"They were talking about stuff considered clever when Adventurers do it, and terrible when anyone else does it." There, nice and vague enough to still leave the actual answer up to Tim's fellow kitty cats.

Mits raises her eyebrows in some surprise at the lack of excuses or shifty eyes when the goblin claims to not have killed.  But it's consistent.  Lucky is relieved the goblins didn't overhear.  Mits shifty-eyes and answers Timothius, "Nothing's wrong!  Nothing at all!"

Lucky looks annoyed with Mits and answers Timothius, "I'll tell you later..."

Later, after Joe answers the question out of earshot of the goblins, Lucky clarifies, "Mittens was wondering aloud if I had poisoned the food."

Mittens prestidigitates a halo over her head and interjects, "I never indicated that I approved of such an approach.  True heroes do not poison cooperative bandits who've agreed to change their ways."

Lucky looks skeptical.  "Then what did I do to make you think that I would?"

"Mmm...  Not you.  It's what others have done that has me on guard."

Lucky mews sadly.

Timothius looks at the group and says, "I would like to ask that we refrain from killing as far as is possible. Only if it is kill or die."

  "I'm not exactly the sort of person to light people on fire after they are taken prisoner, so I might be mostly successful with your request."  Way to commit, Joe.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:57, Sun 18 Oct 2015.

Lucky smiles and nods enthusiasticly to Timothius' request.

"I couldn't bring myself to kill anyone anyway, so you've got nothing to worry about from me."

He offers the kitty angel a friendly shoulder-pat.

Mits shrugs.  "'Dead men tell no tales,' as the saying goes.  Which means that if you're in a group with a hungry shape-shifting druid, you may find yourself fighting his 'totally not evil' bear form to keep it from eating the sole surviving cultist who knows where the lair of the demon is.

"Lighting a prisoner on fire, on the other hand, assuming it is non-lethal fire, is sometimes the only way to get the villain to reveal where he hid the children he kidnapped.  (Come to think of it, if I were to have lit the druid-bear's 'meal' on fire, I may have avoided both the death of the prisoner and exploding my ally.)

"So yea!  I was not in the habit of killing before I ever met you, so I'm not expecting any problems."

Lucky just stares and blinks.  "Maybe adventuring isn't for me after all..."

When the group makes it to town, he goes to the mayor to begin negotiating the food offering and possible trade.

The Mayor does not budge. "I will not reward bandits with food or trade. If I do, I will be sending a message to everyone else that beating up the people of this town gets you fed for free. No. Either kill the bandits or arrest them. If you do not, I will find someone else to do the job."

Seems Timothius's immense diplomacy modifier is not sufficient to dissuade this mayor.

  "Yeah, can't really blame that reaction." Hey sorry for stealing all your stuff, can I buy something now?

"Mittens thought for sure that convincing a criminal to surrender still counted as an arrest...

"Paying adventurers to drive off bandits has also ironically encouraged banditry - when unscrupulous adventurers dress up as bandits to harass a road's travelers then turn around to get hired to drive off the 'bandits.'

"What our brilliant healer has done is to negotiate the surrender of your real, desperate, but not yet murderous bandits.  You've been handed a win-win on a silver platter.  The goblins merely get to live and eat, the victims get their stuff back, and you get free labor or gold depending on whether you fine them or sentence them to community service.

"By the way, those places that execute common thieves wind up with victory-or-death style enemies who rush the city with flammables to burn it down around them because they figure 'gunna get executed anyway for sneezing, so may as well go out with a bang just to spite the authorities.'

"So does my healer have your assurances that when he persuades the goblins to surrender to your mercy that they will receive a lenient sentence?"

Lucky is quiet but looks hopeful.

The mayor looks annoyed and says, "If you want to condone banditry, then it sounds like I do need to hire someone else. What you first described is a very far stretch for one. For another, it wouldn't last long since, if you are in league with the goblins, you won't be for long. You would have to turn them in to get paid and we would not release them to you for continued banditry. As for the second thing, banditry oft winds up in death. The fact nobody has died yet is both extremely fortunate and rare. If people want to interpret attempted murder as sneezing, then they deserve the full penalty of the law anyway. Ma'am, have you any experience with running a town? Or for that matter, any experience with watching the scenarios you described happening? If you do have experience watching those things happening, like a certain friend of mine, then you know that those extremes happen more when you continually execute citizens. Not when you execute outsider, monster-race, nobody-cares-about-them bandits."

Timothius says, "What if we pay for the food ourselves and bring them in?"

The mayor says, "How you bring them in doesn't matter. As long as they are arrested and brought here to our jails to be executed."

  He looks over to Timothius, "Well, you heard the guy Timothius.  I get the feeling you're not wanting to pursue the job further."  You know, considering the guy wanted to pay money for the bandits, instead of getting paid for dealing with them.

  The goblins would probably use this as a sign of the trade thing never working ever and go all in bandits, instead of running as far as their short legs could carry them somewhere more open to the idea.

Mits stares blankly at the mayor guy, looks at her allies, then looks back at the mayor.  She grabs her tail and wags it at him then tugs on her ear.

"Hello?  'Monster race.'  Right here.  Meow."

Lucky sweatdrops.  "Dunno what kinda candy land you come from, Mittens, but in my travels a shifter is lucky to be allowed into an inn, much less a mayor's office.  He's just being candid with you."

Mits headshakes.  "Just pointing out that race does not a villain make.  And while I may have a talent for being misunderstood, being falsely accused of condoning banditry for example, I can appreciate honest answers.

"Mittens has quite a bit of experience with rescuing folks from evil bandits who are so bloodthirsty that they would rather be exploded than flee because that would mean they'd be giving up a chance to do me a little harm.  So pardon me if I'm struck by the novelty of the situation."

"Not so novel for me," Lucky says with a little sadness in his voice, "I'm not going to take this job.  Killing for money is one thing, but even an assassin such as myself has to draw the line at murdering desperate starving people who's only crime was to steal for survival."

Timothius glances to Lucky. "Let's not forget assault... but yeah. I'm not going to get payed today, it seems."

He then looks at Mittens. "Thanks for standing up for me, though." and heads out with the others. "Those goblins can not keep hurting people. I'm going to let them know that today, they got nice guys. Tomorrow will bring people willing to lop their heads off for money. They need to find a better way to eat. Question is; what?"

  And if Joe takes that job later, he promises to totally try and shoot them as painlessly as possible... Oh who are we kidding, his darker tendencies usually require his targets to be an active problem.

  "I'd suggest hunting but knowing our collective luck they would just piss off the closest druid for eating the wrong squirrel."

"You're welcome!" Mits answers Timothius with a cheerful smile, "At least that went much better than I was expecting considering what Lucky said about candidness."

She conjures a muppet with a sleazy grin, "'Oh sure!  No hard feelings!  We'll be happy to help the starving goblins!  Just bring them in!'  Later, when the naive heroes bring in the unsuspecting goblins: 'Good work!...  Fools!  Guards!  Kill them all!  Mwahahahahaha!'"

Lucky sweatdrops.  "You're possibly the strangest mix of cheerful cynicism I've ever seen."

To Timo and Joe he shrugs.  "While that may be true, I'd bet that no matter what we decide on, there'll be some risk involved.  My only other thought would be to recruit them as backup archers for our further quests.  Which has its own risks."

Mits shrugs.  "So we have them decide on what option to take."

To Mittens, Timothius comments, "In a small town like this? I'd like to think people care more about their reputation among the population than they do about wanton destruction. Word got out that they kill the people who they hire, then they won't have any luck hiring anyone anymore. And believe me... words spreads fast in a small community like this one. Money only gets you so far if people believe the person paying them won't let them live to see the money."

Timothius then says, "Well... let's see if we can help them brainstorm a better solution. They have to know some day they will beat up one too many people and wind up overwhelmed by people who want them dead."

He begins heading out of town. "If you three have any ideas, I'm all ears."
This message was last updated by the player at 03:35, Tue 24 Nov 2015.

  "Mostly I'd suggest they flee for their lives at this point.  We're hardly in a position to pity hire a bunch of goblins for long anyways, and I doubt you are either.  Not like this won't happen again wherever they go, if they don't luck into people willing to hire goblins where they end up."  Or just going full bandit and the Tim will have to kill/capture them for execution and be a sad kitty.

Mits ponders Timothius' point and nods with an impressed frown.  "While small towns are more likely to be completely overrun by madness cults than cities in my experience, you argument carries more weight than mine becfaus what you described is far more likely than my hypothetical...  aaand that sounded way too nerdy.  Explosions!  Rawr!

"As for what to do with the goblins, I was thinking of maybe putting their violence to more constructive use and recruit them as cannon fo-aah  Backup!  Recruit them as backup archers!"

Judging from Lucky's eyeroll, he's getting used to Mittens' weirdness.  "Options all really depend on the goblins.  Suppose they were kicked out of their tribe because they're terrible hunters.  Or they took a vow to never kill.  Or maybe they're plenty murderous and the only reason none of their victims died is because they're just that pathetically weak in combat.  Whatever we offer, I agree that recruiting them is probably not a good idea.  Even if they're somehow perfectly nice people, hiring them makes us responsible for whatever bad thing they do - even if accidental."

When the group makes it back to the goblins, Timothius explains the situation. It looks like the goblins are stretching the limits of their intellect to be able to understand what is going on.

Timothius warns that people will want to kill the goblins if they don't leave.

Goblins think Timothius is threatening them directly.

Once that gets cleared up, Timothius explains that the town doesn't want any deals and only wants the goblins gone.

Goblins rage and go on about killing every villager.

Timothius closes his eyes, sighing (not snorting).

  "Killing everyone in the town would be terrible" Good morals Joe- "We'd have to stop you for free then, and the best we'd get out of them is an I told you so."

  Joe, we think you are doing this on purpose just for contrast at this point.

Mits shrugs.  "If it helps, I'll say, 'I told you so,' right back at 'em!"

"How would that help?" Lucky asks.

Mits shrugs again. "Ehuheh.  But it'd be gratifying."

Lucky sighs then says to the goblins, "Why did you become bandits?"

The goblins answer "Because we're hungry."

Timothius takes Joe's comment in stride. The idea that his new ally would have that much disregard for life is so far gone, he figures Joe is merely speaking in terms the goblins understand: money. "Ever consider the idea of hunting?"

The goblins answer, "Yeah... it's harder. Like get weak from hunger for how little reward you get harder."

  "Wildlife is not often known to carry coppers, it is true" At least, not in this system.

  "But less people complain and hire people to kill you if you hunt a deer, eat it, and then sell it's skin for money to buy ale with." less is an important keyword.

"Yay accurate pessimism," Mits says, looking disappointed, "Starting to look like a choice between having these guys on our conscious or whatever people they inevitably wind up banditing to death."

"Why are you not part of a goblin village?" Lucky asks.

"Sell the skin? We.. did not think of that." the one answers Joe.

Another goblin looks at Lucky and says, "Goblin village destroyed. We are all who survived."

Timothius says, "How about it? Should we teach these guys to hunt and fish and skin an animal for trading? Sounds like they just lack a few skills that would equip them to survive better."

  "Well to be fair, people want the skin in good condition.  So even when you kill it cleanly, removing it properly is a whole other matter.  Still, always put not getting murdered by animals above profit margins."

  He sighs,  "Well, Timothius.  As much as I'd love to find better things to do, I'd feel bad just leaving you to your own devices."  Having a conscience can be such a hassle some days.  But this is part of why you are Unaligned instead of Evil.