Juid gets up to the second door leading into the goblin room and looks for a pressure plate to open it.
Crystal lines up another shot and fires at the goblin in the middle!
The goblin in the middle takes the arrow dead in the chest and collapses over, squealing dramatically. Meanwhile, Juid sneaks through the secret tunnels, and comes up behind the goblins. He quickly looks around, finds a small lever sticking out the wall, and pulls it. THe door can now open.
The remaining goblin lets out a scream of terror as her two companies die horribly. Turning on heel, she makes a beeline for the secret door, and yanks it open, only to find herself staring Juid in the face.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Hector backs up to the south, watching everything carefully.
Ragnar steps forth into the tunnel, his hands held high in a defensive manner. Still, he seems concentrated.
”Hey, hey, calm down. Nothing is going to happen to you, ok? Just listen, speak with us and we'll sort things out.”
Juid's eyebrows rise at the sudden appearance of the goblin. He takes a step back, prepared to make goblin fritters with a fire bolt when he hears Ragnar attempting to calm it down. He releases the build up of heat in his hand and attempts to aid him with a Diplomacy check, dropping his hands in a friendly, "you aren't about to be slaughtered like your brothers-slash-competition" gesture and using a comforting, mesmerizing voice that says,
"mæñû wýnìço øprëdiss"
The goblin slows down as he hears Ragnar's words. He relaxes a little, but still stares suspiciously at the witch. Juid's words manage to calm him even more, and the terror finally fades from the goblin's eyes. The little monster looks up at Juid with an expression of hope.
"Do you understand me?"
Ragnar asks, first in Common (Taldane), then switching through Skald, Varisian and Dwarven, finally to Gnome if nothing else helps. He keeps a calm tone and keeps his distance to the goblin.
The goblin looks at Ragnar with a blank, blank stare as Ragnar keeps moving through different languages. After Ragnar finishes, the goblin shakes his head sadly.
"A druuc'd taash or kakorlaan O molkac taal khrelaan. Druuc'd mor Lokku!"
Crystal lowers her bow, seeing the goblin surrender after Juid speaks to him. As the goblin speaks, she sighs. No idea what he's saying--and nobody here appears to be fluent in Goblin. Very well...
She bows her head and clasps her symbol of Pharasma. "Lady of Graves, your servant humbly requests a boon of you--allow me to understand the language our prisoner speaks."
She looks at the goblin, her eyes briefly glowing white before returning to their normal icy blue colour.
"I..." She waves to herself. "Understand..." She taps her ear. "You." She points at the goblin. She beckons the goblin. "Again, please?"
The goblin stares stupidly at Crystal and starts jabbering in his tongue, which sounds as perfectly unaccented common to Crystal.
"You humans don't make any sense! I'm happy I'm not dead but this is so strange. What do you want from me?"
Juid is pleased that Crystal can understand the poor creature but sees that her own grasp of communicating in the language is nonexistent.
"Do any of you have something to write with and write on? He could show us the layout of this complex. Perhaps they have a barracks... or a nest?" the holy man of Sarenrae says to the other newcomers.
With exaggerated gestures, he points toward the kitchen and mimes stirring soup, and points in the direction of the mess hall and mimes eating. He mimes laying his head down and sleeping and raises his shoulders to indicate 'where?.
The goblin looks over to Juid and nods eagerly.
"We nest that way near Druzele's room! ... Do you have any food?" The goblin points to the east, and then his finger drifts southwards a bit. He offers a sharp-toothed grin to the group, hope gleaming in his beady little eyes.
Ragnar smirks. One way communication with a creature as smart as my boots. Great idea Ragnar, great idea.
"I don't have any food, sorry," he sais, showing his empty hands to their new 'friend'. "Druzele? Who is this Druzele? Is it him?"
He then points to the place where the bugbears head is lying.
The goblin looks blankly at Ragnar until Ragnar says "Druzele".
"Druzele is ta big buggy! She's meaaaaan. So was Grechthak," the goblin indicates the dead bugbear. "But Grechthak only kill one of us! He good leader! Druzele like to keep to shadows. She kill ... uhh... more than one of us. She and Grechthak fight a lot."
Crystal relays what the goblin says.
"Looks like we still have another one to deal with down here if we're to get out of here..."
"I don't think I can find a way to ask the little fellow what they are doing here in the first place..." Ragnar sais, sunken in thoughts. Then he gestures around him, trying to communicate something like: What is this place? What do you do/want here?
It takes a while, but the goblin slowly clues in to what Ragnar is trying to gesture.
"We are clan Broke-tooth! Grechthak find us after hummies make kill most of our people. He say he know secret place to do raids from; not far from hummie town. We be here... uh. Some moons. Good place. Safe. You first baddies come in here."
"Have you done anything but being here? You fight more hummies? Steal something?"
Ragnar speaks using his hands and mimic as best he can. I'll need to learn how to use magic for this stuff, he thinks.
Crystal continues to relay the goblin's words, beginning to look slightly nervous.
I hope my spell holds out long enough...
When no one produces a writing instrument or parchment, Juid dips his finger into the pooling blood on the ground. As the others continue to question the goblin, Juid draws out the complex as he knows it on the wall, leaving out details such as furnishings. He does so low to the ground, so that the goblin has no trouble reaching the drawing. He then points at the unfinished parts and shrugs his shoulders in a questioning gesture.
"Good idea baldy. Situational awareness! " The brute had all but checked out, but clapped Juid on the back at his idea.
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The goblin apparently has not had much experience with maps, but after a lot of "YOU ARE HERE" type pointing and explanation, the goblin slowly clues in. He smiles enthusiastically.
"This is a fun game! You murdered all my family, but I didn't like them anyways. They had no fun games. Lemme see..." The little psychopath starts trying to draw in more rooms. Eventually he completes a very crude map.
"There we go! Druzele's room over here - she very tough and scary! There are secret places here and snook'the k'cuul jark bak ler!"
As Crystal rapidly translates, she notices with disappointment that her spell has run out. The goblin is now once more incomprehensible. As the goblin trails off, it takes a moment for everyone to realise Hector has not joined the group in talks with the goblin.
A blood-curdling scream sounds out from the east, followed by the sound of a body collapsing.
Ragnar spinns around in horror. That scream sounded human, didn't it? He thinks, shivers running down his spine.
"Don't be fooled, our goblin friend is still dangerous. I'll watch him and your back. Let's hope that awful sound wasn't Hector. "
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Juid gives Czein a look normally reserved for his unruly acolytes that says, "I can't believe that thought even entered your head." "My charm will last for an hour. This little guy is no threat for the time being. Please see if Hector can still be helped. I hadn't realized he'd foolishly gone wandering off on his own." Meanwhile, he takes out a large piece of jerky and the rest of the roll he was eating when he was first seized and sets them on the counter for the goblin.
The goblin is completely unfazed by the scream, and starts tearing into the jerky happily. Fed and content, he seems less likely to stab everyone in sight than most goblins.
Ragnar moves back into the kitchen and tries to guess where the shout had come from.
"So what do you think Vi? Do we like this place?" He mumbles. "No, no we don't."
Due to the echoing halls on all sides, it's hard to tell precisely. Most certainly it was from the east though.
Crystal's serious look doesn't change, but sighs in resignation as her spell fades.
She leaves the room and follows Ragnar. "Dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit..." She curses to herself.
She readies her bow and opens the door in the eastern wall of the kitchen.
As Ragnar and Crystal race ot the east, they're greeted by a horrifying, and odd site. Hector lies face-down in a pool of blood on the ground between the two secret doors, twitching and gasping with two vicious stab wounds in his back. His killer is not in sight.
However, as he begins to sound out his death rattle, he starts to violently glow! Bright green energy shoots from his body, pouring from his eyes, ears, and mouth. He violently begins to vibrate, and is gone. All that remains where he once was is a pool of blood.
Ragnar stops dead in his tracks, staring at the grisly scene. His thoughts are racing. Whatever they did to us in that ritual, it is still affecting us in some way.
Shivers run down his spine. And there is nothing we can do about it.
He snaps out of his thoughts as soon as the others catch up to up. ”He was lying there. Hector. He is dead,” the mage says with a low voice. He pauses for a moment before adding a whispered: ”At least I think he is. He vanished into some form of energetic stream of greenish light.”
Crystal is speechless as she watches Hector's body vanish.
That's... that's what's going to happen to me when I die?
"Czein! Get up here!" She calls back into the other rooms, readying an arrow and sweeping the hall beyond for any hiding threats.
Crystal sees nothing as she rushes back to the other rooms. The green energy is completely gone now; nothing remains of Hector and his killer remains unseen.
Juid gives the goblin the "wait" signal with his hand and goes out to investigate the ruckus.
Czein walks out, kneeling at the spot where Hector's blood had been spilled. His grip tightens on the axe, veins bulge in his arms and forehead, and his lip curls into a snarl, baring his tusks. "He was stabbed in the back?" The hulking warrior's voice was like molten steel across his lips. When one of the others nods to him, he stands and lets out a feral roar that seemed to shake the room. "By our Lord in Iron I will butcher whatever did this!" He remembers the little thing's map and storms over to the door toward "Druzele"...
-Posted with Wayfinder
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Crystal winces as Czein storms towards Druzele's chambers.
She twirls an arrow between her fingers before readying it to fire at anything that jumps out to attack the half-orc as he barrels through the hallway.
Her hands are visibly trembling as she aims.
Ragnar gets down to one knee and takes a closer look at the blood stains.
"Does anyone have a flask or someth... " He is interrupted when the half-orc charges forward.
Notice to myself: Get a blood sample before it dries, but never before the one who caused the bleeding is dealt with. He thinks while rising back to his feet and following Czein.
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Roaring with anger, Czein charges off into the east of the dungeon complex! The group follows behind him as the massive half-orc charges down a hall, yanking open a door to peer within.
This small, dark room contains an ancient bed which has been piled with furs to make it comfortable, and a small assortment of gear piled in a corner. It has a strange, musty reek to it. A half-completed necklace of fingerbones has been left. A single goblin sits on the bed. He looks up at Czein, his eyes wide in panic.
"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
He looks around frantically and dives under the bed. No bugbear is in sight.
Czein does a pitiful job of trying communicate with the thing through his rage. "Druzele!... where. Now. Tell. Please... Stabby things! Talk!" he yanks the bed, causing it to skid away from the good-as-dead goblin.
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With a roar, the mighty half-orc grabs the bed and hurls it across the room, revealing a goblin in a state of sheer terror. It backs away from Czein as the half-orc barks orders at it, shaking its head rapidly as it fails to understand the demands.
Suddenly, an enormous female bugbear leaps out of the shadows right beside Crystal, lunging at the dhampir with a pair of swords! Despite catching Crystal off guard, the bugbear misses wildly.
Ragnar
---
Goblin
Bugbear
---
Crystal
Raven
Czein
Juid
Ragnar stares down the bugbear steps back to not get in the way of the melee fighters.
The bugbear recoils as she meets Ragnar's gaze and falls under the hex. Nonetheless she retaliates, stabbing at Crystal once more.
Still surprised by the attack, Crystal parries the first and her eyes suddenly go wide as the second sword slashes brutally into her collarbone. The Inquisitor collapses to the floor, bleeding out.
Motivated by the attack, the goblin lets out a shriek of joy and leaps at Czein with her dogslicer, opening up a big cut in the half-orc's leg.
Ragnar
---
Goblin
Druzele
---
Crystal (13 dmg, dying)
Raven
Czein (3 dmg)
Juid
Unsure how he can help, but feeling he must, Juid grabs Crystals arms and pulls her back into the room behind Ragnar and Raven. He knows his positive energy would destroy her, so he tries a simple heal check once they are safe from the bugbear.