Gull Peeper leads the way, checking high and low for traps.
"South it is," Nell says, following behind Gull Peeper with a hand on her blade. She looks around the grimy keep with wide eyes, imagining what the place must have been like in its prime.
Ervan closes the door behind them. If there's trouble to be found ahead, no way will he allow the damned dogs to cause even more trouble from behind. Goblins, you can't trust them!
"Before we proceed, it must be stated that we are currently operating in a rather dark environment. I can enchant an item, any item really, to cause it to shed light as if it were a torch. I can also conjure forth a set of dancing lights to add further illumination."
This dingy room is littered with toppled bunk beds and broken furniture, and doors to small but more private bedchambers hang open along the western and southern walls. In the room’s center, bed frames are stacked upon each other to form a sort of fort, with filthy and ripped bedding draped over the top to form its ceiling and walls.
As you enter, a hulking, furry goblinoid emerges from the fort! She growls and prepares to charge!
Allandír has been quietly observing, too - not the fort itself, but for signs of danger. As the goblin creature shows itself, he reacts purely on instinct, drawing back the bowstring and firing several times almost before he is fully aware of the threat.
He aims for the eyes: from long experience, an arrow through the eye works on almost everything.
Nell glances around to see her companions firing arrows at the creature; following their lead, she draws her blade and rushes forward.
Allandir drives two arrows into the goblinoid's eyes, causing it to shriek in pain. It staggers, but manages to dodge Lucius's bolt and Nell's attack.
Snarling with rage, it tries to rush past Nell to get to Allandir, but the half-elf makes it pay for its mistake, cutting it down with an attack of opportunity!
"Uh, ok," Pril offers up as the foe is cut down before she even reacted. "Well done, then." She looks over the dead goblinoid. "What is ... What was it?"
"Good work, everyone." Allandír's voice is quietly brisk as he strides over to the body. He gives Pril a brief glance as he flips the body onto its back, drawing his dagger with his left hand and inserting it into the base of the goblin's skull. "Always make sure your enemy won't get back up. In a longer skirmish, the last thing you want is for the body you're stepping over to stand up and hit you in the face with an armoured gauntlet." He gives a broken-toothed smile. "That sort of thing can spoil your entire day."
This is said flippantly, but the lesson he's trying to impart is serious.
He wipes his dagger clean and sheathes it. "As for what it was? Goblinoid, of some sort. Beyond that..." He shrugs. It's dead. What does it matter what it was? "The question is, where are the others?"
Ervan leans forward and peers down the slope of his arched up nose to inspect the goblin's mortal coil. "A goblin menace. No offense, Gull, just stating facts. It seems this particular one isn't a pureblood goblin as know them, going by the copious amounts of fur. Hrm, interesting."
"I'll take that under advisement," the gnome says, paling as Allandír ensures the decedent's state. "Shall we keep moving," she continues, turning away from the body.
Ervan identifies the creature as a bugbear, stealthy and cruel goblinoid creatures that delight in spreading fear and tormenting their victims.
Gull Peeper spits and snarls as Allandír stabs the unconscious woman in the head, baring their teeth. "I think you are forgetting, we are here to help goblins, not murder them. This one attacked us, true, but now we have no opportunity to interrogate her, to learn what is up ahead." They skulk forward, grumbling all the while.
Allandír spares the goblin a brief glance. "And I trust that you, ah, won't 'forget' to come to the group's defence, the next time we are attacked. I'm not here to murder anyone, but I kill in my defence without hesitating. It is why I am still here. Now, let us continue."
He isn't worried about interrogation. He wouldn't have trusted anything it said, anyway.
Gull Peeper bares their sharp teeth once more, sucking in air between their teeth. "Do not doubt me, killer. Gull Peeper promised Warbal they help, so help I shall. But can you promise not to slaughter every last civilian in your quest to save them? Probably not. Broken elf probably too concerned that a child's teeth too sharp, should kill it so it doesn't cut him open when it bites him."
Pril steps between Gull Peeper and Allandír. "Hey, uh, let's all just calm down now, ok?" She holds up her hands in a placating gesture. "We're all here for the same job. We're here to offer aid to the BumbleBashers ... Brashers ... Brumble ..." she shakes her head. "The goblin tribe." She looks at Allandír. "In the process we may encounter other hostiles and have to defend ourselves - if needed." She looks at Gull Peeper. "Now I've met goblins and that wasn't a goblin. And it attacked us. So we defended ourselves." She looks back at the ranger. "That doesn't mean we're going to do that to everything we come across, right?"
She looks at the dead humanoid and sighs.
"So let's just hope that we can minimize any fatalities."
She steps away.
"Oh!" she adds perking up. "We're also supposed to find the halfling arsonist - preferably alive so we can find out what the heck was going through his head."
The bugbear has a bastard sword, 3 javelins, and leather armor.
Any valuables that were left in the open barrack are long looted and gone. However, in the smaller private bedchambers to the south, there are still a few hidden items of note. Gull Peeper discovers two flasks of holy water and a wooden shield.
The goblin grits their teeth and painfully breathes out a reply. "I am not taking issue with taking necessary actions to defend ourselves. But Gull Peeper would have preferred if we tied up the bugbear and interrogated them. We are strangers here, have no guarantee that dead, hairy goblin were not part of this tribe. Would have appreciated knowing for certain before pushing knife through skull."
They distribute the flasks of holy water to the Cardinal-Banker.
Allandír shrugs, and holds his hands up, mirroring Pril's gesture. "Live and let live - but I can deal with the alternative, too." He sighs, his voice soft. "I have killed, but I like to think I am no killer. Not that it matters, I suppose."
He ignores the goblin's insults: let the thing rant. Be the better person (not difficult).
He glances at the Cardinal. "The casualties I am most concerned to minimise are our own. I trust we can agree on that."
Regardless of the replies he gazes around, unruffled, calm. "We should keep moving before word gets out that we're here."
"No, not a killer, only kill goblins," Gull Peeper sneers and spits, checking the doors before heading down the next hall. "Next time we fight a goblin and it lies there, defeated, let us talk to it before you murder someone else."
The tall, pale elf shrugs again, laconically. "Not only kill goblins - although, yes, mostly goblins. But fair is fair, they were trying to kill me, and oh yes, everyone else in the entire country."
He stares at the goblin, his green eyes alight like a forest fire. His other mistress is Calistria - and right now, it shows.
"Your approval or disapproval means nothing to me, greenskin. Less than nothing. Spit at me, insult me, jeer - it's what your kind do. I expect no different. But it was your kind that helped make me what I am. If you do not like the result, take it up with them. Or at least, the ones that survived meeting me."
He moves onward, before briefly turning back to face the greenskin. "One more thing: you keep using that word, 'murder' - I do not think it means what you think it means. Murder is for people."
Ha, so much for being the better person. But, by the Savoured Sting, it feels GOOD not to bottle it up.
Gull Peeper narrows their eyes, ears flattening in a quiet display of threat and anger. "There is nothing about you that is good. None you meet will show you love, for you deserve none."
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"Oh, for the love of ..." Pril just rolls her eyes and moves away from the arguing duo and next to the Cardinal-Banker.
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Nell kneels beside the furry creature that was defeated with her blade, feeling sick to her stomach as she listens to Gull and Allandír arguing behind her. The elf may insist that goblinoids aren't people, but she's barely old enough to remember the wars that made him so cynical. Unlike the fiery elemental she slew earlier, this bugbear was flesh and blood, and she entered its home and cut it down without a thought. It doesn't sit right with her.
She closes the creature's eyes with her finger and thumb, cleaning her blade on her tunic as she rises to join her goblin friend at the western doors.
Pril notes Nell's reaction and frowns. She takes her leave of the Cardinal-Banker and approaches the half-elf.
"Let's continue our trend and check the southern door," Pril calls out to the others as she begins walking in that direction.
Gull Peeper places their hand on the half elf's shoulder. "You are not responsible for hairy goblin's death, Nell Harlow. Bugbear attacked, you defended yourself. If they had fallen in combat, the weight of their soul would still not be upon you. You are willing to show mercy, and that makes you strong."
The goblin looks over the southern door and enters through it.
The elf nods in quiet satisfaction as he sees the impact of his words on the goblin. Annoy a Calistrian, and they will hurt you; and they don't necessarily need a whip to do so.
Seeing Nell's distress, he puts the argument out of his mind, focusing on the people who actually matter.
Unsure of what else to do, Allandír offers her a drink from his canteen. "Here. This should help some." There is a pause, before he sighs wearily. "There's a reason I, ah, never offered you any of my stories, although I have known for some time you were collecting such. If the horrors of combat - the fear, the wild swing and clash of blades, the taste of bile at your throat - can be put into words, it is beyond my skill."
Another sigh. "But the real horror is not simply that it gets easier, although, alas, it does. It is that, in time, you may, ah, come to enjoy it." He sounds quietly regretful.
"But don't overburden yourself with guilt over one goblinoid. The thing didn't ask what we were doing here, or even warn us to leave, like a person would have done. It just attacked and would have killed if you hadn't stopped it."
He gives her a friendly smile. "Take the time you need. This keep isn't going anywhere."
A dust-covered, black wooden countertop runs along the walls of the southwestern end of this galley-style room. It clearly was once a kitchen, but its cupboards and shelves were stripped of most tools and provisions long ago. There are cabinets underneath the table here, as well as shelves running the length of the walls above it.
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Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she adds hesitantly, ”I hope none of us would.”
Nell accepts Allandír's canteen and begins to drink, but lowers it from her mouth as he begins to speak. She holds it awkwardly and avoids his piercing green eyes as he speaks, his words only adding to her discomfort. "I won't come to enjoy it. I don't want to kill things, I only want to... write about it." She trails off, golden eyes wide as she realizes how hypocritical that sounds.
Pressing the canteen back into his hands, she finally looks up at him. "Thank you, but I should feel something when I take a life, even when it's necessary." She takes a step toward the next door, overeager to move on.
As Lucius begins to open the cabinets, hundreds of fat, red spiders come pouring out, gathering into two chittering swarms!
Allandír nods in reply to Nell's words, his green eyes softening. "I understood that sentiment many years ago. I wish you better luck in keeping to it than I had."
He's about to say more, possibly on the (in)advisability of allowing Calistria to govern your life, even as one of a trio, when he's interrupted by the spider intrusion.
Drawing an arrow, he fires, and then again, doing his best to pin as many to the floor as he can in one go. Hopeless. You may as well shoot the tides.
Ervan raises his hand up and uses his index finger to draw a mathematical equation in the air. He then blurts out the answer in Draconic, causing an electric discharge to leap from swarm to the other. As the lightning terrorizes spiders, Ervan exuberates. "Struck by arcane science, ha!"
The electric attack might just give Pril the time she needs to land a telling blow.
One of the swarms manages to avoid the worst of Ervan's electrical blast, but the other group of spiders shudder and pop as they die, leaving ichor splattered all over the table and cabinets!
"Awww... " Pril exclaims with a silly grin as the spiders swarm. "They're so cu... Eep!" Her declaring of the cuteness of the spiders is cut short as Ervan's spell turns many of them into goo. "You didn't have to kill them!" she says with an annoyed look in the wizard's direction.
Hoping to prevent more devastation, the gnome begins sweeping with her foot, hoping to disperse the swarm enough that it'll retreat and hide.
{A} Flurry of Blows - damage is added together before resistances
Pril sweeps her foot through the spiders, stunning several and leaving them dazed. The disruption is enough to break up the swarm, the spiders scattering and crawling into tiny holes and cracks. They will no longer be a threat.
With the danger passed, Lucius completes his search. Most of the provisions and supplies left here are rotted and ruined, but the cleric is able to salvage a few things. Specifically, there are enough loose herbs and oils remaining in storage jars to make two antidotes . Further, in a cabinet that looks like it once contained simple medical remedies, there are two doses of arsenic.
"Awww... " Pril exclaims with a silly grin as the spiders swarm. "They're so cu... Eep!" Her declaring of the cuteness of the spiders is cut short as Ervan's spell turns many of them into goo. "You didn't have to kill them!" she says with an annoyed look in the wizard's direction.
Hoping to prevent more devastation, the gnome begins sweeping with her foot, hoping to disperse the swarm enough that it'll retreat and hide.
Allandír smiles almost in spite of himself as he watches the gnome's efforts with admiration. "Not all of us have, ah, your deftness of touch." (A tacit reference to her diplomatic peacekeeping as well as her more obvious martial skill.)
"Some of us are merely doing what we can, with what we have. But I trust you will not abandon us, ah, unenlightened ones?"
Pril looks up from studying the small spider that's crawling across the back of her hand. She smiles and shrugs. Holding her hand out, she lets the crawly thing make its escape across the counter.
"That's what we all do. We all have different skills," she answers. "But I would not go so far as to declare myself enlightened." Her smile broadens and she looks away. "Someday, maybe. If I can overcome my limitations."
She steps to the western door. "Shall we continue our spiral?" she asks as she gives Gull Peeper room to work.
You continue through the west door. This large training chamber holds rows of moldering straw-filled dummies, many of them wielding wooden replicas of various martial weapons.
The wall to the south has crumbled and the room is now open to the outside, allowing bright light to pour in.
Cardinal Lucius recalls that the Hellknights had a tradition in which armiger recruits would have to pay a tithe by tucking coins into the dummies when their clumsy strikes failed to strike any stationary object. Indeed, searching through the dummies, you find a total of 20 sp.
Three doors exit this room. In addition, Gull Peeper discovers a secret door in the southwest corner!
Pril's large eyes grow even wider with excitement when Gull Peeper makes their revelation. "What would they be hiding?" she asks, clapping her hands together. "Let's open it!"
Gull Peeper grumbles as they check over the secret door.
"You're really good at that," she gushes at the goblin as she bounces on her feet, waiting impatiently for the door to be opened.
"Oh, I'm nothing compared to my old partner. Null Peeper, now that was a goblin. Null taught me lots, and Gull taught Null lots, too, but I was always better with the jump-stunts, and they were always better with hand-things."
This well-hidden closet holds dust-furred tables covered in jumbled but ominous accessories: pentagram-covered tomes, heavily melted candles, scattered pieces of loose chalk, vats of moldy incense, moth-eaten robes, and several empty and dusty weapon racks.
Ervan is familiar with the church of Asmodeus. He recognizes the supplies here as elements needed for rituals to summon devils from Hell, and that the weapons once stored here were likely silver weapons, which are known as particularly effective against those devils
Ten feet past the entrance, Gull Peeper discovers a trap! A pressure plate on the floor is set to trigger a wall socket loaded wit ha spear! Fortunately, it is easily avoided.
Lucius and Pril uncover a single silver longsword that got left behind. In addition to half-burnt candles, used pieces of chalk, and various badges and religious symbols bearing the sign of Asmodeus, there is also a forgotten lockbox with 31 sp and a hand of the mage. You also discover a loosely bound but intact manuscript detailing the Hellknight Test.