>>5796506>>5796508>>5796550>>5796603>>5796716>>5796606>>5796650You still knew so little about the situation… But you’d read and heard enough about the Goblin Wastes to know what you were looking at: slave-traders. The Paladin Kings had long outlawed the practice of bondage and forced servitude as anything other than a punishment for a most egregious crime, but in the Southlands and the Far East things were different. You knew the reputation of Goblinkind, as well—and the reasons they were driven from Hawksong, and Goblintown dismantled. And this was a fellow child of the Bonum Chaoticum!
“We’ll help,” you told Nemenmo, to her seeming surprise.
Rudolfo and Pearce were a little surprised as well, though when you told them of what you’d witnessed—a genasi in bondage—they both nodded in immediate understanding.
“Still…” Pearce began. “A dozen goblins, versus just us? Tips, I don’t know. Maybe we should call the Paladins or someone?”
“There is nothing for it, forsooth,” your father sighed. “The path of the adventurer is full of such difficult duties—rough justice, on the distant frontiers of civilization! The proper authorities cannot be everywhere, and there’s no telling if we’ll ever find these dreadful blackguards again if we leave now!”
“I’m more worried about us getting captured ourselves,” Pearce mumbled, though he was already stretching as if for a Combat Casting class.
There was also, of course, the matter of the information you had come here to retrieve. This diversion, necessary and righteous as it might well be, risked losing your only lead on the nature of the Henzler Conspiracy… But looking at Nemenmo, and remembering her captive companion, you couldn’t do otherwise. You’d just have to extract intelligence by other means, when the deed was done.
Following the Ashurati around the cliffside, you considered waiting for nightfall… But your foes all could see in the dark, and your father and friend were not so blessed. You consulted with Nemenmo on this matter, who smiled—an expression which was faintly sinister, on her otherwise grim visage.
“Darkness is poor cover, but light is not,” she had said in your shared tongue.
You had been confused by this. Did she mean to wait for dawn, then? Your own party would be exhausted, staying awake and in wait for hours… And what if the goblins disembarked during that time leaving this somewhat-ideal ambush spot?
“You will see,” Nemenmo had said, infuriatingly enigmatic.
