Diego wheels his large blade around and takes a powerful side-long swing at goblin (4).
Orin quickly steps up and takes a shot at one of the throwers.
riposte in case it becomes available:
Alistair parries and follows through with a deadly thrust.
Alistair's goblin dodges again, the little bastard proving to be quite light on its feet. Diego has better luck, his falchion slashing across the goblin's abdomen and spilling its guts across the floor before he charges towards the ranged ones.
Orin fires off an arrow, but the shot flies high, the heated currents in the room from the furnaces lifting the projectile higher than he intended.
Nico reloads and shifts to the left for a clearer line on a goblin before loosing another bolt at the glass tossers.
Lief steps up next to Alistair and swings his shield at the goblin attacking his fellow guardsman.
Nico takes out another goblin, this one with the bolt right through its eye. It's hands fly up to clasp it instinctively even as it drops to the ground, dead.
Lief feels his fatigue after the seemingly endless day as his arm moves too sluggishly, missing the nimble goblin yet again.
The goblin near Diego, one of only two yet alive, suddenly drops his grin and looks worried. He shouts to the other, in Goblin...
The goblin turns and books it for the nearest window, attempting to defenestrate himself.
The goblin crashes headfirst into the window, cracking the glass, but not escaping in the manner he had intended. He rubbed his head and got to his feet.
The other survivor, realizing it was alone, took one last desperate swing at Alistair...
Alistair tried to deflect the attack and respond with a graceful coupé, but the goblin was fighting for its life, and its sudden frenzy pierced his defenses as the rusted blade scored open a slash on his arm. It turned and ran directly away from Alistair, leaping over its prone, concussed friend.
While Lief swings his shield at the closer fleeing goblin he calls out to the further one in the goblin language...
Nico reloads and she moves over to regain line of sight. She takes a shot at the goblin trying to get through the window.
Diego moves up to the closest goblin and attempts to knock him out with the flat of his blade.
"Try to keep one of these sh*its alive."
Orin advances until he is almost too close and takes another shot.
For
Alistair moves past Nico towards the fleeing goblin and slashes at it.
Alistair cuts down the goblin that crashed into the window before it can recover, and Orin manages to fire his arrow into the back of the other's leg, hobbling it. It falls to the floor and holds up its hands. "No kill! No kill! Will talk!" it yells in Common, having heard Lief.
Diego slides his blade back into it's scabbard and then takes up a position next to the goblin. "Do you speak the common language little goblin?"
”I told him you might not kill him if he told us about his leaders,” Lief explains as he moves to the remaining goblin. He sheathes his shortsword on the way but keeps his bloodied shield at the ready, then adds, ”go ahead and ask questions, I’ll translate if it seems like he doesn’t understand.”
"Ask him how he got into the building, where he came from, what he is doing in here, and if he has seen any other people in here tonight."
Nico lowers her crossbow, but stays where she is. She doesn't want to look around. Even the few rushed glances she had coming in during the fight were more than she wanted to see.
"Speaking longshanks words. Knife-ears letting in, letting play," he gestures to the carnage all around. "Female arriving, knife-ears saying 'No kill' and taking to basement. Still there, go find and letting Fugh go?" he suggested hopefully.
Already weary of the goblin’s attempt at using the common tongue, Lief continues to speak to it in its own language.
Fugh replied to Lief, nervous and eager to flee.
"He is an elf. The one who brought us to Sandpoint. He told us to fetch him when the woman arrived, and that she was not to be harmed. We were to stay out of sight. They spoke, then there was a lot of shouting. He tried to calm her and she struggled to get away, but he hit her and dragged her down there while she was dazed. They are still down there. Now you will let me go, yes?"
”He said that an elf brought them to Sandpoint, and is down in the basement with a woman,” Lief translates for those who don’t know goblinish. ”It seems a safe guess that the woman’s Ameiko but this thing wouldn’t know enough to confirm it… and it probably couldn’t tell an elf from half-elf, if her half-brother is this knife-ears.”
Turning back to the goblin, he continues to ask questions in the strange language.
Fugh cringed at Lief's words.
Alistair walks over to check Longiku for a pulse. He figures the man is dead but its best to always check.
Diego raises an eyebrow as Lief continues with the weird dialect.
Alistair realizes as he approaches that there was no way to check Lonjiku's pulse, nor was there any need. Molten glass had been poured over the man and allowed to solidify, transforming him into a horrid, crystalline statue, two to three inches of glass coating every part of him. From the expression on his face, he had been alive and conscious when it began, and it had been agonizing.
Alistair turns from the grim scene and says, "It sounds like we need to go to the basement. As Lief said, it is likely Ameiko, and this fellow does not seem kindly disposed to the Kaijitsu family."
"Yeah, if the goblin is through talking we should get him secured and move on downstairs."
"Agreed." Orin replies.
Looking around quickly for rope or something else to secure the little beast, he then ties the creature tightly. (If unable to find rope, he will use his belt.)
Forming up the others, melee's in front, ranged fighters in back, he motions the group further in.
Diego begins to pull out fifty foot of hemp rope, but then Orin mentions something about using his belt. The notion of that makes Diego smile a bit.
"I have fifty-foot of rope. That is, if you don't think we will need it for anything else." After handing over the rope, Diego takes his spot on the front line.
”It says that their leader brought the group he was with in to the town in the wagon,” Lief translates, ”and if we let it go it’ll flee Sandpoint and never be seen here again, although it doesn’t seem to have an actual plan for getting out of town without causing a stir.”
While the others work on a plan for, potentially, tying the goblin up, Lief continues standing next to it with his shield at the ready.
”Ask the beast where the entrance to the basement is. As a matter of fact, why don’t we leave its feet free and bring it with us and use it as a guide.” Alistair suggests.
"I agree with Alistair. If we simply let it go and it decides to cause havoc in town, we are directly responsible for that havoc."
Lief nods and then begins speaking to the goblin again.
The goblin's face takes on a perplexed expression as he is presented with so many choices. Eventually, he speaks.
”It says it will help if you just tie up its wrists and let it walk around with us,” Lief relays, ”it’ll, you know, lead us to the basement and whatnot.”
Diego takes the rope over to the goblin and begins tethering his wrists.
"Two things to mention. First, I don't think any amount of tying will keep this little guy from getting away if he decides to. Second, I'm not the one holding the leash."
"Why don't you tell him that the ropes aren't his real problem. He can't outrun my crossbow. If he does free himself, I'll shoot him down. Make sure you put that to him clearly."
Lief looks at the messy knots and smiles slightly. When Diego declares that he won't be the one holding the rope, the exhausted watchman sighs and grabs it with the hand that had held his shortsword. He spouts some more gibberish to goblin then says to nobody in particular, "alright, let's get this show on the road."
Fugh looked confounded by the request, but seemed to be able to tell from one look at Nico that she was not to be trifled with. Not after seeing the horrors of the goblins' romper room of death.
The goblin took hold of the rope, seeming to cringe with his entire posture as if awaiting the killing blow. In a weird parody of someone walking their dog, Lief let the little creature scramble ahead of him to guide them down to the basement.
It turned out to not be a very long walk. Fugh led you into a loading room, where a wheelbarrow sat in one corner, and shelves on the walls contained reagents to create different colors of glass. A safe on the floor hangs open and empty. Through a doorway, stairs lead down into what presumably is the basement.
Fugh lets go of the rope to point at the stairs proudly, then panics and takes hold of it again, hunching down with his arms protectively over his head.
Taking the lead, with sword in hand, Diego begins heading down the stairs.
Alistair, rapier at the ready, follows.
Once the order is set, they proceed. If lighting becomes an issue, Orin casts light and refreshes it each round as they go.
At the bottom of the stairs you see a room used to store sand and other raw materials. Two wheelbarrows sit against the wall. Just south of the stairs a brick wall has been dismantled to reveal an older passageway leading south.
There are a couple of torches lighting the immediate area, but it appears dark beyond their reach.
"Let's check out the regular basement before we go through the busted out wall. No telling what they've got hidden in there." Alistair suggests as they come down the steps. If neither of the lead gents has a free hand, Alistair grabs a torch from the wall.
Diego moves down the corridor to the extent of the lights reach and then begins looking around.
Lief follows the others down the stairs, with the captured goblin right next to him. He quietly talks to it as they go.
The goblin replied, in a normal speaking voice, which is to say loudly.
Diego sees a dark hall and can make out two doors branching off of it.
Diego moves up to the each door, as soon as light becomes available, and then carefully listens.
Listening at the first door, you don't hear a thing.
At the second, you hear a faint whimper from inside, and a sudden snore from further down the hall, around the corner.