Mari decides to risk the attack, moving in to flank the purple goblin himself and, should she be able to avoid it, she's going to return with an attack of her own - along with Flax.
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"Aaah! Uh, hold on, Talene!" Mari cries, before pointing to the goblin that attacked her, with her lucerne. "I am Cavalier Mari Valeri of the Order of the Blue Rose, guard of the Sandpoint Militia! Stand down, lay down your weapons, or forfeit your lives!"
Mari remains just within range of the goblins, and attacks them with the advantage of her reach, whipping the lucerne in an overhand swing between Talene and Daufni!
Mari follows after Talene on Flax, the white wolf growling and snarling at whatever was on the other side. "Longshanks? The only one gettin' killed here is anyone who gets on our bad side!" She shouts, raising her lucerne menacingly!
"Mmh, that don't sit right with me. I feel like there's sommin here we can find, but... we ain't got any leads still, so let's move on before we get in trouble with more of 'em." Clicking her teeth, she nods to everyone and moves to take point out of the village. She waits for a bit though, glancing back. "...which way are we leaving though?"
With a great cry, she tries to catch one of the goblins and prevent them from running away.
"More of the a!~++&++s! For Sandpoint!"
Mari snaps Flax to attention to intercept that goblin, and wolf and halfling move in unison as they both snap at the poor goblin.
After that, she makes sure she has the goblin at the door on lockdown, attacking him again with Flax and hammer.
"Aw crap, seriously--" Mari whistles to Flax, guiding him to her destination--
--and they move as one, intercepting the goblin at the doorway. They both attack it in unison, with Mari lifting her lucerne high in the air, and Flax rushing in for the attack.
Mari reunited with the others before too long, finding them talking to a barricaded group of goblins in one of the houses. Atop Flax, who sniffs around the house as she follows them, Mari eventually just stares at the others in confusion. "So, uh, why are we trying to explain stuff to goblins, guys? They're goblins."
Mari spies the last building that was burnt down around unburnt buildings and frowns, going over to investigate. She gets off Flax and she digs around in the remnants of the building for a while, trying to figure out how there could be a fire here without it spreading to nearby buildings.
"I still say we should be careful, guys. There might be a reason why they didn't come back quickly after all - it might not be the mercs." Mari taps Flax's flank with her heel. "I'm gonna do a quick patrol around the village, see if there's anything we can find. Everyone look around too - see if we can find anything, maybe like a body that isn't gobber. Meet back near the entrance in about ten minutes?" If everyone agrees, Mari starts her patrol.
Mari leans down and sticks close to Flax and gently nudges him forward, keeping her lucerne hammer out and close to her as the wolf lopes forward as quietly as he could.
"Whatever it could've been, we should probably get ready for a fight. Let's go in." Patting one hand on Flax's side, the wolf takes point, Mari leaning forward on top of him in a defensive advance.
"Everyone in agreement then?" Mari says, before tapping the side of the wolf with her heel and clicking her tongue; the wolf instantly goes to full attention, his nose in the air and his haunches raised.
"What's wrong, Flax?" Mari asks, noticing the wolf's sniffing; she leans in and watches him, his snout pointing to the left in the T. She leans back up and waves to the others. "Smells like Flax found something over on that side. He doesn't look like he's anxious about it, so it might not be anything dangerous, but if we're gonna be picking a direction, left might be good." She thinks for a moment, before deciding that it was better to be safe than sorry, and takes her lucerne out, strapping her buckler down tight and getting ready for a fight.
Mira's up early and in her underarmor; after doing a bit of a warmup in the morning before breakfast, she joins the others, and thanks Ozmud and Rafe profusely - especially for letting a wolf near the barn. Even tame, Flax has a tendency of making farmers nervous, being clearly a wolf. She takes point again once they start moving on the road. "I don't wanna piss off a witch either, so I like Yuki's idea. I'll pitch in if we need to buy some. I mean... aside from that, we don't really have much of a choice, do we? It's either old Megus, or the other side of that trail Walthus talked about. To choose between witches and goblins, goblins are, at least, a danger me and Flax can deal with." She bends over and pets Flax on the side, and he lets out a soft bark in cheerful response. "I mean... if the old fish trail doesn't work out, we could go up Old Megus' trail. If we really have to."
"Well, you found us then! Thing is, right now we're at a bit of a sticky problem; we know the Licktoads are somewhere in the marsh, but the bloody place is mostly unmapped and there's things that take peoples' faces and reports of giant monsters and all sorts of s!!$e; we're all a bit leery of going in without any sort of proper-like preparation, you know?" She pauses for a bit and glances to the others. "Ah, right, I gotta introduce you to the others. Everyone, this is Daufni, she's part of the watch too. She's probably the second-best shot I've seen. Well... third-best, at least. With a bow." She adds hastily at the last part. "Anyway, Daufni, this is Yuki; you probably know her sister Ameiko, you know, from the Rusty Dragon? Inari here also worked there, I think. And that's Talene, from the Temple. Anyway, that's where we are now; trying to figure out where to go from here. You're welcome to join us! We could use an extra hand, I think."
Mari seems as chipper as she always is, though when she notices another member of the Town Watch, she sits up straighter on Flax; Patting his side, she slides off the white wolf, who obediently sits at attention as the halfling walks over to the three, giving a curt salute. "Sorry, sir. Mari Valeri, of the Sandpoint Guard. Me and my friends were out here investigating rumours about the goblins making trouble on the trails; we went into the marsh a bit ago to try and find sommin on them, but the most we could find is old Walthus, who got attacked by some sort of creature that took his form." She relaxes a bit, shaking her head. "We came out of the Marsh after running out of ideas on how to find the gobbers and hope maybe someone here could help us out." She gives another salute to Daufni then. "And what're you doing out here, Daufni? The Watch send you out here?"
Hello and welcome to the game!
Mari hums, though a slight blush came to her cheeks. "Maybe we can ask Shalelu if we come across her. She probably knows about this region way more than anyone else." Flax lets out an imperceptible huff, almost sounding like he's exasperated; Mari responds with a huff of her own. "Oh, you shush, Flax." She mutters.
"Just leaving without doing anything to stop them here doesn't sit well with me... but neither is getting everyone killed running in, I guess." She gently pats Flax and mounts him, gently tapping his side with her heel to get him to rise. "Circling around the marsh once might let us find a scout or another trail like Yuki said, but if it doesn't, we can go back and get ready for another trip here. Is that what we're doing then?"
"I mean, it shouldn't take too long if they're nearby... but if they're not, uhm, well, I hope Yuki doesn't lose her voice. Mari murmurs. Flax lets out a low little growl of confirmation to Mari's thoughts. They both keep alert, of course.
"I thought Goblins just sort of grunted and drooled at each other or something." Mari says, having taken point; she, at times, leans down to pet Flax's side, the white wolf's ears up and alert; he was very well-trained! Mari herself also keeps herself alert, trying to listen for anything coming for them first. It wouldn't do to get ambushed when they were trying to ambush the goblins themselves.
Flax was brought in soon enough, without too much fanfare; the smell of blood still lingered, of course, and Flax stayed well away from the corpse of what Walthus called the Faceless Stalker, growling all the while. After a few treats, though, he calmed down enough, and seemed to be happy to be left curled up near the door. Mari, for her part, mostly just laughed off the compliments from the other halfling, telling him it was just her job, trying her level best to be professional - she is a guard, after all - but she perks her ears at the mention of a 'Soggy River Monster'. "Wait, wait, wait one moment, what's that about a Soggy River Monster? That going to be a problem too?"
Mari immediately steps up to that. "I'll take first watch tonight. Flax and I can patrol around the house, maybe help with seeing if we can find anything else about that... thing, whatever it is." Once she's satisfied that Talene has Walthus in hand, she gently pulls away from the other halfling, standing up. "I'm gonna check on Flax - is it okay if we bring him in, Mister Walthus? He's my, uh, riding wolf." I wonder if any more of those will come by afterwards, though...
"U-Uh, stay still." She moves right beside the other halfling and kneels down, holding onto him and easing his burden. "Where were you hurt?"
Mari frowns and goes to the end of the hall at a dead run, opening the door and seeing if she can provide any help to the halfling. "He's up here, end of the hall!
"Where are you? Are you tied up? Are you hurt?" Mira rushes upstairs first, looking around for any rooms and entering the first one she sees to find Walthus, if she even needs to go into one.
"I'm Mari Valeri from the Sandpoint Guard! Sir, hold on, let us get to you." She makes sure her weapon is put away, before going to help Talene search for Walthus.
After checking on Flax (who was growling and barking as the fighting went on, but still obediently stayed where he was) she gave the good boy a treat - before going back in, taking a moment to wiggle the blood off her hammer onto the grass nearby. "Who are you guys talking to?"
Oh, sorry. I was waiting for the creature again ;o;
Mari hisses out a sigh and growls. She points her lucerne at the thing and proclaims in a loud, commanding voice: "By the authority of the Guard of Sandpoint and the Order of the Blue Rose, I, Mari Valeri, hereby put you under arrest under suspicion of kidnapping and attempted murder! Resist and we shall not be held accountable!" She waits then, seeing how the thing reacts, readying herself for retaliation of any kind.
Is it my turn?
Mari runs in behind Inari as well, holding her lucerne with both hands and wincing a bit. "This might be a bad idea... we don't know who or what else is in here!" Nonetheless, she moves to engage the first thing that wasn't Walthus or her friends.
Mari was staring at her tea, humming and frowning as she wondered exactly why the tea was tasting so strange - but she was otherwise content to let the others talk to Walthus. However, when the ruckus started, she frowns, standing up from her seat and pulling her lucerne hammer out... and realising that a long hammer might be a little difficult to use in this small space. "I'm on my way!"
Sorry about disappearing for the past few weeks. Between exams and someone stealing all my money in my bank account and trying to chase the bank and the various merchants down for my money, I've been really, really tired and blergh. I'm gonna be more active now though, hopefully.
Mari pouts a bit and leans down to hug the wolf. "Sorry, Flax. Keep an eye out for us, okay?" Flax, for his part, just whimpers piteously and leans down to let Mari dismount, giving her a very sad look as he lopes close to the house and curls up, his ears up and alert. Mari hops up the steps to step with the others into the house.
Mari hums, looking behind them and standing - well, sitting - guard atop Flax; the wolf seems to be on his hackles still from that previous encounter, but Mari slips him a treat to calm down. "Can't believe someone would live out here alone. Creepy in the day, let alone at night."
"It's probably a wild boar of some sort. Be careful, those bastards are dangerous; best we leave it alone." She pulls Flax's reins about, her ears perked up still. "Careful that it doesn't charge us from behind anyways."
Glancing to the others and frowning, she finally nudges Flax forward towards the moving bush, gently shushing Flax, lucerne in her hand now. "Hello? Who's there? We're not here to hurt you, we're just here to investigate something."
Presuming that it can be reasoned with:
Presuming that it's an animal:
I'm totally up for more people, personally! Though, I can't really say if they're reliable or not, but that's for people who've played with the individuals.
Mari gently pats Flax's side, leaning forward and whispering. "You smell something, boy? Easy. Easy now." She glances back to everyone else, motioning for them to be a little quiet, and pointing to the right of the trail. She mouths, "Something's there. Watch closely."
"I'll go first. Might as well - if it falls, the river looks slow enough that all Flax will get is wet." Mari gently taps the wolf's side and clicks at him, nudging him forwards to cross the bridge.
Oh, I do want to get a backup weapon, but not until I get some extra gold - I don't want to use it all up just yet.
Mari leans over and tries to calm Flax immediately. "Easy, boy... Shh..." She leans back and glances at the others. "Flax senses something too - I'll go next. If all goes well, Flax can probably scare whatever it is away. Hopefully it's just a curious animal." With that, Mari nudges Flax forward onto the bridge, trying to steadily move across. "C'mon, boy... that's it, easy and calm."
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