Ameiko had decided to sleep in after the previous night's festivities and altercation, but your group does not want for attention. Breakfast and apple or orange juice are brought promptly to each of you by a friendly co-worker of Nover's.
As you are finishing eating and catching up, a young man comes barging in. "We need the heroes, right 'way. There be sumpin going on across town and dere needin' da experts." His eyes focus on you as he looks your way.
Late to breakfast Herri shows up head down and a little groggy. He walks to the breakfast table and his friends slowly when suddenly a young man enters.
Herri gear in hand says to the group,
"Oh my! What could it be now? I hope you all feel better than I. Time to go."
Taking Herri's comment as assent, the youth moves out the door. You follow him through the streets to a small house, where a young woman and very young boy (3 or 4) stand out in the street. The boy is crying, and has what looks like a very nasty bite on his left arm.
When she sees you, the woman bursts out crying. Through her sobs, you can make out that apparently something had attacked her son, and the father, a guardsman, had gone to investigate. She had heard him yell in anger, but that had been well over an hour ago.
Tossing Zella his spare apple he asks her to retrieve Elaina.
"Hmm, Zella can you go wake our drunken friend from last night? And give her this, we have work to do."
Thinking hard, he strokes his short beard before grabbing his shield and hammer and heading inside.
"If this is more goblins, I'm going to be very very angry."
Elaina reluctantly joins the others, mumbling something about poisoned boar meat but not otherwise speaking.
Herri tries to identify what bit the boy.
Unsure exactly at the cause he then asks the mother,
"Do you know what bit your boy? Did you see it?"
Herri pulls out his sword and wields his shield.
"If there have been no sounds for an hour and they have not returned either they chased it underground or it lies waiting inside. Are we ready?"
Herri begins to chant and by the end he looks invigorated.
The woman gasps in fright and understanding at Herri's words, tears again streaming forth as she clutches her son.
Nover and Herri don their weapons and shields, preparing to enter the small home.
"It looks like we have more goblins people. We must do something quickly, I am going in."
Herri heads through the door.
Nover's eyes narrow.
Ugly little retches, no time better than the present.
"Herri, mind if I take the lead? I'm a bit sturdier than you are, and I think I might see red the second one of their ugly green heads comes into view."
"Coming with you Herri. Hopefully this isn't the start of another raid."
Zella heads out with the others to go investigate.
"This house is small. Is there a cellar? Maybe it's been hiding since the attack. How often do goblins need to eat? It's only been a couple days. Can goblins see in the dark?"
Enna follows the group to the house even without having been summoned. Her aid may be of use to these peoples. [B]"Whatever choice is made, we had better make it quickly. Too much time has passed already."[b]
"Lead the way Nover."
From the woman's ramblings, the boy's room is on the second floor. It will be dim in the house, but not completely dark.
Zella will head on straight up to the boy's room on the second floor.
With it being a small house, there is only room for single file through stairs and hallways. Nover leads the way, armored meat shield that he is. Herri bravely follows him, sword and shield out. Enna steps in behind the cleric as Zella and Elaina bring up the rear.
You travel up the stairs, and see two rooms. The room on the left's door is cracked, the room on the right's door is closed.
Herri begins a chant for Iomedae at the top of the stairs.
" By Iomedae's grace lets save this family. Hit the closed room. "
Readying himself he opens the door hoping for the best but expecting the worst.
"Alrighty then, ready then here we go! Come out ya little green scum."
The door opens easily enough, the hinges giving only a mild squeak as you open the door and look inside. This appears to be the parents' room. The bed is made up, the closet door is closed, and nothing seems awry at all.
Zella will nudge open the door on the left with her short sword, pushing it wide open without stepping into the actual room yet.
"Perhaps if there was a goblin in here, it has already fled?"
The room on the left is obviously the child's room, as you can see a few toys laying about and a small bed. A small dog lies dead on the floor near the bed, a crude knife sticking out of its ear.
A closet lies near the back of the room. Sticking out of the closet are the legs and lower torso of a grown man. The remainder of him is lost in the gloom of the darkened space. He is not moving.
"Uhm, guys....."
Zella cautiously moves into the room and steps to the side of the door to make room for more people to come in.
"I think I found a dead body."
Enna offers up a small prayer to Torag for the man's soul as she pushes around to the side of Zell. "Bloody beast, we know your in there. Come out or we will drown you out." Ready for anything, Enna waits for the others to squeeze in.
"If no one is here where did they go and how did they get in here?"
Herri seems confused and begins looking for signs of escape routes that the goblins would have taken.
"I have no idea Herri."
Zella will move up the man's leg and attempts to pull him out of the closet.
"Give me a hand here? Should probably make sure that this man isn't just unconscious. Not moving, but you never know for sure."
A quick prayer to Magrim from under the breath of Nover as he readies his warhammer. Goblins can hide in strange places and if one should pop out of the closet he'd be ready to bop it with his hammer.
"Be careful Zella, goblins think of the strangest places to hide. I heard a story once of one that thought an oven would be a good place to launch an ambush from, unfortunately for him he got bored and fell asleep. When the maid came into the kitchen to begin cooking after 5 minutes of preparing the oven she smelled burning flesh before she put her pot roast in the oven."
"Wait! I can check it out!"
Elaina conjures four colorful balls of light and sends them into the dark closet. She stands behind Nover and peeks over him.
Elaina send in the light to the closet, revealing the rest of the man. He could almost appear sleeping, except for the spatters of red that accent the bottom of the closet. As Zella starts pulling the man out of the closet, a small hole is revealed. A goblin lunges out of it, snarling and hissing as it brandishes it's dagger-like weapon.
The goblin continues forward, brandishing his dagger and trying to bury it deep in Zella, screaming out "Mine!" Fortunately, the beast seems near delirious and misses the bard.
Party Up!
Herri standing nearby Zella, swings his longsword at the dartful goblin.
"This makes me sad, but also very angry." Nover having enough of goblins terrorizing the town sees red. "You will not live through this day goblin scum!"
He drops his shield to wield his mighty hammer in two hands.
Nover's prediction comes true, as he turns the goblin's skull into mincemeat with a mighty blow from his warhammer.
After calming down for a moment the dwarf looks at the scene before him.
"I hate it when I'm right."
"I am just glad it is over here; however, we must end these goblin attacks soon."
Visibly angry and upset by the loss of another townsman Herri calms himself then walks toward the stairs.
"Let me go back down and inform the now widow of the sad news."
As Herri makes his way down and informs the widow of the fate of her deceased husband, the woman breaks down entirely and starts wailing uncontrollably. Fortunately, the commotion soon brings friends, who take the boy and woman away, presumably to one of their own homes.
"We best check the house, just to make sure there isn't another one hiding in here somewhere. Perhaps we should suggest people get together in groups to thoroughly search all their houses and storage sheds in the town as well."
"A good idea. No telling how many of the little monsters are about.
I will go around the back of the house and check for tracks or signs of recent activity.
Nover will gladly examine the house for more of the goblins.
"Alright, sounds good to me. Let us secure the home, maybe there's more to this goblin attack than we thought."
or
Nover and Herri's examination turns up little of value. The closet itself appears to have been the hiding place for this particular goblin for the past couple days. Piecing together the widow's hysterical rambling, you figure that the creature hid here, but when it tried to escape the dog started barking.
"Well...That sucks. Something needs to be done about the guards in this town, they're getting dominated by these goblins. Security an' stuff needs to be stepped up around here."
Elaina sticks with Zella while they secure the house.
When Enna is out of earshot she leans close to the bard and whispers "Zella. Zellaaaa! Who's that dwarf? Is she Nover's friend?"
Zella shrugs. "She said her name was Enna. Don't you remember introducing yourself to her last night? She didn't seem to know Nover before last night"
Another long day for Herri and his friends he thinks to himself.
"I say we head back to the tavern for dinner and thoughts on our plans to take care of this situation. Maybe even a good night sleep and work through solutions at breakfast."
Herri gathers his things up and heads back to his room.
Besides I need time to read the cards. The truth and future can be found if I just look close enough.
Your group heads back to the Rusty Dragon, glad to dispatch yet another nuisance to the town, glum at the woman's husband's fate. As champions of good often have to do, you try to move on and not let it get to you.
As you arrive back at the Inn, you are quickly approached by Bethana, an older halfling woman who cleans rooms at the Inn. She has been crying, and looks panicked. She speaks in a voice that seems about to break with tension, "I need to talk to you about Ameiko, now if you please."
She begins to walk towards the door to Ameiko's private chambers.
This doesn't bode well
"Alright Bethana, what happened to Ameiko? Is everything alright?
Elaina huffs in frustration. "I think I would remember meeting another dwarf, Zella. Well, I'm hungry. The house seems goblin free now, except for the dead one of course but they're only sorta dangerous when they're dead. I'm gonna go eat, 's not like I have to be anywhere for gainful employment or anything like that. Are you guys gonna keep lookin' for goblins?" She proceeds to the Rusty Dragon with or without her companions, not in the mood for heroics.