"Oh dear... Niveus! Where are you?" Kairi's voice is filled with concern as she looks around.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm ready to investigate the rest of this place.
Aleon reloads his gun with it ready, this time with a bullet in it instead of pellets.
Kairi hesitates for a moment, "Lets wait for Niveus first."
Kairi pauses in thought, with her face showing continued concern. "Saif, are you okay? Did the goblins hurt you?"
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Saif snaps out of a memory. "They were not too much trouble. In fact, I'm a bit more worried about them then I at this point. The poor stupid creatures." Saif says, he looks off toward where he last saw Niveus. "Come Aleon, let us regroup before we press forward. The goblins have proven to be little threat in closed quarters."
He then leads Kairi toward Niveus. As they reach him, the dervish asks in a sincere tone, "How are you friend?"
Niveus shakes his head.
"Twice nearly dead in two days. Safe to say I am not in high spirits. Also considering the wisdom of potions over gold to counter point my father's view on the subject."
He didn't know if it was bad luck or if his reluctance to rush into the midst of danger pointed him out as a target. Regardless his patience was wearing thin with the swamp and every foul thing that lived in it.
Aleon regroups, he will move on when everyone is ready.
He then leads Kairi toward Niveus.
"Oh, thank you dear. I cannot see too far ahead, it's the burden that remains.
"Twice nearly dead in two days. Safe to say I am not in high spirits. Also considering the wisdom of potions over gold to counter point my father's view on the subject."
Kairi gives a look of compassion, "Stay close, I want to keep you safe."
"Kairi, please?" he asks, nodding a head toward Niveus.
Kairi smiles a little. She finds being useful heartening. She looks over Niveus wound. She begins to speak in Samsaran with her eyes flashing with a white glow. Some kind of divine magical properties are flowing through her body. She places her hands on Niveus's wound tightly. Niveus's wounds begin to patch up and disappear.
Kairi lets go of Niveus's wounded spot after 5 seconds or so.
"Lets keep moving, gentlemen."
As Aleon witnesses Wow that Was incredible. Now, I say all move slowly and carefully throughout the building, assuming my shotgun didn't already give away our position from that loud noise.
Kairi smiles a little. She finds being useful heartening. She looks over Niveus wound. She begins to speak in Samsaran with her eyes flashing with a white glow. Some kind of divine magical properties are flowing through her body. She places her hands on Niveus's wound tightly. Niveus's wounds begin to patch up and disappear.
The final hut seems to have only one practical point of entry, in the form of a large set of double doors, which unfortunately seem to have been barred from within. A fair bit of persistence quickly remedies the situation, but as the door bursts open what you can safely assume is the goblin chief shouts "Boom!" and a fair number of Desnan candles are set off in the general direction of Saif*'s face.
While two of the fireworks sail harmlessly past, one bursts rather close, dealing 1 fire and 1 non-lethal damage, in addition to leaving Saif blinded for a round.
The chief, meanwhile, lights a decidedly larger skyrocket, whose fuse looks like it will take five or six seconds to burn down completely.
Aleon, opens the door, but will not fire a ranged attack into, melee as that is stupid. He knows his shotgun can just barely reach the first goblin and he has 1 bullet already loaded.
Edit: Oh right, Init rolls
Kairi speaks rather quickly in Samsaran to cast bless. Her eyes glowing once more as she casts the spell.
She prepares to move if everyone else moves forward, staying behind Niveus as she does so.
At yet another surprise by the infernal goblins his temper finally boils over. But his blood does not run hot rather the opposite as he narrows his eyes and feels an unnatural calm.
"Enough"
He whispers as he moves around his allies to stand besides Saif and unleash the same rush of colors from his finger tips that he did on that day so long ago. Again his would be victims are goblins.
Waiting on the results of Niveus' colorspray before I post.
* According to my cone template, the leftmost goblin only fits within the cone if Niveus is stepping into the room. No risk of AOOs since they're all holding fireworks instead of melee weapons, but I still feel the need to double check if you're standing there, if only for the sake of the skyrocket aimed in that general direction.
So that's 1 or 2 unconscious and otherwise messed up goblins on the left, a perfectly fine chief, and a bodyguard with a bullet so far, and Saif, blinded by a Desnan candle this round, still with actions to declare before I toss out the next round of bright shiny bits.
Pulling out all the stops, you begin to fill the room with blinding lights, greasy floors, and a rather nasty slug from Aleon's musket, leaving two goblins a quivering heap on the floor, while the others are still on their feet.
The lit Desnan candles continue releasing small bursting rockets all about the room, but only one goblin remains capable of properly aiming hers, in this case, at Niveus...
... dealing 1 fire and 1 non-lethal damage, as well as resulting in a moment of blindness.
Recalling the sizzle behind her, the goblin attempts to scramble away on the now slick floor...
However, with everyone so tightly packed, when the skyrocket lit by the chief screams forward, she remains in the blast area as it impacts on the door frame...
(Reflex 15 for half)
Aside from the shower of sparks, Aleon is momentarily blinded, while Saif and Niveus can hear only a loud ringing in their ears for the next few seconds. Kairi, being around the corner, is ironically the only one present in full possession of her senses, apart from the chief who, quite satisfied with these results (and totally unconcerned with casualty caused by his friendly fire), lights the fuse of a second skyrocket, again aimed straight at the doorway. Fortunately, this seems to be the last explosive primed and readied within the hut.
Conditions to deal with: +1 to hit from Bless, Acrobatics 10 to step through the grease, Aleon and Niveus blind (50% miss chance to attack where you're pretty sure the chief is still standing), Niveus and Saif deafened (20% spell failure chance).
Aleon will then switch to his axe while moving and try to hit the next goblin in melee.
Kairi moves with haste towards the ruckus. She takes a quick gander at her companions, attempting to determine who is wounded the most.
She heals whoever has the most evidence of being wounded from all the trouble that she did not see.
Closing in around the chief as the rest of the goblins are either dead or otherwise neutralized as threats, Saif scores a nasty blow against the goblin chief, whose focus remains on the second skyrocket...
... as it sails harmlessly past you all, sizzling towards the sky. The chief then takes up the spear leaning against his throne in absent-minded fashion, too busy waiting for the final rocket to explode to fully focus on his attacker.
Fortunately, as no further fireworks are detonating directly in your faces, everyone's vision and hearing recovers, and you can deal with him free of any distraction.
Aleon can't get in close, so he readies an attack in case the goblin somehow gets passed all my allies.
Niveus tries to avoid the blast as best he can. Most of it misses him but he is still hit hard and near death's door for the third time sense he entered the blasted swamp. He moves back out of range of the lone goblin and out of his allies way before sending yet another magical attack from the coolness in his blood at the foul green demon. This one takes the form of a glowing fox running through the air to smack into the little beast.
After healing Niveus for the third time. Kairi steps over the dead goblin's body. She places her feet firmly on the ground to avoid slipping or falling.
With a deep inhaled breath, Kairi moves her right arm back to thrust at the Goblin Chief with her dagger.
With the work of just staying on her feet, her right hand twitches and does not meet her expectations. The stab was fast, but did not have the right force or precision.
Directly engaging the chief of the firework loving goblins, blows are exchanged. The nasty brute is surprisingly tough, but having seen what short work you made of his kin, his blows fail to connect.
Aleon holds his attack, as he can't do much and he isn't going to fire his gun past all his allies and risk hitting them or jamming the gun and having it explode.
Aleon loads up his gun with a bullet
And then tries to shoot. vs touch ac
and if he hits
Kairi attacks with a swipe of her dagger.
She throws more force with the swing. Making a horizontal chop at the Goblin. Unfortunately, speed and strength did not account for accuracy.
Placing more distance between himself and the lone goblin he sends yet another glowing fox from his finger tips at him.
Finally, as missiles, blades, and bullets fly, and the fireworks sputter out on the floor, the chief of the Licktoad goblins is brought low. While a number of goblins are merely unconscious and not dead (that number being 5, plus the chief, with 10 outright dead), you have more than enough time to deal with them in whatever way you see fit.
XP Gained: 856
While most of the goblins' possessions are worthless junk, barely cobbled together from random bits of scavenged scrap metal and frayed twine, the chief is actually in possession of some surprisingly decent, if small, items of value: Two small glass vials of some strange liquid. a small masterwork composite longbow (+1 str bonus), 11 arrows, a small spear, a small masterwork chain shirt, and a pouch containing 32 gold pieces.
A quick examination of the rest of his hut reveals a rather fancy red lacquered chest.
And inside, we have quite the eclectic haul: 6 masterwork shuriken, 329 loose silver pieces, 112 gold pieces, a long hair pin topped with a red pearl, and a gold-and-ivory fan, featuring a gecko walking amid cherry blossoms on one side, and what appears to be a crude map painted on the back, most likely by the goblins.
And of course, on top of all that, should you go about collecting your bounty, the chief's head is still worth 300 GP, and you have between 200 and 300 more gold potentially on the table from the rest, depending, largely, on whether you are inclined to leave the ears on some of those goblins who are merely unconscious, to hear any questions you may have once they recover.
Oh yes, and should anyone be inclined...
Kairi takes a deep breath and uses her power to determine magic in the area. "I am receiving something, from my previous memories, yet they are not or maybe..." Her body stiffens straight up, she stands still like being frozen in ice. Her eyes make a rather shiny supernatural glow that brights up the nearest wall. Not anything her companions have ever witnessed happen to her.
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Saif pulls a handkerchief and cleans his blade of what little blood he can find on it, then hands a CLW potion to Niveus. "Drink up friend, I know you've had a day."
The dervish then looks around at what destruction lies around them. "The poor fools, despicable until the last breath. But this one, he comes with us."
Saif kicks the chief over, turning him around. "He alone will bear the burden of responsibility for his people. By the sun and the stars, he will redeem himself for his crimes."
Aleon open the chest assuming it is unlocked, but leaves the stuff in there as it is easier and takes the entire chest with him showing the contents to everyone.
Edit:
Most of these weapons are small sized, I say we sell them, when we get the chance, as none of us can use them effectively.
He then takes the alive goblins prisoner and helps cut off the ears of the dead goblins. He won't cut off ears of alive goblins.
Niveus takes the vial from Saif but pockets it.
"I think it best to save it for the next time I am half dead running for my life. Something I hope is in a far distant future."
Having already collected some ears from the dead goblins he lets someone else handle the rest. Considering the live ones and chief, he shakes his head.
"Don't know if I am the only one that was involved with the last goblin attack on Sandpoint. But goblins don't have true leaders, they follow whoever proves to be the strongest or smartest among them. Which is not saying much granted, yet taking their chief will only scatter them to other tribes or bring a sort reprieve until another one leads."
Letting out a sigh.
"If you don't want to kill them then you may as well take all of them not just the chief. But I doubt the sheriff will do anything but execute them, maybe prison time if they show some sort of sense. All that aside we should find out where they got the fireworks and about that crude map of theirs."
Here's a handy little loot sheet for when you get back to town and sell things off.
And just so we're all on the same page, someone, using rope they remembered to bring, is tying up all the unconscious goblins, and you're hauling the whole lot back to town with you immediately?
Or were you sticking around and carefully searching the goblin village for anything you missed?
Or trying to follow crazy goblin maps to see where they lead?
Aleon is going to stick around to search for hidden treasures. He won't leave until he is certain he has searched every square inch, because that is who he is.
He goes through the entire house
As you round up various unconscious goblins, grouping them together to decide their fate and noticing a lack of rope between you, Aleon takes a closer look at your surroundings, and sees a number of signs indicating that you are not the first group to attack these goblins this week. There are a number of heavier footprints walking up from the pond bordering the village, several human-sized bones within, and enough trampled grass to suggest a battle of some sort may have happened within the last few days.
Thoroughly exploring also turns up 23 gold and a small stash of three undetonated skyrockets in one of the southern buildings.
After being struck by a strange trance for a brief time, Kairi looks over to Niveus.
"Large waterways leading to some boats and a cave. It's on the map!"
She puts her hands to her cheeks with a excitable smile.
"Could you guys take me there sometime, pleassssse?"
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Saif smiles at Kairi, though the presence of the tracks troubles him.
"Of course Kairi, we will go there soon."
He then goes to wake the goblin chief, slapping him until he wakes up and asks, forcefully, "We are not the first ones here. Are we? Speak now, little fiend, and I promise you will walk away from this with all of your fingers and toes."
Aleon puts the 23 gold in the group loot pile for all to split when we get back to town and sell off a whole bunch of items and he follows the group, as he could keep it all himself, but isn't going to.
After a fair bit of scrambling and attempting to bite Saif's ankles, the chief of the Licktoad goblins spins quite a tale for you all. "Some of the bravest goblins in the tribe... who'd totally kill you all if they were here now, don't you longshanks doubt it! They found all sorts of shiny treasures in some old boats and a cave. Very shiny treasures indeed! They brought it all back here, but them dead ones they took it from got all angry and followed'em back here to steal it all back! That's not right of them at all! Once you're dead, your treasure's not your treasure no more! Anyone's allowed to have it that comes for it! It's no fair being greedy about it! Did they go an' kill the birdies that ate all their skin too? All our treasure's fair took from stupid dead longshanks and ones who ran off and left it behind! We play fair! Why don't you find those cheating dead ones and take their treasure, not ours!"
Not the likeliest of tales, but it is somewhat in keeping with the map you've already discovered, and the strangely clean human bones in the nearby pond.
Aleon will axe up the chief goblin to shut him up.
Kairi winces and looks away at the bloody sight. "Well..." She looks down on the floor with a sustained hesitation. After a brief moment, she raises her head to speak. "What should we do next?"
Not kill the rest of them, I'm not against taking prisoners, but when they don't shut up, they can become a problem, as if they are trying to get into your head. I say we head back ASAP with the alive prisoners we have.