Scrabbler scrabbled past the longshank leader, dropping his bear trap between the longshank's long legs...
..then he jumped up on one of the horses and started yelling and slapping the animal's flanks with his gangly arms.
Croaker looked between the many longshanks and many, many horseshanks. Recognizing the worse threat, Croaker sent a fireball at the closest horse, hoping to kill it quickly.
"Goblins come to take and steal,
Maybe even stab and kill.
But horseshanks not be great,
So goblins kill them with big hate."
Chompy's powerful tail knocks the longshanks to the ground, bleeding from his nether regions. It looks like he severed something internally. Then chaos erupts as Croaker sends a gout of fire at a horse and Scrabble traps the boss stealyshanks ... and then jumps on top of one of the horses! The fearsome beast promptly takes off at blindingly fast speed, trying to shake the goblin off and dragging the bossshanks behind it.
"AhahahahaAhAhaHA!" cackles Dys as she rips a twig from the nearby bush and quickly winds it around the barrel of the boomstick, tying it off with a flourish as she steps out from behind the bush and takes aim once again at one of the stealyshanks.
This time the shot doesn't break the boomstick, and the bullet leaves the barrel, igniting in the air and sailing towards its target.
Trinn runs across the road, blowing a raspberry at the bossshanks as she does so. "Wait for me, guys..."
*BOOM* Dys' boomstick lives up to its name as one of the stealyshanks' head explodes. The remaining longshanks and the horses start running away in all different directions. Your fearsome ambush has been brutally effective, and they don't seem to want to fight.
Chompy looks up and around and notices a Longshanks trying to get away. He is enraged by the rudeness of it. He gives chase, snapping his teeth at anything he can get a hold of.
"Baw ha ha ha ha haaaaaa!" Mogawg chases after the last bandit and the horses gleefully, then channels a burst of negative energy.
With all the horseshanks running away, Croaker ends his song and heads toward the giant longshank hut to see where the other longhsanks went. He didn't want to do anything else to attract the evil horseshanks toward him.
Chompy bites the longshanks' leg and holds him in place as Mogawg drains his life force. The horses flinch, but the pain simply makes them run faster.
Chompy feels the man slack and lets go to let him fall before biting again and dragging the longshank to the longshank pile at the opening of the fort.
He looks up at Croaker and tilts his head. He pads forwards and looks up with him. "Big strong hut, we should not damage new home." he says nodding.
Trinn sees Croaker going to the hut and hustles over to the side of the door. She doesn't know what he's going to do, but she wants to help.
Everyone Except Scrabble:
The inside of your new base is huge! There's some covered pits with garbage and old food and stuff inside. There's a pen for piggies and chickens! There aren't any animals in it right now, but maybe you'll find some. There's a place for horses because longshanks are crazy and like them close by. Fortunately, all the horses ran away when Dys and Croaker and Scrabble messed with them during the stealyshanks killing. There's also two other buildings. One's small. The other's big. That's the one where you saw the two scaredshanks run inside and slam the door and lock it.
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Scrabble
Chompy stares at the door, trying to figure out how to deal with this. He moves around teh building carefully, checking here and there for a way in. Looking for windows to climb up to and break or even if the chimney is smoking so that he might fall down the fireplace.
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The dragon made a lot of sense for being a dragon. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to set it on fire...yet. As the little dragon began to look around the building, though, Croaker began to get impatient. Why should they let the longshanks stay in their hut?
Then Croaker got an idea because he knew that longshanks were really dumb. "Me have idea," Croaker told the others, preparing to sing.
Beginning another song, Croaker focused his prank-seeing and formed an illusion of a young girlshank right by the door with those stupid clean clothes longshanks wear and a gag on. The illusion appeared to be crying and reaching for the big hut as he sang.
"We be goblins, that is true,
And you longshanks be very few.
We have girlshank here, you see.
So come out or girlshank will dead be.
We let longshanks run away,
If longshanks do come out and stay.
Girlshank be free if you come out.
Girlshank be dead if you do doubt."
Scrabble wasn't very good at riding, but he was very good at holding on and screaming.
The boomstick was great, but the best part was digging around in longshanks' heads to take back the metal stones. No, not really. It was kinda gross, actually, Dys thinks.
The task is done as the others are searching for ways to get into the big stone hut. Croaker is singing, but will the scaredyshanks understand?
"Dragon! Come say the words in longshanks tongue that Croaker is singing!"
And if that plan fails... perhaps there is another way to get inside.
Chompy blinks, hearing his name and pokes his head around the corner of the building. He nods and makes his way back to the front of the building and starts yell singing at it in Longshank.
The longshanks house has a chimney you could fit through, but it's on the roof.
The boss stealyshanks is very much dead.
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You hear the oldshanks call out from inside the house.
Chompy tilts his head as only the Goblins got credit for killing the bandits. He took a deep breathe and sparks blew out of his nostrils in anger.
This because he was young and tiny! He grumbled as he walked in circles for a minute before turning to Mistress and the Singer Gobbo "Longshanks call you brave and good, say you saved them from evil bandits. They wanna repay you..." he said sitting with his back to the hut and pouting.
He scratches the ground in frustration and starts complaining loudly in Draconic.
"Don't worry, Chompy. You is...honorary goblin!" he says, giving Chompy a comforting pat on the head.
"Maybe they can live if they be slaves to us. What do you think?" he asks of all present.
"Dys likes dis idea. Dey can live in small hut, we take big stone hut. Yesss."
Dys puffs up at the thought of being called brave and starts strutting around the compound with the boomstick on her shoulder. A big strong hut with walls and things, longshank slaves... their tribe was gonna be the best tribe ever!
"Chompy, please tell them they hafta follow our orders, and they can live here. But all this stuff is OURS now."
Chompy thinks about it for a minute, he did like the idea of good slaves. He snarled a bit and turned about "We Goblins and Dragon will accept yous Longshanks as slaves. You will live in Stable and take care of hut. Wes may have more orders, you can agree or we burns you out! All stuffs is now Ours!!!"
He said triumphantly in Common and then yelled random curse words at the door in Draconic.
The longshanks inside sound appropriately frightened.
Chompy blinks. "Chompy hears them say they accept." he says in goblin before talking longshanks again "Open the door to prove!"
If/when Mogawg hears from Chompy that the longshanks have agreed to the terms of enslavement to spare their lives, he will begin investigating all that stuff the bandits were stealing. Some of it might have been in bags hanging from runaway horses now long gone, but some might be left.
"Not gonna lie...can't believe that worked. Good job, dragon. Gonna promote you to head assistant mushroom tester!"
The door slowly creaks open to reveal oldshanks standing protectively in front of ladyshanks. Both look terrified. They're standing in a hall with some closed doors leading to rooms. There's also a few old papers hanging on the walls with words and pictures on them. From his position outside, Chompy can see the word "WANTED" written in Common on each of them.
Most of the bags were tied to the horses - and thusly long gone, but one fell off because Chompy's fire blast had burned the ropes off. Inside you find some animal furs and a pouch of longshanks money.
With the longshanks actually giving up, though Croaker wasn't really planning to letting them live, Croaker went back to the other longshanks to get a trophy. Meanwhile, the silent image faded away as the spell ended. Croaker waited for Scrabble to come back with the bossshanks before grabbing the necklace of goblin ears. Maybe other goblins would respect him now with so many on his neck.
Scrabble came riding back on the horse, having gotten the hang of the right ways to slap it and yell at it to get it to do what he wanted. The corpse of the bandit leader was still mostly intact after being dragged around for a while.
Scrabbler unhooked his trap chain from the saddle horn and hopped free of the frothing demon beast right outside the gate. He considered killing it, but he thought it would look more impressive if he rode in on the creature like longshanks did. Also, he was still kind of afraid of it.
He dragged the bandit leader into the courtyard, pried his trap free and started patting down the body. He looked up for a moment with narrowed eyes when Croaker snatched the necklace of ears, but decided he didn't want it. "Should put pinkskins ears on it too." he suggested.
Trinn peeks through the door and waves timidly at the longshanks slaves. Then she remembers that she's supposed to be scary and growls meanly at them.
At least, that's the theory.
"You guys think they speak Gobbo? We totally gonna kill them later, right?" she says in a friendly tone, so that the longshanks don't suspect anything.
Shinies
Scrabble's horse has a sack tied to it. Inside is some rabbit furs and longshanks money
Bandit Leader
M Leather Armor
M Dagger
M Composite Longbow (STR +2)
Arrow x20
Trail Rations x2
Silver Stag Skull Amulet
35gp
Goblin-Ear Necklace
Silver Stag-Skull Amulet
Other Bandits
M Leather Armor x3
M Longbow x3
M Shortsword x3
Arrow x 60
Trail Rations x6
30gp
Creature Harvesting (all require Know(local) 1 rank + Heal DC 15)
Human Heart x4
As Croaker admired his new necklace, he suddenly realized his close vicinity to the horseshank, which was less than a hundred feet, and backed up a little. "We maybe kill horseshank. Horseshank be evil, but if we eat its meat, maybe we take its strength and become goblin gods."
Eat the horseshanks? Truth be told, Dys was feeling a little peckish after all the fighting and walking and more fighting and yelling. She sniffs at the longshank food in the bags, hoping to find something with a nice kick to it. Once her hunger is sated, Dys starts exploring the big hut, sauntering past the slaveshanks and grinning menacingly at them.
Once that is done, Dys returns to poke at the slain banditshanks, trying to get a trophy from the one she had killed, but mostly she makes a mess of it.
Trinn eyes the amulet, then shrugs and puts it on. She likes how it sparkles. She snags the food that Dys left behind, too. She eats fungi regularly, she doesn't have that refined of a palate.
Chompy stares at the Longshanks and then at the gold and then at the Longshanks some more. This goes on for a few minutes with Chompy stopping anyone who goes near the longshanks as he tries to think something out.
Finally he seems like he's thought long enough for an idea "Longshanks use shinies for trade...goblins steal what they need....what if we keeps the Longshanks so they can trade the shinies for us for things we have a hard time stealing? Things that evil Longshanks hide in their massive huts with too many Longshanks?" he says seeming to still think out his idea as he says it.
Chompy busies himself with a body while the others think over Chompy's non Goblin thoughts while asking Dys how to get to the Longshank's good meats.
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Longshanks House
One of the rooms has a big table for eating and some chairs. Another room has two chairs and a desk with books and papers on it. There's a room with a big bed and longshanks clothes. One room has lots of stuff in it: two barrels of water, a half-full barrel of lantern oil, three lamps, twelve candles, a hooded lantern, 70ft of rope, a tent, and lots of firewood and longshanks food. The last room is locked. The oldshanks shrugs apologetically.
Chompy thought for a minute and looked at the Longshanks "Goblins hate locked things, unless goblins locked them. It makes them burn or kill things. Should probably open it, then give them key." he said in common staring at them to see what they'd do.
The longshanks looked at each other nervously.
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Other buildings
The smaller building has four beds in it. The stable's empty but can hold five horses.
Chompy looked at the others and then back at the Longshanks "Yes, Chompy will help." he said in Common nodding afterwards. "Chompy will watch slaves go find key for door. Room can be our new treasury."
He then followed the humans along licking the blood dripping off his claws and the heart in his hand.
"Chompy! Tell dem the first thing they can do for us is make two more beds, there aren't enough for us!" Mogawg screams from the doorway of the smaller building, loud enough for anyone to hear.
Trinn takes a sniff. "Eew. Maybe we should have them burn down horsey barn first, smells like them everywhere. Think it's already in my clothes..."
Croaker gasps at Trinn's announcement. "Maybe that be where the longshanks make all the horseshanks. If we set hut on fire, maybe all the many horseshanks will stop coming."
Ready to set something on fire, Croaker carefully gathers all the papers and books and piles them out into the yard, making sure not to look at the mind-stealers directly. "Why longshanks give up so many words for this? No wonder they be so stupid." After gathering the evil books and papers, he then begins dragging the bodies as well to make a great big bonfire after such a great battle.
Scrabble started going through all the stuff on the shelves in the longshanks big hut, pocketing some stuff, and tossing other over his shoulder onto the floor.
Chompy hears the noise of twitchy Goblins and looks over to see a pile forming of the books. He goes wide eyed and starts screeching in all three languages.
He yells at the Slaves to get the key and make more beds, he yells at the Goblins for someone to watch the slaves or they'll escape and he starts yelling at the books for being in the yard (in Draconic).
He starts skimming what Croaker is piling up and does his best to save important stuff. Finding the wanted posters in the pile, he snatches them up and puts them aside along with the five most important documents. He knows that most of the Forbidden Longshanks words must be burned though.
He runs the posters into the big hut once again and gets his own frantic and panicked look at the inner workings. He comes back out "Big room with big bed should be for healer. It give room for floor to be torn up and mushrooms to be grown. It also have big bed for Chompy to guard her from." he says trying to be smart.
Grumbling at the fact that their dragon wanted to save any of the evil writings, Croaker watches the longshanks for a moment as Chompy goes through the pile. "You longshanks not be smart. You be wasting all your words by making all this," Croaker tells them, waving his arm at the pile as he speaks in goblin. He squeezes the frog for emphasis and continues. "Don't worry. We goblins make much better use of this big hut. You will do things for us like all longshanks should. We will make sure you be much smarter by not doing dumb things. Why you so silent? Speak, longhshanks! Speak! Did you lose all your words already? This be why writing be so evil!"