In the face of almost certain maimery by the humans, the noble goblins turned tail and fled, leaving a note pointing the ‘Rapid Response Squad’ (more on that later) toward the wizard-cat, and the sheep alone in the field. (And I was so looking forward to a nice mutton lettuce and tomato, where the mutton is sliced ever so thin…mmm…ahem)

Fleeing a bit, we passed a giant Grey guy playing music in the woods to a bunch of Gnolls – left them unmolested in the hopes they might slow the humans a bit. Pyre went to spy on the humans, and found a couple tidbits:

• They have an insultingly low bounty on us, and the adventurers are still out there trying to claim it.
• ….said bounty has no description or identifying marks, other than that some of us are of us are spellcasters and we’re mid-level. We could absolutely find some patsy goblins, dress them up a bit, and split the bounty with the dwarf…
• Hansel – Bishop of his sunshininess – church figure of some import, and means the local cleric garrison is non-trivial.
• This is a royal colony (King Edwin) they’re looking to grow – they’ve recently cleared the area of all dangerous humanoids.
• Rapid Response Squad – A elite squad of military and local adventurers, at least 10, Many in chain and cloth – seems to be a solid mix of classes of pain.
• This town is a military colony – 1000+ civilians, but 100s of military. Must be heavily supply-line dependent.

The witches’ mother gives me the willies – Night Hags steal souls, and they don’t even pay you for them!

But.None.Of.That.Is.Important, because Ruuuuuuby! The witch tricked the Formorian into thinking he hadn’t buried the ruby deep enough – after he checked on it, we dug it up and high-tailed it back to the witch’s, giant glowing soul gem in tow.

Bullet points:

• Dodged the humans. Nyah-nyah! Pointed them to the Rakshasa (Wizard-Cat – Far more badass than we should ever mess with).
• Ran into grey guy +gnolls in the woods. Avoided.
• Pyre spied on the humans, but may have tipped them off that someone was there.
• We came up with a nifty trick to use light pebbles as a means of 1-bit emergency signalling. Theoretically could use this to bypass restrictions on sending information at trans-light speed.
• Witch is going to warn Wizard-cat about impending humans.
• We should ransom some other goblins as the ‘deadly tiny elves’ – via the dwarf?
• Witch helped us trick the Formorian into going to the ruby.
• We now have the ruby, and are on our way to the witch’s, with the witch (who’s mother is actually a Night Hag).