Camil will scoop up Lavanor's bow, and hold it in his hand with his, he calls out, Hey down there? You surrender or do you need more convincing? We already captured Nualia and the sorceress; and your bugbear is dead...
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”Do they store DOORS in this room?!” Forest grumbles as the many-doored room presents itself to him. He glares angrily at the floor in the dim light of his ioun stone, hoping to fine something that can inform him as to a direction to travel.
There are numerous footprints crisscrossing the room as well as a couple of torches on the walls, not usual for goblins. Listening intently, Forest hears goblins yelling from the door to the left of the stairwell (marked in orange). He hears snoring from the southwest door (marked in purple)
Well they’re probably not napping. Forest thinks, ignoring the snoring door in favor of the more chatty door.
Forest opens the door on a hallway. A walkway opens on either side of the main hall. At the end an open doorway reveals at least a pair of goblins having some sort of excited conversation.
The man in the hole heaves a sigh. Looking up at Camil he raises his hands above his head. "Guess you got me on this one friend."
Camil smiles down at the man, Well, I don't know if I'd call you friend yet, what's your name, and what exactly is going on down here? Keeping an eye on him, Oh Runt, I think we can do without the eagle now, he seems to be calm.
Runt dismisses the eagle which was fully intending on descending on the poor man for some more rip and shred.
"A pity all those goblins got away. I could chase them?!"
"Orik, my name's Orik." The man replies to Camil. "I think the ladies were trying to free a monster."
Forest can hear some of the conversation. Something about longshanks in the sacred place and longshanks in the feeding room; just basically longshanks everywhere and they need to go see chief Ripnugget.
Lavanor nods with Orik's comment as it seems to match what they had come across. "Throw your weapons up. Do you know what else is down here? And what forces are still upstairs?" he says as he listens for the fleeing goblins at the doorway before shutting the door.
Orik throws up a bastard sword, a longbow and a hand axe. Lavanor can hear excited goblin chatter in the far distance but cannot make out what is being said.
Lavanor is somewhat surprised that there is still a goblin sleeping in the corner of the room. He sheathes his sword before bending down to disarm the creature, tossing the weapons in the corner by the dead bugbear.
It snores, smacks its lips and stays curled up.
Isabella helps to gather all of the weapons into a single pile in one corner and stands guard there so that no errand goblins or people-rescued-from-pits can swipe them.
"Kill it." Runt suggests as the man fusses over the sleeping goblin.
Forest pulls the door closed and tries another. There are a lot of goblins here. Hopefully I can find some kind of trail of dead goblins to follow.
Forest finds yet another hall, this one much shorter. Moving to the end of it, he opens the opposite door to find a jail. The southern wall of this room is a bank of cells with iron doors, six in all. The rest of the room is obviously a torture chamber; a rack sits against the far wall, an iron maiden stands to the north, and a fire pit smolders below a spiky cage dangling from a chain in the ceiling to the east.
This place is huge. Forest had been hoping for a swift unification with his charges, but it was becoming quite clear that that was not to be. He tracks back to the room of doors and starts down the stairs.
Lavanor glances over at Runt with a look of disapproval. "I tend not to kill helpless creatures, at least not weak ones like this," he says as he considers what to do with the goblin. For a moment, he considers throwing it into the pit but decides to draw his sword and kick its foot to wake it up.
"We'll need to tie up our prisoners. Once the goblins get back to their leader, they may regroup to come back or organize a defense. We may want to move forward to where Zandril is," he says without taking his eyes off the goblin as he waits for the pit to disappear.
Runt is a bit disappointed that his bloodthirsty side was not satisfied, but figures that there will still be a chance to off some gobs.
"Whatever you say. You want me to watch the goblin?"
Orik responds to Lavanor's questions, "King Ripnugget was upstairs if you didn't kill him. He's had a falling out with his priest. There's about twenty goblins running around the fort, maybe triple that in the thistle patches around the area. As for down here, there was us and the two ladies." Orik keeps his hands up once the pit disappears and he rises to level ground.
Frustrated by the lack of immediate answers the questions he has, namely which direction he should go, Forest tries the southern doors in the room, one after the other.
Runt hovers over the goblin, waiting for her chance.
I sure hope (s)he tries to escape. I wonder if I summoned a dog, it might try to flee.
Camil thinks about what the man has said, So do we go upstairs and deal with this 'king'? That would let us see exactly what these two he nods his head at the women have been up to in peace.
Lavanor considers Camil's question. "Well it certainly would help eliminate the potential threat of the king if we are able to wipe out the forces here, although there seems to be quite a lot. We would need to be able to separate them into smaller groups to fight one at a time. However, we may find we aren't strong enough to take on so many.
I think before we engage them, we need to find an escape route. Right now, we are stuck here. If we press forward so we know what is down here, we can take care of the army above once we know we have a way out if things don't go our way," he says waiting for input from the others. With Runt watching the goblin, he walks over to Camil to retrieve the composite bow he dropped.
He then turns to Orik. "Is there another way out of these catacombs?
Camil looks to the others, Isabella, Zher, what do you think? I think if we can secure that way out we came in, we could take the king? I'd bet the goblins wouldn't offer much resistance if their leaders were gone?
Risky like pulling to an inside straight, but fortune favors the bold...
"It's... dangerous," says Isabella. "We're exhausted from all of this fighting, and there's no telling how strong this chief is. Usually goblin chiefs have their position simply because they're strong enough to hold it against all comers. Do we have the strength left to topple a goblin king?"
"I think we have to go for it. If we leave and return, they will either be gone or heavily reinforced. Now is the chance to chop the head off this problem."
Lavanor listens to the others. "I'm not suggesting we leave and come back another day. I just think we should have an escape route in case we need one. How much ability to heal do we have left?" he asks.
Oh. Well I still have this wand though it's mostly used up. Though we seem to have been lucky so far."
She looks around and then asks, "So where is it you want to go looking for an escape route. Back the way Zandril went?"
Sure wish they would let me take out that goblin. We are up to 4 prisoners now and things are getting complicated. And the little b#%! are tricky.
Shrugs, "I'm pretty much out of spells.... so only so much I can do if we press onwards"
"I, too, have almost exhausted all of my divine favor," says Isabella.
Forest checks the doors to the south. The southeast door shields a room of shelves upon which sit all of the youngsters. Apparently goblins don't like their own children running about and nearly a dozen tiny goblins whelps sit in cages on various shelves. They snarl and hiss at Forest when he opens the door. The center door is a hall that turns to the west after about twenty feet. The southwest door opens upon a horribly smelling room with four half-dressed goblin females lounging on bearskins. They keep their lounging posture and one shrugs before beckoning Forest in.
”Blech.” For gags, closing the last door. ”Looks like I’m in the heart of the enemy sanctum.” Forest heads through the center door; the only one with no goblins in it.
Forest steps down the hall which turns to the west. He finds himself facing a hall full of doors; two on the north wall, two on the south, and one at the far end. One of the northern doors is slightly ajar (highlighted in yellow).
"Sure, we can start with where Zandril is. There was also an area in the level above that we did not explore yet," Lavanor replies as he looks at their prisoners, wondering what to do with them.
Again, the hall that Zandril is in is shaped like an upside down L. The shorter section has a strange column in the middle of the eastern wall that resembles a stack of coins. The southern wall of the longer section running north-south has a door.
”For the love of Erastil! A map would have been nice, Sandpoint.” Forest spits under his breath.
This one-person bedroom shows many signs of having been lived in. The
bed itself is rumpled and unmade, and a half-eaten meal of bread and
smoked salmon sits on the nightstand. A few articles of dirty clothing sit
at the foot of the bed.
"I'm rather hoping that passage will lead to an exit or other escape route somewhere."
Rounding up the prisoners and prodding them to get moving, she starts making her way to the designated area. She is extra cautious with the goblin, leery of being bitten.
Another dead end. Forest moves on.
@ Forest: All the doors in this hall are small bedrooms. On one of the nightstands is an everburning torch otherwise nothing of value. You recall the goblins mentioning there were longshanks down below and it is quite possible the stairs are where the goblins were holding their conversation.
@the rest of the team: I assume you tie up the goblin leaving his legs free so he can walk. Orik freely allows his hands to be bound. As for the two ladies, they are unconscious. Do you leave them in place, drag them along, or wake them?
Definitely tie up the goblin, and we'd drag the ladies with us I suppose- rather than use resources trying to awaken them?
Forest leaves the everburning torch where it is, having no need for it with his ioun torch, and returns to where he saw the goblins speaking of “longshanks”.
"We can't afford for the two women to come too when we aren't watching. Let's tie the up and bring them along. We can start with the room Zandril found," Lavanor says moving back into the other room.
Once in the room with Zandril, he inspects the column. What is that?
"Besides which, it would... be better for closure, for Sandpoint, if Nualia stood trial for her crimes against the town," says Isabella sadly.