Realizing he has an opening as Edvard moves in to flank, Raska aims for the invader's vitals with a carefully measured stroke.
His aim strikes true.
Raska's blade finishes the second Ironfang warrior off, leaving you in sole control of the inn - for now. The stairs upward hint at the possibility of additional threats or refugees above, and the secrets of the kitchen's trapdoor await exploration as well.
William looks to the others, "I say we go up. That trapdoor was closed and keeping sound down somewhat."
Quinn nodded in agreement with William as he knelt to collect his crossbow,"We've come this way. Might as well, right?"
"We should get our charges into the main room first, so they are not seen while we are investigating."
It is not locked, but barred from the other side.
Raska nods along with Edvard, sheathing his dagger. He trots outside and corrals the rest of the refugees into the inn. "Come inside where it's safe until we can secure the inn." He says as he leads them inside.
After realizing the trapdoor is barred from within, he kneels down and puts an ear to the door, anticipating yet more refugees are barricaded within. "Is anyone down there? Are there injured?" He softly calls.
As William gathers up the hobgoblins' gear he gives the ring to Quinn, "Any idea what this does?"
William then follows Raska to the trapdoor, "I guess we are going down first. If you don't get an answer see if you can open it. I'll drop this torch down so we can see."
Calliae remained at the door, ushering the people in. "If anyone can keep an eye on the doors, we don't want to be barricaded in."
Once all were inside she joined the others at the trapdoor, "Why would we drop a torch down there? We don't want this place to catch fire now do we? Perhaps Quin can enchant a cork or some such to give of light, I've seen arcanists do that before."
Quinn made his way inside along with the rest of the survivors.
He took the ring delicately from William and held it up to a glowing lantern. ”Hmmm….” he poked at it
and lowered it so Felix could get a sniff. ”What do you think, Bud?""
After Raska calls out to any occupants of the trapdoor, there is a brief pause and then a scraping sound, and then two humanoids - one human, one half-elf - appear below the opening door. They introduce themselves as Phersi and Ednu, locals who fled into the kitchen when the Ironfangs attacked. "Jet... Jet showed us the cellar, shoved us toward it, but they grabbed her from behind, and we... we just slammed and barred the door..." Ednu frowns, looking at his hands.
Raska frowns at the man, "Don't blame yourselves, you did what you had to to survive. Feel free to join the others if you aren't up for a fight. The rest of us are going to see to the upstairs and then hopefully be gone of this place."
Raska waits for the others to signal that they are ready to move on and then he quietly begins to make his way up the stairs, listening for any sounds of movement.
When Felix didn't give an answer, which was usual for a skunk, Quinn held the ring back out for William, It would appear that this ring has a faint transmutational spell woven into it. It will make the wearer a somewhat better swimmer. Not much, but somewhat.”
Quinn looked around the room as Ednu explains what happened, ”You only did what you were instructed to do,” his words actually sounding sympathetic for a change. And who could blame them? he thought.
Raska makes his way up the stairs. Several rooms stand open, their contents thoroughly trashed; likewise the Inn's "safe" at the end of the hallway has been forced and looted already. One door, however, still remains closed.
William puts the torch back in his backpack when the two come up and says to Calliae "Well, it hasn't burned my backpack yet so I don't think it will burn the inn down. I don't know why they call it an ever burning torch when it doesn't burn everything."
He then follows Raska upstairs and to the closed door. "If you'll open it I'll go through."
"We should probably just try knocking. They likely can hear us through the door."
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Raska will listen at the door. He checks the door to see if it is locked and/or trapped.
If so, he pulls out his small pouch of tools and sets to work. Otherwise, he will pull out one of his knives and quickly open the door, moving out of the way to give William clearance to enter.
Quinn sighed and punched the bridge of his nose when he heard William comment of the everburning torch. If it had been a joke, it was a bad one.
With the other three upstairs, Quinn took a moment to check on Aubrin, ”How are you holding up?” Such a simple question but it was all he could muster.
The door is indeed locked, and Raska's first foray is not successful at unlocking it.
Downstairs, Aubrin looks up at Quinn quizzically. "Why pretend to care now, wizard? Isn't universal disdain what they taught you at that mage academy or wherever?" She seems oddly not to be judging, but genuinely curious about why Quinn would make the effort to ask.
”You wound me, Aubrin!” Quinn exclaimed as he clutched his chest. And immediately felt the middle ass on a three-assed donkey. He had read about one such creature years ago in and the author had included very detailed drawings.
”What I meant was, I don't have 'universal disdain.’ It’s just….been….” Quinn paused and looked around the room before leaning in closer and lowering his voice, ”This has been home for so long and I don't think I can handle losing my home for a third time. He leaned back, ”And I never went to any academy. I…..am self taught.”
Quinn suddenly found himself wishing he had gone upstairs as well.
Raska exercises rare patience with the lock, taking his time to maneuver his tools just so to finally unlock the door.
It takes a couple of minutes, but Raska finally gets the lock open. When the ifrit pushes the door open, he sees not one, but two cowering merchants. They look horrified by the intrusion. Both are human males, one noticeably older than the other. You note what looks like a rack of dried meat jerky on one side of the room.
William peers into the room and seeing the two merchants says, "Are you two ok? Come on out of there and join the rest of the group we are taking out of town. Make sure to grab anything useful. We may be living rough for a while."
Downstairs, Aubrin shakes her head. "I lost the ability to see anything past the other side of the room at pretty much the same time I lost the family I had in the Chesnardo Rangers. So trust me, I know what loss is like. But at the same time that I was losing my family, my home, and my purpose... well, that's when I also found Cayden Cailean, and gained a new purpose. Everyone loses, all the time, Fainlor. It's when you stop there, and don't look beyond it, that 'losing' becomes 'loss.'"
Upstairs, the two men change glances, then the younger man hisses, "Get out of here, you fools! You'll just show them where we are!"
At the failed attempts at diplomacy of her fellows Calliae steps forward. "There are no more hobgoblins within the inn. We killed them all." She offers them the warmest smile she can muster, "Like my friend says, we are gathering people to leave Phaendar behind and escape the attack. If you want to get out of here both free and alive you should join us."
The younger man, perhaps more impacted by the beauty of the naiad than her words, blinks a few moments before saying, "Yes... uh, that is, I guess that makes sense." He goes to pick up a heavy-looking traveling chest, then glances at his companion. "Clidon? You coming?"
The older man shakes his head. "No, and you're a damn fool to leave here and walk right out where they can grab or stab you whenever they like! In a few hours it will be full dark and safe to sneak out!"
Stepping into the room, Raska growls at the older man, "Phandar is lost and you're coming with us. I'll drag you out by force if I have to."
Caliae sighs at the threats, "Sir, we can't leave you here to await your death. All our chances are better if we travel as a group, like birds and fish do."
”You do-” Quinn cocked his head at the sound of arguing upstairs and excused himself from Aubrin. ”We'll have to finish this later.”
”If the damned fool doesn't want to come with us, just leave him,” Quinn said as he came to the top of the stairs, ”That, or just grab him.” There was humor in his tone.
"You... you're not better than those monsters! You can't force me to leave!" the older man, Clidon, sputters.
"In the name of the army I am conscripting you both. William, Raska, bring our latest recruits."
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The younger man, whose name you will eventually learn is Farrow, nods and lifts his trunk. The older, seeing the looks on the group's faces, spits an oath and hefts the rack of dried jerky onto his shoulders. "Fine, fine," he spits angrily, "I'm coming, and damn your eyes for it."
Once the group has reassembled in the Taproot's main room, it is clear that the time to make your final push for the bridge has come. Fortunately, it's not a long way - the bridge is just a few dozen yards from the Root's front door. In just a couple of minutes you have reached the steep, if not terribly tall, cliffs that channel the rushing Marideth through this part of the Nesmian Plains, and the ancient stone bridge that arcs through the air between them. The Marideth is about 80-85 feet wide here, and the Phaendar Canyon cliffs are about 20 feet high over the churning waters. Colorful gobs of lichen and moss dapple the ancient, basalt bridge, built here at the Marideth’s narrowest crossing centuries ago by Chelish engineers. The ravine below drops twenty feet into raging whitewater and jagged, exposed boulders. To the northwest stands a ramshackle shed and a weathered but sturdy-looking wooden crane, and you can see that a complex web of wooden scaffolding has grown up around the support arch on the bridge's west side. Twentysome bloody and motionless bodies litter the ground, and above them flap banners painted with an ominous, fanged red shield. To the north, three hundred feet past the bridge, a wall of trees and ferns marks the edge of the Fangwood. Tall torches in iron sconces line the bridge on both sides, their flames flickering and whipping around in the continual breeze blowing up from the angry river below.
The squad of soldiers you saw before appears to have moved on. Now there is only one hobgoblin visible, a woman wearing a breastplate and cradling a light crossbow in the crook of one arm while she continually moves her gaze over the bridge and the landings on each side. A massive wolf sits calmly but alertly by her side. Your group has stopped outside the lights of the bridge's torches and beyond the range of the sentinel hob's darkvision and are thus, for the moment, undetected.
"That's where we'll need to set Oreld's... what did you call it, Vane? The 'stump remover,'" Kining murmurs, indicating the scaffolding.
William points at the hobgoblin and the wolf, "We're going to need to neutralize those two. Anyone have an easy way to take out both? If not we're just going to have to charge and try and take them out, unless you want to try a ranged battle."
Analyzing the situation, for the first time Raska seems unsure of himself, "I can throw a few daggers and yell at her if that... Helps?"
"Maybe we should check the shed first? Maybe it contains something that can help us. If anything we want to make sure there are no hobs in there to flank us." Calliae already took out her shield and her sickle.
Quinn was sitting in a dank tavern in Cheliax sharing a round with some of the local ruffs, ”...Yeah, my first born!” His brother-in-law had dragged him away from the house to celebrate and even though the hour was getting late, Quinn was in no hurry to leave the free drinks. It wasn't until his brother-in-law turned and said “We’re going to need to neutralize those two,” that Quinn realized where he was.
”Hmm? Oh? There's enough of us that we could just rush them?”
"Anyone good at making animal noises?" asks Edvard, a plan starting to form in his mind.
Calliae ignored Quinn and Edvard, "So nobody sees any issue in the fact that the shed here might house half a dozen hobs to attack us in the back? I mean, I could always jump into the river if things don't work out. I am the only one who has that luxury though."
"Are there any windows into this shed? The door to this place may be in her line of sight. If we can get in there without beingn seen that would be best." William says to Calliae.
"Presumably if there were sentries in the shed, they would have heard our group by now. Some people are quieter than others."
Raska's patience quickly fades and with a finger to his lips to signify quiet, he cautiously creeps around the corner and listens at the door and then tries the handle.
The door is unlocked.
Suddenly, the sentry raises her crossbow and snaps off a shot. It sinks deep into Raska's shoulder, splattering flaming blood across the door.
, ,
After taking the shot, Raska reels and falls back, taking cover behind the wall. He holds his position, grasping at his wound in order to stem the bleeding until some of the more capable fighters can take up the front lines.
Seeing his newfound friend get hit by a crossbow bolt William runs toward the sentry that fired at him.
”God's be damned!” Quinn cursed and stepped out from behind the shed. He looker down the work sights of his crossbow and waited for the the wolf to attack.
Edvard will also Run up to engage the wolf and it's mistress.