Khalbar silently thanks the old gods of Shoanti for the magical protection that A'letta gave him. He then shifts his axe to both hands and moves to strike the closest standing enemy.
Pick, seeing tables and similar in the room, slips into the room and tries to get behind one of the tables or crates, as the goblins focus their wrath on the rest of the 'goblinslayers' who are charging forward to meet them.
A'letta charges in, trying to impale a goblin on her spear. The actions of the goblins fill her with utter contempt and disgust.
Xogar delays until the scene changes that he may assist.
Kyra and A'letta are the first to charge into the room, letting loose with attacks that shatter bone, pierce skin, and otherwise send their targets reeling, but not unconscious or dead.
Rhanloi is next into the room, maneuvering to hit three goblins and none of his allies with his spell, and letting loose with a brilliant display of shockingly interesting-looking color. Two of the goblins that he strikes manage to look away and cover their eyes, shouting disgusting things in Goblin that they'd love to do to you, but the third has no choice but to watch, and by the time that the final color-that-doesn't-really-exist has passed by, he's drooling and flops insensibly to the ground.
Pick moves silently and quickly into the room, finding a place to hide behind an unmoved box of glass things.
Xogar moves to a position where he can see everything that's going on, but sees no easy opening for him to rush into battle, and so he delays until he can find someplace.
Khalbar, however, has no such conpunctions, and with a battle roar accompanied by a wild charge and swing of his huge axe, relieves a goblin of the extra weight that comes from his upper torso. It takes a comically long time for the cleaved flesh to fall off of the lower portion.
In response to the arrival of the heroes, they swarm forward, growling and screaming and yelling while waving their dogslicers. Two slices aimed at A'letta are both blocked, but Kyra and Khalbar each find themselves with a fresh knife wound while the goblins seethe and writhe around them. One of the goblins stays back and picks up another broken bottle, hurling it at Rhanloi. It catches him along the arm, delivering a long and jagged slice.
Initiative:
Goblins - 24
Kyra - 23
A'letta - 22
Rhanloi - 21
Pick - 11
Xogar - 11
Khalbar - 9
Pick, Init 11
He sidles out of his cover, pick in hand, and swings at the backside of a goblin.
Shaking the meat and bone from his axe, KHalbar laughs nearly dementedly. The rush of combat is glorious to him. He spins towards the nearest opponent swinging the blade around with exra momentum.
Just as her spear is about to bring an end to the life of a goblin, she sees the poor thing look up at her with big puppy-eyes. Memories of a better time can be seen in those pearly globes. Memories of a goblin child frolicking about, setting fire to squirrels and rabbits. The brief moment of hesitation makes her attack miss and leaves A'letta wondering. Now is not a good time, whimsical spirits!
"You CUT me!" Rhanloi cries indignantly. He reaches into his pouch, pulls out a cricket, mutters more arcane words and with a flourish tosses the insect towards the goblins (casting Sleep).
The sight of fresh blood spilling from her makes Kyra's eyes blaze. She descends upon the goblin who struck her with all her might, delivering quick and devastating blows to him.
Kyra, indignant at having been struck by so lowly a creature, strikes out with a hand and a fist at the little ones around her, striking two in the face, smashing in face bones with ease.
A'letta takes pity on one goblin before her, even in the midst of battle, and looks at it sadly instead of attacking. It doesn't have the same sentiment when it looks at her.
Aiming its area-of-effect to avoid Khalbar but still trying to hit as many goblins as possible, Rhanloi aims a burst of fatiguing energy at two of them. Unlike his previous spell, these goblins seem almost willing to accept it and gratefully fall to the ground, unconscious.
Pick comes out from hiding to strike a goblin in the back, piercing many of its most vital portions with his namesake and causing the creature to topple to the ground.
Initiative:
Xogar - 11
Khalbar - 9
Goblins - 24
Kyra - 23
A'letta - 22
Rhanloi - 21
Pick - 11
Khalbar advances on the one goblin remaining unharmed goblin using his greataxe to try to rectify that situation.
Xogar and Khalbar advance, as one, on the one remaining healthy goblin. Khalbar swings his axe around, to no avail, but Xogar's longsword connects with the goblin heavily, severing its head in an impressive display of martial prowess.
Meanwhile, the two remaining conscious goblins (although they are heavily wounded), cry out,
before beginning to crawl away.
Initiative:
Kyra - 23
A'letta - 22
Rhanloi - 21
Pick - 11
Xogar - 11
Khalbar - 9
Goblins - 24
"Leave the sleeping ones alive, finish the rest.", the spearwoman commands.
Pick sidles out, looks around, and nods once at A'letta's words. A reasonable order. He will start taking his pick to the injured goblins with ruthless efficiency.
Rhanloi ties up the sleeping and incapacitated goblins, then starts looking around the premises to try and determine who they dismembered and for a clue as to why...
As Pick's pick punctures straight through the heads of the remaining conscious goblins, and Rhanloi takes a rope to the others while he still has time to immobilize them, it becomes clear what happened here.
From the scraps of unripped and unburned clothing, it appears that the people around here (dismembered and dead as they are) were once the employees. It's apparent from the remains of uniforms.
Not only that, but another victim sits in the room. A chair set in the middle of the room has a person sitting in it - frozen in place by a liberal coating of cooling glass.
A closer look reveals it to be Lonjiku Kaijitsu - Ameiko's father.
"Oh no ..", are the words A'letta manages to mutter. The fact Lonjiku had been murdered this way only strengthened the idea that he was involved in the goblin attacks on Sandpoint. He apparently knew too much, got too close to the fire. She blinked these thoughts away, for they were but that. Perhaps through due diligence they could dredge up the truth.
"Companions, we must hurry on and secure the rest of the building before we follow through with our investigations in this room. I know that might not be easy .. but we must."
Impressed with Pick's cold efficiency, Kyra leaves him to tend to the goblins, herself approaching the statued man, studying what had been done to him with great interest. "A fitting end." she murmurs. "Still, this doesn't look like the work of goblins."
"OK. Let's ensure the building is devoid of threats before investigatiing further. We must discover who is behind these heinous acts!"
"Agreed." Xogar says in agreeance with Rhanloi.
"We will discover the wrongdoer here and bring them to justice!"
Getting close to the statued Lonjiku, Kyra can see through the glass that most of his flesh has been melted away (likely by hot glass, of course) but that his jaw hangs open beneath the layers.
Pick scratches at his itchy fake beard after he finishes staving in goblin skulls, and wanders over to look at the glazed old man. Hnh. Bad way to die. Pick is pleased the elders never thought of such a thing in punishments for him.
He shrugs once, then turns on his heel to follow the others in silence.
So in this room, the large furnace room, there are two doors. The double door that you came in, and a double door on the other side.
In the antechamber that you came in first, there are two unexplored doors. The three other doors are the door to outside, the door to the storage closet, and the double door to the furnace room.
"Let's check the other doors in this room," Rhanloi says, pointing to the double doors at the end of the long room.
Pick grunts his obedience to the order (or what he interprets as an order, anyway) and jogs forward to the double doors, to listen at them.
A'letta moves towards the doors. She watches Pick go through his routine, wondering if he hears anything on the other side.
No sound issues from the other side of the double doors.
In fact, but for the rumbling of the furnace, the Glassworks seems eerily quiet.
Pick steps back and shrugs. No noises. He takes his pick in the one hand and rests the other on the door, looking back as if to say, open it?
If no-one objects, he yanks it open.
"Yes, let's go."
Rhanloi readies his light crossbow and follows the more sturdy members through the door =)
Kyra turns from the glassed-man, wondering who is really behind it. Brow furred, she moves after the others to see what else they uncover.
Door.... open! Hi-ya!
The double doors swing open to reveal a doorway-studded hallway that extends away to the left for the length of the building and the delivery entrance to the right.
Muddy goblin footprints crisscross in front of this door and lead into the room behind you, and down the hallway, but the footprints that lead down the hallway double back and go back into the room.
"Let us check each door as we come by them. If there are any goblins left, they most likely won't be hiding."
Khalbar nods along with the oracle. "We not here for goblins, we are here for Ameiko. She may be held or gagged so open doors, yes."
Pick nods wordlessly and jogs to the first door. He quickly listens/looks it over for trouble, and if he finds none, will open it. It feels good to have concrete tasks to do.
Rhanloi moves to the door opposite the one Pick is at, listens, and if sensing nothing, also opens it.
"Very well. Let us continue. There are investigations to be done and people to find."
Xogar moves with Rhanloi.
Opening the several doors in the long hallway, most of what is discovered are more and more rooms that pertain to the glassware-making business. A carving room for intricate detail, a storeroom for the supplies, a closet with all of the long straws, among other things. Every room is empty, and mostly featureless. In a few locales, (notably in what seems like some sort of...glass-blower barracks: a small room with several bunk beds) there are signs of struggle. Ripped pillows and blankets, broken glassblowing materials, scratch and slash marks on wood, and long drag-bloodstains on the floor.
One of the doors in the first antechamber, however, leads to a stairwell that extends downwards.
"Hnnnh," grunts Pick, squatting to stare down the descending stairs. He scratches again at the itchy wolf-fur (unaware he's scratched it so much that a strip of it is hanging down and off).
"Down. Other surface rooms first?" he asks in his gravelly voice, staring up at the others from beneath his hood.
"Let us clear this level first, so that we cannot find trouble both infront and behind us when we can least use it."
Now they've cleared out the rooms and found no sign of the food-woman, Pick slips down the stairs. It occurs to him as he does so that... not one of these people knows the gesture-speech, the silent-speech. That is unfortunate. Makes communicating while quiet very hard. Hnh.
"I walk... quiet," he says, his red eyes squinting. "...Hammer quiet too. We walk. See. Return. Tell. Yes?"
"Okay, go for it."
A'letta knows she's not the most silent type about and the armor and weaponry she's wearing ain't making it a whole lot easier.
Kyra nods to Pick, taking his lead as they move down the stairs.
Scurry, scurry after. Pick trails after her, ghost after ghost.
Descending the stairs to a basement level reveals a rectangle of hallway space. The hall extends forwards perhaps fifteen feet before angling slightly to the left and extending perhaps thirty feet in that direction.
Twenty feet after the angle is a hallway to the left.
Directly to the left of the stairwell is another hallway, that turns twice to meet up with the other hallway. Along this stretch of hallway are four doors, two on the east side and two on the south side.