Cato looked over as Liseth was sick in the corner.  He waited for her to return to the group, remembering with suddenly clarity the first time he had vomited after the sights...and especially the smells...of a large battle with the Hellknights.

He tried to comfort the cleric.  "Nothing to be ashamed of, Liseth.  I think it says admirable things for you that this makes you feel this way."  He motioned around the room.  "What the goblins have done here is monstrous, and it makes me glad I happened to go to the Barett house when I did."

Cato sighed.  "Honestly, I'm a little sad that this room doesn't make me feel sick."  He leaned on his quarterstaff, feeling suddenly weary.  "I wish I hadn't seen things that have prepared me for this."

Cato took a few steps towards Lonjiku's grisly corpse.  "I'm thinking this probably wasn't done by goblins, though.  Or at least not solely by goblins."  He motioned to the partially-dismembered corpses around the room.  "I think this was Tsuto's revenge.  The fact that Ameiko isn't here as well might be good.  Maybe Tsuto's trying to convince her to do whatever he's trying to do."

Cato sighed again.  "I fear that we're all somewhat spent by this encounter, but I'm also quite certain that Ameiko might need our help sooner rather than later.  Hopefully, we can handle that much."

"Bostisch!"  The gnome spoke the word again, and, as before, wove a short length of copper wire between the fingers of one hand.  This time, instead of Cato and Liseth, she chose Kellan and Liseth, pointing a finger down the long room filled with its goblin mischief at the two humans at the other end.

After these curious, but otherwise, ostensibly meaningless acts, Pisca peered back into the room.  She scratched her head in apparent puzzlement, and then turned as if to wander away.  Once out of the line of sight, however, the gnome crept back and approached the door from the side, inching up to it with her back to the wall.

"Stomper.  Lysa, I think I saw something in the other room," said Pisca into her Whisper Magic.  "It was just a flash, but it might not have been a flash.  It might have been something that was, you know, not just a flash.  Hurry.  There are a couple of open doors here and what looks to be a trapdoor into something underground.  The flash might be getting away even as we speak."

The gnome peered with as much stealth as she could muster around the doorjamb and into the room once again.

"That is, of course," she said after pulling back, "unless it wasn't really anything except a flash."

---

Cast Message again.  This time on Kellan and Liseth.

Bluff check (to appear to be leaving).  Stealth check.  And Perception check again, please.

Active Effects:  Message on Kellan and Liseth.  Duration 20m

HP 14/18
Archaeologist's Luck 3/7

"Coming!" Kellan assured the gnome, still dealing with his prisoner. He seemed reluctant to simply slobber the goblin again and instead looked around for some other solution. He seemed to find it in the wheelbarrow, picking up the goblin and dumping him in while looking for a sack to throw over it's head to keep it from biting, or looking too closely.

"Go on ahead, I'll catch up." Between his heavy armor and the burdensome prisoner the guardsman was bringing up the rear, but at least he was still moving.

"Hmmm.  Don't see anything now," Pisca said through her Whisper Magic.  With her back to the wall beside the door, the gnome puzzled over what she had seen through the door.  "There are four doors out of the room in there.  Four and what looks like a trapdoor.  Looks like a storeroom.  One on door on the right is open and a door on the opposite, the left side of the room is also open."

But ... why would there be two doors on the right side of the room?  Two different spaces.  And the one nearest to her was the one open.  Pisca pictured the long glasswork room in her mind, setting it within the long building she'd seen from outside.  They'd entered at the south end of the building and then entered the glasswork room at its far south end as well.  But ... wasn't there also a corridor that seemed very much as though it was traveling around the outside of the glasswork room?  And, if it did do that, wouldn't it very possibly end up here?  In the north?  At a door very much like the one standing open to her right?

And, if that one goblin who had escaped out the door through which they had entered the Glasswork room, wanted to leave by the same exit that its fellows had, wouldn't it run through just such a corridor that wrapped around the Glasswork room and came out at a door just like this one on the right before passing through this room to the door across the room on the left through which its fellows had already escaped?

Pisca nodded to herself.  "I think I've figured it out," she said, relaying the fact of her conclusion to the others, if not the actual conclusion itself.  "That's what the flash was," she added, without realizing that, lacking her chain of reasoning, there was little chance that either Kellan or Liseth would know what she was talking about.  Then, "I'm going in," Pisca said.  She drew her rapier, feeling the steel leave its sheathe as much as she heard it over the roaring of the furnace.  Quietly, the gnome crept up to the first open door on her right.  With one eye on all three, the door on the left, the trapdoor, and the apparently jostled wheelbarrow, Pisca took a quick look into the open door on the right, hoping to confirm her very cleverly arrived at conclusions.

---

Perception Check again, please.

Active Effects:  Message on Kellan and Liseth.  Duration 20m

HP 14/18
Archaeologist's Luck 3/7

"Thank you Cato."  Liseth sounded weary and spent, and was still sick-looking.  "No one should ever have to see something like this."  She followed the wizard closer to the glass-covered body of Lonjiku Kaijitsu, "That's Lord Kaijitsu..."  The young acolyte frowned and turned away, closing her eyes.

"Tsuto hated his father this much."  Her hands clasped at her chest, "I hope that Ms Kaijitsu is safe.  If he could help goblins attack Sandpoint, and do that his own father...Tsuto might do anything."

Liseth's head cocked slightly when Pisca's words came to her through the whisper magic again.  She assumed that Cato could not hear them since Pisca didn't mention his name, "Pisca says that she saw something in the next room, and wants us to hurry."  That sounded fine to her, Liseth would be only too happy to leave this particular chamber.

Watching Kellan handle their goblin prisoner, Liseth nodded when he said for them to go on ahead.  She started out of the room when Pisca spoke again through the whisper magic, "She's going in...wait for us Pisca, it might be dangerous!"  Liseth wasn't exactly sure how to speak back to Pisca but decided that it would have something to do with whispering herself.

With that she galumphed quickly across the furnace room, carefully avoiding the mutilated bodies of the glass workers and the dead goblins.  She had to catch up with Pisca before the gnome stumbled into more goblins waiting in ambush.

---

---

As the rest of the party trundled across the Glassworking Room to join her, Pisca crept forward silently through the tomblike loading area towards the open door to her right.  The roar of the furnace continued unabated, but nothing stirred except for a very, very slight breeze that seemed to flow between the two open doors.  Keeping a wary eye on the other entrances to the room as well as the overturned wheelbarrow, the gnomish explorer quickly glanced through the open portal and into the space beyond.

In doing so, she saw a narrow, five-foot-wide corridor that went on for about ten feet before widening out into a larger area to the left, and about 15 feet before it expanded to the right.  The opening to the left continued for 10 feet before another wall began.  From her vantage point she could see only one door, located on the left wall of the corridor about 25 feet away.  A wall about 30 feet away ran directly perpendicular to that door and off out of sight to the right.  Pisca could see that the wall was decorated by a slender, golden tapestry running down from the ceiling; it displayed the black shadow of some sort of elongated, birdlike creature flying up towards what looked like a representation of the sun at the artwork's apex.

The stonework in this area was just as finely-crafted and well-hewn as it had been in the other areas of the Glassworks.  The area was notably clean and well-maintained.  The gnome saw nothing moving in this area; it seemed just as deserted as the loading room in which she stood.

---

---

At Pisca's repeated urging Kellan gave the goblin another blow to the side of the head with the butt of his pole axe, shackling the creatures ankles with his manacles and taking the creature with as he made his way down after the gnome. It was an awkward proposition as the dead weight took up most if his efforts, but he seemed determine not to let the prisoner out of his sight.

As he navigated the hallway he finally tried out this magic business, his voice coming across as unsure "Hows it going down there Pisca?"

Wall.  30 feet away.  Running out of sight to the right.

Sounds about like it.  Of course, she hadn't been expecting the left-ish bits.  But, then again, didn't things always seem to turn out to be more complicated than one expected them to be?  Even if one expects them to be complicated to begin with.  'Pisca's Law of Unexpected Complications'.  That name had a nice ring to it.  As well as having the additional benefit of describing the problem with a fair enough degree of accuracy.

The gnome turned away from the right door with a reasonable certainty that her view of things was good enough to base any future plans and actions on.  It was really the trapdoor that bothered her.  And the barrow.  One never knew when a barrow might turn around on you and present you with something that you couldn't even anticipate with a Law of Unexpected Complications.

From the voices of Stomper and Lysa that came over the Whisper Magic, it sounded as though they were on their way.  Best prepare things for them.  And, in this case, that meant ... minimizing the number of things that might be expected to happen.  Yes.  That certainly did seem to mean just that.

Pisca turned back to the open door next to her and eased it quietly shut.  Then, after a quick look at things, the gnome contrived to jam the door shut.

"I think I've figured out which direction the goblins have run off to," she reported through her whisper magic.  "But there's a trapdoor in here and a wheel barrow," added the gnome.  "And I'm not sure that I like the way that they're looking at me."

---

Disable Device to jam the Right-hand Door.  With Clever Explorer time for this is reduced to a Standard Action.

Active Effects:  Message on Kellan and Liseth.  Duration 20m

HP 14/18
Archaeologist's Luck 3/7

While she was disconcerted by Kellan carrying the goblin prisoner along with them, Liseth did understand that it might be best to keep him where they could see him.  In case he managed to get out of his bindings, or another of the goblins came back and freed him.  The girl still did her best to maintain distance between herself and the little savage; even after Kellan performed his own version of sleep magic on him.

"What did you find out Pisca?"  Upon entering the room that Pisca had preceded them into, Liseth went straight towards the gnome.  That had to be the safest place.  She cast a wary eye on the open trapdoor and was certain to place her back to the wall.  Goblins were supposed to like ambushes; and Pisca did say that they were after Liseth specifically...

"Did they go down there?"  She pointed at the trapdoor.

"No.  I think they went that way."  The gnome turned from the work on Her Door to point at The Other Open Door which stood across the room on the last five feet of the left hand wall that ran for 10 feet, then jutted in for five feet, then continued in its original direction, creating the final section of wall on which the door gaped, pregnant with its implications.

"I saw a flash when I was coming up on the door, and I think it was that gobbie that got away from us at the very end there."  Pisca turned back to her work, speaking in a quick, steady stream as she put the final touches to jamming the door shut.  "The one who ran out through the door that we came in through.  I think he ran all the way around the outside of the glassworks room using a theoretical corridor that ends at this door here.  He came through this door, crossed the room and went out the other door, which was probably already open.  That was the flash I saw.  It was the goblin crossing the room"

"I don't know anything about the trapdoor, though.  Or the barrow, Lysa.  I would consider their loyalty to be in question until we know otherwise.  Though, why they would side with the goblins over us is something I don't think I'll ever understand."

---

Disable Device to jam the Right-hand Door.  With Clever Explorer time for this is reduced to a Standard Action.

Active Effects:  Message on Kellan and Liseth.  Duration 20m

HP 14/18
Archaeologist's Luck 3/7

Kellan looked towards the door, the goblin limp in his off hand although the weight was clearly no small burden. He seemed to be catching his breath although one again he was covered in blood and drying sweat. He was still struggling with the magical communication but it came across clearly enough

"So what's the plan? Would you prefer to scout things out again or would it be better if I just wade in there and hope for the best?"

"I think we wade," replied the gnome.  "With Ameiko at risk, I don't think we have the time to take things slowly.  And with the way the goblins were running from us, I don't think they'll be much problem."

"Unless Tsuto's here," Pisca then added.

"And he turns them around," she added some more.

"How about wade.  But with eyes and ears open?"

---

Disable Device to jam the Right-hand Door.  With Clever Explorer time for this is reduced to a Standard Action.

Active Effects:  Message on Kellan and Liseth.  Duration 20m

HP 14/18
Archaeologist's Luck 3/7

Cato followed Liseth, Kellan, and his goblin cargo in search of the scouting gnome.  He mentally reviewed his remaining spells and hoped the remaining goblins were in no state to put up serious resistance.  Still, if Tsuto was around to rally the goblins, things could get ugly, fast.

Cato approached Liseth and quietly whispered to her, to avoid breaking the silence.  "What's Pisca found ahead?"

Of course they weren't done fighting yet.  Liseth realized just how silly that thought was; it isn't as though they could just leave those goblins in the Glassworks building.  But she was almost exhausted on her divine resources; the acolyte didn't know how much she would be able to help if things went poorly again.

"Pisca thinks that she saw one of the goblins run through that door there."  Liseth indicated Pisca's suspect door while whispering back to Cato.  "I think we're going to have to fight again..."  She finished with a frown.

"Gods keep us safe..." the acolyte whispered a short prayer before once again invoking a small upspring of life energy.  Everyone wants to hurry and she agrees with them; Ms Kaijitsu needed to be rescued.  But before allowing the others to push through the door after the goblins, Liseth touched each of them in turn.  Granting them a small amount of increased vigor.

OOC: I'm casting Virtue first on Kellan, then Pisca, then Cato, then myself.  Unless I get interrupted again.  They don't have to wait for me to finish with everyone before pushing ahead though.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:36, Mon 23 Dec 2013.

It was amazing how such a small gesture from the little Acolyte could make such a difference. Bolstered by Liseth's faith and with his friends at his back. Kellan dropped the goblin near the I jammed door and gave a quick peek, seeming to expect an arrow to the face any moment.

He had reloaded his crossbow and had his pole axe in hand, still glistening with the coagulating blood of the Thistletop tribe.

With the only other obvious exit now blocked, and with the three humans now here to bolster her courage, Pisca turned her attention to the two inimical objects in the room.  Or, at least one of them.  Drawing her rapier, the gnome approached the trapdoor.  Or, what she had assumed was a trap door.  Unless it was a goblin who'd been able to make himself exceptionally flat.  And square.  And set in the floor much like a trapdoor.  And even partially ajar.  That was a good disguise.  Diabolical, but highly impressive.

With blade in hand, Pisca hauled open the *ostensible* trapdoor.

---

Active Effects:  Message on Kellan and Liseth.  Duration 20m

HP 14/18
Archaeologist's Luck 3/7

---

---

The three humans entered the room just as Pisca completed her jamming efforts on the previously-open door.  As they took in the reagents, wheelbarrow, and doors in the loading area, and Kellan casually tossed the unconscious Thok on the floor, Pisca drew her rapier, strode toward the "trapdoor," and heaved it all the way open.  The door opened on some sort of hinge and was much lighter than Pisca had expected.

The door into the floor was cunningly made; everyone in the room could tell that just by looking at it.  If the door had not already been opened it would have been very difficult, if not impossible, to tell that there was any sort of portal in the floor at all.  The stone lining the top of the door was indistinguishable from that of the floor, and a closer inspection showed that small flaws and imperfections in the stone carried over from the stone of the floor to the stone of the door.  Like everything else in the Glassworks, its craftsmanship was superb.

When Pisca cautiously peered into the space revealed by the door, she found that it did not lead to any sort of passageway at all.  Instead, she found a small space, maybe four feet wide by four feet long and three feet deep.  The compact compartment was actually exquisite; it was lined by fine, carved mahogany from which wafted a rich, woodish smell.  The space was clearly not large enough for any but the smallest creatures to use as a hiding place, and a couple of scraps of paper on the bottom of the space indicated that it had probably been used for some sort of storage.

Exactly what had been stored in the space, however, was a mystery.  The compartment was almost entirely empty.  Whatever had been hidden here, if anything, was no longer present.

---

---

Kellan reared up with his pole arm, ready to stab downward into...nothing. Just the empty storage compartment. He looked a little puzzled, snatching his prisoner up off the ground once more and giving off a kind of disappointed sound.

"What do you suppose they kept here?" He asked his friends, using the end of his pole axe to ruffle the papers at the bottom of the compartment. "And where do you suppose those Thistletops ran off to?"

"I know *exactly* what they kept here, Stomper," replied the gnome.  With the trapdoor now proven to be nowhere near the threat it had implied that it had been, Pisca's attention turned, with the focus of a magic beam of light, to the door through which she was convinced the goblins had fled.  The trapdoor was now in the past, as was the barrow - a sad and needy confederate of the trapdoor's, both clearly dysfunctional in their desire for attention.  "They kept something valuable in there," she added, and, as was now quite plainly characteristic of her, she failed to elaborate on how she'd come to that conclusion, leaving it to others to Read the Mind of Pisca.

"And those gobbies ... "  The gnome lead the way, exiting the storeroom through the open door.  The urgency was now even greater.  They'd spent precious seconds on the stupid trapdoor and the stupid barrow, and Ameiko's life might now be forfeit because of it.  Gone was the luxury of stealth.  All she could count on was a prior warning of danger bought with the currency of her senses.  "The gobbies, they went this way," she said, and followed in pursuit.

---

Perception Check, please.

Active Effects:  Message on Kellan and Liseth.  Duration 20m, Virtue? Duration 1m

HP 14/18
Archaeologist's Luck 3/7
This message was last edited by the player at 16:21, Tue 24 Dec 2013.

Cato was intrigued by the empty secret compartment.  What had been kept in this compartment?  Was it a safe?  It seemed rather odd, but it might be very secure.  You could keep a fair amount in a compartment that size.

Cato walked over to the edge, and lowered himself into the compartment, bending over to examine the scraps of paper, hopeful for some sort of clue as to the intended purpose.  Curiosity gnawed at him, and thoughts of rampaging goblins and treacherous Tsutos momentarily fled his mind while he pondered the small mystery before him.

Trying to keep a safe distance from so many things at once required some effort, so Liseth was happy when it was revealed that the trapdoor didn't harbor any goblins.  She didn't put much thought beyond that into its presence, even while watching the others poke and prod inside of it for a moment.

Pisca had the right idea though.  They couldn't spend any time investigating things just yet; not when they haven't found Ms Kaijitsu yet.  When the gnome went for the door that she was certain the goblins escaped through, Liseth moved towards Kellan and Cato.  Giving the unconscious goblin a lot of space while she did so.

"We have to hurry," she urged them to follow Pisca.  "We need to find Ms Kaijitsu!"

---

---

As Cato explored the hidden compartment and its contents more closely, Pisca, Kellan, and Liseth moved towards the room's final open door.  When they looked through it, they saw it led to a dark 10-foot-long and five-foot-wide stone corridor.  The passageway took a sharp turn to the left and continued on out of sight.  The only light in the passageway came from the loading area in which the three observers stood.  The air coming from the corridor was slightly cooler and mustier than the air in the loading area, which caused an ever-so-slight breeze to flow between the two rooms.

There was a small drop of dark liquid on the floor about halfway down the passage.  Otherwise the corridor was as pristine and clean as the rest of the building.

Meanwhile, Cato hunched down and looked at the remnants of whatever had been kept in what seemed like a floor safe.  He couldn't make much out of the scraps of paper on the bottom of the compartment; most of them were written in Minkaian.  But he did discover one-half of what looked like a torn invoice, which read as follows.

su,

range request.

cially Goblins.

ivery as promised.

portant for storage.

eparation Room.

Podiker

OOC:  Even Liseth knows that Aliver Podiker is the town alchemist; the pockmarked and portly man runs a shop called "The Pillbug's Pantry."

---

---

"Blood!" the gnome whispered, pointing at the dark spot on the floor ahead.  "A drop of blood from a wounded goblin.  Or a dab of molasses from a fleeing gingerbread man."  Not the moment after the words came from her mouth, the gnome wondered where such an idea might have come from.  One of those many queer and curious things from out of the Fey Barrow, no doubt.  And with as little thought or concern than that, Pisca dismissed the odd and quirky image that had come unbidden from her mouth.

"Jibber."  The magic word and its accompanying gestures call up a glowing gnome-shaped figure that appeared at the bend in the corridor, lighting the way.

"Lets go," Pisca said, making her way to where the corner and peering around before sending her Dancing Lights spell on ahead.

---

Cast Dancing Lights.

Also, another Perception Check, please.

Active Effects:  Message on Kellan and Liseth.  Duration 20m, Virtue? Duration 1m, Dancing Lights Duration 1m

HP 14/18
Archaeologist's Luck 3/7

Quick to follow when Kellan did go after Pisca, Liseth stopped for a moment when she saw that Cato had found something interesting inside the floor vault.  At least, something interesting enough for him to pick it up and read it.  Her eyes returned to Pisca as the gnome whispered about goblin blood and gingerbread.

The thought of those two things together riled Liseth's already weakened stomach.

But Pisca was already moving on, summoning her floating lights before following them down the passage.  Knowing that Cato would be well able to catch up when he was finished with his examination, the acolyte stayed close to Kellan and Pisca.  As close as she could without bumping into them or getting in the way.

So that she could, ostensibly, help them in case something else went wrong.  But more likely because she felt so much safer with the bulk of the group.

The sound of Kellan's jingling chain mail and heavy boot fall resounded in the close underground space, the slight cool breeze rustling at his hair.  Even though the gnomes legs were shorter he had to focus to keep up. He threw a glance behind himself every few moments to make sure that Liseth was close at hand and safe.

The goblin was limp as a boned fish, it's toothy bulbous head wobbling as the guardsman shuffled along.