle continue across town as you stealthily approach your next destination. A signpost by the road announces the clapboard wooden shop and barnlike smithy sharing a single large, stone wall to be the Phaendar Trading Company. The smithy's double doors stand open, revealing a large, still-glowing forge within. Two slaughtered goats and a dead horse fill an adjacent animal pen. Many fresh scratches and dents mar the trading post's heavy wooden door, and a chair leg juts through one broken window. Small flames lick at the thatch rooftop where a red-hot iron has been tossed.
Scouting ahead of the group a bit, Mia can see three Ironfang soldiers prowling the yard in front of the building, though all seem to be nursing injuries. They haven't noticed the ranger yet. A few human bodies lay around.
Mia quietly takes out her bow and nods to hobgoblins.
"I'll shoot at the furthest one. Take the others as quickly as you can," she whispers to the others without taking her eyes off the soldiers. She couldn't kill them all, there were too many, but she could kill these. Her eyes narrow in concentration as she nocks an arrow and draws her bow. She lines up the shot, aiming for the thing's throat.
"I hope you f~+*ing choke on it," she mutters towards the hobgoblin as she looses the arrow.
Mia's arrow whizzes past the hobgoblin, shattering against the stone wall of the trading company. Alerted, the three soldiers whirl to face you, snarling angrily.
They charge at the ranger, and while she manages to dodge two of their strikes, the third cuts an angry red line across her side.
"Less talky, more killy!" Surma calls out to Mia as she charges one of the hobgoblins
"... need to take my own advice."
With another fight begun Eilyne moved in closer and sent another thorn flying out at the nerest hobgoblin. The thorn flew across the intervening distance and seemed on course for a brutal blow to a weak spot in the hobgoblin's armor.
Mia moves her bow to her off hand and draws her sword. She steps around, trying to flank one of the hobgoblins with Surma, and steel flashes as she tries her luck with melee combat.
"Minto, attack the hobgoblins!" Griffo commands as he moves up behind Surma. "A little guidance for you so that your axe swings true," he says as he casts guidance on her.
Minto bounds in to snap at one of the hobgoblins in the melee.
Surma charges in to attack the hobgoblins, but her foe deflects her wild swing on his shield.
Minto rushes in to nip at the one of the soldier's heels, but fails to land a hit. Griffo moves up behind Surma and casts an orison to guide her next blow.
Aubrin calls upon Cayden Cailean to channel healing energy, mending Mia's wounds.
Eilyne hurls a thorn into a weak spot in the nearest hobgoblin's armor, severely wounding him.
Mia starts to circle around, though she can't quite reach a flank without opening herself to opportunistic attacks. Still, she stabs the soldier that Eilyne struck, dropping him.
The remaining soldiers each choose a target. One attacks Surma and the other Mia. The first one fails to strike the sword devil, but the second drives his blade into the aasimar's belly. If not for Aubrin's healing, it might have been a fatal blow.
The roof of the trading company continues to burn, though the wet thatch impedes the flames' progress for the moment.
"Ooo!" Surma lets out with a shiver, not used to magic positively affecting her in the middle of a fight. "Thanks!" she calls out to Griffo before stepping to flank the hobgoblin attacking Mia.
"Minto, get Mia's hobgoblin!" Griffo makes sure to direct Minto at the highest priority enemy.
He then slides over to put guidance on Mia.
Minto snarls and lunges at the hobgoblin attacking Mia, but fails to get through the hobgoblin's defenses.
Mia stumbles back a step before trying to end the hobgoblin's life with a snarl.
Eilyne began to send another thorn flying but was distracted by the nearby fire, the ever growing nearby fire, and she began to worry at who might be inside. As fear of the burning flames grew in her it disrupted her focus and her thorn flew wild missing her target completely.
Surma moves to flank Mia's foe, her axe only barely stopped by the hobgoblin's armor.
While Griffo provides guidance to Mia, Minto tries to bite the same foe as well, but doesn't hit.
Aubrin sends out another burst of healing energy to keep Mia on her feet.
Eilyne's thorn blast goes wide of her foe, but Mia manages to stab the hobgoblin, further adding to its extensive injuries.
It snarls and tries to return the favor. Meanwhile, the other one steps in to flank Surma. Fortunately, neither one manages to land a good strike.
Aggravated by her failure Eilyne attempted to focus and fling another thorn out at the hobgoblin. sadly the thought of the nearby fire was too much for her and she again fumbled as she sent the projectile through the air.
Growling Surma keeps attacking, her frustrations at her previous attempts pushing her on.
Minto tries once again to bite one of the hobgoblin enemies, but is having some difficulty dealing with their armor.
Griffo switches tactics and tries to get an attack in on the hobgoblin flanking Surma. He loads his sling and lets fly. The difficulty of finding a mark in a swirling melee proves too difficult.
Mia moves to use their own tactics against them and steps around the hobgoblin she'd stabbed to flank it with Surma before burying her sword into its side.
Surma growls and delivers a powerful slash, disemboweling her foe. The hobgoblin sags to the ground.
Griffo and Minto both fail to land a good hit.
Aubrin moves closer to the melee, but the pain from her injury slows her down.
Eilyne likewise misses, her thorn blast going wide.
Mia circles around and stabs the final hobgoblin. He cries out in pain, though he's still standing.
The hob tries to retaliate, but the aasimar narrowly dodges his sword.
You hear people coughing and shouting from inside the trading post. "Help!" "We're trapped in here!" "Fire!" "We can't breathe!" The flames on the roof continue to smolder.
Mia ducks under the sword and lunges up at her foe, aiming to drive her blade deep into its side.
"Just die already," she tells it, "I'm sick of smelling you."
"Go help them! I got this!" she calls out as she keeps up her assualt.
Surma eviscerates the last enemy, leaving you free to deal with the fire.
Aubrin prays to Cayden Cailean and conjures water to start dousing the flames. In the animal pen nearby, you spy a trough of water and three buckets. You can also see furniture piled up against the windows inside the shop--it would seem the people inside built a barricade to keep the hobgoblins out, but now it's trapping them and the smoke from the fire inside!
"Get away from the window!" Surma shouts into the inferno as she moves up to hack at the window.
Mia grabs one of the buckets and starts trying to dowse the flames.
Eilyne turned her gave to the barricade and sent several seeds out, the thorns they grew into slamming into the obstruction forcefully.
"More help!" Griffo hisses to any other refugees following them. "Line up! Bucket brigade!" He hastily tries to tug helpers forward to pass full bucket to the fire and empty ones back to the trough.
Mia and Griffo quickly organize a bucket brigade. Jet and Rhyna join in along with a few other villagers as they work together to keep pouring water onto the flames.
Surma runs up to hack at the barricade with her axe while Eilyne blasts it with thorns. After a few barrages, the furniture shatters to splinters, giving the people inside the trading company space to escape. They stagger out into the yard, coughing and gasping for breath.
Soon, the flames have been extinguished, and Aubrin moves to tend to the villagers. They're shaken up and covered in soot, but you rescued them in time to avoid serious damage. There are three humans, along with the dwarf Kining Bronzebeard. Countless old burns mar the smith's pale skin, and she keeps her iron-gray hair in a short wedge.
"Damn glad somebody in this town is halfway competent," the dwarf grumbles. "If you hadn't showed up, I'd have choked to death with the rest of these dimwits."
"You're welcome." Surma says to the dwarf, completely without sarcasm.
"Don't know if we're good or lucky, given none of us saw that coming, I think," Mia replies as she points out the stone spire in the middle of the green. "Is there anything useful left in there," She asks as she heads for the hole the others had climbed out of.
"Also, can someone grab whatever those earfangs were carrying?"
"So you're going to take all of my stuff? Your looting's as bad as the hobs!" Kining grumbles as Mia heads into the trading company.. She doesn't stop her though as she searches around. The interior of the shop is drab and dominated by sacks of seed, bolts of cloth, barrels of nails, and staples like flour and salt. Thanks to the Nirmathi free-spirited nature, Kining maintains a small stock of supplies for would-be adventurers and mercenaries, including numerous weapons.
As the others salvage what they can from the trading post Surma goes to investigate the Smithy.
The smithy is lit by a flickering everburning torch. It looks like most of the weapons and armor that were being forged here are missing. A single hobgoblin lies still in the middle of the floor, sporting numerous wounds.
There's a grumble like stones grinding together, and a creature steps out of the wall of the smithy. The hulking, roughly humanoid creature of dirt and stone stands four feet tall, faceless save for two glowing gemstone eyes. It trundles towards Surma!
Hearing the grumbling noise, Aubrin walks over to the smithy entrance. She squints as she looks inside, then her eyes widen. "There's a creature inside!" she shouts, alerting the rest of the group.
"It's a rock! The walls are cheating!"
Eilyne looked to Kining as she grumbled about them being looters and said, "I suppose you could look at it that way. On the other hand these things will help keep us all alive as we flee this town," she looked pointedly at the dwarf, "including yourself if you are smart enough to come with us."
Eilyne wasn't sure just how convincing she was to the dwarf and was quickly distracted by the rock creature that appeared. She looked to the dwarf and asked, "Is that yours? I would prefer not to kill your pet." She began to pull in the energy to strike at the rock creature, holding back long enough to get an answer from the dwarf and to see if the thing is hostile. While she didn't think she could speak to it she figured it was worth a try and reverted to the language she grew up with in an attempt to parlay, "Meillä ei ole mitään vahinkoa, puhutko kanssamme?"
Kining harrumphs and crosses her arms. "Well, I'm not dumb enough to stay here and get killed. Might as well throw in with you lot."
When she sees the rock creature, the dwarf shakes her head vigorously. "It ain't mine! Maybe the hobs brought it along!"
The creature stops short when Eilyne addresses it. It slams its stony fists together and stomps its feet, then spits out some harsh syllables in an unfamiliar language.
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Deciding that trying to calm the creature, even get it to join them, could be helpful, Eilyne decided to take the chance. She released any hold she might have on the energy she'd begun gathering, letting it dissipate into the ground make the plants at her feet grow. She walked towards the creature slowly as the plants responded to her presence hoping the fact that she was bound to nature somewhat might help with the creature, and made what she hoped was a calming gesture, "We don't mean to harm you, be calm and let us not fight." She cautiously reached into a pouch at her waist and pulled forth a small shiny rock with unique colored striations in it that she'd found by a stream as a little girl and held it out for the creature, "Here, let this be a gift to engender good will between us."
The creature hesitates as Eilyne steps towards it. Her calm demeanor and soothing voice seem to put it at ease. It gemstone eyes gleam when it sees the shiny rock. It carefully reaches out and takes it, then itt grumbles a few strange words before trundling off to the corner of the smithy. It crouches there, staring at the stone.
With the creature placated, you hear movement from the nearby hayloft. Two half-elves leap down--you recognize them as the local hunter Lirosa and her brother Taidel. "Thanks for dealing with that thing," Lirosa says. "We were hiding in here to ambush the hobgoblins who came to loot this place, but then the rock monster showed up. The hobs attacked it, and it attacked and killed one of them before the others fled. We didn't know how to deal with it, so we were going to wait until it left."
Taidel nods. "You can take care of the townsfolk now."
Lirosa adds, "We've got hobgoblins to hunt."
Surma looks back and forth between the rock creature and Eilyne before watching it intently as it seemingly happily takes the offered stone.
When she hears movement she resumes a combative stance but when she who they are she lightens up. A bit.
"Have fun, and take care." she says to the duo.
After a moment a thought strikes her. "Wait, who in the hells are they with then?!" she says as she points to the rock creature.
"I thought you'd want to keep it out of their hands," Mia replies, a little taken aback by Kining's attitude, "better to take it now and not need it later than the other way around, anyway."
When she hears the rumbling, Surma's shout, and Eilyne's attempts to placate whatever's in the smithy, Mia starts to go help, but seeing that things are under control, continues gathering supplies before heading into the smithy to grab whatever was left.
The half-elves simply shrug in response to Surma's question.
Mia's search doesn't turn up a whole lot remaining in the smithy besides the everburning torch and a few basic crafting tools. A ring of keys hangs over a workbench, and several notes regarding the Phaendar Bridge are scribbled in chalk on a large piece of slate leaning against the wall. Kining began repairing the bridge several months ago, but construction has been on hold since the dwarf demanded increased payment for her work. The keystone has been removed, though and the construction crane is still attached to a wooden framework supporting the stone bridge. You might be able to use the crane to destroy the framework and send the whole bridge tumbling into the Marideth River.