"I am not a cleric," Shalluk replied absently as he examined the dying Elf, "And I do not know such a spell. But if all else fails, I still have the power for one more cure spell, and I agree that we should keep him alive. After all, he might have information we need."
"Fine if you are so insistent on letting him live atleast tie him up before you bring him back to consciousness." Tanwen suggested, producing a rope from her bag.
"He only needs to live as long as he's useful," Shalluk clarified. "Once the sheriff sees the...'art' upstairs and hear how he's working wirh the Goblins, I doubt he'll live longer than that. About as long as it takes to fetch a hemp rope not dissimilar to yours, if memory serves. Once we've found Ameiko and found out what he knows..." He glanced back up the stairs, remembering the scent of hot glass and flesh. And the look on the face of Amieko's father. He didn't look forward to telling her about him.
right, he gets it, now then, with his wounds bound I'll use your rope to bind the rest of him with, then we can go and check out the rest of the place till he wakes up and we can interrogate him.
Cale does as he says
Sighing, Shalluk rose from the floor. He was badly hurt enough that the idea of going down the strange tunnel and being stabbed by yet more Goblins did not especially appeal to him. He thought he still had the power for one spell, but he didn't want to use it up.
Reloading the clip of his crossbow, he looked between the bound Half-Elf and the passageway. "As much as I would love to take him to the sheriff's people, we still haven't found Ameiko. And that tunnel looks...troublesome."
"Do you think that is where she would be? We should try to find her before someone finds this one and either cuts him loose our kids him before you can get your information from him."
Cale walks around checking the basement, making sure nothing else was out of place before suggesting to the others "if we're going to leave him here all tied up we should probably also baricade the door out, wedge a chair under the handle or something.
Shalluk nodded, locating something to wedge the door shut. "Let us be quick. I have the feeling down this tunnel is not a good place and that we might need to find a way to seal this tunnel, if this was how the Half-Elf brought his Goblins in rather than them being survivors of yesterday."
Thinking of yesterday, Shalluk glanced at the Half-Elves foot to see whether it was similar to the footprints they had found in the tomb the day before.
While the others are busy trying to figure out where Ameiko may be, Tanwen behind searching the half elf's body for anything that may prove useful in locating Ameiko.
Calle goes to each door and attempts to open them, picking the lock on the one that is locked.
"woah woah, easy, easy, you're safe now. We got ya" he says, removing first her blindfold then her gag. Then calling out to the others that he found her.
Shalluk sighed with relief at Ameiko being found, alive if angry. "It is OK, Ameiko. It is Shalluk. Tanwen is here too. The elf is an ally. Once you're free we'll get you back to your in before breakfast." The other tunnels could wait a while for them to deal with Ameiko and her assailant.
The Tiefling turned to Tanwen. "Can we get past the Goblin's...mess upstairs without Ameiko seeing?" he murmured softly. He didn't want Ameiko to have to see her father like that, no matter what the situation between them currently was.
"It's unlikely, unless we blindfolded her, but she is no prisoner, we have no reason to do so." Tanwen advised the tiefling, she understood his desire to hide the truth from Ameiko, but she did not share it. "Ameiko, there may be things which you may not want to see on the way out, if you want to close your eyes, we will guide you out, but if you want to see what has happened, that is your choice, and I will respect that."
"I don't think so, no. What was in it?" he says, cutting the other bindings
"Would that be on the Half-Elf we met earlier?" Shalluk tilted his head. "We neglected to check him after we knocked him unconscious and tied him up, I'm afraid." Well, it sounded a little nicer than 'brutally beat him half to death'.
Shalluk offered his hand to Ameiko to help her to her feet. "We'll take you to him and you can tell us if the journal is there yourself."
"We didn't find any journal, perhaps it's in one of these other rooms." Tanwen suggests as the tiefling assists Ameiko to her feet.
"in that case we should bring him to the captain of the guard, so we can interrogate him, find out what he knows, bring the book too
"Hundreds of goblins, that doesn't sound like a good plan. We cannot allow such a plan to come to pass. How detailed is this journal?" Tanwen asks more then a little worried about the possibility of having to defend Sandpoint from an even larger attack.
"This is troubling, to say the least, we should inform the sheriff at once, there is little time to waste." Tanwen doesn't waste words, quickly turning to the way they had come.
Once Cale gets briefed on the contents of the journal he says "well crap, it looks like we have a half sucubi running around, and she seems to be the one behind all of this, though probably manipulating the punch happy half elf to do her dirty work, we need to immiedietly grab him and bring him to the sherrif with the journal"
"What interesting artwork," Shalluk said mildly, vaguely amused. "So he must have brought these Goblins in via the smuggler's tunnels he mentioned. Through his fathers...glassworks..." The implication of this clicked for the Tiefling. She was meeting her brother...
He looked at Ameiko. "I'm sorry," he murmured softly.
"You're both right," Shalluk added to the others. "Once we've explained we need to find a way to barricade this entrance, and as soon as we can we need to go into them. Hopefully blocking this entrance will slow down any assault, but it won't help if there are other ways into town."
"there were three or four we killed in the glass room, and then there were two with him, I don't think any got away, but in te heat of battle details can sometimes be overlooked
Tanwen had never had a brother or sister, so she couldn't understand how Ameiko felt right now.
"There weren't that many goblins here in the first place it seems, likely they were just some sort of advanced scouting party, I only worry about what happens when they don't return."
"We'll see if we can't get some answers from that one when he wakes," the tiefling replie, nodding towards Ameiko's brother. Tsuto, wasn't that what the letter said?
He glanced at the Half Elf with a sigh, then nodded to the others. "Who wants the head and who wishes the feet? We might as well haul him out now and get our answers all the sooner."
"I'll be fine grabing either, one,
Cale'anon decides to nip the rumors in the bud or at least direct their flow and loudly proclaimes "this man is a traitor and a murderer, he has lead these goblins into the town and is planing to do more at the behest of a demon, but fear not! we will stop those that remain but first we're going to take him to the jail and meet with the town guard!"
Soba roars to punctuate his statement dramatically.
Tanwen preferred that rumors about her leaving buildings with strange men be kept to a minimum. "We must take this man to see the sheriff, there is nothing to see here and please do stay out of the glassworks, it's not safe."
Shalluk sighed at the Elves speech. Just what we needed, more panicked people. It was bad enough with Goblins...what are they going to do now that they know there might be a demon out there?
Still, the crowd cleared. Carrying the battered Half-Elf to the sheriff still drew enough attention to make Shalluk nervous, but it wasn't too big a deal. He sensed more concern and curiosity from the crowd than hostility.
As soon as they entered Shalluk made sure the Half-Elf was taken to a cell, chained by both his hands and feet and the door sealed. He also placed a note upon the cell door.
Warning! This prisoner is deathly skilled in unarmed combat.
Any guards entering this cells must do so in teams of no less than two.
One guard should keep there weapon drawn at the prisoner at all times.
No more than one limb should be unound at any time, and the key to the other locks not be kept in the room with him unshackled.
Prisoner wanted in regards to treason, patricide, kidnapping, consorting with Goblins, consotring with Demons and other crimes to be determined.
Shalluk wasn't sure if such a note overstepped his authority, but Tsuto was lethal. He didn't want it to take a dead guard or two for them to learn that themselves.
"We may have a situation," the Tiefling announced once he was sure no one woul be beaten to death.
"Frankly I believe we are well past situation at this point. Tsuto, and whomever he is working with seem to have a vendetta against sandpoint this could get very messy very fast if not handled properly." Tanwen clearly was not mincing words as she wanted to be certain that the issue at hand wasn't taken lightly.
Taking out Tsuto's journal, Tanwen holds it out before the sheriff. "This is Tsuto's inside you'll find notes detailing the attack on sandpoint that took place during the festival. However the more pressing issue here is what he planned next. I do not know exactly when, but there is another attack planned, and it is a much larger scale." As she is finished speaking, she hands the sheriff the journal to verify the information.
"you'll also find a lot of mutilated corpses inside the glassworks, I presume the goblins are responsible... Oh other than the goblin corpses, that was us
"My main concern is that they will move Goblins through the tunnels," Shalluk added. "May I suggest three things? The first is obvious; guards stationed on the walls and at the entrance to any of these smuggler tunnels until we can collapse them. The second is an exploration of those tunnels before collapsing the entrances to be certain we have them all. And third bringing in any experts to see if we can some disrupt or deter this plan."
Cale looks to the others and nods, clearly giving his vote that this is what they do.
Shalluk considered. He wasn't feeling good, but he was feeling stronger than before. The idea of going into those tunnels and facing down a demon did not especially appeal to him. He could feel his hand shaking in the arm of his robe. The very idea filled him with fear.
But it was true - there were not enough troops to search the tunnels as well as guarding the town itself. And the tunnels - and any other entrances - had to be explored or Goblins would pour out behind the defensive lines of Sandpoint. The mental image of hundreds of Goblins and other creatures pouring into the streets, invading the homes of the people he had met...of them smashing down the door and plundering the Rusty Dragon Inn.
"My magic is running low," the tiefling finally replied. "I would appreciate healing before we go into the tunnels."