No problem then. Will you attack the last awakened goblin?
The last awakened Goblin tries to bite with his huge mouth M'ara.
He misses losing a couple of teeth in the process.
Zomeraand sends his spell-touched dagger at the remaining goblin.
M'ara stabs out at the goblin with her shortspear, narrowly avoiding it's dirty mouth full of teeth...
From his position on the roof, Lief takes aim and fires at the last conscious goblin.
Anton grunts in pain. "Watch the glass! And someone go after that half-elf!"
At the exact same time Lief Stoutspear pierce another goblin forehead (adding to his legend) and Anton Ionescu asks the others to follow the escaping half-elf, the half-elf in question exit the south door of the glassworks... just to stand face to face, outside, with Delin Chiri.
Delin's first thought is to subject the creature to her sleep hex, but as she notices the ears she realizes (Thanks to first hand knowledge.) it wouldn't work on them. For lack of a better option, she grabs the suspect with both arms!
Delin tries to grapple the escaping half-elf, but from the outside, it looks more like she is trying to hug him like a lover than restraining him.
As Lief's arrow extinguishes the last goblins pathetic life, M'ara does a quick scan to make sure no-others threaten her or her friends.
Calling up to Lief, "The half-elf is escaping!"
She then sprints after the half-elf...
Delin fumbles in her attempt to grapple her opponent, panicking as she claws at their clothing for a hold.
"Help!" she shouts in panic, "I got a bad guy!"
Lief hurries across the roof to see what’s going on with Delin. When he spots the half-elf torturer wrestling with her he knocks an arrow and fires at him.
Zomeraand follows Lief to the edge of the building. Leaning over to see Delin struggling with the half-elf, he raises his amulet and points it down towards him.
For the Magician Zoomerand, seeing Delin Chiri fighting with the murderous Half-Elf wakes up something in him that hasn't been there before. When misses and mistakes had happened before, now a thin line of precision comes forth from his hand and hits the Half-Elf dead center on his forehead.
Immediately Delin Chiri feels how the half-elf arms lose most of their strength, and now to try to grab him is like trying to grab a small child, and she manages to hold him still while an arrow from Lief Stoutspear pierces his back.
"Unhand me, woman! Let me go!"
The decidedly petite half elf manages to pin her opponent with the aid of Zomeraand's magic and the threat of death made painfully apparent by Lief's arrow.
"Can someone else take over?" she asks through heavy breaths as she wrestles the enemie's arm behind their back and pin them, "They stink."
At that moment Delin Chiri realizes why he stink... he stinks of burned human flesh.
Zomeraand climbs down the rope to assist Delin.
”Do not resist,” he says in an icy tone. ”The same magic I called upon
to weaken you can also be used to sear the skin from your bones.”
Once the Magician is safely down, Lief tosses down the rope. "Tie him up," he advises while sliding down to hang from the eave of the roof, then he drops the last little way to the ground.
He works with Delin and Zomeraand to bind the half-elf tightly before frowning and saying, "I guess we better go see if we got here in time to save your innkeeper friend..."
M'ara jogs out of the door and sees that the others have captured the fugitive, "Ah, good! I'd hoped he came this way!"
She helps the carry the half-elf back into the glassworks...
Delin nods to M'ara, grateful for the help. Though the other witch could likely manage without the naueated half elf. As they head back inside and see the poor victim Delin rushes over to care for them.
(OOC: Will use healing hex if needed. That was supposed to be a heal check.)
He is dead. It is gruesome. The old Tian man was tied up to the chair, and molten glass was poured over his head. While he was alive, seeing the horrible tortured face now frozen inside the macabre "work of art".
While he was tortured and killed, the goblins made short work of the glassworks workers, killing, dismembering and burning most of them. They also ransacked the glassworks and destroyed everything they fancy.
You check around the glassworks, fearing, without saying so, you will find Ameiko Kaijitsu's body in the next room, or behind the next corner. Tsuto Kaijitsu, the half-elf you captured, and her half-brother, shakes his head and refuses to tell you where she is.
After quite some while, in the basement, behind a locked door opened with a key you took from Tsuto, you finally find her.
Alive.
Ameiko lies on her side on the floor in here, bound at the wrists and ankles with rope and blindfolded and gagged with strips of leather. She is badly wounded and doesn't regain her senses by shaking her
"Healers up!"
Lief shakes his head and sighs. "What could possess a man to do something like this?" he asks, looking at the half-elf with raw, unmasked loathing.
While Delin and Mara work on reviving Ameiko, the ranger furrows his brow and remarks, "we should let Sheriff Hemlock know quietly... if the people of Sandpoint knew what happened here they'd rip him to shreds, and he deserves that for sure, but we'll need to learn more from him still... like how he got all those goblins to work for him, and what happened to the priest's remains..."
"Are you four alright here without me for a few minutes? I can run and get the sheriff and bring him back here..."
Zomeraand nods to Lief. "Go fetch the Sheriff. I will watch him, and deal with him if he gets out of line."
Zomeraand keeps his attention on the half-elf, hands ready release a bolt of electricity if he attempts to escape.
Delin takes her knife, cutting away the leather gag and then turning her head to listen carefully to Ameiko's breathing. She tilts the woman's head back with both hands, trying to open her airway. It did little to help the shallow breaths.
"At least her airway isn't obstructed." the half-elf reasoned. She let her more innate witchcraft come to her, still cradling the woman's head as she used healing power on her.
"Ameiko? Can you hear me?" she asks, looking down with concern.
"Where I am? What happened?"
Lief literally runs up out of the basement and to the Glassworks door closest to the Barracks. He pauses just long enough to unlock the door with Tsuto's key and then starts running to fetch the sheriff. When he notices that a few people seem concerned to see him running through the streets, he slows his pace to a jog and tries to force a little bit of a smile to reassure people.
When he reaches the sheriff he drops the act and says quietly but with a sense of urgency, "Sir, we found the person who was working with the goblins... it was Tsuto Kai... whatever, the innkeepers brother. We've got him tied up in the Glassworks but its a real mess... he had goblins in there with him. They murdered all the workers, tortured that old nobleman to death... we saved his sister but you better come quick and take a look so you can figure out how you want to handle things... I don't think you want the townsfolk seeing what happened in there..."
M'ara stands ready to assist Delin, should her healing magicks not be enough to revive the exotic restauranteur.
Nodding, seeing Delin's success, "You are at the Glassworks, it appears your brother is in league with the goblins and kidnapped you...I regret to tell you, your father has been killed."
"Let's tie up the sleepers. We don't know what the organization is here."Anton winces as he works at the shards in his foot.
"I have closed some of your wounds, but do not try to move." Delin cautions, "You are still terribly hurt."
"Spare one or two, if you wish," Zomeraand says, "but there is no benefit to keeping all of them alive. The goblins haven't proven particularly useful when interrogated, and the more of them we keep alive, the greater the risk of one escaping."
Ameiko is in shock... and you can't blame her. Her half-brother plotted to destroy Sandpoint, attacked and subdued her and killed her father in a cruel way.
You manage to get some information from her anyway.
Tsuto revealed to Ameiko that he and several other mercenaries were led by a woman and hinted that she's got big plans for Sandpoint's future. Tsuto warned Ameiko that she didn't want to be in town when those plans came through, and offered her a chance to join his group at Thistletop. Ameiko recoiled at the suggestion and slapped her brother in shock that he'd sunk to such a low. He responded by unleashing his goblins on her. They overwhelmed her and left her here. If you hadn't rescued her she has no doubt her brother, which she thinks is mad, would have killed her too.
When Lief Stoutspear returns with Sheriff Hemlock and the guards the secret has blown up. Some townspeople saw Delin Chiri detaining Tsuto Kaijitsu, and now there is a big group of people outside of the glassworks and asking questions. All of your characters feel thankful that Sheriff Balor and his men take control of the situation and Tsuto Kaijitsu and let you escort Ameiko Kaijitsu back to the Rusty Dragon Inn.
After a good night's rest, you discover a lot of things have happened.
- The people in Sandpoint have a lot of stories, each one more exaggerated than the last, about what happened in the Glassworks. But all of them share some elements: You saved Ameiko Kaijtsu, Delin Chiri heroically prevented Tsuto Kaijitsu from escaping ("But she looks so frail!") and you saved Sandpoint yet again.
- Tsuto Kaijitsu is dead. He hanged himself in his cell. At his feet, a note. "She will come for me."
- The guards found a notebook in the glassworks. The diary of Tsuto Kaijitsu. Sheriff Hemlock prevented the guards from reading it, but he lets you peruse it ("I believe in your discretion.").
This small, leather-bound booklet contains two dozen parchment pages, most of which Tsuto has filled with maps of Sandpoint or erotic drawings of a woman. The maps each depict different attack plans. The first set shows the attack plans for a group of 30 goblins - one of these battle maps are circled, and your characters recognize it as the attack the goblins have already made on Sandpoint
Of more pressing concern are the next several pages, which illustrate an assault on Sandpoint by a force of what appears to be 200 goblins. None of these are circled, and while many are scratched out as if they've been rejected, the implications are ominous.
There are also three passages in the journal that catch your character's eyes.
On that last page, Anton Ionescu gasp. He knows who the mysterious woman is. He had a young crush on her many years ago. She is the presumed dead adopted daughter of Father Ezekiel Tobyn, whose ashed were stolen. Nualia Tobyn. When the cathedral burned up she was supposedly killed, together with her adopted father, in the conflagration.
Delin will keep a careful eye on Ameiko and offer her more healing on the new day. She suspects the innkeeper might try to push things and not properly rest, so she sits in and looks through the diary with Zomeraand if the mage will humor her.
"Golbins, bugbears, a demon, and plans to bring up... quasits from below the glassworks?" she remarks as the plans were laid out in the journal, "Egads but the town seems in for a lot."
The scope of the plans against Sandpoint seem overwhelming, but a slight rueful smile come across here features. Noticing yet another look from some of the locals she lifts a hand and waggles slender fingers at them. "Does this mean we'll all end up quasit hunting?" she asks the mage.
Ameiko Kaijitsu seems very depressed, and thankfully accepts Delin Chiri help, healing and moral support.
"Please tell your companions you will always have a room at the Rusty Inn. Is the least I can do to thank you."
Bethana Corwin, Ameiko's halfling help at the Rusty Dragon (and the one that asks you for help and directed you to the Glassworks) thank all of your characters profusely and make sure they have one of the bests (or probably the best) breakfast they ever had.
"Holy shit! I know--knew this girl! I heard she was dead. It's Father Tobyn's daughter, Nualia!"
Delin will keep a careful eye on Ameiko and offer her more healing on the new day. She suspects the innkeeper might try to push things and not properly rest, so she sits in and looks through the diary with Zomeraand if the mage will humor her.
"Golbins, bugbears, a demon, and plans to bring up... quasits from below the glassworks?" she remarks as the plans were laid out in the journal, "Egads but the town seems in for a lot."
The scope of the plans against Sandpoint seem overwhelming, but a slight rueful smile come across here features. Noticing yet another look from some of the locals she lifts a hand and waggles slender fingers at them. "Does this mean we'll all end up quasit hunting?" she asks the mage.
Zomeraand sits down beside Delin and examines the journal with her.
"It seems the young man was part of some greater plot. This Nualia, based on these notes, worships Lamashtu and is in the process of using some ritual to transform herself into a demon. The goblins are just disposable thugs. This is a mess, and Sandpoint's the center of it all for some reason."
He taps his chin thoughtfully. "It sounds like there's a lot of history leading up to this. We should talk to people who knew Nualia and her father. We should also try to find this tunnel under the glassworks, as well as the hideout on Thistletop. The question is: which of these is the most urgent to address first?"
M'ara's hand clenches as she reads the damnable journal, her brow furrowing, The cards...the hand!".
She leaves Ameiko in Delin's capable hands, checking if any of her friends needed her aid.
When Anton declares he knew the troubled lass from the journal, M'ara turns to him with interest to see what he might remember of her....
Anton Ionescu clearly remembers Nualia Tobyn. She was beautiful. In her teenage years, she was the most beautiful girl he has ever seen (and probably the most beautiful girl he has seen so far). Her platinum blond hair flowing in the breeze is one image he has never forgotten. She was an orphan, living with her adoptive father, Ezekiel Tobyn, in the old church.
And when the church burned to the ground and her body was not found, but as Father Ezekiel remains were there, it was accepted that she had been burnt to ashes.
But it seems she didn't die that night.
Maybe Father Abstalar Zantus, the main church acolyte of those days, can know more.
"In retrospect, yikes."
"If they have convinced these quasits to aid them we should investigate there first." Delin reasons, "As soon as word gets out about Tsuto they might attack from there."
(OOC- I am giving everyone else time to resolve their threads through the day before Delin tries to commit the group to any course.)