The sudden drop in Kaede's stomach almost grips her psyche, but a last second push of her will forces that terror away. As Salomae ends the threat of the last goblin, Kaede lets her weapon drop out of readiness, and takes a deep breath.
"It's just so meaningless... Okay... Assuming that's all the goblins, how did they get in here, and what have that been up to?" she looks toward the door to the room that the goblins were in. "Shall we find out?"
"Kaede, do you think we should check these rooms first? Y'know, to make sure there isn't a band of the little green guys waiting to stab us in the back," Tera asks as she reloads her crossbow.
The door back at the first corner in the hallway swings open to reveal the showroom. The twenty-five foot diameter chamber houses a network of shelves displaying products for sale. Whatever the goblins are up to in the Glassworks they seem not to have had any interest in this room.
This door opens to the small area behind the counter where an employee would usually stand, directly opposite the door through which customers would enter from the street.
"Well, that's a surprise. A room full of glass and not a piece of it broken by goblins," Tera says sardonically. Once they'd confirmed there were no goblins here, Tera moved onto the next door.
"Ready," she asks in a whisper as she puts a hand on the knob.
Kaede slowly backs up, returning her glaive to a defensive position as she does so, intent on watching the rear for now.
"I think there's a better question to ask. What have the goblins been up to that wreaking havoc with all the breakables was a poor second choice?" she adds to the conversation.
"Can we pretend the answer is they didn't know this was here? Please? I don't like the implications of the other answers," Tera asks the color draining a little form her face.
"I could accept that for some.... but all of them? From what I've seen and heard, if they were bored, one of them would have found the showroom. Something else kept their interest... What was it?"
"Was there supposed to be anyone here? Like the workers," Tera asks.
As speculation continues about goblin motivations and the whereabouts of the workers, Tera cautiously opens the next door. Inside is a space presumably for the workers. There are two tables surrounded by chairs, a hearth with cooking pans, several pantry cupboards that look to have been raided, and two more doors- one on the left and the other on the right. There are also two windows which unlike those in the showroom have been covered up.
"I think we know what happened to the workers," Tera says as she points to darker areas around the right-hand door.
Kaelaah, growing ever more concerned as Sister Tera points out the marks on the floor, stays alert as he waits for someone to open the door to the right.
Tera covers Sal with her crossbow as she opens the door.
Kaede still keeps a watch on the rear, but ready to turn and join whatever fight appears in front of them.
Sal slowly opens the door with a growing sense of dread. Her stomach drops when she sees what's behind it. Half a dozen beds lay torn apart and stained in blood. There is no subtly here with clear streaks and large blotches of dried blood on the floor. Like in the previous room, all of the windows have been covered, and it seems as though some of the bedding may be missing.
The door hangs open on a large closet across the room which houses cleaning supplies that have clearly not been disturbed.
"Sal," Tera calls out softly as she sees the change in her friend's demeanor. the young mage lowers her crossbow, as she steps forward.
"Sal, are you okay," she asks quietly after a moment.
Tera does her best not to look too closely at the room, choosing to instead focus on comforting her friend. The mage wraps one arm around Salomae's shoulders, an act made a little awkward by the height difference between the two, and helps guide her away from the scene of horror.
"We'll get them, Sal," Tera tells her in a low soft growl, "we'll get them and have them face judgement, either here or in the Boneyard."
Kaede looks startled for a moment when she sees the room. "How awful...." she cries out before she realizing that she did so, the beginning of tears slowly forming. After a moment, she pauses, "Where are the bodies? What did the goblins do with them?"
Kaelaah's fists ball with unspoken tension as he gazes at the dreadful scene... and then, with a hope that he didn't really feel, "There are no bodies... Maybe we aren't too late..."
...his voice trails off as his eyes are inextricably drawn to the paterns of blood spatter.
"That's what friends are for," Tera whispers back with a weak smile. If there were survivors, they were probably really bad off if the amount of blood was anything to go by.
Seeing Kaede shaken up as well, she gives Sal's shoulder a quick squeeze before going to reassure the Shelynite as well. The hug is a little less awkward this time, since the two young women are of similar heights.
"Let's get this done then, before Lonjiku has another reason to hate us," Tera says as she readies her crossbow to cover Salomae once more.
As soon as the door begins to open, it is obvious from the smell what function this room serves. As light floods in it reveals a wooden bench with a hole in the center up against the far wall- to the left of it are several empty chamber pots; to the right several full ones, a couple of which of been knocked over and broken. A lone goblin, apparently asleep until very recently has just finished standing up. It's holding a dogslicer in its left hand and raising a sack full of potshards and... 'waste' with its right.
Still rising, the goblin is not yet ready for his guests.
Tera gets right behind Sal and takes aim at the goblin.
"No, death is bad enough... but desecration is utterly uncalled for!" Kaede calls out as she steps into the room and slashes at the goblin.
Tera reacts first, sneaking a bolt around her friend's side and into the goblin. Then Sal and Kaede step forward and as one runs the creature through with one expertly placed thrust the other chops into it with her glaive. It's nauseating sack falls to the floor as the goblin crumples and collapses.
Tera blinks in surprise as the goblin seems to fall apart.
"Remind me not to get the two of you mad at me," she says as she reloads her crossbow. "I think we just have those double doors, right?"
Kaede nods in response, as she tightens her grip on her glaive handle. "That's right. Let's go see what awfulness the goblins have wrought."
"Wait, I just remembered, there's another door we need to check before we go opening those other doors," Tera says as she moves to cover whoever's going to open the last door.
"Don't worry at all about that, Salomae," Kaede responses. "I can half-haft it and be just as effective in tight quarters."
She looks down the hall after Tera. "Let's go, the sooner we're out of here, the better. This place has become far to macabre for my liking."
Staying behind Kaede, Kaelaah feels the reassurance of the knife in his boot... and, smiling to himself at the thought of sisters making such short work of the filth-wielding goblin, he lets a wisp of flame dance up his wrist.
Through the door is a meeting room. In its center stands a large wooden table surrounded by chairs. There are large papers scattered about the floor and table and an inkwell overturned next to a drawing... a rather cartoonish, but surprisingly well-executed, drawing of a goblin posing heroically atop a pile of people and dogs. Through a door to the left is a small, ransacked office, and on the far wall is another door leading to an untouched reception area with two uncovered windows and the other door out to Glass Street.
After seeing the drawing, Tera finds herself puzzled.
"Why would a goblin draw something then leave it here without wrecking the place," she asks, "and why just one drawing, no matter how well done?"
"Then again, they haven't exactly gone ham on the rest of the Glassworks," Tera muses aloud, "let's see if we can persuade them not to."
There's a wicked glint in Tera's eyes as she hefts her crossbow. Apparently archery wasn't the only thing Tera had picked up from Shalelu.
Kaede is actually a little unsettled by the drawing. This is the first time that a goblin has decided to be creative as opposed to destructive, and we may have already kill this goblin..., She looks down and shakes her head.
"Let's keep moving. By now, the grease that you summoned should have faded away, right?"
"Yeah, if not I can always see if I can dismiss it," Tera says as she turns to head back the way they came.
"This just keeps getting stranger, doesn't it?" Zache murmurs, shaking his head.
Sadly, Zache's words prove truer than he could have known...
As the godmarked return to the site of their initial fight with the goblins in the Glassworks, Tera dismisses her grease spell and they enter into a large open chamber that appears to be the production floor. To the left are half a dozen large windows that have been covered over with sheets and blankets. The still burning furnaces on the right cast a dim red glow over the whole area.
Seated motionless in a large wooden chair in the center of the room is Lonjiku Kaijitsu. Roakkad, grabs a scroll from his belt and prepares to cast it before hesitantly asking, "what's wrong with him?" Indeed something is wrong with the aged nobleman. As their eyes grow accustomed to the dim light each of the godmarked in turn realize that the old man has been coated in glass. Roakkad summons a magical light which reveals two startling things...
First, it is clear from the blisters and burns that he is not surrounded by glass as some protective measure, he was dipped in it, while he was still alive by the look on his face. Second, scattered about the floor are the remains of the laborers in various states of dismemberment. The pieces have all been dipped in glass as well but where Lonjiku seems to have been coated by someone very proficient in the process the work done on the other bits is inconsistent and amateurish, at best. There is only one other way out of this unsettling room, a partly ajar double door on the far side .