//------------------------------//
// Chapter Six: The Trouble With Goblins 
// Story: Rise of the Runelords: Burnt Offerings 
// by redtau 
//------------------------------//

	Pinkiamina Diane Pie rushed through the dark streets of Sandpoint ahead of her friends. Fluttershy had stayed behind to heal the child as best she could while the local doctors and clerics were summoned. From what little they had gotten out of the distraught mother, a goblin had somehow hidden itself in the child's closet during the raid. She and her husband had put off the child's tales of a goblin in the closet as nothing more than nightmares spawned from the raid. She had heard screaming and the dog whine tonight and came in to find the goblin chewing on her baby. Her husband had attacked the goblin while she grabbed the kid and ran for help.

Pinkie was not a violent person. She would rather party and prank than harm.

But this thing had tormented a child for days before trying to eat it alive.

As Pinkie reached the house first she paused to catch her breath and let the others catch up to her. With one hand she hefted her mace, and with the other she swept her straight flat hair out of her eyes and back behind her ears.





Applejack brought up the rear of the party, just behind Twilight as the rest of the ponies turned human finally reached the family's home. The door stood wide open, and though a few candles lit the house there was an ominous silence in the night. 

Twilight muttered and touched her chest, before nodding to the others. Applejack and Pinkie Pie took point, with Rainbow Dash and Rarity behind and Twilight bringing up the rear. Under any other circumstances Applejack would have told Pinkie to get to the rear, but she had seen Pinkie's hair go flat like that before and knew better.

"Twilight, darling," Rarity whispered. "We could use a little more light in here."

Twilight nodded and looked around the room before picking up a broom. A few words later and the bristles glowed a soft white. Twilight held the broom up to shine ahead and light the way.

The party moved as one through the house till they reached the child's room at the back. Applejack glowered at the dog, lying dead on the floor with a great slash across its face and throat. The husband was head and arms first down a hole in the floorboards of the closet, shifting and grunting slightly.

"Alright partner, we got this." Applejack said, stepping forward. "Step back and let us handle the little beast."

The husband either didn't hear or didn't care, continuing to shift slightly in the hole.

"Come on mister." Pinkie said, grabbing the back of the man's pants. "Get out of the way so we can give that baddie what for!" Pinkie pulled on the pants and dragged the man out of the hole.

Twilight gasped and Rarity nearly retched at the sight that emerged. The man's throat was slit, leaving a trail of slick blood as he was pulled away. His face was mostly gone, looking like it had been roughly clawed and gnawed down to the bone with little more than ragged gorey chunks of flesh sticking to the blood stained skull around the empty eye and nose holes.

"MY FOOD!" Came a cry as a blood splattered and dernanged goblin launched itself from the hole right at Pinkie. Pnikie's arms came up defensively, but the goblin slashed with a broken knife and bit wildly at her leaving bloody scars. Rainbow Dash stepped up and hit the goblin hard, throwing it to the ground but not doing nearly enough damage to stop it. 

Applejack cursed herself and tried to step backwards. She'd had her crossbow ready, but was too close to fire safely and was pinned in by the tight quarters and her friends. After a moment she pulled the bolt from the crossbow and dropped it, not wanting to drop a loaded and primed weapon in such close quarters. It thudded to the floor, and she drew her short sword as carefully as she could.

Rarity poked at the goblin with her rapier, but then quickly pulled back. When the goblin flinched away from the feint, Rarity struck true. The tip of her thin blade slipped past the creatures ragged armor and through it's heart.

The goblin gurgled and struggled for a moment before realizing it was already dead. With another weak struggle it slipped to the floor.

Pinkie was breathing hard, looking over her wounds with wide eyes. "Ow." She said. "Ow ow ow owie."

"That," Twilight said, shaken from the violence, "was not what I was expecting."

"Alergast?"

Twilight turned to see Amele, the wife coming in with fear and hope clear in her eyes.

"Ma'am you don't want to-" Applejack started.

"ALERGAST!" Amele cried, falling to the floor at the sight of her husband's mutilated body. "NO! NO! PLEASE NO!"

Her desperate cries and pleas gave way to sobbing as the town guard finally arrived.





Pinkie frowned at the red stained bandages that wrapped around her arms. The clerics had focused on healing her of disease from the bites and ragged rusty blade more than closing the wounds, leaving that to the guard's doctor. Fluttershy promised to heal the wounds tomorrow, telling Pinkie she'd already spent her healing spells on the child earlier in the night.

Twilight looked up as the sheriff came in with another woman. "We are sorry for you loss-" The sheriff said, the woman merely turning her nose up at him and walking over to where Amele sat with her bandaged child. Sheriff Hemlock came over to talk with Twilight.

"That's her sister. She was in town for the festival and stayed a while after to make sure the roads were clear. They are going to go live in Magnimar for a while-"

"So, these are the so called heroes?" a sharp voice said. The group looked up to find the sister standing over them. "Maybe if you had been a bit more thorough in your 'hero-ing' my nephew would still have a father!" She turned and stormed out, leading her sister and their young boy away.

Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie were near tears. "She- she can't mean that can she?" Pinkie asked.

"Don't take any of that to heart." The sheriff said. "The guard is as much to blame as you, more so since it is our job to protect the town."

"The only one t' blame is the gall darned goblin." Applejack spat. "An maybe the boy's parents for not putting any stock into his nightmares."

"Applejack," Rarity admonished. "It is just pain and loss coming out as anger, trying to find a valid target. This is an accident, a bit of circumstance and nothing more."

Fluttershy sighed and blinked the tears out of her eyes. They had been here a week and the killing just kept going. She knew it wouldn't stop, but she couldn't run away from it. Her friends were counting on her, and for them she would be stronger.





Twilight walked down the street in front of her friends, behind the down guard. It had been a few days since the goblin in the closet had sent the citizens scrutinizing every crevice and crawl space. The town had calmed down, but today there was a sense of unease. Twilight might have chalked that up to the to her and her friends being summoned by the town guard, but the agitation had been their earlier. Pinkie had been twitching and fidgeting all morning, and there was quiet talk in the common room of the Rusty Dragon until the guard arrived just after lunch.

At the town barracks she and her friends were led past the few cells and on duty guards over to a small meeting room. Sheriff Hemlock nodded at the party and stood up. Next to him was a somewhat plump man with an air of importance around him. Sitting next to him was a woman with long ears and sharp features.

"Ladies this is Belor the mayor of Sandpoint and this," he waved a hand at the woman, "Is the ranger Shilu Andosana. She keeps track of some of the more troublesome threats in the wilds around town."

"Belor has told me of the work you've done with the goblins." The elf said, leaning closer. She smiled. "Well done. I've dedicated the last few years of my life to limiting their ability to do damage. There are five tribes of goblins in the area and I'm usually able to keep them fighting with each other enough to keep them from causing anyone else too much trouble." A frown replaced the smile. "However, from what I've been able to tell goblins from EVERY tribe were involved in the raid. That worries me, goblins fight at the drop of a hat and only work together when they have plans. Big plans like the raid mean a big boss strong enough to whip the goblins into shape, and after the success of that raid you can bet something bigger is coming."

"What? Thirty goblins ended up dead!" Rainbow Dash yelled. "How can that possibly be considered a success?"

"That depends on what you think the goal of the raid was." Shaelu countered.

"Father Zanthus came to me a day after the raid." Sheriff Hemlock cut in. "He found one of the mausoleums in the boneyard broken into and some of the remains taken. It's very likely that raid was little more than a distraction."

"That distraction cost the lives of six people and two dogs!" Fluttershy said venomously.

"Implying that whatever is coming is much deadlier." Sheriff Hemlock pointed out. 

"I'm going back out into the forests and moors," Shilu said. "If I can I'll track down the big boss uniting the goblins."

"Ya need someone to come with you?" Applejack offered.

"I need you to stay here." Sheriff Hemlock said. "I'm going to take a couple of men and head down to Magnimar, the large city to the south. With luck I'll be able to get some more guards to help protect the town from whatever is coming. The sheriff leaving town can cause a lot of the locals to worry. Under other circumstances I might ask Shilu to stay, but we need her to hunt down the goblin leader. The townfolk need someone in town that they can depend on."

"Are you putting us in charge of the guard?" Twilight asked.

"No, but you will have the guards assistance, and our gratitude." Hemlock said. "Think of yourselves as special guards. Your job is to be seen around town as much as to defend it."

"As long as the local guard will keep us in the loop of anything suspicious," Twilight said, "I think we can manage till you return."





Twilight groaned and rubbed her tired eyes before flipping back through her notes. The common room of the Rusty Dragon was empty save for Twilight, all the other chairs sat upside down on their tables and the floor was freshly mopped. After almost a week of study Twilight had managed to work out only one new spell, a proability and skill modifier that greatly boosted an ally's attack. What she'd managed to decipher from the ancient spell book listed this spell as True Strike. There were other spells she had partially translated but they all seemed so...violent.

"Working late?" A gentle elderly voice asked. Twilight looked up to see an elderly gentleman walking over. "I always find the late night hours the best time to study the arcane. As a fellow wizard, it is nice not to have all the distractions of the day when preparing spells."

"You're a wizard too?" Twilight asked, scooting over as the man righted a chair and sat down. "Maybe you can help me with a problem I've been having. Many of the spells I've run across are offensive in nature."

"Pacifism is a rare sight in the world." he said, "I had a similar problem when I was younger myself. But then my mentor taught me something that I am going to teach you." He pointed to a small clock behind the bar. "That complex device there works by very simple principles. Beneath it all is a spring holding and releasing energy, the same principle you would find in a crossbow. Which do you think came first? The clock or the bow?"

"The bow of course," Twilight said. "It is a simpler system."

The wizard nodded. "Simple systems can be strong, but they can also be learning tools." He tapped her notes for a spell called Shocking Grasp. "A forge's fire can shape steel and glass into a thousand useful shapes, but that same fire would destroy this inn and everyone in it."

"I see!" Twilight said, writing quickly. "These spells are just examples of underlying principles. Once fully understood and practiced they can be utilized in more complex ways! I-" She stopped as a yawn caught her by surprise. Glancing over at the clock again her eyes widened. "Oh my, it's so late it's early again." She packed up her notes. "Goodnight."

"See you later!" The wizard said, waving goodbye. "Good luck Twilight."

"Oh!" Twilight said, spinning around, "I didn't get... your.... name...."

The common room was empty.