Sanite swings his hammer once more and strikes down the goblin.
COMBAT OVER
It's finally time to check over the bodies.
The seven weaker goblins each carry a bunch of small gear: leather armour, light wood shield, dogslicer, shortbow, quiver of arrows.
Both goblin commandos are also carrying some small gear: studded leather armour, horsechopper, shortbow, quiver of arrows and a small vial of magical liquid.
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Dasus nods to Sanite, and says, "I'll help. I had no desire to kill them, except the one who tried to lead us into a trap. But, it's impossible to reason with someone who is more afraid of their superiors than the people actively killing them."
Checking his wounds again, he says, "I do, however, wish to kill this Boss Grulk. Whoever he is, leaders have more choice than underlings, and if he inspires that much fear, I doubt he's redeemable."
Romulus does indeed find that the vials are magical. They are infused with conjuration magic. With Heccuba and Romulus working together they work out that both potions are Cure Moderate Wounds.
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Romulus stashes one in his pocket and passes the other to Heccaba before looking to the others.
Best if Heccuba and I hold onto these. No offense meant, but me and Heccuba are the least likely to take an axe to the face. I've seen to many healing potions go to waste on warriors who weren't awake to drink them. Our skills mean we can pass you a potion of you need it rather than you stopping to dig in a bag.
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Sanite turns about, seeing that there is no real quarrel with his statement turns and looks over his compatriots. "You two are injured, I shall walk in front." he said fairly simply.
Sanite then moves up where the Dwarf had taken to stopping and looked to his left and right and noticed two sets of doors. "It's best to take smaller doors." he said with conviction.
He put his hand on the door and if no one would offer a complaint against his reasoning, opens the door.
Sanite tries the door but it's clearly locked. The door does look quite weathered though so maybe a good shove could remove the obstacle.
Sanite decides to try the double doors before making a lot of noise. Inside is a rather strange sight. Stairs wind downward to the right, circling around a glowing wall of semi-translucent green stone. It seems the Azlanti tower was built around a core of some other material—a spire within a spire.
Sanite can hear the sounds of shuffling feat coming from somewhere down the stairs. He steps nearer and listens carefully and can her a faint moaning sound and what sounds like two sets of shuffling feet.
Being as quiet as he can, Sanite slowly moves down the stairs. He goes a bit of the way down before reaching another landing where he sees two rather gaunt and sickly looking goblins. They don't appear to have noticed him but it's quite clear that these are the source of the sounds he could hear.
The landing seems to be like a guard post on the stairs. It doesn't lead off anywhere else except down to the next level.
Belmiir checks the door and finds it safe.
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Sanite notices that the goblins appear to be completely lax in their guard duty. He wasn't sure if they were guarding the upstairs from something on the second level or if they were supposed to be ready for something coming from upstairs, but catching a proven dangerous enemy unawares...well, he couldn't not take advantage.
Sanite sizes up the situation for a moment and raises his hammer above his head silently before bringing it down with as much force as he can to make sure that this was a quick and painless death.
Sanite steps down the stairs and smashes one of the undead goblins to pieces before it can even react.
The other goblin pathetically scrapes it's claws on Sanite's armour before he puts that one out of it's misery too.
Dasus opens the door and finds a room that looks really messy. Rows of wooden racks on the walls of this room hold a ramshackle collection of rusty blades, scraps of armor, and warped arrows. The only things that look usable are various crudely made goblin weapons. Half a dozen each dogslicers and horsechoppers.
Going past the now unlocked room, Dasus and Belmiir can see the barricade that the goblins squeezed through earlier when they tried to surround the party.
Belmiir checks over the weapon storage area and doesn't find any traps. He also doesn't spot anything more valuable than the goblin weapons lying on the floor.
Sanite opens the door and can see a room is full to bursting with a motley collection of cots and other furniture cobbled from scraps of wood and cloth. The stench of rotting food is overpowering. Another door leads to the north on the far side of the room.
Hiding behind some of the cots armed with more crude goblin swords are three more little green skins.
COMBAT BEGINS
Round 1
Dasus <- UP NEXT
Belmiir <- UP NEXT
Romulus <- UP NEXT
Goblin BLUE
Goblin GREEN
Goblin RED
Heccuba
Sanite
Hallbjorn
The goblins keep their weapons ready but seem to hesitate. They look ready to attack at the first sign of anyone attacking.
The three goblins slap at each other and mutter a bit before one of them either wins or loses the argument, it's hard to work out which, and speaks up.
"What do you mean, fairly? Boss Grulk says he treats us fairly but we get bossed around and told what to do. We can't even have food in this room!"
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Dasus, as naïve as they come, gives a little sigh of relief. He is smart enough, however, not to lower his shield yet.
"If you hand over your weapons and swear never to attack innocent people, I will escort you out of the tower and you will be free to run as far away from Boss Grulk as you like. And I can promise, he will not be alive long to come after you."
The goblins take the food. After a slight argument about sharing it out they eat the food and drop their weapons.
"We go away now and not hurt anyone eeeeeever again. Promise!"
Both Dasus and Belmiir can easily tell that last part about hurting others was clearly a lie. They do appear to be honest about following all the other instructions though.
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Dasus sighs at the obvious lie. However, they are unarmed now, and they haven't broken their word yet. "We're letting them go," he says to the others.
He starts to escort them past, and back to the entrance, making sure they don't pick up weapons on the way outside.
Should they make it outside, he says something to see them off.
"See to it you keep your word. You swore an oath to a champion of Apsu, the god of dragons. If you're lucky, my deity will tell me if you break it, and then I will find you and kill you. If not, he might just send a dragon to punish you."
The goblins look startled at Dasus' claim. They don't say another word and turn to run off into the distance. They disappear into the forest in the opposite direction to Fort Inevitable.
With the goblin's removed the party can search around in the sleeping area.
Dasus finds a REALLY smelly and mouldy piece of cheese buried under that tattered blankets of one of the goblin beds. He immediately regrets his find.
Heccuba finds what looks like an arm that appears to made from gears and greenish metal. It looks like it would make a quite decent club.
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Sanite raised a brow at the goblins agreeance to leave willfully. He looked over at Romulus and nodded "He is losing his clan the more we fight and we have lost nothing. Be smart, be calm, we will drive the rest of them out of this spire one way or another." he said simply.
Once everyone seems ready and the latest gear is stashed somewhere for the group to round up on the way out from their first foray into the spire, he opens the door.