His confidence a bit shaken by the boggard's terrifying croak, Highness dashes back down the corridor toward his waiting allies.
A boggard comes out the door and charges down the corridor after the goblin. Stumbling into the midst of the group, he abandons his pursuit of Highness to swing at Ragna.
The priest sees the boggard fall for their trap and attack Ragna, hoping they can put it down before it gets help, he calls on his inner fire. Once his hand is aflame he gestures as menacingly as he can at the frogman and calls out "Death to the cultists!", before lobbing a small fireball at the creature.
The boggard is startled at Shaserai's shout, suddenly aware it is facing much more than a single goblin. The diminutive fireball that follows singes the amphibian's slimy skin.
From his lofty perch on the chair, Jonagher fires two quick arrows at the boggard.
He then draws a short sword in case his volley draws the beast's attention to him.
Jonagher's first arrow takes the amphibian in his bulbous eye! The half-elf draws his sword.
"Rargh!" Ragna add less eloquently to Shaserai's threats against the evil frogs. The boggards slimy froggy attack rebounds off of her shield and she responds, battering it with her shield to throw if off balance and following up with a slice of her battleaxe.
Ragna surrenders to the rhythms of battle and lashes out savagely with both hands, her shield bludgeoning the boggard into the path of her axe's swing.
A second boggard comes charging down the corridor, veering away from his colleague, and swinging his shovel wildly through the doorway at Alak, who ducks.
"Get ready to shut that door!" Ren commands, protecting himself with a spell before lashing out at the boggards with an arc of electricity. The one Ragna just attacked collapses to the floor, twitching, while a smell not unlike fried frogs' legs permeates the air.
Alak seizes his greatsword and slashes at the boggard in the doorway before slamming the door shut between them.
Highness skidded to a stop and turned around when the zap of magic and the heavy thud of a falling body sounded behind him.
Seeing the lone boggard behind him, Highness lept forward and struck multiple times, feet and hands lashing out.
Highness steps back to face the second boggard, fists and feet flying. While most of the attacks rebound harmlessly off the amphibian's clammy flesh, one blow lands firmly in the solar plexus.
Jonagher squeezes past Ragna and the other chair so he can circle Highness and trap the remaining boggard between him and Alak. He then uses his short sword to stab at the wounded frog-man in hopes of bringing him down quickly.
Jonagher relinquishes the high ground to get involved in the scrum. He stabs the boggard with his short sword, and only the fact that the amphibian has a closed door at his back prevents the wound from being more severe.
In her rage, Ragna's axe slams into the wooden door frame, sending splinters of wood showering down on the evil frog, distracting it enough for her to land a devastating shield slam against is slimy frog hide.
Ragna crowds up to the second boggard, bludgeoning the amphibian with her shield.
The boggard, badly hurt, releases another monstrous croak before edging back the way it came.
"CROAK!!!" Highness said back, his high voice making his response not remotely as impressive. As he scuttled forward his stance changed until he was moving low, like a wolf, moving forward to lunge and snap at the boggard. The boggard barely had a moment to blink before the little goblin tore into him ferociously.
Unimpressed by the boggard's croak, Highness closes in on him and lays him low with a quick flurry of blows.
The draconic rage quickly leaves Ragna, but she does not let that slow her pursuit of the innocent goblins.
Ragna rushes down the corridor into the room that held the two late boggards. Its furniture, including a bedframe and a large footlocker, has been pushed against the walls, and, just as in the room to the west, the flagstones have been pulled up and the beginnings of a hole dug into the floor.
From inside the footlocker comes a sound of faint scuffling and knocking.
The suddenness with which Highness takes out the boggard and Ragna goes dashing off catches Jonagher by surprise. "Ragna! Wait!" he calls, "You don't know what else might be in there!" The fleet-footed half-elf hurries after her.
The boggard's croak awakens a kind of primal fear in Shaserai, but luckily the would be goblin king chases it down and finishes it off.
As Ragna and Jonagher hurry into the now deserted room, the priest stands at the door, focusing on his inborn affinity for magic to scan the room.
Standing in the doorway of the room, Shaserai does detect an unfamiliar source of magic; however, with some trial and error, it seems to be coming from the room the party just left behind, where the two boggards' bodies lie.
"Everything in here is tiny or frogs, and I'm not afraid of either!" Ragna retorts. It takes a moment for her to pick up the faint scuffling through the sound of blood rushing in her ears, but she makes for the footlocker to free the poor trapped gobbos.
After the boggard collapsed to the ground Highness simply stood panting for a moment, catching his breath, as Ragna rushed past into the next room.
The goblin straightened himself out, brushed off his robes and straightend his crown before walking up and over the corpse of the boggard and proceeding in a stately manner into the next room, stopping near the doorway as the warrior moved towards the chest in the corner.
Why are they all digging holes? he wondered, red eyes blinking in surprise to see yet another dug up floor.
The hasp of the footlocker is crudely secured by a shard of flagstone pounded through the loop, but Ragna is able to wrench it free and raise the lid. Inside she finds not poor trapped goblins but a halfling. A familiar halfling, in fact; the halfling the group saw in the Wizard's Grace before the Call for Heroes, Calmont Trenault, the assistant to the bookseller Voz Lirayne. He is disheveled and bruised, cringing in the sudden light as the chest is opened.
"What the... You're not a goblin!" Ragna accuses the halfling!
"Calmont?" Jonagher looks down at the halfling-in-a-box, "I don't remember you being selected for anything at the Call for Heroes. Why are you in the Citadel? Much less held prisoner in a chest by these frog-men? Seems an odd place for a bookseller's assistant, no?" As he talks, the half-elf looks sidelong at the rest of his companions, shaking his head slightly to give them an indication that he doesn't believe the halfling can be trusted.
"I just, uh, went for a walk," Calmont whines defensively, "and those frog-things attacked me. I've been locked up in here for ages."
"Went for a walk? All the way out to Hellknight Hill?" Ren asks skeptically. "When did you take this walk? When you left the Wizard's Grace, you said you were going back to work."
A little distracted by the magic on the other room, Shaserai takes a moment to mentally mark it's origin and quickly strides to the other room. Seeing the familiar halfling in the box he takes a moment to place him. "Calmont, isn't he..." He steps up to Jonagher and switching to the elven language he whispers to him.
"Remember, Calmont was a person of interest in the arson of the town hall. We'd be wise to be wary."
Again in common he agrees with the mage "Yes, there were no sings that the boggards went anywhere, so you had to be pretty close for them to snatch you."
The priest looks at any signal that Calmont may try anything untoward, ready to use his last spell to make the halfling drop the the ground.
"Went for a walk? All the way out to Hellknight Hill?" Ren asks skeptically. "When did you take this walk? When you left the Wizard's Grace, you said you were going back to work."
"I, uh," Calmont stammers, "I was going back to work, but Miz Lirayne said she'd mind the shop during the Call so I decided to take a walk, and I just happened to run into the frog-men on their way to the citadel, and they grabbed me and brought me with them to keep me from running back and warning the townsfolk."
"Don't play games with us! I know a con artist when I see one," Jonagher pokes menacingly at the halfling with his short sword, but without actually harming Calmont...yet. "Rumor has it you showed up in Breachill and you've done nothing but mooch off the generosity of others ever since. Even when Voz took you in, I've heard nothing good about you or your contributions to the town. She wasn't minding the shop during the Call. I saw her there and spoke to her in the balcony overlooking the whole event before the fire broke out. And now we conveniently find you way out here at the citadel...a place occupied by the goblins, whom we've met by the way, and they say these frog-men and monkey-men just showed up out of nowhere. So, it's a little suspect to hear you claim they nabbed you on the way here."
He jabs once more to make his point. "Now stop lying to us! What are you really doing in Breachill...and what has it got to do with the citadel? Speak up now, or we could just as easily close the lid on this box again and leave you in there."
The halfling starts visibly to tremble. "All right, all right!" he shrieks. "Ask him!" He points savagely at Alak, who is looking on quizzically. "Or Voz! There's a treasure buried under this dump, and they know about it! So do the frogs! See where they were digging?" He jerks his head toward the pried-up flagstones and rudimentary hole the boggards had begun. "I just wanted a shot at my share; that's not a crime. Why should everybody else get rich and not me? Ask him about Alseta's ring!" He glares a challenge at Alak.
"Look, it's Alceister; I told you that." Alak replies to the halfling before turning to the rest of the group. "It's just a signet ring, I swear. I suppose it has some small monetary value if you melt it down, but it's no treasure. I have no idea how it could be connected to these visitors from the Mwangi or to this man's employer, whom I've never met."
Jonagher looks from the halfling to Alak and then back again. "You know, we've fought side by side with this man," he tells Calmont, "He's got a lot more credibility with us than you do right now. And he's earned it. But your motivation to get rich? That, I do buy. What kind of myth or legend did you unearth that drew you here? What's Alseta's ring? Is it the same ring Alak is looking for? Is it supposed to be magical or something? What's so valuable about it? C'mon, Calmont. If that's your story, tell us the rest of it. Be specific. What's so great about this ring that you'd risk life and limb to come here looking for it? And why would these frog-men and monkey-men be doing the same? And what about Voz? What does she know about it? Is she poking around these ruins, too? Did she send you here?"
"No! She doesn't know I know about it. She was happy to have me keep her shop running while she spent all her time looking for the ring, but I'm cleverer than she thought -- than anyone ever thinks! I kept things running all right, but I kept my eyes open, too. She gets shipments of books from all over and ships others out, but some of those books have secret notes inside. I read them before she burns them. They're all about this Alseta's ring: how they'd tracked it down to somewhere near Breachill, how much money they were willing to pay her if she could find it for them. I thought I'd wait until she figured it out, then get ahead of her and take it myself. Then he showed up, looking for the same thing." He gestures resentfully at Alak. "I offered the information I had to him, for a price, but he turned me down! He didn't think I was clever, either: poor, stupid Calmont who couldn't possibly know anything worth paying for!"
"Why should I let either one of them take it, when I'm clever enough to be onto them both? I thought I'd hurry out here before the Call and find it myself, only the place was crawling with frogs trying to find it, too. Listen," he wheedles to Jonagher, "I can't fight all these frogs; I know that. Turns out your 'friend' there may have had a good idea: get some Heroes to do the dangerous work and find the treasure for him, then disappear with it before they realize how valuable it is. But I've told you how valuable it is. I just want a cut; that's all. I'll settle for ten percent, and in exchange, I'll give you the information Voz found out."
"Something tells me they are not looking for the same ring. Alseta... where I've heard that name before..." The priest mulls it over, until he finally recalls one of the lessons on non dwarven pantheons his father taught him as part of his priestly training.
"Alseta is a liminal deity, a minor goddess who presides over doorways, portals and thresholds and the changing from one year to the next one." the elf explains "And I very much doubt she is Alak's great uncle or her ring the Stagram signet." He pauses for a moment and then continues, in a pondering tone. "The charau-ka, the boggards, the grauladons, the emperor birds... all come from the Mwangi Expanse, and from what we got out of Zort they used an elf gate in a temple to get here, and they appeared beneath the citadel. Alak do you know if perhaps the hellknights took over and built upon an Alsetan holy site? I think this Alseta's Ring Voz was looking for might be the aiudara that links Isger and the Mwangi Expanse itself and not a jewelry item as you think, Calmont."
"You know, I think you may be right, Shaserai..." Jonagher nods, "In elven lore, many aiudara gateways are adorned with the symbol of Alseta...two feminine profiles facing away from one another, but still the same person...reflecting both the coming and going of those who pass thru from one side to the other. And aiudara do tend to look rather ring-like in their construction...though it can vary from place to place, depending on the surrounding environment. They can be made of sculpted stone, joined trees from root to limb, or precious metals. Each one is unique."
"So, if this Alseta's Ring is a gateway instead of a piece of jewelry, I highly doubt you'll be able to take it with you, Calmont...much less get ten percent of anything for it. Such gateways are stationary. To even attempt to move one would damage its integrity and the magic it controls..." He hesitates to let that detail sink in for their erstwhile captive. "But I am curious as to what sort of information Voz had about this ring. How did she describe it? What did she want with it? Come now. Tell us the rest."
"We're wasting time." Ragnhild rolls her eyes and hoists Calmont by his shirt. Some stupid ring, some stupid portal, there were lives to be saved."None of this is helping the Bumblebrashers." She carries the halfling back over to the footlocker. "There's enough going on without you running around too, so you'll have to stay here till we're done."
"Ragna, wait..." Jonagher responds as she hoists the halfling with an intent to lock him back inside the box. "If Calmont came here drawn to a legend about a valuable ring...and Voz has some kind of interest in it...and maybe these frogmen and monkeymen do as well...then, all of these people descending on the citadel are only going to cause more problems for the goblins...and quite possibly threaten their lives. We've already seen the terror those dragon-lizards caused. And, we can only assume the frogmen have captured or killed the goblins who got lost down here, much as they've obviously done to Calmont."
The half-elf takes a breath before continuing. "So, hear me out. By learning all we can about this Alseta's 'ring' or portal or whatever it is...we'll not only be solving a Breachill mystery...like true 'Called' adventurers should...but, we'll also be better prepared to defend the goblins from those who venture here trying to do the exact same thing. Only we have better morals and motives than most. So, if we solve the mystery, it'll be fully answered and there's no need for anyone else to come looking into it. Right? Therefore, we need to know everything Calmont can tell us about it, including Voz's interest in it..."
Jonagher looks over at Shaserai and then Ren and Alak for support before his gaze eventually falls on Highness. The sight of the would-be goblin-king sparks another thought. "How about you, Highness? I imagine any goblin who works all this out to protect the tribe would forever be hailed as their greatest leader of all time, yeah?"
"How about you, Highness? I imagine any goblin who works all this out to protect the tribe would forever be hailed as their greatest leader of all time, yeah?"
Highness blinked at the thought. "I don't think any tribe is going to be able to figure out what you are talking about. Doors, gates, gods, rings? It seems like a lot of higgledy-piggledy to me." he replied, wiggling his fingers at Jonagher in a mimicry of arcane actions.
"I understand that there is something magical and bad, but it doesn't sound like much of a good story..." the red eyes narrowed to slits, glittering, then a very toothy grin split his face. "Now if there were some explosions, a giant beastie or some such, now that would be excellent. Heh. Yeah...fire." His voice trailed off as his eyes had a distant look in them as he rolled a vial of something alchemical between his hands absently.
Calmont appears deflated at the possibility that there is no treasure to claim a share of. "But she's looking for a ring in the citadel ... and he shows up looking for a ring in the citadel.... How can they not be the same thing?" he asks no one in particular.
"Alak do you know if perhaps the hellknights took over and built upon an Alsetan holy site?"
He frowns. "Well, that would seem ridiculously negligent. Out of the whole countryside, why build over an old ruin...? Wait!" He retrieves the architectural plans for Citadel Altaerein and flips to the handwritten notes on the lowest level. "Yes, look: 'mysterious ruins guarded by a stone construct.' I suppose they didn't find them until they'd already gotten well under construction."
"He had some papers with him in the Wizard's Grace," Ren points out. "Some blueprints and a few pages of notes, including at least one in Voz Lirayne's handwriting. If you still have them, you had better hand them over, Calmont."
Jonagher's mouth opens and closes over Highness's apparent fixation on explosions and...fire. Before he can say anything in response, however, Ren's sharing of information about additional blueprints above and beyond what Alak has been referencing captures his attention.
"Oh, do tell..." He turns away from the goblin to regard Calmont again. "What additional information do you have? Where are Voz's notes?" He pokes once more with his short sword to press home the importance of being helpful.
Calmont glares at Ren but reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket for a grubby packet of folded papers. "That's the last letter Voz was sending back," he explains. "The rest of them I read and then put back before sending the book, but that one I kept out so I could get the ring before she did. The other paper is notes I made of what was in the other letters. And Voz got the plans for the citadel; that's how I knew the ring was here."
One set of papers is largely identical to the blueprints the party found in the law repository upstairs, but these bear the stamp of Posandi Brothers Masonry.
Calmont's notes are scribbled in a crabbed hand on what looks like a page torn from the beginning or end of a book. They are messy and haphazard, mostly names and figures quickly jotted down. Among these are "Alseta's ring," "Laslunn," "Kintargo," "Scarlet Triad," "1,350 gold," and, emphatically underlined at the bottom of the page, "buried under Hellknight Hill!!!"
In contrast, Voz Lirayne's letter is written neatly on creamy stationery in a flowing script:
My dear Laslunn,
Uncovering the item you requested has proven a time-consuming and painstaking task, but as I assured you when you employed me to begin my research, I have succeeded in pinpointing its exact location. All that stands between you and acquiring the item is the matter of payment. Once you have delivered the funds, I will inform your representative where to retrieve the item.
I remain,
Your respectfully,
Voz Lirayne
(Reliant Book Company, Breachill)
Ragna drops the shifty stowaway. She walks to the entrance of the room and leans against the doorframe, arms folded over her chest. "Dragons, portals, stone guardians. I don't care. I'll kill them all." She had said from the beginning that there was a way to a different place within the keep. Standing around talking about it wasn't going to find Alak's ring or help the Bumblebrashers.