Since they don't have a lot of time to waste exploring, and don't want to find trouble they can avoid, Ro takes a look around the room to see if she can find any signs of repeated travel pointing them in the right direction. She looks for footprints in any dust on the floor, a door or doors that show signs of greater use than the others, and so forth.
Thistletop
This place is not dusty, it's filthy, the dirt here makes regular dirt seem clean by comparison.
To the southern doors Ro sees much greater foot traffic of little feet, bare little feet and even smaller bare little feet.
To the north, much larger booted feet though some of the footprints are of the smaller shod variety.
Karmid points to the prints with his hammer's massive head.
"Ro? Got some goblin grub prints there. Young ones from the looks of it."
"Not that way then. Any other tracks? We agreed to leave the littles alone."
Matrim shakes his head, “Its never good to go after the young.“ Matrim starts to head the other way.
"The real question, Karmid, is whether a deal with goblins will be upheld. They're not the best at remembering. If we should get out of this and not be backstabbed, it will be a pleasant surprise." Edgar smiles at the thought, but again it was not his great concern at the time. Leave worries of escape until that time, first you have to go kill the evil thing terrorizing the town.
"Oh...look at the tiny feet. Like cute demonic babies. I wonder if I will ever have babies.", Lia muses, placing one hand on her belly as she is following others to the northern door, "What do you think, Ro?"
"Goblins respect strenght, if not deals. Technically, by slaying their current leadership, you could formally claim the title of chieftain in many of the tribes. Chances are they will be glad for us to be gone, rather than rally against us - as insidious creatures as they are, it took an outside force to cause the raid on Sandpoint - they are happily minding their own business, most of the time - whatever happy means to them...", Flutter gives his opinion, referencing the weird sounds of the distraction.
Karmid breaks into a troubled sweat thinking about hurting goblin children...then nods.
"We need to stick to the deal I think. If nothing else, the goblin's plan helps HIM increase his influence here. You can always count on a goblin's greediness and cowardice I say. Doing this mission with the goblin's help, gives him a lot more here for very little effort on his part. That's a win-win in goblin speak if we take our Nualia and her cronies."
"The larger prints with boots all go to the north door, so that's our direction" Ro says as she looks at the floor.
"Don't forget our little agreement covers all goblins. There' a problem there since the deal isn't known to any of them except Gugmurt, and he isn't spreading the word. Best we avoid goblins entirely if we can. Our deal's a mouthful to explain to the heat of the moment. Don't seeing it working out."
Ro answers Lia distractedly. "Most women do I suppose. It's up to you. How about we save that question until back in town?"
She does file the question mentally, wondering if it's time to have a talk with Lia. Ro has learned to never count on Lia knowing or not knowing anything in particular. It's entirely possible for her to know of in detail all 64 of Calistria's sacred positions and not have any correct ideas about where babies come from.
Uldar is happy to stick with the deal. He won't be the first to break it. And he isn't into killing children, even goblin ones.
Jili glances at Lia as she asks her question of Ro. "Are you sweet on anyone Lia?"
She is very careful not to look anywhere near Kharmid as she speaks with Lia.
"We leave the little ones alone as part of the deal made. If any of attempt to harm them, I'll stand against you even though I'll be happy to kill any and all goblins. We have much much bigger worries to handle like this supposedly dead friend of yours..." Drasven is keen to leave now.
"A doppelganger, a force of goblins, a bugbear and some other hired help she has. This Nualia sure is something...."
Lia meant to respond to Rojava, then gets distracted by Jili. Standing still, she raises a finger up to her lip, looking at the ceiling in concentrated thought as if trying to remember something:"I think Aldern may be sweet on me? I'm not sure if I am sweet on someone. I'll ask Kira when we get back!"
Thistletop
As Matrim opens the northern door, the hallway is in no way illuminated. The torches show 20' of stone floor, this side is not filthy, perhaps the Goblins are not allowed to go this way any longer with the arrival of Nualia?
Uldar casts dancing lights for those without darkvision, himself included. "I can move them about if those who can see in the dark wish to scout ahead." In the light he notes the oddly clean floors compared to the rest of this place.
Karmid moves to be the first going into anywhere. his senses on keen alert for ambushes or other dangers.
I wish I could see in the dark, but i'll have to leave the scouting to other people this time...
Thistletop
With the dancing lights illuminating the way ahead, the Godtouched proceed forward.
With the lights giving the group a good look at the dungeon, it is clear there are three choices, the first a pair of double doors to the west, the second continue up the north hallway which ends in a door 20' away, and the third, check the east hall which continues past the light the spell currently reveals to Karmid and Ro's perspective.
---
She points to the west. "People talking. Debating. Do goblins debate?"
Martin hears the people talking and tries to listen harder to what they are saying.
He isn’t able to make out more than the mumbles.
”I don’t know what they are talking about, there are waves that way. he points to the east.
"Heading to the waves probably is the tunnel to the sea. Might make for a handy escape tunnel if things go sour. What were the directions from the gobbo shaman?"
Karmid racks his brain...
"He said: 'You waits here, I makes distraction. Then you goes to door with stairs down though door. It uh, it uh...Next to double door?'"
Rojava whispers as she explains her thinking at the moment.
"If the east branch takes us to an opening, it's good to know. But we're very high up above the water still. It would have to be very desperate to try getting out that way. A jump from way up, and a swim without any beach we know of. Just cliffs."
"We didn't get any directions past the staircase down from the goblin. He said they weren't allowed down here much. He did mention Nualia as being farther down, a sub-level below this one. If that's true, we should keep away from anyone here and look for more stairs down. That means our way is north, until we know better at least."
"I can't hear a blasted thing, must be really getting old. Since we're made a deal. Could one of you locked the door or jammed it so that they won't interfere and get killed?" Drasven asks as he lightly slaps his head.
"Why not? At least lock a couple of them." JIli suggests. "Let's look for the stairs down."
Matrim moves to the door and tries to disable them from opening.
"The sea, hu? We should take a look. Maybe there's a way outside that goes downstairs?"
With the doors wedged closed, whoever's in there will know something's up even if we're well gone by the time they do. On the other hand, they can't leave and bump into us at a bad time. On the other hand, they won't stay trapped in there forever and we'll be giving up any chance they won't be alert for someone when we come back this way later... Screw it.
Ro tries to reason through what to do, but can't see any clear best course of action. She nods affirmatively at Karmid's idea and tries to help Matrim jam the doors.
Thistletop
The Godtouched jam the double doors, or at least Matrim is fairly confident they won't be easily opened and the group heads north reasoning that outside, as curious as Lia is about it, is probably not where Nualia is dwelling.
This area seems to be considered a sanctum as the doors are not locked nor trapped. As Karmid opens the door he is surprised at what he finds within, the lower four feet of the walls in this empty room are covered with crude drawings in mud, blood, and paint.
Most of the drawings show goblins engaged in some sort of violence against humans, horses, or dogs. One picture on the north wall is at least three times the size and complexity of the other scrawlings. This image shows Thistletop from the side, the goblin stockade perched atop it like a crown. A cave has been drawn into the center of the image, and looming inside is what appears to be an immense, muscular goblin with snakelike eyes and a dogslicer in each taloned hand. If the scale compared to the rest of the drawing is to be believed, this goblin must be at least thirty feet tall.
Forging ahead through an alcove is yet another room with a large table surrounded by chairs giving little room to stand around. A slate board to the north is covered with scribblings in chalk, but the map of Sandpoint that has been carefully inscribed on it leaves no doubt as to the purpose of this room—this is doubtless where the recent raid was planned.
More importantly though is the set of stairs to the east that leads down through an open door, a faint smell of incense wafts up from this area. The door to the west though is locked.
Karmid points to the locked door and whispers.
"Matrim, can you check that door?"
He then points at the scribbles on the wall.
"Bugbears are bigger than goblins...there is supposed to be one down here too, right? Think that's supposed to be him? That's a really big bugbear if it is."
He then moves to look down the open stairs carefully, his hammer at the ready.
"Incense. That sounds...smells...like Nualia. Right Ro?"
Matrim mutters to himself. “Im a rogue, not a thief..“ he moves to the door and tries to unlock it.
Hmm, can giants breed with goblins? My, that would be an interesting, short-lived, and likely bloody, tryst.
Eternally glad that he can not read Uldar's mind, Edgar marches along in near-silence, aside from the clanging of metal armor.
Lia approaches the slate board, subtle changing some details about the map inscribed on it.
Drasven takes note of the drawings and the weapons the wielded. A brief study would tell him teh best place to let a loose a bolt. If it ends such a creature faster, the better.
He was sure that Bug bears don't grow that big though...perhaps because the goblins were smaller and thus looked up with a larger then usual scale?
Rojava pauses for a moment to look at the drawings. "Isn't Nualia here to release something? Hopefully goblins have big imaginations."
At the stairs she nods to Karmid. "Looks like what we're searching for. Down we go" she says with apprehension.
Nodding without looking at her, Karmid begins sneaking downward slowly.
Jili follows along as quietly as she can. She points to the East.
Edgar clanks along as stealthily as he can manage, which isn't particularly stealthy.
CLANG BONG THUD Edgar looks somewhat sheepish at his attempts as they are trying to be quiet.
Matrim shrugs, ”If you can’t be sneaky, come in style.” he looks around for a bard. ”Lets song a song” he suggests.
"Um, no, let's not do that right now." Ro says quickly. "We don't know for sure we've been heard. Lady Luck's been keeping things smooth for us so far. No reason to doubt her bounty just yet. Don't want to give the creeps down here a freebie."
As much as he enjoys singing and playing, Ulric shakes his head. He whispers, "It's one thing to push your luck. It's another to be suicidal."
Sighing audibly, Karmid turns back to the others.
"Can we TRY and be quiet? I know I'm not always the sneakiest one around here, but...basics people? You know...Dungeon? Unknown bad guys or monsters nearby? Danger?"
He then turns and proceeds again.
Thistletop
As Karmid and Edgar begin to head down the stairs, Matrim unlocks the far door.
A large wooden worktable sits in the middle of this room, its surface cluttered with scrolls, books, stone tablets covered with dense, spiky runes, and fragments of carvings that appear to have been chipped off of statues or bas-reliefs. To the north, a floor-to-ceiling set of wooden shelves sags with picks, shovels, brushes, lanterns, and other equipment one might expect to see at an archaeological site.
Gwyddym Soarsong
Drasven Hammers
Lia Tani
Karmid Groundbreaker
Rojava Brishen
Edgar Gidolb
Jiliana Dalca
Matrim of Shadows
"What's inside Matrim?"
Ro does want to keep moving quickly, but since Matrim has the door open it seems silly to ignore the room. She takes a quick look around inside it.
Matrim cracks the door open, just an inch to look inside.
“As far as I can tell, its a room.`
Jili too pokes her head into the room. "Looks like a bunch of junk, but there might be something interesting in there."