Local Heroes, Part 5 (Monday-Friday, Rova 24th-28th 4707 AR)

During this time the heroes visited the town's shops that are most likely to carry magic items. Other than Bottled Solutions, which they have visited before and which carries alchemical items and potions, they visited the Pillbug's Pantry and The Feathered Serpent.

The Pillbug's Pantry is nestled at the base of a cliff and tucked between several old tenements, with nothing but a painting of a pillbug perched on a mushroom indicating that this building is anything more than yet another home. The proprietor of this establishment is a short, rotund man named Aliver "Pillbug" Podiker, an accomplished herbalist and gardener. Aliver is of mixed Chelish and Varisian blood. His primary products are medicine and potions.

The Feathered Serpent is a cramped and cluttered shop which smells of a strange mixture of incense, spice, and dust. Its sole proprietor, Vorvashali Voon, an exotic-looking character with bright blue eyes, long red hair, and almost bronze-colored skin, is gregarious and excited about every customer. Not everything in his shop is for sale, rendering the shop's eclectic collection of strange relics, statues, and monument fragments part museum. Vorvashali's stock changes constantly, as his dozens of contacts from Magnimar come in weekly to buy and trade stock. Adventurers seeking magic items and other tools of the trade can find what they're looking for here more often than not.

The Shopkeep's Daughter

Tsela catches local women giggling or blushing as he walks by, and he also received a few anonymous love letters or other minor trinkets left as gifts at the Rusty Dragon. At some point before these idle fancies have a chance to develop into real relationships, one of Sandpoint's most brazen citizens made her move. Daughter of the owner of the Sandpoint General Store, Shayliss Vinder is certainly an attractive young woman, but it's her older sister who's been in the gossip lately. Rumor holds that Katrine Vinder's been "shacking up" with one of the workers at the lumber mill, and her overly protective father's been up in arms about it.

So when Shayliss bashfully approached Tsela, her claim that her father has been too distracted with her sister's private life to keep up with the store's pest problem seemed plausible. Shayliss explained that the store had rats. Why, just yesterday, she's sure she saw one the size of a goblin hiding behind a barrel at the far end of the basement. Her father doesn't believe her, but she knows he's just more distracted by what Katrine might or might not be up to at the lumber mill. And since there's this handy new hero in town, well, Shayliss just though maybe said hero could come back with her to kill a few rats in the store's basement. She stressed that there's not many rats, certainly not enough to warrant having more than one hero to take care of them. When the others insisted on coming along, she threw her hands up in the air in disgust and said, "Never mind, I'll take care of them some other way" and walked off in a huff. Shayliss is, if anything, even more of a trouble-seeker than her sister.

Tsela visited Shayliss at the General Store the next day anyway. Owned and operated by Ven Vinder and his family, Sandpoint's oldest and best-stocked general store has a little bit of everything - farm equipment, weapons, tack, tools, furniture, food, and even homemade pies baked by Ven's wife Solsta. Ven has two daughters, whom he dotes upon. Unfortunately, Ven is all but blind to the shameless actions of his daughter Shayliss, whose reputation is growing by the month. Shayliss told Tsela to come back when the shop closes after sundown, since Ven was present at the time and he would be upset with her for bringing up the pest issue again.

Trouble at the Rusty Dragon

At some point while the heroes were enjoying the boar that they and Foxglove caught at the Rusty Dragon, a surly visitor slammed the tavern's door open and bellowed out a sharp-tongued command in a strange language. This was local aristocrat Lonjiku Kaijitsu, an elderly Tian man and one of Sandpoint's most well-known nobles. The other patrons of the bar, recognizing him and knowing of his reputation for wrathful outbursts, grew very quiet and interested in their meals. Lonjiku stalked further into the tavern, his eyes scanning the room only to alight on Sandpoint's newest heroes.

Lonjiku is a middle-aged Tian man, although he looked much older than his age that night. Lonjiku had decided it's time to move back to Magnimar for a while, and he was planning on taking his daughter with him. Accordingly, he came to the Rusty Dragon to issue an ultimatum to Ameiko - come with him or be cut out of the will.

When he noticed the heroes, though, he got distracted. Lonjiku approached them and started accusing them of endangering the townsfolk with their ill-advised "antics" against the goblins, implying they should have left the defense of the town to the city guard and other "trained professionals". When Bruthien claimed they were just travelers trying to help, Lonjiku barked a derisive laugh, rolled his eyes, and said, "Just what we need - a filthy band of vagrants to attract even more trouble to town". Lonjiku is an arrogant, insulting old man, but just before he pushed the heroes too far, Ameiko rushed into the front room, a ladle dripping with soup in her hand, to find out what all the ruckus was about.

The two argued in the same strange language for a moment as Lonjiku issued his ultimatum and Ameiko told him to leave her inn (albeit with a string of creative and shocking profanity). Enraged, Lonjiku tried to grab her by the hair, but she dodged and brained him with her soupy ladle, spattering fish stock and potatoes all over his hair and outfit. After Lonjiku spattered for a moment, he found his voice and uttered a final phrase in their strange language, before leaving the tavern.

The heroes tried to intervene. When Urtrigor threatened him with a thrown dagger, it brought Lonjiku's cowardice to the fore, and he shrieked and fled the tavern. His last comment almost brought Ameiko to tears, yet as her father left, she bravely picked up her ladle, inspected it, pulled a hair out of the mess, and said, "I'll need a well-cleaned ladle now, since jackass stew's not on the menu". The resulting cheers and laughter from the tavern's patrons help her attitude immensely - since the heroes came to her aid, she thanked them, extended their free rooms another week, and told them their dinner was on the house. This is also the last night they get to see Aldern Foxglove before he gets back to Magnimar. He invited them to stop by his home in Magnimar the next time they're in town.

Monster in the Closet

Alergast and Amele Barett are a typical Sandpoint family, with two children (little Aeren and baby Verah) and a loyal family dog named Petal. They were present at the Swallotail Festival, where Aeren saw a goblin light a cat on fire and then caper around the burning remains - the poor boy really hasn't been the same since. Every night, his howls of terror sent Petal into a barking fit, and when his parents investigated, Aeren claimed a goblin came out of his closet. Alergast checked the closet dutifully but found nothing, and ever since, the kid's complaints about the "closet goblin" had grown more and more tiresome to his parents. Yesterday, Alergast threatened to make Aeren sleep in the woodshed if he couldn't learn to "be a man" and sleep through an entire night without crying and telling stories.

All of this was told to the heroes by a tearful Amele Barett several evenings after the goblin raid; she approached the heroes in a panic, clutching baby Verah to her chest with one hand and clinging to the back of Aeren's shirt with the other. She went on to say that tonight Alergast didn't go to soothe Aeren when he had his night terrors. But then, a few moments later, they heard poor Petal cry out in pain and Aeren's screams turn shrill. This time Aeren wasn't just having nightmares. Amele paused, took a breath, and then showed the heroes Aeren's arms. They were covered with fresh bites.

When Alergast burst into the room, he found a goblin crouched on his son's chest. Petal was dead, a knife deep in his ear, and the goblin was frantically trying to chew off Aeren's arm. Alergast attacked the goblin and chased it back into the closet, where it clambered into a hole it had cleverly hidden under an old fur. Alergast flew into a rage, and as he started tearing apart the closet in an attempt to get at the goblin, Amele panicked and fled the house with her children to seek out the heroes for aid.

The goblin in the Barett's house was a commando named Gresgurt who sneaked into the building after the raid turned sour. He found a loose floorboard in the closet, frantically hacked an opening large enough for him to fit into the enclosed crawl space under the house, and pulled a fur over the hole to hide it. He only intended to stay there for a few hours until things died down outside, then planned on sneaking out of town, but the exhaustion of the raid caught up with him and he fell asleep. When he woke the next night and tried to sneak out, he woke Petal and Aeren. As frightened by the dog as the kid was of him, Gresgurt fled back into the crawl space, visions of the hateful and frightening dog filling his little goblin mind. It seemed like every time Gresgurt peeked out, the dog was there, ready to bark. Unable to escape for fear of the dog, Gresgurt subsisted on spiders and worms plucked from the dirt floor of the small crawl space for days, and over those days, his fear turned to anger. His driving desire shifted from escape to a burning need to kill the dog. And yet, he had no real weapons; he'd broken his horsechopper in his efforts to get into the crawl space below the house. All he had left were fragments of the blade, one of which he used to build a crude knife. Tonight, he emerged, killed Petal, and in his nearly starved state tried to eat Aeren alive.

When the heroes arrived at the Barett house, they found it disturbingly silent. Upon reaching Aeren's room, they found Alergast Barett on his belly, as if he had crawled into the closet. When Alergast reached down into the hole to try to grab Gresgurt, the goblin jumped up and cut his throat. Ravenous, the commando tried to haul Alergast's body into the crawl space to eat it, but the body got stuck once he got the upper torso through the hole.

When the heroes pulled back Alergast's body, they found him to be quite dead, the flesh of his face and upper torso eaten away. An instant later, the insane goblin shrieked in rage at its stolen dinner and leapt out of the hole to attack. By this point, Gresgurt's long captivity in the crawl space had left him almost feral with hunger and fear, and he'd come to view the entire house as his.

The heroes captured Gresgurt alive in order to interrogate him later and get information on the longshanks who accompanied the goblins in the raid: a man with brown hair. They also learned that Gresgurt's village is in Mosswood and his chief's name is Big Gugmut. Amele was thankful until she learned of her husband's fate, whereupon she had a complete breakdown. Fortunately the commotion quickly summoned Sheriff Hemlock, who took in the scene with his customary grim expression. He thanked the heroes for helping and arranged to have the Barett family stay at the cathedral for a few days.

Grim News from Mosswood

Shalelu Andosana paid a visit to Sandpoint during the days after the goblin raid - her visit happened at a point after the heroes had a chance to know folks in Sandpoint. Her visit to Sandpoint was unexpected - she last passed through town only a month ago and wasn't expected until the last week of autumn. She dispensed with her visit to the Sandpoint Market and the Rusty Dragon, instead requesting an immediate meeting with Sheriff Hemlock and Mayor Deverin. The unusual meeting and Shalelu's ragged looked combined to make an already jumpy populace suspect that the woman brought news of a new goblin threat.

Sheriff Hemlock sought out the heroes and asked them to join himself, Mayor Deverin, and Shalelu at the town hall, explaining that he'd got some news that might interest them. The majority of the ground floor of this two-story building consists of a meeting hall large enough to seat most of Sandpoint's adults, although town meetings have rarely been even half so well attended. The upper floor contains offices and storerooms, while a vault in the basement below has functioned as the town bank for decades. Plans to build a proper bank have been stalled for various reasons since the town was founded. Sandpoint's mayor, Kendra Deverin, can often be found in this building, tending to the town's needs.

The meeting took place in a comfortable office on the second floor of the town hall. Since the heroes hadn't met Kendra Deverin yet, Hemlock introduced them to the mayor and she gratefully thanked each of them for the help they provided Sandpoint during the raid.

Hemlock then introduced Shalelu to the heroes as an "unofficial member of Sandpoint's town guard" (an introduction that caused her to smirk) and the heroes to Shalelu as "Sandpoint's newest crop of goblinslayers". Hemlock explains that Shalelu has been a thorn in the side of the local goblin tribes for years, and that few in the region know more about them than she does. He went on to recap her report that Sandpoint hadn't been the only place in the region that's had goblin troubles. In short, there's been an increase in goblin-related raids along the Lost Coast, particularly in the dale between Nettlewood and Mosswood. Only a day ago, a farm south of Mosswood was burnt to the ground by a group of goblins. Shalelu was thankfully nearby, and while the farm couldn't be saved, she did rescue the family and drive off the goblins; the family is staying at a nearby farm for now, but the goblin problem is obviously not going away.

At this point, Hemlock ceded the floor to Shalelu, asking her to tell the heroes what she told him. "Belor's told me of your work against the goblins - well done. I've dedicated the last several years of my life to keeping them from causing too much trouble around these parts, but they're tenacious and fecund little runts. Like weeds that bite.

"There are five major goblin tribes in the region, and, traditionally, they're pretty good at  keeping each other at bay with intertribal squabbles and the like. Yet from what I've been able to piece together, members of all five tribes were involved in the raid on Sandpoint. A fair number of the Mosswood goblins I dealt with yesterday were already pretty beat up, and there was a lot of chatter about the 'longshanks' who killed so many of them. Now that I've met you, it seems obvious from their descriptions who they were talking about. Seems like you've made an impression.

"In any event, the fact that the five tribes are working together disturbs me. Goblin tribes don't get along unless they have something big planned, and big plans require big bosses. I'm afraid that someone's moved in on the goblins and organized them. And judging by these recent raids, what they're organizing seems like bad news for all of us."

After Shalelu's speech, Sheriff Hemlock announced that he's taking a few of his guards south to Magnimar to see about securing additional soldiers to station at Sandpoint for a few weeks, at least until the extent of the goblin threat can be determined. While he's out of town, he asked Shalelu to sniff around Shank's Wood, Brinestump, Mosswood, Devil's Platter, and other places where goblins live to see if she can discover anything else about what's going on. He would also like the heroes to maintain a public presence in Sandpoint over the next few days, which they don't mind. "The locals seem to have taken to you", he said, "And seeing you around town will do a lot for keeping worries down over the next few days."

Once the meeting was over, Shalelu asked to join the heroes for dinner at the Rusty Dragon; she'd like to hear more from them about the Sandpoint raid, and in return she's got a fair amount of goblin lore she can impart to the heroes.