You see Jaethal is with him, but she does not look pleased.
"Hold your tongue, gnome, I can barely make your twaddle from the buzzing of a fly."
Ignoring Jaethal, Tartuccio continues.
"Quickly now! We must find the artifact before someone else seizes it! Someone...who's standing over there right now watching you, you fools!" Tartuccio turns his angry gaze upon you as he nods at his guards to draw their weapons.
Pyros stands just outside the entrance, ready to move in and support or cut off enemies chasing his allies out.
Signy looks at the gnome and grins.
"Well! Long time no see pal! So we were happening by and noticed this place. Looks like there used to be some horses outside, but they're not around anymore. I figured it'd be neighborly to let whoever know about their bad luck. Sounded from all the way outside like you're having a bad day already."
Signy looks around at the interior of the tomb.
"Yep, enough noise to wake the dead if you're not careful."
Her grin broadens and takes on a cat that caught the canary aspect.
"Watcha doin' here?"
Tartuccio rolls his eyes in annoyance at Signy.
Speaking towards Halden and Pyros, he says. "Come, let's see if your fools are as useless as mine!"
Turning to his guards, he continues. "Draw your swords! Cover my retreat!"
Signy snorts in amusement at Tartuccio. People might be drawing weapons, but she's got a whole bunch more yet to say about the gnome.
"You sure are a one trick pony aren't you Tartuccio. Is 'you protect my sorry ass while I go about abandoning you to your fate' the only move you know?"
She says to all involved "I know he tries to present as some genius mastermind or whatever, but real, actual masterminds have more up their sleeves than 'die for me while I run away'.
Signy shifts her attention over the the dead (dead? seriously? WTF?) elf woman. She's not too concerned about the mercenaries, and obviously the gnome is a coward. But, the Jaethal is more difficult to get a read on. Signy figures she's the most dangerous of the group, so swaying her to wash her hands of the gnome (and this fight) could be a huge bonus. It might even convince the mercenaries to stand down.
"You know Jaethal, the impression I got of you before is that you're a serious person. You know, somebody who can decide what they want and go after it, who can make plans and get things done, a thinker. So why are you hanging around with the semi-fey loser piece of trash?"
"I'm really surprised. I mean I don't know what's up with these guys.." Signy jerks her thumb in the direction of the mercenaries, "but all Tartuccio is fit for is petty theft, bad lies, and screwing over partners. Do you really want to be keeping this kind of company?"
Jaethal looks at Signy thoughtfully.
"Perhaps you are right. This gnome has proven to be not only insufferable, but also uninterested in actually pursuing the mission Lady Jamandi hired us for."
Turning to Tartuccio, "Tartuccio, consider this a termination of our agreement." Jaethal then immediately cuts down one of the guards between her and Tartuccio.
"I see my rivals will stoop so low as to steal my people." Tartuccio then backs away with several guards as the others turn to fight you. Evidently there is another exit to this tomb.
"Damm gnome!"
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Signy smiles at Jaethal and gives her a nod. She calls out after Tartuccio as he retreats.
"STEAL YOUR people? People aren't things owned by some or stolen by others! Jaethal made a CHOICE! You'll always fail because you don't understand this Tartuccio!"
Finally, Signy draws her rapier. "Alright mercenary guys, if we're really going to do this, lets get to it. I think we all know how it's going to end. Even your boss doesn't have enough faith in you to stick around and see which way this goes."
"The sad part is you feel like you have to die here because the gnome is paying you. But he would've found a way to screw you out of your pay anyway. So here you are about to be killed over something you don't believe in, and won't profit from."
Signy whistles loudly and shouts back to Pyros at the door and the others outside.
"Might as well get on in here if you don't want to miss the dust up! It's just about to start!"
Teryll stands to the back, with bow in hand and an arrow nocked, ready to draw and fire if the need arises.
Calling out to the mercenaries, he says "I'd listen to the lady if I were you, the gnome acted as a friend to one of us, and then betrayed him. Set up to appear as a traitor before one of the Swordlord's herself. Expect no less from him."
Faerin moves into the cavern, staff in hand as she assesses the situation.,
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The interior is actually a room with two other archways leading out. The room is a large rectangular one, you entered from the short descending corridor that comes into this room on the south wall at the eastern corner. You see to the west an archway that seems to lead to another ascending corridor. Also along the south wall is another archway at the western corner.
Tartuccio is now heading through the western archway with three people, two more have turned to face Jaethal, while the rest (6) are coming at you.
"Should we get that damm GNOME!"
"He can't be up to anything good. Better to deal with him now than leave him to do gods-knows-what."
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You rush out the other entrance and find yourselves past the hill and entering a wide heath filled with small gullies and thickets. Tartuccio's trail is hard to follow, but Faerin's skill is more than up to the task.
You walk for a ways when you come upon a huge gully, a dried up riverbed of old. Here the grass is trampled and the earth is torn up by claw marks, lots of them! You have stumbled upon a recent scene of battle. Again, Faerin's skill is more than sufficient to identify the claws as belonging to kobolds. Here the trail splits. One set of footprints walked away from the battle and down into the gully. The other trail is larger with many of the claw and footprints traveling along the top edge of the gully.
"Someone, probably Tartuccio's people, got into it with some kobolds. It looks like there were survivors on both sides, the group with the kobolds went this way, the others went down into the gulley." Faerin says, indicating the diverging trails.
Signy is raring to go after Tartuccio, but Jaethal is foremost in her mind. Signy might be sloppy and inattentive about a lot of things, but parsing language and what people do and don't mean when they say something isn't one of them.
Two things are sticking with her in relation to the elf. Everything the gnome said while she was overhearing him grumbling before their confrontation pointed to a search for a particular thing in the tomb, not a random search for valuables. Signy doubted Jaethal would be there if she didn't know the exact reason why.
Also, Jaethal might have turned on the gnome, but that didn't mean she was now with them. She might be, or she might have decided she was better off on her own.
While the tomb itself might wait, the questions about Jaethal couldn't. Signy doesn't like the notion of leaving the undead elf in there all by herself.
She pauses to ask a couple of quick questions as she runs along with the others after the gnome.
"Jaethal, are you with us?"
Words on their own mean far less than most people realize. For example, Signy can think of at least three completely different meanings conveyed by that simple question depending on tone of voice and delivery. The first conveys an invitation, the other two convey suspicion and a threat respectively. Signy delivers her question in a tone and manner indicating and invitation.
"What was Tartuccio looking for in here anyway?" she adds.
"I'm with you now, after turning on Tartuccio I have to be."
"As for what he's looking for, he never said anything specific. Some sort of ancient artifact. I got the feeling he is actually working for someone and is uninterested in the mission that Jamandi gave us."
Teryll nods at Jaethal's statement.
"He seemed as though he had other masters beyond Lady Jamandi. Particularly after the stunt he pulled at the manor, trying to set up Pyros for a fall. I agree we should follow him for now, and can check this tomb later."
Later after following the tracks.
"Fine tracking work Faerin! Now the question, which path did Tartuccio take? And what's his goal in all this? None of this feels right. None at all."
This makes little sense. Kobolds? We knew they were in the area, but is he trying exterminate them? Control them? he takes a slow deep breath and then exhales. Erastil bless me with your wisdom to sort this out.
Signy waits for a determination from Faerin about which set of tracks to follow.
"No doubt, Tartuccio is up to something else entirely."
Teryll also looks over the tracks, trying to help Faerin without getting in her way.
"He definitely went this way," Faerin says, indicating the single set of tracks. "Let's go!"
Pyros uses his (half-)elven senses to look for clues.
"I'm coming"
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The small footprints leading away from the battle towards the gully's edge change into claw prints. They descend into the gully. The way down is steep and takes a while to reach the bottom. There, the loose soil makes difficult going, but the tracks are easy to follow.
The gully descends, going deeper and deeper. After a bit the claw prints suddenly turn and scramble up the sheer gully wall. It does not look like an easy climb, but Halden gives it a try.
He makes it look easy though and gets to the top. He then throws down a rope making it simple for the rest of you to follow. After gathering at the top, the trail was easy to pick up again and you headed into some forested area.
You come to a small glade and you see a gathering of kobolds. Standing in front of them is a kobold with strangely purple scales, he stands a full head taller than the rest of the kobolds.
"Lisssten to me!A dragon, huge, sssparkling, flew down to me from the sssky -- he told me a sssecret! A great relic, that will win the koboldsss glory, isss hidden sssomewhere nearby. Enough of thisss pitiful exsssitence! Sssearch for it! Sssearch! And bring it to me!"
The purple kobold speaks in the suspiciously similar voice of Tartuccio.
Faerin is silent as they study the kobolds, paying close attention to the larger one addressing them. Her excellent attention to detail, notes the sudden shift in footprints, from the gnomes to clawed ones like that of a kobold, the pitch and tone of the kobold's voice, so similar to the way Tartuccio speaks, full of the same arrogance.
The half elf's eyes widen as she's struck by realization, her suspicions all but confirmed. "I think that's him! Tartuccio, using magic to fool the kobolds into working for him and showing him where this artifact it." she whispers.
The shape change hasn’t been lost on Signy either.
”Or maybe the other way around Faerin, it could be he’s really a kobald and not a gnome.”
Signy grins, perhaps a bit admiringly, while watching the purple kobald. ”Either way, Tartuccio is a lot more interesting than he seemed. He’s still a little ass, but a more interesting little ass at least.”
What’s up with purple kobalds?
"Either way, Tartuccio is a problem. Whatever he's seeking, I'm thinking it won't be good for us."
He turns to Signy in response to her comment and says;
"I'm with you. He's more like a Kobold in his actions, that's for sure."
"You sure you aren't a gnome?"
"I could probably entangle most or all of them if we want to try t take them now." Faerin whispers to Signy. "Anybody else have any spells that can affect a large group at once?"
Teryll whispers to Faerin;
"I do not. The sheer number of them makes our chances of getting swarmed and overrun a real possibility. I'd think we're better off waiting until he's alone or the crowd thins out."
As you discuss options, the decision is made for you. A couple of kobolds, apparently late for the party, stumble across yout group. Their surprised yips alert Tartuccio.
"Who is there?! How?!" Tartuccio nearly jumps in the air.
"Here, you fools! Ah, I mean, tribesssmen! Don't lisssten to any liesss they tell you! I ssshall bring you glory, just help me find the relic -- and ssstop them!!!"
Tartuccio suddenly disappears and kobolds scatter in all directions. Several of them turn and attack you. You easily cut through them, but once again, Tartuccio has successfully sacrificed dupes to delay you enough for his escape.
Hacking down the last of the kobold dupes, Pyros wipes the blood from his blade and the shakes his head. "Blasted gnome got away again. I don't know what he's up to, and I don't like it. But for the moment I think we've wasted enough time on him. Let's get to that bandit camp before they start to wonder about their missing comrades."
With the Kobalds dispersed but Tartuccio once again gone, Signy is tired of laying hide-and-seek with the gnome/kobald little bastard. But she not quite finished with trying to mess with his day.
"Before we move on I think we should take a look for whatever Tartuccio was looking for in the tomb. We're already here, and I'd hate for him to come back and find it after we've moved on. He's a persistent little cuss."
"Whatever it was, the kobolds said that mites had it. They kept it under what I assume is and old sycamore tree. They can last hundreds of years and grow very large " Faerin replies, remembering the wild shouting.