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"I'm a dwarf, we don't do delicate!" Eostre yells behind her shoulder.
Evelyn was just about to continue toward the exit when her arm's grabbed by Eostre, and she's pulled into the basement by her dwarf companion. Evelyn doesn't entirely get what's going on, because she was too focused on chasing the goblins to hear what Tsuto said. Sweat beads appear on Evelyn's forehead as she begins to panic. Her eyes go blank, and she starts muttering frantically. "កុំធ្វើឱ្យខ្ញុំមើលវា ... កុំ ... កុំធ្វើឱ្យខ្ញុំមើលវា ..."
Eostre pauses, turns back to Evelyn and tugs her arm so her head's eye-level with Eostre and looks her in the eye.
"ខ្ញុំមិនដែលធ្វើឱ្យអ្នកមើលអ្វីនោះទេ! Ameiko របួសនិងតម្រូវការប្រោស! ឥលូវនេះ!"
Nicat hurries along to catch up with the group, muttering, "Ameiko's hurt? That's terrible! Why was she even here, she can't stand her father? What in the hells is going on?"
"I wish I knew" the monk admits
Evelyn's eyes lose their blank stare when Eostre addresses her, but it takes a few seconds for Eostre's words to sink in. Once the words reach Evelyn, she nods slowly at her companion. As Evelyn continues down the stairs, she wipes the sweat off her forehead and clenches the healing wand with her other hand.
"Take us to her, Tsuto! Your dad's dead, we don't wanna lose Ameiko too!"
Tsuto stops dead in his tracks. "...dead? What? How?"
"Ameiko's hurt? That's terrible! Why was she even here, she can't stand her father? What in the hells is going on?"
Before he has a chance to really process what Eostre said, Nicat speaks up and hurries past him. Tsuto blinks as he looks at Nicat. "I asked her to come here--I needed her help to... to confront Father..."
He shakes his head. "She's downstairs--she's in one of the storerooms in the back. The goblins locked us in there."
Heading downstairs, the party enters a stone basement that is mostly unadorned. Two wheelbarrows are up against the far wall, surrounded by bags of sand and other raw materials used in glassblowing. You see that the blood trail from upstairs leads down the stairs and down a hallway to your left.
Eostre grimaces.
"That's Ameiko's blood innit?" she says, to no one in particular.
She turns to Tsuto.
"Tsuto, takes us to that storeroom poste haste! You got out to find us, that her trail?" she barks.
Tsuto nods and follows the blood trail. "She's... she's in here." He pants, leading her down the hallway. They pass by two doors on the way there--one carved from stone, the other made of mahogany.
He points at an oaken door at the end of the hall, where the blood trail leads.
”Come on guys, we have to help Ameiko!” Nicat says, urging his friends along.
"Why would the goblins just lock them in..."
Eostre blinks at Conner's comment. She realizes she's been so frantic to help Ameiko she didn't notice that hole in Tsuto's story.
"Come to think of it, who gave the little blighters keys? It couldn't have been Lonjiku. They killed him. If he'd been the mastermind behind this the goblins would want him alive."
"I'll bet a round at the bar that these goblins work for someone who has it in for Ameiko, but needs her alive. They're pawns. Why else would they sneak into this building?"
The monk just keeps running towards their goal
Evelyn quietly, but swiftly, heads toward the room where Ameiko's supposed to be. She hopes she'll be in time to apply healing.
Tsuto winces and pushes the door open, revealing a sorry sight.
Ameiko lies in a pool of blood on the floor, her hands tied behind her back and her legs tied together.
"Please, can one of you help her? And did you kill all the goblins?" Tsuto moves aside, his face ashen.
"Naw, the little blighters turned tail and ran after a brief show of force. Why? We'll protect you guys."
Seeing Ameiko's broken body distracts Eostre from Conner's previous line of questioning.
"Evelyn! Wand! Stat!"
"You seem a lot more curious about whether the goblins are dead than whether we can help your sister," Nicat notes, his expression puzzled. "And if you were locked in there with Ameiko, why didn't you untie her then? And how did you get out of the storeroom?" He gives Evelyn a quick look and a tip of the head, indicating she should go see to Ameiko right away. Meanwhile, Nicat turns and confronts Tsuto, puffing his wee chest up as large as he can and saying, "You're not telling us everything. What the heck is going on here?"
Eostre blinks again as Nicat puts two and two together. Muttering a curse under her breath for letting her emotions blind her, she joins him in confronting Tsuto, glaring angrily.
"Yeah! What was with the cloak-and-dagger stuff in that letter you sent Ameiko? Why would the goblins kill your dad if he was their mole in town? If you thought he was, why didn't you come to us deputies with that information? How in Hell did the goblins even get into town unnoticed? That skeleton-making magic cloak we found in the temple, yours? How come Ameiko's broken and bleeding, and YOU'RE not?! Did YOU help them, Tsuto?! DID YOU?!"
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Tsuto stops as Nicat & Eostre accost him. "What?! But I... but I..."
His demeanour suddenly turns annoyed and resigned. "...oh, f++~ it, it was worth a shot."
Tsuto turns on his heel and starts running like hell!
Nicat cries out, "Dangit, he's a bad guy!" He hurries after Tsuto as fast as his little legs will carry him. He can't quite catch up, but he gets close enough to try to stop Tsuto. Dipping a hand into a tiny pouch on his belt, he pulls out a small gob of butter and snaps his greasy fingers, while pointing at the bottom of the stairs.
The grease catches Tsuto by surprise, but he somehow manages to keep his footing.
At the head of the pack, Conner gives chase as best he can.
Distracted, Ekan actually saw no malice until Nicat managed to get him to confess. Then it all goes so quickly.
Ekan seeing the grease, attempts to leap over the grease spell just cast and land on the other side so not to lost momentum.
The monk bounces one foot against the ungreased wall to spring past the obstacle and block his foe off from escape.
"She's your blood, Tsuto! How could you do this?" It baffles him, "Do you have any idea what I would give to have my own lost family returned to me?"
Evelyn doesn't have any idea of what's going on, until the others puzzle it together. Currently, she doesn't care too much anyway. As soon as she sees the state Ameiko's in, Evelyn knows what her number one priority is. And so Evelyn rushes past Eostre, and places her buckler hand on Ameiko's forehead.
A green glow, as soft as the green in Evelyn's eyes, emits from her hand as the healing magic does its job.
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Ameiko stirs as Evelyn channels healing energy into her, causing the most grievous of her injuries to heal. "Ow..."
Ekan tries to leap past Tsuto, but unfortunately, the half-elf's reflexes are even quicker than he gave him credit for, dodging his incoming fist. As soon as he tries to leap off the wall and get around Tsuto, the man's fist lashes out...
...and catches him squarely in the family jewels. It knocks the wind out of Ekan, but he manages to keep himself focused enough to power through it.
Unfortunately, Nicat's grease spell goes off not long after he tries it...
...and the pain from Tsuto's retaliatory blow is enough to make Ekan lose his balance and fall prone in the grease.
Conner stampedes around the corner, right into the greasy patch Nicat put down.
His foot lands on a rough patch of grease, causing him to skid from the weight of his armour & shield...
...but unlike Ekan, he manages to keep his footing!
"The bigger they are, the harder they fall!" Eostre quips as she trundles after the group pursuing the fleeing Tsuto, preparing to cast a spell.
Ekan and Conner recognize the motions as the ones that turned them into giants...but this time she launches the spell at their enemy.
"Also, makes it harder to get up stairs!"
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Despite Eostre's best efforts, Tsuto manages to escape up the stairs before she can complete her spell. The door slams shut behind him... followed by a *click* and the cackling of goblins!
"Y'know, I really didn't think that was going to work. That was some of the worst bluffing I ever thought of, but as soon as I said Ameiko was hurt, you practically tripped over yourselves to save her!" Tsuto gloats from behind the door. "Oh, and Nicat? Thanks for helping me escape. Couldn't have done it without you, buddy!" The mockery in his voice is unmistakeable.
"I was hoping things would have turned out better, but I guess it doesn't matter if you burn now or later." Tsuto's voice turns serious. "Because make no mistake--this town's going to *burn* for what they did to her."
There's a brief silence. "Poog. Mogmurch. Burn the building down."
Eostre begins slamming the sides of her head with her fists.
"Sh*t sh*t sh*t sh*t SH*T!!!" she swears angrily.
"CONNER! EKAN! ANYBODY! GET THAT DAMN DOOR OPEN! WE CAN'T LET THAT BASTARD GET AWAY!"
She returns to Evelyn to help her lift Ameiko.
"Eostre, calm down. We need to get Ameiko out of here, I don't care about catching him. Good news is this is a stone building, it's not going to burn that easily. He'd be long gone before we could get through the door anyway. Nicat, is there any way you can get rid of this stuff?"
Nicat waves his hand in a cleaning sort of gesture and mutters a few words and the grease disappears from the steps. "Damn! Can't believe he got away!" he growls to himself. "I was sure that was going to work..."
He moves a few steps up the stairs, leaving room for Conner and Ekan, and says, "Try to break it down, you guys! We have to get out of here!"
Nicat waves his hand in a cleaning sort of gesture and mutters a few words and the grease disappears from the steps. "Damn! Can't believe he got away!" he growls to himself. "I was sure that was going to work..."
He moves a few steps up the stairs, leaving room for Conner and Ekan, and says, "Try to break it down, you guys! We have to get out of here!"
"I thought so too, Nicat! C'mon, help Evelyn and me get Ameiko up! Conner, do as Nicat says and break the door down. PROPERLY this time! There'll be time for calming down when we don't have to worry about a burning wooden floor collapsing on our sodding heads!" Eostre yells, her lack of any intention of calming down evident.
Ekan calls out, "Let's work together, Connor." He tries to time a simultaneous effort against the door.
Ameiko struggles to get to her feet, hampered by the bindings on her arms & legs. "Help me get these off, will ya?"
"Hang on."
Eostre grips her glaive close to the head and uses it like a crude knife to cut through the bindings.
The bindings come free with a simple application of Eostre's glaive blade. "Ow... thanks a lot. Of course, now we still need to get out of here..."
She stands, but she is still very wobbly. She's still badly wounded.
"Stop telling me how to break down doors!" He rams his shoulder into the wood.
Strength check
Evelyn does what she does best, and which is probably the only useful contribution she can make in the current situation. Her buckler hand glows green again while she applies healing to Ameiko.
After healing Ameiko with her own spell, Evelyn puts away the wand she was still holding in one hand.
"ប្រសិនបើយើងត្រូវរត់តាមរយៈភ្លើងមួយចំនួន, ដែលជាការផាកពិន័យ។," she says to Eostre, and shows the fading glow that comes from her hand. "ខ្ញុំអាចព្យាបាលរបួសរលាកយ៉ាងងាយស្រួល។"
"Now we try my way." Conner sets down his shield, draws his bastard sword and hacks into the wood with both blades.
Longsword
Bastard Sword
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Conner & Ekan ram their shoulders into the locked door, but it doesn't budge.
Evelyn channels more healing magic into Ameiko's injured body, and this time almost all of her injuries heal. Only a few bruises around her neck and face remain.
"Thanks." Ameiko holds a hand to her head. "Now, we need to--"
The sound of a bomb exploding erupts from behind the locked door, shaking the door and causing it to grow hotter to the touch. It's followed by a loud "OW! Dammit Mogmurch!" in a goblin's scratchy, shrieking voice.
Conner throws his shield aside and starts chopping away at the door with his two blades. He gouges several holes in the door, and is greeted by a blast of heat. The other side of the door is burning, and smoke is starting to pour in through the holes he's making. Looking up past the blaze on the door, he can see that the rafters of the room beyond are on fire as well, and look to be on the verge of collapse. Tsuto and the goblins are nowhere to be seen.
Ameiko's face drains of colour. "Oh, no. Oh, no no no."
Eostre takes a closer look at the stone door.