E has no issues opening the front door... while Sabyl watches with her brows arched nearly up to her hairline.
"You must feel the situation is very dire if you're... ignoring a locked door," the woman says with her hands folded into her robe's sleeves. "I hear that the sheriff has placed trust in you; your prior actions have shown you deserve it. I hope that your current actions do likewise."
The door swings open under E's careful hands, and you find yourself looking into a front office, filled with a few comfortable chairs and a glass-topped counter that displays a number of blown-glass baubles within. Nobody is present to greet you. A pair of double doors stand on the opposite wall, leading further into the factory, and a single door is on your right.
All seems silent.
Seraka shrugs her shoulders at Sabyl, the half-orc's expression one of complete nonchalance.
"It happens. We'll get this all taken care of quickly."
Seraka follows Sonya in, her bardiche leaning against her shoulder. She holds it with two hands, though, ready and waiting for an attack.
Rokan stalks forward , checking each room they pass through before pressing his ear to the closed door in front of them.
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E nods at Sabyl. "It's okay. We're here for someone's safety. We're not thieves." He looks down at his hands and then pockets his tools with a sheepish grin.
Side-stepping, he shuffles into the open door behind the rest of the party.
Producing his mug, he looks around the areas he passes through, though safely behind the Shoanti hunter.
Rokan's keen ears can pick out a faint noise ahead through the doors: very faint indeed, as if there were several walls still in the way, perhaps-- but it's the sound of shattering glass, he's fairly certain.
The first door opened leads to a small office , filled with papers and ledgers. Unlike the front room, it's in obvious disarray-- desk drawers have been opened and rifled through, contents spilled on the floor. Still, there's no signs here of where the sound of breaking glass might be coming from, and you quickly move on to the next door-- a hallway that leads further into the glassworks, branching left to a pair of double doors, and right to a single one. Rokan feels that the breaking glass noise seemed to come more from the right...
The hallway is filled with a tangible, oppressive heat, and you can all feel the sort of subliminal hum of large furnact operating nearby. Moving carefully, you take the right-hand branch of the hallway, covering each other as you open the door into... a loading room of some sort . There's a strong chemical stench in this room, and the shelves are filled with the reagents and ingredients that the Kaijitsu family uses to color their famous glass: manganese for clear
glass, cobalt for blue, and tin for white... A safe on the floor hangs open, its contents missing. Another doorway stands open to the east, revealing a stairwell down.
But the sounds of shattering glass-- louder now-- come from the doors to the north. And they're paired with high-pitched noises-- shrieks and giggles-- that are surely not human...
Signaling each other quietly, the fledgling heroes ready to open the door...!
Doing brings a fresh wave of heat washing over their faces. They are staring into the heart of the Glassworks, the furnace room where glass is actually blown and shaped. An enormous furnace lines one wall, its openings seeming like red-hot portals into hell itself, with smaller furnace doors stretching away beyond it.
It's not merely the heat that seems hellish: the scene here is horrific. A half a dozen human bodies lie on the ground in various stages of mutilation, with burns, and blobs of molten glass piled atop their forms. In the center of the room is a chair with someone... sitting in it... you think.... but the entire body has been covered in molten glass, hardened and cooled now to a glossy, smooth sheen that reflects the furnace's red light.
Eight goblins fill this room, cackling to themselves as they play with the fire from the furnace openings, drawing forth sticks of dripping molten glass to fling hot blobs onto the corpses, or fight over them amongst themslves. So busy are they with their unholy play that it takes them a few seconds to notice our heroes' arrival....
Rokan, horrified a the sight of the room, and barely able to take his eyes from the body fully encased in the glass—NO! AMEIKO!—rushes into the room and up onto the nearest table, hoping to create the best firing position for the fight.
Sonya's heart drops as the door opens - a dozen thoughts race through her mind - she should have gotten here sooner, they should have broken down the door immediately, how could she have not known this was happening in her city? She couldn't bear to look at the glass figure, for fear of what she would see.
As much as she wanted to scream and yell, she silently charged, cleaving into one of the goblins as they turned. These monsters would soon pay for their crimes, and she wasn't about to give them any chances to react.
From his new perch, Rokan fires over the charging Sonya's head, trying to pick off the second nearest goblin.
Sonya runs in like a vengeful spectre in gold, and grimly beheads the first goblin she sees. A split second later, two of Rokan's arrows whistle past her, one burying itself in the next goblin, who staggers but doesn't drop.
Seraka freezes as she sees the coming of battle, unable to act in defiance of her vision. She shakes off the vision and glances to the sky, throwing a jocular salute.
"Hey, Gorum, you getting tired of hearing from me yet? Well, get used to it. You shoulda known when you gave these powers to me that I don't shut up. Toss me your favor."
She strides into the room, weapon held so the head is near the ground, ready to strike at any anklebiting goblins.
There's a half-second of awkward silence after the 'goblinslayers' burst into the room and add another goblin to their tally, as the remaining goblins all stare wide-eyed at the one dead goblin on the floor. Then they scream en masse, turning to swarm Sonya with their nasty dogslicers.
Two of them cut her painfully, while a third circles around with a leering, hungry expression.
A goblin with the green bandanna tied around its arm climbs onto a table holding a pane of glass almost as big as its body, which it flings like a very un-aerodynamic discus at Rokan in retaliation for the arrow! The glass cuts sideways through the air at the Shoanti man.
The pane of glass is... not great as a thrown weapon. It wobbles through the air and shatters before Rokan and the others, sending tiny slivers everywhere but not damaging anyone.
Another runs up to Seraka, waving a stick with a blob of molten glass at her threateningly after it crosses the floor to reach her.
The last goblin looks at the longshanks, and at the fight, then crouches by one of the now-abandoned bodies to rifle for possessions without competition.
To his horror, E realizes there's no pulse of life from any of the tormented humans in the room. The mercy, at least, is that presumably many of them might not have felt the agonies of molten glass.
Seraka grins as the goblins start rushing towards her.
"Come and get some, you little shits."
Seraka rips upward with her bardiche at the oncoming goblin, bringing it into a high guard after the swing.
She stands her ground and swings down at the next goblin in line.
THWIP. THWIP.
Rokan keeps up his stream of arrows, switching targets only as the goblins fall.
The green-bandana'd goblin drops with a squeak, a second arrow of Rokan's protruding from its skinny gut. Seraka's bardiche intercepts the one running at her to great and bloody effect, sending the pieces of the goblin back into the room like ... something that flies a good distance.
Sonya backs up against the wall as the goblins close in, swinging into the gnashing, screeching crowd.
The most distant goblin in the room looks panicked as three goblins now lie dead. "It's- it's THEM! The longshanks that killed so many! Run for living!" it squeaks, and bolts for the doors at the opposite end of the long chamber.
The goblin that had been engaging in opportunistic theft snaps its head up at the shrill cry and squints down at the fight. "No... no way.... longshanks goblin killers were MUCH bigger... maybe.... dunno... green one pretty big..."
Deciding his comrade has the better part of valor, that goblin clutches up his ill-gotten gains and runs north as well-- taking advantage of the dor his 'colleague' just opened, to much outrage from the other goblin.
The ones who are closer to our heroes don't look so prudent as their fellows. They opportunistically swarm over E and Sonya, giggling and hacking with their doglslicers, but finding no openings this time.
"This melee is beginning to get crowded. Let's fix that."
Her eyes flash as the memories of a thousand battles flow into her body. She can read the movements of her allies and see the moments at which she can swing.
She angles a swing over E's head and down into the goblin attempting to halt his healing.
Knowing his friends are more than equal to the goblins who stayed to fight, Rokan darts after those that fled. The tight confines of the vicious brawl are tricky to navigate, but Rokan does his best, leaping from his perch, rolling past the nearest goblin as he vaults up onto the next table to create a clear path forward.
E manages to nimbly move into position and then bonks the goblin with his mug, dropping the creature!
Now free to move after the fleeing foes, Rokan passes right near the gruesome sight of the body encased in glass seated in the chair-- he's not sparing much of a glimpse for it just now, his eyes fixed on the retreating foe, but he might notice as he dashes past that the feet jutting out below the bottom-most wave of cooled glass do not appear to be Ameiko's.... well, not that Rokan is very familiar with her feet, but these are probably a man's. Also wearing fancy slippers.
The two fleeing goblins scurry out of sight...
The last remaining one stabs wildly at E, its big eyes wide.
”Not Ameiko!” Rokan barks out as he rushes through the room, hopping up on the final table to draw a bead on the threats he expects to wait for him beyond the door.
Seraka advances, striking at the last goblin.
Sonya shifts in, swainging at the cornered goblin. "Find the other before it can get more help!" She calls out to Rokan.
Both Seraka and Sonya somehow manage to miss the frantically dodging goblin-- but E doesn't. The nimble little blue-skinned man dodges around, brains with his mug once more, and the goblin goes over like a felled tree.
Rokan sees no sign of the goblins through the open doorway, which seems to lead into a hallway. The sound of pattering goblin feet echo through the building.
Seraka chuckles at E's eclectic fighting style.
"Good hit, Mr. E! Gonna have to watch out for you in a barfight."
Twirling her bardiche up from the ground and onto her shoulder, Seraka strides after Rokan.
"Hey, Hundred-Feathers, you see anything?"
@*#&! They're so slippery!
"Nothing yet," answers Rokan as he hops down and stalks into the hallway, senses straining.
Rokan can see a hallway curving two directions away from him, a door a few feet from him, and one of the goblins twenty feet away trying to open the door to the outside.
"They've split up!" Rokan barks out as he spins on the only one in-range. This time, his fingers go to the string without drawing an arrow. Instead, an arrow of lightning and cloud manifests as Rokan draws the bowstring back. He looses it, and thunder rolls down the short hallway towards the fleeing goblin.
Double Move
Rokan sends the power of storms itself at the goblin, who flinches at the crackling burst of energy and looks somewhat weakened by it. E and Seraka move towards the sound of the Shoanti man's voice, while Sonya hears Rokan warning and doubles back the other way.
As the goblin Rokan has cornered becomes aware he's not going to get out through the locked rear doors, panic overtakes his little goblin face. He hurls open one of the shutters and strikes with his dogslicer at the beautiful windowpane, which overlooks the sea bluff on the edge of town. The glass shatters in a rain of shards, some of which scratch the goblin but the sight of the grim-faced Shoanti seems a bigger threat to him.
The other goblin runs through the doorway only to skid to a stop as she rounds a corner and nearly runs into Sonya. It might be comical if not for the knowledge of the horrors the little monsters perpetrated in the other room. With wide eyes, the goblin backs into a corner and holds her dogslicer out threateningly at Sonya, needle-sharp teeth bared in a hiss.
Panic ruins the little jerk's aim it seems.
Seraka continues her march towards the door. Her mouth slowly slips into a frown as she realizes that the fun part of the battle is most likely over.
"Gorum's shiny metal ass...are we gonna have to chase down all of them...."
As the little goblin staggers into the open, Rokan sends another pair of arrows speeding directly towards its over-large eye.
<— crit?
.
Sonya charges through the doorway at the goblin, knocking its swing away before chopping into it with the full weight of her axe.
Rokan nocks and looses two arrows in quick succession and drops the goblin before he can escape out the shattered window. At the other end of the Glassworks, Sonya grimly charges her own goblin and cleanly cuts the tiny menace down.
Abruptly, there is silence again, save for the dull roar of the furnace and the gurgling breaths of a number of dying goblins.
Of the half-dozen dead in the furnace room, most of the unfortunate souls seem to be of Minkaian ancestry, and are wearing very simple clothing-- several of the men are barechested and clad only in loose breeches. Their hands bear signs of manual labor. It's hard to tell much more about them given the depredations the foul goblins wreaked on their bodies with the glass and the fire.
Of the body in the chair, however...
While the goblins seem to have inexpertly and chaotically spattered glass over the dead workers, this seems to have been a precision job. Beneath the now-hardened glass, it's possible to make out chains securing the figure's wrist and ankles and torso to the chair. The figure beneath the glass is unrecognizable, skin blackened and ravaged from the torment, but there's the vague suggestion of a mouth open in a silent scream, frozen now for all eternity. Care seems to have been taken for an even application of the glass, smooth sheets draped like curtains around the bound form. The hands are completely encased, and only the feet were untouched by the glass and the fire. The slippers Rokan noticed in his quick passage earlier are silken, embroidered with delicate and artful stitchings of dragons.
Rokan gives the bodies and room a quick inspection before stopping to look at the chained body. ”This doesn’t seem like goblin work.” He looks over at E, ”Our elf again?”
He points to the un-marred slippers, ”Dragons are sometimes a Tien thing, is it not? I don’t see any other richly-clothed bodies,” he shakes his head, ”and Ameiko’s father owns this place.”
He stands back up, ”But Ameiko is why we’re here.” He stands ready to move on in their search.
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"Likely. If we could keep one of these goblins alive, they might tell us more about our antagonist. We should find Ameiko and search the rest of this place before dwelling on Lonjiku's torture."
He walks to one of the gurgling goblins. He cast's a spell, clears any sharp implements from around it, and finds some binding to tie it to something sturdy.
Then he follows behind Rokan, letting the shoanti archer scout the way through yet-unopened doors.
Sonya nods to Rokan from down the long hallway, letting him slip in to his own doorway before kicking down her own door to check - there wasn't enough time for her to try an ill-fated attempt at being quiet, but at least he could.
Sonya runs into the room to the windows, hoping Sabyl was still waiting and watching on. She fumbles with the latch, before just knocking it open with the butt of her bloody axe. I'll pay for that.
"Get the guards! Surround the building, don't let anyone out!"