Belaria recognizes these as ogrekin, also known as half-ogres. Due to the...proclivities of ogres, these are often the result of a violent union and their offspring often grow up living violent, brutish lives.
While not necessarily evil, ogrekin often end up either being raised by the ogre half of the "family" and end up as little more than "runty ogres".
Even when left to human society, ogrekin are often shunned and outcast due to a combination of their deformities (twisted, corded muscle, disproportioned limbs, and odd facial features being the most common), typically low intelligence (on the lower end of the bell curve for most humans, though not to the level of impairment), and violent temper tantrums as children.
These particular ogrekin seem to REALLY like wrestling, and though it's hard to see their facial features through their contortions, this particular pair seem to be brothers.
As you take the time to observe, one seems to finally notice you and he slaps his brother on the shoulder.
"Oi, Tod, gerroff. Dere's people here."
"Wot? Yer kiddin' me Jombo, like you was that time...No shit. Wot happened to the birds?"
"I dunno..errr...wait a sec. Wot was it sis told uz to do if'n we saw people?"
Tod thinks for a moment then gets up, slapping his knees.
"Oi! You lot! Clear off, dis is our house and youse ain't allowed ta be 'ere."
"Yeah, dat's it! Tell 'em Tod!"
Liam folds his arms.
"It's your house? I don't see your name on it." Liam smirks at the awesome display of his ironclad logic.
"Yeah huh! We so did!"
The ogrekin lumber to the other side of the courtyard, and brush some moss and dust off the wall, revealing three names: Tod, Jombo, and Muthilda.
They also, seemingly unintentionally, reveal something else. There is a secret door in the wall here, seams crusted by the dirt and muck.
"See?" Jombo says, posing proudly in front of his crude lettering. "You're dumb, we win! Now leave."
Liam quietly speaks to his friends.
"Guys, what do we do now? I didn't expect them to actually have their names written on it."
Scratches her head, rather suprised they wrote their names down too.
"Fine, Guess we can go but I was enjoying the fight, you two look pretty strong, what one of you is the strongest?"
Daji makes a little small talk, if they seem really competitive she hopes to gode them into fighting eachother perhaps, they could then use the distraction to check out the secret door.
The two brothers look at each other, then laugh.
"Haha, nice try, but that won't work on us." says Tod.
"Yeah, we both know I'm the strong one.", pipes Jombo, with zero hint of irony.
In response, Tod slaps the shit out of him upside the head...and then Jombo returns the favor.
Soon they're back to rolling around on the floor, wrestling for supremacy... until *BONK*, they headbutt each other and both pass out!
Bel looks delighted that Daji's ploy worked, and gives her a thumbs up and grin once the two ogrekin are focused on each other. But her delight suddenly evaporates when they both KO each other.
"Aw...I kinda wanted to take whichever was the stronger one as Big Bel. But I guess this is, in every practical sense, a better outcome."
She tries to distract herself from the disappointment by checking the secret door for traps.
"Oh well, Let them get their beauty sleep, heaven's know they need it, what are you doing there?"
She watches Bel look for traps and scratches her head.
"Ohh! You're looking for traps? My sister told me about that, are people really gonna trap some random door?"
Daji has no dungeon or adventure experience so she looks back at the sleeping meat heads worried they might wake up.
With no actual adventuring experience herself, Bel draws on what she's read in books, and heard from Ameiko and other adventurers who visited town on occasion.
"Well...it's kind of a standard part of the adventuring process, from what I know. Doors, chests, random spots on the floor...just about anything can be trapped. It seems odd to me, but I suppose if you know how to get around the traps yourself, and don't want any visitors ever, it's a pretty good security measure! Not sure if these guys would be smart enough to set up traps - especially for an entrance they wouldn't expect anyone else to use. But hey, it's better to check when there aren't any traps, than to not check when there are, right?"
Liam gives Daji a slow clap for her masterful ruse.
"We should probably tie them up in case they wake up." Liam makes sure that happens before helping Belaria search for traps.
The door does not appear to be trapped. Upon opening it, you find yourself upon a small vestibule. Upon the northern wall is another secret door, leading somewhere else. There are also four normal doors branching off from the room.
"Since this secret door was hidden by that secret door, there's gotta be something really cool in there, right?"
"That sounds logical to me. Sis can you peek through?" Liam watches his sister give a thumbs up before she heads for the door.
Stepping through, Lianne sees an inner courtyard with a pond in the middle. It looks like it was once a nice garden, but is now overgrown, and the pond is caked with algae.
Lianne reports back to the gang.
"Looks like we found a shortcut to the inner courtyard! It's just an overgrown garden with a pond now though. I'll check the rest now too." Lianne will check the other doors clockwise.
T14 (North): This appears to have once been a storeroom, but the shelves have crumpled (apparently water damaged slightly from a crack in the ceiling) and it appears there is nothing of value here.
T15: Lianne lurches through into a large, wide room. The walls, floor to ceiling, are filled with taxidermied insects and animals, ranging from as small as a butterfly to as large as a wolf.
"That makes sense. Why hide a door unless it's got junk worth hiding behind it! Let's find that treasure!"
Lianne startles, then yelps in pain as suddenly a blade is slipped between her ribs! A small creature wielding a knife bares its pointed teeth at her.
"Oh yes, you'll make a beautiful specimen once we've drained you of all that messy blood. Just you wait, you'll be splendid." she says, eyes rolling back in rapture.
Lianne startles...not in pain but surprise as the shortsword's point fails to penetrate her ectoplasmic exterior.
"Hey! That could have hurt someone!" Lianne scolds the creature as she withdraws back through the door to tell the others.
Belaria (18)
Daji (16)
Havi (15)
Enemy Short Person (13)
Liam and Lianne (9)
"Don't worry Lianne, I'll squash her for ya!"
Bel stands next to the door and, drawing upon her ingrained hatred of goblins, prepares to kick the shit out of any creepy short person that opens it.
"Heaven above, The door was hiding a creature!"
Daji peers over everyone's shoulder and points at the creature, whatever it is.
"Kill it, kill the creature!"
Despite it not being particularly informative you feel Daji's sheer desire to kill the creature take hold and a compulsion sweeps the room. A desire to see the creature dead. Will you give in? Will you seek to kill the creature?
Also she stands directly beside Lianne and Belaria to assist them in defence.
Havi rushes in, earthbreaker ready to smash the goblin.
Daji slams open the door and you all see...nothing. There's nobody there.
Belaria's eyes open wide as she senses something; a displacement of the air. Something invisible lurks in this room.
Belaria can't for the life of her pinpoint the exact location of this creature.
"Damn it!"
Belaria shifts into a low guarded stance that lets her block attacks from any direction, and uses wide sweeping strikes to catch the unseen assailant more easily.
Daji uses her special eyes and her desire to kill the creature to find it.
Despite Belaria's vigilance, the little creature moves SHOCKINGLY fast, vaulting over her head and zipping down the hallway, out into the courtyard. Havi gamely tries to tag it as it moves, but it contemptuously dodges his blade and sneers at him in contempt.
"Little fleeetings. Did you think you could corner me? Hahahaha!" it jeers, having moved an astounding 120 feet from the door you're all gathered around. It blur faintly and stutters in place, unable to contain its massive potential energy.
"Sneaky AND fast? That's just not fair!"
Despite her gripes, Bel is intrigued by this creature.
Few creatures can match the speed of a quickling. These malicious fey creatures delight in striking with blinding speed and accuracy, often killing their victims without ever fully revealing themselves; the victim simply spurts blood and falls over dead, with no witnesses to the quickling’s deed.
Though related to brownies and grigs, quicklings share none of their kin’s generosity or merriment, choosing instead to live a life of cruelty and viciousness. Quicklings pride themselves on insults and brutality, and frequently stalk and harass their quarry until the victim gives up the chase.
While quicklings are naturally invisible when motionless, they rarely contain themselves, and bob and twitch while standing and talking to other creatures. Quicklings hate every other race of creature, particularly elves, gnomes, and other kinds of fey. They barely tolerate their own kind, and rarely work together for longer than a few weeks.
Grabs the Katana in it's hilt and prepairs to strike should the little creature rush towards her, in fact...
"Pftz I've seen faster!"
"Ooh, a Quickling! They only turn invisible when they're not moving - well, to be more precise, that's when they use their incredible speed to oscillate on the spot so fast that the eye can't keep up with them! Pretty novel technique...it's a shame that they're nothing but a bunch of murderous little a-holes. Anyway, try to hit her while she's moving around!"
Now that Bel can see the Quickling, she takes a moment to Study its movements, and gets ready to punch it if it moves into her reach or attacks her.
"Oscillate? Bel, you can't just make up words and expect us to know what that means." Liam gets into a position to cover his friends with his shadow reach before readying to counterpunch the Quickling when it attacks someone within his reach as well.
"Less talking, more swinging" Havi says trying to hit the thing.
The Quickling senses something is up, and eyes the assembled group warily.
"Buttersnips is no fool, fleetings. I'll be back once you've had a chance to cool off."
And she blurs away, off toward one of the doors in the courtyard. You hear it slam open, and the faint whispers of her high pitched voice drifting through the air.
The response, a lower tone, is completely inaudible.
"You better run!"
"Can't quite make it out...maybe she's trying to get help?"
Erupts in a super exaggerated bellowing laugh that Daji reckons is what a pirate would laugh like.
"Yeah keep running!"
Isn't straining to listen what the squeaky creature is saying, instead she looks around the room
"Monster is gone, perhaps it had stuff?"
"Yeah...that one seemed pretty smart...maybe we should go after it? I'm not used to monsters running away from us."
"Ah...yep, pretty sure it's calling for help."
"Gods damn it! She's probably gonna dash through the whole castle to round up every nasty creature that's been squatting here, and send them our way all at once!"
If no one stops her, Belaria runs toward the door the Quickling went through.
Belaria takes off as quick as she can manage, and covers a fair distance.
"Wait what really? Should we just leave or barracade ourselves in here?"
Liam and Lianne chase after Belaria. She usually has a good head for these kinds of things.
You trail after the Quickling, left in her wake. When you arrive she is in deep conversation with a man, wearing a strange long-nosed mask. He looks down with thunderclouds in his eyes at the small fae, as a number of corbies act out some strange...play around him. They're not very good (in fact, most are awful), but they seem too terrified to stop, and the man seems almost more amused by the terrible acting and awkward contortions than he would be by it being performed with more competence.
"You-" he manages, a world of anger contained in his voice, before he notices your group come in.
"Ah. These must be those guests you've told me about, Buttersnips."
"Please, show them out for me. I'm busy." he says, and turns back to watching the play.
Belaria looks confused at the display before her, and momentarily intimidated by the man's unsettling aura. But then she gets an idea.
He seems to be the one in charge. But he's also clearly not interested in dealing with us yet. Let's see what the Quickling cares about more: her safety, or his orders.
She gives the Quickling a taunting smile, while getting into position to counter an attack from her.
"Yeah, Buttersnips! Come over here and be a good host!"