(map: the journey so far)
Blacklight was slowly finding that he had no use for Crossot whatsoever.
He may have been glad to finally get out of Marketplace, but this little village in what used to be Breland's borderlands was not much improvement. Centered around a whorehouse and a temple, it had recently acquired some new sights: a slave market, a couple goblin camps, and most importantly - a prison camp, where some two hundred captured Breland soldiers were forced to grow shitroot, a goblin "delicacy".
It took all of Blacklight's moral fortitude to not leave the humans to their own fate. They didn't seem to be in any immediate mortal danger, and Thrane's alliance seemed to be playing fair in this war. But Blade was determined to free the captives, and Blacklight begrudgingly agreed.
The adventurers now found themselves in a pub, again. Blade pointed out a suspicious person in a hooded cloak - always a sign of trouble - watching them. Blacklight grabbed a couple of beer steins, walked over, and offered the observer a drink.
The half elf chap turned out to be Halawan, a poet belonging to House Phiarlan, and no friend to kingdom of Thrane. Blacklight had hoped he would be a fellow Keeper of Eberron - stranger things have happened recently - but he was simply another adventurer, unhappy with the way things were going in Crossot. From what he'd said, there were more people around who were ready to do something about the goblins.
But it would not be easy. The garrisons of goblins and hobgoblins in town numbered around a hundred and twenty in total. If the captives could be freed, it would be a decent fight; two hundred trained and motivated Breland soldiers, plus a couple dedicated fighters, a paladin, a bard(?), and whoever else they could find in the village - that was a force to be reckoned with. The adventurers had already eyed the local arms merchant's stand for potential expropriation...
The biggest problem was the goblins' heavy weapon - a dragon turtle. Having visited the local bookstore and acquired some books about poisonous swamp plants (and let's face it, most of the plants in that swamp are poisonous), and booklets about turtles and goblins, Blade and Blacklight enlisted the help of the local schoolmaster to have a closer look at the beast.
The beast, while still formidable, was looked drowsy and ill. Despite everything, Blacklight was still an animal doctor, and he didn't think the turtle would harm someone who had nursed it back to health - and it would not be too fond of the goblins, after all.
It is with this in mind that he called up an important-looking goblin and asked if he'd wanted the turtle taken care of. The goblin seemed more interested in LaLa, offering 400 gold to take her off the wood elf's hands, but that was not likely. Eventually the goblin told them that the turtle belonged to the camp shaman Bakshu, and that's who they needed to see.
By this time, Blacklight was in a rotten mood. The shaman agreed to listen to the adventurers, but was sceptical about the animal doctor's abilities. Blacklight agreed to a test, expecting another kitten, but the goblin magician had another idea. When Blacklight saw a sudden throwing knife barely missing LaLa, he was having none of it. With terrifying speed, his spiked chain wrapped around the shaman's legs, tripped him, and tore a gouging wound across his body. Yes, they were in an enemy camp; yes, he was attacking their leader; but the bastard had almost injured his llama!
The two of them were immediately surrounded by angry goblins looking for revenge, while the shaman crawled back to his tent. Blade signaled for total defense, and started to explain to attacking goblins the reasons behind this attack. He did so with some success, as 2 out of the 17 goblins turned non-hostile. The adventurers yelled loudly for the hobgoblin they had previously spoken to, in the hope that he would understand their plight. But the hobgoblin seemed to be a bit hard of hearing, if not quite deaf, for the two fighters put up with goblin attacks for a whole of four rounds without making an attempt to strike back. It was a funny sight in its own right, because the small goblins seemed utterly unable to hit the adventurers - they tripped over themselves, shot each other with arrows and looked otherwise about as harmful as a bunch of mean-minded mice.
In the middle of small angry (angry mostly at their own incompetence, one could say) goblins, objecting screams of Blade and LaLa's cry of danger, Blacklight suddenly felt that his body became stiff and he couldnt move! After numerous stabs and cuts, the goblins pulled him down, making him fall like a giant tree, and piled over him like angry ants, or mice, so to say. The hobgoblin leader arrived just in time so Blade could surrender.
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