Zorg's Lost Souls III

Rowan’s eyes wild with surging free rein magic and his breathing rapid and deep almost continues on with attacking the tin soldiers, but the calls for help grab his attention.

He runs past the tin soldiers, steps over the oil slick, and races back into the kitchen (I think his full move gets him close).

Rowan remembers fingers and people in a grate. If that’s still the case and he can get there, in his excitement he forgets to look for a latch or lock and just heaves on the bars, his strength still amped up from the fight (Athletics 24, 29), hoping to free whoever is trapped.

     Sounds like she up and disappeared to her sister's place.  Yon?  Or Hither?  Or is this Hither and she went to Tither?  Honestly I'm not keeping this all straight.

     Mulligan shrugs as he replies and then sets about trying to free his feet, and any other body bits stuck in the sticky oil.  

     Maybe this will let you see where she went?

     And with that, Mulligan digs the weird eye thing he found earlier out of his pocket and tosses it to g'rEg.

     I'm afraid her other favorite things may be burning up in the fire but I did save that.

G'Reg catches the eye with a thankful nod to Mulligan, he looks at it with some disgust before quickly overcoming it as his urgency to follow the hag takes his priority, he lets his magic feel out the item seeing if he can activate it, in his frenzy he seems to be casting all caution to the wind. (Arcana? 20) 

If the eye proves useless then Greg will immediately close his eyes and try to recall a single piece of clothing that the hag still had on her when she disappeared, he will then cast locate object, and report the direction of the hag should she still be within 1000ft of his position.

Mulligan takes the time to extract himself from the sticky oil patch, but in the meantime he tosses the varnished eye to Greg. As the elemental hovers away in search of enemies, Greg takes a look at the strange object.

Greg has also heard of such things - this is the fabled 'hag eye', created by a coven, and its power shared by them. From what Greg knows, any hag within the coven can, with some small effort, see what the 'hag eye' sees, no matter where they are. However, since they collectively pour some of their power of magical sight into the item, it leaves them partially vulnerable... destroying the eye can temporarily blind all members of the coven for a time. Perhaps that weakness is why Skabatha kept it securely locked away... or perhaps she just didn't want her sisters spying on her.

Greg casts his location spell, using the hag's key in her back as the focus, but determines that she is not within 1000 feet. It seems she has not simply turned invisible or tiny, but has in fact fled.

Rowan follows the cries for help and sprints into the smoke-filled kitchen. Thumping sounds are coming from an exterior door on the right. A young goblin girl, formerly a captive of one of the boggles, is in the middle of the kitchen and is tugging on the grate in the floor.

Without even asking her to get out of the way, Rowan races over to the grate, grips it with one hand, and yanks it right out of the floor, along with much of the adjacent floor boards. With a flick of his arm, Rowan frisbees the grate to his side, where it smashes a hole in the door. Several goblin faces peer in, and one green hand reaches inside to grab the handle.

Rowan takes no thought for the door, because under the floor where the grate used to be is a small dank hole. Inside the hole are two figures: A filthy, dishevelled male dwarf with a thick beard; and a young halfling male wearing a tattered pair of fake wings, and a face smeared with what used to be face-paint.

'Elp us out, laddie, orders the dwarf, holding up one arm for assistance. Quick, 'afore the fire spreads a-more.

Half a dozen goblins pour into the room through the now-open doorway. They don't appear hostile, but are instead carrying water-filled buckets, which they carry toward the further door where the smoke is coming from. More goblins are visible outside, lugging water from the nearby stream...

Barria rushes back in after seeing that the kids got away.  She retrieves her warhammer as she follows Rowan into the kitchen to assist with the kids, but sees he needs no help.  She reaches down into the hole and helps the two get out.  

Seeing what the goblins are doing, she follows the little ones into the room north of the kitchen that is burning and douses the room with 30 gallons of water to help put out the fire.

Letting the goblins continue to work on the bedroom, she turns back to her friends, "Have all the children gotten out?"

"DAMNIT!" G'Reg shouts out in frustration as his spell fails him. "Her teleportaion is far greater than I've ever even read about. Unless she somehow plane shifted." He explains to Mulligan as though an explanation might also explain his anger right now. "We need to sort a few things, stop the fire, give the building to the kids, find my hoe, plan our next move so we can collect the other's items..." He trudges on through to the previous room and continues toward the source of the flames, his attention locked on the movement down the hall as he passes the child he killed without noticing.

     She did say she and her sister would be waiting for us so maybe yeah? Somehow they can shift to each other's realms more easily?

     Mulligan thus responds to g'ReG's ranting even as he pulls his last Elvenkind boot free.  He then starts looking around at the surroundings for the first time, he had previously just been focused on the hag.  His eyes roam from this to that, looking for valuables to pilfer (always) but also assessing the situation.  He never had much concern for the kids so they weren't a priority now either, but it did look like Rowan and Barria had then well in hand.  The smoke and the goblin brigade got him remembering about the fire.  That and his interest in what things of value or power the hag may have laying around piqued his curiosity a bit...

Quote from YorkshireJoker >>

"We need to sort a few things, stop the fire, give the building to the kids, find my hoe, plan our next move so we can collect the other's items..." 

 
     And that brings something else to mind...  Back from when he was searching for the hag in the first place.  In her bedroom.  In her dollhouse.  He saw tiny shoes... and a tiny shawl... and a tiny bag... and a tiny...

     Nawww, it couldn't be.  

     Could it?

     You know I did...

     Mulligan stops sending anything else over Group Chat though.  It surely couldn't have been G'ReG's hoe that he saw.  He's tiny but not THAT tiny.  And if he had lost a miniature toy hoe instead of an actual real hoe then surely he would have mentioned it...  And if the hag had shrunk his hoe?  Well, there was that unfortunate business about the fire and all...  Mulligan decides it is definitely best he not mention having seen a hoe at all, tiny or not.

Rowan's breathing returns to normal and the ripple of magic around his eyes dissipates as he returns to normal; Rowan level normal at least. With the goblins not attacking, Rowan has let his 'rage' go.

Rowan is more curious about the pair that were in the hole, at least more than Barria seemed to be.

"What were you doing down there?" Rowan asks. "I would assume it wasn't by choice, but then not much of this Loomchurch place makes a lot of sense. Prisoners?"

While making sure the girl and the two prisoners also leave the room to safety, Rowan takes a quick look around the kitchen for anything that might be of use or value.