"True. Dead gobos opens no doors. That's a saying, right?"
After Miana heals herself, Seal will open the door in the southern chamber.
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"Some magical aid would be useful... but my training has made me resistant to the toxins that abomination tried to inject into me. Thank you for your concern, though."
Looking over the deceased goblins, Miana can only reply, [b]"I can only assume that 'thing' was the cause of such a demise.
Blade armed, Miana nods to Sealman and readies herself for the next door.
Seal lets himself into the next room. After a short hallway, the party emerges in a room with a single lantern hanging from a hook on the wall next to where the stairs enter the room from the north. Several rickety doors open into the room and a few discarded dog pelt rugs lie forgotten in the northeast corner.
Seal starts throwing open doors, from the southeast towards the west until he finds something of import.
And behind Door #1:
The walls of this room are lined with small wooden cages. Inside each cage is a dirty mound of straw. Horrifyingly, this seems to be the Thistletop nursery, although there are no babies kept here currently.
And behind Door #2:
Seal opens the door to reveal a hallway that continues south before turning west.
And behind Door #3:
Dozens of ratty cushions, lumpy pillows, and rumpled dogskin furs lie heaped in the south half of this chamber, which smells of a nauseating mixture of vinegar and rotten flowers.
A large bugbear sits in this room with four female goblins, scantily clad, climbing over him and performing untold acts to the hairy goblinoid. The bugbear shouts in surprise at the party and the goblins move to cover themselves as the bugbear reaches for a flail underneath the cushions.
Lucian, a bit flushed by the awkardness of the situation, touches Sealman's shoulder to cast a guidance spell on him.
"May Desna guide your arm, friend."
Kufieno takes a step back and fires his bow at the bugbear.
Lucian guides Seal against the dwarf's hated foes while Kufieno fires his bow into the room at the lusty bugbear, hitting nothing but the bottle of oil on the floor. The bugbear bellows back at Miana, "Bah! F~$@ing skum, interrupting my fun! I don't need pants to squash in your faces!"
Rissi pulls a scroll of sleep and begins the incantation.
Rissi begins casting from a scroll!
The goblins scurry about and hide behind the bugbear, who stands up and moves to attack Seal!
Rissi whips out her long, hard wand and launches a streak of blue force at the warrior.
Seal shakes his head as if he got knocked into another life time.
"The lady said put on some pants!"
Seal tries to return the favor with a good morning of his own.
Rissi puts a goblin to sleep and hits the bugbear with a force missile. Seal swings but is distracted by the many other swinging things in the room. Miana likewise swings twice but misses.
Lucian casts guidance on Miana.
Kufieno drops his bow and draws his short sword as he moves up next to the door and tries to strike the bugbear.
Lucian guides Miana's next action and Kufieno moves to stab the bugbear through the door but again misses.
The goblins in the back shake their friend away while the bugbear howls in rage and swings his flail at Miana.
Seal re-rages as he witnesses Miana nearly collapse from the flail's blow.
NNNNOOOO!!
Lucian grasps his curative wand and taps Miana with it.
Rissi waves her wand again in an intricate pattern, and another blue spark leaps forth.
Kufieno tries once more to attack from behind the corner.
Miana misses but Seal's aim is dead-on. Lucian heals the Iroran and Rissi shoots the bugbear again. Kufieno's stab around the doorway again misses the bugbear, who grins evilly as he swings at Miana, seeing how hurt she is. "Don't worry, girls," he calls back to the goblins, "I'll be back to you soon enough."
Miana rages through her wounds and takes down the bugbear! Seal quickly destroys the rest of the goblin harem.
Seal piles up the goblinoidbodies and places them in provocative and lewd positions.
"Potions. Pop them if you got them."
Seeing that he has no potions, Seal asks to borrow the wand of CLW to heal himself. He quietly sings to himself . . .
"Now I've got the magic stick. If I can hit it once, I can hit it thrice ..."
Obviously worried about Miana, Lucian seems a bit flushed by the disturbing mental image lingering in his mind. "That... was certainly instructive. I had never... I mean I never imagined..." Lost for words, the young man can't finish his sentence, definitely feeling an itching in his loins.
"It is a minor magic of no *chhh* great effort, but thank you Miana." She looks over the dead hobgoblin. "I wonder if ranger Shalelu will be pleased or disappointed that we dispatched her life enemy."
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Miana stands up, ends her rest with a couple of shoulder stretches. The sulijann's winces in some pain, but she finishes testing her body performing a low, scooping push-up.
"I'll still need to apply so dit-dat-jao later to take care of the bruising, but I am recovered now."
"As long as she's a good person, I'm sure she'll be glad that such a vile foe was finally dispatched... even if he was caught with his pants down.", the paladin trying to answer Rissi's question as modestly as she can.
Should we bring back a trophy? Maybe one of his heads?
"OK. I'll save one when we are done. I'm going to have to clean this place of gobo bodies once we are finished. I got a plan for that."
Seal sallys on down the long hallway. He recommend that he and Miana flank the doors on the side, then open them. He'll throw each one open until something of interest is discovered.
Kufieno merely grins, shakes his head, and follows the dwarf.
The first room Seal investigates is clean and well organized. A low dresser to the southwest has a stack of papers sitting atop it, weighted down by a large chunk of obsidian, while to the northwest sits a well-made bed. The notes on the nightstand are in Tsuto's writing and mostly rough drafts to blackmail his father and to use the Sandpoint Glassworks as a staging ground for the coming investigation of the Catacombs of Wrath.
The next room down is clean and brightly lit by an everburning torch lying on the nightstand, its spartan decor making it unclear whether its actually lived in.
The largest chamber at the end of the hall seems to serve a dual purpose. To the north is a fine bed with silk sheets, while to the south, a desk and chair under a hanging lantern make a comfortable-looking study.
Working back around on the south side of the hall now, the party finds a bedroom with a faint musty odor. The bed is covered with mattted gray and black hair, and bloodstains mar the stone floor, while a morbid stack of birds' feet lies heaped on the floor by the side of the bed.
Seal and Kufieno move to the final door, revealing another small bedroom showing man ysigns of having been lived in. The bed itself is rumpled and unmade and a half-eaten meal of bread and smoked salmon sits on the nightstand. A few articles of dirty clothing sit at the foot of the bed.
Standing in the door is a ruggedly handsome man wearing a leather cap over his hooded garment, chainmail protecting his shoulders. His shield, which is moulded to look like a giant face, stands at the ready and he holds his sword point straight out. "Who are you? What do you want down here?" he demands.
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Miana tries pulling on the bow... but can't do it quite right. "Seal, I think you're the only one amongst us that can use this reliably."
The paladin follows the party as they navigate the other rooms. The sight of a non-bottomless non-hobgoblin is certainly a more pleasant surprise, even if he is armed and ready for battle.
Miana, sword also outstretched, doesn't let it waver as she answers.
"Miana, of Quain. We seek to end the invasion and destruction of Sandpoint. And who are you and what are you doing here, good sir?"
"I just bought a bow. If its the same quality as mine, we should be able to get a good amount of coin for it."
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Seal mixes up the bread, salmon and bird feet into a single sack. He steps aside to allow Miana to talk with the non-goblin, non-giant man. Seal pops pieces of his newly made trail-mix silently as the story unfolds. Every once in awhile he'll spit out a de-skinned bird bone.
Lucian nods at the man. "Well met. We're the Saviors of Sandpoint, maybe you have heard of us? We've come to stop Nualia and her servants. From your presence here, I guess that you're one of her men. Can we reason with you, perhaps? There's little to gain in a confrontation where you are clearly outnumbered, and we have no desire to see blood drawn - save for goblin blood, of course. Will you agree to leave this place and never return?"
The cloaked wizard sighs at the title that Lucian uses for the small collection of adventurers.
The man responds after a pause, "I'm Ork. Ork Vancaskerkin, that is. You're here to stop Nualia? Well, yeah, you're right in that I'm hired muscle for her cause. But I'm starting to think that was just another of my many bad choices; things don't seem to be going her way, right? Is Lyrie still here, do you know? Osirian gal?"
Rissi stops a sniffle, perhaps a side affect of being surrounded by all the cold stone.
"Was she a student of the arcane by chance? White robes?" she tentatively puts forth to Ork.
Ork nods, "Yeah, that's her. Is she still here or did she take off?"
"If you promise to leave and if you vouch for her, we'll allow her to leave with you." says Lucian, trying his best to look trustworthy, hoping to avoid a needless fight.
"So you're after Nualia then? I figured as much. And Lyrie? Well, she's not exactly a good girl," he says with a grin, "but she's just been a little too infatuated with Nualia for a while. I've been looking for a time to get Lyie away from her-get her away with me, too. This seems a good as time as any. I'll go fetch Lyrie and get out of your way then. No harm, no foul."