Updates will now be every week on Saturdays or Sundays. School's got me distracted. I'm sure most, if not all of you can understand.
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Author's Notes are in the Profile. Includes maps!
Ember hoisted the goblin wizard on to her right shoulder, holding him in place with her arm.
Meanwhile, Tsel and Fawks were looting the dead bodies for any treasures. Sadly for them, nothing of value was found.
"Okay guys, are we ready to head on out of here?" Ember asked, pointing a thumb down an alleyway.
"Not down there Ember. That'll be the quickest way to run into the watchmen," Tsel warned with a small smile displaying amusement. "I know a better place. Follow me."
"Whoa whoa whoa WHOA! How do we know you're not leading us into a trap?" Sondossa asked, implying that Tsel shouldn't be trusted.
"Now hold up," Tsel's voiced grew in volume, his eyebrows scrunched together in puzzlement and anger. "What about that shady fellow Raskalin? He was flirting with you from the start!"
"Oi!" Hans interrupted with a quite bellow, "we shouldn't be speculating about one another! We should be high-tailing it out'ta here b'fore we go to jail!"
"Hans is most certainly right," Pilineth said nodding her head, then looked at both Tsel and Sondossa with disapproving glares.
Sondossa paused, letting her suspicion get the best of her. "Fine," she finally said, "but if we are led to believe something that's not true, even my goddess Rao will not stand for peace between us."
"So mote it be," Tsel said with a forced smile.
The party followed Tsel, first at a jog, then at a run when they began to hear the clamouring of warning handbells from the Nightwatchmen nearby. Tsel took so many twists and turns through out the alleys of Greyhawk City that most of the party didn't know where they were.
The goblin Ember was carrying on her shoulder soon woke up from the jostling and began to squirm. Embers grip on the goblin was strong, and all the weak wizard could do was kick and pound on Ember. With the gag in his mouth and his hands tied, he couldn't cast spells anyhow.
Tsel spun down the corner of an empty alleyway and stopped. "Here," he said, "there's an empty cellar entrance somewhere around here."
"You sure you ain't working for the other side hmmm?" Fawks joked, failing to lighten up the tension between the group.
Tsel ignored it. "Oh, here, its under this grate." Tsel moved to the bottom of a wall of a building in shambles. "No one's lived here in ages, not since I was a boy."
"Welp, lets hope no one lives 'ere now," Hans said ominously, eyeing the buildings outside structure.
Tsel lifted the heavy cast-iron grate and set it as gently and quietly as possible up against the wall to the left side of the opening. He climbed in feet first, his hands clumsily slipping off the street for the last few feet to the cellar's ground. He landed with an audible thud as he rolled on his back in his fall, and a whispered curse. The party outside heard the scrambling on feet and hands trying to stand, and soon found themselves smiling a little with the thought of what just happened.
Tsel soon after came to the opening a little ruffed up and indicated that he'd help people on their way down.
By this time the goblin had come to terms with the fate that awaited him, or what he thought awaited him, and soon became tired and settled down on Ember's soulder.
After everyone but Ember had gone through the opening to the abandoned cellar, she handed down the now limp and not struggling body of the goblin wizard to Hans and Tsel, making sure to give him a few knocks on the head and ribs on the way down. Ember fell through the opening, landing on her feet before taking back the goblin to set down in a corner of the cellar. Tsel, with the help of Pilineth, dragged the grill of the cellar wall back into place. Ember untied the rope gag around the goblin's head and the wizard spat in her face as soon as it was off.
Ember paused a moment, put the rope back neatly in her pack, then turned and punched the goblin square in the face, causing his head to ricochet off the cobblestone walls, elliciting a subdued yelp.
"Who sent you?" Ember growled.
The goblin stays silent, a defiant light in his marble-like eyes. "I said, who sent you?" Ember demands, raising her voice. She pulls her fist back, threatening to punch him again, and the goblin flinches, and a quiet, almost inaudible wimper escapes the wizard despite himself.
"I- I- was ssent by a m-man with a d-d-dark cloack and... and he had uh, uh, oh, umm a little broach on his cl-cloack," the goblin managed to stutter out. "I-it looked like a, uh, a ram with a horn br-broken."
"That's the Braesier family's crest," Sondossa added helpfully.
The goblin looked over the cleric thoroughly before saying, "you must be the one th-that the man s-s-said to look out f-for. You're a fr-friend of the K-K-Kotun family, ya?"
"That is of no importance to you or anyone here goblin," Sondossa replied curtly.
"Aye, we're the ones askin' tha questions 'ere goblin," Hans added, pulling his sword from its scabbard, toying with it.
"My name is not g-g-goblin. I-it's Vlgur Iaya i-in your language," the goblin rebutted.
"Who cares!," eclaimed Tsel.
"Why did they, the Braesiers, send you to kill us?" Ember asked, trying to keep the party on track.
"Th-they? Only one p-person sent me an-and fellow goblins. No they. He p-payed us," Vlgur replied innocently.
"Argh," Hans growled in exasperation. "We're gettin' nowhere wit' dis. Lets jus' kill 'em an' see if he's got some loot on 'im."
"NO! No! P-p-p-please d-d-don't kill me! I'll t-t-tell you e-e-everything," the goblin begged, scrambling farther into the cellar corner.
Ember leaned in close to the ugly goblin's face and said threatingly, "start talkin'."
The goblin wizard Vlgur Iaya explained to the party that he'd never seen the man's face who paid them, or claimed to have not seen the man's face. No amount of threatening or punching and kicking would make him say otherwise. He also went on to stutteringly explain that he and his friends were assigned to follow a letter with the lizard stamp that would appear eventually within the next few days.
They got a tip from someone that the letter would appear in the Foreign District, so they set up the quickest routes to travel between most of the popular Inns and taverns in the Foreign District. They got a second tip off from an ononymous person that night who was bathed in shadow, almost invisible to those who wouldn't be looking for him. The tip was to check the Blue Dragon Inn, so the goblins arrived clocked, and almost right after they had arrived, a cloacked man gave the letter to the group of people on the other side of tavern.
The instructions given to the goblins were to kill those who carried the letter, then burn the letter. No one would be the wizer that these people whould have died for nothing but a letter.
"H-however," Vlgur said ominously, "there is something the m-man who hired us w-wants you to have. Here," he hands over a piece of folded parchment to Ember.
Dear you lucky bastards,
If you're reading this note, you've probably
killed all the goblins I sent you. Oh well, I
can always get new ones. I cannot,
however, get another one of the priceless
gems I've stolen. I assume that stupid,
arrogant wench Selia hired you to pursue
me. Feel free, but I get to watch...
Your's truly,
L.B.
"Lanil Braesier, one of the younger sons of Lanich Braesiar," Sondossa clarified after reading the note herself.
"Well," Ember began to inquire, "shall we kill the goblin or gag him again?"
"Just kill him. We don't need him anymore," Fawks said suddenly, who had been quiet for most of the conversation.
"No!" was what the goblin was about to say before Hans' blade stuck through to the other side of Vlgur. He twisted and pulled the blade out with a squelching noise.
"Now, can you tell me what your involvement with the Kotun family is Sondossa?" Tsel asked, glaring at Sondossa's hypocricy.
Sondossa put both hands up, palms out, in a defensive position. "Look, I am a friend of Selia Kotun," the last name rolled a little awkwardly off her tongue, "and it's important that friends have each other's backs, yes?"
"Yes," Pilineth agreed, "but not when survival and life and death are on the line!"
"Fine," Sondossa said reluctantly, "I'll tell you my relationship with Selia."
Sorry for the huge delay! I tried making donuts over the weekend and forgot about this, then I fell asleep yesterday with the labtop on my lap. fail right?
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Next one will be up on Saturday/Sunday!