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Seravin's Tales of the Night Below (Two Updates this Week - 07/24/07)
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<blockquote data-quote="Seravin" data-source="post: 805951" data-attributes="member: 6783"><p><strong>Two days later</strong></p><p></p><p>The five looked across the small valley formed by the rocky hills. The sun had just come up and they watched the guards move inside to escape the glare of the rising sun. “Goblins.” Says Kellron. “Related to orcs but not quite as tough. Mean though.”</p><p></p><p>It had taken the better part of a day to find the goblin cave, and most of it they had spend slogging through the swamp following the brook to its headwater. Fortunately it was a mostly boring trip, though they had an encounter with a snake that had almost bitten Kellron.</p><p></p><p>From there it was quick trip into the hills to discover the cave. Kestral’s sharp eyes had picked out a well trodden trail that led to this little valley and Ashimar had spotted the guards at the cave entrance. They had indeed been blue. Wisely they retreated a ways to spend the night elsewhere – with a very watchful guard.</p><p></p><p>Now it was morning and they were again at the mouth of the little valley. “I’ll go in.” Volunteered Ashimar. “I can scout around, maybe weaken them.” Ashimar is fairly confident about his abilities as the events of the past two weeks and some close practicing with Kellron has sharpened his fighting skills a bit; though Ashimar’s style with the fencing blade is very different then Kellron’s straight-forward military approach.</p><p></p><p>The party conferred a bit and looked at their resources. A potion that granted the ability to see in the dark was provided and Ashimar slowly snuck his way up to the entrance of the cave, making as much use of cover as he could. At the cave entrance he cautiously peered in. There were two goblin guards there and not very attentive. Making a fast decision, Ashimar charged, hoping to kill them before an alert could be raised. </p><p></p><p>Under Ashimar’s surprise assault, one of the goblins did indeed go down quickly. The other one was a hair quicker in recovering than Ashimar had counted on and ran squealing for help.</p><p></p><p>“Damn.” Thought Ashimar and he raced after the fleeing goblin. At a crossroads, it fled to the left and Ashimar followed until he managed to catch up. By this time help was arriving. Ashimar made short work of the goblin who had fled, but looking up he saw over a dozen charging towards him. Eyeing the distance, Ashimar let the lead one catch up to him, easily cutting it down, before he himself began his retreat. The young tough made it out into the light and down the valley before the goblins could gather the courage to leave the cave. He was behind a large rock before the goblins could even spot him.</p><p></p><p>“We could talk to them.” Suggested Kestral while the five conferred on what to do. The young woman was a genius and a natural linguist and rarely had trouble making friends.</p><p></p><p>“I just killed three of them.” Pointed out Ashimar.</p><p></p><p>Kestral shrugged. “Unless you want to go in there and fight them in their tunnels. You saw a dozen guards just down one tunnel?” She paused a moment. “They have a language of some sort. Maybe they understand orc or even the imperial trade tounge.”</p><p></p><p>“You speak orc?” Asked Kellron.</p><p></p><p>“Doesn’t everyone? I’ve picked up a lot of languages. A courier can’t know too many languages. It’s easier to get jobs that way.”</p><p></p><p>The five confer a bit more and then decide to follow Kestral’s course of action. Cautiously they approached the cave entrance again, this time without weapons drawn. Though Jallarzi had a magic missile in memory – just in case.</p><p></p><p>Kestral approaches the cave first this time, leading Kellron by about ten feet. “You. In the cave.” She calls out in passable orcish. The language is known by a few in the empire – especially by those who served in the northern armies. Kestral’s teacher had been a former soldier who had spent over a decade guarding the imperial borders in the north.</p><p></p><p>Cautiously a head peeked out of the cave with a spear raised; its yellow eyes blinking rapidly in the light of the overcast day. It was indeed a goblin, standing somewhere around the height of a short dwarf. The skin was indeed baggy, but instead of being the normal yellow for a goblin, it was painted a vivid blue. The same paint had been applied to its shock of dark hair on its head. The creature saw Kestral and her companions and grunted something in its native tongue.</p><p></p><p>“I don’t understand.” She grunted again in orcish. “Do you understand me?” Kestral was abusing the grammar horribly by not using the more confrontational adjectives – but she deemed she could get by without them.</p><p></p><p>“Go away.” Ordered the goblin warrior, raising his spear threateningly. “You cause enough problems.”</p><p></p><p>“We need to speak with your chieftain.” Explained the young courier. </p><p></p><p>“Go away, or we kill you.” The goblin was more emphatic this time.</p><p></p><p>“Fetch your chieftain.” Ordered Kestral more forcefully. “We would like to talk to him. We apologize for the problems we caused.”</p><p></p><p>The goblin warrior, Klipterup thought about it. If these crazy humans were the ones that killed the other three warriors, then Maglubiyet knew that he wasn’t going to stop them by himself. “Wait here.” He said and he ducked back inside the cave.</p><p></p><p>The party cooled their heels under the morning sky for about five minutes before a goblin voice called out in orcish from the darkness of the cave. “Come forward. No tricks or we kill you.”</p><p></p><p>Kellron lit a torch and the five companions moved forward cautiously into the cave mouth. Before them stood about a dozen goblins; most of them with leveled spears. In the center of the guards were two goblins a little fatter and better dressed then the others. The taller and obviously stronger of the two was wearing furs that had seen better days and had a passable short sword at his side. The other had further accented his furs and clothes with animal bones and had strange sigils sewn into his vest and carved into the simple staff that he carried; Ashimar’s and Kestrals’s practiced eyes also caught sight of a strange looking ring worn on the shaman’s left hand. All of the goblins were painted blue. </p><p></p><p>“Why do you come here and kill my warriors?” Demanded the chieftain in orcish.</p><p></p><p>Kestral stepped forward a little bit. “We’re sorry about that. We were trying to find out why the marsh was growing in the lands below the hills. We had also heard tales of strange blue creatures threatening people about here.” Kestral almost missed it, but the shaman’s left hand flexed a little bit at the mention of the rising marsh. </p><p></p><p>“Why does that give you the right to kill my warriors?” Demanded the goblin chief. “We’ve been here two winters now and hurt no one. We just fish and stay out of you big one’s way.”</p><p></p><p><em>‘Yes.’</em> Thought Kestral. “That was a mistake.” Explained the woman. She was a natural diplomat and was working her hardest to win the chieftain over. “We’re sorry.” She had to use the human word for sorry as the orcish language didn’t contain the word as far as she knew. “We can make it up to you.”</p><p></p><p>Grundlegek was not a fool. He had led this band of goblins for over fifteen years; from the time of terror, through the flight, and most recently through the time in these hills near the lands of the surface. Grundlegek was a survivor of the first magnitude and part of that included the ability to see opportunities and the courage to take them. “How?” He asked suspiciously. “The warriors you killed were valuable to our caves.”</p><p></p><p>“How valuable?” Asked Kestral.</p><p></p><p>The chieftain looked at his goblin guards for a moment and then at the five surface-worlders before him. With a nod of his head he sent his guards back a few feet and motioned his shaman to come with him.</p><p></p><p>“50 pieces of gold.” Said the chieftain. “Each.”</p><p></p><p>Kestral snorted and the negotiations began. In the end it was decided that each of the slain goblins was worth ten gold each. Additionally, upon hearing that the goblins had been subsisting mostly on fish threw in their entire supply of travel rations, excepting what they thought they needed to get back to Haralton. It wasn’t enough to feed the entire tribe, but it was a nice touch and one Grundlegek seemed to appreciate. Additionally Kestral managed to arrange to speak to the shaman, Burukkleyet, alone.</p><p></p><p>“What do you know about the swamp?” She asked the canny old shaman.</p><p></p><p>“Nothing.”</p><p></p><p>“You’re lying.” Kestral’s voice turned sweet. “Come on. It’s just you and me. What could it hurt to tell? It has something to do with the ring, doesn’t it?” It was mostly intuition on her part, but Kestral had noticed that the shaman kept touching while she was negotiating with the chieftain –especially after she had mentioned the growing marshlands.</p><p></p><p>Burukkleyet considered for a moment. “I’m not sure.” He finally admitted. There was something about the human girl that he found trustworthy. It was disturbing, but there it was. “I found it on our journey here.” He showed her the ring. It was a platinum band with a design on the top in the form of a circle with two wavy lines in the center, one atop the other. To left of the symbol was a pale blue stone, perhaps sapphire.</p><p></p><p>Kestral nodded. “The marsh started to rise about the time you and your people arrived.”</p><p></p><p>“We know. We thought we’d be able to live off the farmlands as well as the fish, but the farmers left shortly after we arrived.” The shaman looked a little resigned at this. “The fishing has been good though.”</p><p></p><p>“What would you give for that ring?”</p><p></p><p>The shaman looked offended at the suggestion. “This ring? It has powerful magic and all in the tribe know it. The tribe would lose heart if I gave the ring away.”</p><p></p><p>“But you don’t even know what it does.”</p><p></p><p>And again the negotiations started. This time it went harder and Kestral had to confer with her companions several times. Eventually though she and the shaman came to an agreement. </p><p></p><p>“One magical item then. As a gift to you so your people know that your powers are still strong and a duplicate of the ring so no one knows of the change.”</p><p></p><p>Burukkleyet nodded, again resigned. The woman bargained hard. </p><p></p><p>The party spends the rest of the morning with the goblins, with Kestral trying to get Burukkleyet to teach her some of the goblin tongue. She is unable to find out where the goblins came from originally, only that they traveled a long way underground to escape some terrible fate. When the sun is high the group begins to make their way to Haralton, arriving only a little after sundown.</p><p></p><p>“No weapons.” Warns Kellron. “We’re not going to arm them so they can fight the villagers.” The party agrees with Kellron’s request.</p><p></p><p>“Maybe we can get them to trade for what they need with the villagers.” Suggests Kestral; although what the goblins could trade she doesn’t know. Those thoughts were for another time though. In the meantime they needed to get that ring. A thousand gold pieces depended upon it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Seravin, post: 805951, member: 6783"] [b]Two days later[/b] The five looked across the small valley formed by the rocky hills. The sun had just come up and they watched the guards move inside to escape the glare of the rising sun. “Goblins.” Says Kellron. “Related to orcs but not quite as tough. Mean though.” It had taken the better part of a day to find the goblin cave, and most of it they had spend slogging through the swamp following the brook to its headwater. Fortunately it was a mostly boring trip, though they had an encounter with a snake that had almost bitten Kellron. From there it was quick trip into the hills to discover the cave. Kestral’s sharp eyes had picked out a well trodden trail that led to this little valley and Ashimar had spotted the guards at the cave entrance. They had indeed been blue. Wisely they retreated a ways to spend the night elsewhere – with a very watchful guard. Now it was morning and they were again at the mouth of the little valley. “I’ll go in.” Volunteered Ashimar. “I can scout around, maybe weaken them.” Ashimar is fairly confident about his abilities as the events of the past two weeks and some close practicing with Kellron has sharpened his fighting skills a bit; though Ashimar’s style with the fencing blade is very different then Kellron’s straight-forward military approach. The party conferred a bit and looked at their resources. A potion that granted the ability to see in the dark was provided and Ashimar slowly snuck his way up to the entrance of the cave, making as much use of cover as he could. At the cave entrance he cautiously peered in. There were two goblin guards there and not very attentive. Making a fast decision, Ashimar charged, hoping to kill them before an alert could be raised. Under Ashimar’s surprise assault, one of the goblins did indeed go down quickly. The other one was a hair quicker in recovering than Ashimar had counted on and ran squealing for help. “Damn.” Thought Ashimar and he raced after the fleeing goblin. At a crossroads, it fled to the left and Ashimar followed until he managed to catch up. By this time help was arriving. Ashimar made short work of the goblin who had fled, but looking up he saw over a dozen charging towards him. Eyeing the distance, Ashimar let the lead one catch up to him, easily cutting it down, before he himself began his retreat. The young tough made it out into the light and down the valley before the goblins could gather the courage to leave the cave. He was behind a large rock before the goblins could even spot him. “We could talk to them.” Suggested Kestral while the five conferred on what to do. The young woman was a genius and a natural linguist and rarely had trouble making friends. “I just killed three of them.” Pointed out Ashimar. Kestral shrugged. “Unless you want to go in there and fight them in their tunnels. You saw a dozen guards just down one tunnel?” She paused a moment. “They have a language of some sort. Maybe they understand orc or even the imperial trade tounge.” “You speak orc?” Asked Kellron. “Doesn’t everyone? I’ve picked up a lot of languages. A courier can’t know too many languages. It’s easier to get jobs that way.” The five confer a bit more and then decide to follow Kestral’s course of action. Cautiously they approached the cave entrance again, this time without weapons drawn. Though Jallarzi had a magic missile in memory – just in case. Kestral approaches the cave first this time, leading Kellron by about ten feet. “You. In the cave.” She calls out in passable orcish. The language is known by a few in the empire – especially by those who served in the northern armies. Kestral’s teacher had been a former soldier who had spent over a decade guarding the imperial borders in the north. Cautiously a head peeked out of the cave with a spear raised; its yellow eyes blinking rapidly in the light of the overcast day. It was indeed a goblin, standing somewhere around the height of a short dwarf. The skin was indeed baggy, but instead of being the normal yellow for a goblin, it was painted a vivid blue. The same paint had been applied to its shock of dark hair on its head. The creature saw Kestral and her companions and grunted something in its native tongue. “I don’t understand.” She grunted again in orcish. “Do you understand me?” Kestral was abusing the grammar horribly by not using the more confrontational adjectives – but she deemed she could get by without them. “Go away.” Ordered the goblin warrior, raising his spear threateningly. “You cause enough problems.” “We need to speak with your chieftain.” Explained the young courier. “Go away, or we kill you.” The goblin was more emphatic this time. “Fetch your chieftain.” Ordered Kestral more forcefully. “We would like to talk to him. We apologize for the problems we caused.” The goblin warrior, Klipterup thought about it. If these crazy humans were the ones that killed the other three warriors, then Maglubiyet knew that he wasn’t going to stop them by himself. “Wait here.” He said and he ducked back inside the cave. The party cooled their heels under the morning sky for about five minutes before a goblin voice called out in orcish from the darkness of the cave. “Come forward. No tricks or we kill you.” Kellron lit a torch and the five companions moved forward cautiously into the cave mouth. Before them stood about a dozen goblins; most of them with leveled spears. In the center of the guards were two goblins a little fatter and better dressed then the others. The taller and obviously stronger of the two was wearing furs that had seen better days and had a passable short sword at his side. The other had further accented his furs and clothes with animal bones and had strange sigils sewn into his vest and carved into the simple staff that he carried; Ashimar’s and Kestrals’s practiced eyes also caught sight of a strange looking ring worn on the shaman’s left hand. All of the goblins were painted blue. “Why do you come here and kill my warriors?” Demanded the chieftain in orcish. Kestral stepped forward a little bit. “We’re sorry about that. We were trying to find out why the marsh was growing in the lands below the hills. We had also heard tales of strange blue creatures threatening people about here.” Kestral almost missed it, but the shaman’s left hand flexed a little bit at the mention of the rising marsh. “Why does that give you the right to kill my warriors?” Demanded the goblin chief. “We’ve been here two winters now and hurt no one. We just fish and stay out of you big one’s way.” [I]‘Yes.’[/i] Thought Kestral. “That was a mistake.” Explained the woman. She was a natural diplomat and was working her hardest to win the chieftain over. “We’re sorry.” She had to use the human word for sorry as the orcish language didn’t contain the word as far as she knew. “We can make it up to you.” Grundlegek was not a fool. He had led this band of goblins for over fifteen years; from the time of terror, through the flight, and most recently through the time in these hills near the lands of the surface. Grundlegek was a survivor of the first magnitude and part of that included the ability to see opportunities and the courage to take them. “How?” He asked suspiciously. “The warriors you killed were valuable to our caves.” “How valuable?” Asked Kestral. The chieftain looked at his goblin guards for a moment and then at the five surface-worlders before him. With a nod of his head he sent his guards back a few feet and motioned his shaman to come with him. “50 pieces of gold.” Said the chieftain. “Each.” Kestral snorted and the negotiations began. In the end it was decided that each of the slain goblins was worth ten gold each. Additionally, upon hearing that the goblins had been subsisting mostly on fish threw in their entire supply of travel rations, excepting what they thought they needed to get back to Haralton. It wasn’t enough to feed the entire tribe, but it was a nice touch and one Grundlegek seemed to appreciate. Additionally Kestral managed to arrange to speak to the shaman, Burukkleyet, alone. “What do you know about the swamp?” She asked the canny old shaman. “Nothing.” “You’re lying.” Kestral’s voice turned sweet. “Come on. It’s just you and me. What could it hurt to tell? It has something to do with the ring, doesn’t it?” It was mostly intuition on her part, but Kestral had noticed that the shaman kept touching while she was negotiating with the chieftain –especially after she had mentioned the growing marshlands. Burukkleyet considered for a moment. “I’m not sure.” He finally admitted. There was something about the human girl that he found trustworthy. It was disturbing, but there it was. “I found it on our journey here.” He showed her the ring. It was a platinum band with a design on the top in the form of a circle with two wavy lines in the center, one atop the other. To left of the symbol was a pale blue stone, perhaps sapphire. Kestral nodded. “The marsh started to rise about the time you and your people arrived.” “We know. We thought we’d be able to live off the farmlands as well as the fish, but the farmers left shortly after we arrived.” The shaman looked a little resigned at this. “The fishing has been good though.” “What would you give for that ring?” The shaman looked offended at the suggestion. “This ring? It has powerful magic and all in the tribe know it. The tribe would lose heart if I gave the ring away.” “But you don’t even know what it does.” And again the negotiations started. This time it went harder and Kestral had to confer with her companions several times. Eventually though she and the shaman came to an agreement. “One magical item then. As a gift to you so your people know that your powers are still strong and a duplicate of the ring so no one knows of the change.” Burukkleyet nodded, again resigned. The woman bargained hard. The party spends the rest of the morning with the goblins, with Kestral trying to get Burukkleyet to teach her some of the goblin tongue. She is unable to find out where the goblins came from originally, only that they traveled a long way underground to escape some terrible fate. When the sun is high the group begins to make their way to Haralton, arriving only a little after sundown. “No weapons.” Warns Kellron. “We’re not going to arm them so they can fight the villagers.” The party agrees with Kellron’s request. “Maybe we can get them to trade for what they need with the villagers.” Suggests Kestral; although what the goblins could trade she doesn’t know. Those thoughts were for another time though. In the meantime they needed to get that ring. A thousand gold pieces depended upon it. [/QUOTE]
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