As if in slow motion, Mittens and Joe notice a goblin at the last second, mid-jump, about to gank Mittens with twin daggers!

Flert is 100% unaware and is yawning and stretching when this happens.

  Joe sighs as he draws his katana knocks the hurtling goblin out of the air with a well placed arrow, shoots the goblin while they are down, then sighs.

  "For your sake, you had better hope this is a violent misunderstanding instead of violent you are just an asshole."
This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 06:24, Tue 09 May 2017.

Flert squeaks at the sudden combat, and yells, "Taal o!" before firing a couple of strange sparks from her fingertips that cause thunder to rip through the camp sight! Both sparks fail to hit the offending goblin.

"Gah!"

Mits spun around and fired eyebeams at the enemy, but misses.  She then swaps with the totem pole that looks down at the goblin disapprovingly.

"Your sneak attack failed!  You should surrender if you want to live!"

The goblin says, "....oooooow.... that hurt."

He hops to his feet, hops over to Flert, puts her in a hold, and holds a dagger to her throat! "Stop or I kill her!"

  Oh no, Flert is an NPC so that's actually possible! (Well that and low level hitpoints).

  "Do you have any idea what you are doing, or do you just go through life wanting to stab the closest person." Okay Joe, you can hunt down and kill them later if they keep this up.  Because you are having another 'Unaligned is not Chaotic Neutral' moment by not responding by just shooting him some more.

Flert is kinda frozen and holds her breath.

The baddy responds, "You from Starfield. You look for goblins. No look for goblins anymore!"

Mits discontinues attacking, her anger showing.  The totem pole slowly begins circling around the goblin.

"Broken Common.  Great.  OK, you win.  We no look for goblins.  I was hungry for breakfast anyway."

The baddy says, "Me back away with girl. Then let go and run."

Which he attempts to do.

   "Well that depends, do you know who dug the tunnel into Starfield?  If you do, punch them in the face a dozen times and make them stop it.  Because if that keeps up, they'll just send someone not as nice as I was."

The goblin runs for it. Flert looks at the others, as if checking if letting the goblin go is really what they want.

It is not what they want.  Mittens at least.  She gives chase while the totem leans out a foot to trip up the fleeing goblin.  (Joe can make a range basic against him as a free action with CA.  In addition to his normal attacks, of course.)

  Not for the first time Joe is surprised at being less violent minded than his peers, but then he was also thinking in terms of hunting vs asking.

  Hmm... Arrow to the calf just doesn't have the same ring to it. THUNK.  "I am a huge jerk some days, but still less of a jerk than others.  That's the important bit."

Soon, the invading goblin simply collapses unconscious. Flert starts dragging him back to the camp. "I guess someone just volunteered to be your thief?"

Mits ties up the prisoner.

"Ah yes.  Defending your friends from a murderous villain.  So rude!

"Thanks for dragging him back."

The totem pole transforms into darkside Mittens.  "Ooh!  Ooh!  Can we interrogate him?!"

Adventure Mittens looks over to Flert.  "You recognize this guy?  Or there anything familiar about him?  Like signature blades or whatever?"

  "Please don't make their brains ooze out of their ears when interrogating them."  Wrong mittens, Joe.

  He also looks over to Flert.  "They may just be linked to the actual thief, given leaping stab attempts are hardly anywhere near as subtle. Even when trying to sneak up for them."

Tie up and interrogate is go! The goblin says his name is Dunlap. He attacked because he is a member of the small tribe of goblins. He claims they are starving and the only way to survive is to steal from Starfield because humans and elves will try to kill goblins on sight.

Mits' eyes glow for a sec.  "I think he's being honest."

She looks over at Flert.  "What are the chances of a peaceful solution?  I'm generally not one to wipe out a tribe for the crime of being hungry, but sometimes being hungry is enough to make people try and kill me."

"I'm hungry.  Kill the cat!" a troll puppet on Dark Mittens' hand says.

  "You're going to have to consider ways of seriously making up for what you've already taken, if you want the slightest chance of things working out in your favor.  Your best option if you don't want to try is starve or find some other way to feed yourselves, because if you keep it up you're only going to end up with everybody in that fort who can hold a sharp object coming for you."

Dunlap deadpans at Joe. "Better that than die slow of starvation. I can't wave magic wand, make food appear. Your offer stinks: "Find some way to feed yourselves". Duh. Like we didn't look for ways that are not stirring huge human tribe."

Flert says, "My tribe gets along fine. Why didn't you come to my tribe and ask?"

Dunlap says, "Leader of tribe forbids asking help from other tribe. But some of us about to defy his orders. Defying leader means death, but his leadership is killing us slowly."

Flert looks at the others.

"'Pride goeth before a fall,'" Mittens muses aloud.

"So... we just gank their leader.  Problem solved!" Dark Mittens concludes.

Mits looks to Flert again.  "Any chance of some cultural bit that could single out their leader?  Like, he couldn't possibly decline a one-on-one challenge?"

  "I meant more in the sense that if you kept up just trying to steal, you'd end up with a pitchfork mob stabbing the hell out of all of you even if Mittens and I left you alone.  Like you said, your actions killing you slowly."

  He looks over to Mittens.  "Doing Dunlap's job for him would be easier, without half the goblins trying to kill us while the other half just sit back and watch while complaining nobody wants to help them live. Yeah."

Flert says, "I'm considering the idea of going to my tribe and telling them our tribe needs to show up and force their tribe's leader to surrender. Their tribe is making Starfield want to attack MY tribe, after all. Buuuut... I would like if you could assure me that Starfield won't attack my tribe. So like... take Dunlap and I into Starfield, explain the situation, and see if Starfield is willing to work with us, or at the very least, not interfere."

Dunlap says, "Stupid Flert! Starfield kill you! Why you trust human and cat?"

Flert says, "They spent the night here at my camp and never once attacked me."

Dunlap says, "It's a trap."

"Sounds good to me."

Darkside Mits looks disappointed.  "Aw man.  And I didn't even get a chance to monologue about the futility of resisting."

"Just to be safe, maybe Joe should go in alone and double-check that they won't flip out about you entering or approaching the fort, Flert."

  "It's not a trap because traps are supposed to make things easier, not harder and needlessly complicated.  Though it you want to rely on Starfield hating goblins, just put an emphasis on the fact your plan involves goblins killing other goblins for them while they sit at home... Well, aside from us."

  He nods to Mittens,  "Yeah, it would be much safer for them to wait well away from the place first.  And if Dunlap tries to run off I can always follow the sound of him being a huge baby."