The Property Brothers

Molly Schafer

Carly Strait

It's time for our heroes, the workers of Griana's Meats and More, to parlay with a different boss. What kind of wonders will this cavern hold?

## Summary

The team is being stared down by the leader of the goblin pack. “You should leave,” he growls. Without hesitation, Zil moves to fire off a magic missile, but Griana steps in to intervene before another fight can break out. She lays out their whole story, hoping that expressing their cluelessness and fear will prove they aren’t a threat. The goblin leader is unimpressed, pointing out that they’ve entered his domain and attacked his people without warning. He expresses his frustration with their infiltration of the cave system, knowing very little of the group that was there before them, and Zil offers for them to help search through the rooms for him. Somewhat tempted by riches, and not wanting any more of his men to die at the hands of our heroes, the goblin leader allots them five minutes to find what they can and report back. He will take whatever he wants, and they can keep the rest.

The group scatters themselves among the four untouched rooms. Phibi finds a bit of gold and other small values in the room that has been adapted into the goblins’ sleeping quarters, but doesn’t want to loot anything and so fluffs some pillows and makes her way out. In Griana’s room, she sees a small underground water source flowing through which has unfortunately been tainted by a swarm of dead bodies. Griana throws up. Zil’s room has been relatively untouched. It seems to be a sort of work space for a magic user, filled with scrolls, viles, and other magic components. Most of the scrolls appear to be in Common, others in Infernal, but there are far too many to read through in the short time limit. Kai enters the first room she can see and stumbles upon two medallions identical to the one they saw around Orund’s neck. She hides one in her boot, hoping to keep it from the goblin leader. She makes her way into another room, what seems to be a supply area which has mostly been rifled. She has just enough time for a third room, which has 3 sigils adorning the wall similar to what she’s already seen. A goblin is standing with both palms cut open, reaching for two of the sigils. He instructs her to grab the third, recalling that’s how the team opened the front door. By this time the other three members of the team make their way there, just in time for Kai to place her bloodied hand on the door.

The door lifts, revealing a mostly emptied treasure room. Kai sees two empty cauldrons, one filled with a strange liquid, a jug with many corked openings, and a slightly larger birdcage with bars that have been curled and bent out of shape as though it could not hold its contents. The goblin who opened the door is making his way through as quickly as he can. Kai picks up the jug and hears liquid sloshing around in it, but when she removes all the corks nothing comes out. Zil goes for the cauldrons, seeing the liquid has the same magic as the amulets. Unlike the amulets, though, the birdcage next to it has a manmade magic feeling to it. Finally, they find another amulet and hide it on their person. Zil asks if anybody else found anything and Kai tries to lie about the amulet she has hidden.

Meanwhile in the makeshift throne room, Griana tries to make smalltalk with the head goblin. She accidentally hits on a lot of sore spots, the energy is all around pretty bad. He grows impatient as she asks more and more questions, counting down the seconds until the team makes it back from scavenging with fifteen seconds to spare. Zil presents the amulet, a scroll, and mentions the vials they left in place. Kai shows the jug and holds up the amulet she had on her neck, but does not mention the one hidden in her boot. Unfortunately, the goblin sees right through Kai’s deception and tells Griana to get a handle on her employees or face consequences. Griana appeals to the group again, threatening to fire them should any of their actions put them in harm's way. They flounder in trying to mislead the goblin further, and he insists on searching Kai for any other findings. Holding her ground, she goes into a rage.

Griana maneuvers herself amidst the fight and tries to appeal to the leader by giving him her World’s Best Boss pin. He swats it out of her hand, unamused. Figuring it’s a lost cause, she joins the rest in fighting. They slaughter their way through all of the remaining guards, and Kai finishes off the boss in a demonstrative show of violence. In coming out of her rage, she feels a bit guilty about how gruesome her final moves were. Zil feels an exciting rush post-battle, while Phibi feels guilty about the carnage. Griana tries to rope everybody in to regroup while they scramble around to loot the rest of the tunnel, chastising Kai for the position she put the rest of the group in.

Freshly equipped with more gold, the broken birdcage, some tequila, four amulets, and a carefully acquired vial of the strange liquid in the cauldron, they decide to head back to home base for rest. Everybody is very cranky, and Griana is drafted for first watch. She cries quietly to herself. The night passes uneventfully, other than Phibi having another unsettling dream. In this one, she is walking down a hallway identical to the one in the goblin cave. The floor is covered in blood, and she cannot stop walking, despite her unending fatigue.

Breakfast and the morning hunt still has some tension. They bag a few deer and another goat, but their primary goal is to head back to the tree on their way back to town. On their journey forward, they hear gruff voices and sounds of a scuffle. They tie Grindle to a tree and sprint toward the commotion: two dwarven men have beaten, bound, and gagged Orund Othelm. The dwarves seem uninterested in giving any information to the team and tell them to move along. Persistence prevails as it often does with the team, and the annoyed dwarves introduce themselves as Jogren and Belgren Property, bounty hunters. Jogren is the more talkative one, and also more rude, haughtily telling them again to move along. Kai feels reserved, and wants to save Orund. The brothers express that Orund is wanted for a hefty bounty as a renowned cultist. Zil pitches getting into their line of work and asks them to throw their name around to people they come in contact with, alluding that they may be looking to move on from the Meats and More.

The team allows the Property Brothers about five minutes to get ahead of them since they’re walking in the same direction, and make their way to the tree. It looks as though it has dramatically increased in size, and it has been split down the middle and fallen to the forest floor. On the ground lies Belgren Property, dead, with no sign of his brother or the captive Orund.